Barbara Kortmann INNER LIGHTS Chamber Music for Flute

For me, “inner lights” are the inner forces of being alive. They accompany us during carefree moments of joy, lead us along paths through uncertainty, and help us so we do not lose our inner clarity. Each of the works on this CD has been a special “inner light” for me over the past years. I heard the Vivaldi concertos for the first time when I was a child, performed by Sir James Galway. Both the works and Galway’s incomparable flute playing, which I have deeply admired since, awakened my love for the flute and strengthened my desire to eventually become a musician myself. For this reason I wish to dedicate the two con - certos to Sir James and his wife, Lady Jeanne Galway. I would like to thank them: for their guidance as flutists and as human beings, and for their warmth and joy of living that they shared with me over the last few years. They have been a source of wonderful enrichment in my life.

Marin Marais’ Folies d’Espagne and Johann Sebastian Bach’s Musical Offering are both works that played a special role during my studies. I am performing them on this CD in remembrance of a period that was not always easy, demanded quite a bit from my “inner lights,” but in looking back, also made me stronger and had a decisive influence on my whole being. Today I am grateful for this.

Bach’s Sonata in G minor was my first Bach sonata. I was full of curiosity and excitement when I discovered it as a fifteen-year-old, and through it I learned to love Baroque music. It is the “inner light” of my beginnings as a flutist. The two Handel arias I arranged are my “inner lights” of here and now. When I play them, I am totally with myself —happy and content in the being of the moment. I look back at my life up until now, always accompanied by the power of music which has never left me, and am at the same time full of openness and enthusiasm toward everything that awaits me in the future. (Barbara Kortmann)