{"id":27530,"date":"2025-12-05T12:36:06","date_gmt":"2025-12-05T12:36:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ensemble.cymru\/?page_id=27530"},"modified":"2025-12-05T12:36:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-05T12:36:09","slug":"the-french-and-the-flute","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/ensemble.cymru\/en\/discover-chamber-music\/the-french-and-the-flute\/","title":{"rendered":"The French and the Flute"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

by Jonathan Lyness
Programme Curator<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The word \u2018flute<\/em>\u2019 probably started as the Latin verb \u2018flare<\/em>\u2019 meaning \u2018to blow\u2019, before entering the Old Proven\u00e7al language as \u2018fla\u00fct<\/em>\u2019 and subsequently Old French as \u2018fle\u00fcte<\/em>\u2019 or \u2018flahute<\/em>\u2019. Early English spellings include \u2018floute<\/em>\u2019 and \u2018flowte<\/em>\u2019, and further spellings are available \u2013 in fact, spell it anyway you like, and it probably has historical merit! Today the French write \u2018fl\u00fbte\u2019, and when I think of the flute, I think of France, because of two key works. The first is Gabriel Faur\u00e9\u2019s Sicilienne<\/em> for flute and harp, written as part of his stage music for Maurice Maeterlinck\u2019s Pelleas et Melisande<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2018Pan and Syrinx\u2019 by Francois Boucher, 1759<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The second is Claude Debussy\u2019s Pr\u00e9ludes \u00e0 l\u2019apr\u00e8s midi d\u2019un faune<\/em>. Widely considered the beginning of modern music and a masterpiece of French impressionism, it was inspired by a poem of the same name by St\u00e9phane Mallarm\u00e9, itself inspired by the 1759 painting \u2018Pan and Syrinx\u2019 by Francois Boucher. And it begins with an unforgettable flute solo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Mel Bonis, aged 27, painting by Charles-Auguste Corbineau, 1885<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The French composer M\u00e9lanie \u2018Mel\u2019 Bonis knew Debussy \u2013 they were both piano pupils with C\u00e9sar 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 \u2013 Am\u00e9d\u00e9e Hettich \u2013 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\u2019s son. It\u2019s quite a story! Most of Bonis\u2019s music would remain unpublished; for any that was she assumed a gender-neutral name \u2013 Mel Bonis \u2013 to avoid the inevitable prejudice against female composers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Lili Boulanger, 1913<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

As with so many French composers, Bonis wrote extensively for the flute, and her Sonata in C# minor<\/em>, encapsulating her distinctive sense of harmony, rhythm and impressionistic colours, couldn\u2019t sound more French! It is a large-scale four-movement work with an expansive Andante<\/em>, a playful Scherzo<\/em>, a rhapsodic Adagio<\/em> and a sizeable Finale<\/em>. Bonis would have known the Boulanger sisters Nadia and Lili, for they shared Faur\u00e9\u2019s influence and together moved within Parisian musical circles. Lili was a musical prodigy – Faur\u00e9 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<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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York Bowen in 1935<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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 \u2018Francophile\u2019 leanings. He was a pianist who came to be known as the \u2018English Rachmaninov\u2019, 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<\/em> contains three movements: a large-scale Allegro<\/em>, an Andante Piacevole<\/em> – a beautiful and beguiling lullaby, and an Allegro con fuoco<\/em> which lets rip from the start and continues excitedly to the very end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Musicians<\/h2>\n\n\n\n