{"id":27030,"date":"2025-03-25T14:08:06","date_gmt":"2025-03-25T14:08:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ensemble.cymru\/?page_id=27030"},"modified":"2025-05-08T14:40:28","modified_gmt":"2025-05-08T14:40:28","slug":"programme-notes-may-2025","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/ensemble.cymru\/en\/discover-chamber-music\/programme-notes-may-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"The Invention of the Reed Trio"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

by Jonathan Lyness<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the First World War, when Margaret and Gwendoline Davies were back from France and were busy setting up Gregynog Hall as a flourishing centre for the performing arts, whilst Margaret was busy hanging up French paintings collected during the sisters\u2019 European travels before the war, whilst Gwendoline was busy arranging musical services, choral concerts and chamber music soirees and playing her beautiful organ in Gregynog\u2019s Music Room, something strange was happening over in France. The Reed Trio was being invented! It was an entirely French idea and followed, not hot on the heels, but about a century after the earlier invention of the Wind Quintet. I suppose it was inevitable that someone should have thought of it. Eventually!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Ange Fle\u0301gier, the father of the Reed Trio<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It was actually the French composer and painter Ange Fl\u00e9gier who thought of it. Today, the name Fl\u00e9gier is almost entirely forgotten, but in 1896, after trying his hand with various combinations of wind instruments, he wrote a Trio for Oboe, Clarinet and Bassoon, the first known work of this type. Some thirty years later, in 1920s Paris, the first professional Reed Trio emerged \u2013 the \u2018Trio d\u2019Anches de Paris\u2019 \u2013 consisting of oboist Myrtile Morel, clarinettist Pierre Lef\u00e8bvre and bassoonist Fernand Oubradous. There followed, immediately, a rival French trio \u2013 the \u2018Trio d\u2019Anches Ren\u00e9 Daraux\u2019. Competition was fierce (!) as both trios fought to secure the best commissions from France\u2019s top composers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The result is a hundred years of amazing works for this instrumental grouping. This month\u2019s pair of concerts, part of Ensemble Cymru\u2019s Music Room Series, feature the EC\u2019s very own in-house Reed Trio \u2013 oboist Huw Clement-Evans, clarinettist Chrisopher Goodman and bassoonist Alanna Pennar-Macfarlane. They perform two French works from the mid 1930s, at a time when the Music Festival at Gregynog was at its height, and Reed Trio fervour in France was frankly out of control! Jacques Ibert composed his Cinq Pi\u00e8ces<\/strong> in 1935, and Darius Milhaud created his 1937 Suite d\u2019apr\u00e8s Corrette <\/strong>using his own incidental music for a Parisian production of Romeo and Juliet<\/em>. Both works employ a neo-classical style, a popular trait in France (think Ravel\u2019s famous Le Tombeau de Couperin<\/em>); both works have multiple short movements (some lasting less than a minute) ranging from sprightly dances to reflective andantes; and both works feature a cuckoo!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Reed Trio never really took off in c20th Britain, but the eminent English composer Gordon Jacob wrote one. Gordon Jacob, Darius Milhaud and Jacques Ibert were almost exact contemporaries, though Jacob\u2019s Trio<\/strong> probably arrived later (its date is unknown). Like its French predecessors it has a jovial, dance-like feel with a harking back to earlier styles. The British composer Cecilia McDowall, born 1951 and still very much with us, composed her Century Dances<\/strong> in 2005. With them she looks back over time from the c18th to the present day, with dances to represent every age \u2013 a baroque Allemande, a Menuet, a Polish Mazurka and a Tango to finish!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Musicians<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Christopher Goodman \u2013 clarinet
Huw Clement-Evans \u2013 oboe
Alanna Pennar-Macfarlane \u2013 bassoon<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Programme<\/h2>\n\n\n\n