Dolce Suono's French evening

The Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts could have become an exercise in sentimental nostalgia, like the models of the biplane and zeppelin cruising around the Kimmel Center's simulated Eiffel Tower. That didn't happen because much of the art created in Paris in the first part of the 20th Century has become a permanent, living component of our cultural heritage. We don't look at Picassos or read Joyce just because we want to revel in a romantic fantasy of sidewalk cafés and quaint technologies.

Dolce Suono's contribution to the Festival was a good example of the timeless fertility that underlies the legend. The program included a genuine masterpiece of the chamber repertoire— Debussy's Sonata for Flute, Viola and Harp— and a piece for the same instruments that's almost as good: Carlos Salzedo's arrangement of the Sonatine that Ravel originally composed for the piano.

Jolivet's Chant de Linos extended the tradition into the late 1930s, and Andrea Clearfield's Rhapsodie for Flute, Harp and String Trio carried it into our own times.

Dolce Suono could have presented the same program at any time, festival or no festival, and no one would have thought it was unusual.

Viola's rare spotlight

In her opening remarks, Mimi Stillman noted once again that the Debussy is a major work in the repertoire of all three instruments. It's a star turn for its three performers, but it's a special treat for the viola player, who assumes a subordinate role in most chamber pieces. This is the third time I've seen this threesome play this piece, and Burchard Tang seized the opportunity with the same verve and style he displayed at the other performances.

I liked Andrea Clearfield's Rhapsodie the first time I heard it, and I liked it even more this second time. Clearfield was asked to write a piece that related to the French musical tradition, but she refused to fall into the trap that snares many composers when they write "impressionist" music.

French composers have traditionally been interested in tone color, and many contemporary composers think they can compete with the French masters by creating strings of interesting sounds. Clearfield understands that Debussy and Ravel worked with old-fashioned elements like melody and rhythm, too. She applied her creative imagination to all the factors that draw us into a musical performance and produced a piece that can stand comparison, on the same program, with the masterworks that inspired it.

Clearfield wrote the Rhapsodie specifically for Dolce Suono, so she knew the flute part would be played by a flutist with a formidable technique. She created a demanding part that puts the flutist front and center through most of the piece, and Mimi Stillman met its challenges with the confident authority that she brought to her roles in the older works on the program.

Under German guns

Before performing the Debussy, Stillman mentioned that he wrote the sonata in a time when Parisian composers could listen to German artillery fire as they worked. I knew Debussy wrote the piece during World War I, but her comment made me see the Sonata's last movement in a new light. You could argue that the overall arc of the Sonata is a progression from the civilian to the military— a shift from the mood of the opening Pastorale to the march at the end.

You can also see the Sonata as an act of defiance: an attempt to create something beautiful in a world trapped in the horrors of a military nightmare. And, of course, you can always ignore all this historical punditry and simply listen to it as a beautiful piece of music.

You can even see it all three ways simultaneously. Complex art provokes complex responses.