Daniel Barenboim and Emmanuel Pahud both hold important posts in Berlin – Barenboim as General Music Director of the city’s Staatsoper Unter den Linden and Pahud as Principal Flute of the Berliner Philharmoniker. This programme of Beethoven chamber music with flute was recorded in June 2020 in Berlin’s newest concert hall, the elliptical 700-seat Pierre Boulez Saal, designed by Frank Gehry, which Barenboim inaugurated in 2017. In July 2020, he and Pahud made international headlines with Distance/Intimacy, the 10-concert festival of new music they staged in the hall, and which they had specifically conceived for online consumption under pandemic conditions.
This Beethoven album is Warner Classics’ final new release for the composer’s 250th anniversary year. Barenboim – here playing the piano – and Pahud are joined by four other distinguished musicians: the violinist Daishin Kashimoto, who is First Concertmaster of the Berliner Philharmoniker; the viola player Amihai Grosz, formerly of the Jerusalem Quartet and now Principal of the Berliner Philharmoniker’s viola section; Sophie Dervaux, who is Principal Bassoon of the Wiener Philharmoniker, and flautist Silvia Careddu, formerly Principal Flute of the great Austrian orchestra.
The programme comprises charming works from the earlier years of Beethoven’s career: from the mid-1780s, the Piano Trio WoO 37 for piano, flute and bassoon in G Major; from 1792, shortly before Beethoven left Bonn to live in Vienna, the Allegro and Minuet WoO26 for two flutes in G Major; from around 1800, the Serenade op 25 for flute, violin and viola in D Major, and from 1802, the Sonata No 8 Op 30, No 3 in G major – in fact composed for violin and piano, but here arranged by Emmanuel Pahud for flute and piano.
