Six flutes. That’s like one giant humanoid mutant panpipe, and perhaps only the most hardcore flute enthusiasts would find that appealing. The recent recital at Palazzo de La Salle by the Napier University Flute Choir, featuring Duo Aulos, proved that there is more to a flute choir than just air vibrating in metal pipes.
The ensemble is all made up of flute students currently studying at the Ian Tomlin School of Music, Napier University, Edinburgh. It featured not only the regular flute, but also lesser known variants such as the piccolo, alto flute and bass flute. The ensemble is a very dynamic group which not only has a high technical level but also possesses great musicianship well beyond student level.
My only misgiving about this concert was the length of the programme presented. Running well over two hours, it was a bit too long and could have easily been tweaked to an hour. The ensemble performed in several different line ups, and also included duos and solos. This meant a lot of moving about, which I felt disrupted the flow of the concert.
On the other hand, the choice of programme was interesting and varied, and included contemporary pieces as well as established repertoire, with a dash of popular music at the end.
The programme opened with Katherine Hoover’s Celebration, which was a good concert opener and helped to introduce the audience to the sound of the ensemble.
This was followed by J Casterede’s Flutes en Vacances, a piece full of French joie de vivre which was played with lots of humour.
The next four items were dedicated to contemporary music from Scotland and Malta.
The first two pieces were written by Scottish composer Kenneth Dempster, lecturer and composer in residence at the Ian Tomlin School of Music, Edinburgh.
The first piece, Auletes, was a flute duo performed by Clara Galea and Laura Cioffi as Duo Aulos. The piece refers to Pharaoh Ptolemy XII, Cleopatra’s father, who was a keen flute player who neglected the affairs of state to indulge in his hobby. The piece oscillates between moments of joy and foreboding, signalling a gradual political and moral decay.
The second piece, a flute solo called Lost Voices, was performed by Cioffi. Although unrelated in content with the previous piece, one could hear a stylistic extension related to the previous piece.
Lost Voices is taken out of a musical theatre piece that Dempster wrote for a project with the National Museum of Scotland, and although it is not a programmatic piece, it dwells on the idea of museums being vehicles for the past, hence the title.
This was followed by a duo piece called Qalb Waħda by another Scottish composer, Stuart Murray Mitchell, who wrote this specifically for the 10th anniversary of Duo Aulos.
Good music is all about playing with your soul not just your fingers
The overall feeling was that of a musical act of friendship. The work is in five unrelated movements, opening with Fiera that plunges the listener into the chaotic world of Maltese celebrations.
This was followed by Vojt, where the textures become sparse and the sounds dull. Innu weaves together two hymns, the Maltese hymn Nadurawk ja Ħobż tas-Sema and the Scottish Afton Water. This was followed by Dizi, a piece inspired by the Chinese flute of the same name which uses a particular technique, that of placing a thin membrane over a tone-hole, to great effect.
The piece ended with Vuċi where apart from blowing into their flutes, the flautists are also asked to sing into it creating an ambiguous sound.
The first half finished with Reuben Pace’s Postcards from Mars, inspired by Martian landscapes. The music uses a very sparse texture and extended techniques that effectively portray the forbidding Martian environment.
This was followed by Judy Nishimura’s Russian Medley for flute choir, a piece that quoted many famous Russian classical tunes (including Borodin’s Polovstian Dances and Rimsky-Korsakov’s Flight of the Bumble Bee) with a contemporary twist.
The second half had a somewhat lighter tone. It opened with another Scottish composer, Eddie McGuire’s Celtic Knotwork. After that came Saint-Saen’s The Elephant in an arrangement by M. Orriss, which cast the bass flute as ‘the elephant’. I found the following two pieces, namely L. Kocher’s Winter’s Journey and G. Warren’s Interlude, sweet but superfluous in the programme.
Michael Ready then performed Debussy’s Syrinx, one of the most celebrated pieces in the flute solo repertoire. Ready possesses a brilliant round tone, and performed the piece with great panache. The flute choir then performed E. Bozza’s charming Pastorale and Ronde from Jours d’ete a la Montagne.
The final part was devoted to a more light-hearted repertoire, with arrangements of All that Jazz (Chicago), Big Spender (Sweet Charity), and Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody, all performed with lots of energy and humour. The concert was brought to a close with an arrangement of the overture to Bernstein’s Candide, a piece which brought together all the different flutes, and was a true tour de force of flute playing.
Apart from those already mentioned, the ensemble consisted of Kinga Zaborowska, Holly Thomson, and Rebekah Donn, whose playing was just as technically and musically accomplished as the others.
It is also great that the Malta Arts Fund and other entities and companies support such young talent. All in all, a fantastic concert by a fantastic group of young musicians that really proves that good music is all about playing with your soul, and not just your fingers.