Wasserfrauen for Flute and Harp

From the Publisher

Carl Reinecke's Fairy Tale Characters, Op. 147, was first published in its original version for solo piano in February 1878. In 1886, a version for piano duet, arranged by the composer himself, was published. Reinecke dedicated these fantasy pieces to his daughter Charlotte ("Lottchen"), born in 1867. This dedication can be understood as a first indication of the pedagogical intentions of this opus. The simple form of the fairy tale characters, their limited length of three lines to two pages, and their modest technical demands also point in the same direction. In his guidebook "What Shall We Play?", a guide to the literature of home music intended partly to awaken and partly to nurture the musical talent of growing children, and partly to best cultivate music in the home, Reinecke places the work alongside his sonatinas op. 47 and 98, placing them alongside Beethoven's piano sonatas op. 49, Schumann's Album for the Youth op. 68 (Nos. 6–11), and Mozart's Piano Sonata in G major K. 283. The fairy-tale characters were received positively in the music press. The Monthly Musical Record dubbed Carl Reinecke "the Hans Christian Andersen of the pianoforte" and warned against underestimating these poetic, little "showpieces" of unaffected, musical character ("sterling musicianly character"), despite all their simplicity and very moderate technical demands.

Item Details

Instrumentation

• Part 1: Flute
• Part 2: Harp