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Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: NUM-ORC |
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OBOE, or HAUTBOY (Fr. hautbois, Ger. Hoboe, Ital. oboe) , the treble member of the class of wood-wind instruments, having a conical bore and a double reed mouthpiece. The oboe consists of a conical wooden tube, composed of three joints, upper, middle and bell, and of a short metal tube to which are bound by many turns of waxed silk the two thin pieces of cane that form the mouthpiece. These pieces of cane are so bevelled and thinned at the end which is taken into the mouth that the gentlest stream of compressed air suffices to set them vibrating. Practice has demonstrated that the reed stalk of which the double reed mouthpiece is made, should not be of narrower internal diameter than the pipe containing the column of air upon which it is destined to act. The player breathes gently into the aperture, which has the form of a very narrow ellipse, managing his breath as for singing. The vibrations of the double reed produce in the stream of compressed air issuing from the player's lips the rhythmical series of pulses necessary to generate sound waves in the stationary column of air within the main tube of the instrument.In the upper and middle joints are the rings and, keys covering lateral holes bored through the tube, by means of which the column of air, and consequently the wave length, may be shortened at will; the bell joint contains one or two keys normally open, which when closed extend the lowest register by lengthening the air column. These holes and keys produce the fundamental scale of the oboe, which possesses notes sufficient for an octavewith all chromatic intervals. The next octaves are obtained by means of cross fingering (Fr. doigte fourchu, Ger. Gabelgrif'), and of the octave keys, which do not give out an independent note of their own, but determine a node in the column of air, whereby the latter divides and vibrates in two half sections producing the second harmonic overtone or octave. In order to obtain this result the player increases the pressure of his breath and also the tension of his lips against the reed. or= The compass of the oboe is from -co-U -- with all chromatic semitones. The G clef is used in notation and all notes are sounded as written. The quality of tone or timbre depends primarily on the con-figuration of the sound waves (see HORN), which is influenced by the special characteristics of the mouth-piece: the musical tone of an instrument may be said to be due more directly to the prevalence and relative strength of the many harmonics which go to make up a composite tone or clang. The quality of the oboe tone resembles that of the E string
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The double reed is the most simple, as it is probably the oldest, of all reed contrivances. It is sufficient to flatten the end of a wheat straw to constitute an apparatus capable of setting in vibration by the breath the column of air contained in the rudimentary tube; the invention of this reed is certainly due to chance. An apparatus for sonorous disturbance thus found, it was easy to improve it : for the wheat stalk a reed stalk was substituted, and in the extremity of its pipe another reed stalk much shorter in length was inserted, pared and flattened at the end ; and then came the lateral holes, probably another discovery of the great inventor chance. For the reed tube a wooden one was substituted, still preserving the reed tongue, and it is in this form, after having played an important part amongst the sonorous contrivances of antiquity, that we find the ancestor of theoboe playing a part no less important in the 16th century, in which it. formed the interesting families of the cromornes, the corthols and the cervelas. All these families have disappeared from the instrumental combinations of Europe, but they are still to be found in Eastern wind instruments, such as the Caucasian salamouri, the Chinese kwantze, and the hitshiriki of Japan. It is impossible to say when it was that man first employed the phenomena of double reeds and conical pipes, but the knowledge of them must at least have been later than that of the cylindrical pipe, which we may regard as directly furnished by nature. That antiquity made use of them, however, has been proved by Gevaert in his admirable Histoire de la musique clans l'antiquite; but this learned author states that the double-reed pipes held but an in-significant place in the instrumental music of ancient Greece and Rome, a statement which is open to challenge (see Aunos). Rudall, Carte & Co. FIG.I.The Oboe. The first appearance of the instrument we call oboe in a musical work occurs in Sebastian Virdung's Musica getutschl and aussgezogen (1511). It there bears the name of Schalmey, and is already associated with an instrument of similar construction called Bom- bardt. There exists, however, much earlier evidence, in the illuminated MSS. and in the romances of the middle ages, of the great popularity of the instrument in all parts of Europe. The origin of wind instruments with conical tubes must be sought in the East, in Asia. An early medieval Schalmey with three holes may be seen on the silver cup of the goddess Nana-Anat.' There are two or three Schalmeys in the fine 13th-century Spanish MS. Cantigas de Santa Maria executed for -Alphonso the Wise, pre-served in the Library of the Escorial 2 (J. b 2). The oboe was known during the early middle ages as Calamus, Chalumeau (France), Schalmei (Germany), Shawm (England). It is mentioned in the Roman de Brut (12th century) (line 10,822 seq.) " Lyres, tympres, et chalemiax." An interesting MS. at the British Museum, Sloane 3983, contains amcng other musical instruments on fol. 13 a large shawm with 6 finger-holes described at the side as Calamus aureus. A miniature in the Paris Manesse MS.3 of the 14th century depicts Heinrich von Meissen, better known as Frauenlob, conducting, from a raised platform, a band of musicians, one of whom is holding a Schalmey with 6 or 7 holes. The chaunter of the bagpipe was a shawm, having the double reed concealed within an air-chamber, while the drones had single beating reeds concealed in the same manner. Mersenne calls both chalumeaux.4 The cornemuse or chalemie of shepherds and peasants was of this kind, but a special cornemuse, used in the 17th century in concert with the hautbois de Poitou, had double reeds throughout in chaunter and drone. The hautbois de Poitou was a primitive oboe with the reed placed in a bulb, forming an air-chamber, having a raised slit at the top through which the performer breathed in compressed air; as the reed could not be controlled by the lips, it was impossible to play with expression on the hautbois de Poitou or to obtain the harmonic octaves; the compass was therefore limited. The kind of bagpipe (q.v.) known as Musette,' inflated by bellows, also had double reeds throughout in spite of having a cylindrical chaunter. The manufacture of musical instruments could not remain unaffected by the great artistic movement
six lateral holes. Its deepest note was 6_.e1. (2) The discant Schalmey (fig. 2), the primitive type of the modern oboe; its length was about 26 in., and its deepest note (3) The alto Pommer (fig. of in. long, with its deepest The tenor Pommer (fig. (4) 4), measuring about 4 ft. 4 in.; besides the six lateral holes of the preceding numbers there were four keys which produced the notes (5) The bass Pommer, having a length of nearly 6 ft.; it had six lateral holes and four keys which produced Pommer, measuring about 9 ft. 8 in. in length; its four keys . These in- struments, and especially numbers (2), (3), (4) and (5), occupied an important place on the continent of Europe in the instrumental combinations of the 16th-19th centuries. Fig. 5, borrowed from a 1 See Gaz. Archeol. (Paris, 1886), xi, pp. 70 et seq. PI. X.; also 1885, pp. 288-296. 2 A facsimile in colours of part of the Cantigas containing figures of 52 instrumentalists has been published by the Real Academia Espanola (Madrid, J889), and can be seen at the British Museum. A reproduction in black and white is included in Juan F. Riano's Critical and Bibliographical Notes on Early Spanish Music (Quaritch, 1887). 3 The miniature is reproduced in Naumann's History of Music, i. p. 249, fig. 151. 4 Harmonie universelle, ii. pp. 282-289 and 305. ' See Mersenneop. cit. ii. pp. 287-292 and Hotteterre le Romain. Methode pour la musette, le hautbois, &c. (Paris, 1737), chap. xvi.picture e painted in 1616 by Van Alsloot, represents six musicians playing the following instruments indicated in the order of their position in the picture from left to right: a bass oboe, bent over and become the bassoon, an alto Pommer, a cornet (German " zinke "), a discant Schalmey, a second alto Pommer and a trombone.? The 17th century brought no great changes in the construction of the four smaller instruments of the family. Michel de la Barre writing in 1740 states that in the archives of the Chambre des Comptes are 4 charges for hautbois and musettes de Poitou created by King John 3 (14th century). Extensively used in France, they were there called " haulx bois " or " haultbois," to distinguish themfrom the two larger instruments which were designated by the words " gros bois." Haultbois became hautbois in French, and oboe in English, German and Italian; and this word is now used to distinguish the smallest in- strument of the family. During the 17th century some of the most important names connected with instrumental music in France are to be found amongst the Grands Hautbois of the Grande ):curie du Roi, such as Hotteterre (Jean, Louis and Nicholas), Philidor (Jacques and Andre), Gilles Allain, Destouches, &c. In Germany the Schalmey was represented in the town band, in the Court and the Church orchestras, and later in that of the Opera. In 158o it is recorded that the Orchestra of the elector of Brandenburg10 includedSchalmeys and Bombarts. In Dresden the orchestra possessed (1593) no less than 16 Schalmeys, large and small. Hein-rich Schutz, who founded the first Opera in Germany, at Dresden, used two fiffari or early oboes in 1629 in one of his works." The little Schalmey and the tenor Pommer seem to have disappeared in the 17th cen- tury; it is the discant Schalmey and the alto Pommer which by improvement have become two important members of the modern orchestra. The oboe, as such, was employed for the first time in 1671 in the orchestra of the Paris opera in Pomone by Cambert
first two keys -- y~ date from the end of the 17th century. It is not known who added the first keys to the oboe; there is, however, a drawing of a French Hoboy in an English MS. by the third Randle Holme, which formed part of his Academy of Armouryl2 known to have been written before 1688, in which the two keys are shown. The instrument must have been well known in England at the time, and Randle Holnie's rough little drawing fixes the date of the transformation approximately as not later than 168o, probably earlier, since the oboe was used in Pomone in 1671. According to the flautist Quantz13 the transformation of Schalmey into oboe took place when the keys for C sharp
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In 1727 Gerhard Hoffmann
1. A Parisian maker, Delusse, furnished at the end of ' This picture, belonging to the National Museum of Madrid, represents a procession of all the religious orders in the city of Antwerp on the festival of the Virgin of the Rosary. 7 For further details see Mahi!lon's catalogue of the Musee du Conservatoire royal de musique de Bruxelles ( Ghent
3 See I. Ecorcheville, " Quelques documents sur la musique de la Grande Ecurie du Roi," Int. Mus. Ges. Sbd. ii. 4, p. 633. Ib., Table II. 10 See Gropius, Beitrage z. Gesch. Berlins, 184o, Bd. ii. 11 Complete edition, vol. v. No. 7. See Ernst Euting, Zur Geschichte der Blasinstrumente im 16 u. 17 Jahrh. (Berlin Inaugural Dissertation, 1899), published by A. Schulze, Rixdorf (Berlin), p. 47. 12 See British Museum, Harleian MS. 2034, fol. 2o7b. 12 See Versuch einer Anleitung die Flote traversiere zu spielen, p. 24. 14 See Mattheson, Orchester, i. p. 268 and Eisel, Musikus at+ro-S16arcros, p. 96. (6) The great double quint permitted the production_of the notes The Discant Schalmey. The Alto Pommer. The Tenor Pommer. 952 the 18th century much-appreciated improvements in the boring of the instrument. The Methode of Sellner, published at Vienna in 1825, shows nine keys the octave key, which, when opened, establishes a loop or ventral segment of vibration in the column of air, facilitating the production of sounds in the octave higher. Triebert of Paris owes his great reputation to the numerous improvements he introduced in the construction of the oboe. The alto Pommer was but slowly transformed: it was called in French " hautbois de chasse," in Italian " oboe di caccia." In the 18th century we find it more elegant in form, but with all the defects of the primitive instrument. The idea of bending the instrument into a half circular form to facilitate the handling is usually attributed to'an oboist of Bergamo, one Jean Ferlendis, who was established at Salzburg at about 1760. This is obviously incorrect, since Ferlendis would then have been five years old.' It has been suggested that the fact of the instrument's resembling a kind of hunting horn used at that time in England probably gained for it the name of " corno inglese," which it still retains (" cor anglais " in French).2 The first employment of it in the orchestra is referred to Gluck, who had two " cors anglais " in his Alceste, as played at Vienna in 1767. But it was not until 1808 that the cor anglais was first heard in the Paris opera; it was played by the oboist Vogt in Alexandre chez Apelle by Catel. The improvements in manufacture of-this instrument closely followed those introduced in the oboe. The 18th century produced an intermediate oboe between (2) and (3), which was called hautbois d'amour, and was frequently employed by J. S. Bach. It was a third lower than the ordinary oboe, and was characterized by the pear-shaped bell with narrow aperture common to all wind instruments known as d'amour to which is due their veiled sweet quality. In the Spanish Cantigas, there are two Schalmeys with pear-shaped bells. This is in all probability the doucaine mentioned in the 13th and 14th-century romances. The oboe d'amore fell into disuse after the death of the great German composer. It has been resuscitated by the firm of C. Mahillon of Brussels, and reconstructed with the improvements of modern manufacture. A similar timbre was artificially produced in the oboe by means of mutes or sordini composed of hollow cones of wood, balls of paper,3 nieces of sponge,' &c. After the 16th century we find the instruments which were designated by the name of " gros bois," the (5) and (6) of Praetorius, transformed into shorter instruments, the Fagott and Contrafagott, having a column of air of the same length and form as the Pommers, but the instrument itself consisted of two conical tubes communicating at the lower part of the instrument ; they were pierced in a single piece of wood. It is probably owing to the aspect of this double pipe that the satirical name of fagot was given, preserved in Italian as fagotto, and in German as Fagott. A canon of Ferrara named Afranio has been named as the author of the transformation, about 1539, of the bass Pommer, but Count Valdrighi, the curator of the Estense library,' and Wasielewski,' who has reproduced the drawing of Afranio's invention, deprive 1 See Henri Lavoix, Histoire de l'instrumentation (Paris), p. III ; also Gerber's Lexikon, " Giuseppe Ferlendis "; and Robert Eitner, Quellenlexikon der Tonkiinstler, " Gioseffo Ferlendis," born 1755. 2 This question is more fully treated under CoR ANGLAIS. 2 See Mattheson, Orchester, p. 266. ' See Quantz, op. cit. p. 203. Musurgiana, Il Phagotus d'Afranio. ' Geschichte der Instrumentalmusik im 76"" Jahrhundert (Berlin, 1878), p. 74.him of the merit of the innovation. The fagottino was transformed in the same fashion. Sigismund Schnitzer of Nuremberg 7 acquired a great reputation in the 16th century for making the " basson," a French word substituted for the old fagot, and adopted in England as bassoon. His instrument had only two keys -- 1. We cannot tell when the bassoon gained its present form, but it was probably at the end of the 17th century. It was used in the orchestra in Germany by H. Schutz in 1619 (cir.),8 and in 1625, 5 fagotti were in use .9 Cesti, in his grand opera-il Porno d'oro,10 which was performed with the utmost brilliancy at the nuptials of the emperor Leopold in Vienna, where printed editions of 1667 and 1668 are preserved, used fagatti combined with two cornets, three trombones and a regal to suggest the terrors of Hades.Michael Praetorius (1618) expressly mentions the fagotto as an orchestral instrument. In France it was used with the oboe in 1671 in Cambert
It had three keys then The B at key render- bao- ing a lengthening of the instrument necessary, we may suppose it took its modern form at that epoch. The fourth key is found in a bassoon stamped Stanesby Junior, London, 1747,13 and also in one without maker's name, obviously earlier, to judge by the very early pattern of the keys.12 The bassoon appears with four keys in the Encyclopedie of Diderot and d'Alembert (Paris, 1751-1765). The number of keys increased by the beginning of the present century to eight, viz.: , and two keys to facilitate the production of acute harmonics. It was improved by Almenrader in Germany, Savari, and more recently Triebert and Goumas, Paris, and C. Mahillon, Brussels. (See also End of Article: OBOE, or HAUTBOY (Fr. hautbois, Ger. Hoboe, Ital. oboe) If you wish, you can link directly to this article.
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