Flute concerto

By Vasks Pēteris

Pēteris Vasks: Concerto for Flute and Orchestra was written in 2008 by commission of Michael Faust, Solo Flutist with the WDR Sinfonieorchester in Cologne. The concerto premiered in 2009 with the WDR Symphony orchestra under the button of Maestro Semyon Bychkov.
Pēteris Vasks: "In the first movement there is some excitement, but there is still so much grace and love all around it. The second, contrasting movement is rather ironic, even sarcastic where you look at the world and see all kinds of nonsense. People, possessions, twisted values, and so on: and you look at it rather ironically. That's why there are such apparently strange things in it. And after this comes the third movement, that beautiful Adagio, reminding us that there are worthy things.
In my music, the main form of its message is singing. And it turns out that the flute can also sing very beautifully."

Michael Faust

Patrick Gallois (conductor), Sinfonia Finlandia Jyvaskyla, 2013, Naxos

I. Cantabile

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Michael Faust

Patrick Gallois (conductor), Sinfonia Finlandia Jyvaskyla, 2013, Naxos

II. Quasi una burlesca

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Michael Faust

Patrick Gallois (conductor), Sinfonia Finlandia Jyvaskyla, 2013, Naxos

III. Cantabile II

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Vasks Pēteris

Pēteris Vasks (1946) is a Latvian composer who was born in a little town of Aizpute in a family of Baptist priest during Soviet times. After initial music and double-bass studies at the Lithuanian Music Academy, he continued composition studies with Valentin Utkin at the Latvian Music Academy. While working at various orchestras as a double-bass player he composed his first compositions, influenced by works of W. Lutosławski, K.Penderecki and G. Crumb.
Gradually he developed his own style: often including Latvian folk music and programmatic titles. His music is generally extremely clear, referring to nature and above all – relations between nature and man. Starting from 1990s his career took off when violinist Gidon Kremer started to introduce his music to broader audiences. Among his most popular compositions: works for string orchestra Cantabile (1979), Musica dolorosa (1984), six string quartets (the 4th and 5th were composed for Kronos Quartet); violin (1997) and flute (2008) concertos. He is a recipient of numerous awards and prizes.
Vasks considers flute his favorite woodwind instrument and overall has written 5 different compositions for it: "Aria and Dance" (1972) for flute and piano; "Landscape with Birds" (1980) for flute solo; Sonata for Flute and Alto Flute solo (1992); Flute concerto (2008), and the "Little Summer music" for flute and piano (2016).