The soft and gentle tone of the renaissance recorder is particularly suited to the pieces contained in the present volume, because they were in all probability originally composed for violas (with the exception of the twelve canzonettas by Thomas Morley, which are vocal pieces). However, the greater range of some of the works means that they can be performed without difficulty only on a modern recorder. To accommodate the range of the instrument transpositions into keys amenable to the alto recorder have been made. (Fumio Kitamika)