Corrette

A reed trio combines three instruments whose timbre is similar but subtly different; this encourages gifted composers – and particularly those with a penchant for timbral finesses – to explore the variety of nuances it can produce. In this ensemble, the three woodwinds’ interaction highlights their kinship as well as their unique personalities. They have in common the variety of sound, ranging from deep expressiveness to agility and virtuosity; in consequence, this ensemble expresses both an ironic, playful and good-humoured style, and one characterized by lyricism. At the same time, this ensemble requires great skill of the composer, given the absolute transparency of the counterpoint it produces.
All of these qualities – mastery of the compositional techniques, irony, agility, clarity, expressiveness, timbral exploration – are typical for all composers recorded in this programme, which offers us a fascinating itinerary through the output of French music for reed Trio in the twentieth century.

Sonatas for violin and obligato harpsichord by Guillemain, Mondonville, Corrette, Duphly, Marchand, Balbastre and Clément. Powerful, elegant, and refined - In 1740, with the op. 4 of Jean-Joseph Cassan a de Mondonville, a new genre appeared on the scene in France, a genre that was to fundamentally overturn the relationship to the harpsichord - until then a continuo instrument when it was not playing alone: the Pieces de clavecin en sonates avec accompagnement de violon.

In the popular imagination, French Christmas music may now be almost wholly defined by Minuit, chrétiens and favourites such as Petit Papa Noël covered by Charles Aznavour and Johnny Hallyday, but the festive season was marked in the Baroque era with great merriment, principally through the genre of Noëls: sacred collections of secular songs, celebrating often vernacular aspects of the Nativity such as the Shepherds, especially by giving the occasion to compose in the always popular pastoral vein, in simple keys such as F major and in the lilting siciliano rhythm.