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PROGRAM
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Dr. Herbert Myers
The Idea of "Consort" in the Sixteenth Century
It has long been recognized that the decades surrounding the year
1500 saw the birth of "families" of instruments (particularly
recorders, flutes, crumhorns, viols, and violins) after the model of
the polyphonic vocal choir, and that this development corresponded in
some way to the rise of egalitarian counterpoint as the dominant
compositional model.
(While we often refer to such families or sets
as "consorts," it is fitting we consider that this usage -- though
well established and thus quite useful -- is at some variance with
historical precedent.) However, it has also been noted how rarely
the pictorial record in particular confirms the practice of actually
playing such instruments as complete families (or "whole consorts")
at the time. It is thus necessary to examine the full range of types
of evidence -- theoretical treatises, annotated musical sources,
records of performances, employment lists,inventories, and surviving
instruments, as well as iconography -- in order to develop a full and
accurate picture of sixteenth-century practice. As we shall see,
each type of evidence has both its strengths and weaknesses. The
same broad approach is necessary to determine the nature of the
consorts of instruments available to performers as both the number of
sizes within families and the number of families themselves grew
throughout the sixteenth century. While the participants in this
symposium will be casting light on several aspects of the development
and use of instruments during this period, we can anticipate that,
despite our best scholarly efforts, the answers to some important
questions will remain frustratingly elusive.
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Boaz Berney
Surviving renaissance traversos – an overview
There are fifty-five surviving renaissance flutes located in various museums and private collections around the world. Makers include the Schnitzer (Nürnberg), Rauch (Schrattenbach), Bassano (Venice) and Rafi (Lyon) families.
An overview of the stock of instruments will be presented, examining pitches, acoustical qualities, materials used and possible dating. The construction of complete consorts and of the various ways of designing the bass instruments will be discussed, focusing on consorts made by the Schnitzer and Bassano families.
A short demonstration by the Modena consort (Hiroko Suzuki, Claudio Santambrogio, Sarah van Cornewal and Boaz Berney; renaissance flutes) will illustrate the difference between the two types of consort made by those makers.
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Anne Smith
Choice of Music for Flute Consort: Attaignant A & B, Intonation, and Hexachord Theory
I will examine some of the reasons why Attaignant chose certain pieces for the flute, and in particular why he excluded others. Although many authors of treatises have spoken about how flat modes are better for flutes they never really specify why. Experience has shown that this has much do do with the intonation within the flute consort.
Musical treatises of the time speak of hexachord theory and the quality of the syllables used in solmization. I will discuss this particularly with regard to Martin Agricola’s Musica choralis deudsch (1533). Hexachord theory was considered basic knowledge of the time; singing or playing music without it was unthinkable. Making use of this knowledge in flute playing has proved to be of great benefit in relation to intonation, while still not changing the basic fact that flat modes simply are more suitable for flutes.
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Prof. Keith Polk
The Cradle of the Consort Ideal
This paper considers the development of the recorder consort in the late 15th and early 16th centuries within a context of the evolution of the consort idea in general.
This will include consideration of the history of the recorder in the fifteenth century, with an attempt to sort out the various types of “flutes” used by the musicians of the time.
What will be shown is that the recorder consort developed quite early, by at least 1480, and may well have been one of the earliest of instrumental family groupings.
A concluding segment of the paper will discuss aspects of repertory and performance practice of recorder players c1500.
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Adrian Brown
An overview of surviving renaissance recorders
An examination of the almost 200 surviving renaissance recorders in western musical instrument collections, reveals considerable variation in what at the outset seems a very standard design.
Furthermore, the existence of instruments in almost every imaginable pitch does nothing to help the casual museum visitor form a coherent view of their historical context.
Following a brief description of typical instruments and an explanation of the three different forms of bore found, an attempt will be made to prove a certain order in the complicated system of sizes, pitches and their musical function within the consort.
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Dr. Beatrix Darmstädter
New Light on the Early Recorders in the Collection of the KHM and their Provenance
Im Zuge des Referats werden zwei Schwerpunkte gesetzt:
Zunächst soll die Provenienz der Flöten der Sammlung alter Musikinstrumente, soweit es die aktuellen Quellen zulassen, geklärt werden.
Unter diesen Quellen gilt vor allem dem 1870 aufgenommenen handschriftlichen Inventar, das im Auftrag Herzogs Franz V. entstand und konkrete Hinweise zu 29 Blockflöten aus der Estensischen Kollektion Catajo bietet, größtes Interesse. Auch werden in diesem bislang unbekannten Dokument Futterale genannt, die bezüglich einer Zuordnung der entsprechenden Instrumente in Stimmwerke untersucht werden. Neben dieser Quelle werden auch das historische Inventar aus Ambras und Akten zum Sammlungsbestand aus dem 20. Jahrhundert diskutiert werden.
Weiters sollen neue Forschungsergebnisse zu den einzelnen Objekten, insbesondere zu SAM 624 („HD-Kleeblatt“), SAM 151 („Seidenmotte“), SAM 136 und SAM 145 („Kronen-Instrumente“), SAM 130, SAM 140, SAM 148 („Zwei-Äpfel-Instrumente“) und SAM 128 („M[I]“) ventiliert werden. Hierbei wird es einerseits um die Beantwortung der Fragen zu Signaturen gehen, wobei es zur Diskussion anderer Instrumente, die mit gleicher beziehungsweise ähnlicher Marke gekennzeichnet wurden und teilweise in der Sammlung alter Musikinstrumente vorliegen, kommt, andererseits aber auch um den Vergleich der individuellen Baumerkmale und der ästhetischen Momente jener Instrumente, bei denen eine Zugehörigkeit zu einem Stimmwerk möglich scheint.
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Dr. David Lasocki
TRACING THE LIVES OF PLAYERS AND MAKERS
The questions we have about the life and work of Renaissance players and makers are similar to those we might have for players and makers today, except that we have many extra questions about the past because we did not grow up in that culture.
I shall explore answers to all the questions from first principles, drawing on archival work by myself and other researchers, and in the process creating a social history in miniature of performance and instrument-making based on individual experience.
At the end, I shall suggest ways in which such biographical and social information could be of practical value for us today.
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Prof. Marco Tiella
The recorders in the Collection of the Accademia Filarmonica in Bologna
In spite of being well known (1), a complete description of this collection has yet to be carried out.
References have only been made of two of the instruments (2) and technical comparisons with other instruments hot so far been made.
The aim of this research is to study the instruments to try to understand the technique that the makers used. In this way, a clear understanding of the external shape of the instrument and of the shape of the bore will be achieved. This understanding can be obtained using a new and very precise X-ray tomography technique developped by the Universities of Bologna and Ferrara.
(1) (2) Filadelfio Puglisi, The 17th-century recorders of the Accademia Filarmonica of Bologna, GSJ XXXIV
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Eva Legêne
An Ivory Recorder in a Velvet Case: Music in the Renaissance Kunstkammer
During the last few decades we have seen a true expansion
in the research of the origin of the museum.
This has resulted in many publications about the history of
collecting, particular collections, and research in the
origin of objects belonging to collections.
For example, impressive studies about the Royal Collections
in Copenhagen and the huge collections of Rudolf II in
Prague, their history, and all their identifiable objects
have been published. These studies present new historical
insight in the philosophical and scientific background of
the encyclopedic collections of the past, and also place
their function and importance in a social context.
Unfortunately, the study of musical instruments and music
collections has not been incorporated in these new studies
about the origin of the museum. In spite of music's
prominent standing in the early collections, it has not
often been studied in this context by art historians,
musicologists, and conservators of musical instruments.
In a modest attempt to encourage the study of music in
the early "museum", I will present the current status of my
study of music and musical instruments in the European
collections of the 15th, 16th, and early 17th century,
with emphasis on the recorder and the flute.
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Ita Hijmans
Recorder consort ca 1500:Iconography, Extant Instruments and the Repertoire
Pictures of recorders dating from the last decennia of the 15th C. until the famous Virdung consort (1511) show several types of instruments. There seems to be a relationship between specific areas of Europe and the type of recorders shown.
Only a very few recorders still exist from approximately the first half of the 16th C. I will mention them briefly and discuss the cultural background of their makers, especially that of the Schnitzer family in Munich and Nurnberg.
Several Songbooks from the last decennia of the 15th C and the first decennia of the 16th C contain a number of pieces belonging to the “instrumental repertoire” of the period. I’ll discuss this repertoire and the cultural context in which the songbooks functioned and draw some conclusions about a possible repertoire for recorder consort as early as around 1500.
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Nancy Hadden
In Search of the Sound of a Fiffaro
The words of Ganassi (Fontegara, Venice 1535), encouraging recorder players to imitate singers, are by now well known.
By ‘varying the pressure of the breath and shading the tone by means of suitable fingering, a player can vary the colours and expressions, allowing the listener to perceive words to their music’.
Fact or fantasy?
Can we determine how singers sang words? How does this really relate to how wind players played?
I will discuss some key documents in the history of musical humanism which deal with theories of poetic recitation and use of the breath, along with the hitherto unexplored relationship of the transverse flute to the human voice, and the 16th century treatises of Agricola, Jambe de Fer and others in search of the sound of a fiffaro.
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Iconography of the Renaissance Flute: Work-in-Progress
The renaissance traverso has received increased attention lately since the Basle Renaissance Flute Days (September 2002) and now in Utrecht as well.
We would like to make a contribution to this subject area and are in the process of organizing the corresponding iconographic material. Within the framework of a research project www.musicresearch.ch/de/projekte.htm we will be able to continue working on the collection in 2003/04.
From about the middle of 2004 we hope to have our material available on a Web site. The pictures are to be arranged chronologically and thematically and provided with bibliographical references as well as texts that will help to understand the most important iconographic and organological aspects of what is being shown. The site should serve as a platform for the exchange of ideas.
During the Utrecht symposium part of the material will be exhibited or can be consulted. We are looking forward to having a chance to compare thoughts about renaissance flute iconography with others who share this interest.
Liane Ehlich
Albert Jan Becking
Basel, Switzerland.
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