Program notes – Rien de Reede

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Theobald Boehm (1794-1881) – Grande Polonaise, Op. 16 (1831)
The Grande Polonaise was dedicated to Paul Hippolyte Camus, Boehm’s great promoter and business representative in France. Camus furthermore compiled the first flute method (1839) for Boehm’s ‘neu construierte Flöte'(1832), the instrument that Boehm presented to the French Académie des Beaux Arts of the Institut de France in May 1837. While others talked of ‘the new flute’ (‘la nouvelle flûte’), Camus called it a ‘flûte Boehm’. And the instrument was indeed known as this. No maker of oboes, clarinets or bassoons had been honoured in this way.
That Boehm dedicated the Grande Polonaise to ‘his friend’ Camus reflects the bond of friendship that had been formed through various meetings in Paris, but equally reflects Camus’ great capacities as a player. After being taught by Wunderlich at the Paris Conservatory, from 1819 he was first flutist at the Théâtre de la Port Saint-Martin and, after having graced various other positions, in 1836 he became first flutist at the Théâtre Italien. In the adaptation of Devienne’s flute method that he published with Meissonnier around 1829 he was referred to as ‘Camus de la Chapelle du Roi et de l’Académie rle. de Musique’. W.N. James wrote about him in A Word or Two on the Flute, “M. Camus is a very popular player of the flute in Paris […] his style is decidedly elegant.”A critic in London wrote after a concert there, “[Camus] caused some sensation by performing Boehm’s music on a Godfroy flute with a Dorus G-# key.”
There are two versions of the Grande Polonaise in existence. Opus 16[a] appeared in 1831, published by Falter in Munich, Opus 16[b] with Aulangnier in Paris around 1842. Op. 16[a] encompasses 408 bars, Op. 16[b] 314. The introduction is almost identical in the two versions. In Op. 16[b] a number of interludes by the orchestra/piano have been somewhat curtailed. Additionally, the Presto covers around a dozen bars less (from b. 371 to b. 381 in Op. 16[a]) and the conclusion in Op. 16[b] is to some extent altered. There are also differences between the two versions with regard to articulations. Raymond Meylan mentioned that the alterations and the new modulations in Op. 16[b] are well accomplished and are probably by Boehm himself.

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Theobald Boehm (1794-1881) – Variations on the German Air ‘Du, du liegst mir im Herzen’, Op. 22 (1838)
The cycle of variations ‘Du, du liegst mir im Herzen’ was written for Ludwig Stettmeyer, one of Boehm’s countless students. Stettmeyer was originally a flutist in Hechingen, and was to become a member of the court orchestra (Hoforchester) in Munich, a position he held from 1847 to 1877. Theobald Boehm also performed this work himself in 1843 in Munich at a charity concert for the poor. A critic wrote, “Einen wahren Jubel rief Böhms Zauberflöte hervor. Wie sich das liebe, gemüthliche ‘Du, du liegst mir im Herzen’ in solcher sinnigen und doch wieder Bravour-kühnen Behandlung in jede lauschende Menschenseele hineinschmiegte.” (“Real jubilation was raised by Böhm’s magic flute. The charming, cosy, ‘Du, du liegst mir im Herzen’ nestled in each listening human soul”). The German national anthem ‘Liebe und Sehnsucht’ forms the basis of this introduction, theme and variations. It is probably the most played and most successful of Boehm’s eight variation works. It can on occasion be interesting to look at some differences between Franz Schubert’s variations on ‘Ihr Blümlein alle’ from 1824 and Boehm’s Op. 22. The introductions are already different in character, due partly, of course, to the lyrics, but also because of the virtuoso traditions with which Boehm had in the meantime become acquainted. In Munich he had played during three performances by Paganini in 1829 and from all his cultural tours, which included Austria, Northern Italy, England and France, he became familiar with the ingredients to be used for a successful performance. While Boehm’s variations radiate especially his enthusiasm for virtuosity and brilliance, we encounter another concept in Schubert’s variations: “[they] emanate a totally new tonal force; they display the atmospheric individual quality of the separate variations….” The application of the concept of variation in character, a term used especially by Beethoven, can already be detected in Schubert’s work. In Boehm’s variations the piano always has an accompanying role; in a few variations Schubert allows the flute to accompany the piano. Countless other differences teach us more about both works. In this respect, Gustav Scheck’s analysis of ‘Ihr Blümlein alle…’ in Die Flöte und Ihre Musik is an informative source.

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André Caplet (1878-1925) – Suite Persane for Double Wind Quintet (1900)
André Caplet wrote his Suite Persane at the request of the French oboist Georges Longy, who, together with a number of colleagues from the Boston Symphony Orchestra, had founded a wind ensemble. It is assumed that the inspiration for this work was the World Exhibition held in 1900 in Paris, at which cultures from around the world had a pavilion. Numerous composers felt attracted to the exotic sounds presented there by musicians from the Middle and Far East. Nihavend, the second movement of the Suite Persane, describes a Persian town. In Iskia Samaïsi, ecstatic fakirs dance for us. The Societé moderne d’instruments à vent, which encompassed all prominent French wind players of that era, played the piece’s première in 1901. The musical journal Le Ménestral praised especially its richness of colour. Caplet had already, in 1900, been honoured by the Société de compositeurs de musique for writing another work for wind instruments, his Quintet for Winds and Piano.

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J.M. Coenen (1824-1899) – La Serenata for Flute and Piano (or Orchestra) (ca. 1863)
Johannes Meinardus Coenen was one of the most important Dutch musicians of the second half of the nineteenth century. He made his debut as bassoonist in the Hofkapel in The Hague, later to become the conductor of the Orchestra of the Paleis voor Volksvlijt on the Frederiksplein in Amsterdam. This huge cultural palace, that burned down in 1929 and made way for the present Dutch Bank (DNB), was for a long time, along with Felix Meritus, Amsterdam’s most significant centre of music, despite its infamously poor acoustics. The short Romantic work, La Serenata, for flute and piano (or orchestra), enjoyed great popularity in the nineteenth century. It was first performed by the well-known flutist Herman van Boom, to whom the piece was dedicated. That première for flute and orchestra, with the Netherlands’ best-known orchestra, that of Felix Meritus, would soon be followed by various other flutists. George Schoeman, for instance, performed it with the Orchestra of the Paleis voor Volksvlijt, under the composer’s baton. As is the case with Rossini’s Wilhelm Tell overture, the work begins with a solo for four cellos. The work was so popular that Coenen created various arrangements of it, including those for cello and piano and violin, cello and piano. In the Paleis voor Volksvlijt it was also performed with flute and organ. The piano part is also eminently suitable for the harp.

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The orchestral material may be rented from Broekmans & Van Poppel.

Alphons Diepenbrock (1862-1921) – ‘Wenn ich ihn nur habe’ for Soprano, Wind Quintet and Double Bass (1898/1915) and ‘Come raggio di sol’ for Soprano and Wind Quintet (1917)
In 1898 Alphons Diepenbrock used Novalis’ text ‘Wenn ich ihn nur habe’ for an eponymous song that he dedicated to the well-known soprano Aaltje Noorderwier. At the request of the Concertgebouw Sextet there followed in 1915 an arrangement for wind instruments, an obvious instrumentation considering the fact that the original version had been conceived for soprano and organ. Due to the various timbres of the wind instruments, the melodic pattern is more easily followed than in the original. By adding the double bass, Diepenbrock also added more profundity. The use of the oboe d’amore is in this context by no means coincidental.
The cazonetta ‘Come raggio di sol’ (poet unknown) seems to strike a lighter tone, but soon enough it becomes apparent that those rays of sunshine and happiness, too, can have a darker lining. The suffering expressed in the last sentence may reflect Diepenbrock’s sorrow at the relationship his wife had with the composer Matthijs Vermeulen. “As a mild ray of sun can rest on calm waves while in the depths of the sea a storm is brewing, so can a smile of happiness and contentment reflect on a face while secretly the wounded heart is suffering fear and pain.”
Both lyrics have mystical characteristics. Novalis was searching for more vitality, intimacy and mysticism in the ecclesiastical way of thinking: values shared by Diepenbrock, who throughout his life was in search of profundity. Although we would not do justice to Diepenbrock by calling him a disciple of Mahler, there indeed exists a great affinity between these two befriended composers.

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Ernest von Dohnányi (1877- 1960), Passacaglia for flute solo
The Passacaglia, Op. 48, No. 2, Dohnányi’s last work, is dedicated to Ellie Baker, later Eleanor Lawrence, the flutist and conductor. It is one of the few late Romantic pieces for solo flute, despite its being composed in 1959 and despite its eighteenth-century form (a phenomenon not uncommon to Dohnányi). It is pointed out in the literature that, although the first half of the passacaglia theme comprises a dodecaphonic series, the piece ends completely tonally. Some believe that this is intended ironically. This capricious, highly virtuoso variation piece includes a number of passages that rather have the violin and piano in mind. This reflects Dohnányi’s skills as a pianist, devoid of any technical impediments.

Gaetano Donizetti (Bergamo, 1797-1848, Bergamo) – Sonata per Flauto e Pianoforte (1819)
Gaetano Donizetti (Bergamo, 1797-1848, Bergamo) is above all known as an operatic composer. Along with the five years older Rossini and the four years younger Bellini, he gained great acclaim as one of the masters of the ‘bel canto’. Beside his natural talent for writing attractive melodies, he received his musical education from Johann Simon Mayr, maestro di cappella in his native Bergamo, and from Padre Stanislao Mattei, also Rossini’s teacher, at the Liceo Filharmonico in Bologna 1815-1817. While Mayr kept the heritage of the classical Viennese composers alive, Padre Mattei was known to be a great teacher of counterpoint. Returning to Bergamo late 1817, Donizetti wrote pieces for piano as well as instrumental chamber music. His nineteen string quartets, in which he could develop his skills in four-part writing, and his other chamber-music pieces were soon being played in musical salons. This facilitated contact with various wealthy families. So it came about that Marianna Pezzoli-Grattaroli, a well-to-do lady of the Bergamo high social circles, became Donizetti’s benefactor around 1818. To her Donizetti dedicated several chamber-music works, e.g. the Sonata in fa minore per Violino e Pianoforte as well as the Sonata per Flauto e Pianoforte presented here. She also helped Donizetti to avoid military service. Opera, however, became his most important musical domain for the remaining three decades of his life. Works like Lucia di Lammermoor, Don Pasquale and L’Elisir d’Amore are the best known among his seventy or so operas. Incessant travels, mainly between the opera houses of Naples, Rome and Milan, were followed in 1838 by a sojourn of some years in Paris and by his appointment, in 1842, as Kapellmeister to the Viennese court. During the last decade of his life his health slowly deteriorated, influenced by syphilis, the composers’ disease par excellence.

The one-movement Sonata per Flauto e Pianoforte is dated 1819 by Donizetti, then 22 years old. Since there are abundant mistakes in the part writing (octave parallels etc.) of the autograph, the possibility cannot be excluded that the work itself stems from a younger and less experienced Donizetti, who just added the dedication and the date on the title page when 22 years old. It is one of his few chamber-music works for a wind instrument. The piece, along with his string quartets, still reflects Donizetti’s studies of the classical composers. With its theatrical introduction, its frequent dialogues, as well as its buffo character, the sonata has, despite the limited thematic material and the simple form, assumed its own modest place in the flute literature.

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George Enescu (1881- 1955) – Cantabile et Presto for flute and piano (1904)
Cantabile et Presto for flute and piano by the Rumanian composer George Enescu may make just claim to being French music. Enescu’s style was largely formed in his studies with Massenet and Fauré, despite the folkloristic influences of his native Rumania. Having left his homeland at seven to study the violin and piano in Vienna, Enescu went to Paris in 1894 to continue his musical education. There he took also lessons in composition. Enescu was exceptionally successful in Paris as a violinist, composer and conductor. In 1908 his Dixtuor for wind instruments inspired Jean Huré to the greatest praise. Huré went so far as to even remark that Debussy seemed to be running twenty-five years behind the composer of this music. Cantabile et Presto was written as the 1904 examination piece (and was also set in 1921 and 1940) at the Conservatoire National. Enescu choose a form for this work that had not only been used by his teacher Gabriel Fauré in a piece commissioned for the same purpose, but was also selected by many composers before and after him (among them Tulou, Gaubert and Casella): a slow introduction leading to a virtuoso second movement. The obvious aim of such is that the performer is given the opportunity of demonstrating the expressiveness of tone in the first movement and in the second his finger dexterity and articulation. A traditional form, its effect is enhanced by Enescu with unusual features. For instance, the Cantabile begins with an expressive melody in the flute’s lowest register, an extraordinary idea in flute music of that time. Alfred Cortot, who accompanied Taffanel’s flute class, was quick to point out the allure of this innovation: “What is more moving than the low notes of the flute?” The Presto presents the interchanging of scalic and chordal double-staccato passages, cascades and flourishes and short, expressively laden phrases, thus finely demonstrating the wealth of Taffanel’s new instrumental style.

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Frank Martin (1890–1974) – Deuxième Ballade for flute and piano or orchestra
Frank Martin wrote a number of Ballades, namely for saxophone (1938), flute (1939), piano (1939), trombone (1940), cello (1949) with orchestra or piano. There followed much later (1972) another Ballade for viola. According to Martin: “The title Ballade permits an element of poetry within a completely free musical form, and, more precisely, epic poetry, but then without any pretence of an allusion to a literary theme. It is the transposition into the domain of pure music of something which in poetry would count as a tale or a dramatic narrative.” The Deuxième Ballade pour Flûte et Piano ou Flûte, Orchestre à cordes, Piano et Batterie, discovered by Maria Martin in 2008, is an adaptation by the composer himself of the Ballade für Alt-Saxophon, Streichorchester, Klavier, Pauken und Schlagzeug. Making frequent use of the instrument’s extreme registers, it is (according to the composer) marked ‘sometimes elegiac, then again ecstatic’.

Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992) -Le merle noir
For Olivier Messiaen the doctrines of Catholic faith and ornithology were the two most important sources of inspiration for his music. The new compositional system he conceived and developed, outlined in his book Technique de mon langage musical (1942) arose from the anti-symphonic thinking espoused by Debussy in Mr. Croche. The symphonic genre owed its existence to the inherent tension and release of tonal harmony. Messiaen’s harmony however is decorative rather than functional to the structural development of his music. His system of ‘modes of limited transposition’ is more static as it does not group harmonies to generate complexes of tension and release. In these modes the octave is divided in two, three or four identical intervals; each interval is in turn subdivided in identical whole or half-toner relationships. The third mode, for example, employed by Messiaen in Le Merle Noir, divides the octave in three equal groups of one whole and two half tones (c – d – e flat – e – f sharp – g – a flat – b flat – b – c).Regarding rhythm, Messiaen was strongly influenced by ancient Indian writings. The most singular characteristic of his rhythmic usage is the a-metrical character arising from the ‘added value’ (valeur ajoutée) principle; i.e. prolonging the duration of a given note or rest by adding to it a shorter note or rest. Rhythm is thus freed from the tyranny of regular metre. Messiaen’s highly in dividual musical language is immediately recognizable in his larger works (such as L’ascension, Couleurs de la cité céleste, Oiseaux exotiques and Catalogue d’Oiseaux) and chamber pieces (such as Quatuor pour la Fin du Temps and Le Merle Noir).Le Merle Noir was composed in 1951 for the Conservatoire National examination. It was by no means the first bird music to enter in the flute repertoire: Messiaen was proceeded by Couperin and Vivaldi, for example with Le Rossignol en amour and Il Gardellino, respectively.Le Merle Noir is simple in form: A (flute solo – style oiseau), B (homophonic song), transition, A1 (flute solo), B1 (song, flute and piano in canon), transition, Coda (bird chorus). The tone material of a part of the B1 section is identical to that used by Jolivet in his fourth Incantation (1936). Was this coincidence or could it have been Messiaen’s tribute to his Jeune France companion?

Goffredo Petrassi (1904-2003) – Souffle
The solo piece for flute, alto flute and piccolo (one player), Souffle, was written in 1969. Severino Gazzelloni, the dedicatee, premièred the piece during the International Festival of Contemporary Music in Royan in March 1969. Composers such as Luigi Nono (1952), Luciano Berio (1957, 1958), Niccolò Castiglioni (1960) and Bruno Maderna (1961) changed the conventional language of the flute, creating a whole new universe of sounds, and Severino Gazzelloni became their prophet. The new music for flute, often premièred in Darmstadt and gradually coming to be called mainly Gazzelloni-Musik, introduced a completely new concept of virtuosity for the instrument, consisting of large leaps, extreme dynamics, rhythmic novelties and the use of effects such as flutter tongue, key clicks, harmonics, simultaneous playing/singing, and so forth.
Souffle introduces the sound of blown air as a new element in a piece for flute. Neutral air, air at a prescribed pitch, flutter tongue which becomes air and air that becomes normal sound are among the different possibilities. Petrassi’s atonal language (interrupted regularly by the ‘forbidden material’ of the chromatic scale) forms gestures rather than phrases. There seems to be no unifying element, either in the tone material or in rhythmic structures. This form of athematicism would be characteristic of Petrassi’s musical language from ca. 1958 onwards. In Souffle, ‘soffio’ is the unifying element. Indications as ‘esitante’, ‘scherzando’ impose a rhetorical character on some passages. Petrassi just uses the three instruments to enlarge the overall compass of the piece; he doesn’t prescribe different characters to piccolo, flute or alto flute.

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Francis Poulenc (1899-1963) – Sonata for flute and piano (1956/57)
The première of Poulenc’s Sonata for Flute and Piano, dedicated to the memory of Elisabeth Sprague Coolidge, was played by Jean-Pierre Rampal accompanied by the composer in 1957 in Strasbourg. Poulenc began working on the piece shortly after completing his large opera Le Dialogue des Carmélites and there is a clear harmonic and melodic relationship between the two. The first movement -in three sections- opens in e minor but closes with a Schubertesque major-minor dilemma. Here the piano part, richly laden with Alberti basses, serves principally as accompaniment. It maintains this status in the second movement., which after a two bar canonic introduction begins with a subtle yet exceedingly rhythmically simple melody that bears a close resemblance to the aria of soeur Constance in Le Dialogue des Carmélites. The third movement abounds in sudden shifts between biting staccato and warm legato passages, characterized by such terms as très mordant and mélancolique. Interwoven is a reference to the first movement – a technique Poulenc also incorporated in the sonatas for clarinet and for oboe. Unlike the first two movements, in the third movement the flute and the piano engage in an incisive dialogue.

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Max Reger (1873–1916) – Burlesque, Minuet, Gigue from the Suite, Op. 103a
Max Reger was largely indebted to Hugo Riemann for his training. Riemann was an extremely systematic teacher. It was from him that Reger drew his belief in tradition and professionalism as opposed to the then fashionable, romantic concept of inspiration. For Reger, who even as a small boy had been improvising on the organ, harmony and counterpoint were virtually inextricably bound together. This led to his being called ‘the second Bach’. His musical style is marked by chromatic harmony often cast in forms from the Baroque and Classical periods (fugues and variations, for example). Living in the Late Romantic period, Reger was not aspiring to a break with tradition but rather to an extension of the musical boundaries. It is significant that composers such as Hindemith, Schönberg and Berg studied his works with admiration. In November 1908 Henri Marteau played the première of Reger’s Suite (or the Sechs Stücke) in A minor with the composer at the piano. The same violinist had played Reger’s violin concerto a month earlier with the Gewandhaus Orchestra under Nikisch. Reger had his publisher transpose the Burlesque, the Minuet and the Gigue from his Suite, Op. 103a, to render these pieces suitable for the flute. In October 1908 he corrected this transposed version, in the process altering almost all the original slurs.

Rhené-Baton (1879-1940) – Passacaille (1924)
Rhené-Baton – actually, René Baton – was both a conductor (of for example the Concerts Lamoureux, the Concerts Pasdeloup, and the Opéra Comique in Paris) and a composer. As a composer he left behind a varied oeuvre that is distinguished by its inventive harmonic colouring and the touches of rhythmic and structural innovation. His Passacaille pour Flûte et Orchestra (ou Piano) op. 35 is one of the many compositions dedicated to Louis Fleury. With the Passacaille Rhené-Baton took his place amongst many twentieth-century composers who showed an interest in the old dance forms; among them Franck, Ravel and Reger. The passacaille is generally grouped together with the chaconne, both being in ternary meters and bearing strong similarities in form and character. The passacaille, however, is only a dance while the chaconne is simultaneously sung and danced. The most important distinction between the two, however, is that the chaconne is composed on a continuously repeated bass theme of usually four or eight bars; in the passacaille only the rhythm of this (often a minim followed by a crotchet) is retained. Furthermore, the passacaille is less often animated then the chaconne and is usually composed in a minor key – f minor in Rhené-Baton’s composition.

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Albert Roussel (1869-1937) – Joueurs de Flûte pour flûte et piano
In August 1922 Albert Roussel wrote the French flutist Louis Fleury: rest assured, I have not forgotten the piece for flute but am merely taking time to reflect on and fashion what it is I should like to do. Two years later, Fleury (1878-1928) an undefatigable champion of the new repertoire for his instrument, was well rewarded for his patience with an original cycle of four portraits of flautists: Joueurs de Flûte, op. 27. Accompanied by the pianist Janine Weill, Fleury gave the première on 17 January 1925 at the Théâtre du Vieux Colombier. The cycle is opened by Pan, a god of Greek mythology who is enamored of the nymph Syrinx. She tries to escape him and transforms herself into a bundle of reed. Seeking to vent his sorrow pan cuts into the reed, making a flute of it. The movement is characterized by its use of the old modes (Dorian, among others), streotypical pan-flute flourishes, and the fast broken chords in the brief middle section, which depict the ‘panic’ caused by the deity. Tityre (Tityrus) is a peaceful flute-playing shepherd mentioned for example in the verse of the latin poet Virgil. In a conversation with the less fortunate Meliboeus he praises the god that allowshim to freely graze his herd, thus permitting him to play his flute at will. The flute-playing Indian god Krishna enchanted all with the beauty of his music. Like the Arcadian Pan who sought warmth among the nymphs, Krishna shared his love with the gopid (shepherdesses) in Brindaban. Roussel’s Krishna employs a scale that is identical to the Shri raga (a -b flat – c sharp- d sharp- e – f – g sharp) and abandons the typically Western regularity of pulse with a 7/8 metre.Mr. de la Péjaudie, the eighteenth-century bon vivant of Henri de Régnier’s novel La Pécheresse, is admired for his flute playing and savoir-vivre but in the end reviled for his overly colourful lifestyle. After the sad end that comes to one of his many romances he is condemned to the galleys where he later dies by drowning.Roussel dedicated these four pieces to respectively Marcel Moyse, Gaston Blanquart, Louis Fleury and Philippe Gaubert.

Erwin Schulhoff (1894-1942) – Concertino for flute, viola and double bass
Schulhoff’s own description of this piece is worth reading: “The accompaniment (of viola and double bass) in the beginning of the first movement (8/4-metre) is borrowed from Russian-Orthodox litany. Over this (as often in old Slavonic song) lies a floating melody in the flute. The second movement (as a Scherzo) is in the form of a ‘beseda’, a national Czech dance, which as its main element uses a ‘furiant’ tempo. The theme of the slow movement (4/4 + 3/4), after a Carpathian-Russian love song, played unchanged – after each other – by each instrument, always appears in an ornamented frame of two voices. The last movement is a Rondino after a song of a Carpathian-Russian bear driver, of which the second part consists of a Slovakian shepherd theme in the flute accompanied by an ostinato figuration of the viola and the double bass. The whole piece is just a piece of popular music as is in use in the eastern part of the Czech Republic, where it is usual for people to sing in gay minor tonalities and dance to these. In the Concertino you find most of all gaiety, with a harmonic construction in Phrygian, Lydian and Mixolydian church modes. The origin of this piece lays in a peasant gathering of dancing/singing Czechs, Hanachs, Slovaks, Magyars and Carpathian-Russians which I [Schulhoff] attended in the city of Brno.”

From: Erwin Schulhoff, Schriften, pp. 86-88. (English by Rien de Reede, corrected by G. Matham)

Joseph Hartmann Stuntz (1793-1859) – Adagio from the Concerto per il flauto di nuova costruzione (1834/36) also published as Th. Boehm – Élégie
This minor work by Boehm’s instrumentation teacher was for a long time regarded as an original composition by Theobald Boehm. It saw the light of day in 1880 entitled ‘Élégie’ with an inexplicable opus number, 47. Boehm was to some extent responsible for the confusion because he had noted on the material that he had offered to the Schott publishing house, “Adagio, Componirt für Flöte von Th. Boehm; mit Begleitung des großen Orchesters von Kapellmeister H. Stuntz. Mit pianoforte Begleitung.” However, the material actually comprises the slow movement of Stuntz’s ‘Concerto per il flauto di nuova costruzione’, i.e. the conical ring-key flute that Boehm had designed in 1832. Joseph Hartmann Stuntz (1793-1859) had been a student of Peter von Winter and Antonio Salieri and therefore had benefited from a solid education in composition. He was Kapelmeister to the Munich Court from 1823 to 1837.

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Theodoor Verhey (1848-1929) – Concerto for Flute and Orchestra in D Minor (ca. 1898)
The (first) Concerto for Flute and Orchestra in D Minor by Theodoor Verhey, composed around 1898, is a concerto that still graces the repertoire of many flutists, including Jacques Zoon and Patrick Gallois. The piece was dedicated to Ary van Leeuwen, undoubtedly the best-known Dutch flutist of that era. He played, for instance, in the Berlin Philharmonic and later in the Vienna Hofoper under Gustav Mahler. The concerto was premièred around 1899 by the then 18-year-old Jacques van Lier and the Rotterdam orchestra Symphonia. Just as his teacher, Ary van Leeuwen, Jacques van Lier would later be appointed to the Vienna Hofoper and the Vienna Philharmonic. The piece gained immediate popularity in the first half of the last century. To name just a few performances: Karel Willeke, the former solo flutist of the Concertgebouw Orchestra, played it, as did Albert Fransella, who introduced the work in London in the version with piano as well as in that with orchestra. Koos Verheul also performed it with the Residentie Orchestra (The Hague). The concerto comprises three movements which merge into each other. The influence of Robert Schumann and Johannes Brahms can clearly be heard. Brahms’ imprint is especially recognizable in the last movement, which is influenced by his Hungarian Dances.

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The work is published in the Flute Series of Broekmans & Van Poppel. The orchestral material may be rented from Broekmans.