Renaissance wind instruments consisted of brass instruments, organs, and woodwinds. In 1l Corte-giano (The courtier, 1528), Baldassare Castiglione (1478-1529) praised keyboard instruments for their sweet harmony, and by the mid-16th century organs produced the most sonorous harmony of all. Especially in Germany, the ponderous church organ of the Middle Ages yielded its importance to more refined instruments with stops and reed pipes for better resonance and control. Arnolt Schlick’s (c. 1460-c. 1521) book Spiegel der Orgelmacher und Organisten (Mirror of organ makers and organ players, 1511) included building instructions as well as a handbook for both fingering and pedaling.
The three main brass instruments of the Renaissance were the cornet, trumpet, and sackbut (trombone), in various lengths and degrees of complexity. Particularly for trumpets and sackbuts, because of their curved shapes, advances in metallurgy during the Renaissance contributed to their development. New casting techniques and alloys permitted instrument makers to produce brass instruments with much better tonal qualities. The German city of Nuremberg was the leading center for this manufacture. Brass instruments were very important for ceremonial events; for example, 17 trumpets and six sackbuts were played during the coronation of Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603) in 1558.
Woodwind instruments proliferated during the 15th and 16th centuries. They were quite popular in northern courts, such as those of Emperor Maximilian I and King Henry VIII. Venice, however, was the main center of production, where woodwinds were made in graduated matched sets to guarantee that their sounds would be complementary. The chief woodwind instruments were the shawm, crumhorn, bagpipe, recorder, and flute. Recorders are the woodwind that everyone today associates with early music, and indeed they were played virtually everywhere in both sacred and secular settings. In Spain, for example, the cathedral of Seville owned several recorders, said to give variety to the
Handbook to Life in Renaissance Europe
Music, and in 1549 a box of large recorders was received by the new cathedral in Guatemala. Flutes were usually produced in three sizes, tuned to A, D, and G. Flutes played in ensembles became popular in France; Elizabeth I’s ambassador to the French court included flute players among his musicians. Renaissance texts about flutes sometimes confused them with recorders, but this error did not pertain to the transverse flute held against the side of the face (what we think of today as a flute). The bagpipe, basically a solo instrument, was played in unison with other bagpipes during military ceremonies and campaigns. Henry Ylll’s inventory of property listed five bagpipes with ivory pipes, probably used for military occasions. Bagpipes began to be closely associated with Scotland and Ireland during the 16th century, and with simple folk music. The crumhorn (“curved horn”), shaped in a simple J curve, was the earliest woodwind instrument with a reed cap. Made of boxwood, the curved shape was ornamental and served no practical purpose. Crum-horns were especially popular for dances and madrigals, such as the six-part madrigal played during the Medici wedding celebration of 1539. The shawm had a broad cane reed that enabled musicians to produce piercing notes. Because of their loud, bright sounds, shawms were a favorite instrument for outdoor performances. (Taday they are still used in parts of Spain for traditional dances and outdoor bands.)
World History
