The American Première of Françaix's Historiettes

My good friend Mary Dibbern is in Cincinnati for the 2008 edition of the Grandin Festival, which is a program of vocal chamber music. Mary is doing the American première (on Tuesday, August 26th at the Robert J Werner Recital Hall at the CCM of the University of Cincinnati) of Jean Françaix's "Neuf Historiettes de Tallemant des Réaux", which he wrote for me...and by pure hazard ended up being his last completed work.

I worked with Françaix on several works, including the version for Saxophone of "L'Horloge de Flore", which we performed in Reims (there is a wonderful recording of this concert which will be released: it's the only time that Françaix himself conducted this work for a recording), the chamber opera "L'Apostrophe" and several other works. I had initially asked Françaix for a set of humorous "Cabaret"-style songs (the saxophone being very well suited for this type of exercise), but he wasn't that interested in this idea. So I asked him to search for something which he wanted to set. He himself chose the instrumentation of Baritone voice, Tenor Saxophone and Piano.

The texts by Tallémant des Réaux had a special appeal for him: when he was a child, this collection of earthy, gossipy stories about people at the Courts of Henri IV, Louis XIII and Louis XIV was a book that his parents had forbidden him to read. Of course, he told me that he would sneak into his parent's library when they were away and read the book in secret. So, in many respects, this work is a sort of return to his childhood in Le Mans and memories of that time, as well as an homage to French writing of the XVIII century.

This is evident by some of the musical quotations that Françaix uses to illustrate these salacious stories: the French cantique "Au ciel, Au ciel, Au ciel, je vais allez un jour" at the end of "Une antique pucelle...de Carnaval", the quotation from the Overture to "Die Fledermaus", the citation from "Le Sacre" which marks the fortissimo interjection of the saxophone to illustrate the firecracker during "Monsieur de Caze" are all examples of Françaix's own musical universe. Other musical illustrations include the braying of the Donkey during "Le Bon Roi Henri IVème...", the obvious "breaking of wind" during the passage about the deaf marquis and some obvious fumbling of clothes during "Monsieur de la Fontaine et La Jeune Abbese".

It is quite clear to me that Françaix enjoyed writing this work and thought highly of it. One of my last memories of him before he fell ill and died was a rehearsal with the performers at the première: Philippe de Gaetz, Baritone, Moyuru Maeda piano and myself (Paul Wehage), saxophone. Françaix sat with a score in his favorite armchair, occasionally giving corrections or indications, but obviously amused by the wit of his work. It turned out to be his last pirouette (and in spite of the texts about dying, according to Muriel Bellier, it was she who selected the texts, not Françaix himelf, so this was purely coincidental...), but one that he clearly enjoyed!

Good luck to my colleagues in Cincinnati in the American première of this work. Above all, enjoy yourselves! That's what Françaix would have wanted!