Dal Dosai: Sonata for Flute and Piano (2001)
flute and piano | 15 mins. | CD | Score (after the jump)
Published by Tenuto Publications LINK
Recorded by Thomas Robertello & Winston Choi on Crystal Records LINK
Recorded by Paul Dunkel & Peter Basquin on MSR Classics LINK
First performed by Thomas Robertello and Martin Kennedy
15 August 2001, National Flute Association Annual Convention, Dallas
PROGRAM NOTE
Dal Dosai takes its title and movement names from the realm of Indian cuisine. Dal Dosai is a pancake usually stuffed with curried potatoes or other spiced vegetables. Garam Masala is an aromatic mixture of nutmeg, cloves, black pepper, and cinnamon, all ground together and sprinkled on the dal at the very end. Asafoetida is a pungent resin extracted from ferula root. When it is cooked in hot oil, its odor dissipates, exuding instead a warm truffle-like flavor. Asafoetida is usually the first ingredient added to a flavoring of oil and spices called a Tarka, the last step of preparing a dal. As the Tarka heats up, it pops, sprays and splatters.
Though the titles appear to have inspired the piece, the converse is actually true. Flutist Thomas Robertello, who commissioned the sonata, created the titles after I finished composing, and after he had spent some time getting to know the music. Great performers inevitably possess the music they play, often coming to understand the intricacies of a piece even better than the composer who wrote it. In accepting the titles, I not only gained a colorful alternative to a simple title like "Sonata for Flute and Piano," but also nodded to Robertello's "ownership" of the piece!
The amusing musical-culinary associations only stay at the surface level, though. The real inspiration was the simple idea of composing music that is both rigorous and whimsical, both intellectual and fun.
