Search - Arita, Suga, Hirao :: Flute Music of the Grand Siecle

A Good Reconstruction of Blavet's "Divine Art"

Michael Taylor | Indiana | 06/10/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

""It is necessary, in order to reach perfection in the exercises in which one wishes to succeed, to combine as much as possible gracefulness and skill..." Thus the illustrious Jacques-Martin Hotteterre, performer, composer, instrument maker and pedagogue, opens his famous method on flute playing. The performers on this recording have obviously taken these words to heart. The selections they have chosen to play in this two disc anthology are some of the most attractive pieces of flute music of the so-called 'Grand Siècle', that golden period of music in France at the turn of the 18th century. Hotteterre's opus two suites have been widely recorded in recent years, but this performance is among the best I have heard. In contrast to these elegant and well-mannered, if not reserved, suites, are the Italianate, or 'galant' sonatas, by Michel Blavet, a virtuoso flute player of the generation after Hotteterre. Quantz, while in Paris, had the opportunity to hear several of France's best performers on the transverse flute, but tells us that he was most impressed by the playing of the young Blavet. Other contemporaries referred to his passionate playing as "the divine art". One piece on this disc that I have not seen recorded elsewhere is a gorgeous suite by the obscure but colorful Charles Dieupart, an expatriate Frenchman who worked in England. The suite comes from a collection entitled 'Six Suittes de Clavessin', which the composer intended to be played either solely on the harpsichord, or by violin or "flute" and basso continuo. The "flute" Dieupart refers to is the "voice flute", type of recorder, but on this disc we are treated to a 'flute d'amour'--a transverse flute pitched a third lower than the usual D flute. While oboes and violas 'd'amore' are frequently heard these days, rarely do we get to hear these large, deep flutes with their dark and somber tones so appropriate to the music of the French Baroque."