The King's Flutes

International early music group Ensemble Phaedrus presents The King’s Flutes, an enchanting programme of music from the court of Henry VIII for renaissance flutes with lute and voice.

King Henry VIII's acquisition of no less than seventy-two transverse flutes shows that the flute held a place of some significance at his court. The Tudor monarchs employed members of the famous Italian Bassano family, one of the most beloved wind instrument-making families in Europe, for over 125 years. The instruments used by Ensemble Phaedrus in 'The King's Flutes' are copies of a traverso consort made by the Bassano family, now in the Accademia Filarmonica in Verona. The music they perform encompasses both the celebratory and the more intimate styles of music performed at the English court.