Classical
Baroque
Classical
Romantic
20th century
21st century
Solo repertoire
Piccolo
Alto flute
Bass flute
Grétry André Ernest Modeste
Beethoven, Ludwig van
Cambini, Giovanni Giuseppe
Campagnoli, Bartolomeo
Devienne, François
Gluck, Christoph Willibald
Gossec, Francois-Joseph
Graf, Friedrich Hartmann
Grétry, André Ernest Modeste
Hartmann, Johan Peter
Haydn, Franz Joseph
Haydn, Johann Michael
Hoffmeister, Franz Anton
Hugot, Antoine
Hummel, Johann Nepomuk
Jadin, Louis-Emmanuel
Lebrun, Ludwig August
Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus
Müller, August Eberhard
Nicolai, Johann Gottlieb
Piccinni, Niccolò
Pleyel, Ignace Joseph
Rault, Felix
Reicha, Josef
Romberg, Bernhard
Rosetti, Francesco Antonio
Schwindel, Friedrich
Stamitz, Anton
Stamitz, Carl Philipp
Wagenseil, Georg Christoph
Wendling, Johann Baptist
Wunderlich, Johann Georg
Concerto for flute, two horns and string orchestra in C Major
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.
Orchestre De Chambre De Paris, 1950, Decca
1. Allegro, 2. Larghetto, 3. Allegro
Grétry André Ernest Modeste
André Grétry (1741–1813) was a Belgian-French composer of the Classical era, celebrated as the "Molière of Music." He was the leading figure in the development of opéra comique, famous for his gift for melody and his ability to match music to the natural inflections of the human voice.
Born in Liège (then part of the Holy Roman Empire, now Belgium), Grétry was the son of a poor violinist. His early musical education was rigorous but difficult; he served as a choirboy at the Collegiate Church of Saint-Denis, where he suffered under a notoriously harsh choir master. In his teens, Grétry was inspired by a visiting Italian opera company. This experience prompted him to move to Rome in 1761, where he studied for five years at the Collège de Liège. During this time, he immersed himself in the Italian style of Pergolesi and Galuppi, which influenced his later focus on clear, expressive melody. After a brief stay in Geneva (where he met Voltaire), Grétry arrived in Paris in 1767. Despite early struggles, he soon gained the favor of the French court and the public, becoming the most popular operatic composer in France by the 1770s.
Grétry’s primary contribution was his ability to bridge the gap between spoken dialogue and song. His works were praised for their psychological depth and accessibility. His most famous opera, Richard Cœur-de-lion (1784), contains the famous aria "O Richard, ô mon roi," which became a royalist anthem during the French Revolution.
While primarily an opera composer, Grétry’s melodic style was highly idiomatic for the flute, noted for its "lightness, elegance, and wit," characteristics that defined the French Classical style.
Grétry wrote almost 50 operas, combining Italian comic opera (opera buffa) and French lyric tragedy (tragedie lyrique) styles, creating a popular synthesis. In 1789, he published his "Essays on Music", and in 1802: "On Truth, or What We Were, What We are, What We Ought To Be", providing valuable reading for those who want to know what happened in Europe at transition from the Classical to the Romantic periods.