James Scott Balentine

Flute Quartet (3 C Flutes and 1 Alto Flute)

Composer's Note:

Invention and Rhapsody II is a revised and expanded version of an earlier work composed for, and was dedicated to, my friend and colleague Dr. Rita Linard, Professor Emeritus of Flute at the University of Texas at San Antonio. The original Invention & Rhapsody was premiered in 2001 by the Sonora Flutes: Rita Linard, Adah Toland Jones, Julie Luker, and Jean Robinson. This revised version was inspired by and is dedicated to my granddaughter, flutist and artist Terra Corin Balentine.

The piece is a playful exercise in counterpoint fused with jazz-related bits of rhythmic funk interjected as after-thoughts that lead to a slightly introspective and mysterious rhapsodic interlude, and a return to a final stretto incorporating a (mostly) tonal subject - but in retrospect, it is really about writing music that is fun to play and interesting to listen to, whatever theoretical techniques happen to have been used to create it. I hope you enjoy it, whoever you are - player and/or listener.