Leclair String Sonatas
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Jean-Marie Leclair
Label: Chaconne
Magazine Review Date: 7/1993
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 76
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: CHAN0536
Tracks:
| Composition | Artist Credit |
|---|---|
| Sonates en trio |
Jean-Marie Leclair, Composer
Jean-Marie Leclair, Composer Purcell Qt |
Author:
Hats off to the Purcell Quartet for introducing to us the Op. 4 Trio Sonatas (1731-3) of Jean-Marie Leclair l'aine (1697-1764). These must be the finest French examples of their genre after Couperin's Les Nations (published in 1726) and represent not only another step in the integration of the Italian style into French music (called by Couperin ''les gouts-reunis'') but a bridge between baroque and classical musical textures. They are composed with panache and aplomb, exhibiting a rich imagination, vitality and wit.
Leclair acquired, through his teacher Somis in Turin, a command of the form and idiom of the Corellian tradition; to it he wedded French period phrasing, rhetoric and dance rhythms. After experimenting in Op. 2 (No. 5) with the older French trio texture of violin, viola da gamba and continuo, he adopted the Corellian disposition of two violins and continuo, but he adjusted the relationship between the violins, giving the first greater prominence; the second violin plays several roles––the traditional ones of imitation and the lower part in homophonic passages, and the more modern one of enriching the texture by unobtrusively filling in the register between first violin and bass.
The Purcell Quartet bring off all of these stylistic elements with their usual spiritedness and precision. They have the knack of choosing just the right tempo and a rare ability to avoid cliche. They have chosen to record these works with Richard Boothby playing the bass viol, presumably because Leclair is known to have performed them with the violinist Guignon (whom he met in Turin) and the viol player J-B. Forqueray. The combination of two violins and bass viol also may be seen to represent a stage in the transition outlined above, but to my ear a cello would better have matched. As for Leclair's suggestion (mentioned by Lucy Robinson in her note) that these works could be performed on viols, he was probably referring to pardessus de violes, which were popular with the aristocratic players, who might be tempted with this encouragement to acquire his music. Catherine Mackintosh and Catherine Weiss blend the tone of their violins so well and play with such a variety of bow strokes that it is hard to imagine the refined and retiring pardessus ever bringing the music better to life.
Each sonata is differently weighted with regard to old and new styles, and French and Italian elements. Sonata No. 1 pays particular homage to Corelli with its chains of suspensions, its solo violin transition between movements and its three-part fugal writing, yet the first movement begins with a continuo introduction of a kind common in the earlier French sonata and cantata. The Allegro ma non troppo of No. 2 is particularly progressive in terms of ensemble texture and is followed by a Largo replete with sighing figures and trills. The organ-like suspensions of the opening Adagio of No. 3 are contrasted with a triple-time Aria, sounding more French than Italian.
My own favourite is No. 4 with a delicate filigree of ornamentation created by the two violins in the Aria (hardly surprising, you may say, from the son of a lacemaker) and its virtuoso, syncopated Presto. The Andante of No. 5 is really a dialogue of trills and even ends on a trilled dominant. In a sense, No. 6 contains all of these facets of Leclair's technique—suspension (propelled by a dotted bass), fugal writing, gracious elegance and virtuoso bariolage.
These are trio sonatas that will delight lovers of eighteenth-century chamber music, especially when so tastefully performed as here.'
Leclair acquired, through his teacher Somis in Turin, a command of the form and idiom of the Corellian tradition; to it he wedded French period phrasing, rhetoric and dance rhythms. After experimenting in Op. 2 (No. 5) with the older French trio texture of violin, viola da gamba and continuo, he adopted the Corellian disposition of two violins and continuo, but he adjusted the relationship between the violins, giving the first greater prominence; the second violin plays several roles––the traditional ones of imitation and the lower part in homophonic passages, and the more modern one of enriching the texture by unobtrusively filling in the register between first violin and bass.
The Purcell Quartet bring off all of these stylistic elements with their usual spiritedness and precision. They have the knack of choosing just the right tempo and a rare ability to avoid cliche. They have chosen to record these works with Richard Boothby playing the bass viol, presumably because Leclair is known to have performed them with the violinist Guignon (whom he met in Turin) and the viol player J-B. Forqueray. The combination of two violins and bass viol also may be seen to represent a stage in the transition outlined above, but to my ear a cello would better have matched. As for Leclair's suggestion (mentioned by Lucy Robinson in her note) that these works could be performed on viols, he was probably referring to pardessus de violes, which were popular with the aristocratic players, who might be tempted with this encouragement to acquire his music. Catherine Mackintosh and Catherine Weiss blend the tone of their violins so well and play with such a variety of bow strokes that it is hard to imagine the refined and retiring pardessus ever bringing the music better to life.
Each sonata is differently weighted with regard to old and new styles, and French and Italian elements. Sonata No. 1 pays particular homage to Corelli with its chains of suspensions, its solo violin transition between movements and its three-part fugal writing, yet the first movement begins with a continuo introduction of a kind common in the earlier French sonata and cantata. The Allegro ma non troppo of No. 2 is particularly progressive in terms of ensemble texture and is followed by a Largo replete with sighing figures and trills. The organ-like suspensions of the opening Adagio of No. 3 are contrasted with a triple-time Aria, sounding more French than Italian.
My own favourite is No. 4 with a delicate filigree of ornamentation created by the two violins in the Aria (hardly surprising, you may say, from the son of a lacemaker) and its virtuoso, syncopated Presto. The Andante of No. 5 is really a dialogue of trills and even ends on a trilled dominant. In a sense, No. 6 contains all of these facets of Leclair's technique—suspension (propelled by a dotted bass), fugal writing, gracious elegance and virtuoso bariolage.
These are trio sonatas that will delight lovers of eighteenth-century chamber music, especially when so tastefully performed as here.'
Leclair String Sonatas
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