This is a particularly valuable addition to the flute concerto repertoire, one avoids the stereotypical sound of that genre. Rather than lyrical and gracile, it is dramatic and muscular, with an edgy, tense quality; its moods are more urban than pastorale.
Both the composer and the intended soloist of this work are pioneers in the history of women's achievements in American classical music. Ellen Taaffe Zwilich (born in Miami, Florida in 1939) was the first woman to win a doctorate in composition at Juilliard and the first to get a Pulitzer Prize in Music. And she wrote the concerto for the long-time flutist of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Doriot Anthony Dwyer, the woman principal soloist of that orchestra.
A composer who is not associated with avant-garde styles of techniques, Zwilich has written about her approach to composition, "I don't think of it as a compromise to write music that means something to the player and the listener." Writing a concerto, she says, includes the "great joy" of reconsidering just what qualities make a virtuoso impression for a particular instrument, a consideration that takes her into exploration of the instrument's spiritual essence. "In the case of the flute," she decided, "I felt that while bravura performance is very much in its nature, the flute's mythical power is in the long-breathed line."
Zwilich carefully chose the balance of the orchestra in choosing her instrumentation: She omitted horns and flutes entirely, used cornets instead of trumpet (making a particularly mellow blend with the flute), completed the brass section with two trombones and bass trombone, added a wind sextet of oboe and English horn, two clarinets, and two bassoons. The usual strings, a large percussion section, and harp complete the orchestration of the work. It is a sixteen- to eighteen-minute work, with the first movement comprising around half of its total time.
Zwilich says that to her the second movement (Lento) is the "heart of the piece" but if so it seems that the troubled soul of the concerto comes out in the first movement. It is in the form of a slow introduction (Andante misterioso) leading into an energetic Allegro. There is a mysterious quality to the slow part, built upon an unstable, even disquieting soft chord. Long flute lines muse over it before breaking out into action, which includes a difficult solo cadenza.
The Lento begins with a chord that is close in sound and effect to that of the start of the concerto. The often darting harmonic motion of the first movement is replaced by much slower chord structures, giving a transcendental quality to the movement, though not shedding the dark musings that predominate. The concluding (and relatively brief) Allegro con spirito is active, playful, and optimistic, though sufficient tension remains to remind the listener that this spirit of play and brightness is relief from, not a final replacement of, the tensions of the earlier movements.
