Richard Flury - The Magic Mirror; Little Ballet Music

Richard FLURY (1896–1967)

Ballet Music

Der magische Spiegel: Ballet in Three Scenes (1954)

Kleine Ballettmusik (1925-26)

First Recordings

Nurenberg Symphony Orchestra

Paul Mann

Der magische Spiegel (‘The Magic Mirror’), a 1954 ballet by the Swiss composer Richard Flury (1896–1967), tells a pantomime tale of flirtation, cuckoldry, magical spells and perdition – but this is no puritanical morality play: using the limited resources of a chamber orchestra to surprisingly full-bodied effect, Flury conjures up a delightful sequence of dances – a generous number of waltzes, with a czardas, a bolero and more – that skip past in good-humoured succession. And behind its innocent title, the Little Ballet Music of thirty years earlier hides a buoyant dance-suite, scored with a feeling for colour that would have gone down well in Hollywood.