“The piccolo flute may have a very happy effect in soft passages; and it is mere prejudice to think that it should only be played loud. Sometimes it serves to continue the scale of the large flute by following up the latter and taking high notes beyond the flute’s command. The passing from one instrument to the other may then be easily managed by the composer in such a way as to make it appear that there is only one flute of extraordinary compass.” Handel used an instrument that corresponded in his day to the piccolo in his wonderful accompaniment to the bass song, “_O ruddier than the Cherry_,” in _Acis and Galatea_, where he gives it a pastoral character. He also makes it play an _obbligato_ in the aria, “_Hush ye Pretty Warbling Choir_,” in the same cantata. He does the same thing again in the aria, _Auguelletti che cantate_, in _Rinaldo_. Meyerbeer gives it much to do in his infernal waltz in _Robert le Diable_; and in Marcel’s song “Piff Paff” in _Les Huguenots_ it adds brilliancy to the martial effect. Beethoven has a striking place for the piccolo in the finale of his _Egmont Overture_; Verdi makes it heard in Iago’s drinking-song in _Otello_; it is conspicuous in the grotesque dances of the dolls in the ballet of _Coppelia_ by Delibes; Wagner uses it in his storms, in the _Ride of the Walküre_, and in all his fire-music in the _Nibelungen Ring_; Strauss gives a peculiar trill for it in _Till Eulenspiegel_; and Berlioz gives it full play in his _Carnaval Romain_, op. 9; and in the Minuet of the “Will o’ the Whisps” of his _Damnation of Faust_ he calls for _three_ piccolos. Therefore, we might characterize the piccolo as the imp, or demon, of the Orchestra, or the flash of lightning, or the darting flame, or the whistling wind. THE OBOE The Oboe, like the violin, comes from a family of long ancestry. It goes back to ancient Egypt, Assyria and Greece. In the Middle Ages this family was known as the _Bombardo_, _Bombardino_, _Bombardi_, or _Chalumeau_. The Germans called this family _Pommers_, which seems to be a corruption of _Bombardi_. “The Bombardo,” writes Carl Engel, “was made of various sizes and with a greater or smaller number of finger-holes and keys. That which produced the bass tones was sometimes of enormous length and was blown through a bent tube like the bassoon, the invention of which it suggested. The smallest instrument, called _chalumeau_ (from calamus, a reed) is still occasionally to be found among the peasantry in the Tyrol and some other parts of the Continent. The Germans call it _Schalmei_ and the Italians _piffero pastorale_. In England it was formerly called _shawm_, or shalm.”