Dorothea Seel - Hummel: Flute Sonatas (2019)

Dorothea Seel has engaged intensively both with the instruments and also with the playing techniques and sound aesthetics of 19th-century flutes and presented her findings in her artistic and scientific dissertation Der Diskurs um den Klang der Flöte im 19. Jahrhundert (the discourse about the sound of the flute in the 19th century, Kunstuniversität Graz 2017, in preparation for publication). Evaluation of teaching works put her on the track of forgotten playing techniques. These practices, many of which would meet with the disapproval of modern-day exponents, include overlapping of notes, a glissando effect that the keys of modern instruments no longer permit. Dorothea Seel uses this and other techniques on the present recording. In congenial partnership with Christoph Hammer, she also sheds new light on the extraordinarily varied sound world of the 19th century and puts proven theory into virtuoso practice. She challenges the conventions that govern our listening and admirably illustrates the potential of research-based period performance practice. Above all, however, the works of Johann Nepomuk Hummel sound so utterly new, fresh and stimulating.