The late-life creativity of oboist Heinz Holliger is a remarkable thing; he was 84 when this album appeared in 2023 (it was recorded a couple of years earlier). His programs, many of them centered on contemporary works, are unfailingly creative, and if he has lost a step in playing the oboe, a strenuous instrument, that is not audible to these ears. Indeed, Holliger sets himself a challenge in this group of French works of similar moderate tempo. Eventail in English is "fan," and Holliger's plan is to "[open] up the richly colored fan of French music." The music spans many decades, and it contains works by conservatives (Saint-Saens) and strong progressives (Messiaen and Andre Jolivet, represented here by the marvelous Controversia for oboe and harp). Yet it all seems part of a single tradition, with new shades emerging at each fold of the fan. Holliger plays an oboe d'amore version of Debussy's Syrinx, an inspired choice. Many of the pieces are quite rare, but they fit together entirely logically here. Try Le Repos de Tityre, Op. 216, No. 10, by the still underrated Charles Koechlin. Some of the pieces are transcribed for oboe, but nothing goes beyond what the composers' contemporaries would have done as a matter of course. With ECM contributing its usual superb sound (from the Radiostudio Zuerich), this is a rigorous but quite affecting album of chamber music in the great French tradition. ~ James Manheim