| The
Flute's Feathered Friends
Greetings
to my Flutewise friends. I am very pleased to have been
invited to write a column for you. My articles will cover a variety
of topics, including flute repertoire, music history, what to listen
for, and performance tips. I would be delighted to hear from you
if you have topics or questions you would like me to address. I
dedicate my inaugural column to you, and to our feathered friends
who have inspired many beloved works in the flute repertoire.
The Flute-Bird Connection: Throughout music history,
composers have used the flute to portray the sounds and characteristics
of birds. This occurs in programmatic music (music that tells a
story), such as Sergei Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf and Camille
Saint-Saens' Carnival of the Animals, and in non-programmatic pieces,
such as Antonio Vivaldi's Il Cardellino Concerto. The high range
of the flute and its capability to perform very rapid tongued and
arpeggiated passages make the connection between flute and birds
a natural one.
Peter
and the Wolf (1936) is probably the most familiar example of this
flute-bird connection. Whether I perform it for an audience at an
orchestra concert, or an outreach event for schoolchildren, the
first few notes of the Peter and the Wolf solo are so familiar to
listeners that they instantly associate the flute with the bird.
Each instrument represents a character in Prokofiev's work. Peter's
cheerful theme is played by the violins, the oboe is a convincingly
quacky duck, the clarinet makes the mischievous cat spring to life,
and the growly bassoon is the deep-voiced, grouchy grandfather.
The evil wolf makes his entrance with the horns. Drum rolls representing
the hunter's shots signal the wolf's demise. Notice how the flute
solos in this piece contain a lot of grace notes, quick arpeggiated
runs, and lie mostly in a high range. We must play these solos with
flair and brilliance to help Prokofiev's bird take flight.
Carnival
of the Animals (1886) by Saint-Saens is subtitled "Grand Zoological
Fantasy." The Voliere (Aviary) movement is an important orchestral
excerpt, like the solos from Peter and the Wolf. Saint-Saens gives
life to his bird with very fast double-tongued passages and chromatic
scales. When you play this piece, aim for long and graceful phrases.
However, not all birds sing the same song. Igor Stravinsky used
the flute to represent a bird in several important orchestral works,
but his birds are in striking contrast to the light and cheerful
fauna of Prokofiev and Saint-Saens. In Stravinsky's famous Firebird
Suite (1919), the flute part contains rapid arpeggios and other
birdlike devices to present music that is agitated and dissonant
in character. The story behind Stravinsky's Chant du Rossignol (Song
of the Nightingale, 1917) takes place in China. Listen for the exotic,
oriental sound of the flute cadenza. Here the flute portrays a bird
of yet a different character.
The
above are examples of the flute-bird relationship in orchestral
music. Now let's discuss some bird-inspired pieces in the solo flute
repertoire.
I love
performing Vivaldi's Concerto Il Cardellino (The Goldfinch). Perhaps
you've played some of Vivaldi's music. A composer of the Baroque
period, he composed six flute concertos and three for piccolo. In
Il Cardellino you'll hear the goldfinch singing in the flute's entrance
in the first movement-Allegro. Vivaldi uses trills, tremolos, bubbly
scales and arpeggios, and short cadenzas to introduce a happy, chirping
bird. When I play this piece, I like to imagine that the goldfinch
is waking up on a sunny morning in Italy and regaling the world
with beautiful song.
French
music is an important part of the flute repertoire. Many staples
of the repertoire were composed as contest pieces for the Paris
Conservatory by prominent flutists, composers, and professors at
the Conservatory. Much of this music is in the French romantic style
of the late 19th-early 20th centuries. Birds fly throughout French
flute music too!
Olivier
Messaien came from this French tradition of composition, but wrote
in a unique style influenced by eastern, modal, and sometimes twelve-tone
music. He is known for incorporating birdsong into his music. In
his Le Merle Noir (The Black Blackbird, 1951), the dissonance between
flute and piano and other compositional features create a dark mood.
The
blackbird is portrayed very differently in Eugene Damare's Le Merle
Blanc (The White Blackbird, 1890). The piece is for piccolo and
piano, highlighting the birdlike properties of the piccolo. Written
in the French romantic style, it is characteristic of the salon
music of the period. This showpiece is a vehicle for the player
to show off dazzling technique in the highest registers of the instrument.
You'll have fun with this bird!
Many
other composers have drawn their inspiration from birds. In Mozart's
opera The Magic Flute, the flute plays the bird-man Papageno's theme.
Twentieth-century Czech composer Bohuslav Martinu incorporated the
whippoorwill's call, which he heard on Cape Cod, Massachusetts (USA),
into his Sonata for Flute and Piano. As you enjoy playing and listening
to flute music, listen for the flute-bird connection. Notice the
various musical tools composers use to make the flute imitate a
bird - trills, grace notes, rapid flourishes of scales and arpeggios.
Recently, after a recital I gave which included Jean Sichler's Un
Oiseau en Mai (A Bird in May), an audience member asked me what
kind of bird the piece was about. I told her that it is for each
listener to decide. And when you play music that has a flute-bird
connection, remember that all birds are not of the same feather.
Let your imagination guide you in capturing the distinct character
and "song" of each bird. |
