HENRI DUTILLEUX (1916-2013): Le Loup (ballet), Dutilleux orchestrated by Kenneth Hesketh (b.1968): Sonatine for Flute, Sonata for Oboe, Sarabande et Cortège for Bassoon.

Description: The half-hour ballet Le Loup was composed as a commission for Roland Petit’s dance company and premièred in Paris in March 1953. Rarely recorded – this is the first recording by a non-French orchestra – the work unfolds in three tableaux and tells a convoluted tale of a bridegroom who jilts his bride (to run away with a gypsy) by persuading her that he has been changed into a wolf. The album is completed by new orchestrations of wind solos written for the Paris Conservatoire in the 1940s. Both the Sarabande et Cortège and oboe work are virtuosic tours de force for their soloists, as is the Sonatine, which displays the lyricism, agility, and sparkling incisive qualities of the flute in what became Dutilleux’s most-performed work. Adam Walker (flute), Juliana Koch (oboe), Jonathan Davies (bassoon), Sinfonia of London; John Wilson.