The fifth edition of Il Centro della Musica, an event promoted by the Fondazione Teatro Donizetti in collaboration with the Assessorato alle Politiche Sociali del Comune di Bergamo, is drawing to a close, not before offering two more appointments, the first of which will take place on Saturday, July 4, in the Ridotto “Gavazzeni” of the Teatro Donizetti (5 p.m.), starring Ensemble Locatelli. On the occasion, the Bergamo-based baroque music ensemble conducted by Thomas Chigioni will host the Dutch flutist Teun Wisse, a virtuoso of the recorder, an instrument that will be the main theme of the same concert, entitled Flautissimo.

In a program devoted to recorder concertos, the name of Antonio Vivaldi is an inescapable reference: the author of an impressive number of concertos, far beyond the famous Four Seasons, Vivaldi shaped a language that profoundly marked eighteenth-century Europe. Vivaldi’s “La Notte” recorder concerto in G minor RV 439 and recorder concerto in C minor RV 441 will be heard.

In addition to the “Red Priest,” composers such as Georg Philipp Telemann, Johann Friedrich Fasch and Giovanni Battista Sammartini were able to offer original and refined interpretations of the concerto form, in an extraordinary variety of styles and formal solutions. It is perhaps surprising that it is precisely the recorder, often considered an instrument with a limited repertoire, that has been the vehicle for such a rich and international production, capable of reflecting diverse national identities and at the same time an authentically European spirit, even verging on the galante style. Ensemble Locatelli’s concert thus aims to highlight, together, the concerto as a musical form and the recorder as a solo instrument, revealing its expressive breadth and vitality. Also central to the project is the theme of cultural exchange between Italy and the Netherlands: many of Vivaldi’s works were published in Amsterdam in the early eighteenth century by the famous publisher Estienne Roger, spreading rapidly throughout Europe and profoundly influencing the musical taste of the time. More than three hundred years later, this ideal dialogue is renewed in the encounter between flutist Teun Wisse and Ensemble Locatelli, an artistic partnership born from a shared passion for this repertoire and matured through concerts in several European countries, culminating in a program designed to celebrate Vivaldi and the immediate and communicative pleasure of a music that, then as now, lives on energy, exchange and shared joy.