Harvey Sollberger

8 fl/picc/alto fl, 8 perc, 4 cb

For flutes, percussion, and double basses. "The number of musicians required to perform Flutes and drums varies according to whether the flutists and contrabassists are amplified or not"--Performing notes. Commissioned by the Serge Koussevitzky Music Foundation in the Library of Congress.

“Flutes and Drums” was composed between 1975 and 1977 in Cherry Valley, New York,
Castiglione della Pescaia and Siena, Italy, and New York City. It was inspired by the
wonderful artistry of Raymond Des Roches’s New Jersey Percussion Ensemble as well
as that of my Group for Contemporary Music colleagues. “F & D” was commissioned by
the Koussevitzky Foundation in the Library of Congress, and its first performance was
at Cooper Union in New York City on March 6, 1978. This disc presents an on-the-spot
recording of that first performance in 1978, rescheduled from February 6th to March 6th,
due to a blizzard.

“Flutes and Drums” as a title sounds almost latter-day hippyish in its evocation of a
group of high and happy drum-beating “creatives” ranged in a circle. That might be
a bit off the mark. “F & D” is scored for a coven of four flutists, eight percussionists
playing all sorts of skins, woods, and metals, and two doughty contrabassists. If
anything, I think it falls within the precincts of my “invented tradition” pieces; that
is pieces wherein I imagine what the music of a some hypothetical lost (or future)
culture or civilization might have sounded (or might sound) like. And are not flute
and percussion indeed mankind’s oldest instruments?
“F & D” is in D.

This item is listed as part of ACA's complete archival holdings, and may be available on request.