For the latter part of her long life, Ester Magi (1922-2021) was known as 'the First Lady of Estonian music', her modest, charming disposition endearing her to all who met her. But her music reveals the true strength of her personality, and this first complete recording of her songs for female voice - over half a century of compositional activity - covers a striking emotional range, from the ambivalent feelings of falling in love to dramatic ritual invocations of startling force and power. Many of the earlier songs are openly romantic, but Magi soon began to tap into the hypnotic energy of Estonian runic folksong, with it's echoes of village life and it's incantations intended to placate a hostile environment.
It may be a cliche to write of the clarity of Gallic writing for the flute - the kind of elegance found in the music of composers like Debussy, Faure, Gaubert, Jolivet, Messiaen and Taffanel - but French music for flute does indeed have a sound of it's own. The flute works of Nicolas Bacri, born in Paris in 1961, uphold the proud tradition of his predecessors with textures of crystalline transparency and poised, almost weightless, melodic lines - and reserves of sardonic bite and freewheeling energy as required.
This album features a stunning collection of works, including compositions from the past few decades that highlight the extraordinary talents of the Flaubinette Trio. One standout piece is by Roman Czura, written exclusively for the trio, with a title that directly references their name. It's the only work on the album that incorporates contemporary techniques, blending aleatoric elements with striking motifs, all expertly structured in a classical three-part form. The rest of the repertoire is equally captivating, with an uplifting character and harmonies that dance around an expanded tonality, avoiding harsh dissonances. Influences from dance music, burlesque, and impressionism subtly emerge throughout, creating a unique, engaging sound. Each composition is an opportunity to experience the rich timbre and dynamic range of the wind instruments, showcasing their expressive capabilities in every note. The varied textures, intricate melodies, and sophisticated dialogues between instruments offer a platform for virtuoso performances by the Flaubinette Trio and pianist Magdalena Dus, who joins them in the final track. Passionate about chamber music, the Flaubinette Trio has earned numerous international accolades and maintains an exceptional level of musical synergy. Their longstanding collaboration is palpable, delivering an unforgettable listening experience that celebrates both technical mastery and musical intimacy.
October 29, 1923 - a date steeped in history. In the midst of a year of political and economic crisis, the age of public radio in Germany was ushered in with the first broadcast of the "Berliner Funkstunde", from the attic of an office building on Potsdamer Platz. The composers assembled on this album not only profited from these developments, but also, in part, actively shaped them.
The composer Ernst Toch experienced the crisis year of 1923 in Mannheim, where his "Dance Suite" op. 30 was premiered on with great success. In this work, Toch was able to realize his interest in cross-disciplinary collaboration and new forms of expression. His imaginative use of instruments is one of the most fascinating aspects of the suite.
The "Frauentanz" for soprano, flute, viola, clarinet, horn and bassoon op. 10 by Kurt Weill, written in the summer of 1923, reflects the interest in chamber music line-ups typical of the time. The decisive factor was not only a new ideal of sound and expression, but also the experience that in times of crisis, pieces with small ensembles had better chances of being performed.
Ernst Krenek had found essential impulses for his work in Berlin; when the crisis came to a head in the summer of 1923 he composed the "Three Mixed Choirs" a cappella op. 22 on poems by Matthias Claudius. Krenek designed these folksong-like works written by a lyricist from the epoch of Empfindsamkeit as parables.
For the festive concert celebrating the 50th anniversary of the unification of the cities of Buda and Pest to form the capital and residence city of Budapest in the autumn of 1923, Béla Bartók created his "Dance Suite" for orchestra - a "rather touchy issue", as the internationalist-minded composer explained in a private note.
REVIEWS:
Given [the events of 1923 in central Europe], you might imagine a CD of mostly German music entitled 1923: Wild Sound of the 1920s might sound a bit, well, wild. Far from it. If anything, it shows the opposite: surrounded by violence and the threat of chaos, the four composers represented here by works they composed in 1923 responded by raising their art to the nth degree of refinement and subtlety. Take Ernst Krenek, a composer who nowadays is remembered for a smash hit opera about a Black jazz musician, and for writing later in life some of the most fearsomely intellectualized, complex works in the entire history of music. He’s represented on this disc by three settings for choir of the 18th-century poet Matthias Claudius, of a ravishing otherworldly beauty caught to perfection in these performances.
Kurt Weill, known to the world for his bitingly satirical music dramas, appears as the composer of seven exquisitely allusive, bittersweet songs based on medieval German poems. Ernst Toch’s Dance Suite is a brilliantly imagined set of six “character” pieces for just a handful of instruments, with titles like The Red Whirling Dance and Idyll. Standing somewhat to one side of all this German romantic/modernist intensity and compression is the Dance Suite by the Hungarian composer Béla Bartók, with its rumbustious evocations of Balkan and North African Music.
The occasional whiff of expressionist harshness or a gently satirical distortion of a waltz shows these composers were not completely cocooned in their composing studios. They were alert to the jarring, shifting currents outside. But what the CD reveals most strongly is how much these composers were focused on their own internal, imaginative world – and how much they cared about craftsmanship. Every bar in all four pieces is exquisitely made, and that quality is caught in the performances, which are all of enormous refinement.
-- The Telegraph
The year 1923 was a year of crisis in Germany; inflation was heating up and far right-wing parties were jockeying for power. In October, the first broadcast of public radio in Germany took place from the “Berliner Funkstunde” station on Potsdamer Platz. This provocative new disc from the Choir and Symphony of Bavarian Radio includes four works written a hundred years ago by a group of innovative composers who all made use of the new, disruptive technology of radio.
Kurt Weill’s Frauentanz is a suite of seven medieval songs, scored for soprano, flute, viola, clarinet, horn and bassoon. Weill helped to create the familiar soundtrack for Weimar Berlin, and this performance by Anna-Maria Palii and the fine instrumentalists of the Bayerischen Rundfunks orchestra provides the authentic feel of a society that was becoming increasingly decadent and hysterical in 1923 and beyond.
Ernst Toch’s Dance Suite is another clever and imaginative piece with interesting orchestration: flute, clarinet, violin, viola, double bass and percussion. The Berlin sound is also evident here, something a bit harsh and raw, in contrast with the softer-focused, more lyrical and pastoral modernism of Paris.
The Ernst Krenek work is a bit of a surprise: his 3 Choruses for a cappella choir . The ‘antique’ sound of these pieces remind me of two of my favorite works: Vaughan Williams’ G minor Mass, from 1921, and Heitor Villa-Lobos’s Missa São Sebastião, from 1937. All three provide old wine in new bottles: ancient cadences with a modernist twist.
The final work on the disc is probably the best known: Bela Bartok’s Dance Suite for Orchestra. This is an orchestral showpiece, a kind of try-out for his Concerto for Orchestra written more than two decades later. Both pieces treat orchestral instruments in a solistic, virtuosic way. The source material might be folkloric, but this is definitely written in a modernist idiom.
Inflation, far right-wing agitation, disruptive technology: yes, we’re talking about 1923, not 2023. And the music on this disc is as fresh and forward-looking as some of the best music written today.
Grzegorz OLKIEWICZ was born in 1959 in Katowice, and died in 2021 in Wrocław. He graduated from the Karol Szymanowski Academy of Music in Katowice, where he studied in the flute class of the eminent Professor Stanisław Michalik. After graduation, he honed his skills at masterclasses given by Arnošt Bourek at the Leoš Janáček Academy of Music in Brno (Czechoslovakia) and Severino Gazzelloni at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena (Italy). He was a three-time scholar of the Ministry of Culture and Art. This release features recordings of works by Benedykt Konowalksi, Feliks Rybicki, Tadeusz Szeligowski, Pavel Szymanski, and Jaroslaw Siwinski.
A guided journey through a series of incantations Throughout human history the flute has been closely associated with mystical ritual and states of meditation and reflection. This is as true of Sufism, the Hindu deity Krishna as well as the Japanese shakuhachi - whose origins are shrouded in Buddhist mystery - and the many biblical references of the flute. Often it has been seen as symbolising either the breath or the heart of God. In addition to these profound spiritual associations of the flute, it has also been linked to celebrations of nature through countless folkloric tales from around the world. Every piece on this disc is in some way linked to ideas of mystical spaces and places - each an incantation. Our guide (il nostro Guido) on this disc is the flautist Roberto Fabbriciani - whose work I have held in the highest regard for many years. I am very proud indeed to be able to count him as a dear friend and collaborator. He provided me with my first international commission (this has already) passed/passing a performance of which you can hear on this disc. This is the first portrait disc of my work to be commercially released and I am delighted that this comes about as a fruit of my continued friendship with maestro Fabbriciani.
Exploring the oeuvre of Mauro Montalbetti is like moving through a labyrinth made of glass, in which the apparent simplicity of the surfaces hides, in full view, the multilayered interplay of references and reflections. Since the late 1980s, the composer from Brescia has progressively tackled almost every genre, in a succession of experiences that have been described as phases in their own right, but which are surprising for the coherence and naturalness of their development. This recording by the AltreVoci Ensemble and Laura Bersani has among it's merits precisely that of allowing us to discover the path that Montalbetti has traced in his now more than 35 years of activity through his output for transverse flute, an instrument deeply loved by Montalbetti, who cites among his references the great flutist Annamaria Morini, whom he met and listened to several times in the 1980s, and the works of Varese, Debussy, Messiaen, Berio, Maderna, Matsudaira, Hosokawa, Takemitsu and, of course, his teacher Giacometti.
Gunning: Concerto for Guitar and Orchestra / Gunning, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
Signum Classics
CD
$19.99Feb 11, 2022
Signum presents 3 concertos from eminent British composer Christopher Gunning, all composed for performance by colleagues and friends – Catherine Handley, Michael Whight and Craig Ogden. Christopher Gunning has composed twelve symphonies, as well as concertos for the piano, violin, cello, flute, oboe, clarinet, saxophone, and guitar; many of these have now been recorded. He has also composed many scores for films and television dramas, including Agatha Christie’s Poirot, La Vie en Rose, Middlemarch, Cold Lazarus, Rebecca, Under Suspicion, Firelight, The Big Battalions, Wild Africa, When the Whales Came and Porterhouse Blue. With a career spanning 50 years, he has won 4 BAFTA and 3 Ivor Novello Awards, and BASCA’s prestigious Gold Badge Award. Christopher studied composition with Edmund Rubbra and Sir Richard Rodney Bennett at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. After a hugely successful career writing for the big and small screen he is now focused on his classical work and releases.
This compactdisc acquires considerable value because it presents the compositions for solo instrument that mark Vincenzo (alias Giulio) Gualtieri's return to acoustic music. A return that takes advantage of all the experiences gained with electronic music over the last twenty years. It is a refined interactive project, refined both in the sense of research and investigation and in that of style and refinement. The anthology presents solo pieces that are close from a chronological point of view and from that of the compositional basis, with many aspects in common, especially regarding rhythm. The entire group of instruments presents solutions of notable importance and is very interesting for the constant study of sound. Gualtieri's is even a painful investigation, supported with profound participation both by the Author and by the magnificent interpreters, who are the ones who give life to the compositional project, set it in motion, compose the sound, in an incessant interactivity between the ideas and emotions of the Author and their vision of the music, of the final result... Renzo Cresti
Okpebholo: Lord, How Come Me Here? / Bridges, Liverman, Sánchez
Navona
CD
$16.99Feb 11, 2022
On LORD, HOW COME ME HERE?, composer Shawn Okpebholo turns the mirror of history on today’s society with a reimagined collection of spirituals by enslaved Africans and American folk hymns that draws upon music from the past to critique contemporary racial injustices in the United States and around the globe. An ensemble of mezzo-soprano, baritone, piano, cello, and flute poignantly bring Okpebholo’s music to life, from hopeful anthems celebrating community to laments between a mother and her Creator and hymns celebrating faith and hope over hate and fear.
REVIEWS:
As a collection of Negro spirituals and American folk hymns recast as contemporary art songs, Lord, How Come Me Here? is a natural sequel to Shawn E. Okpebholo's 2014 set of reimagined spirituals, Steal Away...Many of the spirituals and hymns are familiar yet are strikingly reborn in these arrangements.
Shifting gears, Bridges pairs with Altino for the heartbreaking lament “Lord, How Come Me Here?,” the cellist less supporting presence and more duet partner; as captivating as the singer's performance is, she's equaled by the passion of his playing. Countering the despair permeating the lament, the album's spiritual and folk hymn sides come together in the medley essayed with conviction by Liverman and Sánchez, “I've Never Felt Such Love / What Wondrous Love is This.” Meanwhile, Bridges captures the yearning of “Oh, Glory” with a transporting, gospel-tinged vocal, her impact all the greater for the restraint Sánchez shows in his accompaniment. “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” stands out from the others for adding Thomason-Redus's flute to the Liverman-Sánchez pairing and for the jazzy swing treatment given the spiritual.
Throughout the recording, the material wears its art song garb comfortably, but emotional expression is no less pronounced in the updates as it is in the songs as originally presented. Okpebholo benefits immeasurably in having vocalists of the calibre of Bridges and Liverman with him, and the performances by the instrumentalists are as strong. None of that should overshadow, however, the fact that Lord, How Come Me Here? came into being through Okpebholo's efforts and crystallizes his thematic vision into song.
Absil, Daniel-Lesur, Pillois & Tansman: Hommage / Cracow Harp Quintet
DUX
CD
$21.99Jul 29, 2022
The Cracow Harp Quintet was founded in 2019; it consists of an unusual set of instruments: flute, harp, and a string trio. As the only such professional chamber ensemble in Poland, it promotes music that has been forgotten or has not been published yet. Thanks to the joint initiative, the members of the ensemble share many years of experience of concerts, festivals, and competitions in Poland and abroad. The album Hommage is a tribute to the output of the composers associated with the Quintette Instrumental de Paris – a formation whose 100th anniversary of the foundation falls this year. The album will feature compositions by artists who were closely related to the ensemble, such as Jean Absil, Jacques Pillois, Aleksan der Tansman, and Jean-Yves Daniel-Lesur. The repertoire is distinguished by its diverse nature: French Impressionism, medieval monody motifs, fascination with East Asian culture as well as the 20th-century idiom of Polish music. The album will feature the world recording premiere of Jacques Pillois’s suite 5 Haïkaï and the Polish recording premiere of Sonatina da camera by Aleksander Tansman.
Opus Klassik prizewinner Tatjana Ruhland has been described as “the Paganini of the flute,” and in December 2018 the Tagesspiegel, commenting on her interpretation of Debussy’s Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune with the Berlin Philharmonic, termed her »a fabulous faun« and declared: “Already the first measures justify the jubilation at the end.” Now she once again is heard as an interpreter on cpo, this time with more flute concertos by August Eberhard Müller. The critics showered her with praise for Vol. 1, for her rendering of the concertos with »inexhaustible musicality« (klassik-heute.com). The three new Flute Concertos Nos. 5, 7, and 8 show once again that the composer, who dedicated himself to this genre or instrumentation throughout his life, was a great admirer of Mozart. As in the case of almost all his concerto compositions, Müller himself was the soloist in these three works, which enjoyed great popularity and soon numbered among the repertoire pieces for traveling flute virtuosos. His seventh concerto receives tonal reinforcement lending it a special character: trumpets and timpani enhance the overall sound picture. Magnificent!
New York City-based, Puerto Rican-born composer, guitarist, and visual artist Gabriel Vicens releases his fourth studio album Mural, a recording devoted to his chamber works. Vicens continues his musical journey by releasing a record of contemporary classical music including pieces for piano trio, wind quintet, Pierrot ensemble and more; featuring some of today's finest performers of the New York City classical scene. The immersive and mood-inducing music on this record spans a four-year period of creativity and is the first recording to feature concert works by this wonderful artist. Mural explores modern and contemporary trends such as 12-tone serialism, experimentalism, and minimalism and, at the same time, depicts Vicens' individuality as a composer with a distinctive voice that has been constantly expanding throughout the years of his career. "I see the music of this album as both a continuation of all my previous works and something completely different. Though we could classify this repertoire in a different genre and following different traditions, practices, and influences to my previous records, for me it is all connected. My goals are the same when composing any piece of music, which is to create something interesting, beautiful and profound that works as a whole and evokes some kind of emotional, mental, and/or physical response in the listener," says Vicens, a Doctoral graduate from Stony Brook University. Mural is released on the celebrated Milan-based record label, Stradivarius, which specializes in publishing some of today's best recordings of early music and contemporary classical music. The album comprises seven pieces for different types of ensembles recorded at the renowned Bunker Studio in New York City. The first track of the album and title piece, Mural (2021) for clarinet, violin, and piano is performed by clarinetist Raissa Fahlman, violinist Joenne Dumitrascu, and pianist Corinne Penner. Followed by Suenos Ligados (2020) for piano trio, featuring violinist Adrianne Munden-Dixon, cellist Rocio Diaz de Cossio, and pianist Mayumi Tsuchida. The third track of the album, El Matorral (2022) for Pierrot ensemble is performed by Roberta Michel on flute, Raissa Fahlman on clarinet, Joenne Dumitrascu on violin, Wick Simmons on cello, Corinne Penner on piano, John Ling on vibraphone, and conducted by David Bloom. The recording continues with Una Superficie Sin Rostro (2020) for solo piano, featuring Corinne Penner. Adrianne Munden-Dixon returns with Mayumi Tsuchida on the fifth track of the album, Carnal (2019) for violin and piano. The ensemble Nu Quintet appears on the sixth track, Ficcion (2021) for woodwind quintet. The album concludes with La Esfera (2021) for cello and piano performed by cellist Julia Henderson and pianist Mikael Darmanie. Vicens is interested in how his approach to music and painting correlate with each other, in particular, his attentiveness to the two-dimensional flatness of the canvas and how that translates into music. "I create musical compositions with melody, harmony, rhythm, timbre, and register, and every instrument and part of the composition is equally important to me. Everything needs to work together. The same principle applies to my paintings, but with color, form, line, and texture instead of musical elements. I see my paintings as an extension of my music and vice versa. The conceptual processes are incredibly alike," says Vicens. The compositions included in Mural are characterized by their embracement of dissonance, pointillistic textures, large intervallic leaps, gestural complexity, prolonged silences, great dynamic contrasts, and quiet sustained tones. On many occasions it's possible to encounter a ritualistic and mysterious aspect in his music that is distinguished by the way he uses repetition over melodic fragments and harmonic patterns. The influences of Webern and Feldman are perceivable in Vicens' works. Commenting on the evocative repertoire brought together in this album, Tim Rutherford-Johnson remarks in the CD's liner notes, "... although his music is often quite flat in it's surface relations, in it's unfolding over time it admits cracks into that surface, and slow transitions from one color to another." The title of this recording came from Vicens' passion for Roman and Egyptian mural paintings. "I'm fascinated by how Roman and Egyptian frescoes have decayed slowly for centuries and how the cracks and layers of colors have become part of the current stage of the work, creating a complex and atmospheric character. "Music is a reflection of life; it comes from our experiences. We go through cycles and evolve as the years pass. Over time, we get our cracks and layers of colors, just like the frescoes, and from those experiences, we get the energy and the inspiration to write music that communicates something abstractly. Mural is what I have to say at this point of my life; my future cracks and layers will slowly tell what's next." The seven works offered in Mural display Vicens' unique vision and voice as a composer and conveys a pivotal point that stylistically breaks his career free from the confines of a single genre description. The addition of this album to his discography expresses his immense creativity and wide range of skills, displaying how he shapeshifts magnificently across various musical terrains. Finally, the record reveals an idiosyncratic approach that captures his innovative ideas with brilliance and excitement. The album includes a photo-illustrated, 28-page booklet with liner notes by Tim Rutherford-Johnson.
Schneider: Three Flute Concertos / Riet, Moesus, Württembergisches Kammerorchester Heilbronn
CPO
CD
$18.99Jun 17, 2022
Georg Abraham Schneider was born in Darmstadt in the same year as Beethoven. His musical talent became apparent at a very early age, and after an educational trip to Rheinsberg, he was engaged by Prince Heinrich of Prussia as a horn player for the Rheinsberg Chapel. The composer Schneider is a representative of the spirit of Haydn and Mozart, who wanted to be understood as their preserver. In the reviews, he was attested to compositional skill and a dignified artistry that was committed to the bourgeois taste of the time. Schneider wrote a remarkably large number of compositions for flute, including four flute concertos, about 90 flute duets, and 60 quartets for flute and string trio. The charming, very light-hearted, three-movement Flute Concerto op. 12 is in classical concerto form, and the Mozart model is clearly audible. His Concerto op. 53 conforms to the classical scheme of the instrumental concerto, with ample opportunity for soloist Gaby Pas-Van Riet to display her virtuosity. The work charms with lovely delicate themes that offer the flute every opportunity to explore the instrument's tonal spectrum. In the Concerto op. 63, printed in Leipzig in 1812, the orchestra is augmented with two trumpets and timpani in addition to the double instrumentation of oboes, bassoons and horns. Schneider here demonstrates his ability to orchestrate a concerto well and to use the winds effectively.
Lourié: Chamber & Instrumental Music, Vol. 1 - Works with Wind Instruments
Toccata
CD
$20.99Jan 06, 2023
The turbulent life of Arthur Lourié (1891–1966) – student of Glazunov, friend of Blok, lover of Akhmatova, commissar of the Soviet regime, exile in Germany, France and the USA, ghost-writer for Koussevitzky – is reflected in the wide range of references in his music, from echoes of the ceremonies of ancient Greece to Neo-Baroque and Neo-Classical procedures perhaps inspired by his collaboration with Stravinsky in Paris. Some of the works in this first of two albums surveying his chamber and instrumental music have an almost ritual formality; in others a mischievous grin is not far from the surface.
REVIEWS:
The personnel is spearheaded by flautist Birgit Ramsl and they all play with commendable accomplishment and verve that serve Lourié well. There are also four premiere recordings. However you sum him up, stylistically, his remains a cultured, cultivated and agreeably cosmopolitan voice, drawing on Russian and French traditions to irradiate the ritual formality of his music.
Roberto Fabbriciani's journey continues into the depths of the work of Luis de Pablo (1930-2021). After the CD dedicated to the flute works of the great Spanish composer, the CD Pensieri is now released which sees Roberto Fabbriciani, a flautist who has collaborated with the major composers of our time, engaged with the Basque National Orchestra directed by José Ramon Encinar. At the opening is the piece that gives the album its title, Pensieri, Rhapsody for flute and orchestra composed in the years 2013-2014, in four movements. Followed by Flauta, tú voladora from 2020 for flute in C, Solo Kunst (2000-2017), Three fugues from “Die Kunst der Fuge” by J.S. Bach for clarinet solo in the flute version by Roberto Fabbriciani and, at the end of this intense listening journey, Sólo un paso (1974) for a flutist and an actor, with the elaboration of the flute part by Roberto Fabbriciani. Between unexpected sounds and very personal musical solutions, the album presents a program of great expressive richness, and offers itself as a heartfelt homage to a central figure in the history of Spanish music and, more generally, of the contemporary musical panorama.
Agua & Vinho - Sentimental moods for flute & guitar
Stradivarius
CD
$18.99May 10, 2024
The CD "Agua & Vinho Sentimentals: Moods for Flute and Guitar" offers a wide and varied anthology of pieces by different authors, from classical to contemporary, revisited by the personal sensitivity of Carolina Dello Iacono (flute) and Antonio Grande (guitar). In the intense instrumental dialogue, the publication becomes a singular musical story that explores different artistic languages, from the song by Egberto Gismonti (that gives the album’s title) to works by Ada Gentile, Heitor Villa-Lobos, Francis Poulenc, and others, between enveloping atmospheres and moments that open up unexpected sonic horizons. The protagonists of this particular listening journey, in a polyphony of ideas, voices, and creative instances, are Carolina Dello Iacono and Antonio Grande, musicians with great experience and extensive artistic activity.
Mael Bailly's music undoubtedly bears the imprint, rather than the weight, of his composer mentor Gerard Pesson, for the elder Bailly is gifted with a wellknown benevolence and generosity. A respectful distance from a heritage that has been accepted and fulfilled, and a singular and facetious imagination, encourage emancipation. Mael Bailly's musical style is already clear. Numerous works are emerging, with instrumentations and styles as eclectic as they are surprising. Mael Bailly is resolutely of his time. He is one of those who develop a form of living discourse that offers at every moment many possible paths towards his own future. (Brian Ferneyhough) The musical flow is leaping, bouncing, stomping, boiling. The sound textures whirl around in a wide spectrum of fumaroles of colours, both finely chiselled and sometimes melting like magma. In this game of hands or sonic hopscotch, as Mael Bailly himself calls it, the sounds develop, continue and imitate each other in a rhythmic whirlwind that is at times relentlessly robotic and at other times endowed with a suspenseful elasticity that gives the discourse a new dimension. At other times, they are endowed with a suspenseful elasticity that gives the discourse the singular impression of hesitating, especially when it evolves in an open form. The improvising spirit is often lurking in the shadows.
Prussian Blue: Flute Music at the Court of Frederick II "the Great" / Aretz, Heissen
Haenssler Classic
CD
$20.99May 06, 2022
Why, in a booklet accompanying a recording of "Flute Music at the Court of Frederick the Great", is an attempt being made at this point to take a look into the soul of a damaged monarch? There is a guiding "thread of Ariadne" that leads through the labyrinthine trials and tribulations of Frederick's life and suffering – a singular passion that he discovered at a young age and never forgot throughout his life. It is the love of music, especially the love of playing the "flûte traversière".
The reconstruction of the compositional chronology of Georg Friedrich Handel's repertoire for flute is extremely complex. There are various reasons for this, stemming from two essential factors: on the one hand, the typical tendency for much of Handel's music to transmigrate from one instrument to another and the consequent impossibility, at times, of determining precisely which version of a particular piece is the original; on the other hand, the proliferation, at a time when no copyright regulations existed, of diverse printed editions. Many of these, unauthorised, generated different versions, errors or misinterpretations, which were possibly also passed on over time. For this CD recording, which features a substantial part of the complete corpus of the sonatas for recorder and transverse flute, we compared the two earliest printed versions containing sonatas for solo instrument by Handel. Both were published by the London publisher Walsh, although for a long time the first of the two editions was attributed to the Amsterdam publisher Roger, but then, thanks to the studies of Terence Best and David Lasocki, it turned out to be a 'pirate' publication by the same publisher Walsh (who probably had not yet obtained Handel's permission to publish).
