Emmanuel Pahud – Romances

The SWR called him a “magician”, the Tagespiegel compared him to Pan, the Greek god of flute playing. Without a doubt, there is hardly anyone who can hold a candle to the flutist Emmanuel Pahud in his field. On his album Romances, together with pianist Eric Le Sage, he delves into the world of Romanticism: a great musical passion within his wide-ranging repertoire, which extends from the Baroque to the modern.

Two pairs of composers – husband and wife Robert and Clara Schumann and siblings Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn – face each other on this album. The title Romances alludes first to the three “Romances” for oboe and piano that Robert Schumann composed in 1849 in a frenzy of inspiration. Emmanuel Pahud interprets the romantic miniatures in the arrangement of his great model Jean-Pierre Rampal and contrasts them with Clara Schumann’s Romances for violin and piano from 1853. Like the other works on the album (including songs by Fanny Mendelssohn and Felix Mendelssohn’s much too rarely played Violin Sonata in F major), they have been arranged for flute, thus broadening the spectrum for the instrument in a fascinating way. Quite in the spirit of Emmanuel Pahud, who is always on the lookout for exciting new flute repertoire. He could hardly have found anything more beautiful.