Story of the Flute
the Feldpfeiff (of which there were two kinds). Later on it was termed the Almain whistle (Turner so names it in 1683), owing to its being much used by the German troops. A fife of this period, preserved in the Museum of the Brussels Conservatoire, is made of dark brown wood flattened on the upper side, on which the holes are placed. It measures 12.7 inches in length, and has a bore of .37 inch. Its pitch is in B♮. Fifes and drums are depicted in an engraving by Albert Durer, representing the triumph of Maximilian in 1512, also in a picture of the siege of Pavia (now in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford), painted in 1525. A journal of the siege of Boulogne, 1544, printed in Rymer's Fœdera, mentions "drummes and viffeurs" as marching at the head of the royal army. Waterman, in his Fardle Factions, 1555, says the Turks use "a dromme and a fiphe to assemble their bandes" (ii. xi. 248). Prætorius and Mersenne both depict fife and drum on the same page.
Thoinot Arbeau (whose real name was Jehan Taburet) in 1588 published at Langres a work entitled Orchesographie,Arbeau'sDescription in the form of a dialogue between one Capriol and the author, in which he describes at some length these fifes used by the Swiss and Germans, and gives an illustration of a soldier playing one. He says: "D'aultant qu' elle est percée bien estroictement de la grosseur d'un boulet de pistolet, elle rend un son agu" (p. 17). He tells us that the player plays any music he likes, and amplifies it at will; it is enough for him to keep time with the
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