Italian Flute Sonatas

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

Heres another superb disc of Baroque/galant-style flute sonatas to join the impressive library of such music on Brilliant Classics, most recently enlarged by a release of Johan Helmich Roman, a close contemporary of Boismortier (1689-1755). Whereas Roman worked in the then-distant royal court of Sweden, and had only one collection of music published during his lifetime, Boismortier was known across Europe as both a supreme virtuoso on the flute/recorder family, and a composer for the instrument of a facility and refinement rivalled only by Bach.

In 1700, Corelli published his 12 violin sonatas, Opus 5, in Rome. A veritable revolution in violin technique, they won the admiration of eminent composers (Bach, Dandrieu, Couperin) and greatly influenced the French (Francoeur, Leclair, Senaillé, Quentin), who were to try their hand at this virtuoso and brilliant Italian style. At the end of the 1730s, the first six sonatas of opus 5 were "adapted to the transverse flute with the bass" by a Parisian publisher. The level of virtuosity they demanded was quite innovative at the time. This display of virtuosity is also to be found in the compositions of Jean-Baptiste Quentin, known as Le Jeune. We have very little biographical information on Quentin himself, but all his work is greatly inspired by Italian music and is heavily influenced by Corelli. Anna Besson has made the world's first recording of his sonatas, with the help of two other eminent performers of the new Baroque generation, Myriam Rignol on viola da gamba and Jean Rondeau on harpsichord.

Jed Wentz began his career as a virtuoso flutist but gradually turned to conducting. He founded the early music ensemble Musica ad Rhenum (Music on the Rhine) and has appeared as soloist or conductor with them in numerous concerts throughout the world. Wentz has hardly abandoned the flute though or its early music counterparts like the traverso but he has, since the 1990s, focused more on the conducting side of his career and devoted much time as well to the understanding and implementation of historically informed music practices.

Another reason to take a look into the Glossa Cabinet series comes with the reappearance of Marcello Gatti’s delightful interpretation of transverse flute Sonatas by Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach (son number 9 of JS), who worked in the courtly surroundings of Bückeburg in central Germany in the last part of the 18th century. These sonatas were composed around the time of JCF’s visit to see his brother Johann Christian in London in 1778 and combine the Italian galante style with the sensitivity of the Empfindsamer Stil. Elegantly performed by Gatti and Giovanni Togni, fortepiano, with cellist Giovanna Barbati joining for a Trio in D major (from the middle of the 1780s), the recording was captured in sound by Sigrid Lee and Roberto Meo.

Germany's Accent label has released a series of twin-CD sets featuring the Baroque flute recordings made by Barthold Kuijken, sometimes (as here) accompanied by his cello-playing brother Wieland. The originals date back to the late '70s, when Kuijken was one of the Dutch specialists who brought historical performance out of the too-precious phase, and they still sound good. This release pairs a 1979 set of French flute sonatas from the middle eighteenth century with a 1991 group of Italian works of the same period. The two discs, both recorded in Belgian churches, don't have exactly the same ambiance, but the pairing is an intelligent one, making this a good pick from among the various discs available.

A celebration of instrumental Baroque splendour! This set present an anthology of Italian Baroque composers, featuring their instrumental output. Obviously the famous composers have their fair share: Vivaldi, Albinoni, Locatelli, Corelli, but also lesser known composers are featured: Barsanti, Bassani, Veracini, Nardini, Stradella, Vitali, Mancini, Platti, Legrenze and many more, over 30 composers! Performances by leading ensembles specialized in the Historically Informed Performance Practice: L'Arte dell'Arco/Federico Guglielmo, Ensemble Cordia/Stefano Veggetti, Violini Capricciosi/Igor Ruhadze, MusicaAmphion/Pieter Jan Belder and many more. A treasure trove of solo concertos, concerti grossi, sinfonias, overtures, trio sonatas and solo sonatas from the Golden Era of the Italian Baroque, era of joy, passion and brilliance!