Hinunter ist der Sonne Schein for Flute and Piano

Hinunter is der Sonne Schein (Now that the sun has gone to rest) is a suite in six short parts for flute and keyboard instrument (indicated as ‘organ, chest organ, piano, harpsichord’) written and premiered by Graap at the organ in 2019. The piece is a setting of an evensong of the same title written by German cantor Melchior Vulpuis in the 16th century. Graap, born in the historical region of Silesia in 1933, has had a long and successful career as an organist, cantor, director of music and, most recently, a lecturer in organ playing. The influence of church music, mixed with Graap’s teacher Paul Hindemith, in this piece is clear; the first and fourth movements are chorale-like passages for solo keyboard, followed by the other movements in which the flute enters with simple melodies entirely in the low-middle register of the flute. The performers are given liberty with colour and phrasing as dynamic markings are only given at start of movements and there are no articulation markings. The flexibility of instrumentation plus the simplicity of the flute part makes this a piece programmable in a variety of contexts.