Five of the world’s top wind players have formed chamber music’s equivalent of The Three Tenors to record an absolute pearler of a double album. Going under the name Les Vents Français, flautist Emmanuel Pahud, Paul Meyer, clarinet, Francois Leleux oboe, Gilbert Audin, bassoon, and Radovan Vlatkovic, french horn, are all star soloists in their own right. Together they are magic.

The set kicks off with a light and air-filled soufflé in the form of Jacques Ibert’s Trois pièces brèves. This is highly accessible music composed during the inter-war years as an antidote to the heavier fare of modernism. Much of Ravel’s piano music transcribes beautifully for chamber ensembles and American horn player Mason Jones’ arrangement of Le Tombeau de Couperin shows off the group’s matchless balance and flawless intonation.

Andre Jolivet (1905-1974) was greatly influenced by both Varèse and Bartók and his 1963 Sonatine for oboe and bassoon slides playfully between keys like a witty conversation between these two instruments. This leads seamlessly into Darius Milhaud’s nod to the 15th century troubadour era, La Cheminée du Roi René, seven exquisite sketches with acrobatic flute and oboe lines depicting jugglers and jousting knights and a serene madrigal/nocturne suggesting a chivalrous tryst...