L’Esprit Baroque on Thursday 9th February is all about the recorder.
This instrument reached its heyday in the Baroque era, when it often imitated the sound of a bird. The originally wooden flute, in which holes are drilled in a pipe, owes its name to the block of wood that is placed in the mouthpiece. The instrument has many forms and they range from the small sopranino recorder, via the soprano, alto, tenor and bass flutes to the sometimes 3 meter high subcontrabass recorder.
The instrument’s origins date back to the early 14th century, and much has been written for the recorder, especially in the Renaissance and Baroque periods. Composers used the instrument as an imitation of bird sounds and the human voice, and Bach in particular used the instrument in pastoral music and as a symbol of the transient.
After the baroque period, the instrument became less and less popular and it was not until the second half of the twentieth century that the recorder tradition revived. In the Netherlands it was Frans Brüggen who stood at the cradle of this revival. This not only resulted in a number of now world-famous Dutch recorder players (such as Erik Bosgraaf and Lucie Horsch) and ensembles (such as the Amsterdam Loeki Stardust Quartet and Seldom Sene), a number of recorder players also serve as excellent ambassadors elsewhere in Europe and other parts of the world. for the wind instrument. Like Dan Laurin, Tamar Lalo, Sébastien Marq and Giovanni Antonini, who we can hear in L’Esprit Baroque.
For this episode of L’Esprit Baroque, compiler Kees Koudstaal selected music by Jacob van Eyck, Giuseppe Sammartini, Antonio Vivaldi and Georg Philipp Telemann.
L’Esprit Baroque broadcasts: Thursday, February 9th, 2023, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM Friday, February 17th, 2023, 6 a.m. – 7 a.m
