This is a disc featuring music with Scandinavian associations. In the case of the Hasse Flute Concerto they are, to say the least, tenuous but, since it, along with the remaining three works on the disc, is included among a collection which turned up in 1991 at Aalholm Hall on the island of Lolland in Denmark, we may reasonably suppose it to have been played there during the mid-eighteenth century. The collection belonged to Count Otto Ludwig Raben of Christiansholm and it was he, a keen amateur flautist who boasted the great Michel Blavet among his teachers, who most probably selected these works and performed them. The interesting note accompanying the disc tells us of a vigorously active musical life which took place in and around Copenhagen during the 1750s and 1760s; and the Count's choice of repertory furthermore tells us that his tastes were progressive for, as well as Hasse, Scheibe and Agrell, the collection includes pieces by Gluck, Jommelli, Quantz, Telemann and Haydn.
The present programme is attractive if musically lightweight, for these concertos, in the favoured galant idiom of the time, are decidedly lacking in substance. Everything here takes second place to what was unashamedly intended to please the senses in the most natural and least complicated manner. His polemic attack on Bach is enough to tell us that we should expect nothing else, and indeed nothing better, from Johann Adolf Scheibe whose two concertos played here have an ephemeral charm but are eminently forgettable. The Agrell and Hasse concertos on the other hand are more delicately wrought confections from altogether classier Konditoreien.
The performances capture the spirit of the music effectively. The two soloists produce a warm, rounded tone on their baroque flutes and the leader of Concerto Copenhagen, Andrew Manze, directs with a feeling for rococo elegance. Ripieno string sound can be a bit rough and ready at times but the programme is entertaining if, as I say, in the end rather unmemorable. The excursion, though, is a worthwhile one into a musical backwater which has been enjoyable to explore. Recorded sound is pleasing and the cover picture, both apposite and evocative, of Count Raben and his family strolling in the grounds of Aalholm Hall a unifying touch. Worth investigating.'