Caroline Charrière

Envol

Caroline Charrière was a flute virtuoso and knew all the secrets of her instrument. She wrote a first version of Envol [Flight] in 2004, on the occasion of the retirement of Pierre Wavre (flutist and director of the Lausanne Conservatory), who is the first dedicatee. The second version is dedicated to the flutist Isabelle Schnöller, who premiered it at the Phénix in Fribourg in 2013. It differs from the first by doubling its length and by the additional technical difficulties it abounds in, such as flatterzunge and other multiphonic passages.

What instrument would be better suited than the flute, so close to breath, air and wind, to set the scenario of flight to music? Little by little, the bird, which we can imagine as the protagonist, breaks free of its supports to rise into the spheres of Aeolus. The bird was a symbol dear to the composer, especially towards the end of her life. She saw it as the bearer of a feeling of freedom and as a messenger from the beyond.

Irène Minder-Jeanneret