The Flute – The Great Train Race – Part 2

History Essay from Elder Conservatorium of Music by Cristy Wilkins

The Flute – The Great Train Race – Part 2

The Flute – Ian Clarke was born in Kent in 1964. He studied the instrument at the Guildhall School of Music in London, concurrently studying mathematics at Imperial College. Clarke is currently the professor of flute at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. He regularly gives masterclasses mostly around Europe, in particular the Scottish International Flute Summer School, where I had the privilege of studying with him in 2006. He is acknowledged as one of the instruments world’s leading performers and composers and regularly gives performances of his own works all around the world.

His published pieces are being recognised as today’s most contemporary flute music and is being performed and studied by teachers and students in many institutions. His one and only CD Within is one the instrument world’s best sellers.1 Clarke has composed chamber works for solo, and piano and choir. He also collaborates with composer and pianist Simon Painter who together under the title of ‘Dive Music’ compose, produce and perform music for film and television. David Smith performed a work of Clarke’s called Zoom Tube in the woodwind finals of the BBC’s Youth Musician of the Year in 2008, which brought the most public attention to Clarke’s compositions.

Clarke’s The Great Train Race is sub-titled ‘The Flute As You Don’t Usually Hear It!’. It has been described as “a highly entertaining showpiece that sounds like its title…[that is] extremely popular with audiences and players alike”2. It really does sound like a train. The extended techniques used in this piece include residual tones, explosive harmonics, flutter tonguing, singing and playing, multiphonics, timbral trills, circular breathing, pitch variants and note bending. Further explanations of all these techniques, except for circular breathing, can be found in both Thomas Howell’s The avant-garde flute and Robert Dick’s The other flute. The following includes instructions on how to achieve the particular technique and where it is found in The great train race.