le Cottage Aux Oiseaux

The French harpsichord school reached its pinnacle in the first half of the 18th century, as composers published substantial numbers of collections focusing on dance, portraiture, and character pieces. At this time, Aristotle’s guiding principle for the arts–the imitation of nature–had taken on subtle hues, with a focus on subjects such as creating musical portraits of friends or prominent figures, depicting facets of human existence, among them love, and mimicking the noises of everyday life.The extreme diversity of timbre, tune, and rhythm found in birdsong has always fascinated musicians.

Even at its most passionate, Olivier Messiaen's music can sound constructed and, to that degree, arbitrary. Even at its most dispassionate, in following the outlines of birdsongs, Messiaen's music can be luscious and exciting. Messiaen's 1936 song cycle "Poèmes pour mi" is regarded as a key early work in the output of the eminent French composer, as it touches upon most of the hallmarks of his mature style. ''Poemes'' is a rich score—hedonistic, opulent, at times savage—and it is richly played in this recording. Both the weirdness of some of the instrumental effects and the expressive excess give the feeling of a Surrealist landscape, through which the voice is traveling. Of the two solo pianists heard here, Pierre-Laurent Aimard in ''Reveil'' gives a performance of great virtuosity and detailed musical character, whereas Joela Jones in ''Sept Haikai'' is more vehement and more subjective.

Transcription has an important place in guitar repertoire. Starting in the 1930s, it was in part thanks to the transcriptions of major composers made and played by guitarist Andres Segovia that non-guitarist composers began to write for this instrument. So it is today that the repertoire has been enriched with works by the most important composers of the 20th and 21st centuries. Transcription for solo guitar has also evolved considerably since the first half of the 20th century: from a ‘melodic instrument allowing harmony,’ as Andres Segovia defined it, the guitar has become an instrument allowing polyphony. Thus, in addition to transcriptions made from works for violin, cello or lute, others have come from the piano or harpsichord. This programme illustrates in part this brief history of transcription for solo guitar, with works originally written for lute, or for harpsichord, brought together around the same instrument: the guitar.

While paying glittering homage to the animal kingdom, this programme also takes us on a journey through the centuries: the existing pieces freely inspired by birdsong, from Couperin to Ravel, are mirrored by an astonishing ‘Carnival of Animals in Peril’.Its composer, Vincent Bouchot, reminds us of the disappearance of certain species of animals - and of certain musical instruments that very nearly became extinct too.