Robert Woodcock was not a professional musician. He was a painter and ships were his favourite subjects: many of those are now displayed in National Maritime Museum in Greenwich and testify to his skills. He did not make a living out of music, yet he played the oboe and in 1727 he published a collection of twelve concertos.

In the 1720s London’s public was mesmerized by the newly-imported Italian concerto and by the virtuosity of the several wind players who performed on the English stages on different instruments. Woodcock, who scored his music for sixth-flute (a soprano recorder in D), oboe, and traverso with string accompaniment, wrote some of the music played by those virtuosi. He was a contemporary of Handel and it is not by chance that one of his pieces was for a long time attributed to Handel.

On this new CD, Ensemble Odyssee presents the complete recorder and oboe concertos by Woodcock together with some lesser-known orchestra works by Charles Dieupart and Sammartini’s celebrated Recorder Concerto in a new and fresh performance.