Making recorders based on historical models

Abstract

many people, it will seem that this no longer needs to be asked; but some facts will emerge from my answer which will not, I think, be familiar to everyone. First, there is the question of pitch, which affects the sound of an instrument. Largely as a result of the desire to play music on instruments as similar as possible to those in use at the time the music was written, quite a number of makers today build to a pitch of a'=415.3 Hz (A415), exactly one equaltempered semitone lower than the standard orchestral pitch of A440. I believe that this A415 pitch is slightly too high to give the best tonal results with recorders, but it has become our modern 'low-pitch' standard, and the advantages of uniformity outweigh, for most purposes, the slight loss of tone which I am fairly sure is a consequence of it. Most of the old instruments I know play appreciably lower than A415, and they would have been, in my opinion, somewhat lower still when they were new. I have measured instruments which sound at about A412, 410, 408, 404, 400 and as low as A392. Obviously if all these were to be copied exactly, at these pitches, they could not be played in tune together. Second is the quality of the old instruments, and this is bound up with the very practical matter of how a composer works. Did the old composers write for the instruments they knew? This is another old-hat question; but it should nonetheless be treated as one of great importance, since the detail of the answers to it is very relevant to the kind of instruments we are trying to make. These matters will be looked at below, but for the moment let us take it that we do want to make instruments that amount to attempted reconstructions of the old ones, and that we have good reasons for this. The following is an outline of what I myself have tried to do in the making of recorders in the old style, giving some reasons and ideas, some details of measurement, materials, tools, tonal ideals, recorder types, fingering and tunings, and so on. With both Baroque and Renaissance recorders, we are fortunate in having excellent examples of the work of the old makers to study. If we want to make similar instruments (even if they are to sound at a slightly different pitch), we can choose a good, old instrument, measure it carefully, make a close copy or replica to these dimensions, and finally make whatever changes are needed so that our new instruments will play at the chosen pitch. How quickly and how successfully this can be done will depend on whether our instrumentmaking skills are developed before we start, or have to be acquired as we go along. If our copying skills were perfect, it would be possible to make an excellent replica without any knowledge of instrument making at all. But, as most people would hope to make good instruments with a knowledge of what they are doing, rather than merely making accurately copied working objects, the old instruments must serve as teachers that can help us to learn how to make musical instruments. Instrument-making skills must develop hand in hand with understanding of and respect for the work of the old makers, and we must have such understanding and respect because the instruments of any period were the medium through which the music of that period was expressed. (In passing, I think a really accurate, slavish copy, built with no knowledge of anything but close copying, can sometimes be better than an unsuccessful instrument built by an experienced maker. But there are areas of subtle adjustment in most musical instruments which require some understanding before the instrument will work well, and that is why we speak, sometimes rightly, of a 'mere copy'.) From the large number of old makers known to us today, and the even larger number of their instruments that survive, it is obvious that there is a lot to be done by a hopeful maker before he can make a soundly based choice of instruments to work from. Many old instruments no longer work well, for various reasons such as deterioration due to age, simple damage, or changes due to lack of use over a long period. On the other hand, the relative few that are still in good playing order offer both player and maker an insight into the standards achieved by the old makers that few