 Cet album symbolise l'esprit de rencontre, de partage et d'amitié incarné par le Groupe des Six créé durant la période artistique foisonnante du Paris des années 1920. Le programme est l'intégrale de l'œuvre pour clarinette des compositeurs du Groupe (Durey n'ayant pas écrit pour clarinette) composée entre 1918 et 1973 et souvent située en dehors de la période active du collectif. Brillance, élégance et lyrisme caractérisent les trois sonates d’un Poulenc inventif notamment en terme de timbres avec une sonate pour clarinette et basson (1922) et une pour deux clarinettes (1918). Chez Milhaud, la modernité flamboyante des années 20 dans la Sonatine (1927) laisse la place au charme mélodique du Duo concertant (1956) et du Caprice (1954). L’Imagée III (1971) d'Auric est résolument moderne avec ses grands intervalles, ses éclats rythmiques et ses passages sombres et mystérieux. Cette œuvre haute en couleur laisse la place à une délicate et mélancolique Arabesque (1973) de Tailleferre précédant sa courte sonate (moins de six minutes) pour une clarinette solo agile et volubile (1957). Le retour aux années 20 avec la Sonatine d'Honegger (1921-22) clôturant le programme nous rappelle combien cette période contenait déjà la brillante modernité qui influencerait les décennies suivantes. (Laurent Mineau) «Les Six», composed of Darius Milhaud (1892-1974), Arthur Honegger (1892-1955), Germaine Tailleferre (1892-1983), Georges Auric (1899-1983), Louis Durey (1888-1979) and Francis Poulenc (1899-1963), was active in Paris during the 1920s. Jean Cocteau (1889-1963) was their poet and spokesperson, and the group considered Erik Satie (1866-1925) to be its spiritual master. Meetings assembling various artistic circles in the salons of Paris at the time permitted the birth of collaborations between creators, reading poems, presenting the latest musical compositions or exhibiting paintings. It was in this context and through the frequentation of the salons that the six musicians, then about twenty years old, became gradually acquainted with each other. In 1917, an initial performance was given in which poetic, pictorial and especially musical works of four of the six composers were combined with those of Satie. This was the starting point of the small group whose members would regularly present their artistic productions in the same concert halls. They participated in the booming culture of Paris, mainly because spectators of all social classes rushed to attend their performances. In 1919, the name of «Les Six» was created : Henri Collet, a journalist, proposed to give them this name for promotional purposes by analogy with the Group of Five (assembling Russian musicians of the nineteenth century [Mussorgsky, Borodin, Balakirev, Cui, Rimsky-Korsakov]). The magazine Le Coq appeared between April and November 1920 under the aegis of the pen of Cocteau and became the organ of dissemination of the fame of the group even if the latter clarified its position : “The Coq is the organ of no school ... Nothing is less cliquish ... The door is wide open ...”. Although all came from different backgrounds and kept their individual style of writing, the members of «Les Six» united in opposition to Impressionism and Wagnerism. A form of music-hall filled with popular simplicity characterizes their musical aesthetics. From 1921, however, Cocteau’s design (“Auric, Milhaud, Poulenc, Tailleferre, Honegger, I put your bouquet in the water of the same glass”) was confronted with a certain notoriety which led to the loss of their unity ( “Cocteau tried to put us in the same vase, but we did not hold it”); in spite of their brief existence, alongside their compositions with truculent titles (such as Caramel mou, Salad or Danse de la Chèvre) can be placed emblematic works such as the Album des Six, Le boeuf sur le toit or Les mariés de la tour Eiffel.
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