with a register foot joint and a cork nut-screw at the head joint. This instrument met all requirements. He was even against the use of the keys for Cft and C$, because they altered the recognized quality of tone of the instrument. When Tromlitz published his method, the family of flutes had become modified. It comprehended only the typical flute in D, the flute d amour a minor third lower, a "third" flute a minor third higher, and, finally, the little octave flute.
While Tromlitz was struggling in Germany with the idea of augmenting the compass of the flute downwards by employing open keys for Cj^ and C$, an Italian, Giovanni Batista Orazi,[1] increased the scale of the instrument downwards by the application of five new keys, viz., B, B[j, A, A.>, and G. At the same time that he produced this invention[2] he conceived the plugging of the lateral holes by the valve keys then recently invented by Potter. But it was hardly possible to obtain a perfect plugging of seven lateral holes with the aid of as many keys, for the control of which there were only the two little fingers, and therefore this invention of Orazi proved a failure.
In 1808 Frederick Nolan,[3] of Stratford, near London, conceived an open key, the lever of which, terminating by a ring, permitted the closing of a lateral hole at the same time the key was being acted upon. The combination in this double action is the embryo of the mechanism that a little later was to transform the system of the flute. Two years later Macgregor,[4] a musical-instrument maker in London, constructed a bass flute an octave lower than the ordinary flute. The idea was not new, as is proved by the existence of the bass flute mentioned above. The difference between the two instruments lies in the mechanism of the keys. That employed by Macgregor consisted of a double lever, a contrivance dating from before the middle of the 13th century, of which the application is seen in an oboe of large dimensions preserved in the National Museum at Munich.[5]
About 1830 the celebrated French flautist Tulou added two more keys, those of F$ and C$, and a key, called "de cadence," to facilitate the accompanying shakes.
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To increase the number of keys, to improve their system of plugging, and to extend the scale of the instrument in the lower region,—these had hitherto been the principal problems dealt with in the improvement of the flute. No maker, no inventor whose labours we have called attention to, had as yet devoted his attention to the rational division of the column of air by means of the lateral holes. In 1831 Theobald Boehm, a Bavarian, happening to be in London, was struck with the power of tone the celebrated English performer Charles Nicholson drew from his instrument. Boehm learned, and not without astonishment, that his English colleague obtained this result by giving the lateral holes a much greater diameter than was then usually admitted. About the same time Boehm made the acquaintance of an amateur player named Gordon, who had effected certain improvements; he had bored the lateral hole for the lower E, and had covered it with a key, while he had replaced the key for F with a ring. These innovations set Boehm about attempting a complete reform of the instrument.[6] He went resolutely to work, and during the year 1832 he produced the new flute which bears his name. This instrument is distinguished by a new mechanism of keys, as well as by larger holes disposed along the tube in geometrical progression.
Boehm's system had preserved the key of G open; Coche,[7] a professor in the Paris Conservatoire, assisted by Auguste Buffet the younger, a musical-instrument maker in that city, modified Boehm's flute by closing the GJf with a key, wishing thus to render the new fingering more conformable to the old. He thus added a key, facilitating the shake upon CJt with Dt and brought about some other changes in the instrument of less importance.
Boehm had not, however, altered the bore of the flute, which had been conical from the end of the 17th century. In 1846, however, he made further experiments, and the results obtained were put in practice by the construction of a new instrument, of which the body was bored cylindrical, but the head was modified at the embouchure. The inventor thus obtained a remarkable equality in the tones of the lower octave, a greater sonorousness, and a perfect accuracy of intonation, by establishing the more exact proportions which a column of air of cylindrical form permitted.
The priority of Boehm's invention was long contested, his detractors maintaining that the honour of having reconstructed the flute was due to Gordon. But an impartial investigation vindicates the claim of the former to the invention of the large lateral holes.[8] His greatest title to fame is the invention of the mechanism which allows the production of the eleven chromatic semitones intermediate between the fundamental note and its first harmonic by means of eleven holes so disposed that in opening them successively they shorten the column of air in exact proportional quantities.[9] Boehm[10] has published a diagram or scheme to be adopted in determining the position of the note-holes of wind instruments for every given pitch. This diagram gives the position of the intermediate holes which he had been enabled to establish by a rule of proportion based on the law of the lengths of strings.
The Boehm flute, notwithstanding the high degree of perfection it has reached, has not secured unanimous favour; even now there are players who prefer the ordinary flute. The change of fingering required for some notes, the great delicacy and liability to derangement of the mechanism, have something to do with this. In England especially, the ordinary flute retains many partisans, thanks to the improvements introduced by a clever player, Abel Siccama, in 1845.[11] He bored the lateral holes of E and A lower, and covered them with open keys. He added some keys, and made a better disposition of the other lateral holes, of which he increased the diameter, producing thus a sonorousness almost equal to that of the Boehm flute, while yet preserving the old fingering for the notes of the first two octaves. But in spite of these improvements the old flute will not bear an impartial comparison with that of Boehm. (V. M.)
- ↑ Saggio per costruire e suonare un flauto traverso enarmonico che ha i suoni bassi del Violino, Rome, 1797.
- ↑ The idea of this large flute was taken up again in 1819 by Trexler of Vienna, who called it the "panaulon."
- ↑ Patent, No. 3183.
- ↑ Patent, No. 3349.
- ↑ Another specimen, almost the same, constructed about 1775, and called "Basse de Musette," may be seen in the Museum of the Paris Conservatoire.
- ↑ See Ueber den Flötenbau und die neuesten Verbesserungen desselben, Mainz, 1847; and W. S. Broadwood, An Essay on the Construction of Flutes originally written by Theobald Boehm, published with the addition of Correspondence and other Documents, London, 1882.
- ↑ Examen critique de la Flûte Ordinaire comparée à la Flûte Boehm, Paris, 1838.
- ↑ They existed long before, however, in the Chinese Ty and the Japanese Fuye.
- ↑ The reader may consult with advantage Mr C. Welch's History of the Boehm Flute (London, 1883), wherein all the documents relating to this interesting discussion have been collected with great impartiality.
- ↑ See the Essay on the Construction of Flutes, already cited.
- ↑ Patent, No. 10553.