5

Woodwinds

HERBERT MYERS

Of all the centuries in the recorded history of Western music, the seventeenth witnessed the most thoroughgoing and decisive changes in the nature of woodwind instruments. While the sixteenth century had produced some remarkable developments, resulting in the rich and varied instrumentarium of the late Renaissance, these can be viewed as essentially evolutionary in spirit; they consisted of expansions of existing families and the invention of complementary types intended to serve with them and round out the palette of instrumental colors. The developments of the mid- to late seventeenth century were, by comparison, nothing short of revolutionary, consisting of complete remodelings of a limited number of Renaissance winds—flute, recorder, shawm, and curtal—to produce radically new types that ultimately eclipsed their progenitors (not to mention their few remaining rivals, such as the cornett). The affinity between these new forms (Baroque flute, oboe, and bassoon, in particular, the recorder representing something of a special case) and our own seems clear; we recognize them more as youthful versions than as ancestors of our modern designs despite the tremendous technological gulf between them.

Unfortunately from our own point of view, those responsible for the remodelings left virtually no written record of the process. It has been left to more recent scholars to piece together the story, relying on extant instruments, iconography, and recollections of eighteenth-century writers, along with a few scattered seventeenth-century documents. It is fairly clear, of course, what changes were made; it is harder to determine when, where, by whom, and (perhaps most important of all) why. France, under the musical domination of Jean-Baptiste Lully, has long been hailed as the cradle of the new designs; more recent scholarship, however, has begun to recognize the contributions of makers from other countries. In addition, several scholars have begun to question the traditional dating of the innovations, suggesting for some a period closer to the death of Lully (1687) than to the middle of his career. (For instance, the long-accepted date of 1657 for the debut of the oboe—in Lully's Ballet de l'amour malade—has recently been shown to have been based upon some mistranslations and groundless assumptions.1 On the other hand, the developments leading to the bassoon may have started considerably earlier and involved builders from Italy, Spain, and Holland as well as France.²) Work in this area continues; while it is unlikely that a large body of documentation—written or iconographic—lies in wait, yet to be discovered, the evidence of musical sources (particularly manuscript scores and parts) has yet to be exploited to the full in solving some remaining puzzles.

Despite the subsequent importance of the remodeled woodwinds, we should not regard what came before as a mere prelude. This kind of bias would be especially inappropriate here, in a book concerned with the seventeenth century as a whole. However, the earlier forms of woodwind have been covered in considerable depth in a previous volume in this series (see relevant articles in A Performer's Guide to Renaissance Music, Jeffery Kite-Powell, ed., second ed., 2007); moreover, most of the authors contributing to that volume have allowed their definition of “Renaissance” to encompass at least part of the seventeenth century. Rather than repeating basic information, this survey will attempt to present a summary. In recounting historical developments in instrument design, it will pay particular attention to some of the causes: changes in musical aesthetics and practice. These have often been ignored by scholars researching instrument history, who have tended instead to concentrate on morphology—how many joints, how many keys, what style of ornamental turnery. In fact, an instrument is defined at least as much by its use as its shape; form follows function. Of particular importance to both use and design is the question of pitch; to Johann Joachim Quantz writing in the eighteenth century, for instance, the remodeled woodwinds owed their very existence to their adoption of low (French) pitch.³ All the winds are affected by the choice of pitch standard, of course, but for flutes and recorders there is an additional pitch-related question: when and where did their traditional Renaissance employment at four-foot pitch give way to use at eight-foot pitch? At what point did alto and tenor instruments become accepted as sopranos? This is not an easy question to answer, as we shall see.

LATE-RENAISSANCE WINDS

The Sources

We owe much of what we know about instruments of the early seventeenth century—and, indeed, about Renaissance instruments in general—to two remarkable writers, Michael Praetorius and Marin Mersenne. Each produced a comprehensive treatise on musical theory and practice: Praetorius, Syntagma Musicum (in three volumes, 1614–20⁴), and Mersenne, Harmonie universelle (1636–37⁵). The two authors are often lumped together, but despite their shared thoroughness they could hardly be more different in style and approach. Praetorius—Lutheran composer, organist, and Kapellmeister—is always the more pragmatic; Mersenne—Jesuit priest, mathematician, philosopher, and scientist—the more speculative. Praetorius's information appears to flow from his own practical experience, while Mersenne's often seems a secondhand acquisition (which he does not always understand in depth). Rare is the page in Mersenne's instrument descriptions without some inexplicable ambiguity or frustrating lack of clarity. (Not that Praetorius himself is without errors or inconsistencies, but his usually have some simple explanation.) Mersenne treats verbally of matters (such as instrument dimensions) that Praetorius entrusts to the carefully drafted plates of the Theatrum instrumentorum (the appendix to Syntagma II) to communicate; such verbal descriptions are naturally prone to error. Perhaps it should be mentioned in Mersenne's defense, however, that his text simply has more information about instruments than Praetorius's (including fingering charts and musical examples), providing more places for things to go wrong.

Perhaps an example will show how we have to second-guess Mersenne's information, taking him for what he means—or what his informants meant—rather than for what he says. In his description of the Fluste à trois trous (three-holed tabor pipe), Mersenne explains the tablature system he intends to use for fingering charts for all of the woodwinds.6 Circles (or zeros) are used here, he says, to indicate “all fingers off.” However, in the chart for Flageollet that follows,⁷ he then uses zeros not only in this way (as indicators of “all-open” notes), but also to mark the thumbhole in fingerings for overblown notes. Although he reiterates that zeros mean open holes, he also suggests (three pages later) that the thumb should actually half-hole in the upper octave!⁸ This statement is followed almost immediately by the chart for Fluste à six trous (six-holed pipe—what we might call a penny whistle), which makes sense only if zeros are allowed to have yet another meaning: a single zero can indicate overblowing on instruments without a thumbhole, in which case it signifies the first closed hole. (Were it to signify an open hole, there would be no difference between the fingering for b”—one zero—and that for c'”—six zeros.) This would also appear to be the import of zeros in his second chart for the Fluste d'Allemande (transverse flute⁹) and chart for Fifre (fife¹⁰); in any case, these fingerings work on actual instruments only if the holes marked with zeros are left closed, not open.¹¹ However, in the intervening charts for Fluste à neuf trous (recorder¹²) the zeros marking the thumb-hole in second-octave fingerings should probably be taken to indicate half-holing (or “pinching”), even though Mersenne once again mentions that they mean open holes.

Thus it appears that whoever made up the charts must have been making a distinction between a “stack” of zeros (to mean “all off”) and a single zero heading a fingering (to indicate overblowing in general—and “pinching” specifically, when there is a thumbhole); furthermore, it seems that this distinction was lost on Mersenne himself. Whatever the answer, this is just a small sample of the kind of confusion we may encounter in what purport to be simple and straightforward explanations.

Besides the differences in style between Mersenne and Praetorius are also the obvious temporal and geographic differences; when they present divergent pictures, we are often left to guess whether these reflect changes over time or different national uses. Sometimes other written sources can provide clues. Another primary source is represented by the instruments themselves, a goodly number of which survive from this period; however, they are rarely dated, and their provenance is also often in doubt. Then, too, fate has been kinder to some instruments than others, and we do not necessarily have either the best or most representative samples. We are fortunate, therefore, to have both written and physical evidence, since each is able to complement the other.

Recorders and Flutes

Praetorius begins his discussion of woodwinds with the recorder. By his time, the original set of three sizes (ones we would now call alto, tenor, and bass) had expanded considerably; he lists eight sizes: klein Flötlein or exilent in (seven-fingers) g”, discant in d”, discant in c”, alt in g', tenor in c', bassett in f, bass in B, and grossbass in F.13 Such a complete set—presumably with some duplications of certain sizes, following his earlier recommendations¹⁴—was available from Venice for about 80 Thalers, he says, and indeed those illustrated¹⁵ resemble surviving examples of Venetian manufacture. These are characterized by a plain, robust, one-piece construction, a comparatively wide bore, and a voicing that favors the low register; sizes larger than a tenor are fitted with a key (for the bottom note), which is covered by a protective barrel or “fontanelle.” The majority of surviving examples have what has been called a “choke” bore: the top end is basically cylindrical but begins to contract near the upper fingerholes and then widens out again at the bottom.¹⁶ The contraction itself is what makes the larger recorders feasible, for without it, the fingerholes have to be impractically large and finger stretches become impossible.

It is the expanding “foot” section that distinguishes this bore profile from that of the Baroque and modern recorder, whose foot-joint bore continues instead to contract. This terminal contraction is responsible for the success of the Baroque high-note fingerings, which generally do not work on Renaissance-style recorders (except on some of the smaller ones, provided they have comparatively large fingerholes; see, for instance, the modern instruments based on the late seventeenth-century “transitional” set by Hieronymus Franziskus Kynseker of Nuremberg). In fact, Praetorius mentions that the larger recorders—those with keys, it would seem from the chart of ranges¹⁷—are ordinarily limited in range to a thirteenth, while the smaller ones can generally reach a fourteenth; certain extraordinary players, however, can force another four to seven tones beyond the standard range. (Has he been reading Sylvestro Ganassi about this?)

We should note that most of the members of Praetorius's recorder set are separated by fifths, in contrast with the alternating fourths and fifths typical of later families. The exceptions come at the outer edges of the set; there is a discant in c” (in addition to the one in d”), but no alt in f”. He explains¹⁸ the reason for this alignment in fifths (typical of all the winds): a quartet can be made up of any three adjacent sizes, using two of the middle size (as alto and tenor). This works out particularly well for recorders when the music is written in the standard “low clefs” of vocal music (see the discussion of chiavette in Chapter 20, “Pitch and Transposition,” this guide). In fact, in Syntagma III¹⁹ Praetorius lists recorders among the instruments best suited to pieces in these clefs. It is when the music moves outside these restricted traditional ranges that problems arise, since four (and possibly even five) sizes must be used together, necessitating transpositions (up a second and down a fourth, in particular) to accommodate the bias of the smaller instruments toward sharps. For shawms the ideal solution, he suggests, would be for makers to build discant and alt instruments in c' and f (as alternatives to the traditional d' and g pitches); although he does not mention this idea in connection with recorders, we see it beginning to be realized in the case of the discant in c”.

Surviving instruments present a slightly more varied picture of the recorder in this period. Assuming a reference pitch of about a' = 460 (about a semitone above modern; see Chapter 20, “Pitch and Transposition,” this guide), there are a number of bass, bassett, and tenor recorders built a tone above the pitches Praetorius gives; they are thus an octave (rather than a ninth) below the corresponding tenor, alt, and discant instruments in c', g', and d”. These actually outnumber the corresponding “standard” sizes—as defined by Praetorius—in at least one museum collection (in Vienna).²⁰ Praetorius also seems unaware of two other phenomena of Renaissance recorders: the so-called extended and columnar versions. The former are instruments (primarily of bass and grossbass size) provided with lower extension keys, adding three diatonic notes below the normal bottom note; the latter are instruments built in a curious columnar shape and adorned with brass “sieves” covering the voicing windows and with other ornamental work.²¹ While extant examples of both seem to come from the sixteenth century (being associated with builders of the Rauch family of Schrattenbach and Munich²²), columnar recorders still show up in the iconography of the seventeenth. They are also significant in being some of the few Renaissance recorders built to a low pitch standard (in this case about a' = 392, a tone below modern).

In his recorder chapter, Praetorius mentions some acoustically related instruments, which need not long detain us here: Stamientienpfeiff or Schwägel (tabor pipe) and gar kleine Plockflötlein. The former came in three sizes (he illustrates two, along with their associated tabor); the latter was a tiny (three- to four-inch-long) pipe with three fingerholes and a thumbhole, which nonetheless was capable of almost a two-octave range!²³ Praetorius's next (and very short) chapter concerns Querpfeiffen (transverse flutes), under which he also includes Doltzflöten (flutes with a recorder-like tone generator, of which no examples survive) and military fifes. The consort of flutes illustrated comprises three sizes: discant in (six-fingers) a', alt-tenor in d', and bass in g. In contrast with the recorders, the pitch of the flutes is quite low—about a minor third below modern, judging by their lengths.²⁴ This pitch is near the low end of the spectrum for surviving flutes; the majority of these cluster about two centers: a' = 435 and a' = 410 (the latter about a semitone below a' = 440).25

It should be noted that Praetorius's pitch designations for both recorders and flutes are an octave higher than those given in the sixteenth century. He has the credit for first mentioning in print the aural illusion whereby flutes and recorders can appear to sound an octave below their actual pitch; thus a tenor recorder or flute is actually at discant pitch and can serve in either role. This statement has often been taken as a blanket sanction for the use of recorders and flutes at eight-foot pitch for music of that period (as well as earlier). However, other evidence (including from Praetorius himself) suggests that this eight-foot-pitch use was exceptional. For instance, in discussing instrumentation in Syntagma III, Praetorius quite clearly assumes that flutes will be playing at four-foot pitch; in fact, he reverts here to the traditional pitch notation for them (referring to d” and f” as high notes for [tenor] flute when d'” and f'”—sounding pitch—are obviously meant).²⁶ For recorders it would appear that he assumes eight-foot pitch only for the large set, which—he indicates—is effective only when playing by itself, not mixed with other instruments.²⁷

The use of both flutes and recorders at four-foot pitch remained the norm for quite some time; this is clear from the notation of seventeenth-century pieces that specify these instruments. Examples for flutes include works by Claudio Monteverdi, Johann Hermann Schein, and Heinrich Schütz;²⁸ ones for recorder include works by Antonio Bertali (1605–69), Johann Heinrich Schmelzer (his famous Sonata à 7 flauti), and Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber (his Sonata pro tabula à 10).²⁹ The Fluyten Lust-hof of Jacob van Eyck (Amsterdam, 1646), though now associated primarily with recorder, seems to be intended for either instrument; prefatory instructions bound with some copies show both. The most likely candidates are a recorder in c” and a flute in g', once again putting the notation an octave below the sounding pitch.³⁰ As late as 1677, Bartolomeo Bismantova shows the written scale of an alto recorder in (sounding) g' as beginning an octave lower, on g.³¹ This late survival of the “Renaissance” notational practice is all the more remarkable because the instrument illustrated by Bismantova is of the three-piece, Baroque format; he is, in fact, the first to document the new design.³² The first works to notate recorder and flute music consistently and unequivocally at its actual pitch seem to come from late seventeenth-century France (from the pens of Jean-Baptiste Lully and Marc-Antoine Charpentier, in particular³³) and England (under French musical influence at that time).³⁴ It is natural to look to Mersenne for the roots of this “Baroque” practice; as usual, however, his presentation leaves us with as many puzzles as answers.

Mersenne's set of recorders is—on the surface, at least—not all that different from Praetorius's. Unlike Praetorius, however, he divides them into two groups, a petit jeu and a grand jeu, which, he says, can be “tuned” (i.e., played) together, just as are the small and large stops (jeux) of the organ.³⁵ The petit jeu consists, he tells us, of three sizes, separated by fifths: dessus, taille (which also serves for the haute-contre), and basse. This information is thus in accord with standard Renaissance practice, as explained (for example) by Philibert Jambe de Fer almost a century earlier.36 Mersenne gives no specific pitches for any of his recorders; we can only assume a continuance of the traditional f, c', and g' (sounding) pitches for the instruments of the petit jeu. The problem comes when we consider their physical measurements. His length for the basse (two and three-quarters pieds, or about 893 mm) is reasonable enough, being in the neighborhood of the length of Praetorius's bassett. (Unfortunately, Mersenne fails to clarify whether his measurements are of total lengths or sounding lengths, making exact comparisons impossible.) But his taille measurement of one pied five pouces (460 mm) is far too short; it is midway between what we should expect for taille and dessus proportioned to such a basse. However, the worst is yet to come; he claims that the dessus is but eleven lignes (less than an inch!) in length. This is of course ridiculous, but even at eleven pouces (298 mm) it is too short to stand at a ninth above the basse. It is close, however, to the length of Praetorius's discant in c”, suggesting that there was (unbeknownst to Mersenne) a fourth size of recorder in the petit jeu in France—not surprising, given developments elsewhere. Confirmation of this notion is to be found in Mersenne's fingering chart for recorder. This is for an instrument in (seven-fingers) c', written pitch; no physical size is specified. However, the high-note fingerings given are those of the standard Baroque (and modern) instrument, which (as pointed out above) do not generally work on Renaissance recorders—particularly the larger ones. Thus a small instrument (and one with a “Renaissance” exterior but a “Baroque” bore, rather like that needed for van Eyck) is implied; the notation would then still be an octave below the sounding pitch. Such an instrument would be handy for playing the top part of Mersenne's musical example, which goes up to written f”—a high (though not impossible) note for his dessus in g'.

The basse of the petit jeu serves as the dessus of the grand jeu, according to Mersenne. Below this instrument are a large taille and basse, ones Praetorius would have called bass and grossbass (but, unlike his, possessing lower extensions, as described above). If the carefully rendered engraving of this set can be trusted, the seven-finger note of the taille would seem to be a fourth (and that of the basse, an octave) below the dessus of the grand jeu.³⁷ It is not at all certain that the recorders of the grand jeu were in common use in Mersenne's France. The ones he is describing, he says, were a gift from England to one of France's kings; he is rendering their key mechanism in such detail “so that our [French] builders can make some similar.”³⁸ In any case, the grand jeu as he describes it is poorly suited to performing his musical example; one needs to add a taille (tenor) from the petit jeu in order to play the top part, since the normal limit of a Renaissance basse (Praetorius's bassett) is d”.

Mersenne's information about flutes leaves even more room for interpretation. He begins by describing “one of the best flutes in the world,” providing almost enough measurements for a reconstruction. Though a few details are lacking, it is clear that (acoustically speaking) this is a Renaissance-style tenor flute with a bottom note somewhere around d'.39 For this he gives two fingering charts, one starting on g and the other on d'. One is not merely a transposition of the other, since the fingerings themselves differ significantly. The chart on g is, in fact, unique among early charts for Renaissance-style flutes, in that all the notes of the second octave are simple overblown octaves of the fundamental register; all other charts switch to overblown twelfths, beginning with the twelfth note itself. It has been suggested that behind the g-chart lurks a “proto-Baroque” flute (with some sort of tapering bore to improve the octaves);⁴⁰ while this is an intriguing idea, it is corroborated neither by Mersenne (who claims the bore is cylindrical) nor by any other evidence from that period. It seems more likely that a small flute is indicated (one in g', a tone lower than Praetorius's discant), since it is on smaller instruments that the cylindrical flute's tendency to overblow flat can better be overcome; for one thing, the holes can be made proportionately larger on a smaller flute. As we have seen, it appears that just such an instrument is the one called for as an alternative to the recorder in certain prefaces to van Eyck's Fluyten Lust-hof; although no fingerings are given in the Dutch source, the range is exactly the same as Mersenne's (nineteen notes, the traditional range of the Renaissance flute). In all of this only one thing is certain, however: the g-chart is not for a Renaissance bass flute, since the latter is incapable of a range larger than two octaves.

Mersenne's d'-chart is also unique; it is the only one to specify the actual sounding pitches of the d'-flute. This fact has led Raymond Meylan, for one, to suggest that Mersenne's musical example for flutes is meant to be played at eight-foot pitch, using a g-bass for the tenor part and an instrument from some other family for the bass.⁴¹ (Mersenne mentions that sackbut, serpent, or “some other bass” is used with flutes, since the bass flute cannot descend so low.⁴²) This is certainly the most straightforward and probable explanation, but unfortunately one other possibility cannot be ruled out: that one is expected to use the g-chart on the d'-flute, thus effecting a transposition. (In this transposition, all three upper parts can be played on d'-flutes, as had been the normal Renaissance practice.) Several objections might be raised to this notion, however, not the least of which is that it supposes that the g-chart might actually work on the d'-flute as Mersenne has described it—highly improbable, as we have seen. It seems far more likely that Mersenne obtained two charts for flute and merely assumed that both applied to the same instrument; he implies that their differences arise merely from personal differences among players.⁴³

Thus, after sorting through Mersenne's ambiguities and inconsistencies, we are left with evidence of a mixture of notational practices for recorders and flutes: petit jeu of recorders (as well as g'-flute) at four-foot pitch, grand jeu of recorders (and probably the larger flutes) at eight-foot pitch.

DEVELOPMENTS OF THE LATE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

At some as yet undetermined point after Mersenne's writing, the recorder and flute underwent the radical alterations that produced the forms we now call “Baroque.” Both were given three joints: a cylindrical head, a tapering body, and a foot (tapering on the recorder, generally cylindrical on the flute). The flute was given a closed-standing key for (a difficult half-hole fingering on the keyless Renaissance flute), and both instruments were graced with ornate exterior turnery. Along with these changes in morphology came changes in pitch, nomenclature, and intervals between sizes—changes that represented especially radical departures for the family of recorders. (It is meaningless, in fact, to speak of a “family” of flutes in this period, since most of the evidence—sparse at best—concerns one size, the one we would now call the “concert flute,” or simply “flute.”44) As mentioned above, the Renaissance habit of separating family members by fifths was given up in favor of alternating fourths and fifths (as with most modern orchestral woodwind families); the result is the “C and F” alignment of recorders with which we are still familiar. In France itself—still thought to be the origin of the new designs—the pitch standard to which recorders and flutes were now made was very low (a' = 392 to 405 or so, judging by extant examples). Such a low pitch was already quite normal for Renaissance flutes, as we have seen, but it was unusual for recorders. The change in both nominal pitch and pitch standard had a particularly drastic effect on the alto recorder,⁴⁵ now the dominant solo member of the family. The real pitch difference between an old alt in g' at high Venetian pitch (a' = 460 or so) and an alto in f' at a' = 392 is a fourth; the new instrument is actually closer in pitch to the old tenor.

The reasons for these changes (and for the parallel changes to reed instruments, to be discussed below) can probably be boiled down to one word: the violin. In France the violin family had achieved dominance over other instruments, particularly in the theater.⁴⁶ Quite obviously, it was necessary for wind instruments to match violins in range, pitch, and volume in order to play with them (or act as substitutes for them). Expressiveness as such seems not to have been as important an issue at first as it later became, since the recorder clearly had the advantage over the more dynamically flexible flute through the end of the century; the flute can be said to have come into its own only in the eighteenth. The new forms of woodwind were quickly adopted in other countries and proved to be remarkably adaptable, remaining fundamentally unaltered for more than a century—a real tribute to their designers.

It appears that in France the word flûte, unqualified, generally refers to the recorder in this period; the specific terms for the recorder are flûte douce, flûte à bec, and flûte d'Angleterre, while that for the transverse flute is flûte d'Allemagne (or flûte allemande).⁴⁷ The new French nomenclature for the members of the recorder family seems to have been derived from the part names of Lully's string band: dessus, haute-contre, taille, quinte, and basse, signifying what we would now call sopranino, soprano, alto, tenor, and bass recorders, respectively. This terminology obviously represents a real break from that of the Renaissance, in which haute-contre and taille were the same physical size in most families; it reflects the differentiation in size of the French orchestral strings. (In Lully's orchestra, the three “parts of the middle” were played on violas of three different sizes—albeit with one tuning—specializing in three different registers.) While it is only in eighteenth-century sources that we find this recorder terminology used in its entirety,48 its seventeenth-century origin is confirmed by Lully's own use of the labels taille and quinte de flûtes for alto and tenor recorders, respectively. As rational as this new terminology may be, it still leaves room for misunderstanding, since the taille recorder generally has the function of a dessus. Thus one cannot be certain, when dessus de flûte is called for (as, for instance, in Charpentier's Médée of 1694, or in the 1677 livret of Lully's Isis), whether sopranino or alto is actually meant. In any case, the use of a sopranino would be exceptional for the seventeenth century; the craze for the petites flûtes began in the eighteenth.⁴⁹

Concerning the basse, Lully himself makes a distinction between petite basse and grande basse. The former would seem to be the normal f-bass, which Lully assigns to an inner part, notated at sounding pitch. The grande basse is, however, a mystery, since no Baroque-style recorders larger than f-basses seem to have survived. The only documented type of recorder capable of playing Lully's grande basse recorder part at eight-foot pitch is an extended grossbass—Mersenne's largest; indeed, one writer has pointed to his example as the obvious candidate.⁵⁰ However, this solution ignores the difference in pitch standard between Mersenne's recorders and Lully's orchestra; a remodeled, “Baroque” version of the instrument would be required. Such a contraption would seem both clumsy and ineffectual in a theater orchestra. Perhaps the most likely solution is a c-bass (a type known to exist in the late seventeenth century, even if none survives⁵¹), adapting the part, which it shares with the continuo, to its own range. Such a c-bass, sounding at pitch, would also seem to be called for in certain works of Charpentier (who in other instances requires an f-bass, sounding an octave higher than notated).⁵²

These appearances of bass recorders are, in any event, exceptional; by far the most usual use of flûtes in French theater of the period is to play the paired dessus parts of a trio texture.⁵³ Whole consorts of recorders belong in the category of the-atrical “special effects.” Recorders had long had this role in English drama, having been associated with scenes of love, death, and supernatural visitations, as well as with pastoral subjects.⁵⁴ This role seems to have survived the Interregnum; it was apparently a recorder consort in a performance of Philip Massinger's play The Virgin Martyr that so affected Samuel Pepys in 1667/68 that he was moved to purchase a recorder, “the sound of it being, of all sounds in the world, most pleasing to me.”⁵⁵ Previously Pepys and his wife had been devotees of the flageolet—the first of the French woodwind to have been adopted by the English. The flageolet is in many ways the perfect amateur wind: small and easily carried, it has but six fingerholes, which are regulated by the most easily controlled digits (thumb and first two fingers) of each hand.⁵⁶ Though it came in more than one size, its principal seventeenth-century employment seems to have been as a solo instrument.⁵⁷ To be sure, it is with a repertory intended for amateurs (the “lessons”—i.e., tunes—contained in Thomas Greeting's The Pleasant Companion⁵⁸) that the instrument is now associated. However, in the seventeenth century it led a professional life, as well. John Banister (along with Greeting, a member of the royal violin band) was a noted exponent, his specialties having been the playing of the flageolet to the accompaniment of a thoroughbass and “in consort” (that is, mixed with other instruments).59 In France, too, the flageolet was not thought unworthy of a professional player; for instance, the ravishing flageolet playing of “Osteterre” (presumably Jean Hotteterre, grandfather of Jacques Hotteterre le Romain) is included in a short list of the musical marvels of the era in the Mémoires of the Abbé Michel de Marolles, 1656.⁶⁰

Also surviving the Interregnum in England was the name “recorder,” even though the new form of the instrument was greeted by some as a newcomer and not as part of a continuing tradition. For instance, John Hudgebut, in his preface to A Vade Mecum (the first tutor for the Baroque-style recorder, published in 1679), says, “though the Flagilet like Esau hath got the start, as being of a more Antient Standing, The Rechorder like Jakob hath got the Birthright.” Soon the name “recorder” begins to disappear, being replaced by flute douce, flute a bec, or simply “flute”—the name it would carry through most of the eighteenth century.⁶¹ Thus, in the few years between the working careers of Matthew Locke (one of the last, it would appear, to use the Renaissance-style flute consort⁶²) and Purcell, the word “flute” had taken on an entirely new meaning. It is quite certain that for Purcell, “flute” meant recorder; he did not know (or in any case employ) the transverse flute at all.⁶³ In its limited seventeenth-century appearance in England (notably—perhaps exclusively—in James Talbot's notes on instruments, ca. 1695), the latter is called by its French name flute d'Allemagne, suggesting that it was not quite yet a naturalized citizen.⁶⁴

Concerning the introduction of the new flute and recorder into other countries, we know considerably less, particularly since there is no dedicated seventeenth-century repertory of the sort we have from England. For Germany, at least, surviving instruments can provide some clues. The recorder seems to have experienced a development in Germany paralleling that in France, as shown by the set, mentioned above, by Kynseker of Nuremberg.⁶⁵ These recorders, which predate the adoption of the French designs, are superficially closer in style to Renaissance than Baroque models. However, we should not be misled by their comparatively plain exterior. Besides their obvious jointed construction, they exhibit two other Baroque innovations: contracting bottom bore and separation of sizes by alternating fifths and fourths.⁶⁶ (This set has often been said to be in “G and D,” but it seems more likely to have been considered as being in “C and F” at a high version of Chorton—about a' = 477—at the time.) We should not be too surprised at these innovations having taken place in Germany; it was, after all, a German—Praetorius—who first suggested in print both the building of recorders with jointed construction⁶⁷ and the “C-and-F” alignment of woodwind families.⁶⁸

It is the next generation of German builders—Johann Christoph Denner and his colleagues Johann Schell, Nikolaus Staub, and Johann Benedikt Gahn—whose instruments first show the direct influence of the new French designs; these were presumably introduced by French oboists in about 1680, as they had been to England a few years earlier.69 In England, however, the older-style woodwinds had all but died out, except in certain circles; in Germany there was still a thriving tradition of wind music, which survived the incursion of French orchestral winds and their associated practices and continued to coexist with them for a long time. The indigenous tradition is shown, for instance, in the Grundrichtiger Unterricht der musikalischen Kunst (Ulm, 1697)⁷⁰ of Daniel Speer, who represents the recorder by a chart⁷¹ for the soprano in c” (Quartflöte) rather than the f'-alto that had become the standard in French practice. We see these coexisting musical fashions reflected in the recorders of Denner and his circle; not only are there among them a few of “Renaissance” or “transitional” type, but those of the new French pattern are built to high German pitch standards (Chorton) as well as to low French ones. Significantly, no transverse flutes survive from these seventeenth-century makers; the first German ones we know about come from the workshop of Jakob Denner, J. C. Denner's son.

Of the same generation as J. C. Denner was Richard Haka, who was born in London but spent his working life (from about 1660 until his death) in Amsterdam. An interesting three-piece Baroque flute by Haka has recently come to light; because of its obviously early date and backward-looking outward form,⁷² the question of possible Dutch leadership (or at least participation) in the development of the Baroque flute has been raised.⁷³ Pure speculation at this point, this idea deserves further research. Similarly, Italian leadership (or perhaps primacy) in the development of the Baroque recorder has been suggested on the basis of Bismantova's primacy in illustrating the new design.⁷⁴ However, there is no independent corroboration of this notion; the first indigenous Italian recorders of Baroque design that survive date from the next century. Moreover, 1677 (the date of Bismantova's treatise) is not really all that early in the development of the Baroque recorder as it is now understood, as we have seen.

Reeds

It is now time to return to the early seventeenth century and pick up the story of the reeds. The late Renaissance is often characterized by the variety of its reed instruments, a variety made evident in Syntagma II of Praetorius. Of course, the full panoply of instruments was not available in all geographic areas or to those in all social strata. As students of performance practice, it should be our focus to determine the limitations of the use of these instruments as well as their possibilities. Fortunately, there have been some excellent modern studies that have addressed these issues in detail, combining archival and iconographic information with that provided by the treatises and the existing instruments themselves.

The seventeenth-century reed instrument with the longest history is certainly the shawm. One of the biggest problems in discussing it nowadays is terminology, particularly since the English names now used by players for the various members differ from the traditional English usage of the period; we will try to make the best of a confusing situation. Praetorius illustrates six basic sizes, whose seven-finger notes are separated by fifths: from the top down these are a', d', g, c, F, and ₁. Although he treats them as a family, the nouns change after the first two (called Schalmeyen), the rest being called Pommern. As he explains, the distinction rests on the presence or absence of keys (Pommern having one or more, Schalmeyen having none); this habit reflects medieval French terminology, which distinguished between the original, keyless, soprano-pitched chalemie and the keyed bombarde that had been developed to play lower parts. (The etymological relationship of bombarde to Pommer is perhaps less obvious than that between chalemie and Schalmey—except, maybe, to a linguist.) About 1500, the French began to use the word hautbois to refer to the whole family; this word, of course, is the origin of the English term “hoboys” (like-wise applied to the whole family, as was the term “waits” or “waits’ pipes,” as well as “shawms”). Praetorius's three largest sizes were provided with four keys, like those of the “extended” forms of recorder discussed above; these he calls bassett- or tenor Pommer, bass Pommer, and grossbass Pommer. The smallest Pommer is the alt (with but one key); it and the discant Schalmey were, taken together, the “type form” instruments of the shawm family and those the most in use, in all countries and all periods. These two shawms were known in England as “tenor” and “treble,” respectively; the modern term “alto shawm” (a more-or-less direct translation of Praetorius's alt Pommer) did not exist in English. Of the rest, the bass was probably the next most common, at least in the seventeenth century, while the exilent or gar klein discant Schalmey was the rarest of all.

Besides these standard sizes, Praetorius mentions three others: the nicolo (a tenor without extensions, having but one key), a discant in c', and an alt in f. The latter two are, in fact, hypothetical—ones he would like to see made, in order to make it easier to combine instruments of the whole family. He suggests using a choir of shawms to participate with other instruments and with voices in sacred motets and concertos. For this purpose he suggests that one omit the “screaming” discant Schalmey—probably the most characteristic voice of the family—and use only the Pommern, transposing the music down a fourth at the same time.75 Though Praetorius's musical models were generally Italian, this use of a choir of shawms seems to have no precedent in Italy itself. There the appearance of shawms, small or large, in church was rare.⁷⁶ Just how common the larger Pommern were within Germany is difficult to determine. They are specified occasionally (under the name bombardon) in the works of some German composers; for instance, Johann Hermann Schein's “Hosiana, dem Sohn David” (1623) requires three—two bassett and one bass, as indicated by the ranges. Nearer the end of the century the bass is still being called for in some of the works of Dieterich Buxtehude. A grossbass Pommer is illustrated in the hands of the Nuremberg musician Nikol Rosenkron in 1679,⁷⁷ and six years later St. Mary's Church of Lübeck (where Buxtehude was organist) purchased a similar instrument.78 These latter were probably used to double continuo lines at sixteen-foot pitch.

Praetorius's suggested use of a low shawm choir lies somewhat outside the main tradition of the shawm band, which was based on the ability of the higher shawms to make their presence known in less-than-ideal acoustical surroundings—outdoors or competing with the noise of crowds. In its capacity as a band instrument, the shawm was alive and well in most European countries through most of the seventeenth century. Its repertory, however, remains something of a mystery, being only infrequently written down. Some of the few examples that were are the result of the band's participation in extraordinary events, such as coronations.⁷⁹ Pictorial and other evidence makes it clear that sackbuts—certainly more portable than the larger Pommern—were generally used to play the lower interior parts, as well (one would presume) as the bass when no reed bass was available. A bass curtal (proto-bassoon; see below) seems to have substituted for the necessarily stationary bass Pommer when the band needed to be mobile. Another instrument that could find its way into the shawm band was the cornett, apparently as a second treble—a role found uncomfortable, however, by some modern cornettists who have tried it. Given these common mixtures of brass and reeds, Praetorius's remark⁸⁰ that “as to pitch, most shawms are a tone higher than cornetts and sackbuts” is rather puzzling—the more so since this statement is not borne out by his own evidence. (The scaled representations of instruments in his plates allow us to compare their dimensions with those of actual instruments; surviving shawms of the sizes he illustrates produce his nominal pitches at about a' = 460, as do the cornetts and sackbuts. Obviously one cannot expect this sort of analysis to be absolutely accurate; however, the margin of error has to be less than the whole tone mentioned by Praetorius.) Perhaps he means that shawms as a group generally transpose their music up a step (something he suggests they should do, just a few sentences later), while the cornetts and sackbuts usually play at pitch. If so, he has chosen an odd way to put it!

Mersenne's shawm band is more traditional than Praetorius's, both in function and makeup. He explains⁸¹ that shawms are the loudest instruments, except for trumpets; they are used for large assemblies, such as ballets (though violins have replaced them there), weddings, village festivals, and other public celebrations. His musical example,⁸² in six parts, calls for two trebles, two tenors (i.e., alt Pommern), sackbut, and bass. His specification of nominal pitches is neither clear nor consistent, but the interpretation with the fewest difficulties would put the treble (dessus) in c', seven fingers, and the tenor (taille—also called haute-contre) in f.⁸³ The basse is clearly in (seven-fingers) F, with extensions down to C; this puts its basic fingering an octave below that of the taille, in contrast with the ninth between Praetorius's corresponding bass and alt. This octave relationship is confirmed by a comparison of dimensions; those Mersenne supplies for the dessus and taille conform basically to Praetorius's illustrations of the discant Schalmey and alt Pommer, while the length given by Mersenne84 for the basse is about 12 percent shorter than that of Praetorius's bass Pommer—an appropriate difference in size for the interval of a whole tone. Thus the French shawm family must have been conceptually in “C and F,” just like the ensuing oboe/bassoon family but at a much higher pitch (about a' = 512, in effect).⁸⁵ For the higher shawms the practical consequences for fingering are the same whether one thinks of the instruments as being in d' and g, transposing up a tone (as by Praetorius) or in c' and f (as by Mersenne), but for the bass the French system (with an instrument built up a tone from Praetorius's) has a clear advantage.

One of the distinguishing characteristics of the smaller shawms is the so-called pirouette (Mersenne's term; Talbot calls it the “fliew”)—a small piece of turnery that surrounds the base of the reed and presents a flat surface to support the lips. Most extant shawms lack their original pirouettes (and, of course, reeds), but enough information survives from Mersenne, Talbot, and iconographic sources to allow accurate reconstruction.⁸⁶ It is clear that early shawm reeds and pirouettes resembled closely those still in use on modern Catalan shawms. Here the pirouette provides support for the lips while in no way impeding their control of the short, wide reed. Dynamic flexibility is not only feasible but indulged in to the fullest, though at an overall greater volume than with orchestral reeds. Despite the early efforts of Anthony Baines in making this point,⁸⁷ scholars often still assume that the presence of a pirouette implies tonal inflexibility. Thus much importance has been ascribed to the lack of a pirouette in one of Mersenne's illustrations of a treble shawm.⁸⁸ This depiction has sometimes been seen as representing a milestone in the development of the expressive oboe, when it may be merely a schematic view with the pirouette left off for clarity. (The pirouette is, in any case, present in Mersenne's other, more elegant and more accurate illustration of a treble shawm.⁸⁹)

Acoustically related to the shawm is the curtal (pronounced “curt'l”), in which a conical bore like that of the shawm is doubled back on itself to produce a long sounding length in a short—in effect, “curt”—package.⁹⁰ (It is still often called the “dulcian”—one of its German names—because the first suppliers of copies in this century were Germans, who called it that on their price lists. But “curtal” is its traditional English name.) Praetorius illustrates a whole family of them, in sizes corresponding to those of the shawms. However, he says that the doppel Fagott (the curtal corresponding to the grossbass Pommer) is available in two different pitches, one a fourth and one a fifth below the bass curtal or chorist Fagott; these are known as the quart Fagott and quint Fagott, respectively. (However, no representatives of the quint Fagott appear to survive.) In addition, curtals were made in two styles, offen (open) and gedackt (covered); in the latter the bell opening is provided with a sieve-like cover, somewhat damping the sound. Praetorius says that the Fagotten are softer and sweeter in sound than the Pommern (hence the alternative name Dolzianen) due to the folded bore and—when present—the bell cover. (On the other hand, as we have seen, an offen chorist Fagott could substitute for a bass Pommer in a shawm band, so the difference was not necessarily extreme.)

As in the case of the shawms, not all sizes of curtal were in common use throughout Europe. The bass (bottom note C) had by far the greatest currency in all countries. In England it was known as the “double curtal” (since pitches in the octave below G or gamma ut were called “double notes”); the next size smaller—the “single curtal,” with G as its bottom note—was also known there. (The terms “bass curtal” and “tenor curtal” for these are modernisms, again based on a partial adoption of German terminology.) The use of other sizes seems to have been confined to Germany and Spain, although it has been suggested (based on Mersenne) that the quart Fagott was known in France.91 In Spain, families of curtals (called bajones) were used in church to accompany the choirs; this practice continued well into the nineteenth century.⁹² The Spanish penchant for shawms in church is well documented, and it is often assumed that they doubled or substituted for choral voices.⁹³ However, it is quite possible that the shawm band's participation was mostly (or even exclusively) in alternatim with the choir and that the only reed instrument actually mixing with voices in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was the bajón.⁹⁴

Other conically bored reed instruments in use at the outset of the seventeenth century were bassanelli (a family of soft-toned, low-pitched “oboes”⁹⁵) and—at the other end of the tonal spectrum—windcap shawms. The latter were known in modern times as Rauschpfeiffen, until Barra Boydell connected the name Schreierpfeiffen (lit., screaming pipes) with extant examples; Praetorius must be somehow in error regarding the instruments he illustrates under that name.⁹⁶ The rest of the reeds of the era—crumhorns and their derivatives—were cylindrically bored. Praetorius mentions Cornamusen (like crumhorns but straight, with sieve-like opening to damp the sound), Sordunen (with doubled-back-bore and mouth-held reed, like curtals), one size of Kortholt (like Sordunen, but with a windcap), and Racketten (the extensio ad absurdum of the doubled-backbore principle). Few of these, conical or cylindrical, were known outside Germany and northern Italy, and even there they were rapidly falling into disuse. (Even the crumhorn—certainly the instrument among them with the widest distribution—hardly survived Praetorius himself; after his death it is cited in inventories more often than performances.⁹⁷) The simple reason, once again, seems to be the violin, whose domination of instrumental music was more complete in Italy and Germany than yet in France. Crumhorns and their ilk are in their element playing Renaissance-style vocal polyphony; few instruments are as good at making clear the inner parts of close-voiced counterpoint. In Italy especially, however, the new emphasis in both vocal and instrumental writing was in expression of emotion, not counterpoint for its own sake, and Germany was very much under Italy's musical influence throughout the century. The instruments of choice were clearly the violin family and those winds with similar capabilities: cornetts, sackbuts, and curtals. The rest of the winds were found deficient in either range or expressive power (or, in the case of the shawm, civility) and became literally “voices from the past.”

In France, however—far from Italian influence—several of the Renaissance reeds lived on. Besides the crumhorn (which he calls tornebout), Mersenne describes the courtaut (similar to the Sordun), the cervelat (Rackett),98 and the hautbois de Poi[c]tou (historically a detached bagpipe chanter fitted with a windcap, but similar in principle to the Schreierpfeiff). We would hardly be considering this last an art instrument at all, of course, but for the royal favor it enjoyed as part of the Hautbois et musettes de Poitou of the Grande Écurie.⁹⁹ (Just to what extent, or how long, the names of such official court ensembles reflected reality is somewhat uncertain—for instance, the fifres of the Joueurs de fifres et tambours were, by the end of the seventeenth century, an oboe band!¹⁰⁰—but we can be sure the titles at least started out having some element of truth to them.¹⁰¹) On the other hand, Mersenne's inclusion of the tornebout and cervelat may be more a result of his own fascination with their mechanical and acoustical properties than a reflection of actual use in this period. In any case, his tornebout—the traditional Renaissance crumhorn—is not to be identified with the French cromorne of the second half of the century; the latter has been shown to have more similarity to the bassoon.¹⁰²

Mersenne says that the courtaut can serve as a bass to musettes; whether by musette he means here the complete bagpipe with its bag and drones (the musette de cour or “court musette”¹⁰³) or merely a detached chanter fitted with a windcap—the form he prefers—is unclear. But it is clear from his description of the musette that it was not quite yet the fully developed and standardized instrument of the treatises of Pierre Borjon de Scellery (1672)¹⁰⁴ and Hotteterre le Romain (1738).¹⁰⁵ Though the main physical characteristics of the musette—bellows, cylindrically bored chanter, and so-called shuttle drone¹⁰⁶—were already in place (and had been before 1596¹⁰⁷), there is no mention by Mersenne of the peculiar technique described by Borjon and Hotteterre, whereby a semblance of articulation is achieved on an instrument actually incapable of stopping between notes. This technique is referred to as “covered playing” (or “closed playing”) by Borjon; it depends on leaving most of the fingers on their respective holes and raising them only one at a time for the notes of a melody—not the normal woodwind practice, to be sure! The six-finger note on the chanter is treated as the “default” position; it tends to sound, however briefly, between the other notes. But, since it has the same pitch (g') as the top note of the complex drone, it seems to disappear; it is perceived as a space—and thus an articulation. However, with this “covered” approach to fingering, cross-fingering becomes unavailable as a method of producing chromatic alterations; for this reason multiple closed-standing side keys were adopted on the musette long before they were even considered for other woodwinds.

The Oboe and Bassoon

Almost half a century has passed since Josef Marx suggested that the oboe was invented in the 1650s and first used in Lully's Ballet de l'amour malade of 1657.108 Scholars have generally accepted his reasoning; recently, however, Bruce Haynes has shown that the iconographic record supports a later dating of the emergence of the true oboe (i.e., somewhere in the 1680s),¹⁰⁹ and Rebecca Harris-Warrick has questioned some of Marx's readings of the written evidence and thus some of his conclusions.¹¹⁰ Together these researchers have furthered the view that the change from shawm to oboe was a gradual and evolutionary one, perhaps over a few decades, rather than a sudden and decisive one.¹¹¹ While it is true that not all the characteristics we associate with the Baroque oboe had to have been present at the outset, two were absolutely essential to its acceptance as an orchestral instrument: in order to be mixed with violins, it had to play at an acceptable volume and at a compatible pitch. Historians have paid more attention to the matter of volume, even though pitch is actually the more crucial consideration from the standpoint of instrument design. (Volume is at least as much a question of reeds.)

As pointed out by Bruce Haynes,¹¹² the actual interval between a typical Renaissance treble shawm and an oboe at low French pitch is a perfect fourth—just as we have found in comparing typical Renaissance and Baroque alto recorders; the new treble instrument is once again closer in pitch to the old tenor. This pitch difference does not manifest itself so obviously as a size difference in the case of the oboe and shawm, however; the treble shawm is already rather long for its pitch, having a considerable bell extension past the fingered holes. This bell extension is not “just for show”; its proportions (and the positions of its resonance holes) are carefully engineered to stabilize crucial notes in the scale. (In particular, the half-holed notes a minor third and minor tenth above the seven-finger note—s on an instrument considered in c'—are rendered stable by this extension.) Making a proportional expansion to bring a treble shawm down a fourth would result in an instrument almost a yard long—obviously a clumsy and inelegant solution; clearly a complete remodeling was in order. Jointed construction was “in,” as was ornamental turnery. In keeping with the more elegant design was a reduced wall thickness, which in turn dictated smaller fingerholes. The lowered seventh hole was now out of reach, requiring a key for the bottom c'. The loss of an effective half-hole fingering ultimately necessitated a key for and its octave, and the similar loss of some cross-fingerings necessitated the double holes typical of Baroque oboes. Thus, while many of the details of the new instrument might have remained in flux for some time, most of its basic features were a direct consequence of lowering the pitch and must have been present as soon as it moved indoors and joined the orchestra.¹¹³ Marx may have been hasty in assuming that the hautbois took part in the Concert champestre de l'espoux of Lully's Ballet de l'amour malade (it is not called for by name in the livret), but it was definitely sharing the stage with violins just a few years later in his ballet Les noces de village (1663).114 However, the first incontrovertible evidence of the doubling of violin lines by the hautbois dates from some years later, so that the question of the debut of the “virtual oboe” may be debated for some time to come.

Steps toward the development of the bassoon seem to have come much earlier than those documented for the oboe. By comparison to curtals of standard design, for instance, Mersenne's examples (referred to variously—possibly indiscriminately—as fagots and bassons) have further extensions of range in the bass, although the additional keys and their covers are still of “Renaissance” design.¹¹⁵ An early seventeenth-century curtal of Italian provenance (now in Vienna) has jointed construction. (In fact, hints of both extensions of range and jointed construction can be found even earlier, in evidence from Spain and even Peru!¹¹⁶) What appears to be the first iconographic evidence of the four-jointed bassoon (a painting from somewhere in the 1660s, attributed to Harmen Hals) comes from Holland, as does one of the first surviving examples (a bassoon by Richard Haka)¹¹⁷; as in the case of the Haka traverso mentioned above, this information has led to speculation about possible Dutch leadership in the development of the new design.¹¹⁸ Ultimately, however, all this non-French evidence will probably represent only a minor embarrassment to those upholding the traditional view that the bassoon, like the oboe, Baroque flute, and Baroque recorder, was a French invention. (The very name “bassoon” in English bespeaks a French origin, of course; Talbot calls it the “French basson.”¹¹⁹) Once again the real issue is musical practice and the attendant question of pitch; as soon as we have a bass reed instrument capable of orchestral doubling—at low French pitch—we can regard it as effectively a bassoon regardless of the number of its joints or the layout of its thumb keys. A survey of extant curtals shows that all surviving basses are at “high” pitch (i.e., above modern).¹²⁰ By contrast, the pitch typical of bassoons is low (although there are a few exceptions); in fact, in Germany (where both curtal and bassoon continued to overlap in use long into the next century) pitch remained one of the important distinctions between the two.¹²¹

The bassoon was immediately accepted as the bass of the oboe family; it is generally subsumed under the name hautbois and only occasionally singled out for special mention. Completing the family is the taille de hautbois—traditionally called the “tenor” oboe in English but now sometimes referred to as an “alto.” This instrument, like its descendant, the modern English horn, is built in (seven-fingers) f, a fifth below the oboe proper. Two different late seventeenth-century oboe band configurations have been identified, one French, the other English; these apparently reflect the different orchestral practices of the two nations. The typical layout of Lully's orchestra was in five parts: violin, three violas, and bass; Purcell's was in four: two violins, viola, and bass (like a modern string quartet). The latter translates directly into an oboe band consisting of two oboes, tenor, and bassoon. Oddly enough, the French oboe band texture was also four-part, but it seems to have differed in its choice of instrument for the second part (labeled haute-contre by Lully); this part occasionally descends below the range of the oboe.122 (Note that in neither type of oboe band is the sackbut welcome, as it had been in the shawm band.) One of the current “hot issues” among researchers and players concerns the possible existence of a special instrument (pitched midway between oboe and taille) for the haute-contre part. Proponents of this “haute-contre theory” have cited as evidence the existence of some high-pitched tailles, the cleffing of parts, and the analogy of the differentiation in size of French violas. Much of this evidence is inconclusive; the viola analogy itself “cuts both ways,” since the tuning of the French violas is the same even though their physical size differs.¹²³ Whatever the solution, it must rest on evidence from the era of the oboe itself; the earlier tradition (through the time of Mersenne) assumed an equivalence between haute-contre and taille for most instrument families, as we have seen.¹²⁴

TECHNIQUE

In this review of seventeenth-century woodwinds and their use, we have concentrated on the questions of what, when, where, and why; it seems appropriate in closing to think about how. When early treatises and tutors examine matters of technique, they are concerned primarily with two aspects: fingering and articulation. To both of these issues the early approaches were quite different from the modern ones. Details obviously vary from instrument to instrument, time to time, and place to place; the specialist performer of a historical instrument has no choice but to become familiar in depth with the relevant sources. The following survey is not intended as a substitute for such personal research, but only as a guide to some of the general principles.

Modern recorders, as we have seen, are based on Baroque ones; so are their fingerings. It is in the very efficient high-register fingerings that both differ from their Renaissance predecessors. However, certain features of Baroque recorder fingering seem closer in spirit to Renaissance principles than to modern. The standard fingerings for the modern recorder (as for most modern winds) avoid the “shading” or partial covering of holes; such shadings (particularly for the ring finger of the lower hand) were still very much a part of Baroque recorder fingering. (It should be pointed out that the “double holes” commonly provided for the bottom two fingers on the modern recorder were rare on early ones, although they are mentioned as a possibility by both Étienne Loulié and Hotteterre in the early eighteenth century.¹²⁵) The major ramification of this shading technique is for the fourth and eleventh notes of the scale—s on the alto—which are too flat on antiques when the modern fingerings are used; thus and were used instead of and . Another note that is often flat on antiques with the standard modern fingering is solutions to this problem (using partial coverings) are suggested by Jean-Pierre Freillon-Poncein and Loulié.¹²⁶ (Hotteterre, however, gives the modern fingering.) A peculiarity of the English recorder tutors of Hudgebut, Banister, and Humphrey Salter is the differentiation between enharmonic pairs (particularly and ); following the principles of just intonation (as well as meantone temperament) the sharp is given a flatter-sounding fingering than the flat.127 Such differentiation is a nicety clearly of no interest to Freillon-Poncein, Loulié, and Hotteterre (although the last of these does suggest making this kind of distinction on the transverse flute, sometimes with fingering but more often with embouchure adjustment). Characteristic of the French sources (beginning with Mersenne) as well as the English is the use of so-called buttress-finger technique (the term itself is modern), according to which the ring finger of the lower hand is left down for most of the notes of the low register (where it makes little difference to pitch) in order to provide physical support. There is, however, no sign of this practice in Bismantova.

It is, however, in the fingering of trills that we find the greatest difference in principle between Baroque and modern practice. On an instrument such as the recorder that involves cross-fingerings, one often finds it virtually impossible to alternate smoothly and rapidly between adjacent notes using standard fingerings; the problem arises in particular when the upper note of the pair is cross-fingered. Players have long resorted to “trick” fingerings to avoid simultaneous closing and opening of holes; it is in the nature of the trick itself that the modern and early practices differ. The usual modern solution is to find an alternate fingering for the lower note that produces the right pitch, so that one can trill by merely adding a finger (or fingers) to the fingering of the upper note. The Baroque solution (first documented in the English recorder tutors of Hudgebut, Banister, and Salter, but apparently a French invention) was to begin and end the trill with the standard fingerings but to make the trill itself with a finger involved in playing the lower note. A specific example will make this difference clear. In playing a trill from f” to e” on the alto, the modern player will usually trill with the ring finger of the upper hand: . This works because is usually in tune as an alternate fingering for e” on the modern instrument. (It is rarely so on antiques, by the way.) The Baroque player, however, would first play the f” and then switch to the normal fingering for e” (), making the trill itself with the forefinger of the upper hand. The success of this expedient depends upon the prolongation of the upper note as an appui or appoggiatura, as well as the suppression of the pitch during the actual trill (through abating the breath and trilling quickly and close to the hole). Modern commentators have often stressed the “out of tune” quality of the early trill fingerings, but it seems likely that early players worked hard to make the listener unaware of any intonation difficulty. Loulié's directives to “trill quickly and diminish the breath” when performing such “irregular or defective” trills imply as much.¹²⁸ It should also be mentioned here that trilling across the register break—avoided in modern playing by the use of alternate fingerings—seems to have been enjoyed by early players; this trill with its curious warbling effect was called a “double shake” in the English tutors.

The same principles also apply to the transverse flute and to the oboe.129 In charts for the flute, however, there are even more of these “irregular” trills than for the recorder—apparently because cross-fingering is inherently less efficient on the flute, making its scale less even than the recorder's. Thus, where the recorder will use “normal” fingerings in trilling from a plain-fingered note to a cross-fingering (such as d” to , the flute will substitute an “irregular” fingering in the analogous situation (a' to , in this case); trilling with the middle finger of the upper hand rather than the fingers of the lower hand avoids the rapid alternation of the “solid,” plain-fingered a' with the “woolier”-sounding, cross-fingered . The flute's trill fingerings, though logical, are counterintuitive for many modern players; again, there is no substitute for a careful study of the sources. One final matter of fingering concerns the reeds—oboe, bassoon, and curtal: charts from the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries show simple octave fingerings as much as possible throughout the upper register; there is little evidence for the so-called long fingerings favored later for high notes, in which the simple octaves of the upper-hand notes are stabilized through addition of lower-hand fingers. While it has been suggested that these earlier charts might reflect the ideal more than actuality, it does seem that the better the instrument, the more closely it is able to conform to their straightforward fingerings. In addition, the success of the “short” fingerings is highly dependent upon reed and staple (or bocal) design.

Modern woodwind articulation generally depends on the broad contrast between tonguing and slurring—matters that can be simply specified by musical notation. It is assumed that separate notes (and those at the beginning of a slur) begin with the tip of the tongue. When repetitions become too fast to be executed easily and cleanly with the tip of the tongue, flutists join their brass-playing colleagues in employing “double tonguing,” alternating “t” and “k”; practice is expected to make the two consonants as equal in effect as possible. (Such double tonguing is not an option for reed players, with the occasional exception of bassoonists; they must work to achieve a fast single tonguing.) Seventeenth-century players of flute, recorder, and cornett inherited a range of different double tonguings, which offer possibilities between the effects of single tonguing and slurring. The articulations given by Bismantova in 1677 for recorder and cornett are essentially the same as those given by Ganassi and Girolamo Dalla Casa in the sixteenth century (although the classification differs somewhat). Bismantova's lingue dritte are single tonguings, serving for notes from breves to eighths: “t” for cornetto, “d” (implying a softer attack) for recorder. His lingua roversa (“reversed tonguing”) applies to eighths and smaller values and involves “r”s and “l”s: “te-re-le-re” (or “de-re-le-re,” for recorder). He also recognizes two other possibilities, which he says, however, are not in use, at least in the cantabile style then in vogue. These are “te-che-te-che” (essentially modern double tonguing; Italian “ch” is equivalent to English “k”) and “ter-ler-ter-ler” (in which each note appears to be “clipped” with an “r”). The French Baroque sources bring in a new element: the placement of the “r” in a position of comparative rhythmic stress, at least in certain situations.130 Modern commentators have sometimes talked about the relative strength of the “t” and “r” (there are no “l”s in the French practice), but more important is the matter of connection: the “r” always represents a point of comparative elision, regardless of its rhythmic position. It is always part of a two-note tonguing group initiated by a “t”; it cannot itself initiate such a group. A relationship between the use of “r” in a position of comparative stress and the practice of notes inégales seems obvious, although it is not made explicit by Freillon-Poncein, Loulié, or Hotteterre; the last, however, does explain the practice of performing pairs of notes unequally (pointer) almost in the same breath as his explanation of the use of “t” and “r,” thus strongly implying a connection.¹³¹

FOR FURTHER READING

Besides the instrument histories cited in the endnotes, the following may be of interest: Montagu, Medieval and Renaissance; Montagu, Baroque and Classical; Remnant, Musical Instruments; van der Meer, Musikinstrumente; and Young, Look of Music.

NOTES

1. See Harris-Warrick, “Thoughts”: 97–106.

2. Kopp, “Bassoon”: 85–114.

3. Quantz, Versuch: 241–242 (267–268 of translation).

4. Praetorius, Syntagma I, II, and III. The first volume is in Latin, the second and third in German (mostly, with a few lapses into Latin). The sections of Syntagma II dealing with instruments are translated into English in Praetorius/Blumenfeld, Syntagma II and Praetorius/Crookes, Syntagma II. English translation of volume III in Praetorius/Kite-Powell, Syntagma III.

5. Mersenne, Harmonie universelle. The books on instruments are translated into English in Mersenne/Chapman, Harmonie universelle.

6. Mersenne, Harmonie universelle 3:231; Mersenne/Chapman, Harmonie universelle: 301.

7. Ibid.: 233; 302 of translation.

8. Ibid.: 236; 305 of translation. Chapman adds to the confusion by mistranslating de-bouché as “closed.”

9. Ibid.: 242; 313 of translation.

10. Ibid.: 244; 314 of translation.

11. Thus Mersenne's second- and third-octave fingerings for d'-flute reported by Anne Smith in her composite charts, though strictly correct in representing his zeros as open holes, probably misrepresent the intent of the original compiler of his tablature. See A. Smith, “Renaissancequerflöte”: 61–63; and A. Smith, “Renaissance Flute”: 30–33.

12. Mersenne, Harmonie universelle 3: 238; 309 of translation.

13. Praetorius, Syntagma II: 34; Praetorius/Crooks, Syntagma II: 45

14. Ibid.: 13; Praetorius/Crookes, Syntagma II: 29.

15. Praetorius, Syntagma, Theatrum instrumentorum, pl. 9.

16. Adrian Brown (Brown, “Overview,” 81) has objected to the term “choke bore” to refer to this complex cylindrical/contracting-conical/expanding-conical bore profile, pointing out that there is an alternative bore profile, one he calls a “step bore,” that also contracts at the bottom. (Here the main bore is largely cylindrical, with a sudden contraction at the bottom; recorders with the latter profile respond to some high-note fingerings found in early sources, which, however, still differ from the ones typical of Baroque and modern recorders.) However, the term “choke bore” seems to be generally understood among makers as referring to the complex cylindro-conical bore profile as described in the main text and will therefore be retained here despite Brown's quite logical objections.

17. Praetorius, Syntagma II: [21].

18. Ibid.: 37.

19. Ibid.: III, 157; Praetorius/Kite-Powell, Syntagma III: 161.

20. See Marvin, “Recorders”: 30–57.

21. See Baines, European and American, illustrations 425–429.

22. See Lambrechts-Douillez, “Blokfluit”: 907–919. As pointed out by Adrian Brown (private communication), the long-assumed connection of the Rauchs with the city of Hamburg rests solely on Charles Burney's report from 1773, there being as yet no corroboration of their presence there.

23. The modern “garklein” offered by some makers is usually, in fact, a tiny recorder, a “supersopranino” in c'”, which is so small as to be barely playable by most adults.

24. Of all the early woodwinds, Renaissance flutes, being cylindrical in bore, have the most consistent relationship between outer dimensions and pitch.

25. See Puglisi, “Renaissance Flutes.”

26. Praetorius, Syntagma III: 156; Praetorius/Kite-Powell, Syntagma III: 160.

27. Ibid.: 158. Just how common the large recorders might have been is difficult to determine. However, it is hard to believe that they were available to any but the most affluent persons and institutions, and still harder to believe that their use would have continued to grow in the period after Praetorius; their limitations would have been perceived as more and more of an impediment.

28. Discussed in A. Smith, “Renaissancequerflöte,” which gives clefs, ranges, and other pertinent information. Two additional works (by Leipzig cantors Johann Schelle and Sebastian Knüpfer) are cited in Meylan, Flute: 100–101.

29. See Hunt, Recorder: 47–48, which cites the original clefs for the Schmelzer.

30. See van Baak Griffioen, Van Eyck: 377–390, for a discussion of the recorder proper to this repertory, and A. Smith, “Renaissancequerflöte”: 24, regarding the flute.

31. Bismantova, Compendio: [91]. Bismantova also provides a chart “per suonare alla quarta,” treating the instrument as though it were in d'; this results in a transposition of a fifth from the previous notation, but a fourth from the actual sounding pitch.

32. See Castellani, “Bismantova”: 79.

33. See Eppelsheim, Orchester: 64–97, for a discussion of the flute and recorder as employed by Lully.

34. The first published music for the redesigned Baroque recorder is found in the English tutors of John Hudgebut (A Vade Mecum, 1679), John Banister (The Most Pleasant Companion, 1681), and Humphrey Salter (The Genteel Companion, 1683). See Myers, “Recorder Tutors”: 3–6.

35. Mersenne's statement has often been taken to mean that he is recommending playing the two jeux of recorders in octaves; however, Peter Van Heyghen (Van Heyghen, “Recorder,” 273) questions this interpretation, arguing, on the basis of Mersenne's grammar, that he means rather that the two jeux of recorders actually form a continuous set, whose members can all be played together.

36. Jambe de Fer, Épitome musical. Mersenne was undoubtedly acquainted with Jambe de Fer's treatise, since he reprints the latter's illustration of a viol (Harmonie universelle 3: 191).

37. See Eppelsheim, Orchester: 81–88, for an analysis of Mersenne's rendition of the recorders of the grand jeu. Eppelsheim has been ingenious in explaining the mechanism of the foot-operated lower extensions, a contrivance that has seemed implausible to many.

38. Mersenne, Harmonie universelle 3: 239; 308 of translation. Just when this set of recorders came to France is a matter of some debate. Hunt, Recorder (39), assumes they were given by Henry VIII to Louis XII; Lasocki, “Recorder Consort” (132), following the reasoning of Patricia M. Ranum, proposes a date closer to Mersenne's own time. The fact that Mersenne himself seems not to know to which king they were sent would seem to support an earlier dating. That he does not appear to consider them “out of date” (as pointed out by Lasocki) is not necessarily meaningful; he is often more interested in what is acoustically or mechanically feasible than in actual practice.

39. See Robinson, “Reconstruction”: 84–85. Robinson's reconstructed flute plays in d' at about a' = 440. If this pitch should seem anomalous for France at that period, it should be noted that one surviving French instrument from just a few decades later, the two-piece, cylindrically bored flute by Lissieu (fl. 1672), now in Vienna, also plays at about modern pitch. (Regarding the dating of this instrument, see J. Bowers, “New Light”: 8–9; regarding its dimensions, see Puglisi, “Survey”: 80.) On the other hand, Mersenne himself says (3: 243; 312 of translation) that flutes in general “are placed at chapel pitch to perform concerts”; the French ton de chapelle was usually quite low (a' = 392 or so). Thus Mersenne has left us yet another puzzle!

40. See Meylan, Flute: 94–95.

41. Ibid.: 101.

42. Mersenne, Harmonie universelle 3: 243; 312 of translation.

43. Ibid.: 242; 312 of translation.

44. The first documented appearance of the new flute seems to be in Lully's Le triomphe de l'amour (1681); in addition to being called for to play the upper two parts of a trio texture in the “Ritournelle pour Diane,” it is suggested as an alternative to the recorder for the highest part of four in the “Prélude pour l'amour.” Significantly, the three lower parts would remain on recorders in either case, there being no lower flutes to replace them. A facsimile of the “Prélude pour l'amour” is to be found in the article “Lully” in New Grove. See also Eppelsheim, Orchester: 65–66, 72.

45. It should be noted that the British term “treble” for this size is actually the better descriptor of its function in Baroque music.

46. Mersenne called the violin “king of the instruments” (Harmonie universelle 3: 177; 235 of translation); according to him, violins had already replaced the shawms for ballets (303; 378).

47. The term flûte traversière becomes common only in the eighteenth century, beginning apparently with Jacques Hotteterre le Romain's Principes de la flute traversiere, ou flute d'allemagne, de la flute a bec, ou flute douce, et du haut-bois (Paris, 1707).

48. Specifically, in Michel Pignolet de Montéclair's Jepthé (1732) and later in the Encyclopédie of Denis Diderot (1713–84); see Eppelsheim, Orchester: 72–80.

49. See Ibid.: 93–94.

50. Ibid.: 88–89.

51. James Talbot (writing ca. 1695) calls it a “double bass”; see Baines, “Talbot”: 18.

52. Eppelsheim, Orchester: 90–93.

53. In some of Lully's works, the lower of the two flûte parts goes below the range of an alto recorder and thus requires a tenor; in some cases, too, the upper part requires half-holing of the bottom notes of the alto. (See Eppelsheim, Orchester: 71, 79–80.) Such parts would seem much better suited to performance on transverse flutes; in fact, these instruments cannot be absolutely ruled out just because flûte generally means recorder. Marin Marais, for instance, would seem to be using the word flûtes in a generic sense in the title to his Pièces en trio pour les flûtes [note the plural form], violon, & dessus de viole (Paris, 1692), since the engraving (by Charles Simonneau) surrounding this title depicts both recorders and transverse flutes. (See J. Bowers, “New Light”: 10–11; she has identified this title page as the first as-yet-discovered iconographic evidence of the Baroque flute.)

54. See Lasocki, “Elizabethan”: 3–10.

55. See Hunt, Recorder: 57. That Pepys heard a recorder consort in the play is, of course, informed conjecture; his own words mention only “the wind-musique when the angel comes down.” If it was a recorder consort (as seems probable), it is still uncertain whether it would have been made up of Renaissance- or Baroque-style instruments. There is some evidence that the older-style wind consorts were still in use (notably in Matthew Locke's music to Thomas Shadwell's Psyche of 1675, as well as John Banister's Musick, or A Parley of Instruments of the following year), while the remodeled recorder (along with the new oboe) would appear to have been introduced into England by French players brought there by the composer Robert Cambert in 1673; see Holman, Fiddlers: 343–353, and Lasocki, “French Hautboy”: 339–340.

56. See Mersenne, Harmonie universelle 3: 232; 301 of translation. Later writers (Bismantova and Freillon-Poncein) specify thumb and three fingers of the upper hand, plus thumb and forefinger of the lower; Greeting (The Pleasant Companion) gives both dispositions but prefers the former.

57. Mersenne (Harmonie universelle 3: 237; 306 of translation) gives an example in four parts, requiring flageolets of three different sizes. This consort would seem best suited for canine delectation: the instrument Mersenne describes for the dessus is only 120 mm (about 5 inches) in length, putting the ensemble at approximately two-foot pitch!

58. London, 1661; further editions in 1666, 1672, 1675, 1680, 1682, 1683, and 1688.

59. See Holman, Fiddlers: 352–353.

60. See Hunt, Recorder: 50–51: “According to this writer [the Abbé de Marolles] the music-lovers of his day ‘etoient ravis de la Poche et du violon de Constantin et de Bocan, de la viole d'Otman et de Maugars, de la musette de Poitevin, de la flute doûce de La Pierre et du flageolet d'Otteterre.'” (The spelling “Osteterre” cited in the main text comes from the article “Hotteterre” in New Grove.)

61. When it was then necessary to distinguish it from the “German flute” (the usual eighteenth-century English term for the transverse flute), it was often called the “common flute.”

62. See Holman, Fiddlers: 348–349.

63. See Bergman, “Purcell”: 227–233, for a list and discussion of Purcell's works employing recorder.

64. See Baines, “Talbot”: 16–17. For examples ca. 1700 of English employment of the transverse flute (still with French forms of the name), see Holman, Fiddlers: 349.

65. Nuremberg, Germanisches Nationalmuseum MI 98–104; see Kirnbauer, Verzeichnis.

66. Actually, it is only the alto and tenor members of this set whose bores continue to contract at the bottom; the soprano and bass members have the traditional Renaissance “choke” bore (with a terminal expansion). This apparent anomaly can easily be explained: the alto and tenor instruments are the ones that can benefit the most from the effect of the lower constriction in improving high notes. The soprano achieves the same effect through larger holes, while the bass was probably not expected to have much of a high register anyway.

67. Praetorius, Syntagma II: 34–35.

68. Ibid.: 37; see also [22].

69. See Haynes, “Bach's Pitch”: 62–63, for a list of French oboists active in Germany at this period.

70. Facs. repr. by Edition Peters, Leipzig, 1974.

71. Found between pages 256 and 257.

72. It bears a striking resemblance to the two-piece cylindrical flute by Lissieu, ca. 1660–1675 (mentioned above, n. 39).

73. See Solum, Early Flute: 36–37.

74. See Castellani, “Bismantova”: 79–80.

75. Praetorius, Syntagma III: 166–168; Praetorius/Kite-Powell, Syntagma: 169–171. He had already mentioned the large Pommern as substitutes for equivalently pitched trombones or curtals (III: 159–164, K-P: 163–167).

76. For a discussion of the instruments commonly used in at least one Italian church, the influential San Marco of Venice, see Bartlett/Holman, “Gabrieli”; and Selfridge-Field, “Bassano.” Klitz, “Composition,” has argued that a part labeled dolzaina in a canzona (1636) by G. B. Buonamente is intended for bass Pommer, without, however, establishing that the larger Pommern were actually in use in seventeenth-century Italy. Klitz has ruled out the curtal (since Buonamente elsewhere specifies fagotto); however, not ruled out is some alternative form of curtal (perhaps one with a dampening bell cover, like Praetorius's gedackt Chorist-fagott). Certainly a quieter form of curtal is more in keeping with the word dolzaina (which, confusingly, predates both the invention of the curtal and the development of the larger shawms) than is the more raucous bass Pommer.

77. See Langwill, Bassoon: 3 [pl. 3].

78. See Snyder, Buxtehude: 373 (1st ed.); 378 (2nd ed.). Schalmeyen and Quartflöten (probably soprano recorders in c') were also purchased for Buxtehude's use at St Mary's; see pages 377 (373 of the first edition) and 466 of the second edition (n/a in first ed.).

79. For instance, the pavan played at the coronation of Louis XIII in 1610 (reprinted in Baines, Woodwind: 272) and the two fantasies for shawm band by Louis Couperin, possibly for the coronation of Louis XIV in 1654 (discussed in Oldham, “Two Pieces,” and reproduced in facsimile in plates 97–100 of that source).

80. Praetorius, Syntagma II: 37.

81. Mersenne, Harmonie universelle 3: 303; 378 of translation.

82. Ibid.: 304; 378–379 of translation.

83. The interpretation depends upon the meaning of tout fermé (“all closed”). One might logically conclude that, for an instrument with seven fingerholes, this would mean the seven-finger note. However, several facts suggest that the six-finger note is meant instead: (a) there is generally a seventh (rather than an octave) between the “all-closed” and “all-open” notes; (b) the key of Mersenne's example is awkward for instruments in d' and g but comfortable for ones in c' and f; and (c) there are low fs in the premiere taille part that are unplayable on an instrument in g. Thus, once again, Mersenne's information about woodwind fingering cannot be taken at face value. (To add to the confusion, he has given “all-open” pitches for the premiere taille and basse shawms that make no sense; these would seem simply to be mistakes.)

84. Five pieds du roy. Ibid., Harmonie universelle: 297; 371 of translation.

85. The same scheme must have been used in England; Talbot's “English hautbois or waits treble” is in (seven-finger) c' and his “waits tenor” is in f. (He mentions no bass.) Again the dimensions given resemble those of Praetorius's discant Schalmey and alt Pommer. See Baines, “Talbot”: 11–12, 21. For a facsimile of Talbot's fingering chart for the “waits treble,” see Thompson, “Smaller”: fig. 3, 249. Modern shawm players may be surprised at the ranges apparently expected by Talbot: two octaves plus a tone. Mersenne, however, mentions two octaves as the range of each size, and notes up to c'” are to be found in one of the Louis Couperin fantasies mentioned above (n. 79).

86. See Myers, “Practical Acoustics”: 104–117.

87. See Anthony Baines, “Shawms.”

88. Mersenne, Harmonie universelle 3: 295; 370 of translation.

89. Ibid.: 302; 377 of translation.

90. See Kilbey, Curtal, for an exhaustive investigation of the history of the instrument, including documentary references, iconography, repertory, and surviving examples.

91. Once again, Mersenne's information is internally inconsistent. He says on page 300 of the Harmonie universelle (374 of trans.) that the basson (curtal) that he has depicted on that page descends a fourth lower than “the ordinary ones,” yet he gives its overall bore length as five and one-half pieds de roy, about right for a normal bass curtal, as pointed out in Kopp, “Bassoon”: 90. Elsewhere (299; 373 of translation) Mersenne notes that curtals differ in pitch, some going “lower than others by a third or fourth,” thus at least confirming the existence of different sizes in France. For a survey of surviving pieces specifying curtals, see Klitz, “Bassoon.”

92. See Kenyon de Pascual, “Brief Survey.”

93. Kreitner, “Minstrels.” See also Kreitner, “León”; Kreitner, “Repertory”; and Kirk, “Instrumental.”

94. For instance, a distinction in roles between a player of the bajón en los cantos de órgano and a member of the capilla de los ministriles (shawm band) is implicit in the 1592 document from Palencia quoted in Kreitner, “Minstrels”: 536.

95. See Foster, “Bassanelli,” for an inventive approach to a reconstruction according to Praetorius's illustration, Theatrum instrumentorum: pl. 12.

96. See Boydell, Crumhorn: 325–341.

97. See both Boydell, Crumhorn, and Meyer, Crumhorn, for archival information regarding the distribution and demise of the crumhorn and related winds.

98. It should be mentioned that this is still the cylindrically bored rackett of the Renaissance and not yet the conically bored version, actually a bassoon in compact form, whose invention near the end of the century has been credited to J. C. Denner.

99. See Kopp, “Musette de Poitou,” for an investigation of the instruments and performers associated with this French institution.

100. See Sandman, “Wind Band”: esp. 30.

101. See Anthony, French Baroque: 12–14, for a short history of the Grand Écurie.

102. See Boydell, Crumhorn: ch. 6, 183–195, and Haynes, Eloquent Oboe: 37–42.

103. See Kopp, “Before Borjon,” for a thorough investigation of the early history, technique, and influence on instrument building of the musette de cour.

104. Borjon de Scellery, Traité de la musette.

105. Hotteterre, Méthode.

106. This is, in fact, a multiple drone in a very compact package, resembling a rackett.

107. See Kopp, “Before Borjon”: 17–18.

108. Marx, “Baroque Oboe”: 3–19.

109. Haynes, “Lully”: 324–338.

110. Harris-Warrick, “Thoughts.”

111. See Haynes, Eloquent Oboe, particularly ch. 1, for the most thorough examination to date of the development of the early oboe.

112. Haynes, “Lully”: n22.

113. Careful work has now begun in analyzing surviving so-called transitional oboes and other variants, such as the “Deutsche Schalmeye.” See Haynes, Eloquent Oboe: 173–174; Thompson, “Deutsche Schalmei”; Bouterse, “Deutsche Schalmeien”; and Thompson, “Smaller.”

114. Harris-Warrick, “Thoughts”: 105, and Harris-Warrick, “Score”: 356–359.

115. See Kopp, “Precursors,” for a thorough examination of Mersenne's information on reed instruments with doubled-back bore. Kopp has managed to make sense of Mersenne's illustrations, which have seemed merely rudimentary or at best schematic to most researchers.

116. See Kopp, “Notes”: 95–99; Kenyon de Pascual, “Wind-Instrument Maker”: 26; and Kenyon de Pascual, “Jointed Dulcian”: 150–153.

117. See Waterhouse, “17th-Century Bassoon.”

118. See Kopp, “Notes”: 109–111.

119. See Baines, “Talbot”: 19.

120. See Stanley/Lyndon-Jones, Curtal: 3. However, curtals at lower pitches may have existed; the acoustical length of Praetorius's gedackt Chorist-fagott (Theatrum instrumentorum, pl. 10, no. 4) is about 12 percent greater than that of the offen form, suggesting a pitch difference of a whole tone between them. (Praetorius himself seems unaware of this pitch difference, it should be noted.) See also “Pitch and Transposition,” this guide, n. 25.

121. Fuhrmann, Musicalischer Trichter: 92. See Dreyfus, Bach's Continuo Group: 111.

122. When a five-part string score was adapted to the four-part oboe band, the common practice seems to have been to leave out the quinte (i.e., third viola) part, as argued in Harris-Warrick, “Thoughts”: 102–105.

123. This fact has led Harris-Warrick to suggest as an alternative possibility that the oboes for taille and haute-contre might have differed some way in construction rather than tuning, as befitted specialists in different registers; see ibid.: 105.

124. The only wind family discussed by Mersenne in which there is a distinction in pitch between haute-contre and taille seems to be the cornetts, although once again there is some confusion. His musical example (Harmonie universelle 3: 277; p. 347 of translation) demands an haute-contre built a tone lower than the dessus in (six-fingers) a and a taille a fifth lower than the dessus. In the text, however, he twice says (273 and 278; 343 and 348 of translation) that the only difference between dessus and taille is that the latter has a key, impossible if they are to be a fifth apart. It seems the musical example is more likely to be correct, if only because it may have a more direct line to a practicing musician!

125. See Semmens, “Translation”: 136; Ranum, “Problems”; and Hotteterre, Principes: 36–37; 78 of translation.

126. See Freillon-Poncein, Manière: [19], and Semmens, “Translation”: 138 (f. 175r of original).

127. See Myers, “Recorder Tutors”: 4.

128. Loulié defines a trill as “irregular or defective” when the fingering for the appui is not retained in the trill itself; see Semmens, “Translation”: 138–139 (ff. 176r to 177r of original). Loulié's directives find an echo half a century later in the flute method of Johann Joachim Quantz, who is even more specific about the technique of suppressing the pitch during such trills in order to correct their intonation; see Quantz, Versuch: 104–108 (86–89 of original).

129. See, in addition to Freillon-Poncein and Hotteterre, J[ohn] B[anister], The Sprightly Companion (London, 1695), the first tutor for the oboe.

130. The “r” itself is almost certainly still a dental one, rather than the uvular “r” that has now become standard in Parisian French; for evidence regarding this question, see David Lasocki's introduction to his translation of Hotteterre, Principes: 19–20.

131. See Hotteterre, Principes: 22 (60 of translation).