Over a century of captivating French music for the flute, from Mélanie Bonis (1858-1937) to Élise Bertrand (b.2000), including a premiere on disc. From the shepherds-pipe dances of Lully to the pan-flute of Debussy’s faun and beyond, French music has always had a special affinity with the flute. Anna Wierer explores some lesser-known byways of this rich repertoire with her new album, which promises ‘Révélations’ galore. She begins with Lili Boulanger’s evocation of a spring morning, as full of new life as a field of young lambs. Among her contemporaries was Pierre Camus, a student of Fauré: his Chanson et Badinerie presents a pair of contrasting miniatures characteristic of late French Romanticism; the first melancholic and songful, the second lively and of sweeping lightness. The most extended work here is the four-movement Sonata by Mélanie Bonis, known in her time as the androgynous Mel so that her music would not be judged as inferior to a man’s: and indeed the sumptuous modal-oriental harmonies and idiomatic writing for both instruments place it in the front rank of French flute sonatas. A century on, Bonis’s music has belatedly won a place in the modern repertoire – by contrast, Élise Bertrand is at the beginning of a promising career. She composed her Impressions Liturgiques Op.2 at the age of 15, inspired by Maurice Duruflé's Requiem. Dating from 1946, Pierre Sancan’s Sonatine floats in on the breeze as a piece of postwar escapism, as light and sensuous as the creation of a master patissier. Finally, Anna Wierer and Alina Pronina turn to the more complex world of André Jolivet, whose Chant de Linos (1944) shares a theme of antiquity with Debussy’s Prelude but explores a darker, more troubled landscape over the course of its ten eventful minutes. This is the second Brilliant Classics album from the well-established duo of Anna Wierer and Alina Pronina, following on the success of their debut release in 2021, of flute music by the Ukrainian composer Dmitri Tchesnokov. Anna Wierer is the director of the BellClassic Music Academy and the Klangfabrik Music School in Berlin; Kyiv-born Alina Pronina likewise has settled in Berlin, but the duo has given concerts together across Germany and farther afield.

After the great success of her debut album (OPUS KLASSIK award 2021) and her duo album with pianist En-Chia Lin, Selina Ott for her third recording teams up with renowned pianist Maria Radutu, conductor Dirk Kaftan and the ORF RSO to present selected works by Dmitri Shostakovich, André Jolivet and Mieczyslaw Weinberg. Shostakovich’s Concerto for piano, trumpet and string orchestra (1933) is notable for a prevailing parodistic tone, which scarcely occurs in this form in any of his other works. Many of the themes that lend the music the distorted face of the grotesque are heard in the trumpet. The choice of instruments of André Jolivet’s Concertino for trumpet, piano and strings is exactly the same as that of Shostakovich’s work, but the latter is more of a piano concerto, while Jolivet’s is more of a trumpet concerto. Like Shostakovich, Mieczyslaw Weinberg also incorporates several quotations into the final movement of his Trumpet Concerto (1967), for example the fanfare from Mendelssohn’s Wedding March. Referred to by Shostakovich as “symphony for trumpet and orchestra”, the Concerto presents music of a taut inner structure and logical consistency.

On his new album "The Trumpets of Matthias Höfs" trumpeter Matthias Höfs gives an insight into his private trumpet collection. In the course of his career he has not only collected a large number of modern trumpets, but also historical models which he even partly reconstructed himself. "The gigantic variety of trumpet instruments has always fascinated me," says Höfs. "There is hardly any other instrument that is so versatile in sound and expression combined with this enormous dynamic range and possibilities". In cooperation with the Bremen wind instrument manufacturer Thein Brass, a treasure chest of over 30 different instruments has been collected over the years, which Matthias Höfs opens for this album. Meanwhile he plays exclusively on the trumpets he helped develop. "We are constantly trying to improve the intonation and trick the physics in the process, to test the sound characteristics of the most diverse materials and alloys and to make the instruments even easier to play. Every time it is like Christmas for me, when the instrument is then freshly shining and ready for the first concerts. For me it is a great luck to have these possibilities. When composers are interested in it and compose for special instruments, it's fantastic!"

In this second volume of Andre Jolivet’s complete works for flute, Kobe International Flute Competition winner Helene Boulegue explores further examples of some of the most individual and important of all 20th-century works for the instrument. The Flute Concerto No. 1 exemplifies Jolivet’s genius for liquid melodic lines and frenetic bravura. The intricately scored Suite en concert for flute and four percussionists is one of the most fascinating in the repertoire, whilst the Sonatine is both trance-like and rhapsodic.

One of the world's foremost wind quintets meets one of today's finest pianists in a work that many consider to be one of the best examples of a work for piano and winds: Poulenc's Sextet. The composer himself called it 'a homage to the wind instruments which I have loved from the moment I began composing', and its cheeky character, virtuosic drive and catchy melodies are typical of his other writing for wind instruments. Poulenc also supplied the piano with a crucial - and virtuosic - part, however, including jazzy elements typical of the period as well as emotional outbursts in the manner of Rachmaninov. Stephen Hough and the Berlin Philharmonic Wind Quintet have enjoyed a long collaboration. On disc this has resulted in recordings of the quintets by Mozart and Beethoven, a release which made the reviewer on the website classicstodayfrance.com surrender unconditionally: 'the adjective which comes to mind while listening is one of excruciating banality, and yet it says everything: this disc is profoundly beautiful'. Poulenc's sextet is framed by three other French works, and from the late-Romantic Quintet by Taffanel to the last of Tomasi's Cinq Danses (a 'War Dance' marked 'wildly frenetically'), the players of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra - who began performing as a group more than 20 years ago - once again demonstrate their supreme capacity not only on their individual instruments, but as ensemble players. Please note: The music on this Hybrid Super Audio CD can be played back in Stereo (CD and SACD) as well as in 5.0 Surround sound (SACD).

Recently released recordings of Mozart's concertos, of three contemporary works for flute and orchestra and of a programme for solo flute have earned Sharon Bezaly epithets such as 'God's gift to the flute', 'an amazingly talented performer' and 'a First Lady among equals'. Here she has turned to some of the central works for flute and piano, and with Ronald Brautigam, familiar from many BIS releases, gives her interpretations of three master-pieces of the 1940s flanking Schubert's great Trockne Blumen variations, composed some 120 years earlier. Though written in the span of two years, Prokofiev's Sonata, Dutilleux's Sonatine and Jolivet's Chant de Linos each show the flute in a different light. Prokofiev was preoccupied with clarity of style and found the instrument a perfect vehicle: 'The sonata should be played with a bright, transparent, classical tone', he wrote. (David Oistrakh later convinced the composer to create a violin version, which quickly became very popular.) A distinctly different approach was taken by Jolivet, who wrote his Chant inspired by the ancient Greek concept of 'linos', a ritual lament punctuated by cries and dancing. It is thus based on musical material associated with Greek modes and explores the extremes of expression. Dutilleux, finally, composed his Sonatine as a set piece for the flute competitions of the Paris Conservatoire. But these academic-sounding origins are belied by the by turns atmospheric and spirited writing, so typical of the multi-faceted Dutilleux. Sharon Bezaly and Ronald Brautigam have previously collaborated on BIS-CD-1439, with violist Nobuko Imai. Upon its release this disc received a number of distinctions and highly favourable reviews, not least because of the superb ensemble playing.