Quantz: Flute Concertos

Johann Joachim Quantz was the most innovative performer and composer for the flute in the eighteenth century. He was also the teacher, composer and flute-maker to Frederick II, ‘The Great’, King of Prussia. Royal concerts were the principal venue for Quantz’s concertos where their constant invention and brilliance were intensified by his specially designed flutes. The A minor Concerto has only recently been retrieved from the Russian National Library in St Petersburg, whilst the G major’s cadenzas have been preserved, fully written-out, providing a valuable direct link to performance practices in Quantz’s time. Poignantly, Frederick himself completed the C minor Concerto after Quantz’s death.