Sopranino recorder

In his Syntagma Musicum (1619), Michael Praetorius describes this size of recorder, only a whole tone higher, with G5 as its lowest pitch.

According to Praetorius, it is the smallest of eight sizes of recorder in a complete "Accort oder Stimmwerk" (set of all voices), and sounds a quintadecima (a fifteenth—that is, two octaves) higher than a cornett.

However, Praetorius recommends restricting recorder ensembles to the five deepest sizes, because "die kleinen gar zu starck und laut schreien"—"the small ones scream so".

[2][3] The sopranino in G is most probably the instrument Claudio Monteverdi calls for in L'Orfeo (1607), by the name flautino alla vigesima seconda (little flute at the third octave).

[4] In 18th-century England, the sizes of recorder smaller than the treble in F (which was called simply "flute") were named according to their interval above it, and often were notated as transposing instruments.