The piano plays a central role in each of these five chamber works, either by expanding itself — as in Sonnantes for four hands — or as part of the most varied instrumental combinations. It engages in dialogue, asserts itself, insinuates, blazes, murmurs. As the backbone of the programme it makes the different worlds of the works blossom and is enriched by them in return; each partner, individual or collective, is at once extension, multiplication and incitement. That is how Jean-Pierre Leguay describes the design of this survey in the booklet.
Sonnantes was written from the end backwards: Leguay composed the last of the four pieces for the wedding of his son Jérémie to Miriam. Jérémie has a good musical ear but is no pianist — the task was to combine two unequal levels of difficulty and not to hide that hierarchy but to use it as a source. The easier prima part, with its recurring figures and carillons, crowns the gestures of the seconda, which occupies a wide area of the keyboard. In the three pieces written in 2014 for his wife Annie the roles are reversed; although composed later, they lead towards the fourth. The Trois esquisses for flute exist in two versions, both heard on this recording: the flute alone, whose statement is self-sufficient, and the dialogue with the piano, which joins in as décor, mirror and conversational partner.
Le matin sûrement va venir goes back to a version of 1977/78 for ondes Martenot, piano and percussion. As enthusiasm for the ondes had waned, Leguay revised the piece in 2020 and replaced them with the equally supple alto saxophone. At the end the utterance hollows out, tends towards silence and dissolves in the shimmer of the tam-tam, which vibrates on alone. The title is borrowed from Rabindranath Tagore and names an inspiration, not a programme. À Deux for vibraphone and piano, by contrast, is the pleasure of conversation: simply being there, sharing and exchanging sound. After a vibraphone prologue, dialogue and the interweaving of the two timbres alternate — À Deux, not Duo, stresses the closeness.
Jubilus for six instrumentalists — flute and piccolo, oboe and cor anglais, clarinet and bass clarinet, violin, piano and one percussionist with wood block, temple blocks, bongos, tumba and vibraphone — follows a three-part shape that Leguay finds in the course of any action: impetus, course, rest, or impulse, trajectory, extinction. The same holds for the Gregorian Alleluia with its intonation, jubilus and finalis. The performers are Sabine Sauer and Lili Bogdanova (piano), Christina Singer (flute), Nikola Lutz (alto saxophone), Lucas Gerin (percussion), Nozomi Hiwatashi (vibraphone) and members of the SWR Symphonieorchester conducted by Junyoung Kim.