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The first piece of good news here is that Crystal Records has finally recognised the staple. Gone, for this release at least, is the ever-unfolding paper and in comes a fine looking booklet held together in the accustomed way. The second piece of good news is that this release is as enjoyable an affair as volume one in the series [see review].
 
Barrère was so important and influential a flautist that the list of works dedicated to him is suitably compendious. Only fellow flautist Philippe Gaubert’s name appears on both the discs – his Romance of 1905 is in the earlier volume. Otherwise the repertoire embraces broadly Franco-American composers, as did the earlier volume, though here the balance is more evenly split.
 
Gaubert starts us with his Sonatine quasi Fantasia, which bears a subtitled homage to Schumann. This is more evident in the second of the two movements, a brilliantly conceived affair that tests breath control and rewards liquid legato passages. The first movement has a real Fauréan sensibility. De Lorenzo’s Sogno Futuristico, an excellent title for 1923, derives from his Eighteen Capricci for solo flute; it ranges freely over some pitch wobbles and some tonguing demands – taking in fast and slow sectional writing and sounding terrifically difficult. Christiaan Kriens constructed a powerfully attractive statement with his 1909 La Nymphe Bocagère. The opening piano statements are ripely romantic but we soon move on to more obviously terpsichorean writing, fulsome and evocative – here’s a warm, languid and enjoyable piece to lighten any flautist’s recital.
 
Harpist Paula Page replaces pianist Martin Amlin for Jacquet’s lovely Nocturne, patterned after Bach’s E flat minor Prelude. By the time we reach Riegger’s Suite for solo flute we arrive at twelve tone influenced writing, even though the patterning of the four movements is essentially of the baroque variety. I’m not sure what “Americanist goals” are with regard to Riegger and seriously doubt whether he meets them in that sense in this work – the quotation is from the booklet notes – but it’s an enjoyable work with a rarefied and refined slow movement. The Griffes was not actually dedicated to Barrère but it was arranged by him and was in effect a joint effort. Buyse’s expressive palette is rightly wide here and Barrère’s piano reduction works eloquently.
 
Marion Bauer (1882-1955) was an almost exact contemporary of Bax but the Greek modes she embraced in Forgotten Modes wouldn’t necessarily have been Bax’s cup of tea. Not that they’re unattractive – far from it; vital, very succinct, if not especially memorable. Roussel’s Andante and Scherzo is also brief but aerial and full of dynamism. Barrère didn’t often play Varèse’s Density 21.5 but it nevertheless makes a fitting envoi to another extremely well selected programme, one presented with skill and care.
 
Jonathan Woolf
 

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