Apparently Mozart didn’t much like the flute. Apparently Calvin Bowman doesn’t much like Mozart. But Bowman loves JS Bach – as do Elena Kats-Chernin and Genevieve Lacey. What are we to make of this love-hate recording?

Bach’s two-part Inventions are, like the three-part Sinfonias, staples of the (advanced) student piano repertoire. Kats-Chernin’s six (a classic Bachian number) Re-inventions came about as she and Lacey were exploring different recorders, just jamming, when, as Kats-Chernin recounts in the booklet notes, “a bit of a Bach Invention showed itself in one of the figurations that we improvised with. And suddenly this idea presented itself – to base the piece on Bach Inventions.”

An organist himself, Calvin Bowman’s sensitive transcription for string quartet of Bach’s chorale prelude O Mensch, Bewein’ dein’ Sünder Gross (O mortal, weep for your great sin) BWV622 from the Little Organ Book is neatly balanced by his transcription for the same forces of the tenor aria Seht, was die Liebe Tut (Behold what Love does) from Bach’s cantata BWV85 Ich bin ein Gutter Hirt (I am a Good Shepherd).

“The musicians play with a mix of delight in their own virtuosity and reverence”

The two Mozart flute quartets here – one in D,...