Appendix II.
Wooden and Metal Flutes.
Modern flutes are made either of wood, silver, or ebonite, a mixture of india-rubber, lead, and sulphur, first used for this purpose about 1850. Our ancestors delighted in a yellow boxwood flute with square silver keys and ivory tips to the joints (I have several made by Astor), but it and all other woods have been superseded by cocus or grenadille. Various metals have been tried—tin, copper, brass, pewter, and even iron. In England and America the head-joint of wooden flutes is usually lined with metal, which preserves the exact proportion of the curves. Mr. Welch tells an amusing story of a flautist friend who played an old wooden flute. Having become subject to fancies, and fearing he was about to die, he said to Mr. Welch, "I shall soon be in Heaven, and then I shall play on a golden flute; but mind, it must be lined with wood." Gold flutes are said to produce a very rich and pure tone; but as they cost about £180, are not likely ever to come into general use. Metal flutes are now almost exclusively made of silver or German silver.
Böhm, who tried all kinds of materials, came to the conclusion that, for the majority of players, wood is best. The chief advantages of a silver flute, besides its nice appearance and lightness, are its quick articulation, the facility with which the sound can be produced, especially in the upper notes, and its brilliancy. Its chief disadvantages are its occasional shrillness unless very skilfully played and its slightly metallic sound. It is not so sympathetic or round in tone as the wooden flute, which is fuller and richer, but slower in response. Moreover, it is liable to rapid fluctuations of pitch, caused by the tube getting hot or cold very rapidly, heat causing it to rise and vice versâ. It is admirable as a solo instrument or in the drawing-room, but in the orchestra the tone does not blend so well with the other wood winds (which are never made of metal), and stands out too prominently. It carries farther, however, than wood. Mr. W. S. Broadwood told me that when he last heard Doppler playing in the orchestra at Salzburg he was almost inaudible, playing on an old wooden flute. The same authority mentions how on one occasion he heard the silver flute in an orchestra from the further extremity of a large building, apparently playing isolated phrases without accompaniment; as he approached nearer he heard the double basses, then the violins; it is not so with a wooden or ebonite flute. But no doubt much depends on the individual player: nothing could be more beautiful than Svendsen's tone on a silver flute or Ciardi's on a wooden one.
The question of wood versus silver is in reality a matter of individual taste. Each prefers his own instrument. One who plays wood will tell you that silver is harsh and metallic, and that wood is sweeter; one who plays silver will tell you that it alone produces pure tone, and that wood is "fluffy" and "woolly." A player who has naturally a fine tone will be able to produce it on either material. I fancy that imagination has a good deal to say to it. On one occasion in my own house Mons. F. Brossa and some other flautists tried the experiment of each retiring in turn behind a screen and playing the same piece alternately on a wooden and a silver flute, with the result that we were all as often wrong as right in guessing which instrument was being played.
The idea that the material used affects the tone has been questioned by Lavignac. M. Victor Mahillon recently experimented with a wooden and a brass trumpet, and he declares that the tone of each is identical—the wood quite as "brassy" as the genuine article. Sax tried similar experiments with a brass clarinet with the like result. This certainly upsets all previous theories, and is well deserving of further investigation. The truth would appear to be that the tone quality does not depend so much on the material used (although it has a certain amount of influence on it) as upon the form of the instrument itself.