The whistle and the renaissance

[bfloyd]

Probably a pretty naive question on my part, but what role did the whistle play (no punn intended) in the renaissance era? Was the whistle part of the medieval era? Only to irish music? Thanks.

Bryan

[peeplj]

This is a very heavy question; there isn't a great deal of information which has survived regarded secular (vs sacred) Medieval music.

Medieval music began with plainsong and moved slowly towards simple harmony (drones and parallel motion of 4ths and 5ths) and then as you approach the Renaissance you have the introduction of some simple polyphony.

There are a few instances of very early woodwinds, usually recorders of some form, being partially preserved. One of the earliest had a rounded flare on the end to beat a drum with, even though it was a seven-hole, two-handed instrument.

There were doubtless many forms of fipple flutes made with various numbers of holes and different forms of construction, but so few specimens have survived that you really can't take a design and say it was popular or even commonplace.

We call these early instruments recorders, but they don't have much more to do with modern recorders than they do modern whistles. What they would have actually sounded like can only be speculated on.

As you move into the Renaissance, you start to see woodwinds being made in more standard sets. Several makers make "Renaissance recorders" which are patterned mainly after drawings rather than surviving instruments.

As you move into the late Renaissance and early Baroque, you actually start to find a few surviving, playable instruments. Franz Bruggen has (or had) a very respectable collection of early recorders and flutes and much of the album "Sour Cream" (tunes from the Henry VIII Musica Speculativa) was recorded using those early instruments.

As to folk musics like Irish music, I'm not sure much is known about their existance or form in the Medieval era. Very little secular music has survived, mainly because writing down the tunes for any non-sacred music was illegal.

I think I once read some material L.E. McCullough had gathered about the earliest known Irish references to whistles; I'll see if I can track that down and post it (or its location) here.

--James

[talimirr743]

I was going to try to explain some, but that pretty much says it all James.

[brewerpaul]

Probably a pretty naive question on my part, but what role did the whistle play (no punn intended) in the renaissance era? Was the whistle part of the medieval era? Only to irish music? Thanks.

Bryan

Actually, the whistle would more likely be a baroque instrument. Seriously. O'Carolan lived squarely in the baroque period(1670-1738: born and died just a bit before JS Bach), and some of his tunes show influences of some of the Italian baroque composers. It was commonly accepted practice in those days to borrow melodies from other composers and use them in your own work.
That said, I'm not sure that a 6 holed fipple flute like our present whistle existed at the time. Although there are some here who would not like to admit it, it's not unlikely that a lot of O'Carolan's music got played on baroque recorders! In fact, the key of much of his music is more recorder friendly than D whistle friendly. Woudn't it be a kick to find out that the recorder really IS an IRTRAD instrument?

[peeplj]

Well, the McCullough information is actually on the Chiff & Fipple main site:

http://www.chiffandfipple.com/lehistory.html

It's a good read but I'm not sure how much it bears on your question, now that I've read it again myself.

There was certainly music in Ireland in the Medieval and Renaissance periods, but I'm not sure any of it, secular or sacred, resembles the Irish traditional dance music played today.

However, Renaissance and Baroque art music included many pieces written for dance, and some of the tunes resemble modern Irish trad dance tunes.

--James

[BrassBlower]

O'Carolan lived squarely in the baroque period(1670-1738: born and died just a bit before JS Bach), and some of his tunes show influences of some of the Italian baroque composers.

Does that not raise the possibility that Ennio Morricone is actually O'Carolan reincarnated?

[bfloyd]

Thanks all. Ok, so all in all, one could play the music of the reniassance (French, Italian, etc.) on a whistle as long as the key and the whistle fit . . . ??? Is the whistle known to just be an irish instrument or was it used elsewhere as well? Sounds to me, coming from the 10th, 11th, and 12th centuries that it could stem from other locations. Hmmm . . .

[Chiffed]

Don't forget that the Brit Isles had their Reeneezanze (sp?) at a different time from Italy &c. Just to make life complicated.

True, Pope Gregory had a thing for music, standardising musical forms for centuries, and regulating, well, ... everything, but I would be greatly surprised if there weren't twelve session tunes dating back half a millenium. They're just too much fun to restrict to only one or two centuries.

[bfloyd]

Don't forget that the Brit Isles had their Reeneezanze (sp?) at a different time from Italy &c. Just to make life complicated.

True, Pope Gregory had a thing for music, standardising musical forms for centuries, and regulating, well, ... everything, but I would be greatly surprised if there weren't twelve session tunes dating back half a millenium. They're just too much fun to restrict to only one or two centuries.

I remember seeing some music books on music from the Brittish Isles. I thought that these were renaissance pieces but not sure. I didn't know that they could possibly be from a different year span from the typical renaissance era being around 1450 to 1550. Does anyone know of the about dates for the Brittish Isle highpoint?