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.
Almost every individual movement allots the solo flute a specific tonal colouring and an instrumental group from the orchestra: in the opening Allemande, the flutes of the orchestra (including alto and bass flute and later also piccolo to include the entire flute family); the string section in the Sarabande; in both chorales (extremely muted in the first and brutalist in the second), 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 permits the flute to remain the provider of all impulses; it attaches itself to the wide variety of instrumental colours, becomes suffused with these colours and thereby shines in different lights – acerbic, pale and radiant. This first performance marks the conclusion of my two-year residence with the Cleveland Orchestra. The immense versatility of this fine body of sound (which is indeed treated as such with the sum of its parts) and the exciting dark timbre of its principal flautist Joshua Smith have to a great extent determined the form and tonal character of my Flûte en suite. Jörg Widmann
Instrumentation:
flute and orchestra