A type of end-blown duct flute in two or three jointed sections, with seven fingerholes and a thumbhole. It is made of wood or (in recent times) plastic in various sizes, the most common being the descant and the treble. By the end of the 18th-c it was superseded by the transverse flute, but it was revived in the 20th-c as a school instrument and for playing early music, and several modern composers have written for it.
The recorder is a woodwind musical instrument of the family known as fipple flutes or internal duct flutes—whistle-like instruments which include the tin whistle and ocarina. The recorder is end-blown and the mouth of the instrument is constricted by a wooden plug, known as a block or fipple. The bore of the recorder is occasionally cylindrical but is usually tapered slightly, being widest at the mouthpiece end.
The recorder was popular from mediaeval times but declined in the eighteenth century in favour of orchestral woodwind instruments, such as the flute and possibly the clarinet, which have greater chromatic range and louder volume. During its heyday, the recorder was traditionally associated with birds, shepherds, miraculous events, funerals, marriages and amorous scenes. Purcell, Bach, Telemann and Vivaldi used the recorder to suggest shepherds and birds, and the pattern continued into the 20th Century.
The recorder was revived in the twentieth century, partly in the pursuit of historically informed performance of early music, but also because of its suitability as a simple instrument for teaching music and its appeal to amateur players. Today, it is often thought of as a child's instrument, but there are many excellent virtuosic players who can demonstrate the instrument's full potential as a solo instrument. The sound of the recorder is remarkably clear and sweet, partly because of the lack of upper harmonics and predominance of odd harmonics in the sound.
In German the recorder is called the Blockflöte (Block Flute), in French the flûte à bec (Beaked Flute), in Italian the flauto dolce (Sweet Flute), in Spanish the flauta de pico (beak Flute), and in contemporary music blockflute.
How the instrument is played
Click here to hear a soprano (descant) recorder being played.
The recorder is held outwards from the player's lips (rather than to the side, like the "transverse" flute). Exiting from the windway, the breath is directed against a hard edge (C), called the "labium", which agitates a column of air, the length of which (and the pitch of the note produced) is modified by finger holes in the front and back of the instrument. The roughly rectangular opening in the top of the recorder, adjacent to the labium is called the "window". instead, the shape and size of the recorder player's mouth cavity has a discernable effect on the timbre, tone and response of the recorder—indeed, much of the skill of recorder playing is concerned with using the parts of the mouth (as well as the diaphragm) to shape and control the stream of air entering the recorder.
The range of a recorder is about two octaves. The note two octaves and one semitone above the lowest note (C# for soprano, tenor and great bass instruments: F# for sopranino, alto and bass instruments) can normally only be played by covering the end of the instrument, typically by using one's upper leg or a special bell key.
The lowest chromatic scale degrees— the minor second and minor third above the lowest note — are played by covering only a part of a hole, a technique known as "half-holing." Fork fingerings have a different tonal character from the diatonic notes, giving the recorder a somewhat uneven sound. Many "budget" tenor recorders have a single key for low C but not low C#, making this note virtually impossible. Other tenor recorder producers, more aware of this dilemma, produce an instrument with a double low key, allowing both C and C#.
Most of the notes in the second octave and above are produced by partially closing the thumbhole on the back of the recorder, a technique known as 'pinching'.
History
Early Recorders
Internal duct-flutes have a long history: an example of an Iron Age specimen, made from a sheep bone, exists in Leeds City Museum.
The true recorders are distinguished from other internal duct flutes by having eight finger holes;
One of the earliest surviving instruments was discovered in a castle moat in Dordrecht, the Netherlands in 1940, and has been dated to the 14th century. A second damaged 14th century recorder was found in a latrine in northern Germany (in Göttingen): other 14th-century examples survive from Esslingen (Germany) and Tartu (Estonia), and there is a fragment of a possible 14th-15th-century bone recorder at Rhodes (Greece).
The Renaissance
The recorder achieved great popularity in the 16th and 17th centuries.
Renaissance recorders sound somewhat different to the modern recorders, largely owing to their wider, less tapered bore. The wide bore means that greater air pressure is required to play the instrument, but this makes them more responsive.
Baroque Recorders
Several changes in the construction of recorders took place in the seventeenth century, resulting in the type of instrument generally referred to as baroque recorders, as opposed to the earlier renaissance recorders. These innovations allowed baroque recorders to play two full chromatic octaves of notes, and to possess a tone which was regarded as "sweeter" than that of the earlier instruments.
In the 18th century, rather confusingly, the instrument was often referred to simply as Flute (Flauto) — the transverse form was separately referred to as Traverso. It is now generally accepted, however, that the instrument intended was a recorder with lowest note d2.
The decline of the recorder
The instrument went into decline after the 18th century, being used for about the last time as an other-worldly sound by Gluck in his opera Orfeo ed Euridice.
By the Romantic era, the recorder had been almost entirely superseded by the flute and clarinet. Nonetheless there were probably more works (ca 800) written for the recorder during the 19th century than in all the preceding centuries: the instrument simply sprouted keys and changed its name, being known as the csakan or "flute douce".
Modern revival
The recorder was revived around the turn of the 20th Century by early music enthusiasts, but used almost exclusively for this purpose. Even in the early 20th century it was uncommon enough that Stravinsky thought it to be a kind of clarinet, which is not surprising since the early clarinet was, in a sense, derived from the recorder, at least in its outward appearance.
The eventual success of the recorder in the modern era is often attributed to Arnold Dolmetsch in the UK and various German scholar/performers. Whilst he was responsible for broadening interest beyond that of the early music specialist in the UK, Dolmetsch was far from being solely responsible for the recorder's revival.
In the mid 20th Century, manufacturers were able to make recorders out of bakelite and (more successfully) plastics which made them cheap and quick to produce. It is, however, incorrect to assume that mastery is similarly easy — like other instruments, the recorder requires talent and study to play at an advanced level.
The success of the recorder in schools is partly responsible for its poor reputation as a "child's instrument". Although the recorder is ready-tuned, it is very easy to warp the pitch by over or under blowing, which often results in an unpleasant sound from beginners.
Among the influential virtuosos who figure in the revival of the recorder as a serious concert instrument in the latter part of the twentieth century are Frans Brüggen, Hans-Martin Linde, Bernard Kranis, and David Munrow. Brüggen recorded most of the landmarks of the historical repertoire and commissioned a substantial number of new works for the recorder. Munrow's 1975 double album The Art of the Recorder remains as an important anthology of recorder music through the ages.
Modern composers of great stature have written for the recorder, including Paul Hindemith, Luciano Berio, John Tavener, Michael Tippett, Benjamin Britten, Leonard Bernstein, Gordon Jacob, and Edmund Rubbra.
It is also occasionally used in popular music, including that of groups such as the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, and Jimi Hendrix.
Some modern music calls for the recorder to produce unusual noises, rhythms and effects, by such techniques as flutter-tongueing and overblowing to produce chords.
Among modern recorder ensembles, the trio Sour Cream (led by Frans Brüggen), the Flanders Recorder Quartet and the Amsterdam Loeki Stardust Quartet have programmed remarkable mixtures of historical and contemporary repertoire.
Types of Recorder
Recorders are most often tuned in C and F, though instruments in D, G, and Eb were not uncommon historically and are still found today, especially the tenor in D, known as a voice flute. The soprano and the alto are the most common solo instruments in the recorder family.
Today, high-quality recorders are made from a range of different hardwoods, such as oiled pear wood, rosewood or boxwood with a block of red cedar wood.
Most modern recorders are based on instruments from the baroque period, although some specialist makers produce replicas of the earlier renaissance style of instrument.
Some newer designs of recorder are now being produced.
Makers
The evolution of the renaissance recorder into the baroque instrument is generally attributed to the Hottetere family, in France.
The French innovations were taken to London by Pierre Bressan, a set of whose instruments survive in the Grosvenor Museum, Chester, as well as examples in other European museums.
In continental Europe, the Denner family of Nürnberg were the most celebrated makers of this period.
Many modern recorders are based on the dimensions and construction of surving instruments produced by Bressan, the Stanesbys or the Denner family.
Recorder Ensembles
The recorder is a very social instrument.
One of the more interesting developments in recorder playing over the last 30 years has been the development of recorder orchestras. There are recorder orchestras in Germany, Holland, Japan, The United States, Canada, and the UK.
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