This programme has the Gallic flavour that is almost a sine qua non in view of the quantity of music contributed by French composers to the flute's repertory. Written for a Conservatoire competition, Faure's five-minute Fantaisie begins like a Satie Gymnopedie and then moves from E minor into a bright Allegro in C: it here receives a neat performance, although the first section needs more tonal subtlety to make its full effect. I wish that the recording were less close and the flute less spotlit; much in this recital needs more atmosphere, not least Poulenc's Sonata, where the playing is otherwise deft (the finale goes particularly well) and offers some expressive depth. Somehow, also, Paul Edmund Davies and John Alley fail to capture the grace and charm of Caplet's Reverie et Petite Valse; in the Dutilleux, too, we want more point and purpose for the performance to be really stylish.
Bach's E minor Sonata, pleasingly played though it is by the flautist, with piano and continuo cello, does not fit into this programme and makes an odd sandwich filling between Dutilleux and Prokofiev. Davies and Alley are assured in the Russian composer's Sonata, but ultimately much of their playing in this recital seems merely skilful and agreeable. I prefer the flute and piano disc of Peter Lloyd and Rebecca Holt, who also perform the works by Faure, Caplet and Poulenc and have been excellently recorded in London's Henry Wood Hall.'