Samuel Ducommun Musique de chambre Pantillon Wunderlin Glasson Sanz Flieder - CLA3071

S’il est un compositeur d’une grande discrétion, c’est bien le Suisse Samuel Ducommun (1914–1987) qui fut organiste, instituteur, professeur au conservatoire, et laissa derrière lui une oeuvre d’une centaine d’opus, tous les genres - hormis l’opéra - étant représentés. Modeste et pudique à l’extrême, il ne mit jamais en avant ses oeuvres. On trouvera sur ce disques un Quatuor pour flûtes, une des dernières oeuvres de Ducommun, qui ne fut créé qu’après sa mort, durant lequel on entend presque le compositeur « s’amuser comme un petit fou », comme il le dit lui-même. Des pièces pour violoncelle et piano de 1949 illustrent un autre versant de la personnalité du compositeur, davantage tourné vers la tradition que vers l’innovation, mais ayant su malgré tout intégrer quelques idées du siècle ; mais c’est surtout un Divertimento pour flûte, alto, violoncelle et piano, plein d’inventivité, qui nous convaincra de l’intérêt d’enrichir sa discothèque de ce CD. (Walter Appel)

Both a singer as well as an inveterate music lover, the public prosecutor for the State of Neuchâtel Pierre Aubert also happens to be the author of one of the rare portraits of Samuel Ducommun (with perhaps the monography published at Infolio in 2014 by the undersigned...). It begins with this compelling assertion about this man’s relation to posterity: “Faulkner once said: It is my ambition to be, as a private individual, abolished and voided from history, leaving it markless, no refuse save the printed books (Joseph Leo Blotner, 1978, Selected letters of William Faulkner). Yet, a biography of more than a thousand pages was written about him. Samuel Ducommun appears to have been even more reserved than Faulkner. He never spoke about himself, didn’t have any personal ambition, not even to disappear from history, and even the destiny of his work, before and after his death, didn’t interest him”. Towards the end of his life he will state: “For a composer, the very fact of having accomplished his work, solving problems, managing to progress, seems to me the ultimate reward. The joy of a public performance of one’s creations is an added pleasure, but it isn’t imperative.” This form of extreme abnegation is Samuel Ducommun’s own business. And it must be respected. However, it needn’t prevent other people from paying close attention to his work: after all hadn’t Ducommun spent a good part of his life drawing his pupils’ attention (in his singing, organ tutoring and theory classes) to the innumerable treasures to be found in the history of music ? Perhaps, had he feared the disadvantage of comparisons... If such was the case, he was proved wrong. His inventory is made up of more than a hundred pieces of music of all types (with the exception of opera). It shows a steadfast vision, prompted just as much by his masters, as by his firm attachment to the Protestant cult. This powerful inner inspiration renders his art at once identifiable.