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RECITAL 1981--PROGRAM NOTES
A Romantic Musical Entertainment
Benjamin Godard: Suite
Franz Schubert: Der Lindenbaum; Am Meer; Das Fischermädchen
Friedrich Kuhlau: Grand Sonata in E minor
- Intermission -
Carl Reinecke: Sonata Undine
Luigi Hugues: Grand Concert Fantasy on Verdi's Ballo in Maschera
As the Industrial Revolution created an increasingly numerous, leisurely, and well-to-do middle class in England and on the Continent, demand grew for entertaining and unsophisticated music to grace the bourgeois home. No respectable Victorian parlor was without a piano; a modicum of musical ability was among the expected accomplishments of a lady, and was not considered suspect in a gentleman. Improvements in the flute between 1840 and 1875, largely the work of Theobald Böhm, brought a tolerable level of accomplishment on that instrument within reach of a large and enthusiastic public. Concertizing flute virtuosos were popular and successful as never before, and an expanding music-publishing business thrived on the demand, by amateurs as well as professionals, for new material.
This demand was satisfied by an effusion of salon and concertante pieces, variations on Scottish and Irish airs, and potpourris on popular opera tunes, all penned by a host of minor composers, most of them flutists themselves. While a tally of the famous pianist-composers of the era might start with the likes of Liszt, Schumann, and Chopin, a similar survey of flutist-composers turns up such names as Popp, Doppler, Tulou and Tacet, today largely forgotten not only as flutists but as composers as well. Posterity will not be greatly deprived if the bulk of their music continues to rest in obscurity. Yet there are among this vast repertoire a few pieces which, thanks to their freshness, charm, or bravura, remain viable in the modern concert hall.
While the New Grove Dictionary complains that Benjamin Godard's music lacks substance, and wags its editorial finger at his early "childishness and sentimentality" and his later "cynical insipidity," the present Suite is surely innocent of these vices. The disarming brevity of the Allegretto and the infectious high spirits of the Waltz ensure its continuing popularity.
Theobald Böhm, mentioned above in connection with his revolutionary improvements on the flute, was also a composer and performer of modest ability. He arranged for flute and piano six songs from Schubert's great cycles, Die Winterreise and Schwanengesang. One, Am Meer, (By the Sea), is a nearly literal transcription of the original song; the others, among them Der Lindenbaum (The Linden Tree) and Das Fischermädchen (The Fishermaiden), go on to include modest elaborations on Schubert's melody. These settings remained in manuscript until their publication in 1980.
Although Friedrich Kuhlau's appealing duets, trios, and quartet for flutes are beloved by flutists, his two dozen works for flute and piano are less well known. The present Sonata, Kuhlau's own transcription of a quintet for flute and strings, is laid out in expansive proportions, in the classical four-movement format. The casual listener need have no fear of missing some felicitous phrase or impressive bit of passagework; it is sure to come 'round again, for brevity is not among Kuhlau's virtues. But the freshness of his melodic invention never flags, and brilliant and affecting passages for both instruments abound.
Carl Reinecke was a composer of greater accomplishment and more serious purpose than his fellows on this program. For an exposition of the rather involved legend of Undine on which this sonata is loosely based, and for a perceptive and imaginative analysis of the music in light of the story, I recommend Phillip Moll's notes accompanying his recording with James Galway. The last movement, atypically, is the most dramatic of the four. Here we recognize most clearly that the music is intended for the concert hall, for the impassioned outbursts and treacherously shifting harmonies of the finale would ruffle irretrievably the decorum of the salon.
Luigi Hugues' reputation is so slight that he is not remembered in any of an international assortment of music encyclopedias. From his Italian given name and Francized English surname one might infer a polyglot heritage; the only substantive information available is that he lived from 1836 to 1913 and was published principally by the Italian firm Ricordi. With Signore Hugues we return, with a vengeance, to the style and conventions of the salon. In this work he followed the ever-popular formula whereby a minor composer, unfettered by copyright law, appropriated the Big Tunes from the latest hit at the opera house, and arranged them with embellishments of maximum brilliance and vacuity for enjoyment by a broader public. With a flutist's knowledge of the instrument, which permits him to conjure more notes per square inch than Verdi ever dreamed of, and with the Italians' sure sense of drama, Hugues has concocted a paragon among potboilers.
--Fenwick Smith
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