Be More French

"Be more French," I can still hear Mlle. Ware telling me, as she often did during my years at Rockford College. Sally Lo Ware, one of two french professors, became my unofficial advisor and as much of a friend as a faculty member could become with a student. My official advisor was Dr. James Schmitt, the German professor. I was the only French major AND the only German major in my graduating class. It made for an interesting three years!

What Mlle. Ware was encouraging me to do was to loosen up and enjoy life--be less like my German forebears. "Be more French," she told me just before I left to return home for Grandpa's funeral. Don't be afraid to cry was what she meant.

For the most part, it became a running joke between us. Especially given the focus on literature that makes up most of a modern language major's study. I was not fond of the literature of the Romantic period, either in French or German. From Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther to Bernardin de Saint Pierre's Paul et Virgine, I suffered through my 19th Century lit classes in both languages. I thanked my lucky stars when I was able to take the fall semester of Survey of English Lit, which ended before the Romantic period.

My loathing of things Romantic carried over into music. For the most part, it seemed to me, the Romantic repertoire for flute consisted of arrangements of Franz Schubert's lieder or filling in as birds in the tone poems of the period. Nor was there much written by the more well known composers of the period. What little music from that period that I was exposed to, I disliked intensely. I found myself drawn much more to the Baroque period. One music-major friend referred to Baroque music as "mathematics for musicians." It was not a compliment. All that precision and mathematical exactitude, she moaned. Well, it certainly wasn't the mathematical aspect that drew me, but precision? Maybe it's the German side of me.

The one exception I found was Gabriel Faure of the late French Romantic period. For some reason his music struck a chord. Mlle. Ware would have been pleased to hear me play Sicilenne or the Berceuse (neither of which was originally written for flute but have since become flute standards). "Be more French!"

In an attempt to broaden my horizons, or at least my repertoire, a few months ago I added music from a variety of periods to my Amazon.com Wish List. For Christmas a friend of mine gave me the Music Minus One Romantic Classics for Flute & Piano. Of course, it includes arrangements for three of Schubert's lieder and Faure's Berceuse, but there were a couple of surprises. Two excerpts from Robert Schumann's 3 Romanzes and Johannes Donjon's Pan (Pastorale). I was particularly taken with the Donjon piece, and when I decided to start working on it. I was pleasantly surprised to find that it won't take much work to get it performance ready. I've also played through the Schumann pieces, and although they'll take a little more work than the Donjon, I could have them performance ready within a relatively short period of time.

And I like them.

Mlle. Ware died a few years ago, but I can still hear her.

"Be more French."