The acclaimed Amsterdam-based early music ensemble Fantasticus returns to Resonus with this new recording of the complete Op. 12 flute quartets by the French composer and violinist Louis-Gabriel Guillemain (1705-1770). The ensemble is joined by the internationally renowned and celebrated period flautist Wilbert Hazelzet for this musical journey through this enticing and elegant set of six sonatas, the first of two sets of 'Sonates en Quatuors' by this engaging composer. Fantasticus plays Baroque music on historical instruments. When Fantasticus performs it is an act of creation that gives old music an immediacy and a relevance to today's listeners. The group believes in connecting with their audiences and sees each concert as a joint journey of discovery, passing peaks of intensity and intimacy along the way. The ensemble has, since 2010, been performing in important halls and festivals around Europe. They have also recorded a number of highly praised albums with Resonus Classics.
Traveling Sonata: European Music For Flute & Guitar
Reference Recordings
CD
$18.99Jan 01, 2012
An adventurous program of European masterworks for flute and guitar from scintillating young artists Viviana Guzman and Jeremy Jouve, captured brilliantly by Grammy®-winning recording engineer Keith O. Johnson. A winner for all audiophiles and music lovers! This album is a musical journey full of emotion, from the soothing and mellow music of Fauré and Satie, and the driving excitement of “Bolero” and “Carmen,” to thrilling modern music by Dyens, Duplessy, and Ourkouzounov.
Described by the New York Times as “an imaginative artist,” Chilean-born flutist, Viviana Guzmán performs over 80 concerts a year throughout the world. She has been featured on programs for PBS, NBC, and NPR, seen on the cover of Latina Style Magazine, and in COSMOPOLITAN en Español and has played in 118 countries including South Africa, Ireland, Spain, Brazil, Bali, India, Peru, and Greece featuring flutes from her collection of over 100 gathered from concert tours.
Boismortier: Six Suites de Pieces, Op. 11 / Nahajowski
Recart
CD
$10.49$20.99Save 50%Nov 15, 2019
The music scene of Paris during the reign of Louis XV could be defined as truly cosmopolitan. The change in aesthetic preferences were already observed in the works written as early as the 1700s, when French composers started to assimilate more and more willingly some elements of Italian style into their pieces. What strikes is the fact that concepts concerning the creation of a mixed style (les goûts rèunis) were primarily developed by instrumental music composers. In contrast to opera, which was naturally connected with the morphology of the language and literature of a given country, compositions lacking the semantics of a text were more suitable for the creation of a universal musical language. The figure of Boismortier can be described as French Telemann. Similarly to his German counterpart, he favored the idea of a mixed style and experimented with unorthodox instrumentation solutions. Boismortier was also one of the first composers that did not have a wealthy patron or protector, living off his works solely. He owed that position to the royal prerogative (1724) to print and sell sheet music, which helped him to avoid the necessity of working as a teacher or seeking employment as an instrumentalist in one of numerous court ensembles. This new recording is the first complete album of Boismortier’s suites performed on the recorder solo.
Looking Back: The Flute Music of Joseph Schwantner / Frisof, Pesca
Centaur Records
CD
$18.99Jul 08, 2016
Joseph Schwantner is one of the most prominent American composers of our day. This new release features Looking Back, a commission in honor of flutist Sam Baron by his former students. Sarah Frisof showcases Schwantner's works with her vibrant and soulful playing. Frisof was the winner of both the National Flute Association Young Artist Competition and the Heida Hermanns International Woodwind Competition. Frisof considers herself a proponent of contemporary music and frequently premieres major works.
Schocker: Sonatas for Flute & Piano / Odell, Stroud
Centaur Records
CD
$18.99Nov 15, 2019
Gary Schocker has composed some of the greatest works for flute of the past half-century. Included on this new release are his Sonatas for Flute and Piano Nos. 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 9, performed by Leslie Neighbor Stroud. Leslie Neighbor Stroud, flute, received her Bachelor’s degree in Flute Performance from the Peabody Conservatory of Music where she was a student of Britton Johnson (National Symphony Orchestra, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra) and Timothy Day (San Francisco Symphony Orchestra). She has also studied with Lois Schaefer (Boston Symphony Orchestra), Walfrid Kujala (Chicago Symphony Orchestra) and Mark Sparks (St. Louis Symphony Orchestra) and baroque flute with Suzanne Stumpf (Musicians of the Old Post Road), as well as participating in the master classes of Gary Schocker, Julius Baker, Bonita Boyd and William Bennett. Leslie currently performs with the Pentangle Arts Orchestra, BarnArts Festival Orchestra, Pro Musica Vermont, Guilford Music Festival Orchestra, Cameo Baroque (a period instrument ensemble), Buttonwood Wind Quintet, the Richard Faith Ensemble, and the Sterling String Quartet. She has performed with New Bedford Symphony Orchestra, The Plymouth Philharmonic, New Bedford Festival Theater, the Tri-County Symphonic Band, the Buzzards Bay Musicfest, the Savannah Symphony Orchestra, the Annapolis Symphony Orchestra, the Baltimore Chamber Orchestra, the Chicago Civic Orchestra, the Peabody Wind Quintet, the Bellemore Ensemble of Baltimore, the Mozart Festival of Alameda, and the Trinity Chamber Concerts of California.
For the first volume of this series of seven albums, Gergely Ittzes has selected seven sonatas representative of the flute music of the 18th century. The works are played on modern flute but informed by authentic performance practice. Original obligato keyboard parts are played on piano while continuo realizations are performed on harpsichord. The players have aimed at an analytic, though spontaneous, rendition. Gergely Ittzes won several prizes and awards including the Aleksander Tansman International Competition of Musical Personalities. Alex Szilasi and Anthony Newman join Ittzes on the keyboards.
Providing a platform for young artists has always been important to the label Ars produktion, next to helping them lay the groundwork for a music career. The young flutist Sofia de Salis, who enjoyed tuition among the most distinguished teachers and has already won numerous competitions, will certainly continue to achieve great success in the future.
There is only a small number of orchestral pieces in Johann Sebastian Bach's oeuvre- which is surprising considering that the composer worked with excellent ensembles in both of his positions- as "Konzermeister" and Kapellmeister" - in Kothen and Weimar during the period between 1708 and 1723. This is particularly true of concertos where there is a high number of transcriptions, rearranged predominantly for harpsichord. Capella Savaria, Hungary's oldest period instrument ensemble, presents four of these on this album. The Capella Savaria (Szombathely) was founded in 1981 by Pál Németh. Their aim is to play 17th and 18th century music using the documents of the period. The play on authentic instruments with copies of bows of the epoch, studying the instrumental tutors of the Baroque era, referring to articulation, embellishment and, in wider sense, the characteristic sound of the whole period. The basis of the ensemble is strings, which are joined by other instruments as required.
INVOCACIONES: Mexican Music for Flute and Piano • Evangelina Reyes (fl); Camelia Goila (pn) • URTEXT DIGITAL JBCC-188 (67:27)
ZYMAN Sonata for Flute and Piano. LAVISTA Dance of Degas’s Ballerinas. CORAL Not So Short Sonata for Flute and Piano. ARMENGOL Divertimento. ARANDA Mnemósine. Cadenza. LUNA Six Fantasies for Flute and Piano. E. TOUSSAINT Bop Study No.1 for Flute Solo
This is another one of those collections of miscellany that is so easily overlooked or dismissed—I would probably pass over it myself if I were just a reader of this magazine. But this recording offers fine performances of an extremely appealing recital program, with a repertoire that ranges from the truly superb to the merely pleasant. I will discuss the program in my own judgment of descending order of interest.
The most fully satisfying work is the 17-minute sonata by the Mexican-American composer Samuel Zyman, now in his late-50s, and a member of the Juilliard faculty for quite a few years. From my personal vantage point, Zyman’s music seems to have drawn little serious attention, but of nearly a dozen of his works that I’ve encountered over the years I haven’t heard one that failed to exhibit an irresistible sense of compelling creative urgency, vividly and expertly articulated within a general language of traditional modern neoclassicism. But unlike the neoclassical norm, often characterized by a cool detachment and lack of emotional commitment, Zyman’s music is always serious and expressive in tone, with a driving contrapuntal energy. I cannot imagine a flutist who wouldn’t relish a work like this, which grabs the listener intensely from the first moment and never lets go. The piece it most resembles is the perennially popular Sonata for Flute and Piano by the late Robert Muczynski, but Zyman’s 1993 sonata is somewhat more driven and edgy.
Also of considerable interest and appeal is the Dance of Degas’s Ballerinas, composed in 1992 by Mario Lavista. Born in 1943, Lavista seems to have the most cosmopolitan academic pedigree of the composers represented, having studied with a range of mentors from Nadia Boulanger and György Ligeti to Karlheinz Stockhausen. But the short piece that we hear here is a consistently absorbing abstract work in a modern traditionalist style. Some listeners may find their imaginations stimulated by the title, but I heard no convincing musical connection to the suggested images, yet had no problem connecting with the piece as pure music.
Leonardo Coral, born in 1962, is a prolific composer whose music has been performed widely throughout Mexico. His four-movement piece, whose title may be translated as Not So Short Sonata for Flute and Piano, dates from 2003. It is a pleasant piece with an occasional reminiscence of Poulenc—pretty, straightforward, but with no plumbing of expressive depths. Mario Ruiz Armengol (1914-2002) was a versatile figure in Mexican music, celebrated in the classical, light classical, and popular fields. His Divertimento in G (1979) for alto flute and piano is a gracious, warmly lyrical piece. Alexis Aranda, not yet 40 and the youngest composer represented here, has been hailed as a major talent within the Mexican music establishment. A student of Mario Lavista, noted above, he is represented here by two very short pieces. The first, Mnemósine, refers to the goddess of memory. Dating from 2002, it begins with striking dissonance, but quickly warms up to an appealingly tonal lyricism. The earlier Cadenza for unaccompanied flute is a rather late addition to a genre overflowing with mediocre pieces.
Armando Luna (b. 1964) received his graduate training under Leonardo Balada at Carnegie Mellon University, while his career has flourished actively in his native Mexico. The program notes accompanying his Six Fantasies of 1992 make all sorts of intriguingly colorful references, but the actual music does not bear them out and is rather ordinary if pleasant enough. Like many of the composers represented on this recital, Eugenio Toussaint (1954-2011) was active in Mexico’s popular, jazz, and classical worlds. His Bop Study No. 1 (1994) was originally written for recorder, but Evangelina Reyes transcribed it for flute. As it stands, the short piece exploits a wide range of flute effects, both familiar and unconventional, many of them suggestive of “bop”-style jazz. All the pieces are performed expertly by both Reyes and her accompanist Camelia Goila.
This new release brings together works for flute and piano from the early 20th century. An era that was ruled by the idea of "L'art pour l'art". "This CD is one of the most interesting to be issued for a long time. The repertoire is very attractive. It is very well recorded and the playing is of the highest standard. A pleasure to listen to." - Sir James Galway
Mozart: Sinfonia Concertante, Music for French Horn
Supraphon
CD
$41.99Oct 19, 2018
Warning: this recording is not intended for musicological purists. But if you love spontaneous music making in the most select of company, this is definitely the right recording for you. Radek Baborák, for example, does not hesitate to arrange a discarded movement from a symphony to add as the missing movements of an unfinished horn concerto. Of course, to tell the truth, didn't Mozart himself do the exact same thing countless times? In this way, the preserved fragments are turned into two "new horn concertos." The Sinfonia concertante for four wind instruments and orchestra, K 297b is a work surrounded by many mysteries, and it fits beautifully in this context of discovery. Here, it is recorded in Baborák's arrangement for Mozart's original instrumentation. Playing the solo parts are virtuosos from Europe's best orchestras. For the 12 horn duets - the only completely extant composition on this album played in it's original instrumentation - Baborák's partner is another of today's legendary horn players, Radovan Vlatkovic. Radek Baborák and his friends are inviting you on an excursion to the world of their elder colleague Wolfgang Amadeus - with his inexhaustible supply of jokes, ideas, and colors.
Telemann: 6 Concertos For Flute And Harpsichord Tv 42 / Guimond, Beausejour
Early-music.com
CD
$18.99Feb 24, 2009
TELEMANN Flute Concertos: in D, TWV 42:D6; in g, TWV 42:g2; in A, TWV 42:A3; in e, TWV 42:e3; in b, TWV 42:h1; in a, TWV 42:a2 • Claire Guimond (Baroque fl); Luc Beauséjour (hpd) (period instruments) • EARLY-MUSIC.COM 7755 (72: 19)
The six works recorded here were published in Hamburg around 1715–20 with the title Six Concerts and Six Suites for Harpsichord and Flute, or for Harpsichord, Flute and Cello, or for Violin, Flute and Cello or Basso Continuo, or for Harpsichord, Violin, Flute, and Cello. This was obviously an attempt to market these works to as wide an audience as possible. Guimond and Beauséjour contend that Telemann’s original intention was to compose these works for harpsichord and flute, which is the way they are performed here. The flute and harpsichord engage as two equal voices. The “concertos” or “concerts” of the title do not imply a work for solo instrument and orchestra. Rather, they are more closely related to the trio sonata, written in the sonata da chiesa style of four movements, slow-fast-slow-fast.
These six works display Telemann’s ability to write genial, attractive music, though it must be admitted they are not among the most compelling compositions to flow from Telemann’s ready pen. Guimond plays with grace and has good control of her instrument. Beauséjour provides excellent support.
These concertos are not available elsewhere as a group; I only found one concerto otherwise available. This is certainly not an essential purchase, but it makes for pleasant listening.
This album presents the bassoon used in duo and trio arrangements, and centers around the often-neglected Bassoon Trio WoO37 by Beethoven. Along with Beethoven’s bassoon trio, this release also features Devienne’s Sonata in C for flute and bassoon, Donizetti’s Trio in F for flute, bassoon and piano, and Morlacchi’sDuetto concertato for flute, bassoon and piano on the motif of Maestro Verdi. Performing these works are Italian soloists Massimo Data, Mario Carbotta, and Piero Barbareschi.
For over 60 years, George Crumb's music has been recognised as a sonoristic phenomenon that cannot be compared to the output of other artists composing at the same time. Although the catalogue of artistic influences under which Crumb was over the years is extremely extensive (starting from introducing quotes from the works by Johann Sebastian Bach, ending with a sporadic use of harmonic and rhythmic means identical with the style of Claude Debussy and Béla Bartók), these inspirations - even in the earliest phase of his activity - would usually turn out to be only a contribution to the creation of original music forms and crystallisation of a sonoristic sound landscape typical of the composer. This album includes three completely stylistically different compositions by George Crumb, depicting different stages of the composer's sonoristic quest.
During Haydn's successful stays in London he recognized the need for high quality chamber music for a variety of instruments, among which the flute, which rapidly gained popularity in bourgeois circles. For this purpose he cleverly arranged his own Duos for two violins Op. 99 for two flutes. These delightful flute duos, full of Haydnesque wit and invention, are here recorded for the first time by father and daughter Petrucci, Gian-Luca and Ginevra, who obviously enjoy their superb music making. Ginevra Petrucci already recorded for Brilliant Classics the Flute Quintets by Kuhlau to great critical acclaim.
A frequently ignored instrument, the Flauto d’Amore first appeared during the Baroque era, when chamber ensembles frequently included woodwind instruments. Built in B-flat, A, and A-flat, the flute is pitched between the standard concert flute in c and the alto flute, and is sometimes called the tenor flute. Several composers favored the flauto d’amore for its warm and full-bodied tone, including Quantz, a masterful flute composer whose literature is still standard in the repertoire. Ginevra Petrucci is widely recognized for her innovative programs. The flute she performs on for this recording is a solid silver flauto d’amore made by albert Cooper in 1990.
