Flautist Stefano Bet has an interesting idea in presenting,
on a single disc, a panorama of solo flute music from Venice across
several centuries, and played on nine different original instruments.
In an attractive package, with well-illustrated notes, he gives an overview
of the history of Venetian music through his instrument, the flute.
Beginning with three Gregorian works, he shows how
the flute was designed to imitate the voice. While these works are interesting
in a didactic vein, the later works are more "musical" and
more attractive. The 16th century works by Giorgio Mainerio and Giovanni
Bassano are much more lively and, unlike the Gregorian works, were written
for the flute, and exploit its particularities.
Stefano Bet shows the wide variety of his musicianship
with works up to and including Vivaldi. Benedetto Marcello’s sonata
for solo flute is the first work on this disc which contains several
movements (this one contains four), and is in the baroque idiom. Unfortunately,
the performance of this work sounds wooden and uninspired, and lacks
energy. Rhythmically, Bet seems married to a metronome, and his phrasing
sounds much too rigid.
The Vivaldi is an arrangement of Spring for
solo flute by J. J. Rousseau. While the familiar melodies will strike
a chord in the listener, this too is played far too lackadaisically,
and the energy we all know from this work is lost in the translation.
If you are a flautist, you will certainly want this
recording for its variety of music and instruments. But, if not, you
will probably feel the same kind of ennui I felt listening to it; there
is not enough variety in the music, and the performances sound uninspired.
This didactic disc is not one that opens itself to repeated listening.
Kirk McElhearn