Emmanuel Pahud / Amihai Grosz / Anneleen Lenaerts

The combination of harp and flute has always beeen popular in France. Impressionists like Debussy and their modern successor Jacques Ibert were fond of the soft, rippling sound. The viola in turn offers the perfect foil with its variable register. Thus these three instruments with such different playing techniques combine to produce one new and refined shading after another. It was in this spirit that the harpist Carlos Salzedo arranged Ravel’s famous Piano Sonatina for the trio, prompting the French composer to wonder »Why didn’t I think of that myself?«. And on the other side of the Channel, this combination of instruments found an enthusiastic fan in the English Late Romantic Arnold Bax.

Additional variety is contributed by original solo works: Lenaerts plays his own harp arrangement of Smetana’s famous »Moldau«. Pahud explores the tonal boundaries of the flute in a virtuoso piece dedicated to him by his Swiss contemporary Jarrell, and Grosz immerses himself in the world of the young Britten with his Elegy for solo viola, written when he was 17.