Ravel, Couperin, Debussy / Calefax Reed Quintet

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DEBUSSY Children’s Corner (arr. Raaf Hekkema). 6 Épigraphes antiques (arr. Eduard Wesly). COUPERIN/RAVEL (arr. Alvan Wesly) Forlane. RAVEL (arr. Raaf Hekkema) Le tombeau de Couperin • Calefax Reed Qnt • MDG 619 0658 (58:42)


It takes a considerable amount of moxie to re-arrange Ravel’s masterfully scored Le tombeau de Couperin. The Netherlands-based Calefax Reed Quintet?Eduard Wesly, oboe and oboe d’amore; Ivar Berix, clarinet; Raaf Hekkema, saxophone; Jelte Althuis, bass clarinet; Alban Wesly, bassoon?has that characteristic in droves and indeed gets away with it. This ensemble differs from the traditional wind quintet by its substitution of the saxophone for the horn and the use of both clarinet and bass clarinet. The resulting homogeneity of sound and timbral color is both striking and illuminating. As a further claim of legitimacy for their version of Ravel’s Tombeau , they include the fugue and toccata movements from the piano original which Ravel chose not to score, and, as a bonus track, Ravel’s Forlane , which was an early study for the finished Le tombeau de Couperin.


The two Debussy works are less liable to suffer critical brickbats for being mere transcriptions of perfectly stunning originals. In point of fact, Debussy never scored Children’s Corner . That was done by André Caplet, one of Debussy’s protégés, and Six Épigraphes antiques is Debussy’s own 1914 rescoring for piano four hands of his Chansons de Bilitis originally composed in 1900 for reciter, flute, harps, and celeste (the celeste part has been lost, or it never existed because Debussy improvised it on the spot). It is amazing how little orchestration Debussy, a proven master of that art as evidenced in Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, Nocturnes, La Mer, Images pour Orchestre , and Jeux, actually did. La boite à joujoux was scored by Caplet; Raposodie pour orchestre et saxophone solo by Jean Roger Ducasse; Petite Suite by Henri Büsser; and Khamma by Charles Koechlin—and so it goes.


As far as I’m concerned, these two Debussy pieces are up for grabs, and the Calefax Reed Quintet, indeed, grabs them well.


As to this ensemble’s performances, my library contains literally dozens of recordings of all the works on this release, either in their original guises or later scorings. Blow by blow citations of how this or that passage has been handled by this or that performer or group is beside the point and could inflate this review to five times over its current length. Suffice it to say that the Calefax Reed Quintet represents the highest international level of wind-playing, that they approach these scores with an infectious combination of youthful impetuousness and longing, naiveté and sophistication, and that they are in league with the finest practitioners of French repertoire past and present. Add to this that the sound is so clean, vivid, and well balanced that one can almost taste the timbres, and—well . . .


FANFARE: William Zagorski


Product Description:

  • Release Date: January 01, 1996


  • Catalog Number: 6190658-2


  • UPC: 760623065823


  • Label: MDG


  • Number of Discs: 1


  • Composer: Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel


  • Orchestra/Ensemble: Calefax Reed Ensemble