A CD of twentieth century
sonatas for flute and piano may not
necessarily sound very inviting. Nevertheless,
I urge you to listen to these, for Gaubert,
though his name probably means little
to those other than flute players, was
far more than a simple virtuoso instrumentalist-composer.
He was, by all accounts, a superlative
flautist; but his music reveals a fluent
compositional technique and a great
gift for melodic invention. Fauré
was an obvious and natural influence,
yet, as even a casual listening to the
opening of the 1917 sonata reveals,
Gaubert had also imbibed the harmonic
language of Debussy and Ravel.
It’s also instructive
to compare this sonata with the attractive
1939 Sonatina for flute (or treble recorder)
by Lennox Berkeley, an Englishman who
was nevertheless temperamentally very
close to the French composers of that
era. Gaubert’s music has something of
the same bitter-sweet sensuality that
one finds in Berkeley.
A great bonus is Gaubert’s
excellent writing for the piano, here
sensitively realised by Sally Pinkas.
She is a fine duet partner for the outstanding
Fenwick Smith – there is a tangible
sense of musical collaboration between
them – no sense of a virtuoso performer
with his back to the piano playing to
the gallery.
And what of Fenwick
Smith’s playing? He is a very distinguished
performer, and a member of the Boston
Symphony Orchestra, which gives an idea
of the level of his accomplishment.
His tone is very beautiful, his technique
unobtrusively flawless. The way he shapes
phrases, flexibly yet without distortion,
is a joy and a lesson in itself. He
also deploys a great variety of articulation,
and, perhaps above all, has a remarkably
wide dynamic range, which he uses to
bring this music to life more successfully
than any other player I have heard,
even his talented compatriot Jeffrey
Kahner.
It is difficult, almost
invidious, to choose between the three
sonatas; yet my firm favourite remains
the Second Sonata of 1924. Its first
movement begins with an ingenuous pentatonic
melody, which is then treated with considerable
harmonic resource. There is a particularly
poignant Andante, with a wonderfully
liquid central section, very Debussian,
while the final assez vif is
unusually restrained and thoughtful,
far from a runaway romp. This is an
exquisite little work.
I want to pay a special
compliment to the Naxos recording. It’s
never easy to achieve the correct balance
between a solo wind instrument and piano,
but producer Joel Gordon has got it
exactly right. Altogether a very fine
issue.
Gwyn Parry-Jones
Fenwick Smith (flute), Sally Pinkas (piano)
