Late-Renaissance Winds (part I)

The Sources

We owe much of what we know about instruments of the early seventeenth century — and, indeed, about Renaissance instruments in general—to two remarkable writers, Michael Praetorius and Marin Mersenne. Each produced a comprehensive treatise on musical theory and practice: Praetorius, Syntagma Musicum (in three volumes, 1614–204), and Mersenne, Harmonie universelle (1636–375). The two authors are often lumped together, but despite their shared thoroughness they could hardly be more different in style and approach. Praetorius—Lutheran composer, organist, and Kapellmeister—is always the more pragmatic; Mersenne—Jesuit priest, mathematician, philosopher, and scientist—the more speculative. Praetorius’s information appears to flow from his own practical experience, while Mersenne’s often seems a secondhand acquisition (which he does not always understand in depth). Rare is the page in Mersenne’s instrument descriptions without some inexplicable ambiguity or frustrating lack of clarity. (Not that Praetorius himself is without errors or inconsistencies, but his usually have some simple explanation.) Mersenne treats verbally of matters (such as instrument dimensions) that Praetorius entrusts to the carefully drafted plates of the Theatrum instrumentorum (the appendix to Syntagma II) to communicate; such verbal descriptions are naturally prone to error. Perhaps it should be mentioned in Mersenne’s defense, however, that his text simply has more information about instruments than Praetorius’s (including fingering charts and musical examples), providing more places for things to go wrong.

Perhaps an example will show how we have to second-guess Mersenne’s information, taking him for what he means — or what his informants meant — rather than for what he says. In his description of the Fluste à trois trous (three-holed tabor pipe), Mersenne explains the tablature system he intends to use for fingering charts for all of the woodwinds. Circles (or zeros) are used here, he says, to indicate “all fingers off.” However, in the chart for Flageollet that follows, he then uses zeros not only in this way (as indicators of “all-open” notes), but also to mark the thumbhole in fingerings for overblown notes. Although he reiterates that zeros mean open holes, he also suggests (three pages later) that the thumb should actually half-hole in the upper octave!8 This statement is followed almost immediately by the chart for Fluste à six trous (six-holed pipe—what we might call a penny whistle), which makes sense only if zeros are allowed to have yet another meaning: a single zero can indicate overblowing on instruments without a thumbhole, in which case it signifies the first closed hole. (Were it to signify an open hole, there would be no difference between the fingering for b''—one zero—and that for c'''—six zeros.) This would also appear to be the import of zeros in his second chart for the Fluste d’Allemande (transverse flute) and chart for Fifre (fife); in any case, these fingerings work on actual instruments only if the holes marked with zeros are left closed, not open. However, in the intervening charts for Fluste à neuf trous (recorder) the zeros marking the thumbhole in second-octave fingerings should probably be taken to indicate half-holing (or “pinching”), even though Mersenne once again mentions that they mean open holes.

Thus it appears that whoever made up the charts must have been making a distinction between a “stack” of zeros (to mean “all off”) and a single zero heading a fingering (to indicate overblowing in general — and “pinching” specifically, when there is a thumbhole); furthermore, it seems that this distinction was lost on Mersenne himself. Whatever the answer, this is just a small sample of the kind of confusion we may encounter in what purport to be simple and straightforward explanations.

Besides the differences in style between Mersenne and Praetorius are also the obvious temporal and geographic differences; when they present divergent pictures, we are often left to guess whether these reflect changes over time or different national uses. Sometimes other written sources can provide clues. Another primary source is represented by the instruments themselves, a goodly number of which survive from this period; however, they are rarely dated, and their provenance is also often in doubt. Then, too, fate has been kinder to some instruments than others, and we do not necessarily have either the best or most representative samples. We are fortunate, therefore, to have both written and physical evidence, since each is able to complement the other.

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