ILLMORE MUSI - Gillmore Music

ACCENT
Solos for a German Flute
ACC 24194
CD
(digipak)
PC: 01Q
Rec.date: 2007
4 015023 241947
Georg Frideric Handel: Solos in B minor, C major & E minor
Charles Dieupart: Ouvertures in B minor & E minor
Frank Theuns, transverse flute
Les Buffardins
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Within Handel’s chamber music output, the sonatas for transverse flute could appear
insignificant in the light of to the only sonata which the composer seems to have conceived for the
instrument from the beginning, the Sonata in B minor HWV 379. We have, nevertheless, six other
sonatas for traversa (or “German flute”, which is the translation of the French phrase flûte
d’Allemagne (flute of Germany) or flûte allemande (German flute)). They are all, however,
reworkings of earlier pieces for other instruments (violin, oboe, recorder). These sonatas for
transverse illustrate fully one of the techniques of composition dear to the musician from Saxony,
the pastiche, which he used throughout the whole of his English career. By ceaselessly reusing
and reworking material from this protean output, Handel himself showed the particular interest he
had for it, and thereby its undeniable quality is emphasised still further.
Frank Theuns studied recorder, modern flute, counterpoint and composition at the Royal
Conservatory of Music in Brussels and baroque flute with Barthold Kuijken. He has been member
of Europe’s most famous baroque orchestras: Anima Eterna, Le Concert des Nations, l’Orchestre
de la Chapelle Royale, Les Talens Lyriques, La Petite Bande. Theuns is professor of baroque flute
at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Brussels.
Theuns solo-recordings for Accent include Sonatas by Blavet (ACC 23154), Boismortier (ACC
24168), Montéclair (ACC 24163), and Hotteterre (ACC 21149).