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20th century

Baroque

Classical

Romantic

20th century

21st century

Solo repertoire

Piccolo

Alto flute

Bass flute

Shostakovich Dmitri

Aitken, Robert

Arnold, Malcolm

Barber, Samuel

Bartók, Béla Viktor János

Beaser, Robert

Bennet, Richard Rodney

Berio, Luciano

Bernstein, Leonard

Bloch, Ernest

Bolling, Claude

Boulanger, Marie-Juliette

Bozza, Eugène Joseph

Brown, Elizabeth

Brun, Georges

Burton, Eldin

Büsser, Henri

Camus, Pierre

Carter, Elliott

Casella, Alfredo

Clarke, Ian

Colquhoun, Michael

Copland, Aaron

Corigliano, John

Dahl, Walter Ingolf Marcus

Damase, Jean-Michel

Davidovsky, Mario

Debussy, Claude

Del Tredici, David

Denisov, Edison

Dick, Robert

Dohnányi, Ernő

Dutilleux, Henri

Enescu, George

Feld, Jindřich

Ferroud, Pierre-Octave

Foote, Arthur

Foss, Lukas

Françaix, Jean

Fukushima, Kazuo

Gaubert, Philippe

Gieseking, Walter

Gordeli, Otar

Griffes, Charles Tomlinson

Grovlez, Gabriel

Guarnieri, Mozart Camargo

Hanson, Howard Harold

Harsányi, Tibor

Harty, Hamilton

Heiss, John

Heith, David

Higdon, Jennifer

Hindemith, Paul

Honegger, Arthur

Hoover, Katherine

Hosokawa, Toshio

Hovhaness, Alan

Hüe, Georges Adolphe

Ibert, Jacques

Ichiyanagi, Toshi

Ittzés, Gergely

Jacob, Gordon

Jemnitz, Sándor

Jirák, Karel Boleslav

Jolivet, André

Karg-Elert, Sigfrid

Kennan, Kent Wheeler

Kornauth, Egon

La Montaine, John

Liebermann, Lowell

Martin, Frank

Martino, Donald

Martinů, Bohuslav

Messiaen, Olivier

Mihalovici, Marcel

Milhaud, Darius

Mouquet, Jules

Mower, Mike

Muczynski, Robert

Nielsen, Carl

Offermans, Wil

Piazzolla, Astor

Piston, Walter

Poulenc, Francis

Prokofiev, Sergey

Rachmaninoff, Sergei

Ran, Shulamit

Ravel, Maurice

Reynolds, Verne

Rivier, Jean

Rota, Nino

Roussel, Albert

Rutter, John

Saariaho, Kaija

Sancan, Pierre

Schulhoff, Erwin

Schwantner, Joseph

Sciarrino, Salvatore

Shostakovich, Dmitri

Tailleferre, Germaine

Takemitsu, Tōru

Taktakishvili, Otar

Varèse, Edgar

Vasks, Pēteris

Weigl, Vally

Williams, Ralph Vaughan

Yun, Isang

Prelude for Flute and Piano No 17, Op. 34

By Shostakovich Dmitri

Dmitri Shostakovich: Prelude for Flute and Piano No 17, Op. 34 was written in 1933. Originally Shostakovich wrote 24 preludes for piano which were arranged according to the principle of parallel tones (e.g. C Major, followed by A minor, etc.) and encompass the entire chromatic scale. These divertissements were composed when Shostakovich completed his first symphonies and operas “The Nose” and “Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District”. According to the composer’s biographer Krzysztof Meyer, Shostakovich spent only a few hours composing each prelude. Even though the original, piano version displays an almost cynical gravity, the flute version achieves lightness and even buoyant transparency.

This transcription was made by Dita Krenberga.

Dita Krenberga

Ieva Oša (piano), live from the concert 24.09.2006. Upe, 2007

Prelude No 17

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Shostakovich Dmitri

Dmitri Shostakovich (1906 – 1975) was a Soviet-era Russian composer and pianist. Born in Saint Petersburg, in a family of engineer, he started to take piano lessons from his mother at the age of 9. Displaying a remarkable ability to remember what his mother was playing in the previous lesson he eventually entered the Conservatory at the age of 13.
He gained immediate recognition with his 1st symphony which he wrote at the age of 19 as his graduation piece. After his studies he continued to work as a pianist but often was criticized for too dry keyboard style and, after 1933 he continued to perform only his own compositions. By that time he already completed his 2nd symphony and opera “The Nose”, followed by more successful opera “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk”. From 1936, when Stalin paid a rare visit to the opera, and Great Terror started to gain steam, Shostakovich’s music was heavily criticized and only dire efforts from many more or less influential admirers of his talent saved him and his career. Shostakovich redeemed himself with his 5th symphony which was musically more conservative. Later he remembered: “I'll never believe that a man who understood nothing could feel the Fifth Symphony. Of course, they understood, they understood what was happening around them and they understood what the Fifth was about."

During World War II Shostakovich tried to enlist in the military but was turned away because if his poor eyesight. Instead, he volunteered for the Leningrad Conservatory’s firefighter brigade and composed his famous 7th symphony. When the Cold War began the Soviet authorities tried to impose stronger ideological control over what have been produced by composers. Shostakovich was forced to leave his teaching positions at the Moscow and Leningrad conservatories and his music was banned, thus he suffered from severe lack of income. During that period of time, he wrote film music to be able to survive, continued to write some official works aimed to secure his rehabilitation, and more serious works “for the desk drawer” like his Violin Concerto No1. Etc. Only after Stalin’s death in 1953 Shostakovich regained his ability to perform most of his works, including his 10th symphony. Since 1960 when he joined the Communist Party he was left to pursue his creative career without interference by officials. After his death in 1975, his music became the subject of furious disputes about whether the composer was a sincere communist or rather dissident. Nevertheless, Shostakovich’s legacy has had an enormous impact on 20th-century music.