Anne-Cathérine Heinzmann: Works for Flute

This appositely programmed flute recital focuses on a quintet of composers whose lives were disrupted, and in two cases ended, by the onset of National Socialism. All five were Jews: Günter Raphael‘s father had converted to the Lutheran faith, but the composer was still fired from his position at the Leipzig Conservatory in 1934.

Erwin Schulhoff’s bright and breezy Flute Sonata dates from March 1927 and was premiered in Paris the following month by René Le Roy with the composer accompanying. It is in most senses a very Francophile work – aerial, light-hearted, with a crisply supportive role for the piano. There’s something Poulenc-like about the bittersweet Aria and much savoir faire in the handling of the witty Rondo finale. The Dutch-born Leo Smit also spoke a decidedly French vernacular in much of his music. The Flute Sonata proved to be his last completed work, finished a couple of months before he was shipped East and murdered in Sobibór. It very much defies the circumstances in which it was written. Its airy nonchalance and brash, rhythmically sprung finale – élan to spare – frame the slightly impressionist slow movement that was the last to be written.

Hans Gál’s music has won increasing admiration over the last decade or so. The Three Intermezzi are late works, composed in 1974 and form a contrasted trio. The first is a romantic reverie with hints of familiar Gal concerns in Schubert and Brahms. There’s a Ländler to occupy the central Intermezzo and a cleverly worked-out finale. Raphael’s Flute Sonata was written in 1925 and its opening shows the youthful composer’s command of Elysian long-breathed Francophile lyricism. This extrovert, high-spirited and auspicious work marked the 22-year old’s promising development. Thematic material is cleverly parceled-out and he draws out the flute’s Arcadian and avian qualities alike very adeptly indeed. Finally, there is Alexandre Tansman’s Sonatine written in the same year as Raphael’s own flute piece. Tansman goes in for terpsichorean vernacular via the Foxtrot and Ragtime, scrunching down via a mordant Notturno, and leaving the stage with a carefree finale.

Well recorded, Anne-Cathérine Heinzmann and Thomas Hoppe prove assiduous and sensitive guides to this repertoire.

Japanische Rezension siehe PDF!

Lebensbedrohliche Momente, Todesängste scheinen besondere schöpferische Kräfte freizulegen. Ist es Protest gegen ein Unrechtsregime? Ist es Auflehnen gegen das Schicksal, gegen das Unvermeidbare? Viele Komponisten wurden unter dem Nazi-Regime verfolgt, eingekerkert und umgebracht – besonders jene jüdischer Abstammung. Hatte nicht der unsägliche kleine Lautsprecher Joseph Goebbels behauptet, dass die deutsche Kultur sehr gut ohne ihre jüdische Tradition auskommen kann?

Erwin Schulhoff, Leo Smit, Hans Gal, Günter Raphael, Alexandre Tansman gehören zu jenen Verfemten, die zum Schweigen gebracht wurden.

Anne-Catherine Heinzmann und Thomas Hoppe haben ihnen nun wieder eine Stimme verliehen. Es ist die Stimme aufgewühlter Poesie und romantischen Nachklangs. Anne-Catherine Heinzmann vermittelt uns mit einem sehr geschmeidigen, nie prassenden, nie opulenten Ton von butterweicher dynamischer Ausprägung die Zeitlosigkeit dieser Musik, ihre zarte und intensive Leidenschaft.

Anne-Catherine Heinzmann and Thomas Hoppe are performing the music of once brutally silenced composers with flexibility and a most delicate passion.

There being simply so many flautists around, most pieces on Anne-Catherine Heinzmann's untitled Audite SACD recital will be inescapably familiar to accompanists. The delightfully Iistenable Poulenc and Hindemith sonatas (comparative masterpieces of the wind-and-piano repertoire) arc obligatory steps to flute stardom, as is Frank Martin's ever-serious Ballade, one of several for different instruments. The ten-minute Dutilleux Sonatine is charming and typically well wrought; Robert Muczynski's Sonata, Op. 14 was new to me but there's nothing in this enjoyable piece to frighten lovers of Bartok and Prokofiev. Heinzmann dispatches the fireworks with aplomb, though her unwritten hesitations before each Poulenc first-movement run-up palled after a while. Pianist Thomas Hoppe is excellent: the few departures from my Poulenc score are unsurprising, the composer being so lackadaisical over written details that publishers have brought out no fewer than 18 editions of the piece so far in successive attempts to settle what he meant (audite 92.667, 1 hour).

In the past few issues I have criticized several performances of the Poulenc sonata by fine flutists because they were superficial and too driven. I asked whether anyone finds the magic and mystery in its first movement that I do, wondering whether times have passed me by, even though I’m under 40. Now I have found someone who feels the same way about this piece. At the end of the first movement, her interpretation was enough to bring tears to my eyes, though the tone Poulenc creates is wistful, not tragic. I can’t imagine someone else could get this more right. The performance decisions in II are illuminating too, but I would like more force in the piano part to contribute to the climactic moments. After the gloom and drama of first two movements, the cheer of the final one is welcome and necessary.

The Hindemith sonata has all the playfulness and wonder Hindemith wrote into it, and the end of I actually sounds world-weary. The slow, expressive section that happens twice lags and disturbs the mood rather than fitting into it, but most flutists like it very slow.

The slow movement of the Muczynski sonata is marked Andante, and I doubt that most people would consider a tempo this slow a valid andante. The slow tempo does serve the movement’s gravity. Otherwise, this is a thoughtful performance marked by unexpected touches.

Her sound is like Carol Wincenc’s, but in a better way. Wincenc often sounded disheveled and overdone; Heinzmann sounds relaxed and expressive. Everything is very precise without seeming fussed over. The recorded sound is full, and there is a wonderful ring at the end of the Poulenc and after cutoffs in the cadenza of the Dutilleux.

This is standard flute repertory, and these performances are as good as or better than anyone else’s.

Chinesische Rezension siehe PDF!

Die Flöte erlebte im 20. Jahrhundert eine bemerkenswerte Renaissance als konzertierendes Instrument. Die Sonaten von Henri Dutilleux und Francis Poulenc stehen für den Anstoß dieser Entwicklung, der aus Frankreich kam. In der Reihe seiner Sonaten für jedes Melodieinstrument und Klavier stellte Paul Hindemith die Flöte vornean. Frank Martin, der Mittler zwischen deutscher und französischer Tradition, schuf mit seiner Ballade eine farbig-beredte Variante der Sonatenform. Die Sonate des Amerikaners Robert Muczynski wurde zum bekanntesten Werk seines klassizistisch-brillanten Stils.

Die vorliegende Aufnahme präsentiert Hauptwerke des Repertoires für Flöte und Klavier des 20. Jahrhunderts. Diese Zeitperiode ist instrumental­historisch von Interesse, da die Flöte im 20. Jahrhundert eine bemerkenswerte Renaissance als konzertierendes Instrument erlebte.

Anne-Cathérine Heinzmann zählt zu den renommiertesten deutschen Flötistinnen ihrer Generation. Als Solistin, Kammer- und Orchestermusikerin tritt sie regelmäßig in Deutschland und weltweit auf. Sie ist stellvertretende Soloflötistin am Opern- und Museumsorchester Frankfurt am Main; seit 2009 ist sie zudem Professorin an der Hochschule für Musik Nürnberg.