The Story of the Flute/Chapter 6
CHAPTER VI.
THE MILITARY FIFE.
Early history, examples, and references—Arbeau's description—Introduced into the French Army—Into the English Army—Duties of military fifers—Their position—Temporary disuse—Reinstatement—The true fife—In opera.
The drum and fife was one of the earliest forms of military music. Even amongst the ancient Greeks the vertical flute seems to have been used largelyEarly
History as a martial instrument, and the Lacedæmonians had a saying that "a good performer on the flute would make a man brave every danger and face even iron itself." This martial character has survived to modern times.
Strictly speaking, a fife is a small cylinder flute, generally unjointed, with six finger-holes and without any keys. It would appear to have been first introduced into military music early in the sixteenth century by the Swiss, who, as the principal mercenary soldiers of the Middle Ages, soon spread the instrument all over Europe. It was first known as the Zwerchpfeiff, Schweitzerpfeiff, or Swiss pipe (for pictures, see Chap. III., p. 30, ante), and is said to have been first used by the Swiss troops in the battle of Marignano (1515). It was also called 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's
Description 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 sound of the drum. He also gives instructions as to tongueing: "Il-y-a deux maniéres de flutter; l'une en tetant, l'aultre en rollant. Au premier la langue du joueur faict té, té, té ou tere, tere, tere, et au second jeu rollé, la langue, du joueur faict relé, relé, relé." The former method is "plus aigre et rude," and therefore more suitable for war. This highly interesting and rare old book contains a "Tablature du fifre ou arigot (i.e., flute[1]) au troisiesme ton" from C Sol to Ela. This table is stated to have been compiled by "Isaac
Fife Music from Arbeau's Orchesographie.
Huguet, organiste." Some very early fife music will also be found in Mars his Triumph by T. B. (1638), to accompany the manual and firing exercises.
In 1530 Cardinal Wolsey entertained King Henry VIII. at Whitehall with a concert of drums and fifes, and they were used in Lord Mayors' showsIntroduced
into the
French and
English
Armies in the sixteenth century. In 1671 Charles I. prohibited persons from playing them at fairs, etc., without a licence from the Royal Trumpeter. Rabelais in 1532 mentions fifes and tambours, and Du Bellay (Essai sur les Instruments, 1780) says that King Francis I. of France directed in 1534 that each band of one thousand men should have four drums and two fifes. Fifes were subsequently allotted to the Swiss companies only, and they disappeared from the French army altogether for some time, but were restored by Napoleon. They are no longer used by the French troops. It is to be noted that A. de Vigny omits "the ear-piercing fife" altogether in his translation of Othello. The instrument was first used in the English army in the reign of Henry VIII. who sent to Vienna for fifes. He had a fifer named Jacques, and another named Oliver, who performed at the King's funeral in 1547. The royal fifer and drummer were paid 45s. for their livery in 1532; in 1555 the King's fifers were Henry Ball and Thomas Curson. "Ffyffers" are included in the muster-roll of the London Train bands in 1539; and the Privy Council Acts, 1548, provide for four drums and two fifes, and one John Pretre is named as fifer. Fifes are often mentioned in Elizabethan literature (where they are sometimes called "Whiffles"), almost always in connection with drums, trumpets, and soldiers. In Barret's Theoricke and Practike of Modern Warres (1598) "drumes and phifes" are mentioned. Burton, in his Anatomy of Melancholy (1621), says "the trumpet, drum, and fife are soldiers' instruments." Francis Markham, in his Five Decades of Epistles of War (1622), says he knew no more sweet and solemn melody than that which drums and fifes afforded, but elsewhere he disapproves of the military use of the fife, which he ignominiously terms "a whistle," and says that it is to the voice of the drum that the soldier should wholly attend. These early fifers would seem to have been often "but easy players and very drunkards." The band of the British Royal Artillery, when at St. Quentin in 1557, included a "drum and phife," and a document of the year 1621 mentions that the English army had forty drummers and forty fifers.
The following curious regulations were laid down at this period for army fifers:—"All capitaines must have drommes and ffifes, and men to use theDuties of
Military
Fifers same, who shall be faithfull, secrete, and ingenious, of able personage to use their instruments and office, of sundrie languages; for oftentimes they bee sent to parley with their enemies, to sommon theire efforts and diverse other messages, which of necessitie requireth language. If such drommes and ffifes should fortune to fall into the hands of the enemies, noe guifte nor force should cause them to disclose any secrettes that they knowe. They must often practice theire instruments, teach the companye the soundes of the marche, allarum, approache, assaulte, battaile, retreate, skirmishe, or any other challenge that of necessitie should be knowen. They must be obediente to the commandemente of theire captaine and ensigne, when as they shall command them to comme, goe, or stande, or sound theire retreate
or callinge."
It would therefore appear that the fifers were expected to act more or less as interpreters (doubtless many of them were foreigners), and also to a certain extent as drill instructors. Part of the duty of the Fife-Major in 1748 was to inflict corporal punishment, which was later relegated to the Drum-Major. Fifers were clearly of a higher rank than the ordinary soldiers, and were paid on a higher scale, receiving 1s. a day, whereas the private soldier only got 8d. They carried a case containing several fifes in different pitches at their side, as may be seen in many old pictures. Sometimes a banner was attached to the fife, as shown in Sandford's picture of the coronation procession of James II. The Soldier's Accidence (1629) mentions that the eldest fife marched along with the eldest drum. The march usually played by the English fifes and drums at this period struck the French Marshal Biron as "slow, heavy, and sluggish." On his remarking this to Sir Roger Williams, the latter replied, "That may be true, but still it has traversed your master's country from one end to the other."
In the reign of Charles I. the fife disappeared for a while from the English army, its place being taken byTemporary
Disuse
and Re-
instatement the bagpipe or the hautboy. Four drums and a fife, however, were used at the funeral of the Duchess of Saxony in 1666. It was re-introduced into the British Guards when at Maestricht in 1747. The re-introduction is attributed to the Duke of Cumberland; and at the termination of the war a Hanoverian named John Ulrich was brought over from Flanders specially to teach the fife to the Royal Artillery, and in June 1753 that corps had a Drum-Major, ten drummers, a Fife-Major, and five fifers. Hogarth's famous picture of the March of the Guards, painted in December 1750, includes a drummer and fifer. The old fife calls are still preserved in the Guard regiments. In 1747 another Hanoverian was fife teacher in the first line regiment to adopt the fife—viz., the 19th Foot, popularly known as the Green Howards. Most of the drummers also played the fife. They were at first allowed only in the Grenadier company, and were paid by the officers. (Grose, Mil. Ant.) Fifers were also used in English cavalry regiments before the end of the eighteenth century.
The true fife, which was generally set in B♭, F, or C, was faulty in intonation; it disappeared about 1860, and its place was taken by small flutes of conical bore and fitted with keys. Prowse made a fife with eleven holes and no keys so late as 1825; I do not quite see how this could be fingered.
Handel, in his opera Almira (iii. 3), has a band of cymbals, drums, and fifes where Consalvo enters as Asia surrounded by lions. Meyerbeer, inFife in
Opera addition to the usual orchestra, has introduced a fife and drum band, and also a brass band (both on the stage), in his L'Etoile du Nord, all playing different tunes simultaneously: the effect is noisy but imposing. These are the only instances that I can recall of the introduction of the fife in orchestral or operatic music.[2]