Victor Mahillon, Kathleen Schlesinger, and Richard René Spiers

“ The third octave of the compass is obtained by the production of the higher harmonics (Fr. sons harmoniques; Ger. Flageolettöne) , of the fundamental scale, facilitated by the opening of certain of the finger-holes as “vent holes.” The quality of tone depends somewhat on the material of which the flute is made; silver and gold produce a liquid tone of exquisite delicacy suitable for solo music, cocus-wood and ebonite a rich mellow tone of considerable power suitable for orchestral music. ”

“ The disposition of the lateral holes is such that it is impossible to cover them with the fingers if the flute is held in the ordinary way. The instrument must be placed against the mouth in an almost vertical direction, inclining the extremity of the tube either to the right or the left. This inconvenient position makes it necessary that the instrument should be divided into two parts, enabling the player to turn the head joint that the embouchure may be most commodiously approached by the lips, which is not at all easy. ”

“ Praetorius [22] designates the transverse flute as “Flauta traversa’ Querpfeiff” and “Querflöt,” and gives the pitch of the bass in the tenor and alto in and the discant in as varieties then in use. A flute concert at that time included two discants, four altos or tenors, and two basses. The same author distinguishes between the “Traversa” and the “Schweizerpfeiff” or fife (which he also calls “Feldpfeiff,” i.e. military flute) , although the construction was the same. There were two kinds of “Feldpfeiff,” in and respectively; they were employed exclusively with the military drum. ”

“ The Boehm flute, notwithstanding the high degree of perfection it has reached, has not secured unanimous favour; even now there are players who prefer the ordinary flute. The change of fingering required for some notes, the great delicacy and liability to derangement of the mechanism, have something to do with this. In England especially, the ordinary flute retains many partisans, thanks to the improvements introduced by a clever player, Abel Siccama, in 1845 (Patent No. 10,553) . He bored the lateral holes of E and A lower, and covered them with open keys. ”

“ The air column of the flute is the sound-producer, whereas in instruments with reed mouthpieces the vibrating reed is more properly the sound-producer, while the air column, acting as a resonating medium, reinforces the note of the reed by vibrating synchronously with it. ”

“ There are eleven holes mathematically placed in the tube which give the semitones of the scale; there are no keys. The eleven holes are fingered by the fingers and thumbs, the C♯ hole being closed by the side of the left fore-finger. All the notes are obtained by means of simple fingering as far as G♯ of the third octave, the remaining notes of which are produced by cross-fingering. For the convenience of players with short fingers keys can be added, and the head of the Georgi flute can be used with any cylinder flute. ”

“ Only a flute with eight keys according to my invention is capable of everything.” It would seem, moreover, from circumstantial evidence stated clearly and on good authority by Rockstro [40] that the keys for F, G♯ and B♭ must have been used first in England and made by Richard Potter before 1774. The higher key of C adopted from 1786 by Tromlitz, we believe to have been first recommended by Ribock (1782) . [41] Tromlitz in Über Flöten describes at length what may be termed the first systematic effort to overcome the difficulties created by the combination of open holes and closed keys. ”

“ The technical capabilities of the flute are practically unlimited to a good player who can obtain sustained notes diminuendo and crescendo, diatonic and chromatic scales and arpeggios both legato and staccato, leaps, turns, shakes, &c. ”

“ In 1831 Theobald Boehm, a Bavarian, happening to be in London, was struck with the power of tone the celebrated English performer Charles Nicholson drew from his instrument. Boehm learned, and not without astonishment, that his English colleague obtained this result by giving the lateral holes a much greater diameter than was then usually admitted. About the same time Boehm made the acquaintance of an amateur player named Gordon, who had effected certain improvements ”

“ The upper extremity of the flute, beyond the embouchure orifice, is closed by means of a cork stopper. On the position of this cork depends, in a great measure, the accurate tuning of the flute. It is in its right place when the accompanying octaves are true. Quantz, in speaking of this accessory, mentions the use of a nut-screw to give the required position to the cork. [35] He does not name the inventor of this appliance, but, according to Tromlitz, [36] the improvement was due to Quantz himself. The invention goes back to 1726. ”

“ In two of the earliest Doric temples at Metapontum and Syracuse (temple of Apollo) the flutes are also segmental, but in later examples in order to emphasize the arris they were formed of three arcs and are known as “false ellipses,” and this applies to nearly all the fluting in Greek examples whether belonging to the Doric, Ionic or Corinthian orders. The number of flutes varies, there being 52 in the archaic temple of Diana at Ephesus and from 30 to 52 flutes in the Persian columns according to the diameter of the column. ”

“ All of them are laterally pierced with six finger-holes; they have a cylindrical bore, and are fashioned out of a single piece of wood. Their compass consists of two octaves and a fifth. Mersenne’s tablature for fingering the flute differs but little from those of Hotteterre-le-Romain [24] and Eisel [25] for the diatonic scale; he does not give the chromatic semitones and the flute had as yet no keys.
The largest bass flute in the Brussels museum is in at the French normal pitch A 435 double vibrations per second. It measures 0.95 m. ”

“ Part of the specification together with a diagram is reproduced by Rockstro, op. cit. pp. 273-274. ↑ Patent, No. 3349. Part of the specification together with a diagram is reproduced by Rockstro, op. cit. pp. 273-274. ↑ Another specimen, almost the same, constructed about 1775, and called “Basse de Musette,” may be seen in the Museum of the Paris Conservatoire. ↑ See account of Capeller’s inventions by Carl Maria von Weber in Allgem. musikal. ”