I wrote this set of sonatas in 2009 as a collection for baroque flute and fully written–out harpsichord in my usual late–baroque, galant–inflected style. Since the sound and associations of the baroque end–blown and side–blown flutes are similar, I considered that they would work well also as sonatas for treble recorder and harpsichord with the necessary transpositions and minor adjustments. The conversion was carried out in 2011. I am satisfied with the result from a purely musical point of view, even though there is arguably a slight «dissonance» between the mid–eighteenth–century sound (sometimes verging on the Classical) of the sonatas and the actual history of the baroque recorder, which, while it may not have been «replaced» by the transverse flute as quickly and uniformly as popularly supposed, was little in evidence by 1750.
Michael Talbot