The recorder is relatively unusual in the music world in that we don’t tend to play just one instrument. After all, you wouldn’t expect a violinist to also play the cello and double bass. Yes, we usually begin on either a descant or treble (depending on your age and the span of your hands), but most players will gradually begin to explore other sizes, if only out of curiosity. How far your explorations go may depend on physical or financial limitations, but I would always encourage any recorder player to expand their horizons if they can.
In today’s post I’m going to talk about some of my favourite members of the recorder family - in particular the instruments I own and perform on. I’ve also chosen a piece played on each instrument so you can hear what they sound like.
When non-musicians learn that I’m a recorder player there are several questions I’m frequently asked, including which size I play and which is my favourite. Of course, I quickly enlighten them about the huge variety of recorders, from the tiny garklein to big basses, but choosing a single favourite is tricky. If you pushed me hard for an answer it would probably be my tenor, so let’s start there!
The viola of the recorder family
Now don’t misunderstand me - I’m not about to tell any viola jokes! I have some very good friends who play the Cinderella of the string family, and its warm, mellow sound should be heard on its own more often. The tenor recorder shares these characteristics and it’s this gorgeous tone which drew me to my own instrument.
For decades I plodded along with a Yamaha plastic tenor recorder - a fantastic instrument which plays in tune, with a lovely tone and a modest price tag compared to its wooden cousins. I knew if I were to buy a wooden tenor I’d want one which was even better than the Yamaha - and that’s tricky unless you’re willing to spend lots of money. For the amount I needed to spend I simply couldn’t justify the cost relative to the amount it would be played, so I dismissed the idea for a long while.
Many years ago I identified my dream instrument – Stephan Blezinger’s Bressan tenor. I promised myself I would immediately buy one if I ever won the lottery, but in the meantime I kept saving the pennies. By 2016 I’d almost saved enough, but the UK’s Brexit referendum conspired against me, sending currency exchange rates haywire which in turn increased the price of my much longer for tenor by another £400!
Ultimately, a conversation with my Dad convinced me to take the plunge regardless of the cost. I recall him saying something along the lines of, “You’re a long time dead - spend the money now and enjoy the instrument!” I’m so pleased I did, as my gorgeous tenor definitely has the most beautiful tone of all my recorders. Sometimes I’ll use it to demonstrate a point during a rehearsal or workshop and and I’ll see people looking up with an expression on their face which says, “Ooh, that sounds rather lovely!“ I do of course realise this is down to the instrument as much as the player!
Do I get to play very often? Well, thanks to Covid I’ve played it much more than I ever dreamt I would through my consort videos. The tenor is never going to be an instrument with a large solo repertoire, but it brings me so much joy that it was worth every penny, even if perhaps my accountant wouldn’t agree!
One of my favourite solo tenor pieces is Christopher Ball’s Pagan Piper. In 1913 Claude Debussy wrote a piece for solo flute called Syrinx, which depicts the story of the god Pan pursuing a nymph called Syrinx, whom he loves. This love is unrequited and she turns herself into a water reed so she can hide in the marshes. The story has a tragic ending as Pan cuts these reeds to make his musical pipes, thus killing his loved one. Syrinx can also be played on the tenor recorder (I’ve performed it myself) but here we have Christopher Ball’s reinterpretation of the story, composed specifically for the recorder. He subsequently also wrote a companion piece called Pan Overheard. There are definite echoes of Debussy’s impressionistic style and you can feel the influence of the water as the music effortlessly ebbs and flows.
The place where most of us started – or is it?
I imagine the majority of recorder players began their musical lives with the descant. For children, this isn’t a musical choice so much as a pragmatic one – a simple fact that small fingers find the descant an easier stretch than the treble. I’m fond of my ebony descant recorder (the one you’ll see me playing in many of my videos) but my favourite is my Von Huene Ganassi descant recorder, which I’ve had since my second year at music college. It’s made from a single piece of maple wood, is unbelievably light, yet makes the fruitiest tone I’ve ever heard from a recorder of its size.
The title page of Ganassi’s Opera intitulata Fontegara
This design is based upon an instrument kept at the Kunsthistorische Museum of Vienna and has a full two octave plus range - something which isn’t possible on all Renaissance recorders. The wide bore, with a flared bell, means the lowest notes are incredibly rich and full bodied.
I most often use my Ganassi descant for playing the music of Jacob Van Eyck. Of course Der Fluyten Lusthof was composed in the mid 17th century (firmly into the Baroque period) so this probably isn’t a historically correct choice, but I think it suits the music very well nevertheless!
Most recorder players will be familiar with at least some of Jacob Van Eyck’s music, even if you haven’t played all 150 pieces from Der Fluyten Lusthof. Van Eyck was a blind musician employed by the city of Utrecht to care for the carillon in the Dom Tower. He was paid an extra 20 guilders a year to entertain the passersby in the churchyard with his recorder and this was where he performed the sets of divisions (or variations) which were later gathered togther to form Der Fluyten Lusthof - ‘The Flute’s Pleasure Garden’. This particular piece is unusual in that it’s not a set of variations, but a single movement. I like to imagine Van Eyck standing alone in the church, playing this music, having fun as he explores the way the sound echoes off the stone walls.
Sometimes a semitone can make all the difference
Last year I wrote a blog about the standardisation of pitch and over the centuries, which you can find here. The concept of an internationally recognised Baroque pitch is a convenient one adopted over the last century or so, with A=415Hz being the most common today
My thirty year old Prescott A415 treble recorder
I was lucky enough to acquire my first A415 recorder when I was just a teenager, and I used it through most of my college studies. Eventually I succumbed to the lure of an instrument made by Tom Prescott, based on a Bressan from Edgar Hunt’s collection of recorders. It plays better than my first A415 recorder, has a beautiful warm tone and absolutely gorgeous low notes. Thirty years later this recorder is still going strong and I still love playing it.
It’s not until you’ve played a Baroque pitch recorder that you really appreciate the difference that semitone makes. Playing just a semitone beneath modern concert pitch brings such a warmth and mellowness to the tone - far more than you would expect. If you ever have a chance to try playing at A415 grab it with both hands!
Daniel Purcell is an underrated composer today, overshadowed by his brother (or perhaps cousin) Henry. He had a successful career in music though, working as organist at Magdalen College, Oxford and writing incidental music for more than forty plays in London. This movement comes from one of his chamber pieces - a trio sonata for two recorders and basso continuo - which is a perennial favourite when we’re programming concerts with The Parnassian Ensemble.
Plumbing the depths
On the face of it, playing the largest members of the recorder family might not seem that appealing. The music played by these larger instruments is often simpler, and much less whizzy than that played by the high instruments. However, if you’ve ever played a bass clef instrument in any type of ensemble or orchestra, you’ll know there’s a huge satisfaction in feeling you’re providing the foundations to the music.
Big bass recorders may not have the sheer weight of sound provided by low brass instruments, or even a cello. But even one great or contrabass recorder can add so much depth to any ensemble. In 2008 I took the somewhat odd decision to arrange a piece of Sibelius (Valse Triste) to conduct in my massed playing session at the Recorder Summer School. We already had a sizeable forest of greats and contrabasses, but when Steve Marshall doubled the first note of the contra part on his brand new subcontra, an octave lower, I swear I felt the floor vibrate beneath my feet, and a huge grin spread across my face!
I have to confess I’m torn when it comes to choosing a favourite instrument here. Both the great and contrabass recorders I play in my consort videos are on long-term loan from friends, and for that I am immensely grateful. I love the sensation of playing the contrabass in a recorder orchestra, and the Paetzold instrument I use has wonderfully resonant low notes. However, I do also have a very large soft spot for the great bass, which offers the opportunity to both reinforce the bassline and help fill out the harmonies. I think we’ll call that one an honourable draw!
The piece I’ve chosen to share the mellow tones of the bigger basses is not traditional recorder repertoire - a choral piece by the French romantic composer Gabriel Fauré. In this arrangement of Cantique de Jean Racine by Brian Bonsor the recorders sound wonderfully mellow, with the lowest voice taken by the great bass. Brian was an enthusiastic composer and arranger of music for recorders with piano, so a piece for voices and piano was a natural choice for him to arrange. I remember the year he brought it along to the Recorder Summer School (in his impeccably neat handwritten manuscript) for 150 recorders to play it with Brian directing from the piano - simply heavenly. This performance is one I conducted for the CD Bravo Bonsor!, with Brian’s good friend James Letham at the piano.
The magic of the voice flute
The largest recorder here is my Cranmore Voice Flute
My final favourite instrument today is the voice flute - a member of the recorder family, despite its name. The voice flute may be less familiar to many recorder players, but it has a unique quality which I love. Fundamentally it’s a tenor recorder pitched in D – that means the bottom note is a D rather than a C. That may seem a little quirky until you understand its musical purpose.
During the Baroque period, it wasn’t uncommon for recorder players to steal flute music for their own purposes, transposing the notes a minor third higher to fit the treble. This is all very well, but you can’t then play the same music with other instruments because of the change of pitch. Another option is to use a voice flute which shares the same range as a flute of the period. This makes it possible to play flute music at the original pitch but on a recorder.
My own voice flute is one made by Tim Cranmore about 20 years ago. The finger stretch can be a little challenging, but absolutely worth it for the gorgeousness of its tone. More recently, when playing with the Parnassian Ensemble, we experimented with using my voice flute alongside the Baroque flute in some 18th century French repertoire, and the result was just glorious!
My final piece of music does exactly what the voice flute was intended for - a beautiful borrowed Fantasia for flute and comes from my own CD, Helen and Friends. All twelve of Telemann’s Fantasias are glorious, but I have a particular fondness for this one, especially when played at the original pitch. I shared a recording of this work by Frans Bruggen in my recorder themed take on Desert Island Discs if you’d like to compare and contrast between the sound of voice flute and treble recorder!
So there you have my favourite recorders. I’m afraid I really couldn’t narrow it down to just one, as a real recorder player doesn’t specialise on just one. That’s the magic of our chosen instrument – if you fancy something whizzy and sparkly a descant is perfect. But if you’re in a mellow mood and want to explore the deeper end of things, a contrabass can be so soulful.
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Do you have a favourite size of recorder? If so, what is it about this particular instrument that draws you in so much? Please do share your thoughts in the comments below - I’d love to hear your preferences!