The Istituto Italiano di Cultura, the Embassy of Italy and the Manoel Theatre, recently presented an all-French flute and piano recital by two young Italian musicians.
Chiara Pavan and Eugenia Canale had a far-from-easy job in tackling their choice, the bulk of which was a rather difficult one and taken entirely from the rich 20th century literature for flute.
Only two works belonged to the 19th century, and one was actually an arrangement by Pavan. The other, dating from 1898, just did not make it to the 20th.
The recital began with Ibert’s two-movement sonatine Jeux, and this piece revealed that the two musicians were in perfect rapport, performing with precision and in complete balance and harmony.
The piece’s opening movement, marked animé, ended abruptly and is in keeping with the jocular nature of the piece. Even after this startling stop, the following movement, tendre, while beginning exactly in that mood gradually built up a pretty decent climactic conclusion.
Another sonatine followed, that by Dutilleux, who died less than a year ago. It comes in contrasting movements as well, this time three of them. This is a work of rhythmic complexity, and more than an echo of atonality, very challenging and superbly handled by the performers.
The two musicians were in perfect rapport, performing with precision and in complete balance and harmony
Another challenge, even if the piece is very short, was Le Merle Noir by Messiaën. It is also very unusual, and enough to discern if only from the title, that this was inspired by birdsong. The music is rather stylised and in tones often as dark as the plumage of the black thrush in the title.
Very interesting was the arrangement referred to above, that of the Trio for two flutes and harp from Berlioz’s oratorio L’enfance du Christ Op. 25, evoking a completely different atmosphere competently conveyed by flute and piano in very sensitive, lyrically smooth manner.
For good measure, the next two works were vastly different. The eccentric Satie could perhaps be only equalled by Rossini in giving odd tempo indications or titles to his works.
Moreover, his Choses Vues à Droite et à Gauche is divided into three movements: choral hypocrite, fugue â tâtons and fantaisie musculaire. What else could be expected, if not a lot of irony, sharply sardonic music that again proved to be a great test of the performers’ technique which they carried off well, enjoying the romp in the process.
With Poulenc’s Sonata, one had that usual dichotomy so typical of Poulenc in such chamber works: sobriety in the central movement, but unusual in that not both outer movements were completely carefree since the opening movement has a strong melancholic dose.
It was, of course, performed accordingly. The very warm reaction of the appreciative audience reaped dividends because the duo conceded an encore, the Sicilienne from Fauré’s incidental music to Pelléas et Mélisande.
• In last week’s review of the Michelangelo Carbonara/Kyung-Mi Lee recital I inadvertently omitted to mention that the duo also performed Joseph Vella’s Elegy, originally composed for cello and strings. It could well be that the profound rapport between this couple rendered the interpretation of this lovely work the best one of it I have heard so far. My apologies to composer and duo.