January 16: Flute Sonatas (Wilbert Hazelzet, Jacques Ogg, Japp Ter Linden); BWV 1030, 1032-1035
The Baroque flauto traverso was assembled from wood, and sounds more similar to a recorder than the familiar tone of the contemporary metal flute as played by James Galway, Eric Dolphy, and Ron Burgundy.
Today I’m writing about Bach’s Flute Sonatas, as played by Wilbert Hazelzet, who has devoted his life’s work to the baroque flauto traverso:
These are well played and well recorded pieces for flute, harpsichord, and cello. I cycled through many snoozy recordings before finding this Dutch trio where the band feels locked in with each other’s playing.
(A brief aside here to sing some praise for Apple Music. The sound quality is amazing; many recordings are available in Hi-Res Lossless, or Dolby Atmos. There’s so much detail and presence to the recorded music coming through my (fancy-ish) speaker system. In the broader culture, choosing Apple Music feels like choosing an Android phone, and electing to live in a land of green texts. Apple’s interface is clunkier and slower than Spotify, but the tradeoff for catalog management and sound quality is worth it for me. (I’m also electing not to engage with the mostly troubling business models of Spotify and Apple Music. As a consumer, I’m enjoying the cheap all-access pass to everything.))
Highlights from these flute sonatas: lots of breath stamina is required for the closing of BWV 1034, Hazelzet does a fine job. I also like the repeated notes in the phrases at 0:22 that get passed around to the harpsichord and cello.
Leaping 32nd notes stitched together in a nice phrase from the opening of BWV 1032:
The Adagio from BWV 1033 was my favorite track from this collection, it’s under two minutes and linked in full below. Really beautiful and grave; worth extra attention are the cello’s plaintive countermelodies to the flute:
Great post! I wonder why you skipped 1031? If it's a question of authenticity, the C major is also a bit iffy.