91Èȱ¬

In 2020, 91Èȱ¬ Radio 3 is bringing together musical greats, from the past and the present, in one extraordinary Proms season. Radio 3 is broadcasting the best of four decades of unmissable Proms concerts.

Martinů: Flute Sonata
Dutilleux: Sonatine
Prokofiev: Flute Sonata
Emmanuel Pahud (flute)
Eric Le Sage (piano)

(From 91Èȱ¬ Proms 2011, 22 August)
Presented by Catherine Bott

Emmanuel Pahud – principal flute of the Berlin Philharmonic and a featured artist at the 2011 Proms – returned following a concerto appearance earlier the same Proms season for a recital of pieces composed in the 1940s.

Martinů's amiable Sonata plumbs unexpected depths in its central core, while the Prokofiev Sonata's delightfully sunny nature makes it an ideal vehicle for the brilliant sparkle of the flute.

In between comes the Sonatine by Dutilleux, here at his most pastoral and Debussyan, carrying the flag for the Paris Conservatoire tradition of commissioning new scores for its final examinations.

Former 91Èȱ¬ Radio 3 New Generation Artists the Apollon Musagète Quartet present the European premiere of the Fifth String Quartet by one of Britain’s foremost living composers, Colin Matthews. Commissioned for the 75th anniversary of the Tanglewood Festival in 2015, the piece remains the last work Matthews has written in the medium.

Bookending the Quartet are Webern’s youthful Langsamer Satz – an ecstatic piece that showcases the composer’s formal skill within a lyrical idiom – and Beethoven’s String Quartet Op. 18 No. 3. Of Beethoven’s six Op. 18 quartets, No. 3 is both the lightest and the hardest to pin down: the scherzo is fleeting, and even the framing movements have an unusual delicacy and wistfulness about them.