Here is a fine example of an issue from a small company which makes a modest but immensely worthwhile contribution to the catalogue. The repertoire is attractive and well chosen, and it gives a platform for two highly talented young professionals who deserve the boost to their careers it will surely bring.
The familiar work is the Martinu Sonata, an unobtrusive masterpiece which contains the quintessence of his gentle, sympathetic personality. Admittedly it is hardly ‘Beyond the Iron Curtain’, for it was composed in America in 1945, and the descent of the Iron Curtain a few years later was the precise reason why Martinu was never again to return to his homeland. But never mind. It is a lovely, warm performance, beautifully recorded. The same could be said of the recital as a whole.
Well-written flute music has a way of sounding French, no matter where it was written. So I suppose it should be no surprise to find the Georgian Taktakishvili taking his cue from Faure, or his Czech contemporary Feld embracing a garrulous neo-classicism that could easily pass for Milhaud, or the Azerbaijani Amirov, another near-contemporary, hitting on an attractive blend of Ravel and Khachaturian. But I was more than a bit surprised to find Gubaidulina sounding like Dutilleux in her charming, tarantella-like Allegro rustico. Her Sounds of the Forest is closer to her familiar world of mystic rustlings, but this too is far more instantly appealing than the music for which she is best known. A delightful programme, warmly recorded.'