Traverso
Chester Biscardi
About this work:
Traverso, for flute and piano (1987)
Published by Merion Music, Inc./Theodore Presser Co.: No. 144-40149
Recorded: American Sonatas, Intim Musik IMCD 043 (Göran Marcusson, flute and Joakim Kallhed, piano; and Chester Biscardi • At the Still Point, CRI CD 686 (Tara Helen O’Connor, flute, and Edmund Niemann, piano)
Commissioned by the National Flute Association to be featured at the 1987 Young Artists International Flute Competitions in St. Louis. National Flute Association Newly Published Music Competition Finalist, 1988.
Traverso, for flute and piano (1987), is a duo equally balanced between both instruments. It was commissioned by the National Flute Association to be featured at the 1987 Young Artists International Flute Competitions in St. Louis and was premiered in Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall on May 8, 1988 by the First Prize Winner, Göran Marcusson, from Sweden, with pianist Joakim Kallhed, who also recorded it in 1994 for Intim Musik (Sweden).
Although I was not given any particular guidelines as to the nature of the composition, I felt strongly that the work should be musically more challenging than a traditional virtuosic competition piece. The Italian title means “transverse, lying across, breadth” and suggests not only the flute itself but a music which extends over diverse feelings and ideas--ideas such as “musical landscapes.” In this work I blend a “Japanese landscape,” in the sense of stillness, with an “open landscape,” in the sense of American harmonies of the 1930’s and ‘40’s.
Year composed: 1987
Duration: 00:07:00
Ensemble type: Chamber or Jazz Ensemble, Without Voice:Keyboard plus One Instrument
Instrumentation: 1 Flute, 1 Piano