About Me
Charles Koechlin.
Les Chants de Nectaire Opp. 198-200.by Marc Lerique.For our generation of grandchildren of Charles Koechlin, Les Chants de Nectaire have long remained merely a title. For almost 50 years, we have heard them talked about occasionally, like the other unpublished works, so that they became for us merely words heard from our parents, our uncles and aunts, and some renowned musicologists. Enthusiastic as their evocations were, they fell far short in preparing me for the most profound impression that enveloped me when I had the chance to hear them for the first time on 19 November 1995.
That afternoon, Leendert de Jonge played all three sets of [32] pieces (a world premiere of the complete cycle) before a small audience in an ancient chapel at the edge of a wood, in the heart of the Netherlands. There, little by little, after the initial secret enthusiasm felt at the re-emergence of a work by my grandfather, time became progressively expanded, space gradually disappeared, the day melted by degrees into a limitless halo, and the free and limpid music of the solo flute carried me away on the wonderful curved threads of its long, supple phrases, towards distant lands bathed in antique perfumes and delicate colours that evoked the strange titles brought together by the far-ranging imagination and exotic curiosity of Charles Koechlin.
In July 1996, Leendert de Jonge made these 96 exceptional pieces live again during a Festival that reunited most of Charles Koechlin's descendants. The house where we found ourselves was situated in a village, and certain neighbourhood sounds managed to enter the room where Leendert was playing. However, his interpretation was, as on each occasion, so intensely expressive and so much in tune with the true freshness of each piece that the world around vanished as subtly as on the first occasion, taking with it its echoes of real life. Each one of us could then venture along the secret paths and byways already explored by the rebellious angels of Anatole France since Nectaire, the gardener, welcomed them into the lower room of his little house, in the woods of Montmorency:
Against the lime-washed wall, on a deal shelf, among the bulbs and seeds, lay a flute, ready for his lips. On a round walnut table lay a stoneware tobacco jar, a pipe, a wine bottle and some glasses. The gardener offered a wicker chair to each of his guests and seated himself on a stool near the table.…The gardener offered his guests wine. And, when they had drunk and exchanged remarks, Zita said to Nectaire:"I beg you to play to us on the flute. You will give pleasure to the friend I have brought to see you."The old man immediately agreed. He brought to his lips a wooden tube so thick and crude that it seemed to have been made by the gardener himself, and began with several strange phrases. Then he developed rich melodies in which the trills shone like diamonds and pearls on velvet. Beneath his skilful fingers, and inspired by the breath of creation, the rustic instrument sounded like a silver flute. It produced no shrill notes: the timbre was always equal and pure. One believed one was hearing the nightingale and the Muses at the same time, all the forces of nature and man combined. And the old man presented, ordered, and developed his ideas in a musical discourse full of grace and daring. He spoke of Love [Op. 198 no. 16], Fear [no. 22], pointless Quarrels [no. 10], the winning Laugh [no. 8], the tranquil enlightenments of the Intellect [nos. 4, 6], the arrows of the Spirit piercing the ogres of Ignorance and Hatred with their golden tips [no. 7]. He spoke also of Joy [nos. 9, 25, 31] and Grief [nos. 12, 18, 32] inclining their twin heads towards the earth, and of the Desire which creates worlds [no. 26].
(from Anatole France: La Révolte des Anges, ch. 14)This recording, patiently brought to perfection by Leendert de Jonge, over more than two years, does indeed invite us on a miraculously intimate series of unexpected and renewed journeys. At each stage, we can regain the expansive atmosphere of boundless peace, however foreign it might have been to that Spring of 1944 when Nectaire's Songs were composed.
'The spirit of my work (and that of my whole life) is above all a spirit of liberty,' Charles Koechlin said. Take the time to savour this liberty here in the rhythm of these monodies that can lead us to discover a new dimension in each change of direction during the musical voyage.© 31 July 1997
(translated by Robert Orledge, 8 May 2005)
