Jean Françaix's Le Gay Paris

Jean Françaix’s Le Gay Paris pour trompettet et instruments a vent

Life and Career of Jean Françaix’s 1912-1974 Jean Françaix was a French pianist and composer who was raised into a musical family in Le Mans, France. Jean Françaix’s mother was a vocal teacher and his father Alfred Françaix’s was a composer, pianist, musicologist, and director of the Le Mans Conservtoire. Jean Françaix received his first music lessons from his father when he began composing at the age of six. In 1922 at the age of ten, Jean Françaix began studying harmony and later counterpoint from legendary teacher Nadia Boulanger. Boulanger went on to play and conduct many of the first performances of Françaix works. In 1922, under the guidance of Jean Françaix’s parents,

Françaix completed this work on April 25, 1974. It received its premiered a year later on April 27, 1975 by trumpeter Carole Don Rhinhart who serves as professor emeritus at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna. According to liner notes of Le Gai Paris, Concerto pour clarinette et orchestre; Divertimentos pour flûte et piano, Le Gay Paris is spelled in reference to the old French, it is akin to a vision of Paris, inhabited by good moods and joie de vivre, that foreign visitors could have. This is a French term that means the exuberant enjoyment of life that encapsulate the sentiment of Le Gay Paris. This work it meant to be a light-heart work filled with witty musical dialogue. Françaix stated, “You can not always be serious […], laughter is the nature of

The trio is divided into three sections with an A-B-A structure. With the exception to the final measure of the Marche, the A section of the trio is the first moment in this work where the solo trumpet is asked to play fortissimo. The trio presents the solo trumpet with energetic fragmented phrases with the use of staccato articulation.

Example 6.6 Françaix’s Le Gay Paris, Mvt. III, mm. 70-77

This moment creates an animated texture that displays the overall climax of this work. At the beginning of B section of the trio, Françaix returns to the piano dynamic while maintaining the light playful style. In the conclusion of the B section of the trio, it quickly returns to the A section as stated before. The extreme dynamic relationship between the A and B sections of the trio provide this work with its overall lighthearted witty character.

Example 6.7 Françaix’s Le Gay Paris, Mvt. III, mm. 86-89 (start at the double bar line on the sub piano section)