GEORGE ROCHBERG (1918-2005): Complete Flute Music, Vol. 1 - Caprice Variations for Solo Flute (transcr. Christina Jennings), Between Two Worlds (Ukiyo-e III) for Flute and Piano, Slow Fires of Autumn (Ukiyo-e II) for Flute and Harp.

Description: The Variations are the flutist's transcriptions of twenty of Rochberg's fantasy-variation-studies on Paganini's ubiquitous 24th Caprice, originally for violin. The pieces are predominatly neo-romantic, neoclassical and neo-baroque, and tonal, with a handful of atonal and even extended-technique numbers thrown in as reminders of Rochberg's enthusiastic embrace of modernism before his dramatic return to tonality in the 1970s. Ukiyo-e refers to Japanese woodblock prints, and the pieces are strongly evocative of contrasting scenes, in a highly expressive, chromatic language. Slow Fires includes some references to shakuhachi flute playing and Japanese folk melody, but, like the night music movements of Between Two Worlds, the work is primarily an atmospheric tone-painting suggesting the mysterious, formal beauty of Japanese landscape painting. Christina Jennings (flute), Lura Johnson (piano), June Han (harp).