This Jean-Marie Leclair (there were a couple of them) lived from 1697 to 1764 and was a renowned Parisian composer-violinist considered the founder of French violin playing. When publishing took off in France, however, it was all about the Benjamins (or the Louies), and he cheerfully kept many of his violin works within the range playable on a flute and promoted them as playable on either instrument. He also wrote a modest number of works for the flute itself. They are collected in their entirety on this two-disc set, and ...
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This Jean-Marie Leclair (there were a couple of them) lived from 1697 to 1764 and was a renowned Parisian composer-violinist considered the founder of French violin playing. When publishing took off in France, however, it was all about the Benjamins (or the Louies), and he cheerfully kept many of his violin works within the range playable on a flute and promoted them as playable on either instrument. He also wrote a modest number of works for the flute itself. They are collected in their entirety on this two-disc set, and while some of them could go in the reverse direction and be played on the violin, a few are idiomatic and specific to the flute. Most intriguing is the Deuxième récréation de musique in G minor for two flutes and continuo, Op. 8; its big chaconne, track 21, has an effect quite different from those in the violin tradition. Rather than the tense display of sheer athletic power one hears in violin chaconnes, Leclair instead breaks up the texture, pushing the music out of shape as far as...
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