Isaac Makhdoomi, the recorder player and artistic leader of Ensemble Piccante, grew up in a culturally and musically diverse Indian-Swiss family, which gave him an open ear for various musical influences.
Compositional Technique
Vivaldi's C minor concerto, RV 441, for alto recorder is considered the most virtuosic recorder composition of the Baroque era, even surpassing his flautino concertos due to its challenging key.
Composition History
Vivaldi's 1729 collection of six concertos for flute, strings, and basso continuo was likely a commission from the Amsterdam publisher Michel-Charles Le Cène, as it lacked a dedication or patron subsidy.
Compositional Technique
Vivaldi's concertos for sopranino recorder, or flautino, feature virtuoso techniques like whirlwind arpeggios, broken chords, and leaps, modeled on the violin's string-crossing technique called bariolage.
Composition History
Vivaldi often reworked existing material, such as adapting a violin concerto (RV 202) into his C minor alto recorder concerto (RV 441), by adjusting solo parts and writing new ritornellos.
Composer's Artistic Vision
Vivaldi was unique among his contemporaries for daring to incorporate birdsong imitation into a flute concerto, whereas others only used it in vocal works.
Composer Biography
The most likely candidate to have inspired Vivaldi's virtuosic recorder concertos is Giorgio Ratzenberger, an oboist who played the flautino part in Vivaldi's opera Tito Manlio and was described as a 'virtuoso oboe teacher'.
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