Vivaldi: Concerti per il flauto traversier

In Holland in the 1720s the transverse flute enjoyed considerable popularity among amateur musicians. Aware of that keen interest, the publisher Michel Le Cene decided in 1729 to present his customers with the very first collection of concertos for flute and orchestra. Vivaldi responded to his request by refurbishing several older works. Only one of them was already in the modern concerto form: the Concerto in F major for recorder and strings. Another four pieces were hybrid in form and still close to chamber works. The predominant role of the recorder or flute in those four concertos made them ideal for adaptation. The odd man out of the collection is the short Concerto in G major RV 435. No earlier version is known and its style, more modern than its five companions in the set, leads us to suppose that Vivaldi wrote it specifically for Le Cene’s publication. The decade following the publication of op. 10 saw the appearance of a fair number of new flute concertos. Among them, the Conc