J S Bach -Flute Sonatas

Sonata in E minor, BWV1034 Sonata in C major, BWV1033
Sonata in E major, BWV1035 Partita in A minor, BWV1013
Sonata in B minor, BWV1030

Elizabeth Walker flute
Michael Overbury harpsichord
Christopher Poffley cello

Quartz QTZ 2086

A delightful CD which combines scholarship with zestful musicality. Elizabeth Walker has mastered the flute in all its various manifestations, modern and baroque.

Here she opts for a modern wooden flute (Seeley, 1960s) and incorporates many baroque techniques, which she explains and discusses in her own comprehensively informative and interesting notes.

Using the Valotti tuning from Bach's own time, Elizabeth highlights the different qualities of the keys, with heightened tension with chromatic notes in the the E major Sonata; but you'll need well trained ears to full appreciate that.

The CD includes for variety a solo flute sonata and the splendid one in B minor which is effectively a trio sonata, with the upper parts shared by flute and harpsichord, as against the others with continuo supported by cello.

This disc really ought to be issued as a DVD too; my illustration is from a video of the recording which can be enjoyed at the Quartz website.

Peter Grahame Woolf

See also Elizabeth Walker in Telemann