I will now invite your attention to the wind instruments, which, in
Handel's time, were chiefly used to double in unison the parts of
stringed instruments. Their modern independent use dates from Haydn;
it was extended and perfected by Mozart, Beethoven, and Weber; and the
extraordinary changes and improvements which have been effected during
the present century have given wind instruments an importance that is
hardly exceeded by that of the stringed, in the formation of the
modern orchestra. The military band, as it now exists, is a creation
of the present century.
The so-called wood wind instruments are the flute, oboe, bassoon, and
clarinet. It is as well to say at once that their particular qualities
of tone do not absolutely depend upon the materials of which they are
made. The form is the most important factor in determining the
distinction of tone quality, so long as the sides of the tube are
equally elastic, as has been submitted to proof by instruments made of
various materials, including paper. I consider this has been
sufficiently demonstrated by the independent experiments of Mr.
Blaikley, of London, and Mr. Victor Mahillon, of Brussels. But we must
still allow Mr. Richard Shepherd Rockstro's plea, clearly set forth in
a recently published treatise on the flute, that the nature and the
substance of the tube, by reciprocity of vibration, exercise some
influence, although not so great as might have been expected, on the
quality of the tone. But I consider this influence is already
acknowledged in my reference to equality of elasticity in the sides of
the tube.
The flute is an instrument of _embouchure_--that is to say, one in
which a stream of air is driven from the player's lips against an edge
of the blow hole to produce the sound. The oboe and bassoon have
double reeds, and the clarinet a single reed, made of a species of
cane, as intermediate agents of sound production. There are other
flutes than that of _embouchure_--those with flageolet or whistle
heads, which, having become obsolete, shall be reserved for later
notice. There are no real tenor or bass flutes now, those in use being
restricted to the upper part of the scale. The present flute dates
from 1832, when Theobald Boehm, a Bavarian flute player, produced the
instrument which is known by his name. He entirely remodeled the
flute, being impelled to do so by suggestions from the performance of
the English flautist, Charles Nicholson, who had increased the
diameter of the lateral holes, and by some improvements that had been
attempted in the flute by a Captain Gordon, of Charles the Tenth's
Swiss Guard. Boehm has been sufficiently vindicated from having
unfairly appropriated Gordon's ideas. The Boehm flute, since 1846, is
a cylindrical tube for about three-fourths of its length from the
lower end, after which it is continued in a curved conical
prolongation to the cork stopper. The finger holes are disposed in a
geometrical division, and the mechanism and position of the keys are
entirely different from what had been before. The full compass of the
Boehm flute is chromatic, from middle C to C, two octaves above the
treble clef C, a range of three octaves, which is common to all
concert flutes, and is not peculiar to the Boehm model. Of course this
compass is partly produced by altering the pressure of blowing.
Columns of air inclosed in pipes vibrate like strings in sections,
but, unlike strings, the vibrations progress in the direction of
length, not across the direction of length. In the flute, all notes
below D, in the treble clef, are produced by the normal pressure of
wind; by an increasing pressure of overblowing the harmonics, D in the
treble clef, and A and B above it, are successively attained. The
fingerholes and keys, by shortening the tube, fill up the required
intervals of the scale. There are higher harmonics still, but
flautists generally prefer to do without them when they can get the
note required by a lower harmonic. In Boehm's flute, his ingenious
mechanism allows the production of the eleven chromatic semitones
intermediate between the fundamental note of the flute and its first
harmonic, by holes so disposed that, in opening them successively,
they shorten the column of air in exact proportion. It is, therefore,
ideally, an equal temperament instrument and not a D major one, as the
conical flute was considered to be. Perhaps the most important thing
Boehm did for the flute was to enunciate the principle that, to insure
purity of tone and correct intonation, the holes must be put in their
correct theoretical positions; and at least the hole below the one
giving he sound must be open, to insure perfect venting. Boehm's
flute, however, has not remained as he left it. Improvements, applied
by Clinton, Pratten, and Carte, have introduced certain modifications
in the fingering, while retaining the best features of Boehm's system.
But it seems to me that the reedy quality obtained from the adoption
of the cylindrical bore which now prevails does away with the sweet
and characteristic tone quality of the old conical German flute, and
gives us in its place one that is not sufficiently distinct from that
of the clarinet.
The flute is the most facile of all orchestral wind instruments; and
the device of double tonguing, the quick repetition of notes by taking
a staccato T-stop in blowing, is well known. The flute generally goes
with the violins in the orchestra, or sustains long notes with the
other wood wind instruments, or is used in those conversational
passages with other instruments that lend such a charm to orchestral
music. The lower notes are not powerful. Mr. Henry Carte has, however,
designed an alto flute in A, descending to violin G, with excellent
results. There is a flute which transposes a minor third higher than
the ordinary flute; but it is not much used in the orchestra, although
used in the army, as is also a flute one semitone higher than the
concert flute. The piccolo, or octave flute, is more employed in the
orchestra, and may double the melody in the highest octave, or
accentuate brilliant points of effect in the score. It is very shrill
and exciting in the overblown notes, and without great care may give a
vulgar character to the music, and for this reason Sir Arthur Sullivan
has replaced it in the score of "Ivanhoe" by a high G flute. The
piccolo is exactly an octave higher than the flute, excepting the two
lowest notes of which it is deficient. The old cylindrical
ear-piercing fife is an obsolete instrument, being superseded by a
small army flute, still, however, called a fife, used with the side
drum in the drum and fife band.
The transverse or German flute, introduced into the orchestra by
Lulli, came into general use in the time of Handel; before that the
recorders, or flute douces, the flute à bec with beak or whistle head,
were preferred. These instruments were used in a family, usually of
eight members, viz., as many sizes from treble to bass; or in three,
treble, alto or tenor, and bass. A fine original set of those now rare
instruments, eight in number, was shown in 1890 in the music gallery
of the Royal Military Exhibition, at Chelsea; a loan collection
admirably arranged by Captain C.B. Day. They were obtained from Hesse
Darmstadt, and had their outer case to preserve them exactly like the
recorder case represented in the painting by Holbein of the
ambassadors, or rather, the scholars, recently acquired for the
National Gallery. The flageolet was the latest form of the treble,
beak, or whistle head flute. The whistle head is furnished with a
cavity containing air, which, shaped by a narrow groove, strikes
against the sharp edge and excites vibration in the conical pipe, on
the same principle that an organ pipe is made to sound, or of the
action of the player's mouth and lips upon the blowhole of the flute.
As it will interest the audience to hear the tone of Shakespeare's
recorder, Mr. Henry Carte will play an air upon one.
The oboe takes the next place in the wood wind band. The principle of
sound excitement, that of the double reed, originating in the
flattening of the end of an oat or wheat straw, is of great antiquity,
but it could only be applied by insertion in tubes of very narrow
diameter, so that the column of air should not be wider than the
tongue straw or reed acting upon it. The little reed bound round and
contracted below the vibrating ends in this primitive form permitted
the adjustment of the lower open end in the tube, it might be another
longer reed or pipe which inclosed the air column; and thus a conical
pipe that gradually narrows to the diameter of the tongue reed must
have been early discovered, and was the original type of the pastoral
and beautiful oboe of the modern orchestra. Like the flute, the oboe
has only the soprano register, extending from B flat or natural below
middle C to F above the treble clef, two octaves and a fifth, which a
little exceeds the flute downward. The foundation of the scale is D
major, the same as the flute was before Boehm altered it. Triebert, a
skillful Parisian maker, tried to adapt Boehm's reform of the flute to
the oboe, but so far as the geometrical division of the scale was
concerned, he failed, because it altered the characteristic tone
quality of the instrument, so desirable for the balance of orchestral
coloration. But the fingering has been modified with considerable
success, although it is true by a much greater complication of means
than the more simple contrivances that preceded it, which are still
preferred by the players. The oboe reed has been much altered since
the earlier years of this century. It was formerly more like the reed
of the shawm, an instrument from which the oboe has been derived; and
that of the present bassoon. It is now made narrower, with much
advantage in the refinement of the tone. As in the flute, the notes up
to C sharp in the treble clef are produced by the normal blowing, and
simply shortening the tube by opening the sound holes. Beyond that
note, increased pressure, or overblowing, assisted by a harmonic
"speaker" key, produces the first harmonic, that of the octave, and so
on. The lowest notes are rough and the highest shrill; from A to D
above the treble clef, the tone quality of the oboe is of a tender
charm in melody. Although not loud, its tone is penetrating and
prominent. Its staccato has an agreeable effect. The place of the oboe
in the wood wind band between the flute and the clarinet, with the
bassoon for a bass, is beyond the possibility of improvement by any
change.
Like the flute, there was a complete family of oboes in the sixteenth
and early in the seventeenth century; the little schalmey, the discant
schalmey, from which the present oboe is derived; the alto, tenor,
pommer, and bass pommers, and the double quint or contrabass pommer.
In all these old finger hole instruments the scale begins with the
first hole, a note in the bagpipe with which the drones agree, and not
the entire tube. From the bass and double quint pommers came
ultimately the bassoon and contra-bassoon, and from the alto pommer,
an obsolete instrument for which Bach wrote, called the oboe di
caccia, or hunting oboe, an appellation unexplained, unless it had
originally a horn-like tone, and was, as it has been suggested to me
by Mr. Blaikley, used by those who could not make a real hunting horn
sound. It was bent to a knee shape to facilitate performance. It was
not exactly the cor Anglais or English horn, a modern instrument of
the same pitch which is bent like it, and of similar compass, a fifth
below the usual oboe. The tenoroon, with which the oboe di caccia has
been compared, was a high bassoon really on octave and a fifth below.
It has been sometimes overlooked that there are two octaves in pitch
between the oboe and bassoon, which has led to some confusion in
recognizing these instruments. There was an intermediate instrument a
third lower than the oboe, used by Bach, called the oboe d'amore,
which was probably used with the cornemuse or bagpipe, and another, a
third higher than the oboe, called musette (not the small bagpipe of
that name). The cor Anglais is in present use. It is a melancholy,
even mournful instrument, its sole use in the orchestra being very
suitable for situations on the stage, the effect of which it helps by
depressing the mind to sadness. Those who have heard Wagner's "Tristan
und Isolde" will remember, when the faithful Kurwenal sweeps the
horizon, and sees no help coming on the sea for the dying Tristan, how
pathetically the reed pipe of a careless peasant near, played in the
orchestra on a cor Anglais, colors the painful situation.
The bassoon is the legitimate bass to the oboe and to the wood wind in
general. It was evolved in the sixteenth century from the pommers and
bombards: the tenors and basses of the shawm or oboe family. With the
older instruments, the reeds were not taken hold of immediately by the
lips, but were held in a kind of cup, called _pirouette_, which only
allowed a very small part of the reed to project. In the oboe and
bassoon the player has the full control of the reed with the lips,
which is of great importance, both in expression and intonation. The
bassoon economizes length, by being turned back upon itself, and, from
its appearance, obtains in Italy and Germany the satirical appellation
of "fagotto" or "fagott." It is made of wood, and has not, owing to
many difficulties as yet unsurmounted, undergone those changes of
construction that have partly transformed other wood wind instruments.
From this reason--and perhaps the necessity of a bassoon player
becoming intimately familiar with his instrument--bassoons by some of
the older makers--notably, Savory--are still sought after, in
preference to more modern ones. The instrument, although with
extraordinary advantages in tone, character, and adaptability, that
render it valuable to the composer, is yet complicated and capricious
for the performer; but its very imperfections remove it from the
mechanical tendencies of the age, often damaging to art; and, as the
player has to rely very much upon his ear for correct intonation, he
gets, in reality, near to the manipulation of the stringed
instruments. The bassoons play readily with the violoncellos, their
united tone being often advantageous for effect. When not so used, it
falls back into its natural relationship with the wood wind division
of the orchestra. The compass of the bassoon is from B flat, an octave
below that in the bass clef, to B flat in the treble clef, a range of
three octaves, produced by normal pressure, as far as the bass clef F.
The F below the bass clef is the true lowest note, the other seven
semitones descending to the B flat being obtained by holes and keys in
the long joint and bell. These extra notes are not overblown. The
fundamental notes are extended as in the oboes and flutes by
overflowing to another octave, and afterward to the twelfth. In modern
instruments yet higher notes, by the contrivance of small harmonic
holes and cross fingerings, can be secured. Long notes, scales,
arpeggios, are all practicable on this serviceable instrument, and in
full harmony with clarinets, or oboes and horns, it forms part of a
rich and beautiful combination. There is a very telling quality in the
upper notes of the bassoon of which composers have made use.
Structurally, a bassoon consists of several pieces, the wing, butt,
long joints, and bell, and when fitted together, they form a hollow
cone of about eight feet long, the air column tapering in diameter
from three-sixteenths of an inch at the reed to one and three-quarter
inches at the bell end.
The bending back at the butt joint is pierced in one piece of wood,
and the prolongation of the double tube is usually stopped by a
flattened oval cork, but in some modern bassoons this is replaced by a
properly curved tube. The height is thus reduced to a little over four
feet, and the holes, assisted by the artifice of piercing them
obliquely, are brought within reach of the fingers. The crook, in the
end of which the reed is inserted, is about twelve inches long, and is
adjusted to the shorter branch.
The contra-bassoon is an octave lower than the bassoon, which implies
that it should go down to the double B flat, two octaves below that in
the bass clef, but it is customary to do without the lowest as well as
the highest notes of this instrument. It is rarely used, but should
not be dispensed with. Messrs. Mahillon, of Brussels, produce a reed
contra-bass of metal, intended to replace the contra-bassoon of wood,
but probably more with the view of completing the military band than
for orchestral use. It is a conical brass tube of large proportions,
with seventeen lateral holes of wide diameter and in geometrical
relation, so that for each sound one key only is required. The compass
of this contra-bass lies between D in the double bass octave and the
lower F of the treble clef.
The sarrusophones of French invention are a complete family, made in
brass and with conical tubes pierced according to geometric relation,
so that the sarrusophone is more equal than the oboe it copies and is
intended, at least for military music, to replace. Being on a larger
scale, the sarrusophones are louder than the corresponding instruments
of the oboe family. There are six sarrusophones, from the sopranino in
E flat to the contra-bass in B flat; and to replace the contra-bassoon
in the orchestra there is a lower contrabass sarrusophone made in C,
the compass of which is from the double bass octave B flat to the
higher G in the bass clef.
Before leaving the double reed wind instruments, a few words should be
said of a family of instruments in the sixteenth century as important
as the schalmeys, pommers, and bombards, but long since extinct. This
was the cromorne, a wooden instrument with cylindrical column of air;
the name is considered to remain in the cremona stop of the organ. The
lower end is turned up like a shepherd's crook reversed, from whence
the French name "tournebout." Cromorne is the German "krummhorn;"
there is no English equivalent known.
The tone, as in all the reed instruments of the period, was strong and
often bleating. The double reed was inclosed in a _pirouette_, or cup,
and the keys of the tenor or bass, just the same as with similar
flutes and bombards, were hidden by a barrel-shaped cover, pierced
with small openings, apparently intended to modify the too searching
tone as well as to protect the touch pieces which moved the keys. The
compass was limited to fundamental notes, and from the cylindrical
tube and reed was an octave lower in pitch than the length would show.
In all these instruments provision was made in the holes and keys for
transposition of the hands according to the player's habit of placing
the right or left hand above the other. The unused hole was stopped
with wax. There is a fine and complete set of four cromornes in the
museum of the Conservatoire at Brussels.
We must also place among double-reed instruments the various bagpipes,
cornemuses, and musettes, which are shawm or oboe instruments with
reservoirs of air, and furnished with drones inclosing single reeds. I
shall have more to say about the drone in the third lecture. In
restricting our attention to the Highland bagpipe, with which we are
more or less familiar, it is surprising to find the peculiar scale of
the chaunter, or finger pipe, in an old Arabic scale, still prevailing
in Syria and Egypt. Dr. A.J. Ellis' lecture on "The Musical Scales of
Various Nations," read before the Society of Arts, and printed in the
_Journal_ of the Society, March 27, 1885, No. 1688, vol. xxxiii., and
in an appendix, October 30, 1885, in the same volume, should be
consulted by any one who wishes to know more about this curious
similarity.
We have now arrived at the clarinet. Although embodying a very ancient
principle--the "squeaker" reed which our little children still make,
and continued in the Egyptian arghool--the clarinet is the most recent
member of the wood wind band. The reed initiating the tone by the
player's breath is a broad, single, striking or beating reed, so
called because the vibrating tongue touches the edges of the body of
the cutting or framing. A cylindrical pipe, as that of the clarinet,
drops, approximately, an octave in pitch when the column of air it
contains is set up in vibration by such a reed, because the reed
virtually closes the pipe at the end where it is inserted, and like a
stopped organ pipe sets up a node of maximum condensation or
rarefaction at that end. This peculiarity interferes with the
resonance of the even-numbered partials of the harmonic scale, and
permits only the odd-numbered partials, 1, 3, 5, and so on, to sound.
The first harmonic, as we find in the clarinet, is therefore the third
partial, or twelfth of the fundamental note, and not the octave, as in
the oboe and flute.
In the oboe the shifting of the nodes in a conical tube open at its
base, and narrowing to its apex, permits the resonance of the complete
series of the harmonic scale, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and upward. The flute has
likewise the complete series, because through the blowhole it is a
pipe open at both ends. But while stating the law which governs the
pitch and harmonic scale of the clarinet, affirmed equally by
observation and demonstration, we are left at present with only the
former when regarding two very slender, almost cylindrical reed pipes,
discovered in 1889 by Mr. Flinders Petrie while excavating at Fayoum
the tomb of an Egyptian lady named Maket. Mr. Petrie dates these pipes
about 1100 B.C., and they were the principal subject of Mr.
Southgate's recent lectures upon the Egyptian scale.
Now Mr. J. Finn, who made these ancient pipes sound at these lectures
with an arghool reed of straw, was able upon the pipe which had, by
finger holes, a tetrachord, to repeat that tetrachord a fifth higher
by increased pressure of blowing, and thus form an octave scale,
comprising eight notes. "Against the laws of nature," says a friend of
mine, for the pipe having dropped more than an octave through the
reed, was at its fundamental pitch, and should have overblown a
twelfth.
But Mr. Finn allows me to say with reference to those reeds, perhaps
the oldest sounding musical instruments known to exist, that his
experiments with straw reeds seem to indicate low, medium, and high
octave registers. The first and last difficult to obtain with reeds as
made by us. He seeks the fundamental tones of the Maket pipes in the
first or low register, an octave below the normal pitch. By this the
fifths revert to twelfths. I offer no opinion, but will leave this
curious phenomenon to the consideration of my friends, Mr. Blaikley,
Mr. Victor Mahillon, and Mr. Hermann Smith, acousticians intimate with
wind instruments.
The clarinet was invented about A.D. 1700, by Christopher Denner, of
Nuremberg. By his invention, an older and smaller instrument, the
chalumeau, of eleven notes, without producible harmonics, was, by an
artifice of raising a key to give access to the air column at a
certain point, endowed with a harmonic series of eleven notes a
twelfth higher. The chalumeau being a cylindrical pipe, the upper
partials could only be in an odd series, and when Denner made them
speak, they were consequently not an octave, but a twelfth above the
fundamental notes. Thus, an instrument which ranged, with the help of
eight finger holes and two keys, from F in the bass clef to B flat in
the treble had an addition given to it at once of a second register
from C in the treble clef to E flat above it. The scale of the
original instrument is still called chalumeau by the clarinet player;
about the middle of the last century it was extended down to E. The
second register of notes, which by this lengthening of pipe started
from B natural, received the name of clarinet, or clarionet, from the
clarino or clarion, the high solo trumpet of the time it was expected
that this bright harmonic series would replace.
This name of clarinet, or clarionet, became accepted for the entire
instrument, including the chalumeau register. It is the communication
between the external air and the upper part of the air column in the
instrument which, initiating a ventral segment or loop of vibration,
forces the air column to divide for the next possible partial, the
twelfth, that Denner has the merit of having made practicable. At the
same time the manipulation of it presents a difficulty in learning the
instrument. It is in the nature of things that there should be a
difference of tone quality between the lower and upper registers thus
obtained; and that the highest fundamental notes, G sharp, A and B
flat, should be colorless compared with the first notes of the
overblown series. This is a difficulty the player has to contend with,
as well as the complexity of fingering, due to there being no less
than eighteen sound holes. Much has been done to graft Boehm's system
of fingering upon the clarinet, but the thirteen key system, invented
early in this century by Iwan Muller, is still most employed. The
increased complication of mechanism is against a change, and there is
even a stronger reason, which I cannot do better than translate, in
the appropriate words of M. Lavoix fils, the author of a well-known
and admirable work upon instrumentation:
"Many things have still to be done, but inventors must not lose
the point in view, that no tone quality is more necessary to the
composer than that of the clarinet in its full extent; that it
is very necessary especially to avoid melting together the two
registers of chalumeau and clarinet, so distinct from each
other. If absolute justness for these instruments is to be
acquired at the price of those inestimable qualities, it would
be better a hundred times to leave it to virtuosi, thanks to
their ability, to palliate the defects of their instrument,
rather than sacrifice one of the most beautiful and intensely
colored voices of our orchestra."
There are several clarinets of various pitches, and formerly more than
are used now, owing to the difficulty of playing except in handy keys.
In the modern orchestra the A and B flat clarinets are the most used;
in the military band, B flat and E flat. The C clarinet is not much
used now. All differ in tone and quality; the A one is softer than the
B flat; the C is shrill. The B flat is the virtuoso instrument. In
military bands the clarinet takes the place which would be that of the
violin in the orchestra, but the tone of it is always characteristically
different. Although introduced in the time of Handel and Bach those
composers made no use of it. With Mozart it first became a leading
orchestral instrument.
The Basset horn, which has become the sensuously beautiful alto
clarinet in E flat, is related to the clarinet in the same way that
the cor Anglais is to the oboe. Basset is equivalent to Baryton (there
is a Basset flute figured in Prætorius), and this instrument appears
to have been invented by one Horn, living at Passau, in Bavaria, about
1770. His name given to the instrument has been mistranslated into
Italian as Corno di Bassetto. There is a bass clarinet employed with
effect by Meyerbeer in the "Huguenots," but the characteristic
clarinet tone is less noticeable; it is, however, largely used in
military bands. The Basset horn had the deep compass of the bass
clarinet which separates it from the present alto clarinet, although
it was more like the alto in caliber. The alto clarinet is also used
in military bands; and probably what the Basset horn would have been
written for is divided between the present bass and alto clarinets.
Preceding the invention of the sarrusophone, by which a perfected oboe
was contrived in a brass instrument, a modified brass instrument, the
saxophone, bearing a similar relation to the clarinet, was invented in
1846 by Sax, whose name will occur again and again in connection with
important inventions in military band instruments. The saxophone is
played like the clarinet with the intervention of a beating reed, but
is not cylindrical; it has a conical tube like the oboe. The different
shape of the column of air changes the first available harmonic
obtained by overblowing to the octave instead of the twelfth; and also
in consequence of the greater strength of the even harmonics,
distinctly changing the tone quality. The sarrusophone may fairly be
regarded as an oboe or bassoon; but the saxophone is not so closely
related to the clarinet. There are four sizes of saxophone now made
between high soprano and bass. Starting from the fourth fundamental
note, each key can be employed in the next higher octave, by the help
of other two keys, which, being opened successively, set up a
vibrating loop. The saxophones, although difficult to play, fill an
important place in the military music of France and Belgium, and have
been employed with advantage in the French orchestra. The fingering of
all saxophones is that attributed to Boehm.
The cup shaped mouthpiece must now take the place of the reed in our
attention. Here the lips fit against a hollow cup shaped reservoir,
and, acting as vibrating membranes, may be compared with the vocal
chords of the larynx. They have been described as acting as true
reeds. Each instrument in which such a mouthpiece is employed requires
a slightly different form of it. The French horn is the most important
brass instrument in modern music. It consists of a body of conical
shape about seven feet long, without the crooks, ending in a large
bell, which spreads out to a diameter of fifteen inches. The crooks
are fitted between the body and the mouthpiece; they are a series of
smaller interchangeable tubings, which extend in length as they
descend in pitch, and set the instrument in different keys. The
mouthpiece is a funnel shaped tube of metal, by preference silver;
and, in the horn, is exceptionally not cup shaped, but the reverse: it
tapers, as a cone, from three-quarters of an inch diameter to about a
minimum of three-sixteenths of an inch, and is a quarter of an inch
where the smaller end of the mouthpiece is inserted in the upper
opening of the crook. The first horn has a mouthpiece of rather less
diameter than the second. The peculiar mouthpiece and narrow tubing
have very much to do with the soft voice-like tone quality of the
horn. For convenience of holding, the tubing is bent in a spiral form.
There is a tuning slide attached to the body, and, of late years,
valves have been added to the horn, similar to those applied to the
cornet and other wind instruments. They have, to a considerable
extent, superseded hand stopping, by which expedient the intonation
could be altered a semitone or whole tone, by depression of the
natural notes of the instrument. In brass, or other instruments, the
natural harmonics depend on the pressure of blowing; and the brass
differs entirely from the wood wind, in this respect, that it is rare,
or with poor effect, the lowest or fundamental note can be made to
sound. Stopping the horn is done by extending the open hand some way
up the bore; there is half stopping and whole stopping, according to
the interval, the half tone or whole tone required. As may be
imagined, the stopped notes are weak and dull compared with the open.
On the other hand, the tubing introduced for valves not being quite
conformable in curve with the instrument, and hampered with
indispensable joins, unless in the best form of modern valve, affects
the smoothness of tone. No doubt there has been of late years a great
improvement in the manufacture of valves. Many horns are still made
with crooks covering an octave from B flat to B flat, 8 feet 6 inches
to 17 feet; but most players now use only the F crook, and trust to
the valves, rather than to change the crooks, so that we lose the
fullness of sound of those below F. The natural horn was originally in
D, but was not always restricted to that key; there have been horns
for F, G, high A, and B flat. This may, however, be said for the valve
horn, that it does not limit or restrict composers in writing for the
open or natural notes, which are always more beautiful in effect.
Valves were invented and first introduced in Prussia about A.D. 1815.
At first there were two, but there are now generally three. In this
country and France they are worked by pistons, which, when pressed
down, give access for the air into channels or supplementary tubings
on one side of the main bore, thus lengthening it by a tone for the
first valve, a semitone for the second, and a tone and a semitone for
the third. When released by the finger, the piston returns by the
action of a spring. In large bass and contralto instruments, a fourth
piston is added, which lowers the pitch two tones and a semitone. By
combining the use of three valves, lower notes are obtained--thus, for
a major third, the second is depressed with the third; for a fourth,
the first and third; and for the tritone, the first, second, and
third. But the intonation becomes imperfect when valves are used
together, because the lengths of additional tubing being calculated
for the single depressions, when added to each other, they are too
short for the deeper notes required. By an ingenious invention of
compensating pistons, Mr. Blaikley, of Messrs. Boosey's, has
practically rectified this error without extra moving parts or altered
fingering. In the valve section, each altered note becomes a
fundamental for another harmonic scale. In Germany a rotary valve, a
kind of stop cock, is preferred to the piston. It is said to give
greater freedom of execution, the closeness of the shake being its
best point, but is more expensive and liable to derangement. The
invention of M. Adolphe Sax, of a single ascending piston in place of
a group of descending ones, by which the tube is shortened instead of
lengthened, met, for a time, with influential support. It is suitable
for both conical and cylindrical instruments, and has six valves,
which are always used independently. However, practical difficulties
have interfered with its success. With any valve system, however, a
difficulty with the French horn is its great variation in length by
crooks, inimical to the principle of the valve system, which relies
upon an adjustment by aliquot parts. It will, however, be seen that
the invention of valves has, by transforming and extending wind
instruments, so as to become chromatic, given many advantages to the
composer. Yet it must, at the same time, be conceded, in spite of the
increasing favor shown for valve instruments, that the tone must issue
more freely, and with more purity and beauty, from a simple tube than
from tubes with joinings and other complications, that interfere with
the regularity and smoothness of vibration, and, by mechanical
facilities, tend to promote a dull uniformity of tone quality.
Owing to the changes of pitch by crooks, it is not easy to define the
compass of the French horn. Between C in the bass clef and G above the
treble will represent its serviceable notes. It is better that the
first horn should not descend below middle C, or the second rise above
the higher E of the treble clef. Four are generally used in modern
scores. The place of the horn is with the wood wind band. From Handel,
every composer has written for it, and what is known as the small
orchestra of string and wood wind bands combined is completed by this
beautiful instrument.
The most prominent instruments that add to the splendor of the full
orchestra are trumpets and trombones. They are really members of one
family, as the name trombone--big trumpet--implies, and blend well
together. The trumpet is an instrument of court and state functions,
and, as the soprano instrument, comes first. It is what is known as an
eight foot instrument in pitch, and gives the different harmonics from
the third to the twelfth, and even to the sixteenth. It is made of
brass, mixed metal, or silver, and is about five feet seven inches in
real length, when intended for the key of F without a slide; but is
twice turned back upon itself, the first and third lengths lying
contiguous, and the second about two inches from them. The diameter is
three-eighths of an inch along the cylindrical length; it then widens
out for about fifteen inches, to form the bell.
When fitted with a slide for transposition--an invention for the
trumpet in the last century--this double tubing, about five inches in
length on each side, is connected with the second length. It is worked
from the center with the second and third fingers of the right band,
and, when pulled back, returns to its original position by a spring.
There are five crooks. The mouthpiece is hemispherical and convex, and
the exact shape of it is of great importance. It has a rim with
slightly rounded surface. The diameter of the mouthpiece varies
according to the player and the pitch required. With the first crook,
or rather shank, and mouthpiece, the length of the trumpet is
increased to six feet, and the instrument is then in the key of F. The
second shank transposes it to E, the third to E flat, and the fourth
to D. The fifth, and largest--two feet one and a half inches
long--extends the instrument to eight feet, and lowers the key to C.
The slide is used for transposition by a semitone or a whole tone,
thus making new fundamentals, and correcting certain notes of the
natural harmonic scale, as the seventh, eleventh, and thirteenth,
which do not agree with our musical scale. Mr. W. Wyatt has recently
taken out a patent for a double-slide trumpet, which possesses a
complete chromatic scale. In the required length of slide the ear has
always to assist. It is clear that the very short shifts of a double
slide demand great nicety of manipulation. It is, of course, different
with the valve trumpet. The natural trumpets are not limited to one or
two keys, but those in F, E, E flat, D, B flat, and even A have been
employed; but, usually, the valve trumpets are in F, and the higher B
flat, with a growing inclination, but an unfortunate one, to be
restricted to the latter, it being easier for cornet players. The tone
of the high B flat trumpet cannot, however, compare with the F one,
and with it the lowest notes are lost. Of course, when there are two
or three trumpets, the high B flat one finds a place. However, the
valve system applied to the trumpet is not regarded with satisfaction,
as it makes the tone dull. For grand heroic effect, valve trumpets
cannot replace the natural trumpets with slides, which are now only to
be heard in this country.
The simple or field trumpet appears to exist now in one representative
only, the E flat cavalry trumpet. Bach wrote for trumpets up to the
twentieth harmonic--but for this the trumpet had to be divided into a
principal, which ended at the tenth harmonic--and the clarino in two
divisions, the first of which went from the eighth harmonic up to as
high as the player could reach, and the second clarino, from the sixth
to the twelfth. The use of the clarinet by composers about the middle
of the last century seems to have abolished these very high trumpets.
So completely had they gone, by the time of Mozart, that he had to
change Handel's trumpet parts, to accommodate them to performers of
his own time, and transfer the high notes to the oboes and clarinets.
Having alluded to the cornet à piston, it may be introduced here,
particularly as from being between a trumpet and a bugle, and of four
foot tone, it is often made to do duty for the more noble trumpet. But
the distinctive feature of this, as of nearly all brass instruments
since the invention of valves, tends to a compromise instrument, which
owes its origin to the bugle. The cornet à piston is now not very
different from the valve bugle in B flat on the one hand and from the
small valve trumpet in the same key on the other. It is a hybrid
between this high pitch trumpet and the bugle, but compared with the
latter it has a much smaller bell. By the use of valves and pistons,
with which it was the first to be endowed, the cornet can easily
execute passages of consecutive notes that in the natural trumpet can
only be got an octave higher. It is a facile instrument, and double
tonguing, which is also possible with the horn and trumpet, is one of
its popular means for display. It has a harmonic compass from middle C
to C above the treble clef, and can go higher, but with difficulty. A
few lower notes, however, are easily taken with the valves.
We now come to the trombones, grand, sonorous tubes, which, existing
in three or four sizes since the sixteenth century, are among the most
potent additions on occasion to the full orchestra. Their treble can
be regarded as the English slide trumpet, but it is not exactly so.
There appears to have been as late as Bach a soprano trombone, and it
is figured by Virdung, A.D. 1511, as no larger than the field trumpet.
The trumpet is not on so large a caliber, and in the seventeenth
century had its own family of two clarinos and three tubas. The old
English name of the trombone is sackbut. The old wooden cornet, or
German zinke, an obsolete, cupped mouthpiece instrument, the real bass
of which, according to family, is the now obsolete serpent, was used
in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as the treble instrument in
combination with alto, tenor, and bass trombones. The leading features
of the trumpet are also found, as already inferred, in the trombone;
there is the cupped mouthpiece, the cylindrical tubing, and, finally,
a gradual increase in diameter to the bell. The slide used for the
trumpet appears for four centuries, and probably longer, in the well
known construction of the trombone. In this instrument it consists of
two cylindrical tubes parallel with each other, upon which two other
tubes communicating by a pipe at their lower ends curved in a half
circle glide without loss of air. The mouthpiece is fitted to an upper
end, and a bell to a lower end of the slide. When the slide is closed,
the instrument is at its highest pitch, and as the column of air is
lengthened by drawing the slide out, the pitch is lowered. By this
contrivance a complete chromatic scale can be obtained, and as the
determination of the notes it produces is by ear, we have in it the
only wind instrument that can compare in accuracy with stringed
instruments. The player holds a cross bar between the two lengths of
the instrument, which enables him to lengthen or shorten the slide at
pleasure, and in the bass trombone, as the stretch would be too great
for the length of a man's arm, a jointed handle is attached to the
cross bar. The player has seven positions, each a semitone apart for
elongation, and each note has its own system of harmonics, but in
practice he only occasionally goes beyond the fifth. The present
trombones are the alto in E flat descending to A in the seventh
position; the tenor in B flat descending to E; the bass in F
descending to B, and a higher bass in G descending to C sharp. Wagner,
who has made several important innovations in writing for bass brass
instruments, requires an octave bass trombone in B flat; an octave
lower than the tenor one, in the "Nibelungen." The fundamental tones
of the trombone are called "pedal" notes. They are difficult to get
and less valuable than harmonics because, in all wind instruments,
notes produced by overblowing are richer than the fundamental notes in
tone quality. Valve trombones do not, however, find favor, the defects
of intonation being more prominent than in shorter instruments. But
playing with wide bore tubas and their kindred is not advantageous to
this noble instrument.
The serpent has been already mentioned as the bass of the obsolete
zinken or wooden cornets, straight or curved, with cupped mouthpiece.
It gained its serpentine form from the facility given thereby to the
player to cover the six holes with his fingers. In course of time keys
were added to it, and when changed into a bassoon shape its name
changed to the Russian bass horn or basson Russe. A Parisian
instrument maker, Halary, in 1817, made this a complete instrument,
after the manner of the keyed bugle of Halliday, and producing it in
brass called it the ophicleide, from two Greek words meaning serpent
and keys--keyed serpent--although it was more like a keyed bass bugle.
The wooden serpent has gone out of use in military bands within
recollection, the ophicleide from orchestras only recently. It has
been superseded by the development of the valved tubas. The euphonium
and bombardon, the basses of the important family of saxhorns, now
completely cover the ground of bass wind instrument music. The keyed
bugle, invented by Joseph Halliday, bandmaster of the Cavan militia,
in 1810, may be regarded as the prototype of all these instruments,
excepting that the keys have been entirely replaced by the valve
system, an almost contemporary invention by Stölzel and Blumel, in
Prussia, in 1815. The valve instruments began to prevail as early as
1850. The sound tube of all bugles, saxhorns, and tubas is conical,
with a much wider curve than the horn. The quality of tone produced is
a general kind of tone, not possessing the individuality of any of the
older instruments. All these valve instruments may be comprehended
under the French name of saxhorn. There is a division between them of
the higher instruments or bugles, which do not sound the fundamental
note, and of the lower, or tubas, which sound it readily. Properly
military band instruments, the second or bass division, has been taken
over to the orchestra; and Wagner has made great use of it in his
great scores. The soprano cornets, bugles, or flugelhorns and saxhorns
are in E flat; the corresponding alto instruments in B flat, which is
also the pitch of the ordinary cornet. The tenor, baryton, and bass
instruments follow in similar relation; the bass horns are, as I have
said, called tubas; and that with four valves, the euphonium. The
bombardon, or E flat tuba, has much richer lower notes.
For military purposes, this and the contrabass--the helicon--are
circular. Finally, the contrabass tubas in B flat, and in C, for
Wagner, have immense depth and potentiality of tone; all these
instruments are capable of pianissimo.
There are many varieties now of these brass instruments, nearer
particulars of which may be found in Gevaert, and other eminent
musicians' works on instrumentation. One fact I will not pass by,
which is that, from the use of brass instruments (which rise in pitch
so rapidly under increase of temperature, as Mr. Blaikley has shown,
almost to the coefficient of the sharpening under heat in organ pipes)
has come about that rise in pitch which, from 1816 to 1846--until
repressed by the authority of the late Sir Michael Costa, and, more
recently, by the action of the Royal Military College at Kneller
Hall--is an extraordinary feature in musical history. All previous
variations in pitch--and they have comprised as much as a fourth in
the extremes--having been due either to transposition, owing to the
requirements of the human voice, or to national or provincial
measurements. The manufacture of brass instruments is a distinct
craft, although some of the processes are similar to those used by
silversmiths, coppersmiths, and braziers.
I have only time to add a few words about the percussion instruments
which the military band permits to connect with the wind. Drums are,
with the exception of kettle drums, indeterminate instruments, hardly,
in themselves, to be regarded as musical, and yet important factors of
musical and especially rhythmic effect. The kettle drum is a caldron,
usually of brass or copper, covered with a vellum head bound at the
edge round an iron ring, which fits the circle formed by the upper
part of the metal body. Screws working on this ring tune the vellum
head, or vibrating membrane as we may call it, by tightening or
slackening it, so as to obtain any note of the scale within its
compass. The tonic and dominant are generally required, but other
notes are, in some compositions, used; even octaves have been
employed. The use Beethoven made of kettle drums may be regarded among
the particular manifestations of his genius. Two kettle drums may be
considered among the regular constituents of the orchestra, but this
number has been extended; in one remarkable instance, that of Berlioz
in his Requiem, to eight pairs. According to Mr. Victor de Pontigny,
whose article I am much indebted to (in Sir George Grove's dictionary)
upon the drum, the relative diameters, theoretically, for a pair of
kettle drums are in the proportion of 30 to 26, bass and tenor;
practically the diameter of the drums at the French opera is 29 and
25¼ inches, and of the Crystal Palace band, 28 and 24¼ inches. In
cavalry regiments the drums are slung so as to hang on each side of
the drummers horse's neck. The best drum sticks are of whalebone, each
terminating in a small wooden button covered with sponge. For the bass
drum and side drum I must be content to refer to Mr. Victor de
Pontigny's article, and also for the tambourine, but the Provencal
tambourines I have met with have long, narrow sound bodies, and are
strung with a few very coarse strings which the player sounds with a
hammer. This instrument is the rhythmic bass and support to the simple
galoubet, a cylindrical pipe with two holes in front and one behind,
sounded by the same performer. The English pipe and tabor is a similar
combination, also with one player, of such a pipe and a small
drum-head tambourine. Lastly, to conclude percussion instruments,
cymbals are round metal plates, consisting of an alloy of copper and
tin--say 80 parts to 20--with sunk hollow centers, from which the
Greek name. They are not exactly clashed together to elicit their
sound, but rubbed across each other in a sliding fashion. Like the
triangle, a steel rod, bent into the form indicated by the name, but
open at one corner so as to make it an elastic rod, free at both ends;
the object is to add to the orchestral matter luminous crashes, as it
were, and dazzling points of light, when extreme brilliancy is
required.
In conclusion, I must be allowed to express my obligations to Dr. W.H.
Stone and Mr. Victor Mahillon, to Mr. Ebenezer Prout, Mr. Richard
Shepherd Rockstro, Mr. Lavoix fils, and Dr. H. Riemann, whose writings
concerning wind instruments have materially helped me; to Messrs.
Boosey & Co., and to Messrs. Rudall, Carte & Co., for the loan of the
instruments used in the illustrations; and also to Mr. D.J. Blaikley
and Mr. Henry Carte, for valuable personal aid on the present
occasion. Their kindness in reading through my manuscript--Mr.
Blaikley throughout--and in offering friendly and generous criticisms;
also their presence and assistance by trial of the various
instruments, I cannot adequately thank them for, or sufficiently
extol.
(In the course of this lecture, Mr. Henry Carte played upon a concert
flute, also a B flat and a G flute, an eight-keyed flute, and a
recorder. Mr. D.J. Blaikley continued the illustrations upon the oboe,
bassoon, clarinet, French horn, slide trumpet, valve tenor horn,
cornet à piston, B flat tenor slide trombone, B flat euphonium, B flat
contrabass tuba, and B flat contrabass double slide trombone.)
* * * * *