A delectable record for anyone with Gallic tastes, though the styles of the seven works here are as diverse as they could be; and the performances are all that anyone could ask, characterized by clarity, tonal quality, precise ensemble, sensitivity and—when needed—vivacity. The most considerable work here, apart from Poulenc's Elegie on the death of Dennis Brain, which laces its broad threnody with an occasional flicker of the Puckish humour characteristic of that great player, is Milhaud's Sonata for wind trio and piano. Written in 1918 in uncompromising polytonality, it begins enchantingly in a pastoral vein which, however, is overtaken by menace, and ends in a dirge (occasioned by the wave of deaths from an epidemic of Spanish flu in Rio); between these movements come two others, one with a lively chaos of conflicting keys and rhythms, the other with a frenzy of violently dissonant warring voices. The other work for this combination is the Saint-Saens, an agreeable lightweight confection with a showy piano part: I'm told that its Danish and Russian airs (the third of which is treated fugally) are unauthentic, but what does that matter? The piece was written during a Russian tour as a discreet compliment to Alexander III's Empress, who was Danish by birth.
For wind quartet and piano there are three portraits by Francaix in his usual flippant but brilliantly crafted idiom—of languishing and tottering ''vieux beaux'' with their chatter, ''pin-up girls'' with their empty-headed posing and giggling, and flighty, swaggering ''petits neveux''. The remaining three works are for wind quintet and piano: Tansman's pungent dance from an unfinished ballet; two transcriptions from an early Suite (for trumpet, two flutes and string quartet) by d'Indy—a melancholy Sarabande with expressive counterpoint and a surprisingly chirpy Minuet with a Trio permeated by an ostinato of two notes from the start of the Minuet itself; and (to my mind the most enjoyable work here) Roussel's Divertissement, which alternates between two moods—sprightly (and how infectious the playing of this is here!) and quietly seductive.'