Johan Helmich Roman goes down in the history books as Sweden's first internationally famed composer, but mostly it is his sonatas for solo instruments that get recorded. He wrote a set of unaccompanied violin sonatas that lie easily under the player's fingers, and the same is true of this group of 12 sonatas for flute and continuo, published in 1727. Roman's chief stylistic influence was Handel, acknowledged in a direct quotation in the last movement of the entire set, and the motivic concision of the Allegro movements (try ...
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Johan Helmich Roman goes down in the history books as Sweden's first internationally famed composer, but mostly it is his sonatas for solo instruments that get recorded. He wrote a set of unaccompanied violin sonatas that lie easily under the player's fingers, and the same is true of this group of 12 sonatas for flute and continuo, published in 1727. Roman's chief stylistic influence was Handel, acknowledged in a direct quotation in the last movement of the entire set, and the motivic concision of the Allegro movements (try the Allegro second movement of the Flute Sonata No. 8 in A major, BERI 208, CD 2, track 6) owes a great deal to the German-English master. This is impressive enough in itself, for Handel isn't an easy composer to imitate. But Roman also incorporates the emerging galant style, especially in the movements marked Larghetto, and its gentle shadings of light and dark into his music, and, when ornamentation is added (presumably transverse flutist Verena Fischer has added a good deal,...
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