Henner Eppel provides
the excellent notes for this disc and sensibly discusses the
works in chronological order. Was it his own idea to put them
on the disc higgledy-piggledy as listed above or did he have
a surprise when he saw the finished product? As a matter of
fact, the chronological leaps back and forward divide the
disc up into three or four mini-programmes and, the combination
of flute and harp not being a very varied one, I took the
hint and gratefully enjoyed three mini-sessions in alternation
with other discs. I recommend that others do likewise.
The lack of variety
is no fault of the artists who play well and tastefully in
music which hardly gives scope for more. The “Elfenreigen”
is a very pleasing little piece, delicately evocative. As
it is the first of 3 Tonstücke I wonder if the other
two might not have gone on the disc in preference to the longwinded
and repetitive Bochsa Nocturne. Since this latter is the weakest
item on the CD (admittedly the theme itself is ear-catching),
it is rather a pity it is placed first. Sweetly pleasant,
too, are the two Tournier pieces while the more classical
sonatas are not without charm and the Spohr is actually quite
strong. Until the end I was compelled to reflect that, alas
for the flautist, the beautiful Pierné Impromptu-Caprice for
solo harp was the most memorable item, but the Hilse proved
a real find, music with strength, imagination and personality,
an essential piece for this rare combination: of the works
included here only the Bochsa, Hess and Hilse were originally
for flute and harp; the Tournier, Krumpholtz and Spohr were
for violin and harp and the C.P.E. Bach was for flute and
thorough bass, so the harp was only one of the several acceptable
accompaniments. But they all work perfectly well as presented
here. The notes tell us a little quaintly that “despite modern
research it has not been possible to obtain very much useful
information about B Hilse and his life or about any other
potential compositions by him”. I’ve been wondering ever since
what a “potential composition” might (potentially) sound like;
if anybody could find some other actual ones (the composer
of an op.6 would logically have written at least five) I should
be (potentially) very interested to hear them.
In one sense,
the chronological peculiarity of this sequence is less disturbing
than it would be with any other combination. Since the harp,
unlike the piano, has no dampers, its music tends to be accompanied
by an impressionist haze no matter what period it belongs
to. Conversely, also unlike the piano, it has no sustaining
pedal and its undamped strings sustain much less long than
the piano, so it tends to reduce the impressionist haze surrounding
music which might be expected to have one. In other words,
it tends to make all music sound rather similar. Or so I was
thinking until Hilse came along and showed that music for
flute and harp can have a distinct profile.
The notes, as
I said, are by Eppel himself, and they have been given a very
fluent and idiomatic translation by C. Topp and B. Meech,
with the one proviso that the pair appear not to familiar
with musical terminology. The phrase “general bass accompaniment”
will be intelligible only to those English readers who know
that the thorough bass or basso continuo is called
Generalbass in German. Likewise “sonatas for flute and obligatory
harpsichord” sound an unlikely prison recreation until we
realize that it must mean “flute and harpsichord obbligato”.
This looked like
being a specialist disc, but Hilse, Pierné and perhaps Hess,
Tournier and Spohr (in that order) should make it worthwhile
to a wider public. But don’t hear it all in one go if you’re
not a specialist.
Christopher
Howell
see also
Review
by Jonathan Woolf
Henner Eppel (flute), Christian
Topp (harp)
