I’m very sorry to learn of the death of my friend, the flutist Robert Stallman. Bob was one of several artists I got to know while living in Philadelphia, as a proprietor of an antiquarian book business. I scored big points by being able to identify him (“…like the flutist?”) by his name on his credit card.
Bob and I palled around and ate a lot of lunches together. He was always neck-deep in some project or other, producing his own CDs and creating arrangements of the works of his beloved Mozart and Schubert. These went beyond mere transcriptions. They involved all sorts of creative decisions, and Bob inevitably arrived at polished and ingenious solutions to every kind of puzzle.
I absolutely recommend his recording of Mozart “New” Quintets for Flute and Strings, on his own label, Bogner’s Café.
Stallman studied with Jean-Pierre Rampal, recorded with Placido Domingo, and championed the music of his friend, the English composer Stephen Dodgson. In addition, he gave first performances of works by John Harbison, Karel Husa, William Thomas McKinley, and Burr Van Nostrand, among others.
He was crazy about music, of course, but he was also fond of literature and good food. His apartment walls were adorned by letters and autographs of the great composers, which he collected.
We started to drift apart after he and his wife, Hannah, moved to Massachusetts, maybe four or five years ago. We did do a telephone interview over the air in 2015. Prior to that, he was my guest several times on “The Lost Chord.”
Bob was 73 years-old. I will always remember him as cheerful, garrulous, and boundlessly enthusiastic. Often, he seemed almost boyish. He was certainly far younger than his years.
I’ll honor Bob with one of his recordings, following Otto Klemperer’s performance of Beethoven’s “Miss Solemnis” – which is to say around 3:40 p.m. EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.
