20th Century Flute Sonatas Vol.2: CONTEMPLATIONS

Denis Zardi, a pianist and composer, divides his artistic career between solo performances and chamber music, performing for the leading concert organisations in Italy, Europe, the United States and South America. He has collaborated with prestigious orchestras such as the Camerata Musicale di Pisa, the ‘Francesco Durante’ Orchestra of Naples, the Padua and Veneto Chamber Orchestra, the Orchestra Ensemble Mariani and LaCorelli of Ravenna. A pupil of Maestro Mauro Minguzzi, he graduated with top marks, honours and a special mention from the ‘A. Boito’ Conservatoire in Parma. He undertook further studies with Maestro Alfredo Speranza and Maestro Piernarciso Masi, and subsequently at the ‘Incontri col Maestro’ Piano Academy in Imola under the guidance of Maestro Franco Scala. In 2003, he completed a two-year specialisation course at the European Conservatoire in Rotterdam in the class of Maestro Aquiles delle Vigne, graduating with top marks. He studied composition with Maestros Cesare Augusto Grandi and Adriano Guarnieri at the “G. B. Martini” Conservatoire in Bologna. At the same conservatoire, in 2020, he completed a two-year specialisation course with top marks, honours and a special mention in Analytical Composition under the guidance of Maestro Paolo Aralla. As a solo pianist, he has won over 20 first prizes in national and international competitions, distinguishing himself through his performances of works by Schumann, Liszt and Rachmaninoff. He took part in the Irving S. Gilmore Keyboard Festival in the United States, performing in several concerts and attending masterclasses given by Russell Sherman and Gary Graffman. With the Rotterdam Youth Symphony Orchestra, he performed Scriabin’s ‘Prometheus’ as part of the ‘Gergiev Festival’. He has formed an important artistic partnership with the violinist Roberto Noferini, with whom he won first prize at the ‘Duo Hayashi’ International Chamber Music Competition in S. Vittoria in Matenano. With the cellist Andrea Noferini, he has recorded an album dedicated to Rossini for the Tactus label in Bologna. With the Ensemble Istantanea of Bologna, he focuses on the contemporary repertoire, tackling both new, unpublished scores and historic works from the 20th century. He recently completed an artistic residency with Maestro Salvatore Sciarrino at Area Sismica in Forlì. He currently teaches piano at the ‘Buzzolla’ Conservatoire in Adria, Italy.

The flautist Filippo Mazzoli owes his training primarily to Maestros Melli, Cambursano and Marasco. He graduated in flute and chamber music with top marks, honours and a special mention of merit, both on the traditional Italian conservatoire course and at the Conservatori Superior del Liceu in Barcelona (Spain). He obtained two three-year diplomas from the “Incontri col Maestro” International Academy in Imola, again with top marks, regularly honing his skills with Maestros Nicolet, Adorjan, Larrieu, Balint, Mercelli and Epstein for the flute, and Masi, Lonquich, Butzberger and Gulyas for chamber music. He has won numerous prizes in national and international competitions, both as a soloist and as part of various chamber ensembles. Having won and been shortlisted in several auditions, he works on a regular basis as principal flute with various chamber ensembles and orchestras. From 2000 to 2007, he was the permanent principal flute-soloist with the ‘Camerata Strumentale Città di Prato’, T uscany, Italy. Subsequently, until 2012, he was principal flute-soloist with the Orchestra del Teatro Regio di Parma, participating fully in its operatic, symphonic and chamber music programmes. From 2014 to 2017, he was principal flute with the Orchestra and Soloists of the Opera Italiana. Since 2023, he has been a permanent principal flute with the Philharmonic Orchestra of the Teatro “Pavarotti-Freni” in Modena, Italy. As a researcher and scholar of the repertoire, he contributed for several years as a columnist to FALAUT, Italy’s leading magazine dedicated to the world of the flute. In March 2026, he won the competition to become a tenured professor of flute at the “G. B. Martini” Conservatoire in Bologna, Italy. He regularly holds advanced masterclasses for public and private institutions in Europe, Asia and South America. Since 2023, he has been taking part in the Lugo Flute Festival, one of the most prestigious summer courses dedicated to the flute in Italy. He is a member of the jury at various auditions and national and international competitions.

Émile Nerini (1882-1967) was a French composer and pianist whose output includes songs, chamber music, piano works and stage music. His Sonata for flute and piano, written in 1920-1922 for René Le Roy, was first performed in Paris in 1923 by Le Roy with the composer at the piano. His other contributions to the flute repertoire include Pages d’Album, Op. 6, a Notturno and a Saltarello, Op. 25.

Claude Delvincourt
(b Paris, 12 Jan 1888; d Orbetello, Tuscany, 5 April 1954). French administrator and composer. In addition to studying law, he was a pupil at the Paris Conservatoire of Leon Boëllmann, Büsser and Caussade, and later of Widor. He was sent as a recruit to the front at Argonne in 1914, working with a group of sound therapists. On 31 December 1915 he was severely wounded by shell shot, and his convalescence lasted until 1920. He was appointed director of the Versailles Conservatory in 1931, and in 1941, during the German occupation, he took over the direction of the Paris Conservatoire. He proved well-suited to this position, running the institution with great efficiency, and establishing a close rapport with his students. His most important decisions were the founding of the Orchestre des Cadets and of a chorus (so avoiding the evacuation of his pupils to Germany), and his invitation to Messiaen, despite much comment, to teach the philosophy of music, the origin of the analysis class that was to attract young composers from all over the world.

Delvincourt's music is marked by a Cartesian control which does not preclude the depth of feeling of his L'offrande à Çiva, the humour of his Croquembouches or the love of youth displayed in his Heures juvéniles. After Debussy and Ravel, he was one of the most ardent of French composers in trying to recapture the spirit of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, as in the Danceries. He died in a car accident while on his way to Rome to hear the première of his String Quartet.

Francis Poulenc: (b Paris, 7 Jan 1899; d Paris, 30 Jan 1963). French composer and pianist. During the first half of his career the simplicity and directness of his writing led many critics away from thinking of him as a serious composer. Gradually, since World War II, it has become clear that the absence from his music of linguistic complexity in no way argues a corresponding absence of feeling or technique; and that while, in the field of French religious music, he disputes supremacy with Messiaen, in that of the mélodie he is the most distinguished composer since the death of Fauré.

Gustave Samazeuilh
(b Bordeaux, 2 June 1877; d Paris, 4 Aug 1967). French composer and critic. He knew Ravel from childhood and they remained friends until Ravel’s death (1937). Debussy, however, was a greater musical influence. They met in 1896 when Samazeuilh was 19. The following year he studied the Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune with Debussy and became his propagandist. He attended the first 12 performances of Pélleas et Mélisande, and declared ‘I was, I am, a Debussyst, as I am a Wagnerian’. In Paris, he studied with d’Indy at the Schola Cantorum, then briefly with Chausson. Chausson introduced him, in 1897, to Dukas, whose disciple and friend Samazeuilh became. During his years of study, he made several visits to Germany (1894, 1897, 1898). It was at Bayreuth that he met Richard Strauss.

Henri Dutilleux
(b Angers, 22 Jan 1916). French composer. Dutilleux was born into an artistic family; a great-grandfather, Constant Dutilleux, was a painter and friend of Delacroix and Corot, and his maternal grandfather, Julien Koszul, was a composer, organist and lifelong friend of Fauré. Koszul was director of the Roubaix Conservatoire, where his pupils included Roussel, whom he persuaded to leave the navy and devote himself to music. Dutilleux was brought up in Douai, studying harmony, counterpoint and piano with Victor Gallois at the local conservatory until 1933, when he moved to Paris. Gallois also encouraged Dutilleux to play percussion in the local orchestra, an interest which later bore fruit in the elaborate timpani parts of many of his orchestral works. At the Paris Conservatoire, he studied harmony with Jean Gallon, fugue with Noël Gallon, history of music with Maurice Emmanuel, conducting with Gaubert and composition with Büsser; he won the Prix de Rome at his third attempt in 1938 with the cantata L'anneau du roi. He was aware of the limitations of his Conservatoire education, which did not feature much contemporary music and lacked an analysis class. To fill the gaps in his education, he studied d'Indy's composition treatise on his own during the war years (d'Indy's analytical approach to early music interested him), and discovered works by Stravinsky and Roussel. He did not become familiar with the music of the Second Viennese School or Bartók's later works until the postwar period. Dutilleux spent only four months in Rome as a Prix de Rome winner, returning to France before the outbreak of World War II. He was enlisted as a stretcher-bearer in September 1939. Demobilized in August 1940, he worked as chef de chant at the Paris Opéra for a few months (replacing the permanent member of staff) under the Occupation. From 1945 he was director of music productions at French radio, resigning from this post in 1963 to devote himself to composition. Dutilleux has had few formal teaching posts; he was professor of composition at the Ecole Normale de Musique (1961–70), and taught at the Paris Conservatoire (1970), but he has frequently attended summer schools (including Tanglewood) as a guest teacher

Maurice Ravel (b Ciboure, Basses-Pyrénées, 7 March 1875; d Paris, 28 Dec 1937). French composer. He was one of the most original and sophisticated musicians of the early 20th century. His instrumental writing – whether for solo piano, for ensemble or for orchestra – explored new possibilities, which he developed at the same time as (or even before) his great contemporary Debussy, and his fascination with the past and with the exotic resulted in music of a distinctively French sensibility and refinement.

Olivier Messiaen: (b Avignon, 10 Dec 1908; d Paris, 28 April 1992). French composer, organist and teacher. He was a musician apart. The sources of his music may be traced on the one hand to the French organ tradition and on the other to the innovations of Debussy, Stravinsky and Bartók, but right at the start of his career he found a modal system that has a completely individual sound, and to this he remained true, even when he vastly extended the possibilities of his style after World War II. He was alone, too, among major 20th-century composers in his joyously held Catholic faith, which again was unswerving, however much he came to value non-European cultures, especially Indian and Japanese. As a teacher he instructed many of the most prominent composers of the next two generations.