Families of Recorders in the Late 17th and 18th Centuries

Bassoon Flûte from Musicalishes Theatrum (ca 1720), Johann Christoph Weigel (1661-1725).

The Denner Orders and Other Evidence

Andrew Robinson

Introduction

There is enough documentary evidence, and enough surviving instruments, to suggest that recorders were played in “choirs” throughout the baroque period – well into the 18th century. There is, however, very little baroque music scored for recorder ensemble, and it is difficult to see from these few pieces what the rest of its repertoire would have been. Instead, I think we will have to look at the kind of music that oboe bands played, and make conjectures about unwritten performance practices.

This article aims to put together different kinds of evidence: documents, surviving instruments, iconography and music. It was first published in two halves, namely Robinson (2003 & 2004) and loosely follows on from Robinson (2003). It is presented here with the permission of the editor of The Recorder Magazine. Much of the music mentioned here is not easily available, so whenever possible I have put it on the SibeliusMusic website. <1>

Maker's Lists

The three most interesting pieces of documentary evidence that survive are the lists of instruments ordered from Jacob Denner in 1710 and 1720, and from Richard Haka in 1685. The Denner lists are well known as they are vital to the histories of the chalumeau and clarinet, but I think they also deserve an important place in general writings about the recorder. <2>

Jacob Denner (1681-1735)

1) Order by the Duke of Gronsfield, in Nuremberg (1710)

4 Hautbois, 1 Taillie, 2 Fagott

4 Flaúten, 1 Alt-Flaúten, 2 Bass-Flaúten

4 Chalimoú, 1 Alt-Chalimoú, 2 Chalimoú Basson <3>

2 Clarinettes

4 Violinen, 1 Viola, 1 Bass

2) Order from Göttweig, a Benedictine abbey near Vienna (1720) <4>

I Chor Hautbois mit 6 Stimen, alle von buxbaum

3 Primeur Hautbois, 1 Taille, 2 Basson

I Chor Chalimou mit 6 Stimen

3 Primeur Chalimou, 1 Second Chalimoú, 2 Basson

I Chor Flauden mit 6 Stimen

3 Primeur, 1 Second Flauden, 2 Basson

2 Flaud d'Almanq

The orders show families of oboes, chalumeaux, and recorders being bought together, each in three sizes, along with extra instruments – clarinets or flutes. The first order also includes an ensemble of violins.

A record of the delivery of the 1720 Denner order has also survived, and it is different from the original order: only one bassoon and one primeur chalimou were actually sent, and the amount paid for each instrument was less than the price quoted in the order. Most of the reductions are small, but there was a huge drop in the price of the flutes.

The original price, in florins, for the oboe choir was: 5–9–22 for oboes, Taille (tenor oboe) and bassoon, but 4–8–20 was paid. The chalumeaux prices were 3–7–18, but 2.30–5–15 was paid. The flauden (recorders) were priced 3–6–15 but 2–5–12 was paid. Most strikingly, the two flaud d'Almanq (transverse flutes) were priced at 45 florins the pair, but only 6 florins was paid for each.

One would expect the recorders to be alto–tenor–bass, which ties in well with the surviving instruments (see below). The name of the primeur recorder of 1720 is simply flaúten in 1710, without further qualification as to its size, so presumably it is an alto, making the alt-flaúten a tenor. The prices in 1720 support this: two florins for a primeur and five florins for a second means that the second is relatively expensive; this makes sense if the second was a keyed tenor as making keys by hand is very time-consuming. (If the recorders were SAB instead of ATB the prices are still disproportionate.) <5>

The prices of the recorders are lower than the other instruments; this could be a reflection of their availability and the number of other makers rather than the amount of work involved in making them. In the same way the original quote of 22½ florins for a flute, as well as the 6 florins paid (compared to five florins for an oboe), might indicate that flutes were still rare in Germany at this date.

An earlier list has also survived which is remarkably similar to the two Denner lists: of instruments made for the Swedish navy. Here each group of instruments seems to have been made at a different pitch, implying that they were not played together, so each group would have had a different function. Prices, woods and a description of a brass mounting were given in the order but are omitted here. The brackets around the pitch details have been added to make it easier to read. <6>

Richard Haka (1646-1705)

3) Bill to Johan Otto of Calmer, Sweden (1685)

Teutsche schalmeijen <7>

6 midelbas Schalmeijen

6 Hout bas dulsians (Coor mes)

13 discant Schalmeijen (Klarin trompettenbon)

[F]ransche [h]aubois

1 franse dulsian Basson in 4 stucken

1 franse tenor haubois

4 franse discant hautbois (alle Coortoon)

[F]leutte deuse

1 Bass fleutte does in 3 Stuken

1 quinte fleutte does in 3 Stuken

3 talije fleutten does in 3 Stucken

2 alt fleutte does in 2 Stucken

2 discant fleutte does in 2 Stucken

The French hautbois are in Coorton, or Chorton, which is the name for the old Renaissance high pitch; roughly a semitone above A440 (mentioned in my previous article). Pitch dropped in the baroque period but church organs were not replaced, so different pitches were in use simultaneously: Cammerton (chamber pitch) and Chorton (choir pitch). Military pitch also stayed high, which could explain why Haka’s French oboes are in Chorton.

The pitch of the recorders is not given, so presumably they are in Cammerton – if so, they were not designed to be played with the family of oboes (and bassoon).

Jan Bouterse, the Haka expert, explains Klarin trompettenbon (the pitch of the discant Schalmeijen) as trumpet-tone: another military, trumpet, pitch that is different from both Chorton and Cammerton. He says that Bruce Haynes has suggested Coor mes might mean Chormaß, which was apparently the same as Chorton, but this would mean that the six dulcian Bassons were not intended to play with the descant schalmey in that group.

French Names for Recorder Sizes

The French names for the different sizes of recorder are: dessus,haute-contre, taille, quinte and basse – modern-day sopranino, soprano, alto, tenor and bass. (The names are the same as those used for French string parts.) <8>

Monteclair calls the sopranino a petit dessus rather than a dessus and goes to great trouble to make it clear that the petit dessus and the haute-contre play an octave higher than written. A common term for sopranos and sopraninos is petites flutes. <9>

Haka's talije fleutten does [flûte douce] are tailles; his alt would seem to be a soprano as it is in only two parts, which, in turn, could make the discant a sopranino. (Jan Bouterse thinks that alt and discant are two different sizes of soprano as they were priced the same, at two guilders each.)

Lully writes a Prelude for a recorder quartet in La triomphe de l'amour (1681). It’s scored for: Tailles ou Flutes d’Allemagne, Quinte de flutes, Petite basse de flutes and Grande basse de flutes et Basse-Continue. The Petite basse has a range of a1-a2 (where c2 is middle C), the Grande basse has two octaves, from d0 to d2. This is the only piece of baroque music I have found that names a great-bass, and, as far as I know, there are no surviving instruments from this period. (See item 6 below, the James Talbot manuscript which shows that Bressan made great-basses in C.)

Lully’s Grande basse part has only two low Ds in the Prelude, and both of them are octave jumps at cadences where the lower note could be played by the Basse-Continue. The rest of the part fits comfortably on an F instrument. Eppelsheim (1961) understands Grande basse de flûtes to mean a double contra-bass in F, playing at pitch; perhaps an old renaissance-style instrument being used here. However, it could be that the Grande basse is a normal bass recorder, doubling the continuo at the octave. This would make the Petite basse a smaller bass, perhaps in G, and perhaps there is no great-bass after all. On the other hand both Lully and Charpentier use a Basse de Flûte on the third line in four part music (see that section in Music for Bass below).

Surviving Instruments

This table is compiled from the recorders listed in Young (1993).

	Sopranino	Soprano	Alto	Tenor	Bass	Total
France	2 4.25%	4 8.5%	20 42.6%	11 23.4%	10 21.25%	47
Germany, Austria, Switzerland	5 2.4%	6 2.8%	126 59.7%	25 11.8%	49 23.2%	211
England	– –	7 6.5%	59 54.6%	35 32.4%	7 6.5%	108
The Netherlands	7 7.9%	19 21.3%	47 52.8%	2 2.2%	14 15.7%	89
Italy	2 –	1 –	8 –	– –	– –	11
Total	16 3.4%	37 7.9%	260 55.8%	73 15.7%	80 17.2%	466
	The different sizes of sopranos and tenors are included in their general categories.

The Haka order (1685) is for: 2 sopraninos (?), 2 sopranos, 3 altos, 1 tenor, 1 bass.

The first Denner order (1710) is presumably for: 4 altos, 1 tenor, 2 basses.

The second Denner order (1720) is for: 3 altos, 1 tenor, 2 basses.

The surviving recorders have a remarkably similar approximate ratio to the Denner orders:
¼ sopranino, ½ soprano, 3½ altos, 1 tenor, 1 bass.

German instruments have an approximate ratio that is even closer:
¼ sopranino, ¼ soprano, 5 altos, 1 tenor, 2 basses.

French instruments have more tenors, and also more small recorders:
½ sopranino, 1 soprano, 4 altos, 2 tenors, 2 basses.

The tiny number of Italian instruments suggests that Venetian players imported them. England has a marked lack of basses. France has very few surviving recorders: 47 compared to 211 from Germany etc., 118 from England and 89 from the Netherlands. <19>

Most of the well-known makers (but not, as far as I know, Stanesby Junior) leave basses: Hotteterre, Rippert, Bressan, Haka and Boekhout, Rottenburgh, Stanesby Senior, Schlegel & the Denners. As far as I am aware, there are no surviving contra-basses of any size from the baroque period. <20>

There are, of course, a number of problems with a table of this sort:

Chance must have had a strong influence on which recorders have survived from the 17th and 18th centuries. The ratios reflect the choirs of the makers; it might simply be that recorders bought by institutions are more likely to have survived, safe in their instrument stores, than the instruments bought by individuals.
That the ratios of surviving instruments are similar to the instruments of the orders does not, by itself, show that the recorders were played together in ensembles. (The question – what were the large recorders for? – still holds.)
I have not included renaissance recorder makers or recorders made by 19th century makers, but the descriptions in the catalogue are not always clear: some of the instruments are anonymous, without a full description or date. (And it could be that renaissance recorders continued to be used as Chorton instruments throughout this period.) I have included sopranos or altos from later makers who worked into the second half of the 18th Century, but some of these may well be csakans. And I included, perhaps wrongly, a Grenser alto with three keys.
Recorders are tabled according to the nationality of their maker, but many instruments were made for export, particularly from the Netherlands. German courts often ordered their instruments from Paris. <21> Any impression of a national preference is going to be distorted, but even so it is noticeable that the Netherlands made more small recorders and, as noted above, England has a marked lack of surviving basses.
Human error – it will have been easy to mark a recorder into the wrong box, of country or instrument size, and then miss it or repeat the same mistake. (I don't think it should affect the overall picture.)

Despite these problems, the picture that is given of recorder use is extremely striking – in particular the large proportion of bass recorders.

The total number of surviving recorders, 466, is greater than the 388 surviving oboes from approximately the same period although that number does not include bassoons. (If you take out the 80 basses you get 386 recorders, a surprisingly similar number.) <22>

As with the documentary evidence, the table gives a completely different picture from the one shown by recorder music of the period: it shows that recorders of all sizes were made, and played, across the whole of northern Europe.

Music for Bass Recorder <23>

The bass is the defining instrument of a recorder ensemble, so it is worth considering what its repertoire was. We can see from the table, that basses make up 17.2% of surviving recorders, but the music of the period hardly ever mentions them. The Historical Catalogue – the online searchable database of recorder music on the Stichting Blokfluit website has 23 pieces that include a named bass recorder out of the 1918 pieces catalogued at the time of writing; or 1.2% instances in music compared with 17.2% surviving instruments. This is an enormous disparity.

The Bass Recorder as a Continuo Instrument

There are a few pieces of iconography that show bass recorders being used as continuo instruments in mixed ensembles. <24>

An engraving of Lotti’s Teofane (1716) being performed at the Dresden opera house. <25>

Some of the orchestra can be seen: facing forward there are three alto (or possibly AAT) recorders, a bass recorder between two theorbos, two flute (traverso) players and a line of violins. Apart from one of the recorders, they are all playing together, perhaps in a trio section. There are more musicians with their backs to the audience and the print shows a bassoonist and several cellos; it isn’t clear if they are playing or not. <26>
An engraving of a banquet, from Munich, early 18th century. Three violins and a bass recorder play in the background. <27>
A fresco in Prague (1730). Musicians play a traverso, oboe, viola da gamba and bass recorder. <28>
A Collegium Musicum in Nuremberg (ca 1775). A bass recorder, viol and harpsichord make up the continuo section in a cantata with three singers, three violins, two trumpets and three unidentifiable wind instruments, possibly including recorders. (This is a much later date for recorder playing than we allow nowadays). <29>

One aspect of the iconography which is very striking is that the bass recorder is shown playing continuo in ensembles that do not include recorders. The Munich Banquet, for instance – I cannot imagine a modern performance taking place with three violins and a bass recorder.

There is one picture of a recorder consort by itself: the title page to John Hudgebut’s Thesaurus Musicus (five volumes, 1693-96). <30> Four angels sit around a table; one is singing, three play what look like transitional, pre-baroque, recorders – alto, tenor and bass – while a fourth recorder, perhaps a soprano, lies on the table. (The music – solo songs and recorder duets – has nothing to do with recorder consorts.)

In surviving music, as far as I can tell, bass recorders are only ever specified playing the bass line when there are other recorders playing in the ensemble. Charpentier’s early work, the Messe pour plusiers instruments au lieu des orgues (H513) has one quartet for mixed recorders and flutes (with four bass recorders on the bass line) and a second quartet with une octave et une flute douce (sopranino and alto recorders) doubling on the first and second parts, basses de flute on the fourth, with a third part for a cromorne playing divisions on the bass line. (Cromornes are not crumhorns, but large proto-oboes made in different sizes, more like tenor and bass shawms). <31>

Charpentier’s Medée (1694) has several indications for a Basse de Flutes playing with a chordal continuo instrument (the bass is figured) in recorder-trio passages, and in a five-part prelude with two recorder and two violin parts. In Heinichen’s concerto in G – for two recorders, two violins, two oboes, two viols, a Bass de Flauti, bassoon and violone – each of the basses accompanies its family members and presumably they play together in the tuttis. Other examples are the Larghetto in Handel’s Giustino, for flauti 1 doubling oboe, flauti 2, viola & Basso de Flauti; and Pan’s air Surprizing Change in Galliard’s Pan and Syrinx. <32>

A bass recorder is specified in the title-page of Pepusch's A Second Set of Solos for the Flute with a Through Bass for the Bassoon, Bass-Flute or Harpsichord (1709) but this is the only one of Walsh's publications to mention a recorder as a continuo instrument in the title. (There are very few mentions of the bassoon either.) The bass part has a range of c0 - g2 (low C below the stave to high G above it), so it was published with the assumption that a bass recorder player would adapt it to fit. Another printed work, the anonymous New Aires made on Purpose for two Flutes and a Bass Familiar & Proper for Practitioners in Consort (1712), has BASS FLUTE headings in the bass part, which also has a large range: c0 to f2. <33>

Some of Walsh and Hare's publications do not mention a bass recorder in the title but have the heading FLUTO BASSO across the top of each page of the bass part. I have come across three, but there may well be more. One of them, however, is their arrangement of Corelli's opus 5, second half: Six Solos for a Flute and Bass (1702); this includes his Follia, which would seem an unlikely bass recorder part. Here Fluto Basso could mean “bass part to the flute” rather than literally a bass recorder (although perhaps I should adjust my prejudices instead). The other two publications are: the anonymous A Collection of Severall Excellent Ouvertures, Symphonies and Aires for a Flute and a Bass… (1706); and the sonata by Pepusch that comes in Six Sonatas of Two parts… for two Flutes compos’d by William Croft. To which is added an excellent Solo for a Flute and Bass by Seignor Papus (1704). The bass parts all have low Es and Ds below the stave. <34>

There are two manuscripts of Telemann's concerto in Bb for two recorders and strings (TWV 52: B1). Apparently the one in Dresden has a bass part pour le flut which is ambiguous but, as it is in the singular, presumably means “for the (bass) flut” rather than “[accompaniment] for the flutes”, even though the part goes outside the bass recorder's range.

The Darmstadt manuscript has cembalo on the bass line, with no mention of le flut. The simplest explanation is they didn't use a bass recorder; or that there was a separate part that has been lost. It might, however, be evidence that the bass recorder was used automatically to accompany a recorder trio – in the same way the bassoon accompanies oboe trios – so there was no need to write it down. Another example of this might be Lully's Marche de Melpomene from Les Festes de l'Amour et de Bacchus (1672) where the bass-line changes register for the trios of petites flutes. It's very unfortunate that there isn't more evidence of this sort as it could mean an important addition to the bass recorder's repertory.

There are so few pieces of music that name the bass recorder as a continuo instrument that, without any other evidence, one might suppose it was a very rare event. The iconography contradicts this by showing basses playing in circumstances that are never mentioned in the music. They suggest that it was not unusual for bass recorders to play continuo, but this was not normally written down.

Bass Recorder Playing the Third Part in Four-Part Music

Charpentier names a Basse de Flute in five other works. In each case it plays the third line with other basses – viole or basse de violon and clavecin – below. (Which solves the problem that the bass recorder does not have a real bass range.) The first and second parts are for recorders or flutes, or unspecified but with the range and style of his recorder parts. The pieces are Pour un Reposir (H523, book XX), a long work with an ouverture and seven other movements, Psalmus David 12us (H196, bk XXII), Gratiarum actiones ex sacres (H326, bkIV), Languentibus in purgatorio (H328, bk XVIII), and Les Plaisirs de Versailles (H480, scene 1, bk XI).

Lully, interestingly, gives the bass recorder a dual role in one movement in Proserpine (1680, Act IV, scene1) where it plays the bass line during the recorder trios but the third part in the tuttis. <35>

Solo Music for Bass Recorder

As far as I know, there are no pieces for the bass recorder as a soloist, or any solo obbligatos in large scale pieces, until C.P.E. Bach's (rather wonderful) trio for flauto basso, viola or bassoon, and continuo, written in 1755. It survives in three different versions: the earliest is in Berlin, there is an arrangement in Brussels which swaps passages between the recorder and viola to avoid high Ds in the recorder part, and a third manuscript in Berlin – the same arrangement as the Brussels version, but with a bassoon instead of the viola. <36> (There is also a mention, in an auction catalogue 1789, to a similar, but lost, trio by C.H. Graun for violin, cello or flauto basso, and bass. Klaus Hofmann has reconstructed this piece from a bassoon trio that is listed next to the C.P.E. Bach trio in a thematic catalogue of the period.) <37>

There is hardly any solo music that specifies tenor recorder either, or for the small recorders for that matter; the vast majority of music specifies alto. <38> Three of Marcello's twelve (alto) recorder sonatas are in manuscript in the Bibliothek Fürstenberg in Germany for flautino, a sopranino recorder. I think this is a unique case, but it could point at a practice of playing alto sonatas on different sizes of recorder

It is possible that sonatas for alto recorder (or bassoon, or any other instrument) were played on bass recorder but, as far as I know, there is no evidence of this happening. Thomas Boekhout advertised his basses as "giving all its tones" like an alto recorder – Bas Fluyten die al haar toonen geven als op een gemeene Fluyt – but it is not obvious what he means by this. <39> The simplest reading is that Boekhout's basses had the same range as an alto, but Jan Bouterse believes he is talking about fingerings: Boekhout was making basses with a key for the third finger-hole. This meant the hole could be positioned in a better place, further down the instrument, allowing the use of normal alto fingerings for high notes. If this is true then Boekhout was advertising his basses' ease of use, not their range. (Bouterse points out that there are earlier basses with a range of two octaves and a tone, but their high notes have non-standard fingerings.)

Perhaps the public wanted a bass that played like an alto to play pieces written for alto, but nothing survives to suggest that they wanted anything else than a bass to play bass lines.

Music that Specifies Recorder Ensembles <40>

Very few pieces that specifically name a recorder ensemble survive from the whole of the baroque period, and even fewer from the 18th century. And nowhere is there any music that uses the choirs of oboes, chalumeaux and recorders mentioned in the Denner lists in a single work. Even so, the music does show that recorder ensembles existed throughout most of Europe. For example:

There is the well-known group of mid-17th-century pieces by Schmelzer and Bertali (both Hofkapellmeisters at the Austrian court), along with Biber, from what is now the Czech Republic, and the anonymous manuscript in Breslau, in Poland. It's likely that these predate the baroque (French) recorder. <41>
Complete recorder ensembles are specified in French operas by Lully and Monteclair.

Lully has quartets in Le Triompe de l'Amour (1681) and Ballets des Arts (1671). In Isis (1677) he uses recorders to portray Syrinx after she has been transformed into reeds (a stunningly imaginative piece of music). Only two recorder parts are specified, but the stage directions say: Pan donnent des Roseaux aux Bergers, aux Satyres & aux Sylvains qui en forment un concert de Flutes.

Psyche

Proserpine

Flutes

VIOLONS

hautbois,

flutes, vielles, théorbes, clavecins, guitares, castenettes, tambours & petits tambours

<42>

Monteclair's Jephté (1732) has already been mentioned, in the context of the names of the different sizes of recorders. Jephté has a five-part recorder ensemble, with each name (such as Petits dessus de Flûte à bec) in the plural, again implying that there were two or more players on each part. <43>
Charpentier has the mixed flute quartet and a recorder trio in the Messe pour plusiers instruments mentioned above. Medée has recorder trios with named Basses de Flute, and there is the short trio Simphonie a 3 fl. ou vions. The pieces with bass recorder on the third line, also mentioned above, are recorder trios but with other basses to make up the quartet. <44>
Marcello's Concerto di Flauti, in Venice, has SATB recorders doubled with strings: Due Flauti soprani e due sordini (two muted violins); Due Flauti contralti et una Violetta sordini; Due Flauti Tenori et una Violetta sordini; Un Flauto Basso e Violoncello. <45>
Telemann's Trauer Actus: Ach wir Nichtig, ach wie Fluchtig (1724) has three four-part ensembles – of AATB recorders, or AAT recorders with a bassoon, viols and voices – used in contrasting blocks of sound. (The bass part to the recorder ensemble is titled Bassuun § Flaut. 4.) <<46>
C.F. Witt's Suite in F has parts for Hautbois o flauto, doubling violino 1 which has a separate part; violino 2 o flauto; Viola o flauto Taillo; and two bass parts, for Bassono and Cembalo. The Bassono part has low Cs, but it could still be for a bass recorder (with alterations) as well as for a bassoon: the Denner order of 1720 uses Basson to describe the basses of all three families, and a plate in Johann Christophe Wiegel's Musicalisches Theatrum (ca 1715) has a picture of a musician playing a Bassoon Flûte, a bass recorder, reproduced at the head of this web-page.

Witt's suite is made up of an Entrée, Sarabande, Menuet, Bourée and (second) Menuet; functional music of the kind played by oboe bands all over Europe. <47>
I don't know of any English recorder quartets, but there are the trios in Handel's Giustini, Galliard's Pan and Syrinx (1717, revised 1726), and the New Aires of 1712 mentioned above. <48>

Pan and Syrinx

Isis

Sommeil

To explain the evidence for recorder ensembles, one could look for similar passages and movements in other music. It seems to me, however, that there are simply not enough special cases, in operas or in other music, to account for the number of surviving large recorders or the choirs of the makers's lists; that for the bulk of their use we must look elsewhere, for performance practices that were unwritten.

Ad Hoc Scorings

The makers' lists show that recorders and other wind instruments were bought in whole choirs. Presumably they were professional instruments, bought for the oboe bands of the various establishments rather than their orchestras. Bruce Haynes: The Eloquent Oboe (OUP 2001) is the best source for information about oboe bands; he writes (p163) that “almost every court in Germany, large and small, maintained a non-military hautboistenbande.” There were also the Stadtpfeiffer or town musicians; and military bands, employed by senior officers. Usually their job was to play the everyday music: background music for functions and meals, and the music for dancing. (Dancing being, of course, such an enormously important part of each institution's life.) It is interesting that the second of the Denner orders went to a Benedictine abbey, presumably they also had functional music of this sort.

The term oboe band (hautboistenbande) is misleading as the musicians were multi-instrumentalists or even players of completely different instruments; Haynes says (p52) that several members of French oboe bands were actually “bassoonists, drummers, or players of the recorder, traverso or musette.” And, according to his autobiography, Quantz began his career as a Stadtpfeiffer, learning to play the violin, oboe, trumpet, cornetto, trombone, horn, recorder, bassoon, cello, viola da gamba, and double bass. (He specialised in the violin, but was otherwise most competent on the oboe and trumpet.) <49>

The French court had several oboe bands, made up of star players like Hotteterre and the various Danican Philidors who also played chamber music, in the orchestras, and at the Opéra. There were enough musicians at Versailles to allow the most extravagant effects; adding recorders, oboes and violins as they chose, with petites flutes doubling the top parts at the octave. Recorders could have been played together in large numbers, with three or more players to a part, producing a powerful effect (rather than the quiet sounds we associate with flute douce). The courts in Germany might not have had more than six to twelve players in their oboe bands so one would expect their choirs of recorders, oboes and chalumeaux to have been used in different ways.

Considering the large number of oboe bands the surviving repertoire for them is extremely small, even though there is more music that specifies four-part oboes than recorder (or chalumeau) choirs. There are many more pieces where the instrumentation is not specified but is for dessus, dessus 2 or hautcontre, taille, and basse (in Germany as well as France). And, as we have seen with the ballets of Lully, music scored only for violons was actually played by any number of different instruments. (And many composers' ouvertures and dances, taken from their theatre music, survive in copies made for purely instrumental use, or perhaps for dancing).

An examination of the music for oboe bands is outside the scope of the present article, but I hope to return to it at a later date as a source for the mostly hidden repertoire for recorder choirs. What is clear is that performances of a large amount of baroque music must have been much more varied and colourful than we allow nowadays. We can only speculate (and experiment) about exactly how it was done, but Menestrier writes in Des Ballets anciens et modernes (1682): “One can add flageolets, flutes, musettes, oboes and cromornes to the violins to strengthen those parts (partie) of the dance movements that one wants to emphasize. One can alternate (interrompre– interrupt) or mix them (les mêler) for more variety.” That would seem a good place for us to start. <50>

Bibliography

Acht, R. van (1996). Dutch Makers of double reed instruments in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, by Rob van Acht (Netherlands). International Double Reed Society Journal 24: 77-85. Includes short biographies of a number of recorder makers. < http://idrs.colorado.edu/publications/journal/jnl24/Dutch.makers.pdf > Last Accessed 11 April 2004.
Acht, R. van, V. van den Ende, & H. Schimmel (1991). Niederländische Blockflöten des 18. Jahrhunderts. Sammlung Haags Gemeentemuseum [Dutch Recorders of the 18th century in the Haags Gemeetemuseum Collection.] Moeck Verlag 4045, Celle. ISBN 387549038X.
Bouterse, M.C. Jan (1999). Die Baß von Thomas Boekhout. [The bass recorders of Thomas Boekhout.] Tibia 24 (2): 457-61.
Bouterse, M.C. Jan (2000). Communication: On the Haka instruments sold to the Swedish navy. Journal of the American Musical Instrument Society 26: 243-250 (2000).
Bouterse, J. (2001). "Nederlandse houtblasinstrumenten en hun bouwers, 1660-1760." [Dutch Woodwind Instruments and Their Makers, 1660-1760.] Doctoral dissertation, Universiteit Utrecht. CD-ROM available from Huismuziek, Moeder Magdalenastraat 4, NL-6109 RC Ohé en Laak, Netherlands.
Bouterse, M.C. Jan (2003). Iconography of Dutch Recorders, 1660-1760. < http://members.iinet.net.au/~nickl/bouterse.html > Last accessed 11 April 2004.
Donnington, Robert (1973). The choice of instruments in baroque music, Early Music 3: 131-136.
Dufourcq, Norbert & Benoit, Marcelle (1963): Les Musiciaens de Versailles, à travers les minutes notariales de Lamy, versées aux Archives départementales de Seine-et-Oise. Recherches sur la musique française classique. 3.
Eppelsheim, Jürgen (1961). Das Orchester in den Werken Jean-Baptiste Lullys. Münchner Veröffentlichungen zur Musikgeschichte. Bd. 7.
Ferrari, Pierluigi (1994). Cercando strumenti musicali a Norimberga. Recercare 6: 211.
Fitzpatrick, Horace (1968). Jacob Denner's woodwinds for Göttweig Abbey. Galpin Society Journal 21: 81-87 (1968).
Gai, Vinicio (1969). Gli strumenti musicali della Corte Medicea: e il Museo del Conservatorio Luigi Cherubini di Firenze. Cenni storici e catologo descrittivo. Licosa, Florence.
Giannini, Tula (1993) Jacques Hotteterre le Romain and his father, Martin. Early Music 21 (3): 377-95.
Griscom, R. & D. Lasocki (2003). The Recorder: A Guide to Writings about the Instrument for Players and Researchers. Routledge, New York & London. ISBN 0-415-93744-2.
Harris-Warwick, Rebecca (1993). From score into sound: questions of scoring in Lully's ballets. Early Music 3 (1993).
Haynes, Bruce (1991). Music for Oboe 1650–1800: a Bibliography. Fallen Leaf Reference Books in Music 4. Fallen Leaf Press, Berkeley. ISBN 0914913034.
Haynes, Bruce (2001). The Eloquent Oboe: a History of the Hautboy from 1640 to 1760. Early Music Series. Oxford University Press, Oxford. ISBN 019816646X.
Hitchcock, H. Wiley (1990). Marc-Antoine Charpentier. Oxford Studies of Composers 23. Oxford University Press, Oxford & New York. ISBN 0193164116.
Hofmann, Klaus (1992). Ein Graunsches Trio mit obligater Bassblockflöte. Ein Ermittlungsbericht – Mit Seitenblicken auf ein Trio Carl Philipp Emanuel Bachs. Tibia 17 (4): 253-262.
Hunt, Edgar (1962, 1976, 2002). The Recorder and its Music. Peacock Press, Hebden Bridge. ISBN 0 907908 98 5.
Hunt, Edgar (1980). Recorder. In Sadie, ed. (1980, 3: 205-215).
Lander, Nicholas S. (1996-2004). Recorder Home Page. < http://www.iinet.net.au/~nickl/recorder.html > Last Accessed 11 April 2004.
- Original Recorders, Makers & Collections. < http://www.iinet.net.au/~nickl/original.html >
- Recorder Iconography. < http://www.iinet.net.au/~nickl/art.html >
Lasocki, David (1982). Professional recorder playing in England, II: 1640–1740, Early Music 10(2): 183-191.
Lawson, Colin (1981). The Chalumeau in 18th-century Music. British Studies in Musicology 6. UMI Research Press, Ann Arbor. ISBN 083571246X
Lawson, Colin (1995), ed. The Cambridge Companion to the Clarinet. Cambridge Companions to Music. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge/New York. ISBN 0521470668.
Lemaître, Edmund (1988-1990) L'orchestra dans le Theàtre Lyrique Francaise chez les continuateurs de Lully, 1687-1725. Recherches sur la musique française classique 26.
Nickel, Ekkehart (1971). Der Holzblasinstrumentenblau in der Freien Reichstadt Nürnberg.
Reilly, E.R. (1966, 1976, 1985, 2001), transl. & ed. On Playing the Flute. Faber & Faber, London; Schirmer Books, New York; Northeastern University Press. Translation of Quantz, J.J. (1752, 3/1789), Versuch einer Anweisung die Flöte tranversiere zu spielen. [Essay of a Method for Playing the Flute.] Voss, Berlin.
Rice, Albert R. (1991). The Baroque Clarinet. Early Music Series 13. Clarendon Press, Oxford. ISBN 0198161883 (1991).
Robinson, Andrew (2003). Flexibility, multi-instrumentation and transposition in baroque music, The Recorder Magazine 23(2): 46-49. ISSN 0961 3544.
Robinson, Andrew (2003). Families of recorders in the baroque period – 1. The Recorder Magazine 23(4): 113-117.
Robinson, Andrew (2004). Families of recorders in the baroque period – 2. The Recorder Magazine 24(1): xx-yy.
Sadie, S. (1980), ed. The New Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments, Macmillan, London/New York. ISBN 0 333 37878 4.
Thalheimer, Peter (2000). In Quinten und Quarten. Zur Geschichte des Blockflötenstimmwerks, Tibia 25(1): (2000).
Thieme, Ulrich (1986). Die Blockflote in Kantate, Oratorium und Oper. Tibia 16 (2-4).
Thomson, John M. & Anthony Rowland-Jones, eds (1995). The Cambridge Companion to the Recorder. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. ISBN 0 521 35269 X.

Footnotes

To access the music examples on SibeliusMusic you must first download the (free) Scorch program that is available at that site. Then you can listen to each piece and print them off as you like. I've found that you can disconnect from the Internet and carry on listening, which might save money. Most of the pieces cited here are free to print, some have a small charge. Search under composer or go to the Andrew Robinson page for a full list of pieces.

For me, seeing the Denner lists for the first time was a complete surprise but I am very conscious that some of the people I am quoting here have spent their lives researching either the instruments or the documents of the period. For them I am sure the existence of baroque recorders in choirs is obvious.

I would like to thank Andrew Mayes, Editor of The Recorder Magazine for all his help in writing this article.
See Nickel (1971: 251 & 253) and also Fitzpatrick (1968).

For the chalumeau and clarinet histories see Lawson (1981, 1995) and Rice (1991).
Chalumeaux were derived from the recorder; the recorder's fipple head-joint was replaced with a single reed. They had strong low notes but did not overblow well and the first octave was extended by two keys, played by the left thumb and first finger (like the ones on 20th-century crumhorns). Clarinets were an adaptation of the chalumeau, replacing the recorder's narrow footjoint with a bell. Early clarinets overblow well so the high register is strong, but the low notes are insecure. It seems likely that both chalumeau and clarinets were invented by the Denners. (See Footnote 2.)

The term chalumeaux was used in France to describe the chanter of a musette, or bagpipe. The chanter was also played by itself, straight in the mouth (Haynes, 2001: 45).
Nickel (1971: Footnote 1875) notes that the Göttweig Archives have an entry dated 1692: unterschiedliche (different) Flauten were bought for 29 guilden.
I would like to thank Tim Cranmore, the English recorder maker, for pointing out how long it takes to make keys.
From Bouterse (2000), which includes a facsimile of the order as well as a translation into English and a full explanation. I would like to thank Jan Bouterse for explaining trumpet pitch to me, and Matthew Dart, the London-based bassoon and flute maker, for sending me the Haka list and references in the first place.
Deutsche schalmeijen are baroque shawms, derived from the renaissance shawm; a kind of cousin to the oboe – see Baroque Schalmey in Haynes (2001).
Eppelsheim (1961: 72), referring to Diderot's Encyclopédie (1751-72) for the names of recorders. Eppelsheim also refers to Charpentier's works in this article. Also see Lemaître (1988-1990), who quotes from Joseph Sauveur's Principes d'Acoustique et de Musique (1701), which says the recorders are in F and C (as now) and their ranges are each given as two octaves and a note, apart from the bass which has F-D.
See Monteclair's Les Festes de l'Eté (1716) and Jephté (1732). Delalande calls for petite flutes in Les Elemens (1721), and Lully has them in his Marche de Melpomene in Les Festes de l'Amour et de Bacchus (1672); from the range of the parts they could be sopraninos or sopranos or both together. Charpentier has octave et flute douce en taille (sopranino and alto recorders) doubling parts in his Messe pour plusiers instruments au lieu des orgues. The Monteclair, Lully and Delalande are on SibeliusMusic.
Rice (1992: 23). Hunt (1962, 1967, 2002: plate XIV), has two bass recorders by Schlegel; one in G, the other in F (either that or one in Chorton, the other in Cammerton).
Gai (1969: 20). Presumably Zufoli is being used here as a general category of duct flutes.
Also Gai (1969: 20). David Lasocki told me about this second recorder ensemble, and I would like to thank him for his help. He is working on a complete list of all references to members of the flute family – flutes, recorders, flageolets, and tabor pipes – in inventories and purchases from the medieval up until the baroque period. It's to be posted on his web site at http://php.indiana.edu/~lasocki/.

There is a reference to another concerto owned by the Medicis, this time made by Christoph Denner (Jacob's father), but its instrumentation is not given. A letter from Prince Ferdinando de' Medici's agent says that Christoph Denner had made him some instruments: “Instead of a single treble (soprano solo)… the maestro has made me another in the same pitch as the consort (concerto), and two others that are higher.” (Haynes 2001: 96; Ferrari 1994: 211). Haynes thinks that these instruments, and presumably the concerto, are probably oboes and bassoons, but they could just as well have been recorders. It's also a shame that the passage is not clear about which pitch the various instruments and the concerto are.
Hunt (1980, §History: 210). The Talbot manuscript is now in Oxford.
Dufourcq and Benoit (1963); also quoted in Lemaître (1988). See Haynes (2001: 126), for Jacques Danican in Versaille. His instruments mirror exactly the forces that Monteclair uses in Jephté – SoSATB.
Giannini (1993) includes the whole inventory and several other documents concerning Martin Hotteterre. Giannini translates petites flutes as piccolo traversieres, but they are much more likely to be sopranino and soprano recorders.
Bouterse (2001: par. 5.10). A translation is being prepared for publication by the Royal Society for Dutch Musical History. I would like to thank him for giving me this information.
Haynes (2001: 330). Böhm was a famous oboist, also a virtuoso recorder player: Telemann probably wrote his recorder concertos for Böhm. The English recorders may be two quartflöten (sopranos in Bb) included in an inventory in 1752.

How large were the großen recorders? Tenors or basses? (or a mixture of both, which could explain why the size isn't specified?) Whatever they were it is interesting that they received four of them.
Lander (1996-2004: Original Recorders) presents a series of searchable databases with information on all known surviving recorders, their makers and the collections in which they are held, supported by an extensive bibliography.

I would like to acknowledge my debt, in drawing up this table, to Haynes (2001). Making tables is the sort of thing he does and I would not have thought of it before reading his book. (He also estimates, on p.62, the number of oboes made between 1625 and 1760:– if each maker made only 100 oboes in his working life, and there were around 150 makers, then there would have been 15,000 oboes. This would also be true of recorders.)
Anthony Rowland-Jones suggests that the number of surviving French recorders is low because of the French Revolution; they might well have been destroyed when the palaces were looted. (Haynes 2001: 63) has a table of surviving oboes; fewer French oboes survive than German or Dutch ones.)
It isn't always clear which Denner, son or father, made which instrument. On the absence of surviving contra-basses, I would be extremely pleased to be corrected on this point if I am wrong.
See, for instance, Haynes (2001: 322) on Berlin ordering recorders; and Acht et al. (1991) and Acht (1996) for Dutch makers.
Haynes (2001: 62).
See Griscom & Lasocki (2003) for a section that gives details of articles about the bass recorder. This book is an extremely valuable work; see the review in The Recorder Magazine (Autumn 2003).
Some 4,000 artworks depicting recorders from all periods have been catalogued by Lander (1996-2004: Recorder Iconography). Images of many of these works can be downloaded. Nicholas helped me with the pictures of bass recorders, as well as giving me many other references, and I would like to thank him for everything he did. Very few pictures from this period show musicians at work; the majority seem to be idealised rural scenes that are not much use for establishing performance practice.

(Interestingly, although it has nothing at all to do with this article, Recorder Iconography has a large number of Dutch school paintings from the first half of the 17th Century that show people playing recorder in everyday situations: in kitchens, sitting on barrels etc… And, in later pictures, there are a surprising number of baroque xylophones – what music did they play?)
Thomson & Rowland-Jones (1995: 96). The engraving is by Carl Heinrich Jacob Fehling (1719).

The choice of pictures in this book was the responsibility of Anthony Rowland-Jones, whom I would like to thank for his advice.
Heinichen (who was Capellmeister in Dresden from 1716) specifies three alto/tenor recorders and a bass recorder in an aria in Zeffiro e Clori (Venice 1714), which is an almost exact match to this print. See the Heinichen concerto mentioned below for another bass recorder.
Catalogued as an anonymous Banquet in Lander (1996-2004: Recorder Iconography).
Thomson & Rowland-Jones (1995: 201).
Donnington (1973, 3: 136 - b&w).

About isolated, late, references to recorder use: our view of recorder playing comes from the music, which shows a massive decline in (solo) playing through the second quarter of the 18th century. However, if recorder playing has a hidden history of playing in ensembles (of recorders, or among other instruments), it is quite possible that this practice continued much later than the music for solo recorder allows. According to the catalogue of Telemann's vocal music there are definite recorders (flute douce and quartflote) in sixteen of his large-scale works after 1750 – operas, oratorios and church cantatas – and some of the unspecified flutes in other pieces might also be recorders. The latest mention seems to be in the opera Adam und Eva (1761) in which two recorders appear.
Hunt (1962, 1967 & 2002: 63, fig. 23).
A later movement calls for tout les instruments –viollons, hautb, et flutes. Recorder players are used to "flutes" meaning (only) recorders in this period, but recorders and flutes seem to have played together in French orchestras – for instance Monteclair's sommeil in Les Festes de l'Eté which has Petits dessus de flutes, Haute contre de flutes and Flutes Traversieres, but the heading calls them all flutes. Many of the French pieces with the general scoring pour les flutes could well be for a mixture of flutes and recorders. For cromornes see Haynes: (2001: §1-B).

I would like to thank Andrew Mayes for suggesting that I look at Charpentier's use of recorders.
A Prelude from Charpentier's Medée, the Handel, and the Galliard arias are on SibeliusMusic.
The New Aires made on Purpose are on SibeliusMusic.
The Walsh & Hare arrangement of Corelli's Sonata V and La Follia are on SibeliusMusic.
Charpentier's Languentibus in purgatorio and the movement from Lully's Proserpine are on SibeliusMusic.
The original Berlin version of the C.P.E. Bach Trio is published by Amadeus, whose edition includes a facsimile. The first movement, in its three versions, is on SibeliusMusic, the third of which is a later transposition for two violins and bass. (There were also later versions for flute or violin and obbligato keyboard instrument.) I've also made a transposed version for descant recorder and keyboard instrument – giving the viola and bass parts to the right and left hands – in the hope that the piece will be played more often.
Hofmann explains his methodology in the foreword to his Amadeus edition and in Hofmann (1992). The latter (p.255, footnote 7) also draws attention to a note in C.P.E. Bach's handwriting (now in the Conservatoire Royal de Musique in Brussels) that gives the range of the Baßflöte as F to C2, and says that best keys for it are F, C and G major. (In fact C.P.E. Bach's first version of the trio, now in Berlin, has a range of F to D2; it is the rearranged versions that avoid top Ds.)

The note is interesting: it confirms that Bach's flauto basso was a recorder rather than a huge bass traverso in F – because the best keys for a traverso in F would be F, Bb and C major, the equivalent of D, G and A major on a standard flute. (Bach's note would be saying that equivalent of E major was more comfortable than G on a flute.) If the note was from Bach (to the copyist/arranger of the Brussels MS?) then he knew about the bass recorder. If he wrote it for himself he was unfamiliar with the instrument, but there was someone nearby whom he could ask.
See Griscom & Lasocki (2003) for articles on repertoire for the different sizes of recorder.
Literally: “bass flutes that give all her tones as on a common flute.” An advertisement in the Amsterdam Courant, June 1713. I am very grateful to Franka Cadée for translating this. See Bouterse (1999). I would like to thank him for explaining his point, especially as I had misunderstood it.

See Hunt (1962, 1967 & 2002: plate XV), for a photograph of a Boekhout bass (on a supporting post) with a key for the third finger-hole.
The list given here is not meant to be complete as this has been covered before in other articles (see Griscom & Lasocki 2003). I have preferred to list quartets where possible.

Thalheimer (2000) lists baroque composers who scored for recorder trios and quartets (but without giving details of the pieces themselves) and lists modern publications of music for recorder consort. Ulrich Thieme (1986) has written a series of three articles about the recorder in vocal music.

Thalheimer is the editor of the Flauto e Voce series (Carus-Verlag, Stuttgart), five volumes of arias and recitatives with recorders, three containing recorder ensembles. The article on Lully in the New Grove dictionary includes a facsimile of the first page of Lully's Prelude. I've put many of the pieces of music mentioned in this section onto SibeliusMusic.
See Thalheimer (2000). Schmelzer: Sonata for 7 recorders (Schott) and a Sonata à doi chori – one choir is for strings, the other has soprano, alto and tenor recorders with a bassoon. (Musikverlag A. Coppenrath). I haven't seen this piece; if it is for a basson rather than a fagott it could be a bass recorder – see the paragraph on Witt's Suite in F. Bertali: Sonatella for 5 recorders (Schott, and Coppenrath). Biber: Sonata pro tabula – for two 5 part choirs, one of recorders, the other of strings (pub. Schott, Möseler and Coppenrath). Anonymous (Bollius?): Sonada for 3 recorders and bc (Schott).
Harris-Warwick (1993). I haven't seen the Ritournelle de 4 flustes in Ballet des Arts. Lully's Prelude is discussed above in French Names for Recorder Sizes. See Eppelsheim (1961) and Lemaître (1988-1990) for scoring in French opera.
Monteclair notates sopranos and tenors in a unique way in Les Festes de l'Eté (1716) and Jephté (1732). (The relevant movements are on SibeliusMusic.) They are given a G clef in the second space up on the stave (where the A is in a normal treble clef). He gives a detailed explanation: that this allows recorders in C to be played as if they were recorders in F read from a G1 clef in the normal way. (In the G1 clef, like the bass clef, the second space up is a C – fingered 0123 on an alto. This fingering gives a G on a C-recorder.)
Hitchcock (1990) considers Medée to be his theatrical masterpiece. It is conceivable that bass recorders were included among the bassons in other pieces: for instance the Offerte pour l'orgue et pour les violons, flûtes et hautbois; the Offerte non encor excecuttée; and some of his trios. All of them have recorders and oboes doubling on the upper parts.
Modern publications by Nova (ed. Lasocki) and Noetzel, also on SibeliusMusic.
Incidentally, Bach's Cantata 106, which is also for a funeral, has two alto recorders and two bass viols.
The manuscript was lost in WW1, but it is published by Hortus Musicus. There is another quartet by Witt, this time for oboes of different sizes and bassoon, doubling strings. See Haynes (1991), an extensive catalogue of oboe music, printed and in manuscript, and by far the best source of information for the repertoire of the oboe bands.

Johann Christoph Weigel's Bassoon Flûte, from Musicalishes Theatrum (ca 1720), heads this article.
Also, apparently, John Blow's Lord who shall dwell in thy tabernacle although I haven't seen it. The lack of English quartets makes one think immediately of Bressan's Chester quartet of alto, voice flute in D, tenor and F-bass. What was it used for? Lasocki (1982) writes about Princess (later Queen) Anne's personal wind band, which might well have had the two recorders, two oboes and basses that Keller and Finger wrote quintets for.
For oboe bands see Haynes (2001: §. 3-F & 5-A), and for their repertoire see Haynes (1991). Much of the background music and music for dancing is not very interesting out of context, and hardly any of it is published. I've put a few examples on SibeliusMusic; in particular some attractive movements from Telemann's Ouvertures, some theatre music by Charpentier, and one of the La Barre suites in four parts. (It's surprising that the La Barre suites have been ignored, considering his stature as a flute player and the popularity of his duets and solo sonatas.)

For the source of the Quantz quote, see Reilly (1976: xi, footnote 3). I mentioned oboe bands in Robinson (2003).
Taken from Haynes (2001: 37). The most successful modern attempt at this that I've heard is Hugo Reyne's massive recording of all twelve of Delalande's symphonies (Harmonia Mundi). The symphonies are mostly in two parts but it is clear they were played by ensembles of mixed instruments.