Voice flute

[2] Although the rather large number of surviving eighteenth-century voice flutes suggests this may have been a common practice at that time,[9][1] there is little documentary evidence to support the idea.

[9][1] Parts intended for this instrument were also often written in transposed notation, so the player could imagine he was playing an ordinary alto in F.[1][7] Important Baroque works composed specifically for the voice flute include the first four suites (in A major, D major, E minor, and B minor) from a set of six with accompaniment of archlute and viola da gamba, published in 1701 by Francis (Charles) Dieupart,[10] a Quintet in B minor for the unusual combination of two voice flutes and two transverse flutes with continuo, attributed to one of the Loeillets in a Rostock manuscript,[11] and the two obbligato recorder parts in Bach's cantata Komm, du süße Todesstunde, BWV 161.

[13][14] A more liberal count, including instruments possibly but not certainly by Bressan puts the number of voice flutes at sixteen, out of a total of 77 surviving recorders.

In addition to the descant (soprano), treble (alto), tenor, and bass sizes of recorders (usually tuned at A = 415 Hz) he produced for the needs of the Festival low alto recorders in E♭ for Bach's cantata Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit, BWV 106, sixth flutes for concertos by Woodcock and other eighteenth-century English composers, and voice flutes.

[33][34] Music was composed specifically for the alto in D, such as Johann Nepomuk David's Variations on an Original Theme for recorder and lute, Op.

[35] A much better-known piece is the Trio from Paul Hindemith's Plöner Musiktag (1932), which originally was for one soprano in A and two altos in D, though when eventually published it was transposed (with the composer's blessing) by the editor, Walter Bergmann, for soprano in C and two altos in F.[36] The first notable avant-garde work for the tenor recorder, Makoto Shinohara's Fragmente (1968), has come to be performed by many players on the voice flute by preference.