Reeds - Technique

In this review of seventeenth-century woodwinds and their use, we have concentrated on the questions of what, when, where, and why; it seems appropriate in closing to think about how. When early treatises and tutors examine matters of technique, they are concerned primarily with two aspects: fingering and articulation. To both of these issues the early approaches were quite different from the modern ones. Details obviously vary from instrument to instrument, time to time, and place to place; the specialist performer of a historical instrument has no choice but to become familiar in depth with the relevant sources. The following survey is not intended as a substitute for such personal research, but only as a guide to some of the general principles.

Reeds - The Oboe and Bassoon

Almost half a century has passed since Josef Marx suggested that the oboe was invented in the 1650s and first used in Lully’s Ballet de l’amour malade of 1657. Scholars have generally accepted his reasoning; recently, however, Bruce Haynes has shown that the iconographic record supports a later dating of the emergence of the true oboe (i.e., somewhere in the 1680s), and Rebecca Harris-Warrick has questioned some of Marx’s readings of the written evidence and thus some of his conclusions. Together these researchers have furthered the view that the change from shawm to oboe was a gradual and evolutionary one, perhaps over a few decades, rather than a sudden and decisive one. While it is true that not all the characteristics we associate with the Baroque oboe had to have been present at the outset, two were absolutely essential to its acceptance as an orchestral instrument: in order to be mixed with violins, it had to play at an acceptable volume and at a compatible pitch. Historians have paid more attention to the matter of volume, even though pitch is actually the more crucial consideration from the standpoint of instrument design.
(Volume is at least as much a question of reeds.)

As pointed out by Bruce Haynes, the actual interval between a typical Renaissance treble shawm and an oboe at low French pitch is a perfect fourth—just as we have found in comparing typical Renaissance and Baroque alto recorders; the new treble instrument is once again closer in pitch to the old tenor. This pitch difference does not manifest itself so obviously as a size difference in the case of the oboe and shawm, however; the treble shawm is already rather long for its pitch, having a considerable bell extension past the fingered holes. This bell extension is not “just for show”; its proportions (and the positions of its resonance holes) are carefully engineered to stabilize crucial notes in the scale. (In particular, the half-holed notes a minor third and minor tenth above the seven-finger note—E♭s on an instrument considered in c'—are rendered stable by this extension.) Making a proportional expansion to bring a treble shawm down a fourth would result in an instrument almost a yard long—obviously a clumsy and inelegant solution; clearly a complete remodeling was in order. Jointed construction was “in,” as was ornamental turnery.

Reeds (part II)

Acoustically related to the shawm is the curtal (pronounced “curt’l”), in which a conical bore like that of the shawm is doubled back on itself to produce a long sounding length in a short—in effect, “curt”—package. (It is still often called the “dulcian”—one of its German names—because the first suppliers of copies in this century were Germans, who called it that on their price lists. But “curtal” is its traditional English name.) Praetorius illustrates a whole family of them, in sizes corresponding to those of the shawms. However, he says that the doppel Fagott (the curtal corresponding to the grossbass Pommer) is available in two different pitches, one a fourth and one a fifth below the bass curtal or chorist Fagott; these are known as the quart Fagott and quint Fagott, respectively. (However, no representatives of the quint Fagott appear to survive.) In addition, curtals were made in two styles, offen (open) and gedackt (covered); in the latter the bell opening is provided with a sieve-like cover, somewhat damping the sound. Praetorius says that the Fagotten are softer and sweeter in sound than the Pommern (hence the alternative name Dolzianen) due to the folded bore  and — when present — the bell cover. (On the other hand, as we have seen, an offen chorist Fagott could substitute for a bass Pommer in a shawm band, so the difference was not necessarily extreme.)

Reeds (part I)

It is now time to return to the early seventeenth century and pick up the story of the reeds. The late Renaissance is often characterized by the variety of its reed instruments, a variety made evident in Syntagma II of Praetorius. Of course, the full panoply of instruments was not available in all geographic areas or to those in all social strata. As students of performance practice, it should be our focus to determine the limitations of the use of these instruments as well as their possibilities. Fortunately, there have been some excellent modern studies that have addressed these issues in detail, combining archival and iconographic information with that provided by the treatises and the existing instruments themselves.