Three leading soloists celebrate Nature in the Romantic era. Flautist Juliette Hurel and pianist Hélène Couvert, currently celebrating thirty years of musical partnership, are joined...

Three leading soloists celebrate Nature in the Romantic era. Flautist Juliette Hurel and pianist Hélène Couvert, currently celebrating thirty years of musical partnership, are joined for this recording by cellist Emmanuelle Bertrand, who was voted ‘Instrumental Soloist of the Year’ at the French Music Awards 2022. They present a recital that enables us to meet the miller’s apprentice imagining his impending death surrounded by the flowers given him by his lost love (in transcriptions of Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin) and the water nymph Undine, who seeks to gain a human soul (in Reinecke’s Undine Sonata).

REVIEW:

The program consists of the Trio in G minor by Carl Maria von Weber, songs ‘Dried Flowers’ and ‘Shepherd’s Lament’ by Schubert, his Introduction, Theme, and Variations on Dried Flowers, and the Undine Sonata by Carl Reinecke. Aspects of nature play an important role in all the selections.

These are some of the best works in the flute literature in dramatic, effective renditions. The sounds are immediate yet with a rich bass aspect. The intimacy of chamber music at its best is here.

-- American Record Guide