Out of the Shadow of the Masters

Album review

This release from the Globe label in the Netherlands shows that it's still possible to unearth great music by digging around in libraries and archives for stuff that looks interesting. The Classical-era flute pieces here come mostly from a library collection in Copenhagen, and they're interesting on several levels. Composer Friedrich Hartmann Graf was also a traveling flute virtuoso who wrote several different kinds of works in the process of cultivating audiences and making a living. He wrote virtuoso pieces for his own use, such as the Sonata in E minor for flute and continuo, tracks 1 through 3, and he composed chamber works with flute for the noble establishments where he might pass some time. He was obviously quite a flutist, and the flute parts of several of the chamber works are also quite fancy; sample track 9, the concluding Presto of the Quartet for flute, violin, viola, and cello in G major. The skillful incorporation of instrumental virtuosity into Classical textures that favored natural melody is impressive enough, but even more so is the overall coherence of Graf's movement structures. The opening Allegros could easily be mistaken for Haydn pieces of the late 1770s (they were written around 1780). The flute is favored with quiet little coda-like sections that conclude a movement or its exposition sections, and the effectiveness of these is heightened by the overall economy of the music that has gone before. The period transverse flute of Dutch player Marten Root is graceful and controlled, and the Ensemble Schönbrunn, an international group of historical-performance specialists, backs him up with careful, quiet performances that showcase the intricate writing in the music. The flavor of the music is quite different from that of Mozart's flute quartets, which are likely to be the only Classical chamber pieces in a flutist's repertoire. Even amateur flutists are urgently asked to check this recording out. So are Classical-era enthusiasts, for they will find as they listen to the disc that a good deal of what they knew about the limited role of freelance musicians in Mozart's time appears to be contradicted by the music here.
© TiVo