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Flute King: Music from the Court of Frederick the Great

This is a recording of late Baroque/Roccoco works for flute and orchestra with Emmanuel Pahud and the great English Baroque specialist Trevor Pinnock, leading the Kammerakadamie Potsdam.

Great recording. Pahud as usual shows tremendous vivacity within the technical brilliance and stylistic acumen. All his playing exhibits a lovely rubato to show dynamism so typical of this period of flute music with its emfindsamer Stil. Pahud’s breath in particular is so lively and dynamic, there’s none of the stasis one can hear in other (even really good) flute-players. You hear constant motion and design.

Stylistically, while he doesn’t sound like he’s slavishly parroting a Baroque flute, Pahud makes a powerful reinterpretation of these early Rococo and Classical works, making the most of the brilliance and power of the modern flute with the sensitivity of a Baroque flute. That’s a hell of a rare and hard combination to achieve as the feel and blowing styles of the instruments are very different.

All playing shows period-aware performance practice across the board. Must also be a help having someone like Pinnock – a bit of a legend in Period-performance circles – on board!

Of the works themselves, a highlight is the recording of Quantz’s Concerto in G major. While Pahud is good enough to make even Fredrick the Great’s concerto sound engaging, he really brings out the invention in pieces like Quantz’s.

What I'm listening to....

Galway plays Rodrigo

In a blast-from-the-past, I’m listening again to Galway playing Joaquin Rodrigo as I’m playing Rodrigo’s Canario, the last movement of Fantasia para un Gentilhombre, in a little concert in the school I teach at on Sydney’s lower North Shore.

I haven’t played this since I was 12 so it’s really a walk down memory lane for me.

Recorded in 1979, this recording has got Galway at the absolute top of his game, playing the Fantasia and also the fiendish Concerto Pastorale, written for Galway by Rodrigo himself.

I listen to this and it’s just quintessential Galway – the relentlessly powerful tone (even in piano!), impeccable technique. Straightforward, but impeccable, phrasing. He’s the flute player everyone has to have an opinion about – the Heifetz of the flute, the most influential player of the 20th century. And you hear it all in this recording.

Music Practice

Why do we need De la Sonorité?

Basically, at some point we all want more – more dynamic and expressive contrast, more colours in our sound. While the flute is super-easy to get reasonably good at, after a while in terms of expressive range, it often pales in comparison to other instruments.

Marcel Moyse confronted this hard truth back in 1934 when he wrote his book, De la Sonorité (About Sound) and in which he outlined a methodical way of developing a bigger, more expressive sound.

You continue the exercise illustrated here all the way down to low C’ or B’, then back up the scale to at least C””. The principle is simple and remains the same:

  • Make the most beautiful, brassy, bodacious and bold sound that you have ever made on B – no matter how long it takes
  • Take that sound and move it to Bb – only a semitone away
  • Repeat this all the way down the scale – learning as you go all the little subtle changes of lip/mouth shape you have to do to make up for the inadequacies of the modern flute scale.

Everyone has to do this exercise at some point. There is no way around it, you must go through it. “Most beautiful” should gradually (over weeks and months) get better – more lustrous, darker, more powerful.

Flute players like James Galway and Michael Martin Kofler show the extreme end of this process in their relentless, powerful and lustrous tone.

Some of the biggest things I find to really help this process along are:

  • Intense listening to the great flutists out there – there are a billion Galway recordings to listen to for example. All are fine examples to copy.
  • Close your eyes while you do this – you need all your brain power focused on feelings and sound when you do this. If your eyes are open, you’re just busy distracting yourself with your visual sense – which is worse that useless here.
  • Imaginative visualisation of the shape of your mouth/embouchure can really help encapsulate changes you’re trying to make.
  • Running, swimming or rowing to really expand your lung and give you capacity to experiment and just blow harder for longer.
  • The fast way is the slow way. The slower you go and the more you persist on tough notes, the faster the overall progress you’ll achieve.
What I'm listening to....

Jeux à Deux: Recital for Flute and Harp

I first heard Michael Martin Kofler back in 1994 or so at a flute convention in Frankfurt am Main. He had already held his job as Principal Flute with the Munich Philharmonic for some years and his performance (of Rodrigo’s Flute Concerto, no less) was amazing. Just brutally, relentlessly powerful but also gorgeous playing.

And so he is in Jeux à Deux: Recital for Flute and Harp. Lots of seamless, effortless beauty. An impeccable golden tone somewhat in the manner of James Galway. A luminous tone in Ibert’s Pièce in particular but also lots of delicate playing in his Bach interpretations.

I often forget the level of refinement but also intensity players like Kofler can show. The quality and intensity of his playing is something I need to remind myself of in my day-to-day playing and teaching.

What I'm listening to....

Pahud plays Vivaldi

This is a recording by the great Swiss flutist, Emmanuel Pahud and our own Australian Chamber Orchestra, led by Richard Tognetti, of the Six Concertos Op. 10 by Antonio Vivaldi. The concertos themselves are pillars of the flute repertoire, even though they were originally composed for recorder.

What can I say about this? It’s hands-down the best, most charismatic and consistently musically-compelling recording of these concertos around. Even Period musicians don’t play with this balance of good musicality and flat-out imagination.

I never tire of listening to this recording. I think there was real chemistry between Pahud and Tognetti – both very imaginative musicians. Intensely evocative playing of already naturalistic music. And they’re playing modern instruments with GREAT period-correct style.

Pahud’s playing on a technical level is otherworldly of course, but he is never just showboating. I honestly listen to his playing all the time and it makes me stop and think, and listen again. Totally informs my playing on a musical AND technical level that I don’t find with any other player. Not that there aren’t many other great players around, but Pahud is the complete package in ways I continually find illuminating.

A short video about the recording of these flute concertos by Pahud and the ACO.
What I'm listening to....

Beaumardier plays flute, piccolo, alto

I just came across this recording on Apple Music of the flute player, Jean-Louis Beaumardier.

Lovely piccolo playing – and C and Alto flute! Sweet, lighter tone, and sensitive French School playing. He is a student of Jean-Pierre Rampal’s and sounds great, especially playing the French pieces such as Debussy’s Syrinx.

Great febrile, dynamic feel to playing to playing, the vibrato is very alive, rubato is feels impulsive (however planned out it truly is!) Lovely alto flute playing on pieces like Jolivet’s Incantation.