These marvelous examples of early Milhaud are no exception. Only the French would dare exploit two such bright instruments as the clarinet and violin together, playing in their high ranges where the combined sound is more piercing still. The joyous, quirky suite for these two instruments plus piano is a reduction of his 1936 incidental music for Jean Anouilh’s play Le Voyageur sans bagages. Latin-American rhythms abound to give the work a light and happy feeling, and these performers capture that mood perfectly. The first and third movements of Scaramouche derive from the incidental music Milhaud wrote for a revival of Molière’s Le Médecin Volant in 1937. The lead instrument is, optionally, clarinet or alto saxophone. As well as Jean-Marc Fessard plays it on clarinet, I’d love to hear the alto sax version.

With the second violin sonata, we jump 20 years back in time to 1917. This is more “serious” Milhaud, but still light and airy in his use of space, keeping the violin muted throughout and, in the fast movements (marked, as was Milhaud’s wont, vif, which is a French word encompassing all of the following: alive, brisk, spirited, animated, meddlesome, ardent, eager, and keen), showing remarkable contrapuntal and harmonic ingenuity. Frédéric Pélassy, particularly in the first and third movements, plays certain passages here with a tight, minimal vibrato, some sustained high notes sounding to my ears vibratoless. This is in keeping with the French violin school of the era, which did not adopt a continuous vibrato until the 1930s. The third movement (Lent) is almost Debussy-like in its quietude and serenity. The second and final Vif is meddlesome and quarrelsome indeed.

We hear an entirely different Milhaud in the 1927 Clarinet Sonatina, featuring harsh polytonality that includes minor ninths and augmented fourths. The first movement is particularly complex, using quirky descending motives rather freely; yet, even here, a spirit of lightness imbues this work. Stravinsky would have made something far more serious of the same material. The second movement, by contrast, returns to Milhaud’s tender, dreamy side before the last movement thrusts us, again, into a more thorny discourse, using the descending motif of the opmore....

We find Milhaud in his most typically delightful vein in the works presented on this program by two young Frenchmen, Jean-Marc Fessard, clarinet; and Frédéric Pélassy, violin; with Belgian pianist Eliane Reyes. The Suite, Op. 157b for all three instruments is simple and relaxed in style, its diversity deriving from quicksilver changes in mood and tempo, especially in the aptly named middle movements, Divertissement and Jeu (game). The fascinating dialogue between the melody instruments and the lively Latin-American rhythm in the piano part catch our interest from the outset. Scaramouche, Op. 165d for clarinet and piano, contrasts engaging material in the middle movement, marked Modéré, with snazzy outer movements, marked Vif (lively) and Brazileira. The latter contains a samba melody of which Milhaud was so fond he used it on other occasions, as we shall hear in this program!

Violin Sonata No. 2, Op. 40 is in four movements, Pastorale-Vif-Lent-Très Vif. Pélassy and Reyes are clearly much taken with the lively duple and triple meters and the polytonal piano accompaniments in the quick movements, while the slow movement has much intimacy and charm. Fessard and Reyes give the Clarinet Sonatina, Op. 100 a performance that stresses the dissonant harmonies resulting from Milhaud’s use of polytonality in the outer movements, both marked Trés rude (The French word implies primitive simplicity, not impoliteness). The slow movement, Lent, is tender and dreamy with a somber central episode for contrast. The gently lilting Printemps, Op. 18 for violin and piano is as relaxed and supple as anything in this program.

Finally, Milhaud’s 20-minute Cinéma-Fantaisie, Op. 18, was a reworking of his ballet Le Boeuf sur le Toit (The Ox on the Roof: The name is that of a famous night spot in Rio) to provide incidental music for Brazilian showings of Charlie Chaplin movies. It uses the catchy melody we heard earlier in this program in the Brazileira finale of Scaramouche. (I found it impossible to keep my seat when listening to its infectious rhythm, so great was the temptation to get up and move in time to it. Just try it and see!) Reyes savors the gentle sway of the piano accompaniment and the changing moods of gayety and sadness throughout the highly imaginative fantasia, while Pélassy has an outstanding opportunity more....