Around 40,000 years ago, towards the end of the last Ice Age, the upper Danube region was settled by anatomically modern humans. Traces of their daily life have been found at several cave sites in the south of modern Germany, including fragments of perforated bird bones and mammoth ivory. Representing the oldest evidence of musical creation worldwide, these prehistoric flutes – two from caves at Geissenklösterle, one from Hohle Fels, and a slightly later, more fully preserved find from Isturitz cave in the French Pyrenees – have been reconstructed in the modern era. Flautist Anna Friederike Potengowski has studied the instruments and their possible playing techniques, and together with percussionist Georg Wieland Wagner has created a compelling programme of music in which contemporary modes of expression absorb and are reshaped by echoes from the edge of time.

Water splashing against rocks, rustling grasses, the eternal musical truth of breath on bone… The fourth volume in Delphian’s pioneering collaboration with the European Music Archaeology Project has the deepest roots – and the widest reach – yet.