The music of Jean Francaix is well known to those familiar with woodwind chamber literature. His long, successful career began in the 1930s when French composers rejected the excessively chromatic harmonies, intense emotionalism and grandiose proportions of late Romantic music. Embracing the concepts of neoclassicism, economy of means, clarity and objectivity, and a return to diatonicism and formal structures, the new "Classical" music contained the added spice of twentieth-century harmonic techniques including bitonality, modality, and quartal and quintal harmonies.
Francaix has written many concertos and solos for woodwind instruments, but his enduring popularity resides in his chamber music for various combinations. His publisher for the last six decades has been B. Schott's Sohne who commissioned Francaix to write several chamber works in honor of his eightieth birthday.
Two of his works for flute, Divertimento pour flute et piano and Suite pour flute seule, are known to professional flutists but not considered standards in the flute repertoire. The purpose of this paper is to call attention to the wide variety of Francaix's repertoire which is eminently suitable for concert and recital programming. The identification of formal and tonal elements in Francaix's two works for flute helps to place his prodigious output within the context of the prevailing musical and philosophical aesthetic in France of the 1920s through 1940s. An annotated list of Francaix's works with flute in a primary role is included as an appendix.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:unt.edu/info:ark/67531/metadc278680 |
| Date | 05 1900 |
| Creators | Ruppe, Elizabeth Ambler |
| Contributors | Clardy, Mary Karen, Collins, Michael (Michael B.), 1930-2011, Veazey, Charles, 1941-, Crowder, Robert D. |
| Publisher | University of North Texas |
| Source Sets | University of North Texas |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | xi, 61 leaves : ill, Text |
| Rights | Public, Copyright, Copyright is held by the author, unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved., Ruppe, Elizabeth Ambler |
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