Having just disparaged the baroque flute for its seeming resistance to intonationally accurate performance (type Q8911 in Search Reviews), along comes another recording of trio sonatas and other chamber works in which the flute is the star–and what a difference! Importantly, in these performances the expert flutist Michael Form employs not a baroque flute but a recorder–a “flûte de voix in D”, which is pitched a minor third lower than the more commonly used treble instrument. Yes, there are still sufficient under-pitch passages to make us wince, but overall the playing is impressively virtuosic, interpretively artful, and very sensitive to the accompanying instruments, and the music is appealing enough to keep even true flute-o-phobes interested for more than an hour.
Jacques Martin Hotteterre (1673-1763) not only was a noted flute player and composer, but he also authored detailed fingering charts for both flute and recorder and invaluable treatises on performance practice. His music for the instrument shows substantial stylistic refinement, prodigious understanding of the instrument’s technical possibilities, and a rare gift for melodic invention, all of which must be executed by a performer well-versed in Hotteterre’s carefully notated and/or implied ornamentation. Form and his colleagues know this music’s every turn and understand how to integrate ornaments into the flow of the phrases by means of appropriate tempos and by allowing lines to “breathe” naturally. There are many highlights here, especially the many-faceted, tuneful, dark-colored Deuxiéme Suite and the beautiful solo De mes Supires de ma langueur, but it’s safe to say that whether or not you care about baroque flute (or recorder) music, this program and these performances rank among the best in the genre, as close to perfection as we probably can expect from this most untamable of instruments (well, that’s not to mention the lute…).
