Page:EB1911 - Volume 19.djvu/990

 the 18th century much-appreciated improvements in the boring of the instrument. The Méthode of Sellner, published at Vienna in 1825, shows nine keys, and one, the octave key, which, when opened, establishes a loop or ventral segment of vibration in the column of air, facilitating the production of sounds in the octave higher. Triebert of Paris owes his great reputation to the numerous improvements he introduced in the construction of the oboe.



5.

The alto Pommer was but slowly transformed: it was called in French “hautbois de chasse,” in Italian “oboe di caccia.” In the 18th century we find it more elegant in form, but with all the defects of the primitive instrument. The idea of bending the instrument into a half circular form to facilitate the handling is usually attributed to an oboist of Bergamo, one Jean Ferlendis, who was established at Salzburg at about 1760. This is obviously incorrect, since Ferlendis would then have been five years old. It has been suggested that the fact of the instrument’s resembling a kind of hunting

horn used at that time in England probably gained for it the name of “corno inglese,” which it still retains (“cor anglais” in French). The first employment of it in the orchestra is referred to Gluck, who had two “cors anglais” in his Alceste, as played at Vienna in 1767. But it was not until 1808 that the cor anglais was first heard in the Paris opera; it was played by the oboist Vogt in Alexandre chez Apelle by Catel. The improvements in manufacture of this instrument closely followed those introduced in the oboe. The 18th century produced an intermediate oboe between (2) and (3), which was called hautbois d’amour, and was frequently employed by J. S. Bach. It was a third lower than the ordinary oboe, and was characterized by the pear-shaped bell with narrow aperture common to all wind instruments known as d’amour to which is due their veiled sweet quality. In the Spanish Cantigas, there are two Schalmeys with pear-shaped bells. This is in all probability the douçaine mentioned in the 13th and 14th-century romances. The oboe d’amore fell into disuse after the death of the great German composer. It has been resuscitated by the firm of C. Mahillon of Brussels, and reconstructed with the improvements of modern manufacture. A similar timbre was artificially produced in the oboe by means of mutes or sordini composed of hollow cones of wood, balls of paper, pieces of sponge, &c.

After the 16th century we find the instruments which were designated by the name of “gros bois,” the (5) and (6) of Praetorius, transformed into shorter instruments, the Fagott and Contrafagott, having a column of air of the same length and form as the Pommers, but the instrument itself consisted of two conical tubes communicating at the lower part of the instrument; they were pierced in a single piece of wood. It is probably owing to the aspect of this double pipe that the satirical name of fagot was given, preserved in Italian as fagotto, and in German as Fagott. A canon of Ferrara named Afranio has been named as the author of the transformation, about 1539, of the bass Pommer, but Count Valdrighi, the curator of the Estense library, and Wasielewski, who has reproduced the drawing of Afranio’s invention, deprive

him of the merit of the innovation. The fagottino was transformed in the same fashion.

Sigismund Schnitzer of Nuremberg acquired a great reputation in the 16th century for making the “basson,” a French word substituted for the old fagot, and adopted in England as bassoon. His instrument had only two keys. We cannot tell when the bassoon gained its present form, but it was probably at the end of the 17th century. It was used in the orchestra in Germany by H. Schütz in 1619 (cir.), and in 1625, 5 fagotti were in use.

Cesti, in his grand opera il Pomo d’oro, which was performed with the utmost brilliancy at the nuptials of the emperor Leopold in Vienna, where printed editions of 1667 and 1668 are preserved, used fagotti combined with two cornets, three trombones and a regal to suggest the terrors of Hades.

Michael Praetorius (1618) expressly mentions the fagotto as an orchestral instrument.

In France it was used with the oboe in 1671 in Cambert’s Pomona in the newly founded French Opera, for which Cambert & Perrin had received in 1669 a Royal Privilège expiring in 1672, and thereafter granted to Lully.

It had three keys then. The B flat key rendering a lengthening of the instrument necessary, we may suppose it took its modern form at that epoch. The fourth key is found in a bassoon stamped Stanesby Junior, London, 1747, and also in one without maker’s name, obviously earlier, to judge by the very early pattern of the keys. The bassoon appears with four keys in the Encyclopédie of Diderot and d’Alembert (Paris, 1751–1765). The number of keys increased by the beginning of the present century to eight, viz.:, and two keys to facilitate the production of acute harmonics. It was improved by Almenräder in Germany, Savari, and more recently Triebert and Goumas, Paris, and C. Mahillon, Brussels. (See also .)

The reform in the construction of the flute due to Theobald Boehm of Munich about 1840, a reform which principally consisted in the rational division of the tube by the position of the lateral holes, prompted Triebert to try to adapt the innovation to the oboes and bassoons; but he failed, because the application of the system denaturalized the timbre of the instruments, which it was necessary, before all things, to preserve, but further improvements made upon the same lines by Barret and later by Rudall Carte, have transformed the oboe into the most delicate and perfect of reed instruments. In 1856 a French bandmaster, M. Sarrus, thought out the construction of a family of brass instruments with conical tubes pierced at regular distances, which, by diminishing the length of the air column, has rendered a series of fundamental sounds easy—more equal and free in timbre than that of the oboe family. Gautrot of Paris realized the inventor’s idea, and, under the name of “sarrusophones,” has created a complete family, from the sopranino in E flat to the contrabass in B flat, of which his firm preserves the monopoly.

In order to replace the old double-bassoon of wood, the firm of C. Mahillon, Brussels, produced in 1868, a reed contrabass of metal, since much used in orchestras and military bands. The first idea of this instrument goes back to 1839, and is attributed to Schöllnast & Son of Pressburg. It is a conical brass tube of very large proportions, with lateral holes placed as theory demands, in geometrical relation, with a diameter almost equal to the section of the tube at the point where the hole is cut. From this it results that for each sound one key only is required, and the seventeen keys give the player almost the facility of a keyboard. The compass written for this contrabass is comprised between and  but sounds an octave lower. See.