And I do not mean passages in symphonies but works where it really shows off. I really like the Syrinx by Debussy and would like to expand my horizons in that direction. I would also like to include weird and obscure 20th century pieces etc. Baroque pieces with flute are also welcome ;-)
Johann Joachim Quantz. His name is synonymous with the (Baroque) flute.
The Musical Offering, Bach's penultimate work, features a prominent part for the flute which he especially wrote for Frederick II of Prussia (a.k.a. Frederick the Great), who was an amateur flautist.
Then there's that cell-phone ring-tone. ;) (BWV 1067/Badinerie)
I've heard some lovely flute sonatas by Jean-Marie Leclair, but the man was primarily a violinist and more well know for his violin sonatas.
Mozart wrote some flute quartets (flute, violin, viola and cello), and Beethoven wrote a set of Serenades for flute, violin and viola which I've read which are quite pleasant :)
for a start the 2 concertos by Mozart, and his Concerto for flute and harp, Concertone for flute, violin, oboe, 'cello, and the Rondo KA 184;
and the concertos by Nielsen and Ibert
Prokofiev op.94 transcription of his violin sonata
Donizetti: Lucia di Lammermoor - "mad scene"
Debussy: Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune
Gluck: Orfeo ed Euridice - Dance of the Blessed Spirits
Sonatas by CPE Bach, Vivaldi,
more pieces and sonatas by Poulenc, Saint-Saëns, Widor, Fauré (Fantasie op.79)
Roussel: Joueurs de flûte
.....as I said, a start. There's lots more and this will activate memories.
An interesting recital by Stephen Preston presents 7 different instruments from the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries on Amon RA CD SAR-19
Rautavaara's flute concerto Dances with the Winds, featuring bass, alto, standard, and piccolo flute.
Beethoven's National Airs and Variations for Flute and Piano, Op. 105 and Op. 107
:)
You really want to explore the outer reaches of 20th century weirdness? - the flute, unaccompanied or as soloist, and also in its upwards and downwards transformations, piccolo and bass flute, is the arena on which Ferneyhough projects some of his most extreme visions. Ferneyhough is a flautist himself, though as he admits he cannot play any of his own music for the instrument except for parts of the relatively early Cassandra's Dream Song. Elsewhere, look at Mnemosyne for bass flute plus a number of pre-recorded bass flute brothers; Superscriptio for piccolo; and above all the extraordinary Unity Capsule for solo flute, which goes about as far as musical complexity can go. This is the easiestway to get hold of them all:
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51ENYAX6MGL._SL500_AA240_.jpg)
There are similar pieces by other complexity composers - Dillon's Sgothan, pieces by Finnissy whose names momentarily escape me - all springing from the lineage started by Debussy and continued by Varese, Berio et al.
Jonathan Harvey's Lotuses for solo flute/alto flute/piccolo plus string quartet is a really beautiful, glowing piece, highly recommended. Hear it on a nice Arditti disc which I can't find a picture of!
Takemitsu, for whom the flute was probably the most important instrument, poised delicately between Debussy's syrinx and the Japanese shakuhachi, wrote a number of wonderful works for the instrument, as a soloist with orchestra (e.g. I Hear the Water Dreaming),as a soloist in chamber groups (the wonderful Towards the Sea, in its various versions) or on its own - (e.g. Voices, or his last piece, Air). There's a great CD on DG 21 featuring these works, Patrick Gallois soloist - it's actually one of the most attractive Takemitsu discs full stop IMO
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/318F28957ZL._SL500_AA240_.jpg)
Luke, your posts always pose a danger to my purse ;)
In the 20th century, Edgard Varese's Density 21.5 is a major extension of solo flute repertiore. Elliott Carter wrote Scrivo in Vento, for solo flute, and has come out with a Flute Concerto, the US premiere of which will take place in Boston in February.
And since no one has mentioned it yet, Carl Nielsen wrote a great flute concerto, which has been recorded many times. I've got the one on Chandos, with Toke Lund Christiansen on flute and Michael Schoenwandt conducting the DNRSO, as well as the old Berstein recording with the New York Phil. Mine's vinyl, but you can get it on CD as part of Sony's semi-complete Nielsen set.
Mahler's Ninth Symphony gives a good deal of time to the
flute(s).
And if you can find it anywhere, the original Bernard Herrmann score for Torn Curtain used a dozen flutes of various kinds! :o
In addition to the above-mentioned works, there's Charles T. Griffes' Poem for Flute and Orchestra.
A nice collection of flute concertos from Brilliant
Flute Concertos (http://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/r/Brilliant%2BClassics/99745)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bach, C P E:
Flute Concerto in D minor, Wq22
Ingrid Dingfelder (flute)
English Chamber Orchestra, Charles Mackerras
Benda, Franz:
Flute Concerto in E minor
András Adorján (flute)
Ars Rediviva Ensemble Prague, Milan Munclinger
Flute Concerto in A major
András Adorján (flute)
Ars Rediviva Ensemble Prague, Milan Munclinger
Flute Concerto in A minor
András Adorján (flute)
Ars Rediviva Ensemble Prague, Milan Munclinger
Boccherini:
Flute Concerto
Peter-Lukas Graf (flute)
Orchestra da Camera di Padova e del Veneto, Bruno Giuranna
Danzi:
Flute Concertos Nos. 1-4
András Adorján (flute)
Münchener Kammerorchester, Hans Stadlmair
Hoffmeister:
Flute Concertos in D major & C major
Ingrid Dingfelder (flute)
English Chamber Orchestra, Charles Mackerras
Mercadante:
Flute Concerto in E minor
Peter-Lukas Graf (flute)
Orchestra da Camera di Padova e del Veneto, Bruno Giuranna
Pergolesi:
Flute Concerto in G major
Peter-Lukas Graf (flute)
Orchestra da Camera di Padova e del Veneto, Bruno Giuranna
Piccinni:
Flute Concerto
Peter-Lukas Graf (flute)
Orchestra da Camera di Padova e del Veneto, Bruno Giuranna
Quantz:
Flute Concerto in G major
Peter-Lukas Graf (flute)
Zürcher Kammerorchester, Edmond de Stoutz
Stalder:
Flute Concerto in B flat major
Peter-Lukas Graf (flute)
Württenbergisches Kammerorchester, Jörg Faerber
Stamitz, C:
Flute Concerto in G major, Op. 29
Peter-Lukas Graf (flute)
Zürcher Kammerorchester, Edmond de Stoutz
$15.99
In the mid 18th century, so I've read, and under the influence of Quantz, the flute duet was seen as the form par excellence for the demonstration of arcane contrapuntal skills not necessarily over-important in the galant in general. Amongst the flute duets of this time the set by that wonderful composer WF Bach - JS's most naturally gifted son - stand head and shoulders above the others in both technique and content. It's a cliche to say of WF that his music combined his father's contrapuntal baroque skills with the forward-looking early classicism and empfindamser characteristics of his younger brothers, especially CPE, but it's true, and is demonstrated perfectly in these duos. One movement of them, the Lamentabile central movement of the D minor duo, became a very famous piece at the time. This is a rather beautiful performance of it:
http://www.youtube.com/v/CJWsgrHKtRU
All of the Flute chamber works by JS Bach are delightful!
The Flute concertos by Vivaldi are great, as are those by Mozart.
Quote from: Joe Barron on October 26, 2009, 08:54:33 AM
And since no one has mentioned it yet, Carl Nielsen wrote a great flute concerto
To be fair to
listener, he did. :)
Check out the second-to-last part of Ravel's ballet Daphnis et Chloe - or, if you can find the Suite No. 2, check out movement #2. You'll love it!
Moe!
Composers to search at amazon or your other favourite web-store:
Franz Doppler Charles Koechlin Hotteterre
Messiaen La merle noire
BIS CD-419 The Russian Flute Prokofiev, Denisov,Taktakisvili and Amirov
players: Jean-Pierrre Rampal, James Galway, Alain Marion, and for 20th century works Severino Gazzeloni
and budget-friendly Naxos 554 185 pieces by Sallinen, Takemitsu and Penderecki
and found when putting other dsics back RCA 6602 Corigliano: Pied Piper Fantasy (Concerto for flute and orch.)
with Galway
and I'm having a senior moment - who wrote all those works for multiple flutes? They really tested tweeters and vinyl tracking.
Quote from: opus106 on October 26, 2009, 10:37:58 AM
To be fair to listener, he did. :)
Yeah, but I gave more detail. :-[
Charles Koechlin : Les chants de Nectaire : a colossal set of 96 titles, 239 minutes of music ( opus numbers 198,199 and 200) - solo pieces for flute. Inspired by a character in Anatole France's novel "La révolte des anges". Nectaire is a flute-playing gardener....
Koechlin creates an entirely personal universe of almost mythical proportions, combining Greek mythology, Nature and religion. Dutch flautist leendert de Jonge (who recorded "Les chants" on 5 cd's) compares this music to a huge meditation in which silence plays an important role.
André Jolivet : fluteconcerto nr 2 ( suite en concert for flute and 4 percussion), Incantations for flute solo.
P.
Prokofiev's flute sonata is not a transcription. That's the original piece, which Oistrakh later asked him to transcribe for violin.
Otherwise, check out Nicola Sani's Elements, which uses the largest flute, made especially for this piece, as I recall.
Otherotherwise, there is so much contemporary flute music, you really can't miss it.
Among composers of the late classical period, I think spontaneously of Krommer and Rejcha.
Krommer composed 9 (perhaps 10, but I know 9) flute quintets that deserve a place of privilege in the repertoire (opp. 49, 55, 58, 63, 66, 92, 101, 104, 109); he composed also some interesting flute quartets, a concerto for flute and oboe (op. 65), and a concerto for flute (op. 30).
Rejcha, a flutist himself, composed pieces for 2, 3 and 4 flutes (opp. 12, 18, 20, 21, 26 and 27), a flute trio, a set of variations and a fantasy of Mozart's Se vuol ballare (op. 51), a sonata for flute and piano (op. 54), and a duo concertant for flute and piano (op. 103); but his most remarkable compositions for flute are the flute quintet in A minor (op. 105), and a set of six flute quartets (op. 98) that rank among the best achievements of classical chamber music.
The flute concerto by Ibert doesn't seem to have been mentioned.
This is also a very fine disc:
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/418JKS1NQ1L._SL500_AA240_.jpg)
Little late in the game,but here are few works by major romantic era composers,
- Franz Schubert: Variations for flute and piano on "Trockne Blumen" (aus "Die Schöne Mullerin")--quite an extended work with a virtuoso piano part
- Frederic Chopin: Variations for flute with piano accompaniment from Rossini's " La Gerentola" in E-major---Chopin's father played the flute, possibly written for him (?). Composed probably when Chopin was only fourteen, beautiful "minore-variation".
The American composer Henry Brant was one of the most interesting composers for flute. Start with his concerto Angels and Devils, for solo flute and an orchestra composed only (!) of 24 flutes. I believe there are a few CDs out there dedicated to just his flute pieces.
I just saw a cd of Brahms' Flute Sonatas in the library - I didn't know that he had actually written any!. I might borrow it later to find out what they're like...