w. '4' » >‘n. WW?» - v.11 :1». . .A-., V: a" 1 ' 1'. V V \~ @fiw . fl .1 , .. ,r3,sv.‘1.'1\. r“ 3.51:". 3“ L .' 7 "\ " W'm'r. 1 . n». .‘u ‘4. 5 ,5. . 41‘ . '- -..‘r't’vfx' . : tsfijfifiéfii 1%. . ‘v . . -- ‘r " . . . ‘ , . ' ' ’ "i. ‘9 Id. . 3,, 1r; 9 ‘ ‘ v ' 3.4;“ a , ‘ , 2“ij NE" ~.~ tfiiy wfia‘. ., .- $3.“: UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES IIIIIIIII IIIIIIII IIIIII I II III II 3 1293 010219 This is to certify that the dissertation entitled THE EVOLUTION OF BASSOON FINGERING SYSTEMS: AN HISTORICAL AND PRACTICAL SURVEY presented by William Louis Peebles has been accepted towards fulfillment of the requirements for D.M.A. degree in Bassoon Performance W Major professor Date August 3, 1994 MSU Ls an Affirmattw Action/Equal Opportunity Institution 0 12771 LIBRARY Michigan State University PLACE II RETURN BOXtomnavow-ohockouttmm yum. To AVOID FINES return on or baton data duo. DATE DUE DATE DUE DATE DUE THE EVOLUTION OF BASSOON FINGERING SYSTEMS: AN HISTORICAL AND PRACTICAL SURVEY BY William Louis Peebles A DISSERTATION Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF MUSICAL ARTS School of Music 1994 ABSTRACT THE EVOLUTION OF BASSOON FINGERING SYSTEMS: AN HISTORICAL AND PRACTICAL SURVEY BY William Louis Peebles Popular criticism of the modern bassoon's key mechanism as bizarre or illogical is based on a fundamental misinter- pretation of the instrument's history. The bassoon has developed, not in a linear fashion, but as the result of a complex interweaving of the creative efforts of instrument makers, performers, and composers. That the resulting fingering system appears to be illogical does not mean that its development was irrational. Rather, bassoon makers at all moments in the instrument's history have responded intelligently and thoughtfully to the demands and opportunities of the day. A flaw in traditional histories of the bassoon is the tendency to focus on the number of keys, without considering the process by which they were developed. The practical advantages to be gained by the addition of each new key and the repercussions of early choices on subsequent design are not adequately addressed. Inconsistencies in terminology and fingering charts have further inhibited a reasoned understanding of the bassoon's development. This study examines the modern bassoon's fingering system from its medieval origins to the present day. Each innovation is evaluated in terms of its application to specific problems of performance. Evidence is drawn from a variety of historical and modern sources, both pictorial and literary, as well as the author's experience in playing examples of the various types of instruments discussed. Fingering charts corresponding to each stage of the bassoon's development are thoroughly compared and a new method of notating fingerings is presented in order to simplify such comparisons for the reader. Copyright by William Louis Peebles 1994 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to acknowledge the support and assistance of the following individuals, without whose understanding and encouragement the project would never have been completed: Dr. Edgar L. Kirk, Professor Emeritus, Michigan State University, for his invaluable guidance and patience as teacher, mentor, and friend; Dr. Rosalie Schellhous, Associate Professor, Michigan State University, for her critical readings of the text, her proddings to rethink and revise, and for gently nudging this fledgling out of the nest; Dr. Eldred Spell, Assistant Professor, Western Carolina University, for his insight into the manufacture and performance of early instruments, his readings of the text, and his judicious needling to "get it done;" Dr. Robert Kehrberg, Chairperson, Department of Music, Western Carolina University, for his encouragement and his flexibility in helping me find time for the conclusion of this project; Dr. Maxie Beaver, Professor, Western Carolina University, and Ken Overton, for their helpful suggestions and readings of various drafts; V Mrs. William E. (Pat) Clark, of Mason, Michigan, whose generous gift of her late husband's krummhorns and kortholts made hands-on experience with Renaissance instruments possible; Dr. Ronald Klimko, Professor of Bassoon, University of Idaho, and Mr. Chip Owen, Fox Products, for their help in providing information about Reform-system bassoons; Mr. Laurence Libin, Curator of Musical Instruments, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, for permission to study the Heckel-Gatz bassoon; Mom and Dad, who over the years have found more extraneous commas, split infinitives, and creative spellings than anyone, but whose patience and support never failed; Finally, a word of thanks to those rare and treasured friends who never asked "Are you still in grad school?" vi PREFACE This project began as the innocent though somewhat frustrated question of a young bassoonist, "Why is the fingering for c# so awkward?" Years later, when a doctoral thesis topic was needed, this question again came to mind. From it came the idea to redesign the c#-key to make the bassoonist's life easier. This project soon grew into a general revision of the key mechanism based on a compromise between my desire to preserve the bassoon's characteristic tone color and my goal of eliminating that inconvenient c# and all the other awkward fingerings. The present work was initially conceived as the historical background for that larger project. My research led me into the fascinating history of nineteenth-century experimental bassoons. My admiration of the wonderful key mechanisms of these unusual instruments was soon surpassed by my curiosity as to their relatively minimal impact on bassoon manufacture. How could such clever and intricate keywork fail to captivate nineteenth-century bassoonists as it had me? Thus the idea of a brief historical overview developed into the present attempt to reconstruct, from pictorial, written, and physical evidence, the critical vii issues in the development of the bassoon's curious fingering patterns. In developing this project, I have been interested not so much in when a key was added, for which there is often ample evidence, but why, for which only rarely is there evidence of any type. To answer these questions, I found it necessary to draw on a variety of sources: pictorial evidence of early bassoons, descriptions and fingering charts from early bassoon tutors, photographs and written descriptions of surviving instruments in various museum catalogs, and my own examination and performance of various historical instruments. General histories of wind instruments provided important information about the bassoon's development in relation to similar trends in other instruments. Of these, the most useful were those by Anthony Baines, Adam Carse, Karl Geiringer, Sibyl Marcuse, and Curt Sachs.l In addition, there are several more specific histories of the bassoon that provided a wealth of detail. Gunther Joppig's history of the oboe and bassoon, although aimed at a popular 1 Anthony Baines, Woodwind Instruments and their History, revised ed. (New York: W. W. Norton, 1962); Adam Carse, Musical Wind Instruments: A History (London: Macmillan, 1939); Karl Geiringer, Musical Instruments: Their History in Western Culture, second ed., trans. Bernard Miall, ed. W. F. H. Blandford (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1945); Sibyl Marcuse, A Survey of Musical Instruments (New York: Harper 5 Row, 1975); Curt Sachs, The History of Musical Instruments (New York: W. W. Norton, 1940). viii audience, is beautifully illustrated.2 A short history of the bassoon by Wilhelm Heckel, a proprietor of the world— renowned Heckel firm, also contains very interesting illustrations.3 The two most extensive books on the bassoon were written by enthusiastic amateur players: Will Jansen, a Dutch engineer, and Lyndesay Langwill, an accountant from Scotland.4 Although voluminous and profusely illustrated, Jansen's book is of questionable value because of its disorganization, errors, and unsupported personal opinion.5 Almost thirty years old now, Langwill's thorough and well- organized work is still regarded as the standard work on the bassoon. Langwill also compiled an invaluable inventory of information about historical instrument makers; the new (1993) edition, edited by William Waterhouse, is superb.6 2 Gunther Joppig, The Oboe and the Bassoon, trans. Alfred Clayton (Portland, Oregon: Amadeus Press, 1988). 3 Wilhelm Hermann Heckel, The Bassoon (Wiesbaden: Wilhelm Heckel, 1931; trans. Lyndesay G. Langwill, rev. and ed. Douglas Waples, Greenfield, Ohio: Journal of Musicology Reprint, 1940). 4 Will Jansen, The Bassoon: Its History, Construction, Makers, Players and Music, five vols. (Buren, The Netherlands: Fritz Knuf, 1978-84); Lyndesay G. Langwill, The Bassoon and Contrabassoon, Instruments of the Orchestra (London: Ernest Benn, 1965). 5 For a critique, see Gerald E. Corey, review of The Bassoon, Its History, Construction, Makers, Players and Music, by Will Jansen, Double Reed 2, no. 5 (October 1980): 9-10. 5 Lyndesay G. Langwill, An Index of Musical Wind Instrument Makers, sixth edition (Edinburgh: Lindsay, 1980); William Waterhouse, ed., The New Langwill Index: A Dictionary of Musical Wind-Instrument Makers and Inventors (London: Tony Bingham, 1993). ix Fingering charts-—a significant source of information about how a specific key was used——were of tremendous importance. To trace the development of new fingering patterns, I compared over four dozen different charts spanning a period of nearly five hundred years. Twenty- three of these are represented in the fourteen tables of fingerings located in the Appendix. I was fortunate to be able to review a number of the most important original fingering charts at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. Facsimiles of some of these charts are reproduced in the Langwill and Jansen histories previously cited. Harold Eugene Griswold's comparison of eighteenth-century fingerings provided a very useful table, but offered little in the way of discussion or interpretation.7 Illustrations of instruments from various exhibitions and catalogs served as additional sources. Most important among these were the catalog of the Heckel collection which contains a number of excellent line drawings of historical instruments.8 The catalog by William Waterhouse for the bassoon exhibit at the Edinburgh International Festival of 1983 contains many excellent photographs of some of the most important bassoon specimens, including four of the most 7 Harold Eugene Griswold, "Comparing Fingerings for Evolving Bassoons from the Second Half of the Eighteenth Century to the Beginning of the Nineteenth Century," Double Reed 2, no. 2 (October 1979): 18—24. 3 [Rudolf Klose], Musikhistorisches Museum Heckel- Biebrich: Fagott (Wiesbaden: Wilhelm Heckel, 1968). x interesting "Boehm-system" bassoons.9 Although short on illustrations, Philip Young's extensive inventory of historical instrument collections proved to be a valuable source of written descriptions.10 A revised edition, scheduled for publication this year, should prove even more useful to future researchers. Written evidence was also very important in providing clues to the practical issues associated with the development of bassoon fingerings. The earliest historical source that offers specific technical information about Western musical instruments and their performance is Musica getutscht by Sebastian Virdung (ca. 1465-after 1511).11 A new critical edition and translation of this work, expected to be published this year, should be of immense value to future researchers. A recent edition the Syntagma musicum by Michael Praetorius (1571-1621), published in 1619, contains excellent annotations by Derek Z. Crookes which proved to be highly valuable.12 9 William Waterhouse, The Proud Bassoon: An Exhibition (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University, 1983). 1° Phillip T. Young, Twenty-five Hundred Historical Woodwind Instruments: An Inventory of the Major Collections (New York: Pendragon Press, 1982). 11 Sebastian Virdung, Musica getutscht (Basel, 1511; facsimile reprint, Documenta Musicologica, Kassel: Barenreiter, 1970). 33 Michael Praetorius, Syntagma musicum II: De organo- graphia (Wolfenbfittel, 1618-19; trans. and ed. David 2. Crookes, Early Music Series 7, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986). xi Records of an instrument maker's reasons for making alterations to an instrument are extremely rare but extremely valuable. The various treatises of Karl Almenrader (1786-1843) are a true goldmine with regard to the practical concerns of this important innovator.13 More recently, articles by Romanian bassoonist and experimenter Gheorghe Cuciureanu in the Journal of the International Double Reed Society provide insight into modern attempts to improve on Almenrader's work. My acquaintance with Mr. Chip Owen and others at the Fox Products Corporation has provided helpful insights into the technical aspects of bassoon construction, both modern and historical. Finally, I gained invaluable experience from examining and playing a small number of instruments that represent various stages in the bassoon's development. Three of these instruments are originals in my own collection: a six-keyed English bassoon by William Milhouse of London, ca. 1795; a six-keyed English bassoon by Thomas Key of London, probably dating from the 18208, to which three keys have been added; and a twelve-keyed bassoon by Heinrich Grenser, ca. 1810, 13 Der Kunst des Fagottblasens, oder Vollstandige theoretisch-praktische Fagottschule (Mainz: B. Schott Sbhnen, [ca. 1843]); "On the Making of Bassoon Reeds," [excerpt from Der Kunst des Fagottblasens] trans. Ester Froese, Journal of the International Double Reed Society 8 (1980): 23-27; "Treatise on the Improvement of the Bassoon Including Two Tables," Mainz: Schott, ca. 1820, trans. Charles Koster, Journal of the International Double Reed Society 14 (1986): 22-39. xii which has been modified, probably from an eight-keyed original. These instruments bear clues to their makers' intentions and ideas, as well as providing practical experience of the problems and advantages they present to the performer. Information thus gathered provided important clues regarding the bassoon's development. I also had access to a number of reproductions of early instruments, including kortholts by Moeck, krummhorns by George Kelischek of North Carolina, a rackett that I assembled from an Early Music Shop of London kit, and a beautiful two-keyed dulcian made by Philip Levin of New Jersey. Playing these instruments gave valuable insight into the practical value of the Renaissance system of cross— fingerings. In preparing the manuscript of this dissertation, it has been my desire to provide a clear and legible text with a minimum of extraneous information. For this reason I have provided a number of my own illustrations, which are designed to illuminate specific sections of the text. Most of the drawings are oriented with the top of the instrument at the top of the illustration. In some cases, an instru- ment is shown horizontally; in these drawings, the top of the instrument is at the left. In the text I have called the reader's attention to many additional illustrations, the viewing of which I deemed interesting but not essential to understanding the topic. Each of these is cited in the most readily available source xiii of which I am aware, in order to aid readers who may wish to examine this collateral material on their own. Finally, in order to facilitate the discussion and comparison of fingerings, I developed a symbolic system for the notation of fingerings. Use of this notation eliminates the problems caused by differences in presentation between various historical charts. This system is summarized in the List of Symbols on p. xx and is described thoroughly in the Introduction. xiv TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES LIST OF FIGURES LIST OF PITCH SYMBOLS LIST OF FINGERING SYMBOLS INTRODUCTION CHAPTER 1. DOUBLE-REED INSTRUMENTS BEFORE 1600 Instruments with Six Finger Holes Instruments with Seven Finger Holes The Shawm, Kortholt, and Related Instruments The Dulcian CHAPTER 2. INVENTION OF THE BASSOON The Four-keyed Bassoon Bassoons with Five to Eight Keys CHAPTER 3. NATIONAL STYLES OF BASSOON CHAPTER 4. THE ALMENRADER SYSTEM CHAPTER 5. THE JANCOURT SYSTEM CHAPTER 6. EXPERIMENTAL SYSTEMS CHAPTER 7. THE BASSOON IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS APPENDIX: TABLES OF FINGERINGS BIBLIOGRAPHY XV Page xvi xvii xix XX 29 32 39 47 61 68 77 89 100 121 140 159 185 200 203 228 Table 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. LIST OF TABLES Six-hole system based on G Seven-hole system based on F Dulcian with Bassoon with Bassoon with Bassoon with Bassoon with Bassoon with Bassoon with two keys three keys four keys five keys six keys seven or eight keys nine keys Almenrader system bassoon, ca. 1820 Almenrader system bassoon, modern Jancourt system bassoon, modern Boehm-system bassoon Brindley's "Logical bassoon" xvi Page 205 206 207 208 209 211 213 214 216 218 220 222 224 226 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. 2. .h 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. Double Reed Open and closed keys Angled tone holes in wing joint of bassoon Swallowtail key Shawm: bass extension Krummhorn: bass extension Kortholt Rackett: top and expanded views Dulcian Bassoon with four keys Long joint: BBb- and D-keys Boot joint: F- and G#-keys Alternative locations of left-hand D#—keys Alternative locations of c#-key Alternative locations of C#-key Alternative locations of vent keys Bridge key architecture Almenrader system, ca. 1825 Almenrader system, ca. 1843 French left thumb keys, early nineteenth-century xvii Page 10 14 49 50 51 54 57 60 62 69 75 83 92 105 109 115 118 126 135 144 List of Figures (continued) Figure Page 21. Jancourt's bass extension keys, ca. 1845 149 22. Jancourt's left hand finger keys, ca. 1876 154 23. Triebert's Boehm-system thumb keys 172 24. Heckel's keywork for Percy Gatz, 1932 190 xviii LIST OF PITCH SYMBOLS The notation of pitch follows the standard: 1:“ /.Q. / \I A Di] fl} ,6 ,3 ”7 A? If“ ' :1 I 33/ . 3/ 6' CC-BB C-B c-b c'-b' c"-b" xix Read LIST OF FINGERING SYMBOLS The notation of fingerings employs the following symbols: 0 = finger raised, tone hole open x = finger in place, closing tone hole ; = finger partially closing tone hole BBb F = key in use, letters indicate pitch produced c# w = whisper key (C,D)= keys pressed by the same finger x = (underline) finger to be used in a trill 1,2 = vent keys; higher number indicates higher vent Read from left to right the symbols represent the upper hand (normally the left) followed by a slash (l) and the lower hand. For each hand, the first finger is at the left. A thumb hole or key (if present) is shown to the left of the fingers but separated from them by a slash: [x/xxo/oooo] shows a fingering for an instrument with three upper finger holes, four lower finger holes, and one thumb hole for the upper hand; the note being played requires the thumb, first and second fingers of the upper hand. XX INTRODUCTION The modern bassoon is a masterpiece of nineteenth- century mechanical engineering, yet its intricate key system is attached to an acoustical tube whose construction retains features that have been relatively unchanged since its origins in the mid-sixteenth century. This feature led French composer and scholar Adrien de la Page (1805-1862) to describe the bassoon as an "instrument de construction essentiellement bizarre."1 This remark, while originally referring to the bassoon's acoustical construction, has been echoed ever since in regard to the instrument in general. The implication has not always been derogatory. The twentieth-century historian of musical instruments Adam Carse has linked the bassoon's unusual construction directly to those qualities that made it appealing: The bassoon is more or less an acoustical freak, and if it were deprived of its irrational features it would lose its character and become something else; it might 1 "Instrument of essentially bizarre construction" (author's translation); Adrien de la Page, Quinze visites musicales a l'exposition universelle de 1855 (Paris: Chez Tardif, 1856), p. 118. 2 be a wooden sarrusophone, but it would not be a bassoon.2 It is the desire to improve those irrational features without losing the bassoon's unique tonal characteristics that has inspired some bassoonists and manufacturers to continue experimenting even after others were calling the work complete. Twentieth-century bassoon virtuoso Leonard Sharrow (b. 1915), for example, referred to the "remarkable irrationality" of the bassoon in an essay calling for major revisions to the instrument.3 The history of the bassoon has been discussed frequently in the context of general studies of musical instruments.4 These studies are useful in gaining an overview of instru- mental development. Because they focus on a variety of different instruments, however, they are necessarily limited in the degree to which they can address more specific issues related to the bassoon. Discussions of the bassoon's 2 Adam Carse, Musical Wind Instruments: A History (London: Macmillan, 1939), p. 195. 3 Leonard Sharrow, "The Bassoon is Archaic: The Need for a New Instrument," Woodwind (April-May 1950); reprint, Rudo S. Globus, ed., Woodwind Anthology (New York: Woodwind Magazine, 1952), p. 69. 4 Anthony Baines, Woodwind Instruments and their Histogy, revised ed. (New York: W. W. Norton, 1962); Adam Carse, Musical Wind Instruments; Karl Geiringer, Musical Instruments: Their History in Western Culture, second ed., trans. Bernard Miall, ed. W. F. H. Blandford, (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1945); Sibyl Marcuse, A Survey of Musical Instruments (New York: Harper & Row, 1975); Curt Sachs, The History of Musical Instruments (New York: W. W. Norton, 1940). 3 development in these works tend to focus on cataloguing and description. While these functions are a necessary part of a general history of instruments, they are only a beginning. Histories of the bassoon by Wilhelm Heckel, Will Jansen, Gunther Joppig, and Lyndesay Langwill, while providing a great deal of detailed information, also tend toward description rather than analysis and explanation.5 There remains no comprehensive discussion of the prac- tical significance of the addition of keys in the bassoon's development. It is relatively easy, therefore, to trace changes in the instrument's appearance without gaining much insight into why these changes were made. Without this insight it is easy to consider the bassoon's fingering system to be illogical. This dissertation will show that the development of the bassoon's key mechanism was not an irrational process under- taken by individuals who were unable, for whatever reason, to achieve an instrument suitable for the performance of modern music. On the contrary, the choices that were made will be seen to be rational and practical, based on 5 Wilhelm Hermann Heckel, The Bassoon (Wiesbaden: Wilhelm Heckel, 1931; trans. Lyndesay G. Langwill, rev. and ed. Douglas Waples, Greenfield, Ohio: Journal of Musicology Reprint, 1940); Will Jansen, The Bassoon: Its History, Construction, Makers, Players and Music, five vols. (Buren, The Netherlands: Fritz Knuf, 1978-84); Gunther Joppig, The Oboe and the Bassoon, trans. Alfred Clayton (Portland, Oregon: Amadeus Press, 1988); Lyndesay G. Langwill, The Bassoon and Contrabassoon, Instruments of the Orchestra (London: Ernest Benn, 1965). 4 considerations that were important at the time. These considerations included practical aspects of performance, acoustics, and manufacture. While some of the decisions made by early bassoon makers have proved problematic for later generations who must play radically different music, this fact can hardly justify the imputation of ignorance or eccentricity on the part of the pioneers. To develop a more reasonable and comprehensive view, I will attempt to reconstruct the practical issues-—musical, acoustical, and mechanical-—facing manufacturers and performers who were involved in the bassoon's development. The primary focus will be on changes in fingerings which are relevant to each stage in the process. Acoustical design, while of great importance in the aesthetic enjoyment of the bassoon, is much less significant in the discussion of the fingering patterns. Acoustic questions, therefore, will generally be discussed only where changes in the acoustical design had significant impact on the fingering system. Because the fingerings of an instrument's basic scale are used, with relatively minor changes, to achieve the pitches of the second octave as well, they are of primary importance to the following discussion. The bass extension, the most unique feature of the bassoon's fingering system and one for which a variety of interesting mechanisms were developed, is also significant. Fingerings in these ranges show a degree of consistency between instruments that makes meaningful comparisons possible and fruitful. In the third 5 octave, however, fingerings tend to be complex and idio- syncratic, offering little in the way of useful comparisons. These fingerings will be considered only in terms of the overall range or when a new key is added to make it easier to produce them. The following discussion will focus on the fingerings of the basic scale and the bass extension. To understand the evolution of the bassoon's key mechanism, it is important to consider the practical value of each additional key. This can be done by comparing the ease of playing specific passages in musical compositions appropriate to each instrument. Any musical example, however, brings with it a broader musical context that may be needlessly confusing. In addition, the numerous musical examples that would be necessary would add considerably to the visual clutter in the text. In order to focus the attention on the fingerings themselves, a more abstract indicator-the ease of producing trills-—will be used for comparison. That trills were of great concern among eighteenth- and nineteenth-century writers on the bassoon can be seen, for example, in the works of French bassoon virtuoso Etienne Ozi (1754-1813), who included in his Nouvelle méthode du basson an entire page of trills that were considered impossible in his day.6 5 Etienne Ozi, Nouvelle méthode du basson (Paris: Imprimerie du Conservatoire de Musique, 1803; reprint, Méthodes instrumentales les plus anciennes du Conservatoire de Paris, Geneva: Minkoff Reprint, 1974), p. 34 6 The availability of simple trill fingerings indicates in a general way the flexibility of an instrument's overall fingering system. Because there are only ten fingers avail- able to control the twelve chromatic pitches in an octave, at least one of the fingers must serve two purposes.7 Often, this involves a primary duty to cover an open tone hole and a secondary role in opening an adjacent key. At some point these two roles will come into conflict: the finger must eventually be used to slide from the hole to the key or vice versa. If this occurs between fingerings for two pitches a half or whole step apart, then a trill of that interval will be nearly impossible unless an alternate fingering is available. An instrument on which no alter- native fingerings are available will be more limited in the total range of its fingering combinations, and more limited in the music for which it can successfully be used. It will be shown in the following discussion that the ease of producing trills must have been a consideration of instrument manufacturers when they set about to expand an instrument's capabilities. It will also become evident that bassoon makers first focused their attention on the basic scale and the bass extension while developing the first five or six keys. Only in the late eighteenth century did they begin to consider methods that might significantly improve 7 In practice, however, the number of fingers available is usually reduced to nine, one thumb being reserved to help hold the instrument. This, of course, means that more fingers will be required to do double duty. 7 the production of the third octave, and only in the nineteenth century did they finally achieve an easy and effective chromatic scale. Finally, it will become clear that in all of these efforts instrument makers were responding to the needs of players who were faced with practical problems of musical performance. Chapter 1 will focus on the medieval and Renaissance ancestors of the bassoon-—the shawm, krummhorn, kortholt, and dulcian-—which shared a common fingering system. Chapter 2 will deal with the development of the four- sectioned, four-keyed bassoon of the seventeenth century from the one-piece, two-keyed dulcian of the sixteenth. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the development of four additional keys during the eighteenth century. In these chapters it will be seen that although these changes in the bassoon's construction did not follow any pre- determined plan, their sequence is discernible and understandable. Chapter 3 deals with variations in the development of additional keys that eventually led to the independent evolution of two national styles of bassoon construction in the first half of the nineteenth century. The work of the German experimenter Karl Almenrader (1786-1843) is the focus of chapter 4. Almenrader relied heavily upon the work of Gottfried Weber (1779-1839), a German composer and music theorist who made a thorough study of musical acoustics. In the hands of Almenrader and other experimenters, the bassoon 8 underwent a series of important changes, both in the construction of its acoustical tube and in the addition of nearly a dozen new keys that dramatically changed its appearance. Despite these very significant changes, however, many of the bassoon's basic fingerings remained essentially the same as those employed on its Renaissance ancestors. The parallel development of a different concept of bassoon in the hands of the French bassoonist and teacher Eugene Jancourt (1815-1901) is the topic of Chapter 5. By the middle of the nineteenth century, woodwind instruments were undergoing even more radical revision according to the scientific and practical principles of Theobald Boehm (1794-1881). The application of Boehm's principles, while revolutionizing the construction of the flute and clarinet, resulted in several highly complex bassoons that rarely made it beyond the experimental stage. These instruments are discussed in chapter 6. Despite the interest which some of these experimental bassoons drew at international trade exhibitions, they failed to generate lasting interest and rapidly fell out of favor. This lack of interest persisted throughout much of the twentieth century as well. Only recently have Boehm's ideas about the bassoon been subject to more than passing attention. The twentieth century, despite its abundant technological innovations, has failed to produce more than a handful of significant innovations in the construction of the bassoon. Although including some of the most radical 9 revisions yet attempted, twentieth-century bassoon experi- ments have tended to be idiosyncratic and have resulted in few significant changes. These instruments are the focus of chapter 7. Terminology Given the purpose this dissertation, the discussion must focus on some fairly technical considerations. In order to prepare the reader for the task ahead, the remainder of this introduction is intended as a layman's guide to the tech- nical issues and terminology to be used in the rest of the dissertation. Wind instruments produce sound by the oscillation of air in an acoustical tube. This tube is enclosed in the body of the instrument. It is appropriate to speak of this tube as having directional properties, that is, as having a top end into which the air is blown, and a bottom end from which the air exits the instrument. These directional properties are independent of the actual shape of the instrument which may be straight, folded, or even coiled. The air inside this tube is referred to as the instrument's air column. It is the oscillation of this column of air that generates the sounds we hear. On woodwind instruments, the air column is set into oscillation in one of two ways. In flutes and recorders, the player's breath is directed past a sharp edge which 10 directs some of the air into the instrument and the rest of it outside. A set of relationships, too complex to go into here, causes the air inside the flute to oscillate. All of the other woodwind instruments employ a special device known as a reed to help set up oscillations in the air column. A reed is a thin piece of natural fiber that begins to vibrate when air is blown past it. Clarinets and saxophones employ a single flat reed which vibrates against a stationary mouthpiece to which the reed is mounted. The rapid opening and closing of the space between the reed and the mouthpiece creates the necessary oscillation in the air column. The double reed family of instruments, which includes oboes and bassoons, is so called because these instruments employ a double rather than a single reed. A double reed is made by binding together two thin strips of reed to form a flattened opening at one end (Figure 1). As air is blown through this opening, the two pieces of cane vibrate against each other, thereby setting up the oscillation in the in- strument's air column. The other end of the reed is formed Figure 1. Double Reed 11 to fit over a metal tube or staple which is then inserted into a socket in the instrument itself. On bassoons the reed is separate from the staple, which is long and curved. This long metal pipe is known as a crook or a bocal. The length of the air column determines the pitch that is produced. If there are no holes in the body of the instrument, the air column corresponds to the length of the acoustical tube. On woodwind instruments different pitches are produced by opening or closing various tone holes bored through the body of the instrument into the acoustical tube, thus changing the effective length of the air column. In general, the longer the air column, the lower the pitch of the tone that is produced. The lowest pitch possible, produced when all the tone holes are closed, is the instru- ment's fundamental pitch. The fundamental of the modern bassoon, for example, is BBb, the pitch obtained when all the tone holes are closed. The highest pitch depends upon a variety of factors, including the configuration of the acoustical tube, the size and location of the tone holes, the quality of the reed, and the skill of the performer. In theory, an open tone hole acts to shorten an acou- stical tube by the distance between the hole and the end of the instrument, but this is only true if the tone hole is of equivalent diameter to the pipe itself.8 In practice, no 3 For a thorough general discussion of woodwind acoustics, see Arthur Benade, Fundamentals of Musical Acoustics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976; reprint, New York: Dover Publications, 1990), pp. 430-462. 12 woodwind instruments are actually constructed in this way; only the modern saxophone and Boehm-system flute have tone holes whose dimensions even approach the actual diameter of the bore. The practical limitation of a tone hole's size to that which is easily covered by the human fingertip resulted in the development of wind instruments with tone holes that are significantly smaller than the diameter of the acoustical tube. By the sixteenth century, woodwind instruments typi- cally had six or seven tone holes that were covered by the fingers, hence their common name, finger holes. Beginning with the instrument's fundamental pitch, a sequential open- ing of the finger holes from the lowest one upward creates the pitches of the instrument's basic scale. This scale is a diatonic scale-—consisting of both half steps and whole steps-—in the pattern of one of the medieval church modes, most often Lydian or Mixolydian.9 Basic scales that begin on F, G, and C have been most common, historically. The pitches of these basic scales generally correspond to the white notes on a piano, that is, they do not include flats or sharps. Some instruments employ a bass extension, that is, a downward extension of an instrument's range beyond the basic scale by means of a longer acoustical tube and addi- tional holes operated by the thumbs and little fingers. 9 In this paper, the modern usage of Greek names for these modes will be applied, since the medieval terminology is not so well known. LI. a: PI Pi It. \I’ A‘s s '1 IE PH.» 13 Most wind instruments produce a range of pitches far wider than that of their basic scale and whatever bass extension might be present. This is accomplished by the technique of overblowing, in which the player modifies the oscillation within the instrument to produce a higher harmonic of the fingered pitch. Instruments with conical bores, like the bassoon and oboe, overblow at the interval of an octave. Instruments with open cylindrical bores, such as the flute, also overblow at the octave. Reed instruments with cylindrical bores, however, function as stopped cylin— drical pipes and overblow at the twelfth. Such instruments include the clarinet and krummhorn. The small size of an instrument's finger holes relative to the diameter of the acoustical tube means that a given tone hole does not completely shorten the acoustical tube to that point. As a result, the pitch of the notes produced by these smaller tone holes can be affected by the closing of additional tone holes some distance farther down the tube, even with one or more open holes intervening. Such fingerings-called cross-fingerings-—make it possible to play each chromatic pitch that falls between the diatonic pitches of an instrument's basic scale.10 As woodwind instruments developed, traditional cross- fingerings began to be replaced by patterns that involved 1” For a full discussion, see Eric Halfpenny and Niall O'Loughlin, "Fingering," New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Stanley Sadie, ed. (London: Macmillan, 1980) 6: 581-584. F.‘ \u. 14 the use of simple mechanical devices known as keys. The function of a key is essentially to extend the reach of a finger to open or close a tone hole that is either too far away or too large to reach with a normal hand. The end of the key which the finger contacts is called the touchpiece. This term is important because it is often necessary to differentiate between the location of a key's fingered end and the location of the tone hole which it controls. A key closes a tone hole by means of a soft pad which substitutes for the fleshy pad of the player's fingertip. Woodwind instruments employ two types of keys. These are referred to as open or closed according to the position of the pad over the tone hole when the key is at rest (Figure 2). Acoustically, their functions are quite different: when activated, an open key closes a normally open tone hole while a closed key opens a tone hole that is k C 9 a r l :--------- Closed Key Figure 2. Open and closed keys 15 otherwise closed. Open keys are usually part of an instru- ment's basic diatonic scale; in many cases they control what would otherwise be open finger holes. Therefore, to press an open key lowers the pitch of a given fingering (for example, G) to the next lower diatonic pitch (F) by closing the appropriate tone hole, just as a finger closes an open hole in the basic scale. A closed key, by contrast, is used to raise the pitch of a given fingering (G) by opening the tone hole for the next higher chromatic pitch (G#). The distinction between open and closed keys becomes critical in the investigation of historical developments in fingering systems. Here, careless terminology can make even the simplest function of a key unclear. Unfortunately, historians of musical instruments have not been consistent in the labeling of keys, often merely adopting popular terminology.11 The disadvantage of this approach is that the popular names for some keys exactly contradict the actual function of those keys. For example, the A#-key on the bassoon is generally referred to as a Bb-key since Bbs are encountered in performance far more often than A#s. The actual acoustical function of the so-called Bb-key, however, is to modify the A-fingering to produce A#. In this paper both open and closed keys will be named for the pitch produced when the key is in use, according to the way in 11 John B. Dick, for example, proposes using the players' traditional terminology even if it is illogical; "Catalog Descriptions of Keywork," Galpin Society Journal 41 (October 1988): 33. wi at 16 which that pitch is produced. Therefore, a closed key will be referred to by the pitch produced when the key is pressed open; in most cases this will represent a chromatic note (F#, A#, etc.). An open key will be named for the pitch produced when the key is closed; this pitch is generally a diatonic step lower than the pitch of the tone hole which the key closes. With the exception of the bassoon's low BBb-key, all other open keys discussed are diatonic. The preceding definitions and explanations are essential to a clear understanding of the development of the bassoon's fingering patterns. It is now necessary to define several basic types of instruments which represent important stages in the process. The terms shawm, kortholt, dulcian, and bassoon will be used to refer to four distinct types of instruments, each of them having double reeds and playing in a register comparable to that of the modern bassoon. In both historical and modern sources, the application of these terms to actual instruments is often confusing and contra- dictory. For clarity, the following narrower definitions will be adopted in this paper. Shawn will refer, as it does commonly in the liter- ature, to a straight, conically-bored instrument played with a double reed. Shawms are the ancestors of the modern oboe and, indirectly, of the modern bassoon. Sibyl Marcuse divides the shawm family into two primary groups—-those in which the reed is external to the instrument, and those in which the reed is enclosed in a wooden housing known as a (n nu l7 windcap.12 On a windcap instrument, the player blows into the chamber in which the reed is located, activating the reed by the air pressure, but without ever touching it. A kortholt is a windcap shawm with two parallel cylindrical bores in a single block of wood. These are joined at the bottom end to create an acoustical tube nearly twice the length of the instrument. This feature, combined with the instrument's cylindrical bore, give it a surpris- ingly low pitch. Unfortunately, the term kortholt is used quite inconsistently in the literature. David Munrow suggests a derivation from the German kurtz HOlz (short wood),13 which probably referred to the fact that the instrument's pitches are considerably lower than one would expect from its apparent length. Anthony Baines gives a second derivation, from the French cortaut, which referred to a short-barreled French artillery piece of the sixteenth century.14 The related English term curtall seems to have been interchangeable with names for a second group of similar instruments which were referred to in Italian as fagotto and in German as Dulzian or Chorist-fagott. While the latter instruments share visible simi-larities with the first type, they are generally larger, oval in cross section, and have a conical bore. Praetorius used Kbrtholt 13 Marcuse, pp. 695. 13 David Munrow, Instruments of the Middle Ages and Renaissance (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976), p. 50. 1‘ Anthony Baines, Oxford Companion to Musical Instruments (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), p. 186. 18 to refer to both types.15 That the term is also applied by some Renaissance writers to the many-folded rackett suggests that its use was generic, referring to any instrument with doubled tubes that played pitches lower than its short appearance suggested. In the following discussion, kortholt will refer to the Renaissance windcap instrument with the doubled cylindrical sound tube. Those instruments commonly referred to as curtall, Fagott or dulcian were made of a single block of wood, like the kortholt, but with a narrowly conical bore and an oval cross-section. These were not windcap instruments, but were played with an external double reed mounted on a curved metal bocal. More like the bassoon than the kortholt, they are generally considered to be the direct antecedents of the modern instrument. In the following discussion, these instruments will be referred to by the term dulcian, which refers to their soft and pleasant tone quality. As a transliteration of kortholt, the English term curtall is unsatisfactory to distinguish between these two types. The term Fagott has been used to refer to the one-piece dulcian and to the four-sectioned bassoon as well. Its derivation is uncertain. The traditional derivation from the Italian fagotto (bundle of sticks) as a reference to the instrument's appearance first appeared in 1635 in a treatise 15 Michael Praetorius, Syntagma musicum II: De organo- graphia (Wolfenbfittel, 1618-19; trans. and ed. David 2. Crookes, Early Music Series 7, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), Plates X and XII. (1 p I." Le 19 by Marin Mersenne (1588-1648),16 nearly a century after the term's first use. One hundred and fifty years later, Pierre Cugnier (1740-after 1780) related the same term to the appearance of the disassembled parts of the eighteenth- century bassoon, which makes more sense.17 The term was first used, however, by Praetorius and his sixteenth-century contemporaries to refer to the dulcian which, being made of a single piece of wood, could hardly be said to resemble a bundle of anything.18 Modern use of the term as the German name for the bassoon further confuses the issue. The term bassoon presents fewer problems. The word appears to have originated in France, being used inter- changeably with fagot in Mersenne's treatise.19 Will Jansen proposes a derivation from the French bas (low) and son (sound), which he explains in terms of the instrument's range.20 The French bas, however, means "subdued" when used in regard to sound; basse (Latin, bassus) would be the correct term in regard to the instrument's pitch.21 Actually, either derivation could be correct; the range certainly is low and the instrument's relatively subdued 1‘ Marin Mersenne, Harmonie universelle: The Books on Instruments (Paris, 1635; trans. Roger E. Chapman, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1957), p. 372. 17 [Pierre Cugnier], "Basson," in Jean Benjamin de Laborde, Essai sur la musique ancienne et moderne (Paris: P. D. Pierres, 1780), 2: 324. 19 Praetorius, p. 48. 13 Mersenne, p. 373. N Jansen, The Bassoon: Its History, etc., p. 14. 21Langwill gives the derivation directly from the Latin; Bassoon and Contrabassoon, p. 5. 20 volume in comparison to contemporary shawms, for example, would have placed it in the sixteenth-century category of low (meaning "soft") instruments. The term first appears in German sources in the second half of the seventeenth century, shortly after French woodwind makers began to create instruments which could be taken apart into separate joints:22 Since eighteenth-century German writers tended to use basson to distinguish this new type of instrument from the older one-piece dulcian, the Anglicization of basson into bassoon will be used henceforth to refer to the jointed instrument. As the bassoon developed in the nineteenth century, two distinct variants in its construction arose. Given their essential characteristics by nineteenth-century makers in France and Germany, these variants have come to be known as French and German bassoons. Use of this national identi- fication tends to obscure the scope of regional diversity among instruments of various makers during the nineteenth century. As an alternative, French and German types are often referred to respectively as Buffet and Heckel bassoons. This designation gives credit to the manufac- turers who were of primary importance in developing and refining the respective systems, but it tends to minimize the contributions of other makers. For the following discussion, each system will be referred to by the name of the individual most important in n Ibid., p. 7. 21 its conception and initial refinement. This approach will help elucidate the relationship between these individuals and their contemporaries, whose efforts were often at least as innovative as those leading to today's standard systems. The French Buffet system will be referred to as the Jancourt system after Eugene Jancourt, Professor of Bassoon at the Paris Conservatory, whose mid-nineteenth-century refinements of the bassoon formed the basis of this variant in bassoon construction. Because it was Karl Almenrfider whose inno- vations formed the basis of the German Heckel system, it will be referred to as the Almenrader system. This usage recognizes that much of Karl Almenrader's essential work was completed before any member of the Heckel family became involved. The terms French and German will be reserved to refer, in a general way, to instruments being made in these geographical areas without implying either the Almenrader or the Jancourt system. The usefulness of these distinctions should become clear in the discussion of early nineteenth- century regional variants in bassoon construction. More problematic is the traditional use of the terms Boehm and Boehm-system to refer to a number of radically different bassoons proposed by a variety of makers in the nineteenth century. The Boehm-system label has been used to emphasize a similarity of approach among these makers, yet its namesake, the brilliant acoustician and instrument designer Theobald Boehm, was involved directly in only one of these experiments. Because most of these makers had only t‘ t cl \HA I: 22 marginal association with Boehm, it seems wise to use the term experimental to refer to their instruments. Boehm- system will be reserved for those instruments with which Boehm himself was directly involved. Another area in which confusion can arise in discussions of historical fingering patterns is the question of which hand was held uppermost while the instrument was being played. The modern playing position with the left hand uppermost was not standardized until the eighteenth century. An illustration in Musica getutscht by Sebastian Virdung (ca. 1465-after 1511) shows both playing positions.23 That this was not merely a theoretical possibility is borne out by a number of early illustrations that show musicians using what may appear to the modern viewer as an incorrect playing position, with the right hand uppermost instead of the left. In the case of woodcuts or engravings, such a reversal might appear to have been the result of carving a correct image in the plate, only to have it come out backwards in the printing.“' However, a woodcut dated 1551 by Heinrich Aldegrever (1502-1558) shows both positions: of the three krummhorn players shown, two use the right hand uppermost 23 Sebastian Virdung, Musica getutscht (Basel, 1511; facsimile reprint, Documenta Musicologica, Kassel: Barenreiter, 1970), p. [4]. 24 Print reversals occur even today; see, for example, the reversal of the famous painting of a bassoonist by Degas in Mindy Keyes, "Degas, Toulouse-Lautrec and Désiré Dihau: Portraits of a Bassoonist and his Bassoon," Double Reed 13, no. 2 (Fall 1990): 57. 23 while the third uses the familiar position.25 In a large painting dated 1616 by Denis van Alsloot (fl. 1599-1628) a dulcian player is shown in a group of six musicians participating in a religious parade in the town of Antwerp. While the cornetto player is shown using the familiar left over right position, the players of the shawms and dulcian use the right hand uppermost.26 A similar discrepancy shows up in a decorative carving on the bell of an unusually ornate oboe dating from around 1700.27 Four musicians are shown: two play the oboe in the modern position while the tenor oboist and bassoonist play with the right hand above. However tempting it may be to attribute these unusual representations to an artist's unfamiliarity with the instruments in question, the evidence of surviving examples supports the artist's observations. Many instruments of various types had not one but two holes for the little finger of the lower hand, one on either side of the axis along which the primary finger holes are drilled. In this way the shorter little finger could reach the closer hole while the unused hole was plugged with wax. This practice was described by Michael Praetorius (1571-1621) in his Syntagma musicum.28 By the early eighteenth-century, however, performance practices had begun to change. While woodwind instruments 3 Gunther Joppig, Oboe and Bassoon, p. 45. 2‘ Baines, Oxford Companion, p. 305. ” Colorplate V in Joppig, Oboe and Bassoon. u Praetorius, p. 45. 24 were still constructed in such a way that either hand position could be used, a preference for the right hand to be used in the lower position began to develop. French flutist Jacques-Martin Hotteterre (1674-1763), for example, taught the left-hand-above position, although he still allowed players who had learned the other position to continue, "since it is possible to play as well in this manner as in another."29 A discussion of early fingerings that ignores the issue of hand position provides an unrealistically simplified view of historical performance. In the following discussion, therefore, I will refer to upper and lower hands rather than right and left to describe fingering patterns in use before the middle of the eighteenth century. Any attempt to recreate the actual fingering patterns used on the various historical bassoons is subject to problems, the first of which is the relative rarity of fingering charts pertaining to early instruments other than the flute. Those charts which can be found are sometimes accompanied by illustrations that are inaccurate and misleading. Fortunately, it was common until the early eighteenth century to provide a thorough written description of the fingerings, even if a chart was used as well. These ” Jacques-Martin Hotteterre, Rudiments of the Flute, Recorder and Oboe (Paris: n.p., 1707; translated, with an introduction and notes, by Paul Marshall Douglas, New York: Dover Publications, 1968), p. 12. 25 descriptions can provide important clues in cases in which the illustration or the chart is ambiguous. A second and more serious problem in the comparison of early fingering patterns is the variety of ways in which fingerings have been represented in the various sources. The oldest fingering charts for woodwind instruments appear in treatises by Sebastian Virdung and Martin Agricola (1486-1556).3o Both authors illustrated fingerings by using numbers corresponding to the tone holes that were to be opened in order to produce a particular pitch. The tone holes were referred to by numbers, beginning with the lowest, that is, the one closest to the bell of the instrument. Marin Mersenne (1588-1648), however, numbered the tone holes in the opposite direction, beginning with the hole that was highest on the acoustical tube.31 Most later writers, however, represented open holes with an open circle (0) and closed holes with a dot (0), whether these holes were covered by fingers or by keys. On simple instruments without keys the interpretation of these marks is unambiguous, since a dot (a) means a hole that must be closed with a finger. As keys were added, the additional holes were illustrated in the same manner as the finger holes. The interpretation is quite clear with regard to ” Virdung, Musica getutscht; Agricola, Musica instrumentalis deudsch, first and fourth eds. (Wittemberg, 1528 and 1545; facsimile reprint, Gesellschaft ffir Musikforschung, Leipzig: Breitkopf & Hartel, 1896). 3 See for example, the illustration of bassoons; Mersenne, p. 372. 26 open keys, which function just like open tone holes: a dot (0) represents a hole that is closed by a finger pressing on a key. But for closed keys a dot indicates that the key is not in use, while an open circle means that the key is to be opened by the appropriate finger. The graphic layout of the historical charts varies as well, with both vertical and horizontal representations to be found. Inconsistencies among the early fingering charts led me to realize that merely presenting facsimiles of historical fingering charts would not effectively communicate the required information. I therefore developed a simplified notation that could fit easily into a prose text. This will provide a consistent and easily readable format for the fingerings under discussion, thereby eliminating the need to refer to fingering charts at various locations in the text. For the reader's convenience, this notation is summarized in the List of Symbols (p. xx). A variety of historical fingering charts have been converted to this simplified notation to facilitate comparison. These are included in the Appendix. In the text, each diagram of a fingering will be enclosed in square brackets: []. The open finger holes will be represented by a series of circles divided by a slash that separates the holes for the two hands; thus [ooo/ooo] represents a simple six-hole pattern with three holes for the upper hand and three for the lower. The diagram shows the highest finger hole at the left and the 27 lowest finger hole at the right. On seven-hole instruments the symbol will show the additional hole for the little finger of the lower hand [ooo/oooo]. When a thumb hole is present it will be represented by an open circle (0) to the left of the finger holes for the same hand, but divided from them by a slash. Thus, [o/ooo/ooo] indicates a thumb hole for the upper hand while [ooo/o/oooo) shows a thumb hole for the lower. A closed hole will be represented by an (x), while a hole that is half-covered will be indicated (1). An underline will be used to indicate a key or a hole that is involved in a trill [xxx/xxh]. Vent keys, which cover holes that are used to assist in register changes but are not used as tone holes, will be indicated by Arabic numerals. The vent hole that is lowest on the acoustical tube will receive the lowest numeral, regardless of the actual position of the key's touchpiece. When a previously open tone hole is fitted with a new key for a little finger or thumb, the name of this key (as described above) will replace the (x) in the fingering symbol. For example, [xxx/xxxF] shows a seven-hole instru- ment with F as its lowest pitch in which the seventh hole is covered by a key. In terms of finger usage, this fingering is identical to [xxx/xxxx], which would be used on a similar instrument that does not have the little-finger key. For these named keys, the open circle will not appear in the symbol when the key is not in use; thus, when the F-key is raised for G, the fingering will appear as [xxx/xxx]. 28 However, because the other six fingers were only rarely given additional keys to cover the open holes, the disposition of these six fingers will still be indicated by (x) and (o). This convention is necessary in order to clarify the basic hand positions and to keep the fingering symbols visually clean. As additional keys for the little fingers and thumbs are discussed, they will be indicated by name according to their function in the basic scale or its bass extension. Thus, [xxx/xxxG#] represents a fingering that requires the use of the little finger of the lower hand on the G#-key. Where two or more keys are to be pressed by the same finger, they will be enclosed in parentheses. In the fingering notated as [(C,D)/xxx/E/xxxF], for example, the left thumb closes both the C- and the D-key. This system for notating fingerings, as well as the definitions given previously, should prepare the reader adequately to understand the discussion that follows. CHAPTER 1 DOUBLE REED INSTRUMENTS BEFORE 1600 Wind instruments are among the oldest examples of musi- cal activity among human beings. Gunther Joppig, Curator of Musical Instruments at the Munich Stadtmuseum, gives a date of 3000 B.C. for the earliest pictorial evidence of reed- blown wind instruments.1 While the musicians who created these instruments undoubtedly had little understanding of the acoustical principles involved, they understood the practical aspects of creating different pitches with tone holes that can be covered by the fingers. More recent archaeological evidence from ancient Greece and Rome bears witness to the presence of lively musical cultures with sophisticated musical instruments. Pictorial and literary evidence suggests a direct relationship between the instru- ments of classical antiquity and the shawms and flutes of the European Middle Ages.2 The majority of surviving medieval woodwind instruments were made of bone; one modern inventory lists 176 examples of bone flutes and whistles compared to only eighteen 1 Gunther Joppig, The Oboe and the Bassoon, trans. Alfred Clayton (Portland, Oregon: Amadeus Press), p. 16. 2 Ibid. I pp. 30. 29 HID! 30 examples of wooden instruments.3 A convenient material for the construction of wind instruments, bone provided a natu- rally cylindrical structure into which were bored or punched from one to seven finger holes. By contrast, wood had several characteristics that may have been responsible for its rarity among preserved medieval specimens. As a material, wood had the disadvantage to instrument makers that it had to be bored or burned out by hand. The useful- ness of wood as a source of fuel made it likely that old wooden instruments were burned rather than being discarded. Finally, those wooden instruments that were thrown away were much more subject to rot than those made of bone. It is unlikely that medieval woodwind instruments were made to any particular pitch standard. Theories of pitch in the music of Western Europe during the Middle Ages were more concerned with the intervals between tones than with abso- lute pitch. Intervals were discussed according to scalar systems called modes, which were derived somewhat inaccu- rately from the writings of ancient Greek theorists. These modes were codified by the European Christian church in an attempt to unify and regularize religious practice. Guido of Arezzo (ca. 991-after 1033), an Italian monk and music theorist, is generally acknowledged to have developed the first practical notation for representing the various 3 Frederick Crane, Extant Medieval Musical Instruments: a Provisional Catalogue by Types (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1972), pp. 25-46. 31 pitches used within the modal system. He also developed a set of syllables which could be used to help singers trans- fer the notation into sound. Later theorists credited Guido with describing the pitch system as a gamut made up of interlocking hexachords based on C, F, and G, each with the same interval pattern. Each note was given a name based on its pitch and its place in one or more hexachords; the syllables ut, re, mi, fa, sol, and la were used for the six pitches of each hexachord. The gamut covered an essentially vocal range from G (gamma-ut, the lowest pitch in the lowest hexachord, from which the term gamut is derived) to e" (e- la, the highest pitch in the highest hexachord). By the sixteenth century, the limits of the Guidonian gamut were being exceeded in both vocal and instrumental music. Virdung clearly showed the pitch f" a half-step above Guido's e-la in a fingering chart for the recorder published in 1511.4 At the other end of the gamut, Virdung's chart showed the lowest pitch as gamma-ut. The fingering for this G was given as [xxx/xxxo] for the bass recorder. The tenor and alto recorders, however, were shown to have an additional lower note fingered [xxx/xxxx]. This suggests that Virdung's bass recorder, having the same pattern of finger holes as the tenor and alto, must have 4 Sebastian Virdung, Musica getutscht (Basel, 1511; facsimile reprint, Documenta Musicologica, Kassel: Barenreiter, 1970), p. [17]. 32 been able to descend to F [xxx/xxxx], even though this pitch was not listed and was outside the traditional gamut. The basically diatonic gamut was also expanded by the use of additional chromatic tones. In the Guidonian system both B and BD were naturally occurring tones; B was the so- called hard b used in the hexachord on G, while Bb was the soft b used in the hexachord on F. In practice, other chromatic pitches were possible; their use was governed by a set of principles by which a tone could be raised or lowered chromatically, usually in order to avoid a tritone or to modify the interval leading to a cadence. Because these chromatic tones lay outside the true gamut, they were con- sidered musica ficta (false music). While all twelve pitches were theoretically available either within the gamut or according to the rules of musica ficta, the frequency of their use varied considerably. In practical terms the limitation of the pitch system to a few diatonic modes meant that instrument makers could give simple fingerings to those pitches most commonly used while relegating the less com- monly occurring pitches to the more awkward fingerings. Instruments with Six Finger Holes Surviving medieval wind instruments have from two to eight tone holes. The majority of bone flutes in the Crane inventory, for example, have four or fewer holes, and may 33 have been played with one hand.5 No fingering charts or treatises about woodwind instruments are known to survive from the medieval period, so a consideration of the finger- ing patterns of early woodwind instruments must be at least partly speculative. The smallest number of holes necessary to produce a complete diatonic scale is six.6 This number is typical of many folk instruments and of most examples of transverse flutes in the Western tradition before the seventeenth century. To understand the development of woodwind fingerings in general, it is necessary to consider the possibilities and limitations of the six-hole system, even though the bassoon itself appeared after the seven-hole system had become standard. The following discussion will focus on the six-hole system on G because it is directly analogous to the seven-hole system on F, which is the basic scale of the bassoon and its antecedents. A sixteenth-century treatise, Martin Agricola's Musica instrumentalis deudsch, contains several charts for six- holed transverse flutes built to play at various pitch levels.7 In the 1528 edition, Agricola's charts show a bassus with a fundamental of D, tenor with a fundamental of 5 Crane, p. 29. 5 Edgar Hunt, The Recorder and its Music (London: Herbert Jenkins, 1962), p. 23. 7 Martin Agricola, Musica instrumentalis deudsch, first and fourth eds, (Wittemberg, 1528 and 1545; facsimile reprint, Gesellschaft ffir Musikforschung, Leipzig: Breitkopf & Hartel, 1896), p. 174. 34 A, and discantus with a fundamental of E.8 The scale of the bassus is labeled with the syllables re mi fa sol re mi fa, indicating the Dorian mode. For the tenor, the syllables are re mi fa re mi fa sol, outlining Aeolian mode. The scale for the discantus is given as mi fa sol re mi fa re, indicating Phrygian mode. According to these charts, then, each instrument has a scale that is within the Guidonian gamut. For each instrument, however, there are additional fingerings which show the availability of chromatic pitches that lie outside the gamut. When all of these fingerings are compared, it becomes clear that the instruments them- selves are constructed similarly and produce exactly the same pattern of half and whole steps when the same fingerings are used. In other words, the instruments all have the same basic scale but each one is transposed to a different fundamental pitch. The mode associated with each instrument can therefore be understood as an artifact of Agricola's method of presentation, rather than as an essential characteristic of the instruments themselves. The 1545 edition shows similar charts but without the solmization syllables. In this edition the fundamental notes of the bassus, tenor, and discantus are shown a step lower, on C, G, and D, respectively.9 As in the 1528 edition, there are differences in the notes available to each instrument, but these differences also disappear when 5 Ibid., pp. 26-28. 9 Ibid., pp. 172-175. 35 the patterns are compared carefully. Agricola's chart for a six-hole instrument with a fundamental of G-—the focus of the following discussion-—is summarized in the Appendix, Table 1. Beginning with the instrument's fundamental pitch [xxx/xxx], opening successively higher finger holes produces the pitches of its basic scale. Thus, the instrument produces seven pitches by the time all holes are open [ooo/ooo]. By changing the speed of the air entering the instrument, most wind instruments can be made to play additional pitches an octave above the basic scale.10 This technique is called overblowing. Overblowing the entirely closed fingering [xxx/xxx] provides the octave replication of the instrument's fundamental pitch, thus completing the instrument's basic scale. On most woodwind instruments, this technique can be used to produce a nearly complete second-octave scale using the same fingerings as for the basic scale. The first pitch of the basic scale is produced with all the tone holes closed [xxx/xxx]. The second and third pitches are attained by opening in turn the first two tone holes covered by the fingers of the lower hand. On the majority of six-hole instruments the first three notes of the basic scale outline a major third: if the fundamental 1° Some wind instruments, such as the clarinet, function acoustically as a stopped cylindrical pipe and overblow at a twelfth above the basic scale. 36 pitch is G, the fingering [xxx/x00] produces B. The Bb is produced by a cross-fingering [xxx/xox], which lowers the tone produced by the open hole by approximately one half step. In practice, additional fingers are often used to modify the pitch or color of a given cross-fingered tone. It is the use of the cross-fingering for the third pitch of the scale that is responsible for the minor thirds above the fundamentals in Agricola's 1528 edition. The fingering [xxx/xoo] would have produced the major thirds, F# for the bassus based on D, C# for the tenor based on A, and G# for the discantus based on E. Because the G-hexachord was the lowest in the Guidonian gamut, Bb was theoretically not available in the lowest octave. Agricola's chart for a six-hole instrument with a fundamental of G, however, clearly shows both B and Bb, giving Bb the cross-fingering described above.11 Because both Agricola and Virdung also show the BD in their charts for instruments with seven finger holes, it is likely that the presence of this Bb was justified by its appearance in the hexachord on the F below gamma-ut, to which both Virdung and Agricola had extended the traditional gamut.12 While this hexachord itself was not in Guido's system, it is consistent with the basic hexachordal patterns Guido described. The B and Bb would not have been used succes- sively as chromatic steps, but would have been used in 14 Agricola, p. 174. 13 Virdung, p. [17]; Agricola, p. 163. 37 diatonic patterns within the modal system. On a six-hole instrument, the B would have been part of the Mixolydian mode on G, while the same mode transposed to C would have included the Bb. The pitches for the fourth through sixth pitches of the basic six-hole scale are controlled by the three fingers of the upper hand in the same way as those of the first three notes were controlled by the lower hand. Given a six-hole instrument producing G as its fundamental, the upper hand pitches are c [xxx/ooo], d [xxo/xxx], and e [xoo/ooo]. A simple cross-fingering [xox/ooo] would produce eb, just as [xxx/xox] had produced Bb in the lower hand. The availabil- ity of eb was part of the improvised application of musica ficta. Its use would have been relatively rare, confined to cases in which a mode has been transposed. The pitch of the seventh tone of the scale, produced by the entirely open pipe, was not consistent among early instruments. On many six-hole instruments with a fundamen- tal pitch of G, the pitch f was achieved by cross-fingering the highest of the open finger holes [oxo/ooo]; the f# was obtained from the completely open tube [ooo/ooo]. The f# existed only as an improvised alteration, used to approach the final of G-Mixolydian from a half step below. Two problems occur in this upper part of the range. The shortness of the tube for these pitches tends to produce unstable tones; in practice the performer may adjust these pitches in one direction or another by closing additional .quiA\ l 38 holes with the fingers as necessary. A second problem is that the completely open fingering [ooo/ooo] leaves only the thumbs in contact with the instrument, making it difficult to hold. A practical solution to the latter problem is to close an additional tone hole with a finger of the lower hand at sufficient distance down the tube that it would have no adverse affect on the pitch. This solution appears in Agricola's (1545) fingerings for the six-hole system, where the pitches d, d# (eb), and f are played with the addition of the third finger of the lower hand.13 While a wide variety of folk instruments from many different musical cultures exhibit only six finger holes, six-holed instruments other than flutes are rarely repre- sented in surviving treatises and fingering charts. The earliest known fingering chart, in the treatise published in 1511 by Sebastian Virdung, is for instruments with seven finger holes.14 Michael Praetorius, writing a century later, appears at first to have included six-holed versions of recorders along with their seven-holed counterparts in his charts of instrumental ranges.15 David z. Crookes, however, interprets Praetorius' charts to mean that Praetorius had merely illustrated both the six-finger [xxx/xxxo] and seven-finger [xxx/xxxx] pitches for the same 13 See Appendix, Table 1. 1‘ Virdung, p. [17]. 15 Michael Praetorius, Syntagma musicum II: De organo- graphia (Wolfenbfittel, 1618-19; trans. and ed. David 2. Crookes, Early Music Series 7, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), p. 36. 39 instrument;15 Crookes is probably right, for Praetorius described the instruments as having seven finger holes. Furthermore, with the conspicuous exception of the flutes, most of the instruments actually shown in the plates have seven finger holes.17 Edgar Hunt suggests a complex but plausible explanation for the decline of the six-hole system: instrument makers found it necessary to compromise between a narrowly-bored six-hole instrument which could successfully produce an upper octave by overblowing, and an instrument with a larger bore that had a more mellow tone but would be less success- ful in the upper register. "To compensate for this sacri- fice," Hunt concludes, "the range can be increased a little by adding to the number of finger holes."18 Thus, with the primary exception of the transverse flute, which retained the six-finger hole design well after it was abandoned on other instruments, most instruments with six finger holes were superseded by seven-hole versions before the beginning of the sixteenth century. Instruments with Seven Finger Holes Probably the most significant advance in woodwind fingering patterns before the nineteenth century was the 15 Ibid. See editor Crookes' footnote no. 97 on p. 88. 17 Praetorius, Plates Ix-XIII. 40 application of the seven-hole design to nearly every type of woodwind instrument. One of the oldest surviving examples is a rare and badly damaged medieval shawm dated between 750 and 1000 A.D. This instrument has seven finger holes, six of them evenly spaced and the seventh somewhat closer, probably to make it easier for the little finger to reach.19 Crane also describes a recorder with seven finger holes unearthed beneath a fifteenth-century house in Holland.20 While these instruments are exceedingly early and rare, the seven-hole system had clearly become dominant by the begin- ning of the sixteenth century. Compared with a six-holed instrument, a seven-holed example shows an extension of the range a whole step lower; thus a type of instrument origi- nally pitched on G could now play F as its lowest pitch. Since the new design retained the former fingering pattern in its entirety, it was possible to employ both six- and seven-holed instruments in performance simultaneously. The sixteenth century was in many respects the Golden Age of wind instruments. Pictorial and literary evidence indicates a high degree of musical activity at all levels of society. A great variety of wind instruments existed, with almost every type being represented by at least four differ- ent sizes. A complete set, having one instrument of each 19 Crane, p. 45, No. 433.1. 2° Ibid., p. 39, No. 4231.1. This instrument, along with a modern reproduction, is illustrated in Jeremy Montagu, The World of Medieval and Renaissance Musical Instruments (Woodstock, New York: Overlook Press, 1976), p. 73. 41 size, was called a consort. For example, Praetorius described a consort of eight recorders ranging from contra- bass to sopranino.21 The combination of similar instruments in various sizes provided a homogenous tone color over a pitch range of more than four octaves. Similar groupings of double reed instruments, probably the most diverse family of woodwinds during the Renaissance, were also clearly shown.22 These included a number of instruments derived from medieval models, such as shawms and krummhorns. The similarity of construction among Renaissance wood- wind instruments suggests a standardization and refinement of fingering patterns developed during the Middle Ages. That this system of fingerings was common to such diverse instruments as shawm, krummhorn, dulcian, recorder, and cor- netto is probably due to the way in which instrumental music was performed during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. There were few specialists among the instrumentalists of this time; it was expected that a musician be able to play a variety of instruments.23 Such a situation both required and reinforced uniformity of fingering patterns among the various groups of instruments. The general system of Renaissance fingerings described below is used on recorders to this day and is also preserved in the basic fingerings of more complex instruments like the oboe and the bassoon. 21 Praetorius, p. 45. 22 Ibid., pp. 28-29. 23 Joppig, Oboe and Bassoon, pp. 31-33. 42 According to the earliest charts and descriptions, seven-holed instruments tended to be built in sizes that produced pitches a fifth apart: the bass was usually pitched on F, the tenor on C, and the alto on G. Usually the soprano was also pitched on C, but an octave higher than the tenor. That this pattern paralleled the three hexachords of the Guidonian system does not seem to have been discussed. It may not have been considered important, but its implications were far from trivial. Because the music was written at the desired pitch, the sixteenth- century player in a woodwind consort would have had to know three different fingering systems depending on whether a bass, a tenor, or an alto instrument was to be used. A written D, for example, would have required the fingering [xxx/xxxo] on a C-instrument, [xxx/oooo] on a G-instrument, and [xxo/oooo] on an F-instrument. In practical terms, this meant that the player had to interpret the written notation in a different way for each instrument. This is directly contrary to the modern approach, in which the music itself is transposed and the player uses the same fingerings for the same written notes regardless of the pitch in which the instrument is built.24 It seems likely, therefore, that the eventual shift from constructing the alto on G to building 3“ This is the case for the various sizes of instruments in the saxophone and clarinet families. In modern terminology, it is customary to speak of an instrument itself as transposing, taking for granted the fact that its music is also transposed. 1':ng 43 it on F was probably made to facilitate playing in a consort by eliminating one of the fingering systems that the musician had to know. The addition of the lowest finger hole did not change the traditional usage of the cross-fingering for Bb [xxx/xoxo]. The basic scale could have been changed to include a simpler [xxx/xooo] fingering for ED, as is found on the so-called German system for the modern alto recorder; B could then have been achieved with a cross-fingering [xxx/oxoo]. This would have produced a basic scale that was an Ionian mode beginning on F instead of the Lydian mode that resulted from the use of the B. Eric Halfpenny accounts for the success of cross— fingerings in terms of the advantages presented by the availability of various modal scales without the addition of mechanical keywork.25 With the B-fingering, for example, the performer could still play the Ionian scale on G, as well as the newly available Lydian scale on F. With the cross-fingered Bb the Dorian mode on G could still be obtained, but the performer could also use the Ionian mode on F. By employing the other cross-fingerings available for eh, c#, and g#, the same instrument could be used for a wide variety of transposed modal scales. A full complement of ornamental musica ficta pitches were available as well. 5 Eric Halfpenny and Niall O'Loughlin, "Fingering," in New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie (London: Macmillan, 1980) 6: 581-584. 44 The advantages of cross-fingering are most pronounced in Renaissance music, which rarely used more than two flats or sharps. In a scale with two flats or sharps, the cross- fingered pitches lie a fourth or a fifth apart where they do not pose significant problems of finger coordination. Any additional accidentals, however, create an adjacent pair of cross-fingered notes. Thus, cross-fingerings tend to become cumbersome when more accidentals are used, as was the case in the later sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. For example, the whole step motion from Ab [xxx/xxox] to BD [xxx/xoxo] involves an awkward motion of adjacent fingers in opposite directions. To the performer, the redeeming feature of cross-fingered (as opposed to keyed) instruments is the immediacy of the finger's contact with the body of the instrument, which makes such combinations easier to perform than might be expected. An important advantage of the new scale based on F was that it could produce an entire octave without using any overblown fingerings, the f being played [oxo/oooo] as before. The other fingerings for the upper hand also remained unchanged, including the open f# [ooo/oooo]. This left a rather awkward motion from either f or f# to the g above, which was only available as an overblown octave of G [ixx/xxxo].% A rather elegant solution was the creation of “ The half-hole indicated for the forefinger of the upper hand was used to help produce the upper octave more reliably. 45 an eighth hole located at the back of the instrument where it could be operated by the thumb of the upper hand. The open pipe [x/ooo/oooo] was usually tuned to f#, while the f was fingered with the thumb and second finger of the upper hand [x/oxo/oooo]. This left both fingerings essentially as before, but with the thumb now actually closing a hole. The thumb hole is only opened for g in the upper octave [o/oxo/oooo], providing in effect an alternative fingering. This new fingering allows for very quick and easy movement from f to g in the upper register [h/oxo/oooo]. The new fingering is found both in Virdung's Musica getutscht and Martin Agricola's Musica instrumentalis deudsch; these charts are summarized in the Appendix, Table 2. The 9 would also have been available by overblowing G, using the new thumb hole to create a small vent (a half hole) that enables more reliable production of the second octave [i/xxx/xxxo]. Thus, the thumb hole had significant advantages in both the basic scale and in the extension of the range into the second octave. That the thumb hole had become a standard feature on a variety of woodwind instruments by the sixteenth century can be seen in the plates in Praetorius' Syntagma musicum.2'7 The thumb hole seems to have been most successful on the recorder, where it also served as a vent (when half-holed) to make the overblown octave easier to produce. Hunt's 1” Compare the cornettos (Plate VIII), recorders (Pl. IX), and krummhorns (Pl. XIII) in Praetorius. 46 interpretation of fingering charts by Virdung and Agricola suggests that half-hole technique was known almost a century earlier.28 Only Agricola, however, provides clear evidence of half-holing in the second octave. This he does by means of a slash through the symbol indicating the thumb hole.” Virdung, by contrast, shows only a fully open thumb hole for the second-octave pitches.30 Curiously, a thumb hole is also found on many captive reed instruments of the Renaissance, where its function appears to have been primarily as an additional tone hole. Praetorius apparently regarded the windcap as making it impossible for an instrument to be overblown. He therefore limited his description of the range of windcap instruments to the pitches of their basic scales.31 In fact, it is possible although rather difficult to overblow windcap instruments. Because most windcap instruments were cylindrically bored, however, they would have overblown at the twelfth.32 In order to make use of this phenomenon, these instruments would have needed additional tone holes to fill in the range between the highest pitch of their basic scales and the lowest pitch of their overblown series. These tone holes would have necessitated key mechanisms for the upper hand; such mechanisms are often found on modern 3 Hunt, p. 121. ” Agricola, p. 18. 3°‘Virdung, p. [17]. n See his remarks on the krummhorn; Praetorius, p. 50. ” Daniel Hogan Smith, Reed Design for Early Woodwinds (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992), p. 126. 47 reproductions of the krummhorn, for example, despite their absence on surviving originals or in early illustrations.33 The Shawm, Kortholt, and Related Instruments Eventually, woodwind families were enlarged through the development of contrabass and even subcontrabass models. More important for the current study, however, was the variety of techniques developed to extend the range of a specific instrument in order to produce pitches below the basic seven-finger scale of the traditional design. One alternative was to add a bass extension—-an extension of the instrument's sound tube with additional tone holes below the seventh finger hole. These holes were fitted with extra keys for the fingers of the lower hand. This was done on the larger shawms, resulting in some extremely unwieldy instruments. A second and ultimately more successful alternative was to turn the sound tube back on itself, allowing the additional holes to be reached by the little fingers and thumbs. On such instruments the sound tube is not literally folded, of course, but created by connecting two parallel windways drilled into a single block of wood. Waterhouse attributes this particular idea to the early sixteenth-century Afranio degli Albonesi, canon of Ferrara, whose invention of the phagotus dates to the second decade ” David Munrow, Instruments of the Middle Ages and Renaissance (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976), p. 48. fa in \ rut II I i\I D 48 of the sixteenth century.34 Afranio was not the inventor of the bassoon, however, contrary to the popular and apparently ineradicable tradition. The phagotus actually consisted of a pair of independent sound tubes, each one folded back on itself and each one having its own single reed. Since air was blown past these reeds by means of a bellows, Afranio's instrument is best considered a type of bagpipe.35 The development of the shawm family exhibits two impor- tant Renaissance methods of enlarging the pitch range of a family of instruments: the addition of successively larger models to the consort; and the extension of an individual instrument's range by lengthening the sound tube and fitting the extension with keys for the lower hand. Shawms are straight, conically-bored woodwind instruments played either with or without a windcap. Examples without a windcap usually had a pirouette-—a type of support for the lips while the reed was held partially or entirely inside the mouth. The absence of this pirouette on some later examples may indicate that the reed was to be held directly in the lips, or the pirouette may simply have been lost. During the sixteenth century the range of the shawm family was extended downward by making increasingly longer instruments. As the instruments got longer, however, the “ William Waterhouse, "Bassoon," in New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie (London: Macmillan Publishers Limited, 1980) 2: 269. ” William.A. Cocks, "The Phagotum: An Attempt at Reconstruction," Galpin Society Journal 12 (May 1959): 57. 49 tone holes needed to be placed farther apart-so far in fact that they could not be easily reached. The solution was to bore tone holes into the tube at oblique angles that would bring the finger holes within reach. The angled tone holes in the wing joint of the modern bassoon represent the survival of this now archaic technique (Figure 3). // TI ‘\\ // \\ \\ ,l \\ \\ , \ \\ \ _____ _/ L—__——J \b—_—_L \__._.- ——_—————_——_—— Figure 3. Angled tone holes in wing joint of bassoon The lowest tone hole of the shawm was usually covered by an open key for the little finger of the lower hand, even on smaller instruments.35 According to Sachs, the earliest evidence of such a key dates to 1413.37 The use of such a key on a bass recorder was shown by Virdung in 1511.38 The touchpiece of this key usually had a swallowtail design, which allowed it to be reached easily by either a left- handed or right-handed player (Figure 4).39 35 The alto shawm may have been the first instrument to have this little finger key; Munrow, p. 38. W Curt Sachs, The History of Musical Instruments (New York: W. W. Norton, 1940), p. 310. ” Hunt, p. 31. 39 Adam Carse, Musical Wind Instruments: A History, (London: Macmillan, 1939), pp. 46-47. «FL hbs Cb Yet L111 '59.". A D \ 50 Figure 4. Swallowtail key In addition to making longer seven-holed shawms, Renaissance makers extended the range of the instrument by developing the bass extension. The tone holes in this extension were covered by long brass keys for the thumb and little finger of the lower hand. This was done on basset, bass, and great bass shawms (Figure 5).40 On the bass shawm, for example, the seven-finger scale on F [xxx/xxxF] was extended to E by means of a second open-standing key for the little finger of the lower hand [xxx/xxxE]. This key was mounted in such a way that it overlapped the key for P so that both keys would close when the E-key was pressed. A similar arrangement was used with the keys for D and C, operated by the thumb of the lower hand; D was fingered [xxx/D/xxxE] and C was fingered [xxx/C/xxxE]. This simple yet ingenious solution to the extension of range was not further developed on instruments until the early nineteenth century, most likely because of two inherent disadvantages. 4° Anthony Baines, Oxford Companion to Musical Instruments (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), p. 304. 51 Figure 5. Shawm: bass extension The first problem with the shawm's bass extension was that the keys were useful only for a diatonic extension of the range; the pitches C#, D#, and F# were not possible. In practical terms, the overlapping of these keys made it rela- tively easy to go from the lower pitch to the higher of the pair, say from E to F, since the player could easily slide the finger off the E-key while keeping the F-key closed. Moving in the opposite direction, however, would require lifting the finger off the F-key in order to reach the E- key; this could be performed adequately in slow passages where the style is not legato, but would be impossible at higher speeds or in a legato style. Another problem with the shawm's bass extension was the great length of the larger shawms, the longest of which measured over nine feet. While a bass shawm was described as early as 1376,41 it did not become common until the sixteenth century. Oromszegi suggests that these large shawms were so inconvenient that they gave way almost ‘1 Sachs, p. 314. 52 immediately to the developing dulcian of the sixteenth- century.“2 Contrary to Oromszegi's assertion, however, these awkward bass instruments did not disappear imme- diately. As late as 1685, the Marienkirche in Lfibeck purchased a great bass shawm which was nearly twice the length of contemporary bassoons.43 Bass shawms survived in Nuremberg well past the middle of the eighteenth century, despite the availability in the same town of some of the best German-made bassoons by Johann Christoph Denner (1655- 1707) and his son Jacob (1681-1735).44 A unique and intriguing method of construction was used to extend the lower range of the curved krummhorn, perhaps the most widely represented of all windcap instruments. It shared the basic fingering pattern of the Renaissance wood- winds, complete with a seventh finger hole and a tone hole for the upper thumb. Unlike the other woodwinds, the effec- tive acoustic length of the instrument was shortened in the curved section by the presence of one or more resonance holes. On the larger members of the family, the lowest tone hole was fitted with a key to bring it within reach, as was typical of most of the larger Renaissance woodwinds.45 ‘2 Otto Oromszegi, "Connections Between the Bass Bombard and the Bassoon," Journal of the International Double Reed Society 15 (1987): 9-12. ‘3 Frank Harrison and Joan Rimmer, European Musical Instruments (New York: W. W. Norton, 1964), p. 132. 4‘ Sibyl Marcuse, A Survey of Musical Instruments (New York: Harper 5 Row, 1975), p. 687. ‘5 Munrow, p. 50. 53 Praetorius showed a krummhorn with a second key for the little finger of the lower hand, along with a curious pair of small keys without touchpieces that were mounted along the instrument's curved section (Figure 6);46 According to Kenton Terry Meyer, these small keys are sliders, small brass plates mounted in grooves in the instrument's body. They could be used to cover two additional tone holes which, in conjunction with the second key, extended the instru- ment's range down by the interval of a fourth.“7 The sliders functioned as pre-sets to control the pitch of the tone produced by closing all the finger holes and both keys. For example, a krummhorn pitched in F would produce E with the F-fingering and the second little-finger key when both sliders were open. With the first slider closed, the same fingering would produce D; with both sliders closed it would produce C. Of course, only one of the pitches C, D, and E would be available to the performer at a time, because they were all controlled by the same key and because the sliders could not be changed while playing. While neither Virdung nor Agricola mentioned the use of sliders, they were clearly described by Praetorius.48 Meyer reports that sliders do appear on surviving sixteenth-century krummhorns.49 ‘5 Praetorius, Plate XIII. ‘7 Kenton Terry Meyer, The Crumhorn: Its History, Design, Repertory, and Technique, Studies in Musicology 66 (Ann Arbor, Michigan: UMI Research Press, 1983), pp. 40-41. ‘5 Praetorius, p. 50. ‘9 Meyer, p. 42. 54 /7 ’ffi‘ / 1’ ll Figure 6. Krummhorn: bass extension 55 An even more unusual method of extending the pitch of an instrument into the lower range involves a perfomance technique and requires no specialized construction. Known as underblowing, this technique is suggested by a fingering chart. in Martin Agricola's Musica instrumentalis deudsch which gives the bass krummhorn (which has a basic scale of F) a range that extends down an additional fifth to BBb.5° Daniel Hogan Smith interprets Agricola's notes to the chart as suggesting that the performer weaken the air pressure in order to achieve these lower pitches.51 Smith was appar- ently unaware of Terry's earlier work with krummhorns, in Which the practice of underblowing is described in detail.52 W1 th a little practice, a bass krummhorn can easily be made to underblow its four lowest diatonic pitches at the interval of a fifth; this effect is more difficult to achieve on the smaller instruments. The description of this practice may have been unique to Agricola, although Meyer Suggests that it was also known to Ludovico Zacconi (1555- 162 7 ) .53 Although it does not seem to be indicated for any other Renaissance woodwinds, Meyer's study of Renaissance wi nd music demonstrates that underblowing would have been he cessary in most of the krummhorn's known repertory.54 \ 5° Agricola, p. 17. 51 Smith, p. 127. 52 Meyer, p. 99. 53 Ibid., p. 23. 54 Ibid., pp. 113-136. 56 The bass extension of the kortholt is of greater significance to this study than those of the shawm and krummhorn because it involved a bass extension that was folded back against the tube on which the basic finger holes were located. The kortholt was probably not very common; no historical examples are known. The evidence for its existence comes primarily from Praetorius, who admitted being somewhat confused by the relation of its low sound to its apparent shortness.55 The low sound was due to the bass extension and to the instrument's cylindrical bore, which sounded an octave lower than the same length of conical bore . The kortholt shared the characteristic folded sound tube with the dulcian and the modern bassoon, but the kOrtholt was circular in cross—section, rather than being oval (Figure 7). The seven basic finger holes of the kort— holt- were drilled into the descending tube, while the holes for the bass extension were drilled into the ascending tube. The air exited from an inconspicuous opening near the p]. al’er's upper hand. In Praetorius' illustration of the kC)":“'~“-l'l<31t the tone holes for the little fingers were doubled, J'°<=at:ed both to the right and to the left of the axis along which the primary finger holes were located. This meant that the instrument could be played with either hand on tOP: as was true of most single-bore instruments of the day. Since no examples are known to survive, modern repro- du =“Lions of Praetorius' kortholt, such as those made by 55 Praetorius, p. 49. 57 -fiIIII.I|HflWHI.II.. we III.HullI it'llnlull “K .r O .7 Kortholt 15‘ ;i§‘I-llbles back on itself. The most unusual attempt to produce an instrument of marlageable proportions in the bass register was the rackett. Praetorius illustrated a family of four, from alto to great bass . 53 Although no music that specifically calls for a rackett is known to exist, racketts are pictured in several ILLS'torical sources. A particularly attractive example is on an j~l'1t.ricately carved ivory coin box made between 1618 and l 6 2 4 for Elizabeth of Lorraine (1602-1644). The scene is \ 55 Munrow, p. 50. 5" Praetorius, Plate XII. 53 Praetorius, pp. 38, 49. 59 pastoral, with the god Pan making music with a group of shepherd musicians, one of whom is playing the rackett.59 The rackett consisted of a short squat cylinder in which were bored nine parallel windways of equal dimension, each joined at opposite ends to the next in order to create a single air column nine times the length of the instrument itself. This feature, combined with its acoustical prop- erties as a stopped cylindrical pipe, made the rackett play considerably lower than would be expected from its short appearance. The particular attraction of this unusual instrument may be explained by the widespread fascination with optical illusions found in mannerist art and archi- te<=‘t:ure in the sixteenth century. Thus the rackett, being both an optical and an aural illusion, may owe what popu- larity it had more to its oddity than to its usefulness. The finger holes of the rackett appear on the outside of the instrument in a variety of locations, inviting the assumption that the fingering pattern is bizarre. Careful inspection, however, reveals a logic directly analogous to s tlarldard fingering patterns. Looking at the instrument from t: he top, as the player sees it, the air column proceeds thl‘o _ ugh its folds in a clockwise direction. Cross sectional €11.39 rams of the rackett are given in Figure 8. 1After the air enters the instrument from the top, it Deg 383 around two folds before the fingerholes for the left hQ ‘Q are encountered; being located on a descending column, \ 59 Munrow, p. 39. 60 get“ 5018!; Fin Lefi Left Kiq III Thumbs Rackett: top and expanded views F ii. gure 8 . 61 these holes function in exactly the same way as on a straight instrument. The air then passes through an ascend- ing fold and encounters the finger holes for the right hand on the next downward fold. This happens similarly for the holes controlled by the right thumb and first joint of the right index finger, and finally for those controlled by the left thumb and little finger, until, at the end of the ninth tube , the air passes out the side of the instrument. The fingerholes of the rackett were bored at various angles in order to bring the appropriate holes within reach of the fingers, just as were those of the bass shawm and kOrtholt. The most unusual feature was the use of pro- t’—I‘Llc1.'l.ng tubes called tetines which extended certain tone holes so that they could be reached by the second joint of the nearest fingers.50 The fingering pattern of the rackett was essentially similar to that of its contemporary the k‘ZI’JZ‘tLhOlt, with the exception of the tetines. The Dulcian In the construction of its descending wind pipe, the dulcian resembled the kortholt, except that the dulcian had a larger bore which was conical instead of cylindrical ( F 1§Ure 9). Dulcians were therefore of considerably larger dimensions than kortholts. The dulcian was held so that the D; il'le in which the two sound tubes were bored lay parallel 5° Marcuse, p. 698. 62 .WI‘OIIIA [III llllL\I.I||VI/-l|lll’/.IIIIIII as s ‘ III I .II VIndon: Ernest Benn, 1965), p. 34. e5; 52 This curious instrument is also one of the rare A §'Emples of a dulcian built in three pieces. Plate 590 in ::;;:"t;hony Baines, European and American Musical Instruments, “hr York: Viking Press, 1966. he a 53 The range of each instrument is given in a chart in eetorius, p. 37. “ Ibid., p. 48. kuebheE axe 64 dulcian or Chorist-fagott from which the bassoon was devel- oped in the seventeenth century.65 Because dulcians were considerably larger than kort- holts, the hole for the fourth finger of the lower hand was almost always so far out of reach that it had to be on the bass controlled by an open swallowtail brass key, The other six tone holes dulcian this key was used for F. of? the basic scale were likewise too far apart to be reached tb3r ‘the normal human hand, so they were drilled obliquely, as on the larger shawms. Unlike the other Renaissance Woodwinds with which it shared its general fingering pat- term, the dulcian did not have an upper thumb hole in the des cending tube for use either as a tone hole or for °"¢E=:l:blowing. Because the upper thumb was needed to cover a much larger hole in the bass extension, it could not also be us ed to close a thumb hole in the basic scale. Fingering charts for the dulcian appear in books by Daniel Speer and by Johann Philipp Eisel (1698 1763) 66 CI? lF‘ese charts give identical fingerings for most of the first In practice, 131 ‘r‘L‘25 second octave pitches (Appendix, Table 3) t: lbj‘JGS upper octave was probably achieved by modifying the air 13.3.: ':.: factical experimentation with a dulcian having the D-key E311tg 3=7 dulcian and continuo by Giovanni Bertoli (fl. 1639-45), pub lished seven years later, cover more than two octaves from C to d'; the works require, in Bertoli's words, "a tethical facility previously unexploited" on the two-keyed (in :I.cian.59 58‘William Waterhouse, The Proud Bassoon: An Exhibition (Q (flinburgh: Edinburgh University, 1983), p. [45]. 59 Bertoli, preface to Compositioni Musicali di 3;: 45l. ‘jEE‘T;E:;S;[vanni] Antonio Bertoli fatte per sonare col fagotto solo -Jl:::_ fienice: Alessandro Vincenti, 1645); quoted and translated Langwill, Bassoon and Contrabassoon, p. 77. CHAPTER 2 INVENTION OF THE BASSOON During the first half of the seventeenth century a new instrument appeared, looking and sounding very much like a dulcian, but constructed of three or four separate joints. A comparison of this instrument (Figure 10) with the dulcian (I’di.qgure 9, p. 62) shows the most significant similarities The new and differences between the two instruments. has soon has a longer and more strongly curved bocal than the In the bassoon, what corresponds to the upper half an :L cian. of the dulcian was now made of two separate pieces of wood, one containing the descending section of the acoustical tube The joint and the other containing the ascending section. wl th the descending tube was often made with a flared area— nQ‘u known as the wing—into which the finger holes for the ubmer hand were bored. The flare made it possible to retain the long oblique tone-hole design of the dulcian. It also § :‘L lowed the finger holes to be offset in such a way that t: hey appeared along the instrument's longitudinal axis in § §proximately the same position as on the dulcian. This :3 Qature made it possible to play the new bassoon with equal § meort regardless of which hand was in the upper position. 68 69 [pt-COM {3 glee... Mal § - Front view b. Back view -i.gure 10. Bassoon with four keys th IE CC 70 The air passed from the descending (or wing) joint into the bottom (or boot) joint. This section of the bassoon retained the design of the lower end of the dulcian, being constructed of two parallel tubes in a single oval block of wood. The boot joint contains the finger and thumb holes operated by the right hand in much the same way as they had appeared on the dulcian. After turning back on itself in the boot joint, the air passed through the ascending joint. This section was at first approximately the same length as the wing joint, but later was lengthened, hence its modern name of long joint. The ascending tube of the bassoon was Circular in cross section and contained the thumb hole and the low D-key. The fourth section, a bell joint which was not a feature of the one-piece dulcian but is characteristic 0:6 within a few decades of the division into joints. Construction of such a large instrument as the bassoon Inearly all historical bassoons, was added to the design separate joints afforded considerable advantages to the lIna-her. It is quite difficult to bore straight parallel hQ’ les into a single block of wood, and while this was not so 111“ ch an issue for the smaller instruments of the Renais- a fimce, it became a serious problem in the construction of t he larger instruments of the Baroque era. The wider bores § “(:1 thinner body walls of Baroque instruments called for Q Q:usiderably greater accuracy in boring the sound tube. ultiple joints allowed this job to be done with smaller \ Qols in shorter sections of wood; hence it was not only 71 easier to make but less expensive if a piece was ruined. A jointed instrument could also be carried in a smaller bundle, and could even be made with interchangeable parts if one section later became damaged. The origin of the idea of separate joints is uncertain, but Praetorius mentioned such a division of the recorder- for the purpose of adjusting its pitch-—as early as 1619.1 The separation of the one-piece dulcian into joints occurred at the same time and in the same general area (near Paris) where the Hotteterre family of instrument makers was begin- ning to make jointed recorders, oboes and flutes.2 In fact, most writers credit the Hotteterres with the development of the first jointed bassoon. Jane M. Bowers, for example, suggests that it was Jean Hotteterre (ca. 1605-1690), who was responsible for the new method of construction.3 In addition to being a master wood turner, Jean Hotteterre was also an oboist for La grande écurie du roi, the wind band at the court of King Louis XIV (1638-1715) of France.4 In addition to making it possibile to adjust an instrument's overall pitch, jointed construction offered 1 Michael Praetorius, Syntagma musicum II: De organographia (Wolfenbfittel, 1618-19; trans. and ed. David 2. Crookes, Early Music Series 7, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), p. 46. 2 Edgar Hunt, The Recorder and its Music (London: Herbert Jenkins, 1962), p. 51. 3 Jane M. Bowers, "Hotteterre," in New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie (London: Macmillan, 1980) 8: 733-34. ‘ Susan Goertzel Sandman, "The Wind Band at Louis XIV's Court," Early Music 5, no. 1 (January 1977): 31. sh be! A f "Qu. Wate Hie: half 72 another advantage to the player: it was now possible to take the instrument apart for easier cleaning and storage. The joints of such an instrument must be carefully made, however, since they must fit together snugly enough to keep air from leaking when the instrument is being played, and to keep the instrument from coming apart on its own. The disassembly of such close-fitting joints is only practical if the sockets and tenons between the joints are round and can be twisted slightly as they are put together in order to reduce the friction between them. With its oval cross-section, an easily disassembled two- jointed dulcian would have been difficult to manufacture. Will Jansen cites this problem among others in an attempt to show that there could not have been an "intermediary type" between the one-piece dulcian and the three-piece bassoon.5 A few jointed dulcians are known, however, including both a "Quart Bass" in two pieces and an "Octav Bass" in three. Waterhouse suggests that these instruments were made by Hieronymus Geroldi (dates unknown) of Venice in the second half of the sixteenth century.6 These instruments are now in the Vienna Kunsthistorisches Museum.7 .A similarly 5 Will Jansen, The Bassoon: Its History, Construction, Makers, Players and Music, five vols. (Buren, The Netherlands: Fritz Knuf, 1978-84), pp. 85-87. 5 William Waterhouse, "Bassoon," in New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie (London: Macmillan, 1980) 2: 271. 7 Lyndesay G. Langwill, The Bassoon and Contrabassoon, Instruments of the Orchestra (London: Ernest Benn, 1965), pp. 31-32. tw fi Om Kur how and 73 constructed two-piece dulcian is clearly shown in the seventeenth-century fresco, "Adoration of the Shepherds," by Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione (1616-1670).8 On the larger dulcians, the problems of boring two very long parallel tubes into a single block of wood may have encouraged experimentation with separating the instrument into sections. It is not known whether these large dulcians were designed to be assembled and disassembled between perform- ances. It is possible that the jointing was done merely to make it possible to use shorter pieces of wood; once made, the instrument could have been glued together to make the joints airtight. Most early seventeenth-century makers avoided the problem of the oval joint by dividing the upper section into two joints with tenons of circular cross-section which could fit easily into circular sockets in the oval boot joint. One such instrument, now in the collection of the Vienna Kunsthistorisches Museum, is shown by Baines.9 Baines, however, considers this instrument, which has no bell joint and retains the dulcian's keywork, to be a three-piece dulcian. Why this instrument could not just as reasonably be called an early three-jointed bassoon is not clear. After all, the newly-jointed bassoon betrays its dulcian ancestry in the location and design of its thumb and finger 3 Waterhouse, "Bassoon," New Grove Dictionary of Music 2: 270. 9 Anthony Baines, European and American Musical Instruments (New York: Viking Press, 1966), Plate 590. be th 1'6 C1 to} be: 1'01 his 74 holes, in its overall size and range, and in the construc- tion of the boot joint out of a single block of wood. The jointed bassoon required the same sort of keywork in the bass extension as did the dulcian. The location of the boot joint, however, made it nearly impossible to control both D and E from the lower hand because the best location for the E tone hole was now in the upper joint of the ascending tube. A rare exception to this placement is on the three-jointed bassoon in the Vienna collection, which preserved the older pattern of an open hole for E and an open D-key, both for the lower thumb.10 The more common practice was to make the bassoon with a single hole for the lower thumb and to reverse the direction of the D-key so that it could be reached by the upper thumb. This thumb now controlled both its traditional open hole and the reposi- tioned D-key which was mounted just below the open hole. Extension of the bassoon's range downward occurred shortly after the jointed instrument was introduced. A true bell joint was made separately from the ascending joint; this bell had no tone hole and no keys but extended the range of the bassoon to BBb. This pitch was produced by closing a new tone hole for C that was located toward the top of the ascending joint, just below the bell. The bassoon's third key, the BBb-key, was added to the ascending joint to cover this hole. Will Jansen's statement that "on historic bassoon specimens, the bell joint does not have any 10 Ibid., p. 110. 75 keys, mainly because these instruments go down to only C [sic]" is in error.11 They do indeed descend beyond C, but there are no keys on the bell joint because that is not the right location for the new tone hole. The touchpiece for the new key was located just above the open thumb hole where it could be reached easily (Figure 11). The fingering itself, however, is rather difficult: since the BBb is only produced if the all the holes on the ascending joint are closed simultaneously, the thumb must close both the D- and BBb-keys and the open hole as well [(BBb,x,D)/xxx/x/xxxF]. To make this awkward feat somewhat more feasible, the touchpieces of the D- and BBb-keys were usually mounted as close to the open hole as possible. E BBb'kCyA).CA D—key I Figure 11. Long joint: BBb- and D-keys The fingering chart given by Joseph Majer (1689-1768) for a three-keyed bassoon gives the instrument a full chromatic range from BBb to f#', with the exception of BB 11 Jansen, p. 185. 76 and C# (see Appendix, Table 4).12 The woodcut illustration of the instrument is very crude in comparison to those of Praetorius, but the chart itself is accurate. The fingering given for f# [o/oxx/o/xxx], however, is probably in error, as it nearly duplicates the fingering for g [o/xxx/o/xxx]. The correct fingering for f# is probably [o/oxx/o/xxxF] as shown in charts for the dulcian by Speer and Eisel.13 The omission of the pitches BB and C# from Majer's chart deserves further examination. The C#, available on dulcians as a simple half-holed fingering, would have been possible, though perhaps not very satisfactory, by placing the upper thumb so as to close both the D-key and one half of the neighboring tone hole. Although no fingering for BB is listed, the BB would have been attainable by lipping the BB- flat up a half step. Lipping is the technique of tightening or loosening the pressure of the embouchure on the reed in order to alter the pitch produced by a given fingering. Given a sufficiently strong embouchure and an equally strong incentive, such pitch bending proves possible on repro- ductions and historical examples alike. 12 Joseph Majer, Museum musicum: Theoretico practicum (Nfirnberg: n.p., 1732; revised ed., Nfirnberg: Cremer, 174i), p. 48. 13 Griswold does not discuss this problem in his comparison of these fingering charts; "Comparing Fingerings for Evolving Bassoons from the Second Half of the Eighteenth Century to the Beginning of the Nineteenth Century," Double Reed 2, no. 2 (October 1979): 18-24; Johann Philipp Eisel, Musicus autodidactus (Erfurt: Johann Michael Funcken, 1738; rev. and ed. Johann Jacob Lotter, Augsburg: n.p., 1762), opposite p. 104. 77 It is interesting to note that Majer gave the D#- fingering as a fully fingered E plus a half-closed D-key, which in practice turns out to be even less successful than the C# fingering he omitted. On Eisel's chart for the two- keyed dulcian the same fingering was given, but in this case it would have been produced quite successfully by a genuine half-hole, not a half-closed key. The addition of keys to the bass extension did not, of course, alter the fingering of the basic scale. Therefore, the majority of fingerings of the Baroque bassoon remained essentially as they had been on the Renaissance dulcian. Cross-fingerings were still the rule for the accidentals. It is significant that in the basic scale of Majer's three- keyed bassoon the G# was not given its former cross- fingering [o/xxx/xon], but played with the A-fingering and an additional half-hole for the third finger of the lower hand [o/xxx/o/xxf]. The older cross-fingering was exceed- ingly awkward when attempting to move quickly from Ab to Bb. That this new fingering was not entirely successful may be seen in the subsequent addition of a fourth key-—a closed key for G#. The Four-keyed Bassoon The G#-key represents a significant change in the application of new keys to the bassoon. As we have seen, the F- and D—keys were added to bring the tone holes of the 1'! to C0 th in 0f Cen bag: 78 instrument's basic diatonic scale within reach of the player's fingers. Without them it would simply have been impossible to play such a large instrument. The BBb-key was also a matter of necessity since it had to close the new C tone hole in order to make it possible to play the 83b. The three-keyed bassoon, then, remained a basically diatonic instrument. Chromatic pitches were achieved by means of cross-fingerings that had been used for centuries on a wide variety of woodwind instruments with essentially similar fingering patterns. The addition of the G#-key was the first in a series of additional keys whose reason for existence was more than mere necessity. A reasonably effective G# was already available by cross-fingering, so why was the new key necessary? Previous discussions of the bassoon's develop- ment in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries have failed to relate the function of the new keys to practical problems that faced the performers at the time. If a new key was indeed added for a player's convenience, it is appropriate to consider why this particular key would have been more convenient than some other key. Two questions arise: why this key? and why now? The answers to these questions lie in the acoustical function of the new keys and in the type of music being performed in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The G#-key and each of the next two keys added to the bassoon were closed keys whose function was to alter a pitch 79 of the instrument's diatonic basic scale into a pitch a half step higher. The pitch produced by the fingering used for G, for example, could now be raised to G# by opening a new key that covered a new G# tone hole. Open keys, if they had been used, would have lowered the pitch produced by the A fingering, resulting in Ab. In effect, however, the system of cross-fingerings already provided a way to lower A [o/xxx/o/xxo] to AD by the addition of another finger to close a lower tone hole [o/xxx/o/xon]. While the resulting diatonic half step from A to G# was thus quite easy to perform, the diatonic half step from G [o/xxx/o/xxx] to Ab was awkward because of the necessity to move adjacent fingers in opposite directions simultaneously. Such an alteration became difficult to impossible when it had to be performed quickly, as in what may have been the most popular ornament of the Baroque era, the cadential trill. A cross-fingered trill from G to Ab would be quite difficult, as would be similar trills from A to Bb and from d to eh. However, in keys with sharps in the signature, cadential trills and other important ornamental effects are quite easy with cross-fingerings. A cross-fingered trill from F# [o/xxx/x/xxx] to G [o/xxx/o/xxx) is quite simple, as are similar trills from c# to d, G# to A, and from d# to e. Therefore, it seems logical to suggest that cross- fingerings are more useful in sharp keys than in flat keys. P. CE 80 While a detailed discussion of the preferred key signa- tures in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century wind music is beyond the scope of this paper, it is important to consider briefly several repertoires which may shed light on the relative frequency of sharps and flats in the music that employed the new jointed bassoons. While Brian Klitz does not focus on key signatures in his discussion of seventeenth-century chamber music for the bassoon, the examples he includes all have one flat in the signature.14 This would tend to support the conventional view that early Baroque music rarely exceeded two flats or two sharps. More interesting is a discussion by Ronald N. Bukoff, who examines the wind music of early eighteenth-century France.15 Bukoff confirms the basic two-sharps, two-flats range; within that range, however, he reports that French composers seem to have preferred the sharp key signatures in their music for the bassoon. Joseph Bodin de Boismortier (1689-1755), for example, wrote nearly half of his bassoon compositions in D major, E minor and A minor. Jean-Francois Paillard found that the most common keys in eighteenth- century French concertos for winds were C Major, D Major, 1‘ Brian Klitz, "The Bassoon in Chamber Music of the Seventeenth Century," Journal of the American Musical Instrument Society 9 (1983): 5-20. 15 Ronald N. Bukoff, "Boismortier, Corrette, and be Phénix: Music for the French Baroque Bassoon," Journal of the International Double Reed Society 13 (1985): 48-56. 81 G Major, E minor, and A Major; these keys accounted for fifty-four out of the seventy-five concertos he examined.16 If these surveys are representative, it can be inferred that the keys used most frequently in eighteenth-century wind music were those keys in which the instruments were easiest to play. This is only reasonable. Why then, when new keys were added to the bassoon, were they precisely those keys which would seem to have been least important, since cross-fingerings for the sharps were already easily achieved? One answer may be that the bassoon's new keys provided tones of superior quality to the cross-fingered alternatives. Another may be that the keys were desirable precisely because they could be used so often. On the other hand, the answer may liein an increase in the use of flat keys notable in the works of composers of wind music outside of France. Among the thirty-nine complete and partial bassoon concertos attributed to Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741), for example, there are only three in G Major and one in E minor. The most common keys are C Major (10), F Major (7), 3b Major (4), and A Minor (4).17 A popular sonata by the German composer Georg Philipp Telemann (1687-1767) takes the bassoon into the key of F minor, a key that requires both Ab and Bb; the rapid passagework in this 15 Jean-Francois Paillard, "Les premieres concertos francaises pour les instruments a vent," La revue musicale 226 (1955): 160; cited by Bukoff, ibid., p. 54. 17 Peter Ryom, "Antonio Vivaldi: Works," in New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (London: Macmillan, 1980), 20: 42. me W6 re. la: has (al {Sp ana JOha \..m\ 82 piece would be practical only on instruments with a G# key. A general trend toward increased use of tonalities that required flats could also explain the development of additional keys on the bassoon. In either case, the bassoon was fitted with its fourth key quite early in its development, most likely just before the turn of the eighteenth century. This was the closed key for G#, lying on the boot joint next to the F-key where it could be reached by the little finger of the lower hand. The new key was the first closed key to be added to the bassoon; it covered a new tone hole for G#. When used with the basic fingering for G, the new key produces G# [o/xxx/o/xxxG#]. This provided a convenient alternative to the old cross-fingering [o/xxx/o/xon]. The new fingering made possible an easier motion from AD to Bb, but one that was still rather awkward at high speed. The new G#-key, located where it would be more easily reached by the little finger of the right hand, settled at last the question of which hand was to be uppermost on the bassoon. While oboes with a symmetrical pair of d#-keys (allowing performance with either hand above) are well- represented in historical collections, bassoons with an analogous pair of G#-keys are exceedingly scarce. Young reports only three known examples, a fagottino made by Johannes Scherer (1664-1722),18 a bassoon by Scherer on 13 Phillip T. Young, "The Scherers of Butzbach," Galpin Society Journal 39 (September 1986): 114-115. 83 which the second G#-key has been removed, and a bassoon by J. C. Denner, of which only the boot and long joints remain.19 On the Scherer fagottino and the Denner boot joint there are duplicate G#-keys mounted on either side of the F-key. The impossibility of reaching the left little finger over the swallowtail F-key to touch the single G#-key indicates that the preferred playing position by this time was with the right hand below. Although no longer necessary or even useful, the swallowtail key was retained as a design element into the early nineteenth century (Figure 12).20 Figure 12. Boot joint: F- and G#-keys The four-keyed bassoon can be regarded as the standard late Baroque bassoon, although the dulcian was still in use well into the eighteenth century. Waterhouse reports on a recently-discovered four-keyed bassoon made by Richard Haka ” Phillip T. Young, "Some Further Instruments by the Denners," Galpin Society Journal 35 (March 1982): 78-79. N It can be seen on a six-keyed bassoon by William Milhouse, ca. 1795, in the author's possession. c‘. 11' pm Ba Che bas bec 84 (?1645-1709) in the late seventeenth century.nv The trade card of Dutch flute-maker Conrad Rijkel (1664-1726) shows a four-keyed bassoon; this card is believed to date from 1699.122 A four-keyed bassoon stamped G. de Bruijn 1730 is in the collection of musical instruments at the Brussels Conservatory. This instrument is remarkable because it was built in mirror image of the customary form, presumably for a left-handed player.23 These instruments predate the oft- cited date of 1751 for the addition of the fourth key.24 The addition of further keys seems to date from after the middle of the eighteenth century. Langwill states that the earliest continental fingering chart for a four-keyed bassoon with the new G#-key was pub- lished by Eisel in 1738 but that John Walsh (?1665-1736) had published one in London in 1730.25 Eisel's chart is labeled Basson to distinguish it from the Tautschen Basson (dulcian) chart in the same publication.“ Eisel's use of the French basson with the German modifier Toutschan is important, because it suggests an acknowledgment of the French origin 3“ William Waterhouse, "A Newly Discovered Seventeenth- Century Bassoon by Haka," Early Music 16, no. 3 (August 1988): 407-410. 22 Ibid., p. 409. 3” This unusual instrument is No. 997 in the Brussels Conservatory collection; Baines, European and American Instruments, p. 108 and Plate 593. 2‘ Langwill, Bassoon and Contrabassoon, p. 36. 25 See plate 11 in Langwill, ibid. 1“ Eisel, opposite pages 100 and 104, respectively. CC ba P14 611 me man. Lang miSt and 85 of the jointed bassoon, while identifying the older dulcian with its Germanic heritage. Despite the inclusion of the G#-key, Eisel's chart is rather conservative, giving no fingerings for C#, D#, or F# (Appendix, Table 5). The lack of a fingering for D# is not surprising given the previous remarks on the ineffectiveness of half-closing the D-key, but a C# or F# fingered as on the dulcian would still have been possible. It is of consider- able interest that Eisel's f#-fingering for the bassoon is not the overblown F that he gave for the dulcian. Instead, Eisel lists the completely open fingering [o/ooo/o/ooo] for f# and retains the old cross-fingering for f [o/oxo/o/ooo]. This means that the completely open tube of Eisel's four- keyed bassoon still produced the f# that was characteristic of Renaissance instruments rather than the f that is characteristic of the modern bassoon. The fingering chart in the Encyclopedie (1751-65) compiled by Denis Diderot (1713-1784) and Jean 1e Rond d'Alembert (1717-1783) shows the range of the four-keyed bassoon as extending to AA. The performer was advised to play either AA or BB by using the BBb fingering while altering its pitch by changing the way in which the air is blown into the instrument, in other words, by lipping.27 27 ". . . sans déboucher aucun trou, par la seule maniere de pousser 1e vent dans 1'instrument." Quoted by Langwill, Bassoon and Contrabassoon, p. 36. Langwill mistakenly interprets this remark to apply to the AA, BBb, and BB, as if no BBb-key were present. pi re be re‘ the dif tre‘ the deSC e 2b.u 89 na IH 86 That this technique was not generally seen to be satis- factory is evident in the extreme rarity of AAs in the literature, and in the omission of even the BB in most orchestral works of the time. It was not until the early years of the nineteenth century that the first keys for BB began to appear. The new jointed bassoon did not immediately supersede the one-piece dulcian; in fact, they seem to have co-existed for at least a century. New technologies do not immediately replace older ones, and the history of music is full of instances in which newer versions of traditional instruments are resisted by some parts of the musical population as vigorously as they are heralded by others. The violin, piano, Boehm flute, and valved horn all experienced mixed reactions and a long period of uncertainty before they became generally accepted. Furthermore, the new bassoon retained virtually all of the fingering characteristics of the dulcian, so there was at first very little practical difference between the instruments in performance. Both the dulcian and the bassoon appear in Mersenne's treatise, although the crudity of the illustrations makes the distinction between them rather uncertain.28 Mersenne's description of the bassoon suggests that its body was made of two parallel sections that "resemble two pieces of wood 3” Marin Mersenne, Harmonie universelle: The Books on Instruments (Paris, 1635; trans. Roger E. Chapman, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1957), pp. 372, 375. c. d1 ac th cal is lee con 0f Wel 87 which are bound and faggoted together."29 While this description fits the design of the upper joints of the bassoon, there is no mention of a boot joint. This is probably just an oversight on Mersenne's part; no other evidence exists to suggest that bassoons were ever made of just two parallel joints. An illustration dated 1698 by Christoph Weigel (1654-1725) shows a woodwind instrument maker's shop in which the craftsman is putting the finishing touches on a two-keyed dulcian, while a three-keyed bassoon lies nearby.30 It is quite likely that this illustration is of Johann Christoph Denner; both Weigel and Denner were active in Nuremberg at the time.31 Tracing the decline of the dulcian is problematic, since the lack of specificity in the instrumentation of basso continuo parts may conceal its use as a bass instrument during the latter part of the Baroque era. It is commonly accepted that the dulcian disappeared after the middle of the eighteenth century, yielding finally to the superior capabilities of the developing bassoon. Nevertheless, there is evidence that the dulcian remained in use in Spain for at least another century, albeit in a rather circumscribed context. B. Kenyon de Pascual has documented extensive use of a Spanish dulcian known as the bajén in Spanish churches well into the nineteenth century, where he also reports a 29 Ibid., p. 372. W waterhouse, "Bassoon," New Grove Dictionary of Music 2: 273. 3 Ibid. Ba bo Spa Bail YOrk 88 treble shawm used as late as 1791.32 While bajdn may refer also to the bassoon, the presence of the term along with fagot in scores and inventories is evidence of a practical distinction between the bajén and the modern bassoon.33 The bajén, like its Renaissance ancestor, was used as a support for or replacement of the bass voice. On special occasions, it was used in small-ensemble music played from the church tower.34 Probably the last written reference to the bajon was a consideration for a salary increase for Aquilino Banios (dates unknown), bajénista for the cathedral of Santo Domingo de la Calzada, dated August 2, 1902.35 The rackett seems to have enjoyed a brief revival around the turn of the eighteenth century, when updated versions were made by Johann Christoph Denner, among others.36 The body of the instrument is based on the Renaissance rackett, but with three important differences. First, the instrument was fitted with a long bocal that looped once around itself, entering the body of the rackett not in the middle as on the Renaissance version, but on the periphery. Second, the Baroque rackett was made with a series of slightly larger bores that approximated a narrowly conical windway.y7 32 B. Kenyon de Pascual, "A Brief Survey of the Late Spanish Bajén," Galpin Society Journal 37 (March 1984): 76. 3 Ibid., p. 72. 34 Ibid., pp. 73-74. 5 Ibid., p. 72. 3“ Baines, European and American Instruments, p. 99. Baines shows a Dutch example, ca. 1700, in Plate 518. n Curt Sachs, The History of Musical Instruments (New York: W. W. Norton, 1940), p. 320. t} CC Se 9)“ ing Soc Orp‘ Dub; Con: jun 1739 89 Finally, an additional tube was bored in the center of the cylinder so that the wind pipe ended in a small bassoon-like bell at the top of the instrument. Modern replicas of this instrument play somewhat more strongly than reproductions of Praetorius' model, suggesting that racketts may indeed have been used in small Baroque ensembles, where they could capably double the basso continuo. Because continuo instruments were rarely specified by Baroque composers, it cannot be proved that these instruments were ever actually used in this way. Bassoons With Five to Eight Keys The musical role of the bassoon changed dramatically during the eighteenth century. During the early decades of the century, Antonio Vivaldi almost single-handedly raised the bassoon from a continuo to a solo instrument. Among his compositions for solo instrument and orchestra, the thirty- seven complete concertos Vivaldi wrote for the bassoon are exceeded in number only by those for violin. This astonish- ing rise to prominence occurred in the rather specialized society of the Ospedale della Pieta, the Venetian girls' orphanage where Vivaldi worked. The rigorous schedule of public performances by the girls demanded a large number of concerti designed to show off their talents. The French jurist Charles de Brosses (1709-1779), visiting Venice from 1739-1740, was quite impressed by the novelty of the female be DI 17 to Va} (Ne Chm Q paul DQVQ 90 bassoonist: "[the girls] sing like angels and play the violin, the flute, the organ, the Violoncello, the bassoon. In short no instrument is large enough to frighten them."38 The bassoon's role as an ensemble instrument also changed during the eighteenth century. As the basso continuo began to fall out of favor among composers around the middle of the eighteenth century, the traditional role of the bassoon as the bass of the orchestral or chamber ensemble began to change.39 The symphonies of Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809), for example, show a clear tendency toward increased use of the bassoon as a tenor soloist, when it is not otherwise occupied as a reinforcement of the bass line.‘40 Exploitation of the tenor range takes the bassoon often to g' or even higher, that is, into a range that is not practical on the older dulcian. The accomplishments of bassoonist Baron Thadaus von Dfirnitz (before 1750-1803) probably encouraged the young Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756- 1791) to produce a concerto for the instrument that reaches to bb'. The Trio for Flute, Bassoon, and Piano by Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827), probably dating from the last w Translated and quoted by Donald Jay Grout and Claude V. Palisca, A Short History of Western Music, fourth ed. (New York: W. W. Norton, 1988), p. 484. ” Harold Eugene Griswold, "Changes in the Tonal Character of the Eighteenth-Century French Bassoon," Journal of the International Double Reed Society 17 (1989): 30. 4° Adam Carse, A History of Orchestration (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and Company, 1925; reprint, New York: Dover Publications, 1964), p. 110. t4 me hc th ha Da: th: 91 decade of the eighteenth century, requires a c" near the beginning of the slow movement. At the same time as these changes in the bassoon's role in music were being made, changes were occurring in the construction of the instrument itself. By the end of the eighteenth century, the number of keys on a typical bassoon had increased from four to eight. More conservative models with as few as four keys continued to be made well into the nineteenth century, however. Evidence from surviving instruments is complicated by the fact that older instru- ments were often altered by the addition of new keys, making dating of a particular innovation or instrument quite difficult. While there is no incontrovertible order for the addition of the next four keys, a strong general pattern does appear. The bassoon's fifth key was added on the long joint to open a tone hole for D#. On some instruments, particularly those of French and English manufacture, this key covered a hole on the back side of the instrument and therefore tended to be assigned to the left thumb (Figure 13a). Other makers, most of them German or Austrian, seemed to prefer a hole on the front side of the instrument-—a position where the key could be controlled by the little finger of the left hand (Figure 13b).“- The left thumb D#-key was located parallel to the D-key and generally appears inside, toward the wing joint as on the modern Jancourt bassoon. Examples 41Langwill, Bassoon and Contrabassoon, p. 36. Fi 92 of outside placement are rare (Figure 13c).42 The new D#- key provided a reliable fingering for a chromatic pitch that must be considered virtually unobtainable ever since the D- key had become standard on the early bassoon.43 Not only did the new D#-key extend the practical chromatic compass of the bass extension, it made possible for the first time a good low-octave tonic for the Eb scale, an important “DOG; 1' “‘93 06s. I uh: vflp lwh a. Thumb (inside) b. Little finger c. Thumb (outside) Figure 13. Alternative locations of left-hand D#-keys ‘2 This unusual placement is shown on a six-keyed bassoon by Goulding & Co., London; Baines, European and American Instruments, p. 108 and Plate 602. 43 Even though Majer had included D# in his chart for the three-keyed bassoon, half-closing the E tone hole with the bassoon's D-key could not have provided a very satisfactory D#. 93 advantage considering the expansion of the tonal system in eighteenth-century music. Because the usage of the bassoon's lowest register was more harmonic than melodic, the awkwardness of sliding the left thumb from C to Eb did not seem to generate much concern. Makers who preferred the little finger key for D# avoided the slide since the little finger was not used for any other fingerings. This little-finger location made possible an easy D/Eb trill [(o,D)/xxei/x/xxxF]. On instruments with the thumb D#-key, however, the trill is a rather awkward anchored fingering in which the D-key must be held shut by the second joint of the thumb while the tip is rocked downward to touch the D#-key [(o,D,Qfi)/xxx/x/xxxF]. Practically speaking, the trill is a melodic ornament that is rarely applied in the lowest register of the bassoon, but the ease of producing trills in this range is a good indicator of the improvement in technique made possible by additional keys. Fingering charts for the five-keyed bassoon include a very rare chart by Abraham (1764-ca. 1805), a clarinetist at the conservatory in Paris and the author of several woodwind instruction books.44 More well known is the one included in the Essai sur la musique ancienne et moderne of Jean- ‘“ Cited by Langwill, Bassoon and Contrabassoon, p. 36. Very little else is known about this individual; "Abraham (8)," H. de Curzon, in J. Balteau., M. Barroux, and M. Prevost, eds., Dictionnaire de biographie francaise (Paris: Letouzey et Ané, 1932-), 1:195. th th. SUS 94 Benjamin de Laborde (1734-1794);4S Laborde's article was written by Pierre Cugnier, an important bassoonist of his time.‘6 Cugnier's chart is similar to one for the "basson ancien," published in 1787 by his more famous contemporary Etienne Ozi (1754-1813).47 These charts are summarized in the Appendix, Table 6. Fingerings for the five-keyed bassoon differed little from those for the four-keyed instrument, since the presence of a closed key for D# did not alter the acoustical properties or fingerings of any other pitch. Cugnier, however, included the pitches BB and C#, apparently for the first time in a bassoon fingering chart. The fingering for BBb, however, is identical to that of BB; Cugnier explains that "there is only the pressure on the reed which being stronger for the BB, makes it distinguishable from the BBb."“ The C# is to be produced by fingering C while partially opening the hole covered by the left thumb. The bassoon's sixth key was an F#-key located just below the open thumb hole for E on the boot joint. Eric Halfpenny suggests that this key was made necessary because of a ‘5 [Pierre Cugnier], "Basson," in Jean Benjamin de Laborde, Essai sur la musique ancienne et moderne (Paris: P. D. Pierres, 1780), 2: 342. 45 Langwill, Bassoon and Contrabassoon, p. 36. ‘7 Etienne Ozi, Méthode nouvelle et raisonnée pour le basson (Paris: Boyer, 1787; reprint, n.p.: Naderman, [ca. 1800]), plate. 1. 43 ". . . il n'y a que la pression de l'anche qui étant plus forte pour le Si, le fait distinguer du Sib;" [Cugnier], p. 342. 95 general widening of the bore of the ascending tube, which made the older practice of cross-fingering these pitches unsatisfactory.49 The new F#-key is a closed key that, like the D#-key, had no effect on the other notes or fingerings. This can be seen by comparing the fingering charts given by Samuel Holyoke (1762-1820) and Ezekiel Goodale (1780-after 1820) in treatises published in the United States in 1807 and 1819, respectively (see Appendix, Table 7).50 These charts, while appearing rather conservative in comparison to early nineteenth-century developments in Europe, are com- parable to those of European origin in the last half of the eighteenth century. The most significant difference between these American charts and the European ones is the omission of fingerings for BB and C# in the American charts. These pitches had been regularly included in European charts ever since Cugnier's chart of 1780. The F#-key provided the bassoonist with an alternative to the older fingering for F# [o/xxx/E/xxx]: the new fingering was like that for F, but with the addition of the thumb on the F#-key [o/xxx/F#/xxxF]. This fingering made an F to Gb trill easy [o/xxx/Fi/xxxF], but was of no use for ‘9 Eric Halfpenny, "The Evolution of the Bassoon in England, 1750-1800," Galpin Society Journal 10 (May 1957): 33. 5° Samuel Holyoke, The Instrumental Assistant, vol. 2 (Exeter, New Hampshire: Ranlet and Norris, 1807), pp. 6-7; Ezekiel Goodale, The Instrumental Director, (Hallowell, Massachusetts: E. Goodale, 1819; third ed., Hallowell: Glazier, Masters, 1829), p. 9. k: be to ke 96 the E to F# trill, for which the older fingering pattern could still be used [o/xxx/E/xxxF]. In the upper register the new F#-key made possible a true overblown f#, produced by half-holing the first finger hole, in the same way that g is attained. With this more reliable f#, the open fingering [o/ooo/o/ooo] was soon retuned to become the fingering of choice for f, replacing the older fingering [o/oxo/o/ooo] which had been widely used since the Renaissance. The seventh and eighth keys to be added were usually a pair of closed keys known as vent keys, located on the back of the wing joint. These keys covered small holes drilled quite high on the wing joint. The holes did not function as tone holes but as vents to aid in the production of the second octave. A vent, like a half-hole, encourages the production of the higher harmonics in a tone, usually resulting in the octave replication of the pitch obtained by the basic fingering. The location of these holes was prob- ably determined by trial and error since the acoustical principles that allowed mathematical calculation of their correct locations were not developed until the nineteenth century. The vent keys are often labeled as the a- and c- keys because of their use in aiding the production of these pitches in the second octave. Because they also proved to be helpful in the third octave replication of the same tones, they are sometimes referred to as the a'- and c'- keys. On most instruments, the higher the location of the 19. 1% no re 30' @ Unn Eds. 97 hole on the wing joint, the higher the key's touchpiece is located; the logic of this arrangement is immediately clear. The first illustration of a vent key is found in Ozi's Méthode nouvelle et raisonnée, which contains a fingering chart for the seven-keyed bassoon-Ozi's "basson moderne."51 Two vent keys are shown in a fingering chart by Johann Froelich (1780-1862).52 These charts are compared in the Appendix, Table 8. Because the addition of a vent key does not affect any of the fingerings in the basic scale, the primary differences between these charts and those for six- keyed bassoons are in the fingerings of the high register, which is now extended chromatically to d". That 021 expected the bassoonist to use this extended range is clear from the accompanying exercises which contain pitches all the way up to d", well past the highest pitch for the bassoon in most of its contemporary literature. David J. Rhodes reports that a contemporary of Ozi, virtuoso bassoonist Franz Anton Pfeiffer (1752-1787), had a bassoon with a vent key even before Ozi's Méthode was published. While the whereabouts of Pfeiffer's bassoon are not known, his personal seal, found on his will, includes a representation of a bassoon in which a vent key on the wing joint is clearly visible.53 Pfeiffer was also a composer, 51Méthode nouvelle et raisonnée, plate 2. 52 J[ohann] Froelich, Vollstandige theoretisch- praktische Musikschule (Bonn: Simrock, [1810-11]), unnumbered page. 53 David J. Rhodes, "Franz Anton Pfeiffer and the Bassoon," Galpin Society Journal 36 (March 1983): 98. 1'1 ks SI be Wa 98 writing a number of concertos and other works employing the bassoon in ranges that would require the use of at least one vent key. Both Ozi and Pfeiffer were more than just players; their interests included the latest developments of the instrument they played. In the hands of these virtuosi, the bassoon enjoyed another brief period of fame as a solo instrument.S4 While the vent keys and the keys for D# and G# were in general use by the turn of the century, several other eighteenth-century innovations did not achieve popularity. For example, a bassoon maker sometimes provided an instru- ment with two or more interchangeable wing joints of differ- ing lengths in order to provide some flexibility in matters of tuning with other instruments. Pierre Cugnier, who described this practice in 1780, reported that it had an adverse effect on the tuning of the bassoon itself, however.55 In the same article, Cugnier described an even more interesting aspect of bassoon construction: a small pinhole in the bocal. This pinhole was used to aid in the produc- tion of the upper octaves, much in the same way as the vent keys. The pinhole was so small that it produced only a slight disturbance in the air column, allowing the hole to be left open even when playing in the low register. Cugnier was the first person to describe this vent hole, which 5“ Griswold, "Changes in Tonal Character," p. 31. 55 [Cugnier], pp. 328-329. 99 became widely adopted during the nineteenth century as the bassoon was required to play more and more often in its higher range. Cugnier even proposed that this hole could be controlled by a key operated by the left thumb.56 Such a key is clearly shown in a portrait of bassoonist Felix Rheiner (1732-1783), painted by Peter Jakob Horemans (1700- 1776).57 The key, mounted on the wing joint, overlaps the long joint where it can easily be reached by the left thumb. Other than this innovative feature, the instrument looks like a typical four-keyed bassoon of the mid-eighteenth century. Cugnier's special key for the pinhole vent did not become common until after the middle of the nineteenth century and was not consistently adopted by German makers until the very end of the century. “ Ibid., p. 334. 57David J. Rhodes, "Felix Rheiner-—A Neglected Eighteenth-Century Bassoonist," Journal of the International Double Reed Society 21 (1993): 41. ar SC C0 Dh an CHAPTER 3 NATIONAL STYLES OF BASSOON The nineteenth century was a period of rapid change in musical tastes as well as in society at large. Inspired by the scientific optimism of the eighteenth-century and the advances of the Industrial Revolution, musical instrument makers sought out technological answers to practical problems as never before. Pianos were made with a newly- invented iron frame, a sophisticated escapement mechanism, and additional pedals to help meet the demands of nineteenth-century musicians. Brass instruments received valves, and woodwind instruments were fitted with increas- ingly complex and sophisticated key mechanisms. Advances in the science of acoustics brought about radical experiments on the basic construction of the woodwinds. By the end of the century, many woodwind instruments bore little more than a superficial resemblance to their eighteenth-century ancestors. A multitude of new instruments appeared on the scene as well, invented to satisfy the demands of particular composers or performers. Many of these, like the sarruso- phone and ophicleide, were associated with military bands and enjoyed only passing favor. Others, like the saxophone 100 tn v. t! th in be; 18: 101 and sousaphone, have become widespread in European and American cultures. The nineteenth century brought a flurry of activity among bassoon makers, resulting in an astonishing variety of new key mechanisms. In many cases the addition of keys appears to have been idiosyncratic, with no easily traceable progression of design. Indeed, it is probable that the impetus for new keys often came from performers, who were constantly presented with new challenges as the musical language of the nineteenth century became more and more demanding. In the midst of this activity, regional differ- ences in bassoon construction became more extreme. Within a few decades French and German bassoon makers were following different paths in their attempts to improve the bassoon. By the end of the century two quite distinct national styles of bassoon manufacture had been firmly established. The bassoon's evolution during the early nineteenth-century is further confused by the wide variety of instruments that were in use simultaneously, from antiquated four-keyed bas- soons to the latest versions with a dozen or more keys. Not only were bassoon manufacturers experimenting with various key mechanisms, but so apparently were the players themselves. It is not uncommon to find an older instrument that bears modifications made during this period. Two such instruments are in the author's possession. The first, made between 1806 and 1813 by Johann Heinrich Grenser (1764- 1813), appears to have been an eight-keyed bassoon to which 102 four additional keys were added. The second, made by Thomas Key (fl. 1800-1853) of London in the second quarter of the nineteenth century, originally had six keys, to which three more keys were added, probably at two different times. That the more recent example began as a six-keyed model suggests another important aspect of the development of bas- soons during this period: in some areas, more conservative instruments remained in production well into the nineteenth century. In England, a rather conservative approach to the addition of keys may have been related to a concern for tone color. Eric Halfpenny's discussion of the English bassoon suggests that a characteristic "English" sound was estab- lished before 1790. This sound quality, somewhat brighter than that of earlier bassoons, was preserved until the mid- nineteenth century, when instruments from France began to win greater acceptance.1 The work of bassoon manufacturers in the United States was similarly conservative. Robert Eliason suggests that this was the result of their cultural isolation, which he attributes to a trade embargo that began in 1808 and to the War of 1812.2 John (1785-1844) and Horace (1789-1861) Meacham, who began work in Hartford, 1 Eric Halfpenny, "The Evolution of the Bassoon in England, 1750-1800," Galpin Society Journal 10 (May 1957): 31. 2 Robert Eliason, "The Meachams, Musical Instrument Makers of Hartford and Albany," Journal of the American Musical Instrument Society 5-6 (1979-80): 62. 103 Connecticut and moved to Albany, New York around 1810, produced four-keyed bassoons until 1828.3 The limitations of the five- to eight-keyed bassoon were well known at the turn of the nineteenth century. These included the absence of a true BB or C#, the difficulty in moving about quickly in the low register, and a number of trills that were difficult to impossible with the cross- fingerings then in use. Etienne Ozi outlined a number of these limitations in his Méthode, carefully explaining which notes or passages should be avoided as impossible or impractical.4 Similar caveats can be found in an orches- tration treatise by French theorist and horn player Othon Vandenbroeck (1758-1832), published in 1793.5 The explanation of these limitations is that, despite the addition of five keys during the previous century, the bassoon began the nineteenth century with most of its basic fingerings unchanged since the Renaissance. The two vent keys added just before the turn of the century, for example, had not changed the basic fingerings. Except for their use in the highest register, their employment was more as an aid to performance than as a necessity. The open BBb-key added 3 Ibid. 4 Etienne Ozi, Nouvelle méthode de basson (Paris: Imprimerie du Conservatoire de Musique, 1803; reprint, Méthodes instrumentales les plus anciennes du Conservatoire de Paris, Geneva: Minkoff Reprint, 1974), pp. 32-34. 5 Othon Vandenbroeck, Traité général de tous les instruments a vent a l'usage des compositeurs (Paris: Boyer, 1793; reprint, Geneva: Minkoff Reprint, 1974), p. 62. 104 a note to the bottom of the range but had little further effect. The closed keys for G#, F#, and D# provided alternatives for some of the older cross-fingerings, but had no further effect on the fingering system. Further experimentation tended to focus on the addition of closed keys rather than open keys. The reason for this tendency, as Will Jansen rightly points out, is that open keys such as the F- and D-keys were part of the instrument's basic scale; changing their size or location would affect the tuning of the rest of the instrument.6 Closed keys, however, were used for chromatic pitches such as F# and G#; their location could be experimented with freely, since they were opened only for the pitch they produced. The following discussion will focus on results of this experimentation, rather than attempting to sort out precise dates for the addition of specific keys. Three cross-fingerings remained on the eight-keyed bassoon of the early nineteenth century: A# [o/xxx/o/xox]; c# [o/xxo/o/xoo]; and d# [o/xox/o/ooo]. Of these, both the A# and d# fingerings were retained at first, while a new tone hole was drilled for c# and fitted with a closed key. This c#-key was the ninth key on most bassoons, though a number of exceptions can be found.7 There was considerable 5 Will Jansen, The Bassoon: Its History, Construction, Makers, Players and Music, five vols. (Buren, The Netherlands: Fritz Knuf, 1978-1984), pp. 194-195. 7 An example is the 10-keyed bassoon by Savary jeune, ca. 1823, which has no c# key. No. 11 in William 105 variation in the location of this new key, more so than for any key previously discussed. In general, makers who used the left thumb for the D#-key tended to favor a c#-key for the left little finger (Figure 14a) while those who used the little finger for D# seemed to prefer a right thumb c#-key (Figure 14b). Baines views the right thumb location as the most common in the early part of the nineteenth century.8 A third alternative, a c#-key for the left thumb, was used occasionally, usually by makers who used employed the left l g \ thumb D#-key (Figure 14c). c1? OE E) , O a. Left little finger b. Right thumb c. Left thumb 1119 141’ Figure 14. Alternative locations of c#-key Waterhouse, The Proud Bassoon: An Exhibition (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University, 1983), pp. [26-27]. 3 Anthony Baines, Woodwind Instruments and Their History, revised ed. (New York: W. W. Norton, 1962), p. 334. 106 The Thomas Key bassoon in the author's possession demonstrates this position; the c#-key is located on the boot joint where it can be operated by the right thumb.9 An American treatise by George E. Blake (?1775-1871) dating from 1826 includes a fingering chart for an eight-keyed bassoon with additional information describing the use of a ninth key: a c#-key for the right thumb. The new fingering [o/xxx/c#/ooo] is shown as an alternative to the traditional cross-fingering [o/xxo/o/xoo] (see Appendix, Table 9).10 Georgia Peeples, who discusses this treatise, does not remark on the position or use of this key.11 A more interesting example is shown as #18 in Waterhouse's catalog. This instrument, made in Mannheim by Andreas Greve (1770- 1840) around 1830, has the c#-key on the boot joint, but with an additional key for the left little finger.12 This arrangement demonstrates an early application of the prin- ciple of the bridge key, which carries the mechanical motion across the connection between the wing joint and the boot joint. 9 A similar instrument, made in Germany around 1810, is shown as #4 in Gunther Joppig, The Oboe and the Bassoon, trans. Alfred Clayton (Portland, Oregon: Amadeus Press, 1988), p. 76. 1° [George E. Blake], An Introduction to the Art of Playingithe Bassoon (Philadelphia: G. E. Blake, 1826), p. 7. 11 Georgia Peeples, "Two Early American Bassoon Methods: The Bassoon Preceptor and An Introduction to the Art of Playing the Bassoon," Journal of the International Double Reed Society 10 (June 1982): 75. 13 Waterhouse, Proud Bassoon, pp. [30-31]. 107 The traditional system of cross-fingering was quite adequate for trills from b to c# [o/xxx/o/xoo] or from c# to d [o/xxo/o/xoo]. It is likely that these trills were re- tained in practice despite the new keys. They are, in fact, still used as primary trill fingerings by some players even today. The advantage of the independent c#-key, in addition to producing a more reliable pitch, was in the c to db trill which could now be played in one of two ways depending on the location of the key: [o/xxxgi/o/ooo] or [o/xxx/gfi/ooo]. Without the c#-key, the trill would have required a rapid alteration of c [o/xxx/o/ooo] with db [o/xxo/o/xoo], which is fairly clumsy to perform. The apparent decision to locate the new c#-key based on the arrangement of the D# bears further scrutiny. While at first it seems perfectly logical, it is only partly so, for there is no significant conflict of fingering patterns between the c#- and D#-keys that would have made one placement more advantageous than another. The c#-key is used in a range nearly an octave higher than that of the D#, so there would have been virtually no instance in which a player would have had to move quickly from one key to the other. Under the circumstances, the c#-key could quite reasonably have been placed adjacent to the D# for the left little finger, but this was almost never done. An example of this rare arrangement is found on a ten-keyed bassoon by Johann Heinrich Grenser, ca. 1790, and on a seven-keyed bassoon by Friedrich Gabriel August Kirst (1750-1806) of 108 Pottsdam, dated 1801.13 Only later, with the further addition of keys, were the advantages and disadvantages of various c#-key placements fully revealed. The bassoon still lacked a fully chromatic compass in the early nineteenth century. The BB and C# were still problematic, being possible only by distorting the embou- chure to raise the pitch of BBb or C, respectively. For the C# at least, half-closing the Open hole with the left thumb while closing the D-key would have been possible, as it had been on the dulcian; this fingering has been mentioned in the discussion of charts provided by Cugnier, Ozi, and Froelich. However, many early nineteenth-century fingering charts, like those of Blake, Goodale, and Holyoke, continue to omit both BB and C# as impossible. For example, a chart dated 1807 in the New Cyclopaedia of Abraham Rees (1743- 1825) gives the bassoon a full three-octave compass, with the exception of BB and C#.14 There was not a great need for these pitches in the music, since it was generally understood that they were not available. Vandenbroeck's orchestration treatise specifically excludes the BB although it does allow for a C#.15 33 These instruments are Nos. F7 and F7A, respectively, in the Heckel collection; [Rudolf Klose], Musikhistorisches Museum Heckel-Biebrich: Fagott (Wiesbaden: Wilhelm Heckel, 1968). 1‘ Cited by Lyndesay G. Langwill, The Bassoon and Contrabassoon, Instruments of the Orchestra (London: Ernest Benn, 1965), p. 39. 15 Vandenbroeck, p. 61. Since this is not a bassoon tutor, how the C# is to be played is not explained. 109 The addition of a new key for C# was relatively simple since it was logically and acoustically similar to the problem of D# which had already been solved. A new tone hole was drilled in the long joint, between the D and C tone holes, and fixed with a closed key. The new key tended to be placed according to the location of the D#-key, which meant that it was operated by the left thumb on instruments with the thumb D#-key (Figure 15a) and by the little finger on instruments with the little-finger D#-key (Figure 15b). As the century progressed, French makers tended to gravitate to the thumb placement, while the Germans seemed to prefer 5’) ( i L 1 W} 1:11: a. Left thumb b. Left little finger Figure 15. Alternative locations of C#-key the the thum thos fin; loc key pla Th! a1 ra fr IE 110 the little-finger keys. Instruments made by the elder of the Grenser family, Karl August (1720-1807), show either a thumb or a little-finger placement for the C#-key, while those made by his nephew Johann Heinrich show the little- finger placement exclusively.16 The touchpiece for the little-finger C#-key was first located closer to the top end of the long joint than the D#- key, since the hole it covered lay in this direction;17 this placement is reversed on the modern Almenrader instrument. The little finger key had the significant advantage of allowing similar finger motions to raise a C to C# and to raise D to D#. Its biggest disadvantage was that the move from C# to D# was quite awkward at high speeds, since it required the simultaneous shift of the thumb from C to D while the little finger slid from C# to D#. This circumstance could hardly have been seen as a significant shortcoming, however, since the C# had not even been possible on previous models of the instrument. The thumb version of the C#-key lay to the outside of the C- and D-keys and parallel to them; the C#-key itself was pressed by the second joint of the thumb while C was fingered with the tip of the thumb. This anchored fingering was similar to that already required for D# on bassoons with 1‘ Phillip T. Young, Twenty-five Hundred Historical Woodwind Instruments: An Inventory of the Major Collections (New York: Pendragon Press, 1982), pp. 45-46, 51-54. 17 See the 14-key bassoon by Wiesner (1791-1840), No. 17 in Waterhouse, Proud Bassoon, pp. [30-31]. 111 a thumb key for D#. While this layout of keys may seem clumsy, with a little practice it proves quite workable for every whole- and half-step motion except that from C# to D#. The same observation can be made about this circumstance as was made for the C#- and D#-fingerings for the left little finger: though awkward, notes could now be played that had not been possible earlier. The only remaining gap in the chromatic compass was the BB. The great difficulty this presented to bassoon makers is evident in the considerable variety of their solutions to it. To drill another tone hole and cover it with a closed key would make the new pitch possible without requiring any of the higher notes to be retuned, since the hole would only be open for BB itself. But this would have contradicted the general pattern-—open keys for diatonic notes and closed keys for accidentals-—that had been developing over the years. Nevertheless, this seems to have been the solution of choice among a number of bassoon manufacturers, espe- cially those active in France, where the closed BB-key eventually became a standard feature of the Jancourt system. Indeed, the closed key was ideal if it were to be added to an already existing instrument, since no other adjustments would have been necessary. The rest of the keys would function just as they had before, with no relearning necessary for the player. 112 Closed BB-keys located in such a way as to be operated by the left thumb appear on several instruments in the Heckel collection. A rather curious bassoon made around 1830 by F. Rank (dates unknown) of Rottenburgh has a closed BB-key operated by a long simple lever lying along the traditional BBb-key.18 A more complex mechanism appears on a bassoon by the Dresden maker Wiesner (1791-1868); this BB- key has a three-lever linkage that opens the BB tone hole when the key is pushed.19 A similar mechanism appears on a bassoon by Karl August Schaufler (1792-1877) of Stuttgart, ca. 1838,?0 whose bassoon was patterned on the ideas of Bohemian bassoon virtuoso Wenzel Neukirchner (1805-1889).21 Though Neukirchner's ideas were eventually realized on bassoons produced by a major Parisian manufacturer, Adler, they never became widespread. A rare alternative to the left thumb BB-key was one located for the left little finger, as it appears on an unusual and undated bassoon in the Heckel collection.22 Made by Wilhelm Hess of Munich,23 this interesting seventeen-keyed instrument appears to date from the middle 13 [Klose], no. F13A. ” Ibid., no. F14. N Ibid., no. F18. 21 Langwill, Bassoon and Contrabassoon, p. 55. n [Klose], no. F12. ” This is probably the older of the two known instrument makers by this name, father (1800-1874) and son (1841-1880); Lyndesay G. Langwill, An Index of Musical Wind Instrument Makers, sixth ed. (Edinburgh: Lindsay, 1980), p. 78. m n: 113 of the nineteenth century. Going against tradition, Hess located the BB tone hole on the front of the instrument where it is controlled by a key for the left hand little finger. Whether this key is an open or closed key is unclear, but it appears to be closed. Also in the Heckel collection is a fourteen-keyed bassoon, made in Leyden ca. 1885 by Ferdinand Bruggemann (before 1860-1899), which shows a similar placement, although the key itself functions to open a closed hole on the bell joint.24 A more complex solution to the problem of BB was to add another open key to the long joint, which would require some degree of retuning along the entire acoustical tube in order to make up for the shortening of the air column. The old BBb-key, which formerly closed the C tone hole to create BBb, would now function as the BB-key, since the new BB tone hole would still be open. Thus the new key which closes the BB tone hole is in effect a new BBb-key. The new key was usually located parallel to the old BBb-key but closer to the wing joint. Although the evidence is not entirely clear, a unique approach to the problem of BB and C# appears to have been taken by the American instrument maker George Catlin (1778- 1852) of Philadelphia. The only known evidence of this aspect of Catlin's work is found in the report of the judges' committee of the first exhibition (1824) of the Franklin Institute, an organization founded in the same year “ Ibid., no. F36. 114 to encourage American invention and scientific progress. Describing a bassoon made by Catlin in 1824, the judges reported the following innovation: . . . a key by which the B natural and C sharp in the lowest octave are produced, a difficulty which is almost invincible in the common bassoon, so that these notes, however important to the harmony, have been hitherto avoided by composers for this instrument.25 If literally true, the report means that Catlin located a single key some place on the bassoon's long joint where it could serve to raise both BBb to BB and C to C#. This hole, of course, would have been an acoustical compromise, yet the judges found the instrument's tone to be excellent. If the judges' report is in error and there were in fact two keys, it is most likely that these keys resembled those employed by German makers, since no mention is made of a more complex mechanism. Among the other interesting features of this bassoon were a second G# key (for the right thumb), a d#-key for the left ring finger, and an A#-key for the right ring finger. Considering what the judges did not mention, it may be assumed that the standard bassoon to which they were comparing Catlin's instrument had the traditional six keys, or possibly eight if vent keys were employed. Thus, the new model probably had between ten and thirteen keys. ” Quoted by Robert E. Eliason, "George Catlin, Hartford Musical Instrument Maker," Journal of the American Musical Instrument Society 8 (1982): 34. 115 Unfortunately, the location of this instrument, if indeed it still exists, is unknown. The two vent keys that first appeared toward the end of the eighteenth century became standard during the next. While the placement of the vents themselves underwent considerable refinement, the assignment of the keys to the left thumb was problematic only in regard to which touch- piece should be lower. On most instruments the higher vent hole is associated with the higher touchpiece (Figure 16a), but a few instruments show the reverse of this arrangement (Figure 16b). An example of the reversed arrangement is found on a bassoon made in Vienna by W. Kies (fl. 1800-1820) and an unusual instrument by Karl Schaufler, made in C C 131: a. Traditional location C 0 fl b. Touchpieces reversed Figure 16. Alternative locations of vent keys 116 Stuttgart, ca. 1838.26 The two vent keys added later to the author's Thomas Key bassoon show the same reversed arrangement. On some instruments a third vent hole and key were added. There seems to have been no particular pattern in the location of this third vent. In general, the third vent is higher than the vents found on two-vented instruments, while the unusually high placement of vents on some two- vented instruments suggests that a third vent would have been added lower. The exact placement of the vent keys is still a matter of variation among bassoon makers. A more difficult problem was the placement and function of a key to cover the pinhole vent in the bocal. This vent had been used since the eighteenth century to help the production of the upper register.27 However, the pinhole had the disadvantage that it made very soft playing in the lowest register somewhat more difficult, as can be demon- strated even on modern bassoons. Some way, therefore, had to be devised to keep the vent shut when the music required a pianissimo in the low register. The popular term whisper key refers to the traditional use of this key to aid in very quiet playing in the low register. At first, a small hinged cover was attached to the bocal itself; this cover could be u [Klose], nos. F9 and F18, respectively. A photograph of the Schaufler instrument is #19 in Waterhouse, Proud Bassoon, pp. [30-31]. 27 [Pierre Cugnier], "Basson," in Jean Benjamin de Laborde, Essai sur la musique ancienne et moderne (Paris: P. D. Pierres, 1780), 2: 334. 117 pivoted shut during a rest in preparation for a passage to come.28 Eventually, it was found to be more convenient to control this hole with a key, as Pierre Cugnier had sug- gested as early as 1780.29 These keys were mounted on the wing joint in such a way that the pad could reach far enough over onto the bocal to close the pinhole vent. Because the performance practice regarding the open pinhole involved closing it only when playing low-range pianissimos, the keys that were developed to cover it were almost exclusively open—standing. As a result, the finger assigned to it was free to do other things much of the time. This is in direct contrast to modern performance practice in which the whisper key is kept shut much of the time, either by anchoring one finger to the whisper key or by employing a special locking device.30 The whisper key was located at the top of the wing joint, hence it made sense that the finger employed to control it be in the left hand. A right-hand location would have required bridging the gap between the instrument's joints. A mechanism that crosses the intersection between 28 Franz Groffy, "Piano-key Mechanisms for the Bassoon," Woodwind 7, no. 7 (April 1955): 8. Nearly the entirety of Groffy's article was quoted and paraphrased without attribution by John E. Schleiffer, "The Bassoon: Three Technical Studies," Music Educators Journal 53 (January 1967): 57-59. x [Cugnier], p. 334. W The Heckel company offers at least a dozen such devices. Groffy, the head engineer at Heckel, discussed both the open- and closed-key whisper mechanism in "Piano- key Mechanisms," pp. 8-11. 118 one joint of an instrument and another involves a pair of keys, one on each joint, which overlap when the instrument is assembled (Figure 17). In this way, the key that lies above transfers the mechanical motion from the key below, thus carrying the motion from one joint to the other. While not impossible to accomplish, bridging seems to have been avoided unless absolutely necessary. Figure 17. Bridge key architecture Like the keys for C# and D#, the whisper key usually appears in one of two places on nineteenth-century bassoons, depending on the responsibilities already assigned to the fingers. In the basic scale of the bassoon neither the left hand little finger nor the left thumb were very active except in the bass extension where they had considerable responsibilities. On instruments which required the little finger to play the C#- and D#-keys, therefore, the whisper key was generally assigned to the left thumb. The touch- piece for this key was usually located just below the those for the true vent keys. There it could be reached even while playing D; this meant, however, that the notes from C# down to BBb had to be played with the whisper key open 119 unless some other method, like binding the key shut on the bocal with string, could be employed during a suitable break in the music. If such a break could not be found, of course, the player would have to make do with the previous setting of the key. This disadvantage eventually was resolved by a bridge key from the E-key on the boot joint to the wing joint and by the modern whisper-key lock. A quite different situation is found on instruments which required the left thumb to play C# and D#. On these bassoons the whisper key was assigned to the little finger. As a result, the little finger could keep the whisper key shut all the way to the BBb. Here, the disadvantage was in fingering C#, which on these instruments was also given to the little finger. It is awkward but not impossible to play both the whisper key and the c#-key with the little finger. In faster passages where this might actually become a prob- lem, the traditional cross fingering could be retained for c# [o/xxo/o/xoo]. Thus, the little finger whisper key seems to have offered significant advantages to the performer. The Hess bassoon in the Heckel collection shows an important departure from either of the above procedures.31 This instrument has the typical German left-thumb placement of the whisper key, yet the key itself operates in the oppo- site manner from the usual version. That is, the bocal vent is closed until the key is pressed, which makes the function of this key analogous to that of the other vent keys, of u [Klose], no. F12. 120 which there are three. The analogy between this key and the vent keys is carried further in the curious positioning of the three vent keys with the higher holes controlled by the lower touchpieces. The whisper vent itself, being the highest hole, is controlled by the lowest touchpiece of all. This is of particular importance in understanding the purpose of the vent in the bocal. Here the manufacturer seems to have considered the whisper key as an additional vent key, to be used only when necessary for those particular notes in the middle of the second octave that most depend on its being open. Unfortunately, this unique instrument does not seem to have been associated with a pub- lished fingering chart, and must be regarded as representing an idiosyncratic approach. A number of other bassoons with idiosyncratic fingering systems survive from the nineteenth century. In some cases, these may be the result of innovative ideas that a particu- lar performer or maker was trying out on an experimental basis. In other cases, they may represent the work of a conservative instrument maker copying a few attractive ideas from the work of a more innovative maker. That these instruments can be found throughout the century gives further proof that bassoon manufacture was an open field, even after the basic elements of the French Jancourt and German Almenrader systems were established. CHAPTER 4 THE ALMENRKDER SYSTEM The modern Almenrader bassoon has its roots in the work of bassoonist Karl Almenrader (1786-1843). His friendship with the acoustician Gottfried Weber (1779-1839) provided him with the necessary scientific background to make much- needed changes to the construction and fingering patterns of the bassoon.1 Almenrader's initial experiments with the bassoon were conducted in the Schott workshop in Mainz from 1817 until around 1820, when he wrote a brief but important treatise on the improvement of the bassoon.2 Charles Koster, editor of a recent English translation of this work, points out that this treatise, published by the Schott company about instruments they were in the business to sell, was "primarily an advertising brochure."3 Almenrader was assisted by Karl Friedrich August Jehring (1798-1837), a 1 Lyndesay G. Langwill, The Bassoon and Contrabassoon, Instruments of the Orchestra (London: Ernest Benn, 1965), p. 49. 2 Karl Almenrader, "Treatise on the Improvement of the Bassoon Including Two Tables," Mainz: B. Schott Sbhnen, ca. 1820; trans. Charles Koster, Journal of the International Double Reed Society 14 (1986): 22-39. 3 Charles Koster, preface to Almenraeder, "Treatise on the Bassoon," p. 22. 121 122 craftsman in the Schott workshop, who helped build Almenrader-system instruments stamped with the Schott label. In 1829 Almenrader began working with seventeen-year-old Johann Adam Heckel (1812-1877), newly employed by Schott and a nephew and student of Jehring; two years later Almenrader and Heckel began the firm that eventually became synonymous with the finest in German-made Almenrader-system bassoons. Almenrader's revised treatise, describing a new version of the bassoon with fifteen keys, was published by Gottfried Weber in Caecilia in 1825, with a second revision based on subsequent experiments published in 1829.4 While Almenrader had high praise for the tone quality of bassoons made by the Grensers of Dresden, he was careful to point out that "there remain various defects, especially tuning."S Almenrader went on to suggest that corrections could be made "by the use of complex fingerings, but from these fingerings there arise significant difficulties that act against a fluent and comfortable performance," especially in the more "remote" keys.6 Therefore, Almenrader focused his attention on improving the intonation and fingering patterns of the bassoon as he found it in Germany. Yet he was aware of the work of other bassoonists. Most important of these was Etienne Ozi, from whose Méthode de basson Almenrader cited several examples in his own treatise. While bassoons based 4 Langwill, Bassoon and Contrabassoon, p. 49. 5 Almenrader, "Treatise on the Bassoon," p. 23. 5 Ibid. 123 on Almenrader's ideas received much attention for their technical improvements and better intonation, there was a perceived loss in the beauty of the tone.7 It was not until later in the nineteenth century that the Heckel company's improvements to the bore brought back the tone quality that Almenrader so admired in the Grenser instruments.8 Almenrader's modifications to the mechanism of the bassoon were carried out concurrently with significant alterations to the acoustical properties of the instrument. These were necessitated in part by the use of the open BB tone hole in the bass extension. Contrary to Will Jansen's assertion, however, it can not be said that Almenrader "completely discarded the existing bassoon of his time and started from an entirely new point."9 As will be shown in the following discussion, Almenrader conscientiously and meticulously modified the existing instrument according to the needs of the time. First, Almenrader relocated the c# tone hole, placing it "at its correct spot," which he felt was farther down the acoustical tube than its traditional location.10 Because Almenrader's c#-key was a modification of a key Grenser had 7 Wilhelm Hermann Heckel, The Bassoon (Wiesbaden: Wilhelm Heckel, 1931; trans. Lyndesay G. Langwill, rev. and ed. Douglas Waples, Greenfield, Ohio: Journal of Musicology Reprint, 1940), p. [17]. 8 Ibid. 9 Will Jansen, The Bassoon: Its History, Construction, Makers, Players and Music, five vols. (Buren, The Netherlands: Fritz Knuf, 1978-84), p. 32. 1” Almenrader, "Treatise on the Bassoon," p. 24. 124 located very low on the wing joint, this adjustment made it necessary to move the traditional location of the joint between the boot and wing sections. If Almenrfider's c#-key had been mounted on the boot joint as was the preference of his German contemporaries, this modification would not have been necessary. The next adjustment was the relocation of the A tone hole farther down the boot joint, where it would have to be covered by a new G-key. This modification not only yielded a better octave A to a, but achieved "full equalization of sound from the lower A to the following F, which is almost always missing from ordinary bassoons."11 The most innova- tive aspect of this improvement was that Almenrader used a double hole: the A tone hole itself was bored into the descending tube and a second hole was bored into the ascending tube. The second hole acts as a resonance hole which modifies the timbre of the G.12 As important as his acoustical work was, Almenrader's improvements to the fingering system were of more practical importance to players of the bassoon, who until this work was done had to contend with a variety of problems caused by awkward cross-fingerings. To solve these problems, bassoon makers were experimenting with new closed keys which would reduce the number of cross-fingerings necessary. The result was a rapid rise in the number of keys mounted on the U Ibid., p. 25. 12 Langwill, Bassoon and Contrabassoon, p. 52. 125 bassoon during the first half of the nineteenth century. The bassoons by Johann Heinrich Grenser with which Almenrader was familiar typically had seven to nine keys. Of the forty-four complete surviving bassoons by J. H. Grenser listed by Phillip Young, five have seven keys, twenty-two have eight keys, and ten have nine keys, the ninth being most often a key for c#.13 Three more have ten keys, and there are additional examples with eleven, thir- teen and fourteen keys. Unfortunately, Young's otherwise helpful listing of keys fails at this point to label all of the new keys, some of which may have been later additions. Almenrader's solutions to the problems of the turn-of- the-century bassoon eventually became the dominant pattern among German makers. His work can be considered in two stages. The initial period of intensive innovative work began with his first associations with Schott around 1819 and ended with the publication of his results in Caecelia in 1825. The results of this first stage of experimentation are shown in Figure 18; the fingerings are summarized in the Appendix, Table 10. Because of the need to control seven pitches from BBb to E with only three available fingers, the bass extension was one of the most problematic aspects of the bassoon's construction. There can be no question that by providing a 13 Philip T. Young, Twenty-five Hundred Historical Woodwind Instruments: An Inventory of the Major Collections (New York: Pendragon Press, 1982), pp. 52-54. 126 C411 10’: 6“? a. Left thumb keys b. Left finger keys 0 «is O . T gm 6 Fl 4: * F?! W S . 147p 1417 c. Right thumb keys d. Right finger keys Figure 18. Almenrader system, ca. 1825 127 fully chromatic compass Almenrader did as much as anyone to bring the bass extension of the bassoon out of the Renaissance and to adapt it to the chromatic demands of nineteenth-century music. Yet his solutions involved certain compromises that create difficulties for performers even today. The C# was one of the notes missing from bassoons until the early nineteenth century. Almenrader located a new tone hole in an acoustically suitable position between the C and D tone holes, and fitted it with a closed key operated by the little finger of the left hand. The new touchpiece was located alongside that for the D# which Almenrader assigned to the little finger as J. H. Grenser had done (Figure 18b). This placement made a trill from C to Db quite simple [C/xxei/x/xxxF]. Although Almenrader did not discuss the point, it seems likely that the choice may also have been influenced by the c#-key and vent keys with which the left thumb already had to contend. Almenrader's solution to the problem of the missing BB was to locate a new tone hole in the bell joint. This hole is the lowest of the tone holes on the acoustical tube. The new hole was controlled by an open key lying alongside the old BBb-key and just to its right (Figure 18a). In effect, the old BBb-key became the new BB-key since its closing of the C tone hole now produced BB, not 38b. The new key was a true BBb-key, since it produced BBb by closing the BB tone hole. Almenrader reported that this new open hole not only 128 made the full chromatic compass possible, but helped improve the tone and volume of the notes in the bass extension.14 Because there were now three separate keys to be operated by the left thumb in the bass extension, and because these keys lay on opposite sides of the open D tone hole, Almenrader fitted this hole with an open key which produced C when closed (Figure 18a). This key did not change the fingering pattern, but did make it easier to play the various bass keys, since the player no longer had to make sure that the thumb was completely covering the hole. The rounded shape of the Almenrader's C-key also made slurring more convenient in this register. Almenrader made a number of improvements to the finger- ings of the basic scale of the bassoon, including the relocated c#-key mentioned above. Almenrader credited J. H. Grenser with the invention of the c#-key operated by the little finger of the left hand [xxxc#/o/ooo], which could also be used to obtain a d# [xxoc#/o/ooo].15 This key allowed for the first time a trill from c# to d# by means of the left hand ring finger. Because the d# fingering was an acoustical compromise however, the older cross-fingering of d# was retained as the standard fingering. Grenser typically located his c# on the front of the instrument, that is, on the same side as the fingerholes. 14 That is, from F down to BBb. Almenrfider, "Treatise on the Bassoon," p. 25. 15 Ibid., p. 24. 129 This is actually the lower side of the tube as the instru- ment is held while playing, so this position, as Almenrader pointed out, allowed the c# hole to fill with water from condensation in the bore.16 The fingerholes are in the same position, but water is not cited as a problem with regard to them. The explanation of this apparent discrepancy, which Almenrader does not mention, is that the c#-key is a closed key. Because the tone hole is open only when c# is played, a closed key in this position gives water a place to hide from the wind in the bore. While the fingerholes also get water in them on occasion, as open holes they are more frequently cleared of water by the passage of air through them, thus presenting considerably less of a problem.17 Almenrader's solution was to move the c#-key to the back of the instrument to be operated by the left thumb,18 which as yet had no whisper-key to deal with, and was thus a logical choice (Figure 18a). It was not, however, the only choice that could have been made. The Kirst bassoon in the Heckel collection has a c#-key for the left little finger that reaches around the wing joint to a hole on the back side where water cannot get into it. This instrument dates “ Ibid. 17 Even so, some modern players are sufficiently bothered by water in the finger holes that they have these holes lined with special tubes that protrude into the bore just enough to keep water from running into them. 1‘ Almenrader, "Treatise on the Bassoon," p. 24. 130 from 1801, twenty years before Almenrader's work.19 In retrospect, it seems that Kirst's arrangement would have been preferable, since he did not sacrifice ease of fingering merely to solve a technical problem. In order to improve the tuning of the octave A to a, Almenrader moved the A tone hole, formerly covered by the ring finger of the right hand, several inches further down the acoustical tube, to a position at which it could no longer be reached by the third finger. Therefore, a new key was made which acted solely as an extension to the ring finger and did not alter the fingering pattern of the other notes. Its touchpiece lies on the boot joint in approxi- mately the same location as the old open hole (Figure 18d). This open key is properly called a G-key, since it produces G by closing the A tone hole. An unfortunate side effect of the change in the location of the A tone hole was a weakening of the intonation of the traditional cross-fingered Bb. Almenrader gave a modified fingering [xxx/o/xoxG#] as a solution,20 which was also good for a trill from Ab to Bb. In addition, he located a new tone hole for A# in an acoustically acceptable position on the boot joint. To control this hole he mounted a closed A#-key to be operated by the ring finger of the right hand 19 [Rudolph Klose], Musikhistorisches Museum Heckel- Biebrich: Fagott (Wiesbaden: Wilhelm Heckel, 1968), no. F7A. 2°.Almenrader, "Treatise on the Bassoon," p. 35. 131 [xxx/o/xxA#] (Figure 18d). This made possible for the first time an easy A to Bb trill. Almenrader then added a second key for G#, this time on the back of the boot joint alongside the F#-key, where it could be operated by the right thumb (Figure 18c). The new G#-key eliminated an awkward fingering pattern on older instruments that involved a slide of the little finger from the F-key to the G#-key at the same time as the thumb was lifted off the F#-key. Koster's English translation of Almenrader's 1821 treatise suggests that the new G#-key was to be used as in the modern fingering [xxx/o/xxxG#]: On the other side of this joint the F-sharp key has received a neighboring key [G#], which when opened with the usual G fingering produces an in-tune G-sharp.21 It is unfortunate that Koster's translation is not accompanied by the diagrams referred to in the text, because the translation is in error. The critical passage is: Auf der andern Seite diese[s] Stficke[s] hat die tiefe Fis=Klappe noch eine Neben=Klappe erhalten die, wenn sie mit jener zugleich ge6ffnet und der gewbhnliche G=Griff dazu genommen wird, ein reines Gis hervorbringt.22 The passage should read: n Ibid., p. 25. 22 Ibid. The original passage contains letters referring the reader to an illustration; because this usage creates needless conflicts with the present key-labeling scheme, these letters have been omitted. Editorial ellipses have also been omitted for the sake of readability. 132 On the other side of this joint the F#-key has now received a neighboring key [G#] which, when it is opened together with the former [F#] along with the customary G-fingering, produces a true G#.23 In a subsequent revision of the treatise, published in Caecelia in 1825, Almenrader's diagrams clearly show the new G#-key.24 Although both it and the neighboring F#-key are erroneously labeled as F#-keys, the new key is clearly located too high on the boot joint to serve as an alternate to the little finger G#, whose tone hole is at the very bottom of the boot joint. It is therefore apparent that Almenrader designed this key not as an independent G# but as one which would produce G# in conjunction with the F#- fingering.25 Because the two keys were so close together, a relatively clean F# [xxx/F#/xxxF] to G# [xxx/(F#,G#)/xxxF] slur could be achieved by sliding the right thumb slightly to catch the G#-key while still holding the F#-key. Almenrader later abandoned this design in favor of the independent G# that appears on modern examples of the Almenrader system. His reasons are not known, but he may have decided against the first design because the key could not be used by itself to produce a true G#. Almenrader did not mention any improvements to the vent keys themselves, and employed only two in his designs ” Author's translation, with assistance of Nan Watkins, Reference Librarian, Western Carolina University. 3‘ See Plate 14, Figs. 4k and 2m in Langwill, Bassoon and Contrabassoon. 5 Ibid., p. 51. 133 (Figure 18a), even though J. H. Grenser had added a third vent to some of his instruments at least a decade before.26 Almenrader did describe the highly idiosyncratic bassoon technique of flicking, that is, of briefly opening one of the vent keys in order to facilitate large-interval slurs to the notes of the first overblown octave.”’ Despite this apparent lack of attention to the vent keys, the fingering chart he published for his fifteen-keyed bassoon gives fingerings all the way up to 9" (see Appendix, Table 10).28 In 1843 Almenrader published a new chart with fingerings for a full four octaves, BBb to bb".29 Even today notes above e" are only rarely encountered in bassoon literature. This may be due to the larger bore dimensions of modern Almenrader-system bassoons. It may have been much easier to produce these extremely high pitches with the considerably narrower bore of the early nineteenth-century bassoons. Extremely high notes are generally easier to obtain on French bassoons, which retain the smaller bore. Almenrader continued to refine his fingering system for another twenty years, working in conjunction with the Heckel firm until his death in 1843. The results of the following 2‘ Phillip Young lists four such instruments by Grenser, who died in 1813, before Almenraeder began working; Historical Woodwind Instruments, p. 54. 27.Almenr§der, "Treatise on the Bassoon," p. 28. 1” This chart is reproduced in Jansen, Fig. 448, unnumbered page. ” Karl Almenrader, Der Kunst des Fagottblasens oder Vollstandige theoretisch-praktische Fagottschule (Mainz: B. Schott Sbhnen, [ca. 1843]). 134 improvements are shown in Figure 19. By 1828 he had added a second closed key for F# on the boot joint, this one oper- ated by the little finger of the right hand,30 giving the player additional flexibility in fingering complicated passages (Figure 19d). Later, Almenrader moved and enlarged the thumb hole for the right hand, covering it with an open key as he had done earlier with the left thumb C-key. This new key, which closes the F tone hole, is known as the E-key (Figure 19c). Almenrader also improved the acoustical posi- tion of his A# tone hole, moving it to the thumb side of the boot joint where it would not be subject to filling with water. A new A#-key for the right thumb was located next to the E-key and opposite the F#-key (Figure 19c). Almenrader was also able to control his new A#-key from the old ring- finger A#-key on the front of the boot joint by means of a truly ingenious device.31 This device consists of a thin rod running from the front to the back of the bassoon through a small hole drilled in the narrow septum between the two wind tubes in the boot joint. The sum of these innovations made it possible for the bassoonist to choose among two fingerings for each of the three notes F#, G#, and A#. The presence of these alternative fingerings greatly simplified the performance of passagework formerly considered difficult or even impossible. 4” Langwill's description of this key as a key for the right hand ring finger is in error; Bassoon and Contrabassoon, p. 52. n Ibid., p. 53. 135 0 1 O O //%zfi# ::::’ «up a. Left thumb keys b. Left finger keys E a" O a G F (a: 7, G .2, m, c. Right thumb keys d. Right finger keys Figure 19. Almenrader system, ca. 1843 136 Further refinements to the Almenrader system instrument were made by the Heckel company after Almenrader's death. These included the relatively late addition of ring keys, the invention of which is usually attributed to the Rev. Frederick Nolan (1784-1864) in 1808.32 A ring key encircles an open tone hole but does not alter the pitch of the notes issuing from that hole; rather it controls, by means of a mechanical connection, a second tone hole located elsewhere. Ring keys were fairly common on flutes and other woodwinds by the 18408, but were not employed systematically by the Heckel firm until around 1880, when a ring key was mounted for the third finger of the left hand.33 This closed key covered a new d# tone hole that opened in conjunction with the c#-key but closed when the third finger hole was closed. This mechanism markedly improved the tone and pitch of Almenrader's c# to d# trill but did not change its fingering [xx§c#/ooo]. A second ring key was added in 1902 to control a vent which has no other function than to modify the intonation of the 9'.34 Further modifications to the Almenrader bassoon in the nineteenth century included improvements to the bore to smooth out irregularities in pitch and tone color. Some n George E. Eyre and William Spottiswoode, Patents for Inventions: Abridgements of Specifications Relating to Music and Musical Instruments, A.D. 1694-1866, second ed. (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1871; reprint, London: Tony Bingham, 1984), pp. 56-57. ” Langwill, Bassoon and Contrabassoon, p. 54. “ Ibid. 137 relatively minor changes made in the location of tone holes did not affect the fingering system itself, except in the upper ranges where the fingerings have traditionally been more flexible. Thus, the majority of fingerings for the modern Almenrader system are essentially identical to those of his nineteenth-century designs (see Appendix, Table 11). Other changes made by the Heckel company included lining the wing joint with hard rubber to prevent water damage to the wood and an improvement to the method by which the acousti- cal tube was turned back on itself in the boot joint.3S Langwill gives 1905 as the year in which the Heckel company finally made standard a mechanism to close the pin- hole in the bocal.36 Connected to the whisper-key mechanism on the wing by means of a bridge key between the joints, this mechanism functioned automatically with the closing of the E-key on the boot joint. By this means the pinhole vent was kept closed in the bassoon's lowest range, where it was most critical to achieve a successful pianissimo. Eventually an additional key was added, usually located next to the left thumb's c#-key, where it has remained on Almenrfider-system instruments ever since. While the auto- matic mechanism had a beneficial effect on the low register pianissimo and made it easier to attack the lower notes in general, it complicated the fingering of the c# by requiring that the whisper-key and the c#-key be held down by the left 35 Ibid., pp. 54-56. “ Ibid., p. 54. 138 thumb simultaneously. Considering the current practice of modifying the pitch and tone color of the c# with the addition of the D-key, the c# has become one of the more awkward fingerings on the instrument [(D,c#,w)/xxx/ooo]. If Almenrader had left the c#-key where Grenser had put it, on the front side of the instrument where it could be con- trolled by the left little finger, or if he had opted for the right thumb placement preferred by his contemporaries, this awkward fingering would have been avoided. Here then is an example of the way in which an earlier decision about key mechanism, although based upon rational consideration of the options and requirements of the time, turned out to be a source of problems for a later generation of players who found themselves working under different musical conditions. As frustrating as the current situation is, a generally acceptable and workable solution has yet to be developed. Other makers worked to improve Almenrader's design as well. The best-known example was that of Reinhold Lange (1854-1905), who advertised his "new system" in 1890.37 Lange moved the tone hole for the finger of the left hand to a more appropriate position, drilled it straight into the bore, and fitted it with a key, in this way accomplishing for the left hand what Almenrader had already done for the right with his G-key. Lange then relocated the other left ” Ronald Klimko, "The C. Kruspe Bassoon and the World's Columbian Exposition of Chicago, 1893," Journal of the International Double Reed Society 7 (1979): 9. 139 hand fingerholes so that the hand position would be more comfortable. He also drilled the c# tone hole where it belongs acoustically, that is, right through the socket and tenon connecting the wing and boot joints, and gave it a key for the first finger of the right hand. These changes, although interesting and perhaps even useful, are hardly enough to establish Lange's claim that he had invented a "new system." This assessment was also the judgment of an anonymous writer in the very journal in which Lange had advertised.38 Nevertheless, Lange showed two examples of his new system at the International Exhibition in Vienna in 1892.39 The only feature of Lange's system to have any lasting effect was the covered tone hole for the left hand third finger; although the tone hole is no longer moved on modern bassoons, it is occasionally covered in order to accomodate bassoonists with small hands. n Cited in Klimko, ibid. ” Lyndesay G. Langwill, An Index of Musical Wind Instrument Makers, sixth ed. (Edinburgh: Lindsay, 1980), p. 100. CHAPTER 5 THE JANCOURT SYSTEM The bassoon arrived on the threshold of the nineteenth century with an acoustical construction very little changed since its first appearance as a jointed instrument in the early seventeenth century. As French makers adapted this instrument to the requirements of nineteenth-century music, they tended to retain the narrow, oblique tone holes of the older dulcian, including the thumb hole for E. There is evidence to suggest that this may be due to a greater empha- sis placed on tone color by French musicians. Harold Eugene Griswold, for example, has discussed in detail the develop- ing concept of the ideal bassoon tone quality among French musicians in the later eighteenth century.1 These changes parallel the rise of the bassoon's new role as a tenor soloist rather than a basso continuo instrument. Preoccupation with tone color and the subtleties of sound can be seen in several of the earliest accomplishments of French bassoon makers in the nineteenth century. Shortly after the turn of the century, Dominique Porthaux (1751- 1 Harold Eugene Griswold, "Changes in the Tonal Character of the Eighteenth-Century French Bassoon," Journal of the International Double Reed Society 17 (1989): 29-34. 140 141 1839) invented a bocal made of wood, which he considered a preferable material to the heavy brass bocals of the day because of its sweeter, more sonorous tone quality. Unfortunately, the bocal no longer exists. The only evidence for it is a complaint published in the Journal de Paris in 1808 alleging that the Savary family of instrument makers had copied this invention.2 The elder Savary (fl. 1778-1827) was the most highly respected bassoon maker in France at the turn of the century. He was joined in the trade by his son Jean-Nicholas (1786-1853), whose instru- ments came to be highly regarded outside France. The younger Savary's instruments were being used in England until late in the nineteenth century when they were dis- carded, not because their fingering systems had become outdated, but because orchestral pitch had risen too high for them to be used any longer.3 Jean-Nicholas Savary won acclaim for a ratchet- controlled tuning slide in the wing joint that he brought out in 1823.4 The inconsistency of pitch standards in Europe had already led some makers to provide alternate wing joints for a particular instrument in order to facilitate tuning. Savary's tuning slide was imitated by some other 3 Constant Pierre, Les facteurs d'instruments de musique (Paris: n.p., 1893; reprint, Geneva: Minkoff Reprints, 1971), pp. 148-149. 3 Lyndesay G. Langwill, The Bassoon and Contrabassoon, Instruments of the Orchestra (London: Ernest Benn, 1965), p. 60. 3 Ibid., p. 59. 142 makers, but it was ultimately abandoned.5 An interesting example of a tuning slide appears on a fifteen-keyed bassoon by F. Rank of Rottenburg which is now in the Heckel collection.6 On this bassoon, the slide is located between the vent holes and the finger holes on the wing joint. The vent keys are mounted to the movable section. This arrange- ment has the distinct disadvantage that the touchpieces move away from their standard position as the tuning slide is extended. To rectify this problem, some instruments were fitted with telescoping vent keys, such as those on a mid- nineteenth-century bassoon by Simiot & Brelet shown in the Waterhouse catalog.7 Another interesting example of French concern for tone quality was the invention of the bassonore in the 1830's.8 This was the joint effort by Nicholas Winnen (fl. 1788-1834) and his son Jean (1795-1867), Parisian instrument makers. This unusual bassoon had thirteen brass keys and a wide bore that ended in a flared metal bell. Shown at the Paris Exhibition of 1844, it received a bronze medal. The bassonore was intended as an instrument for military bands; 5 Cugnier had criticized the effect of alternate wing joints on the overall pitch of a bassoon in 1780. [Pierre Cugnier], "Basson," in Jean Benjamin de Laborde, Essai sur la musique ancienne et moderne (Paris: P. D. Pierres, 1780), 2: 328-329. 5 No. F13A in [Rudolph Klose], Musikhistorisches Museum Heckel-Biebrich: Fagott (Wiesbaden: Wilhelm Heckel, 1968). 7 No. 12 in William Waterhouse, The Proud Bassoon: An Exhibition (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University, 1983), pp. [26-27]. 3 Langwill, Bassoon and Contrabassoon, p. 58-59. 143 it had a tone reported by Francois Joseph Fétis (1784-1871) to be four times as strong as that of the standard bassoon.9 In the French preference for the thumb operated D#-key can be seen the germ of the most distinguishing feature of the bassoon's development in nineteenth-century France: the assignment of all the keys on the long joint to the left thumb. This pattern became clear as early as 1808, when Jacques Francois Simiot (fl. 1803-1835) introduced left thumb keys for BB and C#.10 That these were both closed keys points up another characteristic of French developments in bassoon manufacture: new keys were carefully added to the instrument in ways that would not seriously alter the acoustical properties of the instrument. The use of a closed key for BB, for example, saved makers the trouble of retuning the instrument, since an open hole would have affected to some degree the acoustical properties of all the higher pitches. French concern for preserving the tone color while modernizing the keywork is especially evident in the way in which keys were added for the pitches of the bass extension (Figure 20). On the long joint, the open hole for C was covered by a key with a linkage to close the D-key, which made for easier maneuvering between BBb, C, and D. A tone hole for C# was added with a closed key located to the 3 Gazette musicale de la Belgique, 15 May 1834; cited in Langwill, Bassoon and Contrabassoon, p. 58. 1° Pierre, p. 303. 144 outside of the C- and D-keys to be operated by the left thumb.11 To this arrangement of five thumb keys was eventually added a sixth which made it possible to play BB; the tone hole for this key was usually located on the bell joint. This key was a separate closed BB-key at first, located parallel to the BBb-key on the long joint. An example is found on a tenoroon by Savary, ca. 1842, in the Waterhouse collection.12 On the Savary instrument the tone hole operated by the BB-key is unusually small and located at the top of the long joint to avoid having to make a bridge key to the bell joint. In order to play BB, both the BB- and BBb-keys would have to be pressed simultaneously [(BBb,BB)/xxx/x/xxxF]; to play BBb required only the traditional BBb fingering. “@ l @‘éévb : A, “r; Figure 20. French left thumb keys, early nineteenth century Until the middle of the nineteenth century, fingering patterns for the right hand remained essentially the same as 11 See, for example, the bassoon by Savary jeune, ca. 1823, No. 11 in Waterhouse, Proud Bassoon, pp. [26-27]. 13 Ibid., No. 32, pp. [35-36]. 145 on the eighteenth-century eight-keyed bassoon. Responsi- bilities for the right thumb, for example, consisted of the open thumb hole and the key for F#. This remained true on all but the most sophisticated models throughout the twentieth century. A Jancourt-system bassoon in the author's possession, dating from the first quarter of the twentieth century, shows this pattern. French instrument makers also tended to retain the open finger hole for G, rather than following Almenrfider's lead in moving and covering this tone hole. A new key for A# was occasionally added between the second and third finger holes for the right hand, making possible an easy A to Bb trill [xxx/o/xxAi] and providing an alternative to the cross- fingered Bb [xxx/o/xox]. This A#-key is essentially similar in placement and function to Almenrfider's A#-key of 1825. An interesting new feature on some French instruments was a small closed hole opening into the descending tube of the boot above the first finger hole. This hole, covered by a narrow key mounted between the first and second finger holes, could be employed in a variety of ways. Musicologist and bassoonist Constant Pierre (1855-1918) reported having seen an instrument by the Parisian manufacturer Adler on which this key could produce six different trills when combined with different fingerings: B/c#, c/c#, c#/d#, d/eb, g'/a', and a'/bb'.13 13 Pierre, p. 300. 146 The responsibilities of the left hand fingers increased dramatically as additional keys were mounted on the wing joint of French instruments. A c#-key was added below the third finger hole on the wing joint where it could be reached by the little finger (Figure 14a, p. 105). On some instruments a d#-key was added between the second and third finger holes where it could be reached by the third finger. This key, however, was used primarily as a trill key since the cross-fingered d# still worked satisfactorily. The new d#-key did not help in the matter of the c# to d# trill, for which the boot joint trill key described above could be used instead. While German makers tended to avoid even these additional keys for the left hand fingers, some French makers went on to add similar keys between the first and second fingers and even above the first finger. These keys served some trills in the middle register, such as those from e to f# and from f to f#. The same keys were also used also to extend the high range of the instrument to eb", e" and f".14 Vent keys developed on the French instruments along much the same lines as on the German instruments, with the exception that the whisper key for the pinhole in the bocal was included more frequently than on German instruments, being an essential part of the standardization of French 1‘ See the Jancourt system fingering chart included in Julius Weissenborn, Method for Bassoon (Leipzig: n.p., 1887; rev. Fred Bettony, New York: Cundy-Bettony, 1950), unnumbered loose page. 147 keywork after 1845.15 This whisper key was typically controlled by the left hand little finger, which had little else to do since it had no C#- and D#-keys to deal with as on Almenrader bassoons. The addition of the whisper key had little effect on the fingerings already in use, because most French instruments employed the little finger only for C#, and because the new key was used primarily to achieve a reliable pianissimo in the lower register. Where it might have caused a problem was with the C#, since the same finger was needed for the c#-key. The solution to this problem seems to have been to put the whisper key as close to the c#-key as possible, so the little finger could operate both keys if necessary. The other vent keys functioned in essentially the same manner as on Almenrader instruments. Typically there were two vent keys, but a third vent, located very high on the wing, was not uncommon.16 Unlike the Almenrfider system, which was well on its way to maturity before the middle of the century, the French bassoon took longer to refine. Most important in the process was bassoonist and teacher Eugene Jancourt (1815- 1901), who began around 1845 to cooperate with the Buffet- Crampon company in Paris to improve the mechanism of the French bassoon.17 An important aspect of Jancourt's work 15 Langwill, Bassoon and Contrabassoon, p. 61. 15 See, for example, the diagram accompanying the Jancourt fingering chart in Weissenborn, unnumbered loose page. 17 Langwill, Bassoon and Contrabassoon, p. 61. 148 was to redesign the key system to do away with most of the flat levers that had been used since the Renaissance. In their place were installed keys mounted on long rods. The action of these keys by a sort of rotary motion was an improvement over the flat keys both in terms of accuracy and of quietness. At about the same time, Jancourt added the whisper key for the left little finger, although this key had previously appeared on instruments by other makers. These improvements were described in Jancourt's Méthode de basson of 1847.18 Joppig shows a bassoon by Pierre-Louis Gautrot (fl. 1835-84) which, while actually dating from around 1870, is representative of Jancourt's efforts up to mid-century.19 While Jancourt described both a seventeen-keyed basson ordinaire and a sixteen-keyed basson perfectionné, this fifteen-keyed model is essentially a Jancourt system instru- ment, lacking only the third vent key on the wing joint. Most interesting is the arrangement of the thumb keys on the long joint (Figure 21). The instrument employs a closed BB tone hole, but unlike the one on Savary's tenoroon, this one is located on the bell joint itself. The new BB-key's touchpiece was made to overlap the C-key completely so that the BB tone hole opened when C was played; this required only a slight modification of the placement of the C tone 13 Ibid. 13 This instrument is shown as no. 1 in Gunther Joppig, The Oboe and the Bassoon, trans. Alfred Clayton (Portland, Oregon: Amadeus Press, 1988), p. 91. 149 hole. Pressing this new two-layered key produced C by closing the D tone hole and opening the BB tone hole [BB/xxx/x/xxxF]. Adding the BBb-key (thus closing the C tone hole) produced BB [(BBb,BB)/xxx/x/xxxF]. Pressing the BBb-key alone produced BBb by allowing the overlapping BB- key to release, thereby closing the BB tone hole [BBb/xxx/x/xxxF]. Linkages between the BBb- and C-keys and between the C- and D-keys kept the C- and D-keys closed. This ingenious mechanism allowed for a chromatic compass of six pitches while only requiring five keys, without affect- ing the tone color of already established notes. More importantly, this improvement was achieved while necessi- tating only a minimal retuning of the lowest pitches on the instrument. For the bassoonist the new keywork not only filled in the traditional gaps in the bass extension, but made it easier to move between the various pitches in this part of the range. Q _J «(p Figure 21. Jancourt's bass extension keys, ca. 1845 150 Other features of Jancourt's system at mid-century included an A#-key for the third finger of the right hand, a whisper key and c#-key for the left hand third finger, and a d#-key for the second finger. In addition, a key operating a new tone hole for d#" was located between the first and second fingers of the left hand. In this position it could also be used for trills from e to f# and from f to f#. Without this key, for example, the e to f# trill would have been made by moving from the short fingering for e [xoo/o/ooo] to the long fingering of the overblown f# [oxx/o/xxxF], a motion that involved seven fingers. Because many of these features can be found on bassoons built before Jancourt began his work, it may well be that Jancourt was more an assembler of the useful ideas of others than an innovator. After the initial phase of his work, Jancourt continued to work with Buffet but also cooperated with Frédéric Triebert (1813-1878), one of the most highly-respected makers of the time. Triebert was also working with Theobald Boehm to produce the radically different bassoon that will be discussed in the following chapter. By 1850, Jancourt had decided to move the A tone hole to a more correct acoustical position farther down the bore and to fit it with a key, much as Almenrfider had done three decades earlier.20 The finger plate for this new G#-key was mounted alongside 3° Langwill, Bassoon and Contrabassoon, p. 62. 151 and just below the A#-key, as it was on Almenrader-system instruments. Jancourt's further experiments included the addition of ring keys that opened small tone holes whose primary role was to aid in the tuning of specific pitches. Some of these were later abandoned. One which survives on the modern Jancourt bassoon is a ring key for the second finger of the right hand. When this finger is raised for B [xxx/o/xoo], a small hole between the first and second finger holes opens. This hole helps to tune B, which is otherwise a little flat. This key is superficially similar to one located between the first and second finger holes on the boot of the modern Almenrader bassoon, but on the Almenrader bassoon it has a different function: opening when the F-key is opened, it helps the tuning of 9'. One of the ring-key designs that Jancourt later abandoned was intended to simplify the technique of half- holing.21 On most bassoons the first finger of the left hand is sometimes rolled slightly off its tone hole in order to produce the overblown pitches f#, g, and g#. Jancourt's mechanism avoided the necessity of rolling the first finger, which can be rather awkward, especially at high speeds. The mechanism involved an open-standing key with a small hole drilled in the key pad that fitted over the first finger hole. This key was connected to a ring key for the second finger in such a way that, when the first finger was raised n Ibid. 152 from the key, the second finger held the first-finger key down, and only the small hole in the key pad was exposed. The half-hole technique was thus replaced by the simple up and down motion of the first finger. When the second finger was raised, the first finger opened or closed the tone hole with the same motions as if the key were not there. The reason for the eventual abandonment of this key may lie in its limitation of the half-hole vent to the size bored into the key pad. In practice, it is almost essential that the player be able to control subtle variations in the size of the vent opening. Without this possibility, an important degree of control over pitch and timbre is lost to the performer. Another of Jancourt's experiments involved an additional key for the right thumb, designed to make possible an f# to g# trill. The standard f# fingering was an overblown F [oxx/o/xxxF] which employed the little finger so that it was not free to reach the G#-key. Without a duplicate G#-key for the right thumb, the trill could not be performed. Jancourt solved this problem by adding a second F-key to the boot joint which could be closed by the right thumb, freeing the little finger to operate the G#-key for the trill. In his discussion of this mechanism, Langwill implies that the second F-key was located in a position in which it was pressed by the thumb in conjunction with the F#-key.22 If true, the fingering would have been [xxx/(F,F#)/xxx§#]. 22 Ibid. 153 This interpretation is contradicted by Jancourt's own discussion of the trill, which he describes as [xxx/F/xxxgi].23 In fact, the second F-key is located on the opposite side of the open thumb hole from the F#-key. For this reason, unfortunately, this clever arrangement was of no use in the lower range. Actually, Langwill's idea is better, since it would allow the same trill to be used in both octaves. In 1876, a year after becoming Professor of Bassoon at the Paris Conservatory, Jancourt published Etude de basson perfectionné, which Langwill regards as a supplement to the Méthode of 1847.24 The Etude contains a new fingering chart illustrating the 22-keyed bassoon that represents a summary of Jancourt's experiments between 1847 and 1876. A modern fingering chart for this system is given in the Appendix, Table 12. Because Jancourt was a Professor at the conserva- tory, the revised system became known as the Conservatory system. It has become the standard for construction of instruments used in French-speaking parts of the world. Jancourt's descriptions of his latest modifications include three new keys for the wing joint and two for the boot joint, which yielded a total of twenty-two new trill possibilities.” The two boot joint keys, the extra F-key and the trill key for c# between the first and second 33 Eugene Jancourt, Etude du basson perfectionné, Paris: Evette et Schaeffer, [1876], p. 5. 34 Langwill, Bassoon and Contrabassoon, p. 61. 35 Jancourt, p. 2. 154 fingers of the right hand, have already been discussed. The new keys for the wing joint are shown in Figure 22. In addition to the c#- and d#-keys already standard on the wing joint of the 1847 model, an e to f# trill key was added between the first and second fingers of the left hand. Above the first finger hole were two additional keys, one for d#" and the other for e". These two keys are mounted to overlap in such a way that the e"-key opens the d#"-key automatically. These keys make the very high range of the bassoon considerably easier. They were eventually copied by makers of Almenrader-system bassoons. Finally, a new thumb key was added to the wing joint, located below the three vent keys but opening a small tone hole for f" above the e" tone hole. This key is also useful in some high range trills, but the f" is so rare in bassoon literature that the key is rarely used and was often omitted by later manufacturers. f "aw-l ”To T.“ k is be - 1.. Figure 22. Jancourt's left hand finger keys, ca. 1876 155 Jancourt's mature system shows several significant differences when compared to the mature form of the Almenrfider bassoon. First, and most important to the ear, is that the Jancourt instrument has a characteristically different tone quality due to the retention of an acoustical tube and tone hole design that more closely resembles the dulcian than does the Almenrfider bassoon. In practice, this feature also means that a number of basic fingerings are significantly out of tune and must be brought into pitch by the use of additional fingers, which can considerably com- plicate the fingering patterns.” On the Jancourt bassoon, for example, the player must add the right thumb to the fin- gerings for A#, d#, e, and a in order to get them in tune; these additions are specified in Jancourt's fingering chart (Appendix, Table 12).27 While the Almenrfider instrument has several out-of—tune pitches that may need to be similarly adjusted-d# and 9 being the most troublesome-—they can be played in tune without requiring the use of additional fingers. Only c# in the Almenrader-system instrument absolutely requires an additional key (the D-key), and this can be reached by the same thumb that operates the c#-key itself. 35 Several of these fingerings are described by Gerald Corey, who plays both French and German instruments, in his article, "How to Make the French Bassoon 'Work,'" Journal of the International Double Reed Society 1 (1973): 34-39. ” weissenborn, unnumbered loose page. 156 A second significant difference between the Jancourt and Almenrfider instruments is that the Jancourt key mechanism on the long joint places all six pitches under control of the left thumb, while on the Almenrfider instrument the responsi- bilities are divided between the left thumb and little finger. Each of these systems has its advantages and disadvantages. While it is nice to be able to split the responsibilities between the thumb and little finger, as on the Almenréder system, truly professional bassoonists on the Jancourt system can navigate the six thumb keys with tremen- dous agility. In recent years, some hybridization has taken place, particularly in the adaptation of Jancourt's D#- and C#-keys to Almenrader-system bassoons. A third difference between the two systems is the significant absence of alternate keys for chromatic pitches in the basic scale of the Jancourt instrument. This is most notable in the case of F# and G#, which had been given alternate keys on Almenrfider-system instruments before 1850. Without an alternate key, the player must sometimes impro- vise an alternative fingering that somehow counterfeits the true fingering, usually to the disadvantage of the pitch or tone color. At the speeds at which alternative fingerings become necessary, however, such disadvantages are less important than agile performance. Alternate keys can significantly ease the performance of difficult passages by providing alternative fingerings which still produce true pitch and good tone color. This is particularly important 157 in the basic scale, which accounts for nearly two octaves of a bassoon's three-and-one-half-octave range, yet alternate keys in this range are not a common feature on Jancourt- system instruments. A final distinction between the Jancourt and Almenrader system is in the keys available to aid performance in the high register. Here, the large number of trill keys on the wing joint for the left hand fingers gave the Jancourt instrument a significant advantage. In recent years, several of these keys have been adapted by makers of Almenrader-system bassoons. The question of how a bassoon should be constructed was by no means settled by the development of either the Almenrfider or the Jancourt systems. The appearance of new versions of the bassoon at trade expositions throughout the nineteenth century suggests that there was no general agree- ment on the construction of the bassoon, even within France or Germany. The Heckel collection contains a large number of instruments from the later nineteenth century that show significant differences from either the Jancourt or Almenrfider systems. Most unusual is an example with twenty keys, made around 1845 by Johann Stehle (fl. 1840-1862) of Vienna.” This instrument demonstrates the typical German location of the C#- and D#-keys for the left little finger, but with an additional D#-key for the left thumb as on Jancourt instruments. Like pre-Jancourt French instruments, ” [Klose], no. F19. 158 the Stehle example has no G-key for the right hand, but it does have a unique duplicate G#-key. This very long key, mounted on the boot joint, overlaps the wing joint far enough to be reached by the left little finger. The instrument has c#-keys for both thumbs, as well as duplicate keys for d#. One of these is in the typical French position for the left ring finger but the other is in an entirely unique position for the left thumb, next to the c#-key. While this fascinating instrument may represent a unique experiment, it bears witness to the still open questions of bassoon fingering and key-mechanism. CHAPTER 5 EXPERIMENTAL SYSTEMS At the same time that French and German makers were modifying the eighteenth-century bassoon in order to meet the demands of nineteenth-century music, a significant num- ber of far more radical experimenters were at work, applying principles newly developed in the science of acoustics. In comparison with the efforts of these makers, Almenrfider's work shows an effective but rather conservative application of acoustics, while the conservatism of traditional French makers seems even more dramatic. By far the most important innovator in woodwind instrument design was Theobald Boehm (1794-1881), whose improvements to the flute and clarinet have been well documented.1 Boehm felt that woodwind instruments could and should be constructed with scientific precision, according to known acoustical principles. He rejected the irrational 1 See Theobald Boehm, The Flute and Flute-Playing in Acoustical, Technical, and Artistic Aspects (Munich: n.p., 1871; ed. and trans. Dayton C. Miller, n.p., 1922; reprint, New York: Dover Publications, 1964). For the clarinet, see Rosario Mazzeo, The Clarinet: Excellence and Artistry (Medfield, Massachusetts: Dorn Publications, 1990); and E. A. K. Ridley, "Birth of the 'Boehm' Clarinet," Galpin Society Journal 39 (September 1986): 68-76. 159 160 way in which instruments of his time had been developed. The locations of the tone holes, for example, had been established by traditional practices which ultimately rested on trial and error. The tone holes themselves varied considerably in size and were often drilled at angles in order to bring the holes into reach of the fingers. Even the acoustical tubes were constructed of varying dimensions, according to practices developed by experience rather than from scientific principles. The early nineteenth-century bassoon is a particularly good example of the result of ad hoc development. For example, nearly every tone hole on the instrument was bored with a different diameter and at a different angle. A prime example of manufacture by experience is discussed by Eric Halfpenny in an article on turn-of-the-century English bassoons.2 These instruments feature a subtle narrowing of the bore in the bell joint, apparently intended as an aid in the production of certain pitches in the lower range. Boehm's approach to instrument construction was to apply as thoroughly as possible the principles of acoustics being developed at the time by Gottfried Weber (1779-1839) and others. In this effort he was typical of a new generation of nineteenth-century instrument makers, who not only applied new technology to solve traditional problems of 3 Eric Halfpenny, "The Evolution of the Bassoon in England, 1750-1800," Galpin Society Journal 10 (May 1957): 32. 161 instrument manufacture, but who envisioned a transformation of the art of instrument making into a more rational and scientific process. Boehm's modifications to an instrument generally proceeded along the following lines. First, the acoustical tube was redesigned to be more accurate, whether it was cylindrical as on the flute and clarinet, or conical as on the bassoon and oboe. An accurate bore provided an accurate mathematical basis on which to calculate the physical specifications of the tone holes. According to Boehm's principles, the tone holes should be located in the correct acoustical position rather than placed, as they had been for centuries, according to the needs of the fingers. The tone holes themselves were to be drilled straight into the body of the instrument so that their sizes and effects could be clearly calculated. Finally, once the correct acoustical dimensions had been established for the tube and the tone holes, a finger mechanism would be designed to control the holes by means of open-standing keys. In their effect on fingering patterns and on the overall sound of the revised instruments, the open-standing keys are the most significant aspect of Boehm's work. Boehm's concerns with mechanism centered around the idea of simple fingerings that would do away with the complexi- ties of cross-fingering. In this respect he had much in common with other nineteenth-century makers whose efforts to do away with cross-fingerings resulted in the wide variety 162 of key mechanisms described above. But for Boehm, the process of designing a fingering system began with a ration- ally constructed instrument in which all the tone holes were open. Therefore, he was faced with twelve open holes, one for each semitone in the octave, which needed to be closed one at a time by the ten fingers. In practice, Boehm usually reduced the number of active fingers to nine, leaving one thumb to steady the instrument while playing. Boehm was able to maintain many of the traditional fingerings while altering others slightly; most significant among the alterations was to change the basic seven note scale from Lydian mode to a major scale. On a Boehm-system bassoon this meant that Bb would be fingered as B had been on previous bassoons [xxx/xoo], while B would be achieved by the new pattern [xxx/oxo]. The fingering for B, of course, is actually a cross-fingering, so it can not be said that Boehm did away entirely with cross-fingerings. In practical terms, however, Boehm's new cross-fingering is qualitatively different from most other cross-fingerings. The situation in which cross-fingerings are most awkward is one in which adjacent fingers are moving in opposite direc- tions while another finger in the same hand has to remain down, as in moving from A [xxx/xxo] to BD [xxx/xox] on early bassoons. Boehm's solution to this difficulty was, in es- sence, to move the cross-fingering to a position where the stationary and moving fingers are on different hands. Moving from Boehm's A# [xxx/xoo] to his cross-fingered B 163 [xxx/oxo], for example, presents no more serious diffi- culties than trilling with adjacent fingers on the piano. Even so, Boehm-system instruments often have additional trill key for B to make even this alternation unnecessary. Usually this trill key is positioned for the ring finger in order to facilitate the A# to B trill [xxx/xog]. As it turned out, Boehm's principles were often modified in their application. On the flute, for example, compro- mises were made with regard to the d#'- and g#'-keys, which eventually came to be constructed as closed keys, though the d#'-key is held open through most of the range and functions acoustically as Boehm had specified. Similar modifications are found on all applications of Boehm's principles to the bassoon, on which he began work around 1847.3 By 1850 Boehm had completed an experimental bassoon body meeting the acoustical requirements laid out in his theories.4 These requirements included an evenly tapering conical air column, large tone holes in their acoustically correct positions, and the use of open-standing keys. Boehm's own manuscript describing the application of these principles to the bassoon is now in the Bibliothéque Royale 3 Karl Ventzke, "Boehm-System Bassoons in the Nineteenth Century," Journal of the International Double Reed Society 5 (1977): 63. ‘ Lydesay G. Langwill, The Bassoon and Contrabassoon, Instruments of the Orchestra (London: Ernest Benn, 1965), p. 64. 164 in Brussels.5 In the same year an anonymous writer in the Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik prophesied a bright future for scientifically redesigned woodwind instruments: And so we shall soon possess wind instruments which, having been based on natural principles, are in keeping with the current state of development in science and art. A new era is thus beginning for the true virtuoso, and for orchestral music as well, which, no longer restricted by imperfect instruments, will be able to blossom to the full extent of its power and depth.5 Langwill suggests that the author of this glowing prophecy was none other than Theobald Boehm himself.7 Boehm was not the only one interested in applying new discoveries in acoustics to the bassoon. Although he enlisted the aid of the talented French instrument maker Frédéric Triebert in 1854, Boehm was still not ready with a playable instrument for the Paris Exhibition of 1855.8 He was beaten to the exhibition hall by several other makers who, familiar with his success on the flute and clarinet, made their own applications of Boehm's principles to the bassoon. 5 Theobald Boehm, La construction du hautbois et du basson [ca. 1855-6], MS 4087, Fond Fétis, Bibliothéque Royale, Brussels. 5 Unattributed translation, quoted by Ventzke, "Boehm- System Bassoons," p. 63. 7 Bassoon and Contrabassoon, p. 64. 3 Constant Pierre, Les facteurs d'instruments de musique (Paris: n.p., 1893; reprint, Geneva: Minkoff Reprints, 1971), p. 319. 165 The earliest of the radically experimental bassoons was exhibited by the inventor of the saxophone, Adolphe [Antoine-Joseph] Sax (1814-1894). Sax's bassoon had twenty- three keys mounted on a metal body. This bassoon was displayed at the Great Exhibition in London in 1851, but it was never put into production.9 The instrument, now in the Paris Conservatory Museum, has a graduated series of evenly spaced, open tone holes of increasingly larger diameter corresponding to the increasing diameter of the bore.10 Sax may have gotten some of his ideas from his father, Charles-Joseph (1791-1865). As early as 1820, Charles- Joseph Sax had built a bassoon with all of the tone holes covered by keys. The elder Sax patented a metal version of this bassoon in 1842.11 The fingering system for the left hand of Adolph Sax's model was similar to that of his saxophone, with the open fingering [ooo/ooo] producing f# rather than f as on the modern bassoon. This fingering, of course, had been used for f# on early eighteenth-century bassoons which retained the Renaissance pattern [oxo/ooo] for f. Sax's assignment of a second E-key to the left thumb meant that all seven of the notes in the bass extension (BBb through E) could be played using the left thumb. Six of these were controlled 9 Langwill, Bassoon and Contrabassoon, p. 63. 15 This instrument is described fully in Jerry L. Voorhees, "Some Notes on the Fingering Systems of 'Boehm' Bassoons," Journal of the International Double Reed Society 5 (1977): 67-78 11 Langwill, Bassoon and Contrabassoon, p. 63. 166 by open keys, arranged in a straight line; the seventh (C#) was given a closed key, mounted just outside the C-key as on the Jancourt system. Three additional keys for the left thumb operate vents for the upper range. Keys were assigned to the fingers of the right hand in much the same way as on Jancourt bassoons, with two signifi- cant exceptions: 1) the fingerings for Bb [xxx/xoo] and B [xxx/oxo] were like those on Boehm-system instruments, and 2) a second G#-key was added, this one for the right thumb. The new Bb fingering was important because it eliminated the old cross-fingered Bb without using an additional A# key. The doubling of keys, though not extensive, allowed greater flexibility in performance in the lowest range, where only two or three fingers were available to control keys for seven different pitches. Similar innovations are found on other experimental bassoons. Adolphe Sax was not the only instrument maker to show an experimental bassoon at the Great Exhibition in London in 1851. Exhibition-goers could also have seen an English experimental bassoon, the result of cooperation between flute-maker Cornelius Ward (ca. 1796-1872) and the Italian bassoonist Giuseppe Tamplini (1817-1888), who arrived in London in 1847 to play for Her Majesty's Theater.12 Tamplini took lodgings in Ward's house, and soon persuaded him to build a bassoon along the lines of Boehm-system 12 Ibid., p. 66. 167 Clarinets and oboes Tamplini had seen in Paris;13 This bassoon is now in the possession of William Waterhouse, noted English bassoonist, collector, and historian.1‘1 Unlike the Sax instrument, Ward's bassoon features only two vent keys plus a whisper-key; these are laid out as on the Almenrader bassoon. A unique feature of this bassoon is the presence of a half-hole mechanism for f#, g, and g# controlled by a ring key for the first finger of the right hand.15 This automatic mechanism was necessary since the first finger of the left hand was no longer directly in contact with its tone hole and therefore could not produce the necessary venting. The bass extension keys are also laid out similarly to those on an Almenrfider bassoon, with the exception of the D#-key which is open and controlled by the left thumb instead of the little finger. Mr. Waterhouse's Ward-Tamplini bassoon differs signifi- cantly from the schematic drawing given by Voorhees, which is based on the actual British patent of 1853.15 The most 13 Ventzke, "Boehm-System Bassoons," p. 64. 14 The instrument is #21 in William Waterhouse, The Proud Bassoon: An Exhibition (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University, 1983), pp. [32-33]. 15 The absence of sharp signs for f# and g# in Voorhees' discussion are an apparent editorial omission. "Some Notes on Fingering Systems," p. 69. 15 Ibid., p. 68. An extremely abridged version of the patent is in George E. Eyre and William Spottiswoode, Patents for Inventions: Abridgements of Specifications Relating to Music and Musical Instruments, A.D. 1694-1866, second ed. (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1871; reprint, London: Tony Bingham), p. 184. 168 significant difference is in the keywork for the right hand, which functions similarly to that of the Sax bassoon. The three fingers appear to operate ring keys but the ring design here is purely cosmetic. Even though the touchpieces are shaped as rings, they are not true ring keys for they do not encircle any open tone holes. A true ring key, when pressed, allows a single finger to control both the open tone hole and, by means of the ring mechanism, another hole at some other location. More important is a small key between the second and third fingers, analogous to the A#- key on Jancourt and Almenrader bassoons, which here serves as an A# to B trill key.17 The mechanism for the left hand fingers resembles Sax's model, but produces f when fully open [ooo/ooo] as opposed to Sax's f#. The old cross-fingering for eb is replaced by [xoo/ooo], while e is fingered [oxo/ooo]. That this pattern is directly parallel to that of the right hand Bb and B is an example of the thoroughness with which some experimenters tried to apply Boehm's ideas in their efforts to rationalize the construction of the bassoon. Perhaps unfortunately, this application of Boehm's right hand keywork to the left hand was not carried out on either the flute or the clarinet.18 17 Voorhees, "Some Notes on Fingering Systems," p. 69. 13 For an intriguing twentieth-century attempt to modify the clarinet's left hand patterns in this manner, see Wallace R. Tenney, "The Double-Boehm System Clarinet," Woodwind 6, no. 2 (October 1953): 6-7. 169 Shortly after this instrument was exhibited, Her Majesty's Theater closed and Tamplini was forced to find work elsewhere. His new position as a band leader for the Honourable Artillery Company apparently kept him from making further experiments.19 He retired to Italy in 1888, showing his bassoon at the International Exhibition of Bologna.” In the same year, he published a treatise in which he described the instrument he and Ward had constructed: Its sound possesses, indeed, an attractive, expressive, pathetic quality, even though in the middle and upper register of its range it sounds somewhat nasal, wheezy, and one could almost say somewhat strangled, while the low and very low notes seem grotesque and snorting. But it is not devoid of charm or power and mixes well with the other instruments and timbres in the mass of the orchestra.”- The Ward-Tamplini bassoon, despite its intriguing possi- bilities, was apparently a single experimental example, and had no real effect on later bassoon manufacture. Another apparently independent example of an experi- mental bassoon was that of Heinrich J. Haseneir (1798-1890) of Coblenz.‘22 A single specimen survives, for which the Heckel collection catalogue lists a date of 1850.33 Ventzke 13 Ventzke, "Boehm-System Bassoons," pp. 64-65. 3° Langwill, Bassoon and Contrabassoon, pp. 66-67. 3” Quoted by Ventzke, "Boehm-System Bassoons," p. 64. 22 Ibid., p. 55. 33 [Rudolph Klose], Musikhistorisches Museum Heckel- Biebrich: Fagott (Wiesbaden, Wilhelm Heckel, 1968), no. F21A. 170 suggests a date in the 18608, since Boehm is known to have visited a spa in the area of Coblenz in 1861, and may have had contact with Haseneir at that time.24 Though the keys are constructed somewhat differently, it shares with the Ward-Tamplini bassoon the same basic fingering patterns for the left hand, but there are three vent keys in a somewhat unusual arrangement: the highest vent has the lowest touchpiece, a feature already noted on several other mid- nineteenth century bassoons in the Heckel collection.” The right hand fingering pattern more closely resembles that of the Sax instrument. Langwill reports having played this instrument, and that it had a "harder, more open tone than the French bassoon."25 The most sophisticated of the experimental bassoons were those made by Frédéric Triebert in Paris, in conjunction with Theobald Boehm and the Italian bassoonist Angelo Marzoli (d. 1865), principal bassoonist of the Parisian Theatre Italian. Although Boehm first approached Triebert in 1854, they did not produce an instrument ready to exhibit until the London Exhibition in 1862.27 A visitor to the exhibition reported the following: 24Ventzke, "Boehm-System Bassoons," p. 65. 35 [Klose]. See especially the instruments by Hess (F12), Schaufler (F18, ca. 1838), and Stehle (F19, ca. 1845). 3” Lyndesay G. Langwill, "The 'Boehm' Bassoon: A Retrospect," Galpin Society Journal 12 (May 1959): 66. 37 Pierre, p. 319. 171 The Triebert bassoon is uniformly beautiful in all octaves and is possessed of a pure and noble tone. The low register is light in speaking, and the staccato can be executed with astonishing speed. However, the fact cannot be disguised there are almost more keys to be seen on it than wood.28 Four of Triebert's Boehm-system bassoons survive: one in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, one each in the Paris and Brussels Conservatory museums, and one in the possession of Mr. Waterhouse.19 Each differs from the others slightly, either because of original manufacture or later modifications. These instruments represent bassoon keywork at its most complex and its most ingenious. The Waterhouse instrument will be considered in the following discussion.30 A fingering chart is provided in the Appendix, Table 13. Without describing this complex instrument in detail, it must be noted that the keywork for the bass extension, though extremely complex, solved for the first time the con- siderable problems of technique in the bass register. Here was the same problem of controlling the seven chromatic pitches, BBb through E, with two or three fingers that had troubled bassoonists since the early nineteenth century. Triebert, Marzoli, and Boehm solved this problem by adding duplicate keys in both thumbs for every pitch from G down to D (Figure 23). Only the lowest four pitches, BBb to C#, are 3” Quoted by Ventzke in "Boehm-System Bassoons," p. 64. ” Vborhees, "Some Notes on Fingering Systems," p. 70. ” See #20 in Waterhouse, Proud Bassoon, pp. [32-33]. 172 left with single keys.31 The way in which this mechanism interlocks makes it possible to perform complicated passages in the low range by alternating thumbs, rather than sliding thumbs and little fingers around as would be necessary on Jancourt or Almenrader bassoons.32 More importantly, this instrument could be fingered in virtually the same way as the typical Jancourt system bassoon. Thus Triebert preserved the essential elements of traditional French fingerings while dramatically increasing the technical possibilities as well. CPL-l a. Left thumb keys b. Right thumb keys Figure 23. Triebert's Boehm-system thumb keys 31 Ventzke, "Boehm-System Bassoons," p. 62. 33 A similar situation occurs on the modern clarinet, where doubling of the little finger keys simplifies difficult passages. 173 The function of the keys assigned to the fingers on the Triebert-Marzoli-Boehm bassoon is essentially similar to those of the other experimental bassoons, with two exceptions: eb is played with the first finger of each hand [xoo/xoo], and the traditional G-fingering yields G# [xxx/xxx].33 A fingering chart for this instrument appears in Metodo per Fagotto (1872) by Emanuele Krakamp (1813- 1883), an Italian flutist who taught at the Royal College of Music in Naples (Appendix, Table 13). An avid supporter of the Boehm-system flute, Krakamp apparently found much to admire in the Boehm-system bassoon as well. His chart clearly shows the traditional F-fingering being used for G [xxx/xxxG] while F is to be played either with the right thumb [xxx/F/xxxG] or with a special key for the second joint of the right hand little finger.34 According to Krakamp's fingering chart, nearly all the notes in the third octave of basic scale, f' to f", could be produced by adding various register keys to the fingerings used for the same notes an octave or two below.35 For example, an unusual register key operated by the second joint of the right hand ring finger aids the production of f#' and g.‘ This register key allows these third-octave notes to be played with the same basic fingerings as for the 33 Voorhees, "Some Notes on Fingering Systems," p. 71. a” The chart is reprinted in Vincent Pezzi, "The Boehm Bassoon," Woodwind 4, no. 1 (September 1951): 8-9; reprint, Rudo S. Globus, ed., Woodwind Anthology (New York: Woodwind Magazine, 1952), pp. 13-14. 35‘Ventzke, "Boehm-System Bassoons," p. 62. 174 second and first octaves below.35 Only d", d#", and e" are different from their basic scale fingerings, but the differ- ences are relatively slight. The use of first-octave fingerings in the third octave represents a major simplifi- cation of the bassoon's high register where, even on today's highly-refined bassoons, a wide variety of fingerings can be used for the same pitches. Cooper and Toplansky's book on the modern Almenrader bassoon, for example, lists eight different fingerings for d" alone.37 Even more impressive than the simplicity of the high register is the complexity of the keywork by which this was made possible. Voorhees reports that the four extant Triebert Boehm-system bassoons have from nine to sixteen interconnected register vents, employing very sophisticated mechanisms.” In his effort to eliminate complex fingerings through the use of complex mechanisms, Triebert is truly representative of nineteenth-century mechanical genius. While the Triebert-Marzoli-Boehm bassoon's renovated basic scale and bass extension provided significant advantages to the player, the simplification of the bassoon's upper register would seem to have been irresistible. Yet these 35 In Voorhees' discussion of this key, the printer has omitted the sharp sign for f#'. "Some Notes on Fingering Systems," p. 72. a” Lewis Hugh Cooper and Howard Toplansky, Essentials of Bassoon Technique (Union, New Jersey: Howard Toplansky, 1968), pp. 338-345. ” VOorhees, "Some Notes on Fingering Systems," pp. 71-72. 175 ingenious innovations had little further effect on bassoon manufacture, probably because the older bore designs of the Jancourt and Almenrader bassoons could not produce such a simple pattern of harmonics. Never again did the bassoon reach a complexity like that of the Triebert-Marzoli-Boehm instrument. But makers continued to experiment with applications of Boehm's ideas throughout the nineteenth century. An interesting example from around 1875 is shown as No. 22 in the Waterhouse catalog. Waterhouse attributes this instrument to Gautrot based on similarities to known but less innovative instru- ments made by this firm.39 The keywork for the left hand is quite similar to that of the Jancourt Conservatory system, with the exception of three additional keys for the little finger. These keys are analogous to those on the Klosé- Boehm system clarinet, controlling E, F, and F#. Of these, the touchpieces for E and F are mounted on a single rod that can rock in either direction depending on which note is desired. The mechanism itself is reminiscent of the b/d# rocker mechanism already in use on the oboe by this time. The similarity to the clarinet, however, is further carried out in the mechanism for the right hand, which has a set of four keys for the little finger that function exactly as on the clarinet. Most peculiar, but in keeping with the Klosé clarinet system, is the complete absence of keys for the right thumb, their functions having been assumed by the ” waterhouse, Proud Bassoon, pp. [15-16]. 176 little finger keys. Waterhouse, who reports finding no written references to this instrument, suggests that this truly unique bassoon was a one-time experimentq4° The final nineteenth-century experimental bassoon came from the workshop of Friedrich Kruspe (1838-1911), whose father Franz Karl (1808-1885) manufactured instruments in Erfurt, Germany.41 From 1855 to 1861, Kruspe apprenticed with several important instrument makers, most notably Georg Ottensteiner (1815-1879) and Frédéric Triebert. While in Munich working for Ottensteiner, Kruspe met Theobald Boehm, whose new version of the flute was already famous. After taking over his father's shop in 1861, Kruspe actively experimented with instruments and participated in trade shows. In 1893, he exhibited his own experimental bassoon at the Columbian Exhibition in Chicago. The bassoon does not seem to have generated much interest, but Kruspe did receive an award for his clarinets. This bassoon resurfaced in the late 19703; Klimko reports that its years of obscu- rity included rescue from the ruins of San Francisco after the 1906 earthquake and fire.‘42 The Kruspe instrument combines features of Jancourt, Almenrader, and other experimental instruments. Its left thumb keys are similar to Jancourt's, but with Almenrfider's 4° Ibid., p. [16]. 41 Ronald J. Klimko, "The C. Kruspe Bassoon and the World's Columbian Exposition of Chicago, 1893," Journal of the International Double Reed Society 7 (1979): 10. 43 Ibid., p. 12. 177 c#-key. The finger mechanism of the front of the instrument looks very similar to that on the modern oboe, complete with a half-hole plate for the first finger, an oboe-like arrangement of the right hand little finger keys, and side keys for eb and the e to f# trill;43 Like Almenréder, Kruspe doubled the A#-key in the right thumb, and also doubled the F#- and G#-keys. In addition, two more keys are given to the right thumb, doubling D and D#. Perhaps not surprisingly given the similarities with oboe fingerings, Klimko reports a "bass-oboe-like quality to the tone."M By the end of the nineteenth century, experimental bassoons were on their way out. Although their ingenuity of design, accuracy of pitch, and homogeneity of tone had drawn frequent attention, so had their drawbacks. The large amount of metal keywork, for example, was noisy and heavy. More importantly, there was a noticeable change in timbre resulting from the new bassoon's radically different acous- tical structure. In the 1820s Karl Almenrfider had been aware of deficiencies in the tonal characteristics of his own acoustical modifications to the bassoon, which were rather conservative by contrast with these examples. Differences in the tonal character of experimental bassoons were far more noticeable. Professional musicians, who had perfected technique on older models, were apparently 43 Klimko's labeling of the pitches does not account for octaves, and is further confused by editorial omission of the necessary sharp signs. Ibid., pp. 12-13. 4‘ Ibid., p. 13. 178 unwilling to spend time trying to learn a new fingering system, especially if they considered its tonal quality to be substandard. In an essay published in the year he died, Giuseppe Tamplini lamented the rejection of Triebert's instrument. Tamplini reported that the sound of Triebert's bassoon had been judged to be too metallic, brassy and unlike a normal bassoon-—though at the same time, as such, attractive, clean and very uniform over the entire range. But the same can be said of the sound of the flute and other instruments to which the new system has been applied; it also took some time for their qualities to be recognized!45 In the end, applications of Boehm's ideas to the oboe and bassoon were unsuccessful, not because the new instruments didn't work as projected, but because they sounded too dissimilar to the familiar models. A second and probably more important factor in the rejection of experimental bassoons was economic: the more complex instruments were more expensive than the readily available Jancourt or Almenrader models. In the case of the Triebert instrument, Constant Pierre remarked on its high cost compared to other bassoons: 1200 francs compared to around 300 for a Jancourt system instrument;45 While the Boehm flute was also more expensive than the traditional models, the flute's large amateur following played a ‘S‘Ventzke, "Boehm-System Bassoons," p. 64. ‘5 Pierre, pp. 319, 391. 179 significant role in its success, as Tamplini himself recognized: [T]he first to accept the Boehm flute in England were the amateurs, an extremely intelligent and well-to-do class of people; they then forced it upon the professors by refusing to take instruction from masters who were not familiar with the new system!”7 Without a large group of interested amateurs the experimental bassoons were doomed. Perhaps even more important than the new bassoon's high price and small market was the unfortunate timing of the instrument's development. Krakamp alluded to this problem in a brief paragraph accompanying his fingering chart for the Triebert-Boehm bassoon: "It is a fact that amateurs and artists diminished in great numbers especially after the military band had suppressed the bassoon.““ Military bands were all the rage in Europe at mid- century, and military bandsmen were finding traditional double reed instruments to be unsatisfactory for their purposes. Instrument makers who wanted this market raced to put into production a number of new instruments designed for the military band. These were frequently produced in families which provided the desired homogeneity of sound over a wide pitch range. In 1856, for example, Pierre-Louis Gautrot patented a family of five bassoon-like double reed ‘7 Ventzke, "Boehm-System Bassoons," p. 65. 45 Translation by Vincent Pezzi, "The Boehm Bassoon," p. 9. 180 instruments made of brass that were designed to compete with the newly invented saxophones. Gautrot named his instru- ments after the French bandmaster Pierre-Auguste Sarrus (1813-1876), who is sometimes credited with their invention.49 The sarrusophone, though shaped like a bassoon and employing a double reed, was so similar to the saxophone in fingering pattern that a lawsuit was immediately filed by Adolphe Sax against Gautrot.50 The court eventually found in favor of Gautrot on the basis that the new instrument sounded quite different from the saxophone.51 Although the sarrusophone enjoyed a brief period of popularity, it fell into relative obscurity except for the contrabass version, which drew some interest as a substitute for the less- strongly toned contrabassoon. Competition among instrument makers was encouraged by periodic trade fairs where the latest experiments were exhibited. Visitors and representatives of various instru- ment makers flocked to these affairs, often publishing extensive reports after returning home. The report by Adrien de La Fage (1805-1862) on the 1855 International Exhibition in Paris at which Boehm won the Grand Medal of ‘“ George A. Conrey, "The Sarrusophone-—An Update, Part 1," Double Reed 10, no. 3 (Winter 1987): 35-36. W Sax himself patented a single-reed mouthpiece for the sarrusophone in 1866. George A. Conrey, "The Sarrusophone-— An Update, Part II," Journal of the International Double Reed Society 17 (1989): 62. 51 Gunther Joppig, "Sarrusophone, Rothphone (Saxorusophone) and Reed Contrabass," Journal of the International Double Reed Society, 17 (1989): 42. 181 Honor runs to some two hundred pages, with an extensive discussion of the technical improvements Boehm and others were bringing to various types of musical instruments.52 Antonio Romero y Andia (1815-1885), who visited the London Exhibition of 1862 at which Treibert's Boehm-system bassoon was exhibited for the first time, gave it hardly a sentence.53 In his report to the King of Spain, Romero seems to have been much more impressed with the bassoon-like metal Tritonikon built by Vaclav Frantisek Cerveny (1819- 1896). Gautrot's new sarrusophones interested him as well, but he reserved his most serious attention to Buffet's Boehm-system clarinets.54 Romero, however, was hardly an impartial observer, since he too was developing an improved system of Clarinets which he hoped to convince the Spanish royalty to employ for their military bands; his list of recommended instruments includes "Romero-system" clarinets.55 That Romero was a serious innovator in his own right is evident in his receipt of the silver medal for his 52 [Juste] Adrien [Lenoir] de La Fage, Quinze visites musicales a l'exposition universelle de 1855 (Paris: Chez Tardif, 1856). ” Memoria sobre les instrumentes de musica, presentados en la exposicion internacional de L6ndres del afio de 1862 (Madrid: Imprenta Nacional, 1864), p. 18. 5‘ Romero, pp. 12, 16-17, respectively. 5 Ibid., p. 28. 182 work on the clarinet at the 1878 Exhibition.55 Romero published a Metodo completo de Fagot in 1875.57 Such large establishments as the Gautrot, Kruspe, and Triebert firms could afford to develop and exhibit new technologies, particularly if it meant landing a lucrative contract to supply a nation's military bands. While this trend did not completely drive out the small experimenters, as can be seen from the variety of idiosyncratic late nineteenth-century bassoon designs in the Heckel collection, it may well have reduced their numbers. In his report on the 1878 Exhibition, Gustave Chouquet (1819-1886), a French historian who served as curator of the Paris Conservatory instrument museum, remarked on a noticeable decrease in the number of makers who concentrated on one or two specialty instruments.58 Whether this reflects an actual decline in the number of independent makers, or merely a reluctance on the part of smaller manufacturers to bother with the expense of exhibitions, is not clear. It does suggest, however, that larger companies dominated the experimental aspects of instrument construction in the later nineteenth century. Many of these companies were also producing much simpler standard models of the same instruments for the average “ Gustave Chouquet, Rapport sur les instruments de musique et les éditions musicales (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1880), p. 54. S7Monty L. Perkins, "Bassoon Tutors 1687-1887: An Annotated Listing," Journal of the International Double Reed Society 8 (1980): 64. 53 Chouquet, p. 50. 183 consumer. The Gautrot firm, for example, made its simpli- fied fifteen-keyed Jancourt model at approximately the same time as their experimental model, which despite its innova- tive keywork was also essentially a Jancourt system bassoon. It is of particular interest that experimental bassoons attracted the most interest in France, where the development of the Jancourt system was progressing at a relatively slower pace than that of the Almenréder system in Germany. In fact, the Jancourt system was not given its final form until the 18708, by which time experimental bassoons were already on the decline. Gautrot, of course, by producing both experimental and Jancourt-system bassoons, stood to profit either way. It seems reasonable to suggest, therefore, that the Jancourt system developed more slowly and in a more conservative way because it was being compared, not to the Almenrader bassoon, but to more radical experimental instru- ments. By this comparison the Jancourt bassoon's more dulcian-like qualities would have been seen as an advantage to conservatively oriented French performers. The often unfavorable modern comparison of the Jancourt bassoon with Almenrader's model would have been a much less significant issue. Retention of precisely those dulcian-like qualities that were lost in experimental bassoons probably moved more conservative French makers to adopt the Jancourt system while correction of the older bassoon's inadequacies caused others to experiment with Boehm's ideas. The result of 184 competition in France between the more conservative makers and the radical innovators seems to have driven their models farther apart in construction and sound. CHAPTER 7 THE BASSOON IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY By the end of the nineteenth century there were only two types of bassoon widely available-—the Jancourt system and the Almenrader. In France, the Jancourt system represented a more conservative approach in the lower octaves, but was more innovative in approaching the problems of the high register. In Germany, the bassoon underwent a more dramatic restructuring in the hands of Almenrader and Heckel, but the result offered considerably fewer improvements in the high range than did the Jancourt bassoon. The more radical experiments of Sax, Ward, Boehm, Triebert and Kruspe became little more than historical curiosities. As early as 1890, one of the Triebert-Marzoli-Boehm bassoons was shown at the Royal Military Exhibition in London where its description in the exhibition catalog reveals that it had greater historical than practical interest.1 Recently, however, interest in improving the bassoon (both Jancourt and Almenrader systems) has revived 1 C[harles] R[ussell] Day, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Musical Instruments Recently Exhibited at the Royal Military Exhibition, London, 1890 (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1891), pp. 79-80. 185 186 considerably, no doubt in reaction to the increasingly difficult technical demands of twentieth-century music. This interest has been expressed by some of the most important bassoon players and teachers of the century, such as Sol Schoenbach (b. 1915) and Leonard Sharrow (b. 1915).2 Typically, criticism leveled at the modern bassoon emphasizes its archaic features and the need for improved keywork and intonation. Practical suggestions for improving intonation or technique in difficult passages are regularly shared in the pages of the Journal of the International Double Reed Society and Double Reed, both of which are published by the Double Reed Society. These journals serve as primary avenues of communication among individuals concerned with both contemporary and historical performance on the bassoon. In recent years, considerable interest has been shown in so-called Boehm-system bassoons. Bassoonists and makers regularly report on modifications that may have promise in adapting the bassoon to meet the requirements of twentieth-century virtuosity. For example, Japanese bassoonist Koji Okazaki has modified the Almenrfider system's left thumb keys on his bassoon in order to bring them closer together. He also added Jancourt's C#-key for the left 3 See, for example, bassoonist Sol Schoenbach's "Pleas for Keys," Symphony (December 1950-January 1951): 5-6; and Leonard Sharrow's "The Bassoon is Archaic," Woodwind (April- May 1950); reprint, Rudo S. Globus, ed., Woodwind Anthology (New York: Woodwind Magazine, 1952), pp. 68-71. 187 thumb. A photograph of this mechanism accompanies a recently published interview with him.3 The most noticeable changes to the bassoon in the twentieth century have been related to the hybridization of the Jancourt and Almenrfider systems. For a number of years the Heckel company has offered an Almenrader instrument with Jancourt keywork for the left thumb.‘1 This combination may seem to be impossible at first, since the hallmark of the Jancourt keywork for the bass extension is the closed BB- key. Heckel's Jancourt system, however, includes a second BB tone hole which is covered by an open-standing key. This BB-key is open when the C-key is open but is closed when Jancourt's BB tone hole is opened. In this way one of the BB tone holes is open for every pitch except BBb, thus preserving the acoustical behavior of the Almenrader instru- ment and avoiding the need to retune it. The fingerings in the bass extension work exactly as on the Jancourt system. When the two-layered C-key is closed, the extra BB tone hole closes and Jancourt's closed BB tone hole opens. Adding the BBb-key closes the C tone hole to produce BB. Moving the thumb completely onto the BBb-key releases the BB-key to close Jancourt's BB tone hole. The extra BB tone hole, 3 Kristine Klopfenstein Fletcher, "An Interview with Koji Okazaki, Principal Bassoonist of the NHK Symphony Orchestra, Tokyo," Double Reed 11, no. 3 (Winter 1988): 48. 4 Chip Owen, an instrument designer for the Fox Products Corporation, provided the information on which the following description of this hybrid Heckel is based; telephone conversation with author, 15 April 1994. 188 being closed by the C-key, remains closed and the BBb is produced. This ingenious mechanism was developed to assist players who had learned the Jancourt system but were being forced to change bassoons as orchestras in Europe and the United States began to require the Almenrfider instrument. The primary interest in this mechanism today is in Brazil, where orchestral players are in process of changing from the Jancourt to the Almenrader system.5 Recent interest in original performance practice and original instruments, however, has led to a resurgence of the Jancourt bassoon for its own unique qualities. A revitalized Jancourt tradition may spark renewed interest in hybridization among players who do not wish to perform on only one type of bassoon, since hybridization can make the differences between the two fingering systems less drastic. V A much more radical instrument was made by Heckel in 1932, in response to a request by Percy Gatz (d. 1950's), an American amateur player who wanted a bassoon with fingering characteristics like those of the Klosé clarinet.5 The instrument is based on the traditional Almenrader system, but without the C#- and D#-keys for the left little finger. More important are a large number of additional keys. The left hand fingers received additional keys for C#, d# and e", borrowed from the Jancourt system (Figure 24b). In 5 Owen, ibid. 5 For a complete discussion, see Ronald J. Klimko, "The Boehm-System Bassoon and the Wilhelm Heckel Firm," Journal of the International Double Reed Society 11 (1983): 20-22. 189 addition, the left little finger was given three clarinet- like keys for E, F, and F# similar to those on Gautrot's experimental instrument. Another similarity to the Gautrot instrument is that the right little finger has four clarinet-like keys (Figure 24d). Unlike the Gautrot instrument, however, the Heckel-Gatz bassoon retains the traditional keys for the right thumb. The typical Boehm- system Bb was achieved exclusively through mechanical con- nections, with no reworking of tone hole placements; it was not successful until cleverly modified by the famous bassoon repairman Hans Moennig (1903-1988).7 The most impressive changes in terms of keywork were for the thumbs, where Heckel duplicated nearly all of the low range keys, but without changing the basic pattern of open and closed keys found on a standard Almenrfider instrument (Figures 24a and 24c). This parallels Triebert's approach to doubling keys on his Boehm-system bassoon while retaining the traditional Jancourt fingerings. It is interesting to note that Heckel left the cross-fingered eb unchanged; this fingering pattern is the last vestige of Renaissance technique on this otherwise advanced instrument. The instrument cost Mr. Gatz $360.20 in 1932, compared to $146.00 for a traditional instrument.8 The instrument is now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Apparently, the experiment has not been repeated. 7 Ibid., p. 21. 8 Ibid. 190 a. Left thumb keys b. Left finger keys \ock J? a -3 Li/ M F G I, -@ A E E. .J (“L 1‘3?\ (:§:>:——J E F W c. Right thumb keys d. Right finger keys Figure 24. Heckel's keywork for Percy Gatz, 1932 191 Bassoon makers such as Heckel and Fox continue to be responsive to the wishes of individual bassoonists. In addition to a standard model, each company offers optional keys for customizing an instrument. These keys are attrac- tive to those bassoonists who are interested in gaining advantages over the remaining technical difficulties inherent in the Almenrader system. Several of these-—such as the d# trill key, the little finger whisper key, and the d#"- and e"-keys-—are borrowed from the Jancourt system. Additional keys can be made to order according to a customer's own design. Twentieth-century modifications to the bassoon have also been proposed by individuals working essentially on their own. Three of the most interesting modifications are described below. In 1953, French bassoonist Francois Babin (b. 1909?) proposed an ingenious mechanism to simplify the fingerings for the right hand.9 Its effect was to allow each of the basic fingerings for F, G, and A to be raised a half step by raising the second finger. Thus, F [xxx/o/xxxF] was related to F# [xxx/o/xoxF] in the same way as G [xxx/o/xxx] was related to G# [xxx/o/xox] and A [xxx/o/xxo] was related to A# [xxx/o/xoo]. The traditional Boehm cross-fingering was used for B [xxx/o/oxo]. This mechanism left two awkward patterns: F# to G and G# to A. Therefore, two trill keys were added: an F# to G trill key for the right thumb, and a 9 "Improving Bassoon Fingering," Woodwind 5: no. 3 (April 1953): 4, 9. 192 G# to A trill key for the second finger. In this way, except for these trills, the four fingers can easily handle the seven pitches from F to B without awkward slides. A similar idea, but more systematically worked out, is evident in the saxophone rationelle, developed in the 1950's by the Leblanc corporation.10 Perhaps the most unusual modification of the bassoon was proposed in 1968 by English acoustician and amateur bassoonist Giles Brindley (b. 1926).11 Brindley invented a one-piece squared-off bassoon body with seventeen tone holes spaced in a nearly regular manner and made of generally increasing diameter as the tube widens toward the low end. The sizes and locations of the tone holes were determined by trial and error.” Between the highest tone hole and the bocal are eleven vent holes to aid in producing the higher harmonics. All of these holes are covered by pads controlled by an electronic mechanism. Such a mechanism would necessitate adjustments in the performer's manner of touching the keys, just as do the different mechanisms of the piano, harpsichord and organ. It might be suspected, therefore, that the electronic mechanism might have an adverse effect on the degree of expressiveness possible on the new instrument. Dr. Edgar Kirk, Professor Emeritus of 1° James A. MacGillivray, "Recent Advances in Woodwind Fingering Systems," Galpin Society Journal 12 (May 1959): 68. 11 Giles Brindley, "The Logical Bassoon," Galpin Society Journal 21 (March 1968): 152-161. 12 Ibid., p. 153. 193 Bassoon at Michigan State University, who visited Brindley in 1972 and heard him play the instrument, recalls no apparent loss in expressiveness.” The basic fingering of Brindley's bassoon is the most logical of any fingering pattern proposed to date (Appendix, Table 14). The same seven fingers that produced the F Lydian scale on the bassoon produce it here. Each of the sharps is achieved by adding the left thumb, which raises the basic fingering of F, G, A, C, or D by a half step. The various octave transpositions of the basic scale are controlled by register keys for the right thumb and left little finger. The left little finger transposes any given fingering into the second octave, f to f', while adding the right thumb as well transposes it up an additional octave. The low range, AA to F is reached by adding the right thumb alone. That the fingerings are so simple is due to complex electronic connections between the fingers and the holes; these connections transfer information from finger positions to a mechanism that closes or opens the correct set of tone and vent holes for each pitch. Like Boehm and the nineteenth-century innovators, Brindley merely applied the technology of his day to solve practical problems of musicians. Further evidence of his ingenuity is in his temperature control device to ensure that the instrument always plays at the same pitch level. Brindley reported 13 Edgar Kirk, telephone conversation with author, 28 May 1994. 194 that the sound "is immediately recognizable as that of a bassoon, and German rather than French."14 A taste of the sort of resistance to change which can be found among enthusiasts of the bassoon is evident in Will Jansen's comments about Brindley's bassoon: That a lot of modern composers, mostly due to sheer incompetence and ignorance plus complete unfamiliarity with the instruments of the orchestra . . . have written for (mostly against) [sic] the bassoon pieces requiring either an excessive speed of fingering or other playing acrobatics not in any way related to beautiful music, is of no importance and should not be taken into any consideration by either musicians or instrument makers. Giving in to these anomalies would finally result in composers requiring a bassoon that also can sound like a piccolo flute, that boils eggs, flashes coloured lights and pounds on an attached drum.15 Considering such sentiments, it is hardly surprising that this instrument has not been put into production. Brindley also made a contrabassoon along similar lines which saw some use in England, since its lighter weight and simpler mecha- nism made it more easy to deal with than the traditional contrabassoon. A more conservative approach-—and one that has had some commercial application-—is seen in the work of contemporary Roumanian bassoonist and teacher Gheorghe Cuciureanu. While he is best known for his modified Almenrfider system, 1‘ Brindley, "Logical Bassoon," p. 157. 15 Will Jansen, The Bassoon: Its History, Construction, Makers, Players and Music, five vols. (Buren, The Netherlands: Fritz Knuf, 1978-1984), p. 151. 195 Cuciureanu is interested in a range of innovative ideas that extend beyond the design of key mechanisms. Equally impor- tant is an entire set of alternative "flowing fingerings" with which almost any passage can be executed by using fairly simple finger motions.15 This set of alternative fingerings, however, involves various compromises in terms of pitch or tone color in order to achieve smooth technique. Following a last-minute appearance at the 1981 Double Reed Society Convention, Cuciureanu's ideas about mechanism began to attract a good deal of attention, so much so that Fox Products now offers elements of the Cuciureanu system as options on their Almenrader system bassoons. The Fox brochure explains that "the addition of four discreet sets of mechanisms to a normal Heckel System bassoon creates the Cuciureanu bassoon."17 These four mechanisms include additional C- and D-keys for the right thumb, a special linkage which makes possible the Ab to BD trill (one of the most troublesome on the Almenrfider bassoon), and another linkage that makes possible an E to F# trill. Most intriguing, however, is the mechanism that links the C#- and D#-keys for the left little finger to the left thumb keys for C and D. This allows a player to move from C# [C/xxx(C#,D#)/E/xxxF] to D# [D/xxx(C#,D#)/E/xxxF] by the same simple thumb motion that one uses to move from C to D. 15 Gheorghe Cuciureanu, "The Future of the Cuciureanu System Bassoon," Double Reed 8, no. 2 (Fall 1985): 24. 17 Quoted in an untitled and unattributed announcement in Double Reed 4, no. 3 (December 1981): 9. 196 Because Cuciureanu's innovations are largely in the form of linkages rather than new keys, the instrument appears quite similar to the typical Almenrader bassoon. The Cuciureanu bassoon can be played with the traditional Almenrfider fingerings simply by ignoring all of its innovative mechanisms. Although Cuciureanu's improvements greatly facilitate motion in the low register, interest in the Cuciureanu system has waned so considerably in recent years that Fox has never installed a complete system for a customer, and only rarely installs even a partial one.18 Despite the work of these talented innovators, the bassoon remains an essentially nineteenth-century instrument whose Renaissance ancestry is only partially concealed. For the Fox company, at least, the trend over the last two years has been toward traditional models of the bassoon.” The extra keys that so fascinated bassoonists of a generation ago are often foregone by the current generation of bassoon- ists, who prefer an essentially nineteenth-century model without most of its twentieth-century adornments. While it may appear that such an instrument could not possibly keep up with the requirements of twentieth-century music, it has. Even some of the most unusual and demanding new techniques, such as playing quarter tones and multi- phonics, are being met by bassoonists using the same instruments that were designed for the music of Berlioz and 13 Owen, 15 April 1994. ” Ibid. 197 Wagner. Nearly three octaves of quarter-tone fingerings for the bassoon are given by American bassoonist Scott Vidger in a short article in Double Reed.” Perhaps even more intriguing is a tablature developed by bassoonist Johnny Reinhard giving fingerings for microtones based on a 31-tone system that was first described in the Renaissance.”’ These fingerings make it possible to alter one's basic pitch orientation. Rather than perform exclusively in a modern equal temperament, the microtonal player could learn to make adjustments that would have been typical of earlier performance practices and tuning systems. Reinhard argues that by mastering these pitches and fingerings, "ears become sharper in acuity, finger technique accelerates rapidly and instrument intimacy blooms.”2 While microtonal sensitivity would aid the bassoonist who performs traditional Western music, it could also prepare him or her to perform micro- tonal music influenced by non-Western musical traditions. More unusual is the development of multiphonics, sounds that consist of several different pitches produced simul- taneously.23 This technique was probably first exploited by the virtuoso bassoonist Franz Anton Pfeiffer (1752-1787), who advertised that he would perform "a triple harmony, or 3° Scott Vidger, "A Table of Quarter-tone Fingerings for the Bassoon," Double Reed 4, no. 2 (October 1981): 44-45. ” JOhnny Reinhard, "The Microtonal Bassoon," Double Reed 10, no. 2 (Fall 1987): 39-42. ” Ibid., p. 39. 33 Bruno Bartlozzi, New Sounds for Woodwind (London: Oxford University Press, 1967). 1 W1 198 blowing three notes at the same time, instead of the cadenza" for a concert in 1776.24 The modern bassoon, whatever its difficulties and shortcomings in other areas, has turned out to be a particularly rich source of multi- phonics. These have been employed in recent compositions for bassoon, such as Bruno Bettinelli's Studio da concerto (1977) and David Maslanka's Music for Dr. Who (1979). Even in China, where Western music was long out of favor, bassoonist Qi Liu has achieved recognition for his efforts in this avant-garde technique.” When the actual pitches of the multiphonic are notated, the composer often includes specific suggestions for the fingering. Since bassoons may still differ so widely in acoustical quality and perform- ance, these fingerings must often be modified by the player in order to achieve the desired result. That the bassoon, despite its anachronistic features and without further modification, can be employed competently in even the most unusual of avant-garde techniques is a direct result of decisions made by makers as many as five centuries ago. While it cannot, of course, be taken as evidence of their foresight, neither is it suggestive of ignorance or negligence on their part. Today's avant-garde techniques are developed by performers and composers who, like their ” David J. Rhodes, "Franz Anton Pfeiffer and the Bassoon," Galpin Society Journal 36 (March 1983): 100. ” Jiang Xiao-fung, trans. Juan Han and Ka-Kam Chui, "The Man Who Can Play Chords on the Bassoon," Double Reed 9, no. 3 (Winter 1986): 12-13. 199 counterparts in previous eras, are merely employing the materials at hand in order to create their music. For its performers and admirers, the bassoon continues to be a constant source of joy and amazement, and a highly versatile medium for the expression of musical ideas. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS The development of the bassoon has been a long and complex process, but one which can be understood in terms of specific problems and their solutions. Historically, bassoon makers seem to have focused on those aspects of the bassoon that were of greatest practical significance at the time. These included the extension of the range in the bass register, the elimination of many of the cross-fingerings, the achievement of a complete chromatic compass, and the extension of the third octave by means of additional keys. When keys were added it was not at whim but in order to make a particular note or grouping of notes easier to play. That an instrument maker's solution of a specific problem for a contemporary performer, while successful enough at the moment, later contributed to a new problem for a later performer is not evidence of ignorance or capri- ciousness on the part of the earlier maker. Rather it is evidence of an historically dynamic relationship between performers and instrument makers that must not be overlooked in considering an instrument's development. Further research into the papers of famous bassoon makers and players is needed to shed more light on the specific problems addressed at various stages in the bassoon's 200 201 development. In particular, study of the records of custom- ized keywork made by the Fox and Heckel bassoon companies may be able to illuminate the developmental process in response to the increased demands made of the performer by twentieth century composers. Another avenue that seems promising for further study would be a statistical study of pitch relationships in bassoon music of various eras. Correlation of this data to compare the most frequently and least frequently used intervals with the fingering patterns available to the performer may contribute to further understanding of the issues raised in this paper. Further study of difficult passagework, whether statistically based or not, can also increase the depth of insight into the problems of earlier musicians and the solutions provided by their contemporaries in instrument manufacture. Finally, it is time to re-examine a technological advance that met with only fleeting interest when it was first proposed. Giles Brindley was ahead of his time in suggesting the application of electronic technology to the mechanism of an acoustic instrument. With the astonishing advances in synthesizer technology it may seem pointless to return to Brindley's ideas now. Yet the time is perhaps more propitious than might first appear. While one can read almost daily some prophecy about the ultimate obsolescence of acoustic instruments in the wake of the commercial success of electronic synthesizers, the simultaneous rise in 202 interest in the most primitive of acoustical instruments should not be ignored. For a growing part of the popu- lation, apparently, acoustical instruments provide an important expressive outlet, whether those instruments are traditional acoustic guitars, Renaissance instruments such as the recorder and krummhorn, or any of the wealth of non- Western musical instruments that are becoming more and more available. The return of interest in acoustic instruments may well be due to the subtlety with which they can be manipulated, a subtlety that is often ignored or even impossible with electronic keyboards. While electronic wind-controllers are now widely available, their level of sophistication is still relatively low. In this context, the time may be right for a hybrid instrument of the type Brindley developed-—one that combines the speed and accuracy of electronic mechanism with the subtle expression possible (so far, at least) only on an acoustic instrument. Brindley's ideas would probably be best applied to the largest and clumsiest of the traditional instruments, such as the contrabassoon, where the disadvantages of complex mechanisms are the most pronounced. APPENDIX APPENDIX TABLES OF FINGERINGS The following tables of fingerings are translated into the same symbolic representation that is used throughout the paper. In their original versions, the systems used to represent fingerings differ widely. Some charts, for example those by Eisel and Majer, are laid out in a horizontal pattern, while the majority use a vertical arrangement. Since the horizontal pattern matches that used in the text of this document, it is used here. The chart is designed for easy comparison of fingerings, whether between different pitches within the same system or between charts illustrating different systems. Each chart begins in the left column with the lowest pitch in the basic scale or, where a bass extension is present, in the bass extension. The right column shows fingerings that are used together with the technique of overblowing to produce the pitches of the second octave; additional pitches in the high range are continued in the right column. Thus, the fingering for a specific pitch of the basic scale and for its octave duplication lie on the same line. With this layout the basic scale is readily apparent, as are any extensions below or above it. 203 n “ .fi 1 204 Many early charts represent fingerings in terms of open and closed holes. While this approach is unambiguous for simple six- or seven-holed instruments, it becomes confusing as soon as open or closed keys are involved. In the original charts an open a circle [0] has three possible meanings: 1) an open finger hole, 2) an open key at rest, or 3) a closed key that is to be opened by a finger. Thus it is not immediately clear whether the open circle means that a particular finger is used in the fingering pattern. The method employed below tranfers the original information into a representation of the fingers that are actually involved in each fingering pattern. This system, it is hoped, will facilitate comprehension and comparison of fingerings within and between the tables. Where two sources were used to develop a single table, the fingerings shown are from the first chart listed unless otherwise noted. Variant fingerings, alternative fingerings, and comments are given in the footnotes. 205 Table 1. Six-hole system based on G1 Source:2 Martin Agricola, Musica instrumentalis deudsch, first and fourth eds. (Wittemberg, 1528 and 1545; facsimile reprint, Gesellschaft ffir Musikforschung, Leipzig: Breitkopf & Hartel, 1896), p. 174. Pitch: Fingering: Pitch: Fingering:3 G xxx/xxx g oxx/xxx G# 4 g# 4 A xxx/xxo a xxx/xxo A# xxx/xox a# xxx/xox xxx/xoo b xxx/xoo c xxx/ooo c' xxx/ooo c# 5 c#' 5 d xxo/oox5 d' xxo/xxx d# xox/oox5 d#' xox/xxx xoo/oox5 e' xoo/xxx f oxo/ooo f' ooo/oox5 £4: 7 £#' 7’ g' oxx/xxx a' xxo/oox5 1 Note the essential similarity of this system to that of the seven-hole system on F in Table 2. 3 1545 edition only. 3 The player is instructed to blow more strongly for this octave. 4 Omitted. 5 This omission is curious; [xxo/xoo] was well known. 5 Closing the lowest tone hole would have had little effect on pitch; it was probably done to help hold the instrument. 7 An analagous pitch is included as [ooo/oox] in a chart for a similar instrument with a fundamental of C. 206 Table 2. Seven-hole system based on F Sources: Sebastian Virdung, Musica getutscht (Basel, 1511; facsimile reprint, Documenta Musicologica, Kassel: Barenreiter, 1970), pp. [17-18]; Martin Agricola, Musica instrumentalis deudsch, first and fourth eds. (Wittemberg, 1528 and 1545; facsimile reprint, Gesellschaft ffir Musikforschung, Leipzig: Breitkopf & Hartel, 1896), p. 17. Pitch: Fingering: Pitch: Fingering:8 F x/xxx/xxxx F# x/xxx/xxxi9 G x/xxx/xxxo G# x/xxx/xxio10 g# o/xxx/xxox11 A x/xxx/xxoo a o/xxx/xxoo A# x/xxx/xoxo” a# o/Xxx/xoxo B x/xxx/xooo b o/xxx/xooo13 c# x/xxo/xooo14 c#' o/xxo/xooo d x/xxo/oooo d' o/xxo/oooo d# x/xox/oooo15 d#' o/xox/oooo x/xoo/oooo f x/oxo/oooo f# x/ooo/oooo15 g o/ooo/oooo 5 Agricola indicates a half-hole for the thumb for every pitch in this octave except g#. 9 Agricola only. 15 Agricola: [x/xxx/xxox]. 11 Agricola: [o/oxx/xxxo]. 13 Virdung gives [x/xxx/xfioo] as an alternative. 13 Agricola: [i/xxx/ooxo]. 14 Virdung gives [x/xxl/oooo] as an alternative. 15 Virdung gives [x/xlo/oooo] as an alternative. 15 Agricola omits this fingering, but gives [o/ooo/ooxo] for the analagous note on an instrument with a fundamental of C. 207 Table 3. Dulcian with two keys Sources: Daniel Speer, Grund-richtiger, kurtz, leicht, und thhiger, jetzt wal-vermehrter Unterricht der musicalischen Kunst (Erben: n.p., 1687; second ed., Erben: n.p., 1697), opposite p. 240; Johann Philipp Eisel, Musicus autodidacticus (Erfurt: Johann Michael Funcken, 1738; rev. ed. Johann Jacob Lotter, Augsburg: n.p., 1762), opposite p. 104. Pitch: Fingering: Pitch: Fingering: C x/xxx/(x,E)/xxxF c# 17 D o/xxx/(x,E)/xxxF D# o/xxx/(§,E)/xxxF18 E o/xxx/(o,E)/xxxF F o/xxx/o/xxxF F# o/xxx/(o,E)/xxx f# o/oxx/o/xxxF G o/xxx/o/xxx g o/xxx/o/xxx G# o/xxx/o/xxg g# o/xxx/o/xx) A o/xxx/o/xxo a o/xxx/o/xxo A# o/xxx/o/xox a# o/xxx/o/xox o/xxx/o/xoo b o/xxx/o/xoo c o/xxx/o/ooo c' o/xxx/o/ooo c# o/xxo/o/xoo c#' o/xxo/o/xoo d o/xxo/o/ooo d' o/xxo/o/ooo d# o/xox/o/ooo d#' o/xox/o/ooo o/xoo/o/ooo e' o/xoo/o/ooo f o/oxo/o/ooo f' o/oxo/o/ooo 17 Not included in either chart. 15 This would be effective only on a dulcian with keys for E and F; a D-key half-opened would not work well. 208 Table 4. Bassoon with three keys Source: Joseph Majer, Museum musicum: Theoretico practicum (Nfirnberg: Georg Michael Majer, 1732; rev. ed., Nfirnberg: Cremer, 1741), opposite p. 49. Pitch: Fingering: Pitch: Fingering: BBb (BBb,x,D)/xxx/x/xxxF BB 19 C (x,D)/xxx/x/xxxF C# 1 D (o,D)/xxx/x/xxxF D# (o,§D)/xxx/x/xxxF” E o/xxx/x/xxxF F o/xxx/o/xxxF F# o/xxx/x/xxx f# o/oxx/o/xxx21 G o/xxx/o/xxx g o/xxx/o/xxx G# o/xxx/o/xxi g# o/xxx/o/xxi A o/xxx/o/xxo a o/xxx/o/xxo A# o/xxx/o/xox a# o/xxx/o/xox o/xxx/o/xoo b o/xxx/o/xoo c o/xxx/o/ooo c' o/xxx/o/ooo c# o/xxo/o/xoo c#' o/xxo/o/xoo d o/xxo/o/ooo d' o/xxo/o/ooo d# o/xox/o/ooo d#' o/xox/o/ooo o/xoo/o/ooo e' o/xoo/o/ooo f o/oxo/o/ooo f' o/oxo/o/ooo f#' o/xox/o/ooo22 13 Majer omits these pitches. 3” The D-key is to be half closed; the resulting D# would be much less satisfactory than on the dulcian. ” Possibly an error, since it is so similar to the fingering for 9; correct fingering is probably the dulcian's [o/oxx/o/xxxF] as given Speer and Eisel (see Table 3). 33 Same fingering as d#'; probably an engraver's error. "‘3 209 Table 5. Bassoon with four keys Sources: Johann Philipp Eisel, Musicus autodidacticus (Erfurt: Johann Michael Funcken, 1738; rev. ed. Johann Jacob Lotter, Augsburg: n.p., 1762), opposite p. 101; Henry Purcell, The Muses' Delight (London: John Sadler, 1754), p. 45. Pitch: Fingering: Pitch: Fingering: BBb (BBb,x,D)/xxx/x/xxxF BB (BBb,x,D)/xxx/x/xxxF23 C (x,D)/xxx/x/xxxF C# (x,D)/xxx/x/xxxF24 D (o,D)/xxx/x/xxxF D# (BBb,o)/xxx/x/xxxF” E o/xxx/x/xxxF F o/xxx/o/xxxF F# o/xxx/x/xxx35 f# o/xxx/o/xxxF27 G o/xxx/o/xxx g o/xxx/o/xxx G# o/xxx/o/xxxG# g# o/xxx/o/xxxG# A o/xxx/o/xxo a o/xxx/o/xxo A# o/xxx/o/xox a# o/xxx/o/xox o/xxx/o/xoo b o/xxx/o/xoo c o/xxx/o/ooo c' o/xxx/o/ooo c# o/xxo/o/xoo c#' o/xxo/o/xoo d o/xxo/o/ooo d' o/xxo/o/ooo d# o/xox/o/ooo d#' o/xox/o/ooo ” Only in Purcell; same fingering as BBb but lipped up. 1” Only in Purcell; same fingering as C but lipped up. Purcell also shows D# as an E-fingering that must have been lowered by lipping. 1” Only in Purcell; effectiveness is questionable. 1” Only in Purcell. Eisel's omission is surprising; the F#-fingering he gave for the dulcian (Table 3) would have worked. ” Purcell only; Eisel's f# shown in left column, p. 195. “’5 210 (Table 5, cont'd) Pitch: Fingering: Pitch: Fingerim: e o/xoo/o/ooo28 e' o/xoo/o/ooo f o/oxo/o/ooo f' o/oxo/o/ooo29 f# o/ooo/o/ooo3o f# o/ooo/o/ooo7 g' o/xxo/o/ooo7 33 Purcell gives same fingering as d#; probably an error. ” Only in Purcell. ” Eisel only; see Purcell's f# in right column, p. 194. 211 Table 6. Bassoon with five keys Sources:31 Pierre Cugnier, "Basson," in Jean Benjamin de Laborde, Essai sur la musique ancienne et moderne (Paris: P. D. Pierres, 1780, vol. 2), p. 342; Etienne Ozi, Méthode nouvelle et raisonnée pour 1e basson (Paris: Boyer, 1787; reprint, [Paris]: Naderman, [ca. 1800]), plate 1. Pitch: Fingering: Pitch: Fingering: BBb (BBb,x,D)/xxx/x/xxxF BB (BBb,x,D)/xxx/x/xxxF32 C (x,D)/xxx/x/xxxF C# (§,D)/xxx/x/xxxF D (o,D)/xxx/x/xxxF D# (o,D,D#)/xxx/x/xxxF E o/xxx/x/xxxF F o/xxx/o/XxxF F# o/xxx/x/xxx f# o/oxx/o/xxxF G o/xxx/o/xxx g o/oxx/o/xxx G# o/xxx/o/xxxG# g# o/xxx/o/xxxG# A o/xxx/o/xxo a o/xxx/o/xxo A# o/xxx/o/xox a# o/xxx/o/xox o/xxo/o/xoo33 b o/xxo/o/xoo3 c o/xxo/o/ooo34 c' o/xxo/o/ooo4 c# o/xxx/o/xoo35 c#' o/xxx/o/xooS d o/xxo/o/ooo d' o/xxo/o/ooo ” Cugnier's chart is unusual for its extremely high range and for its large number of errors. Ozi's chart for a similar bassoon with a vent key is used for comparison. 33 Same fingering as BBb; Cugnier instructs player to adjust the pressure on the reed. 33 Error (on most other charts this fingering is used for c# and c#'); Ozi: [o/xxx/o/xoo]. 34 Error (same fingering as for d); Ozi: [o/xxx/o/ooo]. 35 Error (on all other charts this fingering is used for B and b); Ozi: [o/xxo/o/xooG#]. n- .. M‘A’ 212 (Table 6, continued) Pitch: d# Fingering: Pitch: o/xoo/o/ooo35 d#' o/xox/o/ooo37 e' o/oox/o/ooo38 f' cu c#" d" d#" en f" Fingering: o/xoo/o/ooo5 o/xox/o/ooo7 o/oxx/o/xxo39 o/oxx/o/xxx4O o/oxo/o/oooG#41 D/xxo/o/ooo D/xxx/o/xxx(G#,F)42 D/xxo/o/xxo(G#,F)43 D/xxo/x/xon44 o/xxo/o/xoo45 o/xoo/o/ooo45 o/ooo/o/ooo4'7 x/oxx/x/ooo17 o/oxo/o/xoo17 35 Error (on most other charts this fingering is used for e and e'); Ozi: [o/xox/o/ooo]. ” Error (on most other charts this fingering is used for eb and eb'); Ozi: [o/xoo/o/ooo]. 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 Ozi: Ozi: Ozi: Ozi: Ozi: Ozi: Ozi: Ozi: Ozi: Only [o/ooo/o/ooo]. [o/oxo/o/xxxG#]. [o/oxx/o/xon]. [o/oxx/o/xoo]. [(1,D)/xxx/o/xxxF]. [l/xxo/o/xon]. [1/xxo/x/xooF]. [1/xoo/o/ooo]. [l/ooo/o/ooo]. in Cugnier. _fi§ 213 Table 7. Bassoon with six keys Sources: Ezekiel Goodale, The Instrumental Director (Hallowell, Massachusetts: E. Goodale, 1819; third ed., Hallowell: Glazier, Masters, 1829), p. 9; and Samuel Holyoke, Instrumental Assistant (Exeter, New Hampshire, 1807), vol. 2, pp. 6-7. Pitch: Finggring: Pitch: Fingering: BBb (BBb,x,D)/xxx/x/xxxF BB 48 C (x,D)/xxx/x/xxxF C# 1 D (o,D)lxxx/x/xxxF D# (o,D,D#)/xxx/x/xxxF E o/xxx/x/xxxF F o/xxx/o/xxxF F#' o/xxx/(o,F#)/xxxF f# o/oxx/o/xxxF G o/xxx/o/xxx g o/oxx/o/xxx G# o/xxx/o/xxxG# g# o/xxx/o/xxxG# A o/xxx/o/xxo a o/xxx/o/xxo A# o/xxx/o/xox a# o/xxx/o/xox o/xxx/o/xoo b o/xxx/o/xoo o/xxx/o/ooo c' o/xxx/o/ooo c# o/xxo/x/xoo49 c#' o/xxo/o/xoo d o/xxo/o/ooo d' o/xxo/o/ooo d# o/xox/o/ooo d#' o/xxo/o/xxx o/xoo/o/ooo e' o/xoo/o/ooo f o/ooo/o/ooo f' o/ooo/o/ooo f#' o/ooo/x/xxxF g' o/oxx/o/oooG# g#' (o,D)loxx/x/xooFso 45 Omission of BB and C# is an archaic feature. 49 Holyoke: [o/xxo/x/xooF]. 5° Only in Holyoke. 214 Table 8. Bassoon with seven or eight keys Sources: Etienne Ozi, Méthode nouvelle et raisonnée pour le basson (Paris: Boyer, 1787; reprint, [Paris]: Naderman, [ca. 1800]), plate 2; J[ohann] Froelich, Vollstandige Theoretisch-praktische Musikschule (Bonn: Simrock, [1810-11]), unnumbered page. Pitch: Fingering: Pitch: Fingering: BBb (BBb,x,D)/xxx/x/xxxF BB (BBb,x,D)/xxx/x/xxxF51 C (x,D)/xxx/x/xxxF C# (§,D)/xxx/x/xxxF D (o,D)/xxx/x/xxxF D# (o,D,D#)/xxx/x/xxxF52 E o/xxx/x/xxxF F o/xxx/o/xxxF F# o/xxx/x/xxxS3 f# o/oxx/o/xxxF3 G o/xxx/o/xxx g o/xxx/o/xxx G# o/xxx/o/xxxG# g# o/xxx/o/xxxG# A o/xxx/o/xxo a o/xxx/o/xxo A# o/xxx/o/xox a# o/xxx/o/xox o/xxx/o/xoo b o/xxx/o/xoo o/xxx/o/ooo c' o/xxx/o/ooo c# o/xxo/o/xooG# c#' o/xxo/o/xooG# d o/xxo/o/ooo d' o/xxo/o/ooo d# o/xox/o/ooo d#' o/xox/o/oooS4 “ Same fingering as BBb; probably lipped up to pitch. ” Froelich's bassoon has a D#-key for the little finger: [(o,D)/xxD#/x/xxxF]. 53 For some reason Ozi does not use the F#-key; Froelich: [o/xxx/(o,F#)/xxxF] for both octaves. “ Ozi gives a different fingering [o/xxo/o/xxx] for eb. 1 4‘01: 215 (Table 8, continued) Pitch: Fingering: Pitch: Fingering: e o/xoo/o/ooo e' o/xoo/o/oooS f o/ooo/o/ooo5 f' o/oxo/o/xxxG#7 f#' o/oxx/o/xon8 g' o/oxx/o/xoo9 g#' (o,D)/oxx/o/ooo a' (o,D)/oxx/o/oxxG#10 a#' (l,o,D)/xxx/o/xxxF11 b' (1,o)/xxo/o/xon” c" (1,o,D)/xxo/x/xooF13 c#" (1,o)/xoo/o/ooo13 d" (l,o)/ooo/o/ooo13 5 Ozi's alternative [o/xoo/o/xxx] is Froelich's standard fingering. 5 Froelich: [o/ooo/o/xxx]. 7 Froelich: [o/oxo/o/xxx]. 3 Froelich: [o/oxx/o/xoxF]. 3 Froelich: [o/oxx/o/ooxF]. 1° Ozi gives an alternative: [(1,o)/oxx/o/ooo]; Froelich: [(1,o,D)/xxx/o/ooo]. 11 Froelich: [(o,D)/xxx/o/xxx(F,G#)]. 13 Froelich: [(o,D)Ixxx/o/xxo(F,G#)]. n Only in Ozi. 216 Table 9. Bassoon with nine keys Source: Pitch: ssh BB C# D# F# G# A# c# d# [George E. Blake], An Introduction to the Art of Playing the Bassoon (Philadelphia: G. E. Blake, 1826), p. 7. Fingering: Pitch: (BBb,x,D)/xxx/x/xxxF 64 (x,D)/xxx/x/xxxF 1 (o,D)/xxx/x/xxxF55 (o,D,D#)Ixxx/x/xxxF o/xxx/x/xxxF o/xxx/o/xxxF o/xxx/F#/xxxF f# o/xxx/o/xxx g o/xxx/o/xxxG# g# o/xxx/o/xxo a o/xxx/o/xox a# o/xxx/o/xoo b o/xxx/o/ooo c' o/xxx/c#/ooo57 c#' o/xxo/o/ooo d' o/xox/o/ooo d#' o/xoo/o/ooo e' o/ooo/o/xxx f' f#' g' 64 65 66 67 Fingering: o/oxx/o/xxxF55 o/oxx/o/xxx o/oxx/o/xxxG# o/xxx/o/xxo o/xxx/o/xox o/xxx/o/xoo o/xxx/o/ooo o/xxo/c#/ooo4 o/xxo/o/ooo o/xox/o/ooo o/xoo/o/ooo o/oxo/o/xxx o/oxx/o/xxxF o/oxx/o/ooo Blake's omission of BB and C# is an archaic feature. Blake omits the D-key; probably a printer's error. That Blake does not use the F#-key here is curious. Or: [o/xxo/o/xoo]. (Table 9, continued) Pitch: Fingering: 55 Blake omits this pitch. 217 Pitch: g#' a#' Fingering: 68 1/oxx/o/ooo 2/oxx/o/ooo fl 218 Table 10. Almenrader system bassoon, ca. 1820 Sources: Karl Almenrader, "Treatise on the Improvement of the Bassoon Including Two Tables," (Mainz: Schott, ca. 1820); illustrated in Fig 448 in Will Jansen, Th3 Bassoon: Its History, Construction, Makers, Players and Music, five vols. (Buren, The Netherlands: Fritz Knuf, 1978-1984), vol. 5, unnumbered page. Pitch: Fingering: Pitch: Fingering: ssh (BBb,BB,x,D)/xxx/x/xxxF BB (BB,x,D)/xxx/x/xxxF C (x,D)/xxx/x/xxxF C# (x,D)/xxxC#/x/xxxF D (o,D)/xxx/x/xxxF D# (o,D)/xxx(C#,D#)/x/xxxF E o/xxx/x/xxxF F o/xxx/o/xxxF F# o/xxx/F#/xxxF f# o/oxx/o/xxxF59 G o/xxx/o/xxx g o/xxx/o/xxx G# o/xxx/o/xxxG#70 g# o/xxx/o/xxxG#71 A o/xxx/o/xxo a o/xxx/o/xxo A# o/xxx/o/xoxG#72 a# o/xxx/o/xox'73 o/xxx/o/xooF74 b o/xxx/o/xoo c o/xxx/o/ooo c' o/xxx/o/ooo c# o/xxo/o/xoo75 c#' o/xxo/o/xoo76 d o/xxo/o/ooo d' o/xxo/o/ooo 5” Or: [o/ooo/x/xxxF]. '” Or: [D#/xxx/(F#,G#)/xxx]. 'n Or: [D#onx/(F#,G#)/xxx] and [a'/oxx/o/xxxF]. '” Or: [o/xxx/o/xxA#]. '” Or: [o/xxx/o/xxA#]. '“ Or: [o/xxx/o/oxo]. '” Or: [c#lxxx/o/ooo]. '” Or: [c#lxxx/o/ooo]. (Table Pitch: d# 219 10, continued) Fingering: Pitch: Fingering: o/xox/o/ooo77 d#' o/xxo/o/xxx78 o/xoo/o/ooo e' o/xoo/o/ooo79 o/ooo/o/ooo f' o/oxo/o/xxx80 f#' o/oxx/o/xoo g' o/oxx/o/xooF g# o/oxx/o/oooF81 a' l/xxx/o/oooF a#' 1/xxx/x/oxo b' 2/xxx/o/xxxF82 c" 2/xoo/o/xon‘333 c#" 2/xoo/x/xxx d" 2/xoo/o/ooxG# d#" 2/ooo/(F#,G#)/oooG#84 e" c#/§xx/x/xxA#,F f" 1/5xx/x/xxA#,F g" 2/xoo/F#/oooF85 77 78 79 80 81 82 Or: Or: Or: Or: Or: [c#/xxo/o/ooo]. [c#/xxo/o/ooo] and [o/xox/o/ooo]. [o/xox/o/xxx]. [o/xoo/xxo] and [o/ooo/o/ooo]. [o/oxx/x/ooo]. Almenrader shows an additional (BBb,BB,x,D) for the left thumb; this seems to be very awkward. Or: [l/xxo/o/xon]. 53.Almenrader shows an additional (BBb,BB,x,D) for left thumb here also. 54.Almenrfider shows an additional (C#,D#) for left little finger. 35.Almenrader adds (BBb,BB,x) for the left thumb. r-er-wg 220 Table 11. Almenrader system bassoon, modern Sources: Julius Weissenborn, Method for Bassoon (Leipzig: Pitch: Bab BB C# D# F# G# A# n.p., 1887; rev. Fred Bettony, New York: Cundy- Bettony, 1950), unnumbered loose page; Hugo Fox, Let's Play Bassoon, rev. ed. (South Whitley, Indiana: Fox Bassoon Company, [n.d.]), pp. 12-15; Lewis Hugh Cooper and Howard Toplansky, Essentials of Bassoon Technique (Union, New Jersey: Howard Toplansky, 1968). Fingering: PitCh: Fingering: (BBb,BB)/xxx/E/xxxF85 BB/xxx/E/xxxF1 C/xxx/E/xxxF87 C/xxxC#/E/xxxF2 D/xxx/E/xxxF D/xxxD#/E/xxxF xxx/E/xxxF w/xxx/xxxF w/xxx/F#/xxx88 f# w/§xx/XXxF#89 w/xxx/xxx g w/ixx/Xxx90 w/xxx/xxxG#31 g# w/ixx/xxxG# w/xxx/xxo a xxx/xxo w/xxx/A#/xxo92 a# xxx/A#/xxo w/xxx/xoo b xxx/xoo 1” The BB-key interlocks with C- and D-keys to close them as well. 87 The C-key closes the D-key as well. 1” Or: [w/xxx/xxxF#]; both F#-keys close the F-key as well. 3 Or: [w/Qxx/F#/xxx]. 9° The C#- or D#-key is sometimes added to help in tuning. 91 Or: [w/xxx/G#/xxx]; same for next octave but with a half-hole. 93 Or: [w/xxx/xxA#]; same for next octave, but without the whisper key. (Table Pitch: c# d# 11, continued) Fingering: w/xxx/ooo (w,c#)/xxx/ooo93 w/xxo/ooo w/xox/ooo w/xoo/ooo w/ooo/ooo 221 Pitch: c#' d! d#' fl f#' gl g# a#' b' Cu c#" d" d#" f" g" Fingering: xxx/ooo c#/xxx/ooo34 xxo/ooo xxo/xxx xoxD#/xxx xoxD#/xxo oxx/xoo” )xx/xooF Qxx/oox (1,c#)/xxx/oox (l,c#)/xxx/xon95 2/xxoD#/xon 2/xooD#/o/xon 2/xox/E/xox 2/xoxC#/ooxG# c#/§xx/c#ooG#37 c#/oxx/E/xxx98 c#/§xo/A#/xxxG#99 1/xoo/ooo100 93 The D-key is usually added in both octaves to improve intonation and timbre. 94 95 96 97 98 99 Or: [xxx/c#oo]. Or: [ixx/A#/xxo] or [)xx/xon]. Or: [(1,c#)/xxx/E/xxo]. Or: [2/1xx/c#ooG#]. Or: [c#/§xx/xxx]. Cooper and Toplansky only. “m Cooper and Toplansky only. if . fink-“I k ,1"..- 222 Table 12. Jancourt system bassoon, modern Source: Eugene Jancourt, "Chromatic Scale for French Bassoon (Perfected System 22 Keys)," in Julius Weissenborn, Method for Bassoon (Leipzig: n.p., 1887; rev. Fred Bettony, New York: Cundy-Bettony, 1950), unnumbered loose page. Pitch: Fingering: Pitch: Fingering: BBb BBb/xxxw/x/xxxF101 BB (1313b , BB) /xxxw/x/xxxF1 C C/xxxw/x/xxxF102 C# (C,C#)/xxxw/x/xxxF2 D D/xxxw/x/xxxF D# (D,D#)/xxxw/x/xxxF E xxxw/x/xxxF F xxxw/o/xxxF F# xxxw/(o,F#)/xxx G xxxw/o/xxx g Qxxw/o/xxx G# xxxw/o/xxxG# g# D#/§xxw/o/xxxG# A xxxw/(o,F#)/xxo a xxx/x/xxo A# xxxw/x/xxA#”3 a# D#/xxx/o/xxA#104 xxxw/o/xoo b d"/xxx/o/xoo xxxw/o/ooo c' d"/xxx/o/ooo c# xxxc#/o/ooo105 c#' xxxc#/o/ooo105 d xxow/o/ooo d' xxo/o/ooo d# xxd#/x/ooo”7 d#' D#lxxo/o/xxx108 “” The BBb-key interlocks with C- and D-keys to close them as well. 3”? The C-key closes the D-key as well. ?”3 Or: [xxxw/x/xox]. 3”4 Or: [D#Ixxx/o/xox]. ?”5 Or: [xxxw/o/c#oo]. ”5 Or: [xxo/o/xoo]. 3”7 Or: [xox/x/ooo] or [xxo/o/ooo]. ?”5 Or: [xox/x/ooo], [xxd#/o/ooo], or [xxo/o/c#oo]. (Table 12, continued) Pitch: f# 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 223 Pitch: e' f. f#' g' g# a' a#' b' C" c#" d" d#" en f" Fingering: xoo/x/ooo”9 D#/oxo/o/xxxG#”° D#/oxxw/o/xon112 oxxw/o/xoo oxx/o/ooo”3 (1,D)/xxxw/o/ooo l/xxxw/o/xxxF114 1/xxow/o/xxA#115 2/xxow/x/xon”5 2/xoow/o/xoo 2/ooow/o/ooo”7 2/od#"ow/o/ooo 2/e"d#"ow/o/ooo f"d#"ow/o/ooo [D#/xxo/o/xxxG#] or [xox/o/xxx]. [D#/xoo/o/xxxG#] or [ooo/o/oooF]. Fingering: xoo/x/ooo ooo/o/ooo ooo/o/xxxF111 Or: Or: Or: [oox/o/xxxF]. Or: [xd#"o/o/ooo]. Or: [D#/§xxw/o/ooo]. Or: [xxow/c#/ooo]. Or: [1/xxow/o/xon]. Or: [2/xoxw/x/xxxF]. Or: [2/xoow/o/ooo]. my 224 Table 13. Boehm-system bassoon Source: Emmanuele Krakamp, Metodo per fagotto (n.p., 1872; rev. Enzo Mucetti, Milan: G. Ricordi), 1959; illustrated in Vincent Pezzi, "The Boehm Bassoon." Woodwind 4, no. 1 (September 1951): 8-9.; reprint, Rudo S. Globus, ed., Woodwind Anthology, New York: Woodwind Magazine, 1952, pp. 13-14. Pitch: Fingering: Pitch: Fingering: BBb (BBb,B)/xxx/xxxx :‘ BB B/xxx/xxxx E C C/xxx/xxxx H C# C#/xxx/xxxx t D D/xxx/xxxx118 D# D#/xxx/xxxx119 E xxx/E/xxxx F xxx/xxxx(F)”° F# xxx/xxxx(F#)”1 f# oxx/F#/xxxx”2 G xxx/xxxx”3 g oxx/xxxx”4 G# xxx/xxx g# l/xxx/xxx A xxx/xxo a 1/xxx/xxo”5 A# xxx/xoo a# 2/xxx/xoo xxx/0x01” b 2/xxx/oxo”7 c xxx/ooo c' 2/xxx/ooo ”5 Or: [xxx/D/xxxx]. ”9 Or: [xxx/D#/xxxx]. (”0 The F-key is operated by the palm; or: [xxx/F/xxxx]. 1” The F#-key is operated by the palm; or: [xxx/F#/xxxx]. 3” Or: [oxx/xxxx(F#)], using a palm F-key. 1” Or: [xxx/G/xxx]. 1” Or: [oxx/G/xxx]. 1” Or: [2/xxx/xxo]. 3”5 Or: [xxx/xBo]. 1” Or: [2/xxx/xBo]. (Table Pitch: c# d d# 13, cont'd) Fingering: xxxc#/ooo”8 xxo/ooo xoo/xoo xoo/ooo ooo/F/ooo130 128 129 130 131 132 133 Or: [xxx/c#/ooo]. Or: [2/xxx/c#/ooo]. 225 Pitch: c#' dl d#' f! f#' g! g#' a#' bl c#" d" d#" en f" Fingerigg: 2/xxxc#/ooo”9 2/xxo/ooo 2/xoo/xoo 2/xoo/ooo 2/ooo/ooo oxx/(3)xxxx(F#)131 oxx/(3)xxxx132 4/xxx/xxx 4/xxx/xxo 4/xxx/xoo 4/xxx/oxo 4/xxx/ooo 4/xxxc#/ooo”3 oxxc#/ooo oxo/xoo 1/xoo/xoo f"/xoo/ooo Or: [ooo/oooF], using the palm F-key. (3) is a side octave key; or: (3) is a side octave key; or: Or: [4/xxx/c#/ooo]. [oxx/F#/(3)xxxx]. [oxx/G/(3)xxx]. 226 Table 14. Brindley's "Logical bassoon" Source: Giles Brindley, "The Logical Bassoon," Galpin Sociey Journal 21 (March 1968): 154. Pitch: Fingering:”4 Pitch: Fingering:1 AA o/xxx/l/xxo BBb #/xxx/1/xxo BB o/xxx/l/xoo C o/xxx/l/ooo C# #lxxx/l/ooo D o/xxo/l/ooo D# #/xxo/1/ooo E o/xoo/l/ooo F o/xxx/xxxx13$ f o/xxx2/xxxx”5 F# #/xxx/xxxx”7 f# #/xxx2/xxxx3 G o/xxx/xxx g o/xxx2/xxx G# #/xxx/xxx g# #lxxx2/xxx A o/xxx/xxo a o/xxx2/xxo A# #/xxx/xxo a# #/xxx2/xxo o/xxx/xoo b o/xxe/xoo c o/xxx/ooo c' o/xxx2/ooo c# #/xxx/ooo c#' #/xxx2/ooo d o/xxo/ooo d' o/xxo2/ooo d# #/xxo/ooo d#' #Ixx02/ooo o/xoo/ooo e' o/xooZ/ooo f o/ooo/ooo138 f' o/ooo2/ooo139 ”4 [#1 indicates the special left-thumb key that is used to create all the chromatic pitches. (”5 Or: [o/ooo/l/ooo]. ”5 See alternatives for f, f# at bottom of left column. 1” Or: [#Iooo/l/ooo]; omission of right thumb in Brindley's fingering chart is probably an editorial error. ”5 See alternative at top of right column. ”9 Or: [o/xxx2/1/xxxx]. 227 (Table 14, cont'd.) 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