Camerata S.A. with Tal Perkes
Flute and friends in birdland
October 20, 2008Tallon Sterling Perkes ended his tenure as the San Antonio Symphony’s principal flute last season and began his graduate studies in architecture this fall at UTSA. In the midst of his transition to the realm of frozen music, Perkes returned to the fluid variety in a recital (with friends) for Camerata San Antonio, Oct. 19 in Travis Park United Methodist Church.
The all-French program began in the baroque (LeClair, Couperin, Rameau) and then jumped into the modern period (Gaubert, Varese, Messiaen, Roussel, Dutilleux).
Most striking in the baroque group was Perkes’s ability to make his modern metal flute sound like its wooden baroque ancestor -- partly a matter of playing without vibrato, but also of somehow softening and darkening the timbre. In the modern works, the sound was very different, shot through with bright flecks of iridescent color. Throughout the program, Perkes played with intelligent phrasing and unfailing musicality.
In general, Perkes seemed more sympathetic to the modern works. Most welcome were Varese’s unaccompanied “Density 21.5,” a tough-minded piece beautifully paced and phrased, and Messiaen’s “La Merle Noir,” in which a free-flowing flute line and a more prickly piano part (the excellent Kristin Roach) portray the delightfully verbose blackbird of the title.
In all, four of the eight pieces were musical interpretations of birdsong. Soprano Linda Poetschke, in superb voice, joined Perkes and Roach (on a French-style double-manual harpsichord by Gerald Self) in Rameau’s “Rossignols amoureux” (from his first opera, “Hippolyte et Aricie”) and returned later to join Perkes in Roussel’s sumptuous “Rossignol, mon mignon.” The latter, in particular, gave scope to Poetschke’s wonderful inflections and sense of the text. When Poetschke sings in French, the only feasible response is unconditional surrender.
The program eschewed overt flashiness, but Henri Dutilleux’s Sonatine for flute and piano allowed Perkes to display ample virtuosic chops.
Mike
Greenberg
