The flute put to the test

During the Belle Époque, the repertoire for accompanied flute was enriched essentially by two means: by the composition of flute sonatas and by the provision of contest pieces (morceaux de concours) for the Paris Conservatoire. The piano sometimes featured so prominently in the former that the work could be regarded as a duo: Charles Koechlin’s Sonate pour piano et flûte is a case in point. The works belonging to the other category, however – illustrated here by Fauré’s Fantaisie (1898) and Enesco’s Cantabile et Presto (1904) – were of course intended to test the flautist’s abilities, so the piano had to remain somewhat in the background, although musicality was an obligatory feature of such pieces.