Overture On Hebrew Themes, Quintet, Visions Fugitives Etc

The clarinetist Dirk Altmann came to the Tacet label and asked if they would like to record Sergei Prokofiev's Quintet. The answer was yes as the reputation of the Ludwig Chamber Players preceded them, but what to record with it? The Quintet only lasts a quarter of an hour. What other chamber music is there by Prokofiev? So they went on the search...... What came out of it is this kaleidoscope of Prokofiev's chamber music output, together with a beautiful new instrumentation of the "Visions Fugitives" for 10 instruments under the pseudonym of M. Ucki. Few composers have been so capricious, stylistically as well as compositionally. Uninhibited boldness, such as the same melody line played simultaneously on different instruments, only with different phrasing, alternating with apparently conventional elements. Pieces of breathtaking virtuosity and boldness on the one side contrasting with enraptured, tender and melancholic moods on the other from a man who was probably always caught between two stools and wasn't entirely at home anywhere. A cosmopolitan ahead of his time.