Читать книгу The Evolution of Modern Orchestration - Louis Adolphe Coerne - Страница 17

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The principle of both single and double reeds was understood by the Greeks. As a result of the researches of Professor A.A. Howard, an accurate description of their representative instruments, the auloi, Latin tibiae, is to be found in "Harvard Studies in Classical Philology," Vol. 4. His article presents strong arguments in favor of the belief that instrumental polyphony was actually practised by the Greeks. Performers upon the auloi played almost invariably upon two pipes at once. The instruments were supplied with finger-holes, were capable of producing both the diatonic and chromatic scales, and may be divided into three classes corresponding, in a general way, to the three types of wood-winds as are in use to-day. All of them had a tube of cylindrical bore, but most of them were supplied with a double mouthpiece like the modern oboe, so that these species of the auloi can be regarded as the prototype of the preferred double-reeds that prevailed during the Middle Ages when they went under the name of schalmei. This nomenclature is confusing; in explanation it should be said that not until after the original schalmei had developed into the pommer, thence to the oboe, was the single-reeded predecessor of the clarinet known by this name. Colloquialism refers to the schalmei in its later application.

Another double-reed that came into temporary existence during the Middle Ages was the variety of cromornes. They differed from the schalmei principally as to form—Krummhorn.

The successors of the original schalmei are described in detail by Praetorius, who wrote in the first decade of the seventeenth century. Of the six varieties of pommer mentioned by him, the treble pommer became transformed into the hautbois (high wood); the alto pommer into the cor Anglais (cor anglé, bent horn),—known during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as the oboe da caccia; and out of the bass pommer, likewise styled bombarde, emanated the fagotto (bundle of fagots). As a commentary to the above enumeration one should take note of a quite remarkable tendency which was, indeed, already in vogue during the Hellenic age. Namely, that from each parent instrument whether string, wood, or brass, there germinated a complete family representing the four ranges of the human voice. And again from these the process of tribal expansion was carried yet further. Moreover it must be remembered that before the Middle Ages, the art of combining human voices in polyphony was but in a nascent state, and probably existed in classic Greece not at all. Therefore families of instrumental species cannot have been constructed for the purpose of obtaining homogeneous harmonic effects. An extensive range of con-natural tone-color was then the objective. It will be found that this tendency was uniform throughout the history of instrumental evolution. Of course when we reach the sixteenth century, we find that the advantage of distributing the components of harmony among the members of assimilated instruments began to be appreciated. It is possibly due to this natural evolution that innovators in orchestration at first accustomed themselves to the use of pure tone-color rather than of mixed tints. Thus in the sixteenth century, the flûte à bec, predecessor of the modern flute, was employed in groups of four. Praetorius makes mention of no less than eight different kinds as prevalent in his day. Our chief representative of the single reed, the clarinet, which was not invented until the end of the seventeenth century, owes its origin to a primitive form of instrument with clarinet mouthpiece:—the mediæval chalemiax or chalumeau, whence the phonetic rendition, schalmei. The now obsolete basset-horn belongs properly to this genealogy. It was frequently used during the time of its development by the composers of the latter eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. From it were devolved the short-lived alto and tenor clarinets, and the better qualities of all three are now embodied in the subsequently perfected bass-clarinet. Mention is also due to the saxophone, invented by Sax in 1840. It should be classed under the heading of wood instruments rather than of brass, since its tone-quality partakes somewhat of the nature of the clarinet. It has a single-reed mouthpiece, and the fingering is akin to that of the clarinet; but the over-blowing produces the octave as in the flute and oboe, whereas in the clarinet the twelfth is produced. Sax made seven different sized saxophones, of which four are commonly in use, and that particularly in French and American military bands.