“Flute phenomenon” Joshua Smith’s first disc of Bach Flute Sonatas with harpsichordist Jory Vinikour was hailed as “virtuosic and lyrical” by Audiophilia and “superb” by The New Yorker (DE 3402). “A fabulous recording. Run, don’t walk, to get a copy,” wrote Pan, The Flute Magazine.
Josh and Jory’s second Bach program is as inspiring as their first. Here, they are joined by Ann Marie Morgan and Allison Edberg in illuminating and wholly engaging performances. As James A. Winn writes in the informative booklet notes:
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Sensitive performances like those offered here by Joshua Smith and his colleagues should help listeners, flutists, and scholars become more aware of the many styles in which Bach made himself at home. Because later composers for the flute have so often taken their inspiration from the eighteenth-century master, the range and variety of the flute literature as a whole owes a great debt to the range and variety of Johann Sebastian Bach.”
The profound level of musical communication here, as in the first album, is suggested by a revealing quote from Josh in the booklet notes:
“Using deep symmetries of structure, expressive rhetorical gestures, and daring manipulations of tonality, Bach strove to render the human experience in sound. He did so fervently and with grace, creating an art that impresses us with its great form, rhythmic scope, gesture, and color. At the deepest level, his music speaks to us because it holds out the alchemical promise that we can transform all of these devices into inspiration in our imaginations.”
J. S. Bach:
Sonata in E Minor, BWV 1034
Sonata in C Major, BWV 1033
Sonata in E Major, BWV 1035
Trio Sonata in C Minor for flute, violin, and continuo, BWV 1079
