The catalogue of the composer and violin virtuoso G.B. Viotti is quite large and includes, in addition to his original works, a considerable number of transcriptions and adaptations made by contemporary musicians. Among the instruments for which these arrangements were made, the flute takes a place of honour, with numerous chamber and symphonic works.

Particularly significant are three violin concertos adapted to this instrument by the virtuosos Caspar Fürstenau (No. 16), François Devienne (No. 23). We can reconstruct the editorial history, the relationship between Viotti and the transcribers and the motives that led to the arrangements, the dedicatees, and the performances.

 

The Violin Concerto No. 16, in E minor, probably appeared between 1789 and 1790, and was immediately a success. Mozart was impressed by it to the point that he composed parts for timpani and trumpets for its first and last movements, numbered in his catalogue as K470a. Also the Violin Concerto No. 23, in G major, likely performed at London’s Hanover Square Rooms during the 1793-94 season, was a resounding success ever since its first edition (1804), and it was transcribed by Dussek for the piano.

Devienne’s arrangement was probably published in 1804, once again by André, but Devienne must have completed it before 1800, for the mental illness that in May 1803 would lead him to enter Charenton, the Parisian nursing home for the mentally ill where he would die on September 5th, had already showed its first signs in 1799.

 

Both flautists were esteemed and renowned: Fürstenau, master of the bishop’s chapel in Münster and a pupil of Josef Antoni, was also a member of the Oldenburg court chapel from 1794 to its dissolution in 1811. He was moreover active as a virtuoso flautist and bassoonist with his son Anton Bernhard, with whom he performed in the most important European cities, such as Berlin, Frankfurt, Munich, Vienna, Copenhagen and Prague. Like Viotti and Devienne, he was a Freemason. Devienne was a virtuoso flautist, a bassoonist and an opera composer. In Paris, he performed as a soloist at the Concert spirituel and collaborated with Viotti in Masonic institutions such as the Société Olympique and the Société de musique, which organised regular music seasons. From 1790 he began a profitable activity as a teacher at Paris’s new Conservatoire de musique, leaving his flute method as a meaningful legacy.