Skip to main content

Flute Sonatine 2nd Movement.(1991-93)





The Flute Sonatine came at the height of my obsession with the works of Pierre Boulez. In 1947, he wrote a Flute Sonatine for piano and flute as a result of a suggestion by his then teacher, René Leibowitz. with whom he was later to have a notorious falling out.

"With a red pen, [Rene] Leibowitz began marking up the manuscript [to Boulez's first sonata], then dedicated to him. Grabbing the score, Boulez fled, shouting at Leibowitz "vous etes de la merde!" Three years later, Boulez's publisher Herve' Dugadin asked him if the dedication should remain on the printed score. As Boulez shouted "Non!" he stabbed the manuscript with a letter opener until it was virtually in shreads." 
His Sonatine fuses together the two waring factions of Stravinsky and Schoenberg in terms of rhythm and harmony. It is described by David Schiff as,

releasing in the sonatina an explosion of musical violence, nervousness, and instability.
My Flute Sonatine, for solo flute, is intended to have a similar effect. It's frantic wild leaps of the second movement are possessed with a wildness of spirit that is close to insanity.  The struggle to play the music is part of the effect.  Brian Ferneyhough spoke about this in an interview with Colin Blakemore about pushing the performers to the extremity of their capabilities.

You can write things which literally can not be played but relatively produce a different sense...
[he quotes a section of music] on a flute it does not work but trying to do it gives the effect that I wanted...
This quote sums up the intensity of the second movement. Quite literally, it should keep you on the edge of your seat.

The American virtuoso flautist, Nancy Ruffer is the performer on this recording.

Popular posts from this blog

Once Upon a Time - by James Dillon

Once Upon a Time   James Dillon Once Upon a Time...Ircam When the premiere of a work called ‘Once Upon a Time’ at the Huddersfield Festival of 1980,  James Dillon was immediately thrust centre stage.   Hitherto, James Dillon's success had been variable.   Mainly learning his craft in libraries rather than formal institutions and without the prospect of a performance at the end, many of his early pieces were left incomplete.   The first substantial work Babble (1974-6) was a brief glimpse of things to come.   Although now James Dillon disregards the rigorous architectural design in which everything 'is mapped out despite the material'.   After the first section was rehearsed by the newly formed Charles Ives Choir who were perplexed by some of the graphic notation, the work was abandoned.    His momentary interest in serialism in ‘Dillug-Kefitsah’ (1976) encouraged James Dillon to examine the seemingly paradoxical notion of a 'parametrical discipline' wo

What is Stockhausen's legacy?

Karlheinz Stockhausen is one of the most important composers of the post war era. He is partially responsible for the creation of the post war modernist music.   But what is his true legacy? Was he the leading composer in his field? Did he invent the 'timbralist' idea of generating music from a single sound? Well, he did accomplish that concept with  "Stimmung'' (Voice) which is completely designed around the single chord of a B flat ninth . But he wasn't the first.  Giacinto Scelsi wrote "Quatro pezzi per orchestre" which is based a single note per movement and that work was written in 1959. Quatro pezzi per orchestre - Scelsi I seriously doubt whether Stockhausen knew about Scelsi's achievement when he wrote Stimmung in 1977. Perhaps one of his greatest works  is " Gruppen'' (Groups) composed for three orchestras. Did it change the way we use the orchestra?  He was a pioneer, especially in the early stages of hi

In the shadow of a genius.

Recently, I have discovered a fascinating revelation about the composers we admire so much.  That behind many geniuses, there usually is a predecessor lurking in the background.  It reminds of that often quoted phrase by Picasso A  good  artist borrows and  great  artist steals Now, I am not suggesting that the composers who I mention are stealing peoples' ideas - there is no evidence to support that fact.  However, I am suggesting that the idea of a genius who came from nowhere may not be accurate.  Let's take the case of Ernest Fanelli.  Who? You might ask.  He is a significant but unknown person in the development of impressionism.  He is an Italian born composer living in Paris.  He composed a good deal of 'new' music at the end of the nineteenth century.  His ideas were quite radical; his instrumentation included harmonics, sul pont., he used wordless choruses.  Unfortunately, he wasn't as talented a composer as Debussy and his music wasn'