In Concertos for Pasteboard, Oliver Erens, the prize-winning editor and publisher of two of Germany's most acclaimed recent collections of quality card magic, offers to English-language readers the best offerings of those volumes by magicians from Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The result is an invigorating shot of fresh ideas, novel effects and clever methods by some of the most creative minds in card magic today.
Concertos for Pasteboard features a remarkable breadth of material. The tricks, which are helpfully classified for skill level, range from nearly sleightless to technically demanding, and their potential to surprise and amaze is consistently high.
Pit Hartling, Helge Thun and Jorg Willich, members of the innovative, FISM-prize-winning group The Flicking Fingers contribute tricks of astonishing ingenuity, frequently fortified by a touch of wild comic invention. In Helge Thun's "Captain Hook's Card Trick," for example, the famous hook-handed pirate locates a chosen card in a miraculous manner; while Jorg Willich manages the same feat with a hand-held electric blender!
For those searching for more serious mysteries, there is Peter Grandt's method for doing a piece-by-piece restoration of a signed selection, achieving the effect of Guy Hollingworth's famous "Reformation" with an unprepared deck and no loss in mystery or impact.
The tricks and techniques of older generations are also well represented, including a full, professional, television presentation by Wittus Witt and other treats by Magic Christian, Piet Forton and Reinhard Muller. In total, this substantial volume contains enough variety, quality, entertainment and ingenuity to please the most experienced readers and performers of card magic.
