SKU: IS.FP4175EM

ISBN 9790365041756.

Jozef (Jef) Schampaert's 1952 Notturno e Danza (Nocturne and Danse) for flute and piano, written as a concours piece for the Royal Conservatoire Antwerp in Belgium, is a bit of a curious beast. While the rest of the Belgian school was experimenting with a return to lush romanticism (Alpaerts, Maes, and the musical progeny of Benoit), or beginning to prod the tonal bounds of listenable 12-tone and serialism (Constant and Verbesselt), Schampaert took towards a different sound: that of the Impressionists, transmuted through his distinctly Flemish touch. The Nocturne and Danse is no exception. The core of the Nocturne is a relatively straightforward melody, but it's quickly pulled apart into Debussyian fragments and melodic cells - a rhapsody in miniature, with touches of Ibert's stranger runs and figures through. The Danse retains a clearer sense of melody, but one that's even closer to Debussy and Ravel - grace notes and intertwined, changing runs are integral melodic material, by turns dark then playful. A small cadenza again touches on a sense of Ibert before the piece is brought to a quiet close.