Crystal clear water world

Undine is the name of the CD, and Eva Oertle is depicted on the cover in a "mermaid pose". The title says it all, at least in part, because the focus of the recording, which the Swiss flautist and radio editor presents together with her duo partner Vesselin Stanev on the piano, is clearly the Undine Sonata E minor op. 167 by Carl Reinecke. But the CD by no means turns out to be a spasmodic search for musically immortalized water creatures.

Undine - we know the mysterious mermaid who wants to become human and fails to do so from de la Motte Fouqué's story of the same name. This was also the model for Reinecke's work, the only flute sonata of the Romantic period and therefore popular with virtuosos of the genre. Oertle has grouped a program around it, which either continues the theme directly or takes it into account through the character of the pieces.

The sequence is well structured so that the many arrangements are not distracting: for example, the E minor Sonata for Violin and Piano K. 304 by Mozart and the F minor Sonata (not F major as listed in the booklet) op. 4 by Mendelssohn. This creates larger units between which song arrangements by Schubert or Bizet are inserted.

Eva Oertle, sensitively accompanied by Vesselin Stanev, is thus able to develop her flute art in a variety of ways. Even the beginning with Haydn's Mermaid's Song is beautifully "sung out" in its simple cantilena. In the Mendelssohn sonata, the peculiarly poetic character is expressed just as much as the virtuosity in Reinecke's finale.

In the highly Romantic pieces, which include Reinecke and Schumann's Sea fairy op. 125, one would have wished for a little more agogic and dynamic looseness and emotional exuberance. However, Oertle's low-vibrato approach, which is clearly based on historical performance practice, simply and clearly carries the listener through Undine's undulating water world.