Georgia Browne - CPE Bach / Sonata in A minor for flute solo (Wq.132) 

I enjoy the musicianship of any player who brings life to such music......no matter what era flute they are playing........each brings a new and wonderful perspective to the written music.

I subscribe to your "excited renditions" comment. Too many artists nowaday play a contest of speed, instead of playing music. It strips down the life out of the play. But not here, the tempo is quite perfect, with phrases well set up against the breathing. And no romantic rendition, which to me, is the antihesis of the baroque music...

I agree, she brings simplicity to it that it deserves, its not an easy piece to play but her heart is in it.

The worst thing of the "excited" versions is, that Bach himself wrote about "if only (piano) playing would consist of being fast. (...) A lot of players do all kind of tricks, they impress and numb the mind, but leave the soul starving." I think if he'd have listened to this performance, he'd have found his soul well nourished.

Where there's a way, there's a will!

Are you saying that she is letting the music be interesting on its own merit, rather than interpreting too much style? I love boroque music but I’m not studied on theory or anything like that, so I’m interested in whatever you are talking about.

That's so wonderful that you compared her playing with to a shakuhachi sound....I'm a shakuhachi player and am working on rendering the first movement to my instrument which I feel is perfectly suited for shakuhachi! Yes, I really appreciated her interpretation of this piece.

@@Oaktreealley I don't think so. She is doing a lot of interpretation, some Baroque style and some of it her own musical judgement. But I don't agree ït isn't with feeling. Baroque composers set out to capture emotions especially this composer. And those "affects" are captured here and brought out here by the performer. Its not the same as the over the top romantic interpretations.

it made me cry, so poignant, elegant and heartbreakingly beautiful

Oui! Mesuré, ornementé mais retenu, vivant, les notes sont remplies, c'est du bel ouvrage.

I'm going to try this on oboe in g minor.

I looked at traverse fute fingering chart and I don't think there is a thumb hole. tilting and breath gets the upper registers

Traversos are much cheaper than metal flutes so give it a go. In some ways it's easier to play as there are no keys that get in the way. But your embouchure becomes much more important as your lips shape every note.

No thumb hole. It's all in the lips and breath control and fluent command of complex cross-fingerings.

The Traverso is actually highly designed, rather than primitive. It comes from a time just before it became popular to add keys to get the same quality of every note (and to facilitate some new tricky note combinations as musical tastes changed after JS Bach). What we now consider the weaknesses of the cross-fingered notes (played by skipping some holes and covering others) were celebrated for their tone color. Also the blow hole is smaller than the modern flute and therefore the mouth shape to get good sound is smaller. This is a difficult instrument to master (at least for me), every note has something special about it that needs to be managed. Georgia's playing is exquisite!

Thank you for your thoughtful comment. Because my mother language is not English, I can't guarantee whether I was be able to understand sufficiently what you had meant. Probably, the word "primitive" wasn't appropriate for baroque flutes. I was informed that flutes traverso and recorders are more sophisticated than I thought. Incidentally I have watched your blog. You enjoy the baroque music . Don't you? I also have my blog. If you "click ", you'll reach it. Finally, I am a pretty enthusiastic fan of Michala Petri.

Basic, Elemental, yet sophisticated, and what a wonderful sound.

why is it harder for modern flutes to play? Im aware of the differences in how they are structured, but what did you mean? I find this fascinating. (I love the baroque flute, by the way. =)

Copy from Carlo Palanca, Italy 1750

Georgia plays a copy of an August Grenser flute made by Eugene Crijnen in 1996.

It is a baroque flute (sorry, don't know the maker)

It's called a traverso. There are several different brands and price ranges for them. The description to the video says "Georgia plays a copy of an August Grenser flute made by Eugene Crijnen in 1996."

It's a baroque traverso flute. It's a copy of an instrument from around the time the piece was written

Definitely... My whole bookshelf is full with those facsimiles

Frauncis Shakespeare Bonjour, avez vous une seconde version de cette pièce sur traverso ?

Bollocks!

Exactly! The sounds is dry and empty, noisy! It’s not like real brq flute sounds! Because too much pressure on the lips!