Clarinet with a French Flair - Luigi Magistrelli, Claudia Bracco

Claude DEBUSSY: Première Rhapsodie for Clarinet and Piano, L. 116 – Camille SAINT-SAËNS: Clarinet Sonata in E-Flat Major, Op. 167: I. Allegretto – II. Allegro animato – III. Lento – IV. Molto allegro – Maurice RAVEL: Pavane pour une infante défunte, M. 19 – Louis CAHUZAC: Variations sur un Air du pays d’Oc – André MESSAGER: Solo de Concours – Morceau de lecture à vue – Olivier MESSIAEN: Quatuor pour la fin du Temps: III. Abîme des oiseaux – René GERBER: Six Variations on a Romantic Theme – Morceau de lecture à vue – Jean FRANÇAIS: Theme and Variations for Clarinet and Piano.

Luigi Magistrelli, clarinette http://www.luigimagistrelli.it/
Claudia Bracco, piano

French clarinet school had since ever a rich tradition in terms of repertoire and virtuoso players. Still nowadays it keeps its peculiar traits and its clarinet literature is always highly considered by all the students and professional performers. The Paris Conservatory, established in 1795 with the aim of achieving excellence in music education and performance, offered an enormous contribution for the clarinet repertoire. One assumption of the Conservatoire was that a contemporary composer had to produce a new piece to be presented by the students at the final exam. Since then many composers wrote, each year, plenty of pieces who have enriched the clarinet repertoire. Some of them gained a good success to become part of the repertoire of any clarinet players in the world.

The Premiere Rhapsody of Debussy is one of them. It is considered a milestone of each clarinet player, a real masterpiece of the modern times, not just considering the french repertoire. Debussy conceived this piece, like other clarinet compositions by great masters (Mozart, Brahms, Reger, Schubert, Saint-Saëns) in the late period of his life. The Paris Conservatoire Solo de Concours, commissioned him this piece in 1910 according to the french tradition. Also in the same year Debussy composed a short, charming piece, Petite Pièce, to be used as sight reading piece at the final exams of the clarinetists. The Première Rhapsodie is dedicated to Prospère Mimart (1859-1928), who was the professor of clarinet at the Paris Conservatoire from 1904 till 1918. Mimart gave the premiere performance on January 16, 1911. This composition has become one of the most important pieces and nowadays is recognized as a masterpiece solo work for the clarinet. Debussy was so satisfied with this work that in 1911 he orchestrated the piano part so that the piece could be performed by soloist with orchestra.

The Saint-Saëns Sonata is also a very popular and standard piece of the clarinet repertoire. It has been written in 1921 (like the other two Sonatas destined to oboe and bassoon) and it is one of the very last pieces composed by Saint-Saëns and dedicated to Auguste Périer, renowned clarinet teacher at the Paris Conservatoire. We find in it a reminiscent style of late romantic period, with its discreet lyricism (citing J. Gallois) but also brilliancy and lightness in the second and last movements. Ravel’s Pavane pour une infante défunte resembles a Renaissance dance performed by a young girl. Ravel wrote it as a student of the Paris Conservatoire and dedicated it to Princess Polignac. Written in 1899 for piano, it was orchestrated by Ravel in 1921. The highly melancholic character of this pleasant composition suits so well to the cantabile peculiarities of the clarinet, even in the form of an arrangement.

Louis Cahuzac was one of the most representative French clarinet players for the last century. He was also a composer. His compositions were mainly for the clarinet and most of all are inspired by his native region in Southern France. His Variations sur un air du pays d’Oc (Variations on a tune from the South of France) is a set of four variations of different character on Se Canto, a song from the valley of the Garonne. Cahuzac was an outstanding performer and one of the few clarinettists who made a career as a soloist in the first part of the 20th century.

The two compositions of Messager, who was student of Saint-Saëns, and active also as organist, composer and conductor, should be inserted in the context of above mentioned didactical programmes of the Paris Conservatoire. Both pieces were intended for the last exams of the students. This short but nice sight reading piece has been published for the first time by the german editions Trio Musik Clarinova. His Solo de Concours embodies a good amount of french flavour in the writing and virtuoso passages thought to impress the audience, in this case the jury of the Paris Conservatory.

Messiaen’s clarinet solo part, third movement from his masterpiece of last century Quartet of the end of times, is bearing the title Abîme des Oiseaux. It was premiered in 1941 and scored for clarinet (in B-flat), violin, cello, and piano. Messiaen wrote the piece while a prisoner of war in German captivity and it was first performed by his fellow prisoners. All the extreme dynamics and agogic signs assigned to the solo clarinet part should describe an inner feeling of desolation. Messiaen himself wrote: The abyss is Time with its sadness, its weariness. The birds are the opposite to Time; they are our desire for light, for stars, for rainbows, and for jubilant songs.

René Gerber was a swiss composer but with strong connections to the french school, being a student of Paul Dukas and Nadia Boulanger. His brief, nice, light and with romantic touch Six Variations for solo clarinet had been conceived for his friend clarinettist of the Swiss Romande Orchestra, Bernard Bellay. He also wrote, like other French composers, a short, witty and pleasant sight reading piece to be intended for didactical aims.

Jean Françaix, neoclassical composer, pianist and orchestrator, was known for his prolific output and personal peculiar ironical style. Françaix produced plenty of compositions for various genres, but chamber works for piano as well as winds had a primary importance in his overall production. The Theme and variations bears the dedication to his beloved son Olivier, written on the clarinet part as O.livier, intending the three notes C F D. He composed the piece in 1974 and it was used, once again, for the Paris Conservatoire final exams in 1975. It is a quite challenging piece with his carefree, light, jovial, funny and disengaged style. There are some variations full of virtuosity and some with nostalgic but at the same time serene character. Françaix composed also a clarinet concerto with the same kind of light-hearted, happy character but with plenty of hard passages, using uncomfortable keys. A common element in the two pieces cited is the use of A clarinet, perhaps with the aim to give to these demanding pieces connotations both of darkness in the timbre of the clarinet and lightness in the character of the pieces.