Flight of Fancy is a lively and colourful piece of approximately 3 minutes duration. It is available in five different arrangements! This arrangement is for flute and piano.

The first section kicks off in an energetic and cheerful way with the bright upper registers of both instruments at play. Also evident in the opening section are ideas such as angular melodic lines played in unison, a little harp-like piano accompaniment texture and a contrasting theme fashioned atop a jazzy, dance-inspired bassline.

The middle section of the work is perhaps the more unearthly music of the work. Little updrafts and whirlwinds of tinkling, glockenspiel-like piano figurations add a haunting quality to a chromatically inflected melody, evoking, for me, images of night and a kind of magic.

The final section of the piece – which brings us back to earth with its recapitulation of earlier material – is characterised by the sound of its ‘slow-to-start’, hand-cranked engine. – M.O.

Excerpt of “Flight of Fancy” (for flute and piano) by Matthew Orlovich, from the CD “Eat Chocolate and Cry”, featuring Lamorna Nightingale (fl), Christine Draeger (fl) & Jocelyn Edey Fazzone (piano).

EAT CHOCOLATE AND CRY – AUSTRALIAN FLUTE MUSIC 1999-2009.
Performers: Lamorna Nightingale (fl), Christine Draeger (fl) & Jocelyn Edey Fazzone (piano).

This CD entitled “Eat Chocolate and Cry” includes “Flight of Fancy” (for flute and piano), along with a selection of other choice flute pieces composed by a cross-section of Australian composers: Katy Abbott, Damian Barbeler, Tim Dargaville, Christine Draeger, Ross Edwards, Maria Grenfell, Alan Holley, Elena Kats-Chernin, Gordon Kerry, Graeme Koehne, Jan Preston and Jane Stanley.