FIVE-DISC CD BOX SET: 100 TRACKS!

“That man can do anything!” exclaimed the late, legendary recorder player and conductor Frans Brüggen when asked by Tijdschrift Oude Muziek about his young colleague Erik Bosgraaf. “He had an upcoming concert of the music of Van Eyck at the Amsterdam Amstel church and sent me an invitation. His playing was superb, so inspired and technically impeccable.” It was Brüggen’s birthday, but that didn’t stop him attending. When soon afterwards Brüggen conducted Bach’s Actus tragicus (Cantata BWV106) in the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, he invited Bosgraaf to play the first recorder part.

Erik Bosgraaf’s quick rise to fame is directly attributable to his debut on Brilliant Classics: a three-disc box devoted to Jacob van Eyck’s (1589/90–1657) “Der Fluyten Lust-hof” (The Recorder’s Garden of Delight). Released in 2007 on the 350th anniversary of the Utrecht composer’s death, the recording was made at the request of the Van Eyck scholar Thiemo Wind who said he had never before come across a recorder player with so much understanding of this virtuoso solo repertoire and such a capacity for playing it: the sprezzatura, the casual ease and spontaneity this music, originating in improvisation, demands. The set was a worldwide hit, even winning over some diehard recorder haters. Erik Bosgraaf was clearly one of the instruments greatest players.

This 5-disc set offers a sample of Erik Bosgraaf’s achievements in the field of baroque music, beginning with Van Eyck and embracing his milestone recordings of Bach, Handel, Vivaldi and Telemann.

DISC ONE: Jacob Van Eyck: Der Fluyten Lust-Hof (selection) - 2006
DISC TWO: J S Bach: Solo Concertos - 2008
DISC THREE: G F Handel: The Recorder Sonatas - 2009
DISC FOUR: A Vivaldi: Recorder Concertos - 2011
DISC FIVE: G P Telemann: The Recorder Sonatas - 2015

ERIK BOSGRAAF recorder & direction
with
FRANCESCO CORTI harpsichord
IZHAR ELIAS baroque guitar
ENSEMBLE CORDEVENTO

BC96440 • Released 2021