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The central position of The Tempest for flute and guitar (1992) on this album, an “imaginary theatre after William Shakespeare”, reflects strikingly on Martin Herchenröder’s artistic identity. Here we find, on the one hand, his deep rooting in European cultural history, manifested also in his thorough training in that musical tradition, and on the other hand his openness to literary sources of inspiration, which he transforms into autonomous sounds. In his four-movement work, Herchenröder creates multi-layered sonic formations whose atmospheric dimensions shine out especially – nature as the auratic shell enclosing the events in Shakespeare’s The Tempest, but also psychological and emotional surges that crystallise into sharp instrumental gestures. “Delicately and very freely” is the expressive marking at the start of the brief first movement (“Music of the Island”), a visionary evocation of a state remote from all human concerns. By contrast, the second movement (“Caliban’s Revolution”) holds a mirror up to human existence, before the “Island Kingdom” makes its presence known once more and the worlds of spirits and humans form connections in a distant dream world in the fourth movement.