Klarinet Archive - Posting 000074.txt from 1995/06

From: Jarle.Brosveet@-----.NO
Subj: Jean Francaix bibliography
Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 08:50:02 -0400

A CD of Jean Francaix's works (REM 311 225) gives the following information,
which I hope is useful although I am sure that it betrays its French origin:

"Debussy held that 'to please' was the ultimate aim of French music but it
was left to Jean Francaix to prove it in an exemplary way. His works are
typically French; they show charm and wit. Charming, often with a touch of
irony, they are characterized by their clarity and their unproblematic
nature. Francaix's style is defined by an inherent sense of humor, its
inspiration by French literature and its close links with western musical
traditions.
Jean Francaix was born on May 23, 1912 in Le Mans and grew up in a
musical family. His father Alfred Francaix, composer and pianist, was
director of the Le Mans Music Academy for sixteen years and his mother was
giving singing classes there. After taking lessons from his father he left
for Paris to study the piano and composition. He was taught by Nadia
Boulanger, the teacher of so many French and American composers. When he was
18 he received the first prize for piano at the Paris Music Academy
[Conservatoire de Paris]. Eight years later, his Concertino for piano and
orchestra, performed at the Baden-Baden Chamber Music Festival [for
contemporary music] won him his first acclaim as a composer. 'This was a
triumph such as rarely occurs in the midst of such a gathering of
specialists', Heinrich Strobel commented later. 'Coming after so much
problematic or inauthentic music, this Concertino was like cool water
flowing from the spring with the graceful spontaneity of all things natural
-- and at the same time, like the creation of an artist endowed with a
clarity of mind and conscience seldom to be encountered nowadays.'
In his subsequent works Francaix followed the course he had set himself
with this graceful and light Concertino, witty and imaginative in its
rhythmic piquancy: ballets and operas, concertos and choral works, chamber
music, songs and piano works. We need only give as examples [the ballets]
'The Maidens of the Night' [Les Demoiselles de la Nuit], 'The Naked King'
[Le Roi nu], 'Sophie's Misfortunes' [Les Malheurs de Sophie] and the chamber
opera 'The Limping Devil' [Le Diable Boiteux].
However, Francaix is not always the amiable and brilliant story-teller
hiding his thoughts and feelings behind an ironic smile. He has achieved his
aim of 'making serious music without gravity' -- according to his own saying
-- in the oratorio 'The Apocalypse According to St. John' [L'Apocalypse
selon Saint Jean] which shows a deep religious feeling, and in his opera 'La
Princesse de Cleves' (after Madame de la Fayettes's novel) where can be
found all the particularities of a style which he was able to perfect. It is
the work of a major musician who likes Bach, Mozart and Schubert and who,
through his cultural background and his conception of art, is in the good
company of Debussy and Ravel."

In the same CD booklet Jean Francaix himself gives these slightly enigmatic
comments on the Trio for clarinet, viola and piano. This is how they appear
in the printed translation:

"Three sylph-like creatures having formed a Trio in my image, the great
public is now in a position to judge my music according to its true merits,
since this Trio through its perfection has deprived me of all extenuating
circumstances in the ears of the audience. [Well, how about this in French
for the sake of clarity: Trois sylphes vaporeux ayant eu l'idee de former un
Trio a mon effigie, l'honorable public pourra apprecier ma musique a sa
juste valeur; car ce Trio, par sa perfection, m'otera toutes circonstances
attenuantes aux oreilles exigeantes.] I may even be forgiven, thanks to its
efforts, for being still bogged down in the out-moded folds of tonal music.
When you are 81 [in 1993] this is a hopeless stagnation but to be frank it
rather suits me.
My admiration for Mozart -- always a topical composer -- gave me the
audacity to compose my own Trio for clarinet, viola and piano, following a
formula to which he resorted only once but which he has made very difficult
to emulate. However, human beings will experience overwhelming cravings
which make them careless, not to say overbearing. My boldness is all the
greater as I have retained Mozart's structure while simply speeding up the
menuet into a whirling scherzo."

You may also be interested in Francaix's wry comments on clarinet playing as
he goes on to explain about the Theme and Variations for clarinet and piano:

"Originallly written under the name of my grandson Oliver -- who is now over
six feet tall -- my Variations for clarinet, chosen as a competition piece
by the Paris Music Academy, are, according to the laws of the genre,
perilous to perform. Fortunately, clarinet players have masochistic
tendencies; they are always asking for more pipe music of the spheres [or
better expressed in French: ils redemandent, du chalumeau aux cimes
stratospheriques]. We are far from the time when Jerome K. Jerome, listening
to a clarinet, wrote that it reminded him of this mother-in-law swallowed by
a shark. Nowadays clarinet players have turned into mermaids; and Odyssevs's
bonds should be of steel."

You may like to know that on this CD the Trio Jean Francaix performs the
Trio, the Variations, Promenade d'un musicologue eclectique pour piano, his
arrangement for cello and piano of Chabrier's Habanera and the Rhapsodie for
viola and piano. The Rhapsodie has Francaix himself at the piano at age 81.

- Jarle Brosveet