DavidLasocki.com

My wife Giulia just published this article, which I found a wonderful and stimulating exploration of the philosophical background of Silvestro Ganassi's work. You can download a copy free from our website, https://instantharmony.net/product/tettamanti-silvestro-ganassi-and-the-valente-master-1542-43-forging-a-model-of-the-perfect-player-pdf/

BACH’S FLUTE SONATA IN A MAJOR ARRANGED FOR RECORDER
AVAILABLE NOW

Johann Sebastian Bach’s Sonata in A major for Flute and Obbligato Harpsichord, BWV 1032, is one of the most important chamber works in the flute’s repertoire.

But it has one big problem: 40 percent of the first movement is missing in Bach’s autograph manuscipt. The eminent Bach scholar (and recorder player) Professor Michael Marissen has completed this movement, based on Bach’s style and ALL the clues in the manuscript for the first time ever.

NOW Instant Harmony presents his edition of the flute sonata in a TRANSPOSITION into C major for ALTO RECORDER and obbligato harpsichord. This differs from other people’s recorder transpositions of the work in being taken from his historically informed completion of the first movement.

AVAILABLE NOW as a downloadable pdf from
https://instantharmony.net/product/bach-sonata-in-c-major-for-alto-recorder-and-obbligato-harpsichord-arranged-pdf/

Michael has also reconstructed the original version of this sonata, for alto recorder, violin, and basso continuo in C major. Available from https://instantharmony.net/product/johann-sebastian-bach-trio-sonata-in-c-major-for-alto-recorder-violin-and-basso-continuo-pdf/

And the flute sonata from
https://instantharmony.net/product/bach-sonata-in-a-major-for-flute-and-obbligato-harpsichord-bwv-1032/

We are sad to report that the Brazilian flautist, recorder player, and conductor Ricardo Kanji (1948–2025) passed away today.

Ricardo specialized in the interpretation of Baroque and Classical music. During his 25 years of residence in The Netherlands, he studied in 1970–72 with Frans Brüggen at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague, then became his successor as teacher in 1973–95. Ricardo participated actively in the Dutch music scene, performing with the most significant early music ensembles. He was one of the original members of the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century, with whom he toured worldwide. After he returned to Brazil in 1995, he created the orchestra and choir Vox Brasiliensis for the TV documentary History of Brazilian Music, which earned him the Best Conductor prize in 1999 from APCA (Art Critics Association of São Paulo). From 2002 until his death, he taught at EMESP (Music School of the State of São Paulo) and performed as a guest conductor in South America, Europe, and the USA.

We at Instant Harmony were happy and honored to be working with Ricardo on a second edition of his Study Program for the Recorder. We now hope to be able to publish it before long, so that people can still learn and improve their playing from his guidance.

As the great 16th-century instrumentalist Silvestro Ganassi once wrote in the epilogue of his Lettione Seconda (1543) (freely translated): “Every work that is brought into the light has something wise in it, and this is because nature operates in everybody. In addition, you need to consider that works are made with no little effort. And I am not talking about the effort of spending five or six or more years to finish a work, but the time that encompasses all the effort the author made in his life. If you consider the fruit that one can acquire from a book, that is the opportunity to learn in a short time the secrets that someone worked so hard to learn during his whole life.” Dear Ricardo, thank you very much for having shown the way and shortened the road for many players around the world.

David Lasocki and Giulia Tettamanti

ANNOUNCING AN EDITION OF
BACH’S SONATA IN A MAJOR FOR FLUTE AND OBBLIGATO HARPSICHORD, BWV 1032
with a historically informed RECONSTRUCTION of the MISSING MUSIC in the first movement.

Reconstructed and edited by the eminent Bach scholar Michael Marissen.

Why another edition?
There are already several good published editions of Bach’s sonata. The “selling-point” of this new edition is that it offers, for the first time, a historically informed reconstruction of the
40 percent of the first movement that is now missing in the autograph manuscript.

An exaggerated claim?
Many editors and performers have provided satisfying musical material to fill the gap in Bach’s score, and often they have specifically referred to their results as a “reconstruction.” But all these editions offer only completions. None truly brings an appropriate “reconstruction” or restoration of what Bach’s original material could have been. This edition does so as far as is now possible, using ALL the clues in the manuscript for the first time.

So: play Bach’s masterpiece in an edition as close as possible to his original score....

Available as a pdf from https://instantharmony.net/product/bach-sonata-in-a-major-for-flute-and-obbligato-harpsichord-bwv-1032/

A “NEW” WORK FOR RECORDER BY JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH!

Can this really be true? A new work for recorder by J. S. Bach?

Yes, in a sense. The eminent Bach scholar (and recorder player) Professor Michael Marissen has reconstructed the original version of Bach’s famous Sonata for Flute and Obbligato Harpsichord in A major, BWV 1032. And what was the original version?

A Trio Sonata for Alto Recorder, Violin, and Basso continuo in C major.

In the process, Michael has uncovered many earlier readings of the music throughout that are reflected in the edition. He has also completed the first movement, which is partly missing in the autograph manuscript of the flute sonata, based on Bach’s style and clues in the manuscript.

Recorder players can now “own” this beautiful music, about 300 years after it was written. A splendid addition to the recorder’s Baroque repertoire!

The earlier readings and the reconstruction should also be of interest to traverso and flute players.

FIVE OF DAVID LASOCKI’S CLASSIC ZEN-ON EDITIONS NOW AVAILABLE AGAIN!

Keller was a German harpsichordist and composer who spent his working life in London, playing in concerts and for the theatre as well as writing chamber music for the Court. He also wrote an influential method for figured bass. His works were published in Amsterdam by Estienne Roger, with whom he had a close professional relationship. Keller’s trio sonatas feature skillful imitative counterpoint, interspersed with striking touches of homophony. Great fun!

FIVE OF DAVID LASOCKI’S CLASSIC ZEN-ON EDITIONS NOW AVAILABLE AGAIN!

Gottfried Keller, Trio Sonata in C major for Two Alto Recorders and Basso Continuo.

Keller was a German harpsichordist and composer who spent his working life in London, playing in concerts and for the theatre as well as writing chamber music for the Court. He also wrote an influential method for figured bass. His works were published in Amsterdam by

Estienne Roger, with whom he had a close professional relationship. Keller’s trio sonatas feature skillful imitative counterpoint, interspersed with striking touches of homophony. Great fun!

FIVE OF DAVID LASOCKI’S CLASSIC ZEN-ON EDITIONS NOW AVAILABLE AGAIN!

Francis Dieupart, Concerto in A minor for Soprano Recorder and Keyboard Reduction.

Dieupart was a French harpsichordist and composer who spent most of his working life in England, playing in concerts and for the theatre. He is best known for his harpsichord suites, which also exist in a version for recorder and basso continuo. This concerto, which survives in a manuscript from the Dresden Court, was probably the one performed by the leading recorder player John Baston in a theatre intermission in 1722. It has an unusual opening movement based on a single motive, a partially florid slow movement, and a sprightly final gigue.

FIVE OF DAVID LASOCKI’S CLASSIC ZEN-ON EDITIONS NOW AVAILABLE AGAIN!

Raphael Courteville, Sonata in C major for Alto Recorder and Basso Continuo.

Despite his French name, Courteville was an English organist and composer who published many songs and instrumental pieces between 1685 and 1705. His Sonata in C major was composed by 1695, when the recorder part appears in a tutor published by John Walsh. The work is written in an Anglicized Italian style, similar to the familiar sonatas by Gottfried Finger and Daniel Purcell from the same decade.

FIVE OF DAVID LASOCKI’S CLASSIC ZEN-ON EDITIONS NOW AVAILABLE AGAIN!

Charles Buterne, Sonata in C minor, Op. 2, No. 4, for Alto Recorder and Basso Continuo.

Buterne was a French organist and composer, the son of a Court organist, and also author of a treatise on how to learn music (1752). His Sonata in C minor, written in a mixed French–Italian style, was published around 1750 as for any of the melody instruments of his day. But it suits the alto recorder perfectly in key, range (up to high G), and spirit. A wonderful workout for amateurs and professionals alike!

A NEW BOOK FROM INSTANT HARMONY (Third Notice)
The English Waits and the Recorder in the 16th and 17th Centuries

by David Lasocki with Giulia Tettamanti

Available as a pdf from https://instantharmony.net/product/the-english-waits-and-the-recorder-in-the-sixteenth-and-seventeenth-centuries/ with a free bonus of our edition of the Phancy for Recorder Quintet by Edward Blancks (a member of the London Waits). Also available in print (without the bonus) from amazon.com, amazon.co.uk, and other amazons around the world.

The waits in England were minstrels, later called musicians, who worked for cities and towns, similar to the Stadtpfeifer on the Continent of Europe. They performed official ceremonial duties, played in the streets at night, and were available for private hire.
Waits originally played waits pipes, or shawms. During the course of the 16th and early 17th centuries the main groups also acquired most of the wind and stringed instruments of the day: cornetts and sackbuts, curtals, violins, viols, members of the lute family—and recorders. Recorders—sets or consorts or individual instruments—owned by cities and towns or the waits themselves have been be traced in documents about London (1568) and nine other places, where they were presumably used for indoor functions such as dinners, breakfasts, and weddings.
This book discusses in depth the Waits of all the cities and towns where recorders are documented: their duties, numbers, other instruments, sometimes singing and acting, hiring and firing and otherwise departing practices, pay and standard of living, occasional follies, and role in civic life. Biographies are included of all the members who played, or probably played, the recorder. Finally, there are reflections on the consorts, both pure and mixed, in which the Waits would have used recorders, and the sizes and numbers of instruments involved.
Please note: this book is an updating of portions of David’s doctoral dissertation, together with brand new material on the Waits of Lincolnshire, Oxford, and York plus the reflections on consorts

A NEW ESSAY FROM INSTANT HARMONY:

Thiemo Wind, Jean de Chezeaulx and the Early History of Paulus Potter’s “Bull” (1647)

On 27 May 1664, an Amsterdam newspaper announced that three paintings by Paulus Potter would be auctioned the following day at the tavern of a certain Jean de Chezeaulx. The largest of the three was undoubtedly Potter’s most famous painting, The Bull. The second depicted the mythological Europa on the back of Jupiter disguised as a bull, of which only the bull’s head has survived, in Dublin. The smallest was probably a panel that now hangs in Munich, Peasant Family with Livestock. In a new piece of detective work, the music and art historian Thiemo Wind attempts to answer the question: was De Chezeaulx merely providing a platform for the auction, or was he himself the earliest owner of the three Potter paintings?

Available as a pdf from https://instantharmony.net/product/wind-jean-de-chezeaulx-and-the-early-history-of-paulus-potters-bull-1647/ and in print from amazon.com and other amazons around the world.