CONTENTS 1. 1640–1670: the Transition from Shawm to Hautboy
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TEOA01 6/5/01 11:51 AM Page xv CONTENTS List of Illustrations xviii List of Figures xxii List of Tables xxiii List of Musical Examples xxiv Mechanics xxv Abbreviations xxvii Introduction 1 1. 1640–1670: The Transition from Shawm to Hautboy in France 12 A. The Renaissance Shawm and the Protomorphic Hautboy 12 B. Related Instruments 37 C. Hautboy Players at the French Court and the Grande Écurie 49 D. The Development of the New Hautboy, 1664–1670 56 E. Music Played in the Formative Period 59 2. The Physical Characteristics of the Hautboy 62 A. Surviving Original Hautboys 62 B. The Hautboy’s External Form 65 C. Bores and Tone-holes 90 D. Hautboy Pitch 93 E. ‘L’anche, qui donne la vie’: Reeds 99 3. 1670–1700: The Spread of the ‘French Hoboye’ 121 A. France 124 B. Italy 132 C. Germany 134 D. England and ‘Babtist’s vein’ 145 E. Other Areas 152 F. The Hautboy Band 158 G. Questions of Instrumentation 168 H. The Shawm after 1670 173 4. Playing the Hautboy 175 A. Training, Tutors, and Methods 176 B. Holding the Instrument and Body Carriage 179 TEOA01 6/5/01 11:51 AM Page xvi xvi Contents C. Breathing 184 D. Embouchure 187 E. The Sound of the Hautboy 191 F. Range 196 G. Fingerings 201 H. Choice of Key 213 I. The Speaking Phrase Compared with the Romantic ‘Long-line’ 223 J. Paired Tonguing 236 K. Vibrato 250 L. Hautboy Intonation and Keyboard Temperaments 266 M. Technical Limitations 271 5. 1700–1730: The International Hautboy 275 A. Court Musicians and Stadtpfeifer 276 B. France 289 C. Italy 299 D. Germany 313 E. England 340 F. Other Areas 352 6. Bach and the Hautboy 360 A. Weimar, Cöthen 360 B. Leipzig and Gleditsch 362 C. Larger Sizes of Hautboy 367 D. Special Problems Involving Pitch 383 E. The Lost Hautboy Repertoire 387 7. 1730–1760: Italian Ascendancy and the Rise of the Narrow-Bore Hautboy 396 A. Italy 401 B. France 410 C. Germany 421 D. England 436 E. Other Areas 445 Afterword 451 Appendices 452 1. Hautboy players 1600–1760, indexed chronologically by place of work 452 TEOA01 6/5/01 11:51 AM Page xvii Contents xvii 2. Acoustic profiles 466 3. Pitch information for sixteen representative hautboy makers 469 4. Plate 2.7: Anonymous oil portrait of an hautboist (Berlin: Staatliches Institut für Musikforschung) 474 5. Partial list of hautboy music requiring mutes 476 6. Collation of fingering charts 478 7. Examples of independent c#1s 482 8. Collation of trill fingerings 483 9. Pieces possibly for Hautecontre de hautbois 487 10. Music for Oboe Grande 489 Bibliography 491 Index 519 TEOC07 6/5/01 11:53 AM Page 396 7 1730–1760: Italian Ascendancy and the Rise of the Narrow-Bore Hautboy The period from about 1730 to 1760 troubles music historians. Although it has many names (‘galant’, ‘rococo’), there is no single, universally accepted one, prob- ably because its essential spirit and aesthetic is so difficult to characterize. It is hardly satisfying to call it either ‘post-Baroque’ or ‘pre-Classical’. What is appeal- ing about it is in fact the way it combines elements of both these styles. In the history of the hautboy, however, it has many characteristics that distinguish it from the periods before and after it. First, it was dominated by great Italian virtuosos of the instrument, who ‘swept out of Italy and conquered all of Europe’.1 Wherever one looks, Italians were playing solos in important musical centres. In Paris, the appearance of the Besozzi brothers at the Concert Spirituel in 1735 changed the French hautboy world decisively. In Germany, Italians like Platti, Antonio Besozzi, the Ferrandinis, Schiavonetti, Stazzi, Carlo Besozzi, Secchi, Ciceri, and Colombazzi transformed the hautboy’s image. At the court in Vienna (which was the major centre of Ital- ian music outside Italy), there is little documentation of Italian players besides Gazzaroli and Colombazzi (at Esterháza), but Austrian hautboy makers, supplying a growing demand, were clearly reacting to developments in Italy. In England, Italians included Barsanti, Mancinelli, Giustinelli, and of course Sammartini, who left a lasting impression on players and audiences. Naturally, there were fine players who were not Italian, and the dominance of Italians was far from complete. But it is a fact that in this period, no other country was represented by so many remarkable players of the hautboy. From our present perspective, the great players of this period seem to have been Alessandro, Antonio, and Gaetano Besozzi Matteo Bissoli François Bureau Esprit-Philippe and Nicolas Chédeville Jean-François Despréaux Nicolas Lavaux 1 Zaslaw (1989), 1 (speaking in fact of Italian opera and instrumental music beginning in the 1740s). TEOC07 6/5/01 11:53 AM Page 397 7. Italian Ascendancy 397 Johann Christian Jacobi Alexander Lebrun Jacob Loeillet Joan Baptista Pla Ignazio and Filippo Prover Nicolas Sallantin Giuseppe Sammartini Richard Vincent and Thomas Vincent jun. Christian Ferdinand Wunderlich The French, who had been at the forefront of players from the beginning, offered the only serious competition to the Italians. But none of the great French players seems to have gone further from Paris than Versailles. The Italians (who may have considered the French fortunate not to have had to leave home) were in key posi- tions in every country. Two other aspects that make the 1730s, 1740s, and 1750s unique have to do with the instruments that were used. This period saw the fragmentation of the general unifying concept of an archetypal ‘French hautboy’, personified by Type A2, into several distinct models.2 Type A2 was abandoned by all but the more conservative makers and players. By the 1730s the Italians had developed the straight-top Type C and, probably somewhat later, the Type D1 (see Pl. 2.1). Type C became pop- ular in England, along with Type B. The French developed the new Type E. Given our sketchy ability to date hautboys, it is not possible to be specific about dates, but the indications are that the music of this period was mostly played on these new models: Types B, C, E, and D1. Anciuti had made a Type C by at least 1738,3 and many of Palanca’s Type D1 instruments must have been made well before the 1770s.4 As different as these various new types were in outward turning style and pitch level, they generally had one important thing in common, which was the third char- acteristic of this period: a distinctly narrower bore. While Type A2 had an average minimum bore of 6 mm or larger, and Type B could also be quite wide, Type E and Type D1 instruments scarcely averaged wider than 5 mm.5 This period thus saw the rise of the narrow-bore hautboy. 2 For a discussion of these various models, see Ch. 2, §B.4. 3 Y6, Rome 1094, dated 1738. 4 Carlo Palanca’s instruments are not dated, but by 1770 he was in his 80s; he had retired as a player in 1770. In his will there is mention of blindness (‘la mancanza di vista’), which may have begun some years before (Bernardini 1985b: 22). Da Silva ordered two hautboys in 1773 (see Ch. 2, §D.3 and McClymonds 1978: 42), but only received one of them, partly old, in 1776, suggesting that Palanca was working only in a limited way by these dates. 5 To put that into historical context, hautboys in the period 1760–1820 were at about 4.8; the modern key- system oboe is about 4.2. Of the eight Type E hautboys for which I have minimum bore dimensions, six (by Prudent, Lot, Schlegel, and Rottenburgh) average 4.94. Two others by Bizey and Rottenburgh are at 5.95 and 6.2. The minimum bores of Palanca hautboys range from 4.8 to 5.4 mm, and average 5.2 mm (Alfredo Bernardini, pers. comm.). Type D1 hautboys by Sattler and Baur are at 5.1 and 5.45. TEOC07 6/5/01 11:53 AM Page 398 398 7. Italian Ascendancy It was not mere chance that two of these new models came out of northern Italy, or that they had such immediate success in the rest of Europe. They were of course brought out by the Italian virtuosos, who very convincingly demonstrated their qualities for the music they were playing. The thrust of much of the playing of Italian hautboists was virtuosic display and extension of the limits of technique; it was therefore logical that experimental instruments would be made by Italians. Italian music was also experimental, showing classical traits relatively early in the century (Pergolesi, for instance, who is often thought of as a classical composer, lived only until 1736). London adopted Type B and fell under the sway of the Italian Type C (prob- ably because Giuseppe Sammartini used it). In Paris the Type E was evidently the instrument in general use. The Germans do not seem to have been tempted by these models, but instead stayed with A2 models or went directly over to Type D1. To players of these various mid-eighteenth century hautboy types, they were ‘state of the art’. To us, removed from them by 250 years, they are as yet an enigma scarcely identified, much less copied and played. It is clear that these models were abandoned relatively quickly. Type B has barely survived, suggesting that its history was relatively short-lived. Type E, apparently developed in France and used mostly there, has yet to be studied and understood.