”The playing is superb." MusicWeb International
"Now that these composers are given the chance to speak for themselves, I doubt they'll be soon forgotten." American Record Guide; "Dan Laurin distingue bien chaque morceau avec son caractère propre et, bien soutenu par Anna Paradiso, il fait briller sa flûte à bec de mille couleurs.” Pizzicato; "Highly attractive and the playing is superb." MusicWeb International; "Eine willkommene Aufnahme von hohem Repertoirewert!" Klassik-Heute.de
Dan Laurin has a reputation not just as a recorder virtuoso, but also for his great interest in and curiosity about the less well-known repertoire for the instrument. With Songs of Yesterday he opens up yet another, less familiar chapter in the history of recorder music: between 1939 and 1989 Carl Dolmetsch, the great pioneer in modern recorder playing, gave almost annual recitals at Wigmore Hall in London, for which he often commissioned works &&&with piano or harpsichord accompaniment. This is described in the informative liner notes by Andrew Mayes, who has also published a book on the subject. In his own introduction to the disc, Laurin remarks upon 'Dolmetsch's ability to inspire composers to search for a contemporary idiom adequate for the instrument, resulting in an unparalleled number of top-quality works which unfortunately have been largely forgotten.' Among these, written by composers such as Edmund Rubbra and Lennox Berkeley, Laurin and his partner Anna Paradiso have selected seven pieces which, to quote Laurin once more, give his instrument a rare opportunity to 'sing like a French impressionist (Ravel, Debussy!) or a Russian modernist (Prokofiev!) - all of whom can be heard through the filter of this English, post-First World War melancholy longing.'
