Swans (Two Alto Flutes and Piano)
Description
Swans (Two Alto Flutes and Piano) By Daniel Dorff, Published by Theodore Presser Company.
Commissioned by and dedicated to the NeSterN Duo (Kathleen Nester and Wendy Stern).
Instrumentation
Alto Flute 1
Alto Flute 2
Piano
SWANS is a rare offering for the underserved yet beautiful medium of Two Alto Flutes and Piano. Dorff has described being warmly inspired by the exquisite grace and agility of these large instruments, as if alto flutes were the swans of the woodwind family. The work is a waltz chain, not in the traditional European sense, but rather as a series of dark jazz waltzes, always with a light-hearted lilt peeking through.
PROGRAM NOTES
In July 2020, the NeStern Duo (Kathleen Nester and Wendy Stern) commissioned a new piece for Two Alto Flutes and Piano, to follow up Sleepy Hollow for Two Bass Flutes and Piano which they had commissioned and premiered a few years earlier.
There was already a river-like flow of collaborations developing, as Sleepy Hollow had been commissioned immediately following Wendy's performance of Sonata (Spirit of the Hudson) for Bass Flute and Piano at a venue near her home -- only a mile from the Hudson River and right across the water from the legendary Sleepy Hollow Cemetery.
Thinking of an alto flute duo, especially in this context, I knew early on that the music had to somehow evoke or be inspired by swans. Swans have symbolized a broad variety of differing concepts throughout cultures and the creative arts. To me as a bass clarinet player and lover of low woodwinds, I see swans as large birds who are remarkably graceful and beautiful on a larger scale than other birds and waterfowl. How could swans possibly not be evocative of alto flutes?
UPDATES TO THE MUSIC
-Bars 156 & 157, delete the poco morendo and sub. a tempo
-Bar 222, add Poco più mosso
-Bar 259, in the Piano's RH add a high C (eighth note)on the downbeat as an upward continuation of the previous bar's flourish.
Details
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