neue Ausgabe

After studying composition at the Conservatoire de Paris, Joseph-Édouard Barat (18821963) devoted his career to the symphonic wind orchestra, conducting military bands in Lyon and Paris as well as composing numerous pieces written specifically for these ensembles. He also wrote many examination pieces for wind instruments, most destined for the Conservatoire de Paris. Certain titles (like Orientale, À Tunis, Danse soudanaise, or Barcarolle de lOubanghi) reflect a yearning for exoticism or orientalism inherited from the end of the 19th century and still present at the beginning of the 20th in Europe. In his Andante et Scherzo (1926), Barat conjures up an extraordinary synthesis of an era when French music was open to its European neighbours while also dreaming of faraway lands.