Claire Diterzi en Mille Morceaux

The flautist Michel Blavet was among the foremost European instrumentalists of his time. His second set of compositions, Sonates mêlées de pièces pour la flûte traversière avec la basse (1732), offers us sonatas in four alternating slow and fast movements, built on the Italian model. But in order to bring out the French style, Blavet inserts character pieces - portraits of sorts, most often in rondo form, eitther bearing the name of an actual or fictitious person or a title evoking a quality. As with Blavet in his time, no doubt, Claire Guimond renders all the grace and agility of these fine works

Marie-Claire Alain - L'Orgue Francais (2014) {22CDs Boxset - Warner Classics / Erato}
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© 2014 Warner Classics / Erato | 0825646310647
Classical / Baroque / Organ Music / Choral

Known as the ‘First Lady of the organ’, Marie-Claire Alain was a strikingly mature, creative and intuitive artist. Spanning four centuries of music, from Baroque masterpieces by the likes of Couperin and Grigny, through cornerstones of the French organ repertoire by Widor, Vierne and Messiaen, to two discs of works by her brother Jehan, this collection is testament to her vast and impressively wide-ranging recording legacy.

Jordi Savall - Carlos V - Mille Regretz: La Cancion Del Emperador (2000) {Alia Vox AV 9814}
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© 2000 Alia Vox | AV 9814
Classical / Renaissance / Medieval / Choral / Instrumental Music

Jordi Savall has brought us yet another treasure on his own Alia Vox label, this time a mixed bag of music by Reformation Era composers and a handful of slightly earlier works. It’s all taken from a concert program Savall gave last year under the aegis of “greatest hits of the court of Charles V”. The composers presented are mostly court musicians for that Holy Roman Emperor, but Josquin and Heinrich Isaac also are included, the latter as a nod to Charles’ grandfather, Maximilian I, who was responsible for getting Charles the crown. Savall combines his first-rate instrumental ensemble, updated to Hespèrion XXI, with his own vocal group, La Capella Reial de Catalunya. The results are captivating. Savall’s musicians are tops in the field, and their collective talents, constantly on display in this varied program, are simply a joy to hear.

De mille feux sees James Wright in collaboration with the Andara Quartet — Marie-Claire Vaillancourt (violin), Jeanne Côté (violin), Vincent Delorme (viola), and Dominique Beauséjour-Ostiguy (cello) — to realize four unique works. The first, written by Benjamin Britten at the age of 28, String Quartet No. 1, Op. 25 is undoubtedly the most luminous of his four string quartets. The Andante sostenuto begins with one of the most remarkable opening pages in English chamber music: the violins and viola are seemingly suspended—weightless, pianissimo and molto vibrato—at a stratospherically high pitch, like a trail of twinkling, distant stars.

It's not clear why Telemann called these works "concertos" when they are really sonatas for transverse flute and harpsichord, with no tutti instrumental group involved. Annotator Jean-Claude Thériault works up an argument that it was due to the "concerted" nature of the music, with the flute and harpsichord playing generally equal roles instead of assigning ritornello-like music to the keyboard. It's hard to say whether he's right, but it's precisely the departure from the Baroque trio sonata and concerto models that makes this music so interesting. It is strikingly modern for the late 1710s, when the first edition of the music was published.