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the hard D in classical music

Posted: Tue Dec 31, 2019 7:04 am
by flyingparchment
i'm currently reading Ardal Powell's book "The Flute" and thought this passage was interesting (or at least amusing):
Other German sources suggest that the strong low register Tromlitz exhibited and Devienne disliked may have been characteristic of German taste, not just of Tromlitz's - which in light of the contemporary Franco-German antipathy would help explain why a French flutist would find it objectionable. On hearing the blind flutist Josef Winter play on 16 March 1778, Dülon described his tone as that of an angel, citing his strong and manly low register with a pleasant and well-in-tune high range. Some people evidently took the strong low register to extremes, however, since Dülon wrote of the amateur flutist Ribock:
So as far as his tone was concerned, he really was not bad; nonetheless Ribock took a particular pride in blasting out the low D and E♭ with such monstrous force that it might have made one's ears ring. However this was confined to these two notes; with the others he did not go about things so relentlessly. But where now was that beautiful proportion, in particular that evenness of tone so pleasing to every unspoiled ear? For one may easily see how badly the E, which is in and of itself a weak note on the flute, stood out against it. Yet he set great store by this blaring or (as he called it in his booklet) this brilliant manner of blowing, because he remarks that the windows sometimes rattled with it, so that he was occasionally tempted to check that it had not caused the flute to crack etc. So as to his manner of playing it will of course now be evident to all connoisseurs that this was beneath all criticism.

Re: the hard D in classical music

Posted: Tue Dec 31, 2019 1:10 pm
by paddler
"... beneath all criticism." I like that! It gives me something to aspire to. :twisted: