The Story of the Flute/Chapter 2

by Henry Macaulay Fitzgibbon

Layout 2

CHAPTER II.
FLUTE-À-BEC AND RECORDER.
Beaked Flutes—Recorders—Double and Triple Recorders—Popularity—Gradual decline—Flageolet and other early pipes.

With the extinction of the ancient Egyptians. Greeks, and Romans there comes a gap in the history of the flute. We hear nothing of it for several Beaked
Flurescenturies, till it appears in the form of the flute-douce, or flute-à-bec, so called from the resemblance of the mouth-piece to the beak of a bird—the direct descendant of the ancient whistle-flute. The number of finger-holes varied from three upwards. (See Figs. 9 and 10.) There were many varieties of this instrument, the English one being called Recorder. This name, rendered familiar by the famous passage in Hamlet (iii. 2)—which, by the way, one learned commentator explains as referring to "the legal official of a city" (!), who in thieves' slang is known as "The Flute"—is derived from an obsolete use of the verb "to record" as applied to the singing of birds: "The nightingale records again What thou dost primely sing" (Browne's Shepherd's Pipe ii. 75). Early writers have spoken of it as "the English flute" (a term still

Fig. 9.—Fistula Tristoma and part of a Scale of Fourteen Notes (From Kircher's "Musurgia Universalis." 1650, Lib. VI. P. 498).

Fig. 10.—Fistula Hexastoma and part of a Scale of Fifteen Notes (From Kircher's "Musurgia Universalis.")

applied to the tin whistle in France) in contradistinction to "the Helvetian [i.e., transverse] flute," but it certainly was not an English invention, though it is depicted in a Psalter of the twelfth century preserved in the Library of Glasgow University. A Cornish miracle-play of the fourteenth century includes "recordys" among the instruments played by King David's minstrels. The Recorder was an open pipe fitted with a fipple-head and mouthpiece like a whistle, having seven finger-holes, with a thumb-hole at the back.^[1] The lowest hole was sometimes in duplicate for the use of left-handed Recordersplayers (hence the French called it "Flute à neuf trous"); the hole not required was stopped with wax. Later examples have an open key over this lowest hole, enclosed in a perforated

Fig. 11.—Enclosed Key on Recorders.

wooden case and. fitted with double "cusps" or "touches." (See Fig. 11.) There were regular sets of recorders (called "chests," because they were all kept in one box) of different pitches and varying dimensions, ranging from sopranino to double bass, which last was over eight feet long, and was blown through a bent crook, somewhat like a bassoon, but coming out of the top. It sometimes had two pedal keys played by the feet of the performer, between which the end rested on the ground, the sound escaping through a side hole. Prætorius (1620) says that a complete set consisted of eight instruments and that a full flute band numbered twenty-one players, and Burney (1773) mentions one of from thirty to forty. Two "chests" still exist—the Nuremburg set of eight, dating from the sixteenth century, and the Chester set of four—discant, alto, tenor and bass—dating two centuries later.

There were also double and triple recorders. The double recorder consisted of two pipes, generally of unequal length and pitch, running into a common headjoint. The melody was played on one pipe, whilst the other furnished an accompaniment. The triple recorder had the third pipe standing out quite separately, but running into the side of the head-joint near the mouthpiece.

The recorder's tone was very soft and pleasing, but it was practically impossible to increase its volume or vary its quality. Little variety of expression was possible, and the second octave was difficult to produce; moreover, it was defective in tune. Mersenne mentions the curious detail that some players could hum the bass to an air while they played it!

These instruments long enjoyed great popularity all over Europe. The English excelled as performers, as Giovanni B. Doni tells us in his De Præstantia Musicæ Veteris,Its
Popularity 1647; it is frequently mentioned in our early literature, and numerous tutors and much music was published for it. King Henry VIII, played it daily. Recorder-players were included in the royal band from the reign of Henry VII. down to that of Charles 11. One, named Nicholas Staggins, of bibulous tendencies—in 1695 he owed £120 for beer—accompanied King William to Holland. John Banister, leader of the Drury Lane band till 1720, was a famous performer. In 1695 the Royal Academy in Charles Street, Covent Garden, advertised in The Athenian Gazette that they gave lessons on the recorder. A typical fop of the period is depicted in a full-trimmed blue suit, with scarlet stockings rolled above his knees, a large white peruke, and playing on a recorder nearly an ell long. The instrument was frequently included in the scores of Handel and Bach, the last great composers to use it. It began to die out in France about 1750, but was played at a concert so late as 1800.^[2] In the end it was ousted by the new transverse or "German" flute (the recorder being then known as the "common" flute). It is now replaced by the more perfect clarinet, which also The
Flageolet
and other
early Pipes dealt a death-blow to the flageolet, a whistle-pipe with a receptacle for holding a sponge, introduced by Sieur Juvigny in 1581. John Hudgebut, in the preface to his Vade-mecum for the lovers of Musick (1679), contrasts the two instruments thus:—"Though the Flagilet like Esau hath got the start, as being of a more Antient standing, The Rechorder like Jacob hath got the Birth-right, being much more in Esteem and Veneration with the Nobility and Gentry, whilst the Flagilet sinks down a servant to the Pages and Footmen."

Other primitive forms of pipe, such as the Syrinz or Pan-pipes (still used as an orchestral instrument in Roumania, but with us relegated to the Punch and Judy man), the straw flute, the Eunuch flute, and the Tabor and Pipe—a long whistle pipe with two holes in front and one behind—are outside the scope of the present work.

The German Flute Player (from The Modern Musick Master) (pg 22, The Story of the Flute, 1914)

The German Flute-Player ("The Modern Musick Master," 1731).

1. For pictures of Recorders see English Music, pp. 132, 136, 138, and 485.
2. "Le Repos" in Berlioz's L'enfance du Christ was originally scored for flutes-douces.