The Recorder and Its Music

Author(s): Edgar Hunt

Source: Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association , 1948 - 1949, 75th Sess. (1948 -
1949), pp. 39-51
Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of the Royal Musical Association

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/765909

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 8 March, 1949

FRANK HOWES, ESQ., M.A., F.R.C.M.

PRESIDENT,
IN THE CHAIR.

THE RECORDER AND ITS MUSIC

BY EDGAR HUNT, F.T.C.L., L.R.A.M., M.R.S.T.

WHEN I speak of the recorder as a musical instrument, I do so

knowing that you cannot fail to have heard the instrument at
some time, as it is now once again an integral part of our
musical life.
This could not have been said in 1898 when Christopher
Welch read his paper on' Literature Relating to the Recorder, '
nor in 1901 when Dr. J. C. Bridge introduced the Chester
Recorders. The Royal Musical Association can claim much
of the credit for this change, as the papers I have mentioned
were read before its members. And to Christopher Welch,
Dr. Bridge and our own late President, Canon Galpin, we owe
most of the research which has provided so sure a foundation
for the present recorder movement. At the same time we must
acknowledge the part played more recently by the late Arnold
Dolmetsch in reviving the craftsmanship of the old recorder
makers, and by Mr. Carl Dolmetsch who has perfected the
modern recorder and is its leading virtuoso.
I propose this afternoon to group my remarks under two
main headings : (i) the recorder and (ii) its music, and to
divide the whole into three main periods: (i) up to about
1650, (ii) from about 1650 to the end of the eighteenth century
and (iii) the recorder today.
First of all, the instrument itself. The earliest extant
recorders belong to the beginning of the sixteenth century.
They are simple in design. I have here a replica of an instru-
ment illustrated and described by Christopher Welch.' As far
as one can tell from the drawings, it is similar to the recorder
illustrated in a twelfth-century psalter in Glasgow University
Librarp and in other early MSS. The same simplicity is to
be found in the woodcuts illustrating the early sixteenth-

x Proceedings of the Musical Association 1902, Vol. XXVIII, p. 113.

2 Galpin : Old English Instruments of Music, pp. 139 and 140.

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40 The Recorder and its Music

century treatises by Virdung, Agricola and

family resemblance is to be seen in the set of r
the year 1600 which used to be in the Galpin
in those illustrated by Praetorius in 1620.5 T
these sixteenth-century recorders were ma
except, of course, for the plug or fipple, wh
to form the windway. Being made in one p
hole was duplicated to accomodate both right
players, hence the name 'flute a neuf trous
recorder was known. The bore of specime
examined is more open than in later instrumen
favours a full mellow tone in the lower octave at some sacrifice
to the upper range.
In the sixteenth century recorders, like the viols and other
instruments, were made in sets for playing in consort. King
Henry VIII's collection6 included :
Item. viii Recorders greate and smale in a case couered with blacke
Leather and lined with clothe.

Also Item. One greate base Recorder of Woode in a case of woode.

Virdung and Ganassi both refer to three sizes of recorders :

the discant in g' (which we would call a 'treble '-not the
modern descant), tenor in c' and bassus in f, while Agricola
speaks of four sizes, adding the altus. King Henry VIII's set
of eight recorders might be a double quartet, but, however we
account for such sets we must not forget the ' greate base '.
Our modern basses seem small beside some of the bass and
great bass recorders that have come down to us from this
period. A fine array of these is to be seen in the Brussels
Conservatoire Museum. A feature of these basses is the key
for the lowest note, which is provided with a duplicated touch
to suit right-or left-handed players and is protected by a per-
forated collar.
The recorder family had expanded by 1620 when Praetorius
wrote his Syntagma Musicum with its Theatrum Instrumentorum.
He lists eight sizes from the Klein Fl6ttlin down to the great
bass, and says that a complete band should consist of twenty-
one instruments.
If we think this band of twenty-one recorders is large, what

3 Virdung : Musica Getutscht (1511), Agricola : Musica instrumentalis

deudsch (1528) and Ganassi : Opera Intitulata Fontegara (1535).
4 Galpin : Old English Instruments of Music, Plate 29.
5 Praetorius : Theatrum Instrumentorum from Syntagma Musicum.
6 British Museum Harl. 1419, f. 202 and 203.

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 The Recorder and its Music 41

are we to say to Burney's account7 of his visit

where he describes how he saw a cupboard full o
or forty recorders, all made by Scratenbach o
which had not been played for over 100 years, b
to be played in processions in the town.
In regard to these large groups one problem
did they tune ? For remember, if we follow P
band included not the simple modern series of i
C and F, but recorders with B flat, F, C, G and D
notes. We get half an answer to this problem fr
who tells us the recorders were divided into two s
and petit jeu, one beginning where the other leave
ing this to Praetorius, you have instruments in F,
in the great set and in G, C and D in the little
problem arises when we come to the eighte
Chester recorders which are pitched in F, C, D
the F or the D player must have more sharps
copy than he bargained for !
This question of the keys of the different instrum
again in the James Talbot Manuscript (c. 1700)
Mr. Anthony Baines writes in the Galpin Socie
There we recognize our sopranino f", descant
alto in d', tenor in c', bass in f and a double bas
being a fifth higher than the great bass of Praeto
What did they play on these instruments ? I k
little recorder music of the sixteenth century and
of the seventeenth century. Anthony Holbo
'Viols, Violins or other Musicall Winde instrum
book of five-part Pavans, Galliards and othe
(1599). It is generally assumed that recorders w
among these ' Musicall Winde instruments '. Even
the great fantasias as sacred to the viols, I thin
dance measures were often transferred to recorders. I have
already remarked on the prominence of bass recorders at this
period. Mr. Thurston Dart has brought forward evidence8
that the flute part of Morley's Consort Lessons (1599) was
intended for a bass recorder. Then Dr. Ernst Meyer has
discovered three examples9 of recorder music of the first half
of the seventeenth century : a Sonada (sic) ' 3 Fiauti with basso
continuo from an anonymous MS. of about 1620, a Sonatella

7 The Present State of Music in Germany, the Netherlands, and United

Provinces, 1773, Vol. I, p. 41.
8 Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association, November 1947.
9 Published by Schott and Co. Ltd., London 1948.

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 42 The Recorder and its Music

d 5 Flauti et Organo by Antonio Bertali and a

by J. H. Schmelzer. In addition to these, there i
Gavote pour les Flustes douces by le Sieur Henry
Mersennelo gives as an example of writing for r

Illustration : Sonatella ' 5 Flauti by Antonio B

sopranino, descant, treble, tenor and bass rec

A word about the fingering of the recorder

1650. Tables of fingering are given in the writi
Agricola, Ganassi and Luscinius,"x the las
practically a Latin translation of Virdung. A
vary a little in details they reveal the essentials o
use today.
I have not said much about Mersenne's book. He speaks in
terms of a quartet with a bass similar in size to the present-
day bass in f. He also goes into details of a set of royal flutes,
which was given to one of the Kings of France by the English,
the bass of which had some extra foot-keys worked by pedals.
Mersenne is less detailed and more fanciful than the others,
and even suggests 'that you can play a duet on your recorder
by fingering one note and singing another!'
We learn something about fingering also from one of the
verses known as the Lekinfelde Proverbs" (c. 1520). Shake-
speare draws attention to the fact that the thumb hole is an
essential characteristic of the recorder, which raises it above
the level of other whistles, when Hamlet'3 says 'govern these
ventages with your fingers and the thumb.'
Bacon'4 recommends us to wet our whistles to get a more
solemn sound, and when speaking of consorts of instruments's
says ' the recorder and stringed music agree well.'

Now I must pass on to my second period, covering the

second half of the seventeenth century and the eighteenth
century. The recorder seems to have gone out of use during
the period of the Civil War in England for we find the following

10 Mersenne: Harmonie Universelle (1636).

Il Luscinius : Musurgia seu praxis Musicae (1536).
12 British Museum Royal MS., 18. D. II.
'3 Hamlet III, ii.
'4 Francis Bacon : National Philosophy, Century II, 170 and Century
III, 230 (1627).
s5 National Philosophy, Century II, 278.

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 The Recorder and its Music 43

passage in The Delightful Companion ; or, Ch

for the Recorder or Flute by John Carr :
This Delightful Companion the Pipe Recorder hat
time out of use, but now it's beginning to be in a great
it was before, and indeed there is no music for so n
admits of excellent harmony in consort of two or th
That was written in 1684. Three books of instruction had
already been published in London before Carr's little book.
The first came out in 1679, A Vade Mecum for the Lovers of
Musick, Shewing the Excellency of the Rechorder by John
Hudgebut. In this book Hudgebut compares the recorder
with the flageolet, to the detriment of the latter. The next was
John Banister's The Most Pleasant Companion (1681), and then
Humphrey Salter's The Genteel Companion (1683).
Before all these booklets on the Recorder there was The
Pleasant Companion for the Flageolet by Thomas Greeting,
Gent. which first appeared about 1667, twelve years before
Hudgebut's Vade Mecum. Samuel Pepys bought a copy of
Greeting's book in 1668. Mr. and Mrs. Pepys already played
the flageolet and knew Greeting, in 1666-7. It was not unti
February 1667-8 that Samuel Pepys first heard the recorders
when he went to see Massinger's The Virgin Martyr.
Samuel Pepys was a musical and knowledgeable person and
would certainly have known all about recorders if they had
been in general use before about 1667. Banister, who wrote
The Most Pleasant Companion in 1681, was playing the flageolet
to Mr. Pepys in 1668. So it looks as if the flageolet was
fashionable for a time before the recorder came into its own
with greater dignity.
A feature which the recorder shared with the flageolet at
this time was a system of tablature or dot notation which
showed the fingering for each note. Its use did not extend
beyond the little books of instructions and tunes.
In 1693 Hudgebut published his Thesaurus Musicus which
included duets for two recorders and showed a picture of a
quartet of recorders on its title page. This engraving, however,
is dated 1682.
Now the interesting point is that the treble recorder is the
instrument for which Hudgebut, Salter and Carr wrote their
instruction books and was the fashionable gentleman's pocket
companion. But the engraver of 1682 knew all about the bass
recorder, which is clearly shown in his quartet. Even though
they were not fashionable, the other members of the quartet
were available when required. Samuel Pepys's recorder maker
was Drumbleby, but I have not been able to trace an instrument

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 44 The Recorder and its Music

in existence by this maker. The chief makers w

bys, father and son, and Bressan, who together co
from about 1690 to 1754.
How did the recorders of this period differ from those of the
sixteenth century ? They were made in three pieces-head,
middle and foot joints. With the advent of the movable foot
joint the need for duplicate holes disappeared, although the
keys for this hole on tenor and bass instruments still retained
their double touches. With the joints came the need for greater
strength at these points and so we have the more elaborate
turnings and ivory mounts so characteristic of the recorder as
we know it. The bore became more conical and the instruments
generally had a compass of over two octaves. Some of the
smaller instruments acquired double holes to give the lowest
semitones which could not be produced by cross fingerings.
These can be seen on the treble and alto instruments of the
Chester set.
In the recorders made by Bressan and Stanesby we have a
very high standard of craftsmanship and musical quality.
Hawkins mentions both makers but says that Bressan's instru-
ments are a little flat in the upper octave. As a player I do not
agree. On the question of pitch here is a treble (f') recorder
which is dead in tune with the two sets in the Chester Museum,
and with the alto in d' which is in Bury St. Edmunds Museum.
It is at the old chamber pitch, nearly a whole tone below
modern pitch-the Kammerton of Bach's orchestral players.
Here I must correct a statement by Dr. J. C. Bridge, who before
this Association stated that the Chester recorders were ' pretty
high-above the French, up to the Philharmonic pitch '.*6
They are, in fact, all at the old low chamber pitch. I can only
suppose that Dr. Bridge took' six fingers G' and not the bottom
note to be the recorder's F.
In fingering, these Bressan recorders answer exactly to the
fingering charts given by the writers I have mentioned,
Hudgebut, Banister, Salter and Carr, also the later works of
Hotteterre,'7 The Modern Musick Master (1730), Majer'8 and
Tans'ur.'9
The chief difference between the fingering of these instru-

16 Proceedings of the Musical Association, Vol. 27, p.117.

'7 Hotteterre : Principes de la Flate Traversiere . .. de la Flate bec ou
Flate Douce . . . (1707).
8x Majer : Neu-er6ffneter... Musik-Saal (1732 and 1741).
'9 Tans'ur : A New Musical Grammar (1746), and The Elements of
Musick Display'd (1762).

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 The Recorder and its Music 45

ments and that of the modem Dolmetsch recorder is in the

B flats and B naturals (on the treble) and in the use of the third
finger of the right hand to help support the instrument. Taking
the Chester recorders as a fair sample, the keys of the larger
instruments retain the double touch for right- or left-handed
players. Duplicated holes on the others are not necessary, as
all the instruments have movable foot joints. The bass has
a cap into which the tube is inserted and also a post which fits
into the lower end lifting the instrument 14" off the ground,
the sound being let out by a hole at the side of the instrument's
foot. Also in Chester Museum are two more Bressan recorders
(from a set of three, as can be seen from the space vacant in
their case). These are identical in pitch with the other Bressan
instruments I have mentioned and are a treble (f') and an alto
in e' flat, a size I have not mentioned so far. Both have double
holes for the low semitones. An interesting feature of the double
holes on all these Bressan instruments at Chester is the fact
that we can tell, from their tuning and the direction in which
they are tilted, that they were designed for left-handed players.
This is further supported by the way the thumb holes are worn.
In this period from Purcell to Bach we have the best and
most characteristic recorder music, a magnificent repertory.
Most of the music is for treble recorder in F. At this
period the word flute meant recorder. The transverse flu
was always distinguished by the names German flute, traverso
or some other equivalent term.
A number of duets for flutes were included in Hudgebut
Thesaurus Musicus, the composers named including Paisibl
Robert King and John Banister. Paisible also wrote sonata
for two flutes and for two flutes and continuo.
Daniel Purcell, a brother of Henry, wrote at least six
sonatas for flute and continuo, three for two flutes and continu
and a duet for two flutes. In one opus he collaborated wit
Godfrey Finger. Raphael Courtiville and William Croft wer
also composers of sonatas for two flutes.
These were the chief composers before about 1700.

Illustration : Duet (Boree) by John Banister from Hudgebut

Thesaurus Musicus played on eighteenth-century treble recorder

Soon after the turn of the century a Belgian, J. B. Loeille

came on the scene and settled in London. He is important as he
introduced into England the transverse flute of conical bor
with one key which had been 'perfected' on the continent
about 1680. This was the instrument which was known as the

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46 The Recorder and its Music

'German flute ', eventually to oust the reco

position as the favourite instrument of the gent
and take its place in the growing orchestra.
positions include: Sonatas for flute and co
flute, oboe and continuo-which are to be fou
with music for the German flute.
Loeillet's contemporaries and immediate successors included
Barsanti, Bononcini, Fiocco, Graupner, Pepusch, Sammartini,
Schickhard and Robert Valentine, and they all contributed to
the chamber music of the recorder.
In 1706 there appeared the first part of the Division Flute,
obviously an imitation of Simpson's Division Violist.
In France they were composing quantities of music suitable
for '2 musettes, vieles (hurdy gurdies), flates ac bec, flz2tes
traversikres, hautbois ou violons sans basse' in which the
recorder's individual characteristics were submerged in the
welter of alternative instruments. The chief composers of this
school were Baton, Boismortier, Chedeville, Aubert and
Naudot.
I have already referred to the James Talbot MS. of c. 1700.
In this MS. the treble in f' is called the 'voice flute ', the
inference being that whatever happened to the others, the
treble was to be treated as a non-transposing instrument.
About the middle of the eighteenth century Tans'ur gives the
following :
Of Flutes there are many Sizes, as a Concert Flute ; a Third Flute ; a
Fifth, and a Sixth, and an Octave Flute : yet all may be played by the
foregoing Rules.
To Tans'ur's list I can add the fourth flute in B flat. Here is
a specimen by Bressan.
The deeper instruments have disappeared and we are left
with the treble as the standard concert instrument, the others
being treated as transposing instruments. We know this also
from the concertos for the sixth flute by Robert Woodcock,
Babell and Baston, and Baston's concertos for the fifth flute,
which is, of course, none other than our modern descant in C".
These are written so that the recorder's part is transposed.
At the time of Handel's Op. 1 (about 1724) we find the
flauto, or recorder, side by side with the traverso in the same
work (incidentally I know of only two chamber works in
which they are actually combined-a trio-sonata by Quantz
and a quartet by Telemann-although they do sometimes
appear together in the orchestra). Now Handel's Op. 1 con-
sisted of twelve sonatas, of which four are for flauto, three for
traverso, two for hautboy and the remaining three for violin.

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 The Recorder and its Music 47

In 1730 we have The Modern Music Master,

pendium of instruction with sections devote
Flute, the German Flute, the Hautboy, Viol
and a History of Music. The instruments ar
those used by Handel in his Op. 1.
Handel left two sonatas for recorder, violin
among his trio-sonatas, many of which are
indefinitely on Walsh's title pages to two o
violins with bass. In his orchestra he use
recorders, but the bass recorder is combined
Giustino. In Acis and Galatea and Rinaldo we
nino as an obbligato instrument. Dr. Bergman
that Arne also used the sopranino in his sett
Greenwood Tree. As early as 1679 Evelyn rem
recorders were ' much inrr request for accomp
Handel wrote an Italian Cantata for soprano
for treble recorder. Other composers who have
recorder as an obbligato instrument include
Telemann and, rather later in the eighteenth ce

Illustration : Minuet by G. F. Handel from

played on two treble recorders and violin

Bach nearly always uses the treble recorde

present-day performances of the church can
recorders in d' and in e' flat. This is accounted
that Bach sometimes had a high pitch organ
had instruments at chamber pitch, and he prov
with transposed parts a tone20 or a minor t
Like Handel, Bach is always careful to disti
bis flauti, i.e., fl-ates A bec or recorders, and h
recorders figure in the second and fourth B
certos and also in Bach's F major version of
appear in a dozen church cantatas, and in the B
from which the aria Schafe kiinnen is taken
Bach exploits the full compass of the rec
recorder parts in the Easter Oratorio and t
Passion, though traversi have the more imp
these works. Bach uses the French violin clef22 f
parts.
Bach's contemporary, Telemann, is a composer whose

20 e.g., Church Cantata, 106.

2! e.g., Church Cantata, 152.
22 G clef on the bottom line.

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48 The Recorder and its Music

present revival must be very largely due t

recorder music. He again exploits the instru
and from his pen we have a vast quantity of

Illustration : First movement from Sonata fo

and (viola pomposa or) violin by Teleman

This is all treble recorder music. What has

recorder consort and what should we have
stance, on the Chester recorders ? I have m
search and one of the very few examples is
entitled Parties pour les Fleut dous a" 3 b
initials are taken to be those of Faber, a co
1730.

Illustration : Aria from Parties pour les Fleut D

Faber played on treble, tenor and bass reco

During the time of Bach, Handel and Teleman

was fighting a losing battle against the Germ
a century earlier it had been viols versus v
days of Samuel Pepys the instrument was kn
as recorder, flute, English flute (to disting
German rival) and now it was the common f
to sustain its life a little longer Stanesby the m
Merci, a player, combined forces. Up till then,
or treble in F, had been used as the general
other members were often treated as transposi
Such a system would give 'six fingers G '. N
woodwind-traversi, oboes and the new clarin
a system of 'six fingers D' like the scale of
descant recorders. So Merci sought to ratio
wind by adopting the descant and tenor as
instruments, making all the others transpos
caught on and the recorder eventually died
the bass recorder occurs in a trio by C. P. E.
combined with viola and harpsichord. Th
the recorder was probably the solo in Gluck
insist on attributing to the recorder in spite o
has to say about the veiled F of the flute.
given the recorder a small part in a divert
attempt to revive the recorder was made early

23 The idea has been tried again by some German

times, but has been dropped.

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 The Recorder and its Music 49

century in the flageolets of Bainbridge and

went to seed in double and triple flageolets of n

I have already referred to the work of Chr

Dr. J. C. Bridge and Canon Galpin towards
the present century. It was Arnold Dolmets
that you could not revive the recorders until th
was revived also. The few remaining examp
teenth century were mostly in museums. He set
of craftsmanship and as a result a quartet of
was played in the first Haslemere Festival in
were made in his workshops for connoisseu
from Germany were at that festival, includ
and it was he who set about the mass product
His instruments came back to England with
of the German Singers about 1928, under
leadership. It was then that I first heard the
afterwards I bought one of these German i
fingering seemed very simple-you just lifted
another for the natural scale-and I began
good idea it would be to have classes of these
schools as a gateway to the woodwind of the
inclined to favour these German instrumen
cost only five marks as against five guineas
metsch's. Luckily, in 1930 when I started to
struction books24, these lovely old eighteenth-c
which I have brought this afternoon wer
presented, to me by the late Mr. C. E. Hoyla
whose family they had been for many years
time I acquired a copy of The Modern Mu
studied its charts of fingering. These convi
short-sighted and deceptive simplicity of the
ments and the superiority of those based on
century models by Dolmetsch. There was sti
price.
To cut a long story short, I eventually persuaded one
German maker to produce instruments for the English market
with what I called the 'English fingering '. Those recorders
made by Wilhelm Herwig found their way into countless

24 Both published in 1935: A Practical Method for the Recorder,

(Hunt & Donington, Oxford Press) and A Concise Tutor for use in Schools,
(Boosey).

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50 The Recorder and its Music

schools before the war. In 1935 I started recorder classes at

Trinity College of Music and drew up a syllabus for examina-
tions, including the A.T.C.L. Diploma.
Meanwhile Mr. Carl Dolmetsch had been improving on the
fingering of the eighteenth-century models, and had made
himself a brilliant virtuoso. In 1937 we combined forces to
form The Society of Recorder Players. Mr. and Mrs. Max
Champion were largely instrumental in bringing about this
collaboration.
War came and there were no more cheap recorders from
Germany, so my answer was to design the plastic descant,
sold by Schott and Co. Ltd.
This part of the story has inevitably been rather personal.
Now what about the music ?
Arnold Dolmetsch had produced some little books of tunes,
but most of the material was published in Germany. The
first contribution to the recorder's repertory in this country
was probably in Robin Milford's oratorio, A Prophet in the
Land. Dr. Ernst Meyer wrote a little Fantasia for unaccom-
panied recorder for me in 1935, and Dr. Christopher Edmunds
followed with a Suite for recorder trio and a Sonatina for
descant and piano. In 1939 a number of our leading younger
composers were persuaded to write for recorders, and Carl
Dolmetsch and I played some of the resulting sonatinas at a
meeting of the Contemporary Music Society in that year.
These composers included Stanley Bate, Christian Darnton,
Peter Pope and Lennox Berkeley. Other works followed from
Peggy Glanville Hicks, Walter Leigh and Franz Reizenstein.
Most of these have now been published. Since then Carl
Dolmetsch has persuaded other composers to write works
which he has performed as his Wigmore Hall recitals, so we
can now add the names of Martin Shaw, York Bowen and
Edmund Rubbra. There must be a constant flow of new com-
positions if the recorder is to flourish, but the music must be
written by composers who have taken the trouble to under-
stand the capabilities of the instrument.
Today we have the descant recorder as the school instru-
ment. This is so for obvious economic reasons, and because
of its suitability for small hands. The treble is the choice of
those who wish to enjoy the magnificent repertory of solo
music. More enterprising groups include in addition the tenor
and the bass for consort playing. The sopranino is used for
the Handel and other pieces I have mentioned, and also to
provide a treble instrument in groups which lack the bass.

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 The Recorder and its Music 51

In conclusion, I should like to thank my

Dolmetsch (bass recorder), Miss Freda Din
and violin), Dr. Walter Bergmann (descant and
and Mr. Max Champion (tenor recorder), f
the musical illustrations this afternoon.

Instruments exhibited included the following eighteenth-

century recorders from the lecturer's collection :
Alto (d') by Hail. 'Fourth flute' (b' flat) by Bressan
Treble (f') by Bressan. ' Sixth flute ' (d") by Stanesby Jnr.
Treble (f') by R. Wyne. Transverse flute by Proser.
And a double flageolet (nineteenth century) by Simpson.

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