This recording of seven sonatas, some by Vivaldi, others definitely or probably not, was made in 1991 and was initially released on the now-defunct Adda label. The disc’s title, ‘Integrale des sonates pour flute traversiere’, is misleading. Vivaldi perhaps wrote as few as four sonatas for the transverse flute (RV48-51). None of these is characteristically Vivaldian and none brings to mind any of his sonatas for other instruments. A fifth sonata on the disc (RV58) is the last in a set of six printed under the title Il pastor fido, and published in Paris in 1737 as Vivaldi’s Op. 13. It, and others in the set, borrow from various concertos by Vivaldi, but the enterprise merely reflects the popularity of Vivaldi’s music in Paris at the time, and is in fact the work of his French contemporary Nicolas Chedeville. Of the two remaining pieces in the recital, that in F major (RV52) is really a recorder sonata, while the C minor one (RV53), musically all but eclipsing the rest, was written for oboe.
Jean-Christophe Frisch plays with elegance and charm, introducing an element of Gallic fantasy in his ornaments and rhythms, as well as improvising the occasional unaccompanied prelude as a preface to the composers’ written intentions. But the programme in general, though imaginatively played and presented, is musically dull, with the flute making a weak substitute for the oboe in the one piece that really possesses merit, and for which Vivaldi’s authorship is secure.'