<<  -- 2 --  Patric Standford    VARIED AND STIMULATING

Elizabeth Brown's Travelogue, devised to include writing for the entire range of instruments from piccolo to bass, is an appealing and rather romantic journey across Alabama in the 1950s when she was a child, and was specially written for Flute Force eight years ago. The occasional use of microtonal effects and bending sounds add attractively to a piece constantly interesting [listen -- track 9, 0:00-0:55].

The three short pieces by Gary Schocker under the title Nymphs are written for the C flutes only, very imaginatively atmospheric whilst being traditionally characteristic of the instruments [listen -- track 12, 0:00-0:58].

For Land of the Farther Suns (which could easily have been the CD's title) the quartet is joined by its composer David Alpher, piano, and Garrison Keillor as narrator of ten short poems from Stephen Crane's many, for music that is not quite incidental, but intriguingly supportive of the poet's imagery [listen -- track 8, 0:04-1:06]. Alpher at fifty-five has a long association with jazz, folk and theatre music and was the founder of the Rockport Chamber Music Festival.

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