Classics and curiosities

Anyone who first thinks of Czech chamber music for string instruments should not overlook the fact that one of the most frequently performed flute sonatas is by a Czech composer. Together with the sonatas by Poulenc and Prokofiev, Bohuslav Martinů's sonata, written in 1945 in exile in America, is one of the most popular pieces in the repertoire. The long chain of recordings has now been extended by a Swiss production that makes you sit up and take notice. With the Zurich-born solo flutist of the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Sarah Rumer, and the pianist Ulrich Koella, who teaches at the Zurich University of the Arts, the Zurich label Prospero is releasing a new recording under the motto Slavonic Journey CD, which offers not only standard works but also little-known curiosities.

Martinů's masterpiece already receives an admirable interpretation. In addition to wide-ranging breath bows in nimble semiquaver passages, the pianissimo transitions from vertical sections to horizontal-linear ones, played with the finest rubato, stand out. The flutist and pianist owe nothing in terms of brilliance to the musical corner movements of Jindřich Feld's sonata. In Feld's Quatre pièces for solo flute quotes the "Hommage à Bartók" from his Concerto for orchestra. The duo charges Erwin Schulhoff's frequently encountered sonata with the necessary joy of playing the many ostinati and harmonic frictions.

Through her marriage to the writer Jiří Mucha, the son of the Art Nouveau painter Alfons Mucha, the London composer Geraldine Thomson became a Czech citizen and was therefore included in this production. Her Naše cesta (Our Journey) is characterized by elegance and folksong-like melodies. The imaginatively designed booklet features various photos of Prague's main railway station to reflect the travel theme.

The wind sextet Mládí (youth) integrated, shrill repeating March of the bluethroats by Leoš Janáček for piccolo and piano derives its supposedly ornithological title from blue choirboy uniforms. With Sarah Rumer's curious transcription of the Slavic fantasy by Fritz Kreisler is a transcription of a transcription, the latter consisting of Kreisler's arrangement of two themes by Dvořák.

Slavonic Journey (Martinů, Feld, Schulhoff, Mucha, Janáček, Dvořák/Kreisler). Sarah Rumer, flute; Ulrich Koella, piano. Prospero PROSP0049