The Flute Voice for Flute and Piano

The back story of The Flute Voice is a Sidney Lanier poem of the same title and the words are printed throughout the flute part to forge a strong musical link. The opening line ' a velvet flute note fell down pleasantly' is enticing and the music reflects this with a beautifully crafted flute line over rich supportive harmony, a feature of the writing throughout. The overall structure takes its lead from the poem, constantly shifting both in tempo and in mood, with snippets of melody delicately altered to produce fleeting aural flashbacks, Hilary Taggart is a wonderful flute player herself and her understanding of the instrument enables her to use all the colours and flexibility of phrasing available to us. This makes it so rewarding to play. It's an altogether unusual and very beautiful piece which would be great in any concert programme.

This piece is written in celebration of Sidney Lanier (1842–1881), who was a flute player, poet and author. He was a Professor of Literature at Johns Hopkins University, and this piece is inspired by a stanza from his poem The Symphony, written in 1875. The text is printed in the preface of the score, as well as throughout the score itself, so that performers can see the clear relationship between the text and the music.

Taggart’s music is written in an approachable, lyrical style, with some well-crafted melodic lines and consonant harmonies. In some ways, the music captures the stylistic trends that were prevalent in Lanier’s time—there is a sense of the pastorale about this work, with hints of Vaughan Williams in the fluid lines and resonances of Debussy in some of the use of parallel harmonies and whole tone patterns.

The music places appropriate demands on an intermediate level player; there are some irregular time signatures and quintuplets, and some interpretational challenges which are informed by the text. The flute part covers a range up to high A, and requires some flexibility moving between registers. The ensemble with piano is relatively straightforward, but requires a relevant awareness of the piano part. As such it’s an ideal piece for an intermediate level student (around Grade 6 or 7) to explore new repertoire. There’s plenty of scope for expression and for the development of a rich, lyrical tone and a variety of tone colours. This is an enjoyable piece and a lovely addition to the repertoire.