Concerto in C major for piccolo and orchestra, RV 443 (Arr. for piccolo and flute choir)

This Concerto in C major for piccolo and orchestra, RV 443, by Antonio Vivaldi, needs little comment, one of the author’s three concertos for this instrument and well known to all flutists.

At the end of the 1980s, I was part of the newly created Orquesta de Flautas de Madrid (Madrid Flute Orchestra), one of the first groups of its kind in Spain, founded and directed by Salvador Espasa. It was not easy, at least here, to find repertoire for this group, so we had to look for it through different means abroad while some of the members of the Orchestra began to make arrangements and transcriptions, at the same time that some Spanish composers were commissioned to compose new works that we premiered in various concerts. At that time, I dedicated a lot of time to the study of the piccolo, and this concert, of course, was one of the works with which I enjoyed this instrument. For this reason, it was the first work that I decided to adapt for our flute choir. At first, as the availability of low-register instruments was very limited, I chose to use a cello to interpret the original voice of the bass. Fortunately, new instruments of the family have been appearing and have allowed to extend the range of the ensemble towards the low register, such as the contrabass and sub-contrabass flutes.

This edition consists of a solo piccolo, three flute voices in C, alto flutes in G, and bass flutes, to which has been added, optionally, the contrabass flute, already present in current flute orchestras.

Ángel Luis Rodríguez