Moore, K :: Music for Flute and Piano

Sonata in Two Movements

FANTASIA - ALLEGRO CON SPIRITO

Music for Flute and Piano is dedicated to flutist Harold Jones, a frequent collaborator and close friend of Moore. Like Moore’s other works with similar titles (Music for Cello and Piano; Music for Viola, Percussion, and Piano; and others), the piece takes the form of a sonata in two movements: a lush Fantasia and a lively Allegro Con Spirito. In difficulty, form, and sound we might say that it closely resembles a French competition work-hardly a surprise, given Moore’s education at the Paris Conservatoire and his study with Nadia Boulanger and George Enesco.

The Fantasia (marked Adagio di molto) elaborates on a reasonably strict tone row, mostly chromatic but with several large interval leaps. Despite the well-developed row, the piece is not dodecaphonic; synthetic harmonies grown from the row are reinforced and developed. The movement opens with the piano’s dark statements. The flute sings above in the first theme, punctuated by the Modernist tendency to color long lines with staccato comments. The second theme, syncopated and with more than hints of gospel, leads into a flute cadenza. The movement ends with the flute’s restatement of the opening while the piano takes the harmony to its logical conclusion.

The Allegro Con Spirito is primarily in a sprightly 6/8 or 9/8, with a central 3/4 section that references the Fantasia. A highly chromatic first theme is traded between instruments, punctuated with dancing accompaniment, that leads into what flutists might recognize as a French Concours-type development with rapidly leaping octaves and long, high singing melodic lines. A central section with more flute cadenza material-this time tone-oriented rather than scale-oriented-grows into a recurring trilled dialogue between the two instruments. The final section restates the opening material and accelerates into the finale.