I was born in Rome a long time ago with a strong passion for all kinds of musical expression. I begun very early playing and self-learning initially the recorder and then taking the first flute lessons. I also spent - and still spend a lot of time - playing other instruments and listening to different styles of music, which gave me the opportunity to develop an open, sensitive mindset and an ancestral feeling for rhythm, harmony and melody. Funk, Soul, Jazz, Latin, Folk and Rock are my favourite musical genres. Once I achieved the Bachelor degree, after a thorough academic and professional development as a modern flute player, I started working for different groups, orchestras and theaters in Italy, ranging from classical to jazz, from folk to stage music. At the same time I felt a deep elective affinity with the so called "performance practice" or HIP and after completing my modern studies I decided to fully devote myself to learning period flutes (mostly from the baroque, classical and early romantic eras) and to different researches aiming to bring forgotten works by neglected composers back into the limelight, thus trying to break into the most authentic spirit of each age and style. I studied baroque, classical and romantic flute in Frankfurt am Main at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst (HfMDK), under the guidance of Prof. Karl Kaiser, but I also participated in several masterclasses held by some of the greatest early music players.
I won the first prize at the 8th International Telemann-Competition in 2015 and many other awards with different ensembles at numerous international chamber music competitions. I also collaborate with many ensembles and orchestras playing concerts and recording music. I am founder and director of La Tabatière "un petit orchestre historique".
I love chess and playing cards and I believe that - in music as well as in life - Tempo does not exist.
This is not the reason why I am always late though.

Lorenzo's website

The first thing you do when you pick up your traverso to start the practice day, and why?

Usually, after intimately praying to the gods of the flute that the day will be—physically and mentally—a “good” day, there’s a little thing I do almost unconsciously even as I’m putting the flute pieces together and checking that they’re in the right position. 
It consists of doing a sort of micro-stretching for the lips, cheeks, and tongue, vocalizing a silent “rrrr” sound produced by pronouncing a long “R” while the lips are already in playing position and the cheeks are completely relaxed. It helps me gently activate my muscles; I feel myself toning up, and it’s comparable to stretching before a run.
Immediately afterward, I play the first notes, imagining the most beautiful and stable sound possible even before producing them: D and G of the second octave. Then I start moving between the high and low registers, perhaps coming up with a few more or less idiomatic “licks,” arpeggios, scales, and small ornamental cadences - slow or fast - but always paying the utmost attention to intonation and tone quality. Right after that I begin improvising or reading something - whatever comes to mind at that moment, whether it’s a piece I’m learning or practicing at the time, some other piece that comes to my mind at that moment and make me curious, or a melody I’ve just heard. This whole process helps me gauge whether the gods of the flute have been merciful that day, granting my wish.

Any recurring piece to play every day, and why?​

Not any in particular, but there are still some pieces I love to play at the beginning of every practice session, using them as a warm-up (of the warm-up). When I practice the baroque flute, I very often turn to the Fantasies, Preludes, and Capriccios by Quantz (or Blochwitz or Braun, if you prefer), or sometimes to Telemann’s Fantasies. I find these pieces to be very heterogeneous and allow me to choose what kind of technical challenge to tackle that day.
At the start of a session, I like to play them fairly slowly, holding a sustained note as a pedal or drone in the background (generated by a tuning device, usually the fifth degree of the key), once again focusing on intonation - trying to always catch the “third sound” generated each time depending on the passages being played – on the clarity of the articulation as well as on finger-tongue coordination.
The process is the same even when I’m practicing with the classical or romantic keyed flute: in this case, my go-to are the études by Drouet, Köhler, or, if I’m feeling adventurous, Andersen.  

Do you have a daily routine?​

I wouldn’t say I have a real daily routine, since I’m basically pretty lazy by nature. However, I do have a very precise - at times rigid - structure for how an ideal workout session should unfold.
Unfortunately, due to time constraints and other reasons, it has become very difficult in recent years to put it into practice every day. So, I still find myself selecting and completing one or more parts of this routine depending on the time I have available and what I need to work on most at that moment.

What kind of goals do you set for your practice?​

The goal is always to achieve the deepest possible connection with the instrument, which means: powerful and clean tone, flexibility, precise articulation and clear enunciation.

Do you do any systematic warm-up?

I very rarely start playing music without first warming up for at least half an hour. It’s a very personal thing, but I really do think I belong to that category of people who need time before they’re ready for something—perhaps it’s just a mindset.
In any case, starting from the idea that the essence of the flute lies in sound and breath, more than in anything else, what I simply cannot skip before playing—whether I have a whole day of practice available or, indeed, just half an hour or less—are exercises on long notes and slurred intervals, drawn mostly from Marcel Moyse’s fundamental Sonorité method and adapted or translated in a way that is functional for the single-keyed conical instrument.
Variable intervals on a fixed reference note, or ascending and descending chromatic scales, played as legato as possible in groups of 2 or 3 notes, moving through every register, with wide dynamic contrasts and excursions and a slow, generous pace (typically 60 bpm), checking the intonation of each sound that day with the help of a tuner.
Doing this type of exercise is the minimum requirement for me to feel confident and calm. It is a sort of spiritual practice, if you will.​

Do you have a specific structure for warm-up and practice sessions?​

As I mentioned, I have a clear idea of what a practice session should look like in the rare event that one has several hours of quiet time available.
The first part is exactly as described above: if I have time, I like to devote at least an hour to Sonorité exercises, exploring different aspects and forms, perhaps alternating with reading a few impromptu pieces, as a mental break, since these exercises, if done with dedication and diligence, can require a lot of energy.
Once I’m done with the “body” of the sound, I move on to its “definition”—the contour of the sound: I practice tongue articulation exercises, focusing on single strokes (with particular attention to the flute’s lowest register). The goal is to be able to play any note on the flute, including the low D, as briefly as possible without losing definition or dynamic range in the sound.
Next, I move on to fast articulations, practicing double and triple tonguing, trying to increase the tempo as much as possible.
The third phase of this practice plan focuses on finger technique. Alongside the classic exercises drawn from various methods and treatises – ranging from Friedrich the Great’s Flötenbuch to Taffanel & Gaubert’s 17 Grands exercices journaliers de mécanisme (the latter, in addition to offering compelling challenges for the single-key flute, is also one of the most useful methods for the healthy development of finger technique) – or “stolen” from different teachers I’ve been fortunate enough to meet in my life – I combine my own very personal “Etude of All Trills with Resolution”, a rather grand-sounding name that simply refers to a sequence of whole-tone and semitone trills on each note, resolving by a semitone or whole tone to the next note, whether higher or lower. I try to perform the entire range of trills at a tempo of 120 to 140 BPM, repeating each trill several times until it is precise, sometimes separating the actual trill from the resolution: in my experience, this is the exercise (also suggested by Quantz) that always benefits me most in terms of muscular and finger agility and readiness!
It is only in the fourth phase of the routine that I begin to practice the pieces I want or need to work on. This could lead to a vast discussion concerning how and why. But for now, I would simply like to point out that the dedication applied to the first three phases of the routine will “magically” open all doors (or almost all!), so that, once you reach phase four, you can focus purely on the musical-rhetorical, historical, and expressive aspects.

Any distinctive characteristics of baroque flute daily practice vs. modern flute or other instruments?​

The Baroque instrument is in some ways extremely different from the modern one, but from a physical point of view, the way sound is produced is exactly the same. I therefore believe that the fundamentals of modern flute technique can be “translated” in a convincing way to the historical instrument.
I would like to imagine that in the future, everyone will consider the baroque instrument worthy of the same level of technical dedication that conservatories currently devote to the modern flute, since I believe that this was exactly the case in the 18th century. Tone exercises, long notes, articulation, arpeggios, major and minor scales in ALL keys, etudes.

What are the key elements and unmissable points of daily practice?​

We’ve already discussed the key elements, and as for the goals: flexibility, responsiveness... and the joy of being able to listen to ourselves.

How long and distributed should warm-up and practice be?

I tend not to draw a clear line between the two—you may have noticed that my ideal practice session tends to consist almost entirely of “warm-up,” if we use this terminology. In fact, I believe that exercises focused on tone or finger technique cannot be defined as “warm-ups” if they are approached with the right musicality, seeing in them the building blocks that will make up the piece we are meant to “learn” and perform.
As for the in-depth study of a piece, be it a sonata, a suite, a concerto, or an orchestral part: if by “practice” we mean the stylistic and historical contextualization and the musical and spiritual internalization of a piece, I think this should be done mostly together with others, as I believe that the essence of Baroque music lies entirely in the interaction of the voices and their mutual influence on one another.

Any  specific tip to address difficult technical passages during daily practice?

Whenever there is something that breaks the continuity of a passage (usually technical, fast passages—what one might call virtuosic), I particularly like to use an approach I would call “punctuation” or “divide et impera”.
It is very difficult, especially in Baroque music, to find long passages in which all the notes have the same importance or the same role: highlighting certain notes or assigning different roles to groups of notes within the same line helps break the passage into several parts—like placing commas within a sentence—and find the right timing, even at high speeds, to mentally focus on those elements that can normally hinder fluidity. The rhetorical structure of the phrase is also of fundamental importance when tackling complicated runs (after all, an allegro is nothing more than an adagio played fast).

Are there any tools that are particularly useful for practicing?

In my experience, I use the metronome and tuner a lot—the latter especially to hold reference notes fixed and refine my ear, depending on the role of the note being played within the harmony at that moment. I don’t think I’m the only one...
As for using the metronome, in addition to the more traditional approaches, I’d like to mention a swingier approach I picked up from learning jazz guitar, which I find useful whenever I want to get a good feel for a dance: let the metronome mark the off-beats of the measure, as if it were the drummer’s snare drum, and try to find an internal “groove” within the piece that flows continuously.

Any other general advice, suggestion, tip?

As a general rule: sight-read a lot of music, and in doing so, try to explore composers from every genre and background—especially those who are little known—not only to practice but also to internalize the different styles of various periods, cultivating an investigative approach  alongside the highest level of creativity.

How do you advise your students as far as structuring their daily practice?

First and foremost, I try to instil in them a sense of enthusiasm for practicing technique—any technique—by approaching it both musically and as if it were an athletic challenge to push their own limits.
After that, I might suggest dividing up their practice time the way I usually do, but I believe everyone is different and has a responsibility to experiment in order to find their own personal approach.
So, I simply try to spark curiosity about certain aspects of playing the traverso and how, by tackling them head-on from a technical perspective while studying technique, one can then unlock the full range of possibilities available when performing a piece from the repertoire.

Do you suggest or teach a warm-up routine?

I will certainly never tire of emphasizing the importance of breath and sound in the traverso, so the only real advice I can offer is to commit to dedicating the first part of your daily practice session to long notes, legato, vocalization, diminuendo, and practicing different types of staccato.
This helps you develop the right feel for the instrument, after which you can move on to studying finger movements. But I repeat: this is a personal approach from which I feel I benefit greatly. However, everyone has a duty to find and follow their own path in this ocean of possibilities.

Are there any specific pieces particularly beneficial to be played regularly in daily practice?​

As I mentioned earlier, Quantz's Capriccios and Telemann's Fantasies for Solo Flute are the pieces I turn to almost every day because of their wide range of technical and stylistic challenges.
Engaging with Telemann’s Fantasies, in particular, offers a virtually universal introduction to the instrument and the musical practices of the 18th century: in each of them, one can find the most diverse forms and styles, ranging from movements of the French Overture to cantabile arias in the Italian style, from dances in every style (French, Italian, folk, and Polish-Hanakian), to preludes in the toccata style, all the way to fugues and movements in a more severe and contrapuntal style. They therefore represent the best way to experiment actively yet “portably” with all the typical forms of the Baroque, internalizing their essence and understanding their origins.
All of this can also be found in the same composer’s Sonate Metodiche, which are also very useful for gaining experience in ornamentation and improvisation.
I often like to test myself with Bach’s Sonatas, to know where I am and where I'm going on that particular day and at that moment.
But I would also recommend reading and playing a lot of French music every day, seeking to broaden their technical and expressive repertoire, given that, especially for us Italians, that dialectic and that kind of expressiveness, together with the distinctive way of embellishing phrases and cadences, remain among the most “exotic” yet at the same time exciting and inspiring elements we could ever come across: Hotteterre’s Suites, his Airs et Brunettes and the Concerts Royaux by Couperin are other musical pages that I constantly return to.​

---

^ UP