Page:The story of the flute (IA storyofflute1914fitz).djvu/114

 the C′′♯ hole, covered with thin skin in order to give a sympathetic or reedy tone. Macgregor made flutes of this kind, sometimes with a turned-back head-joint, and measuring about two feet three inches. They were generally pitched in G. Böhm made an alto flute a fourth lower than the ordinary flute, and wrote solos (now lost) for it. It was made of silver, and "compared to the C flute, it was like the voice of a powerful soprano in contrast to a child. Once when I played it in a church it was mistaken for a French horn." Many foreign makers of the early nineteenth century have made tenor and alto flutes, especially the Viennese and Parisians, and several were exhibited in the Exhibition of 1855. Some had no less than seven keys below the D, worked by the two little fingers and the left-hand thumb. In some the low G was so difficult to sound that when the flautist Sedlatzek succeeded in doing so, he stood the flute up in the corner of the room and saluted it! This very instrument is now in the possession of Rudall, Carte & Co. It is made of ebony by Koch of Vienna (c. 1827), and has thirteen keys.

Similar flutes were made by several English makers, Banbridge (1820), Burleigh (1855), Potter, and others. They generally measure about two feet nine inches to three feet. Messrs. Rudall, Carte & Co. recently perfected an alto flute (Page 89, Fig. 3). It is of silver, about thirty-two inches long, and descends to G. This very beautiful instrument has a full, rich tone of novel character,