A transformative force in historically informed performance, Ton Koopman is renowned as a conductor, harpsichordist and organist. In 1979, aged 35, he founded the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra in the city where he had studied with the great Dutch harpsichordist Gustav Leonhardt. Drawing on an international pool of players, the ensemble soon gained a reputation for flexibility, colour and expressivity as it explored the music of such composers as the Bach family, Handel, Telemann and Buxtehude.

Both C.P.E. Bach and Franz Benda were composers who enjoyed the favour of the court of Frederick the Great and who developed a highly individual and lasting style of music in the monarch's service. Though ‘Old Fritz’ demanded works in the pleasing galant style for his almost daily music sessions from his court musicians, Franz Benda succeeded in humouring the king without stooping to compromise quality. His three concertos for flute seem to have been tailor-made for Frederick II; in the galant style, yet full of sensitivity and profound emotion.

This is a reissue of a disc originally released in the 1990s, performed on period instruments. The difference in pitch with modern instrument recordings is notable and gives a darker feeling to the sound than the brightness one has become accustomed to with the modern flute. In this recording, Konrad Hünteler uses an instrument made by Jacob Denner, which was approximately ten years old when these works were composed. The recording is made using only the natural acoustics of the space with no added technological trickery, and as such, it serves to provide an interesting example of what this music may have sounded like at the time Vivaldi composed it.

…The Camerata - an offshoot of Bruggen's Orchestra of the 18th Century - use only a single instrument to a part…the characterful immediacy of the individual playing translates into a corporate band capable of superb buoyancy and vigour. Flautist Konrad Hunteler directs with a twinkling eye rather than a dictatorial stick…The music's charm lies in a complex amalgam of innocence and sophistication which Hunteler judges to perfection…

Bei Dabringhaus und Grimm kamen jetzt auch die Flötenquartette von Mozart heraus, und zwar in einer Aufnahme, die der historischen Aufführungspraxis folgt. Konrad Hünteler hat sich mit dem Geiger Rainer Kußmaul, dem Bratschisten Jürgen Kußmaul und dem Cellisten Roel Dieltiens zusammengesetzt, und da spitzt man die Ohren. Denn erst vor einigen Wochen hat Emanuel Pahud, der Soloflötist der Berliner Philharmoniker, eben diese Quartette in einer phänomenalen Neueinspielung vorgelegt. Diesmal sitzt also sein einstiger Konzertmeister Rainer Kußmaul sozusagen im anderen Boot, und tatsächlich wird diese Aufnahme in ganz anderer Weise von der Violine geprägt als die Pahud-CD.