The adoption of wide-ranging repertoire by recorder players rolls on with this disc of music by Henry Purcell, who worked in an environment where the recorder was certainly used (often by Purcell himself) and where music of various types was certainly arranged for it. That said, the recorder quartet, here an English group called
the Flautadors, was probably never used for the music here -- recorders were added to ensembles with other wind or stringed instruments. Does playing Purcell on recorders work? Several kinds of Purcell pieces are included on the program, and some work better than others -- to use the terminology of the title, the Ayres work better than the Phantasies or Chaconnies. All the music was originally for strings, but it varied in function. Some was for the theater; the two "theatre suites" compile tunes by Locke and Purcell, mostly from dramatic works, into short sequences. These work very nicely on recorders, coming out something like the arrangements of Handel's Water Music that made up the fare of amateur recorder players in the middle of the last century. As for the fantasias and the suites by Locke, in both cases originally for viol consort, the listener's reaction will be shaped by individual preference. The alteration of texture involved in moving from viols to recorders is profound, and viol music, though certainly transcribed often enough, depends on a treatment of dissonance that is created with the viols in mind and is probably less pleasant in the less stable pitch environment of a group of recorders. This said,
the Flautadors, accompanied at times on theorbo and guitar, offer ensemble work that is intonationally and rhythmically precise. Although more initially unorthodox, the keyboard transcriptions of the Flanders Recorder Quartet may make a more appealing choice for the listener who wants to try out one disc of this kind.