Page:The story of the flute (IA storyofflute1914fitz).djvu/307

 The year 1752 was marked by the appearance of Quantz's famous Instructions for the Transversa Flute, with twenty-four pages of music. It was originally published in Berlin, and was dedicated to Frederick the Great. This work was at once translated into French, and in 1754 a Dutch translation by J. W. Lustig appeared in Amsterdam. It was reprinted in German in 1780 and in 1789, and has been recently re-edited by Dr. Arnold Schering, of Leipsic (1906). There is also an incomplete English translation. This was much the largest and most complete book of instructions that had as yet appeared, and it obtained a lasting and widespread celebrity. Quantz gives elaborate directions as to improving the tune of the imperfect notes on the old one-keyed flute, and he recommends every flute-player, if possible, to learn how to make a flute himselfwhich was all very well at that time, but would be rather difficult nowadays. His table of fingering is very peculiar: in addition to the use of the alternative D♯ E♭ keys, he often gives different fingerings for the same notee.g, A♯ and B♭, B♯ and C♮, B♮ and C♭, etc. His system of tongueing was attacked by a Danish amateur flautist and composer named Joachim de Moldenit, to whom Quantz replied in Marpurg's essays. The very rare Italian book, A. Lorenzoni's Saggio per ben Sonare il Flauto traverso (Vicenza, 1779), was founded on Quantz, as were also most of the numerous tutors (English and foreign) which appeared towards the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth century. To give details of these would be wearisome to my readers; suffice it to say that the principal English ones were those of Wragg (1790), Gunn (1793), and Nicholson (1820).