CONCERT PROGRAMMEMaurice Ravel (1875-1937): Pavane pour une infante defunte (transcr. David Walter)Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791): Quintet in E flat major for piano, clarinet, oboe, horn and bassoon, K. 452Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827): Quintet in E flat major for piano, clarinet, oboe, horn and bassoon, opus 16Francis Poulenc (1899-1963): Sextet for piano, flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon and horn, opus 10Traditionally Paris is the city with the best wind players in the world. When the best of the best get together in a quintet, it is time to prick up one’s ears. And we are really talking about the very best:Herve Joulain: 1st solo hornist in Filarmonica Toscanini de ParmeVincent Lucas: 1st solo flutist in Orchestre de ParisOlivier Doise: 1st solo oboist in Opera de ParisPatrick Messina: 1st solo clarinettist in Orchestre National de FrancePhilippe Hanont: 1st solo bassoonist in Orchestre National de FranceAccompanied by Miklos Schön, a concert pianist based in Paris but sedulously touring all over the world, the quintet will offer a unique experience for lovers of wind and expansive chamber music.In a letter to his father Mozart wrote that he himself found the quintet for piano and wind from 1784 the best he had written in his life. He certainly explores the tonal possibilities equilibristically in this piece where the differences in the various wind instruments’ timbre make the thematic imitations and alterations extra fascinating. Nobody surpasses Mozart in endowing the instruments’ playing with each other with such simultaneous lightness and variation. Notice how the falling notes in the fast part of the first movement move from instrument to instrument in ever closer imitations. The horn runs with the theme in the very end.12 years later the piece inspired Beethoven to write for the same ensemble and in the same key. The quintet is an example of Beethoven’s unveiled admiration of Mozart, and shows a young composer capable of using a format from his great idol and inspiration yet filling it with his own original contents. It is “Mozartian” and yet unmistakably Beethoven: Monumental with unisonous theme presentations, full of contrasts with sudden shifts between light, bright trills in the piano and pronounced octaves in the horn.Poulenc was one of “The Six”, a group of Parisian composers who tried to dissociate themselves both from bombastic romanticism and airy impressionism at the beginning of the 20th century. Poulenc’s fabulous sextet finishes the concert with an ironic mix of jazz inspirations, neoclassic and modern 20th century tones. It is a music that can conjure up vivid images, and with its curious caprices, fantasizing polyphony and melting melodies would make a stand against any Hollywood composer. Except, of course, that this music is unmistakably French.