- Date: 1870
- Composer: Albert Franz Doppler
- Period: Romantic (1820-1869)
Review
Although born in Poland and spending the early part of his prodigal flute-performing career in Vienna (he made his debut there at age 13), Franz Doppler ultimately settled in Pest to play in theater orchestras, and developed a keen ear for Hungarian music. His Hungarian Pastoral Fantasy uses the slow-fast verbunkos form that Liszt employed in his Hungarian Rhapsodies, although in Doppler's work there's a transitional section separating the slow lassu and fast friss movements.The fantasy begins with a gloomy, falling motif in the accompaniment (it sounds especially Lisztian in the piano version). Soon the flute enters with a modal, improvisatory melody ranging gradually all over the staff, twisting through many ornamental turns along the way. A second statement begins to vary this material, but instead of producing full variations, Doppler creates rhapsodic metamorphoses of various portions of the melodies. There's even what amounts to a brief cadenza before the theme reverts to something resembling its original, though more ornamented, form before moving along to a rhapsodic section close.
With a theatrical, somewhat march-like buildup, the accompaniment paves the way for a more animated, major-mode flute melody. This is more conventional, salon-style writing, although the end of the first main phrase does take a Magyar turn reminiscent of a phrase-ending early in Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2. Again, the flute pursues a course of free elaborations on this melody, with increasing ornamentation growing into full-fledged passagework, and another tiny cadenza in the middle of it all.
A third section emerges from this, with a much stronger Hungarian flavor, fast to begin with and gaining speed seemingly with every bar. Again, Doppler spins off free variations on this material, again with the tiniest of cadenzas before a grand yet concise finale. ~ James Reel, All Music Guide
Albums with Complete Performances of the Work
Albums with Excerpt Performances of the Work
| Title | Date |
| The Great Flautists |
