Chiff and Fipple Forums

Peter Duggan wrote: fingered vibrato seems a perfectly logical and acceptable term for its use in non-French-speaking trad.

Indeed Flattement is French. Vibrato is Italian. Yet both are used when discussing music, in English.

Or German, because Quantz used the term flattement when writing in that language.

However it seems that many English flutists in the 18th and 19th centuries used the term vibrato (or "vibration") to refer specifically to finger vibrato (the only sort many orchestral flutists of the time did).

pancelticpiper wrote:

Peter Duggan wrote:However it seems that many English flutists in the 18th and 19th centuries used the term vibrato (or "vibration") to refer specifically to finger vibrato (the only sort many orchestral flutists of the time did).

Where have you got that from, Richard? All I can find about the subject seems to indicate the opposite is true, and that flattement was merely one of the techniques used to produce a vibrato effect. Others included throat and chest vibrato and shaking the flute. This goes back as far as Quantz, who was already discussing chest vibrato and other vibrato techniques.