Tonight at Vredenburg Leidsche Rijn, the Radio Philharmonic Orchestra plays the Flute Concerto Dances with the Winds by Einojuhani Rautavaara. Originally Peter Schat's Spring Concert was scheduled, but soloist Jacques Zoon chose to swap it for the Finnish composer's piece.
Son said: 'Peter Schat wrote his flute concerto for me in 1993 but after the premiere he was not happy with it and made a new version of it. He was happy with the performance, but it left me with a somewhat negative association, which is why I preferred to play another concerto. I have never performed Rautavaara's flute concerto before, so that is also a bigger challenge for me.'
"False air"
The title suggests that Rautavaara is going to pull out everything a flute can produce in terms of wind sounds - after all, it is the only wind instrument where not all the air disappears directly into the tube - but this turns out not to be the case. Son: 'True, he does use four different instruments, bass flute, alto flute, ordinary flute and piccolo, but he gives no further indication that I should imitate the wind.'
Anyone listening to the music, however, will indeed hear many timbres that evoke associations with the whooshing or rustling of the wind. Son: "Sometimes I blow with a lot of "false" air, which I see as a way of doing justice to this contemplative work.
The Radio Philharmonic Orchestra is conducted by chief conductor Markus Stenz. Besides Rautavaara's flute concerto, the overture Leonore by Beethoven and Ein Heldenleben by Richard Strauss. About the latter work, he says: 'I admire Strauss enormously for the intuitive way he uses orchestral colours and poetically captures emotions and experiences in music. Strauss is particularly likeable to me.'
The concert forms part of the broadcast series Vredenburg Friday and will be broadcast live on Radio 4 by TROS. My interviews with Son and Stenz will be broadcast prior to and during the interval of the concert, but are also here listen to.
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