Second World War Masterpieces for Flute & Piano

Format: CD
Label: Zefirrecords
Release date: January 2026

For this final disc in a series, the programme brings together six works spanning the Second World War era, each responding in its own way to the pressures of the time. York Bowen’s Sonata (1946) and Eldin Burton’s Sonatina (1948) come from the immediate post-war years: Bowen’s warmly expansive idiom is shot through with a charged tension that feels unmistakably like a response to the war, while Burton’s lighter, more contemporary style suggests perhaps a tentative step into a new era. Burton originally wrote the piece for piano while at Juilliard, later reworking it for flute and piano and winning the New York Flute Club’s 1948 composition prize. Kent Kennan’s Night Soliloquy (1947) is likewise a transcription of an earlier work for flute, piano, and strings (1936). Although Bohuslav Martinů’s Sonata (1944) is by a Czech composer, it earns its place here as it was written during his wartime exile in the United States. Perhaps its American setting helps explain the work’s loose-limbed, outdoorsy quality - a striking contrast to the tension coursing through many European works of the same period. The two earlier British works - Alan Rawsthorne’s Four Bagatelles for solo piano (1938) and Lennox Berkeley’s Sonatina (1939) - were written on the eve of conflict. Rawsthorne’s incisive miniatures evoke a tightening tension, while Berkeley’s poised neoclassicism offers a contrasting, more idealised refuge. Synopsis by Andrew West and Emily Beynon

• Sonatina (op. 13)

Performed by Emily Beynon (flute)