Leclair

Jean-Marie Leclair's Scylla et Glaucus (Tragédie en un prologue et cinq actes, Paris, 1746) provides an excellent opportunity for György Vashegyi, a luxury cast and music scholars at the Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles to revisit the French Baroque operatic canon and emerge with a fresh new take on this established work, the violin virtuoso and composer's single offering for the Paris Opéra.

Jean-Marie Leclair’s fourth and final book of sonatas for solo violin and continuo was published in Paris in 1743. It followed the composer’s return to the French capital from The Hague in the wake of the bankruptcy of his patron, the formerly wealthy merchant François Du Liz. Like the three earlier books, there are 12 sonatas in the publication, each of which has four movements.

Alpha Productions' Jean-Marie Leclair: Le Tombeau features the chamber group Les Folies Françoises under the direction of violinist Patrick Cohën-Akenine in a chamber overture from Op. 13, three sonatas from Op. 5, and the Concerto in G minor, Op. 10/6, by the ill-fated Leclair. In the concerto, Les Folies Françoises is filled out into a small orchestra whimsically referred to as the Orchestre des Folies Françoises, an appellation that can be translated as "the orchestra of French madmen," although that is probably not what they had in mind.

This CD was released, at the moment of writing, 28 years ago, and if you are used to today's sound, you may find the engineering a little on the pale side, with the violin very much in the centre of attention and the continuo only occasionally able to rise above a mere accompaniment. However, it is Monica Huggett's performance which ensure the disc a five-star rating, fully justifying ASV's quote from the French classical musical magazine: "Leclair's violin has never been so well represented."

Leclair, sans conteste le plus important compositeur français de sonates pour violon au XVIIIe siècle, nous livre dans ce recueil la quintessence de son art. Et du point de vue de la virtuosité, des difficultés techniques (pour le violon), il faudra attendre un Paganini, au XIXe, pour trouver de la surenchère. Fétis, l'auteur de la fameuse Biographie Universelle des Musiciens, nous dit que, dans le Dictionnaire Dramatique de l'abbé de La Porte (et Chamfort), on peut lire : « Il manqua toujours à Leclair cette portion de génie qui sert à cacher l'art lui-même, de manière qu'il devienne presque insensible dans la jouissance de l'effet. »

Jean-Marie Leclair's violin sonatas were published in four volumes between 1723 and 1743. David Plantier here presents a selection of sonatas from the final three opus numbers of the collection. The consistent quality of Leclair’s forty-eight sonatas, collected in four volumes, is admirable, whilst the collection as a whole is a monumental contribution to the repertoire and to posterity; few of Leclair’s followers were able to combine innovation in violin technique and wealth of inspiration with so much talent. Leclair’s taste, refinement, skill and refusal of all artifice enabled him to make his mark not merely on his own time but on the history of music as a whole.

Jean-Marie Leclair's violin sonatas were published in four volumes between 1723 and 1743. David Plantier here presents a selection of sonatas from the final three opus numbers of the collection. The consistent quality of Leclair’s forty-eight sonatas, collected in four volumes, is admirable, whilst the collection as a whole is a monumental contribution to the repertoire and to posterity; few of Leclair’s followers were able to combine innovation in violin technique and wealth of inspiration with so much talent. Leclair’s taste, refinement, skill and refusal of all artifice enabled him to make his mark not merely on his own time but on the history of music as a whole.