Contemporary Music for Flute & Piano

BRIAN LOCK: Flute Sonata

CECILIA McDOWALL: The Moon Dances

RICHARD RODNEY BENNETT: Winter Music & Summer Music

ARTHUR BUTTERWORTH: Aubade

ROBERT SAXTON: Krystallen

DAVID HEATH: Out of the Cool

Susan Milan (flute) & Andrew Ball (piano)

Metier msv 28510

Both musicians associated with the Royal College of Music, this is a useful collection of music that flutists should consider for their recitals. I found the two I've listed at the top the most interesting. Brian Lock's sonata is demanding to play and challenging for the listener, largely eschewing the comfortable lyrical 'natural home' of the flute.

Cecilia MacDowall inclines towards the easy, 'listener friendly' idiom, but hers here is a strong piece inspired by Lorca's intense imagery. A rewarding piece for flute recitalists.

Bennet's Winter Music (1960) is "serial with a deft touch", but by the time he wrote its sequel Autumn Music (1983) he had adopted 'a more relaxed atitude' [Richard Whitehouse].

A useful compendium of little known flute music, despatched confidently by this established duo.

Peter Grahame Woolf