Twenty years ago Wilbert Hazelzet first recorded J.S. Bach’s oeuvre for transverse flute as part of Musica Antiqua Köln’s ongoing Archiv cycle of Bach’s complete chamber music (recently reissued as Archiv 471656). They remain incredibly distinguished performances characterized by seamless ensemble playing, lovely slow movements often radically juxtaposed with swifter, energetic moderate and faster ones, and (for early digital) state-of-the-art sound. With the Bruggen/Leonhardt/Bylsma cycle on SEON before it (still available as an import) and the later Preston/Pinnock/Savall performance on CRD (long deleted), these were and still are my favorite reference recordings.
Hazelzet’s ideas about these works have moderately changed over the years, though both he and his colleagues remain expert players. And as this is “meat and potatoes” repertoire for them, my comments should be understood in the context of the prevailingly high standards that they bring to the music. While the differences in tempos for the most part are very small (with the exception of the much slower rendering of the first two movements of BWV 1030 and to a lesser extent the entirety of BWV 1031), more importantly the sense of vitality and urgency that informed Hazelzet’s earlier performances appears somewhat diminished at times. Where is the bite, the exuberant spring that Hazelzet first brought to the opening vivace of BWV 1032?
Also unwelcome is Hazelzet’s decision to perform sonatas BWV 1031, 1035, and 1079 (from the Musical Offering, which he also recorded for Archiv) accompanied by a fortepiano instead of a harpsichord. For those unaware of this recent scholarly yet musically senseless deconstruction, it’s primarily based on the elderly J.S.’s acquaintance with one of Gottfried Silbermann’s instruments during a visit with (avid flutist/composer) King Frederick II. While Bach, as Stefano Russomanno puts it in one of this set’s accompanying booklets, “noted a certain weakness in the higher registers…the dull quality of the sound produced in him a strange fascination, but at the same time awoke a feeling of distance and indefinition (sic) of time.” Please. Bach composed these sonatas long before this meeting with Frederick and while he certainly transposed many of his works throughout his lifetime, well, the proof is in the listening. On the plus side, the performances here are far more engaging than the rather workmanlike renderings of Rotholz/Cooper on Bridge, the only other currently available fortepiano-accompanied cycle (type Q5026 in Search Reviews).
Other differences with Hazelzet’s Archiv cycle are mostly logistic. In addition to the previously mentioned Musical Offering selection, he includes a superb transcription of Bach’s Violin Sonata in G BWV 1021. Also unlike his Archiv edition, Hazelzet omits Bach’s Partita for solo flute BWV 1013, most likely because he already included it four years ago as an encore to a program of transcriptions of three of Bach’s cello suites BWV 1007-1009 (Glossa 920804).
Glossa’s sound is very good, with Hazelzet, returning cellist Jaap ter Linden, and Jacques Ogg comfortably sharing the acoustic space (regardless of Ogg’s occasionally domineering harpsichord). Brian Berryman’s overview in the notes is informative and entertaining. While Thomas and Barbara Wolf (makers of Ogg’s Silbermann fortepiano copy) discuss the fortepiano, Ogg restricts his comments to Joop Klinkhamer’s Taskin harpsichord copy. Recommended with noted reservations, but if you’re interested in hearing this music with fortepiano, this is the set to have.
