Wednesday 21 September 2011

Various Composers - Flute A La Francaise 'French Flute Music' [Hutchins/Hutchins]

I like these Flute recitals, especially where the disc concentrates on a certain aspect of the music, and here it's French music, and a nice mix of different Composers, with a nice mix of varied works, but it all gels together, it has a certain continuity to it all. 

Timothy Hutchins is Canadian, he certainly isn't a household name, this disc was recorded in 1995, and the front cover is a mosaic of sections of the flute [photo by Richard Jenkins], the picture isn't in focus, but the lettering is well laid out and pleasing. 

I really like the two Faure openers, short and sweet, very well played, and very memorable tunes, but it was the Ganne work that i found so incredible, and the last Flute recital disc featured this same work [26th September 2010], it lasts just over 7 minutes on this recording, the opening Andante has a nice exotic feel to it, and a superbly memorable tune to boot, the flute plays silky and smooth [0:07-1:02], it's good to hear the piano play a short solo version of the tune inbetween [0:35-0:41], and when the opening tune returns, it's such a wonderful moment [2:45-3:47], the flute then has a solo [3:42-4:51], where it has these echo effects it creates [3:48 & 3:54], really inventive and atmospheric, right after it launches straight into the more virtuosic Scherzo, which creates a thrilling finale, but not as memorable as the initial Andante that preceded it.

Here's Minja Marcetic playing Ganne's Andante et Scherzo on YouTube.