HIS 107 WITH PROF.

GREENE

A. Roussel
FLÛTE
JOEURS DE
 JOUEURS DE FLÛTE
Joueurs de flûte (The Flute Players), Op. 27,
INTRODUCTION

is a set of four pieces for flute and piano

by the French composer Albert Roussel. It
is the most popular of Roussel's works for
the flute.
It was written in 1924 and consists of four
pieces, each named after a flute player
from literature and each dedicated to a
flutist of Roussel's time.
 STYLE IMPRESSIONISM -
NEOCLASSICISM
By temperament Roussel was
predominantly a classicist. While
his early work was strongly
influenced by impressionism in
music, he eventually arrived at a
personal style which was more
formal in design, with a strong
rhythmic drive, and with a more
distinct affinity for functional
tonality than is found in the work
of his more famous
contemporaries Debussy, Ravel,
Satie, and Stravinsky.
 ALBERT ROUSSEL
A. Roussel (5 April 1869 – 23 August 1937)

COMPOSER
was a French composer. He spent seven years
as a midshipman, turned to music as an adult,
and became one of the most prominent
French composers of the interwar period. His
early works were strongly influenced by the
impressionism of Debussy and Ravel, while he
later turned toward neoclassicism.
 I. Pan

II. Tityre

III. Krishna
MOVEMENTS

IV. Monsieur de la Péjaudie

I. PAN
Pan' is named after the half-goat, half-
man god of nature in Greek mythology,
who is often depicted playing the flute,
and after whom the panflute is named.
The piece employs the Dorian mode (with
flattened thirds and sevenths) that was
used in ancient Greece.

'Pan' is dedicated to Marcel Moyse (the dedicatee of many other musical works).
 'Tityre' is named after the lucky shepherd in

II. TITYRE
Virgil's 'Eclogues' (or 'Bucolics'). It is the
shortest of the four pieces that together
form a kind of sonatine, in which this piece
plays to an extent the role of a scherzo.

'Tityre' is dedicated
to Gaston Blanquart
(1877–1962), a flutist
who taught at the
Conservatoire de
Paris.
 III. KRISHNA
'Krishna' is named after the Hindu god, probably
particularly referring to the period in his youth as the
divine herdsman, where Krishna played the flute,
mesmerizing people and animals.

Also in the music Roussel uses here a typical North-

Indian musical scale ('Raga Shri', with flattened
second and sixth, augmented fourth, perfect fifth,
major third and seventh) from that region, that he
visited in 1909.

'Krishna' is dedicated to Louis Fleury, to whom Claude Debussy dedicated Syrinx.

 IV. MONSIEUR DE LA
PÉJAUDIE
'Monsieur de la Péjaudie' is named after the
protagonist of a novel by Henri de Régnier, 'La
Pécheresse' (The Sinful Woman).

'Monsieur de la Péjaudie' is dedicated to

Philippe Gaubert, a flutist, conductor and
composer who mainly wrote for the flute.
WHY THIS PIECE?

I have chosen this work because I know it quite

well, since it was one of the ones I prepared for
the entrance exams last year. In addition, I find
its historical context very interesting and the
meaning behind each movement.