While the novelty of a disc devoted to the alto flute may attract attention, The Yearning is a bland and tedious album that offers next to nothing in musical value.

Michael Hoppé's 12 romances are languid and vaguely pretty, but utterly lacking in originality and variety.

The saccharine quality of these pieces is underscored by Hoppé's atmospheric MIDI accompaniment, which insipidly tinkles and drones behind his meandering and forgettable melodies.

Tim Wheater's alto flute lines are consistently restricted to the instrument's lowest octave, and this rich timbre becomes extremely tiresome when exploited for 50 minutes.

The music itself is dreamy to the point of somnolence, and the division into separate tracks is almost pointless since the pieces sound more or less the same.

If it were categorized as easy listening or new age, then this disc would not raise any eyebrows.

(Hoppé's professional involvement with artists such as Zamfir, Vangelis, and Kitaro should send up a flag.) Yet this album purports to be something more earnest and serious, perhaps to draw in classical listeners.

Its booklet -- replete with poetic titles, dedications, biographies, and photographs of famous women from a bygone era -- lends it an appearance of sophistication and nostalgia, but pretentious packaging cannot compensate for the music's dire vapidity.