More often heard than seen, the cuckoo is a harbinger of spring, as its song resounds in the forests at the start of this beautiful season.

Characterized by a simple two-note motif, this song nonetheless has a rich musical history:

As early as the Renaissance, Clément Janequin (1485-1558) published Le Chant des Oyseaulx (1537), in which the voices imitate the song of the cuckoo.

In the Baroque era, Louis-Claude Daquin (1694-1772) composed his Premier Livre de Pièces de Clavecin (1735), the third suite of which opens with his famous imitative rondeau simply called Le Coucou.

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) uses the 2 notes of the cuckoo in his Symphony N°6 Op. 68 called Pastoral (1808), as well as in his Piano Sonata N°25 Op. 79 called The Cuckoo (1809).

In his famous Carnaval des Animaux (1886), Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921) does not hesitate to have the two notes of the cuckoo repeated 21 times by the clarinet in N°9 Le Coucou au fond des Bois.

Cuckoo clocks from the Black Forest also played a major role in the popularity of this bird song. Franz Anton Ketterer (1676-1749), a German clockmaker from Schönwald near Triberg, was unable to reproduce the crowing of the rooster, so he resigned himself to imitating only the crowing of the cuckoo, which was much simpler than that of the rooster. Invented around 1735, the first cuckoo clock met with immediate success and was quickly adopted by all households.

Louis-Claude Daquin was the son of Claude Daquin, a Parisian bourgeois of Jewish origin, and Anne Tiersant. The Daquin family came from Italy. One of his great-uncles was a professor of Hebrew at the Collège de France. He began his career as a child prodigy when he was introduced to the court of Louis XIV at the age of six, like Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre, his godmother, and Jean-François Dandrieu before him.

He became a professional organist at the age of 12, and racked up a string of prestigious titles: preferred to Rameau for the post of organist at Saint-Paul Church in Paris, he succeeded his former teacher, Louis Marchand, in 1732 at the Cordeliers organ, and Jean-François Dandrieu in 1739 at the Chapelle Royale, before becoming titular organist at Notre-Dame Cathedral in 1755 as successor to Guillaume-Antoine Calvière.

A dazzling virtuoso at the keyboards, he was highly appreciated by the aristocracy, and his organ playing attracted considerable crowds.

Numerous vocal and instrumental works known from period documents are now lost. The main surviving works are:

- Le Premier Livre de Pièces de Clavecin (1735), in 4 suites, juxtaposes dance tunes in the great French tradition, “pièces de caractère” in the manner of Couperin, imitative pieces (Le Coucou, Les Vents en courroux, etc.) and program pieces (Les Plaisirs de la chasse) that sometimes call for great difficulty of execution: these are more reminiscent of Rameau's style.

- Le Nouveau Livre de Noëls, a collection of varied noëls “for organ and harpsichord, most of which can be performed on violins, flutes, oboes, etc.” (1737), the most accomplished of this typically French genre.

Along his university studies (DEA in musicology, University of Paris IV-Sorbonne), Frédéric Cellier was awarded three first prizes and a development prize at the CNR of Nice and won first prize at the International Competition of Musical Execution - soloist category – of Stresa (Italy).
He is the laureate of the Fondation de France and the Yehudi Menuhin Foundation and accredited teacher at the CNR of Nice, the CNR of Marseille, and at the CRR Olivier Messiaen of Avignon (France).
Frédéric Cellier is the interpreter of Francis Poulenc’s Sonata for clarinet Bb and piano with Jean-Michel Damase, Jean Françaix or Gabriel Tacchino, but also performs his own version for clarinet, piano and string orchestra of George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in blue for Wynton Marsalis or under the baton of Adrian Gershwin, grandson of the composer.
Founder and artistic director of STRADIVARIUS Editions, he is the author of pieces of light music and a considerable number of arrangements in all styles and for all instruments acclaimed by numerous personalities in the music world:

"Frédéric Cellier has produced a number of adaptations of Georges Auric's works with such talent and precision that I consider them a natural addition to his chamber music catalogue."
Michèle AURIC - Georges Auric's widow

"To Frédéric Cellier, excellent musician and tireless arranger."
Jean FRANÇAIX - Composer and pianist

"Arranging a musical work is always a delicate and risky exercise, because it requires both modifying it so that it can be played by the desired instruments and preserving its very essence. But that is exactly what Frédéric Cellier has done, preserving the nuances, subtleties and soul of the original works while breathing new life into them.
His arrangements give all the musicians the chance to perform these compositions specially revisited for their instrument, and make music lovers rediscover them in a new light."
Adrian GERSHWIN - George Gershwin’s grandson

"Congratulations for your beautiful new orchestration and rendition of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in blue."
Wynton MARSALIS - Trumpet player, composer, bandleader, general and artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center, New York

"It is outstanding that Frédéric Cellier has managed to transpose Saxophone Marmalade from the saxophone to the clarinet. I thank him for it and wish its great and deserved success. "
Manuel ROSENTHAL - Conductor, composer and Maurice Ravel’s pupil

"I am very happy to tell you how much I appreciated your transcription of the Capriccio, based on Francis Poulenc's Le Bal Masqué. It perfectly reflects the spirit and verve of the score for two pianos that I had the opportunity to play and record with Jacques Février, and it was a great pleasure for me to premiere it in Montpellier."
Gabriel TACCHINO - Pianist, Francis Poulenc’s specialist

"I must tell you that I really like your transcriptions and that I think the tone of the instruments you have chosen suits perfectly our beloved composer."
Ornella VOLTA - Musicologist, president of the Erik Satie’s Foundation