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RECITAL 1984--PROGRAM NOTES
Francis Poulenc: Sonata for Flute and Piano
Sigfrid Karg-Elert: Sonata Appassionata in F-sharp minor
Charles Koechlin: Sonata for Piano and Flute
- Intermission -
Serge Prokofiev: Sonata for Flute and Piano
This evening's recital combines two well-known and much-loved staples of the flute repertoire, the sonatas of Poulenc and Prokofiev, with two fine but virtually unknown works by composers who are themselves less familiar--Sigfrid Karg-Elert and Charles Koechlin.
In the years before 1920 a group of French composers known as les Six, and including in their number the young Poulenc, came together in reaction against the pervasive influence of Wagner in particular and foreign--especially German--music in general. Poulenc's Flute Sonata finds him, forty years later, still embracing the virtues of brevity, clarity, and wit promoted by les Six. The third movement in particular, in which Wagner's Tristan and Isolde and Richard Strauss' Salomé are briefly quoted, then summarily dismissed, shows the influence of the cabaret and the music hall.
The brief solo sonata by the German organist and composer Sigfrid Karg-Elert contains in microcosm much that les Six were reacting against. With its florid, hyperexpressive chromaticism it stands at the very end of the German Romantic tradition. The score is peppered with markings exhorting the performer to extremes of dynamic, speed, articulation, and expression.
The neglect of Charles Koechlin's works is due in part to his own retiring and unworldly nature. He never allied himself with any particular group or school; he never competed for the Prix de Rome, which was the expected way for a young composer to make his mark. He also did little to promote his works, and left much of his output unpublished and unperformed. A half-century after his death a number of new recordings and a definitive biography by Robert Orledge point towards a reassessment of his importance and originality.
Though Koechlin's Sonata was written within a few years of the Karg-Elert, a greater contrast of style could hardly be imagined. In the opening movements the serene introspection of Koechlin's long melodic lines, and the clear and luminous harmony with which he supports them, combine in a voice distinctively his own. The finale intersperses its gigue-like perpetual motion with quieter interludes reminiscent of the first two movements, then builds gradually to a powerful and effective conclusion.
During the German invasion of Russia in 1941 a number of prominent Soviet artists, Sergey Prokofiev among them, were evacuated from Moscow to areas safe from the war. The Sonata bears no trace of that momentous conflict or of the disruption it caused in Prokofiev's own life--his irrepressible wit comes to the fore particularly in the Scherzo and the impetuous finale. The Sonata's classical forms are otherwise filled with predominantly sunny, vivacious, and nostalgic melody, perhaps reflective of the natural beauty of the Urals where Prokofiev spent the summer of 1943. This sonata exists also in a version for violin and piano--leading many to assume yet another case of envious flutists raiding the libraries of others. Here, however, it's the other way around: the sonata was composed for the flute; the great violinist David Oistrakh, recognizing a good tune when he heard it, immediately persuaded Prokofiev to rework it for the violin.
--Fenwick Smith
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