Musical instruments, such as flutes, in which a column of air is set
in vibration by regular pulsations derived from a current of air
directed by the lips of the executant against the side of the orifice
serving as embouchure, appear to be of very ancient origin. The
Hindus, Chinese and Japanese claim to have used these modes of blowing
from time immemorial. The ancient Egyptians had a long pipe held
obliquely and blown across the end of the pipe itself at its upper
extremity; it was known as _Saib-it_[12] and was frequently figured on
the monuments. The same instrument, called "nay," is still used in
Mahommedan countries. The oblique aulos of the Greeks,
plagiaulos,[13] was of Egyptian origin and was perhaps at first blown
from the end as described above,[14] since we know that the Greeks
were familiar with that method of blowing in the syrinx or pan-pipe.
The instruments preserved at the British Museum[15] having lateral
embouchures show, however, that they were also acquainted--probably
through the Hindus--with the transverse flute, although in the case of
these specimens a reed must have been inserted into the mouth-hole or
no sound would have been obtained.
[Illustration: FIG. 3.--Transverse Flute. 1st or 2nd century A.D. From
the Tope at Amarabati, British Museum.]
The high antiquity of a lateral embouchure in Europe is generally
admitted; the flute evidently penetrated from the East at some period
not yet determined. A transverse flute is seen on Indian sculptures of
the Gandhara school showing Greek influence, and dating from the
beginning of our era (fig. 3). But although the transverse flute was
evidently known to the Greeks and Romans, it did not find the same
favour as the reed instruments known as auloi. We have no evidence of
the survival of the transverse flute after the fall of the Roman
empire until it filtered through from Byzantine sources during the
early middle ages. Instances of the flute occur on a group of
caskets[16] of Italo-Byzantine work of the 9th or 10th century, while
of purely Byzantine origin we find examples of flutes in Greek
MSS.[17] preserved in Paris, at the British Museum and elsewhere.
There is moreover in the cathedral of St Sophia at Kiev[18] an
orchestra depicted on frescoes said to date from the 11th century;
among the musicians is a flautist.
The first essentially western European trace of the transverse flute
occurs in a German MS. of the 12th century, the celebrated _Hortus
deliciarum_ of the abbess Herrad von Landsperg.[19] Fol. 221 shows a
syren playing upon the transverse flute, which Herrad explains in a
legend as _tibia_; in the vocabulary the latter is translated swegel.
In the 13th century it occurs among the miniatures of the fifty-one
musicians in the beautiful MS. _Las Cantigas de Santa Maria_ in the
Escorial, Madrid.[20] Eustache Deschamps, a French poet of the 14th
century, in one of his ballads, makes mention of the "flute
traversaine," and we are justified in supposing that he refers to the
transverse flute. It had certainly acquired some vogue in the 15th
century, being figured in an engraving in Sebastian Virdung's
celebrated work,[21] where it is called "Zwerchpfeiff," and, with the
drums, it already constituted the principal element of the military
music. Agricola (op. cit.) alludes to it as the "Querchpfeiff" or
"Schweizerpfeiff," the latter designation dating, it is said, from the
battle of Marignan (1515), when the Swiss troops used it for the first
time in war.
From Agricola onwards transverse flutes formed a complete family, said
to comprise the discant, the alto and tenor, and the bass--[notes] or
[notes] respectively. Praetorius[22] designates the transverse flute
as "Flauta traversa' Querpfeiff" and "Querflot," and gives the pitch
of the bass in [notes] the tenor and alto in [notes] and the discant
in [notes] as varieties then in use. A flute concert at that time
included two discants, four altos or tenors, and two basses. The same
author distinguishes between the "Traversa" and the "Schweizerpfeiff"
or fife (which he also calls "Feldpfeiff," i.e. military flute),
although the construction was the same. There were two kinds of
"Feldpfeiff," in [notes] and [notes] respectively; they were employed
exclusively with the military drum.
Mersenne's[23] account of the transverse flute, then designated "flute
d'Allemagne" or "flute allemande" in France, and an "Air de Cour" for
four flutes in his work lead us to believe that there were then in use
in France the soprano flute in [notes] the tenor or alto flute in
[notes] and the bass flute descending to [notes]. The museum of the
Conservatoire Royal of Brussels possesses specimens of all these
varieties except the last. All of them are laterally pierced with six
finger-holes; they have a cylindrical bore, and are fashioned out of a
single piece of wood. Their compass consists of two octaves and a
fifth. Mersenne's tablature for fingering the flute differs but little
from those of Hotteterre-le-Romain[24] and Eisel[25] for the diatonic
scale; he does not give the chromatic semitones and the flute had as
yet no keys.
The largest bass flute in the Brussels museum is in [notes] at the
French normal pitch A 435 double vibrations per second. It measures
0.95 m. from the centre of the blow orifice to the lower extremity of
the tube. The disposition of the lateral holes is such that it is
impossible to cover them with the fingers if the flute is held in the
ordinary way. The instrument must be placed against the mouth in an
almost vertical direction, inclining the extremity of the tube either
to the right or the left. This inconvenient position makes it
necessary that the instrument should be divided into two parts,
enabling the player to turn the head joint that the embouchure may be
most commodiously approached by the lips, which is not at all easy.
The first and fourth of the six lateral holes are double in order to
accommodate both right- and left-handed players, the holes not in use
being stopped up with wax. The bass flute shown in fig. 4 is the
facsimile of an instrument in the Museo Civico of Verona. The
original, unfortunately no longer fit for use, is nevertheless
sufficiently well preserved to allow of all its proportionate
measurements being given. The lowest note, E[flat], is obtained with a
remarkable amplitude of sound, thus upsetting a very prevalent opinion
that it is impossible to produce by lateral insufflation sounds which
go a little lower than the ordinary limit downwards of the modern
orchestral flute.[26]
[Illustration:
FIG. 4.--Bass Flute. From Museo Civico, Verona (facsimile).