Defaye: Flashes, Performances

The birth of Performance is, above all, the story of a friendship: that of the famous trumpeter Maurice André, then at the peak of his glory, and of Jean-Michel Defaye, a French pianist born in 1932, arranger, conductor, and Second Grand Prix de Rome in 1952. Defaye collaborated regularly with singer Leo Ferré, as well as composing ‘highbrow’ works, including several pieces for brass and, in particular, numerous works for trombones, like Deux Danses (1954), Mouvement (1972) or the more ambitious Fluctuations of 1987. Up until the present release, his Performance remained unknown. Maurice André and the composer, who produced the recording and even financed the tape themselves, sought to get it released on several occasions, but nothing came of it. Yet it provides a perfect supplement to the 9 Flashes, another cycle of pieces by Defaye that had been released on LP by Erato in the 1970s and also featuring Georges Delerue’s Fanfares. Revealing an unreleased recording is always a joy. Especially when of such high artistic quality. Here, as in the Flashes, Maurice André dazzles with precision and a broad palette of colours, daring all, whether the tiniest nuances or the most diverse expression.

In the 1970s, Delerue was one of the most important figures in film music, at home in all genres from comedy to detective film, by way of psychological drama. His melodic vein, strongly tinged with melancholy, was ideally expressed in Truffaut’s anxious cinema. From Shoot the Piano Player (1960) up to the director’s last film, The Woman Next Door (1981), a film-testament with the sublime Fanny Ardant and Gérard Depardieu, he was the filmmaker’s favourite composer. When all is said and done, these Erato recordings remain precious testimony to a certain vanished grace.