LATE ROMANTIC

WIDOR/PIERNE/STRAUSS

Luis Meirleles - flute; Maria Jose Souza Guedes - piano

This CD provides the listener with lovely performances of three examples of seldom heard romantic flute repertoire.

The Widor is originally for flute, the Pierne rearranged from the violin sonata by the composer, and the Strauss is a violin piece. No information is given about who transcribed the Strauss and as I am not familiar with the piece I cannot say whether it is identical or in fact quite different from the original. If you want to play this piece (and when you hear it, you will) I would suggest buying the violin part and doing your own edition.

The Widor is one of my favourites. The movement most often played , in Australia at any rate, is the Romance, and this is often paired with the fluffy Scherzo. The first movement is most substantial and somewhat forecasts what is to come in the rest of the work. The Suite by Widor (who wrote a great deal of organ music) has everything: beautiful melodies, virtuosic cadenza writing and plenty of technical passages without being a terribly difficult work. It is perhaps the closest we flute players come to playing a gorgeous romantic work that was actually written for the flute, and rivals similar works in the piano and string repertoire.

The Pierne Sonata is also lovely, and differs only slightly from the violin original from which it was taken by the composer shortly after it’s composition. If you can only obtain the violin part, don’t worry - you only need put a few things up the octave and you are done. If anything, I found this work rather long for it’s own good but I would still love to play it and would definitely suggest it to my students when they are looking to play a proper romantic sonata that is the Reinecke!.

The Richard Strauss is instantly identifiable from the first note as being written by that composer. It is quite odd to hear a piece in this style played on the flute as there is very little other music like this for us other than the orchestral repertoire, one brilliant exception being the solo flute music of Seigfried Karg-Elert. This Sonata lasts over 29 minutes and would be quite be quite a serious undertaking if placed into a recital program.

Luis Meireles is a Portuguese flautist, quite famous in his own country having played in many Portugeuse orchestras. I had to look him up on his YouTube site as there is no information given on the CD. His luscious sound is well suited to this repertoire and on this CD he is accompanied by his wife , Maria Jose Souza Guedes

Harmos Records 2008

Rosamund Plummer has extensive performing experience in Australia, UK and USA, and is currently Principal Piccolo with the Sydney Symphony, and combines a busy family life with her work as a part time lecturer in Flute at the Conservatorium of Music.