It may be a cliché to write of the clarity of Gallic writing for the flute – the kind of elegance found in the music of composers like Debussy, Fauré, Gaubert, Jolivet, Messiaen and Taffanel – but French music for flute does indeed have a sound of its own. The flute works of Nicolas Bacri, born in Paris in 1961, uphold the proud tradition of his predecessors with textures of crystalline transparency and poised, almost weightless, melodic lines – and reserves of sardonic bite and freewheeling energy as required.