Laurent Boutros
Les Productions D’Oz: Score and separate parts ( 8, 2, and 4 pages respectively)
French – born Boutros is a well – respected composer/performer who has toured many parts of the globe, and here is his duet for flute and guitar dedicated to Ishii’S Duet, who do a superb performance of it on YouTube for any interested parties.
Translating as ‘Cold and Hot’, this has a very difficult part for the flautist in particular who, for a great deal of the time literally flies around the flute, a task that the duo on the recording make sound very easy; it isn’t, so the flute player needs to be really good. The guitar part is not a great deal easier either. The guitar takes, as you might expect, largely an accompaniment role, expect for almost 30 bars half way through where they take a solo before reprising back to the opening idea for the final run through of the main themes, before a short coda.
Set in a mixture of 6/8 and 3 / 4 in E minor, and later on in a slower passage in 4/4 the music is friendly and harmonically interesting, and although marked Moderato, is written in small enough notes often for it to move considerably faster than you might first think, and at nearly 6 minutes is a substantial and worthy piece for any duo to get their hands around, and as such I can recommend it as a really good piece.
Chris Dumigan