Like any flautist who spends any length of time in The Netherlands,
I have come across the name Koos Verheul as a major influence
on numerous generations of students, now mature musicians in their
own right. Koos Verheul studied at the Royal Conservatoire in
The Hague, and he and Jan van der Meer were contemporaries there.
At over fifty years as a performing duo, these musicians must
hold some kind of chamber music record. Both have worked for the
Residentie Orchestra in The Hague, and in terms of musical synergy
this duo almost literally plays as one.
None of the pieces
on this fascinating disc are particularly well known, especially
when one compares them with ubiquitous flute repertoire such
as the Poulenc Sonata or Debussy’s Syrinx. Erwin Schulhoff’s
1927 Sonata for flute and piano is however not entirely
unfamiliar and is an excellent repertoire piece, full of emotional
depth and elegant contrast. The work is in four movements, but
retains a compact character, wasting no time with needless repetitions
or redundant sequential writing. There is a good deal of playful
music in the Scherzo second movement and Allegro molto
gaio finale, but the penultimate Aria holds the emotional
soul and weight of this sonata.
André Caplet was
influenced by his good friend Claude Debussy, and the harmonic
language in the piano and melodic shapes in his music here show
some evidence of this. Le pain quotidien or ‘The Daily
Bread’ is one of a set of 15 short compositions from this period,
and the ‘improvisations’ are all fairly straightforward and
easily digestible quasi-exotique musical statements, with self
explanatory titles such as Nostalgique, Décidé, Balancé
and Gracieux.
Paul Dukas is represented
here by a piece which is also related to Debussy, having been
written as a piano piece in his memory. Arranged for flute and
piano by Gustave Samazeuilh, a pupil of Dukas, the flute brings
out even more strongly than in the original a quote from the
Debussy’s Prélude á l’après-midi d’un faune among other
references.
Extreme contrast
is introduced into the programme at this stage, with a piccolo
shrieking at us from the opening of Vassiliv Lobanov’s Sonata
for flute (alternating with piccolo) and piano. Set in a
single movement, the music is based on a motif which is developed
in inversion, extended, inverted, and generally milked for all
it’s worth. Dramatic impact is a strong aspect of this piece,
but it also has plenty of intriguing intellectual content, driving
players and listener in some kind of symbiotic argument or circus
ride – depending on how your imagination is conditioned to accept
such material. The introduction of the piccolo is an interesting
aspect of the work as well, and the lyrical introduction to
the sublime final section breaks through the stereotype of this
mini-flute as a screaming irritant.
The title of Bruno
Maderna’s piece Honeyrêves is an adaptation of ‘Onireves’,
or the first name of Severino Gazzeloni in palindrome. Gazzeloni
was of course the flautist for extended techniques beloved
of composers in the 1960s and 1970s, and this work is, as the
booklet author Aad van der Ven accurately describes, “a miniature
compendium of flute technique in modern music.” This does of
course have its ‘squeaky gate’ associations, but one needs these
days to throw off preconceptions of avant-garde noise making
and see this as authentic performance practice from the last
century played by one who lived through and was a star of this
very era – not to forget the pianist of course, but it’s not
the pianist you remember in this piece. As a counter to this
kind of music, Niccolò Castiglioni’s Musica Vneukokvahja
for piccolo solo is light-hearted neoclassical response
to the Darmstadt school of modernism, introducing variations
on ancient medieval material and the clarity of tonal declamatory
music making to communicate its message.
Kim Bowman is an
Australian who studied in The Netherlands. The title Eoos,
which is Greek for ‘daybreak’ is suggestive, but the content
of the music owes as much to the stamping passion of a flamenco
dance than to any illustration of natural phenomena. Perhaps
the ‘daybreak’ is that which occurs after the nocturnal gestures
and dramas of the dance – it certainly left me with a bit of
a hangover.
Dutch composer Walter
Hekster derives inspiration from the Japanese arts, including
Haiku poetry, woodcuts and the like. Crescent Moon for
alto flute solo has some of the gestural qualities of someone
like Takemitsu, with microtonal and chord overtones exploring
the resonances of this larger brother to the conventional flute.
This is a fascinating
and well-filled recital of interesting work for flute, especially
in combination with piano. I have played in the Bachzaal a few
times myself, and the atmosphere of the acoustic there is well
captured on this disc. Koos Verheul is no longer in the first
flush of youth, and while some might consider the Olympian sport
of flute playing to be a young person’s game, he shows that the
elder statesmen of blowing through an absurd metal tube for a
living can show the new generations a thing or two about stylish
music-making. Maybe his tone is a little on the diffuse side on
occasions, but Verheul’s flexibility on the piccolo and alto flute
shows he was still no slouch ten years ago, and already well into
what most of us would consider a well earned pensionable age for
retirement.
Dominy Clements
