Chamber Music Prom 6: Monday 22nd August at 1.00 p.m. (Martinu, Dutilleux, Prokofiev)

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

The internationally renowned flautist Emmanuel Pahud is a featured artist at this year's Proms, and he brings a chamber programme to Cadogan Hall with his regular pianist, Eric Le Sage.

Three contrasting works share the same genesis, all being composed in the early 1940s under the shadow of World War II, but all have a sunny nature. Martinu's sonorous work was completed in America after he fled his native Czechoslovakia, and it has a seriousness at its core. Prokofiev's magnificent sonata was written in Moscow, and is one of his classic works - both brilliantly virtuosic and warmly lyrical. Dutilleux's Sonatine, an early work in his long and disinguished career, follows in the footsteps of his predecessor Debussy.

Martinu: Flute Sonata
Henri Dutilleux: Sonatine
Prokofiev: Flute Sonata

Emmanuel Pahud (flute)
Eric Le Sage (piano)

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Isn't the Prokofiev Flute Sonata one of those scary works that include top C sharp and D (i.e. more than 3 octaves above middle C)?

[bluestateprommer]

Heard this on iPlayer, and I really enjoyed it, in contrast to the one commenter on the BBC's own comment page on this Chamber Prom, who ripped into Eric Le Sage's playing. I obviously don't have a score of the Martinu sonata, so I can't comment on the accuracy of Le Sage's playing that the commenter criticized. Maybe a very few splayed passages here and there, but nothing to impair a things overall. Pahud was his usual excellent self, of course.

Not sure what it says that this thread got so few comments, unless that listeners or readers weren't particularly interested in this program. Too bad if that's the case.