Eric Le Sage

Each of the five members of wind ‘supergroup’ Les Vent Français, partnered by pianist Eric le Sage, plays a sonata written by Paul Hindemith in the dramatic years between 1936 and 1943 – compact, lucid and engaging works for flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon and alto horn. “These Hindemith sonatas are a great asset to the wind repertory,” says oboist François Leleux. “Hindemith took a very particular approach to each instrument, with a wonderful sense for its individual sound.”

Born in 1970, Guillaume Connesson has won several prestigious awards. His writing, thanks to an exceptional sense of rhythm and color, is of a very accessible language, even exciting, which has earned him great success, especially with the younger generations. The program of this double CD is the richest possible calling card of the composer's work: it contains his most beautiful pages of chamber music, interpreted by the very best of French soloists, including Eric Le Sage. (piano), Paul Meyer (clarinet) Jerôme Pernoo (cello), Florent Héau (clarinet) and the Parisii Quartet in particular.

We tend not to think of the 19th century as a golden age for wind instruments. While the individual instruments themselves enjoyed varying fortunes, their standing was much less significant than that of string instruments or the piano. However, the situation improved for all of them with the onset of Romanticism and a remarkable new repertoire for ensembles of differing types. One such type grew out of the Classical tradition of the divertissement or serenade, bringing together winds and strings in sizeable ensembles ranging from the sextet to the nonet. Another also hailed back to the end of the 18th century and combined winds with piano. And then there was the wind quintet per se, a recent innovation brilliantly exemplified by Anton Reicha and Franz Danzi up until the mid-1820s, which had established itself as a separate genre, characterised by skillful and sophisticated writing.

Henri Dutilleux - The Centenary Edition (2015) {7CD Box Set Erato-Warner Classics}
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© 2015 Erato / Warner Classics / Parlophone | 0825646047987
Classical / Contemporary Classical / Chamber Music / Symphony / Orchestral Works / Piano / Violin

Assembled to mark the centenary of Henri Dutilleux (1916-2013), this collection of recordings, produced over a period of nearly 60 years, is unrivalled in its scope. Equally remarkable is its array of performers; among them are such dedicatees of the composer’s works as Mstislav Rostropovich, Renée Fleming, Seiji Ozawa and Paul Sacher. Quintessentially French, Dutilleux captured the imagination of audiences around the world with his iridescent, yet formally coherent scores, which engender narratives filled with memories and mystery.

Nino Rota was not only the man who wrote film scores for Fellini (La strada etc), René Clément and King Vidor. He was also a twentieth-century great composer. A child prodigy, he studied in America with Fritz Reiner, crossed paths with Toscanini, Igor Stravinsky and many others. Éric Le Sage, Emmanuel Pahud, Paul Meyer, Daishin Kashimoto, Aurélien Pascal and their partners from the Salon de Provence festival pay tribute to his music with the Piccola Offerta Musicale (Little Musical Offering), composed in 1943 at the age of twenty-two, alongside a Nonet and a Trio for flute, violin and piano, both written in the late 1950s. The Trio for clarinet, cello and piano (1973) comes from Rota’s last creative period and has all the characteristics of his mature works.

Les Vents Français have been described as “the wind-quintet equivalent of a supergroup”. The ensemble’s five members – Emmanuel Pahud, Paul Meyer, Francois Leleux, Gilbert Audin and Radovan Vlatković, all world-renowned soloists in their own right – are joined by pianist Eric Le Sage for a fascinating 3-CD programme of chamber music that spans three centuries and the French, Austro-German and Russian repertoires.

This is one of the best clarinet/flute concertos (concerti) recorded with Pleyel’s compositions. Pleyel demanded “virtuosic brilliance” and so the performers must be at the top of their game to play his works. Paul Meyer is known for a wide repertory and an interest in modern works for clarinet. He began studying clarinet as a child and made his solo debut with the Symphony Orchestra of the Rhine at the age of 13.