AROUND

PARISMilhaudDebussy

StravinskyBartók

Davide Bandieri clarinet

Gyula Stuller violin

Gerardo Vila piano

At the outbreak of the First World War Igor Stravinsky moved to Switzerland, settling at Morges in the Canton Vaud, on Lac Leman, not far from Denges and Denezy, the two places mentioned at the beginning of L’Histoire du Soldat. Surrounded by friends who included Ansermet, Ramuz and Diaghilev, he stayed there through to 1920, composing some of the most important works in his oeuvre. 1917 proved to be a difficult year: not only did he lose his brother Gury and his elderly housekeeper “Bertuska”, but he also found himself bereft of the income he had relied on from Russia until the Revolution put paid to such privileges. To get back onto his feet financially he began to think about creating a small-scale travelling show involving an orchestra that consisted of just violin, double bass, clarinet, bassoon, cornet, trombone, percussion, three actors and a narrator. He and Ramuz decided on a subject based on stories by Afanas’ev: «There we were seduced by this essentially human side of the tragic story of the soldier who is fated to become the devil’s prey». Under the baton of Ansermet, and with scenes and costumes by the Swiss painter Auberjonois, L’Histoire du Soldat came about thanks to the financial support of Werner Reinhart, an amateur clarinettist to whom Stravinsky dedicated the Trois Pièces pour clarinette seule. Although L’Histoire was not insensitive to the new musical genres that were spreading through Europe, including jazz, the tango, the waltz and ragtime, as a musical idiom it was lean and succinct, with a particular focus on the generative potential of timbre and rhythm. As the composer Boucourechliev declared, it was «almost the archetype of music itself».

With Stravinsky’s characteristic “block” construction, the essence and original spirit of L’Histoire were preserved in the two Suites that derived from it: one for the same septet ensemble (1920), the other for a Trio consisting of violin, clarinet and piano (1919). This latter, which was also dedicated to Reinhart, was performed in Lausanne on 8 November 1919 with José Porta playing the violin, Edmond Allegra the clarinet and José Iturbi at the piano, which contributes to the more objective restraint and concision of the piece.

Around Paris

Darius Milhaud 1892-1974Suite for Violin, Clarinet and Piano Op.157b (1936) 1. I. Ouverture 1’432. II. Divertissement 3’173. III. Jeu 1’464. IV. Introduction et Final 5’25

Claude Debussy 1862-19185. Première Rhapsodie

for Clarinet and Piano (1910) 8’33

Igor Stravinsky 1882-1971Suite from L’histoire du Soldat for Clarinet, Violin and Piano (1919)6. Marche du Soldat 1’407. Le Violon du Soldat 2’418. Petit Concert 3’049. Tango Valse Rag 6’2110. La Danse du Diable 1’28

Claude DebussySonate for Violin and Piano (1917)11. I. Allegro vivo 5’0312. II. Intermède

(Fantasque et léger) 4’2613. III. Finale (Très animé) 4’40

Béla Bartók 1881-1945Contrasts for Violin, Clarinet and Piano (1938)14. I. Verbunkos 6’0215. II. Piheno 4’5116. III. Sebes 7’22

Davide Bandieri clarinet · Gyula Stuller violin · Gerardo Vila piano

While he was working on L’Histoire, on 25 March Stravinsky suffered a further loss, with the death in Paris of Claude Debussy, who had been a close friend. «There is something higher than brute strength; “closing the door” on beauty goes against the grain and destroys the very meaning of life». Thus wrote Debussy to his friend in 1915, confirming his faith in beauty, also as a way of counterbalancing the grief caused by war and the sickness that would shortly have led to his own demise. Such indeed were the circumstances surrounding the composition of the Six Sonates pour divers Instruments. Composées par Claude Debussy, musicien français. The patriotic pride implicit in the subtitle reveals how Debussy used sound to declare his identification with the French tradition, deliberately investing the future of music with a new idiom. This is evident in the Sonata for violin and piano, with its perfect balance of form, volume and sound. The third and last item of an unfinished project, it also occasioned Debussy’s last public appearance, playing with Gaston Poulet on the violin at the Salle Gaveau in Paris on 5 May 1917.

The Première Rhapsodie for clarinet and piano (1909-1910) was written in relation to a competition launched by the Paris Conservatoire, where Debussy was a member of the jury entrusted with judging the clarinettists. The piece was dedicated to P. Mimart, who played it in Paris on 16 January 1911, the year in which Debussy also wrote an orchestral version of the work. The Rhapsodie is Debussy at his most refined, the Debussy of mystery, of sound that comes from nothingness and evokes what is unsaid, of delicate atmospheres and silence, but also of well-defined themes.

For the first performance of L’Histoire du Soldat, the roles of the Devil and the Princess were performed by Georges Pitoëff and his wife, Ludmilla. Of Russian origins, they had trained at the famous Stanislavsky school, later founding in Geneva a theatre that not only performed the great classics within the framework of recent innovations regarding the spatial organization of the stage, but also promoted young contemporary authors. On 16 February 1937 they staged a production of Jean Anouilh’s Le voyageur sans bagages at the Théâtre des Mathurins in Paris, with music

composed by Darius Milhaud. This then became the base for the Suite Op.157b for violin, clarinet and piano, a light, lively and freshly melodious polytonal work featuring the rhythmic solutions derived from Brazilian music (Milhaud had spent time in Brazil with the French ambassador Paul Claudel) that had characterized his compositions of the 1920s, when he was a member of the avant-garde Groupe des Six. The gently weaving thread of the violin and clarinet parts convey Milhaud’s ironic take on the story of a World War I veteran who loses his memory, seeks out his family origins and ultimately discovers himself to have been a cynical man of violent inclinations: a figure he can only reject.

The friendship between the great jazz clarinettist Benny Goodman and the Hungarian violinist Joseph Szigeti grew from their mutual admiration and interest in each other’s musical genres. In 1937 Goodman had recorded Mozart with the Budapest Quartet, and in due course the two commissioned Béla Bartók to compose a work for them. Szigeti wrote to Bartók, who was in Switzerland at the time, suggesting «a duo for clarinet and violin with piano accompaniment that lasts for 6-7 minutes, possibly in two parts, with a brilliant cadenza for the clarinet and for the violin». Composed in little more than a month, the two movements of Rhapsody – Two Dances were performed in New York on 9 January 1939 by Szigeti and Goodman, with Endre Petri at the piano. Bartók actually felt the work called for a third movement to create the right formal balance, and the outcome was Piheno, a typical example of his “nocturne music”, which he wrote at the same time as the other two, but only added later. Dedicated to Szigeti and Goodman, what ultimately came to be known as Contrasts was recorded in 1940, with Bartók at the piano. To some extent the two movements in slow-fast time hark back to the past: Verbunkos (an 18th century Hungarian conscription dance) and Sebes, the central section of which features a Bulgarian rhythm, and the violin entry in modified tuning. Contrasts nevertheless steers clear of folk music, instead achieving complete maturity through stylization and abstraction.© Donatella MeneghiniTranslation by Kate Singleton

L’Histoire du soldat in MorgesEven though it was composed in Morges, L’Histoire du soldat has been rarely performed there from its creation until today.

It is only in the last two decades that the remarkable productions of the Compagnie Dimitri and then the Teatro Malandro have been welcomed on the stage of the Théâtre de Beausobre.

In 2008 at the Théâtre Trois P’tits Tours, a new version came to being under the musical direction of Gyula Stuller and in a staging by Yvan Schwab.

Julie Chapallaz’s original scenography provides for placement of the orchestra on stage, visible to the public, in a circus-like atmosphere, with the performers following one another as if in a series of acts. The success was immense and the show was repeated the following season, with a final total of nearly 3,000 spectators.

Simultaneously with this production, the Alexis Forel Museum in Morges presents an exhibition devoted to remarkable examples of the staging of the show throughout the 20th century. The programme for this CD was recorded in the same historical venue, just 300 metres from the house where Igor Stravinsky stayed when he composed the work.

This, of course, lends a particular cachet to this suite, which is expected to be frequently performed in Morges for a long time to come.© Yvan Schwabb

Davide Bandieri was born in Florence in 1979 and graduated in clarinet in 1997 from the Istituto Superiore di Studi Musicali Pietro Mascagni in Livorno under the direction of Dario Goracci. He then specialized with Fabrizio Meloni and Karl Heinz Steffens, as well as attending courses held by Alessandro Carbonare at the Mythos Academy of the Arturo Toscanini Foundation. In 2002, he achieved his Masters degree in chamber music at the Accademia Incontri col Maestro in Imola under Pier Narciso Masi.

In 2012 he was appointed first solo clarinet in the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra. From 2004 to 2011, he was first piccolo clarinet in the Madrid Symphony Orchestra (the Teatro Real resident orchestra).

He has collaborated with the Lucerne Festival Orchestra, the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, the Orchestra Nazionale della RAI, the Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, the Orchestra della Toscana and the Orchestra del Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, playing under the baton of conductors such as Claudio Abbado, Riccardo Muti, Daniel Harding, Giuseppe Sinopoli, Kent Nagano, Gianluigi Gelmetti, Bruno Bartoletti, Roberto Abbado, Lu Jia, Myung-Wung Chung, Pinchas Steinberg and Tugan Sohiev. He also plays first clarinet with the Camerata Strumentale di Prato.

Gyula Stuller obtained his Diplomas in Budapest at the Franz Liszt Academy in the class of Ferenc Halász and in London at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in the class of Gyorgy Pauk. He also attended various master classes held by Nathan Milsein, Lóránt Fenyves and Sándor Végh.

He has won awards in several international violin competitions, including the Joseph Szigeti in Budapest and the Rodolfo Lipizer International Violin Competition in Gorizia, Italy. In 1986 he won first prize in the Tibor Varga International Violin Competition in Sion, Switzerland.

In 1986 he also began teaching as assistant to Tibor Varga.

In 1990 he was appointed Concertmaster of the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra. Since 1997 he has held the post of professor in Fribourg Conservatoire and in 2002 he also took up a similar position at the Tibor Varga Conservatoire in Sion, Switzerland. Since 2011 he has been head of the String Faculty at the “HEMU” in Lausanne, Switzerland, where a number of his students have been awarded prizes at international violin competitions, later holding posts in some of the most prestigious orchestras in Europe.

He gives master classes in Switzerland, at the International Summer Academy Biel and the Academy Tibor Varga Sion, as well as in Hungary, France, Japan and Italy. He was artistic director of the International Festival “Académie Musicale de Morges” in Switzerland between 2007 and 2014.

He has performed as a soloist with many prestigious orchestras throughout Europe and Japan. He is also very active in the field of chamber music.

Davide Bandieri has performed as soloist in Introduzione, Tema e Variazioni by Rossini, the Busoni Concertino, Concerto by Antonio Anichini, the Concertino by Luciano Berio and Schubert’s Totus in corde lanqueo, under A. Pinzauti, J. Webb, B. Ungrangsee, D. Dini Ciacci and K.H. Steffens.

In 2002, he won the Selmer Paris First Tremplin Jeunes, culminating in an appearance at the Atrium Magne in Paris and at the 2003 Salt Lake City University ClarinetFest.

He has also pursued a busy career in chamber music, performing at the Lucerne KKL (Lucerne Festival Orchestra), at the Teatro Coliseo in Buenos Aires (Camerata Strumentale soloists), at the Teatro dell’Opera in Rome, at the Teatro Real in Madrid (Madrid Symphony Orchestra soloists) and for the Amici della Musica in Florence (Camerata Strumentale soloists).

In 1998 he founded the Duo Prevert with pianist Luca Torrigiani, with whom he has won numerous prizes in national and international chamber music competitions (Racconigi, Pietra Ligure, Concorso Luigi Nono, Pinerolo).

Actively involved in contemporary music, he has commissioned and premiered works by composers such as Antonio Anichini, Massimo Botter, Willy Merz, Eduardo Morales-Caso, Ailem Carvajal Gómez, Ileana Pérez Velázquez, Luis Cosme González, Luigi Abbate and Gianluca Cascioli.

Since 2008 he has devoted much time and effort to the COLLECTION DAVIDE BANDIERI project, a set of scores for piccolo clarinet published by PeriferiaMusic consisting of new works commissioned and premiered to promote the musical literature for this instrument.

Born in Buenos Aires, Gerardo Vila began his musical studies at an early age and studied at the Conservatorio Nacional de Música Carlos López Buchardo.

Following a number of first prizes in piano competitions, he was selected by Maria Tipo to study with her at the Geneva Conservatoire, where he received the Premier Prix de Virtuosité avec distinction.

He also attended master classes with Karl Engel, Maurizio Pollini, György Sandor, Luiz de Moura Castro and Tatjana Nikolajewa. He has performed as a soloist with various orchestras, including the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, Dresden Philharmonic Orchestra and the Berner Symphonieorchester, taking part in the Lucerne, Gstaad, Cannes, Bratislava and Lisbon festivals.

He has won awards in various international piano competitions, including First Prize 1989 «Maria Canals» in Barcelona.

Since 2012 he has been a member of the group I Salonisti. In addition to his international concert career, Vila teaches chamber music at the

Haute Ecole de Musique de Genève – Neuchâtel.

Recording: 4-8 March 2019, Salle Renaissance of Musée Alexis Forel of Morges, SwitzerlandArtistic Producer: Tibor AlpárSound engineer: Zoltán LászlóTuner Technician: Francis MorinArtists’ photos: by Maurizio Rastrelli (Bandieri), by Pierre Marti (Vila), © Gyula Stuller (Stuller)Cover: Boulevard Montmartre, Spring (1897) by Camille Pissaro (1830-1903)p & © 2021 Brilliant Classics