Concerto da camera

The Concerto da camera is intended to be neither baroque-style nor avant-garde music for the recorder, but rather a varied, spirited piece that is well suited to the instrument. The solo part (alternating between alto and piccolo recorders) is both virtuosic and expressive, taking into account the techniques specially developed for the recorder in recent years (overblown chords, fluttering sounds, finger vibrato, etc.).
The relatively extensive orchestral instrumentation (five woodwinds, four brass instruments, harp, percussion, strings) is intended to create colorful contrasts and highlight different structures.
In the first movement, a concise “Preludio,” the solo instrument presents alienated quotations from the slow movement of a Telemann concerto (A minor) over soundscapes created by strings and winds.
Second movement: A multi-part, rhapsodic allegro in which the recorder part is dominated by repetitive figures. The orchestra contrasts this with mosaic-like short dodecaphonic and serial sound groups and blocks. In the quieter middle section, the solo voice corresponds with a dense polyphonic string ensemble.
The slow movement, the centerpiece of the entire concerto, develops as a far-reaching fantasy and crystallizes around the individual lines of the old song “Innsbruck, ich muss dich lassen” – “In Search of Lost Time.”
A rhythmically idiosyncratic twelve-tone bass ostinato dominates the finale, gradually spreading to all voices in a steady crescendo and finally drowning out the solo part. After a brief climax, the theme gradually returns to the bass register, while the solo instrument dominates with virtuoso figures. A fanfare and a figure descending in unison from the upper register introduce this last movement, appearing in the middle and at the end, before a humorous stretta concludes the work.
The “Concerto da camera” is not bound to any fixed compositional principle; it confronts the relatively delicate sound of the recorder with the various louder orchestral groups and, in this field of tension, reveals the possibilities and limitations of the solo instrument.

(Jürg Baur)