A contemporary of Jean-Marie Leclair wrote that his music "appeared at first a kind of algebra capable of rebuffing the most courageous musicians." But to us in the early twenty-first century Leclair’s music exemplifies the Enlightenment virtues of reason and clarity, balance and proportion. Leclair himself is on record as encouraging performers toward a pure and simple style, insisting that improvised ornamentation that so often "disfigures" slow movements be avoided, and discouraging the practice of changing the tempo within a movement. But within these constraints he finds room for a wealth of invention.

   Leclair’s "Second Recreation in Music" is an expansive French suite, opening with the obligatory Ouverture and continuing with a series of stylized dances – and including also a grand and noble Chaconne, or ground bass. According to one dictionary definition, "recreation" is "refreshment of one’s mind . . . through activity that entertains or stimulates." Leclair’s music rises to the occasion.

   Sonata Brevis was composed for flutist Fenwick Smith and pianist Sally Pinkas for their 2005 Jordan Hall program.

   INVOCATION is an amiable dialog between the flute and the piano and which establishes the musical language of the entire sonata. Since the 1700’s the QUICKSTEP has been equated with a fast military march. In the 1920’s a variant became the foxtrot often heard (as here) with a "walking bass." My quickstep, by contrast, has a great number of different meters and not just the usual 4/4 and is highly syncopated. ARIA is lyrical and has a long melodic line such as might have been composed for a great singer. After an intense contrasting section the melody returns in the flute’s top octave. The movement ends quietly. FINALE opens with a brief dramatic recitative. A driving allegro follows, interrupted from time to time by playful and lyrical fragments. The opening recitative is restated and the work ends brilliantly.
   Daniel Pinkham

   The German composer Sigfrid Karg-Elert, a virtuoso pianist and organist, also found time to practice flute, oboe, and clarinet. Borrowing a title made famous by Clementi, he composed sets of etudes for oboe and for flute entitled "Gradus ad Parnassum," or Steps to Parnassus, the mountaintop abode of the Greek gods. Mastery of each step brings us, presumably, a bit closer to the elusive goal of perfection. Each of these ferociously concentrated little pieces (they average about 45 seconds in length) exploits a particular aspect of technique or musicianship.

   In 1944 Goffredo Petrassi, one of the leading Italian composers of the mid-twentienth century, wrote an Invention for two flutes. A few years later he revised the piece, giving it the alluring title Dialogo angelico. The dialog commences with serenely intertwining lines, then gives way to a rhythmically active middle section. This in turn dissolves into a final Andante marked by the ethereal sound of the two flutes playing in harmonics. For most of the piece’s five-minute duration the sense of tonality is fluid, but in the end, the angels come to rest in the key of C.

   Gabriel Pierné was a musical conservative in the tradition of Saint-Saens, and of Franck, with whom he studied. Nonetheless Pierné used his prestige as a conductor to promote the works of such disparate contemporaries as Fauré and Stravinsky, Ravel and Milhaud. Pierné wrote his Sonata, op. 36 for the violinist Jacques Thibaud, and transcribed it later for the flute, apparently at the suggestion of his publisher. His transcription of course accommodates the more limited compass of the flute, but it leaves flutists on their own to cope with his far-reaching arcs of melody, conceived for an instrument which has no need to pause for breath. This, and the virtuosic writing for the piano, perhaps explains why this fine sonata has not been more popular with flutists. David Cox, writing in the New Grove Dictionary, aptly describes the sonata as "passionate and brilliant, in every way rewarding."

- Fenwick Smith