Appendix II.
notes, and its brilliancy. Its chief disadvantages are its occasional shrillness unless very skilfully played and its slightly metallic sound. It is not so sympathetic or round in tone as the wooden flute, which is fuller and richer, but slower in response. Moreover, it is liable to rapid fluctuations of pitch, caused by the tube getting hot or cold very rapidly, heat causing it to rise and vice versâ. It is admirable as a solo instrument or in the drawing-room, but in the orchestra the tone does not blend so well with the other wood winds (which are never made of metal), and stands out too prominently. It carries farther, however, than wood. Mr. W. S. Broadwood told me that when he last heard Doppler playing in the orchestra at Salzburg he was almost inaudible, playing on an old wooden flute. The same authority mentions how on one occasion he heard the silver flute in an orchestra from the further extremity of a large building, apparently playing isolated phrases without accompaniment; as he approached nearer he heard the double basses, then the violins; it is not so with a wooden or ebonite flute. But no doubt much depends on the individual player: nothing could be more beautiful than Svendsen's tone on a silver flute or Ciardi's on a wooden one.
The question of wood versus silver is in reality a matter of individual taste. Each prefers his own instrument. One who plays wood will tell you that silver is harsh and metallic, and that wood is sweeter; one who plays silver will tell you that it alone produces pure tone, and that wood is "fluffy" and "woolly." A player who has naturally a fine tone will be able to produce it on either material. I fancy that imagination has a good deal to say to it. On one occasion in my own house Mons. F. Brossa and some other flautists tried the experiment of each retiring in turn behind a screen and playing the same piece alternately on a wooden and a silver flute, with the result that we were all as often wrong as right in guessing which instrument was being played.
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