VIVALDI - Concerto RV 445 (3rd movement)

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recorder38
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Joined: Thu Apr 16, 2009 1:27 am

VIVALDI - Concerto RV 445 (3rd movement)

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Jean Cassignol, penny whistle / flûte à six trous
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FIRST RECORDING OF CONCERTO RV 445 (MOVEMENT III)
In the following Youtube video, I used a discant 6 hole pipe in D (with 0 thumber hole or 6+0 type), named High D “Airy Tale” Whistle and made by Goldfinch-Whistles (Poland)
The fingering technique is the extremely difficult ‘half-holing’ one.
Detailed article on the subject soon to be published in French magazin TEMPO FLUTE (text in French and English).
https://youtu.be/kyXKO-RnmKQ
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A new flautino (little flauto) for VIVALDI’s concertos RV 443 and RV 445
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The manuscripts of two of Vivaldi’s solo concertos for flautino - RV 443 in C major and RV 445 in A minor - bear on their first pages two autograph instructions written next to the titles: “Gl’ Istrom[en]ti trasportati alla 4a” (RV 443) and “L’Istrom[en]ti alla 4a Bassa” (RV 445). These directions for the copist to transpose the orchestral string parts down a 4th allow to deduce that Vivaldi on some particuliar occasion arranged both concertos for another instrument than the usual sopranino recorder in F. The concerto RV 445 for instance, in the key of E minor instead of A minor, could be intended for a soprano (discant) recorder in C, and this option materialized in a few CDs, principally with recordings of RV 443.
On February 13th, 1733, Edward Holdsworth, an English scholar and traveller, was told by Antonio Vivaldi himself that he could now sell his concertos more profitably in manuscript a guinea (21 shillings) apiece rather than publishing his works as usual in Amsterdam. A few days later, a French traveller touring in Italy with his 6 hole pipe – a straight end-blown soprano instrument with 6 finger-holes in front and no thumb hole, described a century ago by Tobias Schönfeld (1625), Marin Mersenne (1636) and Athanasius Kircher (1650), but still popular in France (* ) - met Vivaldi and demonstrated the possibilities of the instrument. Vivaldi told him he had composed three flautino concerti and showed him the scores. The French unknown player had a terrible time fingering the solo parts on his pipe as if it was a treble (alto) recorder in F – he made the same transposition on a descant (soprano) recorder when playing Giuseppe Sammartini’s and Charles Dieupart’s recorder concertos in England. Finally the pipe player chose two concerti which Vivaldi’s copist(s ) transposed down a 4th (“alla quarta bassa”) and he brought them back to France...
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(* ) where the 6 hole pipe is accurately described in two dictionaries published in Paris in 1752 and 1806.
PS - Edward Holdsworth’s report is authentic, but the French traveller’s visit unfortunately left no record in Vivaldi’s time....
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