Baroque Era Music for Simple System Flute

Blayne Chastain · Post by **Blayne Chastain** » Thu Jan 15, 2004 10:03 pm

I was just working up "Theme" from the Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 in F Major (first movement) for fingerstyle guitar and I've come to learn that this particular movement was originaly scored for flute, oboe, trumpet and violin! The melody fits perfect on a keyless flute!

Being that Bach wrote the piece around 1721, the flute would have been a 2 octave simple system flute! I guess that's why simple system flutes are also sometimes called "Bach System". I'm going to the music library soon to find the original parts so that I can work some material like this up with some of my peers.

For those of you who are into the baroque era and beyond, where could you steer me in finding more suitable pieces for simple system flute. I'd love to get a quartet or quintet together here. Dave Copley is making me an 8 Key so I'll be able to play chromatically.

Thanks,

Hoovorff · Post by **Hoovorff** » Fri Jan 16, 2004 6:30 am

Blayne, there's a lot of wonderful Baroque flute music for simple system flute: the Bach flute sonatas, CPE Bach's sonatas, Quantz (sonatas and concertos), Telemann (sonatas, fantasias), Boismortier (flute solos and pieces for 4-5 flutes), the Handel sonatas. This is only a few! I think a lot of it could be ordered from an early music shop (Boulder's Early Music Store---www.bems.com, I think). Most university music libraries would have these pieces, too.

Happy playing on your keyed Copley!

Jeanie

Tak_the_whistler · Post by **Tak_the_whistler** » Fri Jan 16, 2004 7:17 am

originally cello works though, but Bach's Cello Suites might be nice. When given plenty of echos, the result is great. Works quite well on Bariton/Tenor sax, too.

Gordon · Post by **Gordon** » Fri Jan 16, 2004 9:52 am

Keep in mind that the "simple system" flute in question was the one-key baroque flute, a flute far more flexibly capable of crossfingered chromatic play and three good octaves. A keyless simple-system "Irish" flute cannot do this well, and a keyed conical is a 19th c. system which doesn't do it as well; a good part of the reason the Boehm took over. On the downside to the baroque flute, it is in just-tuning, not equal temperament, meaning that many of it's tunings - which sound right relative to itself -- will sound a bit off next to an equal temperament instrument, such as the piano or a fretted guitar.
Nothing simple about any of these systems, really...
Gordon

Blayne Chastain · Post by **Blayne Chastain** » Sat Jan 17, 2004 11:45 am

Thanks for the input... Wow! I'm going to have to pay BEMS a visit!

I spoke with a friend yesterday about this very issue (Shannon Heaton www.siucra.net) and she pointed me towards a few more resources:

Telemann Canonic Duets & Loeillet Flute Music

Also, she said for an "interesting" read, Quantz has a book which a lot of you have probably read or looked at called "On Playing the Flute".

So let me ask a dumb question if I will. If the "baroque flute" was/is so versitile, why was the simple system flute with all it's keys developed? Better put maybe, what kind of music was it originally intended for?

tin tin · Post by **tin tin** » Sat Jan 17, 2004 12:37 pm

Different sonic ideals developed--the Baroque flute is sweet and dark and somewhat soft, the one-keyed classical flute is lighter and brighter sounding, the four keyed Classical aims for a more homogeneous sound, and the Romantic flute is a much larger sound overall. Forked fingerings used on a one-keyed flute lead to many notes sounding veiled, so that different keys (as in sharps and flats) have very different sonic qualities. Keys help achieve a more homogeneous sound, and as toneholes were enlarged to give the flute more power and volume, cross-fingerings no longer worked as well, and so keys became necessary for notes outside of D and G major. The Boehm system took volume and homogeneaity of sound to new levels.
This is somewhat oversimplified, but it gives the basic idea.
Check out www.baroqueflute.com for an interesting look at the range of historical flutes and the different music for which they're best suited.
Micah

Prospero · Post by **Prospero** » Sat Jan 17, 2004 3:16 pm

Hey thanks for posting this question -- I'd actually wondered about this myself. It would be ALOT of fun to play some baroque stuff on my keyless Copley. Now if I could just get my brother to take up the cello again for a little continuo . . .

Speaking of cello -- I like the suggestion re: Bach cello suites on flute -- that'd be total trip

Anyone tried it? Seems like the range would be too big -- also anyone figured out how to do double and triple stops on flute? Some kind of Tuvan Throat Singing Jedi Harmonic thing maybe?

Alan

glauber · Post by **glauber** » Sat Jan 17, 2004 3:19 pm

Quick suggestion: get stuff by Blavet, Quantz, Haendel, CPE Bach. Other early French composers are also very nice, but sometimes the ornamentation is a killer. I really love Blavet.

Stay away from Daddy (JS) Bach until you feel you're up to a bigger challenge.

jim stone · Post by **jim stone** » Sat Jan 17, 2004 3:55 pm

Great thread. I play Bach, but it's tunes I play.

So which flute was Big Daddy Bach writing for?
Can it play this stuff? If so are such flutes
avialiable? How much? Sorry, I'm
hyperventilating. I've heard stories
of composers of that era hating flutes,
as in 'the only thing that sounds worse
than a flute is two flutes.' I supposed
that recorders were more capable
of this music.

I'll look on the website listed above, in any case.
Thanks.

jim stone · Post by **jim stone** » Sat Jan 17, 2004 4:54 pm

I now have a whole lot more info.
Bit of a revelation. Thanks, Jim

Gordon · Post by **Gordon** » Sat Jan 17, 2004 8:35 pm

Jim, baroque music for flute was played on a variety of one-key conical flutes. In the late 17th century and into the 18th, they were very low pitch (around A392 or so) three piece flutes. In the new century, they went up in pitch a bit (maxing at 415 or so, later made an arbitrary baroque standard pitch by modern players), and around 1720 broke into the 4 piece one key. So Bach and Handel would have been played on a 3 or 4 piece flute (mostly the latter), in pitches roughly 392 to 415, Mozart, later in the century, a 4 piece one-key at around 430.
All these flutes were/are chromatic with cross fingering (and the use of the one-key for venting and the D#/Eb itself.), but in just intonation, whereby tuning was relative to itself (it became "equal" later by squashing fifths and thirds, etc., into equal segments that work out mathmatically, if not sonically, most accomplished on the piano, the modern tuning standard -- everyone must tune to a piano). As I mentioned on another thread, sharps and flats were once considered separate entities, not the same tones with different names, whereby Bb was sharper than A#, Ab sharper than G#, etc. The only note this wasn't true on was the Eb/D# keyed note, and a player back then needed to lip up and down to differentiate the two. Quantz went as far as adding an extra key for D#, as opposed to an Eb, but it never caught on.

In answer to your question, why keys, the short answer; tastes had changed. Keys made "weak" notes stronger, and by the time they came about, the differentiation between sharps and flats had left the music, and tuning was now ruled by the piano -- equal temperament was king. Keys eliminated the variety of colors the weak notes produced within the music -- now considered a bad thing -- and they eliminated alternate fingerings that shaded just tuning. As tastes changed, flutes were made with less and less tone colors, boasted a uniformity of tone throughout the flute range, rather than boasting a non-uniformity.
Modern ears are often bothered by these shadings, where once though they once were not only assumed, but desired and appreciated.

Generally speaking, these flutes sound best in the lower pitches, more mellow, sonorous -- modern pitch baroques usually sounds a bit weak and thin in comparison, and a bit too "quick" in response. They are very flexible and fun instruments to play, come in a variety of styles and models some of which, I think, handle either a wider or a more limited range of music (some of the earliest, lowest pitch instruments, for eg, really can't play Bach, and certainly not Mozart, very well). To play, they all take a bit of getting used to after a big-embouchured, big holed 19th century conical, but ultimately are great, rewarding instruments to play, either seriously or just for fun.

Finally, in perspective, keep in mind that the baroque one key, in its overall form, survived happily from between the mid-to-late 17th century through the early 19th, and they could be found in a watered-down version even in the early 20th. The 19th century classical wooden flutes most of us covet, on the other hand, came and went in a much shorter time span, replacing the baroque slowly, a key at a time and then with a variety of wildly different specimens, only to be overthrown by the Boehm system in the late part of the same century. In short, the baroque one-key is one of the longest lived "modern" flutes in western music -- almost anything can be played on one.

Gordon

jim stone · Post by **jim stone** » Sat Jan 17, 2004 9:09 pm

Absolutely fascinating. Really appreciate
this. And I see one can get them
at 440, now. The ones I've seen online
cost 2000 dollars or more. Are there
good instruments at a lower price?
I suppose the plastic Aulos (sp?) is
meant to be a baroque flute.

glauber · Post by **glauber** » Sat Jan 17, 2004 9:52 pm

jim stone wrote:Great thread. I play Bach, but it's tunes I play.

So which flute was Big Daddy Bach writing for?
Can it play this stuff? If so are such flutes
avialiable? How much? Sorry, I'm
hyperventilating. I've heard stories
of composers of that era hating flutes,
as in 'the only thing that sounds worse
than a flute is two flutes.' I supposed
that recorders were more capable
of this music.

I'll look on the website listed above, in any case.
Thanks.

Mozart, supposedly, didn't like flutes. It didn't stop him from writing a couple of wonderful flute sonatas, and the flute and harp sonata.

Bach: he was writing for the conical 1-key flute, the same we're discussing here. He didn't write much for flute (compared to, say, the violin), because it was kind of a novelty in his time, and the little he wrote is pretty difficult stuff. Not unplayable, and really wonderful stuff, just difficult.

Here's a copy of a flute made by somebody who knew Daddy Bach:
http://www.baroqueflute.com/models/Eichentopf.html
The FAQ in the same site
http://www.baroqueflute.com/faq.html
has a question about what's the best flute to play Bach.

In real life, people play Bach in all kinds of flutes. Last year i heard Janet See play the E Major sonata (which is pretty hard, even on a Boehm style flute) on a Bressan model, and she did it as if it was the easiest thing in the world.

About how much and where: a top of the line Baroque flute will cost you around US$2K or maybe a little less. It's cheaper than a top of the line "Irish" flute because there is only one key, and it's a very simple one. I already gave you a link to Ardal Powell's site. If you're serious about this, you should look that site over, just to see all the different kinds of flutes. There are some sound samples too. Other makers to consider are Rod Cameron and Clive Catterall. Aulos makes good plastic models. The Internet hangout for this kind of flutes is the EARLYFLUTE group in Yahoo. Feel free to ask some questions there. There are many small European makers that are very good too, i can think of Luc Verhoven (sp? probably wrong). Anyway, you'll find them in EARLYFLUTE.

g

glauber · Post by **glauber** » Sat Jan 17, 2004 9:54 pm

jim stone wrote:Absolutely fascinating. Really appreciate
this. And I see one can get them
at 440, now. The ones I've seen online
cost 2000 dollars or more. Are there
good instruments at a lower price?
I suppose the plastic Aulos (sp?) is
meant to be a baroque flute.

You can get some models at A=440. Aulos has one. My C.A. Grenser by Rod Cameron plays in 440 and 415, with an interchangeable middle part. It plays perfectly well in both picthes, which is quite an achievement, for a flute model that's 200 years old. My flute cost 2000 with the extra middle part, but it would just over 1,500 if you only want A=440. And i'd call that a top of the line flute. It's only when you start adding keys that you get prices over $2000 (or on eBay hehehe!).

msheldon · Post by **msheldon** » Sun Jan 18, 2004 1:57 am

glauber wrote:You can get some models at A=440. Aulos has one. My C.A. Grenser by Rod Cameron plays in 440 and 415, with an interchangeable middle part. It plays perfectly well in both picthes, which is quite an achievement, for a flute model that's 200 years old. My flute cost 2000 with the extra middle part, but it would just over 1,500 if you only want A=440. And i'd call that a top of the line flute. It's only when you start adding keys that you get prices over $2000 (or on eBay hehehe!).

Sweetheart has a Baroque flute with interchangeable sections as well. No idea of how well it plays. If it plays anything like my 1-key Irish flute though, it should be pretty good.