How appropriate that Vivaldi's "Spring" appeared in the spring, or more precisely, at the end of February 1988 as a foretaste of spring. And what a good idea it was of Jean-Jacques Rousseau - certainly not one of his least enlightened - to transform Vivaldi's famous violin concerto into an effective solo sonata for flute and publish it in the "Journal de Musique" of 1775!

But for whoever prefers to make bad copies of old music rather than buy a seriously edited, economical new edition, here i...