Claude Debussy (1862-918)
Petite Suite L65 (1889, arr. Gordon Davies)
Carl Nielsen (1865-1931)
Wind Quintet, op.43 (1922)
Fazıl Say (b. 1970)
Alevi Dedeler rakı masasında, op.35 (2011)
Samuel Barber (1910-1981)
Summer Music, op.31 (1955)
Ensemble Astera
rec. 2024, Casa culturale Peter Mayr di Longomoso, Renon, Italy
Claves 50-3139 [65]
The members of Ensemble Astera, the Franco-Swiss wind quintet, have been performing together since 2019. They all have experience of playing in major European orchestras. As a group, they have a stated commitment: to bring wind chamber music to the widest possible audience, with a strong emphasis on contemporary repertoire.
They begin this varied, attractive programme with Debussy’s four-movement Petite Suite, originally written for piano duet, and skilfully arranged by the English musician Gordon Davies. The well-known music, relatively early Debussy, works remarkably well in this instrumentation, especially given the ensemble’s bright, expressive playing.
Carl Nielsen’s Wind Quintet is one of the great classics of the wind chamber music repertoire. He composed it con amore for his friends of the Copenhagen Wind Quintet. It is contemporaneous with the 5th Symphony, but shares very little with that masterpiece. It has not even got a part for the side drum (you might be relieved to know).
But seriously… it is a wonderful piece, and these highly talented players do it full justice. They have obviously worked very hard to achieve a sound world in which all five can play with character and flexibility, and yet no one player dominates the texture. This is a particular challenge for the horn player, because the horn is easily the most powerful and resonant instrument of all five. But Gabriel Potier is an immensely sensitive and capable player, well able to blend effectively with the group. It also helps that there is excellent balancing by the production team, headed by Michael Seberich. It is a particularly hard ensemble to record successfully, because the sound comes out of the instruments in all sorts of different directions!
Nielsen’s quintet is mostly a happy, even blithe piece. Yet the clouds do gather in the introduction to the third movement, where the darker sound of the cor anglais briefly replaces the oboe. The skies eventually clear, and in sails the beautiful hymn that Nielsen had written some eight years previously, called Min Jesus, lad min Hjerte faa (My Jesus, make my heart to love thee). We then have twelve marvellous variations on that tune, before it finally returns to round off the work. In the variations, Nielsen draws out the character of the individuals and their instruments in a most extraordinary way. He said: ‘Each instrument is like a person who is asleep, whom I have to wake to life […] I think through the instruments themselves, almost as if I had crept inside them.’
Then follows another fine piece, much more recent – the Turkish composer Fazıl Say’s quintet Alevi Dedeler rakı masasında (Alevi Grandfathers at the raki table – rakı is Türkiye’s national drink). The outcome is a lively and sometimes disputatious discussion, which Say has described in the four varied movements. He shows an exceptional understanding of the qualities of the five instruments, and the ways in which they can be contrasted and – more challengingly – combined.
The very beginning is a good example. All five instruments play in unison a mysterious phrase, which recurs throughout the piece. That creates a beautiful, haunting sound, rather like seeing an entirely new colour. This kind-of introduction gives way to splendidly jagged music as the conversation begins, mostly in 9/8 time. (This time signature, familiar enough, is usually 3 + 3 + 3, but here it is 3 + 2 + 2 + 2.) This altogether brilliant and engaging work has been recorded recently by the Pacific Quintet (review). The Astera give it an equally characterful reading.
Samuel Barber’s Summer Music is another work that successfully exploits the different colours and characters of this grouping. The piece is well-known amongst woodwind players, but might not be familiar to many of Barber’s admirers. If so, then they are in for a treat. The piece is cast in a single movement, but there are clearly separate sections, some slow and languid, as at the beginning, some quick and full of nervous energy. Again, it is brilliantly conveyed by this quite outstanding young ensemble. I love their playing, and cannot wait for their next recording.
Gwyn Parry-Jones
Performers
Coline Richard (flute), Yann Thenet (oboe), Moritz Roelke (clarinet), Gabriel Potier (horn), Jeremy Bager (bassoon)
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