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RECITAL 1988--PROGRAM NOTES
Six American Duos
Ingolf Dahl: Duettino Concertante for flute and percussion
Arthur Foote: Three Pieces for Flute and Piano
Elliott Carter: Esprit rude/esprit doux
Aaron Copland: Duo for Flute and Piano
- Intermission -
Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco: Divertimento for two flutes
Martin Amlin: Sonata for Flute and Piano
Generalizations are dangerous, but if one thing may be said to characterize most American music of the mid-twentieth century it is an increased emphasis on rhythmic variety and vitality. American jazz, which had such an energizing impact on European art music in the 1920's, and Stravinsky's rhythmic wit, clarity, and sophistication, left their mark on composers as diverse but quintessentially American as Bernstein, Copland, and Carter.
Ingolf Dahl's Duettino Concertante combines the most purely rhythmic resources--a modest array of unpitched percussion instruments--with the flute, a characteristically melodic instrument. The four movements, played without pause, explore the surprisingly fertile ground between these polar opposites. The challenge to the flutist is to play with the rhythmic poise and incisiveness of a percussionist; the challenge to the percussionist is to match the lightness a sense of line that come easily to the flute.
Arthur Foote's Three Pieces, from an earlier era and rooted in an earlier tradition, give the flutist an opportunity to sing in long-lined, gracefully wrought melody. His characteristic winsome melancholy is enhanced by a harmonic sophistication borrowed from the French Impressionists.
An essential characteristic of Elliott Carter's mature music is an interest in launching simultaneous musics in apparently unrelated tempos to bounce off each other, collide, interact, and with striking effect, unite again. This unique procedure has its roots in Charles Ives' famous delight in standing in the middle of a parade ground where the unrelated tempos and tonalities of two marching bands collide. Esprit rude/esprit doux (Rough Breathing/Smooth Breathing), dedicated to Perre Boulez, compresses tremendous energy and variety into the short span of five minutes. The principal material, by turns jocular, scurrying and powerfully declamatory, encloses a central interlude of sudden stillness and repose.
Aaron Copland's Duo for Flute and Piano was commissioned in memory of the great American flutist William Kincaid by a group of his pupils and admirers. Its simple, direct expression and grateful instrumental writing quickly earned it a secure place in the flute repertoire. The opening monody for the flute and the wistful, inward-looking melody of the second movement are fine examples of Copland's ability to make much music with few notes. In the finale a high-spirited rhythmic vitality drives the music to a brilliant and satisfying conclusion.
Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco was one of the many Jews whose flight from Hitler's Europe enriched the cultural life of the United States. He left his native Italy in 1939, had settled in Beverly Hills by 1940, and became an American citizen in 1946. The sunny, agreeable mood of the Divertimento for Two Flutes and the gentle cantabile of the second movement perhaps owe more to his native Italy than to his newly adopted America.
Martin Amlin is a well-established figure in Boston's musical life, but is perhaps better known as a pianist than as a composer. I first heard his new Sonata for Flute and Piano in a performance he gave with Leone Buyse in the Berkshires this past summer. I was much taken with the piece, and the possibility of programming it clinched the idea of this recital of American duos. In this music we find another distinctive approach to rhythm: particularly in the last movement, with its irresistible title "The Sky's the Limit," constantly shifting metrical groupings, speeds, and patterns give the music a character of impulsive improvisation. Themes from the earlier movements are collected along the way, and the piece ends dramatically in the best virtuoso tradition.
--Fenwick Smith
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