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Trio Artus is an ensemble of two flutes and classical guitar and plays a raft of arrangements, largely drawn from the Baroque and Classical repertoires, though a number also come from the home countries of the three instrumentalists – Germany, Poland and Israel.
For example, four of the pieces here are from Czech-born poet and composer Ilse Weber, who was incarcerated in Terezin and whose music has been increasingly recorded in recent years. The songs here are heard in arrangements made by the Israeli Tomer Kling. Wiegala opens with one flute, then the other joins overlapping over guitar - a lovely solution. Wenn der Regenrinnt and the song that gives its name to the disc title, Ade Kamerad, are equally successful whilst her best-known song, Ich wander durch Theresienstadt, is most sensitively done; the portable instrumentation – rather like the introduction of the accordion in Anne Sophie von Otter’s recording (DG 477 6546) - is quietly moving.
The early repertoire is represented by Handel and Corelli. Handel’s Trio Sonata sounds bracing and Corelli’s Sonata da Chiesa, Op.3 No.1 – the arrangement is by José de Azpiazu – buoyantly expressive. Pieces drawn from the Polish repertoire delve back to Chopin’s Waltz in A minor, in this arrangement by Perry Schlack, and contemporary composer Łukasz Woś. He’s represented by two delightful morceaux, the first called Aria, a filmic, relaxed and romantic piece taken from a Suite, and the second Meditation which shows his powerful gifts for adhesively memorable melody.
Walter Götze arranged Marschner’s Bagatelles, Op.4 for solo guitar and we hear the first three of the set. They’re the only pieces in the album for solo guitar. Of the remainder of the programme Klaus Kusserow’s Pilea is a movement drawn from a larger work heard as a duet for flute and guitar whilst Ana Segal’s Tango Ana Sol was first performed in Berlin in 2013 and has been recast for flute most successfully. It’s Esti Rofé who takes on the demands of Ravel’s Kaddisch but she and Krzysztof Kaczka play the arrangement of John Williams’s film music for Schindler’s List with refinement and sensitivity.
The booklet notes are succinct and pertinent, whilst the recording has been sympathetically judged. There is certainly an underlying Jewish theme to the programming via Weber, the Ravel and Schindler’s List and has been accomplished with refinement and sensitivity.
Jonathan Woolf
Contents Ilse WEBER (1903-1944)
Wiegala (1942-44) arr.Tomer Kling [2:30]
Wenn der Regen rinnt (1942-44) arr. Tomer Kling [2:22]
Ich wandre durch Theresienstadt (1942-44) arr. Tomer Kling [2:14]
Ade Kamerad (1942-44) arr. Tomer Kling [2:25] Georg Frederic HANDEL (1685-1759)
Trio sonata in F major HWV 405 [5:27] Fryderyk CHOPIN (1810-1849)
Valse in A minor arr. Perry Schack [2:07] Łukasz WOŚ (b.1967)
Aria (1996) [2:47]
Meditation from Medjugorje Sonata for flute and piano [3:27] Arcangelo CORELLI (1653-1713)
Sonata da Chiesa op. 3 no. 1 arr José de Azpiazu [6:43] Heinrich MARSCHNER (1795-1861)
12 Bagatellen op. 4 arr. Walter Götze [6:31] Klaus KUSSEROW (b.1975)
Pilea [2:06] Anna SEGAL (b.1974)
Tango Ana Sol (c.2013) [5:46] Maurice RAVEL (1875-1937)
Kaddish (1914) arr. Lucien Garban [4:38] John WILLIAMS (b.1933)
Schindler’s List arr. Robert Longfield and Amy Barlowe [3:42]