Page:The story of the flute (IA storyofflute1914fitz).djvu/67

Ring-keys—Nolan

and crescent" key was to alter the size of the C♯ hole, in order to render it better in tune when the B♮ is closed.^[1]

I have now traced the history of the development of the old-fashioned eight-keyed flute of our fathers and grandfathers (Page 31, Fig. 4), of which the earliest English description is to be found in Wragg's Flute Preceptor (1806). Various additional keys and levers were added from time to time, none of which came into any general or permanent use. Numerous experiments have been tried in respect to the size of the bore (it has

Fig. 12.—Nolan's Ring-key.

varied very little from the time of Mersenne) and of the holes, which need not be detailed here. Two inventions, however, deserve notice. J. N. Capeller (possibly assisted by Böhm) in 1811 devised a D′′♮ hole and key worked by the first finger of the right hand. This gave the shake from C♯ to D♮, hithertoCapeller
and Nolan's
Keys practically impossible, and is a most useful key, now found on all good flutes. More important still, the Rev. Frederick Nolan, of Stratford, in Essex, an amateur flautist, in 1808

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1. For diagrams of Pottgeisser's first flute and his ring-and-crescent key, and also for portrait of Tromlitz, see English Music pp. 147-8.