Cesare Ciardi (1818-1877), a flutist and composer who supplied himself with works as needed, was apparently known as the Paganini of the flute. He toured widely and actually spent much of his career not in Italy but in Russia. The real virtuoso showpiece on this album of his almost-forgotten music is the opening Gran Concerto for flute and orchestra in D minor, Op. 129, in which the flute careens around trills and thirty-second-note runs introduced by huge leaps. It might make interesting listening for flutists, but for the average listener the flute has fewer arcane realms than the violin does -- Ciardi has nothing to offer to match Paganini's bag of tricks. More compelling are the flute-and-piano pieces based on folk tunes heard at the album's end. Most of these were intended to present music from Ciardi's Italian homeland to his Russian audience, but one, Le rossignol du nord, Op. 45 (The Northern Nightingale), uses Russian melodies and rhythms. These works allow the flute pyrotechnics to grow naturally from a simple melodic basis, and there might be an unusual encore piece or two here for the flutist in search of a nifty program-ender. Flutist
Roberto Fabbriciani, who has reconstructed and re-edited much of the music here, makes the best possible case for it, and he receives enthusiastic support form the Orchestra Sinfonica del Friuli Venezia Giulia -- the orchestra of the northeastern Italian region between Venice and Trieste.