The period in which the concertos on our disc originated was no longer the heyday of recorder playing and recorder music. While the instrument witnessed a further late flowering in chamber music shortly after 1700, particularly in England, France and Italy, in solo concertos it produced only a rearguard action oppressed both by the violin as the new solo instrument of expression par excellence and by the transverse flute, whose tone was on the one hand more brilliant and on the other equally "soulful" - even though the recorder continued to remain a possibility as an alternative instrument in works avaible for the maximum variety of resources. That the solo concerto bad originated shortly before 1700 as a violin concerto and above all had gained ground as a violin concerto also contributed to the recorder's inability to secure a permanent footing - the more the concerto developed and found favour as the representative form of utterance the more the shaping of the solo part followed the technical and expressive possibilities of the stringed instrument. Thus the number of surviving concertos which prescribe a member of the recorder family as solo instruments is extremely small, and especially small in Italy, the stronghold of the early violin concerto, whereas in Paris and London, as well as in Germany, the springs flowed somewhat more strongly. The selection on the present disc reflects this proportion. At the same tima it shows that a numerically sparse tradition is not necerrarily associated with any inferior quality in the works handed down. In the hands of an important the recorder, even in the solo concerto of the early 18th century, spoke with an attractive voice unmistakably its own.
The resourcefulness in ideas and, above all, the astonmishing tonal imagination which never let Vivaldi's concertos appear monotonus and mechanical, for all the formal similarity of most of his works, are particularly impressively seen in the recorder concerto in C minor (P. 440) against a background of a still very "baroque" style. In the sequence and form of the movements, the three-movement work conforms to Vivaldi's normal solo concerto form; but within these almost conventional limits the composer's imagination can expand all the more freely. It does so particularly in the display of an unusual virtuosity in the flute part and in the enjoyment of colour in the soli, which almost consistently are accompained only by the upper strings (without continuo) or, more seldom, by the continuo alone, so that structural contrast between tutti and soli is underlined by the instrumentation, and the soli take on a peculiarly clear, almost sparkling, tonal character which is till more intensified through the consistently high register, the virtuosic agility and the characteristic tone of the recorder. Instrumentation and tone colour as elements of musical structure had been far removed from high-baroque concerto; Vivaldi has here become a pioneer of a new style which was eventually to find its fulfilment in Mozart's orchestral writing. On the other hand, in this concerto it is precisely the "baroque" - for Vivaldi seimply the conventional - elements which cannot be overlooked, and the bridging of these and the forward-looking passages is not the least charm of the work.
Between baroque and early classic, if in a less pronunced style, also stands the F major concerto of Giuseppe Sammartini. The brother of the more famous Giovanni Battista Sammartini was one of the many Italian instrumental composers of the 18th century who sought their fortune north of the Alps: after he had fist worked as an oboist in Milan, he went in 1729 to London, where he became chamber music director to the Prince of Wales, and where he died around 1750 or 51. In form his concerto, particurarly the first movement, clearly reveals the Vivaldi concerto type, though the distinction between soli and tutti has grown a little stronger than there: in inflection and even in details of its invention it is nevertheless a typical "London" work from Handel  and Geminiani's circle. The first movement shows this with its march-like character, as does the finale, which for all its vivacity and elegance is no Italian dance movement lightly thrown in but, in its relatively compact and careful workmanship, still preserves something of the dignity of the great baroque concertos of Corelli's successors. But the core of the work is the middle movement, an elegiac siciliano in the style of Handel, which far surpasses the elegant dignity of the outer movements.
Telemann's C major flute concertos is cast from a quite different mould: it has been preserved for us from the contents of the Darmstadt court library and so perhaps belongs to the composer's Frankfurt period. The sequence of movements already reveals that Telemann's model is not the Italian solo concerto but rather the late-baroque chamber sonata, and this impression is confirmed by the movement structure in which the strong alternation of tutti and soli gives way to the interplay of short concertante and thematic passages, the exceptional exhibitionist virtuosity of the solo instrument to a thematic dialoguebetween solo and orchestra. The first movement, with its rapturous, seemingly inexhaustible flowing cantilena, its string of sequences over long bass pedalpoints and its dialogue of "nature" flute motives and pizzicato-string idyllic and bucolic moods, testifies that in its thematic concentration and finish it is entirely in the style of chamber music, not of a concerto. The second movement, Allegro, with its vital syncopated rhythm, turns the sweet pastoral mood of the first to a rubuster rusticity. The grave A minor Andante, structurally very similar to the first movement and, like it, given a chamber-music refinement, exploits the attraction of constant major-minor alternations. The finale, in the form of a broad binary suite-movement, stresses still more strongly the virtuosity of the solo instrument and reverts to the character of the second movement, while at the same time increasing its ehythmic vitality to a genuine polonaise style.
Jean-Jacques Naudot's flute concerto introduces a quite different sphere - that of the art of aristocratic Parisian society. Here the recorder became a genre instrument which from its tonal character had a folk-like, bucolic aura which it shared woth the vielle (which Naudot himeself played) and the musette, and which was as much enjoyed by Paris salon society, with its nostalgic sentiments, as were Boucher's bucolic idylls, which were the fashion at this same time. Thus Naudot's Op. 28 (after 1740), from wich our concerto is drawn, was intended "pour les vieles, musettes, flûtes traversière, flûtes à bec, et hatbois", which could as desired take the upper part. while the other parts were allotted to two violins and continuo. The limitation thus imposed on the upper part, particularly in respect of performance technique, accords with the style of the work: it is the style not of the concerto but of the consort, which could be played just as well by solo chamber-music performers as concerted, with several strings to a part, and in which the upper part hardly ever appeared alone but mostly in concertante duet with the first violin. The type and character of the movements, again conforms to this basis; they likewise are completely French, and only seldem show the influence of Italian instrumental music. Thus the first Allegro certainly bears Italian traces in the gestures of its unison main subject, but in the decorative ornamentation, the dotted 3/4 rhythm and the concertante duets of the flute and violin entirely preserves the French style and its specific character, in which are combined lightly ceremonious, courtly elegance and lyrical simplicity. The solemn G minor Adagio is completely attuned to typically French rhythms, chains of suspension and decorated sequences, and only the finale, with its main subject like a quotation from Vivaldi, its cascades of semiquavers and its stretches of chords, more clearly alludes to the modern Italian spirit, without indeed renouncing the basic character of the Parisian "divertissement".