I have been working for many years on establishing a checklist of surviving renaissance recorders. The idea is to try to gather as much information as possible about each instrument, and incorporating this into a data base from which conclusions can be drawn. The current state of this research can be found at my online database. In getting familiar with a great number of these original instruments, I slowly became aware that few of the instruments we know today play with fingerings given in the sixteenth century recorder treatises. In particular the fingering for the fourteenth note, (a'' on a tenor) was always given as Ø12 - - - - - instead of the more usual Ø12 - - - 67 or variant. This suggested to me that perhaps some of the instruments were more cylindrical than the surviving specimens I knew, and that 'the renaissance recorder' was maybe not such a fixed design as I had previously thought.
This question led to my making some very different small consorts based on the woodcut illustrations in the treatises of Virdung and Agricola. My first point of departure was the Rafi/Grece instruments in Bologna. I first heard about these instruments while still at college and had also tried to make a few prototype instruments. I had however, dismissed their long slender ramps and almost square windows as something rather too exotic, and instead used more conventional voicing dimensions. Some years later however, having seen this type of voicing in many paintings and woodcuts of the period, in addition to those of Virdung and Agricola, I decided to try to use some of the details of these instruments to make a new design. The first attempts were based heavily on the Bologna instruments. Their narrow, almost cylindrical bores gave excellent results in the high register, but I found the low notes far too soft to use as consort instruments. I then came across another highly unusual recorder in the Leipzig collection, which had a very similar internal shape to the Rafi/Grece instruments, but having a huge bore diameter in comparison to the length of the instrument. I tried a different ratio between these two parameters and found that by increasing the bore size, I got a better balance between the low and high registers and, depending on the shape of the foot, could even get two octaves using Ganassi's fingerings. My next concern was the question of pitch, I knew that any bass instrument had to be a fifth below the tenor, but I felt that using this construction, I wouldn't be able to make such a huge instrument. The tone-holes of the tenor were already enormous and I couldn't see how I could get over this problem without using additional keys. In the end I resolved this problem by moving the pitch up a whole tone. The Rafi instruments were already much higher than a=466hz and instead of going down in pitch, I moved them up to the next convenient semitone. This solution gave me a bass instrument in modern g# , a tenor/alto in d# and a discant in a#. Their nominal pitch as FCCG instruments then works out at three semitones higher than modern a=440hz, at an uncompromising a=520hz. I used the woodcut illustrations from Virdung to model the outside form of the instruments, and have used both a cap blown and a direct blown design for the bass. Their sound is very solid and compared to most other recorder types, is relatively pitch stable. This allows a lot of dynamic flexibility and this, combined with their distinctive articulation gives an interesting variation to the normal renaissance consort. Musically they can be used for a wide range of repertoire, providing the music fits the FCCG schema. (See my documentation concerning the conical renaissance recorders elsewhere on this site.) It suits both dance music as well more polyphonic vocal writing.
Consorts constructed with this design remain both highly speculative and experimental. Having little basis in surviving instruments and using the woodcuts as a template, gives me the freedom to experiment with different ideas. Each consort made so far has been quite different from the last and there are a number of different possibilities which can be incorporated. It is essential with this type of recorder to discuss these with me in advance to find a working solution.
Recording of a Virdung consort played by the ensemble Artesonado on the downloads page.
Working on these cylindrical consort recorders gave me some further ideas about the Rafi
instruments themselves. Apart from the two examples in Bologna, there are only
two other existing recorders: a large tenor in Eisenach and a lower instrument
in Sigmaringen. The Bologna instruments are supplemented by the similar instruments stamped P GRECE, which together with the Rafis form a three size consort, each size being the usual fifth from the next. The lower quality work on the Grece instruments has led many people to believe that these were contemporary copies of an original Rafi set.
Another question concerns their age, as they have been dated from anywhere from the beginning of the sixteenth century up to the middle of the seventeenth. Indeed one writer has even proposed the theory that they are pre-baroque, 'transitional' instruments. I feel myself that the details such as the long thin window and the almost cylindrical bores, surely point to an earlier tradition of instruments, perhaps even pointing to a pre-consort 'medieval' style.
In any case I felt that these instruments were an interesting starting point for a late medieval model and I made quite a successful tenor followed by an alto, again at the same high pitch standard explained above. The ease of the high notes of these instruments and the quick speech and articulation possibilities I feel more than balance any weaknesses they have in the bottom register.
These recorders can be tuned in different temperaments, depending on the type of
music to be played. I also make them in a wide variety of woods, which give a
different colour to the sound. Please contact me for further details.
page last updated: 16/12/07