Jacques Bouffil (1783-1868)
Duo pour clarinette et piano, op. 4
Ouverture pour 2 clarinettes "La Dame Blanche"
Trio pour 3 clarinettes, op. 8 n° 1
Trio pour 2 clarinettes et piano, op. 7 n° 1
Trio pour 2 clarinettes et piano, op. 7 n° 2

Luigi Magistrelli, clarinette
Laura Magistrelli, clarinette
Cristina Romano, clarinette
Claudia Bracco, piano

Bouffil fait partie de ces musiciens compositeurs qui écrivirent essentiellement pour leur instrument. Clarinettiste renommé, soliste au sein de l’orchestre de l’Opéra-Comique, il prit des leçons de compositions auprès d’Anton Reicha qui fonda un original et réputé quintette à vent dont Bouffil fit partie. Le catalogue de Bouffil met en valeur la clarinette au sein de compositions de musique de chambre. Cet album met donc à l’honneur cet instrument à travers des œuvres originales pour duo ou trio de clarinettes et une seule pour clarinette et piano. Elles raviront certainement les clarinettistes et ne constitueront probablement qu’une curiosité anecdotique pour les autres. L’écriture n’en est pas moins plaisante, d’un style classique, à la fois exigeante techniquement et joliment mélodieuse. On découvrira un audacieux arrangement pour deux clarinettes de l’ouverture de l’opéra « La Dame Blanche » de Boieldieu. Trois trios pour clarinettes constituent le gros du programme. En quatre mouvements, chacun avec un menuet, ils s’inscrivent dans la tradition classique et ont de quoi enchanter les amateurs de l’instrument mettant en avant sa vélocité et sa brillance chaleureuse au sein d’un discours allègre. Cet album pourra compléter astucieusement une discothèque tant consacrée à l’instrument qu’à la connaissance de cette période de la musique française. (Laurent Mineau)

Little is known of Jacques-Jules Bouffil (or Boufil, 1783–1868) before his admission to the newly founded Paris Conservatoire in 1801. There he became a clarinet student of Xavier Lefe`vre, apparently making such rapid progress that he was awarded a premier prix on his graduation in 1806 and appointed second clarinet in the Opéra-Comique a year later. In the years following he began to share principal clarinet duties with Charles Duvernoy until eventually (in 1821) succeeding him outright in the post. Enter the Czech-born composer Antonin Reicha, who had arrived in the French capital from Vienna in 1808 fleeing the conflict that had engulfed Europe. A later account of 1837 tells us that while the Théa^tre Feydeau was performing Reicha’s opera Cagliostro, the composer was approached one day by Bouffil and a colleague, Guénée, both members of the orchestra, asking for composition lessons. Reicha agreed, and his private class soon swelled to include other talented Parisian instrumentalists, Joseph Guillou (flute), Gustave Vogt (oboe), Antoine Henry (bassoon) and Louis Dauprat (horn) among them.The same account goes on to relay that, as the winds had been neglected as solo instruments in favour of strings by composers of the day (Mozart excepted), Reicha had the idea to combine the five principal winds, and after some research he published six wind quintets in succession, performed by Bouffil and the above-mentioned members of his composition studio over three consecutive winters, in the foyer of the Salle Favart. Coached in composition by Reicha, Bouffil wrote primarily for his own instrument and in a Viennese style attractively modulated with a French accent, having both virtuosic and didactic purposes in mind. Both of these sides of his output receive attention on the present album. Scored for clarinet with piano or harp accompaniment, the Duo Op.4 follows classical precedent with a sonata-form Allegro, a brief cantabile slow movement and a brilliant finale. Bouffil’s transcription for two clarinets of the overture to Boieldieu’s comic opera La Dame blanche would have come easy after countless nights performing the work in the pit at the Opéra-Comique. The three trios from Opp. 7 & 8 have been selected from nine such didactic works by Bouffil. Judging by the technical demands of many of the passages, he had highly advanced students in mind. The trios are structured in four movements, each with a menuet and trio, thus maintaining a tenuous link to the classical style. The three clarinet parts are complementary, with the melody line shared among them.