Laura Chislett | Flute

Stephanie McCallum | Piano

Gerald Glynn: Goya Gallery for flute and piano: a tribute to Francisco Goya y Lucientes (2017)

'The Goya Gallery for Flute and Piano' was written during the summer of 2017, and is dedicated to Dieter Kaufmann to celebrate the 50th anniversary of our friendship, since we met in Olivier Messiaen's composition class at the Paris Conservatoire.

The first of the four movements is based on an etching which I have called 'The Incredible Agility of the Matador'. The matador performs fantastic leaps over and around the bull, which makes many clumsy charges before finally succumbing.

The second movement concerns two of Goya's best known paintings, 'La Maja Desnuda' and 'La Maja Vestida'. Both majas are reclining, very still on their couches. The flute and piano (right hand) move in slow counterpoint over a fixed pedal (piano left hand), reflecting the immobility of their pose - a homage perhaps to his beloved Duchess of Alba.

The third portrait, 'Two Old Women', hangs in the Musée de Lille; it is not clear whether Goya gives us a sympathetic view of the fragility of old age, or is it a vision that is ironic, satirical and cruel? Each woman is represented by an arpeggiated chord, the two chords having three notes in common.

The fourth and final painting is a remarkable, moving self-portrait, showing Goya, very ill, being tended by his Doctor; the artist did recover and his note of thanks for the care and the cure is written at the base of the painting. - Gerald Glynn

Stephanie appears by courtesy of The University of Sydney, Conservatorium of Music, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.