RECITAL 2001--PROGRAM NOTES
In Joueurs de flûte (Flute Players) Albert Roussel evokes four mytho-logical or fictional flutists, starting with the most famous: Pan, the half-goat,
half-man god of the shepherds who lent his name to the panpipe. Pan is followed by the lively Tityre, another classical archetype of the piping shepherd, this
one drawn from Virgil’s Idylls. In 1909 Roussel went on an extended tour of India and south-east Asia, an experience which also broadened his musical
horizons. He borrows an exotic Hindu scale to evoke the god Krishna, traditionally depicted as a handsome young man playing a flute. The very mortal Monsieur de
la Péjaudie is a character in Henri de Régnier’s 1920 novel La Pécheresse (The Sinful Woman). He is a formi-dable flutist - one character
exclaims "You must be a son of Orpheus!" - but he deploys his flute to dubious ends, in particular the seduction of women.
Pan is remembered for his failure to seduce Syrinx. According to Greek myth her sister nymphs saved Syrinx from Pan’s unwelcome
advances by turning her into a clump of reeds, whereupon the distraught Pan slashed at the reeds, bound the pieces together, and used the resulting panpipes,
or syrinx, to pour out his heart in music. Pan trauert um (mourns) Syrinx is a setting by the Austrian composer Josef Marx of a poem by his violinist and poet
friend Anton Wildgans. Marx writes in a florid, chromatic idiom familiar to us from his contemporaries Mahler, Schoenberg, and Richard Strauss. The text sets
the inconsolable god in a classical landscape, his panpipes silent. An exuberant bevy of nymphs and satyrs soon arrive, and do their best to cheer him up, but
to no avail; only as night falls does Pan rouse himself, put his syrinx to his lips, and "breathe his song into the night."
(Turn the page for text and translation.)
Pan Trauert um Syrinx
Dämmerung feuchtet die Büsche,
Nebel schleiern den Bach,
Alles umruhende Frische
wird in den Lüften wach.
Aber gestützt auf die schlanke
Wohllauts kundige Hand,
träumt der liebend erkrankte Gott
ins versinkende Land: Von Syrinx.
Da, den Meister froh zu neigen,
kommen Satyrn angestampft,
Pranken fassen sich zum Reigen,
Auge blitzt und Atem dampft.
Nymphchen nakkend eingefangen,
wehren sich und geben nach.
Springen mit erhitzten Wangen
glieder kühlend in den Bach.
Aber kaum ist es gelungen,
greift sie neu entfachte Lust,
immer wieder rasch bezwungen,
glatter Leib an rauher Brust.
Alles Süsse durchzuproben,
eifert rüstig Paar um Paar,
daß er endlich lächelnd lobe,
Meister, der er immer war.
Aber gestützt auf die schlanke
Wohllauts kundige Hand,
träumt der liebend erkrankte Gott
ins versinkende Land.
Erst bis Wollust zu Schläfern
Satyr und Nymphe gemacht,
regt sich der göttliche Schäfer,
hauchend ein Lied in die Nacht:
Von Syrinx, von Syrinx.
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Pan Mourns Syrinx
Dawn dampens the bushes,
Mist veils the brook,
All about, a peaceful freshness
Awakens in the air.
But, resting on his lithe,
Music-making hand,
The lovesick god dreams across
The rolling landscape: of Syrinx.
Hither, to cheer the Master,
Stamping Satyrs hasten,
Join, dancing in a ring,
Eyes flashing, breath steaming.
Naked nymphs, caught up in the dance,
First resist, then join in -
Then plunge, their cheeks aglow,
In the cooling waters of the brook.
But this no sooner done
Than frenzy flames anew -
And just as quickly wanes,
Slender figure upon roughest breast.
Testing all things pleasurable,
Pair competes with zealous pair
That he might finally praise, and smile -
Master that he always was.
But resting on his lithe,
Music-making hand,
The lovesick god dreams across
The rolling landscape.
Only when, sated, nymphs
And Satyrs drowse and droop,
Does the godly shepherd rise,
To breathe a song into the night:
Of Syrinx - of Syrinx.
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Since 1975 John Heiss and I have enjoyed the warmest of personal and professional friendships. (He is at least partially
responsible for the fact that I moved, in that year, from West Berlin to Boston - but that’s another story.) An outstanding and innovative
flutist himself, John has always written for the instrument with particular insight and affection. So when the idea came to me that I should
commission a new piece for my twenty-fifth Boston recital, John’s name came with it.
John Heiss writes of Whimsies: "The title came to mind during the composing. It suggests sudden inspirations which, while
seeming capricious, do arise from an underlying logic. After completing an extended, sober work (my Apparitions for flute, piano and electronic
sound - premiered this past June), I wanted to try its opposite. These Whimsies are brief, amusing vignettes, which expand as they unfold, yet
end somewhere near where they began.
“(I) Clustered: major and minor seconds rub against one another. (II) Diatonic-canonic: a pianist plays altered echoes of
the flute line. (III) Enharmonic: a single tone can occupy many different harmonies. But is it always the same note? [The performer’s answer: No!]
(IV) Octatonic: this pungent, sparkling eight-note scale is marvelously fertile. (V) Lyric: we still need melody. (VI) Stuck: waltzes are everywhere,
but so are cuckoos. (VII) Free: we all seek this. (VIII) Homeward bound (fantasy on Pierrot): that olden fragrance ever beckons."
Like virtually all 19th-century American composers, and most in the early 20th century, Charles Tomlinson Griffes went to Europe
for his professional training. From 1903 to 1907 he lived in Berlin, where he studied piano, composition and counterpoint at the Stern Conservatory,
and wrote numerous Lieder in the style of Brahms and Strauss. Returning to his native New York state in 1907, Griffes gradually evolved into his own
compositional style during the following decade. The spare, improvisatory lines of his Poem are a far cry from the high-cholesterol German romanticism
of his student days, and show the way toward the mature American style of Barber, Piston and Copland.
Pièces de clavecin en concerts doesn’t translate readily into English, although "Harpsichord pieces with other instruments" gets the
job done. Arranged in five Concerts, or suites, these are the only pieces by Rameau that fall into the category we now refer to as chamber music. He
follows the French custom of the time by adding descriptive or dedicatory titles to his individual movements; La Laborde and La Boucon probably commemorate
friends or patrons of Rameau. Readers familiar with modern French will recognize l’agacante: the annoying or irritating (female). But judging from the music,
an earlier and less well-known sense of the word is surely intended: the flirtatious or seductive one.
In his preface to the first edition Rameau specifies that this music may be played with violin or flute, and viol or second violin
(played this evening on the cello) - or by the harpsichord alone. So the harpsichord is first among equals, with the other instruments often in a subsidiary
or accompanying role. But unlike the harpsichord, flute and cello can sustain a singing line. This crucial advantage pays dividends throughout - particularly
in the symphonic rhapsodies of La Boucon.
Bach first wrote for the transverse flute in the early 1720’s, 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 typically include an instrumental obbligato that illustrates, comments upon,
adorns, or engages in dialogue with the sung text. Although the texts themselves may not be of consistent literary merit, Bach’s music raises them to sublime
eloquence.
Ich habe genug. / Ich habe den Heiland, das Hoffen der Frommen,
Auf meine begierigen Arme genommen; / Ich habe genug!
Ich habe ihn erblickt, / Mein Glaube hat Jesum ans Herze gedrückt;
Nun wünsch ich noch heute mit Freuden / Von hinnen zu scheiden.
It is enough. / I have taken my Redeemer, hope of all faithful,
Into my eager arms. / It is enough!
I have glimpsed Him, / Faith opens my heart to my Savior,
Now joyfully I yearn / to depart this Earth.
Was Gott tut, das ist wohlgetan, / Er wird mich wohl bedenken;
Er, als mein Artzt und Wundermann, / Wird mir nicht Gift einschenken
Vor Arzenei. / Gott ist getreu,
Drum will ich auf ihn bauen / Und seiner Gnade trauen.
What God does is for the best. / He has my fortune at heart;
He, as my physician and miracle-worker, / Would never offer poison
As my prescription. / God is true,
Therefore I shall build upon Him / And trust in His grace.
- Fenwick Smith
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