Flute Concerto (Rouse)
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The Flute Concerto is a concerto for flute and orchestra by American composer Christopher Rouse. The work was jointly commissioned by Richard and Jody Nordlof for flautist Carol Wincenc and by Borders for the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.[1] It was completed August 15, 1993 and premiered on October 27, 1994 at Orchestra Hall in Detroit, with conductor Hans Vonk leading Carol Wincenc and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.[2] The piece's third movement is dedicated to the memory of James Bulger, an English toddler who was murdered in 1993 by two ten-year-old boys.[1][2]
Structure
A performance of the Flute Concerto lasts approximately 23 minutes. The work is composed in five movements:
- Amhrán
- Alla Marcia
- Elegia
- Scherzo
- Amhrán
Style and influences
The work contains a number of Celtic music influences. In the program notes to the score, Rouse commented on the particularly Irish influences, saying:
The first and last movements bear the title 'Amhrán' (Gaelic for 'song') and are simple melodic elaborations for the solo flute over the accompaniment of orchestral strings. They were intended in a general way to evoke the traditions of Celtic, especially Irish, folk music but to couch the musical utterance in what I hoped would seem a more spiritual, even metaphysical, manner through the use of extremely slow tempi, perhaps not unlike some of the recordings of the Irish singer Enya. The second and fourth movements are both fast in tempo. The second is a rather sprightly march which shares some of its material with the fourth, a scherzo which refers more and more as it progresses to that most Irish of dances, the jig. However, by the time the jig is stated in its most obvious form, the tempo has increased to the point that the music seems almost frantic and breathless in nature[1]
Instrumentation
The concerto is scored for a solo flute and orchestra comprising three flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons (2nd doubling on contrabassoon), four French horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, harp, timpani, percussion (three players), strings (violins I & II, violas, violoncellos, and double basses).[1]
