Solo Spotlight: Principal Flute Lorna McGhee

Brian McCreath, host and producer of CRB’s weekly BSO radio broadcasts, spoke with BSO Principal Flute Lorna McGhee about upcoming orchestral highlights in music of Antonín Dvořák and Johannes Brahms, as well as her BSO solo debut in January in music of Allison Loggins-Hull. The following is a transcription of their videorecorded conversation, edited for length. The video recording includes McGhee performing excerpts from the three pieces.

Lorna, it’s great to see you, thank you for a little of your time today. Let’s talk about Dvořák, Eighth Symphony [Friday, November 28, Saturday, November 29]. The Eighth Symphony has a terrific flute part, really one of the best flute parts in the entire orchestral repertoire. But what is it about his writing for flute that is maybe distinctive from other composers?

There’s a beautiful sweetness to it and a liveliness as well. Of course, Dvořák was very inspired by nature, so the flute is often playing little bird calls, like at the beginning of the first movement. You hear that bird call all the way through the movement. And then he loves to vary the major and the minor as it develops. So I often feel like the flute is this harbinger of joy and life and that sort of wonder of being in nature. And that especially comes through in the last movement, I think.

Tell me about what this piece is like for a flutist to play compared to other orchestral pieces. Is this one that when you see it on the schedule, you sort of feel like, oh, I have to be ready for that? Or is it, does it come very naturally? Is it well written for the flute?

Oh, it’s beautifully written for the flute. I think the way he writes for the flute is so soulful, it’s just singing all the time. And all of the woodwind writing actually, you know, we all have beautiful moments, every single member of the woodwind section. The melodies really breathe. [In the third movement] we have that sort of melancholy waltz that is so delicious to play, and it gives you lots of opportunity to find color within the different ranges in the notes of the flute. He was so inspired by nature, not only the life-giving forces in nature but also the natural cycles of death and decline and grieving. So this piece sort of encompasses all of that.

There’s a famous flute solo in the last movement, one of my favorite things ever written for the flute. It’s actually quite a handful for the breathing! But I’m always thinking in in terms of narrative or the essence of a narrative when I’m playing. So in this solo, it’s sort of the feeling of when you’re in love for the very first time, or the beginning of falling in love, and you’re just your heart is bursting and you can’t wait for that phone call or text message. So it has that feeling of youthful exuberance and just being totally head over heels in love.

That’s amazing, to hear you describe the feeling of this and what you think about emotionally that’s going on in this.

Let’s talk about Brahms’s Fourth Symphony. There’s so much that we can say about Brahms and Dvořák and their relationship, but tell me about the flute writing and Brahms’s music. It’s not quite the same as in Dvořák, as close as those composers were in both time and in their relationship.

Well, they’re both really singing. You could say in a way that Brahms is speaking a little bit more. So what I love about Brahms’s Fourth Symphony [March 5-7], which we’ll be doing with the legendary Herbert Blomstedt: the last movement has this incredible, famous flute solo in it that is one of my favorite things ever to play. Brahms was looking back to the form of the passacaglia, which is these shifting variations over a harmonic progression. And, he’s so inventive and [the variations] are miraculous.

The flute solo, I think that’s one of the most personal of all the variations. There’s a beautiful scale that leads down into this solo, and it’s almost it’s almost like descending a set of stairs, or even psychologically descending into something that’s very, very internal. It has all these beautiful appoggiaturas, and there’s this incredible sadness in that, and anguish. And then it sort of turns to acceptance at the end, and then the whole symphony turns into the major key at the end. It’s one of the most magical moments in all orchestral writing. 

I’m so struck by what you say is the intimacy of that moment, but also the sheer intensity that you build into it as a player. This is not intimacy in the sense of gentleness. This is intimacy in the sense of raw emotion, life and death, really. It’s a really fearsome sort of sound that the entire orchestra makes leading into this solo. 

Allison Loggins-Hull’s Rhapsody on a Theme by Joni [January 15-17] is a sort of fantasy, if you will, on a Joni Mitchell song, “My Old Man.” And so tell me about the piece and how it relates to that particular song by Joni Mitchell.

Well, first of all, it’s a beautiful song; the lyrics are just gorgeous. It’s really just a very tender love song it’s celebrating the beloved. So, for example, some of the lyrics are, “My old man, he’s a singer in the park. He’s a walker in the rain, he’s a dancer in the dark.” They’re just very tender and loving. So the piece is really a celebration, and it is rhapsodic. It’s quite virtuosic. Allison takes the [melodic] theme of the song and just riffs on it in a really beautiful way. It’s jubilant, full of energy, full of fast paced life-force, and then also some very tender moments. 

Are there places in the Rhapsody that you sort of can hear the origins of the song behind it?

[She took] the outline of the melody and made it very, very flamboyant and rhapsodic. You can hear beautiful harmony changes, beautiful chord progressions that she takes from the melody. But the spirit of it also is kind of ecstatic in a way, it also reflects the spirit of the song. There’s a very tender moment in the lyrics when she talks about “when he’s gone, the lonesome blues collide, the bed’s too big and the frying pan’s too wide. And so there’s this sweet, tender moment, where it sort of turns a little bit more inwards.

Let’s take a moment for the Boston Symphony Chamber Players.

I am so nuts about this piece [Claude Debussy’s Sonata for flute, viola, and harp, Sunday, November 23, Shalin Liu Performance Center in Rockport, MA]. And it’s, you know, he chose the three foggiest instruments. So in a way, it’s so different from Germanic music. This is diaphanous, transparent and, with the flute, viola, harp, the way he blends the colors of the instruments. So the flute will play a line that will be taken up by the viola, and if you do it right, you can’t tell where the flute ends and the viola begins. So it’s very beautiful. 

And then in January, there’s this knockout concert [January 18, Jordan Hall, the New England Conservatory], you’re going to play Valerie Coleman’s music [Rubispheres] and also on that program, you’re not involved, but the Brahms [Piano Quartet in G minor, Opus 25] with Seong-Jin Cho.

Well, there’s a beautiful variety of music on that program. Valerie’s piece is a riot; it’s inspired by the jazz clubs of New York, it’s like a homage to the Lower East Side of Manhattan. [Coleman] is also a flute player. You can really get a sense of this sort of bluesy, jazzy feel.

Also on the same program we’re playing the world premiere of a new work by Carlos Simon for the entire group. It’s inspired by the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, it’s called Gardner Suite. Carlos Simon, of course, is our Composer Chair here, so it should be a lovely new addition to the repertoire. We’re looking forward to playing it.