Concerto for flute, two horns and string orchestra in C Major

A.M. Grétry: Flute concerto in C Major originally was written in 1767 for the amateur flutist Willoughby Bertie, Earl of Abingdon.

Willoughby’s flute teacher was the flautist and composer Karl Gaspard Weiβ, who was a friend of Grétry. He invited Grétry to join Weiβ, radical politician John Wilkes, and Willoughby to travel to Geneva, then to Naples for the Carnival and visit Voltaire at the monastery of Grande-Chartreuse (excerpt from Grétry‘s book "Memoires, ou Essais sur la Musique" (1789). Willoughby returned to England at the end of June 1767 to get married to the daughter of Admiral Sir Peter Warren, an Irish Member of Parliament and deemed the richest commoner in the country. Soon after that Willoughby wrote Grétry who was in Paris that he is terminating his allowance in return for flute compositions, a "proposition" they entered while traveling in Rome, on the grounds that he was no longer playing the instrument.