“Die Soloflöte: Vol. 1: Barock” (Solo Flute – Baroque) = Works of MARAIS, HOTTETERE, BRAUN, TELEMANN, QUANTZ, DELUSSE & OTHERS – Mirjam Nastasi, flute – Ars

by | Apr 11, 2012 | SACD & Other Hi-Res Reviews

“Die Soloflöte: Vol. 1: Barock” (Solo Flute – Baroque) = MARIN MARAIS: Les Folies d’Espagne (selections); JACQUES HOTTETERE: Three Preludes from “L’Art de préluder sur la flûte traverière”; JOSEPH BODIN DE BOISMORTIER: Suite in B Minor, Op. 35, No. 5; JEAN DANIEL BRAUN: Movements from Suites in E Minor and B Minor; TELEMANN: Fantasia in E Minor No. 8 TWV 40:9; Fantasia in F-sharp Minor No. 10 TWV 40:11; BACH: Partita in A Minor BWV 1013; SEBASTIAN BODINUS: Caprice en Gigue in A Major; JOHANN JOACHIM QUANTZ: Alla francese in D Minor; Capriccio in B Major; Fantasia in C Major; C. P. E. BACH: Sonata in A Minor Wq 132; CHARLES DELUSSE: Caprice No. 4 in A Minor from “L’Art de la flûte traverière”– Mirjam Nastasi, flute – Ars Produktion, multichannel SACD ARS 38 101, 66:00 [Distr. by Qualiton] *****:
There are some famous names among the composers on offer here, and much of this music is of undoubted quality. Still, for non-flutists and those who are less than rabid fanciers of the flute, this disc should probably be sampled in bits and small batches. Then again, if you do listen straight through, you’ll notice that these composers do manage to come at the task of providing ear appeal plus virtuoso display from different directions depending in part—but only in part—on the musical forms chosen.
We begin with perhaps the best known piece on the program, or at least the melody will be. Les Folies d’Espagne, or simply La Folia, cast in the form of a stately sarabande over a ground bass, is haunting but skeletal, the musical scaffolding on which to build a set of variations, which one composer after another from the seventeenth century onward have done. These include Arcangelo Corelli (1700) and Sergei Rachmaninoff (1931), who based his variations on Corelli’s Violin Sonata Op. 5, No. 12, calling the work Variations on a Theme of Corelli and thus not acknowledging that over a hundred composers had quoted and varied the same tune in their works. Marais’ treatment is one of the more well known; like the theme itself, it is stately soberly-lovely music.
Unlike the restrained, structurally circumspect Hottetere Preludes that follow Marais, a number of the other works on the disc are cast as fantasias or caprices, freeform works that allow the composer to give rein to fantasy boarding on the proto-Romantic. That’s true of Quantz’s three works and of Telemann’s better-known Fantasias. The E Minor Fantasia is plaintive, longing, even lamenting in tone. In stark contrast, the F-sharp Minor Fantasia is tough and springy, almost militant.
In Telemann’s work and even more so in the Suites of J. D. Braun and the celebrated Partita of J. S. Bach, there’s an attempt to hint at polyphony through the use of swift arpeggios and wide intervallic leaps. Dutch flutist Mirjam Nastasi explains the difficulties this poses for the performer in the first (Allemande) movement of the Bach:  “although the continuous semiquaver [sixteenth note] runs appear, at first glance, counterproductive and unsuitable for the instrument, offering the flutist little opportunity to breathe, they also serve to create a certain elasticity of tempo that does not distract from the music’s regular pulse. The least disruptive places to breathe during the long semiquaver arpeggio passages are usually after the third of the new harmony but before the other chord elements.” And despite Nastasi’s clean and flexible playing, it’s clear she can’t altogether avoid the disruptions caused by the need to take a breath once in a while! Incidentally, it’s good to have Braun represented here; he’s just about forgotten today, and yet his music is of quality, rather reminiscent of Bach’s, in fact.
With the 1747 Sonata of Bach’s eldest son, Carl Philipp Emanuel, we enter the transitional world that lies between the Baroque and the early Classical. C. P. E. uses the same tricks whereby J. S. suggested polyphonic writing, but there is a new feeling in the air as Bach’s son injects the sensitive emotional gestures of Emfindsamkeit into his piece, which therefore has more the feeling of the freeform fantasia than of the tightly argued sonata, thus reminding us of the music of his godfather Georg Philipp Telemann.
So here we have an enjoyable program, especially when sipped and savored as I suggested at the beginning of my review. Mirjam Nastasi is an obvious virtuoso, with a clear, ringing tone and a fearless attitude toward the hurdles these Baroque contrapuntalists throw at her. And though the benefits of surround sound are much more appreciable when multiple players are involved, Ars Produktion has certainly provided a pellucid recording with a genuine sense of perspective. It is, however, recorded at a very high level, so be prepared to cut back the volume substantially from what you’re generally comfortable with. You should then enjoy a fully realistic listening experience. Recommended, for sure.
—Lee Passarell

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