Search - Philippe Gaubert, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Andre Campra :: Philippe Gaubert: Complete Works for Flute, Vol. 3

Pleasant French Flute/Piano Music Mellifluously Played

J Scott Morrison | Middlebury VT, USA | 05/27/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

"If you're like me, you'd never heard of Philippe Gaubert (1879-1941). In his day he was a famous French flutist and conductor. For years he was the flute professor at the Paris Conservatoire. This is the third CD in a series of Gaubert's music featuring the Boston Symphony's second flutist, Fenwick Smith, himself a flute professor at the New England Conservatory. But it is the first issue to come my way. The contents of the CD include original pieces by Gaubert -- firmly in the by-then conservative and mostly dreamily lyrical French impressionist mold -- and a dozen never-before-recorded transcriptions for flute and piano of mostly very familiar works, e.g., the minuet from Boccherini's Quintet in E (known to many from its use in the Alec Guinness film, 'The Ladykillers'), Schumann's Träumerei, a Chopin prelude, a Schubert impromptu, etc.



All of the music is suavely played by Smith and his accompanist, pianist Sally Pinkas and it makes for a pleasant but hardly intellectually engaging 77 minutes. This is music to daydream to and one can hardly deny there is sometimes a need for that.



Scott Morrison"