Vienna Philharmonic Playlist Series: Dieter Flury
Dieter Flury, 1981-2017 Principal Flute Vienna Philharmonic: An annotated Playlist.
Read more…"Last summer I met Peter Lukas Graf once again. We went to the same high school in Zurich, but above all we have in common our teacher, the great André Jaunet, who is unfortunately not yet to be found on IDAGIO. But Graf, who was exemplary for me, is here:
Edgard VARÈSE: Density 21.5, which is truly a singing flute.
Carl REINECKE: Flute Concerto in D major, Op. 283, with the Radio Sinfonie Orchester Stuttgart and Pinchas Steinberg. A romantic flute, noble and emotional in the solo concerto, which for me represents musical romanticism’s most important contribution to solo flute literature.
Claude DEBUSSY: Sonata for Flute, Viola and Harp, with Graf, Collot and Holliger. The first movement is worth listening to, just for the way the first E note of the viola emerges from the flute tone at the beginning, just as wonderfully performed by these two as it is recorded.
Along with Claude Debussy (and Franz Schubert), Johann Sebastian Bach is one of the few very great composers in whose complete works the contributions to flute literature stand the test, as well. And apart from the flute, the strongest answer to Goethe's crucial question (the proverbial ‘Gretchen question’) is for me – as well as for any musician – Bach's musical cosmos.
J. S. BACH: ‘Musical Sacrifice’, with Masaaki Suzuki and others. This recording does justice to the complicated composition and sounds wonderfully round and stylistically conscious, for example in the Canon Perpetuus (track 16), but also in the famous trio sonata that precedes it.
J. S. BACH: ‘Enchanted World’ from Cantata no. 94, ‘Was frag ich nach der Welt’. In Bach's very solemn Adagio tempo with Masaaki Suzuki and Robin Blaze, as well as in the more rhetorical version with Sigiswald Kuijken and Magdalena Kožena, ‘deception and false pretence’ in Bach’s music come to incredibly frightening expression.
For me, having Vienna as my adopted home, the most Viennese composers – many of the great composers actually came to Vienna, and even Viennese Classicism clearly has a migration background – are the autochthonous Viennese composers Franz Schubert and Alban Berg, and these are particularly dear to me, as of course is the Strauss dynasty, especially the brothers Josef and Johann.
Johann STRAUSS: ‘On the Beautiful Blue Danube’. Among the numerous recordings, I have chosen – also for sentimental reasons, I confess – those from ‘my’ last New Year's Concert in 2016 with Mariss Jansons.
Alban BERG: Fragments from Wozzeck with LSO, Antal Dorati and the fabulous Helga Pilarczyk. Transparent and clear, very convincingly conducted with great orchestral skill, this recording displays not so much cozy warmth as the courage to make hard contrasts, with the military music shamelessly and unflinchingly recorded.
Alban BERG: Lulu Suite with Concertgebouw, Daniele Gatti. Here Berg is much more romantic, with great expression and warmth, captivatingly beautiful.
Franz SCHUBERT: Piano Trios Op. 99 and Op. 100 (Istomin, Rose, Stern). Just Stern in the left ear and Rose in the right, with their instinctive, effortless interplay, together with the sensitivity of Istomin. My favourite movements are the slow movements of both works – Schubert takes me aback with these just as much as with the string quintet.
Franz SCHUBERT means weightless and expressive melody in Fritz Wunderlich with Hubert Giesen in the ‘Schöne Müllerin’. It is hardly possible to choose a favourite song: perhaps ‘The Hunter’? And for the flutist, of course, the ‘Dry Flowers’, but this is too much on the sad side for me – I miss the slight cheerfulness of Schubert's melancholy at the beginning, but the conclusion is captivating.
Ludwig van BEETHOVEN: Op. 111 with Wilhelm Kempff is unbelievably immediate, with Alfred Brendel singing as he does in everything he tackles, and fascinating as Igor Levit opens up the room in the beginning.
Ludwig van BEETHOVEN: Lucid, classically beautiful, with the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig and Herbert Blomstedt. Here Beethoven is fresh and powerful, such as in the slow movements of the Seventh and the Fifth Symphonies; the latter also has the first movement, which sounds as fresh as ever with the Gewandhausorchester and Blomstedt.
When I think back to my decades with the Wiener Philharmoniker, I choose to start with a contribution to twentieth-century symphony that Zubin Mehta played with us, although here in a recording with the composer himself:
Luciano BERIO: Sinfonia, third movement, with the New York Philharmonic, the Swingle Singers, and Berio himself conducting. Spacious and expansive, it is undoubtedly one of the most important symphonies of the twentieth century, as reflected in numerous witty and skilful quotations. It is played less often than it deserves, probably due to the considerable effort involved.
Now we finally turn to my orchestra:
Engelbert HUMPERDINCK: Overture to Hansel and Gretel, with C. Eschenbach. This sound can be addictive.
Also similarly the introduction to BEETHOVEN’s Fourth Symphony, with Christian Thielemann. This is Beethoven as the inventor of the nineteenth-century symphony. My Beethoven symphony for a desert island would probably be the Fourth.
We now have BRUCKNER’s Ninth Symphony with Carl Schuricht, from 1961. The first movement is very convincing in how it hustles things on. However, the Adagio seems to me to be rather brash and not legato, as compared to the intense beginning, which the Berlin colleagues under Hans Knappertsbusch, for example, have given us. The musicians with Yutaka Sado also sound very convincing, but they soon slow down, which does not do the first section any good. I have personal memories of the recordings with Claudio Abbado and Nikolaus Harnoncourt, including Harnoncourt's meticulous collection of Bruckner's sketches and fragments of the fourth movement, but I cannot find either, and offer instead a majestically beautiful recording with the Concertgebouw and Mariss Jansons.
And, of course, there is always Gustav MAHLER with the Wiener Philharmoniker, with so many great conductors, from Bernstein to Boulez. My most recent Mahler experience was the ‘Lied von der Erde’, with Jonas Kaufmann, conducted by Jonathan Nott – the Farewell (Sixth Song) is great chamber music."
Dieter Flury, December 2017.