Passacaglia Amy Porter – Solo Flute The repertoire chosen for this CD, Passacaglia, on the Equilibrium label, represents some of the great unaccompanied repertoire for solo flute written during the twentieth century. Amy Porter’s choices include works by Hindemith, Karg-Elert, Dohnanyi and Rosza. Porter is a flute player of great renown, and has a number of successful CDs to her name. This release is one that will no doubt appeal to many ‘serious’ flute players.

The repertoire is not in the category of ‘easy-listening, however Porter has approached each of the pieces with her convincing sense of style and musicianship and makes a great success of these difficult works – each of the works represents a series of challenges both diverse and extreme in approach and requires a great technical control in all areas of technique. Porter manages to make these difficult moments sound easy and relaxed.

The seldom performed Sonata per Flauto Solo by Miklos Rosza is exciting and rhythmic in its delivery, with the Hungarian Folk and French impressionist influence of his music being well delivered by Porter. Perhaps better known for his film score writing, Rosza’s works include the score for Ben-Hur (1959) and Spellbound (1945). Dedicated to British flautist Christopher Palmer, and written in 1983, this piece certainly deserves its place in the flute players’ repertoire.

Of particular note on this solo flute CD is the entire collection of Caprices by Sigfrid Karg-Elert, which sit alongside the Sonata Appassionata in f-sharp minor for Flute Solo, Op.140. These Caprices are all short works presented almost as a series of Etudes. They vary in the degree of difficulty and the challenges they provide, but like Karg- Elert’s solo Sonata, are all worthy exercises for any keen flute player.

Erno Dohnanyi’s Passacaglia for Flute Solo, Op.48, No.2 was written in 1959 for flautist Eleanor Baker who performed the premier performance of this at Carnegie hall in 1969. Both this challenging work for Solo Flute and Paul Hindemith’s delightful and melodic Acht Stucke fur Flote allein are played with conviction and a clear sense of musical line and direction by Porter.

This CD represents a huge undertaking on behalf of Amy Porter, as any CD of unaccompanied works is always challenging simply because of the clarity of sound and crystal clear exposure of the artist to the listener. Amy Porter has approached this CD with full knowledge of this, and her interpretations and technical mastery are beautifully controlled at all times.

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