Boismortier: Sonatas For Flute And Harpsichord, Op. 91

Stephen Schultz (Artist, Performer), Joseph Bodin de Boismortier (Composer), American Baroque Ensemble (Performer), Byron Schenkman (Performer) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Performer: Stephen Schultz, American Baroque Ensemble, Byron Schenkman
• Composer: Joseph Bodin de Boismortier
• Audio CD (July 24, 2009)
• SPARS Code: DDD
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Naxos
• ASIN: B00000148G
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #443,061 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Stephen Schultz and Byron Schenkman Give It Everything, January 18, 2008

By 

Leslie Richford (Selsingen, Lower Saxony) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Boismortier: Sonatas For Flute And Harpsichord, Op. 91 (Audio CD)

Joseph Bodin de Boismortier (1689 - 1755): Six Sonatas for Flute and Harpsichord, Op. 91. Performed by American Baroque (Stephen Schultz, baroque flute; Byron Schenkman, harpsichord). Recorded at Ponytracks Ranch, Portola Valley, California in May 1995. Published 1995 as Naxos 8.553414. Total playing time: 69'03".

When contemplating the baroque period in French music in connection with the flute, it would probably be names such as Hotteterre, Blavet or Mondonville which would first come to mind. Joseph Bodin de Boismortier was something of a mass-market composer whose many works served as much to earn his keep as to supply the amateur music market with fairly playable pieces. But his six sonatas (opus 91), although in many ways conventional, do require some very good playing from both performers and are distinguished by having the harpsichord part fully notated.

In the mid-nineties there were at least two recordings made of these rather pleasant little works. I have them both, and although there is much to please in both, it is Stephen Schultz's (and Byron Schenkman's) version which, in my opinion, takes the prize. There are a number of reasons for this, not least of course the sheer musicality of the two performers. They harmonize wonderfully, their instruments each now taking the lead, now receding somewhat into the background, giving the listener the distinct feeling that Schultz and Schenkman were so in tune with each other that they could quite happily have played blindfolded. Although they need around 5 minutes longer altogether than the Canadian competition (Claire Guimond/Luc Beauséjour on Analekta: Boismortier: Six sonatas for flute & harpsichord, Op. 91), there is never any feeling of the music being unnecessarily drawn-out; rather the opposite, with some exciting little flourishes and brief changes of tempo making for exhilarating listening. Both performers really seem to give it everything, and this involvement really brings the music to life. Add to this the fact that Stephen Schultz plays a beautiful-sounding copy of a Rottenburgh flute from 1745 and there should be no doubt in anyone's mind which version to go for. Naxos's engineering is only very slightly inferior to Analekta's, and the Naxos booklet is, at least if you can read French, a good deal more informative than the Canadian competition's. Go for it!