Conservatorium of Music
Thursday Concert Class
Thursday Concert Class
| Sonata for Flute and Piano | Carl Vine (1954 - ) |
| I. Fast II. Slow III. Very Fast | |
| Adam Richardson, Flute | |
| Rhodri Clarke, piano | |
| The Sonata for Flute and Piano is an enjoyable three-movement showpiece that calls for considerable agility on the part of both players. It was designed to showcase both flute and piano as equal partners. The opening movement features the continuous sixteenth note lines on the flute coalescing with the piano’s florid accompaniment. The appealing slow movement, almost pastoral in character after a long haunting introduction, explores a completely different side of the flute’s nature. The finale takes the same basic pulse as the opening movement but transforms it into a motoric, breathless adrenalin rush to the finishing post. | |
| Poem | Charles Tomlinson Griffes (1884 - 1920) |
| Arranged by Georges Barrére | |
| William Rigby, Flute | |
| Rhodri Clarke, piano | |
| Charles Tomlinson Griffes was an American composer who composed at the turn of the 20th Century. Having received much of his training in pre-war Germany his music contains a combination of conservatism typical of late romantic German composers as well as a keen interest in the developing French impressionist movement. Poem for Flute and Orchestra fits very well into this category. It simultaneously showcases the lyrical and pastorale style of the flute as well as its more virtuosic capabilities. Within the body of the composition you can detect the emergence of a definitive American style as developed later by composers such as Aaron Copland | |
| Prelude et Ballade | Guillaume Balay (1871 - 1943) |
| Eric Beale, Cornet | |
| Rhodri Clarke, piano | |
| Balay was born in Crozon, France and he served in the French military as a cornet player with the 19th Infantry Regiment. He won first place in the 1894 cornet award competition given by the National Academy of Music in Paris. In 1898 he became the head of music for the 119th Infantry Regiment and in 1911 he succeeded Gabriel Pares as the head of music of the Republican Guard. Many of Balay's compositions became part of the standard repertoire (at the time) for the bands of the Republican Guard. He retired in 1927 and many of his works for solo cornet à pistons remain in the trumpet player's repertoire. | |
| Kashmiri Song, from Four Indian Love Lyrics | Amy Woodforde-Finden (1860 - 1919) |
| Leah Phillips, Soprano | |
| Rhodri Clarke, piano | |
| Amy Woodforde-Finden was born in 1860 in Chile where her father served as the US Ambassador to the country. Upon her fathers death her mother moved the family to London where Amy became a naturalized citizen a few years later. She married Lieutenant-Colonel Woodforde-Finden, a brigadier and surgeon in the Indian Army, and the couple lived there for some years. In that time she wrote Kashmiri Song and her other famous work The Lover in Damascus. The text for this cycle comes from Adela Florence Cory Nicolson, who wrote under the name, Laurence Hope. | |
| Gedichte der Konigin Maria Stuart, Op 135 | Robert Schumann (1810 - 1856) |
| 'Taking leave from France' and 'After the birth of her son' | |
| Leah Phillips, Soprano | |
| Rhodri Clarke, piano | |
| This was Schuman's last song cycle written just four years before his death in a time where the composer was unable to create for months on end. The cycle sets letters that Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots wrote over a 26 years period in her life. The cycle is interesting because it doesn't play on the typical lieder themes of love between man and woman, or nature. Rather it shows the arc of her demise under the rule of Queen Elizabeth. At first she shows devotion to her adopted country of France, then prays for for young son, begs to Elizabeth for her freedom, and then renouncing hope in life before praying for a fearful death. | |