Romances

Flautist Emmanuel Pahud and pianist Eric Lesage play arrangements of short pieces and songs by four German composers of the mid-19th century: Robert Schumann and his wife Clara (born Clara Wieck), and Felix Mendelssohn and his sister Fanny.

Major composers of the earlier Romantic period somewhat neglected the flute as a solo instrument, even though there were a number of virtuoso players and the flute was popular with amateurs. The fact is that the instrument presented technical difficulties in terms of consistency of timbre and intonation; these were not satisfactorily resolved until 1847, when Theobald Boehm, a German manufacturer of wind instruments, produced the revolutionary prototype of the modern flute.

The album comprises: Robert Schumann’s three Romances op 94 – originally written for oboe and transcribed for flute in the 1950s by Jean-Pierre Rampal – and his three Fantasiestücke op 73, originally conceived for clarinet; Clara Schumann’s three Romances op 22, which she dedicated to the great violinist Joseph Joachim; arrangements of six lieder by Fanny Mendelssohn, and the sonata in F that Felix Mendelssohn composed as a violin work in 1838.