Incantations
Quintessenz - Leipzig Flute Ensemble (Anna Garzuly-Wahlgren; Gundrun
Hinze; Ute Günther; Bettine Keyßer; Christian Sprenger)
rec. 7-10 September, 2 November, 2015 at Bethanienkirche, Leipzig, Germany
GENUIN GEN16421 [69:11]
Works for five flutes or five instruments from the flute
family are certainly not common. Prior to reviewing this album, the only works
for five flutes I knew of were Joseph Bodin de Boismortier’s 6 Concertos
for 5 Flutes, Op.15. None of those is featured on this album. Instead, arrangements
and new compositions are featured.
Quintessenz – Leipzig Flute Ensemble was founded in 1996, inspired by
the wish to perform chamber music with an unusual combination of five musicians,
all playing different flute instruments. Its members are players with the
Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, the Halle Staatskapelle and the Leipzig MDR
Symphony Orchestra. The ensemble’s instrumentation consists of two flutes
and one each of piccolo, alto flute and bass flute.
Except for the two original compositions, all the arrangements on this album
were made by the ensemble’s piccolo player Gundrun Hinze. Giachino Rossini’s
La Danza, Felix Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s
Dream and Camille Saint-Saëns’ Dance macabre are well
known and do not need introduction. Claude Debussy’s La danse de
Puck - Capricieux et léger is taken from Préludes I pour piano.
Franz Doppler’s Fantaisie Pastorale Hongroise, Op.26 is one
of the most popular showpieces for flute, originally scored for flute and
piano. Hinze’s arrangement of Marin Marais’s Les Folies d’Espagne
is based on a transcription for flute solo of Marin Marais’s original.
Anže Rozman, a young Slovenian composer, worked with Quintessenz on the
composition of Medusa, in which he makes use of modern playing techniques
such as “explosive harmonics”, glissandi, bamboo sounds and different
noise-like blowing techniques that hark back to archaic sounds of the Middle
East.
Ian Clarke is a British flutist who has written many works for flute or multiple
flutes. S p e l l s was written in 2014 specifically for Quintessenz, and
employs a variety of modern extended techniques on flute, expertly written
by the flautist-composer.
All the pieces on the album are expertly played by Quintessenz. The players
draw a huge palette of tone colours from their instruments, and there are
numerous extended techniques on display in many of the musical selections.
The fun in their music-making is palpable. Especially impressive is the simulation
of the rasping sound of an old shawm in Anže Rozman’s Medusa,
helped by the group’s use of their “buzzing headjoint” with
a vibrating membrane.
The booklet is in English and German, with notes by Gundrun Hinze.
This is an interesting album that should appeal to flute players and aficionados,
particularly those playing in flute ensembles or those simply interested in
such music.
Wai Kit Leung
Contents
Gioachino ROSSINI (1792-1868)
La Danza – Tarantella Napolitana [3:00]
Anže ROZMAN (b.1989)
Medusa (World Premiere Recording)
Act 1 - The Beauty and Athena´s Curse [5:58]
Act 2 - The Beast and the Battle of Perseus [6:48]
Claude DEBUSSY (1862-1918)
La danse de Puck - Capricieux et léger from Préludes I pour piano,
No. 11 [2:38]
Felix MENDELSSOHN BARTHOLDY (1909-1847)
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Op. 21
Notturno [4:52]
Scherzo [2:36]
Lied (Song for the Fairies) [2:21]
Ein Tanz von Rüpeln (Dance of the Clowns) [1:46]
Finale [4:17]
Franz DOPPLER (1821-1883)
Fantaisie Pastorale Hongroise, Op. 26 for Flute and Piano [10:16]
Ian CLARKE (b. 1964)
S p e l l s [7:44]
Conjuring - still then emerging - Capricious - Transformation - Freely, questioning
– Finale
Marin MARAIS (1656-1728)
Les Folies d’Espagne [11:15]
Camille SAINT-SAËNS (1835-1921)
Danse macabre, Op. 40 [5:32]
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