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RECITAL 1993--PROGRAM NOTES
Jean-Marie Leclair: Sonata in C major for flute and continuo Op. 1, no. 2
Donald Martino: Quodlibets for Flute
Johann Sebastian Bach: Arias from the sacred cantatas, for alto, flute, and continuo
- Intermission -
Sigfrid Karg-Elert: Sonata in B-flat major, op. 121
Daniel Pinkham: Vowels for mezzo-soprano, alto flute, and handbell
Frank Martin: Ballade for Flute and Piano
Jean-Marie Leclair is better known as the founder of the French violin school than as a composer of music for the flute. However, his four books of sonatas for violin and continuo include nine he specified as playable also on the flute. In the preface to the fourth book he encourages the performers toward a pure and simple style, specifically insisting that the additional ornamentation which so often "disfigures" slow movements be avoided, and denouncing the practice of changing the tempo within a movement. From a distance of 250 years it comes as a surprise that he was seen as something of a radical--to one contemporary of Leclair's, his music "appeared at first a kind of algebra capable of rebuffing the most courageous musicians."
In the program note accompanying Samuel Baron's CRI recording of Quodlibets Donald Martino wrote, "Like my most recent works it is highly chromatic but unlike them it does not employ the 12-tone system and since it was written in a single day, it is almost completely intuitive." From such precocious beginnings Martino has gone on to become one of his generation's most decorated composers--among his numerous awards is the Pulitzer Prize in music. The expressive chromaticism of the first two movements of Quodlibets is reminiscent of early Schoenberg; the Burla (joke or trick) adds to this a Stravinskian delight in pulling the metric rug out from under the listener. Frequent harmonic and dynamic dislocations also threaten the progress of the music, which nonetheless finds its way to an ending solidly in C major--a key in which, as Schoenberg affirmed, there was still much good music to be written.
Bach first wrote for the transverse flute in the early 1720s, and demonstrated almost immediately an unparalleled understanding of its technical and expressive potential. His sonatas are the cornerstone of the flutist's repertoire, but much of his greatest writing for the instrument can be found in the cantatas, passions, and the B-minor Mass. The arias in these works nearly always include an instumental obbligato that illustrates, comments upon, adorns, or engages in dialogue with the sung text.
Wer Gott bekennt / Aus wahrem Herzensgrund, / Den will er auch bekennen.
Denn der muß ewig brennen, / Der einzig mit dem Mund / Ihn Herren nennt.
Acknowledge God / truly, from the bottom of your heart, / and you shall be saved.
But he shall burn forever / who only with his lips / calls Him Lord.
Betörte Welt! / Auch dein Reichtum, Gut und Geld / Ist Betrug und falscher Schein.
Du magst den eitlen Mammon zählen, / Ich will davor mir Jesum wählen;
Jesus, Jesus soll allein / Meiner Seele Reichtum sein.
Deluded world! / All your riches, goods and gold / are false; an empty shell.
You may count your futile hoard, / but I shall choose instead my Jesus;
Jesus, Jesus alone / shall be the wealth of my soul.
Gott ist unser Sonn und Schild!/Darum rühmet dessen Güte/Unser dankbares Gemüte,
Die er für sein Häuflein hegt. / Denn er will uns ferner schätzen,
Ob die Feinde Pfeile schnitzen / Und ein Lästerhund gleich billt.
God is our Sun and Shield! / Thus our thankful souls praise His goodness,
As He shields His flock. / For He shall shield us further,
Whether enemies sharpen their arrows, / or the hounds of Hell bellow.
What Sigfrid Karg-Elert lacked in compositional rigor he made up for with his prodigiously fertile imagination. His flute sonata is a somewhat gangly three-movement affair, played without pause, with numerous digressions, interjections, and excursions. So a first-time listener, rather than worrying about where we are in the overall progress of the piece, is perhaps better advised to enjoy from moment to moment, for fourteen minutes or so, the company of an exuberant, eclectic, and prolific musical imagination. Karg-Elert was a virtuoso pianist and organist who also did time in one of the German army's regimental bands, performing on a variety of wind instruments. This provided him with an intimate practical knowledge of their technical, expressive, and coloristic potential. So it comes as no surprise that the writing in op. 121 is idiomatic but demanding--Karg-Elert's numerous performance directions exhort both performers to varied extremes of tempo, dynamics, and expression. Among the many entertaining oddities of the score is the ending: the waltz rhythm of the third movement builds to a climactic cadence and the flutist, after an exultant high B-flat, appropriately stops playing; but the pianist, still with energy to burn, goes on for another ten bars to end alone in a blaze of exhibitionistic virtuosity.
If Karg-Elert epitomizes the Dionysian temperament ("recklessly uninhibited, undisciplined, orgiastic") we return with the music of Daniel Pinkham to the Apollonian ("serene, well-balanced; poised and disciplined"). Vowels shows the influence of his mentors Copland, Honegger and Boulanger in its clarity and economy of style. For this performance Mr. Pinkham has provided the following note: "I composed Vowels this past June expressly for inclusion on today's program. The work is dedicated to D'Anna Fortunato and Fenwick Smith. Here are five brief vocalises. Each one is to be sung on a different vowel. The pronunciation of these vowels adheres to Vatican liturgical practice. AH is lyrical and is freely imitative. EH is a gentle cantilena. The alto flute accompaniment evokes pizzicato violins. EE consists of four terse vocal phrases rudely interrupted by roguish fluttertongue flourishes. AW is a sprightly gigue. OO is a dark elegy. In this final movement the voice and flute are joined by a handbell which tolls inflexibly throughout. The work concludes only when the bell's vibrations can no longer be heard."
Between 1939 and 1949 the Swiss composer Frank Martin wrote a series of five ballades for solo instrument and piano or orchestra. Like its companion pieces, the Ballade for flute and piano is a one-movement work, in several sections but tightly knit, rhapsodic and epic in character. This strong and brilliantly effective piece, commissioned as a contest piece for the Geneva Competition, quickly established itself as a standard in the flute repertoire.
--Fenwick Smith
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