The Story of the Flute/Chapter 8

by Henry Macaulay Fitzgibbon

Layout 2

CHAPTER VIII.

ALTO AND BASS FLUTES.

The true bass flute—Early examples—Alto flutes—Modern examples—The flute d'amour—Recent revival.

Bass and alto flutes are mentioned by Agricola in 1528. Mersenne (1637) describes a cylinder bass flute an octave below the concert flute. This is aEarly
Examples true bass flute, a term which is generally applied to flutes which are really alto or tenor instruments. The Museum of the Paris Conservatoire contains a true bass boxwood flute (presented by Dorus), which is known as the "Fivefoot Flute," though it really measures a little over four English feet. It has three brass keys, is inscribed with the maker's name, "J. Beuker, Amsterdam," and has open keys for two holes (A and E) which could not be reached easily by the fingers. The only other key is for D♯. It dates from early in the eighteenth century. Malcolm Macgregor, a musical instrument maker in Carey Street. London, patented in 1810 a true bass flute. He doubled back the head-joint in order that the fingers might reach the lower holes (a device which is mentioned by Mersenne and also in Borde's Essay, 1780). The head-joint is a solid block of wood, containing two bores, connected together at the cork-end (Page 89, Fig. 1). The finger-holes are about double as far apart as on an ordinary flute, but they are brought within reach by means of keys. It measures about forty-three inches in all, the turned back portion being about twelve inches. Macgregor sometimes made the connection between the turned back head and the main body of the flute by means of a semi-circular metal pipe, the two tubes standing slightly apart.

Diderot and D'Alembert's Encyclopœdia (Paris, 1751-80) has a woodcut of a so-called bass flute in G with four open keys, covering the B G F♯ and E holes, and a closed key for D♯ (Page 89, Fig. 2). It is very slightly conoidal, with an ornamental bulb-end, and is bent back at the top with a small semi-circular tube of brass at the end. It is in four joints. A very similar flute, which is now in the Paris Conservatoire, was made by Charles Delusse, a Parisian flautist and composer (c. 1758). It measures fifty inches, and is of dark-stained boxwood, with ivory tips and brass keys.

There is in the Museo Civico at Verona a so-called bass flute of the seventeenth century, pitched in E♭, and measuring nearly three feet seven inches from the cork to the end. As the lowest hole is thirty and a half inches from the mouth-hole, no person of ordinary stature could finger the lower holes. Those for the little fingers are double.

The alto or tenor flute (sometimes called Flauto di Voce) occasionally has a large hole at the side near

from left to right:

Fig. 1—MacGregor's Bass Flute, 1810.

Fig. 2—Bass Flute in Diderot and D'Alembert's "Encyclopædia," 1751.

Fig. 3—Rudall, Carte & Co.'s Silver Bass Flute, Carte and Böhm's Systems Combined (1867 Patent).

the C′′♯ hole, covered with thin skin in order to give a sympathetic or reedy tone. Macgregor madeAlto
Flutes flutes of this kind, sometimes with a turned-back head-joint, and measuring about two feet three inches. They were generally pitched in G. Böhm made an alto flute a fourth lower than the ordinary flute, and wrote solos (now lost) for it. It was made of silver, and "compared to the C flute, it was like the voice of a powerful soprano in contrast to a child. Once when I played it in a church it was mistaken for a French horn." Many foreign makers of the early nineteenth century have made tenor and alto flutes, especially the Viennese and Parisians, and several were exhibited in the Exhibition of 1855. Some had no less than seven keys below the D, worked by the two little fingers and the left-hand thumb. In some the low G was so difficult to sound that when the flautist Sedlatzek succeeded in doing so, he stood the flute up in the corner of the room and saluted it! This very instrument is now in the possession of Rudall, Carte & Co. It is made of ebony by Koch of Vienna (c. 1827), and has thirteen keys.

Similar flutes were made by several English makers, Banbridge (1820), Burleigh (1855), Potter, and others.Modern
Examples They generally measure about two feet nine inches to three feet. Messrs. Rudall, Carte & Co. recently perfected an alto flute (Page 89, Fig. 3). It is of silver, about thirty-two inches long, and descends to G. This very beautiful instrument has a full, rich tone of novel character, and, strange to say, though so much longer and of so much larger a bore than the concert flute, it requires almost less expenditure of breath to sound. Moritz of Berlin has recently produced a similar instrument.

Another variety, frequently used in Bach's day, was termed the "Flute d'Amour." Flautists will remember that the slow movement in Terschak's fineThe Flute
d'Amour solo, La Siréne, is marked to be played as by a flute d'amour. This instrument is pitched a minor third below the concert flute and stands in the key of B. Oberlender made flutes of this pitch early in the nineteenth century. They had one key, and the finger-holes were bored obliquely. Clementi in 1819 made them with four square silver keys, going down to B♮ or B♭.

Berlioz regretted that the alto flute was not more used in his day. There is, however, a tendency of late to return to the ancient practice of employing in the orchestra a complete family of each of the different classes of wind instrument. The alto flute has already been employed in a considerable number of modern orchestral works (chiefly Russian) to produce special effects, and will doubtless be more largely used in future. Examples occur in Weingartner's Das Gefilde der Seligen, in one of Rimsky-Kosakow's ballets, and also in works by Glazounow and Joseph Holbrooke.^[1]

1. Mr. E. Græme Browne gave a recital on the so-called bass flute (in G) in London on July 23rd, 1913. He informs me that it has a compass of three full octaves, though no existing orchestral part extends above B′′.