Eugène Bozza: Trois Pièces Pour Une Musique de Nuit (1954)

00:00 - I. Andantino
01:45 - II. Allegro vivo
04:30 - III. Moderato
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Bassoon: Ashley Myall
Clarinet: Nadia Wilson
Flute: Julia Groves
Oboe: Fiona Joyce Myall
Year of Recording: 2019
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"Trois pieces pour une musique de nuit is a prime example of what the composer Eugene Bozza is most well known for: engaging, exciting, and masterfully written chamber music, especially for wind instruments. A French composer who studied both in Paris and for a time in Italy, Bozza was an accomplished conductor and educator as well. Along with hundreds of published scores, he wrote many etudes and books on music. He had a gift for composing idiomatically for each instrument used in any given score, so that the music is not only enjoyable for musicians to perform but also rehearse. His style of melody and harmony is accessible to a wide variety of audiences without being simplistic. All of these qualities make him a mainstay in chamber music performances and on chamber music recordings.

Bozza, born in 1905, wrote much of his music in the interwar years in France. The Neoclassical sounds of the day can be heard in his music, both in the pitch and harmonic content as well as the formal structures. While contemporaries such as Milhaud and Stravinsky are more well known for their large symphonic orchestrations in this style, Bozza remains a well known master of its application in chamber music. We can hear the impact of turn-of-the-century French compositional styles as well, with colorful chromaticism and impressionistic chord progressions used in captivating and playful ways. The quartet Trois pièces pour une musique de nuit, a small but demanding trio of movements for flute, oboe, clarinet, and bassoon, gives us a wonderful window into much of what makes Bozza’s chamber music so memorable. The andantino begins with a flute melody that weaves up and down across its register, with surprising chromaticism thrown in to keep us guessing. The other three winds establish a somewhat mysterious harmonic setting that would be at home with Ravel and early Debussy. As the movement progresses, melodic ideas a traded throughout the ensemble until we arrive at a comfortable, unambiguous G-major chord - the parallel major key of the g-minor tonality in which we began. As soon as we arrive at the final cadence of the first movement, we’re quickly off again with the second movement, an allegro vivo in 3/8 time.

Staccato repetitions and dancelike phrases, anchored by a well-written bass line in the bassoon, move quickly around the four instruments in a minor mode, with chromatic interjections and unexpected harmonic shifts that keep us guessing as to where this playful and somewhat mischievous music is headed. A major key middle section that introduces us to a new character of the music uses syncopated accents to upend the rhythmic feel of the meter, before returning to the opening motives once again in the final third of the movement. The final movement, a moderato, opens with bassoon and clarinet in octaves playing a solemn modal melody. This is quickly harmonized in minor key music with exquisitely written counterpoint throughout the quartet. This movement is a clear example of the Neoclassical influence of the time on Bozza’s work: familiar harmonic cadences and contrapuntal writing are intertwined with engaging chromatic pitch content and unexpected voice-leading. Soon the modal melodic motives are played in higher registers by the flute and oboe over a drone on the pitch A supplied by clarinet and bassoon, taking us further back before the new classical and into a new renaissance sound. The movement culminates with each instrument arriving at a final a-minor cadence together." (Bryan Kurt Kostors)
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