Duetto Notturno

Filippo Ruge (Ruge, Rugge, Ruggi, Ruggia, Rugi, Rouge) lived from around 1725 to after 1767. His origin is uncertain. The cash on delivery suggests a German descent, which is not proven. The suffix Ruge Romano, which sometimes appears in the prints of his works, may indicate that Ruge was of Roman origin and spent the first part of his life there. Nothing is known about his training, but he was probably not unknown in Rome as a flautist, which is proven by his membership in the Congregazione Santa Cecilia since 1744.

Between 1751 and 1754 he published five collections of chamber music for the first time with Walsh in London. Ruge may have stayed in London during this time before settling in Paris with his wife in 1753. The Paris press mentions Ruge for the first time in March 1753 on the occasion of a public appearance at the Concert Spirituel: "M. Rouge, Romain, a joué un Concerto de flute de sa composition” (Affiches de Province). In his apartment in Paris, Rue Plâtriere, he worked as a composer and teacher of the Italian style and together with his wife, a well-known singer, he organized house concerts there. Due to the possession of a large library of Italian compositions, with which he supplied not only his own but also the concert series at La Pouplinière (1754) and his preference for the Italian style, combined with Mannheim influences and the French descriptive style, he ended up in Paris in the middle of the Buffonist dispute. In 1755 Ruge's first French works were published and in 1756 his larger instrumental work "Sei sinfonie a quattro con corni ad lib" followed.

After 1761 Ruge no longer lived in Paris. A collection of 400 instrumental and vocal works (between 1750 and 1767) from the Château de Seignelay with about 40 compositions by Ruge and a catalog with Ruge's handwritten entries suggest that Ruge was in the service of the Marquis de Seignelay between 1757 and 1761 and lived in his castle. Ruge's last known work was printed in 1767. comment The "Duetto Notturno" was originally written for two transverse flutes and was transposed up a minor third to make it suitable for two recorders. In the first movement "Adagio staccato" the rests were added in bar 1/2 and bar 26/27, and in bar 85 the third crotchet voice in the second part d'' was corrected to c''. Broken slurs are the editor's addition.

Munster, March 2005

Heida Vissing