Books › A descriptive catalogue of the musical instruments recently exhibited at the Royal Military Exhibition, London, 1890 …, 1891 › scan 47
Scan 47
A descriptive catalogue of the musical instruments recently exhibited at the Royal Military Exhibition, London, 1890 …, 1891
12 lines. Read by computer on 1 October 2026. Printed page 27. See the scan on archive.org.
1(and of course every other note of the scale) sounded as it was written and fingered, were called d', or concert, flutes. Those of other sizes were named after the note actually given when d' was fingered. For example: a flute giving f', with the fingering of d', was called an f flute, or a flute in f, and the music for such an instrument was written a minor third lower than the actual sounds of the notes. This custom still prevails, and has been followed in the descriptions of the flutes in this Catalogue. It should be understood that although a "c' clarionet" gives the actual notes, as written and fingered, a "c' flute" gives sounds a full tone lower. The names of piccolos and fifes follow the same rule as those of flutes, excepting that those instruments sound an octave higher; the d'' piccolo, or octave-flute, sounding an octave higher than the d', or concert, flute.
3The pitches of the flutes described in the following pages are reckoned from a standard a' with 452 double vibrations to the second, corresponding to c'' with 537.5 vibrations.
5FIFTEENTH OR SIXTEENTH CENTURY.
742.
9FIFE of dark brown wood, in b'♭, without keys. Length from cork 12.7 inches. Diameter of bore .37 inch. The surface of the wood is flattened from end to end, and on the flattened side the holes are placed. Instruments similar to this are figured by Virdung (Musica getutscht etc., 1511) and by Agricola (Musica Instrumentalis Deudsch, 1528, 1532 and 1545). Thoinot Arbeau (Jehan Taburot) gives a quaint description of this kind of fife, and of the manner in which it was played: "Those who perform on this instrument," he writes, "play according to their own pleasure, and it is enough for them to keep time with the sound of the drum." (Orchesographie, Langres, 1588.) See plate I., fig. F.
11Lent by the Conservatoire Royal de Musique, Brussels.
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