METAMUSIC

for Flute and Piano 1971

David Hellewell

METAMUSIC was composed for the flautist Evelyn Frank, to whom the work is dedicated, and has since received many performances and broadcasts both in the UK and abroad. In 1976 Metamusic was chosen as the outstanding flute publication of that year by the American Flute Association, and was performed at their Symposium in San Francisco. The virtuoso Hungarian flautist Istvan Matuz has performed and championed the work, and subsequently commissioned Hellewell to write a piece utilising his new multiphonic techniques which he had developed at IRCAM, Paris: METAFLUTE MUSIC for flute and chamber orchestra.

The flute and piano each have characteristic modes of playing and expression which, to a considerable degree, they share. Amongst these are: the ability to negotiate widely disjunct melodies; a limpid legato style; very fast, well-articulated execution; and a crisp staccato. A significant exception to this is the flute’s ability to sustain and shape the character of a sound.

All these characteristics are exploited in this piece. In much of the work there is total integration of musical material between the two instruments, using linear and block counterpoint, and extensive use is made of modern ‘hocket’ techniques.

The evolving form of the work consists of interconnected sections of varying lengths and diverse material, ranging from tightly-controlled and complex rhythmic sections, to sections in which a substantial degree of rhythmic freedom is allowed. The last section is, in essence, an extended coda, which is unbarred and basically slow and tranquil.

First performance University of Southampton 23.11.1971, Evelyn Frank (fl) Ronald Lumsden (pn); 1st London performance, Purcell Room 28.11.72; Broadcast Radio 3 “Music in our Time’. 1st European performance, Budapest Festival 4.10.77, Istvan Matuz (fl) Adam Fellegi (pn). Ist USA performance 21.8.74 Penelope Fisher (fl) Mary Mottl (pn).