Lindsay's Elements of Flute-Playing

Lindsay’s Elements of Flute-playing A Study in Performance Practice Facsimile of the Edition of 1828–30 Edited, with an Introduction, by Ardal Powell And a Commentary by Richard M. Wilson Pendragon Press, 2011 Contents Preface v Introduction ix Commentary 153 1. Lindsay and the Elements ix 1. Introductory material and remarks. 153 a. Lindsay x a. This Commentary. 153 b. Synopsis x b. Flute methods. 153 c. The influence of Nicholson on the Elements. 153 2. Music-historical context xi d. Lindsay’s activities in London. 154 a. Charles Nicholson xi e. Notation, conventions, terminology. 154 b. Market xii f. Language in the Elements. 155 c. Flute-playing style, repertoire xiii g. The printing of the Elements. 155 h. Acknowledgements. 155 3. Research context xiv a. Performance practice xiv 2. The flute in Lindsay’s time. 155 b. Aesthetics, and the contrast between Classical and a. The nineteenth-century English eight-key flute at its Gothic xiv zenith (1820–1850). 155 c. Performance of taste, identity. xvi b. The simple system and the Boehm system. 157 c. The keys and fingering of the simple-system flute. 158 4. The Commentary xvi d. Flute construction; Nicholson model flutes. 158 e. Comparison: Continental simple-system flutes, 1820– 1850. 162 Tag Clouds xviii 3. Notes on selected topics and performance practices. 163 a. Expression and style. 163 Facsimile of Lindsay’s Elements xx b. Accent, articulation, and slurs. 165 To the Reader xxiii c. Affects of keys. 166 Hints on Instruments 1 d. Intonation; enharmonic pairs. 167 John Gunn’s Essay on Musical Sound 5 e. An explosion of fingerings; Lindsay’s “modern finger- Dictionary of Musical Terms 8 ing”. 168 Preliminary Principles 10 f. Harmonics and tone; using more of the tube. 169 Of Musical Time 22 g. Sensible notes; augmented notes of passage; dimin- Of Emphasis 37 ished semitones. 171 Of Syncopation 37 h. Appoggiaturas and acciaccaturas. 172 Fifty-two Duettinos and 70 Exercises 47 i. Turns and trills. 172 Address to Part II 75 j. Vibrations and glides. 174 A Few Words on Musical Expression 76 k. The performance of national melodies; traditional Of the Harmonics 79 flute playing. 175 Of the Appoggiatura 85 l. Various treatments of Roslin Castle. 176 Of the Turn 95 Articulation Further Considered 96 Of Respiration and the Musical Phrase 101 Notes 178 Triple-tonguing 111 Nineteen Duettinos in Flat Keys 133 Preface Thomas Lindsay published his flute method The Elements that one would not expect from a virtuoso’s instructions. of Flute-Playing in two parts that together amount to 158 Lindsay’s eclectic approach earned praise at the time, for pages, in 1828 and 1830. This is a facsimile reprint of the example in the first two paragraphs of a review of Part work, from a nineteenth-century edition in this writer’s I of The Elements that appeared in the 1829 issue of The collection. Spots and specks on the manuscript have been Harmonicon. removed, along with ink stains and other soiling, and the document is reproduced at a size slightly smaller than the THIS is really a very comprehensive treatise, and an ex- original, unconventional, format (58 by 82 picas). Only a tremely clever book. The author is evidently a man who few modest attempts have been made to enhance or re- has thought much and deeply on the subject, and to a good place faint or missing detail. purpose. His here reprinting Gunn’s essay on Musical The dates and places of Lindsay’s birth and death are Sound in relation to the Flute, shews that he is sensible of unknown. He worked in London as a composer and ar- the importance of studying an art philosophically; and his ranger of music for the flute, and a publisher and mer- own remarks dispersed throughout the work, prove that he chant of sheet music. Over the years he engaged in these himself has so studied it. activities at a succession of shops, where he also sold mu- It appears by the Preface, that Mr. Lindsay has freely sical instruments and offered flute lessons. London direc- profited by former publications on the subject, and with tories for the years 1825–1833 listed him as a flute and becoming candour and manliness he avows his obliga- flageolet maker. tions. “Thus,” he says, “the elaborate Méthodes de The method is written for the simple-system flute of Flute of BERBIGUIER, and of DROUET; the well- the day, more precisely the distinctive English eight-key known treatise of DEVIENNE; the celebrated méthode flute, and thus it is especially valuable to those who play of HUGOT and WUNDERLICH, adopted by the historical flutes seriously. But the Elements will be of value Conservatoire at Paris; the philosophical, and, in many to all musicians and scholars interested in early romantic respects, admirable Treatise of the late Mr. GUNN; the practices, as we may infer from a one-sentence review of practical works of Mr. NICHOLSON, Mr. MONZANI Part II of the Elements in the June, 1830, issue of La Belle and Mr. WEISS, besides other authorities, have been all Assembleé or Court and Fashionable Magazine: freely consulted.” Had this excellent little work been adapted solely to the Lindsay laments the “paucity of explanatory and pre- peculiarities of the [flute] we would not have introduced ceptive matter, which … has hitherto characterized much it in a work professedly addressed to the fair sex; but on of the treatises in our language…”, and what he perceives casually perusing It, we found some of the best-selected as the lack of really good books to teach from. He is “[c] extracts and most apposite remarks that we have ever met onvinced that an art must always be best taught when in- with on many subjects, equally applicable to the voice and culcated on true philosophical principles”, and his efforts to other instruments; particularly on the turn, the shake, to be systematic—to explain and give lists of rules and the appogiatura, the rhythmical division of sentences, and hints—are extraordinary, even in a book of instructions. a few most valuable apophthegms on taste and expression; Though he strongly recommends that his work be used in and though this portion of the work does not form more conjunction with a teacher, he does not hesitate to assert than one quarter of the contents, we consider them well that “to students residing in the country, or abroad, (who worth the price affixed to the whole. ... are precluded from availing themselves of the services of a good master,) the course of instruction inculcated in The Commentary on the facsimile presents detailed these Elements will prove of great value.” He might well information on how these ideas apply in practice on the have said “to students residing in the country, or abroad, instruments of Lindsay’s era. Lindsay advocates “modern or far in the future...”. fingering” which incorporated special techniques, pecu- The Elements represents one of the performance styles liar to the new types of British flutes of the 1820s with of early nineteenth-century Europe. We may be sure that, medium- to large-size holes, for expressive intonation. just as Lindsay’s language differs so greatly from that in The regular use of harmonic fingerings added more color use today, the sound and style of London flutists of his and gracefulness to the sound of the flute. Lindsay some- time was greatly different from ours. (We might be tre- times expects extreme dynamics and accents, especially in mendously moved, could we hear these flutists today, or National Melodies; these too are intimately dependent on we might think their mannerisms overdone.) But for many the increased dynamic range of the period’s flutes. of Lindsay’s modern readers, the value of the Elements will Unlike many authors of flute methods of the time, lie not in learning an old performance style, but rather in Lindsay does not seem to have been known as a public how his presentation might suggest new (to us) ideas and performer. This may be an advantage to us because he musical insights to incorporate into playing and teaching. offers a synthesis and survey of the works of a variety of other authors, both English and French—a survey RMW KEY OF Bb MAJOR. The following Lesson, partly abridged from BE RB I GUIER, is an excellent study for the augmented Semitones; it also shews how extensively the altered HarnlOllicJjlin!}eri'!9s nlay be employed, and the facilities which they afford. LINOS.-\,\"'S FLEM}o:l';TS. 14f3 LINDSAY’S ELEMENTS 157 inequality lends a personality to each note and a charac- ably to that of Charles Nicholson, and in an oft-quoted ter to each scale. excerpt from a letter to W. S. Broadwood dated 1871, Lindsay gives the range of the flute, in his fingering Boehm explains that “…I could not match Nicholson in chart, as c’ to c’’’’, chromatically. The notes a’’’ and b’’’i power of tone, wherefore I set to work to remodel my appear regularly in the symphonic repertoire of Lindsay’s flute. Had I not heard him, probably the Boehm flute time, though the b’’’i is avoided in some contexts. Notes would never have been made.” higher than that were the territory of the virtuosi. The The Boehm flute, with its large holes, has, in general, b’’’i’s in Lindsay appear only near the end of Part II; more potential power than the simple-system flute. The there is only one b’’’, at the top of a B major scale, and no highest notes in the third octave can be more easily pro- c’’’’ in the musical examples in the method.

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