The name of Johann Joachim Quantz appears in every music history text, with mention of his treatise on flute playing and perhaps the intersections of his career with those of the members of the Bach family. His music itself, as annotator Meike ten Brink points out in the booklet for this Naxos release (in German and English), is actually quite uncommon; most of it has not even been published or edited. Perhaps compilers have been daunted by Quantz's sheer productivity; the sonatas heard here, numbered from 272 to 277, come from a corpus of more than 300 works in the genre, and the composer was prolific in other chamber genres, as well. Thus, this beautifully performed collection is most welcome. The packaging doesn't quite give an idea of what the music sounds like. There's lots of mention of Quantz's "mixed taste," combining various national styles and of his galant tendencies. These descriptions may be relevant for other Quantz compositions, but these sonatas are Italianate to the core, and they are only intermittently -- in the central movements and a few of the finales -- galant. The opening movements are the strongest, and there the model is Italian opera. Quantz challenges the flutist by writing what are essential soprano arias for it, and that's extremely exciting to listen to. Baroque flutist
Verena Fischer keeps up with the abrupt registral shifts, the dramatic outbursts, and the long strings of notes at the top of her range, all without ever letting the sound of the instrument degenerate, and the continuo accompaniment of Baroque cellist
Klaus-Dieter Brandt and harpsichordist
Léon Berben is equally vigorous if not so sensitive in, say, the middle movement of the Flute Sonata No. 274 in A major, AV 1:145, where there isn't much of a Siciliana feeling. It's good to have a new disc of music by Quantz to put to the many mentions of his name in print, and the opening movements of these sonatas are especially commended to aspiring flute recitalists.