George Rochberg – Complete Flute Music 1
Christina Jennings; Lura Johnson;
June Han
Naxos 8.559776
The WholeNote’s 20th season has brought symmetry: in the September issue I reviewed Marina Piccinini’s marvellous CD of Paganini’s 24 Caprices; in this last issue the recording of George Rochberg’s flute music includes 20 of his 51 Caprice Variations (on Paganini’s Caprice No. 24 in A Minor), a significant addition not only to the already long list of compositions based on this work but also to the flute repertoire.
Like the original Caprices, Rochberg’s variations were written for the violin. Jennings has adapted “…those best suited to the flute while representing the enormous stylistic range of [the] whole set.” It is to her credit both that the Caprice Variations sounds as if it was written for the flute and that her formidable technique is up to its prodigious technical demands.
The common thread binding the other two compositions, Between Two Worlds and The Fires of Autumn, could be considered to be the obsession of 20th-century composers with finding a new musical language. I can hear the composer’s voice in the atonal language of the first and the adopted Japanese idiom of the other if I consider them explorations, part of this search; but, Rochberg’s language and his voice seem most convincingly related in the Caprice Variations, which are so deeply rooted in the western musical tradition. Perhaps T.S. Eliot was right: “…the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.”
