The
Frans Brüggen Project may sound like a relatively arcane title in the catalog of the hugely talented and charismatic recorder player
Lucie Horsch. After all, although he was a pioneer in reviving the fortunes of the recorder, he's not a household name these days. Not to worry --
Horsch takes her material here -- a collection of 14 recorders once owned by the late
Brüggen, ranging from sopranino to tenor -- and makes it into something as fascinating as a compelling new recording of
Beethoven's
Ninth. She makes several moves that introduce the sounds of the recorders effectively to general listeners, using different instruments in the two movements of the
Handel Recorder Sonata in F major, Op. 1, No. 11, and generally matching the music to the instruments well; the latter is something that's not always done on recorder albums. Sample the pieces, for instance, from
The Bird Fancyer's Delight of
John Walsh, played on a sopranino recorder close to the so-called bird flageolet of the time.
Horsch indicates that some of the instruments she played were so historic that she was allowed only two takes. "The end result could almost be regarded as a live recording," she says. But all of this would be at Wyastone Concert Hall, if
Horsch's playing were not so gorgeous, and indeed it would be gorgeous enough even if she were playing a plastic kiddie recorder model. Hear the
Telemann Fantasia No. 3 in B minor for solo recorder, and be invited into an entrancing world far from the everyday.
Horsch is joined by various players, including
Brüggen's
Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century and
Brüggen's son, cellist
Albert Brüggen. A triumph for a young player who seems absolutely destined to be a star, of her instrument and of early music in general. ~ James Manheim
.
