by Jonathan Lyness
Programme Curator
The word ‘flute’ probably started as the Latin verb ‘flare’ meaning ‘to blow’, before entering the Old Provençal language as ‘flaüt’ and subsequently Old French as ‘fleüte’ or ‘flahute’. Early English spellings include ‘floute’ and ‘flowte’, and further spellings are available – in fact, spell it anyway you like, and it probably has historical merit! Today the French write ‘flûte’, and when I think of the flute, I think of France, because of two key works. The first is Gabriel Fauré’s Sicilienne for flute and harp, written as part of his stage music for Maurice Maeterlinck’s Pelleas et Melisande.
The second is Claude Debussy’s Préludes à l’après midi d’un faune. Widely considered the beginning of modern music and a masterpiece of French impressionism, it was inspired by a poem of the same name by Stéphane Mallarmé, itself inspired by the 1759 painting ‘Pan and Syrinx’ by Francois Boucher. And it begins with an unforgettable flute solo.
The French composer Mélanie ‘Mel’ Bonis knew Debussy – they were both piano pupils with César Franck at the Paris Conservatory. Following her studies, her parents forced her into marrying an industrialist 20 years her senior who discouraged her musical ambition. Eventually she reconnected with a student sweetheart – Amédée Hettich – with whom she had a secret love affair and an illegitimate daughter, Madeline, who grew up unaware of who her mother was and would later fall in love with Hettich’s son. It’s quite a story! Most of Bonis’s music would remain unpublished; for any that was she assumed a gender-neutral name – Mel Bonis – to avoid the inevitable prejudice against female composers.
As with so many French composers, Bonis wrote extensively for the flute, and her Sonata in C# minor, encapsulating her distinctive sense of harmony, rhythm and impressionistic colours, couldn’t sound more French! It is a large-scale four-movement work with an expansive Andante, a playful Scherzo, a rhapsodic Adagio and a sizeable Finale. Bonis would have known the Boulanger sisters Nadia and Lili, for they shared Fauré’s influence and together moved within Parisian musical circles. Lili was a musical prodigy – Fauré registered her perfect pitch when she was just two years old. She died tragically young and her limited output is characterised by colourful harmonies and translucent textures, typified by her Nocturne.
French impressionism was not lost among the new generation of English composers from the turn of the century, one of whom was York Bowen whose early piano pieces had definite ‘Francophile’ leanings. He was a pianist who came to be known as the ‘English Rachmaninov’, and, like many other English composers, he was to serve in the first world war before joining the RAM as Professor of Piano where he remained for the rest of his life. His Sonata for Flute and Piano contains three movements: a large-scale Allegro, an Andante Piacevole – a beautiful and beguiling lullaby, and an Allegro con fuoco which lets rip from the start and continues excitedly to the very end.
Musicians
- Alena Walentin – Flute
- Richard Ormrod – Piano
Programme
- Mel Bonis (1858 – 1937) Sonata for Flute and Piano in C# minor, Op. 64 (1904), 18’
- York Bowen (1884 – 1961) Sonata for Flute and Piano Op 120 (1946), 20’
- Lili Boulanger (1893 – 1918) Nocturne (1911), 3’
Events
- 11.00am, Sat 13 December 2025, Music Room, Gregynog Hall
- 4.00pm, Sun 14 December 2025, St. Mary’s Church, Conwy
- 11.00am, Mon 15 December 2025, Neuadd Dwyfor, Pwllheli
