Lucie Horsch – Baroque Journey (2019) [FLAC 24bit/96kHz]

The Dutch recorder player Lucie Horsch gained attention in her early teens on Dutch television as a youth star, and her first album, 2016’s Vivaldi, seemed to promise great things. That promise has been fulfilled in 2019 with Baroque Journey, whose title refers both to temporal and national ranges. Beginning and ending with entrancing excerpts from the Dutch recorder collection Der Fluyten Lust-Hof, Horsch moves through German, Italian, and French repertory of various periods. The Bach Oboe Concerto in D minor, BWV 1059R, a work of uncertain provenance anyhow, works wonderfully in a recorder arrangement, and there are genuine and rarely heard recorder concertos by Giuseppe Sammartini and Jacques-Christophe Naudot. Horsch’s tonal stability in slower music (she does a gorgeous recorder “When I am laid in earth”) is exceeded only by her liveliness and precision in the fast movements. And best of all are the variation sets, liquid and altogether captivating. Sample the 14e Ordre from the Troisième Livre of Couperin’s Pièces de clavecin (a work that you’d hardly think would work in a recorder-and-lute arrangement), and you’ll be hearing nightingales for the rest of the evening. In the concertos, Horsch gets expert support from the Academy of Ancient Music under Bojan Čičić, supplying quiet, graceful accompaniment that doesn’t overwhelm Horsch and lets her shine. Right now, Horsch is sounding like the next Michala Petri, or maybe even more than that.

Tracklist:
1. Der Fluyten Lust-Hof : 130. Lavolette
2. Solomon HWV 67 / Act 3 : The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba (Arr. Recorders & Orchestra)
3. Oboe Concerto in D Minor, BWV 1059R : 1. Allegro (Performed on Recorder)
4. Oboe Concerto in D Minor, BWV 1059R : 2. Adagio (Performed on Recorder)
5. Oboe Concerto in D Minor, BWV 1059R : 3. Presto (Performed on Recorder)
6. Matthäus-Passion, BWV 244 / Zweiter Teil : 39. “Erbarme dich” (Performed on Recorder)
7. Orchestral Suite No. 2 in B Minor, BWV 1067 : 7. Badinerie (Performed on Recorder)
8. Lucie Horsch;Thomas Dunford – Sonate concertate in stil moderno à 2 e 3 voci, Libro primo : Sonata seconda (Arr. Recorder & Lute)
9. Recorder Concerto in F Major : 1. Allegro
10. Recorder Concerto in F Major : 2. Siciliano
11. Recorder Concerto in F Major : 3. Allegro assai
12. Lucie Horsch;Thomas Dunford – Couplets de folies (Arr. Horsch for Recorder & Lute)
13. Lucie Horsch;Thomas Dunford – Pièces de clavecin – Troisième livre / 14e ordre : Le rossignol-en-amour (Arr. Recorder & Lute)
14. Recorder Concerto in C Major, Op. 17, No. 1 : 1. Gaiement
15. Recorder Concerto in C Major, Op. 17, No. 1 : 2. Lentement
16. Recorder Concerto in C Major, Op. 17, No. 1 : 3. Légèrement
17. Lucie Horsch;Charlotte Barbour-Condini – Divisions on a Ground
18. Dido and Aeneas, Z. 626 / Act 3 : “When I am laid in earth” (Dido’s Lament) (Performed on Recorder)
19. Der Fluyten Lust-Hof : 27. Engels nachtegaeltje