Over the years, I have had the privilege of coaching many chamber groups combining winds (especially the flute) with other instruments, including at David Bakamjian and Ronda Brands’ Play Week for about a decade.

My experience in coaching some of these pieces is that string players are extremely unaccustomed to listening to winds, and vice versa. The growth in being sensitive to tone colors is significant. Balance is a big issue, but that is always important in chamber music, and the adjustments are not always in the same direction. The beginnings and especially ends of phrases are ordinarily experienced differently by different types of instruments, i.e., specifically the first and last notes, so that’s a learning experience too for listening players. 

And, Breathing! Breathing as a musical gesture is a whole additional subject. 

To be autobiographical again, I once said to my father, an amateur violinist who was a good friend of Helen Rice and involved in the formative years of ACMP, “I am so jealous that you never run out of air.”

And he returned with, “I’m so jealous you never run out of bow.”

It can be difficult to find repertoire for mixed winds, strings and/or piano that string players and pianists are willing to play because their parts are worthwhile and challenging too. For pieces with piano, it is especially important to find piano parts that are not too accompanimental, but also not like piano concerti.

Here are some pieces I have enjoyed coaching at workshops for avocational chamber musicians. Perhaps you know many of these pieces, but there may be a few new ones. 

Baroque:

There is a wealth of trio sonata repertoire by Georg Philipp Telemann for flute, violin and continuo.

Perhaps lesser known to non-flutists are the fabulous Sonates en quatuors, Op. 12 by French Baroque composer Louis-Gabriel Guillemain. The main obstacle is finding a viola da gamba player. The only version on IMSLP is with the original gamba part (in mixed alto and bass clefs.) However you can purchase versions of all six sonatas with modern viola instead of viola da gamba on Sheet Music Plus. When you look at the list, you will also see a version of the second quartet with cello instead of gamba.

Classical/Early Romantic Periods:

Giovanni Battista Viotti: 3 Quartets for Flute and Strings

Friedrich Kuhlau: 3 Quintets, Op. 51 for flute, violin, two violas, cello

Ernst Wilhelm Wolf: Quintet in g minor for harpsichord, flute, violin, viola and cello

And Mozart!

Everyone knows the flute quartets, but for a wonderful piece involving more players, try his Adagio and Rondo in C minor for flute, oboe, viola, cello and glass harmonica (or piano), K. 617

Not many people have a glass harmonica, which was invented by Benjamin Franklin in 1761. But one of the advantages of this piece is that the glass harmonica part is not too difficult for the pianist.

Romantic/Early 20th-century:

Camille Saint-Säens: Caprice sur des airs danois et russes, Op. 79 for flute, oboe, clarinet and piano

Ludwig Thuille: Sextet for piano and wind quintet, Op. 6

In case you have a harpist:

It’s definitely worth exploring the music of French composer Jean Cras (1879-1932). His Quintet for harp, flute, violin, viola, cello is available on IMSLP.

Twentieth Century:

Scores and recordings of these pieces will be more difficult to find, but here are some excellent twentieth-century works that I have enjoyed coaching with groups of enthusiastic adult amateur musicians.

John Addison, Bennington Suite for flute and string quartet

  Donald Tovey: Variations on a Theme by Gluck, Op. 28 for flute and string quartet (1913)                

Roy Harris, 4 Minutes  and 20 Seconds for flute and string quartet

(The title is a spoof on John Cage.)

About Jayn Rosenfeld

Flutist Jayn Rosenfeld is a close personal friend of ACMP’s Executive Director Stephanie Griffin. Once Stephanie started working at ACMP, she learned of Jayn’s close association with its founder Helen Rice. In fact – Jayn even has a coffee table made by Helen in her living room where Stephanie has enjoyed many a chamber music party over the past decade or so! Stephanie first met Jayn through the contemporary music scene in New York City, and the two became close friends when Stephanie joined the Princeton Symphony, where Jayn was the longtime principal flutist.

Among Jayn’s many accomplishments were founding and serving as flutist and executive director of the New York New Music Ensemble (NYNME) and playing with the International Society of Contemporary Music Ensemble, the Richardson Players at Princeton University, the Washington Square Chamber Players. She was principal flutist in the American Symphony Orchestra under Leopold Stokowski and won a National Endowment for the Arts Solo Recitalist Grant in 1986. Her many recordings include concerti by Cimarosa, Steiger, Kraft, and Constantinides, solo works by Ruth Crawford Seeger, Leon Kirchner, John Anthony Lennon, and Robert Erickson, and many chamber works on the Bridge, CRI, Opus One, GM, Musical Heritage, Columbia, and Centaur labels. Ms. Rosenfeld taught flute at the Greenwich House Music School; The Juilliard School in the Music Advancement Program; and at Princeton University for over thirty years. A graduate of Radcliffe College and the Manhattan School of Music, she studied flute with James Pappoutsakis, William Kincaid, and Marcel Moyse.