Press Releases

BBT is proud to support Dutch virtuoso recorder player Lucie Horsch (2022 BBT Fellowship), whose latest recording, The Frans Brüggen Project, is released in early November on Decca Classics in what would have been Brüggen’s 90th birthday year. The concept of the album was born of Lucie’s wish to honour the life and legacy of this celebrated pioneer of the early music revival who has been such an inspiration for her. She was given access to Brüggen’s own remarkable collection of instruments from the golden age of recorder making and has devised a compelling and diverse programme of early 18th-century music featuring 14 of these historic recorders. The Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century, co-founded by Brüggen in 1981, Rachel Podger (violin) and Tom Foster (harpsichord) complete a world-class line-up of musicians for Lucie’s fourth album on Decca Classics.

BBT has made a short film featuring interviews with Lucie and Dr Machtelt Brüggen Israëls, art historian and custodian of her late husband’s collection

Brüggen started collecting historical recorders in the 1960s with the sole criterion that the instruments were still playable – all part of his lifelong search for authenticity and in keeping with his vital role within historically informed music practice. The fact that recorders normally have a playing life of little more than a decade makes this instrumentarium exceptionally rare because such treasured artefacts are nowadays mostly kept locked behind glass.

Getting to know each of the 17 recorders in the collection has been a fascinating journey for Lucie. She explains how every one of them has its own character, personality and unique response to being played. Whereas modern recorders are often viewed as being made to generic standards to serve the musician and adapt to a range of repertoire, each of these instruments is strikingly individual and seems to have its own idea of what it is for and how it wants to sound: “It’s almost as if the instrument is telling you as a player what it needs from you.”

Nevertheless, these ‘voices from the past’ are valuable artefacts which demand a delicate approach and careful articulation. The playing and recording process was often quite complex, according to strict rules necessary for their conservation, but inevitably a thrilling experience. “With the most fragile recorders, we were only able to do two full takes of a piece,” says Lucie, “I realised, in the short periods I was given to prepare the instruments, that playing them restores some of their powers. As the breath and its humidity was gently reintroduced to them, you noticed how they began to blossom.”

The variations in sound, tuning and intonation provided insight into past performance techniques and naturally influenced the choice of repertoire for this project. Lucie breathes new life into works by, amongst others, Marcello, Corelli, Telemann, Couperin and Haydn, as well as J.S. Bach – including the famous ‘Air’ from the Third Orchestral Suite – and his Concerto in E major which Lucie plays on a Fourth Flute, a soprano recorder in B flat, built for Frans Brüggen in the 1970s by the Australian maker Frederick Morgan. There are also rarely heard French treasures by Jacques-Martin Hotteterre, Joseph Bodin de Boismortier and Nicolas Chédeville. The result is a truly authentic recorder album and film that honour Brüggen and further extend his legacy by providing new and valuable dimensions to this peerless collection carefully conserved by his widow.

BBT has also supported significant new works commissioned by Lucie, including Calliope Tsoupaki’s Song for You for recorder and harpsichord (w/p 13 April in De Bijloke, Gent); Reza Namavar’s Fetiapoipoi for recorder and Baroque orchestra (w/p 23 May 2024 Tivoli Vredenburg with the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century, Utrecht); and Lotta Wennäkoski’s concerto for recorder and symphony orchestra (w/p October 2025 with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Amsterdam).

Lucie Horsch The Frans Brüggen Project

with The Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century, Rachel Podger (violin), Esther vn der Eijk (viola), Albert Brüggen (cello),
Tom Foster (harpsichord).
Music by: Haydn, Corelli, A. Marcello, J.S. Bach, Telemann, Van Eyck, Hotteterre, Boismortier, F. Couperin, Chedeville,
John Walsh, Handel.
Release 8 November 2024 DECCA CLASSICS 487 0642

LUCIE HORSCH recorder player, pianist, singer (soprano)

• Born: 1999 in the Netherlands. Began playing the recorder at age five.
• Studies: Amsterdam Conservatory’s Sweelink Academie from age 11 with Walter van Hauwe (pupil of Frans Brüggen), as well as piano with Jan Wijn.
• Awards: include BBT Fellowship (2022), Dutch Music Prize (2020), ECHO Rising Star (21/22 season).
• Performance: Recent and upcoming highlights include debuts with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra under Ton Koopman, the Tonhalle Orchester Zürich and Stavanger Symphony Orchestra under Jan Willem de Vriend, the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra and the Orchestre national d’Île-de-France, as well as recitals at the Sommets Musicaux de Gstaad, Thüringer Bachwochen, Solsberg Festival, Wigmore Hall, Festival de Pâques Aix-en-Provence, KKL Luzern, La Chaux-de-Fonds, LSO St. Luke’s, with various partners such as Ton Koopman, Olga Pashchenko, Thomas Dunford, Justin Taylor, Rachel Podger and Max Volbers. Lucie has toured in Europe with the Academy of Ancient Music and Richard Egarr, Amsterdam Sinfonietta, the Orchestra of the 18th Century and in Japan with the B’Rock Orchestra. She also performs her folk and jazz-inspired Origins project at festivals and venues like Wigmore Hall, the Rheingau Musik Festival, Classique au Vert Paris, Bremer Musikfest, the Dresdner Musikfestspiele, Festival de Musique de Menton, the Società del Quartetto Milan and the Vienna Konzerthaus.
• Recordings: Lucie is an exclusive Decca Classics artist. Her debut CD Vivaldi won the 017 Edison Klassiek Award. Her second album Baroque Journey, recorded with the Academy of Ancient Music and Thomas Dunford, reached No 1 in the UK Classical Charts and won a 2019 OPUS KLASSIK prize in Germany. The third, Origins, focuses on folk-inspired and traditional music from all over the world and won her another Edison award.
• Instruments: recorders made by Seiji Hirao, Frederick Morgan, Stephan Blezinger and Francesco Li Virghi, among others.