Customer Reviews

HANDEL: Sonatas Pour Flute a Bec & Basse Continue/ H. Reyne/HMT 7905211

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

 

 

this is one of the best recordings on haendel's recorder sonatas ever! (may be only franz bruggen one could be at this level) the corelli-like opening first movement of g-minor sonata is great. The continuo group is full of virtuosity and good taste. The recorder player is one of the finest ones I've heard, never falling in temptation of showing indiscriminate and meaningless virtuosity (a common recorder players disease), just concentrating in making high quality music, great sound, timing and colours. So bad there are not so many cd's of them or like this around.

'Integrale des Sonates pour Flute a bec & basse continue' is a great long class of cool water for all amateurs who spend hour upon hour listening to Handel's choral works or choral and orchestral works from just about any composer from the Renaissance onward. They are great treats for the ear, but we average schmoes have no hope at all of being able to reproduce anything like we hear on these recordings. Not so with this CD on works for the modest recorder. For starters, the instrument is simple, yet totally capable of producing great sounds, especially if you can get two or three fellow schmoes together to play alto, tenor and base recorders. They are not cheap, but they don't run into the tens of thousands of dollars either.

Even if I am never moved to dust off my treasured Viennese alto recorder, I can listen to these knowing that if I did put my mind to it, I could do this too!