Colori Miti

Introduzione e Capriccio (1957) for (alto)flute and piano        Jan Masséus (1913–1999)

In the first place this work is a composition “pour fait plaisir”. Notes to be played with pleasure and to entertain the listener, light-hearted and unpretentious. The idiom is French-orientated and related to both Willem Pijper and Henk Badings, the tutors of Masséus. Introduzione, written for alto flute, has a lengthy spinned out melodic line with repeatedly new preambles, changing from low to high and back again. The total scale of the alto flute is used for this. For the accompaniment the composer uses impressionistic sounding mixed chords that are introduced in a calm movement of brief sounds that are metrically arranged in groups of two and three cords. In that, the left hand intervenes with some antimetrical figures. In the second part, Capriccio, the composer swaps the melancholically alto flute for the clear sounding flute; an instrument more suited to bring to sound the whimsically written notes pattern. The swift movement in this part is twice interrupted by some tranquil bars; an other time, somewhat more cantabile for the flute and in the piano recalling the quiet eighth notes movement of the Introduzione. Capricious, as the title indicates, but ingeniously written by the traditionally skilful composer Jan Masséus.