MDG Scene  903 2043-6

Stereo/Multichannel Hybrid

Classical - Chamber

Carl Frühling: Fantasy, Op. 55
Béla Bartók: Suite paysanne hongroise (arr. Paul Arma)
Sigfrid Karg-Elert: Chaconne, Op. 107 No. 30
Franz Schubert: Introduction and Variations on "Trockne Blumen", D 802
Toshio Hosokawa: Lied
André Jolivet: Chant de Linos

Helen Dabringhaus (flute)
Sebastian Berakdar (piano)


Rendezvous
It was the great Linus himself who taught Orpheus, the ancient singer par excellence, how to perform music before his jealous father Apollo killed him. André Jolivet’s “Chant de Linos,” a highly expressive song of lament composed as a tonally virtuosic competition piece, impressively concludes this entertaining SACD portrait bringing together the flute soloist Helen Dabringhaus and her piano partner Sebastian Berakdar. Schubert’s “Trockene Blumen” and Bartók’s “Suite paysanne hongroise” form other highlights, both feared and loved, of the flute literature: here they encounter the moderated modernism of Hosokawa’s magical tones and – in its recording premiere – Carl Frühling’s romantic “Fantasie,” which is extant only in this piano version. A richly varied program distinguished by finesse and the very best!

Repertoire
Carl Frühling’s “Fantasie” shows that he was a piano accompanist who shared the stage with Pablo de Sarasate and Bronislav Huberman. Frühling knew precisely how to enthuse an audience. Grand melodic developments, highly expressive lines, and virtuosic parts create an attractive introduction to this album featuring at its center Schubert’s Introduction, Theme, and Seven Variations on “Trockene Blumen.” The work’s length automatically guarantees it a unique place in the flute repertoire and doubtless represents a genuine touchstone of talent for all flutists.

Resourcefulness
The two young artists explore completely different tonal spheres in Toshio Hosokawa’s “Lied,” a work composed for a competition in Paris in 2007. Arising ex nihilo, fading away into the infinite void, the piece at times quite naturally prescribes glissandi, fluttertonguing, multiphonics, and air sounds, and – always euphoniously – opens horizons between the cultures of the Far East and the West. It is this nimble action and the audible performance joy of the two interpreters that make Bartók’s suite on Hungarian peasant songs (1920) a thrilling listening experience: from the elegiac “sad songs” through the scherzo to the old dances, the characters shift within the shortest space and offer material for rhythmic precision and tonal brilliance.

Resonance
Helen Dabringhaus performs Sigfrid Karg-Elert’s “Chaconne” as a “half-time encore,” and how she alone fills the interior of the Marienmünster Abbey with the big sound of her flute is wonderfully beautiful in stereo. However, things are of course even more impressive in the three-dimensional reproduction of this Super Audio CD – in what in every way is a genuinely enriching rendezvous!