The Nightingale and the Butterfly - Pamela Thorby & Elizabeth Kenny - Early Music Review

The title of this disc is derived from three of the French baroque pieces included on it, the fourth movement of the Deuxième Suite in A, Papillon, by Louis Caix d'Hervelois and François Couperin's Le Rossignol-en-amour and Le Rossignol Vainqueur and is appropriate for a collection of sometimes lightweight but always charming pieces. The repertoire of French solo recorder music is quite small, but the Caix d'Hervelois suit no. 2 in G, originally for transverse flute, works well on the soprano recorder. Charles Dieupart actually specified the size of recorder to be used in each of the pieces in his revised 1702 edition of Six suittes de de clavecin, published just before he left France for a career in London, the voice flute (tenor recorded in D) for his Suite no. 1 in A and the fourth flute (in B flat) for no. 6 in F minor. Anne-Danican Philidor's Sonate pour la flûte à bec in D minor was published in Paris in 1712. Elizabeth Kenny's sensitive plucked accompaniment balances the recorder very well. In between the recorder pieces she plays two on theorbo by the French court composer Robert de Visée, a short passacaille and the Suite in D minor, both from the late 17^th century Vaudry de Saizenay manuscript.