SISNW r History, Technology, & Performance of Instruments of Western Music > = Zz n z = 7, | ” MURRAY CAMPBELL, CLIVE GREATED, & ARNOLD MYERSshe ocarina and the Shas been found all sAStica, China,and = small number of piece orlikea of construction is se or other bird, ss the late nine- Figure 4. shows covered by each ssa plunger for ‘opened in suc- ss only the toral » play the same plug contain. venth and six- iy used. Mod- Sry; as with the ency spectrum Historical Development Early and Renaissance transverse flutes Iris thought that the earliest form of transverse flure was the Chinese chi dating, srom about the ninth century ace. Some Roman works of art depict instruments which could be transverse flutes, but could also be side-blown reed instruments Firm evidence for the existence of the transverse flute in Western Europe is not available until around the eleventh cencury. The transverse flute first came to the Germanic countries and later, about the fourteenth century, to Spain and France. By the early sixteenth century itwas well established throughout Europe. A good deal of information on the variety of flutes available in England during the six teenth century has been obtained from King Henry VII's inventory, made on his death in 1547: this listed seventy-two flutes ‘Numerous flutes from the sixteenth century have survived and are to be found in the major instrument collections. They are essentially cylindrical tubes in one piece with an embouchure bole and six finger-holes for the basic scale, usually spaced in two groups of three. Chromatic notes could only be produced by cross fingerings. Pictorial evidence indicates that earlier instruments were constructed fn much the same way. The cylindrical bore instrumenthas become known as the Renaissance flute; a reproduction is shown in Figure 4. Inthe Middle Agesand Renaissance small cylindrical transverse flutes known as fifes were commonly used by foot soldiers. The British flute band, which consists of flutes and drums, also contains a small flute commonly described as a fife. This instrument, a six-keyed flute pitched in Bra sixth above the concert flute is signif ‘cantly different from the Renaissance fife, however, since it has a narrow conical bore. The other members of the flute band are instruments of differentsizes with aasimilarbore, giving a relatively shrill sound well suited to outdoor performance. ‘The Baroque transverse flute In the seventeenth century the flute found it difficult to compete with other instruments in meeting the demands of the new expressive style of playing. In the upper octave especially it was difficult co keep in tune and play with even timbre Instrument makers therefore sought to bring about improvements in design to ‘meet the demands for refinement in tone quality and extended range The transformation took place in France and one of the leading figuresin bring: ingabout these changes was Jacques Hotteterre (1674-1763) a member of the dis tinguished French family of instrument makers. The new Barogue flute chat emerged was made in three sections, which aided precise driling of the tube, The ‘main body was tapered down towards the lower end whilst the head joint, which lid overa tenon on the body, could be pulled in or out for tuning purposes. The ‘conical bore had a flattening effect which allowed the finger-holes to be brought26 ‘The Flute Family loser together, making ic more manageable for the player. The short foot joint section was tapered (cither contracting or expanding towards the end) or was cylindrical, dependent on the particular model, ‘The new flute was pitched in D, in the sense that raising the fingersin turn from. the bottom gave the scale of D major. Aside from the conical bore the other main feature was that there was a seventh hole for the purpose of playing D4 and its harmonics. Previously this could only be obtained by half covering the lowest hole since cross-fingering is not available here. The additional hole was opened and closed by a key, operated by the righthand little finger, which was held closed with a spring in its rest position. ‘This addition now made the flute fully chromatic ‘The basic range of Hotteterre’s new flute was from D, to Ds although several higher notes could be obtained with some difficulty. Notes above E, had to be forced and could not naturally be included in compositions. The tone was more consistent throughout the range than the Renaissance flute and more pure in quality: In the upper range it responded more readily to nuances although in the fundamental octave it was somewhat weaker. An important design feature introduced later (about 1720) was known as the corps de rechange. The flute was divided into four sections: head joint, upper body section, lower-body section and foot joint. Several upper body sections of differ- ent lengths were supplied, to be chosen according to the pitch required. This arrangement allowed wider pitch variations to be accommodated without intro- ducing mistunings across the instrument. Figure 4.2(c) shows a Baroque Mute ‘with an alternative upper section, ‘Once established, the one-keyed flute maintained its position as che standard instrument throughout most of the eighteenth century. Gradually, however, far ther keys were added to eliminate the necessity for cross-fingerings; first the four- keyed flute in about176o, then the six keyed, and finally the eight keyedby the end of the century Inthe first half of the nineteenth century there was no one model which could be considered as stanclard, since the one-Keyed version continued to ‘be made and used alongside the four. six-and eight keyed versions. ‘The most commonly used material for flute construction in the Baroque peri- od was boxwood, although ivory was also used, Boxwood suffers from the disad- vantage that it tends to absorb condensation, causing the wood to swell with adverse effect on the intonation. During the nineteenth century flutes were man- ‘ufactured from many other materials, including cocus wood, ebony, and glass. The Boehm flute ‘The beginning of the nineteenth century coincided with great changes in the ‘musical life of Western Europe, marked by a move from the drawing room into