Rudall & Carte........ Tenor Recorder!

[Terry McGee]

Saw something a bit unusual today, especially considering I didn't have to go anywhere, it came to me in my little coastal village on the South Pacific Rim! (Is nowhere safe?) A tenor recorder, made by Rudall & Carte, sometime around the 1920's. And not something they had cooked up - it was their copy of an earlier instrument made by 18th century English maker, Stanesby Jr.

Whereas we are used to seeing recorders with twin holes on the lowest and penultimate holes, these had just a single hole on each, relying on half-holing for the semitones.
And whereas the recorder normally has three parts - head, long body and foot - Stanesby Jr had imitated the newly-fangled transverse flute of the period and given his tenor four parts - head, LH, RH and foot. And the foot had lost the bold terminal flare we associate with recorders, just ending with not even a ring. Modern brutalism had struck, way back in 1732!

Stanesby published a pamphlet promoting his new instrument as the "True Concert Flute", kindly reproduced here by maker Philippe Bolton: https://www.flute-a-bec.com/textestanesbygb.html . It's worth a look at just to enjoy words like "tranfpofing", "muficke", "fuppos'd" and "ufefulnefs". Ah, they don't write like that any more.....

The Bate Collection in Oxford includes examples of the Stanesby original and the Rudall Carte copy. But it was a bit surprising to come across one in my own home....

[cac]

Thank you for posting this, Terry. The fingering chart is very interesting as it includes separate fingerings, like many traverso charts of the time, for note pairs such as D#/Eb, A#/Bb, etc. To judge from the recorded samples, however, it wasn't much competition for the 'German flute' or traverso. Just as in our day, a low D whistle doesn't compete with a concert flute for strength of tone. A beautiful instrument, however. Is yours stained or plain boxwood (both colours are attractive, I think)? Chet

[paddler]

Pics or it didn't happen!

[Terry McGee]

Oh dear, I should have thought of that, shouldn't I. I might be able to get the owner to send me a pic. Otherwise it looks very similar to the Philippe Bolton one, except:
- his features the more modern double holes on the two lowest notes, and
- this one was in what we believe is Spalted Sycamore. (Spalting refers to an infestation by a fungus, too much is called rotting!) So not an expensive wood, and really too light to make the best instruments from. Boxwood is around 1.0, Sycamore between 0.4 and 0.6 tonne/m3. The instrument feels very light.

The bore was in excellent condition, probably a combination of not having seen all that much use and abuse over its lifetime, but also well sealed with oil, which would have been absolutely necessary given its otherwise light, coarse and porous timber.

My guess is that Rudall Carte didn't make these recorders in house, but purchased them in. They also list brass winds in their catalogues which again I'd be surprised if they made in house. Robert Bigio would be the one to ask.

[paddler]

Thanks for the description!