Sounding Pipes Edition 4

in

During my long train journey back from Edinburgh last week I whiled away the hours listening to music - a handy way of blocking out the distractions of screaming babies and the couple bickering with each other across the aisle from me. Having four hours to explore music, both familiar and new, was such a luxury, rather than squeezing it in between work. It also allowed me to narrow down my choices for my fourth Sounding Pipes playlist, which I hope may inspire you to go exploring yourself.

As ever I’ve picked a mixed bag of music, with pieces from many different eras - some serious, some lighthearted - hopefully something for everyone!

Georg Philpp Telemann - Water Music - Hamburger Ebb' und Fluth

Telemann, Corelli & Bach Chamber Music - Emelie Roos (recorder), Anna Paradiso (harpsichord), Dan Laurin (recorder) and Höör Barock BIS2235

Mention Water Music and most people will think of Handel’s suites, composed for a Royal celebration on the River Thames. But did you know that Telemann composed a suite too, arguably even better than Handel’s?

Telemann composed Hamburger Ebb' und Fluth (Hamburg ebb and flood) in 1723 to celebrate the centenary of the Hamburg Admiralty. Hamburg was an important port, situated on the River Elbe, and to reflect this Telemann’s music depicts a series of mythological gods connected with water, including Neptune and Triton. We see these supernatural characters in a variety of activities - sleep, play, love and more. He uses the recorder in several movements but in this Sarabande we hear Thetis, the mother of Achilles, being lulled in sleep by two treble recorders.

I’ve been lucky enough to perform this beautiful music several times (although always playing baroque bassoon rather than recorder) and I enjoyed it so much that I’ve arranged a collection of the dances for recorder ensemble. A couple of these have featured in my consort music videos, but if these whet your appetite to try more the full collection is available here

If you enjoyed the Sarabande, the whole suite is available on YouTube as a playlist here.

Paul Hindemith - Trio from Plöner Musiktag

Fruit of a Different Vine - Alison Melville, Nathalie Michaud & Colin Savage (recorders) Atma Classique ACD22206

In the early days of the recorder’s twentieth century revival contemporary music for the instrument was pretty sparse. Carl Dolmetsch played a significant role in expanding the range of fresh solo repertoire by premiering new works in each of his Wigmore Hall recitals - for instance the Lennox Berkeley Sonatina I wrote about in my last Sounding Pipes playlist.

In Germany the recorder was also garnering interest, perhaps most notably with Peter Harlan, a guitarist and instrument maker. After attending a concert at the Haslemere Festival Harlan saw the potential of the instrument and purchased a set of the recorders Arnold Dolmetsch had recently begun making, with the intention of making his own when he returned home. Unfortunately he didn’t realise these instruments were pitched at A 415, so the bottom note of the treble sounded to his uninformed ears like an E at modern concert pitch. If he followed this logic he would have made a consort of recorders pitched in E and B (rather than the familiar F and C), but of course that meant any music ended up with key signatures containing lots of sharps - hardly ideal. Harlan’s compromise was to make recorders in D and A, which could at least play easily with string instruments.

It was this misunderstanding which led Paul Hindemith to compose a trio for a music day held at a school in Plön in 1932 for recorders in A and D. Hindemith performed it with two friends, but the score indicates it can be played by single or by multiple players per part. Of course, the requirement for recorders at an unusual pitch meant this piece was rarely played in Britain until the composer gave permission in 1952 for Walter Bergmann to create a new edition for recorders in F and C.

Hindemith’s music may not be to everyone’s taste and I have to confess I find much of his compositional output a little uncompromising. However, his Trio for recorders has a quirky charm and is a definite favourite of mine. It has three contrasting movements which conjure up different images in my mind. The first makes me think of a bustling street scene in 1930s New York, with parping horns and some blues musicians standing on a street corner (there’s definitely a hint of Gershwin in there). The second movement has a robotic feel, and one can only wonder if perhaps Hindemith had Fritz Lang’s 1927 futuristic film Metropolis in mind. The Trio culminates in Sostenuto movement which, at a tempo of crotchet = 40-50, seems to absorb all the excess energy of the preceding two. In comparison to the others it has a much cooler tone, maybe casting a spotlight on more perilous corners of the city where one perhaps shouldn’t venture after dark for fear of what might be lurking among the grimey alleyways.

If the Hindemith Trio is new to you the full work is available to listen to (along with the rest of Alison Melville’s album) here and the music (in the C and F recorders version) can be found under the ‘Arrangements and Transcriptions’ tab on IMSLP.

Oliver Davis - Earth from The Elements

Arcadia - The Hanke Brothers Signum Classics SIGCD590

Apple Music launched their new classical music app the day I set off for Edinburgh - the perfect opportunity for me to have a rummage around and see if a standalone classical app makes the task of finding specific pieces and recordings simpler (it does!). While music streaming services aren’t good for the musicians who appear on them (the royalties they pay are notoriously poor) they’re a great way to browse and find unfamiliar recordings. Apple Music Classical offers the option to browse by instrument, so naturally I took a look through the offerings for recorder.

Among the many familiar pieces of repertoire I found Oliver Davis’s The Elements, composed for the unlikely combination of piano, viola, recorder and tuba. My interest was piqued and I was amazed how well this eclectic mix of instruments works in the right hands. Oliver Davis has composed for film, television and ballet, as well as concert works and his music has a distinctly minimalist feel, with repetitive rhythmic and melodic patterns.

The movement I’ve chosen to share with you is Earth, which Davis describes this way:

“I wanted to create a grounded feel so anchored the music with long pedal notes in the tuba and used a repeated rhythmic pattern in the viola to propel the music towards its climactic ending.”

I love the way he uses this unique combination of sounds to create contrasts and I think I can honestly say I’ve never heard a tuba played with such delicacy, and certainly never with a recorder before! As with many of my other suggestions, the whole album this movement comes from is available here for you to explore further.

Peter Philips - Pavan Passamezzo

Amsterdam Loeki Stardust Quartet and Sour Cream

The Passamezzo Antico chord progression

We’re stepping back some 400 years for my next suggestion to one of my favourite pieces of Renaissance consort music. Using the Passamezzo Antico ground bass, Peter Philips weaves his magic, creating an endless tapestry of musical lines. This eight bar chord progression has been used as the basis for music by composers for centuries.

Some choose to use a tool like this as a ground bass, with an endlessly repeating pattern in the lowest instrument while the higher parts weave their magic above. But Philips takes a different approach, using the chords as the skeleton of his music and allowing all the voices a chance to take an equal role in the melodic movement.

I wanted to find a recorder consort performance of Pavan Passamezzo to share with you and it was a bonus to discover this coming together of two recorder supergroups - the Amsterdam Loeki Stardust Quartet and Frans Bruggen’s Sour Cream. The fact that they’re performing it on a low consort of Renaissance recorders is just the icing on the cake as they create a wonderfully lush timbre.

J.S.Bach - Cantata 39, Brich dem hungrigen dein Brot

Bach’s manuscript of Cantata 39 - click to see enlarged.

Bach Cantatas Vol.16 - Ton Koopman with the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra and Choir. Challenge Classics CC72216

My next recording is one spontaneously suggested to me by Apple Music as I was travelling several months ago. Bach wrote Cantata 39 for performance in June 1726, when he was working at St Thomas’s Church in Leipzig. It’s a sacred work, with a text which implores us to be grateful for God's gifts and to share them with the needy. The slow opening section shows Bach’s mastery of orchestral writing in the way he combines the instrumental tones (two recorders, oboes, strings and choir) and I recommend you listen to it with the sound turned up to really savour Bach’s magical shifts of harmony. This is followed by a livelier section, during which I’m sure I spotted a little snippet in the recorder parts, borrowed from his own Brandenburg Concerto No.4!

A sneaky bonus… Cantata 82 - Ich habe genug

While listening to this selection from Ton Koopman’s Bach Cantata series I rediscovered another gem which I just had to include. The opening aria of Cantata 82, Ich habe genug, doesn’t include any recorders, but the music is absolutely heavenly - a simply exquisite combination of melodic lines for oboe and bass voice. The video below begins with this particular aria, but there’s nothing to stop you listening to the rest as well if the fancy takes you!

Glenn Miller - Moonlight Serenade

Flanders Recorder Quartet

I always try to include something light to complement the serious music in my Sounding Pipes playlists and this time it’s a spot of big band jazz, played by the Flanders Recorder Quartet. Although it’s perhaps best known as an instrumental piece, several different sets of lyrics were connected with the tune during Miller’s lifetime. Miller never recorded a vocal version, but it did make it onto Frank Sinatra’s 1966 album, Moonlight Sinatra. Had Miller survived World War II one can’t help but wonder whether he would have approved of Sinatra’s take on what had become Miller’s own signature tune.

The Flanders Recorder Quartet bring their own laid back approach to this timeless classic, performed at one of their last concerts together in Taiwan in November 2018. The communication between Bart, Paul, Tom and Joris is such a joy to see and I can’t help but smile at the cheeky interaction between Tom and Joris one minute and fifty five seconds in!

Scott Schultz’s Thirty Second Concerts

Browse through all of Scott’s videos here.

If you need a short twice-weekly pick me up, my last suggestion surely can’t fail to make you smile!

Scott Schultz was once a professional french horn player and during the pandemic he was looking for a way to keep himself occupied. The result was his twice weekly ‘30 Second Concerts’ which feature recorders, percussion instruments and a healthy sense of humour. Scott has three rules for the creation of these videos:

  1. All technology used must have no cost associated with their use (hence the 30 second limit)

  2. All instruments used must be acoustic only and preferably designed to be used by children

  3. All arrangements are created by Scott from available no-cost resources

I’ve subscribed to Scott’s YouTube channel for a few months now and his humorous approach to the music never fails to make me smile. He always dresses up for the occasion and no musical genre is off-limits. At the time of writing he’s released just over 400 videos, so it’s all but impossible to pick just one. I can’t imagine how much time he must put into creating these musical moments (the costumes alone must take some time to dream up!) but they brighten my day when they pop up in my YouTube subscriptions feed on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Have I succeeded in my mission to broaden your musical repertoire? I so enjoy creating these playlists as it helps me discover unfamiliar music and new recordings of pieces I know well. If there’s an area of music you’d like me to include more of in future playlists do leave a comment below - I find it inspiring to receive recommendations too!

The technique zone - Finger training

in

Hotteterre’s iconic image of a recorder player’s hands from his treatise, Principes de la flute traversiere, de la Flute a Bec, et du Haut-bois, Op.1

When you consider the myriad of things we concentrate on while playing the recorder it’s a miracle we make music at all, isn’t it? You’ve got breathing, tone production, articulation and fingering to consider and that’s without even making any decisions about the finer musical details.

Multitasking is a skill all humans struggle with - our brains just aren’t designed for focusing on multiple tasks at once. The way we overcome this in music is to practise certain skills to the point where they become instinctive and habitual. Once this happens, that habitual element of playing can continue while our brain focuses more heavily on other things. I see the challenges of multitasking all the time in the musicians I work with. A pupil can be playing with a gorgeous, rounded tone, but when faced with a sudden flurry of fast notes, or a passage in a tricky key, their tone suddenly suffers because they’re now busy thinking about their fingers.

This short video clearly explains the phenomenon of how we manage (or fail to manage!) multitasking.

To develop good technique to the point where it becomes habitual it’s important to separate out the various elements, focusing on just one skill for a period. In previous posts I’ve talked about breathing, tone production and legato playing, so today we’re going to focus on moving our fingers well.

Be a tortoise rather than a hare

My aim today is to get you thinking about the quality of your finger movements rather than the speed of them. You remember the old adage, “Don’t run before you can walk” - that applies to recorder playing too!

None of the techniques and exercises I’m going to share here need to be done at speed immediately - that can come later. Instead, take your time, focusing on efficiency rather than whizziness. In a further blog post we’ll discuss how to acquire speedy fingers - to do that as well today would almost certainly require too much multitasking!

If you practise the techniques below and turn them into good habits you’ll be in a much stronger place to develop speed in the future.

How do you hold your recorder?

I often see people doing battle with their recorders, holding them in curious ways - this inevitably has a detrimental effect on finger efficiency. Let’s go back to basics for a moment - I explain exactly where to begin in this short video:

Comfort with larger recorders

A welcome innovation over the last twenty to thirty years has been an increase in the number of knick recorders available. These are larger instruments (tenor downwards) which incorporate a bend in the headjoint, often some additional keywork. Such modifications are so helpful as they bring the body of the recorder closer to the player, reducing the stretch required for the fingers and arms. Straight tenor recorders often provide the greatest challenge for those with smaller hands. I know many players who now enjoy playing the tenor recorder because a knick and some extra keys have brought the fingerholes into comfortable reach for them.

Knick instruments have one drawback though - the bend in the headjoint changes the angle of the recorder’s centre joint. As I explained in my video, a straight recorder sits upon your right thumb in an almost horizontal position. This allows gravity to help pin the recorder against your thumb, adding stability. With a knick instrument, the centre joint takes an almost vertical position, so gravity then becomes a negative force, trying to pull your recorder to the ground! There are several possible solutions here, the simplest of which is to use a thumb rest. Tucking your thumb beneath a thumb rest gives the recorder a point of balance and the force of gravity holds it there. But with heavy recorders, or for those with arthritic thumbs, this can of be painful so there are other solutions you can try.

Attaching a sling or neck strap to the back of your recorder allows you to hang the weight of the instrument from your neck or shoulders, perhaps in combination with a thumbrest. If this isn’t comfortable, a third option is available for the bass recorder - to rest the bottom of the instrument somewhere. I often do this by crossing my ankles, resting the bottom of the recorder between my calves. If this isn’t comfortable you can also buy adjustable spikes which allow you to rest the instrument on the floor. I often use the latter solution with my bass and I love the way it takes all the strain away from my fingers.

Ultimately, if your body is comfortable while playing, this frees up your fingers to move efficiently, making your playing more fluent. It’s definitely worth spending some time finding the right solution for you.

The human hand - a flawed design

Evolution is an amazing thing, slowly making adjustments and improvements to the design of our bodies over many, many generations. However, from a musician’s perspective, there are still a few things which could be improved. One of these is the design of our hands.

It’s a common misconception that our fingers are controlled by muscles within our hands. In reality, the movement of our fingers is created by the muscles in our forearms. These muscles connect to tendons, which run through our wrists and hands into our fingers. As the forearm muscles flex they pull on the tendons, creating the finger movements needed to play the recorder.

It’s within these tendons you find a small flaw. A single tendon runs through each finger and into your wrist. However, the tendons from your third and fourth fingers fuse together in the centre of your hand before continuing as one single tendon into your wrist. The fact that these two fingers share a tendon means they work better as a team than they do individually. This is why your third and fourth fingers don’t work as independently as the others. This is particularly critical when we play forked fingerings, such as E flat on the treble recorder or B flat on the descant. These notes require the third and fourth fingers to work independently of each other – something they don’t do easily.

I’d love to think that if enough of us continue playing musical instruments of any type, eventually evolution will sort this design flaw out. Hopefully in a couple of million years time recorder players won’t face the same difficulties as we do with forked fingerings!

Keep reading and I have some exercises later which will help you make these weaker fingers work more efficiently.

Good vibrations

Do you have a recorder close by? If so, pick it up now and play a few notes. Focus on the sensations you feel through your fingers.

Do you feel gentle vibrations through the pads of your fingers? Or is your sole sensation that of the wood or plastic beneath your fingertips? This exercise will help you understand whether you’re covering the holes in the right way. Use the minimum amount of pressure and you can feel the vibration of the air column beneath your fingers. If you can’t feel this vibration you’re pressing your fingers down with too much force, and working harder than you need to. Being aware of this will help you to better understand whether you are working your fingers efficiently.

Remember too that you should always cover the holes with the pads of your finger, not the tips. This gives you maximum sensitivity and the best chance of sealing them effectively.

Active versus passive

An efficient finger technique is vital if you ever wish to play at speed. You should aim to use just enough effort to open and close the finger holes. Use too light a touch can result in air leaks, while pressing too hard with your fingers expends more energy than necessary.

A useful way to achieve the perfect balance of finger pressure is to think in terms of active and passive movements. Bringing your fingers down to cover the holes uses gravity as an assistant and is a passive movement. In contrast, when lifting fingers up, you’re working against gravity so this movement has to be an active one. Play a few notes on your recorder, perhaps a short scale, and really focus on these two types of movement. Harnessing, the power of gravity will help you cover the finger holes with ease, while the greatest amount of energy is always used when lifting the fingers.

Don’t work too hard!

When it comes to finger movements I always tell my pupils to be as lazy as they can get away with. Of course, I don’t mean taking a slapdash, “that’ll do“ sort of attitude. Instead, think in terms of expending the minimum energy necessary to get the most efficient result.

Are you a recorder player whose fingers are a model of efficiency and neatness? Or maybe you’re someone whose digits flap like flags in the wind?! It’s simple common sense that if you keep your fingers close to the recorder they’ll travel more quickly than if you lift them high. However, common sense doesn’t necessarily have a huge amount to do with what we actually do with our fingers!

If you’re  a finger flapper, spend some time playing a simple piece of music, where you have the spare mental capacity to be able to focus on your finger movements, without being distracted by other elements of technique. Playing in front of a mirror can be really helpful here, because it’s often easier to see which fingers are moving too much when viewed from the perspective of an another person.

Another mental image I suggest to my students is to imagine a mini electric fence placed horizontally two or three centimetres above your fingers. If you’re familiar with Star Trek, I’m thinking of a miniaturised version of the electronic force fields they use to close off parts of the Starship Enterprise. With this imaginary force field in place, think what would happen if you lifted your fingers too high and they came into contact with it. A quick zap of electricity would certainly focus the mind, deterring you from lifting your fingers further than they need to travel - not that I’m suggesting you should actually electrify your recorder!

If you’d like to see efficient fingering in action I recommend watching this video of a young Frans Bruggen performing the Vivaldi Concerto in C, RV441. He looks so utterly relaxed and his fingers lift just enough to clear the holes, but no more. For those of who don’t speak Dutch, the music begins at around two minutes.

Snappy mover

If you’re playing a slow piece of music, do you think your fingers should move quickly or slowly?

I often pose this question to students and you’d be surprised how many people get the answer wrong. Your fingers do, of course, need to move quickly and snappily, regardless of the tempo of the music. When you’re playing a slow, singing line the notes change at a leisurely pace and the spaces between the notes are minimised to create that legato effect. Move your fingers too slowly and the transitions become blurred and glissando-like. I often compare this to the voices of The Clangers in the 1970s TV cartoon! To avoid this always move your fingers quickly and efficiently to create a singing melody with crisp transitions between notes.

Putting everything into practice

Having considered basic principles, it’s now time to put this into practice.

As I mentioned earlier, trying to do too many things at once will almost certainly end in failure. Your best bet is to choose something simple, allowing you to focus entirely on your finger movements. Perhaps the simplest exercise is a five note scale like the ones shown below - one for the fingers on the left hand, one for the right.

Begin very slowly, but make sure every single finger movement is quick, neat and as minimalist as possible. Remember, the further, your fingers move away from the recorder, the longer they take to come back down again. The time saved by making small movements is important whether you’re playing a slow melody or virtuosic concerto. Even better, play these passages with every note slurred. Slurring leaves nowhere for your fingers to hide – every little inconsistencies in their movement will be audible. Slurring also exposes unevenness in tone and rhythm so don’t forget to listen out for those too!

As you begin to improve the quality of your finger movements, gradually increase the speed of these short exercises. As the tempo builds, take care not to slip back into bad habits, with fingers flapping wildly.

Training badly behaved fingers

When we looked at the anatomy of our hands earlier, I mentioned how the connected finger tendons make forked fingerings harder to play neatly. This is because such notes require movement of two or more fingers together, frequently including one of your weaker fingers. The ultimate challenge comes when a note change requires you to move fingers up and down simultaneously, using digits on both hands.

The exercise below demands all these things between notes 2, 3 and 4. Try playing it now (ideally slurred) and listen to the neatness (or not!) of your finger movements.

Now play the same exercise while standing in front of a mirror. Really study the way your fingers are moving.

If you hear blips between notes this is because one or more fingers are moving out of sync with the others. Watching this process in a mirror (seeing them from the perspective of your recorder teacher, for instance) makes it much easier to spot which finger is slower than the others. If you find it hard to spot the badly behaved finger, concentrate on any which are moving upwards. Remember, lifting a finger requires you to work against gravity, requiring fractionally more effort. You’ll almost certainly find misbehaving digit is a lifted finger, moving just a fraction slower than the others.

Having located the recalcitrant digit, next time, really focus on that particular finger, trying to make it work just a little bit harder than the others. Over time you’ll probably noticed a pattern. Third fingers are the most common offenders, simply because they’re weaker as a result of the shared tendon. There’s nothing you can do to change the way your hand is built, but by concentrating on the way your fingers move, you can gradually encourage them to move more efficiently.

Once you can do this neatly while playing slowly, then begin to increase the speed, bit by bit, always ensuring your finger movements are neat and precise before moving the tempo up another notch.

Do you have your own tips for dealing with lazy fingers?

I’m sure there will be things I’ve mentioned today which chime with you. We’ve all wrestled with difficult passages and berated our fingers for creating all sorts of blips and imperfections. If you can recognise these bad habits while practising, you’re in a good position to gradually improve upon them. Maybe you have your own exercises and techniques for improving finger control? If you do, why not leave a comment below and share some of them with us – there’s always room to learn from each other.

The tips and exercises I’ve shared today are ones that work for me, but we all tackle things in our own unique way. I’d love to hear some of your tips and tricks!

A host of Holborne

in

Anthony Holborne (c.1545-1602) is a shadowy figure as far as music history is concerned, yet he’s almost certainly a composer whose music you’ve encountered from time to time. This is largely down to a collection of music we’re going to explore together today.

Our knowledge of Holborne’s life is a patchwork of ‘perhaps’ and ‘maybes’. The University of Cambridge alumni database shows an Anthony Holborne enrolled at Christ’s College in 1562 and speculates that it may well be our composer. Three years later, a man of the same name was admitted to the Inner Temple Court, but again the details are sketchy. However, we do know he had a (probably younger) brother, William, as Anthony included several of his sibling’s madrigals in his first publication - the Cittharn Schoole in 1597. We also know that on 14th June 1584 Anthony married Elisabeth Marten at St Margaret’s Church, Westminster - now the parish church of the House of Commons. A posthumous publication describes him as a ‘Gentleman usher’ to Queen Elizabeth I, but once again, it’s not clear quite what the job entailed - he certainly doesn’t appear in any records relating to musical life at the Chapel Royal.

During his latter years he worked in the service of Sir Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury, and also enjoyed the patronage of Mary Sidney, Countess of Pembroke. We’ll encounter her again later, as we explore Holborne’s music. He was evidently well respected by his peers and the first song from John Dowland’s Second Booke, I saw my lady weepe, is dedicated to Holborne.

Pavans, Galliards, Almains and other short Aeirs, both grave and light, in five parts, for Viols, Violins, or other Musicall Winde Instruments

This is the collection for which Anthony Holborne is best known today. Published in 1599, it contains no fewer than 65 dances and is the the largest published collection of English music to survive from this period.

It’s not clear when Holborne composed these dances, but it’s likely to have happened over a period of several years. Some of the music appears in his Cittharn Schoole, published two years earlier, and several dances also exist in lute tablature. Which version came first is something we can only guess at.

The collection is dedicated to Sir Richard Champernowne (c.1558-1622), who was Member of Parliament for West Looe in Cornwall. Judging by the dedication found in the part books, Holborne was evidently appreciative of his patronage, opening with the following words:

“In a continued observation of your virtuous constancy in the love of Music, I have long and with great increase of reason honoured you most gentle Sir: for, even but part of my poor labours speaking in their kindly voice, from the experience of many years can feelingly witness and sing with what graceful favours they have been nourished at your hands. With this regard, I have distinctively bundled them up into a catalogue volume, accompanied with a more liberal and enlarged choice than hath at any time as yet come to your refined ears: and withal, have now made bold to present them as things not altogether unnecessary to do you pleasing service, but also to live and dwell with you under the protection of your good allowance, and the testimony of my ever-bounden thankfulness.”

Three different types of dance

Holborne’s 1599 collection contains three different types of dance - pavans, galliards and almains. Rather than simply naming the movements by dance type, he gives over half of them more creative names, although it’s clear enough which is which from their time signature. The pavans and galliards tend to appear in pairs, while the almains are grouped together towards the end of the volume, along with some other independent pieces in three-time which may be corantos.

Some of the dances are fairly straightforward examples, suitable for dancing, while others enjoy much more complex rhythms. The galliards can be particularly unpredictable, with never-ending shifts between duple and triple time, sometimes without even any consistency between individual parts. Ask anyone who’s wrestled with the complexities of The Fairie-round and they’ll almost certainly have come adrift at one time or another when rehearsing or performing this music!

Which instruments to choose?

Title page of this collection describes them for ‘viols, violins or other musical wind instruments’, which offers up a huge range of possibilities. Publishers of this period often suggested multiple instruments on title pages as an easy way to make the music appeal to a greater range of buyers. You may wish to play these dances with a recorder consort, but there’s no reason why you shouldn’t also join together with friends who play the viol to create a ‘broken’ consort, mixing different instrument families.

While researching this subject I’ve discovered a myriad of recordings. There are performances which stick to one type of instrument, as well as those who mix wind and strings. Some combine bowed string instruments (viols and/or violins) with plucked instruments such as the lute or theorbo. But I’ve also encountered performances on recorders, sackbuts and cornetts, modern brass quintet and even tuba ensemble! If you really want to explore the rhythmic possibilities of this music there’s no reason why you couldn’t add a little percussion too, as you’ll hear in one of two of the recordings below. One thing’s for sure - you can play Holborne’s dances with a recorder consort with a clear conscience!

When it comes to selecting your recorders, the usual instrumentation for these dances is SATTB. However, if you’re short of tenor players, the Quintus line (the middle line of the score) will often fit the treble recorder too, albeit lying rather low in its range. The majority of the Bassus part fits perfectly on a bass recorder, and when the odd note disappears off the bottom of the instrument you can easily hop up to the octave above.

Holborne’s score writing

Partbooks published during Holborne’s life throw up one or two curiosities which are worth noting. The most significant is the way the Altus and Quintus parts of the first eight dances are inverted. As the higher voice, the Altus is the second line for the remainder of the collection, while Quintus occupies line three. All three modern editions I’ve mentioned below rectify this error so the Altus part book is always the second highest and the Quintus the line below. Quite why this quirk exists is unknown. Was it an intentional decision by Holborne, or an error by the typesetter? I doubt we’ll ever know!

Another oddity which always tickles me is Holborne’s selective use of a key signature in No.7 - a Pavan. Curiously, the B flat is only applied to the Quintus and Bassus lines in the 1599 partbooks. Looking through the Pavan, B flats only appear in these parts, so maybe this was the typesetter’s way of conserving time and ink? Once again, we have to fill in the blanks for ourselves in this story as there’s no recorded reason for this particular quirk!

Choosing an edition to play from

There are plenty of editions to be found of individual dances but I’m going to concentrate here on complete editions. There are two complete printed editions I think are worth seeking out, one more recent than the other.

Bernard Thomas’s London Pro Musica edition, LPM AH1

For a long while this was the go-to edition for Holborne, published by Bernard Thomas in 1980. I invested in this hefty box set when I was at music college and we often used it in consort rehearsals. Bernard added time signatures and bar lines, but interestingly chose to keep many of the Galliards in 6/2 rather than writing them in a more familiar 3/2 time signature. This makes hemiolas easier to spot as one voice often has three semibreves together, avoiding the need for tied notes across barlines - as you can see in the example below. It’s a clear edition with lots of detailed background notes.

Using a 6/2 time signature (in No.38 - Galliard) helps make it clearer where the hemiolas occur, as you can see from the three semibreves in the cantus and bassus parts.

Peacock Press Edition, edited by George Simmons and Virginia VanPoole, 2011. Peacock Press PEMS014

A more recent addition to the available modern editions is this one from Peacock Press. You can buy it as a box set, but if you need extra parts in different clefs they’re available individually too. Like the previous edition, this is beautifully clear and well laid out and this is the version I use most often.

These two printed editions aren’t cheap, but there’s a pleasure to be had playing from a well thought out and clear bound copy. Come to think of it, I’m pretty sure my set of the Bernard Thomas edition cost me about £30 when I bought it thirty years ago, so the current £40 price tag of either edition makes them look like inflation beaters in today’s financial climate!

Free editions:

If you’re still getting to know Holborne’s music and haven’t decided whether to splash out on a printed edition yet there are also some free download editions you can try.

New unbarred edition: I recently discovered this newish edition, edited by Ben Maloney as part of his degree at the University of York in 2019. Ben went back to the set of partbooks held at Christ Church, Oxford, which have some interesting annotations from the original publisher, to start from scratch. He’s chosen to retain Holborne’s mensuration signs (the predecessor to modern time signatures) and has left the music unbarred. This results in clearer rhythmic patterns, removing the need for ties across barlines. If you’re someone who really finds barlines helpful, Ben has added small dashes to show the start of each ‘bar’ - a handy halfway house to going fully unbarred. You’ll find the score for Ben’s edition here and the parts here.

IMSLP: If you’ve never tried any of Holborne’s music a good place to begin is IMSLP, where both Ulrich Alpers and Daniel Van Gilst have generously made all the dances available in score format. These are a good way to explore and see which ones you like - you can find them here.

Holborne’s 1599 Edition: If you want to go right back to source material, scans of the 1599 partbooks are even available. Reading from original notation isn’t for everyone, but if you enjoy the challenge, or perhaps you’re just curious, I’ve collected the five part books together in one PDF file here.

My Holborne highlights

To complete my look at Holborne’s dances I’ve spent lots of time listening to the many recordings on YouTube. I’ve picked out a selection of my favourite Holborne dances for you to explore, along with a wide variety of different recordings. These include performances on recorders, but you’ll discover some less predictable instrumentation along the way too.

The Marie-golde - No.8

I’m going to begin my selection with one of Holborne’s simplest galliards, The Marie-Golde. He takes a very chordal approach with this one, avoiding too many complex syncopations, and you can imagine this being danced to. Among the more traditional performances I found this very sonorous recording by the Chromos Tuba Quartet - a combination of instruments even Holborne wouldn’t have expected when he gave such a generously broad range of options on the front cover!

Infernum - No.21

This beautiful Pavan is a fascinating mix of styles. The first two sections feature plenty of counterpoint between the parts, while the final section returns to a more chordal approach, with all five voices moving in parallel. I’ve chosen two contrasting performances, the first of which features Hesperion XXI directed by Jordi Savall. In keeping with the rather dour title, he goes for sombre viols and lute, with the addition of bass drum at key moments.

In contrast, Capella de la Torre go for a largely wind based consort featuring shawms and sackbuts, with lute and drums. The result is fabulously sonorous and I can’t wait to explore more from this ensmeble.

My Selfe - No.36

Here we have another Galliard and, one presumes, a self portrait of the composer. This is another number where you feel you could actually dance along. The tone of The English Cornett and Sackbut Ensemble is gentler than modern brass, but you’d still be able to hear them clearly over the sound of dancing shoes on a wooden floor.

The Image of Melancholy - No.27

If ever you need something mellow and harmonious to relax to after a busy day I can’t recommend this Pavan enough. The music begins with a steady, contemplative feel, gradually becoming more conversational as the piece draws on.

With this performance by Consort Brouillamini you get four Holborne dances for the price of one, recorded at a concert in 2019. Played on wide bore Renaissance recorders, their tone is glorious and it’s great to see this wonderful music being played before an audience.

I also discovered another performance on recorders, this time by The Royal Wind Music, directed by Paul Leenhouts. This uses a broader palette of tones, with each line doubled at the octave.

The Night Watch - No.55

Now we come to an almain, a somewhat livelier dance than the preceding pavan. This is one of Holborne’s best known dances and is sure to get your feet tapping. The Academy of Ancient Music take a relatively leisurely approach, so perhaps the watchman in question was reaching the end of his night on duty…

Wanton - No.61

Holborne doesn’t specify the type of dance here, but it’s generally assumed the triple time movements towards the end of the collection are Corantos. I love the perpetually shifting rhythmic patterns and it can be tricky to grasp where the beat is moving to next.

Bjarte Eike’s recording with the Barokksolistene takes a relaxed approach which I really enjoy.

In contrast Les Sacquboutiers chose a livelier tempo, playing cornetts and sackbuts, with some delicate percussion to emphasise the perpetually shifting meter.

The Funerals - No.31

This beautiful Pavan was inspired by a heartbreaking story, which just makes it even more moving. Holborne’s patron, the Countess of Pembroke, tragically lost her father, mother and brother in the same year, 1586, and he wrote this as a lament for their loss. The opening is section is gorgeously sonorous, with a very static bass line. Gradually the music encompasses more movement and in the final section the Bassus line takes centre stage. Les Voix Baroques and Matthew White create a heart rending sense of melancholy with a broken consort. They use a combination of instruments I would never have considered but it’s so effective and beautifully played.

Muy Linda - No.34) Galliard

Whoever Linda was, she evidently had a sense of humour if Holborne’s music is anything to go by! The music bops along, switching endlessly between simple and compound time and Holborne really has some fun in the final section. Here the Cantus, Quintus, Tenor and Bassus lines play quite happily together in 3/2, while the Altus part stubbornly sticks with a 6/4 meter. I’ve had some fun working on this with several groups recently and there’s always a degree of mirth as we wrestle with Holborne’s cross-rhythms!

The first of my chosen recordings features Les Sacqboutiers once again, with their wonderfully delicate sackbut and cornett combination, accompanied by a sparkling tambourine.

In contrast L'Achéron go for a string based approach, combining viols, cittern, bandora and ottavino, creating masses of energy but occupying a totally different tonal world.

The Fruit of Love - No.58

The Fruit of Love is another Almain, and a good place to begin if you’re new to Holborne. I featured the B-Five Recorder Consort in one of my Sounding Pipes playlists a while ago and was delighted to find more of their mellow recorder tones here.

We’ve met L'Achéron already, but here we have another video, featuring The Fruit of Love, in the trailer for their album of Holborne, as well as an introduction by their director, François Joubert-Caillet, explaining more about their approach to this music. You also get a second helping of Muy Linda at the end!

The Fairie-Round - No.63

I couldn’t complete my list of Holborne hits without including The Fairie-Round - a truly interstellar piece! As well as being littered with brain jingling cross-rhythms, this is one of the pieces NASA chose to include on the golden records they sent into space on the Voyager 1 and 2 probes in 1977. These discs were designed as a representation of human culture and achievement, should the probes ever be intercepted by extra-terrestrial life. They’re currently heading out of our panetary system, beyond Pluto, but given the vastness of space it may be some time before any aliens get to hear David Munrow’s take on this particular dance!

If that performance wasn’t energetic enough for you, do take a listen to this interpretation by Consort Brouillamini from their album The Woods so Wild. It’s played at a lower pitch than the Early Music Consort of London, but that doesn’t stop it sparkling like the sun!

Heigh Ho Holiday - No.65

My final selection just had to be Holborne’s final dance, Heigh Ho Holiday, which is full of joy. The Royal Wind Music bring buckets of energy to their performance. They begin with a sparkling four foot consort, before adding the deepest tones of the recorder world without diminishing the sense of drive by one iota.

Which is your favourite Holborne?

Perhaps you’re already a Holborne convert, playing them regularly with a consort. Or maybe you’ve made some new discoveries today and are raring to give them a try? Either way, I’d love to hear which of his dances you love the most. I’m sure you’ll agree there’s something in the collection to be enjoyed whatever mood you’re in, be it melancholic or bursting with energy. Please do drop a comment below to share your favourites and I’d love to know if anyone has played all of them!

The pencil is mightier than the sword

in

Why a simple pencil could help you become a better musician.

Admittedly the author Edward Bulwer-Lytton may not have had music in mind when he coined the phrase, “The pen is mightier than the sword” in a play about Cardinal Richelieu in 1839, but I hope he wouldn’t mind me purloining it for educational purposes! 

Are you a musician who always keeps a pencil on their music stand? Or are you the sort who thinks, “I’ll remember that!” when the act of going to find a sharp pencil feels like too much hassle? I’m definitely the former. In fact I always have a pencil with me (there’s even one tucked away in my camera bag) on the basis that I never know when I’ll need one, and a pen’s marks have too much permanence. I’ve long been a great believer in using a pencil when I’m practising or rehearsing, because I know only too well how fallible the human memory is. 

Let’s take a quick look at the nature of how our memories work first, as it’s relevant to the way we learn music.

Neurologists differentiate between short term and long term memory, but what does that mean in practice? Short term memory is the transient storage of information - for around thirty seconds; perhaps up to a minute. It’s generally thought we can hold up to about seven items of information in our short term memory and beyond that new information quickly displaces the older items. 

If we wish to retain information beyond the limits of our short term memory we need to use other strategies to reinforce those memories. Saying the information aloud or mentally repeating it to yourself will often work. When I’m playing or conducting I might notice a mistake I want to come back to. I know I’ll probably have forgotten the detail by the time we reach the end of the movement, so I have to find a way to retain the location in my mind. Speaking aloud mid-flow isn’t an option, so I’ll quickly search for the bar number and this helps me at least remember where the passage was when we reach the end of the piece! 

Of course, if we only had short term memory we’d be in trouble. Luckily we have the ability to lay down long term memories - the human equivalent of saving data to a computer hard drive. It’s this mechanism which allows us to remember information and events over long periods. Some of the information we store is vital to our lives (where we live, or our partner’s birthday, for instance) but it also allows us to store all sorts of other detritus. I’ll often hear a song on the radio and I’ll be able to picture where I was when I heard it last - sometimes years ago. That’s of very little practical use, but it’s a knack I seem to have, for better or worse! 

Because our short term memory is so brief, that means we’ll sometimes need help remembering musical details - and that’s where your pencil comes in. When practising we repeat phrases to help our brain and fingers transfer this activity to long term memory, but we need to ensure we practise these phrases correctly and lay down accurate memories rather than practising mistakes into our performance. I’ll often use my pencil for exactly this purpose. I work on the basis that if I’ve made a mistake more than once I need to write something in to remind myself and prevent it happening a third time. 

There’s no shame in using your pencil

I played in the Phoenix Recorder Orchestra for ten years, during which time Steve Marshall was the ensemble’s music librarian. He would see all the parts handed back after a concert and was fascinated to compare how much or little different players had written in their music. Steve would often comment that my music usually had many more pencil markings than anyone else’s. As the single professional recorder player in the orchestra, he mused that if I, as someone who could probably sight read most of the music largely correctly, needed to write things in everyone else definitely did! Ultimately, there’s absolutely no shame in using your pencil. Writing reminders in your music is not an admission of failure, but it does show you’re serious about not making the same mistakes every time! 

The joys and pitfalls of other people’s markings 

When you’re handed a piece of music which already contains markings from other musicians, do you rub your hands in glee or are you overcome with a feeling of dread? Undoubtedly, notes from other musicians can be helpful - they give you a head start and warnings about likely pitfalls. Of course, that’s assuming they’re correct. When faced with music which has already been marked up, approach these annotations with an open mind. I often discover parts in my own library which have been incorrectly marked and that can be destructive. If you find an incorrect marking don’t just leave it there - grab a rubber and either remove or correct it - that’ll help you and the players who come after you! 

The other charm of pre-marked parts can be the non-musical information they occasionally contain. I’ve seen orchestral music with phone numbers, doodles and even whole sentences of prose written on them. I’ve never yet rung any of the phone numbers, but I often wonder what might happen if I did! 

Pick the right tool

Hopefully I’m on the way to convincing you why you should always have a pencil (never a pen!) to hand, be it in rehearsals, lessons or just practising at home. But what sort of pencil should you use?

There are many options but the most important things is to choose one with a soft lead. A 2H pencil is no use to any musician and, in my opinion, should be banned from all musical instrument cases! A hard pencil will likely leave indentations in the paper and the writing will be difficult to erase. A soft pencil (2B is a good choice) will allow you to write quickly and lightly, as well as giving you the option to come back and change your mind later. 

If you’re someone who never remembers to sharpen their pencils, a propelling pencil can be handy. This was my choice for many years, paired with thickish 2B leads -  usually 0.7mm. I’d keep a tube of spare leads in my pencil case and never faced the frustration of a blunt pencil - just click the end and you’ve got a fresh supply of lead. 

More recently I’ve returned to traditional pencils and my favourites are currently Blackwings. They’re not especially cheap, but they have lovely soft lead, sharpen beautifully and their erasers actually remove markings effectively. One of my bugbears with many pencils is the way the rubber on the end just smears the graphite around, leaving an unsightly and permanent smudge.

As I’ve just implied, the other vital tool in your armoury is a good eraser - after all every musician is entitled to change their mind. If your favourite pencil has a rubber which doesn’t actually do its job, make a point of finding an eraser which works effectively - you won’t regret it. The rubbers on Blackwing pencils can be extended as they wear down, and you can even buy replacement ones which slot into the ferrule on the end if you use up the eraser before the pencil becomes too short to write with - a feature I’d never come across before.

What should you write in your music?

This is one of those questions with an infinite number of answers, but here are some of the things I mark in my own music. My conducting scores contain lots of additional scribblings, but let’s focus on playing today. There are the obvious things, such as breath marks, accidentals, dynamics, alternative fingerings and ornaments. But there are many other things you can mark in too.

An 18th century custos at the end of each line in a Sammartini Sonata. Click to see enlarged.

I’ll sometimes use my pencil to mark in a custos at the end of the line - that’s a little squiggle which shows the pitch of the first note on the next line. These often appear in old publications and can be handy if the music doesn’t go where you’re expecting it to. In a similar vein, I’ll sometimes highlight a moment where a musical sequence changes with a circle. If you’ve had a regular pattern of notes for a bar or two, a subtle change can be easy to miss. 

Pencil markings can also be handy as reminders about the progress you’ve made in your practising. I’ll often write a small box around note groups which need further attention. This reminds me the next time I practise, but also gives me a heads up to concentrate harder at that point in rehearsals and concerts. Once I’ve nailed the passage reliably I’ll rub the box out and remove the distraction. If there’s a longer passage (may be two or three lines) which need closer attention I‘ll sometimes write a line in the margin at the side instead, so I don’t end up smothering my music in pencil!

Here I chose to add a line in the left margin to remind me this passage needed practice to tidy up my fingering

If I’m gradually working something up to a faster speed using my metronome, I’ll often note the maximum tempo I’ve achieved at the end of a practice session. Then, when I return to it I’ll know where I’d got to. Often I’ll need to backtrack a notch or two, but it’s a handy way to track my progress.

Another time I’ll use my pencil is when I’m trying to decide on alternative fingerings or ornamentation. There’s one piece of Vivaldi we play with The Parnassian Ensemble with a passage where there are many places I could use an alternative fingering, but the benefit isn’t always immediately obvious. Having too much choice can be paralysing, and as we learnt it initially I found my indecision about where to employ an alternative tripped me up. My solution was to make a decision and write it in my music - simple! Yes, I then changed my mind about a couple of notes, but it was easy to amend those markings, and the result was a much more fluent line.

Create your own language, but be clear!

Over time you’ll probably create your own language of symbols for the things you write in your music most often. There are of course universally understood symbols such as sharps, flats and naturals which all musicians use - or so I thought… Many years ago I took in the orchestra music after the students’ concert at the Recorder Summer School. To my astonishment one of the treble players had carefully written the word ‘natural’ in longhand over every place where an F sharp wasn’t needed. Maybe that’s what he or she needed for the message to sink in, but there’s definitely a more concise way of notating a natural note!

The most important thing is for your symbols to mean something to you and to be clear. Don’t write something terribly cryptic in your music, only to realise you have no idea what it meant when you come back to the same piece the following week! In my own music, I’ll write the word ‘BIG’ over a tick if I need to take a deep breath - it’s clear and unsubtle enough to make me do what it says. Passages where I want to take some extra time will be decorated with a wiggly line, and if I need to be more aware of another player or a conductor I’ll draw a small pair of glasses. Nothing ground breaking there, but I know what they all mean and that’s the key reason for writing on the music in the first place.

A glimpse of my annotational world…

While researching this blog I had a good old rummage through my music library in search of examples I could share with you. In the examples below you get a sneak peak at what goes on in my own music, but please understand some of it isn’t pretty!

This example shows my unsubtle ‘big breath’ marking, along with an indication of the length I wish to play the appoggiatura. With a dotted note like this, the appoggiatura could be performed as a quaver or a crotchet, so this pencil note tells me I’ve decided to play it as a quaver. I can of course change my mind and amend the markings later if I wish to. Incidentally, I always mark breaths with a tick. Some musicians use commas, but I personally find those too easy to ignore, especially without my reading glasses!

In this snippet I’ve added a simple curved line. A passage like this is at risk of being played non-legato because of the flats and the leap up to a high D - the line reminds me I really must play it smoothly. Some musicians will instinctively play a slur when faced with a curved line like this, but I know what I intend as it’s a marking I often use. If I wanted a real slur I would place the line more precisely rather than using a quick sweep of the pencil.

Below we have my way of marking in alternative fingerings. Some players use ‘II’ instead, but ‘alt’ works just fine for me.

The letters over the music here are from when I loaned my music to a pupil, but I’ve been known to use this indication myself too. The T is simply a reminder to tongue the note - something easily forgotten amid a flurry of trills and demisemiquavers.

Here we have a couple of markings to indicate rubato - being flexible with the time and rhythm. The wiggly line tells me to stretch the notes out a little - in this case a small ritenuto leading up to the pause. The word ‘time’ over the breath mark, however, is a reminder not to rush on after the pause. How much time I take before continuing may depend on the acoustic in which I’m performing. In a dry room, with little echo, I might move on fairly swiftly, while a resonant church acoustic may require a big, dramatic silence for the impact of the pause to sink in.

These markings date back to my student days and were written in by my teacher, Philip Thorby, but I’ve continued to use these symbols as they work for me. The straight lines (sometimes horizontal, sometimes diagonal, like an acute accent) indicate notes which need weight. The U-shaped symbols are similar to those used in poetry when analysing the flow of the text, and tell me to keep them lighter and stress-free. These marks may not be obvious to other musicians, but after 35 years of writing them in my music I know exactly what I intend.

Sometimes I see people writing small essays in their music and I wonder how on earth they’ll read it all in the heat of the moment. My approach is to find a single word which encompasses the character or mood I’m aiming for, so I can take it in with the swiftest of glances - as I’ve done in this example.

How much is too much?

Judging exactly how much to write in your music is a bit of a balancing act. Leave things out for fear of cluttering the page and you may omit critical information. But if you cover the page in annotations it can be difficult to see the wood for the trees!

The example below is one of my more prolific annotations. There are the usual articulation marks and dynamics, but also some character related words, such as ‘more butch’(!), ‘very calm and still’ and ‘naive’. On the Grave you’ll notice I’ve made some decisions about how I wish to ornament the music, along with an indication below the stave as to which chords are being played in the continuo part. These harmonic markings are a combination of pitches and figured bass which works for me as I’m used to playing from figured bass, but may not help non-keyboard players!

This is about as extreme as my own pencil markings ever get - any more than this and I know I’ll begin to ignore some of the symbols because my brain can’t process it all quickly enough. Not all musicians are the same though, and in this example of a Bach Violin Sonata, annotated by Yehudi Menhuin, there’s barely a scrap of paper left untouched!

Another example by an internationally acclaimed performer which surprised me was the edition of Bach’s Goldberg Variations which pianist Glenn Gould used for his 1981 recording of the work. The music was discovered and auctioned off by Bonhams in 2018 (you can read more about it here) and it gives a fascinating glimpse into his thought processes. You can click on the images below (and any of the others in this post) to see them in more detail. Personally, writing on music in pen like this makes me shudder, but Gould was an eccentric character and this approach evidently worked for him.

Are you indecisive?

If you’re still working out how much annotation is right for you there are other ways you can experiment.

The obvious one is to make a few photocopies of the piece you’re learning. You can do this legally for study purposes, providing you own the original. With these you can try different markings and see what works best for you, before transferring your final annotations into the published edition.

Maybe you’re someone who responds well to colour coded markings? I’m not a fan of writing on music with coloured pencils or pen as the marks can’t be erased or changed later. One solution is to insert your music (or a copy of it) into a clear plastic sleeve. You can then write on the sleeve with coloured dry erase markers in the knowledge that you can rub off anything which doesn’t help.

There are even options available for musicians who would prefer to store their music on an electronic device rather than carrying around weighty paper tomes. I’m still relatively new to this approach, but I do use the forScore app on my iPad sometimes. The app allows you to store vast quantities of music on your device and you can annotate it with a stylus, saving different versions if you wish to. I use this mostly for proof reading scores I’ve typeset while I’m on the road, but I know several musicians who use an electronic tablet to rehearse and perform from.

Eight quick annotation tips

  1. Don’t be afraid to change your mind. Music making should be a fluid affair - your interpretation can and should evolve over the years. Do write helpful markings in your music, but don’t be afraid to erase and update them as your taste changes.

  2. If you have lessons with a teacher, don’t rely on them to write things in for you. They may well do so, but if you think of something which will help you play better, grab the pencil and do it yourself!

  3. Be ready to adapt your decisions. Playing in a different acoustic or working on an ensemble piece with new people may mean you need to change your markings - be flexible and willing to change if need be.

  4. If you take music grade exams you don’t need to rub all your markings out before the exam. The examiner almost certainly won’t even look at your music and if your annotations help you to play better why make life harder by erasing them?

  5. If you mark a passage as a reminder that it needs more practice, don’t be afraid to rub out the annotations when you’ve overcome your stumbling blocks. You may find them helpful still, but on the other hand you may find them an offputting reminder of your earlier failings!

  6. Don’t be precious about writing in your music. Doing so isn’t an admission of failure, but will help you avoid mistakes in future. Music is a tool rather than a priceless work of art.

  7. Be a thief! Analyse the markings you see in other people’s music. If you spot a symbol which makes perfect sense to you and might be useful, don’t be afraid to ‘borrow’ it!

  8. If you’ve made a mistake more than once, strongly consider writing something in your music. This is a rule I follow myself. Missing an accidental when sight reading is unfortunate, but human. Forgetting it the second time round means I might well miss it again in future so I know I should pencil it in before I play the music a third time. This way simple mistakes don’t turn into bad habits, which are much harder to eradicate.

Musical annotations as a snapshot in musical history

While researching this subject I came across a short video from the British Library about the importance of annotations in historic music editions. Now I’m not suggesting your copy of Telemann’s recorder sonatas will necessarily be of critical importance to musicologists in a century’s time, but clearly there are things we can learn from old scores and the trail of pencil breadcrumbs their owners have left for us!

Have I convinced you yet?

I often tell the groups I conduct that the clink of a pencil returning to the desk of a music stand is one of my favourite sounds. This sounds crazy, but as a teacher I know that if a student has written something in their music they’re more likely correct their errors next time round and that’s got to be a good thing!

If you’re someone who always has to borrow a pencil from a neighbour in rehearsals, perhaps my words may be enough to inspire you to pop one in your instrument case, so you’re prepared next time you need one. I’d love to know your thoughts on this. Are you an enthusiastic scribe, or does your music tend to remain as untouched as a fresh fall of snow? Please do drop a comment below!

Some of my favourite things….

in

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.

~ ~ ~

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!