Vivaldi: Concerti per il flauto traversier (Alpha Collection)

Featuring

Alexis Kossenko
Arte dei Suonatori
Antonio Vivaldi

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Instruments

Alexis Kossenko, the flutist and conductor, plays on a variety of historical flutes, including an ivory flute after Johann Eichentopf and ebony flutes after Thomas Stanesby Junior and Peter Bressan.

Interpretation

For Concertos RV 438 and RV 440, Vivaldi simplified passages, likely for a flautist with limited virtuosity; the performers on this album restored the original, more complex text.

Compositional Technique

The Concerto RV 436 shows Vivaldi's operatic influence with its dramatic concision, theatrical effects, syncopation, and rivalry between the two violin parts.

Compositional Technique

Vivaldi often composed movements by first writing the entire solo line, then adding the harmonization, which partly explains the flute doublings in the tutti sections.

Composition History

Vivaldi adapted several older works for Le Cène's 1729 publication, with only one, the Concerto in F major for recorder and strings (RV 434), already in modern concerto form.

Historical Context

In 1720s Holland, the transverse flute was very popular among amateur musicians, leading publisher Michel Le Cène to commission the first collection of flute concertos.

Composition History

The Concerto in G major RV 435 is unique in this collection as no earlier version is known, suggesting Vivaldi composed it specifically for Le Cène's 1729 publication.