Bach: Flute Sonatas – Francesco Padovani

In spite of the difficulties they pose to musicologists seeking to establish their chronology and authenticity, all works recorded here are absolute masterpieces of the flute literature, and bear witness to the mania for the transverse flute, which had conquered Germany in the early eighteenth century. The artists of this album – flutist Francesco Padovani and organist Roberto Loreggian, among the most prestigious performers of their generation – perform the Sonatas on period instruments; however, by employing the organ rather than the harpsichord throughout this CD, these well-known works acquire a novel inspiration; the unique blending of two instruments which have a similar principle in the production of sound but an entirely different technique confers both unity and variety to the performance. Together, these works represent an astonishingly beautiful itinerary within the transverse flute’s “voice”, which resounds in its fullest palette: from joy to pain, from excitement to melancholia, from enthusiasm to elegy.