French harpist Bernard Andrès embraces his heritage wholeheartedly and in Narthex for flute and harp, produces a piece which from its very opening hints at Ravel and Debussy. The inspiration is a series of Old Testament sculptures from Romanesque churches in Burgundy. I found the work gently evocative rather than vividly characterised. Andrès spices things up with a number of interesting special effects, getting the harpist to rap the sounding-board, rattle the tuning key in the sound hole and getting the flautist to slide a finger inside the flute head joint, resulting in curiously eerie glissandos. 14 pages.

A nice performance of this piece can be found on Youtube.