© G. Bompais
Press
"a composer with a powerful and authentic language." Henri Dutilleux.
"a progressive evolution of Jean-Claude Wolff's language seems obvious. It reveals a mind attentive to the various aesthetic trends that marked international musical life during the last 50 years, but a mind that never gave into fashion or watchwords." Henri Dutilleux.
"a fertile imagination, a very personal musical language and a rare demand and professional ethic."
Ivo Malec.
Marche Lente (slow March)
"Velvety and floating sonorities have the most startling effect on this composition, poles apart from contemporary music understood by a small minority of 'trendies'."
Revue du son, Jan-Feb 2004.
"Amongst other things, Jean-Claude Wolff plays with the invaluable privilege given to the harpsichord to compete with the percussion instruments."
International Association of harpists, spring-summer 2004.
Symphonie n° 2 (Symphony n.2)
"the most surprising work from "1979 Encounters" is probably Jean-Claude Wolff's Symphony no.2"
Gerard Conde, Le Monde.
"Wolff, a distinguished and much-acclaimed French composer, obviously has the taste and ear for striking sound, commencing this symphony with deceptively modest violin theme, before allowing the Krakow orchestra to revel in the power-laden and often percussive music with follows."
Sounds Australian.
Sonate pour huit violoncelles (Sonata for eight cellos)
"At the museum we attended a truly fascinating concert, with in particular Jean-Claude Wolff's clever subtle and lyrical sonata."
Le Dauphine libere.
Poemes d'Alliance (Alliance Poems)
"Within which nudity should I wall in my body / so that the voice comes / that speaks like my soul". Those three verses taken from the "Alliance Poems" by Andre Chedid that he chose to put in music for three wind instruments and soprano voice (2000) echo the quest for essentiality that henceforth steers his musical progression in a profound agreement with the manifestations of inner life. Three timbres stretched in hues - oboe or oboe d'amore, english horn and bassoon - support, prolong or simply circle the always leading vocal profile, and this with an extreme economy of means : a simple undulation of 2d, grey and obsessive for the "woman of long patiences" or a chord with sombre resonance to measure the emptiness of an existence deserted by hope."
Michele Tosi.
Quatre pieces faciles (Four easy pieces)
"These pieces do not correspond to an appropriate use: musicality takes over the virtuosity, which is however present (movement 4). The movements are concise and the chosen formation of flute and percussion instruments show originality while a repertory expands, repertory that was previously destined to a great future and has now suffered from a limited development.
The reader looking for analogies will find a few inflections a la Ton-That-Thiet, a few 'added value' rhythms beloved by Messiaen (Movement 1) supporting a melodic and atonal language, underlined by silences (Movement 3), and climates worthy of Andre Jolivet. The timbres search is obvious: each movement is personalised by a most fortunate alliance of timbres with strong identity: flute, kettledrum and vibraphone for the first movement, flute and skins (two bongos) for the second one, flute and marimba for the third one and flute with piccolo and glockenspiel for the fourth one. Each instrument is entirely soloist, which makes for a clear listening of the piece.
Finally, the performer will not encounter any reading difficulty, as the style is incredibly clear."
La Traversiere, Autumn 2003.
Trio pour guitares (Trio for guitars)
"Jean-Claude Wolff's Trio exalts the instrument rhythmic power and transforms the three guitars in a sort of imperial harpsichord"
La Republique du Centre.
Septuor
"The writing of the Septuor goes through alternating these extreme states between paroxystic traits and shapes, where the main piano, joined by the electric guitar, the harpsichord and the percussions, perpetuates an effervescence that shatters the sonic space in a myriad of fine fragments... contrasting with long stasises haunted by the quasi ghostly timbre of the oboe and a recurring oscillation in half-tones: a phenomenon that goes through the composer's entire work, like a permanent questioning."
Michele Tosi.
Symphonie N° 1 (Symphony n.1)
"A violent piece, dramatic, lyrical, where bass tones and soft sonorities clash in a sort of tidal wave. A strong piece that finds its sonic unity in its finale"
Le Republicain lorrain.
Symphonie N°4 (Symphony n.4)
"Crossed by subterranean currents sustained by an ever moving discourse, the fourth Symphony, in one piece, proceeds by erupting volleys, red lava flows, hurling its fawn bursts where an astonishing sense of form takes place."
Michele Tosi.
Symphonie n° 5 (Symphony n.5)
"The "Fifth Symphony" of Jean-Claude Wolff was eagerly awaited, since a gap of eight years separates it from the Fourth, a gap filled by what might appear to be a series of small-scale works.
In fact Wolff's Septuor of 1988 is a virtual concerto for piano and six instruments which manages to sustain impressive levels of volume and tension throughout. Even the "Marche lente" for flute, harp and percussion contains orchestral mannerisms. No surprise, then, that the Fifth flaunts quantities of extrovert instrumental writing and a degree of contrapuntal arborescence not to be found in Wolff's earlier symphonies, of which the Second and the Fourth, at least, are marked by broad, solemn sostenuto gesture.
There is also a more complex approach to structure. The "arch with interruptions" of the Fourth Symphony gives way, in the same 2O minutes duration, to a four-part dialectical construct. Two blocks of contrasting material are subsequently superimposed and then disentangled in a rapture of memory. The first section is characterised by flights of virtuoso horn writing, proliferating counterpoint supported by rhythmic canons, and a high degree of rhythmic tension. The melodic outlines are more compact than, say, the long cantilenas for solo violin in Wolff's Second Symphony; an essential role is played by the piano, the fruit one imagines of Wolff's experience in writing the Septuor. The second section brings contrast - steamy chromatic lines spun out in a slow and irregularly moving polyphony. In the third section, material from the first two is intensified by motivic shaping and by superposition with obvious developmental intent. The "finale" brings simpler textures in which much that is now familiar drifts by, notably a little solo for horn and another for cello.
After the concert, Wolff told me he had no knowledge of any music having been performed in Britain. A disquieting situation for a country that prides itself on having been a refuge for symphonism in its darkest hour, and the more so for a composer who is attacking the basic issue: how create an image of symphonic thought without traditional key relations. Conservative and avant-garde critics have mostly denies such a thing is possible, in spite of Webern's insistence that the first movement of op. 21 is in sonata form: as if the psychological factor were not uppermost here."
Robin Freeman.