Flute Enchantée

If you enjoy opera, you will surely appreciate the new twist given here to the loveliest arias and most famous overtures, as arranged by the members of "The Magic Flute Quartet." True to its vocation, the group presents the most beautiful works from the classical repertoire in a manner accessible to all.

This recording of works by Sir Paul McCartney transcribed for flute quartet is a tribute to his love for his hometown and his immense love of music, a love he has shared with all so generously for nearly half a century.

Jorg Demus is perhaps better known as a pianist than a composer– having recorded more than 350 LP's, compact discs, and videos. He has performed throughout Europe and the Americas and has played under the baton of conductors like Herbert von Karajan, Joseph Krips, Seiji Ozawa, and others. His output as a composer appears to be relatively small and confined to chamber works– but what a first-rate composer he is!

Jean-Pierre Rampal was one of history's greatest flute players, and among the most recorded classical artists of all time. His father was the first flutist of the Marseilles Symphony Orchestra and was professor of flute at the Conservatory there. Although his father taught him to play the flute, he did not recommend a musical career for Jean-Pierre, who instead entered medical studies. He was in the third year of medical study when, in 1943, German occupying forces drafted Rampal for service in the military. He learned that he was, in fact, to be sent to Germany as forced labor.

Marc Grauwels and Franck Masquelier offer us in this album a selection of the most famous arias from Mozart’s operas, arranged for a flute duo. This formation, fashionable since the 18th century, has largely contributed, thanks to a considerable number of arrangements and adaptations, to popularizing the arias of operas which constitute an inexhaustible source for transcribers and arrangers.

This album of 20th-century masterpieces for flute and guitar features works composed especially for this combination of instruments plus arrangements of works by Bartók and Ravi Shankar. Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s Sonatine for Flute and Guitar is considered to be one of the finest compositions for this combination of instruments, contrasting joyfulness with poignant melodies. The warm sound of the alto flute is given expressive range in Takemitsu’s Toward the Sea, while Piazzolla’s Histoire du Tango takes us on a journey from the form’s beginnings in the brothels of Buenos Aires, to its acceptance as one of the most loved musical art forms of the 20th century.

Flautist Alexis Kossenko’s latest offering is evocative, impressionistic: a programme in which flute, piano and voice together have pride of place.