Recorders and Flutes (II)
Mersenne’s set of recorders is—on the surface, at least—not all that different from Praetorius’s. Unlike Praetorius, however, he divides them into two groups, a petit jeu and a grand jeu, which, he says, can be “tuned” (i.e., played) together, just as are the small and large stops (jeux) of the organ. The petit jeu consists, he tells us, of three sizes, separated by fifths: dessus, taille (which also serves for the haute-contre), and basse. This information is thus in accord with standard Renaissance practice, as explained (for example) by Philibert Jambe de Fer almost a century earlier. Mersenne gives no specific pitches for any of his recorders; we can only assume a continuance of the traditional f, c', and g' (sounding) pitches for the instruments of the petit jeu. The problem comes when we consider their physical measurements. His length for the basse (two and three-quarters pieds, or about 893 mm) is reasonable enough, being in the neighborhood of the length of Praetorius’s bassett. (Unfortunately, Mersenne fails to clarify whether his measurements are of total lengths orsounding lengths, making exact comparisons impossible.) But his taille measurement of one pied five pouces (460 mm) is far too short; it is midway between what we should expect for taille and dessus proportioned to such a basse. However, the worst is yet to come; he claims that the dessus is but eleven lignes (less than an inch!) in length. This is of course ridiculous, but even at eleven pouces (298 mm) it is too short to stand at a ninth above the basse. It is close, however, to the length of Praetorius’s discant in c'', suggesting that there was (unbeknownst to Mersenne) a fourth size of recorder in the petit jeu in France—not surprising, given developments elsewhere.
Confirmation of this notion is to be found in Mersenne’s fingering chart for recorder. This is for an instrument in (seven-fingers) c', written pitch; no physical size is specified. However, the high-note fingerings given are those of the standard Baroque (and modern) instrument, which (as pointed out above) do not generally work on Renaissance recorders — particularly the larger ones. Thus a small instrument (and one with a “Renaissance” exterior but a “Baroque” bore, rather like that needed for van Eyck) is implied; the notation would then still be an octave below the sounding pitch. Such an instrument would be handy for playing the top part of Mersenne’s musical example, which goes up to written f''—a high (though not impossible) note for his dessus in g'.
The basse of the petit jeu serves as the dessus of the grand jeu, according to Mersenne. Below this instrument are a large taille and basse, ones Praetorius would have called bass and grossbass (but, unlike his, possessing lower extensions, as described above). If the carefully rendered engraving of this set can be trusted, the seven-finger note of the taille would seem to be a fourth (and that of the basse, an octave) below the dessus of the grand jeu. It is not at all certain that the recorders of the grand jeu were in common use in Mersenne’s France. The ones he is describing, he says, were a gift from England to one of France’s kings; he is rendering their key mechanism in such detail “so that our [French] builders can make some similar.”38 In any case, the grand jeu as he describes it is poorly suited to performing his musical example; one needs to add a taille (tenor) from the petit jeu in order to play the top part, since the normal limit of a Renaissance basse (Praetorius’s bassett) is d''.
Mersenne’s information about flutes leaves even more room for interpretation. He begins by describing “one of the best flutes in the world,” providing almost enough measurements for a reconstruction. Though a few details are lacking, it is clear that (acoustically speaking) this is a Renaissance-style tenor flute with a bottom note somewhere around d'.39 For this he gives two fingering charts, one starting on g and the other on d'. One is not merely a transposition of the other, since the fingerings themselves differ significantly. The chart on g is, in fact, unique among early charts for Renaissance-style flutes, in that all the notes of the second octave are simple overblown octaves of the fundamental register; all other charts switch to overblown twelfths, beginning with the twelfth note itself. It has been suggested that behind the g-chart lurks a “proto-Baroque” flute (with some sort of tapering bore to improve the octaves); while this is an intriguing idea, it is corroborated neither by Mersenne (who claims the bore is cylindrical) nor by any other evidence from that period. It seems more likely that a small flute is indicated (one in g', a tone lower than Praetorius’s discant), since it is on smaller instruments that the cylindrical flute’s tendency to overblow flat can better be overcome; for one thing, the holes can be made proportionately larger on a smaller flute. As we have seen, it appears that just such an instrument is the one called for as an alternative to the recorder in certain prefaces to van Eyck’s Fluyten Lust-hof; although no fingerings are given in the Dutch source, the range is exactly the same as Mersenne’s (nineteen notes, the traditional range of the Renaissance flute). In all of this only one thing is certain, however: the g-chart is not for a Renaissance bass flute, since the latter is incapable of a range larger than two octaves.
Mersenne’s d'-chart is also unique; it is the only one to specify the actual sounding pitches of the d'-flute. This fact has led Raymond Meylan, for one, to suggest that Mersenne’s musical example for flutes is meant to be played at eight-foot pitch, using a g-bass for the tenor part and an instrument from some other family for the bass.
(Mersenne mentions that sackbut, serpent, or “some other bass” is used with flutes, since the bass flute cannot descend so low.) This is certainly the most straightforward and probable explanation, but unfortunately one other possibility cannot be ruled out: that one is expected to use the g-chart on the d'-flute, thus effecting a transposition. (In this transposition, all three upper parts can be played on d'-flutes, as had been the normal Renaissance practice.) Several objections might be raised to this notion, however, not the least of which is that it supposes that the g-chart might actually work on the d'-flute as Mersenne has described it—highly improbable, as we have seen. It seems far more likely that Mersenne obtained two charts for flute and merely assumed that both applied to the same instrument; he implies that their differences arise merely from personal differences among players.
Thus, after sorting through Mersenne’s ambiguities and inconsistencies, we are left with evidence of a mixture of notational practices for recorders and flutes: petit jeu of recorders (as well as g'-flute) at four-foot pitch, grand jeu of recorders (and probably the larger flutes) at eight-foot pitch.
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