Dolce Suono's "New Voices'

The opener at Dolce Suono's latest outing offered a good example of the value of comments from the composer. William Dougherty describes his Karlsplatz for flute, guitar, viola and double bass as "an exploration of the numerous timbre possibilities of this unique.... combination of instruments."

Timbre is the quality of the sound made by different instruments when they're played together. Once you understand Dougherty's intentions, you can concentrate on the sounds he creates without fretting about things like melody and rhythm.

Karlsplatz is only four minutes long, and it plays with timbres that combine elements like a snap from the double bass, pizzicato from the viola, little melodies from the guitar, and flute techniques like flutter tonguing. It takes its title from a Vienna neighborhood that houses major cultural institutions as well as a slum neighborhood, and Dougherty manages to mingle the contrasting moods of the setting while he explores the timbre land.

This concert provided a good showcase for the variety and sheer likeability of the work that young composers are turning out. It was presented in collaboration with the Philadelphia branch of the American Composers Forum, and it featured seven pieces composed for different combinations of an offbeat foursome: the flute, guitar, viola, and double bass combo that Dolce Suono's leader Mimi Stillman has dubbed the Dolce Suono Wind and Metal Band.

Discarding standard rhythms

The program included two pieces for solo flute that could become popular items for future flute recitals. David Bennet Thomas's Whim dispenses with time signatures and most bar lines— an arrangement that lets him create long phrases without worrying about standard rhythmic patterns. The result is a dazzling flute display that would be a good choice for flutists who'd like to open a program with a solo that's less familiar than Debussy's Syrinx.

Kevin Clark's The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock combines short quotes from T.S. Eliot's poem, recited by the flutist, with flute passages that fill in the rest of the text. It would make a great piece for flutists who want to add something different to their programs and connect with the readers in their audience. Prufrock is probably Eliot's most popular poem, for an obvious reason: We can all relate to the feelings of an ineffectual urbanite who measures out his life with coffee spoons.

Is this Prufrock, or King Lear?

The quote-and-play combination would have worked better, however, if Stillman had taken a less dramatic approach to Eliot's words. I hear a fatigued, world-weary voice when I read Prufrock. Stillman read lines like, "I should have been a pair of ragged claws, scuttling across the bottom of silent seas," with the intensity I associate with King Lear, rather than a man who feels he's only fit to swell a crowd or wait upon the prince.

The program's most likeable piece was Michael Djupstrom's "free setting" of a traditional Balkan folk song that Djupstrom has never actually heard himself. He learned about it from an orchestral piece based on the song, then worked backwards and reconstructed the melody from a recording of the orchestral work.

The result is essentially a set of flute and guitar variations based on a haunting melody. The flute plays the starring role, but the guitar adds nuance and mood and gets in the last word.

The guitar problem

The composers who wrote pieces for the full Wood and Wind Band all agreed it's hard to write for the guitar. One of them dealt with the problem by simply dropping Allen Krantz's instrument. In Joe Hallman's Lullaby, the string players provide an effective percussion background for the flute by creating percussion effects with the strings and the wooden bodies of their instruments.

Michael John Ceurvost produced a piece so meaty that a Dolce Suono regular, composer/pianist Jeremy Gill, had to add a spate of conducting to his resume. Exchanges pits a singing flute against a dark background created by the other instruments, with a clash between two contrasting themes, and effects such as an odd tinkly sound that may have emanated from the guitar.

The author of the finale, Thomas Smith, dealt with the guitar problem by writing a piece that "evolves from the guitar part." His Changing Elevations brought the evening to a great high-speed finish, with plenty of rhythm and drive built on the percussive aspects of the guitar's personality.

Too much of a good thing

In one respect the program could have used more variety. Most of the entries emphasized the flute's ability to create long melody lines. Mimi Stillman spent a big part of the evening playing the kind of thing Baroque composers called an "air" when they included it in a suite.

I can understand the impulse. If I were a composer and somebody asked me to write a piece for a flutist of this caliber, I would probably succumb to the same temptation. But all recorder players know that Baroque flute suites featured pieces in a variety of tempos and moods, including fast-stepping jigs and gavottes. The flute doesn't just sing, gentlemen. It also dances.