Un disque rafraîchissant et d’une inépuisable richesse

Sébastien Foucart : ConcertoNet

28 March 2008

02/29/2008
Ludwig van Beethoven : Septuor, opus 20 Adolphe Blanc : Septuor, opus 40 Calliope CAL 9384 (distribué par Harmonia Mundi)
L’Octuor de France enrichit sa discographie chez Calliope avec un savoureux couplage significatif de sa politique : outre ses commandes et son engagement dans les grandes œuvres du répertoire, cette formation....s’attache en effet à défendre des compositeurs quelque peu négligés.
Adolphe Blanc (1828-1885) est de ceux-là....le Septuor constituera pour beaucoup une agréable et étonnante découverte, tant cette page au ton pastoral, suave et en rien désuète s’avère d’un achèvement formidable, à l’image de l’énergie qui innerve l’interprétation de l’Octuor de France, dispensant un rare plaisir d’écoute : cordes sveltes et incisives, bois onctueux, forte cohésion interne.
L’œuvre reprend la formation du Septuor de Beethoven, archétype de la musique pour cordes et vent, et magnifiquement servi par un ensemble témoignant d’une joie communicative qui en fait tout le prix. D’une grande pureté, cette lecture vivante et aérée permet d’apprécier une prestation instrumentale de tout premier plan, alliant précision et musicalité, et ce tant à titre individuel que collectif.
Un disque rafraîchissant et d’une inépuisable richesse, auquel il faudra revenir souvent.

A feast for our eyes and ears!

Stéphane Humbert : DVD Alliance

19 October 2007

DirActors Cut Film Festival, Luxembourg
Projection-concert : "College" de Buster Keaton
To discover, for some, and to rediscover, for others, the films of this period is a chance not to miss, particularly with the music which gives us a different approach. We are not passive spectators. In fact we have the impression of taking part in the film. The music fills our whole being. The sounds and the notes dance and fill our ears, affording us a great moment of happiness. All our senses are alive.
A great moment of happiness and a feast for our eyes and ears!

America and Bach at Bagatelle

Simon Corley : ConcertoNet.com

09 July 2007

Paris : Orangerie de Bagatelle
Antonin Dvorak : Quartet n° 12 «American», opus 96, B. 179...a very precise interpretation...the musicians never miss the opportunity to "sing" generously and this is particularly so, of course, in the Lento.
Johann Sebastian Bach : Goldberg Variations, BWV 988 (arranged by Marcel Bitsch)...The Octuor de France has no difficulty in rendering justice to this adaptation and, even better, to the timelessness of Bach's music, as in the famous «black pearl», the miraculous Twenty-fifth variation (Adagio). And yet it is the pleasant Quodlibet, Thirtieth and final variation, which is given as an encore.

A superb interpretation

Simon Corley, ConcertoNet.com

Paris : Saint Michael's English Church, 21 April 2006
For the four concerts it will be giving in Paris from 7 April to 9 June, the Octuor de France remains faithful to its programming principals which consist of associating the great names – notably, of course, Mozart in this year 2006 - with original discoveries, always generously presented by the founder of the Octuor de France, the clarinetist Jean-Louis Sajot... and so the public were invited to discover Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912).
The score of his Quintet for Clarinet and String quartet is curiously evocative of central Europe, often recalling not only Dvorak the Czech, warm and dance-like, but also Dvorak the American inspired by the singing of negro spirituals ; not so surprising, perhaps, when one recalls that Coleridge-Taylor was the son of a doctor, a native Sierra-Leone.
Next, a superb interpretation of Beethoven's Septet (1800) : total cohesion, particularly noticable, among other moments, in the well rounded tutti, full of vigor, bite and freshness which alternate with moments of almost Mozart-like lightness : nothing is lacking, not even the remarkable solo playing, and notably that of Yuriko Naganuma (violin) and Antoine Degrémont (french horn).

The American tingle

Fanny CHAPOTON - La Nouvelle République

The Octuor de France performed in the church of La Ferté-Beauharnais. The American chamber music of Dvorak, Barber and Coleridge-Taylor made the public tingle. The musicians had faced the challenge of providing an original programme. A successful challenge, for the church was packed, and the audience captivated. In the church of La Ferté-Beauharnais, one held one's breath and even shed some tears, so emotionally moving was the impeccable interpretation of Barber's Adagio.

Rustic Schubert

Jeacques DOUCELIN - Le Figaro

Each Summer, music replaces the orange and lemon trees in the Orangery of the parc de Bagatelle. It's in this green haven on the edge or the great city, that the Octuor de France give a twice weekly series of concerts entitled "Musique de chambre à Bagatelle".
The Bagatelle concerts are not like any others. These eight musicians from the finest Parisian institutions, have broken with the usual ritual : they don't simply play. They treat the three hundred music lovers to a sort of "rustic Schubert" - a modern version of chamber music.

Chamber Music à la française

Pablo GALONCE - Le Monde de la Musique

Motivation and determination are necessary to impose a repertoire which, although classical, strays from the beaten paths.
The programme of concerts in the series "Chamber Music at Bagatelle" in the Bagatelle Park Orangery, Paris, fully reflects the diversity of this repertoire. There are of course the chamber music "hits" such as Beethoven's Septet or Mozart's and Brahm's Clarinet Quintets, alongside rarely played works such as Bernstein's Sonata for clarinet and piano or Copland's Sextet for clarinet, strings and piano.

A superb Octuor de France

Houlgate. the closing of the Summer Music Festival

The closing concert of the Houlgate Summer Music Festival was without doubt the most beautiful. Can one imagine a more beautiful programme : Mozart's Quintet for Clarinet and String, Schubert's Octet, interpreted by exceptionally talented musicians. The public were not mistaken. They came in great numbers and Saint-Aubin's Church was too small to accommodate all those who came to applaud the musicians. Their freshness and entusiasm, and the obvious pleasure they took in their playing, was transmitted to the audience.

A geometrically variable group

Simon Corley, ConcertoNet.com

Paris : Saint Michael's English Church, 9 June 2006
The Octuor de France, for the last of its four concerts given in the excellent acoustics of Saint Michael's English Church, presented only four of its musicians together with its pianist, thus demonstrating the advantages of a geometrically variable group to interpret duets and trios which are rarely programmed ; unpretentious and lively pieces, often with popular origins.
In the heart of a relatively undeveloped musical production, Prokofiev's Sonata for two violins (1932) is worthy of rediscovery. Intense, lyrical and excellently written, the interpretation offered by Yuriko Naganuma and Jean-Christophe Grall more than justifies the inclusion of this musical quarter of an hour .
If popular influences were already present in the final Allegro con brio, Martinu's Sonatina forr clarinet and piano (1956) plunges its roots more deeply into the soil of his native land. Jean-Louis Sajot shows himself to be equally at ease in the softness of the Moderato as in the meditation of the Andante or the vitality of the Poco allegro.
Still folklore, but somewhat more distant, is Ravel's Tzigane (1924). Far from the caricatural and exagerated gestures which often accompany the interpretaion of this piece, Yuriko Naganuma displays great musical sensitivity, never exagerating, measuring her effects. Her refusal to be facile in the interpretation of this music, which has never seemed closer to Enesco, didn't lessen the entusiasm of the audience who were rewarded by hearing the brilliant peroration as an encore.