Opus 11 - Sopranino Recorder |
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t is astonishing to think that the recorder fell into disuse in the nineteenth century and that even its name was forgotten. In 1919, Arnold Dolmetsch, an English instrument maker and musicologist, became interested in early music and built his first recorder based on a baroque model.
During the baroque period, the recorder was no longer built in a single section as it was during the Renaissance, but in three movable sections. This important change enabled musicians to better tune the instrument by lengthening or shortening it slightly. Because the instrument had shorter sections, instrument makers were able to craft the bore with greater care. This method appears to have been developed by Jean Hotteterre, a wind instrument maker in the court of Louis XIV, and was subsequently adopted by the great recorder makers such as Bressan and Stanesby. Thick, elegantly turned ivory mounts on each joint made the recorder highly decorative, a reflection of baroque precepts of beauty. This instrument is based on a sopranino recorder by Johann Christoph Denner (1655-1707), whose family was noted for its wind instruments. When French recorders consisting of three sections appeared in Germany, Denner took an interest in them and promptly adopted the new construction method. This recorder is in two sections and is tuned to A=415.
Jean-Luc Boudreau based this recorder on an instrument by an eighteenth-century instrument maker named Debey, which is preserved at the University of Utrecht, in Holland. It has three sections, with moulded polyester resin mounts, and is tuned to A=415. |