Various Artists

Featuring: Kees Otten, Marina Klunder, Gini Tamboer

1998 release ** Music for recorder by Paul Hindemith, Harald Genzmer, Francis Poulenc, George Auric, Jacques Ibert, Walter Leigh, Gail Kubik, Ulrich Staeps, Benjamin Britten, Hans Poser, Ervin Henning, Konrad Boehmer, Marjo Tal. "In thinking of the recorder, one normally sets his or her sights upon the many composed musical works from the 16th and 17th centuries, when the instrument was accorded the status of an official court instrument, as well as being the choice for regional folk and ceremonial songs. This collection then, of 20th century works for recorder written by some of its most forward-thinking and well-known composers, comes not as a surprise but a shock. These solo and small group performances delve deep into the puzzling heart of the instrument itself. Paul Hindemith's three selections are all based on two ideas: mystery and carnivals. Writing for trio, Hindemith captures open-ended fugue figures at their most acute, and then weaves them syntactically into a braid of elongated counterpoint and angular meters. Francis Poulenc shows his formalism is writing for a soloist and piano. The recorder's lyric line is spare, simple, and played very slowly until the fifth measure when it is joined full force by a slightly dissonant piano and commanded to rise above with an even more consonant counterpoint. All done in a spirit that uses a small theme from Ravel's first piano sonata. The other surprise is a lovely scherzo written by Benjamin Britten in 1955. Its dueling soloists play a mad dance tune with stops in all the wrong places, playfully going round a melodic figure until a harmonic union is established. There are ten other composers whose works are featured here, most of them from the vanguard school of European classical music, and certainly most of them post-serial. They include Konrad Boehmer (whose pithy yet expansive Fluit Doceur is the title piece -- and rightfully so), Marjo Tal, Hans Poser, Gail Kubik, and Ervin Henning among others. The entire volume is bright, wonderfully played, and exquisitely recorded. This album is a curiosity piece to be sure, and will not appeal to the more strident 20th century music fans, but it will certainly delight any listener who is open to a radical reinterpretation and reinsertion into the canon, the voice of a small, elegant, and ageless instrument.and silent mantras in the traditional sense, with only acoustic instruments, so as to preserve their deep spiritual impact."