Dedicated To Barrère Vol 2 / Leone Buyse

DEDICATED TO BARRÈRE, VOL. 2 • Leone Buyse (fl); Martin Amlin (pn); Paula Page (hp) 1 • CRYSTAL 716 (68:59)

GAUBERT Sonatine quasi fantasia. Invocation. DE LORENZO Futuristic Dream. KRIENS La nymphe Bocagère. JACQUET Nocturne. 1 Read more RIEGGER Suite. GRIFFES Poem (arr. Barrère). BAUER Forgotten Modes. GAUBERT Invocation. R. F. GOLDMAN 2 Monochromes. ROUSSEL Andante and Scherzo. VARÈSE Density 21.5

Raymond Tuttle covered Volume 1 of this series in Fanfare 30:3, so I am not going to waste space rehashing who Georges Barrère (1876–1944) was, or why he is so important. (Okay, he was a member of the New York Symphony and one of the greatest flutists ever, and responsible for umpteen compositions being written for the instrument; that’s as far as I go.) Check out that review if you want more; you probably should anyway as a prequel to this release. Leone Buyse, currently teaching at the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University, and formerly for over a decade with the Boston Symphony and Pops, is quite easily one of the finest flute-players active today, and all the fine things Mr. Tuttle said about her I can unhesitatingly second.

I must congratulate Crystal for such splendid sound; I have been critical of them in the past, and to be fair, wind instruments are the very devil to capture properly. Here they get it just right, and Buyse has no fear of the recording undermining her gorgeous tone.

This release is maybe a little more varied than Volume 1 in that we deal with pieces as disparate as the evocative and stunningly realized Poem , one of the cornerstones of the literature, to the equally stunning and foundational Density 21.5 , that little Varèse masterpiece written for Barrère when he received his new Haynes platinum flute, the first such instrument in the United States, and the first all-platinum flute made anywhere. (21.5 is the scientific density of pure platinum.) It has been said that if all Barrère ever did was to play this piece of Varèse his fame would be assured, and that is probably true. Buyse gives it a fine effort.

Other highlights? Surely American composer Marion Bauer’s Forgotten Modes for solo flute and perhaps Philippe Gaubert’s lovely and evocative Invocation must be mentioned, but in truth there are no duds here, and my interest never lagged once. We should be grateful that instrumentalists of this caliber are around and active. This may not be a Want List candidate, but it is certainly of Want List quality.

FANFARE: Steven E. Ritter
Read less

1. Density 21.5 by Edgard Varèse

Performer: Leone Buyse (Flute)
Written: 1936

2. Sonatine quasi fantasia by Philippe Gaubert