Iconography in the history of the recorder up to c.1430—Part 1
Anthony Rowland-Jones pursued a career in university administration, but has also published widely on the recorder, including Playing recorder sonatas (Oxford, 1993) and the recorder chapter in From Renaissance to Baroque, ed. J. Wainwright and P. Holman (Aldershot, 2005). He was assistant editor to J. M. Thomson for The Cambridge companion to the recorder (Cambridge, 1995). His research interests focus on the iconographic symbolism and history of the recorder, a subject on which he has written many articles.
The first part of this article suggests—on the evidence from archeological finds, iconographic, literary and other documentary sources, and by reference to other instruments—that the development of the eight-holed recorder from the six-holed duct-flute during the 14th century was by evolution and experimentation. The process was haphazard, but seems to have been widespread across western Europe. The demand for a fully chromatic wind instrument that could imitate vocal expression, including playing upper-register notes softly, was stimulated by musical changes brought about by the adoption of Ars Nova notation and the prevalence of three-voice polyphony, including untexted vocalized parts, and by the complexities of late 14th-century Ars Subtilior. Seven-holed duct-flutes—some tuned as shawms, others as bagpipe chanters, and some with thumb-holes—played a part in this evolution, thereby confusing the identification of recorders unambiguously represented in works of art. The new instruments were used more by singers, especially in cultivated aristocratic circles, than by minstrels not attached to great households; the status of players should therefore be taken into account in iconographic interpretation. These factors discount all but a few of the three-dimensional representations discussed in the article from being securely identified as recorders.
Key Words: recorder • duct-flute • music iconography • Ars Nova notation • Ars Subtilior • Catalan altarpieces