Erik Bosgraaf - Telemann: Fantasias / Bach: Partita (2006)

The 12 solo fantasias recorded on this album have come down to us in a manuscript that designated them violin pieces. They are surmised to be the same works as the 12 fantasies for transverse flute referred to in another source, for they contain none of the multiple stops or technical shapes that would mark them as violin music. The violin billing is blamed on publishers, but recorder players have, somewhat perversely, applied the logic of the publishers in claiming the fantasias for themselves, pointing out that many Baroque flute works were also offered as suitable for recorder. None of this has stopped them from trying to amplify their slender solo repertoire. The young Dutch recorder player Erik Bosgraaf takes the best approach, rethinking the music rather than assuming an equivalence between the flute and recorder. He transposes several of the pieces, using a variety of recorders, including the so-called voice flute. And he keeps control of the passages in which the recorder is forced into the extremes of its range. The result is a set of performances that deserve the virtuoso label, although the music is not especially difficult played on a flute; Telemann wrote it with publication for the home market in mind. The quite detailed booklet gives a good portrait of Telemann; especially pleasing is his frankly commericialistic attitude, expressed in a letter in which he wrote, "My note-factory allows me to diminish a good part of the worries of many children, for whose upbringing I give many thalers; it is my field and plow, from which I live: that suffices." The unnamed annotator (only a translator is listed, suggesting that the notes have been printed in the respective languages of their destination markets) also delves into the stylistic background of the music, which was not only French and Italian, but also Polish. Bosgraaf brings the quasi-folk Polish passages -- Telemann was perhaps the first composer to explore "exotic" sounds -- nicely to life. Sample the bagpipe-like final Allegro of the Fantasia No. 5 (track 14). The inclusion of the Bach Partita for solo flute, BWV 1013, as a closer is also a strong choice, for the concentration of Bach's music makes an ideal foil to the characteristic Telemann variety that shows through even in this restricted medium. This budget release makes sense for fans of the recorder.