In their instrumental music Italian composers of Alessandro Scarlatti’s time concentrated almost exclusively on the violin, which they saw as the only instrument capable of competing with the expressivity of the human voice; other instruments such as the transverse flute received short shrift. Outstanding flautists appear not to have existed in Italy at that time. Scarlatti is known to have met Quantz, but Burney reported that Scarlatti had told him: ‘I hate wind instruments, they are never in tune’! Why then did Scarlatti write these flute sonatas in the last years of his life, when he concentrated his efforts on instrumental music? The question remains unanswered. There is no evidence that he did so as a result of his meeting with Quantz.
The sonatas survive only in an anthology of 32 works, none of which is an autograph, arranged in six partbooks and presumably compiled in response to a commission – from whom and for what purpose, we do not know. The seven sonatas are in da chiesa form in their avoidance of dance-titled movements, though not always in the number of movements (two have five), and in a few movements dance rhythms hide behind sober titles. Scarlatti’s gravestone bears the inscription: ‘distinguished in moderation … the greatest innovator in music’. In the flute sonatas innovation is certainly in moderation but there is much civilised pleasure to be had, and in an ensemble in which all minds are as one there is nothing to support Scarlatti’s reported criticism of wind instruments. These are delightfully intimate and excellently recorded performances.'