François Lazarevitch - Van Eyck: Der Fluyten Lust-Hof - All Music

4.5*

Der Fluyten Lust-Hof ("The Flute's Magic Courtyard") is a collection of pieces for solo recorder or flute, published in 1644. In Dutch and French, the word for recorder is a variant of the word for flute, so casual browsers may think they're getting an album of flute music here; in fact, much of the music is for recorder, with one work for musette. The pieces had a function that was in part instructional, but the book was a best-seller (as books of recorder music go), running through multiple editions, and this was surely down to the variety of the contents. There is quite a crop of virtuoso recorder players nowadays, and François Lazarevitch can hold his own with these, but there has been a need for an album that delves into the role the recorder and early transverse flute played in home music-making, and Lazarevitch's album fills this need. Those wondering whether an hour plus of solo early wind instruments music is too much can rest easy, for there is great variety here. The pieces, some of them arranged from works by prominent composers of the day, fall into many genres. There are songs, stately dances, little portraits, sacred pieces, works imitating nature, even a battle piece with marching armies ("Batali"). This is entertaining for today's hearers; in the midst of the Thirty Years' War, it was nothing less than a window on the world. The Alpha label's sound, recorded in a Belgian monastery-turned-B&B, is a bit over-resonant; one might have wanted a more intimate acoustic for this chamber (or even one's-own-chamber) music, but the release, on balance, is fresh and enjoyable for anyone.