Work of the Week - Jörg Widmann: Flûte en suite

Jörg Widmann, one of the world's leading young voices in contemporary music, sees his concerto for flute and orchestra, Flûte en suite, receive its world premiere at the hands of Franz Welser-Möst, flutist Joshua Smith and The Cleveland Orchestra on May 26. Sharing the program with Rossini’s Stabat Mater, the flute concerto was commissioned by The Cleveland Orchestra through the Young Composers Fund, endowed by Jan R. and Daniel R. Lewis. The composer writes:

This suite is not one of my ‘epic’ instrumental concertos such as the concertos for cello, violin or oboe, but a substantially smaller-structured series of dance forms arranged into a suite. Sunken worlds suddenly emerge here, only to reach the surface, hover in dangerously distorted fashion and then sink back to the bottom.

Every individual movement allots the solo flute an instrumental group from the orchestra: in the opening Allemande, the flutes of the orchestra; the string section in the Sarabande; in both chorales the brass, etc.; and it is only in the concluding Badinerie that all orchestral groups are combined, although they are terraced in the Baroque style, one following another, seldom all playing simultaneously. This first performance marks the conclusion of my two-year residence with The Cleveland Orchestra. The immense versatility of this fine body of sound and the exciting dark timbre of its principal flutist Joshua Smith have to a great extent determined the form and tonal character of my Flûte en suite.

Follow up performances take place on May 27 and 28 in Cleveland’s Severance Hall.

More on Jörg Widmann and his music can be found at www.schott-music.com.

Find details on the program by visiting www.clevelandorchestra.com.

Jörg Widmann
Flûte en suite (2011)
for flute and orchestra
3(2.afl, 3.bfl, 3 pic).3(2.ob. d’am., 3.ca).3(3.cbsn)-4.4.3.1-2perc-hp.cel (cemb)-str
21’