The orchestra and its instruments

The Woodwind Family consists of instruments that may be described as wooden tubes, or pipes, through which the performer blows, stopping the holes in these pipes with his fingers in order to get various notes. Some of these are furnished with reeds and some are without. It is easy for us to tell the difference when we look at the Orchestra. The flutes are held horizontally and have no reeds. All the reed instruments are held by the player in a straight line, perpendicularly. The Reed Family is divided into two groups: the oboe group, furnished with a double reed; and the clarinet group, furnished with a single reed. This reed, single or double, placed in the mouthpiece of the instrument, is the “speaking” part. Without it, the instrument could not be played. The reed corresponds to the sound-post of the violin.

The reed is made of the outer layer of a certain kind of grass that grows in the south of Europe. Most of it is obtained from Fréjus on the Mediterranean. The reed is very difficult to fit and the player is very particular about it. If anything goes wrong with the reed, the instrument makes a dreadful noise that is called the couac, or quack. It is even worse than the wolf[19] on a stringed instrument.

In all woodwind instruments the embouchure is important. The embouchure is a certain arrangement of the lips by which the performer throws into the instrument all the breath that comes through the mouth without losing any of it and without giving the slightest hissing sound.

THE FLUTE

If we listen attentively to any piece of orchestral music, we will notice that the voice of the flute is rarely silent. Very often it doubles the first violins in the melody, running along with them smoothly and sweetly. Sometimes it plays an unobtrusive part of its own and every now and then bursts out into a lovely and elaborate solo, when its clear, silvery, liquid notes sound deliciously cool against the warm, vibrant strings. The flute is one of the most agile and flexible instruments in the whole Orchestra. The flute is the nightingale, the thrush, the lark, the oriole, the mocking-bird of the Orchestra. It warbles.

The voice of the flute is gentle; it is ethereal; it is heavenly; it is pure; it is sweet; and it is soothing. Therefore, composers make use of it for poetic and tender sentiment; for scenes of a religious nature; and to suggest beautiful dreams. It is both graceful and poetic and it induces reverie.

“To most persons,” Lavignac writes, “as to myself, the ethereal, suave, transparent timbre of the flute, with its placidity and its poetic charm, produces an auditive sensation similar to the visual impression of the color blue, a fine blue, pure and luminous as the azure of the sky.”

The flute is a long tube made in three pieces, or joints, as they are called. The head is one-third the length of the tube; the body carries the keys that produce the scale of D major; and, lastly, comes the foot joint, or tail-joint. The flute is cylindrical and is made of wood or silver. In the silver flute the head-joint alone is slightly conical. In the side of the head there is a large opening, less than an inch below the cork, and across this opening the performer blows his breath. On the lower part of the flute are six holes to be stopped at will by the first three fingers of each hand; and three or four levers on the lowest joint furnish additional notes below the regular scale of the instrument.

The performer holds the instrument transversely, sloping downward against the lower lip with the hole, through, or across, which he is to blow turned slightly outward, so that the stream of wind—the “air-stream” it is called—shall strike against the outer edge of this hole. The left hand takes the position nearest the player’s mouth. Four open keys are closed by the first, second and third fingers and thumb placed at the back of the instrument. The little finger touches an open key, G-sharp, or A-flat. On the right hand joint are three open keys for the first, second and third fingers, with the accessory, or “shake,” keys. The right little finger takes the closed key of D-sharp and the two open keys of C-sharp and C. The G-sharp key is open in some flutes, but generally G-sharp closed key is used by flute-players.

The flute has no reed. Instead of a reed the “air-stream” from the player’s lips, thrown against the sharp edge of the hole obliquely, produces the sound-waves.

The principle is that each note comes independently out of a separate hole and speaks independently, just as if the rest of the tube were cut off. All keys are open with the exception of G-sharp, E-flat keys—and also the two small trill-keys.

Formerly the flute had no keys, or levers. It merely had finger-holes; but between the years 1832 and 1847 Theobald Boehm, a German, by following some experiments made by Captain Gordon of Charles X’s Swiss Guards, worked away until he developed a system of keys, manipulated by means of levers. His invention was so successful that the player has now command of more holes; and, by means of this system, it therefore became possible to play in every key.

The flute stands in this one scale of D-major, so the only way to get higher notes depends upon the breath and lips of the player. “This is the eternal question,” says George Barrère, “playing upper octaves does not require mere blowing as we can play forte in lower octave and pianissimo in the upper. The real means of playing upper is lips. It is not a secret; but how many flute-players ignore it, making the flute the most disagreeable instrument to hear!” A good embouchure, as the whole manipulation of the mouth is called, is essential to artistic flute-playing. Moreover, the fingers must be raised at equal heights—and not too high.

The player takes a calm, firm, easy, and often graceful, attitude before his desk. Good flute-players also learn a great proportion of their music by heart.

Staccato notes and ornamental passages are produced by “single tonguing,” and “double tonguing,” and “triple tonguing.” For different effects the player makes an effort to pronounce certain consonants, k or t for example; but instead of pronouncing them he blows them off his tongue in a little kind of explosion. But all this is done quickly and with ease by a virtuoso.

The tones of the first octave are rather faint; those of the second octave, produced by exactly the same fingering as those of the first and with a stronger blowing of the breath, are stronger; and those of the third octave, also produced by the same fingering, are more penetrating.

Boehm’s explanation is worth quoting to help us understand the production of tone. He says: “The open air-column in a flute’s tube is exactly comparable to a stretched violin string. As the string is set into vibration by the bow, the air-column in the flute is set into vibration by the blowing of the performer’s breath and management of the lips. As the clear quality of tone of a violin depends upon the proper handling of the bow, so the pure quality of tone of a flute depends upon the direction of the ‘air-stream’ blown against the edge of the mouth-hole.

“Each octave requires a different direction of the ‘air-stream’; and, by increasing the force of the breath, the tone is increased. By ‘over-blowing,’ each tone can be made to break into higher tones.”

Older composers seem to have cared very little for the flute. They did not have the modern improved Boehm flute. They found that the performer often played out of tune. Cherubini said: “The only thing in the world that is worse than one flute is two.” Many agreed with him. However, Haydn wrote a trio for flutes in his oratorio of The Creation and Handel wrote a beautiful obbligato for it in the aria, “Sweet bird that shun’st the noise of folly,” in Il Penseroso, where it imitates the bird. Bach wrote six Sonatas for the flute.

Handel’s aria, “O ruddier than the Cherry,” in Acis and Galatea, now played on the piccolo, was originally written for the flute.

Mozart wrote two concertos for the flute and one for flute, harp and orchestra. It is very evident in the Magic Flute.

A solo passage in Beethoven’s Leonora Overture, No. 3, is very famous. In Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony it impersonates the nightingale.

Mendelssohn loved the flute dearly. It is very important in his Midsummer Night’s Dream music. It plays lovely sustained chords in the Overture, a beautiful part in the Nocturne and the Scherzo contains one of the most celebrated passages ever written. He also gave it an exquisite obbligato in the quartet O Rest in the Lord in the oratorio of Elijah.

Wagner has a fine part for the flute throughout the Meistersinger; it is important in the Largo of Dvořák’s New World Symphony, where it plays with the oboe; Liszt made it conspicuous in his Hungarian Rhapsodie, No. 2; and it sings in the Morning of Grieg’s Peer Gynt Suite.

Berlioz and Tschaikowsky both played the flute themselves and, naturally, their works are full of beautiful melodies for this instrument. Berlioz calls for two flutes and harp for the Cris des Ismaëlits in L’Enfance du Christ. Tschaikowsky’s symphonies are a delight to the flute-player. An exceptionally striking use of the flute is in the Danse des Mirlitons and Danse Chinoise in the Nut-cracker Suite.

Richard Strauss, who always goes a little farther than anybody else, has in the “Windmill” number of the Don Quixote Variations called for the “flutter tongue,” a new way of rolling the tongue. The name describes it.

Last, but not least, we must recall Gluck. What could be more beautiful than his use of the flute in Armide, unless it is to be found in the music of Orfeo? All through that beautiful opera the plaintive, tender voice of the flute is conspicuous. Not only does it play melodies for the enchanting ballets and minuets, but its wailing notes tell us of the grief of Orpheus for his adored Eurydice; and when we arrive in the Elysian Fields with Orpheus its pure and ethereal voice, heard in a solo of ravishing beauty, lifts us out of the everyday world we live in and transports us into a realm of blissful peace and enchanting beauty.

In early days the flute was played by holding it straight in front and not horizontally as shown in the picture facing page 74. The German, Quantz, did much to bring the horizontal flute into fashion. One of his most enthusiastic pupils was Frederick the Great, King of Prussia, who is shown in the picture facing this page playing a flute concerto with his orchestra at Sans Souci, taken from an engraving by Chodowieki. The King’s favorite greyhounds are the only listeners. Franz Benda is the first violin and Christian Friedrich Fasch, who succeeded Philipp Emanuel Bach (son of J. S. Bach), is playing the harpsichord.

Modern compositions usually call for two flutes and a piccolo.

THE PICCOLO

The piccolo is the little flute. Properly, it should be spoken of as the piccolo flute, for just as we have seen in the case of the violoncello the word ’cello means little or small, so the word piccolo is an adjective and not a noun. However, people speak of it simply as the piccolo. The piccolo plays the upper octave of the flute. It is less than half the length of the flute and it lacks the “foot-joint.” Its compass is over two octaves. Almost every piccolo player can play high B and even C. The music for the piccolo is always written in the Treble Clef, an octave below the real pitch, that is to say an octave below the real sound of the notes. The fingering and technique are exactly the same as for the flute, so anything that can be played on the flute can be played on the piccolo.

It should be noted here that two-thirds of the compass of the flute plays within the compass of a high soprano; now, the piccolo, on the other hand, is nearly always playing in a register higher than that of any human voice. It is the most acute and piercing of all instruments in the orchestra; for even the corresponding notes produced by harmonics on the violin are far less shrill and penetrating. The piccolo rarely plays in its lower register. Its second octave is bright and joyous; but in this we hardly distinguish it from the flute. What we do notice are the piercing upper notes in quick runs, in chromatic passages and wild screams. Sometimes too, the piccolo can be made to utter something of a diabolical nature.

The piccolo is often used to brighten the upper notes of the other members of the Woodwind Family in all kinds of combinations. This method of using the piccolo might be likened to brightening up an article with gold leaf. We might say that the piccolo sometimes adds a sort of gilt edge to the melody.

Berlioz liked to use it in this way for additional ornamentation, so we hear a great deal of this kind of piccolo gilt-edging, as we might call it, in his works. Berlioz gave it a great deal of thought. “In pieces of a joyous character,” he wrote, “the sounds of the second octave are suitable in all their gradations; while the upper notes are excellent fortissimo for violent and tearing effects: in a storm, for instance, or in a scene of fierce, or infernal, character. Thus the piccolo flute figures incomparably in the fourth movement of Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony—now alone and displayed above the low tremolo of violins and basses, imitating the whistlings of a tempest whose full force is not yet unchained—now on the higher notes still, together with the entire mass of the Orchestra. Gluck in the tempest of Iphigénie en Tauride has known how to make the high sounds of the piccolo flute in unison grate still more roughly by writing them in a succession of sixths, a fourth above the first violins. The sound of the piccolo flutes issuing out in the upper octave, produces, therefore, a succession of elevenths with the first violins, the harshness of which is here of the very best effect.

“In the chorus of the Scythians, in the same opera, the two piccolo flutes double in the octave the little grouped passages of the violins. These whistling notes mingled with the ravings of the savage troop, with the measure and incessant din of the cymbals and tambourine make us shiver.

“Everyone has remarked the diabolic sneer of the two piccolo flutes in thirds in the drinking-song of Freischütz. It is one of Weber’s happiest orchestral inventions.

“Spontini in his magnificent bacchanalian strain in the Danaïdes (since become an orgy chorus in Nurmahal) first conceived the idea of uniting a short piercing cry of the piccolo flutes to a stroke of the cymbals. The singular sympathy, which is thus created between these very dissimilar instruments, had not been thought of before. It cuts and rends instantaneously, like the stab of a poignard. This effect is very characteristic—even when employing only the two instruments mentioned; but its force is augmented by an abrupt stroke of the kettledrums joined to a brief chord of all the other instruments.

“Beethoven, Gluck, Weber and Spontini have thus made ingenious use—no less original than rational—of the piccolo flute. But when I hear this instrument employed in doubling in triple octave the air of a baritone, or casting its squeaking voice into the midst of a religious harmony, or strengthening and sharpening—for the sake of noise only—the high part of the orchestra, I think it a stupid method of instrumentation.

“The piccolo flute may have a very happy effect in soft passages; and it is mere prejudice to think that it should only be played loud. Sometimes it serves to continue the scale of the large flute by following up the latter and taking high notes beyond the flute’s command. The passing from one instrument to the other may then be easily managed by the composer in such a way as to make it appear that there is only one flute of extraordinary compass.”

Handel used an instrument that corresponded in his day to the piccolo in his wonderful accompaniment to the bass song, “O ruddier than the Cherry,” in Acis and Galatea, where he gives it a pastoral character. He also makes it play an obbligato in the aria, “Hush ye Pretty Warbling Choir,” in the same cantata. He does the same thing again in the aria, Auguelletti che cantate, in Rinaldo. Meyerbeer gives it much to do in his infernal waltz in Robert le Diable; and in Marcel’s song “Piff Paff” in Les Huguenots it adds brilliancy to the martial effect. Beethoven has a striking place for the piccolo in the finale of his Egmont Overture; Verdi makes it heard in Iago’s drinking-song in Otello; it is conspicuous in the grotesque dances of the dolls in the ballet of Coppelia by Delibes; Wagner uses it in his storms, in the Ride of the Walküre, and in all his fire-music in the Nibelungen Ring; Strauss gives a peculiar trill for it in Till Eulenspiegel; and Berlioz gives it full play in his Carnaval Romain, op. 9; and in the Minuet of the “Will o’ the Whisps” of his Damnation of Faust he calls for three piccolos.

Therefore, we might characterize the piccolo as the imp, or demon, of the Orchestra, or the flash of lightning, or the darting flame, or the whistling wind.

THE OBOE

The Oboe, like the violin, comes from a family of long ancestry. It goes back to ancient Egypt, Assyria and Greece. In the Middle Ages this family was known as the Bombardo, Bombardino, Bombardi, or Chalumeau. The Germans called this family Pommers, which seems to be a corruption of Bombardi.

“The Bombardo,” writes Carl Engel, “was made of various sizes and with a greater or smaller number of finger-holes and keys. That which produced the bass tones was sometimes of enormous length and was blown through a bent tube like the bassoon, the invention of which it suggested. The smallest instrument, called chalumeau (from calamus, a reed) is still occasionally to be found among the peasantry in the Tyrol and some other parts of the Continent. The Germans call it Schalmei and the Italians piffero pastorale. In England it was formerly called shawm, or shalm.”

The type of these instruments was a conical tube of wood with a bell at one end and a bent metal tube at the other containing a double reed mouthpiece. There was a quartet of them; and the oboe, or hautbois (high-wood) was the treble. There was also an oboe d’amore[20] and an oboe di caccia, hunting oboe (from which the cor anglais is supposed to have been derived), and there were many others. Old writers refer to them as chalumeau and schalmey and shawm; and in such a general and confused way that it is hard to know just which special instrument they are talking about. These old oboes are called for in Bach’s scores; but they began to drop out of use in his time. We know, however, that chalumeau was the instrument of the old reed band that always played the melody and that from it sprang the oboe of to-day. The instrument went through many changes before it reached its present condition; but none of these affected the family voice—the penetrating, roughish twang. The Bombardino-Schalmey voice still persists: it is like some other famous family traits—the Bourbon nose and the Hapsburg lip for instance—it is hard to suppress. However, it is this peculiar voice that makes the oboe such a desirable member of the orchestra.

“The timbre is thin and nasal, very piercing in its forte passages, of exquisite refinement in its piano passages; harsh and of bad quality in its very high and very low notes. The oboe is artless and rustic in its expression; it is pastoral and melancholy; if it is gay, its gayety is frank and almost excessive and exaggerated; but its natural tone is of a gentle sadness and a resigned endurance. It is unrivalled in depicting simple, rural sentiments of any kind, and on occasion can even become pathetic.”[21]

The oboe is the most elaborate and complicated of all the reed instruments. The mechanical changes are due to Apollon Marie Rose Barret (1804-1879), a remarkable French oboe-player, aided by a French instrument-maker named Triébert. Historically and musically the oboe is the most important member of the reed band. It is first of all a melodic instrument; or, in other words, its tone quality is what it is especially valued for and not for brilliant passages. It can call up pastoral scenes and it can express innocence, grief, pathos and gentle gayety.

The oboe is a wooden pipe, or tube, with conical bore widening out gradually until it forms a small bell, shaped something like the flower of a morning-glory, or convolvulus. At the opposite end it has a small metal tube, or mouthpiece, called “staple,” to which the reed (consisting of two blades of thin cane) is attached by means of silken threads. Along the wooden pipe are two “speaker keys,” worked by metal rods called “trackers.” This reed is the speaking part of the instrument.

The oboe is made in three pieces,—the head-piece, bottom and bell-joints. The player first screws the joints of his instrument together so that the finger-holes are in a straight line, and then he puts the reed in the head-piece. The first, second and third fingers of each hand are used to cover the holes. The whole instrument rests on the thumb of the right hand. The little fingers and the thumb of the left hand are used for the keys. The fingers are always placed over the finger-holes ready to close them when necessary. The fundamental scale is obtained by opening and shutting the holes pierced laterally in the pipe and these are governed by a mechanism called “speaker keys.”

The scale of the oboe begins on the middle C and is chromatic. The instrument, being conical, “over-blows” an octave. It runs up to the extreme treble G. But although it is a soprano, it is a “middle compass” instrument. Music for it is written from F on the first space of the Treble Clef to D in octave above.

The fingering resembles that of the flute; but, owing to the reed in his mouth, the player can only use single tonguing.

The player puts the reed between his lips, taking care that his teeth do not touch the mouthpiece. Then he places his tongue against the open part of the reed, presses the reed with his lips, draws his tongue gently backwards and blows a stream of air into the oboe, managing his breath as if for singing. Sometimes he pronounces the syllable doo and sometimes that of too, according to the effect he wants to get.

The double reed in the player’s mouth is the sound-producer. The air-column inside the pipe acts as a resonating medium, strengthening the vibrations of the reed by vibrations of its own.

As the player is obliged to take his lips from the mouthpiece to exhale, he cannot perform long sustained passages without pauses. While the oboe does not require as much breath for blowing as some instruments do, the difficulty is to exhale and refill the lungs so as to go on with the rest of the work.

The notes are produced by holes, some open, others closed by keys raised by means of levers. The oboe, like the flute, is an octave instrument, that is to say it “over-blows” the octave. The oboe possesses notes sufficient for an octave, or more, with chromatic intervals. The next octaves are obtained by means of cross-fingering and from the octave keys which do not give out an independent note of their own but determine a node in the column of air and so raise the pitch of any other note an octave. The oboe is a “non-transposing instrument” and sounds the note written.

“It is possible to play on this instrument chromatic scales and arpeggio passages; legato and staccato; leaps; cantabile passages; sustained notes; diminuendo and crescendo; grace notes and shakes.”

“The oboe,” writes Berlioz, “is especially a melodic instrument. It has a pastoral character full of tenderness,—indeed I might say timidity. Candor, artless grace, soft joy, or the grief of a fragile being suits the oboe’s accents: it expresses them admirably in its cantabile.

“A certain degree of agitation is also within its powers of expression; but care should be taken not to urge it into utterance of passion—a rash outburst of anger, threat, or even heroism; for then its small acid-sweet voice becomes uneffectual and absolutely grotesque.

“Gluck and Beethoven understood marvellously well the use of this valuable instrument. To it they owe the profound emotions excited by several of their finest pages. I have only to quote from Gluck’s Agmemnon’s air in Iphigénie en Aulide ‘Can the harsh Fates?’ These complaints of an innocent voice, these continued supplications, ever more and more appealing, what instrument could they suit so well as an oboe? And the celebrated burden of the air of Iphigénie en Tauride, ‘O Unhappy Iphigénie!’

“Beethoven has demanded more from the joyous accent of the oboe. Witness the solo of the Scherzo of the Pastoral Symphony and also that of the Scherzo of the Ninth Symphony, also that in the first movement of the Symphony in B-flat. But he has no less felicitously succeeded in assigning them sad, or forlorn, passages. These may be seen in the minor solo of the second return of the first movement of the Symphony in A-major in the episodical Andante of the finale to the Eroica Symphony; and above all, in the air of Fidelio, where Florestan, starving to death, believes himself, in his delirious agony, surrounded by his weeping family and mingles his tears of anguish with the broken sobs of the oboe.”

In Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony the oboe impersonates the quail and in Haydn’s Seasons it imitates the crowing of a cock in a long and difficult passage. Perhaps the most beautiful use of the oboe in all music is in Gluck’s opera of Orfeo, in which it plays an exquisite minuet with the flute and a beautiful ballet with the violin. Schubert uses it charmingly in the second movement of his Symphony in C-major.

COR ANGLAIS

The cor anglais, or English horn, differs slightly in appearance from the oboe; but these differences help us to identify it. In the first place, it ends in a kind of ball; and in the second place, there is a bent crook at the other end that holds the mouthpiece containing the double reed. It is supposed that the word Anglais is a corruption of the word anglé, meaning bent; for in olden times this instrument was bent at an obtuse angle in the middle of the tube. It is, therefore, more correct to call it cor anglais than English horn. The English have had nothing whatever to do with the development of the instrument.

The cor anglais is nothing more or less than the alto, or tenor, oboe. It has the same scale and compass as the oboe; but it stands in the key of F, a fifth below that of the oboe. It is, however, unlike the oboe, a “transposing instrument,” that is to say, the music does not represent the real sounds. In the case of the cor anglais the music is written in a key a fifth above the real sounds. Any good oboe player can play the cor anglais, because the technique and fingering are practically the same.

“Its tone,” says Lavignac, “is essentially sad, melancholy, sorrowful. The cor anglais exactly suits the expression of mental suffering, which is, therefore, especially characteristic of it.” “Its quality of tone,” says Berlioz, “less piercing, more veiled and deeper than that of the oboe, does not so well as the latter lend itself to the gayety of rustic strains. Nor could it give utterance to anguished complainings. Accents of keen grief are almost beyond its powers. It is a melancholy, dreamy, and rather noble voice, of which the sonorousness has something vague and remote about it which renders it superior to all others in exciting regret and reviving images and sentiments of the past when the composer desires to awaken the secret echo of tender memories. In compositions where the prevailing impression is that of melancholy the frequent use of the cor anglais hidden in the midst of the great mass of instruments is perfectly suited.”

The cor anglais has been called “an oboe in mourning.” Perhaps that will give the best idea of its sorrowful voice.

The cor anglais came directly from the alto pommer of the Schalmey-Pommer family.[22] Most probably the oboe di caccia, or hunting oboe, was its immediate ancestor. A very good reason for thinking this the case is because in Rossini’s Overture to William Tell the “Ranz des vaches” (calling the cows) was originally given to the oboe di caccia, which was still in use in Rossini’s time; and when the oboe di caccia became obsolete, the part was taken by the newer cor anglais.

The cor anglais and the oboe assumed their modern appearance about the same time. Both instruments were much changed in construction and mechanism during the last hundred years; but both instruments kept the old family voice, which has a curious harsh quality combined with plaintiveness.

Beethoven wrote a Trio for two oboes and cor anglais, op. 29. The French composers made it popular. Meyerbeer has it play an obbligato to the aria “Robert, toi que j’aime,” in Robert le Diable; Berlioz made it important in his Symphonie Fantastique; and it appears in Dvořák’s New World Symphony, having a melody in the Largo with accompaniment of strings con sordini. Strauss gives it prominence in Heldenleben.

Of its famous solos none is so haunting as the plaintive part in Act III of Tristan and Isolde. Here the long, sad melody heard on the Shepherd’s pipe is entrusted to the saddest voice in the orchestra,—the cor anglais.

THE BASSOON

The bassoon is the bass of the oboe group, holding the same place in this family that the violoncello does in the String Family. It is a descendant of the old bass pommer, the bass of the Schalmey Family; but in the various transformations that took place between 1550 and 1600 the characteristic Schalmey family voice disappeared in the bassoon. The tone-color of the bassoon is quite unlike that of the oboe and that of the cor anglais, although it is played with a double reed.

The bassoon is a pipe, or tube, eight feet long conically bored and turned back upon itself so as to reduce its length to about four feet. The instrument consists of five pieces: (1) the bell; (2) the bass, or long joint; (3) the double joint; (4) the wing; and (5) the crook, a small curved tube of metal which holds the mouthpiece with the double reed. The bottom of the instrument is stopped by a flattened oval cork. The pipes meet at the double joint and turn upward. The holes are pierced obliquely so as to bring them within reach of the player’s fingers. There are three holes in the wing-joint and three others in the front of the double joint, to be closed by the first three fingers of each hand. A single hole on the back of the double joint is for the thumb of the right hand. The little finger of the right hand touches two keys; and a series of interlocking keys is on the bass, or long, joint producing the lowest notes of the scale for the left thumb to work.

The player holds the instrument diagonally in the hollow of his two hands, with the left hand uppermost at the level of his breast, and, of course, nearest the bell of the bassoon. The right hand is placed below and behind his right thigh. The double joint of the bassoon rests against the player’s knee. The bell of the instrument points upward.

The bassoon stands in the key of G-major and plays an octave lower than the oboe. Its compass is three octaves and a half, the lowest note being B-flat. The music for it is written in the Bass Clef and in the Tenor Clef for the highest notes. Like the flute and oboe, its deep notes are its fundamental tones; those of its middle register are second harmonics; and those of its highest register are third, fourth and fifth harmonics. The fingering is the same for all octaves. The higher notes are produced by “over-blowing,” so that the air-column in the instrument vibrates differently according to the way the player directs his breath.

“Its lowest tones,” writes Lavignac, “are solemn and pontifical, like an organ pedal. Its medium register has a sweet sonority of some richness but little strength; and its high register has the most expression, but is painful, distressed and dejected. At the same time this instrument has comic possibilities. In the medium, and lower registers certain staccato notes which have been often used have a certain grotesqueness bordering on awkwardness.”

“The bassoon was first used,” says Dr. Stone, “in Cambert’s Pomone, Paris, 1671; but it has gradually risen to the position of a tenor, or even alto, frequently doubling the high notes of the violoncello, or the lower register of the viola. The cause of the change is evidently the greater use of bass instruments, such as trombones and ophicleides, in modern orchestral scores on the one hand and the improvements in the upper register of the bassoon itself on the other. There is a peculiar sweetness and telling quality in these extreme sounds, which has led to their being named ‘vox humana notes.’ We have good evidence even in Haydn’s time that they were appreciated; for in the graceful Minuet of his Military Symphony we find a melody reaching to the treble A. Haydn uses it as one of the most prominent voices of his orchestra.”

Until Mozart’s time the bassoon was little else but an instrument for doubling the bass of the Strings; but Mozart did great things with it. He even went so far as to write a Concerto for it. It is important in his operas, particularly Don Giovanni; in his Requiem; and in his Symphonies.

After Mozart fixed its place in the Orchestra, Beethoven brought it forward and made its part so conspicuous and so elaborate that the performers had to set to work to improve their technique. “Beethoven never failed to employ it largely, reinforcing it, in some cases, by the double-bassoon. The First Symphony is remarkable for the assignment of subject, as well as counter-subject, in the slow movement to first and second bassoons working independently; both afterwards joining with the two clarinets in the curious dialogue of the trio between strings and reeds. The Second Symphony opens with a prominent passage for the bassoon in unison with the bass strings; in the Adagio of the Fourth Symphony is an effective figure exhibiting the great power of staccato playing possessed by the bassoon; in the first movement of the Eighth Symphony, it is employed with exquisite humor and in the Minuet of the same Symphony it is entrusted with a melody of considerable length. Perhaps the most remarkable passage in Beethoven’s writing for this instrument occurs in the opening of the Finale of the Ninth, or Choral Symphony, where the theme of the movement, played by violoncellos and violins in unison is accompanied by the first bassoon in a long independent melody of the greatest ingenuity and interest.”[23]

Cherubini gave the bassoon a solo in his opera of Medea; Gluck gave it a solo in some of his dance music in Orfeo; Rossini opens his Stabat Mater with it; and Weber gave it much to do in his operas. Weber wrote a Concerto for it and also an Andante and Hungarian Rondo. Mendelssohn also was fond of it. Dr. Stone has well summed up his use of this instrument as follows: “Mendelssohn shows some peculiarity in dealing with the bassoon. He was evidently struck not only with the power of its lower register, a fact abundantly illustrated by his use of it in the opening of the Scotch Symphony and with the trombones in the grand chords of the Overture to Ruy Blas, but he evidently felt with Beethoven the comic and rustic character of its tone. This is abundantly shown in the music to the Midsummer Night’s Dream, where the two bassoons lead the quaint Clown’s March in thirds and still farther on in the Funeral March, which is obviously an imitation of a small country band, consisting of clarinet and bassoon, the latter ending unexpectedly and humorously on a solitary low C. In the Orchestra the bassoon also suggests the braying of Bottom. It is worth notice how the acute ear of the musician has caught the exact interval used by the animal without any violation of artistic propriety.”

Modern composers have delighted in exhibiting the telling qualities of the bassoon. A notable example is in Tschaikowsky’s Pathetic Symphony and in the waltz movement of his Fifth Symphony. In his Marche Slave it is very effective in unison with the violas.

Brahms shows it off well in his C-minor Symphony; Strauss in his Heldenleben, Till Eulenspiegel and Don Juan; and Elgar in his Pomp and Circumstance March and Variations III and IX of the Enigma.

Wagner gets desolation and sorrow out of it; and, occasionally, humor; and Humperdinck makes comic use of it in Hänsel and Gretel, where it frequently comments on what is happening on the stage.

The bassoon gives long sustained notes, shakes and staccato notes, which are “dry” and grotesque. The English and French name bassoon and basson refer to its pitch in the bass; but the Italians and Germans call it Fagotto and Fagott, because they think in shape it resembles a bundle of sticks, or fagots.

To-day there are usually three bassoons in the Orchestra,—the first and second bassoon and the double-bassoon.

THE DOUBLE-BASSOON

The double-bassoon is an octave below the bassoon. It doubles the bass of the bassoon as the double-bass doubles the violoncello.

The double-bassoon is a conical wooden pipe of hard wood—often maple—more than sixteen feet long and doubled back four times on itself. The crook, or mouthpiece, into which the double reed is fastened, is much like that of the bassoon; but the metal bell points downwards.

Though the instrument is not a transposing one, the music is written an octave higher than it sounds to avoid the use of ledger lines. Its compass is from the middle C to the deep sixteen-foot C.

The double-bassoon was used in the Orchestra in Handel’s time. Haydn calls for it in The Creation; Brahms, in his C-Minor Symphony; Mendelssohn, in his Hebrides Overture; and Beethoven reinforces the march in the Finale of his Fifth Symphony with it. He assigns it a leading part in the Ninth Symphony.

THE CLARINET

The clarinet is also a descendant of the Bombardino-Chalumeau Family of which, as we have seen, there were so many members. The great difference between the ancestor of the oboe and the ancestor of the clarinet was that the oboe’s ancestor was conical in bore and played with a double reed and the clarinet’s ancestor was cylindrical in bore and played with a single reed. That fact was the parting of the ways and was destined to make all the difference in the world. It would seem at first that the tone of the two old chalumeaux (the one double-reeded and the other single-reeded) was at first much alike; but as time went on and the single-reeded chalumeau developed into the modern clarinet, the old rough, reedy voice disappeared for a rich, warbling voice that has more of the bird in it than of the reed.

“The clarinet is one of the most beautiful voices in the orchestra,” Lavignac thinks. “It is the richest in varied timbres of all the wind instruments. It possesses no less than four registers, perfectly defined; the chalumeau, which contains the deepest notes and recalls the old rustic instrument of that name; the medium, warm and expressive; the high, brilliant and energetic; and the very high, biting and strident. All these registers, thanks to the progress of manufacture, are able to melt into one another in the happiest manner possible and furnish a perfectly homogeneous scale. Almost as agile as the flute, as tender as, and more passionate than, the oboe, the clarinet is infinitely more energetic and richer in color.”

About 1690 Johann Christopher Denner of Nuremberg added the twelfth key. He bored a small hole nearer the mouthpiece on a chalumeau type of instrument, and made a key to it to be manipulated by the thumb of the left hand. By this he increased the compass of the instrument by more than an octave. It may be said that from this date the clarinet came into existence. From the crude instrument of two keys and seven holes has evolved the present-day clarinet with seventeen keys and twenty-one holes, of which seven are covered directly by the fingers and the others by the keys.

The clarinet is a cylindrical piece of wood, or a tube, about two feet long, ending in a bell. It is made in sections: (1) mouthpiece; (2) barrel joint; (3) left-hand, or upper joint; (4) right-hand, or lower joint; (5) bell. The lowest note is emitted through the bell. The right-hand thumb supports the instrument.

The reed is flat and the mouthpiece is curved backwards to allow of vibration.

The reed is carefully thinned at the point where it vibrates against the curved table of the mouthpiece. The vibration is caused by the air pressure against the reed, thus engendering sound. The air-column in the instrument is shortened, or lengthened, by the opening, or closing, of the holes and keys, emitting high, or low, sounds accordingly. The reed vibrates through the action of the air. The lips of the player merely encompass the reed and mouthpiece, slightly pressing the reed.

Again, to quote from Lavignac: “This instrument, the richest in compass and in variety of timbre of all the wind instruments, is subject to a very special and very curious law. Its tube is absolutely cylindrical and open; and its column of air is set in vibration by a single, flexible reed. Now a peculiarity in pipes of this construction is that the vibrating segment forms, not at the middle point, but at the end where the reed is, so the mode of subdivision of the air-column is the same as if the pipe were stopped. The clarinet has, therefore, only the harmonics of unequal numbers, which renders its fingering very different from that of the flute, the oboe and the bassoon. It would seem that this might place it below them. On the contrary, this instrument lends itself with admirable suppleness to the expression of all sentiments which the composer may wish to entrust to it.