L'Esprit des Six Davide Bandieri & Guillaume Hersperger

• Francis Poulenc (1899 - 1963): Sonata for Clarinet in B-Flat, FP 184:
• 1 Sonata for Clarinet in B-Flat, FP 184: I. Allegro tristamente 05:07
• 2 Sonata for Clarinet in B-Flat, FP 184: II. Romanza 04:58
• 3 Sonata for Clarinet in B-Flat, FP 184: III. Allegro con fuoco 03:19
• Sonate for Clarinet & Bassoon in D Major, FP 32a :
• 4 Sonate for Clarinet & Bassoon in D Major, FP 32a : I. Allegro 01:51
• 5 Sonate for Clarinet & Bassoon in D Major, FP 32a: II. Romance 03:13
• 6 Sonate for Clarinet & Bassoon in D Major, FP 32a: III. Final 03:04
• Sonata for Two Clarinets, FP 7:
• 7 Sonata for Two Clarinets, FP 7: I. Presto 01:45
• 8 Sonata for Two Clarinets, FP 7: II. Andante 02:33
• 9 Sonata for Two Clarinets, FP 7: III. Vif 02:20
• Darius Milhaud (1892 - 1974): Sonatine for Clarinet & Piano, Op. 100:
• 10 Sonatine for Clarinet & Piano, Op. 100: I. Très rude 03:34
• 11 Sonatine for Clarinet & Piano, Op. 100: II. Lent 04:00
• 12 Sonatine for Clarinet & Piano, Op. 100: III. Très rude 02:31
• Duo Concertant for Clarinet & Piano, Op. 351:
• 13 Duo Concertant for Clarinet & Piano, Op. 351: Vif-Modéré-Vif 06:22
• Darius Milhaud:
• 14 Caprice for Clarinet & Piano in B-Flat, Op. 335 02:13
• Georges Auric (1899 - 1983):
• 15 Imaginées III for Clarinet in B-Flat & Piano 06:24
• Germaine Tailleferre (1892 - 1983):
• 16 Arabesque for Clarinet in B-Flat & Piano 03:12
• Sonata for Solo Clarinet:
• 17 Sonata for Solo Clarinet: I. Allegro tranquillo 02:49
• 18 Sonata for Solo Clarinet: II. Andantino espressivo 01:28
• 19 Sonata for Solo Clarinet: III. Allegro brioso 01:41
• Arthur Honegger (1892 - 1955): Sonatine for Clarinet in A & Piano, H. 42:
• 20 Sonatine for Clarinet in A & Piano, H. 42: I. Modéré 02:37
• 21 Sonatine for Clarinet in A & Piano, H. 42: II. Lent et soutenu 02:13
• 22 Sonatine for Clarinet in A & Piano, H. 42: III. Vif et rythmique 01:12
• Total Runtime 01:08:26

Info for L'Esprit des Six

Les Six came to the fore in 1920s Paris as acolytes of the iconoclastic Erik Satie and briefly caught the spirit of the age before veering off in diverse directions. This ingenious album of clarinet-piano music from either end of their careers. Francis Poulenc, the most lyrical and the only one with a major opera to his credit, can be heard in sonatas from 1918, 1922 and 1962, the earliest having an absolute earworm of an Andante, the kind of music people hummed as they went off to found new colonies.

Darius Milhaud, who could write for any instrument at the drop of a hat, had reached opus 100 by his mid-thirties, a Sonatine with a delicious melting centre. Auric, who spent his life writing film scores, contributed a 1971 Imaginées for clarinet and piano. Tailleferre, who lived longest, wrote a 1973 Arabesque. Honegger is represented by a neat Sonatine of 1921-22. And Durey? There’s nothing here by Durey. There never is.

Davide Bandieri, principal clarinet of the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra, is the driving force here, with pianist Guillaume Hersperger panting to keep up. It’s a fun album that feels almost Twenties in its ésprit.

“The formation of «Les Six» contributed to strengthen our friendship. During two years, we regularly met at my place, every Saturday night. Paul Morand was making cocktails, then we went to a small restaurant up on “Rue Blanche”. The hall of the “Petit Bessonneau” was so small that the “samedistes” occupied it entirely. They indulged themselves without restraint to their exuberance. There were not only composers among us but also performers: Marcelle Meyer, Juliette Meerovitch, Andrée Vaurabourg, the Russian singer Koubitzky; painters: Marie Laurencin, Irène Lagut, Valentine Gross, the fiancee of Jean Hugo, Guy Pierre Fau­connet; writers: Lucien Daudet, Radiguet, a young poet whom Cocteau brought us. After dinner, at­tracted by the steam rides, the mysterious shops, the “Fille de Mars”, the shooting, the lotteries, the menageries, the din of the mechanical organs with perforated rollers that seemed to grind implacably and simultaneously all the “flonflons” of music-hall and “revues”, we went to the Fair of Montmartre, and sometimes to the Circus Medrano to attend the sketches of the Fratellini which denoted so much imagination and poetry that they were worthy of the Commedia dell’Arte. We ended the evening at my place. Poets read their poems. We played our last works. Some of them, like Auric’s “Adieu New York”, Poulenc’s “Cocardes”, and my “Boeuf sur le toit” were continually rehashing. We even asked Poulenc to play “Cocardes” every Saturday, which he did with the best goodwill in the world. From those meetings where happiness and carelessness seemed to be the only climate, many fruitful col­laborations were born; moreover, they determined the character of certain works that flowed from the aesthetics of the music hall.

Davide Bandieri, clarinet
Guillaume Hersperger, piano
Axel Benoit, bassoon
Calogero Presti, clarinet

Davide Bandieri
was born in Florence, Italy in 1979. In 1997 he graduated from the Mascagni Institute in Livorno where he studied with Dario Goracci. He furthered his studies with clarinetists Fabrizio Meloni, Karl Heinz Steffens and Alessandro Carbonare in the Academy of the Arturo Toscanini Foundation in Bologna. In 2002 he received a Master of Music in chamber music at the Incontri col Maestro Academy in Imola where he formed a duo with pianist Luca Torrigiani and studied with Mº Pier Narciso Masi.

Since 2012 he is the Solo Clarinet of “Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne“.

Since 2004 to 2011 he has occupied the position of principal Piccolo clarinet in the Madrid Symphony Orchestra (Orchestra of the Teatro Real).

He has performed with Luzern Festival Orchestra, Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Orchestra dell’Accademia nazionale di S. Cecilia, Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Orchestra della Toscana, Orchestra del Teatro dell’Opera di Roma performing with maestros Claudio Abbado, Daniel Harding, Riccardo Muti, Giuseppe Sinopoli, Gianluigi Gelmetti, Bruno Bartoletti, Roberto Abbado, Lu Jia, Myung-Wung Chung, Pinchas Steinberg, Tugan Sohiev, Jiri Belohlavek.

In 2002 he won the First Prize in the Selmer Young Artists Competition.

This album contains no booklet.