Dubugnon Taffanel Holst Françaix Quintettes pour vents Monet Quintett - AVI8553008

La formation originale du quintette à vent eut son heure de gloire au dix-huitième siècle (Sérénades et arrangements divers) pour réapparaître dans les années folles à l'initiative du compositeur et flûtiste Paul Taffanel (1844-1908) qui créa en 1879 la Société de musique de chambre pour instruments à vents, visant à redécouvrir ce répertoire oublié (Mozart en particulier). Son Quintette en Sol mineur est une partition d'une écriture traditionnelle qui émancipe notamment le cor et le trombone de leur fonction traditionnelle en leur donnant une valeur soliste. Le premier Quintette de Jean Français (1912-1997) réputé injouable, dut attendre dix ans après sa composition 1948 pour naître sous les doigts des solistes de l'orchestre de Paris. Techniquement virtuose, il requiert des solistes une maîtrise sans faille. D'un lyrisme évanescent, Le Quintette Op. 14 de l'anglais Gustav Holst (1084-1934) privilégie les atmosphères, vestige du romantisme, tout en donnant une dimension orchestrale à la formation. Enfin cerise sur le gâteau, la Frenglish Suite de Richard Dubugnon, composée en 1997, apporte une touche post-moderne au quintette à force de citations et d'un mélange épastrouillant de formes (variations et contrepoint) et de styles (Jazz, chanson traditionnelle). De quoi renouveler le genre ! (Jérôme Angouillant)

The woodwind quintet is probably the only instrumental combination in chamber music that can claim to have been invented twice. The colorful combination of flute, oboe, clarinet, horn, and bassoon was quite popular in 18th-century noble courts, probably due to its refreshing sonority reminiscent of serenade music: composers felt inspired to write a great number of works. After the French Revolution and the corresponding decline of nobility, the wind quintet genre was only seldom featured in chamber music concerts held by the upper middle classes, and slowly sank into oblivion……. Another welcome addition to repertoire can be found in Swiss composer Richard Dubugnon’s Frenglish Suite (1997), inspired and influenced by several British and French composers, as Dubugnon explains himself.……. In the late 1800s, French flutist and composer Paul Taffanel devotedly started to create chamber music societies with the intention of reviving music of the past – an uncommon initiative in those times, and therefore much to his credit. …….. British composer Gustav Holst’s Late Romantic Quintet in A Flat Major Op. 14 is not as well known, but sheds light on other aspects of this instrumental combination: en lieu of virtuosity, it features a great variety of harmonies and timbres, similarly to what Taffanel had sought in his slow movement.…….. Jean Françaix likewise possessed thorough knowledge of all five instruments and applied it specifically in his Quintet No. 1, with the goal of attaining a “high level of difficulty”, as he remarked himself. Although Françaix wrote the piece in 1948, it was not until 1954 that five woodwind players of the Orchestre National in Paris drummed up the courage to perform the work in public after having reportedly “gone into confinement” for several months to practice it.