Скачать или смотреть Frederick the Great – Grave from Sonata in E minor

Greg Dikmans playing his sonorous “Quantz” flute.

Greg’s “Quantz” flute is a copy of an instrument by Johann Joachim Quantz c.1740 made by Philippe Allain-Dupré (Paris, 2015).

The flute is pitched at A=392 Hz (one tone below modern pitch) and has a dark, rich, vocal quality. This was Quantz’s sound ideal.

No other statesman of his time did so much to promote music at court than Frederick the Great. During his years in Ruppin and Rheinsberg as Crown Prince, Frederick had already assembled a small chamber orchestra. The cultural life at the Prussian court was to receive an entirely new significance after Frederick’s accession to the throne in Berlin in 1740. Within a short time, Berlin’s musical life began to flower thanks to the young king’s decision to construct an opera house and to engage outstanding instrumentalists, singers and conductors.

As a compensation for the demanding affairs of state, the Prussian king enjoyed playing the flute and composed above all for this instrument, in a style closely following that of his teacher Johann Joachim Quantz. Quantz called this the mixed style, one that combined the German style with the best elements of the Italian and French national styles. It can also be characterised as galant: ‘Being galant, in general’, wrote Voltaire, ‘means seeking to please’. Galant music displays aesthetic ideals such as clarity, agreeableness and naturalness.