Event

Stolen Goods

While the recorder played a central role in music-making throughout the Renaissance and Baroque periods, the amount of repertoire explicitly specified for the instrument is surprisingly small. This is partly due to the fact that early composers and publishers rarely specified instruments in chamber music, instead writing music that could be played by any number of melodic instruments (for example, "soprano instrument" or "canto"). At the same time, however, the recorder never enjoyed a status as a virtuoso solo instrument as did the cornetto at the beginning of the Baroque or the violin by the end of the period: there is no equivalent to the Corelli Opus 5 violin sonatas for the recorder. This apparently led to a situation where the most popular instrumental and vocal pieces were freely appropriated by recorder players across Europe (for example, there is a transcription of the Corelli Opus 5 violin sonatas for the recorder). Tesserae will explore this phenomenon both historically and in contemporary times, and will be joined by stellar recorder player Inga Funk to reveal some of the most daring and successful musical heists the recorder has pulled off.