»A chalkdrawing for Dieter Flury for his 60th birthday«

Flute accompanied by clarinet and string quartet
Duration: ca. 1'40''
Premiere: Vienna, October 6, 2021 by Dieter Flury and the Ensemble Wiener Collage

This short piece ["Flute in Pastel"] was written for the 60th birthday of Dieter Flury, the principal flutist of the Vienna Philharmonic; it was also intended as a small gift for carefully planning the performances of my work Time Recycling op. 22n, which had been commissioned by the Vienna Philharmonic in 2011. 

The piece is modest and casual in its texture and style. The solo flute, which plays mostly all by itself, is accompanied at important moments in the piece either by four- to five-part string harmonies, or engages in a duet with the clarinet. Always performed in rubato, this miniature, which lasts barely two minutes, ends in a sharp contrast between fleetingly rapid figures in the flute and the clarinet, and three quiet, chorale-like five-part chords played by the strings. These chords are played at exactly half the tempo, and ultimately, as well as very suddenly, slow down the rapid figures of the wind instruments to the final trill.