The turn of Barthold Kuijken to take a bow...

As a small rest from their ongoing Bach Cantata project, La Petite Bande under Sigiswald Kuijken take a holiday to Italy and present Vivaldi's Op. 10 collection, a later solo concerto and a double concerto from their principal flautist Barthold Kuijken. Closest on SACD is Vivaldi: Flute Concertos - Rothert and for a non-HIP excerpt of Op.10 Vivaldi: Flute Concertos - Gazzelloni. As the ensembles name implies, La Petite Bande is small in number & as is becoming increasingly popular amongst the HIP crowd of performers, the string parts are one player per line (the Cologne Chamber Orchestra are not in this mould and neither are I Musici for Gazelloni).

This has both advantages and disadvantages: on the plus side, the ensemble is crisper and lighter for the solo flute so that it is never overwhelmed in tutti plus soloist passages. On the debit side, the contrasts in dynamics are smaller than might otherwise be the case, textures sometimes rather wiry and the sheer scale of drama in pieces such as "La Notte" are naturally rescaled.

Generally speaking, Barthold plays with fantasy but there are moments of the largo (Il Sonno) in "La Notte" where the dynamics are somewhat monochrome and more imagination would greatly enhance the listening pleasure. Such criticisms cannot be levied during outer movements nor against the La Petite Bande generally - sort of HIP a la I Musici. So acceptable but not the disc that one reaches for enthusiastically and says "just listen to this!" when a friend comes round for a listen.

The recording is good without having that last degree of audio magic that characterise so many of Channel Classics issues of similar repertoire.

Copyright © 2012 John Broggio and HRAudio.net

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