The so-called Renaissance Concerto (dating from 1986) could, I think, build itself quite a following among deprived; flautists in search of worthwhile new repertoire. It is showy, grateful and varied for the instrument, and exceedingly 'audience-friendly'. Foss speaks of a ''homage to something I love, a handshake across the centuries''—meaning that his inspiration here derives primarily from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, a blast, if you like, from the instrument's prolific and versatile past. Not an especially original concept, you might think—before sampling the results.
Foss commands attention instantly with his colourful ''Intrada'': not the traditional 'entrance march' at all, but a splendid sequence of ornate declamations for the soloist set in high relief against a kind of medieval drone and the intermittent chiming of a cloister bell. Twice the mood changes: there is a jaunty dance-like diversion—a pipes and tabors affair—and an extravagant chorale with antiphonal trumpets ''to be placed on high perches'' to evoke the 'tower music' that sounded from atop town walls during the late Middle Ages and Renaissance. Colour and atmosphere are most skilfully achieved, veiled string glissandos, for instance, suggesting, to me at any rate, the shifting mists of time. In the inner movements, Rameau and Monteverdi come directly into view—the former in a quirkily scored scherzo based on one of his harpsichord pieces, the latter by way of a long and haunting derivation of a recitative from Orfeo involving two overlapping groups of strings, one offstage, and a second flute. As this highly effective movement takes shape, the nature of the harmonies (and very beautiful they are) at last reveal an American at work. The finale sets out as a full-blooded canon, involves some percussive business with renaissance drum and the soft tapping of the flute's keys, and ends Haydn Farewell-style with the soloist leaving the stage. I was sorry to hear Carol Wincenc go. Her highly persuasive performance of this virtuosic and engaging piece appears to leave no note unturned. I shall return to it—and that can only be a good sign.
For the rest of the collection (and where would contemporary American music on disc currently be without the efforts of New World?) we've more handshakes across the centuries with Foss's Salomon Rossi Suite—Rossi having lived in Mantua from about 1570 to 1630. This time, Foss presents us with a straight case of re-composition—his scoring as deft as it is novel. Harp and pedal timpani, for instance, impersonate lute and drum in the third of the pieces while the fourth features exchanges between oboes on the one hand and a combination of piccolo, viola, trumpet, bass, and harp on the other. In fact, only in Orpheus and Euridice does the drama and not the music itself look backwards. This extended violin duet (dedicated to Menuhin and Michell who gave the first performance) was added to Foss's stage work Orpheus (1972) in 1983 and to some extent suffers the loss of its dramatic/visual context (even in concert Foss is apparently very specific about the visual effects he requested). Aural effects such as the chimes of doom (wooden mallet on the piano frame) and voices of the angels of death (disturbing harmonics and forced sonorities from the oboes) sound oddly outmoded, divorced from all physical action, and it is only when Euridice awakens and the violins begin their ecstatic but short-lived union that the piece makes real music (the agitated ostinato at the climax—two hearts beating as one is most telling); best of all is the strange, spare moment where the two violins are left entirely alone, a palor comes over their tone, and Euridice sinks back into eternal slumber. That one minute or so is to me worth more than the other 20 put together. Once again, though, a plainly committed performance and I certainly wouldn't want to dissuade you from investigating Foss's renaissance excursions.'