Michel Cardin : Five Romances for Flute and Guitar : Bergmann

Michel Cardin

Bergmann Edition : Score and Separate Parts ,  36, 16 and 20 pages respectively

Michel Cardin is well known in the musical world as a guitarist, a lutenist, a composer, arranger and many other things. Here he has written five Romances for flute and guitar.

The first one is set in 6/8 in the friendly guitar key of E Minor. The guitar is largely concerned here with arpeggiated quavers and a bass note underneath, whilst the flute has a very melodic and friendly tune above which moves around quite a bit but with a very tonal set of harmonies throughout.

Romance No2 is in 2/4 and again in E Minor. It begins with a set of harmonic notes on the guitar that continue , quite varied for 12 bars while the flute brings in the opening melody at bar 5, which is played twice, the second time with the guitar playing firstly block chords and then  arpeggiated chords. After a slight repeated variation a new theme emerges that is more rhythmically diverse and full of staccato markings. It continues with much smaller notes, in some new patterns, and then becomes semi – quaver sextuplets on both instruments. The piece then continues with new ideas and themes before the coda closes on an E Major Chord

No3  is in D Minor and 6/8 and is marked bitter sweet. The flute plays a sad little melody underpinned by gentle chords and a countermelody on the guitar. Things then gradually pick up reaching a small climax before the time signature changes to 2/4 and the guitar plays an alternating bass note and chord style whilst the flute is more rhythmically active than before. After this a D.S. sign returns us once more to the opening and finally a varied version of a previous theme and then to a coda that gives the guitarist slightly more complex material to play, until finally closing on a climbing D Minor chord up to fret 17 of string 1.

No4 is in G Minor with an unusual set of time signatures, in that the flute has common time, whilst the guitar has 6/8 + 1/4 indicating that their 8 quavers are not 4 groups of 2, but 2 groups of 3 plus a final group of 2. Moreover it is an Allegro Vivo at 184 crotchets a minute, so really moves, especially after the less active ones before. There is an interesting set of momentary key changes part way through as the piece moves to F minor, then key by key up chromatically to finally C Minor before then returning , key by key back to the original G Minor. Things get quite complex musically here in both parts and after a considerable time the piece then closes on a final G Minor.

The final No5 is set in E Minor and 6/8 and begins quite dramatically with the flute and guitar swapping semi – quaver rhythms at the speedy 72 dotted crotchets a minute and although the guitar is usually accompanying the flute player he has plenty to do throughout this final exciting movement. Then an accelerando takes us via a D.S. back to close of the work with a previous theme.

All together this set is very diverse, full of lovely melodies and often very individual harmony work and would be ideal set of pieces for a talented pair of players.

Chris Dumigan