Les Vents Francais

Les Vents Français with Éric Le Sage – Winds & Piano (2014) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · May 23, 2023 · Comments off

These are top-notch performances of not always top-notch music. The piano quintets of Mozart and Beethoven need no special pleading, and this international ensemble are at their best in the dreamy opening and the finale’s cadenza of the Mozart. The French timbre characterised by Franois Leleux’s plangent oboe sounds well suited to Poulenc’s racy sextet and the fine one-movement Divertissement by Roussel. More dispensable are Louise Farrenc’s amiable sextet, a pioneering work of 1852, and Andr Caplet’s oddly irritating quintet of 1899. The third disc has a sextet by Strauss’s friend Ludwig Thuille, boldly symphonic in scope, and Rimsky-Korsakov’s extremely enjoyable, bubbly quintet. But are eight piano-and-wind works in succession just too much of a good thing?

(more…)

Les Vents Français – Romantique (2020) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · May 23, 2023 · Comments off

Posing in front of a view of the city of Salzburg with grins on their faces, the cover of Les Vents Français’ new album almost looks photoshopped. With Emmanuel Pahud on flute, François Leleux on oboe, Paul Meyer on clarinet, Radovan Vlatković on the horn, Gilbert Audin on bassoon and Éric Le Sage on piano, Romantique was recorded in the Bavarian Radio Studios in Munich.

(more…)

Les Vents Français – Moderniste (2019) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · May 23, 2023 · Comments off

Modern: Designating the most innovative forms of art in a given period, particularly those of the 20th century. This definition from the French Larousse Dictionary explains the performers’ choice of title – Modernistes – for this new anthology of music for wind instruments: what draws the attention in these works – in different ways at different times and in different fields – are their innovative, progressive and adventurous qualities. Four of the composers featured on this album can legitimately be associated with what is very broadly known as Modernism, referring to the general proliferation of new ideas and new musical aesthetics at the turn of the 20th century and beyond. As for the two works by Philippe Hersant and Thierry Escaich, they call on us to reflect on what modernity means to us today. And, while it is easy to set Modernism in opposition to traditionalism, it is also interesting to distinguish between a composer’s personality and his or her approach to composing.

(more…)

Les Vents Français – Hindemith: Wind Sonatas (2021) [Official Digital Download 24bit/48kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · May 23, 2023 · Comments off

The pieces by Paul Hindemith on this recording, have a special importance in the history of music. They stand at a crossroads, belonging to an era when progressive and post-Romantic tendencies still existed side by side. These five sonatas represent a deliberate return to a classical form, revealing, in Claude Rostand’s words, “a distinctive chromaticism that frees his emerging style from tonal instability and melodious fluidity”. It is the classical structures that he restores, “in so doing rejuvenating his very spirit with the most sovereign and daring freedom of thought”. Once again, these few words by Claude Rostand, who saw the composer “bearing the arms of Bach or Stravinsky”, seem to hit the nail on the head.

(more…)

Les Vents Francais – Beethoven: Chamber Music for Winds (2017) [Official Digital Download 24bit/48kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · May 23, 2023 · Comments off

This Warner Classics release is billed as music by Beethoven, but most of it fits only partly under that rubric. Les Vents Français experienced well-deserved success for their French-heavy programs on recordings and in concert, and it is understandable that they would like to branch out with Beethoven. But in so doing, they get into pretty obscure territory. The Trio in C major, Op. 87, despite its high opus number, is an early work, like all the other genuine pieces on the album, composed in 1795. Originally for two oboes and English horn, it is transcribed here for oboe, clarinet, and bassoon by John P. Newhill, who wrote a book on the basset-horn. The most interesting of the bunch is the Trio in G major for piano, flute, and bassoon, WoO 37, one of the not-abundant works by the teenage Beethoven in Bonn. With its sizable first movement, virtuoso piano part, and vigorous interchange among the instruments, it points toward the mature Beethoven more than the later, but essentially incidental, works on the rest of the album. The Variations on Là ci darem la mano, WoO 28, are also a transcription (by Fritz Stein), while the Duo in B flat for clarinet and bassoon, WoO 27, No. 3, is thought to be spurious and is full of infelicitous voice-leading, unlikely from the student of Albrechtsberger and Haydn. The Horn Sonata in F major, Op. 17, is genuine Beethoven, tossed off in a day, but intelligently written for the French horn. What keeps the miscellany afloat is the playing of Les Vents Français, which once again is surpassingly elegant, a model of Classical-style wind playing. They get a strong assist from Bavarian Radio engineers, working in the Bavarian Musikstudios in Munich. Recommended for Beethoven enthusiasts.

(more…)

Les Vents Français, Münchner Kammerorchester – Les Vents Français: Concertante (2018) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · November 27, 2022 · Comments off

Many listeners have heard the two sinfonie concertante of Mozart, one of them heard here, and the single instance by Haydn. But these composers worked within a tradition of such works — concertos for multiple instruments and orchestra — that has been little explored by performers. The tradition was centered in the cities of Mannheim and Paris, both major musical centers in the Classical era but devalued by historians who accepted the notion of Viennese primacy. If Les Vents Français (actually a multinational group who shared membership in the Berlin Philharmonic wind section) had simply given an airing to some works in the genre other than Mozart’s and Haydn’s, the music here would have been worth your time. They are quite a varied lot: the one by Pleyel is very much in the vein of Haydn’s sole example; the pair by Franz Danzi are broad, post-classical pieces with some harmonic originality; and the work by François Devienne, a professor of winds in Paris, naturally enough contains attractive writing for the winds. Devienne is an amateur, however, compared to the wind writing in Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante in B flat major for oboe, clarinet, horn, bassoon, and orchestra, K. 297b. This work survives only in a 19th century copy, and Mozart’s authorship has been questioned; all three of its movements are in the same key, a procedure Mozart followed nowhere else. But in the hands of Les Vents Français, with the brilliant wind writing in the finale, there can be no question, at least for that movement. Sample the clarinet-dominated third variation, and rejoice in the combination of perfect intonation and lively mood. This may well be the definitive reading of this often-recorded work, and when put together with the revelation of brand-new wind repertory, a stated aim of this ensemble, the program rises to must-have status.

(more…)