Edinburgh Arts

Performers Emily Beynon (flute) and Andrew West (piano)
Music Prokofiev: Five songs without words; Debussy: Syrinx; Poulenc: Flute sonata; Prokofiev: Flute sonata; Borne/Bizet: Fantaisie brillante sur Carmen
Date 15 August 2006
Venue Queen's Hall
Address Clerk Street
Reviewer Jonas Green

Emily Beynon was playing, as we heard later, on a borrowed flute, and from borrowed music - thanks to recent airline security restrictions and consequent baggage mayhem. No-one could have suspected such problems from this poised and confident performance of a popular programme.

Prokofiev's Five songs without words, from 1920, was a good opener, showing off contrasts of both flute tone and the flute/piano combination. These were initially wordless vocalises later adapted for violin, so the flute line is predominantly smooth and sustained. Andrew West's piano was intially too stolid and perfunctory for the dreamier moods, but he soon mellowed. The second of these pieces is perhaps the best, where the flute can embellish an 'oriental' section with flutter-tongueing.

Debussy's short Syrinx for solo flute was originally designed as offstage music to a verse play, and so Emily Beynon chose to play it - very atmospherically - from 'offstage' in the Queen's Hall. Straining as we did to hear the quietest notes, we could begin to imagine a mythical stage scene taking place before us.

Next, that classic of the flute repertoire, Poulenc's Sonata, which was played stylishly and precisely, with the flute correctly in the foreground most of the time (there were no problems of instrumental balance throughout the concert). The performers caught well the quirky contrasts of the Cantilena slow movement and the roller-coaster ride of the Finale.

The two Flute Sonatas were at the centre of this programme, and Prokofiev's, the less-well-known, was the most interesting piece. It was written during World War II, twelve years before his friend Poulenc's Sonata, and on a somewhat larger scale. Prokofiev's material is more esoteric and less memorable but otherwise it has many similarities with the Poulenc piece: a neo-classical style, and a combination of witty virtuosity with a slightly melancholy lyricism.

Prokofiev's square-rhythmed first movement is the least successful but the two inner movements are remarkably like Poulenc, apart for a jazzy chromatic section that could only be Prokofiev. All of this was skillfully delivered in a way which favoured the music over the performers.

After this instructive tour of the 20th-century repertoire, we were entertained to some virtuoso fireworks compiled by one Francois Borne, one of the many potpourris constructed from Bizet's Carmen. The enthusiastic audience was further rewarded with a simple Poulenc song as encore.