Harvey Sollberger

Flute and Alto Flute

“Aurelian Echoes” for flute and alto flute was composed in September and October of
1989. I was at that time Resident Composer at the American Academy in Rome just as
the Berlin Wall was coming down, and although it was only a year-and-a-half before I
began work on “The Advancing Moment” the mood and spirit of those two times were
quite different.

It was Rome where the wine was sparkling and the pasta delicious, the signorine were
belle and the sun shone every day. Rome and miracles, too, go together, just as one
night the statue of the Virgin in my studio winked at me. Most encouraging. “Aurelian
Echoes” reflects those halcyon days and lit-up nights. Think of it, in fact, as a spirited
Roman conversation (the opening indication is in fact chiacchierando: chatty, gossipy)
grafted onto a Renaissance bicinium inflected with a model’s strut down the Via
Veneto and spritzed with a tad of Alberto Moravia’s bad-boy malizia. The title refers
to the location of my studio in a former chapel on the grounds of the Villa Aurelia,
while the tune tolled by the alto flute on the music’s final page is that of the bells of
the church of San Pietro in Montorio down the street from the Academy. Those bells:
my alarm clock and quitting whistle. Another Roman surprise lurks, as well, on the
closing page, but be assured it has nothing to do with pines, fountains, or Rome’s
famous stray cats.

“AE” was premiered on November 3, 1989, in a recital given in the Villa Aurelia where
I performed it with its dedicatee Lauren Weiss with a full moon rising. Recorded
Sept. 9, 2001, Warren Music Center Studios atUC San Diego, under the supervision
of Josef Kucera.