Nancy Hadden - Michael De La Barre: Flute Suites (1999)

Despite being one of the major figures in the history of the flute, Michel de la Barre is almost wholly absent from the current recording catalogue. True, his reputation lay more with his playing than his composing, but the fact remains that he was the first person ever to publish solo music specifically for flute, and that his output of 18 books of flute music between 1694 and 1725 was a vital factor in the emergence of that instrument as one of the most popular of the eighteenth century.

Nancy Hadden’s selection mixes music from several of these publications. There are suites for one flute and continuo, two flutes and continuo, a sonata for two flutes on their own, plus three pieces which Hadden offers as unaccompanied solos. It is all polite and unassuming stuff which carries all the usual French trademarks: a graceful and elegantly ornamented melodic style; rambling suites of character pieces and dance movements (the G minor Suite has no fewer than three allemandes); and the occasional touch of melancholy, heightened by de la Barre’s preference for the flute’s lower register. But although it is pleasant company enough, it does little to excite – the most gripping pieces to my mind are the unmistakably Lullian numbers of the C major Trio Suite.

Hadden’s playing is accurate and assured, and she finds good support from her continuo team and a like-minded partnership with fellow flautist Elizabeth Walker, but it is a pity that she does not seem to enjoy the music’s lyricism more; instead of truly warming to the more expansive moments, these performances sound almost choppy in places. Nevertheless, if you are a flute buff you will want them. If you are not, then it depends on just how curious you are.' -- Lindsay Kemp, Gramophone