Steeplechase is a horse racing discipline characterised by jumping over obstacles on horseback.

Its origins date back to 18th-century Ireland, in Buttevant. At the time, these were races held in the countryside, where riders connected two villages — or more precisely two steeples, which served as landmarks.

Nowadays, steeplechase events take place on specially designed racecourses, marked with obstacles that the horses jump over at high speed.

Steeplechase obstacles are higher and more technical than those in hurdle races: embankments, fences, hurdles, ditches, walls, rivers, mounds and even moats. The distances covered are also longer.

The similarity between this equestrian discipline and this instrumental piece struck me: the landscape and the score rush by at full speed, going from obstacle to obstacle or arpeggio to arpeggio, until the final sprint/accelerando.

Good luck to the competitors!

Frédéric Cellier

Encouraged by Jean Françaix, who praised him as an “excellent musician and tireless arranger,” Frédéric Cellier is the founder and artistic director of STRADIVARIUS Editions.

He is the author of light music pieces played around the world and a considerable number of arrangements in all styles and for all instruments, acclaimed by many personalities in the music world, including Michèle Auric, Jean Françaix, Adrian Gershwin, Wynton Marsalis, Yehudi Menuhin, Madeleine Milhaud, Manuel Rosenthal, Gabriel Tacchino, and Ornella Volta.

A concert clarinetist and certified teacher at the National Conservatories of Nice, Marseille, and Avignon, Frédéric Cellier is a laureate of the Fondation de France and the Yehudi Menuhin Foundation.