"Good humour is indispensable to the well-being of humanity." So wrote Jean Françaix of his Quatuor for cor anglais and strings, and all the music on this CD demonstrates his ability not just to entertain, but to lift the spirits.

Like his models Ravel and Poulenc, Françaix was masterful in his writing for instruments, and his particular delight in writing for winds lasted the sixty years of his compositional life. Wit is ever-present, except in the Elègie, a meditation on what Françaix called the 'catastrophe' of Mozart's early death. In the piano Variations, each of the nine variations illustrates a different aspect of Françaix' style, from American rumbustiousness to beautiful, touching miniatures.

"Jean Françaix's chamber music, whose great charm is difficult to analyse, is delightfully French, with its wit, lightness of touch, quixotic changing of moods, and blending of colours.

"It is most sympathetically played here, helped by a believable balance, with each wind group felicitously blended.

"Altogether a most infectious and enjoyable collection." Ivan March, Gramophone

Artists

Anthony Robb (flute), Sandra Skipper (flute/alto flute), Neyire Ashworth (clarinet/bass clarinet), Alan Andrews (clarinet/bass clarinet/basset horn), Philip Gibbon (bassoon), Damian Brasington (bassoon/contra-bassoon), David Juritz (violin), Martin Outram (viola), Rebecca Knight (cello), Jeremy Polmear (oboe/cor anglais), Christopher Hooker (oboe/cor anglais), Susan Dent, Alexia Cammish (horns), Diana Ambache (piano)