.... :::- .

:',,,,

5 The orchestral recorder

ADRIENNESIMP.SON

.,

When Claudio Monteverdi composed the music for Orfeo, a new opera
to be presented at the Mantuan court as part of the 1607 Carnival
celebrations, he made use of some forty-five different ínstruments.!
Many appeared only briefly, to add colour to a particular number.
Typical of these was the sopranino recorder that, with strings, lutes,
harpsichord and harp, imparted a glittering sound to the Act I pastoral
chorus 'Lasciate i monti'. Orfeo was simuItaneously a progressive and
an old-fashioned work. The relatively specific nature of its instrumen-
tation exemplified a new trend, but its diversity of instrumental
timbres belonged to renaissance tradition. By 1643, when Monteverdi
wrote L'incoronazione di Poppea for a Venetian opera house, the more
restricted orchestral palette he employed reflected one of the funda-
mental developments of the baroque era: the transition from a plethora
of instrumental sonorities to a more standardised ensemble, based on
the homogeneous sound of strings and continuo.
Ten years after the premiare of L'incoronazione di Poppea, the young
musician Jean-Baptiste Lully entered the service of Louis XIV of France
as an instrumental composer and director. Under his influence, strings
and continuo were consolidated as the basis of the baroque orchestra.
His elite creation, the 'petite bande' (also known as the 'violons du
cabinet'), and the larger 'vingt-quatre violons du roy' which he
controlled from 1664, revolutionised the concept of orchestral music
and set new standards of player competence and musical discipline. At
much the same time, and possibly spurred by the growing dominance
of the strings, professional wind players at the French court began a
process of instrument modification. Structural changes, made by
members of the Hotteterre, Philidor and Chédeville families, trans-
formed the woodwind instruments of the renaissance band into the
new baroque oboés, bassoons, flutes and recorders. These were quickly
adopted throughout Europe. French orchestras of the late seventeenth
century routinely included oboes and bassoons. As other centres

91
92 Adrienne Simpson

emulated the musical institutions of the French court, both instruments

became accepted as core members of the orchestra.
The recorder-never attained the sarne status.Líke the flute.Jt hovered
on the periphery of 'orchestral developments. 'Unlíke: the flute, it
remained there. Nevertheless, for over half a century, the enhanced
intonation and compass of the baroque recorder made it a valuable
addition to the -palette of orchestral colours. Cross-fingerings enabled it
to be fully chromatíc, and initially it was the only member of the
woodwind famíly that could be played in tune in all keys. During a
period spanned approximately by thecareers of Lully (1632-87) and
Handel (1685-1759). the recorder was often specified for orchestral
use. It was also deployed, to beautiful and telling effect, ín. numerous
obbligato passages found in large-scale sacred and secular vocal works.
Until well -into the eighteenth century. the appearance of the word
'flauto' or 'flute' ín.a score meant 'recorder'. The instrument that
eventually ousted it 'from orchestral favour was índícated by -names
such as 'flauto traverso',: 'flüte -traversiere·. 'German flute' or. -just
'traversa'. While a comprehensive account of the recorder in an
orehestral context is not possible here, a survey of the way it was used
by some major composers willillustrate the richness of -the repertoire
in which it partícípated.
Recorders appeared in a number of French works from the. late
seventeenth century onwards. They were found partícularly in operatic
scores and in the -accompaniments to those spectacular exarnples of
French 'relígíous musíc, the grandes motets. In .the -French opera
orchestra recorder and flute coexisted - a point well illustrated -by the
'Prélude pour -I'amour' from Lully's ballet Le triomphe de ]'amour
(1681). where the scoríng carefully indicates both flutes ('flütes
d'Allemagne') and three sizes of recorders: tenor, bass and great bass
('quinte de flütes', 'petite basse de flütes' and'grande basse de flütes'I,
A late seventeenth-century French composer who made considerable
use of the recorder was Marc-Antoine Charpentier.(1634-1704). He had
an excellent ear for orchestral colour, frequently deploying his instru-
ments concerto-style, in contrastíng combinations. His scoring indica-
tions are very -precise and recorders are specified in many of bis
operatíc scores, drarnatic works and religious works. In his Christmas
motets theyare used to emphasíse the pastoral aspects of the nativity
story. His early pastoral opera Actéon (1663-5) features recorders in a
símílar context. Other passages worth noting are' the delicately
chromatícprelude to Act IV of his drarnatic opera Médée(1693), and
the De Profundis he wrote to mark the -death of Queen Marie- Thérêse
(30 July 1683), which Gontains a- wonderful bass solo -wíth: two
obbligato recorders, 'A custo dia matutina ... • ('Israel hopes for the
coming of the Lord as a watchman does for the morníng'I,
Perhaps the finest of all Charpentier's religious works to -include
 The orchestral tecoxdet 98

recorders is his Magnificatà 8 voix et Binstnunents, whích dates from

the early 1680s. Conceived on a grand scale, it calls for six vocal
soloists, double chorus and two orchestras, each made .up of strings,
recorders, oboes, bassoons and a continuo ·group. The full forces are
deployed in the first, middle and last of the work's seven symmetri-
cally arranged movements. -The third and sixth movements are trios,
while the second and fifth are scored for solo: voices with different
pairs of obbligato instruments. In the second, the soprano soloist is
accompanied by two recorders and continuo.
Frenchinfluence was very apparent in English music of the late
seventeenth century. The country's cultural lifehad been disrupted
during the Civil War and Commonwealth. When the monarchy was
restored in 1660, the revived court musical ínstitutíons were modelled
on those to which Charles 11 had become accustomed duringhis .long
exile in France. French composers and instrumentalists .were brought
to London to help establish the new musical style. Among them .were
players of the baroque recorder, includíng atleast one notable virtuoso,
[ames Paisible, who arrived in London in 1673. English composers
adopted the instrument with enthusiasm, and parts for the 'flüte douce'
or 'flute', as it became commonly known, soon appeared in contem-
porary scores. [ohn Blow (1649-1708), for example, usedrecorders in
the accompaniments to his anthems, Lord who shall dwell (c1681) and
Sing unto the Lord, O ye saints (c1682), to accompany the love scene. in
the masque Venus and Adonis (c1684)and, with exquisite poignancy,
in his 1696 Ode on the Death of Henry Purcell ('Mark how the lark and
linnet sing') ..
The latter is a chamber, not an orchestral, work, but it demonstrates
one of the contexts in which recorders were often used. According to
conventions that had grown up in the renaissance theatre, and 'that
continued to be observed by composers as different as Purcell,Bach
and Handel, recorders were considered particularly appropriate -for
music accompanying funerals, or .assocíated ín some way with sorrow.
As an extension of this, they were also found frequently in music
depicting otherworldly and .supernatural events. Other common uses
werein pastoral scenes, in passages expressing love or other-tender
emotions, for the imitation of birdsong, and for obvious illustrative
effect when composers set texts referring to woodwind instruments. .
Many.examples of these orchestral uses of the recorder can be found
in the occasíonal odes, welcome songs andoincidental music of Henry
Purcell (1659-95).2 In the birthday ode Cotne.. Ye Sons of Art (1694),
the countertenor- aria which begins 'Strike the viol, touch the .lute:
Wake the harp, inspire the flute', evokes suitably pictorial scoríng. The
recorder dissonances in the lament 'But ah, I see Eusebia drowned in
tears' from Arise, my Muse (1690), the second of his six odes for Queen
Mary's birthday celebrations, are no -Iess affecting because Eusebia
94 Adrienne Simpson

turns out to be a personification ofthe Anglican Church bewailing

William Ill's need to champion her cause in !reland.
Purcell's recorder parts are not difficult. He generaUy uses pairs of
instruments, sometimes - to provide obbligatos in duets and arías,
sometimes to give colour to the ritornello sections before falling silent
when the voiee enters - as in the orchestralritornello to the duet 'Sing
ye Druids' from Bonduca (1695), which is an instance of the recorder's
association wíth the supernatural. His obbligatos, with their fusion -of
voice and instrument, are inevitably more ínterestíng. In the líght-
hearted love song 'One charming night', from the incidental music to
The Fairy Queen -(1692), an alto soloist declares .that 'One charming
night is wortha hundred lucky days' and his words are given point by
two recorders: entwining deliciously in the ritornello, and playing pairs
of notes punctuated by rests to createan almost staccato effect during
the -aría itself. Arare example of a purely instrumental movement
featuríng recorders is the Chaconne in DiocJesian (1690), known as
'Two ín one upon a Ground'. In this, two recorders play in canon over
an inexorablydownward-moving ground -bass, -creating a plangent
expression of grief.
Some of Purcell's most brilliant scoring can be found in the Ode for
St Cecilia's Day (1692). Recorders are used -only in two numbers. For
the duet 'In vain the am'rous flute' they occur with conventionally
illustrative effect in the ritornello section. The duet 'Hark each tree' is
far more ambitious. The words present .a delightful analogy of the fir
and box trees giving tongue when fashioned into instruments. The
musie takes the form of a vocal contest between a countertenorand -a
bass, -the -former extolling the affecting elegance of the recorder, -the
latter representing 'the spritely violin'. Two trebles and a bass recorder
similarly contest with two violins and a bass viol until eventually the
contending forces unite in flowing and consonant passage-work.
French composers utilised many of the same conventions as the
English. Examples -of recorders used in association with death, and
with pastoral themes, have already been -cíted. Until about 1730, when
overtaken by the baroque piccolo, bírdsong was often represented by
recorders in French -operatic scores, as were passages expressing
tenderness and love, particularly where the singer was a woman. In
Act m scene 2 of Charpentier's Médée, for instance, Medea sees [ason,
the man she loves, approaching. 'My heart is moved to tenderness' ,she
says. 'Let me speak to him' - and as she- advances to do so, she is
accompanied by a short instrumental ritornello featuring recorders.
A .conventíon which became particularly associated with French
c?mposers was the sommeil, ·or sleep scene. This involved a character
being lulled to sleep, often under the influence of a god or magician. It
was frequently the sígnal for a dream sequence: Lully introduced the
sommeil to the French stage in Les amants magnifiques (1670), a
 The orcbestral. recordei: 95

comédie-ballet in· which the third intermedebegins with a 'rítomelle

pour les flütes'. However, the mo del for subsequent composers wasthe
elaborate sommeil (Act illscene 4) in hís opera Atys of 1676. The
passage is. a devíce by .whích the goddess Cybêle tells Atysofher love
for him.Following a lengthy prelude, the spirits ofsleep sing to -the
slumbering .Atys, first separately and then intrio. 'Songes-agréables',
point .out his good fortune. Contrasting 'songes funestes'. warn of.the
consequences should he prove- unfaithful. The opening prelude, .whích
is reprised later in the scene, features recorders, movingstepwise ..in
slurred pairs of notes, in alternation to the strings. .
After. Atys, the sommeil became a set piece ín many French operas;
and in nearly all cases recorders featured prominently. -A typical
example, also froma Lully opera, occurs in ActIll scene .2 of Persée.
(1682), whenMercury is ushered in to the sounds of 'deux flütes
douceset deux violons' in order. to render the Gorgonsharmless .by
sending them tosleep. The sommeil is .also found In other types .of
musíc. Charpentier .íncluded one in his oratorio Judicium Salamouis
(1702). The richly harmonised prelude to the second -partof this work
creates an almost mystical effect with its gentle mix .of recorders and
muted strings.
The transition from recorder to flute occurred relatively· quíckly, ia.
France. From theearly eighteenth century It was. clear that. the
transverseflutehadgrown enormously in fashíonable esteem, thanks.
ínpart to a succession of small improvements that gaveít.greater range
and flexibility than its rival, and.in part to .the persuasive advocacy.of
flute virtuosi such as La Barre and, later, Michel Blavet. Two 'flütes
allemandes' were particularly·specified among the orchestral personnel.
aí the Paris Opéra (or l'Académie Royale dela Musique) for the.1712-'
13season.3 Although recorders are found in a -French operatic score ·as
late as Montéclair's Iepthe (1732), they occur·there· in .thecontextof.a
sommeil closely modelled· on that in Lully's Atys. In. Francethe
recorder had effectively yielded its orchestral place to the.transverse
flute well before 1740, the year in which Blavet became a specialist
flautist in the orchestra of the Paris Opéra.
'. Musical developments in France were centred upon Paris, those in
England largely upon London, but the German lands had a host of little
príncedoms and dukedoms, most of which boasted musical establísh-
ments. Some were very large. The Dresdencourt orchestra (pl, 26) had
both flutes and recorders in its complement, and the latter.were used
to excellent effect .in several concerted works by -Johann .Davíd
Heinichen (1683-1729) who was Kapellmeister there from ,1717 untíl
his death. However, the resources available· to composers did vary
markedlyfrom court to court and German writing for the recorderIn
an orchestràl context is therefore hard to categorise. In general, it tends,
to be . more technically demanding than itsFrench and Englísh.
96 Adrienne Simpson

Plate 26 This is a greatly enlarged small detail of a copperplate engraving of the first
performance of Antonio Lotti's Teofane in the new Dresden opera house in 1719, part
of the marriage festivities for Frederick August 11and Maria Josepha. It shows half of
the splendid Dresden orchestra around the harpsichord (just seen on the lower right of
the plate), and includes at the bottom left three (?treble) recorders, two playing and one
resting. In front of and beyond the two prominent theorboes are what may be bass
recorders, and beyond them, before the start of a large section of violins, there are two
transverse flutes. These are roughly the forces required for Heinichen's concertos (see
p. 113). One of the flautists on this occasion may have been Pierre-Gabriel Buffardín,
Quantz's teacher, and one of the violinists Francesco Maria Veracini, who wrote
excellent solo sonatas for violin or flauta. The recorders would presumably have been
played by Dresden oboists of the time such as François La Riche, [ohann Christian
Richter and Peter Glõsch. From Douglas Alton Smith, 'Sylvius Leopold Weiss' (lutenist
and theorbo player), Early Music 8/1 (Ian, 1980), p. 49.
 The orchestral.recorder97

equivalents. The decentralisation of music in the German lands meant

that the trend towards standardised ensembles advanced more slowly,
and composers seem often to have written -for individual, highly
skílled, performers.
Undoubtedly the most famous German composer of his day was
Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767). A man of prodigious energy and
skill, his flair for orchestral colour was bom of practical knowledge. He
apparently played nine different instruments, íncludíng-both .the flute
and the recorder, and in his orchestral works he often contrasts-the
two. Telemann included important recorder parts in some ofhis highly
individual concertos for three or more. solo instruments (Gruppenkon-
zette) , and in several of his nearly 140 surviving orchestral overtures
and suítes. Some of these, such as the well-known Suite in A minor for
solo recorder and strings, are concertos in all but- name. More
interesting, from the point of view of orchestral usage, are, works such
as his ·Overture in C major, Hamburger Ebb und Fluht ('HamburgEbb
and Flow'), a delightfully pictorial 'water-music' suite fírst performed
in Hamburg on 6 April 1723. It is scored for two recorders, flauto
piccolo, two oboes, strings and continuo. A particularly effective use-of
recorders occurs in the sarabande entitled 'The Sleeping Thetis', where
the duple time of the other instruments contrasts with rocking triplet
figures in the recorders. It is a good example of Telemann's penchant
for combining different rhythmic structures. . . ,.; ,
Part of Telemann's musical appeallies in his skilful scoring and.easy
combination of Frenchand Italian musical influences. His orchestral
suítes derive from Lullian models, although expanded in scale, yet
sometimes include Italian elements.His concertos are based on Italian
principIes, but alsooccasionally contain.echoes of French style. The
same absorption of techniques from both major sources of baroque
musical influence can be found in the works of J. S. Bach (1685-1750).
Like all composers of his day, Bach wrote for the forces he had at
hand. Sometimes a wider variety of instruments than usual could be
available for special occasions. An example is his cantata for the
election of the Mühlhausen town council, Gott ist. mein Kõnig (BWV
71, 1708), which uses 'choirs' of trumpets and timpani, oboes-and
bassoon, recorders and violoncello, plus strings and continuo, as well
as choir and soIoists.
Usually, however, he wrote for a specific body of performers. When he
worked at Weimar, he had available some profícíent solo singers, a
mediocre small choir, about half-a-dozen good string players, a skilled
bassoonist, a couple of competent oboists who could doubleon recorder,
and himself on keyboards. On festive occasions the local military could
provide trumpets and drums. He therefore wrote for these forces
throughout hís time at Weimar. When he moved to the .more .sophistí-
cated court of Cõthen in 1717. he had greater resources to, call on, and
 98 Adrienne Stmpson >

could write orchestral "suites .and .concertos' with the considerable

technical demands found in the BrandenburgConcertos (BWV1046-51).·
Bach was as -practícal as any of his baroque contemporaries ín- his
attitude to themusíc he wrote. The original (1723) and -revised (1730)
versions of the Magnificat exemplify this. That of 1723 is in Evflat
(BWV 243a) and the aria 'Esuríentes implevit bonis' .features . an
obbligato for a pair of recorders, in the key of F which is ideal. forthe
instrument.· The text runs 'He has filIed the hungry with good things
and the rich he has sent empty away'. There is a wonderful touch at
the end of the aría, when the recorder ritornelIo finishes unresolved
(perhaps illustrative ofthose sent empty away)and the continuo is left
. to supply the cadence.
In ·the 1730 revision (BWV 243) the overalI :key of the work is
lowered· a -semítone. The 'Esurientes'. obbligato no longerfits the
recorder, and is assigned to transverse flute instead. In all Bach's works
an íncreased usage of the flute is apparent from the mid-1720s onward;
indeed, he seems \to havevírtually stopped scoring .for recorders afier
1726. Among the many reasons- why the Magnificat could have been
revised, a lack of proficient recorder players must be a possibility. It
would be typícal of 'baroque practicality to alter a- work for such a
reason. Today we are- finicky .about substituting instruments. Baroque
tradition was far- more elastic, as the frequent designation of .solo
sonatas as appropriate for violin, oboe, recorder or flute suggests.
Many of 'lhe same conventions of recorder usage common to French
and Englísh- composers can be found in Bach's works and those of.hís
German contemporaries. His cantatas provide a particularly rich source
of examples, The association with death and the- supernatural is most
aptlyíllustrated in the funeral cantata Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit
(BWV ·106, c1708) where recorders and gambas create an atmosphere
of-poígnant resignation, or in Komm, du süsse Todesstunde (BWV 161,
1715), in which the singer longs for death to the heavenly sound of two
recorders. The use ofthe instrument in a pastoral context can be found
in works such as the Christmas cantata Das neugeborne Kindelein
(BWV 122, 1724), and in the aria for Pales, the god of shepherds, from
the secular cantata Was tnir behagt (BWV 208,1713). This is known to
millions as "Sheep may safely graze'. The expression of tender feelings
appears in Meine Seufzer, meine Trãnen (BWV 13, 1726)' and
Schmücke dich, o liebe Seele (BWV 180,1724).4
. Mostof Bach's orchestral music seems to have been lost. Among the
surviving works are the six Brandenburg Concertos, which were written
over· aperíodof several years, and brought together in a beautiful fair
copy, dated 24 March· 1721, -whích Bach presented to theMargrave of
Brandenburg, presumably in..hope of gaining preferment or a lucrative
commission. Few details are omitted from the score. The second of the
six concertos calls fortreble recorder, oboe, trumpet and violin as the
 The orchestral recordei 99

solo ínstruments; .a seemíngly unlikely .combination whích. works

beautifully .when played on instruments of the appropriate períod
(particularly the small F· trumpet). It represents a genre in which
German "composers excelled: the concerto grosso with a concertino
group composed ofwidely disparate instruments. The trumpet dom-
inates the outer movements, but the other instruments are heard to great
advantage, in constantly changing groupings, in thecentral Andante.. : '.
In the fourth Brandenburg Concerto, the solo .instruments are a violin
and two fiauti d'echo. Exactly what type of recorder Bach meant by
that designation has puzzled scholars for years, and although the
consensus of opinion tends to favour trebles in G;,many other possible
solutions have been put forward. The work is a fascinatíng mixture.
The violin is sufficiently prominent in the outer movements for them
to take on. theflavour of a violin concerto. The recorders attain parity
inthe middle movement, where the first recorder has two little .solo
cadenzas, and the three instruments function like the concertino group
of a concerto grosso; Perhaps it is not altogether fanciful to think ,that
the recorders' echoing role .ín this movement led Bach to describe them
as fiauti d'echo in the score." . .' , , .,,.'.
In writing his Brandenburg Concertos, Bach was influenced by what
he knew of Italian music, particularly the works of .Antonío Vivaldi
(1678-1741)" some of whose compositions he transcribedfor. harpsi-
chord or organ. Our current concentration on Vivaldi's concertos .has
obscured his vast array of other works, some, of whích feature the
recorder. Arias in whichan .obblígato. wínd- soloíst plays .ín the.
ritomello and then accompanies the singer in the fírst section of 'vocal
music were common in Italian vocal writing -of the period. Vívaldt
regularly uses horns, trumpets, recorders 8I\d oboes as obbligato
instruments inhis operas. He often calls on :recorders ,for pastoral
scenes, as in 'Bel riposo de' mortali' from Act I scene 4' of Giustino (RV
717, 1724). Unusually, he .employs the flauto grosso- (tenor recorderlín
two operas, Tito Manlio (RV,738, 1719) .and La verità in cimento (RV
739), first produced in 1720. '. -, ':
. He also uses recorders in the score of hís only surviving oratorio, the
monumentalludithaTriumphans (RV 644, 1716). This was written for
the Pietà in Venice, the girls' orphanage with which he wasconnected
between 1703 and 1740. The score requires two recorders, two oboes,
chalumeau, two clarinets, two trumpets.. timpani, mandolín, four,
theorboes, obbligato organ, four viols andviola d'amore, as well.as
strings and continuo. Needless to say, these are not all usedat thesame
time. The basíc baroque orchestra .of strings and continuo, supple-
mented by oboes and bassoon, is joined.by particular ínstruments .to
characterise specifíc passages in the work.. So, recorders at their most
insinuating lend .colour to an aria .in which Vagans sings -a .curious
lullaby - 'Umbrae carae' - to.his drunkenmaster, Holofernes. : ' . ~:.;
100 Adrienne Simpson

..During the early eighteenth century the rivalry between recorder and
flute was as apparent in Italy as elsewhere in Europe. Until approxi-
mately 1725 the designation 'flauto' in a Vivaldi score alwaysrefers to
recorder. Thereafter,' he shows more interest in· the increasingly
popular transverse flute. Some of the concertos in his Op. ·10collection
began life ·as recorder works. By the time they reachedpublícationín
1729/30 they had been reassigned to the flute, in an obvious conces-
sion tochangíngtaste (see p. 108).
The 'later baroque period was dominated by the new instrumental
and vocal developments in Ita1y, and particularly by the widespread
fashion for Italian opera. One of the finest exponents of that genre was
Ceorge- Frideric Handel. In the operas he wrote for London audiences,
he used both transverse flutes and recorders, although he gives the
latter relatívely little to do. During his early· career in Italy he had
tended to usethe instrument conservatively, mainly doublíng the
víolín. In England, where he had some excellent players available to
him, he' employed it with greater flair. His recorder parts oftenparallel
the vocalline, moving in unison or in consonantthirdsand. sixths. At
other times voice and recorder imitate each other, or exchange melodic
fragments. As ín allltalianate vocal music with obbligato,the sense of
eompetítíon between singer and instrument is frequently present.
Of the seventeen operas Handel wrote between 1704 and 1726,
recorders .feature in eleven. 6In his first London opera, Rinaldo,
performed in 1711, sopranino and trebles play off stage, imitating
birdsong, in the aria 'Augelletti che cantate' from Act I scene .4.
According to the 1711 libretto this was set .ín 'A delightful Grove in
which the Birds are heard to sing, and are seen flying up and down'.
The scene caused a furore at the premíêre when live birds .were
released on to the stage. Rinaldo is an opera full of stage effect and
superficial brilliance. A more imaginative use of recorders can be
found in 'Senza procello ancora' from Act 11scene 4 of Poro (1731),
where they are combined with homs against a background of pedal
notes in ·the strings. The trio for two trebles and bass that introduces
the alto aria 'Puõ ben nascer' in Act I scene4 of Giustino(1736) is an
Italianate version of the French sommeil. Giustino is ploughingwhen
he 'is overcome by drowsiness. In the ensuing dream sequence his
elevation to Roman emperor is symbolically revealed. The recorders
play, characteristically, in the passage where Gíustíno is lulled to
sleep.
Handel's non-operatic works also contain delightful examples of the
orchestral use of recorders, as in the slow movement of bis, Dp.3 No. 1·
Concerto Grosso. Piping flauti piccoli add brilliance to the air andfirst
Gígúe from the G major Water Music suite:Acis and Galatea (1718) has
three arias that use recorders, not for their solo properties but for the
colour they impart when doubling the violin line: The most famous of
 The otchestral.recorder 101

the three is the grotesque- love song for the giant Polyphemus, 'O
ruddier thanthe cherry'. Here the recorder not only illustratesthe pipe
that Polyphemus íntends to make and play, for,his beloved ,Galatea; but
continues the convention ofusing the instrument in love scenes.-Ithas
become usual to employ the sopranino in this aria, and although ·the
original scoring was undoubtedly fortreble, there iscertainly some-
thing irresistibly comic in the contrast between a lumberíng giantand
the stratospheric sound ofthe pipe he makes for.hístcapacíous throat"
.Although the numberof works featuring the recorder as an orchestral
instrument may seem impressive, it is essential to realise .that they
represent a very small part of each composer's output. Purcell, -for
example, used recorders more often than many of his contemporaries,
yet they appear only in seven of hisfifty operatic and theatrical scores,
three of his nine Welcome Odes, andthree outof seven-Bírthday Odes.
Of Bach's 200 surviving sacred cantatas, only nineteen have recorder
parts. Such statistics confirm that the recordar; like the flute, was used
sparingly in an orchestral context duríng the baroque -era, Oboes and
bassoons were the only woodwind instruments regularly added to the
basic baroqueorchestra of strings and.contínuo.vlt seems certain that
most of themusicians who played the .recorder orchestrally, at least ín
France and England, were primarilyemployed for theír expertise on
other instruments. '
Since oboes and recorders rarely play simultaneously in a score, it is
likely that many of the oboe players listed in inventories of the period
doubled on recorder, in' the same way that an oboist in a modem
orchestra does on cor anglaís." Several English -practitioners ,were
primarily . string players, including [ohn Banister the Younger and
Robert King who are assumed to have takenthe recorderparts. in two
of Purcell's Birthday Odes, Arise my Muse (1691) and Celebrate- this
Festival (1693).8 The ability to double on other instruments appears to
have been a common skill among musicians of the baroque period.
Despite the fine array of woodwínd required for Vivaldi's oratorio
Juditha Triumphans, for example, only one kind is heard ata time dn
the score, and it is almost certain that some of the performers. played
more than one instrumento
If further confirmation is needed, it canbe ·found byexamining the
membership lists for Handel's London opera orchestra.9 No specialist
recorder players ate listed in these, although the instrument was
clearly required in most of his operas. The situation for Handel was the
same as that which obtained in Purcell's day. Other ínstrumentalísts,
generally oboists, doubledon recorder. Peter LaTour, Jean .Christian
Kytch, Francesco Barsanti, [ohn Loeillet and Giuseppe Sammartini
were among the foreígn vírtuosí who made theír. living in- England,
primarily as oboists. All are known tohavealso.played ..the-recorder,
and all were ín the opera orchestra available to Handel at .varíoustimes,
102 Adrienne Simpson

between 1721 and 1738. Virtually every opera -Handel wrote during
that period makes use of the instrumento After 1738, recorders abruptly
vanish from his· scores - apart from an isolated and much later
example in Judas Maccabeus (1747). Sammartini left the opera
orchestra around 1738. Kytch died that year, and La Tour is presumed
to have done so as well. The inference is clear. It did not merit a place
in the orchestra on. its own account, but was a useful extra which some
players were able to offer. Today, when the recorder is more widely
played than any other instrument of the baroque period, it is salutary
to be .remínded that it was not nearly as important in its own day as
the twentieth-century recorder revival would lead us to believe.
The developments that led, gradually, to the relatively fixed -combi-
natíon- of instruments we describe as an orchestra today, were
pioneered 'Ín the opera theatres of Italy and at the French court. By
about 1740 the recorder had virtually ceased to have any part ín these.
Some writers consider that its disappearance from the orchestral
palette was due to its quiet sound.l'' This cannot be wholly true. When
matched with instruments of íts-own period the recorder carries rather
better than the baroque flute. The major cause of its demise was the
lackof nuance and dynamic flexibility that made it less suítable for the
more overtly expressive style of writing introduced into European
music in the mid-eighteenth century .
..Changes rarely happen overnight. Recorders did not fall out of use
immediately. There were still being made and playedtowards the end of
the eighteenth century. Burney, for example, reports hearing a recorder
player in Florence .ín 1770.11 Edgar Hunt has made outa persuasive case
for the 'flauti' that played the!Dance of the Blessed Spirits' in the
original score of Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice'(1762) being recorders, and
examples of the recorder as an orchestral obbligato instrument with the
voice are occasionally found after that date.12 Paisiello used it briefly in
his opera n barbiere di Siviglia (1782), and it is possible that the 'small
flute' and '8th flute' specifications in Shield's The Farmer (1787)
referred to recorders. There was even some awareness of the instrument
among composers of the early nineteenth century. Rossini once owned
an elegant Italian treble recorder, veneered in tortoise-shell and inlaid
with gold andmother-of-pearl, although he probably regarded it as a
historical curiosity rather than as a practical ineans of musíc-makíng. 13,
Since the recorder revival of the twentieth century, the instrument
has again appeared very occasionally in orchestral scores. An example
is the small stage-band of recorders in Britten's opera A Midsummer
Night'sDream (1960). It makes a more notable contribution to the same
coinposer's opera, Noye's Fludde (1958),. which was written for
children and scored ,....in true baroque fashion - for a small concertino
section of professional players and a large ripieno group of young
amateurs (pl. 28). Two easy parts for descant recorders and one.for
 The orchestral recorder 1Q3

Plate 27 Like Plate 15A this is another well-known picture from the Wallace
Collection, London, reproduced by their kind permission. Nicolas Lancret's Mademoi-
selle de Camargo Dancing"in her own open-air theatre, was painted about 1730 when
thís famous dancer was iwenty. There are similar pictures in the Hermitage at St
Petersburg (where she is shown in a red dress), Nantes and Potsdam. Whát is often
overlooked is the participation of the treble recorder in the dance band in thebushes,
along with violin, viola and bassoon, as well as the pipe and tabor on the left, Small
recorders may have remained part of the orchestral forces for ballet until well into the
eighteenth century. WB 32

trebles -are assigned to the npleno. The concertino features a solo

treble. Britten played the recorder himself, and his writing for' the
soloist is idiomatic and inventive, particularly in the effective flutter-
tongued passage that illustrates the questing dove dispatched by Noah
to seek out dry land as the floodwaters abate.
Works such as Noye's Fludde and A Midsummer Night's Dream are
rarities, not harbingers of an orchestral revival. The use of the recorder
- in an orchestral context remains a short-lived baroque phenomenon.
Although the wealth of sonatas, chamber music and concertos written
for the instrument duríng that period has, rightly, monopolised the
attention of today's recorder players, it would be a pity if its brief but
often beautiful and effective contribution to theorchestral repertoire
was overlooked.
104 Adrienne Simpson

Plate 28 Rehearsal in Orford Church for the first performance, which took place on
18 June 1958, of Benjamin Britten's Noye's Fludde. The photograph shows some of the
recorders - there were about thirty in all - including the professional Stanley Taylor
(upper left) who played the treble recorder solo part, with flutter-tonguing for the
cooing of the dove. The timpanist is James Blades. As everybody is playing, this may
be the storm section - 'The waves roll and crash, the wind (recorders) howls through
the rigging. At the height of the storm the ark rocks wildly and the animaIs panic. The
monkeys try to climb the rigging, a squirrel almost falIs overboard, but finalIy Noye
and his family calm the frightened animals. Above the hubbub of the storm rises the
hymn Eternal Father, strong to save, sung by Noye and alI the others in the ark. The
congregation joins in the second verse, and slowly the storm begins to abate' (from
libretto). Photograph by Kurt Hutton, Britten-Pears Library, Aldeburgh.

Notes
1. See Neal Zaslaw, 'Three notes on the early history of the orchestra', Historical
Performance 1/2 (1988), p. 63.
2. A list of PurcelI scores which include the recorder can be found in Walter
Bergmann, 'Henry PurcelI's use. of the recorder', Recorder and Music Magazine
1/11 (1965), pp. 333-5. (See ais o p. 88, note 18).
3. Privilêge for the Académie, see Jürgen Eppelsheim, Das Orchester in den Werken
[ean-Baptiste Lullys (Tutzing 1961), pp. 150,215.
4. For some further examples of Bach's orchestral use of the recorder see Edgar Hunt,
The Recorder and its Music, rev. edn (London 1977), pp. 77-81.
5. See David Lasocki's article on echo flutes in the Galpin Society [oumal 45 (1992),
pp. 59-66; also the discussion, by John Martin and others, in The Recorder
(Melbourne) 9 and 10 (1989), pp. 1-3 and 19-24 respectively, and David Lasocki,
'More on echo flutes' in the same joumal, 13 (1991), pp. 14-16. See also p. 117,
note 18.
 The orchestral recorder 105

6. See the table in Winton Dean and Iohn Merrill Knapp, Handel's Operas: 17°4-:1726
(Oxford 1987), p. 636.. ,
7.0ccasional exceptions do occur; for example, in the duet 'Shepherds, shspherds
leave decoying' from Purcell's incidental music to King Arthur (1691) -where both
oboes and recorders are employed in the introduction. '
8. See Lasocki, 'Professional recorder playing in England: Part n - 1640-1740', Early
Music 10/2 (1982), pp. 184-7, for a more extensive díscussion about specialists on
other instruments doubling recorder when required. , '
9. See Donald Burrows, 'Handel's London theatre orchestra', Early Music 13/3 (1985),
particularly p. 355. ..'
10. For instance C. F. D. Schubart, Ideen zu einer Asthetik der Tonkunst (Vienna 1806),
p.209.
11. Charles Burney, Music, Men, and Manners in France and Italy, 1770, modo edn
(London 1969), p. 116.
12. Hunt, The Recorder and its Music, p. 88. ,
13. The recorder is in London's Victoria and Albert Museurn, item no. 1124-1869. '

Select bibliography
. ,'C.o,!

Books
James R. Anthony, French Baroque Music frotn Beaujoyeaulx to Rameau, rev.
edn (New York 1978)
Malcolm Boyd, Bacb. [London 1983) . , ". J

Winton Dean and John Merrill Knapp, Handel's Operas: 1704-1726 (Oxford
1987)
H. Wiley Hitchcock, Marc-Antoine Charpentier (Oxford 1990)
Edgar Hunt, The Recorder and its Music, rev. edn (London1977)
Iohn Manifold, 'The Amorous Flute (London 1948)
Richard Petzoldt, GeorgPhilipp Telemann (London 1974)
Michael Talbot, Vivaldi (London 1978)
Sir Jack Westrup,Purcell, rev. edn (London 1960)

Articles
Nicholas Anderson, 'Georg Philipp Telemann: a tercentenary reassessment',
Early Music 9/4 (1981), pp. 499-505
'Vivaldi - the priest impresario', Recorder and Music Magazine 3/10 (1971),
pp.360-2
Denis Amold, 'Monteverdi the instrumentalist', Recorder and Music Magazine
2/5 (1967), pp. 130-2
Janet E. Beat, 'Monteverdi and the opera orchestra of his time', The
Monteverdi Companion, ed. Denis Ameld and Nigel Fortune (London
1968), pp. 277-301
Walter Bergmann, 'Henry Purcell's use of the recorder', Becorder aiid Music
Magazine 1/11 (1965), pp. 333-5; reprinted, ibid. 7/12 (1983), pp.310:"'13
Donald Burrows, 'Handel's London theatre orchestra', Early Music 13/3
(1985), pp. 349-87,
David Lasocki, 'Professional recorder playing in England: Part 11-1640-1740',
Early Music 10/2 (1982), pp. 183-91
'Vivaldi and the recorder', The American Recorder 9 (1968), pp. 103-7
106 Adrienne Simpson

Douglas Macmillan, "The recorder in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth
centuries',. The Consort 39 (1983), pp. 489-97 _ ..
Hansjoachím Marx, 'The instrumentation of Handel's early.Italían works' ,
Early Music 16/4 (1988), pp. 496-505
Ioel Newman, 'Handel's use of the recorder', The American Recorder 5/4
(1964), pp. 4-:.9 .
Philippe Oboussier, 'The chapel of the Sun King', Music and Musicians 20/3
(November 1971), pp. 30-2
Hans-Joachim Schulze, 'Johann Sebastian Bach's orchestra: some unanswered
questions', Early Music 13/1 (1989), pp. 3-15
Eleanor Selfridge-Field, 'Vivaldi's esoteric instruments', Early Music 16/3
(1988), pp. 332-8
'Italian oratorio and the baroque orchestra', Early Music 16/4 (1988), pp.
506-13
CarolineWood, 'Orchestra ..and spectacle in the tragédie en musique.167;J-
1715: oraeIe, sommeil and tempéte', Proceedings of the RoyaJ Musical
Association. 108 (1981,",,2),pp. 25-46 .
Neal .Zaslaw, 'When is an orchestra not an orchestra?', Early Music 16i4
.. (1988), pp. 483-95
~., : .