Katherine Bryan, RSNO - Katherine Bryan plays Flute Concertos by Christopher Rouse & Jacques Ibert (2013)

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Katherine Bryan, RSNO - Katherine Bryan plays Flute Concertos by Christopher Rouse & Jacques Ibert (2013)

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Among the young British instrumentalists vying to pick up the mantles of the great soloists of a generation ago, flutist Katherine Bryan seems among the most promising, and she takes a major step forward with this, her second release. Her startlingly clear, bright articulation in the upper register is pleasing on its own, yet the real attraction here is that she approaches a repertory intelligently and brings fresh perspectives to it. The Flute Concerto (1993) of Christopher Rouse only seems to be the odd item in the set; Rouse's instrumental writing, with its intricate grasp of texture and register, is truly a descendant of the French (and French-Swiss) music on the rest of the album, and it was an inspired choice in terms of showcasing Bryan's technique as well. The three central movements have a memorial tone, with flute solos woven into Rouse's characteristically spacious chords, and Bryan has the stamina to stick with the long line here. Ibert's delightful Concerto for flute and orchestra (1934) receives an absolutely crackling performance from Bryan. Only then does Bryan introduce Debussy's Syrinx, a little work that looms over this entire repertory. It superficially resembles the music from Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, but it's actually a different kind of animal, cast in the economical language of Debussy's late style. It leads perfectly into the final item, Frank Martin's Ballade (1939), one of the few attempts to reconcile the twelve-tone system with the French style. The entire program holds together in a way that makes it more than the sum of its parts, and the support from the Royal Scottish National Orchestra under Jac van Steen matches Bryan step for step. An immensely satisfying flute-and-orchestra recital.

Review by James Manheim, Allmusic.com

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Katherine Bryan, RSNO - Katherine Bryan plays Flute Concertos by Christopher Rouse & Jacques Ibert (2013)

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Christopher Rouse’s Flute Concerto was composed as a direct response to the killing of James Bulger in Liverpool in 1993. It expresses the shock and incomprehension that we all experienced at that appalling, senseless crime, but at the same time it enshrines the beauty and innocence of an infant life so cruelly snuffed out. At the concerto’s centre there is a poignant elegy that echoes and pre-echoes the quiet Celtic-tinged melodies forming the first and last of the concerto’s five movements. Katherine Bryan and the RSNO under Jac van Steen capture the fluctuating moods of the music superbly in this performance, by turns lyrical, playful, sinister and violent.

Bryan certainly has complete mastery of the technical and expressive demands, as she does in Ibert’s Concerto of 1933. Exuberance of spirit coupled with the mellowness of her golden timbre lend the first movement a lightness, energy and mellifluous fluency, with the rich sonority of her flute’s lower register coming into its own in the central Andante. The final Allegro scherzando, exercising any soloist’s dexterity and breath control, is played with captivating élan, the orchestra etching in its contributions with rhythmic point. Frank Martin’s Ballade of 1939, written as a competition piece, likewise draws from Bryan a beautifully modulated interpretation, shapely and seductive of contour in the slower sections, athletic in the rhythmic ducking and diving of sprightlier music. Her playing of Debussy’s Syrinx, the ne plus ultra of the solo flute repertoire, is exquisitely eloquent.

Review by Geoffrey Norris, Gramophone

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Katherine Bryan, RSNO - Katherine Bryan plays Flute Concertos by Christopher Rouse & Jacques Ibert (2013)

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Katherine Bryan, RSNO - Katherine Bryan plays Flute Concertos by Christopher Rouse & Jacques Ibert (2013)

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