A few of Mercadante's vocal works have kept a place in the record catalogue, but it is only in the last decade or so that his smaller corpus of instrumental music has begun to surface, amongst it James Galway's recording of three of his six flute concertos ((CD) RD87703), one of them offered also by Grafenauer. It is easy enough to hear that Mercadante's speciality was opera (he wrote 60): this concerto is classical in form but its music suggests an opera (waiting for a librettist) with the flute—which he himself played—as a remarkably agile diva. Galway adds a showpiece cadenza (1'12'') to the first movement but Grafenauer satisfies herself with a mere token gesture; in the second she is to my mind the more sensitive to dynamic nuance, and in the third the quicksilver of her technique is untarnished. Were I to fall in love with Mercadante's flute concertos I'd go with Galway, but the occasional date through Grafenauer's agency will suffice.
She adds cadenzas to the other two concertos and delivers them musically rather than exhibitionistically, without the obtrusive intakes of breath noted by CH in his review of her earlier Philips Mozart recording ((CD) 422 339-2PH, 7/89) but that, in the first movement of the Mozart work, does not quite sit right stylistically. The ASMF is, as always, on its toes. There are other versions of both the Mozart and Stamitz, but if you want a delightfully played disc of lightweight flute concertos, none is so superior as to deter you from buying this one.'