Paula Robison and Katherine Chi play Griffes, Lanier, Taffanel and Franck at NEC’s Jordan Hall, by Michael Miller


Paula Robison and Katherine Chi. Photo Matt Dine.

Paula Robison, flute
Katherine Chi, piano
NEC’s Jordan Hall, September 25, 2011 - 2 pm

Griffes - Poem for flute and piano
Three Tone-Pictures, Op. 5, for solo piano
Lanier - Wind Song for solo flute
Taffanel - Fantasy on Themes from Weber's Der Freischutz, for flute and piano
Franck - Sonata in A Major for flute and piano

COMING SOON: a podcast interview with Paula Robison

Although Katherine Chi played Charles T. Griffes' Three Tone-Pictures, Op. 5, for solo piano, there could be no question that this program was primarily a feast of specialized flute repertoire. (Simply hearing the sounds of Paula Robison's playing in Jordan Hall's extraordinary acoustic is enough to make this an exciting event.) One piece, Sidney Lanier's "Windsong," is even known relatively little outside Paula Robison's flute recitals. Paul Taffanel (1844-1908) is remembered primarily as a great flute virtuoso, who developed the modern technique of playing the Boehm flute and modifications thereof—the foundations of the instrument and technique that prevail today. While Taffanel sought above all to enrich the emotional content of flute music and to extend the expressive capabilities of the instrument, he composed much of his music for technical display at his own recitals and as exercises for his students. Nonetheless the appeal of the concert went far beyond the immediate concerns of flute-players and their pupils and offered a wealth of insights, which were both fascinating in relation to music as imagined and constructed by the composer and as re-created within the specificities of acoustics, instrument, and player, and deeply moving as expressions of the human spirit. Paula Robison may well be one of the great living flute virtuosi, one who has dedicated years to exploring the technique of the instrument, to teaching, and to writing textbooks, but she is also a deeply-read humanist with many diverse interests in all the arts and in art's relation to humanity. Like Taffanel and her own teacher, Marcel Moyse, who studied with Taffanel, she has worked to extend the tonal range of the flute even beyond what she first mastered, and to render it fully capable of expressing the subtlest nuances of human feeling through phrasing and tone-color, which, in her playing, are so closely-related as to be inseparable.

Read the full review
 on the Berkshire Review, an International Journal for the Arts!








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