Flute, violin and piano at St Catherine’s

Three familiar and popular stalwarts of the Sunday morning recitals at St Catherine of Italy church, Valletta, presented an interesting programme of works for the above combination composed by three relatively lesser-known composers.

The musicians have performed in various combinations with each other, either Robert Calleja (flute) with Alex Vella Gregory (piano) or the latter with Sarah Spiteri (violin). The three formed a well-prepared and well-balanced team.

The recital began with Sonata in C by Johann Christoph Bach (1732-95), a lesser-known son of the great composer who nevertheless as proved by this lovely work was not at all devoid of talent.

As the pianist explained, the sonata is an important link in the full development of the piano trio form.

In the opening Allegro, it was the flute and violin which shared the thematic material with the piano adding its share later. The following andante was full of a warmly smooth tenderness with a balanced interplay between the instruments which carried on in the concluding Rondo Allegretto.

His musical talent apart, J.C.F. Bach had a name which could render him recognisable to his contemporaries and later generations. Josef Kuffner (1776-1856), at a time court violinist to the Prince-Bishop of Würzburg suffered a cruel fate when for a long time some of his best works were attributed to his contemporary Weber.

One of them, now recognised as his is the charming four-movement Serenade Op.4. The work is very lyrical and smacks rather strongly of opera.

For example, the opening Allegro has the flute as the dominant partner in a well-paced dialogue with the violin and in which the more virtuoso writing is for the flute in a duet with the violin which in turn introduces an expansive theme in the Andante con moto before being joined by the flute in a charming duet.

The Minuet and Trio had all three instruments involved, keeping up the energetic pace with crisply-phrased playing. The concluding Rondo-scherzando had all three instruments interacting in two consecutive sections flavoured by music from Russia and Hungary.

The strongly rhythmic former section came across full of ebullience while the latter sounded like the lively tail-end or friss of a csárdás where of course the violin had a lot of prominence.

Henri Rabaud (1873-1949) is best known for his famous dictum ‘Modernism is the enemy’. Conservative to the hilt, his music bears something of the Franck/ Fauré stamp. This could easily be discerned in the brief but charming concluding work of this recital, which was his Andante and Scherzo.