10 Pièces pédagogiques graduées. Volume 1

The pieces collected here were composed over the years for examinations at municipal conservatories in Paris and the Paris region. Reworked and completed, they are arranged in ascending order of difficulty, in two notebooks roughly corresponding to the first and second cycles of study.
The author (himself a clarinettist, having had Henri Guisgand, Jacques Millon and Henri Druart as teachers) considers that it is natural to begin with pieces in a tonal style, the notion of tonality also including that of clear form, because nothing is more disconcerting for a young student than not feeling guided by a familiar harmonic discourse. This is why these pieces are written in a resolutely classical style, with all the nuances that this delimitation implies.
The piano part, which is often quite difficult, should as far as possible be entrusted to a first-rate accompanist, capable of leading the discourse as well as of stepping back, of underlining the effects of counterpoint, modulations, etc.