The Music of Albert Roussel
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Joueurs de flūte, Opus 27
for flute and piano

Written: 1924 Premiered: Paris, Jan. 17, 1925
L. Fleury, J. Weill
Length: 9-10 minutes Four movements:
Pan
Tityre
Krishna
M. de la Pejaudie
Publisher: Durand Dedication: J. Guy Ropartz

About this Work:

The flute was Roussel's favorite instrument, and of his works featuring the instrument, Joueurs de flūte is the best and most often played. The four movements this piece, each fashioned after a flute player of literature, capture the essence of so many of Roussel's interests. There is music based on ancient Greece (as in Bacchus et Ariane and Aeneas), on Hindu scales (as in Evocations and Padmavati, and on a thoroughly European poet whose poems he had set to music (as in the opuses 3, 8 and 9). In short, these four delightful miniatures are, in a sense, miniatures of the composer himself.

The four movements of Joueurs de flūte:

  • Pan a shepherd-god known for playing the pan-pipes. This music bears a family resemblance to the nature music
  • Tityre was one of the shepherds in Virgil's Bucolica. The music of these
  • Krishna is the Hindu god (another sign of Roussel's interest in the East). In his youth, Krishna played the flute.
  • M.de la Pejaudie is the hero of the novel La Pecheresse by Henri de Regnier, which was published just a few years prior to Opus 27, in 1920. Roussel also made several settings of poems by Regnier (opp. 3, 8, and 9).

Of Roussel's contribution to flute literature, his biographer Basil Deane has this to say:

Taken as a whole, Roussel's contribution to the repertoire of the flute, though small, is important and in some respects unique. The voluptuous and exotic characteristics have been more fully exploited by other twentieth-century composers; but no other musician has appreciated and revealed more clearly its gentle intimate poetry; none has used more effectively the clear yet subdued brightness of its middle register, nor defined more sensitively the subtleties of its limited range of expression.

How does it sound?

The Krishna movement is last "Indian" piece that Roussel ever wrote. He restricts himself almost entirely to the Hindu mode form "Shri", which uses a scale of A, Bb, C#, D#, E, F, G#, A. Here is part of the opening of Krishna (79K WAV file).

Other opinions:

As the titles of the four pieces indicate, they can be seen as portraits of four mythical figures; the many contrasts result in a closed form which almost seems like that of a sonatina. [Per Skans]

These short sketches exemplify Roussel's skill as a miniaturist.... Krishna is technically a minor tour de force. With the unimportant exception of an auxiliary note and two modulating bars, Roussel restricts himself to the Hindu mode form 'Shri'. The resultant harmony, the undulating melodic line and the unusual 7/8 rhythm make this piece one of Roussel's most successful evocations of the Orient. [Basil Deane]

Krishna is the only instance in his chamber music of the use of oriental colours and rhythms which are prominent in Evocations, written by him in 1912 after a journey through India. M. de la Pejaudie carries us back to the atmosphere of eighteenth-century France. [M.D. Calvocoressi]

Joueurs de flute has always been Roussel's most played and most popular work because music for flute is not so common that if can be found everywhere and because those flautists who play the pieces find no difficulty in getting them over to the audience. [Norman Demuth]

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