Musical instruments of the 17th century. Instrumental music of the 17th century. Classification of copper instruments

: Western European music of the 17th century

Instrumental music Historically, it developed later than vocal music and did not immediately move to an independent place among musical genres. Firstly, for quite a long time it retained an applied, that is, official, purely practical character, accompanying various moments in people’s lives (ceremonial and funeral processions, court balls, hunting trips, etc.) Secondly, for a long time instrumental music was in direct dependence on vocal, accompanying singing and obeying it. For example, the only instrument of Catholic worship - the organ - for many centuries did not have its own “face”, duplicating choral writing.

During the Renaissance (XV-XVI centuries) the situation changed: instrumental art stepped far forward. An extensive instrumental repertoire was created. However, most instrumental compositions of that time was no different from vocal: instruments simply replaced vocal voices without taking into account the specifics of timbres. These pieces could be performed on any instruments, as long as the range allows (on the violin the same as on the trombone). However, over the years, instrumental music has increasingly strived to move away from copying vocal samples. And finally, in the 17th century, there was a complete emancipation of instrumental music - this fact is considered one of the main achievements of this historical era. Instrumental music is becoming an independent field of composer creativity, and the range of its content is expanding. Not a single genre of professional music can now do without the participation of musical instruments. For example, opera from the very first days of its existence relied on orchestral sound.

There is a keen interest in various musical tones. Composers begin to realize the artistic and technical capabilities of a particular instrument and compose for the violin differently than for the organ or flute.

Various instrumental styles- , violin, - with their specific expressive means and performing techniques.

Diverse national instrumental schools- German organists, English virginalists, Spanish vihuelists, Italian violinists, etc.

Various instrumental genres with their unique specificity: concerto grosso, solo concert, suite, sonata, polyphonic genres (as for the genres of earlier times, they did not have a clear differentiation: there was much in common between them, the differences from one to the other were very relative).

Material from Wikipedia - the free encyclopedia

Keyboards

Organ

A complex musical instrument made up of an air-pressure mechanism, a set of wooden and metal pipes of different sizes and a performing console (lectern), on which register knobs, several keyboards and pedals are located.

Harpsichord

Virginel

Spinet

A spinet is a small harpsichord of square, rectangular or pentagonal shape.

Clavicytherium

Claviciterium is a harpsichord with a vertically positioned body.

Clavichord

Bowed strings

Baroque violin

Baritone

Bass viol of the “foot” (gamba) type. The sound on a baritone was produced by a bow of six gut strings, with sympathetic strings located underneath them. The sound was extracted from the sympathetic (additional) strings by plucking with the thumb of the left hand.

Violone

Bass viol of the “foot” (gamba) type.

Lirone

Bass viol of the “foot” (gamba) type. Specially adapted for playing chords.

Cello

Cello - bowed instrument bass-tenor register. 4 strings are tuned in fifths (C and G of the large octave, D of the small, A of the first). The cello appeared in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. Classic designs cellos were created by Italian masters of the 17th and 18th centuries. Antonio Amati and Girolamo Amati, Giuseppe Guarneri, Antonio Stradivari.

Double bass

The largest and lowest-sounding bowed instrument in the orchestra. They play it standing or sitting on a high stool.

Plucked strings

Baroque lute

In the 16th century, the most common was the six-string lute (five-string instruments were known in the 15th century), during the transition to XVII century(late Baroque era) the number of strings reached twenty-four. Most often there were from 11 to 13 strings (9-11 doubles and 2 singles). The scale is D minor (sometimes major).

Theorbo

Theorbo is a bass type of lute. The number of strings ranged from 14 to 19 (mostly single, but there were also instruments with double strings).

Quitarrone

Quitarrone is a bass variety of the so-called. Italian guitar (an instrument with an oval body, unlike the Spanish one). The number of strings is 14 single. Quitarrone looks practically no different from the theorbo, but has a different origin from it.

Archlute

Smaller in size than theorb. Most often it had 14 strings, the first six in a tuning typical of the Renaissance - (unlike the Baroque lute, in which the first six strings gave a D minor chord) were built in a perfect fourth, except for the 3rd and 4th, which were built in major third.

Angelica

Mandora

Gallichon

Zither

Archicitra

Mandolin

Baroque guitar

The Baroque guitar usually had five pairs (choirs) of gut strings. The first baroque or five-choir guitars have been known since the end of the 16th century. It was then that a fifth choir was added to the guitar (before that it was equipped with four paired strings). The rasgeado style makes this instrument extremely popular.

Other strings

hurdy-gurdy

The hurdy-gurdy has six to eight strings, most of which sound simultaneously, vibrating as a result of friction against the wheel as it rotates. right hand. One or two separate strings, the sounding part of which is shortened or lengthened with the help of rods with the left hand, reproduce the melody, and the remaining strings emit a monotonous hum.

Brass

French horn

The baroque horn had no mechanics and made it possible to extract only the tones of the natural scale; To play in each key, a separate instrument was used.

Horn

Wind brass musical instrument without valves, with a conical barrel.

Trombone

The trombone looks like a large metal pipe bent into an oval. A mouthpiece is placed in its upper part. The lower bend of the trombone is movable and is called the slide. When the slide is pulled out, the sound decreases, and when it moves in, it increases.

Woodwinds

Transverse flute

Recorder

Chalumeau

Oboe

Bassoon

Quartbassoon

Quartbassoon - enlarged bassoon. In writing, the bassoon part is written in the same way as the bassoon, but sounds a perfect fourth lower than the written note.

contrabassoon

The contrabassoon is a bass type of bassoon.

Drums

Timpani

Timpani is a percussion musical instrument with a certain pitch. The pitch is adjusted using screws or a special mechanism, most often in the form of a foot pedal.

Write a review on the article "Musical instruments of the Baroque era"

Notes

An excerpt characterizing musical instruments of the Baroque era

- Will there be any order from your honor? - he said to Denisov, putting his hand to his visor and again returning to the game of adjutant and general, for which he had prepared, - or should I remain with your honor?
“Orders?” Denisov said thoughtfully. -Can you stay until tomorrow?
- Oh, please... Can I stay with you? – Petya screamed.
- Yes, exactly what did the genegala tell you to do now? – Denisov asked. Petya blushed.
- Yes, he didn’t order anything. I think it's possible? – he said questioningly.
“Well, okay,” Denisov said. And, turning to his subordinates, he made orders that the party should go to the resting place appointed at the guardhouse in the forest and that an officer on a Kyrgyz horse (this officer served as an adjutant) should go to look for Dolokhov, to find out where he was and whether he would come in the evening . Denisov himself, with the esaul and Petya, intended to drive up to the edge of the forest overlooking Shamshev in order to look at the location of the French, which was to be targeted for tomorrow's attack.
“Well, God,” he turned to the peasant conductor, “take me to Shamshev.”
Denisov, Petya and the esaul, accompanied by several Cossacks and a hussar who was carrying a prisoner, drove to the left through the ravine, to the edge of the forest.

The rain passed, only fog and drops of water fell from tree branches. Denisov, Esaul and Petya silently rode behind a man in a cap, who, lightly and silently stepping with his bast-clad feet on roots and wet leaves, led them to the edge of the forest.
Coming out onto the trail, the man paused, looked around and headed towards the thinning wall of trees. At a large oak tree that had not yet shed its leaves, he stopped and mysteriously beckoned to him with his hand.
Denisov and Petya drove up to him. From the place where the man stopped, the French were visible. Now, behind the forest, a spring field ran down a semi-hillock. To the right, across a steep ravine, a small village and a manor house with collapsed roofs could be seen. In this village and in the manor's house, and throughout the hillock, in the garden, at the wells and pond, and along the entire road up the mountain from the bridge to the village, no more than two hundred fathoms away, crowds of people were visible in the fluctuating fog. Their non-Russian screams at the horses in the carts struggling up the mountain and calls to each other were clearly heard.
“Give the prisoner here,” Denisop said quietly, not taking his eyes off the French.
The Cossack got off his horse, took the boy off and walked up to Denisov with him. Denisov, pointing to the French, asked what kind of troops they were. The boy, putting his chilled hands in his pockets and raising his eyebrows, looked at Denisov in fear and, despite the visible desire to say everything he knew, was confused in his answers and only confirmed what Denisov was asking. Denisov, frowning, turned away from him and turned to the esaul, telling him his thoughts.
Petya, turning his head with quick movements, looked back at the drummer, then at Denisov, then at the esaul, then at the French in the village and on the road, trying not to miss anything important.
“Pg” is coming, not “pg” is Dolokhov coming, we must fight!.. Eh?” said Denisov, his eyes flashing merrily.
“The place is convenient,” said the esaul.
“We’ll send the infantry down through the swamps,” Denisov continued, “they’ll crawl up to the garden; you will come with the Cossacks from there,” Denisov pointed to the forest behind the village, “and I will come from here, with my ganders. And along the road...
“It won’t be a hollow—it’s a quagmire,” said the esaul. - You’ll get stuck in your horses, you need to go around to the left...
While they were talking in a low voice in this way, below, in the ravine from the pond, one shot clicked, smoke turned white, another, and a friendly, seemingly cheerful cry was heard from hundreds of French voices who were on the half-mountain. In the first minute, both Denisov and the esaul moved back. They were so close that it seemed to them that they were the cause of these shots and screams. But the shots and screams did not apply to them. Below, through the swamps, a man in something red was running. Apparently he was being shot at and shouted at by the French.
“After all, this is our Tikhon,” said the esaul.
- He! they are!
“What a rogue,” Denisov said.
- He will go away! - Esaul said, narrowing his eyes.
The man they called Tikhon, running up to the river, splashed into it so that splashes flew, and, hiding for a moment, all black from the water, he got out on all fours and ran on. The French running after him stopped.
“Well, he’s clever,” said the esaul.
- What a beast! – Denisov said with the same expression of annoyance. - And what has he been doing so far?
-Who is this? – Petya asked.
- This is our plastun. I sent him to take the tongue.
“Oh, yes,” Petya said from Denisov’s first word, nodding his head as if he understood everything, although he absolutely did not understand a single word.
Tikhon Shcherbaty was one of the most the right people in the party. He was a man from Pokrovskoye near Gzhat. When, at the beginning of his actions, Denisov came to Pokrovskoye and, as always, calling the headman, asked what they knew about the French, the headman answered, as all the headmen answered, as if defending themselves, that they didn’t know anything, to know they don't know. But when Denisov explained to them that his goal was to beat the French, and when he asked if the French had wandered in, the headman said that there were definitely marauders, but that in their village only one Tishka Shcherbaty was involved in these matters. Denisov ordered Tikhon to be called to him and, praising him for his activities, said a few words in front of the headman about the loyalty to the Tsar and the Fatherland and the hatred of the French that the sons of the Fatherland should observe.
“We don’t do anything bad to the French,” said Tikhon, apparently timid at Denisov’s words. “That’s the only way we fooled around with the guys.” They must have beaten about two dozen Miroders, otherwise we didn’t do anything bad... - The next day, when Denisov, completely forgetting about this guy, left Pokrovsky, he was informed that Tikhon had attached himself to the party and asked to be left with it. Denisov ordered to leave him.
Tikhon, who at first corrected the menial work of laying fires, delivering water, skinning horses, etc., soon showed greater willingness and ability for guerrilla warfare. He went out at night to hunt for prey and each time brought with him French clothes and weapons, and when he was ordered, he also brought prisoners. Denisov dismissed Tikhon from work, began to take him with him on travels and enrolled him in the Cossacks.
Tikhon did not like to ride and always walked, never falling behind the cavalry. His weapons were a blunderbuss, which he wore more for fun, a pike and an ax, which he wielded like a wolf wields his teeth, equally easily picking out fleas from his fur and biting through thick bones. Tikhon equally faithfully, with all his might, split logs with an ax and, taking the ax by the butt, used it to cut out thin pegs and cut out spoons. In Denisov's party, Tikhon occupied his special, exclusive place. When it was necessary to do something especially difficult and disgusting - turn a cart over in the mud with your shoulder, pull a horse out of a swamp by the tail, skin it, climb into the very middle of the French, walk fifty miles a day - everyone pointed, laughing, at Tikhon.
“What the hell is he doing, you big gelding,” they said about him.
Once, the Frenchman whom Tikhon was taking shot at him with a pistol and hit him in the flesh of his back. This wound, for which Tikhon was treated only with vodka, internally and externally, was the subject of the funniest jokes in the entire detachment and jokes to which Tikhon willingly succumbed.
- What, brother, won’t you? Is Ali crooked? - the Cossacks laughed at him, and Tikhon, deliberately crouching and making faces, pretending that he was angry, scolded the French with the most ridiculous curses. This incident had only the influence on Tikhon that after his wound he rarely brought prisoners.

The lute, its relative the theorbo and the archlute, or chitarrone * form, together with the harpsichord, spinet and organ, the basis of those primitive orchestras that were used to accompany the vocal parts of the first operas and oratorios from 1600 onwards. It was at this time and for these instruments that the digital bass line, or basso continuo, was invented. And although there were no special instrumental “parts” in the scores, it is still quite obvious that these string and keyboard instruments, playing together or in turn, provided a constant harmonic basis for orchestral music even long after the string orchestra became sufficiently well organized to perform this primary role independently. For most of the 17th century, recitatives and vocal solos were accompanied not by a written accompaniment, but only by a bass line, which plucked string players harmonized with chords according to the numbers. This system died slowly and, as is well known, survived into the period of Haydn and Mozart in the accompaniment of recitatives of secular, religious and dramatic music, although by this time lutes had fallen out of use, having completely transferred their functions to keyboard instruments.

* (Lute-type bass instrument. - M I.-B.)

It was to the core of plucked strings that a group of bowed string instruments with a pair of woodwinds joined, and it kept increasing in number and in sound strength until the core itself finally became redundant and was discarded as an unnecessary appendage.

The main interest in orchestral instruments of the 17th century still centers around bowed string groups such as the viol and violin, which together formed the first string orchestras and by the end of this century had become entirely a violin group, consisting of four parts: first and second violins, tenor violins * and bass - orchestral string quartet, used by Scarlatti, Purcell, Bach, Handel and their successors.

* (Altov. - N.K.)

Viols, the predominant string instruments of the 16th century, were made in three main types: soprano, or treble, tenor, or viola da braccio (hand viol), and bass, or viola da gamba (foot viol), approximately corresponding in size to an ordinary violin, tenor or viola and cello as we know them now. The fourth variety, the sixteen-foot double bass, at one time known in Italy under the name violone, did not undergo a complete transformation from viol to violin and has retained some essential features of the viol type to this day. Other varieties of viols appeared from time to time, differing in size, tuning, number of strings, or shape, but they never became permanent members of a standardized string orchestra. Among them, some viols, in addition to the gut strings, which were played with a bow, were equipped with a set of metal strings stretched under the stand and fingerboard, close to the soundboard and sounding in unison with the gut strings due to resonance. Viola d'amore was a tenor, and viola bastarda was a bass variety, also used under the names barytone and viola bordone. Lira grande and lira doppia, apparently, were varieties of multi-stringed bass viols that were used in combination with lutes and keyboard instruments for performance basso continuo in early operas and oratorios.

The main significant differences between the types of viol and violin are as follows: viols have a flat bottom soundboard, while violins, on the contrary, have a rounded soundboard, rising towards the midline and forming a depression towards the edges, where the back connects to the ribs; The viola has more prominent ribs and sloping edges and less prominent corners. The viol was equipped with five, six and more strings, tuned according to the lute system of fourths and thirds, but at the time when violins came on the scene to compete with them at an advantage, a more or less standardized tuning of six strings in fourths was established, but with a third between the two middle strings.

The f-holes of viols are infinitely varied, but their later shape was in the form of the letter C. They differed from violin f-holes *, which had the shape of f, and other differences were also in the internal ties and frets on the neck, which were common for lutes, guitars and related instruments ; on viols they were often found, but not always. This difference in the design of the instruments was reflected in the sound, which on viols was described as dull, nasal, but sharp, while on violins it was fuller, rounder and shiny. Charles II preferred a violin orchestra because violins are “more cheerful and agile than viols,” and Thomas Mais, the famous English lutenist, points out in 1676 ** the “intrusiveness” of violins and recommends them if they are added to the viol family (“ consort" - ensemble. - N.K.), also add two more theorbos so that the violins “could not drown out the rest of the music.”

* (The name of these slots in the top soundboard - "efs" ("ef") arose because on violins they look like the letter f. - N.K.)

** (Musik's Monument. P. 246.)

Although it will probably never be possible to establish by whom and when the first violin was built *, and although the word "violino" in a meaning different from "viola" is found earlier than the middle of the 16th century, only the second half of this century marks the advent of the period during which in which the violins are gradually replacing the viola from the orchestra, and this process continues for over a century. Somewhat earlier than 1600, the famous masters of the Brescia and Cremona schools, Gaspar da Salo and Andrea Amati, made real violins, violas and cellos, as well as double basses (instances of all these instruments still exist), almost forever establishing the shape of these instruments. Thus, even before Peri, Cavalieri and Monteverdi made their first experiments in orchestration, instruments for a full and equal string orchestra already existed, but it was necessary to wait about a hundred years for the appearance of a real ensemble and skillful handling of it.

* (Some historians claim that Gaspar Duiffopruggar, or Tieffenbrücker in German, was the first to make a violin in Bologna back in 1511.)

The years from approximately 1550 to 1750 are the golden age of violin making and the work of a number of great masters: Gaspar da Salo, Amati, Stradivari, Guarneri and many others, who made violins, violas, cellos and double basses, still unsurpassed in quality , who surrounded their craft with an atmosphere of romance, mystery and almost sacred awe, which still makes people believe in the so-called “lost secret”.

By the end of the 18th century, advancing technology forced performers to slightly lengthen the necks of older violins, and a higher stand required raising the neck. In other words, the instruments were improved before the style of playing them outgrew the type of part that could almost as well have been sung and had no signs of the true violin style, based on four-string tuning in perfect fifths and an arched bridge. The double bass, although it was subject to very large changes in tuning and some fluctuation in the number of strings *, but, in general, retained the tuning in fourths, like a viol, and acquired some practical advantage through the use of an improved screw tuning mechanism **.

* (In the 17th century the double bass had five or six strings. Pretorius mentions both types; but they were used back in the middle of the 18th century. (Quantz, 1752).)

** (The invention of metal screw pegs is attributed to Carl Ludwig Bachmann in Berlin in 1778 (Gerber, Lexicon, 1790).)

The mentioned tools have been improved in short time, but the 16th-century bow remained rather primitive and clumsy. Short, heavy and inelastic, with no special mechanism for regulating the tension of the hair, the bow only gradually passes through stages of improvement from a form that clearly reveals its origin to its present state, by the time of the great French master Tourte at the end of the 18th century.

It should not be imagined that the production of an almost perfect violin group earlier than the end of the 16th century presupposes the immediate use of these instruments for orchestral purposes instead of viols. Composers of that time had not yet realized that sound string instruments can be the basis of orchestral sonority. At the beginning of the 17th century, scores rarely identified the instruments for which they were written. And although there can be no doubt that many parts of the orchestral parts in early operas and oratorios were intended for bowed instruments, their names were not indicated at the beginning of each part, as was done in the scores of the 18th and 19th centuries. Since 1600, only one line of basso continuo was a pathetic outline and on it were developed those instrumental parts that composers considered it necessary to write out in the score. IN in rare cases the various instruments were listed on the lengthy title page that served as a preface to these primitive scores, but the instrumental parts of the few orchestrated sinfonie and ritornelli had no indication on which instruments these parts were to be played. This may have been to some extent satisfactory under the prevailing conditions of the time, but it was unclear and uncertain to the historian three centuries later, when both traditions and customs were hopelessly lost, and the means of restoring them became difficult and confusing. From the few indications that existed, confirmed by occasional remarks in the prefaces, as well as from the nature of the parts themselves, it is clear that the soprano violin proved its superiority over the treble viol in the performance of the two highest string parts soon after these new instruments appeared. In France, soprano violins were readily accepted, which is probably the basis for the name duoi violini piccoli alia Francese * in the score of Monteverdi's famous opera Orpheus (1607).

* (Two small French violins. - M.I.-B.)

It is difficult to determine at what period tenor violins took the place of the tenor or the “despicable” viol in the orchestra; and it is incomprehensible that there was great uniformity in the composition of the orchestra at a time when composers apparently orchestrated their works in a variety of ways for performance in various churches and theaters. The top two parts of the string section were sometimes entitled violini in various scores, but the tenor parts, although almost invariably written in the key of C, were rarely designated. Even the true designation of the word "viola" does not clarify the difference between the type of viol and violin, since "viola" in Italian is generic concept, covering the entire family of violas of any size.

The parts of the bass string instruments in the scores are also uncertain until the last quarter of the 17th century. One general numbered bass part (in Italian basso continuo, in French - basse continue, in German - Generalbass) serves as the lower harmonic part, played on keyboards, lutes, bass viols or low-range violins. Few scores contain the word violone, but the large violins - cello and double bass - are not mentioned until the time of Scarlatti and Purcell, when the cello is often designated. The word "tenor violin" also appears in Purcell's scores, and it is certain that the string orchestra at that time consisted exclusively of violin-type instruments. The fact that soprano, tenor violins and cellos were made before 1600 proves nothing, since tenor and bass viols continued to be made for a long time after that and the bass viol (viola da gamba) remained a favorite instrument, playing both melody and bass line in vocal and instrumental works even after Handel and Bach. All that can be definitively stated regarding this type of instrument, used in string orchestras of the 17th century, is that the soprano violin almost immediately triumphed over the weak-sounding treble viol and that the bass viol was the last to give way to the cello.

It is quite obvious that the words violini, violons or violins were used to designate the string orchestra in general, as a group, and not the actual composition of the instruments. The famous French vingt-quatre violons and the twenty four "violins" (twenty-four violins) of Charles II represented, they say, a full string orchestra, and if contemporary scores are any reliable evidence, the French orchestra was divided into five parts, and the English " violins" by four. Certain works of Locke and Purcell prove conclusively that the word "violins" as used in these scores embraced the whole family of stringed instruments.

Of the woodwind instruments that were destined to remain as permanent instruments of the orchestra, flutes, oboes and bassoons appear very often in 17th-century scores. Then two types of flute were used: a straight one, with a tip (flûte-à-bec, flûte douce, flauto dolce, Blockflöte, Schnabelflöte), which was blown through the end, as on a harmonic or on an English recorder, and a transverse flute (flûte traversière, flauto traverso, Querflöte), which in the following centuries completely replaced the previous instrument in the orchestra; its distinguishing terms in some scores were traverso, flûte allemande, in English "German flute".

Straight flutes, equipped with seven holes for the fingers, and with a special hole for the thumb at the bottom, were usually made in three sizes *. Typically, high and medium frets were used, which had a volume of about two octaves and played parts with a limited range, which corresponded to approximately the lower two octaves of a modern flute. According to illustrations and descriptions given in Firdung's Musica Getutscht (1511) and Agricola's Musica instrumental (1529), the average instrument is approximately the same length as a modern flute. Apparently, its main tone was two-foot C of the first octave. The treble flute is built a fourth higher (in F), and the lower variety is an octave lower than the treble **.

* (Pretorius mentions no less than eight sizes of flûte-à-bec (with tip).)

** (So the approximate lengths of all these instruments were: 18 inches, two feet and three feet.)

The volume indicated by both authors is approximately two octaves. The Hamburg composer I. Matteson, around 1713, * mentions a similar selection of three flûtes douces: a treble flute in F, an alto flute in C and a bass flute in low F; all had a range of exactly two octaves above the fundamental tone**.

* (Das Neu-eröffnete Orchester.)

** (A similar selection of three flutes in F, C and F is described in many books of the 18th century.)

The oboe, an improved type of the primitive pipe, was made, like flutes, apparently in no less than three sizes, of which the two-foot instrument was considered the main type. Oboes formed the core of the brass section orchestra XVII centuries and occupied the position of clarinets in modern brass bands until they were largely replaced by them during the next century. Oboes were apparently used in large numbers, probably more than one for each batch. They were played with a long and rough tongue. The soprano oboe and the middle flute were about two feet long with a pitch C of the first octave, and all their types had six holes for the three fingers of each hand and in addition a seventh on the bottom of the instrument for the little finger, or even, as in the time of Firdung, larger ones. the instruments were equipped with a valve, which was first covered on top with a protective device with holes. Early forms of valve gear with an awkward protective box can be seen in the works of Firdung, Pretorius* and Mersenne**. Of these, many illustrations of the first wind instruments were taken into later works on the history of music.

* (Praetorius, Syntagma Musicum, 1615-1620.)

** (Mersenne, Harmonie Universelle, 1636.)

Double little finger holes were drilled into the first flutes and oboes so that the player could use either hand to play the underside of the instrument. The unnecessary hole was sealed with wax. When the valve was fitted to close the lowest hole, it was also equipped with two closing plates, one rotating to the right, the other to the left. Depending on the length of the tube, the fundamental tone sounded when all the holes were closed. With the gradual opening of the holes, the sounding column in the instrument shortened and produced sounds of the first octave. Increasing air pressure and fork fingering produced the next (upper) octave and several chromatic notes, which expanded the instrument's tonal range, until subsequent additions of holes with valves located between the finger holes turned these primitive flutes and oboes into chromatic instruments of the late XVIII - early XIX centuries. Transverse flutes with dis valve and oboe with valves for low C and Es* were known before the end of the 17th century and remained the standard type until the end of the 18th century.

* (Valve C remains open, valve Es remains closed.)

Bassoons appear in scores of the 17th century, more often in the second half. The folded bassoon trumpet is the most significant difference between the bassoon proper and the old bass oboe variety, pommer, or bombard, and between the tenor bassoon and the tenor oboe.

Of the many types of bassoons that were made, the common bass instrument, having a total pipe length of about eight feet and a range of two and a half octaves, seems to have been the most suitable instrument for playing bass parts along with the bass of string instruments in opera and with the bass trombone in church music XVII century. Bassoons XVII century, according to Pretorius, had two valves covering the holes F and D of its lowest notes, and its volume reached down to the sound C (eight feet). At the end of this century, the valve of the lower B had already become known, which had established the volume of the instrument at the bottom until now.

Gabrieli (1557-1612) and Schutz (1585-1672) were probably the first composers from whom bassoon parts have been preserved.

This instrument begins to appear in scores no earlier than the middle of the century.

Cornetti, or German Zinken, were constantly combined as soprano instruments with trombones in church music XVIII century and had nothing in common with the cornets of the 19th century, except for the name and the cup-shaped mouthpiece, through which a column of air was vibrated in the same way as with brass instruments. Parts for cornetti were found only occasionally in opera scores of the 17th century and were used during the first half of the XVIII in church music in its original, original role.

These obsolete instruments constituted a class of their own. Cornetti had a strictly conical tube, but without a flared bell; they were made of wood or ivory and had a hole for the thumb at the bottom and six holes at the top, not covered by valves, to shorten the air column, as on flutes, oboes and bassoons. The mouthpiece (as well as the method of blowing) was still similar to the mouthpiece of the copper instruments with which the cornetti belonged to the same group. Two types of instruments were used: some slightly curved, others straight; the latter apparently had a softer sound and were called cornetti muti, or in German stille Zinken.

Both the mouthpiece and the entire instrument were made from a single piece of material. At least three sizes of cornetti are known. Of these, the favorite seems to have been the middle one, about two feet long, with a range approximately equal to that of a soprano voice. The smaller one, judging by Monteverdi's cornetti part, reached the upper D of the third octave and was obviously an instrument that required considerable fluency in performance. Parts for cornetti continued to be found in the first half of the 18th century and even in such a late opera as Gluck's Orpheus (Vienna, 1762), after which the instrument completely disappeared from the orchestra. The lower cornetti was a strangely curved serpent*, which lasted somewhat longer in the orchestra. The system, in which the sounding column of air in the tube was shortened by means of holes, was applied to the bass horn and the ophicleide, which, along with the valve horn, were the last of the wind instruments to have a bowl-shaped mouthpiece and equipped with finger holes on the side of the tube.

* (According to Gontershausen, the serpent was invented by Edme Guillaume of Auxerre in France around 1590 (Neu Eröffnetes Musikalischer Tonwerkzeuge, 1855).)

Trombones, like cornetti, are rarely found in 17th-century opera scores, but are widely used in church orchestras. Trombone parts, starting from the end of the 16th century, are found in the works of Giovanni Gabrieli, the organist of the Cathedral of St. Mark in Venice, and in the operas of Monteverdi and Cesti. Legrenzi Orchestra in the Church of St. Mark (1685) had three trombones. The trombone is the only orchestral wind instrument that was mechanically perfect before the advent of organized orchestras. According to Pretorius, four types were used: alto, obviously in F, tenor in B, quart in F (an octave lower than alto) and "octave" in B a fifth lower than quart *.

* (Galpin, The sacbut, its evolution and history. P. 17. Extract from Proceedings of the Musical Association, 1906-1907.)

Mersenne describes seven positions of the wings, thanks to which this instrument had a full chromatic scale throughout its entire range, except for the lowest part. By the end of the 17th century, a soprano trombone in B (an octave higher than the tenor) appeared and soon began to appear sometimes in scores under various names. Tromba da tirarsi * Bach was nothing more than a soprano trombone. This instrument should not be confused with the English slide trumpet of the 19th century, which had a small slide that extended towards the player a sufficient length to lower open notes by a semitone or tone, while the slide of the soprane trombone extended forward in the opposite direction to lower open sounds from semitone to diminished fifth. Although the soprano trombone was a famous composer of the 17th century, its place as the highest instrument of the family was constantly captured by the cornetti. Even during the first half XVIII century these obsolete instruments usually appear in church music along with three trombones. It seems strange that composers for so long neglected the increased use of trombones in their opera orchestras. Despite the constant struggle with the imperfections of natural horns and trumpets, composers began to regularly include trombones in opera scores with some consistency only after mid-18th century century, but until the beginning of the next century they were not given access to the concert orchestra.

* (Literally slide trumpet - a pipe with a slide.)

Opera scores of the 17th century often feature trumpet parts in dramatic situations of a warlike or solemn nature. The pipe of the instrument for playing the part was required to be either eight or about seven feet long; thus it turned out C or D *. Pretorius states that the normal scale of the trumpet was D, but these instruments were also made longer in order to obtain a natural scale from the eight-foot C. The change from D to C can be achieved by means of the Krumbügel, that is, the current crown. The trumpet parts in the scores of the 17th century were not transposing, they were either of the “fanfare” type **, or were written in a high register. Trumpets by that time had long been associated with (and sometimes designated by) the term "clarino" (light), but the distinction between the two meanings of this term (the first - the upper part of the natural scale, used most often, the second - the name of the instrument itself) did not follow from notations and recordings of trumpet parts in the 17th century until the time of Stradella, when the flowery obbligato parts characteristic of the well-known “clarino style” of Handel and Bach began to appear.

* (Sourdins in the 17th and 18th centuries. increased the range of trumpets by a tone (Walter, 1732, Mayer, 1741, Altenburg, 1795).)

** (That is, they were written at the bottom of the natural scale. - N.K.)

Timpani were combined with trumpets in the scores of Lully and other French composers. The constant and close combination of trumpets and timpani in the 16th and 17th centuries strongly indicates that they were used together with trumpets, even in the absence of specially written parts for them in the scores. Illustrations in the works of Firdung, Praetorius and Mersenne show timpani in their modern form with tuning screws around the entire rim. Tremolo is not found in 17th-century scores, although repeated sixteenth notes can be found in some parts.

The orchestral horn, which arose from the development and improvement of the semicircular or round hunting horn, despite Lully's trompes de chasse in the Princesse de Elide (1664) and several other dubious examples, belongs to the 18th century orchestra as and clarinet. With their exception, all the wind instruments of the modern orchestra were represented in the 17th century scores by their basic types.

Flutes, oboes and trumpets usually had two parts, which, unlike later custom, were probably intended to be played by more than one instrument per part. Bassoons had only one part and always a bass part. In the trombone parts, the now accepted group of three instruments was already outlined.

It is noteworthy that although everything wind instruments were made in three, four or more sizes; the size of the instrument that was finally preserved in the orchestra was the most common at the end of the 17th century. The two-foot flute and oboe, the eight-foot bassoon and trumpet were widely used and apparently already represented the main form, while parts for larger and smaller instruments of the same type were found only as an exception. Parts for other generally obsolete instruments are found occasionally, but already in the 17th century the process of “survival of the fittest” among wind instruments was in full swing, and although the composition of the wind group was far from being established, it turns out that at the end of the century flutes, oboes, bassoons, trumpets and timpani are well on their way to becoming integral members of the orchestra.