Timbres

Buxtehude’s Opus 1 and 2 Sonatas for violin, viola da gamba and harpsichord belie the composer’s common image as austere and sober. They instead delight the listener with what Johann Mattheson, writing in 1739, called their « unfamilar progressions, hidden ornamentation, and ingenious colourations ». It comes as no surprise to learn that the sonatas were a great success when they were first published in Germany in the 1690s, in the midst of the fashion for the ‘stylus fantasticus’ (described by Athanasius Kircher in 1650 as “…especially suited to instruments. It is the most free and unrestrained method of composing, it is bound to nothing, neither to any words nor to a melodic subject. It was instituted to display genius, and to teach the hidden design of harmony and the ingenious composition of harmonic phrases and fugues.")

Timbres, Espace, Mouvement avec Interlude (Timbre, space, movement) is a work for orchestra composed by Henri Dutilleux in 1978 that is perhaps his most recorded piece. It is subtitled La Nuit Etoilée (The Starry Night) in reference to a painting by Vincent Van Gogh. The composer wanted to translate in his composition the "almost cosmic whirling effect which (the painting) produces." Exquisitely crafted with taut rhythm, jewel-like yet rich sonorities, and atmospheric, very 20th Century French harmonies. Dutilleux constructs music with a self-described "economy of means"; his orchestration separates the components of the orchestra in a way that makes his symphonies sound "unified like those of the past and open like those of the present". He is no ultra-modernist, but rather a rarified amalgam of Ravel, Honegger, Stravinsky, Roussel, and Debussy, along with Prokofieff and the Americans Paul Creston and Samuel Barber.

If 20th century French wind repertoire is so abundant it is partly thanks to the works commissioned by the Paris Conservatoire from composers of the time. Indeed, the most prominent composers used to write virtuoso and modern genre pieces, which were for the Conservatoire competition; an annual event that awarded prizes to students graduating from the institution and which allowed young instrumentalists to showcase their talents with this new repertoire.

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Seul magazine entièrement consacré à la langue française. Approche patrimoniale (origine des mots, des expressions), Bon usage (règles, trucs et astuces pour ne plus faire de fautes) et 20 pages de jeux : dictées, quiz et jeux de lettres.

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