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If music, like wine, is evaluated in terms of vintages, then 1927 was a very good yearfor the trio d'anches, or reed trio, typically comprised of an oboe, a clarinet and a bas-soon. 1927 heralded the creation in Paris of an elite ensemble with three of the city'smost eminent players: oboist Myrtil Morel, clarinetist Pierre Lefebvre and the group'sfounder, bassoonist Fernand Oubradous. Also that year and in the same city, Max Eschigpublished Heitor Villa-Lobos' daring Trio pour hautbois, clarinettt et basson, and inPrague the radically eclectic Ervin Schulhoff completed his Divertissement for the sameinstrumental combination.

Oubradous. Morel and Lefebvre were members of the Societ€ des instruments d vent, anorganization founded in 1879 by the flutist Paul Taffanel. The society was dedicated toraising the stature of woodwind chamber music performance, and was responsible forcommissioning some of the greatest works for winds from the late I9th and early 20thcenturies. According to the program booklet written for the twentieth anniversary con-cert of Oubradous'group, the decision to form a wind trio rather than the more standardwind quintet stemmed from the musicians' belief that the flute and horn did not blendwell with the oboe, and that these three winds formed a more perfect blend, a "parJaitehomogeneirc." No matter what the combination, the players in the Soci€t€ were some ofthe most respected musicians in Paris, and performances by this group were given morethan average attention in the city.

It was certainly more than an average evening of music when just a few years earlier in1924, members of the Soci6t6 presented the European premieres of several works by theBrazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos. On April 9 at the Salle des Agriculteurs, Villa-Lobos unleashed upon the Parisian public some of his wildest compositions to date,including his Trio, composed in Rio in 1921. He was immediately adopted into the innercircle of the city's most important composers, and was soon exchanging ideas and shar-ing concert stages with Florent Schmitt, Arthur Honegger, Maurice Ravel Edgard Varese,and above all, Igor Stravinsky.

It is wlth Stravinsky's "primitive period" music that. Villa-Lobos' Trio is most oftencompared, but the resemblance is superficial at best. While both composers affordedrhythm equal status with melody and harmony, Viila-Lobos' layering of ostinati, folk-inspired rhythms and dissonant harmonies could never be mistaken for Stravinsky's farmore calculated and compact conslructions. For instance, Stravinsky would never allowa rhythmic pattern to dominate a passage as long as Villa-Lobos does in the trio's firstmovement, wherein the bassoon repeatedly croaks out a loud low C over the course ofnearly two pages of music. Yet the audacity of such a lengthy pounding of this rhythm,set beneath a hypnotic five-note oboe chant and a whirling clarinet solo isjust one exam-ple among many of the trio's exoticisms that so impressed the Parisians.

Ihe Czech composer Ervin Schulhoffwas also in Paris in1927, and he too attended con-certs by members of the Soci6t6. He was reportedly so impressed by these musicians thathe composed his Divertissement for reed trio upon his return to Prague. It is strange thathe had to go to Paris to notice great wind piaying, as for over two centuries Prague hadboasted some of the most renowned wind players in Europe. In the Baroque era, theBohemian Jan Dismas Zelenka demanded unparalleled levels of double reed technique inhis six trio sonatas for two oboes and bassoon. A century later, Franz Krommer's manyworks for harmonie ensemble rivaled the octets of Mozart and Haydn in both technical displayand melodic invention, and in the l9th century Antonin Dvorilk gave woodwind playersone of the cornerstones of their repertory when he composed his Serenade in d minor.

As with the Villa-Lobos trio, Schulhofls quirky suite is full of his own brand of exoti-ca. He evokes the southern United States in the movements Charleston arrd. Florida, avaudeville farce in theBurlesca, musical academia in the stiflingly contrapuntal Ouyeftireand Tema con Variazioni, and even the Eastern European countryside in the Mahleriancharm of the Romanzero and the frantic folk dance of the Rondino-Finale.

The city of Paris, its wind players and once again Igor Stravinsky proved fertilesources of inspiration for another expatriate composer, the Polish-born Alexandre

Tansman. In 1948, Tansman completed one of rhe first biographies ol Stravinsky, andhis Snite pour trio d'anches of I949 proves he had more than a passing familiariry notonly with the composer's life but also with his slgnature sryle. His suite is more iikean intrlcate rhythmical mosaic than Vllla-Lobos' fauve trio, and is more derivative ofthe Neo-Classic Stravinsky than the Primitive. Tansman's use of ostinati momentarilythrows the listener off balance even as the fragments quickly work themselves intofoursquare patterns. Another direct nod to Stravlnsky appears in the Schrrlino, inwhrch Tansman quoLes the berceuse from L'Oiseau de Feu: not as a lullaby and not inthe oboe, bur rather in a high, raucous clarinet line. The Dialogue and Aria move-ments demonstrate that Tansman had equal facility in writing music of quiet compo-sure and deep beauty.

Of atl the works on the present disc, it is the music of a native Frenchman that resonatesmost wilh rvind players to this day. Rustiques byJoseph Canteloube may appear to someas a simple pastiche of French folk tunes, but an investigation of the circumstancesbehind its composition unveils a work of greater depth, especially ftlr French listeners.Known primarily for his Chants d'Auvergne, Canteloube again mined o1d French chan-sons and traditional dances for insprration in rhis suite, but instead of limiting himselfto music from a single region, he wove together tunes from all across the country.Composed in 1946, just after the reunification of France following the GerinanOccupation, the work was praised at its premiere as an example of "lo vraie mu5iclu.FranEaise," and it is truly French thanks to its tapesLry of tunes from Haut-Languedoc,Bas-Quercy, Poitu, Vend6e, Bourgogne and more. Perhaps Canteloube hoped that bycombining in one work the folk music of several regions of France he mlght symbolical-1y help to reunite his divided couniry. The borrowed runes blend beautifully withCanteloube's original writing, so well in fact that it is nearly lmpossible to isolate onelrom the other. It is perhaps the finest example in the repertory of the "pdrfditehomogtutit( that Oubradous sought when he first formed his trio d'anches.