When is a flute a recorder?

[ahinton]

Quite. The 'improved' bland even tone of a modern Steinway just does not do full justice to the compositional nuances of those who wrote for, and had intimate knowledge of the sonic and tactile properties of, the instruments of their time. Many fine pianists today have striven to adjust their touch to overcome some of the deficiencies of modern instruments but the tonal properties of the various parts of the instruments' compass continue to defeat such efforts to a considerable extent.

But where do you perceive those "deficiencies" to end in terms of music written during and after those 19th century developments? - by which I mean do you see pianos from, say, then end of the 19th century onwards as "deficient" in more general terms for the performance of music from Busoni and Godowsky through Boulez and Stockhausen to Finnissy? And do you see mere striving to adjust touch as sufficient to overcome what you perceive to be performance shortcomings in pianists when playing Haydn, Beethoven and Chopin?

Sorry to harp(!) on about pianos in a thread about flutes, but...

[Bryn]

But where do you perceive those "deficiencies" to end in terms of music written during and after those 19th century developments? - by which I mean do you see pianos from, say, then end of the 19th century onwards as "deficient" in more general terms for the performance of music from Busoni and Godowsky through Boulez and Stockhausen to Finnissy? And do you see mere striving to adjust touch as sufficient to overcome what you perceive to be performance shortcomings in pianists when playing Haydn, Beethoven and Chopin?

Sorry to harp(!) on about pianos in a thread about flutes, but...

I don't see there being a cut-off, though the differences in both response and timbral differences through the registers has reduced over time. As to the touch question, I thought I had made it clear enough that "the tonal properties of the various parts of the instruments' compass continue to defeat such efforts to a considerable extent", though that, of course, is by no means the whole story. That said, highly musical performances can and do take place using modern pianos. It's just that I am of the view that they cannot fully represent the intentions of earlier composers familiar with, and often virtuoso performers on, very different instruments.

[ardcarp]

Getting away from pianos and back to the subject of flutes, where does the Nose Flute come into all this?

Wherever, 'snot a very nice instrument.
I'll get me coat....

[Bryn]

Briefly switching back to the issue of ocarinas:

I attended a concert which featured Michael Ormiston as guest performer the day before those video clips (that linked to and that which follows it) were recorded.

[Richard Barrett]

Getting away from pianos and back to the subject of flutes, where does the Nose Flute come into all this?
Could you play a concerto on a nose flute?

If somebody wrote one! Some people I know are quite (ahem) proficient on it... since different pitches are produced by changing the shape of the mouth, it requires a completely different technique from the instruments thus far mentioned, apart from being blown by the nose (which of course you can also do with a recorder or ocarina, or two of either, or one of each, if your nostrils are sufficiently capacious).

Michael Ormiston... that's a name I hadn't heard in a while. Nice to see he's still on the scene. Beautiful-sounding instrument too.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Since the player has two nostrils, could he play a duet?

[Richard Barrett]

Those aren't nose flutes though, this is a nose flute - a quartet of them in fact. Please watch this video, it will cheer your day.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Please watch this video, it will cheer your day.

I did, and it did!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Those aren't nose flutes though

I saw the type of nose flute in the video on QI the other night - aren't they more a kind of "nasal Kazoo" rather than the South American transverse flutes, with finger holes?



EDIT - Allowing, of course, for the absence of a "kazoo" membrane, and the fact that instrument in the illustration isn't "transverse"

[Richard Barrett]

aren't they more a kind of "nasal Kazoo"

Not really, since you don't have to use your voice at all. It's a weird feeling to blow into one and gradually work out what needs to be done to produce a sound and then to produce specific pitches, not really like anything else I know. (They are very cheap at music shops so it wouldn't cost you much to find out!). When I say those other ones aren't nose flutes, I suppose they are in the sense that the can be blown through the nose, but they look to me as if they don't need to be, whereas the instruments in my video can't be played any other way.

Moving right on, another rather interesting flute is the Slovakian fujara, which has only three holes but can play a diatonic scale through the use of multiple overtones.

[ahinton]

I don't see there being a cut-off, though the differences in both response and timbral differences through the registers has reduced over time. As to the touch question, I thought I had made it clear enough that "the tonal properties of the various parts of the instruments' compass continue to defeat such efforts to a considerable extent", though that, of course, is by no means the whole story. That said, highly musical performances can and do take place using modern pianos. It's just that I am of the view that they cannot fully represent the intentions of earlier composers familiar with, and often virtuoso performers on, very different instruments.

Fair comment. The problem remains, however, that if a pianist is to give a live recital of music by Haydn, Chopin, Debussy, Busoni, Medtner and Finnissy it will be almost certain that he/she will have to use the same instrument throughout and it is likely that said instrument will be a "modern" one, in all probability (though not necessarily) a Steinway Model D. Likewise, an organist giving a recital of Bach, Mendelssohn, Reger, Vierne and Messiaen will encounter the same issue and will have only his/her registrational choices with which to endeavour to mitigate the fact that Bach would never have head an instrument of the kind that Messiaen played.

Anyway, better get back to topic, I guess, otherwise I might - as a one-time student of Humphrey Searle - risk being accused of having sought to "put away the flutes"!...

[doversoul1]

From Sunday’s Early Music Late

Hypothetical recorder concert (Simon Heighes) by Bach / Frans Brüggen

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b081t4xj