Au-Delà Du Cadre: Early Twentieth-Century European Music For Flute And Piano – Kairos Duo

This Da Vinci Classics album includes works for flute and piano written between 1917 and 1926 by composers whose activity enlivened the Twenties. Philippe Gaubert’s First Flute Sonata is dedicated to the memory of his mentor, Paul Taffanel, who was the first to have believed in Gaubert’s talent when Philippe was an orphaned and destitute boy. Gaubert soon rose to pre-eminence in the French musical scene, conducting and directing important institutions, performing, teaching and composing. Alfredo Casella, an Italian from Turin, spent many of his years of formation in Paris, studying with Fauré and quarrelling with Ravel; his Sicilienne and Burlesque dates from his French years, when he wrote it as a pièce de concours for the Conservatoire, later revising it for piano trio. Charles Koechlin, another pupil of Fauré, was a cultivated and refiner composer, whose Sonata op. 52 is a true work of “chamber music”, in which the two players are treated equally in terms of both challenges and musical rewards. Mario Pilati is an unjustly forgotten figure, whose career was abruptly interrupted by his premature death at just 35. The first nucleus of his Flute Sonata dates back to his teens, and, in its reworked and expanded form, this piece earned him the prestigious Coolidge Award which launched his career on both sides of the Atlantic.