PAULA ROBISON: ONE HUNDRED ROSES • Paula Robison (fl); David Stahl, cond; Charleston SO • PERGOLA PR 1032 (59:55)

GODARD Suite de trois morceaux: Allegretto. CHAMINADE Concertino. GRIFFES Poem. MASSENET Thaïs: Méditation. SAINT-SAËNS Romance. One Hundred Roses: 7 Italian Serenades and Dances (arr. Paget): LEONCAVALLO Mattinata. DI CAPUA O sole mio. I’ te vurria vasà. ANON Ninna-Nanna. TOSTI ’A vucchella. Marechiare. ROSSINI La danza

Paula Robison has a scintillating new CD, and her own new label—Pergola, an Italian word, meaning an arcade supporting grape vines or climbing roses. Pergola has also issued a disc entitled “Mozart in Love,” and promises four more releases in 2006.

The present disc takes its name from the 26-minute suite of Neapolitan songs, brilliantly arranged by Daniel Paget for flute, string orchestra, mandolin, guitar, and percussion. Most of these songs feature long melodic lines; they were, after all, originally meant to be sung. The sweetest is the folk-lullaby, Ninna-Nanna. Two lively items conclude the suite—Tosti’s Marechiare and Rossini’s Danza, a sizzling tarantella. Paget proves himself an expert arranger, bringing other solo voices in and out of his textures so that the solo flute never becomes routine. He also has the flute depart now and then from basic melodies to play decorative and virtuoso passages.

The disc begins with the concert pieces by Benjamin Godard—a morsel indeed, Cécile Chaminade, Charles Tomlinson Griffes, and Jules Massenet. After One Hundred Roses, it concludes with the Romance of Camille Saint-Saëns. All these composers were French, except the American Griffes, and he composed in the style of France’s musical impressionists. So the disc illuminates an expressive kinship between important strains of French and Italian music as the 19th century turned into the 20th. All the music here is first-rate of its kind, but I am especially delighted with Chaminade’s Concertino, which I am hearing for the first time. Though only nine minutes long, it could serve as the first movement of a longer concerto, having a firm structure, lovely melodies, arresting orchestration, and a fine solo cadenza.

Producer and engineer Adam Abeshouse has captured the kaleidoscopic colors of Robison’s flute, and the corresponding rich varieties of tone from the Charleston orchestra, on this evidence an excellent band with a fine conductor. Strongly recommended.

FANFARE: Robert McColley