Tomorrow flutist Kia Bennett and I are playing at St John's Fulham, at 6pm. The programe begins with Händel's beautiful and lyric Sonata in F Major, and finishes with the famous and buoyant Flute Sonata by Poulenc. Before that, the recital contains two other sonatas based in greek mythology and a legend respectively. La Flute the Pan by Jules Mouquet and Undine by Carl Reinecke. In La Flute the Pan, Mouquet portraits the Greek god of shepherds Pan. The first movement, Pan et le Bergers [Pan and the shepherds], shows the playful and joyful spirit of Pan and the lusty shpeherds upon he watched. The second movement, Pan et les Oiseaux [Pan and the birds], is a a dialog between Pan and the birds or the flute and the piano. It has a melancholic dream-like colour throughout. Finally during the third movement, Pan et les Nymphes [Pan and the Nymphes] we can can hear Pan being joyful again, chasing the nymphs through the woods. The next piece, as mentioned above, is Undine. The legend in which is based was written by de la Motte Fouqué. Undine is a nymph that is brought to the world by his father, in order to became an inmortal spirit. To acheive that a knight must show her true love. Years go by, and Huldebrad is in love with Undine. Unfortunately not all goes as planned for the water nymph. Huldebrad meets another girl, Berthalda and falls in love with her, rejecting Undine, who must return to her aquatic world. The day of their wedding, Undine leaves the water and gives Huldebrad a fatal embrace that finishes with his life. After his funeral, some flowers grew around his grave. These flowers never withered... They are Undines arms looking after her beloved.
Tomorrow at St John's Fulham!
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