Octuor de France

Twentieth edition, already for the traditional summer residence of the Octet in France Bagatelle: 8 concerts from July 19, Thursday evening, and Sunday afternoon August 15, offering their customary refreshing cocktail of big names ( Bach, Beethoven, Bruch, Mozart, Rossini, Schubert, Weber) and improbable discoveries (Adolphe Blanc, Georg Friedrich Fuchs, Theodore Gouvy), presented by the great Georges Boyer (unfortunately much favored by the sound). In addition, this year 2012, training founded by clarinetist Jean-Louis Sajot could only devote a tribute to Jean Françaix (1912-1997), not only she had ordered arrangement of Quintet for piano and wind instruments Mozart but she recorded with him in 1996, two discs dedicated to his chamber music, supplemented by a third disc made a few months ago, have been reprinted in a box recently published by Indésens!.

His Octet (1972), written for a set identical to that Schubert was also intended to supplement, is typical of the way between the tireless activism of Roussel and a Martinů, a hand, tenderness and humor of Ravel together the playfulness of Poulenc other. The first movement Andante and leave certainly express the lyricism but the Scherzo, which will be encored at the end of the evening, never seems to stop twirling, a formidable virtuosity by counterpoint and its worked very rhythmic full traps. As for Finale is a delicious old-fashioned waltz evoking a bandstand at the beginning of the last century.

As an appetizer, the strings had given four spruce Third Sonata (1804) Rossini, well served by the acoustics of the orangery and musicians that the final Moderato can be illustrated individually, including the new second violin Guillaume Devin. After the intermission, despite sometimes very spirited peacocks in the gardens, the Octet France returns with one of the favorite works, both in concert disc only, Septet (1800) Beethoven, which achieves a again with great happiness.

Simon Corley