Rouse: Flute Concerto; Ibert: Flute Concerto; Frank Martin: Ballade

American composer Christopher Rouse's five-movement Flute Concerto takes inspiration in its outer movements, both titled Amhrán, from Enya. The second and fourth movements are both busy (one a march, the other a scherzo), and the central movement is an elegy, affected by the murder of Liverpool toddler Jamie Bulger, when the piece was being written in 1993. It's all a bit self-consciously accessible, rather lighter in fact than Ibert's light, neo-classical Flute Concerto of 1933. Swiss composer Frank Martin's 1939 Ballade plays for less than 10 minutes, but seems to have more to say than either concerto. The capable Katherine Bryan also includes Debussy's Syrinx for solo flute as a fill-up. url.ie/55bm