French Flute Chamber Music
Marcel TOURNIER (1879-1951)
Suite Op.34 [13:46]
Florent SCHMITT (1870-1958)
Suite en rocaille Op.84 (1937) [13:41]
Gabriel PIERNÉ (1863-1937)
Variations libres et finale Op.51 (1933) [10:52]
Jean FRANÇAIX (1912-1997)
Quintette (1932) [9:16]
Albert ROUSSEL (1869-1937)
Sérénade Op.30 (1925) [15:53]
Mirage Quintet - Robert Aitken (flute); Erica Goodman (violin); Jacques Israelivitch
(violin); Teng Li (viola); Winona Zelenka (cello)
rec. October 2007, St Anne’s Church, Toronto
NAXOS 8.570444 [63:53]
French chamber music sings evocatively in this choice quintet of works by five
composers. The ethos is never vapid, or emptily vaporous; instead we get a
sense of the colouristic and rhythmically inimitable. It could only be Gallic.
Tournier’s Suite is pretty much an index of this style. It bears the
unmistakable stamp of the pellucid French nocturnal. As a famous harpist and
composer Tournier knew exactly how to distribute melody lines, how to accentuate
the harp’s rippling commentary, and how to increase the sense of rhythmic
tension when required. So too he knew that elasticity of gesture was necessary,
that Debussian elements can be successfully integrated into his own writing
with a degree of freedom so as to make the inheritance palpable but not stifling.
Its evocative sensuality and the warmth of the string writing are all examples
of Tournier’s adept musicality.
Schmitt wrote his Suite en rocaille in 1934. Slonimsky called its stance
one of ‘elegant rococo’. It has a deliciously lyrical feel with
ingenious sonorities, a vital and urgent Scherzo and a slow movement that alternates
between languid reflection and more overtly expressive lines. The spruce, buoyant
finale is effective and dynamic. I wouldn’t really endorse Slonimsky
if his phrase suggests to you - as it does to me - cod gestures and frippery.
A more freewheeling example of the genre comes via Pierné’s Variations
libres et finale. It’s quite an embouchure test for the flautist.
Its capricious sense of moods, intimations and reflections - whilst not especially
deep - requires playing of the utmost control and tight ensemble. No problems
on that score here!
Where Pierné is all bustle, at least in the opening, Françaix
aims at languor. His very compact Quintette embraces more horizontal pleasures
- not sexually, but evocatively. The gauzy reverie-romance that is the lovely
Andante is followed by a folksong-based Rondo finale that’s full of the
composer’s characteristic joie de vivre and wit. Finally we have
Roussel’s 1925 Sérénade. This does have a touch
of the neo-classical about it, but its heart lies in the amazingly beautiful
slow movement. Here Roussel lavishes a hauntingly intense atmosphere, where
colour and texture are ravishing and beguiling in the extreme. It’s played
with suitable ardour and an attention to detail that makes such thing live
in the memory.
And, warmly recorded, not too cloudily either, it ends a truly lovely disc.
Jonathan Woolf