Where the Wind Leads: 20th-Century Flute Sonatas, Vol. 3

XX CENTURY FLUTE SONATAS VOL. 3"WHERE THE WIND LEADS"

In this final chapter, our journey comes to an end. We started with Eastern Europe in Volume 1 (Russia, the Czech Republic…) and moved on to France, Paris, in particular, in Volume 2. With this third volume the journey begins in Central Europe (Germany, and again France and Switzerland), we head south. We cross the Alps and the Pyrenees to land in Spain and, ultimately, Andalusia, with a glance beyond the border to admire North Africa; hence the title “WHERE THE WIND LEADS”.

Our collection of three albums simply had to include the Sonata by Paul Hindemith (1895-1963), written in Berlin in December 1936. The work is structured in three movements, the third of which is subdivided into two parts: Sehr Lebhaft (Tarantella rhythm) and Marcia. The first movement Heiter Bewegt has a rather majestic and discursive character, while the second Sehr Langsam is more lyrical, featuring moments of truly touching expressiveness. In general, despite the composer’s difficult period due to the political situation in Germany, the Sonata proves to be a bright and crystalline piece. The counterpoint is simple but substantial. Although conceived for his friend, the flutist Gustav Scheck, the first to perform it was the French flutist Georges Barrère in 1937 in New York, when Hindemith decided to move to the United States due to profound disagreements with the Nazi regime, which had in fact already banned the public performance of the composer’s music.

In nearby Switzerland, just a few years later, Frank Martin (1890-1974) composed his Ballade for flute and piano in 1939 for the Geneva International Competition (a version for flute, string orchestra, and piano also exists from 1941). The piece is in a single movement, alternating lyrical and rhapsodic characters with more virtuosic sections of great agility, typical of competition pieces. The Ballade has now become a masterpiece of the flute repertoire worldwide and well deserved to be included in this collection. The first performer (winner of the 1939 Geneva Competition) was André Jaunet, one of the main flutists of the 20th century: principal flute for forty years at the Tonhalle in Zurich, he was an excellent teacher who trained students including Nicolet, Graf, Gérard, Aitken, Marasco and Pahud.

The figure of the Romanian George Enescu (1881-1955) is emblematic within the history of 20th-century music. Violinist, composer, pianist and conductor he lived most of his life in Paris, that’s why he is considered French by adoption. His Cantabile et Presto from 1904 (the oldest of the pieces in all three discs) is the classic “Morceau de Concours” written for the diploma of the Paris Conservatory. In fact, it is dedicated to Paul Taffanel, the founding father of the modern French flute school. It is a piece that highlights both the expressiveness and the virtuosity of the flutist, while maintaining a supportive accompaniment from the piano. The first documented public performance (excluding the conservatory exam) took place thanks to the most famous flutist of the time, Philippe Gaubert, and the composer himself at the piano.

Two female composers to be rediscovered are included in this third volume: Christiane Decroix (1921-2010) and Simone Plé-Caussade (1897-1986). Madame Plé, wife of Georges Caussade, her counterpoint and fugue teacher at the Paris Conservatory, spent her entire career in the French capital. A pianist, teacher, and composer, she wrote works mainly for the piano, as well as pieces for organ, choir, numerous melodies (she used to sing these melodies whilst playing the piano part), and some pages of sacred music. Her Conte for flute, written in 1928 but published only in 1931 by Éditions Salabert, has a completely rhapsodic character. The flute performs complex alternating melismas and more cantabile moments. The piano accompanies with engaging harmonies and irregular rhythms. There is no specific dedication for this piece, but it is likely that one of the first performers was René Le Roy, the most famous flutist of the time in Europe.

The score of Esquisse by the pianist and composer Christiane Decroix, written in 1943 for her friend (and future husband) Jean Étienne, remained unpublished until 2024. The musical language closely approaches the style of Fauré, Boulanger, and Bonis. The composer’s family rediscovered this little gem for flute and piano after the death of Jean Étienne in 2020. For many years, he was the principal flute of the Rouen Orchestra and the main professor of the flute class at the Conservatoire Supérieur de Rouen, and his wife Christiane was, among other things, the accompanist for that class. The two performed together in concert many times, and in 1946 they performed Esquisse for the first time alongside other works from the French 20th-century repertoire; in particular, the press recalls their interpretation of Henri Dutilleux’s Sonatine: Jean Étienne had studied in Paris with Gaston Crunelle and Roger Bourdin (The Sonatine is dedicated to them).

Jacques de La Presle (1888-1969) studied at the Paris Conservatory with Taudou, Caussade, and Vidal. In 1930, he became the artistic director of Radio-Paris, then of national broadcasting until 1943, and general inspector of music education from 1945 to 1952. The musicologist Claude Rostand defines de La Presle as a “man of tradition,” emphasizing that he developed his work without ever suffering the influence of the major musical upheavals of his time. Orientale for flute and piano from 1930 evokes exotic and suggestive atmospheres typical of the French fascination with the Orient at the time, moving through modal and expressive scales.

By the Spanish composer Manuel de Falla (1876-1946), the Suite populaire espagnole of 1914 is performed: this is my own arrangement of the Siete canciones populares españolas, a collection of traditional songs originally written for voice and piano. The structure of the transcription follows the 1925 adaptation by the Polish violinist Paul Kochanski. Compared to the original vocal work, my instrumental version also excludes the Seguidilla murciana and modifies the order of the movements to better suit the expressive and virtuosic characteristics of the instrument. The suite consists of six musical miniatures that offer a journey through the folklore and diverse regions of Spain: El paño moruno (The Moorish Cloth), a piece with warm Andalusian nuances and a tight rhythm derived from Flamenco and Gypsy traditions; Nana, a sweet and melancholy Andalusian lullaby characterized by a muffled and hypnotic atmosphere; Canción, a linear, flowing song with a typically lyrical and expressive character; Polo, a fast and high-impact piece that evokes the Andalusian dance of the same name with dramatic, passionate accents linked to “cante jondo”; Asturiana, a calm, intimate, and nostalgic lament that evokes the landscapes of northern Spain; and Jota, a brilliant and virtuosic finale based on the lively traditional dance of Aragon.

As in the previous two volumes we close this recording by presenting another piece recorded for the first time, which we consider to be of the highest instrumental and educational value. This is the suite Dans la Palmeraie of 1946 by the Alsatian composer André Bloch (1873-1960). Bloch came from a French family of Jewish origin. His parents recognized his son’s extraordinary musical talent early on, as he began composing at the age of seven. To ensure he received the best possible musical education and could attend the prestigious Conservatory, the family decided to move to Paris, actively supporting the beginning of his brilliant career. Considered a child prodigy, he trained at the Paris Conservatory under the guidance of illustrious masters such as Jules Massenet, André Gedalge, and Ernest Guiraud. He won the prestigious Prix de Rome recognition in 1893 thanks to the cantata Antigone. Bloch possessed a deep passion for science, particularly astronomy and magnetism. He pursued these amateur scientific studies as a second field of interest. Indeed, in the obituaries of the time, the musician was sometimes remembered as a composer, philosopher, and scientist. The Suite for flute reflects André Bloch’s strong interest in Orientalism and exotic atmospheres, a recurring element in his music. It is a piece that tests the flutist, who must navigate highly difficult technical passages and an expressiveness charged with Moorish inspiration. The work is dedicated to Marcel Moyse, the flutist who, more than anyone else in the twentieth century, summarized and codified all the difficulties of the instrument (tone, finger technique, interpretation). Five movements make up the piece: Au bord de l’Oued describes the arrival at the oasis through the desert torrent; Parfums sahariens, an expressive suggestion that evokes, through musical harmony, the scents of the night in the Sahara; Gazouillis sous les palmes, where the flute, in the awkward key of F-sharp major, duetting with the piano through the use of trills, fast scales, or melodic arabesques, literally imitates the “chirping” or rustling of birds seeking refuge among the palm fronds in the oasis (the inspiration from Volière from Camille Saint-Saëns’s The Carnival of the Animals is quite evident); L’heure vésperale describes the peace and silence of sunset falling over the palm grove; and finally Simoun, the violent and scorching wind of the Saharan desert, disrupts the calm of the oasis described up to that point, also through the use of the “wind breath” a technique in which the flutist must cover the embouchure hole and blow into the instrument to imitate the sound of the wind.

FILIPPO MAZZOLI