Until about a decade ago, students enrolling for the OCA musical composition course were sent a course-book, a set of cassette tapes and an inexpensive plastic descant recorder made of bakelite. These instruments – and there were many musicians who had doubts as to whether they were in fact musical instruments – had gained notable acceptance by the 1960s and were to be found in most primary schools. Enthusiastic teachers would organize and direct recorder groups. Young players would rehearse simple unison pieces that the teacher would challenge with solid piano accompaniments, for in those days primary school teachers could still play the piano as well as the recorder. Concerts would be arranged for parents and visitors in which a healthy balance was maintained between singing and recorder playing. In the more musically ambitious schools the singing might even be in two parts, emulating the highly popular 'Kodaly method' which had already become a part of Hungary's obligatory national education curriculum.

It was however the recorder playing which was more likely to stimulate a listener's bladder! The recorder presented relatively easy dextral manipulation for small hands, and the group activities fulfilled the needs of a school-room discipline, coordinated team-work, listening, social awareness, technical skills and creativity – all progenitors of a musical education which, when carried through into secondary and higher education, was admired by the wider worlds of business and industry.

Beyond all this there was a more serious revival of the instrument on which Henry VIII was a virtuoso performer and had an extensive collection. He instruments was one quite familiar to Shakespeare (Hamlet, Act 3), and an integral part of scores by Purcell, Bach, Telemann and other composers of those times. Arnold Dolmetsch began this renewed interest in the instruments in the 1920s, and his son Carl continued a vigorous activity, interrupted only briefly by WW2, commissioning exciting pieces from a galaxy of British composers for his Wigmore Hall concerts in London during the 1950s.

Interest spread beyond the routine treble recorder to revive all the other members of the old 'recorder consort' – sopranino, treble, tenor and bass. The fingering was modified and refined and the range of the instruments expanded. Many of the technical attributes of the flute, which had been an able substitute in the rediscovery of Baroque music during the 19th century, were incorporated into the technique.

Needless to say, new virtuosi have appeared, like Michala Petri in Denmark and the Dutchman Frans Bruggen for whom Luciano Berio wrote new pieces. Jill Kemp has recently recorded a recital of English recorder music for Music & Media, and to prove it is no longer only a musical vehicle for the classroom, I have just completed a new Quintet for recorder and strings for John Turner, another distinguished performer. His 70th birthday will be celebrated next month at the Alwyn Festival in Suffolk with a recital of some of the pieces he has commissioned over a long career, including music by the late composer-author Anthony Burgess. The recorder is very much alive, and still needs composers to challenge its potential.