Sabrina Frey; Bernhard Parz - Hans Gal: First Complete Works For Flute & Piano

Hans Gal's daughter Eva Fox-Gal writes of this recording:My warmest thanks go to Sabrina Frey and Bernhard Parz for this first recording of all of Hans G�l's works for solo recorder, both with piano and for unaccompanied recorder. It is particularly moving for me to hear his very last compositions: Four Bagatelles and Sonatina, composed in 1983, and finally Moment Musical from December '86, when he was 96 years old, less than a year before his death. For many years before the composition of these works Hans had repeatedly declared that his workshop was closed. He regarded the two quintets from 1977, his Clarinet Quintet and his String Quintet, as the conclusion of his life's work. And then in 1983 the composer succumbed to persuasion yet again, this time with a solo instrument that has no possibility for harmony or counterpoint, and must therefore rely solely on melody and rhythm, quite apart from its inherently smaller range than string instruments or Piano. Gal's biographer, Wilhelm Waldstein, quotes him as joking: I was 40 before I had learnt to write for 3 voices, 60 before I learnt to write for two. He might have added: and I was 90 before I had learnt to write for a single voice.All three of the works with keyboard on this recording exemplify his mastery in part-writing, which was for him the essence of chamber music.