Variations on Folk Songs - Beethoven, Kuhlau & Doppler
10/30/2020, 14 Tracks, 1:11:17
Featuring
Anna Besson
Olga Pashchenko
Franz Doppler
Ludwig van Beethoven
Friedrich Kuhlau
Eugène Walckiers
Did you know?
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Composition History
George Thomson, a Scottish publisher, commissioned Ludwig van Beethoven to arrange folk songs for a prosperous music-loving public, aiming to elevate their style.
Composer's Artistic Vision
The composers on this album often wrote highly virtuosic arrangements of popular tunes to showcase the performer's agility.
Composer Biography
Friedrich Kuhlau, who fled Germany to Copenhagen to escape Napoleon's troops, was nicknamed 'Beethoven of the flute' by his contemporaries due to his expertise.
Compositional Technique
Franz Doppler, a fervent advocate of the keyed flute, composed highly virtuosic music for the instrument, possibly to demonstrate its capabilities against the newer Boehm flute.
Instruments
The album features Anna Besson playing a Fridtjof Aurin flute (after Wilhelm Liebel, c.1830) and a Mangeant, Tulou system flute (c.1850), and Olga Pashchenko on a Conrad Graf fortepiano (c.1825).
Composer Biography
Franz Doppler, an Austro-Hungarian flute virtuoso, was a founder member of the Hungarian Philharmonic Orchestra and later chief ballet conductor at the Vienna Court Opera.
Interpretation
The album features works on historical instruments, aiming to revive romantic flute repertoire often neglected today.
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