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RECITAL 1985--PROGRAM NOTES
André Jolivet: Chant de Linos
Charles Koechlin: Sonata for two flutes
Philippe Gaubert: Third Sonata
Maurice Ravel: Chansons madécasses
- Intermission -
George Frideric Handel: Sonata in E minor, Op. 1, No. 1A
Johann Sebastian Bach: Triosonata in G major for two flutes and continuo
Although the four works on the first half of this concert were all written within a 25-year span by French composers, they show striking stylistic diversity. A common thread connecting them is the French attraction to pastoral and exotic subjects, and to the legends of classical antiquity. In a note on the title page of the score, André Jolivet writes that "the Chant de Linos was, in ancient Greece, a kind of threnody; a song of lamentation interspersed with cries and dances." One cannot help but wonder whether the inwardness of the threnody, and the cathartic violence of the dance passages, were not also a response to the war that gripped Europe as Jolivet wrote Chant de Linos.
A greater contrast to Charles Koechlin's serene introspection could hardly be imagined. In the Sonata for two flutes the sinuous, exploratory expressiveness of the paired melodic lines, and the transparent harmonies that result, combine in a style distinctively Koechlin's own.
Philippe Gaubert enjoyed prominence as flutist, teacher, and conductor. Perhaps it is not surprising, given his success in other musical arenas, that his compositional style is the most conservative among the four Frenchmen on this program. Nonetheless his efforts go far beyond the spinning of pretty tunes and grateful passagework for the flutist to indulge in--Gaubert had absorbed many of the harmonic innovations of Ravel and Debussy, and deploys them effectively in the Third Sonata.
Ravel's fascination with exotic subjects never bore finer fruit than the Chansons madécasses. The fact that Évariste-Désiré de Parny never set foot in Madagascar need not distract us from the beauty of his poems or from the piercing clarity of Ravel's musical response to them. The songs are set with an economy of means far removed from the opulence of Daphnis and Chloé, composed fifteen years earlier. Ravel wrote that the Chansons madécasses "introduce a new element, dramatic--indeed erotic, resulting from the subject matter of Parny's poems. The songs form a sort of quartet in which the voice plays the role of the principal instrument. Simplicity is all-important."
Bach and Handel are two of the Baroque masters--the third is Domenico Scarlatti--whose tercentenary birthdays have already been so assiduously celebrated in 1985. The two flutes played of the second half of this recital are copies by Roderick Cameron of instruments made by Carl Augustin Grenzer toward the end of Bach's and Handel's lifetimes. Grenzer established his workshop in Dresden and worked there until 1796, producing flutes and bassoons that were considered the best available.
Many of Handel's instrumental works have been handed down to us in a welter of versions, editions, and arrangements. Some were the work of the variously scrupulous publishers who profited as much from Handel's great popularity as from his apparent indifference to the fate of his smaller works once he approved them for publication. The present Sonata in E minor, Op. 1A, is the only flute sonata for which a manuscript source in Handel's hand exists.
Bach's G-major triosonata likewise exists in another version--for viola da gamba and obbligato harpsichord. In BWV 1029 the two upper voices are given to the flutes, while the bass line is played by the left hand of the harpsichord, usually doubled by a cello or gamba for better balance against the upper voices. The right hand of the harpsichord fills out the texture with improvised passagework, imitation, or counterpoint, depending on the skill of the player. As is typically the case with Bach, this is not a mere arrangement to broaden the commercial appeal of a work, but a thorough reworking of the music to suit its new instrumental setting.
--Fenwick Smith
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