Recorders and Flutes (I)
Praetorius begins his discussion of woodwinds with the recorder. By his time, the original set of three sizes (ones we would now call alto, tenor, and bass) had expanded considerably; he lists eight sizes: klein Flötlein or exilent in (seven-fingers) g'', discant in d'', discant in c'', alt in g', tenor in c', bassett in f, bass in B♭, and grossbass in F. Such a complete set — presumably with some duplications of certain sizes, following his earlier recommendations — was available from Venice for about 80 Thalers, he says, and indeed those illustrated resemble surviving examples of Venetian manufacture. These are characterized by a plain, robust, one-piece construction, a comparatively wide bore, and a voicing that favors the low register; sizes larger than a tenor are fitted with a key (for the bottom note), which is covered by a protective barrel or “fontanelle.” The majority of surviving examples have what has been called a “choke” bore: the top end is basically cylindrical but begins to contract near the upper fingerholes and then widens out again at the bottom. The contraction itself is what makes the larger recorders feasible, for without it, the fingerholes have to be impractically large and finger stretches become impossible.
It is the expanding “foot” section that distinguishes this bore profile from that of the Baroque and modern recorder, whose foot-joint bore continues instead to contract. This terminal contraction is responsible for the success of the Baroque highnote fingerings, which generally do not work on Renaissance-style recorders (except on some of the smaller ones, provided they have comparatively large fingerholes; see, for instance, the modern instruments based on the late seventeenth-century “transitional” set by Hieronymus Franziskus Kynseker of Nuremberg). In fact, Praetorius mentions that the larger recorders—those with keys, it would seem from the chart of ranges — are ordinarily limited in range to a thirteenth, while the smaller ones can generally reach a fourteenth; certain extraordinary players, however, can force another four to seven tones beyond the standard range. (Has he been reading Sylvestro Ganassi about this?)
We should note that most of the members of Praetorius’s recorder set are separated by fifths, in contrast with the alternating fourths and fifths typical of later families. The exceptions come at the outer edges of the set; there is a discant in c'' (in addition to the one in d''), but no alt in f''. He explains the reason for this alignment in fifths (typical of all the winds): a quartet can be made up of any three adjacent sizes, recorders when the music is written in the standard “low clefs” of vocal music (see the discussion of chiavette in Chapter 20, “Pitch and Transposition,” this guide). In fact, in Syntagma III Praetorius lists recorders among the instruments best suited to pieces in these clefs. It is when the music moves outside these restricted traditional ranges that problems arise, since four (and possibly even five) sizes must be used together, necessitating transpositions (up a second and down a fourth, in particular) to accommodate the bias of the smaller instruments toward sharps. For shawms the ideal solution, he suggests, would be for makers to build discant and alt instruments in c' and f (as alternatives to the traditional d' and g pitches); although he does not mention this idea in connection with recorders, we see it beginning to be realized in the case of the discant in c''.
Surviving instruments present a slightly more varied picture of the recorder in this period. Assuming a reference pitch of about a' = 460 (about a semitone above modern; see Chapter 20, “Pitch and Transposition,” this guide), there are a number of bass, bassett, and tenor recorders built a tone above the pitches Praetorius gives; they are thus an octave (rather than a ninth) below the corresponding tenor, alt, and discant instruments in c', g', and d''. These actually outnumber the corresponding “standard” sizes—as defined by Praetorius—in at least one museum collection (in Vienna).20 Praetorius also seems unaware of two other phenomena of Renaissance recorders: the so-called extended and columnar versions. The former are instruments (primarily of bass and grossbass size) provided with lower extension keys, adding three diatonic notes below the normal bottom note; the latter are instruments built in a curious columnar shape and adorned with brass “sieves” covering the voicing windows and with other ornamental work. While extant examples of both seem to come from the sixteenth century (being associated with builders of the Rauch family of Schrattenbach and Munich22), columnar recorders still show up in the iconography of the seventeenth. They are also significant in being some of the few Renaissance recorders built to a low pitch standard (in this case about a' = 392, a tone below modern).
In his recorder chapter, Praetorius mentions some acoustically related instruments, which need not long detain us here: Stamientienpfeiff or Schwägel (tabor pipe) and gar kleine Plockflötlein. The former came in three sizes (he illustrates two, along with their associated tabor); the latter was a tiny (three- to four-inch-long) pipe with three fingerholes and a thumbhole, which nonetheless was capable of almost a two-octave range! Praetorius’s next (and very short) chapter concerns Querpfeiffen (transverse flutes), under which he also includes Doltzflöten (flutes with a recorderlike tone generator, of which no examples survive) and military fifes. The consort of flutes illustrated comprises three sizes: discant in (six-fingers) a', alt-tenor in d', and bass in g. In contrast with the recorders, the pitch of the flutes is quite low — about a minor third below modern, judging by their lengths. This pitch is near the low end of the spectrum for surviving flutes; the majority of these cluster about two centers: a' = 435 and a' = 410 (the latter about a semitone below a' = 440).
It should be noted that Praetorius’s pitch designations for both recorders and flutes are an octave higher than those given in the sixteenth century. He has the credit for first mentioning in print the aural illusion whereby flutes and recorders can appear to sound an octave below their actual pitch; thus a tenor recorder or flute is actually at discant pitch and can serve in either role. This statement has often been taken as a blanket sanction for the use of recorders and flutes at eight-foot pitch for music of that period (as well as earlier). However, other evidence (including from Praetorius himself) suggests that this eight-foot-pitch use was exceptional. For instance, in discussing instrumentation in Syntagma III, Praetorius quite clearly assumes that flutes will be playing at four-foot pitch; in fact, he reverts here to the traditional pitch notation for them (referring to d'' and f'' as high notes for [tenor] flute when d''' and f'''—sounding pitch—are obviously meant). For recorders it would appear that he assumes eight-foot pitch only for the large set, which — he indicates — is effective only when playing by itself, not mixed with other instruments.
The use of both flutes and recorders at four-foot pitch remained the norm for quite some time; this is clear from the notation of seventeenth-century pieces that specify these instruments. Examples for flutes include works by Claudio Monteverdi, Johann Hermann Schein, and Heinrich Schütz; ones for recorder include works by Antonio Bertali (1605–69), Johann Heinrich Schmelzer (his famous Sonata à 7 flauti), and Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber (his Sonata pro tabula à 10). The Fluyten Lust-hof of Jacob van Eyck (Amsterdam, 1646), though now associated primarily with recorder, seems to be intended for either instrument; prefatory instructions bound with some copies show both. The most likely candidates are a recorder in c'' and a flute in g', once again putting the notation an octave below the sounding pitch. As late as 1677, Bartolomeo Bismantova shows the written scale of an alto recorder in (sounding) g' as beginning an octave lower, on g. This late survival of the “Renaissance” notational practice is all the more remarkable because the instrument illustrated by Bismantova is of the three-piece, Baroque format; he is, in fact, the first to document the new design.32 The first works to notate recorder and flute music consistently and unequivocally at its actual pitch seem to come from late seventeenth-century France (from the pens of Jean-Baptiste Lully and Marc-Antoine Charpentier, in particular) and England (under French musical influence at that time). It is natural to look to Mersenne for the roots of this “Baroque” practice; as usual, however, his presentation leaves us with as many puzzles as answers.
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