Programme Note
Chausson wrote some interludes for flute and harp for a production of Aristophanes's The Birds, performed at Le Petit Théâtre de la Galerie Vivienne, Paris, in 1889. At the request of Emily Beynon, I have made a single concert piece using some of this incidental music, a kind of continuous Suite rather than a single movement, beginning and ending with flute solo. Some changes have been made, though I have tried to avoid too much interference with Chausson's own text. The first performance of this realisation was given by Emily and Catherine Beynon at Tunstall Parish Church, Kent, at a concert in the Sittingbourne Music Society’s first season. The original manuscript is in the Bibliothéque Nationale, Paris
John McCabe, 2004
I am very grateful to Philippe Graffin for drawing this charming work to my attention. As far as I am aware, it is Chaussons’s only chamber work involving flute and I am delighted that John McCabe has managed to transform the original 18 pages of sketches into such an imaginative realisation for concert performance. These first performances of this realisation take place in this year which celebrates 150 years since the birth of Ernest Chausson. "All his works exhale a dreamy sensitiveness that is peculiar to him." (Pierre de Orville)
Emily Beynon, 2004