On a wide selection of recordings – solo, with orchestra, and in\nchamber music – Sharon Bezaly has demonstrated not only ‘utter\ncommitment to the works’ but also ‘the most technically assured,\nbreathtakingly brilliant flute-playing around’ (Fanfare). On Pipe\nDreams, she appears with the eminent Australian Chamber Orchestra\nand their leader Richard Tognetti in a programme which takes its\nname from the Australian composer Carl Vine’s work for flute and\norchestra. As the composer writes, a basic idea for the work is\n‘the folly that a flute – the instrument itself – might harbour its\nown secret wishes. In a universe where all is possible, what might\na flute dream?’ Intriguingly this also offers a key for possible\ninterpretations of the other works on the disc. The Pitangus\nSulphuratus of the Venzuelan composer Adina Izarra’s concerto –\ncomposed in 1987, but with a new cadenza written especially for\nBezaly – is a yellow and brown bird found in great numbers in the\nCaracas valley. Its call appears throughout the piece, especially\nin evocations (or dreams?) of moods typical of Caracas: a lazy and\nhot March afternoon, or the gentle swinging of a hammock. Such\nepisodes are interspersed with fast and rhythmically intricate\nvariations on the merengue. Another dance, the tango, makes a\nfleeting and inconclusive, almost dreamlike appearance in Flute\nConcerto with Tango, which the Uruguayan composer and celebrated\nconductor José Serebrier has dedicated to Sharon Bezaly.\nImpresiones de la Puna, finally, embodies the dream of an\neighteen-year-old Alberto Ginastera of finding a truly Argentinean\nmusical language, tracing it back to the indigenous music of the\nhigh plateaus of the central Andes, the puna.

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