Customer Reviews

C.P.E. Bach: Flute Concertos - Rachel Brown / The Brandenburg Consort / Roy Goodman

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Even if there were a glut of original-instrument versions of these concertos--which there decidely is not--this recording would go to the head of the class. First, flutist Rachel Brown is wondefully nimble in the pretty difficult outer movements of the concertos, with their double-tonguing passages that Bach tosses at the soloist like a series of dangerous switchbacks confronting a driver in the mountains. No troubles here for Brown; and in Bach's "pathetic" slow movements (to borrow Charles Burney's words), she brings great tenderness and charm to this moving music.

Then Roy Goodman, whom I haven't heard in concerted music before, is well beyond a merely able accompanist. As I'd expect from this true specialist, he shapes Bach's always-interesting orchestral music as if the orchestra and not the soloist has the best things to say in these concertos. This is fine, since Brown can more than hold her own against an orchestra, but of course where Goodman needs to accompany, he does so with sympathy, taste, and proper restraint.

As if this were not enough, the disc offers some interesting twists: For one thing, the D concerto is played in a version using two horn parts included in one edition of the harpsichord-and-orchestra arrangement Bach made of his music. The horns add to the drama and heft of the concerto, powerful though it is without them. And here, Goodman, who directs from the keyboard, uses a fortepiano, which makes Bach's forward-looking music sound even more so.

Add interesting notes from Brown herself and Hyperion's usually fine sound--here big and full but still airy, with the soloist placed in pretty much the same plane as the orchestra, as she should be. What you have is a thoroughly winning disc.

C.P.E. Bach, forever overshadowed by his father, was in his own right a very accomplished composer, as the works on this disc attest. Bach's flute concertos rank right up there with Boccherini's best cello concertos or Mozart's horn concertos. Their interpretation, too, is wonderful. This disc offers a great introduction to the works of C.P.E. Bach. If your curiosity has been peeked, try listening to his cello concertos (see Virgin, 2-disc set) and harpsichord concert (Seon/Sony, though it, too, might be out-of-print at this time).