The Hungaroton label has moved into the realm of early music increasingly often, and this time out it has produced a real gem, presenting music that will be unknown even to those who listen to a lot of music from the early eighteenth century. When was the last time you heard Baroque bagpipes? Better still, a Baroque hurdy-gurdy? Its noisy buzzing and clicking are wonderful things to hear in a context where sonic purity was prized. Both are here. Philibert Delavigne was a little-known composer to the French court and aristocracy, known for a few surviving compositions from the 1730s. They are pastoral in nature -- an idea familiar in bits and pieces from the Messiah on down, but you haven't heard Baroque pastoral music like this. All of it was written for a pair of musettes (French bagpipes), with alternative instruments such as the hurdy-gurdy, flute, violin, or recorder indicated. The album's centerpiece, one might say, is Les fleurs, a collection of 24 duets, each evoking a different flower. A note of caution: although English liner notes are included, the names of the flowers are given only in Hungarian and the original French. It's a matter of speculation what kind of flower un oreille d'ours, a bear's ear, might be. The aptly named
Ensemble Berger Fortuné (The Lucky Shepherd Ensemble), actually a group of specialists with vast experience in unusual Baroque repertories, uses various instrumental combinations, trying, they say, to evoke the character of individual flowers. Two short suites round out the album, which is fun for all. Baroque specialists will find interest in the ways Delavigne tried to introduce common-practice harmony into music with a drone that precluded any modulation and pretty much any use of accidentals (all the music on the album is in C major) -- sometimes he lets dominant passages hang over the tonic harmony. Ordinary Baroque music fans will find a nice novelty item here. And the album might make good music for a wedding reception, or for any other event where there are a lot of flowers in the room.