Voix De Pan, French Masterpieces For Flute & Piano – Rita D´Arcangelo

This Da Vinci Classics Album comprises a series of better or lesser-known masterpieces: some are among the most famous works in flute literature, whilst others are familiar to specialists mainly. These works were all composed in France between the last decades of the nineteenth century and – roughly – the first half of the twentieth. Among them is Charles-Marie Widor’s Suite op. 34, composed for Paul Taffanel, the legendary flute player, pedagogue and composer. Taffanel himself authored an Andante pastoral et Scherzettino with the purpose of employing this pair as an examination piece at the Paris Conservatoire. The same destination was envisaged for Fauré’s Morceau de concours, also recorded here. Other works in this album connect music with literature: this happens with Donjon’s beloved Elegie, which is opened by a quotation after Jean Richepine, and, particularly, with Mouquet’s La flûte de Pan, a three-movement Sonata which not only is inspired by a literary work (i.e. Ovid’s Metamorphoses), but also features literary quotations before each one of its movements. But the best known piece in this collection is certainly Francis Poulenc’s magnificent Flute Sonata, which is probably the most played work in this genre in flute literature – and deservedly so.