Musical Instruments, Historic, Rare and UniqueHipkins, Alfred J. (Alfred James)
History
Musical Instruments, Historic, Rare and Unique
Hipkins, Alfred J. (Alfred James)
Musical instruments
One Trumpet, by Johann Wilhelm Haas of Nuremberg, is of obsolete
make; the other, also by Haas, is curved in half-circles to
facilitate the production of stopped notes, and is curiously engraved.
These five instruments belong to the Brussels Conservatoire Royal.
[Illustration: XXXVIII]
PLATE XXXVIII.
TWO DOUBLE FLAGEOLETS, A GERMAN FLUTE, AND TWO FLÛTES DOUCES.
The Flageolet is the last example in present use of the "flûtes
douces," or "à bec" (German Blockflöten), bored with reversed cones,
that is to say, with the embouchure at the larger end. It is referred
to by Pepys in his _Diary_ (1st March, 1666): "Being returned home I
find Greeting, the flageolet-master, come, and teaching my wife, and
I do think my wife will take pleasure in it, and it will be easy for
her, and pleasant;" and again (20th January, 1667): "To Drumbleby's
the pipe-maker, there to advise about the making of a flageolet to go
low and soft; and he do show me a way which do do, and also a fashion
of having two pipes of the same note fastened together, so as I can
play in one and then echo it upon the other, which is mighty pretty."
The double flageolets in the Plate were made by W. Bainbridge,
London, who had a speciality for such instruments. The flûtes
douces--in Shakspeare's _Hamlet_ the "Recorders"--were made in
families like viols, cromornes, shawms, and other well-known
Elizabethan instruments, a fashion that modern instrumentation shows
a tendency to return to. Evelyn, in 1679, mentions them as "now in
much request for accompanying the voice." A bass and treble flute is
drawn, also a one-keyed German or transverse flute which, in the last
century, from its beauty and tone, although defective in intonation,
was a favourite instrument, and supplanted the flûte douce in public
favour. In the concerts of ancient music given in July, 1885, by
members of the Brussels Conservatoire in the Music Room of the
Inventions Exhibition, South Kensington, a movement from a Concerto
by Quanz (music-master to Frederick the Great) was played by Mr.
Dumon on a single-keyed ivory flute. In the same concerts, Mr. Dumon
and his pupils played a March of the Lansquenets, of the time of the
Peace of Cambrai (1519), on eight flûtes douces (flauti dolci), in
parts, accompanied by a drum. This was the military music of that
period.
The German flute is the second instrument in the Plate; the flûtes
douces are the third and fifth from left to right. These instruments
and those drawn in the next Plate are the property of Messrs. J. & R.
Glen, Edinburgh.
[Illustration: XXXIX]
PLATE XXXIX.
DOLCIANO. OBOE. BASSOON. OBOE DA CACCIA. BASSET HORN.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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