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Citation preview
Yale Musical Instrument Series
The
Flute *
c^\
n'l^W .
•
•«
*-•1
Ardal Powell
r
D—XU
Uteri' public 1
The
v.4-
Flute
Wo longer the
property of the Boston Public library, ffris material benefits the Library.
Also available in
this series
Timpani and Percussion jeremy Montagu
THE YALE MUSICAL INSTRUMENT SERIES
The
Flute
Ardal Powell
Yale University Press
New Haven and London
Copyright
10
©
2002 Ardal Powell
98765432
All rights reserved.
This book
may
not be reproduced,
in
whole or
in part, in
any form
(beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without written permission from the publishers.
For information about this and other Yale University Press publications, please contact:
yalebooks.com
U.S. Office: [email protected]
Europe Office: [email protected]
www.yaleup.co.uk
ISBN 0-300-09341-1 (hbk) ISBN 0-300-09498-1 (pbk) Library of Congress Control
A catalogue record Typeset
in
for this
Number 2002102865
book
is
available
from the British Library
Columbus by Northern Phototypesetting Co.
Printed in China through Worldprint
Ltd, Bolton, Lancs.
Contents
List
of
vi
illustrations
Preface
ix
Acknowledgements
xi
Introduction
i
1
Shepherds, monks, and soldiers
7
2
The
3
Consort and
4
The
5
Quantz and the
6
The
7
Travelling virtuosi, concert showpieces, and a
8
Flute
9
The Boehm
10
Nineteenth-century eclecticism
186
11
The French
208
12
The
flute in the
13
The
flute in the early
14
The postmodern age
264
Abbreviations
282
References and notes
284
Index
335
flute at
war and
at
home
27
solo: the seventeenth century
49
early eighteenth century: the ‘baroque’ flute’s golden age
68
88
operatic style
107
Classical flute
mania
new mass audience
127 *44 164
flute
Flute School
age of recording
music revival
227
246
Illustrations
page 1.
Woodcut from
playing a transverse
flute.
A shepherd playing
Print Collection,
New
and Photographs, The 2.
Fiddle, flute
and
Miriam and
Two
Der Kanzler,
a
MS
533,
compendium of instruments shown
a
Miniature
6.
j.b.2,
413V and 423.
ff.
in
the Cantigas de Santa Maria.
miniature 240.
18
Heures of Jean de Berry (C1388). Paris: Bibliotheque nationale
in the Petites
de France, Lat 18014,
8
34V.
f.
miniature from the Manesse manuscript (C1340).
Madrid: Patrimonio Nacional, Escorial Library 5.
Arts, Prints
the flute in a manuscript of the early eleventh century. Paris:
voice:
from
flutists,
woman
Wallach Division of
Ira D.
Heidelberg: Universitatsbibliothek Cod. Pal. Germ. 848, 4.
a
York Public Library, Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundations.
Bibliotheque nationale de France, Greek 3.
Tobias Stimmcr showing
a series (Strasbourg, 1578) attributed to
f.
48V.
25
Drawing by Urs Graf of four
flute-playing comrades, 1523. Basel: Offentliche
Kunstsammlung, Kupferstichkabinett K. 108.
28
7.
Woodcut showing drummer and
29
8.
Filers
9.
Biber’s Battalia a 10 (1673).
10.
from the Triumph of Maximilian
a set
33
12.
Dancers prepare for Library
Two
11),
showing shawms, tabor pipe and
Fer’s
MS
34
a torch
Add. 24089,
f.
dance, Flemish
35
Book of Hours,
combination of British Library
Book of Hours,
and
lute
MS
37
flute or recorder, (a)
Add. 24098,
22V; (b)
f.
in
of
ci6oo
in
Book of Hours,
C1500, London:
Simon Bening (1483-1561), Hennessy
MS
II,
40-41
158.
prototype of C1520 showing female
a
lutentist. St Petersburg: State
Female flute-player
Flemish Books of Hours, showing
Flemish
Brussels: Bibliotheque Royale,
Version of an image derived from
and
C1500. London: British
19V.
almost identical images frequently used
singer,
fife,
diagram of the scale (1556).
Jambe de
15.
I.
of recorders.
11.
14.
1553.
Virdung’s plate of wind instruments (15
and
13.
fifer,
flutist,
Hermitage Museum.
45
an allegory of Music. Vienna: Kunsthistorisches
Museum, Gemaldegalerie 3080. 16. 17.
18.
50
and recorders from Praetorius’s Theatre of Instruments (1618-19). Johann Sadeler, after Maerten de Vos, l he Magnificat a 5 by Cornelius Verdonck Flutes
51 (1585).
Harmonic Universe! le (1636). 19.
54
Air de cour by Henri Le Jeune, an example of music for flute consort from Mersenne’s
Two
kinds of
llustes
57
d A demand, or
Fluste
d Allemand and
Fifre,
from Mersenne’s Harmome
Universelle (1636).
59
20. Robert Bonnart, Simphonie du tympanum, du Luth,
et
de
la Flute
d Allemagne, 1692.
Bibliotheque nationale de France, Departement des Estampes. 21.
Andre Bouys (1656—1740), De Labarre and Musicians. London: National
22.
Michel de Labarre, Pieces pour
la flute traversiere
(1702).
Paris:
64 Gallery.
69 7i
v ''
Illustrations
23.
Bernard Picart (1673-1733), frontispiece from Hotteterre-le-Romain, Principes de Flute traversiere
...
(1707).
la
Washington, D.C.: Dayton C. Miller Collection, Music Division,
Library of Congress. 24.
Portrait
73
by Jan Kupecky of
a flutist
believed to be Ferdinand Joseph Lcmberger.
Nuremberg: Germanisches Nationalmuseum. 25.
Trade card for the London instrument-maker and dealer Thomas Cahusac, C1750.
#7
Dayton C. Miller Collection. 26. Carl Heinrich Jacob Fehling (1654-1725),
drawing of the stage and orchestra,
Dresden Opera House. Dresden: Sachsische Landesbibliothek Kupferstichkabinett.
Dresden Opera House under Hasse, 1734-64.
27. Plan of the 28. Portrait
92
of Johann Joachim Quantz, C1741. Bayreuth: Schloss Ermitage,
Bayerische Verwaltung der staatlichen Schlosser, Garten und Seen. 29.
French and
(a)
(b)
German images of
96
Frederick the Great.
102-3
Dayton C. Miller Collection. 30.
(1727-88), portrait of gentleman amateur William Wollaston,
Thomas Gainsborough C1759. Ipswich
31.
Borough Council Museums and
108
Galleries.
Johann Georg Ziesenis (1716—76), an unofficial view of Karl Theodor von der Pfalz playing the flute (1757). Munich: Bayerisches Nationalmuseum.
32.
109
Jacob Tromlitz, engraving of his father Johann George Tromlitz (1725-1805). ti6
Courtesy Karl Ventzke. 33.
A
34.
The
flute lesson, frontispiece
by
blind virtuoso Friedrich
E.
F.
Burney
Dayton C. Miller Collection.
(1787).
128
•
Charles Nicholson’s recommended embouchure and body position (1836).
Dayton C. Miller Collection. 36.
The
133
Caspar Fiirstenau (1772-1819) and
flutist
his
son and pupil Anton Bernhard 14 0
(1792-185 2). Dayton C. Miller Collection. 37.
Charles Nicholson’s ornamented version of Roslin Castle (1836). 14 2
Dayton C. Miller Collection. 38.
H. W. T. Pottgiesser’s drawing of his proposed
Courtesy Broekmans 39.
&
new
flute (1825).
van Poppel B.V.
144
Eleven fingering patterns, from Anton Bernhard Ftirstenau’s Die Kunst des (1844).
Farce of Flutes
Flotenspiels
Dayton C. Miller Collection.
40. Mid-nineteenth-century print by
41.
‘New
J.
153
W. Childe
illustrating
‘Major Wheeler’
in the
Notions’. Dayton C. Miller Collection.
by Theobald Boehm, Boehm
&
Greve, and
157
Boehm &
Mendler. Dayton C. Miller l(>5
Collection. 42.
120
Ludwig Diilon (1769-1826). Courtesy Chairman
Frank Parnell. 35.
#9
(a)
Boehm’s
flute
of 1831;
(b)
Gordon’s
flute, C1833; (c)
Gordon’s
flute, i5nfku boren.
artist
is
invention of which from a crane’s bone
Although Minerva [Athene]
verstelt:
is
Die solche Pfeif gar hoch erheben/
who
alien Spilen gehet.
Die Zwerchpfeif
Nur
auft
erstlich
Midas macht
Heut kan man
sie
zum
Trans, modified from Jan
auft
den Roren
schonsten boren.
LaRue and
just
is
her
woman’s
chatter
Listen rather to the poets,
fits
Krauchbeinen ungeschlacht:
Die man darnach macht
it
highly praise this pipe
because
ihn der Natur bestehet
displeased
with pipes because they distort the mouth,
one should not pay her heed:
Und auch zu
King Midas.
seen as a progress from bones through reeds,
man sich doch nicht argern fon/ Dann sie red wie ein Weib dar von: Und vil mehr auf Poeten geben sie
is
of the contemporary instrument.
Soli
Weil
5
Tobias Stimmer
verse by Johann Fischart (1545-90) to the mythical
miftfalle
den mund
X>ic^!rcrfl>pffir‘ crftlirft
gc6tii
folcfic
the history of the flute
in the perfection
Wiewol Minerve gar
mthr mifpoclcn
pfaf sjar §od) cr&cfKii/ ®cll |k tint Per llatm 6c|lcftct
£>i
*
mm crampon I
|/BI
a>n gi:m cruoani
II
I
ucfcitipcmr crcnon, no? fpMtttfwft ttnrnuv
fat
tm .-i rum autiir rmnci
linear feu rniojrnVn.
»V
0 ktmuflVmtc too omc ifi
nl
. *
‘
nooirjvifn j^>i4(noc,
”
cn etna
oiictotrniofrlon,
tm a .
|
ion
nc
1
|wMuulauv
ft
T \V\* Cl JVC? ft” no? fiuo
(tnn ;tr fen
trite? no ‘3 cii ^entatir
mno
f,
5
;t".cic6
.1
inurairflcTWC too cine
fvmiwcs tvw6 tat kT
vnn lo.n
—rfqnmlonm
o$ (co faros,
tr ru
^
§
«
y
England
only one complete
taper, at 21 per cent,
except
the
Assisi
and
decade of the seventeenth century the
common
instrument
in
France.
masters of playing and
A
is
the
Haka flute
directory of
making woodwind
Consort and solo: the seventeenth century
instruments,
flutes,
67
flageolets, oboes, bassoons, musettes, etc.’:
Colin Hottcterre, Jean
Du Mont, Rousselet, Dupuis, le Breton et Little is known of the maker named Dumont,
Hotteterre, Fillcbert, DesCosteaux, Filidor,
Froment, Heron,
though two of
A=39 2.
B, at
Du
Buc, and Roset.
4
’
one
his transverse flutes survive,
a flute
s
stamp, one
three others are
was noted
maker of
in
D
1696
flutes.
is at
listed in
be discussed
in
who
C1692. as the
Of the
surviving flutes
Haka instrument, while (//
1696-1716)
together with Jean Hotteterre the
1701 as one of the most skilled
chapter
woodwind makers of
Paris, will
4.
the Hotteterre family held posts as court musicians over
several generations, as well as
Martin Hotteterre
as hautbois et musette
lowest note of
an already long-established master-wind instrument maker and
Numerous members of
and
same unusual pitch
Surviving flutes by Rippert,
younger was
Paris.
the
in
pitched at around A=395_ Jean Jacques Rippert
flutes
as
a
Naust (c'1660-1709) appears to have become proprietor of
Pierre
Etienne Fremont’s workshop on that master’s death
with Naust
d amour, with
(//
conducting business
1678-1712),
du roy dans
sa
who
in the city of
inherited the position of his father Jean
grande Ecurie
in
1659, was working with his father
workshop
his brother Jean fils dine (eldest son) at a
makers
as instrument
in
the palace precincts by 1673.
Martin inherited his father’s business as well as his trademark, the sign of an anchor,
and on the strength of an inventory of his workshop of any member of the family specifically
to
in 1711
-
the only such
mention transverse
flutes as
document
opposed
to
- Tula Giannini (1993) has proposed that Martin specialized in making n general 43 the type of instrument that is now so famous as the ‘Hotteterre flute’.
f
Cites
\
One
surviving original of this type marked with the anchor stamp and the
hotteterre (A-Graz: Landesmuseum Johanneum) may be the work
of
name
Martin
Hotteterre or of his son and successor Jacques, while other instruments with similar
maker’s marks held by to
museums
and St Petersburg and previously thought
have been by Hotteterre have recently been re-evaluated as nineteenth-century
replicas.
44
All
misconceptions aside, the Graz Hotteterre
type of early French baroque it
in Berlin
flute: its
flute
is
considered the classic
small bore and moderate taper (26 per cent) set
apart both from the early phase instruments (Haka
and
Assisi)
and from the more
conical three-piece flutes developed during the following century, repertoire and popularity reached their highest point yet.
when
the flute’s
Chapter 4
The
If
early eighteenth century: the ‘baroque’ flute’s
we compare
a flute
of C1700 with one of
hundred years
a
earlier, all its essential
sound-producing mechanisms have changed. The cylindrical bore of the
become wider
instrument has
and
altered their shapes
the
new
one end than the other; the new instrument
instead of in
several sections,
in
at
sizes,
one
piece;
and are made
its
as
instruments,
their
built
embouchure and fingerholes have
instrument has a key for the player’s right
came
is
tube walls of increased thickness; and
in
hole added to the six of the sixteenth-century flutes
earlier
flute.
fifth finger,
controlling a seventh
These alterations
in the
design of
woodwind
primary function, along with that of the other
gradually shifted from playing a part in an ensemble of equals to
performing the new, more individualistic solo music. The changes affected not only the construction of instruments but also the skills of the musicians
These continued gained
much of
to include its
amateurs as well as professionals, and the
a
from
boost
commodities such
moved
as
changes
in
viol,
and
new
lute.
type of flute
sold
musical
just as the flute
melody instrument.
who had
ot court musicians
Amateur music
way people bought and
the
performances, lessons, instruments, and music,
into position as the favourite
The handful
played them.
popularity in the upper strata of northern European society at the
expense of instruments already fashionable: the recorder, received
who
specialized as flutists in seventeenth-
century France had inhabited a closed world ot private performances not so very different
except
perhaps
in
quality
from
those
which amateurs
in
Professional flutists began to be heard in larger and
German began
states
to
and
import
free cities, their
Italian
previous generation. players
who had
one, as
j.
j.
after the Thirty Years’
at least as lavish as
The changing requirements
of
their
those of France
War,
in the
work encouraged wind-
formerly doubled on several instruments to concentrate on a single
Quantzs
flutists as virtuosi
more public spaces once the
economies recovering
opera productions
participated.
early career illustrates (see chapter
5).
The new
status
of the top
gave them an opportunity of appearing before a paying audience
in
public concerts, this time alongside players of the violin, oboe, recorder, and keyboard.
Their repertoire presented novel forms such as solos (sonatas or suites for
flute
and
basso continuo) and concertos (compositions that typically contrasted one or more featured instruments with an
accompanying or
material from genres as diverse as Italian opera
Public concerts developed
first in
ripieno group),
and
central
borrowing ideas and
European folk music.
England, where the perennial financial troubles
The
21.
early eighteenth century: the ‘baroque’ flute’s golden age
69
Andre Bouys (1656-1740), De Labarre and Musicians. John Huskinson has argued
dates from 1707 or shortly thereafter since the music
published
in that year.
He
shown
identifies the standing flutist as the
Marin Marais. Doubt remains
as to the identity
The
Flute,
89, and
II
in Flute
Iconography’,
EM 29
flutists,
man standing
who may
in the
de
trios
be brothers from
background. See also the Truth:
The
(2001), 56-9.
(1660-85), followed by the disbanding of the Catholic King James
court musical establishment under the Protestant William and
many of
livre
composer, and the viol player as
Mary Oleskiewicz, The Hole Truth and Nothing But
Resolution of a Problem
of Charles
de Labarre ’s Troisieme
of the two seated
the Philidor, Pieche, or Hotteterre families, and of the Bate,
is
that the picture
the foreign-born court musicians to create their
tunes’, overtures,
and intermission music
Mary
for the theatre, as well as at flutes
s
(1688), obliged
own employment
Reports of these performances made no mention of transverse
I I
in
‘act
music clubs.
before an aria
The
70 entitled ‘Hither turn thee, gentle swain’ for ‘Flute D.
Almagne’ from John
Flute
Eccles’s
masque The Judgement of Pans (London, 1701) was published, and probably heard on the London stage in the following year. The most probable explanation for the new 1
instrument’s sudden appearance
Continent had introduced
it
London
in
James Paisible and three
to the professional scene, just as
French colleagues had brought the baroque recorder from France that
baroque
were being made
flutes
London twenty
in
maker from the
that a player or a
is
Evidence
in 1673.“
years after the baroque
recorder arrived comes from James Talbot’s manuscript (compiled by 1695-1701),
which described one by the transplanted southern French maker Bressan.
3
Paisible
and
the oboist Francois La Riche were to have supplied a flute fingering chart for Talbot’s
manuscript, but
stave unfortunately remains empty.
its
any
In
the fact that
case,
Bressan was making baroque flutes by about 1700 or even earlier does not necessarily
were playing them:
indicate that professional musicians
engaged
London
in
opera musicians
as
were
in 1711
still
in fact
French wind players
bringing over oboes by Colin
Hotteterre and bassoons by Rippert of Paris, tuned to the
London
theatres’ pitch.
4
La Riche, and others came to London during the prosperous years after
Paisible,
the Restoration,
when
European musicians,
a position
and growing market
became one of the most
the city
inviting destinations for
held for another two centuries. Besides the steady
it
for instrumental performance, teaching,
and music publishing,
demand
the taste of the English upper classes for music-theatrical spectacle created a for professional
experience
musicians that could only be
of work
that line
in
players of the baroque flute in
Italy,
London were mostly
was the oboe. One such was John native Flanders
Germany,
in
who
by players
filled
had gained
and France. Thus professional
foreigners
Loeillet (1680-1730),
whose main instrument
who had
by 1705. By November 1707 he had become
first
arrived from his
oboe of the Queen’s
Theatre, and was noted as an excellent harpsichordist and recorderist as well as transverse
His compositions,
flutist.
harpsichord, recorder, oboe,
published by the
London
John Banister, identified as the
However,
it
was not
may
‘German
flute’ to
featured
new
violin,
found
a
until 12
Charles
member of
in
and
II’s
four collections
December 1672
at his
five years after Eccles’s Judgement
house.
of Paris,
oboe band who David Lasocki (1983) from Loeillet, gave the first performance on the
in
newspapers.
1
Another concert of 26 March 1707
pieces by William Corbett (1669-1748), probably his Six Sonatas with an Violin's
and Hautboys,
Flute de
Bassoons or Harpsichord,*' and an aria for transverse flute obbligato, ‘Cares
presumably written for
Loeillet,
was heard
at
on
the Drury Lane theatre on
1
a
A //main, Crown’,
April 1707
Thorny ris, Queen of Scythia, an opera adapted by Johan Jakob Heidegger from works
by Alessandro In
his
for
band, had announced what are usually
Overture and Aires in four parts for a Trumpet,
in
suites
the royal
flute
be announced
sonatas,
Walsh and Hare.
February 1706,
have learned the
trio
ready market
public concerts beginning on 30
that Peter La Tour, a
suggests
firm of
a violinist in first
and
flute,
including solos,
Scarlatti,
Germany, where
Bononcini, and Steffani.
as
noted
in
chapter
3,
Kusser had included
a flute
obbligato
in
opera Enndo (1691), the instrument seems to have remained absent from the theatre
until
Reinhard Reiser (1674-1739), noted for
scored for
it
in his
his
opera Heraclius (Hamburg, 1712).
imaginative use of instruments,
The
early eighteenth century: the ‘baroque’ flute’s golden age
PIECES POUR LA FLUTE TRAVERSIERE. A V E C LA BASSE-CONTINUE. M.
Par
Ctjvfratnt
DE LA BARRE.
itsilffii X
L- i:t t t mn:iiT r
'
P
RE
LU
D
E.
6—
V
Bass
e
6t— 1
—
C ontinue.
Xi*8'3pi x X
6__6_-
22.
Michel de Labarre,
baroque
X_
X
6
Pieces
pour
6
*++
la flute traversiere
JL
(1702), the
first
x
flute.
and sacred music, the
theatrical
instrument
in the
more
entered an entirely
flute
to score for
new phase
private settings that continued to prevail at court.
published collection of flute pieces
in the
new
style,
as
a
The
in
it
solo first
appearing two years ahead of the
French works for violin and continuo, was Michel de Labarre ’s avec la basse-continue (Pieces for transverse flute
flute traversiere ill.
g;
published solo music lor the
While Campra, Charpentier, and other French composers continued
earliest
6
^
Pieces
pour
la
and basso continuo, 1702;
22).
While professional musicians were accustomed
to playing their
own works from
manuscript, and to copying out by hand works they admired, printed music offered
amateur players access
to a repertoire that they
or anyone
At
else,
play.
first
need never have heard the composer,
such publications seem to have been printed
at
the
composer’s expense, and sold through commercial outlets as well as by authors themselves. In
London and Amsterdam, on
the other hand, John Walsh the Elder put
the small-scale publication of sheet music on a
followed by Estienne Roger the next latest
year.
more commercial
The two
basis in 1695, to be
firms began a race to publish the
and most fashionable music, quite often without the composer’s permission or
even his knowledge.
By
his early twenties Labarre
France.
Explaining
in
his
had already become one of the foremost
preface
his
unprecedented
decision
to
flutists
print
of his
The
72
Flute
compositions, he observed that the music was quite different from the sighing, tender airs of Philbert
The
and Descoteaux:
pieces are for the most part of a character so special and so different from the
now of what
idea that people have had until
decided not to
let
some information
for this kind
first
of
who might
flute to appear,
to those
wish
to play
stimulate a rise in flute-playing standards.
and ornaments,
and
as well as for fingering
have risked including
I
challenges that this instrument play them to practise
enough
is
He
for
capable
to
choosing accompanying instruments:
of,
some of
the beauties and the
so as to persuade those
who
wish
to
to succeed.
Despite the novel quality of his music, Labarre ’s
much
viol,
included instructions for executing slurs
these pieces
in
think
I
them.
Labarre intended his pieces, like those Marais had published for the
so
I
by playing them myself; but the
see the light except
and since these pieces are the
necessary to give
And
that
flute,
who heard me play them and the errors which crept into the who copied them down finally made me determine to have them
versions of those printed;
the transverse
of those
entreaties
it
them
suits
own
owed
playing seems to have
and Descoteaux had projected. One observer
to the affecting quality Philbert
recalled thirty years after his death:
The famous de Labarre hearers],
which
never achieve.
is
a gift
had,
it
the marvellous talent of touching [his
said,
is
of nature such that any kind of
art
[i.e.
artificiality] will
7
In the early eighteenth century as ever after, students valued personal contact
a
famous teacher more than any written
instructions.
among the most highly sought-after world, who included women, and held
(1674-1763) was fashionable Orleans.
By 1708, according
Hotteterre was
flute de la
inherited, conditional
the
to
title
Chambre du Roy
on payment
of a
page of
(flutist
huge
Jacques Martin
Hotteterre
teachers by the amateurs of the
rank as high as the Duke of
his
Pieces
pour
la flute traversiere
of the King’s chamber), and
tee,
with
in
,
1717 he
Rene Pignon Descoteaux’s position
as Joueur defluste de la musique de chambre. In
1707 Hotteterre committed
method book la flute
flute;
a of
bee,
for the
new
ou flute douce;
his ideas to writing
when he published
flute, his Principes de la Flute traversiere, et
the
on flute d'Allemagne; de
du haut-bois (Principles of the transverse
flute,
or
German
the recorder, or soft flute; and of the oboe), supplied with an elegant
frontispiece by the top engraver Picart
(ill.
23).
Though intended
players of the transverse flute, the tutor addresses those with
for
beginning
some knowledge of
music, and gives important indications about Hotteterre ’s priorities as a performer. prescribes different pitches for
writes that to the
first
two
‘a
number
syllables
of people
Fu and Ru,
flat
and sharp enharmonic tones
do not make is
this distinction at
passed over relatively
briefly.
8
(see all’.
p.
83),
He
though he
Tonguing, limited
Hotteterre gives
much
The
23.
early eighteenth century: the ‘baroque flute s golden age
73
Bernard Picart (1673-1733), frontispiece from [Jacques] Hotteterre-le-Romain, Principes de
Flute traversiere ou flute d’Allemagne; de la flute a bee, ou flute douce;
more extensive
particulars for the performance of the
ports-de voix, accents, jlattements
and
battements
and recommends the Symphonies du (Paris: Ballard,
advanced
On
feu
-
et
du haut-bois
let
(Paris: Ballard, 1707).
—
ornaments or agrements
trills,
so integral to the music of this period,
Mr. Gaultier de Marseille;
divisees
par
suites
de tons
1707, written before Gautier’s death in 1697) for the practice of more
flutists.
25 October 1715 the
Hotteterre’s house,
German
where the
diarist
Johann Friedrich
teacher, ‘rather
pompous and
A.
von Uffenbach
full
of
airs
and
visited graces’,
showed him
many
fine flutes
traverses
that
he
makes himself and claims
offer
particular
advantages. Afterward he brought his musical works, of which he has published five quite successfully,
two
9
livres. ...
one of which, the method
for the flute traverse,
he
sells for
The
74 Uffenbach
who
with
contact
Rippert’s
another Parisian woodwind-maker, Jean Jacques Rippert,
visited
queer fellow’
crusty,
musicians
flute duos, Sonates
pour deux
instrument-maker,
Thomas
On as
may have
afield
far
in Paris (1722).
Lot (1708-87), this suggests that
now seems
to
be
doubt.
in
inventory of his father Martin’s workshop taken
along with recorders of various
marriage
at all
in 1728,
appear
sizes, musettes,
opposed
Sonatas (as
to
Like the unaccompanied
by another prominent
some
if
not
makers
all
made instruments
contained ten transverse flutes
oboes, and bassoons." Yet no flutes or listing Jacques’s possessions
A boxwood and
or in another on his death in 1763."
came
however,
to light,
himself,
A recently-discovered posthumous
in 1711
document
in a similar
section flute that recently
him an unusually
reasonably proficient standard themselves.
the other hand, whether Jacques Hotteterre actually
music
10
flutes traversieres sans basse (1736),
flute to at least a
Uffenbach reported,
flute
given
book of French
first
French forms) to be published
could play the
‘a
never had an instrument ready on time. Manners aside,
cosmopolitan outlook: he produced the suites or other
Flute
is
on
his
ivory three-
stamped hotteterre with
a
unknown monogram of the letters LR below." One plausible explanation of monogram is that it stands for ‘le Romain’, an appellation that, though its
hitherto the
significance
began
unclear,
is
to
appear
in Jacques’s
publications between 1705 and
1707. As a fashionable teacher of aristocratic amateurs with a reputation that his
method book can only have enhanced, Jacques was well placed whether he made them himself or employed others In
any
century
France
1680-1715),
included
of Charles
those
Louis Cornet
(ci
678—
1
Bizey
Baptiste] Fortier (Rouen:
//
C1708), and
(ci
685— 1 75 2),
Chevalier
Antoine Delerable (1686-1734),
745),
1692), Jean Nicolas Leclerc (d 1752), and Pierre Naust
made
for
Besides Rippert’s workshop, others active in early eighteenth-
flutes.
14
so.
Uffenbach and other amateurs had plenty of further options
case,
purchasing
do
to
to sell instruments
1692-1734)
(//
Panon (Toulouse:
15
Dumont
(fl (fl
in Paris, [Jean-
Early baroque flutes were
?).
London by Thomas Stanesby Junior (1692—1754; fl C1713-50) as well as by Bressan, and in Germany by Jacob Denner (Nuremberg: 1681-1735), Johann Heinrich Eichentopf (Leipzig: 1678-1769), Johann Poerschmann (Leipzig:
also
in
1680—1757),
Johann
Schell
(Nuremberg:
1660—1732),
Johannes
Scherer
Junior
(Butzbach: 1664—1722), and Georg Walch (Berchtesgaden: 1690—1764). In the
Countries there were Abraham van Aardenberg (1672—1717), Jan
Low
Barend Beuker
(1691— C1750), Willem Beukers Senior (C1669-1750), Thomas Coenraet Boekhout (1666-1715), Philip Borkens (1693-C1765), Jan Juriaenszoon van Heerde (1638-91),
and Engelbert Terton (1676-1752) Bosch:
Switzerland had ci
667-1746), and
The
and Johann
1694-1750),
flutes
ebony or
all
a
specialist
Italy in
these
The
developed
a personal
means
Amsterdam, Frederick Eerens (Utrecht and Den
Hyacinth
transverse
flute
Rottenburgh
maker
in
Johannes Maria Anciuti (Milan:
(Brussels:
1672-1756).
Christian Schlegel (Basel:
n 690-1740).
workshops produced were made principally of boxwood,
ivory, in three sections,
for DVE|,.
in
having
a
more or
instrument’s acoustics were by no
less
conical bore and a single key
means standardized: each maker
concept of tone and intonation, and devised original technical
of achieving his ideas.
shallow as 21 per cent, while
The bore
taper could be as steep as 29 per cent or as
maximum
bore diameters differed by up to 1/
mm.
The
early eighteenth century: the ‘baroque flutes golden age
75
great differences from
Hence the surviving instruments have
one another
in timbre,
intonation, range, and flexibility of tone.
The
baroque
pitch of early
flutes
A=395
ranged from about
A=4o8. Bruce
to
Haynes (1995) has identified two pitch levels in France: ton de I’Opera (A=q9o), the pitch in Lully’s Academy, at which theatre and opera music was performed; and ton de Chambre or organ
(A=c400-405), the pitch
ton de Chapelle
in the king's chapel.
low chamber pitch
German A chamber
Leipzig
The
from about 1720
1
pitch.
in Versailles,
in
A=c4io, which Quantz referred
pitch of
England
In
made
1702, and from about 1715 attempts were
standard pitch of about
a
to
A=4o8 was
to
the
as
used
at
differences in pitch were to have consequences in Bute construction (p.
80).
Because most musical performances other than opera
took place
in Paris still
have
private, early eighteenth-century concerts involving transverse flutes
Joachim Christoph Nemeitz,
traces.
and of the
Bach’s predecessor as Thomaskantor introduced a similar
German standard
establish a
the Opera.
at
16
court
at
a
German
visitor
who
few
left
wrote before 1718 of
experiences, described concerts by the best masters at the
homes of
in
his
Duke of
the
Aumont, the wealthy Treasurer Crozat, Hotteterre’s pupil the Duke of Orleans, and others.
Amateurs played
at other,
the flute as the most popular
of
it
as ‘one
less-frequented domestic concerts. Nemeitz recalled
melody instrument, confirming
of the most pleasant and one of the most fashionable’:
The instruments people were most devoted harpsichord and the transverse, or German, instruments with unequalled refinement.
As well
Hotteterre’s description
as
appearing
at
indoor concerts,
1
*
were the
Paris at that time
to in
The French today play
flute.
these
Iv
were often depicted
flutes
and paintings of open-air outings, sometimes with
guitar. In fact
in
engravings
an entirely
new
class
of composition, the ftte gal ante, had to be created at the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture to accommodate the work of Antoine Watteau, who specialized in this genre.
20
Intimate concerts
became more frequent
in
the
theatrical spectacles correspondingly less so,
France, deaths and poisonings
among
life
714—15 were played before the king by
Couperin created the music,
was probably
Pierre
series
after a
the nobility, and
increased pressure on the king to turn to religion. 1
of the court, and grand musical-
Madame
de Maintenon’s
Sunday afternoon concerts
group of musicians
a small
his Concerts
of military defeats for
Royaux (Royal ensemble
for
whom
pieces).
Francois
The
Danican Philidor (1681-1731), flutiste de chambre and hautbois
ordinaire de la chapelle
et
chambre du
roy.
in
flutist et flute
Couperin envisaged some pieces he published
for harpsichord as suitable for other instruments: the bird-imitation, ‘Le Rossignol-en-
amour’ (The nightingale
in love),
from his third book (1722),
be more successful than on the transverse
flute
when
it
Hotteterre’s L'Art de Preluder of 1719 provides a rare
is
is
marked
that
it
‘cannot
well played’.
document of
a
spontaneous
musical form suited to intimate or even solitary performance. In contrast to the written Prelude, or opening
up on the
spot,
movement, of a
announcing
a
suite, the
Prelude Hotteterre describes was
made
key before modulating into others and then returning
The
76 main
to the
were never
their very nature improvised preludes
Though by
tonality.
announced and hardly ever remarked upon
in
writing, the form appears to have 1
existed well into the nineteenth century, outside France as well as within Hotteterre’s
work contains
a
Flute
it.
chapter on transposing, to enable unison playing with
singers in airs of the old. pre-Lullian style. French music of the early eighteenth
century for treble instruments, including the
French violin
The
employed
clef usually
for instruments that play the treble
is
convenient for
and oboes
is
not forced to draw
some
in
foreign countries
on the second
A Gi
flutes
ist
most usual
former position that
one
was customarily notated
the
in
clef:
has two positions, one on the
It
flute,
[i.e.
lines
It
re sol.
the
is
the most
is
it
G
spreads out the range rather evenly, and
it
above the
five
normal ones
everywhere but France] where
as
is
this clef
the custom is
used only
22
line.
.
.
.
clef can be read as
though
it
were
gives instructions for transposing into different positions
French ensemble pieces, and
in that
many
and the other on the second.
line
in
of
that
is
on the
stave.
a bass (F4) clef, an octave higher. Hotteterre
keys by imagining G, C, and F clefs
all
Such transpositions enable the
in
play tunes in
flutist ‘to
the correct key, and in unison with the voice’.
Printed music for the flute took longer to appear in
Germany owing
to an
When
climate entirely different from those of London, Amsterdam, and Paris. arrive
and
was quite unlike the French
it
Italian styles. In
1715
repertoire,
though
full
some of the
(1718) included
and figured
one
earliest ‘a
bass, Trio
German works
probably the
et
first
Basse chifjre
of references to French
own
(for violin, transverse flute
of suitable instruments including the
dedicated to four professional oboists,
published
in
Italian music, especially that in
Though
Flute traverse.
page indicated that
its title
Little
Chamber-Music, consisting of VI
violin, Flute traverse
,
as well as
singing manner, suitable as a virtuoso,
The
first
Suites,
it
was aimed
tor the practice
by Georg Philipp Telemann.
the
arranged and composed for the
of
a
beginner
in a light
as for
and
performance
23
solos specifically for transverse flute to be printed in
Johann Mattheson’s Der brauchbare
at
flute:
keyboard, but especially the oboe,
much
was
the publication
growing number of amateur players of instruments including the
in
flute
derived from the violin’s idiom. Telemann’s Kleine Cammer-Music (1716) gave a
a style
by
as
compositions, which
music for the baroque
Germany, which included much writing influenced by
list
did
to specify the transverse flute. His Six Trio
Violon, Flute traverse 3),
it
Georg Philipp Telemann (1681—1767), then employed
director of city music in Frankfurt, began publishing his
included
economic
Virtuoso
Germany appeared
(Hamburg, 1720; composed
1717), at
about the same time as Walsh published opera arrangements and Johann Christian Schickhardt’s sonatas for the instrument
in
London. 24 Mattheson’s
style
features
constant semiquaver or quaver motion, arpeggiated passage-work, and other
traits
The
early eighteenth century: the ‘baroque Jlute's golden age
of
24.
Portrait
the
Bohemian
a flutist believed to artist
Jan
be the imperial court musician Ferdinand Joseph Lemberger by
Kupecky (between 1709 and
derived from the Italian violin indicated that slurred,
all
style;
in
his
1725).
Das
neu-eroffnete Orchestre the
though Heinrich Dobbler, the experienced professional
ornamentation.
25
composer
such passage-work was to be tongued individually rather than
dedicated the publication;^ might well have added
Giuliano
Furlanetto
(1998)
some
has
especially for flute traversiere,
colleague of Quantz
at
was published
slurs
flutist to
that
Johann
n.d.), for violin
as a rejoinder to
whom
he
by way of discretionary
suggested
Blochwitz’s Sechtzig Anen (Freiburg: Christoph Matthai,
a
77
or
Martin
oboe
‘but
Mattheson. 26 Blochwitz,
Dresden, addressed his short preface to the amateur ‘reader
The
78 with
Mattheson’s extremely prolix one to the
a taste for music’, in contrast to
virtuoso’. Yet
minor,
D
he
compositions
set his
major and minor,
A major and minor,
B(,
major, and E, B, and
on the
instead of Mattheson
wish for
to
s
major and
major and minor,
and A
easier D, G,
a
second pair of
and
lungs’,
to
be ‘good
so that mere amateurs of Musique should be pleased not with crickets
ear,
The
leaping figures], but with cantabile ideas’.
of the Dresden court, including references
German
English dances, the severe
style,
sixty arias typify the
to Italian arioso
German
a
composite idiom
central Europe.
around the same time
flutist
given by an unpublished collection of 54 instrumental solos, the largest proportion
of which are specifically
for flute.
27
Brussels manuscript, compiled in C1724,
The
contains solos by Johann Heinrich Freytag (one of Johann Sebastian Bach’s two at
Cothen), Blochwitz, August Reinhard Strieker (Bach’s predecessor
Christoph as
Forster,
Johann Sigismund Weiss, Schickhardt,
better-known composers such Nearly
all
as
None of Johann
manuscript.
their city in the
autumn of
may have been
BWV
1013
may
29
1724.
An
and
1717,
since
group
concertino
appearance of the
from
its
French
flute
set
flute, as
against a
2
*
friendship with Buffardin,
Bach’s
A minor
Solo without
emerged with
its
from 1719 seems
which
ripieno string
joins the violin
orchestra.
to
be Bach’s
for
first
and harpsichord
As such,
it
own
repertoire in
Germany
that
is
the
combined
into a ‘mixed style’ of composition. For flute,
Italian vocal
the principal inspiration
and
first
of composition but
first to
ideas
German
as
came from the
violin music rather than the precious
The performance manner of German
Telemann was perhaps the
refer to a class
flute,
V
made
well as the harpsichord, as a concerto instrument.
and improvisation of
flute style.
mixture.
later
visited
rediscovery in 1917 as the Partita), the style of which
well as English composers for the virtuosity
meet the composer when he
view of Bach’s
of Brandenburg Concerto
wide range of influences
a
to
date from as early as the end of 1717, though a case has also been
early version
Thus the
Buffardin, Quantz, Blochwitz,
flutists
on which the two met.
the occasion
(known
in
extant ensemble composition involving the a
as well
of Mattheson’s unbroken passage-work and of Blochwitz’s English
partakes both dances,
and Quantz,
Sebastian Bach’s flute solos was published
and Christian Friedrich Friese had an opportunity
bass
Cothen),
Telemann and Handel.
before the nineteenth century, but the Dresden
this
Loeillet,
at
flutists
the music written for virtuosi by virtuosi remained in manuscript copies
like the Brussels
in
[i.e.
solemn French overture,
,
and the folk dance of
Another picture of the varied repertoire of is
G
minor,
‘skilful
minor. Blochwitz designed his phrasing to be Practicabel, ‘so
nobody should have reason
that
B minor,
C
of keys, including
major, E minor, F major,
Ej,
major, and
D
wide range
in a
Flute
players
was probably
a similar
use the term ‘mixed taste’ in 1718, not to
to describe the playing
of the Frankfurt banker
Heinrich Bartels:
He
has such an exact knowledge of French and Italian music that he performs both
as a singer
own, or
and on various instruments, especially the
in a style
Handel arrived already
in
composed
violin, in either style
on
its
mixed from both of them. 30
London
for the first time in 1710 to
a piece that
belongs
among
promote
Italian opera,
having
the baroque flute’s earliest solo works,
8 early eighteenth century: the ‘baroque’ flute's golden age
The a
D
major sonata of around 1706-7
German
in its source, the
Weiss
(HWV
79
378), misattributed to [Johann Sigismund]
Brussels manuscript just mentioned.
31
The second of
Handel’s four extant solos for the transverse flute was originally written
oboe, but appeared
in
was marked Traversa version in
D
minor
G
for traversa in
two
Solo in
two printed
1
no. ib) in
had been composed about twenty years
for recorder
about 1727—
Fifteen of Handel’s
and
Milan
in
in
a recorder sonata.
London operas between
1721
and 1738 included transverse as Loeillet,
3 ’
Handel and
London. Carl Friedrich Weidemann (d
homosexual underworld,
first
played
in
17 82),
Handel
later.
L'allegro,
il
later
penseroso ed
il
wrote ‘Sweet
cadenza’.
German
playing
bird’ for solo flute ‘in
who
featured
London’s
of
in 1725,
and soprano
in
musical/
and Quantz
the opera during his visit
two
in the oratorio
which the technical demands and
removed from those of a
far
flutist
member
a
flutists at
moderato (London, 1740),
of solo writing are not
style
a
Handel’s opera orchestra
reported John Festing to have been one of the years
whom Quantz
his operas also attracted specialist flutists to
Hogarth and may have been
engravings by
flute
Francesco
woodwind
1726 as an exception to the low standard of
opera orchestra there.
in the
as
and incorporating phrases
F3,
Barsanti (after 1714), and Giuseppe Sammartini (after 1729), the last of
had noted
earlier.
recycling parts of his earliest flute sonata of C1706-7,
,
which could have been played by oboe doublers such
parts,
a
E minor (known
Travers, e Basso in
altering material from a violin sonata to avoid E3
from other works including
B minor
in
by Walsh dating from around 1732, but
prints
Handel prepared the autograph of the Sonata a opus
The sonata
versions.
F for the
in
flute
concerto complete with
34
Festing
left a
large fortune
of £8000 on
his
death
having appeared as
in 1772,
transverse flute soloist (as in a concert at the Lincoln’s Inn Fields theatre
on
12
a
March
1729) and earned his living principally as a teacher as well as playing at the opera. But a
connection with the opera was not
a
precondition of an active concert career for
a
From 1714 onwards, John Baptist Granom was noted as a performer on the German flute and trumpet, and the diarist John Bryom wrote appreciatively of his transverse flute-playing at Bressan’s house on 3 April 1724, noting that he was ‘the flutist.
only
man
for
it
...
he played most sweetly’. According to an anecdote by the music
woodwind-maker Thomas Stanesby
historian Sir John Hawkins, the that ‘besides
Dr Pepusch he had never met with but one person who could
the hexachords,
namely Mr John Grano[m]’. However, despite
contrast to Festing’s success,
May a
1728, the
Hoboy
stated in 1736
same year
in
Granom was committed
which Walsh
&
to
this
solfa
by
and
in
skill,
Marshalsea prison for debt
Hare advertised
his Solos for a
German
in
Flute,
or Violin with a Thorough Bass for the Harpsichord or Bass Violin.
The wind
players of
contrast to
Italy, in
its
string players,
seem
to
have found better
fortune across the Alps than in their native land, since relatively few indications have yet
been found of the use of
flutes
there in the early eighteenth century. Three
transverse flutes appeared in the orchestra in an engraving of the Royal Theatre in
Turin (Antoine Aveline, 1722), and Antonio Vivaldi his
opera Orlando Furioso (1727),
Amsterdam and
35
first
two years before
his six
flute
in
Ospedale
della Pieta to teach the flute at the school.
Among
flutes in
concertos op. 10
year before Ignazio Sieber joined
appeared
a
employed transverse
Vivaldi
at
the
the earliest surviving
The
8o those of Anciuti (Milan). As early as the 1720s
flutes are
Italian
composers published
was stong enough
in the flute in
economy of
By about 1720
supplied
in a series
The
appears
were
This forms
a contrast to later
built to
joints evenly
a
high and
one another by no more than earlier type
38
262),
supplied with middle joints
is
more than one
at
u>
in Paris.
among
the early four-
standards
in use.
instruments, which were usually supplied with a set of
Denner.
The
be made, dividing
workshop
1721 from the Naust
fairly precisely the different pitch
spaced between
One example of the
37
to
be played
flute to
generally thought to have been
match
joint flutes
tone’.
in
of this divided middle section could be
part
of different lengths to enable the
document of 30 December
differing from
of the usual three began
two hands. The upper
The surviving instruments
middle
strong mercantile
written mention of these alternative middle joints or corps de rechange
first
in a
flute tutor
74).
(p.
flutes in four sections instead
the
flutes in a
interest
where professional and amateur musicians mixed
has already been noted
body between
Italian
Amsterdam, where
as well as in
Dutch translation of Hotteterre’s
to justify a
the Netherlands,
collegia musica,
pitch.
London,
The plethora of instrument-makers who supplied
1729.
the
flute solos in
dozen
a
Flute
instrument, which
came at
is
a
low extreme,
comma,
a
provided by
Quantz put
as
it,
‘each
or the ninth part of a whole
boxwood example by Jacob
a
to light in 1991 in
original fitted case
its
pitches variously reported as
A=402,
(p.
412, and
422, or A=392, 410, and 415, depending on the blowing technique and expectations
of the
player.
These
permit the flute to play
levels
chamber pitches ^=392-400 and
the
at
A
A=4io-i5).
commonest low and high interchangeable
fourth
C
transforms the Denner flute into an instrument with a lowest note of
chamber pitch
(i.e.
transposing instrument
a
B
'in
in
at
joint
the low
contrast to the normal flute
'in
C' with a lowest note of D).
This lowest configuration corresponds to
known, but of which the Haka (F — Paris:
Musee de
flute (chapter 3),
Musique)
la
type of instrument of which
a
provide
little
and one from Naust ’s workshop
two further examples.
Perhaps
such
instruments were meant for playing oboe parts, an especially desirable capability
time
when
flute
music was
scarce.*''
On
the other
is
hand Marco
at a
(1996-7) has
Brolli
pointed to an arioso which seems to have been written specifically for the instrument in
Handel’s Riccardo primo (London, 1725; Act
strings,
part
is
In a
III,
scene
2),
scored for traversa
and soprano. While the string and voice parts are notated in
G
not
far
from Dresden survives
pitched about a major third below the this type, the flute
d amour,
in a brief
a
boxwood
German A-chambcr
and incomplete
list
flute attributed to
pitch.
and smaller &c.
there are low fourth-flutes,
Quantz mentioned sizes:
kinds, both
less usual
flutes
Quantz,
d’amour
,
little
fourth-
41
Though extant sets of
in size,
40
of other
Besides the usual flute traversiere, there are various other
flutes,
F minor, the flute
minor.
museum
larger
in
bassa,
middle
flutes
joints
by makers
one
of
in
many European
countries were supplied with
which transformed an ordinary
flute in
D
into a flute
,
early eighteenth century: the 'baroque flute’s golden age
The
study by Peter Thalheimer (1983) turned up
d’amour, a
this or
81
any of the other lower
Works
a
unique concerto
in B.,
A were more common,
for an instrument in
the largest
by Christoph Graupner (1683-1760): nine cantatas composed
ten
major for
a
which Johann Melchior Molter (1696-1765) composed some time
flauto d'amore in Aj,
after 1742.
He noted
flutes.
repertoire intended for
little
concerto of 1730-6
G
in
major for
body being 1730, and a
in
viola d’amore
flauto d’amore, oboe d'amore,
strings,
bassoon, and continuo.
Quantz made no mention of
still
other extant lower-pitched
flutes: basses, a fifth
or an octave below the
D
by Bizey, Thomas
Lot,
and Christophe Delusse (1758-89)
Gedney (London,
C1760), Beuker, and Anciuti (dated 1739). Again
flute.
Of the
latter kind,
mid-eighteenth-century instruments
by Caleb
survive, as well as
many more of these
instruments exist than seems justified by the extent of their repertoire, and quite what
The
they were used for remains uncertain.
indication in Diderot and d’Alembert’s
Encyclopedic that 'this instrument provides the bass in flute ensembles’, such as those of
Boismortier and Corrette, perhaps, serves as the only firm indication.
Quantz apparently was not aware of employed by Destouches and Lalande Rameau’s opera-ballets (1751). Corrette’s
octave the
flute’.
again
have
...
4:
a
the piccolo either,
in the ballet Les Elements
charming
effect in Tambourins
same
Third-flutes in F (the to
that these
mention
band and military music, seems
and
in
‘little
had
it
been
first
(n 7 21), and featured
Les Indes Galantes (1735), Pigmalion (1748),
method of C1740 mentioned
Quantz omitted
though
and Acanthe
in
Cephise
et
transverse flutes at the
concertos written expressly for
pitch as the treble recorder) also survive, but
this size,
whose
Some of
slim.
repertoire, possibly including flute
the concertos for flauto traverso in
Vivaldi’s op. 10 provide effective vehicles for a third-flute.
Flute-makers range
a
in
Germany and England attempted
whole tone
lower
than
transposition, perhaps to enable
usual
mechanical
type noted above or to play more oboe music.
workshop of between Schuchart
flute
a
with
a
in
footjoint
and John
3
April
1725 a visitor to the
London was shown what was
whose range extended
J.J.
Schuchart had also made
Just
Schuchart had
time. C. Schuchart 's reference to the
to C.
flutes
with
a
mention by Quantz.
Jacob Denner, with
Nuremberg;
a
low
a
44
C
A
A
dispute
but no
C
: ,
C-foot
treatise
the
extension did
resides in the
writer,
not
detrimental effect on the flute’s tone.
been conceived for
a
flute
in
of 1732,
by
Germanisches Nationalmuseum
second one disappeared from the Berlin museum during World War
(1725-1805), tried to revive the C-foot as
a
sole surviving such instrument from this period,
Another German, the Leipzig virtuoso,
explained,
43
known of similar instruments in Germany at that C-foot in Germany is confirmed by an illustration
Joseph Christoph Friedrich Bernhard Caspar Majer’s instrumental
and
by
than
rather
the columns of the Daily Advertiser in August-September 1756 revealed
the 1720s, and that
in
means
flute’s
London instrument-makers John Mason, Caleb Gedney, and Charles
that Stanesby Junior
in
On
Pierre Jaillard Bressan (1663-1730) in
almost certainly
1720s to extend the
match the range of the Haka/Naust/Denner
to
it
by
in the
4s
in the
and flute-maker Johann George Tromlitz 1750s and 60s.
become popular Only
a
that could play a
transverse flutes and bass attributed in
its
2.
in
He gave up
Germany owing
handful of pieces
low C.
One
the idea, he
such
may is
a
to
its
possibly have trio
for
two
surviving manuscript to Fortunato Keller
The
82 (1686—1757), but identical with a piece published as Quantz’s
The manuscript of
BWV
Bach’s Solo
second beat) that seems
1013 contains a
C2
Bach contains the harpsichord part of the B minor sonata 47
The
on
The
a flute that could play a
decline of court music
Paris, as
it
(bar 50,
bar 48, second beat).
(cf
A
BWV
down
1030 transposed
absent from the manuscript, could be played in that key without
flute part,
alteration only
movement
obligato e Flauto traverso composta da Giov. Seb.
manuscript entitled G. Moll Sonata al Cembalo
a third.
5.''
sonata op. 3 no.
trio
in its last
have been adjusted up an octave
to
Flute
may have
appears to have done
Danican Philidor (1681-1728),
low C.
played a part
London.
in
listed as a
of public concerts
in the rise
In 1725 the
French court
member of several
in
Anne
flutist
court musical ensembles
during the eighteenth century’s early years, founded the Concert
highly
spirituel, a
successful series of public subscription concerts to provide music during religious fasts
when performances
Academic Royale de Musique, the
the
at
suspended. These concerts showcased
who made
new
a
Paris
opera, were
generation of instrumentalist-composers,
most cases without court appointments, by giving lessons
their living in
to
wealthy students and by providing music for aristocratic and bourgeois patrons. The
new
stars
favoured the sonata over the suite as the principal form of composition, and
introduced to French audiences
music for the
a
new, Italian- and German-influenced style of solo
flute.
Michel Blavet (1700-68) was by virtuoso in the
himself to play almost
handed, and bassoon.
On
The son of
instruments, specializing in
all
spirituel,
Passion
(first
his
name and
debut
enthusiastic reports of Blavet ’s effect
One of
precise
mieux files], a in the
the flute even in a
command and
of music:
embouchure, the best swelling and diminishing of tone
liveliness that
had something prodigious, an equal success
[les
sons
les
in the tender,
voluptuous, and in the most difficult passages: that sums up M. BlavetC
His intonation excited particular comment. suggest that the music he performed pieces he published,
You
made
audience
his
48
his abilities in all kinds
The most
on
contemporaries specified Blavet ’s superlative technical
his
the newly-
where the instrument had previously been played only
in France,
languorous manner.
at
left-
unknown) each
dates
indicate that the ‘exciting, exact, and brilliant’ style of his playing
more popular
he taught
a turner,
which he played
flute,
Wednesday 1726 he made
where he and Lucas
Numerous
played a concerto.
accounts the most brilliant French flute
half of the eighteenth century.
first
formed Concert
all
which were
will also agree if
instrument.
I
set
at
The remarks of one
public concerts
only
was quite
critic
in
1757
different from the
in the easiest keys:
you are sincere that
it
would even have thought
is it
very difficult to play in tune on this
someone who had
impossible for
practised for a very long time if the inimitable Blavet had not proved the contrary to me, hearing
him play
difficult pieces
chosen
in
sharp and
plays to the complete satisfaction of the most scrupulous
ear.
50
flat
keys,
which he
TUNING SYSTEMS
Since the
late
tuning as
a
nineteenth century and particularly since about 1970, most
match between
chapter 14 and
and the theoretical system of equal temperament
their instrument’s ‘scale’
however, playing
148). In earlier times,
p.
with other instruments or voices in an exact, or
manner of
‘just’,
The
marked
as ‘so
earlier
tempered ones are ‘rough,
whether he
To achieve these pure
intervals in
grouped into
in pitch
all
keys,
full
Quantz and
and
as F#
G\, }
Ei,
to
and adding
E[,
B
;
,
intonation
two notes
is,
modern music and
that
the justly-intoned
the equally-
at once’:
it
full
his
and
as
it
were
contemporaries divided the whole tone
The two
five
commas
(about
in
and
cents)
a
semitone meant that
sizes of
had different pitches about 22 cents
apart,
with the
flatted
a
new key
that
unbearably out of tune by any
it
Paris Conservatoire took the official position that the
was imperceptible. Quantz’s
made
for D#,
play a pure third to B, as well as a third from
from
in
the tuning of an interval makes
in
difference between enharmonic pairs
fifth
hear
semitone of
(about 89 cents).
which the nineteenth-century
the key to a pure
just
than the sharped one on the line or space below.
discrepancy of 22 cents
standard, despite
of
stream, calm and smooth, without tremor or beat’.'
a large or diatonic
commas
of notes, such
note higher
A
we
while the pure ones ‘possess a
dull, trembling, restless’
small or chromatic one of four pairs
the pure interval, that
musically cultivated or not, observes
is
saturated harmoniousness; they flow on, with a
enharmonic
basis
ensembles was described by the nineteenth-century acoustician Hermann Helmholtz
that every one,
into nine equal parts,
is
The
intonation.
in
‘beats’ jarring their tone.
difference between the equally-tempered chords
ones sought by
(see
tune denoted the practical matter of fitting
in
and the fundamental building block of all tuning systems
sound together without
have come to think of
flutists
E[,
to
G
by tuning the note produced by
possible without adjusting the
it
that
flute,
embouchure
would otherwise be excessively wide and
would be too narrow. Quantz achieved the other enharmonic
distinctions
to
a
by
providing each note of the pair with a separate fingering, some ot which Hotteterre had already given.
As usual, theory lagged behind
practice,
and Telemann attempted
to codify
what was
common
clearly a
practice of playing in tune in his Neues musikalisches System only in the early 1740s, referring approvingly to the
Quantz
D
That
:
flute
and
Et,
when
his essay
constitute
fourth finger and
two
with the
E[,
was published
different tones little
violinists
1767:
also the case with violins,
finger; likewise, transverse flutes
As Tromlitz and other writers on the
made by
is
in
note
as they
and other instrumentalists,
that,
with the exception of
farther from just intonation
explain that
why
early flutes
had sharps
in
and closer
F#,
no doubt
one-keyed
have two special keys/’
also
in flat
flutes
were by
singers, at least as late as
6, 8).
produce sharps that are
less in
flats.
This
may
keys related to the Dorian mode, and
why
music
to their equal
sounded better
taken with the
is
confirmed, these enharmonic distinctions continued to be
flute
1800, by which time intonation practice was changing (chapters
We may
where D#
temperament values) than
in
the sharp keys.
Blavet held important posts in French music throughout his career. As a musician
the Chambre du Rot he received a stipend of
bonuses. la
When
his
pay was docked
Reine in 1738 (the year in
for
1200-1400
making only
six
livres,
appearances
which he probably turned down
a post
plus at
with
200-300
in
the Musique de
Crown
Prince
Frederick of Prussia that was eventually accepted by Quantz), his basic salary was
1500
500
livres.
in
As
first flute at
the
Academy of Music he
bonuses. Eight concerts for the Dauphine
in
received
1753 earned
700-800 him 120
livres plus
livres,
and
a
(i.e.
help in
the key-signature remained rare until Germans, including Quantz, addressed the
problems of playing
in
tune
keys
The
84 similar
number of
The terms
rehearsals at Fontainebleau netted another 396.
him payments
of his
known, but
contract with Philidor for appearances at the Concert spirituel are not surely brought
Flute
munificent. In addition to his activities as a
just as
may have
performer, Blavet held a royal publishing licence and
acted as selling agent
Telemann’s publications, such as the twelve copies of the Musique de
in Paris for
for
which he subscribed. 52 He may
the
workshop of
also have
conducted
a sideline reselling flutes
table
from
Pierre Naust.
who appeared at the Concert spirituel included JacquesChristophe Naudot (d 176 2), who is first heard of in 1719 as Maitre de musique in a marriage document. A Madame Paris de Montmartel who commissioned a book of Other flutist-composers
trios
appears to have been a pupil.
1726. Jean-Daniel Braun
for
Lucas appeared
flutist
accompanying the
flute,
cadet
were Germans
his elder brother
The
le
who
His
who
settled in Paris,
Blavet,
where both appeared
flutist
Fame
Buffardin,
appeared
flutist
who
1726 and again
the 1720s
we know
as far as
method books which Bowers
came
and bass by
Rippert
and the
1749,
1739 Graeff or Greff,
cellist
a
l'Abbef 4
publications by Joseph Bodin de
men independent of
court
interprets as suggesting ‘that easy financial gains could flute’.
The
first
entire
book
of sonatas
woodwind maker
French composer was published by the
a
to
1715
Boismortier adopted the sonata terminology for two books of duets
in 1722.'
in 1724, as
to the Taillart brothers, but
in 1737. In
in
Benoit
did not play the flute themselves. Both wrote
be expected from any publication related to the for flute
le cadet,
flutists.
from abroad also performed:
Boismortier (1689-1755) and Michel Corrette (1709-95),
patronage
and
Dresden Hofkapelle from
part in trios with Blavet
new compositions of
Further
the
in
as soloist several times in
German, played and took
was noted
his Syrinx, ou Forigine de la
(d 1782)
presumably related
identified only as la demoiselle Taillart. Virtuosi visiting
Pierre-Gabriel
in concerts.
Lucas (Paris: Merigot, 1739) to the three Taillart
in
of the Duke of Epernon, and
The poet Denesle dedicated
voice.
1733 a female
in
compositions were published
ordinaire de la musique
appeared were Pierre Evrart
Guillemant, and
flute
first
the Concert spirituel in 1726 and 1736, and
at
poeme a Messieurs Naudot,
Others
,
53
two
well as for solos (flute and continuo) and trio sonatas for
flutes
and
continuo. Between 1726 and 1729 Rippert was followed by Michel Blavet, Jean Daniel
Braun, Andre Cheron, Michel Corrette, Loeillet, Jacques
J.
Handoville, Jean Marie Leclair, Jacques
Christophe Naudot, Quentin
le jeune,
and
J.
Rebour.
When
the French
publisher Boivin published an unauthorized collection of pieces by Qiiantz in 1729,
he described them as
‘Italian
hand of those who want instrument’.
sonatas
...
very appropriate for forming taste and the
to succeed in the difficulties that are
in the late 1720s.
French composer for any instrument to receive Boismortier printed
in 1727,
Corrette published
in
in
the
and further works
flute,
the
this title
for three
few years afterwards.
Amsterdam by Le Cene
concerto for solo
first
in
of that kind
to
appear
in
The
first
were works
and four
Vivaldi’s
n 729-30.
5
op.
Corrette’s
in France,
French violin concertos by several years. Naudot followed with concertos
this
56
French composers adopted the concerto
published
now common on
flutes
10
pieces by a
for five flutes
which he and
concertos were
works included
a
predating the earliest a set
the mid- 1730s, and Jean Daniel Braun produced two
of
sets,
six solo flute
now
lost,
that
early eighteenth century: the 'baroque flute’s golden age
The
'
85
appeared before 1742. An unpublished concerto by Buffardin may have been written
and Blavet’s concerto probably dates from the early 1740s.
in the late 1730s,
Rameau’s
Philippe
Jean
ensemble, 1741) gave the
de clavecin
Pieces
or violin, a
flute,
new
(Pieces
concerts
en
harpsichord
for
accompanying the keyboard,
role
in
an ensemble that included bass viol or another violin. Boismortier’s op. 91 used a
many of his opera scores, in which style, Rameau here anticipated a role
similar combination. As in
the orchestration seems
to prefigure the classical
for the flute that
become common
Though appearance
now
to
later in the century.
new and more powerful
the flute had of necessity found a
over a century old continued a singer
voice for
of playing vocal
in public concerts, the instrument’s tradition
Accompanying
was
its
airs in a style
the middle of the eighteenth century.
at least until
remained one of the favourite ways
to use the flute, in airs
published with the text underlay that gave them their old-fashioned declamatory and
The Preface
rhetorical character.
a
la flute traversiere (Paris:
to Monteclair’s Brunetes ancienes
et
modernes apropriees
Boivin, C1725) referred to the enduring emotional impact of
such pieces:
It is
important to practise transposing, for nothing
as
touching as hearing these
tunes [sung] by a beautiful voice accompanied in unison by a transverse
little
Nobody
doubt what
will
sing accompanied by at
is
M
am
I
M
de Labarre
cannot express the pleasure
I
me more
ensemble which touched
More
like
if,
me, they have heard
Bernier, officer of the King,
the opera of the illustrious
great regret.
saying
who
than any clever
frequently printed collections of such pieces
and French opera, such
as the ‘Airs d’ Handel’
so worthily
has retired from
felt at
I
who
artificial
English amateur
this little
in
tunes from Italian ballet-
Probably more popular
than any of Handel’s pieces composed with the flute
one or two
settings for
to the public’s
and excerpts from Rameau’s
among
mind were
the chair
58 music has ever done.
now mixed
in Blavet’s three Recitals de Pieces, petits Airs, Brunettes.
in
it
Perichon
fills
Boulogne on hearing
operas
flutists
Mme
flute.
flutes
of
his tunes
from operas and oratorios,
including Acis and Galatea The musick for the Royal Fireworks, and even MessaahT Peter ,
Prelleur’s
The Newest method
-
Handelian music examples Airs’
for Learners
to satisfy the
it
explicitly
made.
Fleming, writing sixteen
in
its
pages with
seems Walsh and others could not print
fast
demand.
With the appearance of the one-keyed first
Flute (1731) filled
not movements from solo sonatas, but rather ‘Favourite
taken from the operas, which
enough
of the German
Fifes
remained
in
flute a distinction
use in the
between
German army: Hanft
1726, noted that he had seen twelve of
drums march four
flute
them
and
fife
was
Friedrich von
(Querpfeifen)
and
abreast in Dresden, and by the age of Lilliburlero and Yankee
60 Doodle such groupings had become standard. At the Hanoverian accession to the
English throne
prominent place key
like that
in at
1714
once again appeared with drums, having
the coronation of James
of the
of the British
fifes
Army
flute. In
in
II
in
1685, but
now
in a
last
held a
new form with
a
1747 the Duke of Cumberland, the Commander-in-Chief
Flanders and the younger son of George
II,
ordered
a fife
and
The
86
drum
in
camp
at
Maastricht, and the nineteenth Yorkshire Regiment, the Green
Howards, became the an Artillery parade
first
to re-adopt the
marching regiment
in 1753 that
major and ten drummers. The
included a
major and
fife
One
wind
as string or
such was a brother of J.
S.
his
bow by
in 1713,
While
Germany by
teaching of amateurs, though
has
it
low
to
who happened
Hautboist in
a
war
in
add another string
to
a prisoner of
to
be visiting the
Court music, public concerts, military and town band employment for professional flutists in
drum
Hautboisten often
of
class
Johann Jakob seized the opportunity
taking flute lessons with Buffardin,
reviewed
fallen into
Johann Jakob Bach (1682-1722),
Bach’s,
II
like their colleagues at court.
the service of the Swedish guard from 1704 to 1712.
Constantinople
George
five fifers as well as a
new
a
town bands,
players in
fife.
German armies had
Feldpjeifer of the
esteem by the early eighteenth century while
moonlighted
Flute
city.
provided scope
all
the second quarter of the eighteenth century.
The
or no trace, must also have fallen into their
left little
purview. Telemann resumed publishing his works, mostly of an educational nature or
otherwise designed for amateurs, after moving to five principal
churches and director of the
Hamburg
city’s opera.
Der harmonische Gottes-Dienst (Harmonic divine
61
music tor
as director of
Compositions
service, 1725), a set
its
for flute included
of seventy-two solo
cantatas with obbligati for violin, oboe, flute, or recorder, and a collection of flute duets (1727). In 1728
he published the Sonate Metodicbe for violin or
flute
and continuo, the
slow movements of which, provided with both plain and ornamented versions, are excellent sources for learning about this essential yet
music performance. The
III
neglected aspect of baroque
still
Tnette Methodici (1731), followed
by the Continuation
des
two wealthy Hamburg amateurs, the brothers
Sonates Methodiques (1732), dedicated to
Burmester, continued this instructional vein. Telemann dedicated XII Solos (1734) for violin or Traversiere to three Burmester brothers.
After
Telemann
1723
expanded
his
of instrumental
idea
collections
as
encyclopaedias, generally presenting twelve rather than six pieces, selected tor greatest possible diversity of genre, key, and national style. This class of publication included
the Fantaisies for
unaccompanied
as Italian capnccio
and French
teacher), a bi-weekly
from 1728
that ran for
all
flute (1732 or 33),
ouverture.
which embraced genres
His Der getreue Music-meister (The trusty music-
music journal dedicated to the amateur musicians of Hamburg
to 1729, carried instrumental
and vocal music by various composers
vocal ranges and popular instruments, in
all
included a four-movement Sinfonie a Flute traverse seu l, a in the
national styles and genres. la
newspaper Mercure de France noted
Telemann on four occasions Marellam, and the
Telemann wrote on
at
in
June 1745 that Blavet played quartets by
l’Abbe. These
his visit to Paris
Forqueray, the Italian
may have been
of 1737-8, which were played
62 Guignon, Edouard, and the composer himself. A
for flute, recorder,
and continuo long believed
with twentieth-century players because of
its
to
at that
C
unusual instrumentation,
Buffardin and
composed
his six
Dresden
time by
major sonata
have been by Quantz, and a favourite
controversial addition to the long tally of Telemann’s ensemble pieces. living in
same quartets
the
Blavet, Forqueray,
Wilhelm Friedemann Bach,
The French
Italian sonata.
the Concert spirituel with
cellist
It
Franco ise (flute and continuo)
French manner but with the overall form of an
violinist
as different
as an organist,
is
a recent but
63
became
friends with
challenging flute duets between 1733 and 1746, by
c ,
The
early eighteenth century: the 'baroque flute’s golden age '
8?
Trade card
25.
London
for the
instrument-maker and dealer Thomas Cahusac, C1750. Besides building recorders
and
flutes,
Cahusac,
like
woodwind-makers of ran a music
music and
The
shop
all
most other
the day in London,
that supplied printed
of musical equipment.
sorts
text reads as follows:
Thos. Cahusac, Flute Maker,
t (/////' /a
of]
y
,
—
-lr-^
.
.
&
Makes
/ //s' *7/fJO fy/rs/T.) e////Z J//7///L-P .
Flutes
or Fine
in
Wood,
to St
ye Strand, London.
of Musical
Sells all Sorts
Instruments Vizt.
mv Strand
the [sign
and Violin Opposite
Clement’s Church
'T- ?Fhi te Maker? ~ DppoJfite to SXleuients Chiurlj
Two
at
German
Flutes, in Ivory,
plain in ye neatest manner;
r-m.
or Curiously adorn’d with Gold, Silver, or
A
l/t/Aeo .) \ '//o a// Jar£) ofTf/Mii'a/if/i *1 }.z! /german TT/a/i’aMi tynori/.orTA/ne // eu nor C unoiu/y ao/ortn /us/bA //e/Tfy, Z7/ a /ii u/< o / v//hjerneMenr, a/>y?/oi\ve " A Mi vs. o/'Mm/i/. Z/(u/e/o.i//u> TnoA.’A A/‘Aa/.7/audow}\ r? dyy d\.\j/-/ /Azo.
Ivory, necessary to preserve
them,
,
tman
approv’d of by ye best Masters. Also
m
"/v
,
jpii//na/inu/in Pre/e/.
sorts
now
of Instruments
Books of
in
Instruction. Ruled
Paper, Songs, Reeds,
Harpsichords,
Wholesale and
&
Wire
ye best
Two
of
this
was well established
period’s
books on
as
practical
Roman
Mended and
an instrument for virtuosi and amateurs.
music-making offered more than mere
of Hotteterre: Majer’s Museum Musician (1732) and
regurgitations
Autodidaktikos (1738). Majer gives only a short
chart records the brief
summary of the
vogue enjoyed by attempts
to
extend
flute, its
Eisel’s
Musicus
but his fingering
range to low
C
(see
above). Flutes of the 1730s
were
just
as
and 1740s,
now
diverse as earlier types.
routinely
made with
a set
of corps de rechange
,
The workshop of Thomas Lot (1708-86),
successor to Naust, supplied large numbers of flutes to an extensive market including
many of the noble houses of town
Europe. Flutes by the Scherer workshop of Butzbach, a
that specialized in the production
amateurs perhaps
just a$
their musical properties.
was enjoying
a
64
much In
golden age.
of ivory objects, became popular with wealthy
for their conspicuously luxurious
Books
&
for
put in Order.
flute
appearance as for
Germany, France, England, and the Netherlands, the
all
Use, with
Strings
Retail. N.B. All sorts
Instruments neatly
which time the
Hautboys
[oboes], Bass Violins, Bass Viols, Violins,
J/arfoicAore/a. //nute/u.•,J) a//jor&o///miTi/n 7»Xi neeoAy//uj(( 'A/or a// |c \\ < io/runn nAn //ao i wne,v^/ \ (( i/A Tot Ao t/0fris/>n? ,TJor/t> o/L/fU’/J-umen/J now in *//jc. . ^ y /*&on. An /it/ /3ocA*> S/ii/oa •/one^.Aee.
.
il,
dis.
tr
Eleven fingering patterns for combinations ot notes based on D'/E^
39.
Anton Bernhard
Fiirstenau’s Die Kunst des Flotenspiels (1844), 56.
number: besides the sixty-one shown remarks that
fill
in this table,
i
three octaves, from
in
Each fingering
identified
by
eleven further fingerings are referred to in the
the remainder of the page.
extensive examples for use in various combinations ot notes
heading of ornaments appear: the Bebung, chin and used
is
at
vibrato, also used
a vibrato
moments of high emotion; on very high, long, dramatic
made with
(ill.
the
either the lungs or the
of the
a version
Under
39).
flattement
,
or finger
notes;
and the
glide,
which can be used
trills
for the
most
brilliant violinistic
over quite large intervals and combined with effect.
Though appeared
his instrument
in
and sound were quite
the music of Charles Nicholson (chapter
remained the main influence on amateur afterwards
and
when
flutists in
7),
London
his place as the city’s leading player
clarinettist jose
some of whose
until his
the
same
style ot
death
effects
playing
in 1837,
was taken by the Spanish
Maria del Carmen Ribas (1796-1861).
mentioned Nicholson’s use of the instrument’s glides,
different,
56
and
flutist
Commentators often
entire range, his
abundant
and other ornaments and embellishment, though these aspects of
‘slurs’,
or
his highly
individual style frequently attracted the charge of poor taste, or ‘ear-tickling’. But a
more expansive view of the
period’s flute-playing
was given
in
Thomas
Elements (1828), an informed and literate discussion in the tradition of
Gunn. Far from promoting tonguing, Lindsay presented
Lindsay’s
Heron and
single form of that controversial technique, double
a a
critical
study of
all
the methods so far advocated,
quoting from Berbiguier, Drouet, Devienne, Hugot and Wunderlich, Gunn, Nicholson
and Monzani. He also gave the most complete exposition hitherto of ‘augmented fingerings’ for leading notes and
Another
common
Annand complained
criticism in
when
they were to be used.
of Nicholson was his limited repertoire. William
1843 that good flute compositions had been crowded out by
the lower-quality music Nicholson and others had encouraged:
The
154
Flute
particularly allude to the bagatelles called Flutonicons, Scrap-books, Magazines,
I
Companions, &c.
Bees, Pocket class
I
do not wish
of society which supports me,
the
in
is
it
which the amateur afterwards repents shocking waste of time and breath
members and
in justice to its
deprecate the purchase of rubbish;
of; its
any one; but writing for
to injure
myself,
performance
is
more
must
I
money
place a sad waste of
first
a
serious, as
is
it
a
also.
Nevertheless, Nicholson's music did not entirely exclude other styles from the
concert room:
London audiences could hear
chamber music of high
professional
quality by Viennese and other continental composers, as at the Philharmonic Society
when
concert in April 1817
Ireland performing.
flutist
By about 1820
Spohr’s Nonet op.
London premiere with
its
as exceptions to the generalization that the
whole of Europe had accepted some kind of
flute
with eight or nine keys, and Ci
the lowest note: most of the most attractive and enduring flute music from about
1890 was written
to
for
the
58
and Vienna stood out
Paris
received
31
one of the commonest types: English, German,
may have
as
1800
Parisian, or flute
model
each favoured, efforts to devise mechanical and even scientific improvements
in the
Viennese. Yet however satisfied players
momentum
instrument gathered This period’s
new
interest in the flute’s acoustics
made
rationalist scholars,
acoustics
and
the
first
apply them to the
to
with the particular
during the 1820s, after the Napoleonic Wars.
the Enlightenment. Johann Heinrich Lambert, a
of
felt
grew from seeds planted during
member of Frederick
the Great's circle
attempts to formulate scientific laws of tube flute
in
1777.
Lambert’s paper used minute
observation and mathematics to deduce natural laws from practical experiment, the
technique that had proved so successful survey of previous
work on
own
flute,
contrast with Bernoulli’s standard of
the
lip
of toneholc size
and
of A=4i5.25,
hole. to
Using
of the location of the cork stopper, and
his
own
flute as
an example, he discussed the relationship
bore diameter, and the effect of undercutting the toneholes.
on the acoustics
of the
of flute-playing’ appeared
less
narrowly on the quantitative aspects of the
in
German
flute:
its
A contribution
how aware
the instrument and
to a philosophical theory
1806 from the pen of Johann Heinrich Licbeskind,
in
Liebeskind
1816—17 devoted
s
The
a
essay
Germany, had become of differing ideas about
playing styles in various countries. 40 Liebeskind followed up
a ‘Philosophical-practical
1807-8 and 1810. It
flutists, at least in its
An
‘natural philosophy’.
senior Bavarian judge and the son of Quantz’s pupil G. G. Liebeskind.
with
in
A=392. His paper reported on basic experiments
and flute-playing than on what he might have called
indicates
tried to
placement (half the embouchure hole should be covered) so
Another learned writer focused
‘Essay
a pitch
a critical
mathematical constant for the end correction, or acoustic resistance, of
embouchure
flute
which produced
tubes, studied the effects
gave precise details of as to arrive at a
astronomy and physics. He gave
acoustics by Euler (1725) and Bernoulli (1762),
quantify the behaviour of his
and calculations with
in
essay on the nature and tone-play of the
German
flute
41
essays were
itself
somewhat
abstract,
another by Gottfried Weber
entirely to the practical acoustics of
wind instruments, not
in
just
Flute
mama
1
woodwinds. 42 Weber’s
article did
instrument designs, but attempted to work from correction caused small toneholes to
open ones, and suggested
principles.
make instruments behave
that the experimental positions
end correction was reduced to that they required
zero.
Weber noted
He
asserted that end
stopped tubes, not
like
of toneholes could be found
like the
the problem with
all
itself,
the
so that
woodwinds
the player had fingers, and suggested solving
more toneholes than
by making them work
this
first
or focus narrowly on current
the holes were given a diameter as large as that of the tube
when
only
work
not cite earlier
55
trombone, avoiding use of the
harmonic, so
first
that a chromatic scale could be played with only six holes. In
1822
P.
N. Petersen devised a lever for the
left
hand
raise
and lower the pitch by an eighth of a tone while making
Two
years
1824, Pottgiesser followed
later, in
propose another radically
new
was more elegantly made, had but that
it
had made
to
little
He found
he sought.
design for the
hole that could
a crescendo or decrescendo.
Having recently taken up the had acquired more keys,
it
compass and more power
a greater
in
the low register,
progress towards the equality of intonation (gleiche Intonation)
that certain notes
improve others were not usable
flute
1.
flute.
a
ignored essay of 1803 to
his largely
twenty years, he noted that
a lapse of
instrument again after
up
open
to
in all
and
in tone,
remained unsatisfactory
that keys
combinations of notes. He gave details of
with eight equal-sized toneholes and
six keys,
a
new
and proposed several innovative
key mechanisms including ring-keys and crescent touchpieces
(ill.
38).
Pottgiesser deposited a specimen of his proposed flute at the AtnZ's office in Leipzig, enabling Karl Grenser,
and write
a report for the
criticisms
of the keyed
makers
many
in
parts
Dresden, Griesling
Munich, Felchlin
Maybrick
&
in
magazine
in
who
of Europe
it
June 1824. Grenser considered Pottgiesser’s
be without merit, and countered with
flute to
could supply good
a
Grenser
flutes:
Schlott in Berlin, Bauer in Prague,
Koch
in
list
&
Vienna,
of
flute-
Wiesner
in
Boehm
in
Berne, Sax in Brussels, Holtzapffel in Paris, Metzler in London,
Liverpool,
in
of the Gewandhaus orchestra, to evaluate
first flute
and
techniques he used on his
Skousboe
own
in
Copenhagen.
explained
Grenser
some of
H. Grenser flute to obviate
the
the problems
Pottgiesser mentioned: for instance, he overcame a slight inherent weakness in the
tone of the flatter.
The
first-
and second-octave E by opening the DVE[, key and blowing the note
(For Grenser’s ideas on the most practical tuning, see flute’s
mechanism,
bore remained
a
matter for discussion
p.
the 1820s as well as
in
the report of Drouet’s playing quoted on
as
comments on Koch and
Liebel flutes remind
1823, the
us. In
152).
138
p.
and
its
Fiirstenau’s
London woodwind maker
William Bainbridge provided another view on the subject, highlighting the difference
between orchestral and solo
flutes:
There are various opinions with regard I
lately
had an opportunity of hearing
perform on rich
and
a
full.
considerably
width
in
the bore of
very fine player
a
wide one, which he had been accustomed
(a
to:
German
flutes.
professor and teacher) the tone
was
certainly
His opinion was, that the wide-bored flute was more calculated for
large orchestra; but that the narrower
a
to the
less
exertion to play on
was much sweeter
it.
narrow bore were preferred by good
I
observed,
players.
44
when
in a
a
room, and required
in Paris, that flutes
with
The
156
The
orchestral
flutist
Flute
the bore of
Karl Grenser, on the other hand, criticized
English flutes as unduly large in 1828, tracing the deficient response and clarity of
upper register
their
to this cause.
45
He
though
that
felt
sound, this was not easily altered, and so such a playing,
placed
that
style
a
(Modulationsfdhigkeit) that
wide bore produced
a
flute
was not suited
to ‘artistic’
emphasis on the quality of tonal
great
remained the most important criterion
a large
flexibility
German
for
flute-
playing throughout the nineteenth century. Grenser thought English taste disfigured
by
tasteless
mannerisms and
stylistic
Nicholson’s portamento and finger vibrato, and
beyond
limits.
its
eight-keyed
flute,
music.
superficial
felt his
Grenser claimed he could produce
and
that holes
He
particularly
disliked
loud sound pushed the flute
a full
tone on his small-holed
any larger hampered the alteration of tone colour he
so valued.
Nicholson, whose piano playing
If
was noted
his solos
in
as well as his forte
,
reserved the ‘utmost delicacy’ for his orchestral work, Grenser’s emphasis on tonal flexibility
day.
Amy
probably owed much to the small size of the Gewandhaus orchestra of his
Sue Hamilton summarizes the
relative size
of wind and string sections
in
early nineteenth-century orchestras, noting that Nicholson’s Philharmonic orchestra
employed 52 players in the string section alone, while Grenser’s Gewandhaus orchestra (1832) had only 35 players in total, the same forces as in 1800. Hamilton (1836)
suggests that ‘[tjhese numbers alone could well be a deciding factor in explaining the difference between Carl Grenser’s concept of flute tone and the ideas of Charles
Nicholson’.
46
France remained neither
flutists
scientific
cultivated
in political
participated
developments
in
turmoil during the decades after the Revolution, and
published
the
in
discussions
its
mechanical and
about
flute-making, nor considered imitating instruments or styles
by the victors of Waterloo. Though the Conservatoire’s
official flute
had
only four keys, French professionals of the 1820s seem to have played instruments that
had additional keys
for
C2 and long
though
F,
rarely if ever a C-foot until the
following decadeT Giannini’s account (1993) indicates that the attention of leading French makers and players was concentrated less on devising improvements in the than on intrigues and business
flute
rivalries,
using official sanction by institutions
such as the Conservatoire and the Opera to exclude competition. Joseph Guillou (1787—1853), for instance,
who
used a flute by Godfroy, refused to teach pupils
played instruments by Bellisent
made
1819—42), according to
a
complaint that maker
to the Conservatoire’s administration in 1825. Guillou s response indicates
that he played a six-keyed flute
francs
(//
on
its
price of
300
and
that he
francs in 1821.
48
1825 prompted that institution to supply
had received
A change
in
who
a ‘professor’s’ discount
standard pitch
at
the
both
of 50
Opera
in
new
flutes
and piccolos
mechanical innovation that had found expression
in the
AmZ came
its
players with
purchased from Godfroy. I
he
spirit of
Paris in 1826
Tulou’s first
when Captain James
who had
designed
a
Carel Gerhard
Gordon (1791—1838),
lived in the city as an officer in Charles X’s Swiss flute
based on an open-key system
in
a pupil
Guard since
to
of
1814,
collaboration with Auguste
Buffet jeune (1789-/71885), instrument-maker to his regiment. Precise details of this
mania
Flute
40.
1
The mid-nineteenth-century controversy over
some degree of popular
notoriety, as this print
Hill (the
admired American Comedian)
made an
invention on a
holes,
&
let
’em out
flute, -you
it
as ‘Major
could blow as
when you wanted
instrument are lacking, but
by
different types of flute in J.
W. Childe
Wheeler’
many
in
illustrates.
fingers,
allowing
a
appears to have
Notions’. it,
-wax up
made
same
The mention of Gordon and
his
open-key
be opened or closed
‘I
Mr once
the
use of crescent touchpieces to holes
more
beyond the reach
hole beneath the finger as well as another key the
to
reads:
’em.’
at
away
‘New
tunes as you liked intew
advanced than Pottgiesser’s that could transmit key motion of the
England attracted
The caption
the Farce of
57
some
distance
time. flute
brings us to the events detailed
in
chapter 9 that led to the development of Theobald Boehm’s conical-bored ring-key flute of 1832, a major revision of the instrument’s acoustics and mechanism. Boehm’s flute located
toneholes of the largest practical size
many of which
lay
beyond the reach
in their ideal
of the fingers,
acoustical positions,
employing an open-key system
i
The
58
Flute
operated by interlinked parallel rod-axles to close holes too large for the unaided
developing an early prototype
finger. After
London
in
Boehm
1831,
modified
in the
workshops
mechanism
fingering and
its
Gerock
of
&
Wolf
in
further in 1832 and
new flute in his own workshop in Munich. The ring-key flute began to win acceptance when its inventor presented it to the French Academy of Sciences at a meeting in May 1837, and appointed Paul Hippolyte Camus his agent
began
to
manufacture the
to
promote
it
in Paris. In the
by Godfroy and
same year two French workshops, headed by Buffet and
developed versions of the ring-key
Lot,
construction more robust and
French
its
modified to make
its
tone and fingering more like those of the current
flutes.
Only
among
a
few French players took up the ring-key
the country’s most prominent.
instrument and wrote tutors for
win
flute
Camus and
Louis Dorus championed the
(1838), while Victor
it
they were
Coche made
early attempts to
recognition for the flute and credit for himself. In 1839 Dorus played
official
Berlioz’s
flute in the 1830s, but
Romeo
etJuliette
the ring-key flute
on
a
ring-key Boehm-system flute by Godfroy and Lot,
was introduced
Jean Francois Joseph
Lahou
at the Brussels
Conservatoire by directive
(b 1798), the institution’s
founding professor of
49
in
instrument, and his pupil Jules Antoine
Demeurs (1814-47) succeeded him
period of private study under Dorus in Paris."
1842.
flute
himself a graduate of the Paris Conservatoire, resigned rather than teach the
and
and
new
after a
0
Despite the enthusiasm these few influential advocates showed for the ring-key flute in
and Brussels, the leading
Paris
Boehm’s invention
that
felt
Fiirstenau, writing in
arpeggios were well
it
had
Boehm’s
1838, the notes of
in tune,
much
as
lost
Europe and America
in
flutists
as
flute
a
weak, one
‘that
can be used
nuances, and
in all
dying
from
full,
sounds,
well
as
as
a
flutes at present
fall,
tones that are shunned
on
Fiirstenau
the yearning and loveliness that speaks
masculine
sound’.
51
Like
most
flute
give our
present
one
opportunity for expression and the rousing of different
52
The most
influential French flutist felt the
Louis lulou, professor
at
flute requires a
playing
forte.
same way about the
flute’s tone.
Jean-
the Paris Conservatoire from 1826 to 1856, prized the flute’s
‘touching and sensitive’ sound
in
conveys the characteristic charm
Mr Boehm’s
...
lacking
character.
strength.
familiar instrument:
emotions.
when
flute’s
uncommon
have certainly reached a high level of perfection and the very
uncommon charm and
The
still
powerful,
own
accomplished players, he preferred his
covered
were beautifully even, the
and the tone spoke easily and with
of the flute, the sweet longing, the
Our
to
middle path between an excessively strong tone and one that was too
advocated
its
tried
had gained. According
it
But that very evenness, he concluded, destroyed the
who had
(le
son pathetique
et sentimental):
mellow voice when playing piano, That of Gordon
|i.e.
Boehm] on
a vibrant
the other
and sonorous tone
hand had
depth which very much resembled that of an oboe. 53
a thin tone
mania
Flute
1
Tulou’s opposition to the ring-key his teaching assistant, Victor
perhaps
up
set
the face of an attempt by
flute, particularly in
to institute a class in
to his interests as a flute
it
the Conservatoire, was
at
manufacturer (chapter n). He
business in 1828 and began to supply instruments to the Conservatoire in
in
which he entered
1831, the year in
when Giannini
1853,
owing
the stronger
all
Coche,
59
suggests that
Nonon
with Jacques
a partnership
Nonon became
that lasted until
making
interested in
conical
Boehm
flutes.
Tulou was keen to develop an improved flute’s
advent
in
flute himself, if
not before the ring-key
1837 then certainly afterwards. His ‘perfected
flute’ (flute perfectionnee),
devised during the 1840s, used rod-axles and needle springs like those of the
Boehm
mechanism, but retained the acoustical proportions, and thus the character, of the 4
ordinary French flutef
‘I
the natural tone of the first
am concerned above
flute, as
all’,
he wrote,
well as the simplicity of
published in 1833, was used
at
‘to
scrupulously conserve
fingering.’
its
The
more of the embouchure, though not
made
wrote,
increased
players had tried the
he put
as
tutor instructed the headjoint to be turned in so that
edge lined up with the centre of the fingerholes, and the lower or
as
much
register,
and exercises
illustrating simplified fingerings for difficult passages.
London by Camus, Dorus, and
in
(1810—64), Professor of Flute
as well as charts
followed more successfully
flute,
at
workshop
further detailed in chapter 9. After early manufacturing efforts in
New
J.
Davis
(//
first
American maker
Other French makers
who
in
1844 made
The ring-key Boehm’s perhaps
pupils, in part
a
also
to
flute,
Alfred
produced versions of the ring-key
(DCM
made almost no headway
including
Moritz Fiirstenau,
Karl
relied
on orchestral work,
models
in
16
Though
the
first
flute,
exclusion
monotonous,
of the
Boehm
flute,
until the era of recording.
its
in
1845.
Germany except among
in
Kruger,
in contrast to
Boehm
York
including Laurent,
flutes
and Hans Haindl, flutists
of the 1830s
England and America flute’s
brilliance
and
appeared alongside older
orchestras in Berlin and Vienna in the 1870s (chapter 10),
orchestral playing successfully preserved total
New
11).
where the more usual solo performance made the new evenness more desirable.
York by James
Badger (1815-92)
G.
because the livelihood of German professional
and 40s already
first
controversy
produce the instrument successfully
green fluted crystal example
flute
a
1839-43), and after the leading
player Philip Ernst had adopted the ring-key
became the
John Clinton
Music, became the
amid
and W.
made
1842-3 by Rudall
partner, Greve.
Academy of
the Royal
in
take up the ring-key flute in 1841,
flutist to
D. Larrabee (d C1847)
which, he
others after 1837 quickly stimulated an
collaboration with Boehm’s former
prominent English
outside
Bute there. In C1839 Cornelius Ward and William Card
premature attempts to build the
Rose
its
three classes of articulation to four, and added
of special fingerings for super-sharpened leading notes,
8c
‘charm’
and out of tune. He
several pages
interest in the ring-key
it,
covered a quarter
lip
as half or three-quarters,
low
the sound uneven, feeble in the
Hugot and Wunderlich’s
Visits to
His method,
the Conservatoire from about 1845, after which
many more editions appeared. By this time, he wrote, nearly all Boehm flute and returned to their own instruments, preferring, to ‘astonishment’.
5s
German
traditional character to the almost
considered
excessively
brilliant
and
MECHANICAL INNOVATIONS
THE FLUTE MANIA PERIOD
IN
patented or privileged invention
*
f design or feature known
to
1
have reached commercial production
or about the date noted
at
1800
J.
1802
William Close
transposing diatonic flute
H. W. T. Pottgiesser
one-keyed chromatic
Claude Laurent*!"
crystal flutes, keys
00
0
1806
one-keyed chromatic
G. Tromlitz
flute
on posts
one-keyed chromatic
D. Holtzapffel*!"
J.
flute
2
flute’
1807
Tebaldo Monzani*
rings and caps to preserve the tubes and keys
1808
W. H. Potter*
glide keys
Charles Townley*
telescoping bore, mouthpiece, extra key
Rev. Frederick
1810
1811
1812
Thomas
ring- key
Nolan*
‘additional notes produced without the use of keys’
Scott*
Malcolm MacGregor*
improved keys
George Miller*
cylindrical brass fife
for bass flutes
and
flute trill
either side of the
embouchure hole
Viennese
low
1813
Georg Bayr
1814
James
1815
Capeller
a flute
1820
Stephan Koch Senior*!"
Viennese
0820
Charles Nicholson Senior
Wood*
flute to
G
7
telescopic metal tenons
playable with one hand flute to
widely imitated
by others)
large-holed
flute,
1822
P.
N. Petersen
mechanism
to adjust pitch for
1824
Pottgiesser
1826
J.
1828
G.
ring-
Gordon/A. Buffet
and crescent-key
open-key
Weber
left
flute
exact nature
flute,
thumb key
C2
for
rod-axles
1831
1832
Boehm"j"
ring-key
Rudall 8c Rose*
tuning-slide and cork-screw
Gordon
‘Diatonic’ flute
Cl
834
for a
England, where in
flute,
one-keyed chromatic
in 1841
manufacturing
Boehm
with (mostly) equal-sized toneholes
unknown by Tromlitz, 1785)
system
(illus. in
flute
mechanism 10
his Tablature)
continued to occupy inventive minds
Abel Siccama invented one but failed to interest Rudall
Over the next few years
it.
6
proto-ring-key flute
("f"
The quest
dynamic changes
(first built
Boehm and Greve"f" Boehm by Gerock & Wolf)
830
8
G
low
(f
Cl
keys
cork-lapped tenons, metal tenons, one-piece lower body, ‘nob’ on
Monzani*"]"
C. G.
a
shadowy
figure
1845 Siccama patented his
A
while ‘closing the
may be
less radical
natural
‘Diatonic
flute,
in
had done.
Mahillon,
Boosey
&
Co.,
flute
In
which preserved the old fingering
and the lower E note each with
The Siccama
Rose
DCM).
a key,
by which those holes
enlarged to correspond with the other holes’, as Boehm’s 1831 Gerock 1
&
in
named Dr Burghley
developed various designs based on a keyless system (several specimens
flute
1
6
movable mouthpiece, various
N. Capeller
J.
4
&
was subsequently manufactured by Rudall
and others, and taken up by prominent
soloists
Wolf
Carte,
Joseph
Richardson (1814-62) and Robert Sydney Pratten (1824-68).'
58
Boehm’s metal cylinder introduced
in
flute of
1847 (chapter 9) carried forward the ideas he had 1832, but the metal flute’s altered tone aroused even more deep-seated
resistance than that of the ring-key flute.
remained
Even
faithful to the conical bore:
after the cylinder flute
appeared some
Camille Saint-Saens’s Romance op. 7 (1871) and Carl Reinecke’s Undine ( 1883) were dedicated to A. de Vroye (1835-90), a student artists
1837
Godfroy and Lot!
ring-key flute after
1838
Buffet*']'
another ring-key
Boehm
flute after
1832
Boehm
1832, with Coche’s D*2
needle springs, and clutches probably developed CI838
Gordon
1839
Louis Dorus (f by Godfroy Buffet, then many others)
another
83 9
C1840
open/closed
G
1
William Card (1788— i86i)'f
ring-key flute after
Nononf
Tulou/J.
Boehm 1832 Boehm 1832" Boehm 1832
key for
ring-key flute after
J.-L.
Coche Examen
critique
per
1837
Mme
Gordon)
flute
12
flute perfectiounee, official flute
of Paris Conservatoire
13
1840
Benedikt Pentenrieder (1809-49)*'!'
crescent- and ring-key flute
1841
Abel Siccama
one-keyed chromatic
1842
Siccama
an eight-keyed
Ward*f
seven kinds of patent
Siccama (*1845) f
‘Diatonic’ flute with old-system fingering, key-cups for
&
Roscf
flute
14
flute flute;
Boehm Boehm
needle springs, ‘terminator’
A and E
1832, under Greve’s direction
1842-3
Rudall
1844
James D. Larrabeef
1845
W.
C1845
Dr Burghley
various keyless flutes
1847
Boehm*!
cylinder
1848
John Clinton*!
‘Equisonant’ flute combining Boehm-/old-system fingering
1849
Giulio Briccialdi (! by Rudall Pask, Egidio Forni) Briccialdi (!
many
then
1850
ring-key flute after ring-key flute after
Monzani/Henry Potter!
J.
by Rudall
&
key,
Lot,
Ward!
Cornelius Cl
&
flute (illus. in
in
trill
1832
split-key ‘chromatic’ flute
&
flute,
Boehm
system
Rose, various designs with cylindrical and conical bores, old fingering
13
Rose,
others)
‘Briccialdi’
Richard Carte*!
B[,
lever
revisions in fingering system, including ‘open D’:
gives D, not C^; otherwise old-system or
all
fingers off
now
Boehm-system fingerings
can be used
&
Carte’s 1851 system: cylinder flute with fingering system of 1850
Co.!
1851
Rudall, Rose, Carte
1852
R.
S.
Rockstro
conical,
open-G^ Boehm-system
R.
S.
Pratten!
the
of several different ‘Perfected’
of Coche,
who
instrument
at
flute in
first
59 The cylinder continued to play one.
the Paris Conservatoire
i860 (chapter
flute
with Coche’s D^2 flutes
became
flute
when Dorus succeeded Tulou
the official
as professor
of
11).
The composer Hector
Berlioz (1803-69), an accomplished
flutist
himself, noted
the special qualities the (old) flute could bring to an orchestra in his instrumentation treatise
of 1844:
If
one wishes
at
the
for
same time
particularly in
example
as
C
:
to confer the expression
meekness and resignation, the weak middle
'minor and
D
,
is
comes
in
immediately convinced that only
a sad
register
minor, will surely give the right
the pantomime-like melodic passage that
Orpheus one
of despair upon
tint.
melody
of the
flute,
Listening to
the Elysium scene in [Gluck’s] a flute
could be suited to this
melody. Even the tenderest tones of the clarinet could not be moderated to the
weak, softened, veiled sound of the F octave,
which give the
flute in this
in the
middle register and the B,
in the first
key (D minor) where they frequently occur such
trill
key
The
162
an expression of sadness. Furthermore Gluck’s melody
is
invented
such
in
that the flute can follow every unsettled impulse of this eternal pain that
still
Flute
a
way
carries
the traces of mortal suffering.
Boehm
French composer to promote the
became the
Berlioz
flute’s character,
Despite this appreciation for the old
first
serving on the jury that examined
flute after
the metal cylinder flute of 1847 at the Great Exhibition (London, 1851). In France,
where professors and graduates of the Conservatoire routinely important orchestral posts, the in
i860 made
Yet a
it
acceptance of the cylinder
official
certain to be used in the
flute at the institute
most prestigious ensembles
on the history of instrumentation by H. Lavoix
treatise
promoted the old
flute.
most
the
filled
after that date.
(Paris,
1878)
still
60
While Germany remained content with the keyed
flute
and France was
satisfied
with
the cylinder flute of 1847 as modified by Parisian makers to suit their taste, the spirit
of inventiveness remained
alive in
England
after
1850 as makers and players created
hybrids of the two types, mainly with a view to preserving the old rather than
flute’s
fingering
flute in
England
tone.
its
John Clinton, though he had hoped to manufacture the 1847
under licence from Boehm, found he disliked the metal tube and cylindrical bore, and
new mechanism too complicated. By about 1850 he had come to view the fingering of the Boehm flutes as an insurmountable obstacle to universal
judged the altered
acceptance:
An
object to be sought for in every instrument,
is
one established system of
fingering; but so long as these cross purposes [different systems in use
professors] are carried out, so long must
among
those
consequently
who
made
have
a disinclination
made
in
at
the old
my
friend
Mr Wolf
amongst amateurs
way of fingering
as
seemed
to learn
61
it.
quoted Boehm’s remark that proves that
in 1831,
s,
expect a want of harmony and unity
the study of this instrument their profession, and
In support of his contention, Clinton I
we
by different
62
feasible.’
I
wanted
‘[t]he first
to preserve as
In his Treatise
upon
the
model
many
notes
Mechanism and
General Principles of the Flute of 1852 Clinton advocated a
new
own
Henry Potter (1848-54). He
experiments, patented
in
1848, and manufactured by
flute,
the result of his
concluded that ‘no other system than the shut-keyed can ever ultimately succeed, while any attempt to improve the open-keyed, must end failure’.'
At the Great Exhibition of 1851
cylinder flute
won
the Council
instrument earned praise for so simple, that later
its
its
Medal
in
London
disappointment and
same event
at
which Boehm’s
tor ‘important scientific improvements’), his
fingering, tone,
price does not exceed that
and cheapness,
‘the
of the old 8-keyed
Clinton described his ‘Equisonant Flute’,
Clinton and Co., as a Flute, which, possessing tune, has not departed
(the
in
mechanism being flute’.
now manufactured by
all
Three years the firm of
the essential qualities of tone and
from the established fingering’.
Flute
mania
1
Clinton insisted that the British
army
wood was
preferable to metal, even in flutes
it
for use
by
in India:
To meet the wishes of those who order; but
made
63
would
prefer a metal flute,
lead to error to suppose that
we manufacture
we approve of such
such to
material
-
the
tone which a metal flute yields being uncertain, harsh, and hollow in quality, and the pitch constantly and suddenly changing to the extent of nearly a semitone; while
wood we
from reedy
pliability,
can ensure vocality, richness, softness, or fullness,
at pleasure,
such as cannot be elicited from any other material.
In 1862, despite these objections,
he patented a
and
a
64
silver cylindrical flute
which won
the exhibition medal for ‘flutes on a modification and improvement of the system of
Boehm’
at
the
World Exhibition
Robert Sydney Pratten,
a
in
London of
same
the
year.
noted performer on the Siccama
flute,
likewise applied
the eight-keyed fingering to the cylinder bore. In 1852 he introduced the several ‘Perfected’ flutes, initially with a cylindrical bore scale
and conical bore,
all
ordinary open-holed eight-keyed
&
later
of
with Rockstro’s
with key cups to cover large toneholes and old-system
fingering (the instruments today’s Irish traditional
Boosey
and
first
flutes, a
flutists call ‘Pratten’s
Perfected’ are
type also marketed under Pratten’s name).
Co. began to build some models
in
1856.
Richard Carte (1808-91) joined the London firm of Rudall devised a succession of modified Boehm-system cylinder
flutes:
Sc
Rose
in 1852,
and
the ‘Council 8c Prize
model’ (1851/2), the ‘Boehm’s Parabola, Carte’s Mechanism’ of 1862, and finally ‘Carte’s 1867’
model, which became the second most widely used
and the British Empire
until well after the
wood and
open
metal, with
G
5*
still
Adam
played Carte’s 1867
modification of Boehm’s
flute’.
65
It
was made
England in
both
and open D, and could be played with either old-
system or Boehm-system fingerings. British flutists
Second World War.
flute in
Carse,
flute, called
who it
wrote
at a
time
when some
the ‘only important and lasting
Chapter 9
The Boehm
Wc
can
fix
no
flute
distinct
- medieval
chapters
moment of origin
flutes,
for the flutes
we have
previous
in
various kinds for military and consort use, the one-keyed
-
instrument, and flutes with several keys
despite recent efforts to assign credit tor
these types to selected individuals. In contrast, the
some of
considered
modern
flute’s
invention
can be traced to one man, since few more brilliant or controversial innovations in the
made than those Theobald
design of any musical instrument can ever have been
Boehm
devised for the flute in 1832 and 1847. Yet for mechanical, musical, and
economic reasons the construction of Boehm-system since, so that the instruments
Boehm and
his
of today differ
in significant
ways not only from those
contemporaries built and played, but even from those made only
generation ago. Therefore
we should
investigate in
came
designs, along with those changes that
adapted by others.
A man of
has been changing ever
flutes
some
Boehm
detail the genesis of
as his flutes
a s
were gradually adopted and
1
industrious
exceptionally
Boehm
Theobald
nature,
exemplified
the
character of his times in which ingenuity and industrial process magnified or even
human
supplanted
skill
and strength
many
in
areas of
life.
The son
ot a
Munich
goldsmith, he acquired his manual dexterity in his youth, developing his knowledge ot
mechanics
as a
young man by studying the building of musical boxes
in
Switzerland.
After beginning in his childhood to teach himself to play a one-keyed flute
(London,
//
C1777-95;
DCM
now
132),
Boehm
built himself a
instrument by August Grenser in 1810, before taking his
Nepomuk
according to
Boehm
s
improvements biographer,
it
in
the
flute,
in
Munich,
of
24, to a royal court
7)
encouraged him to give up
a post
appointment. At
musician instead. His interest
who was
new model
Boehm
gained
from which he advanced
this stage, the success
the
flutist
makers of
the age
of a concert tour (chapter support himself as a
instrument-making evidently continued, as he seems
on the design and manufacture of some instruments
Boehm
tor which,
in 1818, at
have collaborated with one of the two Munich instrument-makers
time
already
a place in the orchestra
his goldsmith’s business so as to in
tour-keyed
was the young pupil who devised the mechanism.
After completing his studies with Capeller
of the Isartor Theatre
designed a
a
lessons with Johann
Capeller, flutist of the Bavarian court orchestra. His teacher,
interested in devising
to
first
copy ot
by Proser
in this
period.
named
Schotfl
Though
at
the
himself held no legal right to conduct business as an instrument-builder,
Karl August Grenser identified his time in 1824.
3
him
as already
one of the most renowned
The Boehm
flute
Five years
165
later,
having ‘acquired
flutes at great
masters and found not one without significant
flute-making workshop. Without required
him
to establish
a
background
some novelty
faults’,
as
Boehm
fingering, he
of the
flutes
was already
May
1829 to make
and
2.
Evenness of tone
3.
Facility
4.
Secure speaking of the highest as well as the lowest notes
5.
Beautiful profile
6.
Thoroughly neat and robust workmanship.
41.
Flutes
in
his
own
and citing
flutist,
six
of operation
by Theobald Boehm, Boehm
657, by
875, by
flutes
calling ‘improved’:
Purity of intonation
of two brass
own
which, despite their unaltered acoustics, key system, and
1.
DCM
established his
an instrument-maker, the law
particular way, referring to his prior experience as goldsmith characteristics
the famous
all
or invention to justify the award of a royal
Accordingly he applied on 8-10
licence.
expense from almost
Boehm &
flutes
&
Greve, C1828-32.
by Boehm, 1847.
Boehm, 1847-62.
(6)
DCM
(4)
161,
Greve, and (2)
DCM
DCM
Boehm & Mendler (DCM).
974, by
653, cylinder
by Boehm
&
(
left to right) (1)
Boehm, 1832-47. (3) DCM 652, no. flute no. 21 by Boehm, 1848. (5) DCM
Mendler, 1877 (Macauley
1
flute).
1
The
66 Rodolphe Grcvc (1806—62), who
Mannheim
1829 had moved from
in
Flute
Munich
to
an instrument-maker with his father Andreas Greve (1770—1840), became Boehm’s chief workman and partner in 1830, forming a team with Boehms brother Jacob (1805—71) that grew with the addition of several other workmen early
after training as
in
1
832
4
devised an apparatus for accurately setting the pillars that carried the
Boehm
keywork, and experimented with rod-axles, which, unlike the simple lever axles common use at the time, carried the motion of the touchpiece along a pivoted tube
flute s in
running along the length of the
flute to a
workshop produced eight-keyed ‘perfect’
workmanship, suspending most keys on
A generation
(chapter
construction of flutes to
most intensive
its
announcements of
been experimenting with
media (chapter
and thoughtful individuals to discuss their
common
Weber had formed However, not and Captain
j.
designed
who
A
interest.
the
into
the musical and general
When
the word.
ordinary course of
in the
the mid-
in
Tromlitz had used
as 1781
in
public discussion ensued, linking
less
but using
inquiry
carried
As early
method of spreading
others
who had
some of the same
workmen,
players,
might never have met
life
description of Capeller’s flute by Carl Maria von
of publications.
a thread in this series
all
England
design began to publish their ideas
flute
more or
8), a
stage.
now
his innovative instruments in
periodicals as the most effective
of
as
and C2.
B(,
Germans had
6),
way
pillars in the usual
the addition of keys to the flute in
after
century
eighteenth
first
which Dayton C. Miller described
flutes
rod-axles with right-hand levers for
detailed
key-cover on a remote part of the body. The
those working on flute designs published accounts of their work,
Gordon was one who
C. G.
based on an open-key system
a flute
Auguste Buffet jeune
only scanty documentation. Gordon
left
(b
1789) (chapter
8),
1826
in
but nothing
is
in
collaboration with
known of
this early effort.
Guards
in
Parisian mob,
it
After the devastating loss of his position as an officer in Charles X’s Swiss
when
the Revolution of 1830,
his
regiment was massacred by
a
occurred to Gordon that devising a better flute might provide a livelihood for himself
and
his wife.
While
London
visiting
workshops of Rudall 5c Rose and Yet the exact nature of
many
Gordon’s
attempts to investigate
it.
in
the following year he commissioned the
of Cornelius
Ward
all
make
flutes to
other designs.
period too remains obscure, despite
flutes at this
By
to
made
accounts, Gordon’s flutes
use of an idea
H. W. T. Pottgiesser had suggested two years before of employing crescent-shaped
touchpieces on certain open-standing keys.
ring-key
device
in
rudimentary ring-key practical
The
November 1808, and in
6
1824,
Rev. Frederick
Pottgiesser
Nolan had patented
had
suggested
a
hole beneath the finger
at
the
another key some distance away. This allowed holes to be placed acoustical positions: regarding the tonehole positions in
wrote that
‘the apertures
in
as
their ideal flute
Ward
were placed consistently with the proper length of tube
supported by two engravings of Gordon’s
Boehm made
in
flutes
6
a
contention generally
published during the 1830s, but
1847.
While Gordon was working with the London flute-makers, Boehm combined first
first
same time
Gordon’s 1831
required for each fundamental note in the chromatic gamut’,
contradicted by a remark
another
but Gordon’s crescent touchpieces provided the
means of opening or closing
a
his
concert tour to venture beyond Germany, Switzerland, and Northern Italy with a
The Boehm business
flute
167
England.
to
trip
Schafhautl (1803-90),
Boehm had undertaken
and made the journey
industry,
more about
learn
partnership with
In
promotion of
of
Franz
Emil von
producer of iron and
No doubt Boehm and
he also had
there.
his flute business: the firm
Karl
the improvement of the Bavarian steel
to Britain, the leading
methods
industrial
friend
his
steel, to
mind the
in
Greve was thriving, having
already sold 65 instruments, 21 of them outside Bavaria.
London, where
In
performances on an eight-keyed
his
workshop received encouraging
He
his flute.
notice,
from
flute
Boehm met Gordon and became
evaluated the instrument dismissively
his
familiar with
essay of sixteen years
in his
own later,
he had been accused of pilfering Gordon’s ideas:
after
He
had on
also
his
flute
number of keys and
a
ingeniously devised; but they were
much
some of which were
levers,
too complicated, and of no use, as
it
lacked throughout a correct acoustical basis.
Through the good
of George Rudall (1781-1871)
offices
Nicholson, the power of whose tone
— was
and marketed performance
in
a
legend
comparison
own
in part to the
time (chapter
7).
Boehm
did as well as any continental flautist could have done in
my
flute.
Had
I
evaluated his
from
own
a letter
of
Broadwood:
S.
could not match Nicholson
Charles
large-holed flutes he played
to Nicholson’s in an oft-quoted passage
1871 to his English friend W.
I
in his
- due
Boehm met
in
power of
tone, wherefore
not heard him, probably the
Boehm
London
set to
I
in 1831,
work
but
I
remodel
to
would never have been
flute
made.'
Before he the
left
London Boehm had already
workshop of Gerock
&
built
an instrument to a
later.
promoted
in a
The London
fingering.
1831
made dramatic advances
The new design introduced
construction: in his essay rather than ‘inventing’
some
firm rushed to market with the
pamphlet on Boehm’s Newly-invented Patent
Boehm’s model of
On
it.
the Construction
the
at
new Flute’
design, (ill.
of the
concept
ring-key
manner than^Gordon’s
'
The
(A)
new
flute
knew of
it
from the
clarinet:
made
for
ring-key, surrounding the tonehole like Brille
beyond
its
reach in a more
these ring-keys to bring about the change in fingering for F and in
1803: he assigned the right-hand index finger to
play F and the third finger of the right hand to play a
to
in
crescent touchpieces.
F1 that Pottgiesser had suggested
;
8
of Flutes he wrote of ‘adopting’ the device
or spectacles, transmitted the motion of a finger onto keys
giving F
it
about the time he was working with Gordon, he had
the clarinettist Bleve of Le Havre.
Boehm employed
which
42a).
seen a clarinet with a ring-key which another Parisian maker, Lefevre, had
effective
in
to fruition a quarter
mechanics and changes
in
Probably Buffet jeune already
years before, in 1826,
design
Wolf, where he also developed overstrung pianos that the
American piano manufacturers Steinway and Chickering brought century
new
hole of
its
own. He placed the toneholes
and the right index finger (G) out of the
F*,
achieving the change by
for the left-hand third finger
fingers’ reach
and covered them with
AJ>
COUPON
Boehm’s
(a)
42.
Gordon’s
critique
{
(ill.
42a) are
42b) only
’s
prospectus
the
20
May
of the C1833
102). Its picture
to derive
German
from
drawing
a
flute
survives,
mistakenly wrote that its
p.
239) and
42c had appeared
ill.
of
his flute it
in
was reproduced in
John
Mme
Gordon
sent at
Coche with
a letter
111
.
of
each tonehole and key fingering chart,
a
cases in this figure.
Philip Bate (The Elute, stated that
flute
version of Boehm’s Essay of 1847.
touch probably indicate that the drawing once formed part of
two
of
was reprinted
1838 (Welch, History, 127-9). Horizontal lines
as in the other
London
his
prospectus of 1834, after he had further developed
Clinton’s tutor of 1846 and in the
42c appears
(b)
flute c'1838
first illustration
Boehm’s workshop. That prospectus, of which no copy p.
83 1);
1838).
unknown. Gordon published
in his
by Welch (facing
(ci
Gordon’s
(c)
work before Boehm devised
Precise details of Gordon’s (ill.
Wolf
from Gordon’s Tablature ( 1834);
flute C1833
from Coche’s Examen
1831
&
of 1831 from Gerock
flute
actual appearance,
ill
in
42b had
and that
it
Nancy Toff
(Development, 50-1) incorrectly
1833 rather than five years
first
been published
represented a
Gordon
in
Toff
later.
(ibid.)
1846, twelve years after
flute of C1831, that
is,
before he had visited Boehm’s workshop.
open-standing keys, while the keys for G* and D* both stood open rather than closed. Despite these similarities to the instrument Gordon depicted
prospectus of 1834,
in his
the lack of a clear chronology does not permit us to trace whether or not Gordon’s 1831
model had any
practical influence
on Boehm’s new
flute
of that
date, or vice
versa."'
Boehm he built
returned to Bavaria to follow up the 1831 flute’s advances in a
Munich shop
in his
following year.
in the
the King, without success, for a subsidy of citing the expenses
Industry,
of
his
1000
travels
On
23 January 1832 he petitioned
florins
from the Fund for Bavarian
and experiments
in
purchase of materials from England, as having used up his means. prospect that his
me
new
opened up
flute
as the tirelessly active
head of
a
a
happy prospect of
household of
a
new model
London, and the
He
held out the
a lucrative livelihood for
wife and seven children’.
The new mechanism of Boehm’s 1832 flute used ring-keys operated by interlinked parallel rod-axles, made to a design of his own which the Boehm and Greve keyed flutes
F and
had employed
F
and the open^key
leaving the tube,
simpler form for
in a
left
Boehm
hand so
shifted
its
could once again reach
that
a
new
it
G
its
years.
It
carried over the fingering for
from the design of the previous
downward by
a
But instead of
semitone so that the fourth finger
lowest tonehole, for A, and the
Now
year.
could cover the open toneholes towards the top of the
position
could be dispensed with.
was given
for
some
A key of
the 1831 system
the tonehole for B^, formerly located under the tube,
position in line with the other toneholes, and assigned the left-hand
The
170
Flute
middle finger instead of the closed-standing thumb key that had traditionally played that note. This freed the
thumb
1785 flute of governing
a
finger
now
do duty from
remote position. A separate key
a
now
shaped crutch For the
time,
keys stood open
closed holes below
while
in their default positions,
D
and the notes below
on the
it
Tromlitzs
in
governed
own
its
own
its
C
the
hole,
Boehm added
key,
hand between the thumb and index
now produced by
every note was
O
for
D the D
:
the flute’s keys with the exception of the
all
held open except to play flute
had had
index finger to reach. To help steady the
left
thumb was occupied with
that the left
to rest in the player’s
first
it
nearby tonehole for C, rather than having the right index
placed too high up the tube for the
instrument
trill
to fulfil the principal function
tube, so that
in practice
key and special key was always
i
in
the 1832
when opened, had no
tonehole which,
all
T-
finger.
Thus
in the first octave.
it
a
the artificial fingerings in the flute’s
chromatic scale had been eliminated. To increase the contribution the open keys
made
powerful tone,
to a
Boehm made
the totieholes as large as feasible, following
Nicholson’s example as well as Weber’s observation that only the largest holes with end-correction
lowest
the
be
could
factor
placed
acoustically
their
in
ideal
positions.
Boehm and
Greve’s
workshop began
cocus or grenadilla wood,
performances contained the
Munich on
in
first
the course of 1832.
in
November
1
prospectus describing the
published in the
autumn of
the
in
new
Boehm
himself inaugurated
new
Kuhlau
a
on the ring-key
Fantasie
instrument, with charts for fingerings and
1834.
London
in
new
for a year
flute.
trills,
Boehm, though now much occupied with
Though he remained
in 1833-4.
it
at
Also in 1833, Boehm’s pupil
flute."
Bavarian steel industry, found time to demonstrate the
London
instrument, using
1832 and 25 April 1833, a review of which
published reports of the
Eduard Heindl (1837-96) performed
new
manufacture the
to
his
A
was
work
flute in Paris
and
he found acceptance
slow and had sold only one instrument there by 1835.
Gordon, meanwhile, was
Boehm
experiments
Gordon
him
lent
determined to develop
Munich workshop and
his
in early
still
Diatonic Flute Manufactured in the it
in
foreman Greve
to
of
his
own.
conduct further
1833 while he himself again travelled to Paris and London. In July
sent out descriptions of his latest
reproduced
his
a viable flute
1896, no original
model
in a
pamphlet
Workshops of Boehm, is
known
not meet with the success he hoped
to survive
and he
for,
continued his work until mental breakdown struck
in
entitled Tablature of the
though Welch
of which, 42b)."
(ill.
retired
1836.
to
Still,
his flute did
Lausanne where he
Gordon
is
thought
to
have
died in 1838.
Boehm’s revolutionary circle in Paris. alias
Louis
won
its
first
champions beyond (h 1796),
his
immediate
Vincent Joseph Steenkiste
Dorus (1812-96), and Victor Jean Baptiste Coche (1806-81), played in
1837. Nonetheless, in
1832
Three men, Paul Hippolyte Camus
important roles
it
flute of
Boehm flute’s acceptance in France during the crucial year of Boehm himself won its first official notice in France by presenting
the
person. While visiting Paris in the spring, he
showed one of
to the acoustician Felix Savart (1791—1841),
who had been
Frances Academy of Sciences
a
in
1827 after
decade’s
his ring-key flutes
elected to the Institute of
work on electrodynamics and
The Boehm
flute
171
examined by the Academy
acoustics. Savart arranged for the flute to be
May
of 8
1837.
On
commission consisting of
Academy of
Boehm
Boehm
that occasion
read a short description of the
another
Savart,
Camus
to represent
Giannini (1993) surmises that
Dorus because the
Boehm
Camus
to represent
Schafhautl’s assertion (see below), its
behalf
to
Parisian flutist
in
when
later,
In
flutes’,
Camus had devoted
from
on
Camus Farrenc’s.
and
spring of 1837, despite
seems more probable that
it
...
by, or
on
Louis Dorus
alias
flute,
to have
was
Farrenc confirmed this in an article of
only on
flute
a
flute’s first
by Boehm tour years
visit
able to lend an instrument to interested players:
new
that he
adopted the
would not play any other
Boehm
flute there
was
was indeed M. Camus who
had
fluted Until then he
the one he played on, but this time he had several with him.
it
same time
advocate. At the
subsequent
to Paris for the 3rd time with his
When M. Camus
propagated
1
been the ring-key
new
(1794-1863), Camus,
his flute to Aristide Farrenc
a visit to Paris in 1833.
type in Paris, even in France, thus first
in the
Vincent Joseph van Steenkiste
showed
first
borrow one, and the same day he declared
who
certain,
(b 1796),
himself to the
March 1837 M. Boehm came
this
preference to
took up Boehm’s ring-key flute? Claims have been made
for the first time the inventor
kept his word.
he
far
Boehm’s own testimony, he
brought only one to
first
which he contested Coche’s claim
he noted that
in
Coche (1806-81).
and Laurent, ‘manufacturers of 1838
him
met. Tula
it
IN PARIS
(1812-96), and Victor
According
is
men: Paul Hippolyte Camus
of, three
leaving Paris
only advocate until the Academy took notice of Boehm.
THE RING-KEY FLUTE
Which prominent
a
had already altered aspects of the original design," but the
latter
suggestion that Dorus even possessed a ring-key flute
Camus was
On
him before the commission when chose
and
flute,
and two musicians from the
scientist,
Fine Arts, was appointed to give a formal judgement.
appointed
meeting
at a
as yet
first
flute
M. Camus asked than Boehm’s; he
only one instrument of
played this
flute,
and
it
was
ltd
put the date of his conversion two months later
in his
own
account, which otherwise confirms
4
Schafhautl claimed that the twenty-two-year-old Dorus had switched to the ring-key flute
immediately on hearing
Boehm
play one in Paris as early as 1834, while the inconsistently reliable
musical biographer Fran^ois-Joseph Fetis (1784-1871) put the date even
could not have taken up the ring-key
flute unless
he had bought a
flute
earlier, at
1833d However, Dorus
from Boehm,
at that early
date
the only possible supplier of such an instrument, and no evidence of such a purchase exists. Dorus must
have come by
a
ring-key flute by 1838,
when he appeared
Conservatoire commission, but by that time two firms
third claimant, Victor
version of the ring-keyed
Since
it
Coche (1806-81),
flute,
one of three advocates
in Paris
Greve instrument Camus had shown them during 1837 to Godfroy and Lot’s flute, which appeared late in that
The
as
(see
p.
for
it
before a
Boehm & method of 0840
had developed versions of the 172).
Dorus adapted
his
year.
as the narrative illustrates, tied his fortunes to Buffet’s
which he claimed
to have first played in public in
appears that neither of the French makers
who
developed the ring-key
about 1838. flutes
6
Dorus and
Coche played had any opportunity to study Boehm’s model before Camus presented them with it during 1837, Farrenc’s claim that Camus took up the Boehm flute when ‘there was as yet only one instrument of this
type
in Paris’
remains standing as the most plausible.
The
172
Boehm
That situation changed when he had brought to Paris
the hands of
in
one or more
left
Camus
of the
Academy
for the
Flute
several’ instruments to study.
During the
course of 1837 Camus, acting as Boehm’s agent, delivered a ring-key flute to Buffet.
Welch, whose information came directly from Buffet, described the nature of Camus’s mission as follows:
He in
had,
it
seems, been commissioned by
procuring
Boehm
not only to act as an intermediary
from Boehm’s factory for purchasers
flutes
into arrangements for the manufacture
became acquainted with
in France, but also to enter
of the new instrument
the flute thus brought to Paris [or
on Boehm’s departure] by Camus; indeed, according
there
was placed
in
Buffet
Paris.
more probably,
retained
to Buffet’s statement,
it
hands by Camus himself.
in his
Welch concluded
Camus and
that
Camus
arrangement, and so
Buffet failed to devise a satisfactory business
transmitted the model to another Parisian flute-maker,
Vincent Hypolite Godfroy, then working in a partnership with Louis Lot established
name of Godfroy ’s
four years earlier under the trade
Godfroy and Lot
no time
lost
in
producing the
Godfroy
Clair
father,
1
dine
.
French commercial model of
first
a
flute.
A
notice of 21 October 1837 in the Counier jrangais indicates that they
had produced
a
Boehm
ring-key
manufacturers
outside
flute
by that
making them the ring-key
Boehm’s own workshop.
announcement
signalled that the
were prepared
to realize.
On
date,
new
Welch credited
mechanism of Camus’s ring-key
various modifications to the
flute,
public
firm’s
that
maker with
which,
if
he was
were made during the course of 1837 around the time Lot and Godfroy were
developing their version. Buffet reportedly used needle springs traditional flat springs, repositioned
the player rather than distributing
all
the rod-axles
them on both
sleeves that allowed a single rod to transmit the
and
first
instrument had a commercial potential that they
the authority of his acquaintance with Buffet,
correct,
The Godfroy
flute’s
rings.
place of the
in
on the side of the tube facing and developed clutches and
sides,
motion of several independent cups
Despite Welch’s testimony, two contemporary illustrations of Buffet’s flute
show mechanism on both
sides of the tube.
16
But whoever was responsible for the
mechanical innovations, the French makers modified Boehm’s instruments to make
them not only more mechanically robust and marketable. Boehm’s open
make
the ring-key flute to
‘ordinary
flute
G
:
a
forced players
in
the
have been ready to take up
fingering. All the keys
allowed to return to
its
way more to give
it
default
The open
on the
on the contrary, functioned
G*,
manner of Tromlitz’s C2
keep the key closed with the left-hand
accustomed
in
more
operated as closed-standing levers: the fingers did not touch them
an open-standing key
in a
who might
troublesome change
except to open the holes beneath them.
behave
easier to manufacture, but also
open
fifth finger,
position.
key.
It
required the player to
except to play a G^,
Though
as
this action
made
when
the
fifth
it
was
finger
consistent with the other fingers, flutists of the time were already a contrary motion,
and so the change was an awkward one.
Consequently Louis Dorus, working with Godfroy and
Lot, devised a
mechanism
that retained the traditional function of the G* key as a closed-standing lever, at the
The Boehm
same time
m
flute
as
allowing
remain open when
to
it
The Dorus G* key added
idle.
key to the tonehole for A, governed by the left-hand fourth
G
engaged the open-standing
key by means of
J
ring-key was depressed, that
when
is,
G
a
This ring-key
finger.
causing
a clutch,
when
to close
it
G
was sounded. To play
# ,
Coche collaborated with
mechanism, a
B with ;
,
to
the
add
same fingering used on the
made
flutists
Godfroy ’s
flute differed
produce
sound
a
bore
a
Dorus
G**
from
it
from Boehm’s
was
that
‘long’
key of the ordinary
B[,
flute.
standpoint
musical
a
more
the
like
knew:
in that
flute
steeper angle of decline
dimensions were modified to
its
compromise between
a
of Godfroy 's ordinary
that
G.
the insightful observation that the alterations Godfroy
on Boehm’s design made
instruments French
the
A and
D* trill-key and a ring-key for the left-hand third finger to play
a
Tula Giannini has effected
whose design adopted
Buffet,
the
the key was
applied in the accustomed way, re-opening the tonehole placed between Victor
a ring-
of Boehm’s instrument and
that
of the 1830s. He accomplished
more pronounced
a
[i.e.
this
by giving the
and reducing the
taper]
size
of the embouchure, the tone holes, and the thickness of the body on average by millimetre. In addition, he eliminated
Boehm’s crutch and rectangular creviced
embouchure, replaced the open G* key with the Dorus keywork. The overall
effect
was
Boehm
a
features of the ordinary French flute.
By
the
autumn of 1837
announcement of which he
Coche
Godfroy
days
making Boehm
later
were ready with
Godfroy ’s
on 6 November
Boehm
flutes in Paris,
Coche, inflating
assistant to ‘Professor at the Conservatoire’,
flute
a secret letter
advantage for Buffet by persuading
Two
characteristic
Following
acceptance.
tor
Coche wrote Boehm
to prevent his
his agent in Paris.
which retained some
17
compete
to
21 October,
tried to gain the
action against
flute
and further refined the
G*,
two French versions of the Boehm
advocates
respective
their
the
a
in
to take legal
and
to
appoint
his title as Tulou’s teaching
wrote directly to the French Minister of
the Interior and the Fine Arts to request a hearing for the
Boehm
flute
before the
Musical Division of the Commission of Fine Arts:
Having examined I
a
new
have recognized that
invented by M. Theobald
flute
this instrument, built
extremely valuable advantages and that
most important step forward
for art. This
benevolence the favour of having Musical Division, so as to put
have
just
mentioned.
Boehm responded
...'
with
it
this flute
as
his
German maker,
entirely
new
system, affords
propagation should be considered a
thought prompts
me
to petition
of your
heard before the Fine Arts Commission,
in a position to appreciate the
advantages which
I
8
a letter,
dated Christmas
Academy, M. Quatremere de Quincy, May, with Camus
its
on an
a
Boehm,
deputy,
in
Day
1837, t0 the Secretary of the
which he notified him
that his application
of
should take precedence over Cochc’s separate
approach to the Minister. Camus likewise wrote to the Academy to remind
pending candidacy. But Coche’s intrigues apparently ensured
that
Boehm’s
of
his
flute as
he
it
The
•74
conceived
never received the commission’s attention. Instead, on 24 March 1838,
it
Coche presented
the Music
of France with the flute he
original
Committee of the Academy
on the Boehm system by M. Coche
method book Coche had written commission with
Ordinaire comparee a
compared with the Boehm
new
instrument but that Clearly
modifications.
Rohm
Flute de
la
new
for the
stolen the credit,
Coche designed
emphasizing
manoeuvres
these
flute
Gordon had invented
that
in
the end his
the
own
Boehm
bring
to
as
,
critique de la Flute
examination of the ordinary
(Critical
s
Coche had
instrument.
paper entitled Examen
a
which he claimed
flute), in
Boehm had
more including the Conservatoire
of four
Director, Luigi Cherubini, considered ‘flutes
carefully primed the
of Fine Arts of the Institute
and Buffet had devised. A new panel, consisting of the
two musicians with the addition
well as a
Flute
into
disrepute and gain the commercial advantage over Godfroy and Dorus for Buffet and himself.
Coche pursued
this claim
with Buffet, to build
in
promotional
flutes ‘invented
literature for a partnership
he formed
by Gordon, modified by Boehm, and perfected
new flute as the ‘Boehm flute’, while in his Methodeoi the same year it was called ‘the new system flute’, or the ‘flute of Gordon modified by Boehm’. On 19 April 1838 Camus wrote to Boehm (in
by Coche’.
In the
an unsigned
Examen
letter) to
as the inventor
Coche had described
critique
inform him
of the ring-key
the
that, despite his efforts to secure
flute, ‘as
recognition for him
regards the Institute, the mischief
is
done’ by
Coche’s campaign of disinformation. In pursuit
of the advantage thus gained, Louis Auguste Buffet submitted
a patent
application on 10 October 1838 for the ‘new flute’ he had developed in collaboration
with Coche. In the following year, Buffet and Godfroy each presented their ‘new flute’ to
the jury of the Paris Exhibition, but the instruments were not judged on that
occasion owing to their novelty.
Coche’s efforts a dispute that
to deprive
took
until
Boehm of
as
an insurgent against the orthodoxy of the old
professor
Tulou.
The controversy spread
Musical World
Gordon’s
side,
in 1843.
depicted
a
voluminous
the columns of The
Cornelius Ward’s pamphlet The Flute Explained (1844) espoused
while Boehm’s case was taken up by John Clinton, Professor
Royal Academy of Music, Instruction
when he
when
filled
flutists
Book (1846),
off
maintained by the tenured
England
to
correspondence from amateur and professional
flute
flute set
down. Hector
the end of the nineteenth century to die
Berlioz took Coche’s part in the Constitutionnel of 18 August 1839
him
new
the credit for inventing the
in
his
Theoretical
and
Practical Essay (1843)
by Richard Carte
as well as
in
A
and
at
the
Practical
Complete Course of Instructions
for the Boehm Flute (1845, with extracts printed separately
in
the following year). In
1890 Richard Shepherd Rockstro revived the Boehm-Gordon dispute
in his
heavily
prejudiced account of the events of the 1830s, to which Christopher Welch responded
with magisterial thoroughness Victor
when
it
Coche achieved
produced
praise for his a
meeting
special
six years later.
his objective
a report that
and Buffet’s work on the
in
the
Boehm
Academy of
Fine Arts commission
parroted his Examen critique and accorded him high
of the Conservatoire’s
class
with the
flute.
He followed up
Committee on Teaching
flute.
The Committee,
this success
by requesting
to consider setting
consisting
up
a
of professors of
The Boehm
flute
175
composition, voice, and instruments other than the
December with
served on the Academy’s panel, met on 30 Luigi Cherubini, in the chair. But this
Committee could not
owing
as easily
most of
flute,
whom
had also
the institute’s President,
more formal
to the Conservatoire’s
structure,
be swayed. The meeting of 30 December 1839
summon
adjourned for a week so that the panel could
whose standing
Tulou,
as
Professor of Flute rendered his opinion indispensable. Tulou’s commercial interests, as
of
official supplier
method, made
the Conservatoire and author of
flutes to
his hostility to
any new idea
had not
that
won
first
teaching
official
its
his
patronage a
foregone conclusion. According to Giannini’s transcription of the minutes of the
Boehm
meeting, he presented detailed opposition to the
flute:
He cites quite a number of passages that are much more new flute than the old, and he adds that the sounds
on the
difficult to execute
general of the
in
Boehm
instrument are far from having a quality as agreeable as that of the flute taught the Conservatoire.
Count tone
in
at
19
A. D. de Pontecoulant reported Tulou’s specific objections to the 1832 flute’s
an account of the Committee’s proceedings published
[Tulou] said that one must
first
acknowledge
that the flute
in
is
La France Musicalc.
a pastoral instrument,
with which one must seek more to please than to astonish; that one must express
only sentiments that are sweet, tender, expressive, passionate, and not those by
which one would want
to paint anger or tempest.
a beautiful quality
of sound,
that approaches as
much
or, to
Camus,
Coche,
Consequently the Committee decided
who
as well as others
had
human
tried
on
played to
requires, therefore,
above
all,
way, a beautiful voice, a voice
voice.
20
work
in progress,
modified
differently.
mechanism remained
flute’s
Dorus
and
in a better
it
as possible the
Tulou further objected that the since
say
It
instruments
a
meet again and hear what these performers,
and given up the
Boehm
flute,
had
to say.
A week later two flutists named Connix and Robert Frisch (b ci 804) testified that the Boehm flute was out of tune, defective in tone, and mechanically unsound, considerations that had led Connix to give
and Coche, though they played mechanisms, spoke
in
also played an ‘old
observed that the old
Camus had
Boehm
flute for the sake flute
was ‘more
up
after
only
a fortnight’s trial.
Dorus
with slightly different embouchures and
flutes
favour of the
it
flute
and demonstrated
its
potential.
Dorus
of comparison, upon which the Committee in
tune and more agreeable’. Nevertheless,
not yet been heard from, so the Committee adjourned once again.
Four days
later,
with
Camus
still
Coche claimed were impossible
absent, Tulou, Connix, and Frisch played passages
to execute well’
on the old
flute.
Their brilliant
demonstration, combined with Tulou’s well-timed announcement that he was working
on
a ‘perfected
flute
based on the old system, persuaded the committee that the old
flute
was perfectly adequate and indeed superior
and
it
having
voted unanimously against authorizing the lost
the
battle,
also
forfeited
his
Boehm flute in some respects, new Boehm flute class. Coche,
to the
position
as
Tulou’s
assistant
at
the
The
176 Conservatoire
any of
in
the following year
his subordinate’s students
the senior professor effectively prevented
when
proceeding to their diplomas.
Giannini interprets Camus’s failure to participate that, as a representative
Boehm
of the original
as the
two months the
foremost manufacturer.
new
Theatre de
flute at the
with the open
G^,
Still,
and he claimed
for the time
being
Coche remained along with Camus
method had appeared
in his
Memoire
of
August 1839,
in
1859 that he had been
dramatic orchestra
flute successfully in a
he had dropped
the Conservatoire doubtless lessened
at
of the ring-key flute: his
after Camus’s,
use the
first to
on
flute’s
champion
a
the Conservatoire test as a sign
promote the Buffet version, leaving Godfroy and Lot
Boehm
and Dorus
in
flute
out of the contest. Coche’s loss of his position his ability to
Flute
in his
position as solo
Renaissance. Dorus continued to display his superb artistry
la
ring-key flute by Godfroy and Lot. Certainly the approval of this prominent
a
soloist,
a
member of
Opera orchestra and of the Societe des Concerts du
the
Conservatoire, had an important influence
more
institution in
i860 (chapter
man
responsible for
840 so
11).
its
to
be even
as Professor at the
Dorus’s reputation and his method for the
raised the ring-key flute’s standing that
of
was
the cylinder flute the official instrument of that powerful
made
flute
ci
1838, and his support
when he succeeded Tulou
crucial a quarter century later
Conservatoire and
in
Boehm
Boehm named him
as the
success in France and dedicated the French translation of his
1847 essay to him rather than to Camus.
The events of 1837-8 suddenly ended
With the
the ring-key flute had been stalled.
involvement
in his
steel
Boehm had been
time from 1833 onwards,
his
a five-year
Munich workshop, and
period during which acceptance of industry
making heavy demands on
unable to continue any personal
in 1839,
once the French ring-key
flutes
appeared to have gained the ascendant over his own, he sold the business to Greve for
600
about the value of four and
florins,
renew the establishment’s operating
which Greve would have no
May I
right to
1839 to extend the licence,
founded
my
awarded
silver
licence,
Boehm
medals
in
it
was necessary
to expire,
Munich.
to
and without
In a petition
of 7
noted the enterprise’s limited scope:
than to promote a good business and for
make instruments
at
first
which was about
make instruments
flute business less for profit
the sake of honour, to
But
a half flutes.
in the
Fatherland that have twice been
our industrial exhibitions, designated the most perfect by
the Institute of France, and hitherto copied by the foremost London, Paris, and
Vienna instrument-makers only with difficulty and shortcomings.
However,
this
perfection of
researches that cost in
a
me
my
instruments was achieved
dearly in time and money, and
still
initially
by means of
the prices were not raised
proportion, so as to ensure their publicly beneficial domestic distribution as well as
market abroad, distant transport and high import taxes notwithstanding.
Furthermore, a larger expansion of this business great difficulty of finding suitable workers
therefore the pure profit of
it
is
is
not really possible due to the
and checking
only very small.
21
...
their
work
carefully,
and
CHRONOLOGY OF THE BOEHM FLUTE In
1831
& Wolf flute
London Boehm’s Gerock
Gordon has
appears;
flutes built
by Rudall
&
Rose
and by Cornelius Ward.
Boehm Boehm
1832 1833
develops his ring-key to Paris
Gordon
to
and London; shows
Munich;
Gordon’s mental breakdown.
1837
May: Boehm presents
October: Godfroy and Lot produce
November: Coche reports his agent.
Coche
Coche publishes Examen Coche-Buffet-Boehm
this to
Paris.
his flute.
and the
Institute
of France’s Academy
as his deputy.
Boehm
a
flute in Paris.
Boehm, asking him
to suppress the
Godfroy and Lot
flute
and
writes to Minister of the Interior.
critique.
Music Committee of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts considers
parroting Coche’s pamphlet in
flute,
Munich, London, and
in
it
others.
showing
his flute to the acoustician Savart
of Sciences. He commissions Camus
1838
Camus and
flute to
publishes a prospectus
in July
1836
make Coche
Munich; demonstrates
flute in
report, but ignores
its
Boehm’s
application pending from the previous year.
Buffet and
1839
Coche
A
Exhibition.
patent their
new
which appears alongside Godfroy ’s
flute,
Conservatoire Committee meets
Godfroy and
Buffet, but rejects both.
1842
The ring-key
flute
1843
John Clinton, Professor
is
adopted
at
on the Boehm
Practical Essay
is
Coche’s request to consider
the Paris
Boehm
flutes
by
frozen out of the Conservatoire by Tulou.
the Brussels Conservatoire.
the Royal
at
Coche
at
at
flute.
Academy of
Series
of
Music, London, publishes Theoretical and
The Musical World on the Boehm-Gordon
letters in
controversy.
Rudall
8c
Rose begin production of the 1832
1844
Cornelius Ward takes Gordon’s side
1847
Boehm’s cylinder
flute;
declines, to Rudall
&
Rose
1860
Dorus appointed Professor
at
in Paris, and, after
Clinton
his right to
be reinstated
Boehm
at
flute
the Conservatoire. is
adopted, and Louis Lot
official supplier.
Rockstro’s Treatise prejudiced against
1896
Welch’s History of the Boehm
silver
Flute Explained.
the Conservatoire, the
1890
The
the supervision of Greve.
London.
in
Coche’s Memoire asserts
Tulou
becomes
London under
production licensed to Godfroy and Lot
1859
retires;
The
in
flute in
medals
1834 and 1835
in
working on the
Boehm
Munich,
Flute,
3rd edition, rebuts Rockstro.
were awarded
referred to
for instruments
flutes himself.
under the trademark Boehm
Nuremberg and
Boehm.
the General
Greve made
Greve continued 8c
at industrial
to
after
win prizes
exhibitions of
Boehm had
ceased
for his instruments,
Greve, in the Industrial Exhibition of 1840
German
at
of the Hessian Trade
Industrial Exhibition
Association in 1842.
By
the time
won some
Boehm made
his fifth visit to
in 1839, his
Boehm-system
flute
J
Ward had been building
since 1839,
teacher William Card (1788-1861), Nicholson’s successor
had promoted the ring-key
ring-key flute had
November 1843 was performing in London
attention there. According to a letter of 7
World from Cornelius*- Ward, Ignazio Folz a
England
flute unsuccessfully.
Ward’s
at
to
at that
‘we had
Camus and Dorus endeavouring
the Antient Concerts,
letter
to introduce
time on
and the performer and 25
intimated that French
advocates were also making an effort to advance various ring-key flutes in that
The Musical
it
in
England,
to “English players”,
The
7«
Flute
by both public and private performances’. Camus reportedly ‘caused some sensation
by performing Boehm’s music on
The
first
a
Godfroy
flute
Academy of Music, took up
explained his advocacy of the ring-key flute out for praise, besides
more obvious
its
G
Dorus
a
1
*
key.
England came when John Clinton, Professor oi
significant conversion in
Flute at the Royal
with
the
Boehm
1841. Clinton
flute in
He
1843 and 1846.
in his tutors of
singled
attributes, the instrument’s potential for the
English technique of ‘Harmonics’, providing a table of fingerings as well as musical
examples by Cherubini, Rossini, Kuhlau, Nicholson, and Drouet. Clinton explained:
do not mean
1
fingerings]
effect
indispensable, but
is
unknown on
be inferred that
to
it
the old
flute, as
thorough knowledge of
a
offer them, as additional
I
an amusing study, and as
harmonic
resources, hitherto
means
a
[the
to
heighten the
of Flute music generally, consequently to elevate the character of the
Instrument, and as an inducement to the Studious and Talented Flautist, to explore 1
further, the vast resources offered in
still
Boehm’s system.
'
Clinton’s enthusiasm was not enough, however, to bring the
acceptance
England.
in
had
It
to
of both amateur and professional
Though
fact uncertain,
before. In flute
flutists, as
&
the series of letters in The Musical World
returned to
'
Munich
ts
to
London
viability in
in the
in
England seemed assured
taking up the ring-key
for the time being.
middle of that year and was granted his 26
Another Boehm
own
years
Nicholson-model
under the direction of Camus.
flute
later,
the
vigorously
The Musical World, began to manufacture
flute in
preoccupation with the in the
Eleonore Klose, Professor of Clarinet clarinet he
came on
it
27
continued to find applications
Boehm-system
flute
Greve
licence as an
when Thomas Prowse, who had
own
is
business association with Greve had ended several years
London market about two
Despite his
Boehm
licensing of the ring-key flute outside
first
rights.
his
1842 or
the manufacture of
instrument-maker as well as citizen’s
defended
in
whether the inventor authorized or even approved the idea
his
as
in
any event Carte and Rudall had joined Clinton
by 1843 an d
widespread
against the priorities and expectations
Rose company’s workmen
been called the
this has
Bavaria, the question of in
way
Boehm’s successor Rodolphe Greve
Rudall’s, invited
1843 to instruct the Rudall flutes.
its
flute
Despite such opposition, Richard Carte (1808-91), a pupil of
for 1843 illustrates.
George
make
new
at
Boehm’s ideas about the
steel industry,
other woodwinds. In 1839, Hyacinthe the
Paris
Conservatoire, exhibited a
had developed with Buffet
The holes of
jeune.
Klose’s
instrument were generally larger and more rationally spaced than previously, and the
mechanism employed Boehm’s ring-keys. Klose’s method
appeared
in 1843, the
same year Buffet and Klose patented the system. According
to Macgillivray (1961) the
England, where
in
rarity as
1925.
late as
Boehm
new
clarinet
was soon adopted
the provinces and the 2S
In
assistance of Pedro Joachim
from
for this instrument
a
Soler (1810—50) and
himself. Macgillivray wrote that
loudness was the prime consideration’.
France, but not in
army bands the Boehm
1844 Buffet also produced
Raymond
in
it
‘had
Boehm some
little
clarinet
was
a
oboe, with the
acoustical advice
success save where
The Boehm
flute
179
The ring-key 1844 key
took a few years longer to reach the United
flute
Brix visited
a
flute
New
he had acquired
instrument, and took
Europe.
in
John A. Kyle, by
flutist
York City from South America, bringing with him After
'
own
his
to the
it
21
account,
New
Institute Fair in
York
workshop of James
name nor
eminent
It
was
a
Annual American
Boehm
system in
Larrabee’s appears:
of
in the possession
New
of
professor
Flute
who made
D. Larrabee (d C1847),
account given by the flute-maker Alfred G. Badger
About the time of my commencement, the in this country.
borrowed the
visitor,
the Seventeenth
at
a ring-
musical party the
at a
1844, winning a silver medal for the ‘best
in
flute V" In a slightly different
1853 neither Kyle’s
on the
called
Larrabee exhibited his ring-key flute
copy.
seeing the flute
first
about
States. In
construction, at once perceived
gentleman
a
made
Flute
the
it
Mr W.
tourist.
examined
York,
merits,
its
Boehm
first
appearance J.
Davis, an
of
peculiarities
and predicted that
its
ultimate destiny
its
He immediately engaged in its manufacture, but the undertaking proved far from profitable. He found an abundance of opposing interests. The manufacturers of the old Flute did not see the way clear from the
would be
general adoption.
its
profitable investment of their labor
and
ability they did not possess. Professors
bad [i.e.
habits,
New
capital in the new.
and
it
his influence
Precisely
Davis engaged
His position was more
Flute.
great.
his patronage,
Many
and of
its
followed
1
a possible relationship
with Theobald
maker of conical Boehm Butes
New
in
evidence of this appears to be an entry
became the
first
made
up
York in
an exhibition of 1857.
Bute-manufacturing business
his
American maker
to
in
produce ring-key Butes
5!
In
New in the
any
York
wood,
double thumbhole, and vaulted arms with adjusting screws, but
later
a
Boehm
his instruments rather closely
G
Boehm’s open
:
key.
case, in
first
when
1845, he
regular course of
He based
rather than
Monzani
possibly early date, though the
at a
business. a
P.
Berdahl also identifies William Ronnberg (1803-C1889) as a
Bute as early as 1843.'
set
wake,
ultimate success, that
1835-66), on the strength of David Ehrlich’s assertion that Monzani
Badger (1815-92)
in his
the ring-key Bute’s manufacture remains unclear;
in
Susan Berdahl (1985) has suggested (//
Boehm
the manufacture of the Boehm Fluted
how
mechanical
adoption.... Philip Ernst, of this city
its
among amateurs
was through the assurances of
commenced
I
a
Professor of the Flute, of high standing, and thirty years’
experience, was the next to adopt the
commanding, and
wanted
of the Flute found they must unlearn their
and consequently discouraged York], a
It
on Boehm’s design, employing cocus
Seven of these instruments survive.
developed the cylinder Bute Badger made
his
own
a
Dorus G*
When Boehm
version as no U.S. patent
protected the invention.
Badger made strenuous at
numerous exhibitions
efforts to
in
New
promote the Boehm Bute. He entered instruments
York, Massachusetts, London, and Paris, beginning
with the American Institute of the City of
won
a
silver
testimonials,
the
new
medal.
He
used
paid
and personal approaches
New
York Exhibition of 1846, where he
advertising,
letters
to professionals to
Bute. His Illustrated History of the Flute
(
to
editors,
broadsides,
heighten public awareness of
1853, 1854, 1861,
and
1875), the
first
The
i8o such work to appear to
United
in the
States,
Boehm
argue for the advantages of the
New
York player to take up the ring-key
held high standing
New
in
Nicholson’s successor
New
the
at
musician and
X
in Paris
and
a position
as
with
whom
remained
in
and was ready to enter into a frank discussion with
in
1847,
able to understand why, of
was never
34
Another
visitor in
his guest
conical bore, the flute alone should be
...
I
all
and
flute,
wrote:
wind instruments with tone-holes and
blown
the wider end:
at
it
seems much more
and shorter length of air-column, the diameter
natural, that with a rising pitch
should become smaller
Boehm
of
August was Moritz
Boehm’s pupil Hans Haindl had won over to the ring-key Munich to study it from 13 August to 11 November.
account of his work
own
Munich during 4-19 August
in
study of acoustics under the guidance of
a
the ring-key flute might be improved.
Fiirstenau,
former profession as court
his
John Clinton visited him
when Boehm had begun
his friend Schafhautl
In his
Charles
works brought him health problems and
from 1845 he returned to
flute teacher.
1845, at a time
who
flutist to
London before taking up
in
activities in the iron
financial losses, so that
I
Opera
German immigrant,
Ernst, a
York Philharmonic.
Meanwhile Boehm’s
how
history (1851)
Badgers account, the second
flute.
York, having served as
the Italian
s
system.
Ernst (1792—1868) became, according to
Philip
leading
borrowed heavily from Carte
Flute
finally called science to
my
and gave two years
aid
to
the study of the principles of acoustics under the excellent guidance of Herr
Dr von Schafhautl.
Professor possible,
finished
I
principles.
a
flute
After
in
the
making many experiments, latter
part
as
precise
of 1847, founded on
as
scientific
...
Indeed, Boehm’s studies with Schafhautl led him to revise the most fundamental aspects of the flute’s design. His called
‘parabolic’
maximum
headjoint,
a
new
instrument featured
a cylindrical
bore with
a so-
tube of metal instead of wood, toneholes of the
possible size closed by
padded
and
keys,
mechanism
a
that built
on the
innovations of his 1832 pattern.
As early
as
1810 the London instrument-maker George Miller had patented
two-
a
jointed fife in brass with a cylindrical bore for use in hot climates, but for thirty-five
maker had taken up the idea of
years no other
wood
tubes he
made
to
a
metal tube. Noting that cylindrical
with hard drawn brass. This experience convinced him molecules of the
flute
tube shall be set into vibration
column’, and he determined that
mass
less that
German
a lighter tube,
half that of the thinnest possible
of energy to sound.
In
his acoustical studies noM "
"
flutes of silver, cocus, ebonite,
list
and gold with every one of the commonest fingering systems.
From
catalogue of C1937, pp. 4-6. Reading upward:
a
G
Radcliff model (closed silver; (5)
ebonite. These
last
Joint’; all
Boehm-system model (open or closed in
to 1867,
concerts. Italian
in
flute; (2) Silver
cocuswood; and
(4) in
ebonite; (6) Carte 1867 system (open G#) in silver; (7)
a cylindrical
cocuswood or
bore and parabolic head. Piccolos, alto
flutes,
and
also listed.
was succeeded there and
in the
Queen’s band (i860) by the Danish
Oluf Svendsen (1832-88), who had studied with Niels Petersen
Copenhagen and Matthieu Andre Reichert (1830-070) migrating
G#) in
(closed G#); (8) Eight-keyed or ‘Concert’ flute, in
other models had
flutist
Old-system cocuswood
could be supplied ‘with either Conical or Cylindrical Bore with Parabolic
E y and F were
from 1855
Boehm
(3)
cocuswood
in
flutes in
);
Rockstro model (open G#)
Guards’ model
Head
s
(1)
1855 to England to play for Jullien
Svendsen became principal
Opera (1862-72) and
at
at
at
at the Brussels
his
in
conservatory,
Covent Garden promenade
the Crystal Palace, and played at the Royal
the Philharmonic Society (1861-85).
64
The
202
German and French Boehm
wood and
of
flutes
American orchestras, where older keyed years.
The founding Boston Symphony
and Paul Fox (twenty-seven third,
Wilhelm
Louis and
in St
twenty-seven years,
New
York/’
while
1
In
1887
who
BSO
served for
Mole were French Conservatoire Andre Maquarre (1875-C1936;
1898-1918; he played a Bonneville), Daniel
Conservatoire 1896 under Taffanel;
BSO
1903-4, also
New
in
York
and Philadelphia), and Georges Laurent (1886-1964; Conservatoire 1905), also Taffanel student and
two years solo
for
a
working under Walter
York. Except for Arthur Brooke,
Conservatoire 1893 under Altes; (b 1881;
flutes,
as principal, after
graduates, mostly with Louis Lot flutes. These included
Maquarre
Mendler
by Albrecht of
the orchestra’s flutists after
all
the early
in
Louis Lot B-foot flute (no. 4358, 1887) to the
first silver
New
&
wooden Boehm
years) used
Boston orchestra when he succeeded Heindl
Damrosch
appeared
in
Heindl (who served for fourteen years)
Rietzel, played an old-system flute
Charles Mole brought the
were used side by side
silver
flutes also occasionally flutists
Flute
flutist
a
of the Societe des Concerts du
(BSO 1918-51 under Rabaud, Monteux, Koussevitsky, and Munch). It appears Wilhelm Gericke reinstated American wooden flutes for the 1905 season, but Conservatoire
following year.
silver returned the
In
1886
Eduard
(1866-1947) and Providence, shop.
Heindl
his brother
66
persuaded
Island to Boston,
years
later
Eustache
where George
Strasser,
Mole among
its first
flutes
the
new Boehm
following six years, William Haynes
flute
the
left
company
to his
own
made German
boxwood eight-keyed
own company.
of Carl Wehner,
first flute
who had bought
a
Bay
to
Haynes, trained as
and wooden
silver, silver-plated,
Symphony
method
of extruding the toneholes
solder that would allow
its
him
to build flutes
metal woodwinds.
to
recommendation
a
Bay State catalogue
devised several
of aluminium, invented
to silver flutes,
drawn holes
brother George,
a
Haynes employed thicker as
opposed
Germany
now working
had already devised the same technique independently invalid
Haynes
by drop forging, and while
patents in Britain and
later transpired that his
became
C.
from the metal of the tube by the same method
Applying the principle
Though he obtained
patent protection
the
J.
instruments.
silver parts
tubing, using 0.018 inch tube for flutes with
it
used
left
grades of
one of several prominent players
had made. By 1901
flutists all
He made
a
U.S. (1914),
Haynes
all
by companies
flutes,
a jeweller but self-taught as a flute-maker,
seeking
for soldered.
S.
grown through
of the Metropolitan Opera,
innovative production methods.
as a kettle spout.
8c
family). In this post over the
handmade Boehm
His reputation had
State instrument he
claimed that the Boston
Boehm
manufacturing branch of another
including Rudall Carte and Buffet. In 1900 William establish his
England
June 1894 to
in
under the Bay State trademark, while the company also imported
instrument, from
and repair
New
the
at
partnership that copied
Haynes
S.
company, John C. Haynes and Co. (unrelated
flutes
a flute-making
played by Boston professionals, counting Heindl and
customers. William
become superintendent of
a
in
up
set
professor
flute
Conservatory, joined the Haynes brothers
Mendler and Louis Lot
Haynes
George Winfield
jewellers
William Sherman Haynes (1864-1939) to move from
Rhode
Two
the
in
to 0.013 inch
(1913)
and the
in California,
the 1890s.
Thus the
and the process could be adopted by makers of
all
203
Nineteen th - cen tury eelecticism
William Haynes
67
the
wooden
his
production
wooden
and only two were
flute,
in
1914-15, and to 75 per cent in 1916.
in