Books › A descriptive catalogue of the musical instruments recently exhibited at the Royal Military Exhibition, London, 1890 …, 1891 › scan 22
Scan 22
A descriptive catalogue of the musical instruments recently exhibited at the Royal Military Exhibition, London, 1890 …, 1891
4 lines. Read by computer on 1 October 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1From Greece the instrument appears to have been adopted by the Romans, who, indeed, borrowed all that was beautiful in Greek art; and we learn from Tacitus that even the Emperor Nero himself did not disdain the drudgery of practice. With Roman conquests came also the adoption of Roman manners and Roman arts. Hence the instrument spread throughout the civilized world, and its use became common. Père Mersenne, who wrote in 1636-7, calls it the English flute, possibly because its use in England was common at that time. Ottomarus Luscinius (Nachtgall), a Benedictine monk and a native of Strasburg, published in 1536 a treatise entitled Musurgia seu praxis Musicæ, and which was in reality a translation of the earlier work of Virdung, written in 1511. Luscinius has in the work given drawings of a set of these flûtes-à-bec, and these instruments do not appear to differ from the earliest specimens exhibited in this collection. These flutes were usually played in complete sets, or families, of soprano, alto, tenor, and bass. Sometimes a larger or contrabass was introduced, and this practice evidently obtained at the time when Prætorius wrote (Syntagma Musicum, Wolfenbüttel, 1618). In England, he tells us, the flûte-à-bec was known as the Recorder; how this name came to be given to it is impossible to say. Possibly it is from the old expression "to record," which, in the English of some centuries ago, meant "to sing," and was usually applied to birds singing.
3According to Prætorius there were eight different kinds of these instruments; viz., the small flute, whose pitch was two octaves above that of the cornetto; the discant flute, a fourth lower; the discant flute, a fifth lower than the first; the alt flute, an octave lower than the first; the tenor flute a fifth below the alt flute; the basset flute, which had a key enclosed within a box, and was a fifth below the tenor flute; the bass flute, a fifth below the basset flute; and the great bass flute, an octave below the basset flute. Such a set of flutes, he tells us, could be purchased in Venice, where the best of them were made, for eighty thalers. The usual compass of all these instruments was two octaves, but, by the aid of cross fingering, good players could extend the compass four or even seven notes higher. Upon the larger instruments the fundamental harmonics from the lower holes were obtained with difficulty, and were of little practical use, as they could only be obtained pianissimo.
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