Iconography in the history of the recorder up to 1430—Part 2
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, 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 came about 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. The second part of the article considers recorder iconography in two-dimensional media during the period under review, from about 1300 to about 1430, with special reference to Catalan altarpieces.
Key Words: recorder • duct-flute • music iconography • Ars Nova notation • Ars Subtilior • Catalan altarpieces
Part 1 of this article (Early music, xxxiii/4 (Nov 2005), pp.557–74) suggested, on evidence from archaeological finds and from iconographic, literary and other documentary sources, and by reference to other instruments, including folk 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-part polyphony, including untexted vocalized parts. The article postulated that 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 unambiguous recorders in works of art. It was suggested that at first the new instruments were used more by singers, especially in cultivated aristocratic circles (and singers were usually also instrumentalists), than by minstrels not attached to great households, and that 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. The present article considers recorder iconography in two-dimensional media during the period under review, i.e. from c.1300 to c.1430.
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Illuminated manuscripts |
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14th-century art is most prolifically represented by manuscript illuminations, a form of art which is least subject to deterioration over the ages but is not easily accessible except through selected reproductions in books and nowadays through digital images.1 The total number of pages in European medieval manuscripts with pictorial illuminations must exceed a million, spread across collections world-wide. Finding occasional duct-flute representations among so much material is therefore even more difficult than it is with other forms of art.2 Lilian Randall's wide-ranging studies show many examples of animals or grotesques playing musical instruments such as pipe and tabor, or double-pipes,3 but she apparently found no single duct-flutes. A search by ‘flûte’ of the French ‘enluminures’ website (see n.1) produced three results; two of these were not flutes, and the third was a four-holed conical pipe.4 The ‘liberfloridus’ website produced six, of which one was a clear duct-flute, outwardly conical, and two were unidentifiable single pipes.
There are many vignettes of musical instruments in the great East Anglian psalters of the first half of the 14th century.5 A few may be identified as duct-flutes,6 but not recorders—although Canon Galpin described as a recorder the instrument played by a grotesque on f.72r of the Ormesby Psalter (illus.1).7 But it has no window/labium, and the player—a cockerel with a man's upper body and head—blows his instrument more in the manner of a shawm. There is a similar pipe, also played by a grotesque, on f.51r of the Gorleston Psalter of c.1325.8 Another is played by a grotesque (part-horse, part-woman, and with large wings) at the top left of f.11r of the Cuerden Psalter, perhaps produced near Canterbury during the third quarter of the 13th century, and now in the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York.9
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In the later 14th century, Books of Hours superseded psalters as the main form of personal devotion, but it is not until well into the 15th century that they begin to show clear representations of recorders. In the Petites heures du Duc de Berry (1388),10 an illumination on f.8r shows a Dominican priest blessing a prince, watched by Christ surrounded by angel-musicians. Among a group of soft instruments, an angel plays a small slender pipe, held downwards; it is quite likely intended to be a duct-flute, maybe even a recorder, but no defining details are visible. Another possibility is in the Hours of Charles the Noble (c.1405),11 where at f.96r musical angels play at each side of a Coronation of the Virgin. One plays a cylindrical pipe held in a good recorder-playing position with the wrists low, but the image is too tiny to show any identifying details. The pipe shown in illus.2, from a Book of Hours in the Bodleian Library, dated 1408, does appear to be beaked, which suggests that it is a duct-flute, and it has a recorder's full complement of seven finger-holes, counting the paired little-finger holes (and the curious first finger-hole) as one. Above the latter, a little separated from the line of finger-holes, is another mark which could possibly stand for a window/labium, but it is wrongly shaped. And there is no way of knowing whether or not there is a thumb-hole underneath.
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Although all the possible recorder representations in late 14th- and early 15th-century Books of Hours are uncertain, the most probable of the depictions I have seen, which may also be the earliest, is in an English Book of Hours in the Bodleian Library, dated 1380–1400 (illus.3). Joseph points out to the Virgin (with Child, and ox and ass beneath) two angels, in the border of an initial, who are serenading them with the music of two pipes. Boase called this ‘a pretty and most unusual fancy’.12 The nearer instrument is of tenor size, the other alto. The tenor seems to be beaked, and is cylindrical, quite slender, and with a slight bell flare. The alto has a wider body with decorative rings near the bell-end. The relaxed playing position for the tenor is very suggestive of recorder playing, but the placing of the hands is harder to make out with the alto—the image is too small, however, for any certain identification.
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A surprising source of representations of musical instruments is St Augustine's De civitatis Dei, which was copied many times in a mid-14th-century translation into French by Raoul de Presles. It generally required two volumes, fully illustrated. The Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris possesses several sets, mainly from the early 15th century. Isabelle Hottois illustrates three folios from them.13 The first of these, dated c.1390, curiously shows five musicians on a circular platform atop a pillar around which sit twelve bearded Romans. The instruments include vielle, rebec and bagpipe, and two wind instruments of at least tenor length, one of which has been identified as a recorder. But the player has puffed cheeks and the unclear markings at his lips seem just as likely to suggest it is a reed instrument. The distance between the lower hand and a large bulbous bell-end is too great for recorder fingering. The other instrument has a flared bell with a tuning hole in it. Hottois thinks they are both shawms.14 The second illumination, dated 1420–35, is of the Coronation of the Virgin, around whom nine musical angels flutter in a starry sky. The angel at top left plays an alto-sized cylindrical pipe with a slightly flared bell and what appear to be paired little-finger holes, certainly giving the impression of a recorder; the other plays a cantus-sized slender cylindrical pipe. The third, similarly dated, shows eight angel-musicians in a garland surrounding the picture, one of whom plays what Hottois describes as a shawm. It is cantus-sized, fat, and cylindrical, with no bell-flare, and no beak. The player has no puffed cheeks, and the lowest finger-hole is close to the bell-end, which has a decorative incised ring. It could just as well be a recorder, but once again the depiction is far too small to distinguish it with any certainty.
Hottois also illustrates from a manuscript of Christine de Pisan's L'Epître d'Othéa the scene of King Midas, with ass's ears, judging the contest between Pan and Apollo.15 The pipe-playing Pan has chosen the most versatile type available, a recorder, here alto-sized. But this unambiguous representation comes from 1460. Illus.4 shows this scene from a manuscript of the same work in the British Library dated between 1410 and 1411. Pan's duct-flute here is smaller, either the better to represent a shepherd's pipe or perhaps because the larger sizes had not become fully established throughout Europe by 1410. All fingers are down, and the right wrist is held low enough for the thumb to cover a hole underneath. Two finger-holes are visible, but the left-hand little finger is poorly placed; there is no sign of paired little-finger holes.
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Trees of Jesse were commonly depicted in works of art in a variety of media during the period under review,16 but only from 1400 were the Kings of Judah sometimes shown playing various musical instruments.17 David plays the harp, but the other kings play what Watson (n.16) calls ‘agglomerations of different instruments’, including some such as trumpets and shawms—and double-pipes—which royal personages are unlikely to have played in reality. About half the duct-flutes represented are in the form of double-pipes. Probably the earliest Tree of Jesse to show a single duct-flute is in the second volume of Guyart Desmoulins's Bible historiale in the Bibliothèque Royale at Brussels. This copy was produced in Paris in 1410. The king at top left (illus.5a) plays a tenor-sized instrument, slightly outwardly conical in exterior outline, although the bore opening, which is visible, is quite small. The window/labium area is clearly shown, as are three finger-holes low down on the body of the instrument, under a badly placed lower (left) hand. The first finger of the upper hand appears to cover its hole, which is placed unusually low down the instrument, with the three other fingers poised. This is more a probable recorder than a certain one, although the fact that it is of tenor size gives some credence to its identification as a recorder; Hottois says it is a cornet.18 The copy of this same Bible in the British Library by Thomas du Val in 1411 shows a king at top right (illus.5b) playing a cantus-size pipe.19 Again it is outwardly conical, and, although the hands are in a recorder-playing position, it is held upwards at an angle above horizontal. There is an incised decorative ring round the bell-end, a common decorative feature of early recorders, but no other details are apparent. Similar uncertainties apply to the instrument played by a king at top left (illus.5c) of a Tree of Jesse in a Book of Hours illuminated by the Master of Egerton about 1430, although Ford and Green call it a recorder in their Pierpont Morgan Library inventory.20 It is of tenor size, slender and cylindrical, and the hands are placed as if for a recorder, but a third of the instrument is below the player's lower hand, and the detailing at his mouth is unclear. There could be a tuning hole at the bell end, a characteristic associated with the shawm, although the ring decoration and the slightness of the flare at the bell suggest that it might be a recorder, which would be more appropriate than a shawm to appear amongst the bas instruments played by all the other kings in this particular ‘agglomeration’.
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Three further examples from manuscript sources, each of considerable interest, illustrate other problems. The first (illus.6), also from the Pierpont Morgan Library,21 shows David as a versatile young musician with harp, hurdy-gurdy, and a duct-flute which would be a perfect image of a recorder if it were known whether or not it has a thumb-hole. It could be a seven-holed ‘intermediate’ duct-flute, although the artist might have wanted as famous a musician as David to hold a fully developed chromatic recorder (with a thumb-hole).
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Illus.7 is of some rather crude drawings of two duct-flutes, marked ‘fistuli’. The four-holed tabor-pipe is shown with its thumb-hole diagrammatically at the side of the pipe rather than underneath. The other pipe, where the mouthpiece and window/labium are oddly out of line, has five clear finger-holes, and, rather higher up, two further holes in line with the others, but faintly marked. Surely if this second pipe did have a thumb-hole the artist would also have shown it diagrammatically. This 14th-century drawing therefore probably illustrates a seven-holed intermediate type duct-flute. (See part 1 of this article, p.560.)
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Illus.8 shows two details from the Squarcialupi Codex, a compilation of 354 pieces of secular vocal music from 1340 to 1415, of which 146 are ballatas by Landini (c.1325–97). At the left of each detail three duct-flutes are shown. In the second detail each duct-flute has six finger-holes. In the first, from the most elaborate page of the manuscript as it introduces the music of the famous Landini, the duct-flutes were gilded, but in the process of time and use the finger-holes, which had been marked in by pen, have been partly rubbed away, making it impossible to know whether there might have been a seventh hole. Both Landini, and Magister Johannes of Florence whose music is introduced by the page from which the second detail is taken, were celebrated organ players, and a portative organ is shown in each of their introductory pages. To that extent, but probably no more, the instruments shown in the pages of this manuscript are related to the music played by the composers themselves. The temptation to conclude only from the evidence of these two details that their three-part ballatas were performed with three recorders has to be resisted.
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Stained glass and enamels |
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Much searching in most Western European countries has so far revealed only four images of likely recorders in late-medieval stained glass, even though one might have expected to find examples in the work of the Rouen school,22 or, later, in the windows of the Beauchamp Chapel in St Mary's Church, Warwick.23 Two of these four representations are, significantly, in the cathedral at Bourges, a city which, after the accession in 1392 of Jean, Duke of Berry, brother of the King of France, became one of the foremost cultural centres in Europe. Another is in Evreux, where during the 14th century the counts were related to the kings of France by marriage. They were also from 1349 to 1425 kings of Navarre, adjacent to the kingdom of Aragon, renowned for the culture of its courts.
Illus.9 shows one of 27 medallions of angel-musicians,24 this one playing a duct-flute in the upper part of the stained glass of the Rosary Chapel in Evreux Cathedral. This chapel has three large bays, each with three tall and broad lancets. Work on the glass was in hand from 1360 to 1370, and was resumed in 1383; all the windows were completed some time before 1400, possibly in 1397.25 It is reasonable to assume that the decorative uppermost sections of the Rosary windows, set above deep tabernacle work in each lancet, belong to this later period of the dating of the glass. Within that period, ‘royal windows’ (1390–98), donated by Charles VI and Pierre de Navarre, were being installed in the choir.26 They were made in a Parisian workshop where the draughtsmanship was influenced by the book-illumination workshop founded by Jean Pucelle, famed for his Hours of Jeanne d'Evreux,27 wife of a former King of France, Charles IV.28 Stylistic comparison also suggests that the Rosary windows came from the same royal source.29 Both in Evreux and Bourges the presence of possible recorders could therefore be associated with music-making in royal courts.
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The element of uncertainty about the duct-flute at Evreux is due to two factors. The Rosary windows, especially the angel-musician medallions, were restored in 1893 by E. Didron. He replaced about half the medallions with single, unleaded panes, but the colouring is paler and the style shows pre-Raphaelite influence. I believe the angel in illus.9 escaped his zeal, as Didron would surely have given him back his missing right eye. It is noteworthy that the artist has shown the whole instrument on one piece of glass, and that, being an unfamiliar instrument, it is turned slightly towards the viewer. The angel's hands are moved up into a position to cover only one, or perhaps two, upper finger-holes. This clearly reveals two further finger-holes, and there are possibly four more further down, although unfortunately they are blurred and rather conjectural (the photograph is as clear as the original). The actual total number of finger-holes, obviously more than six, could have been a subject of uncertainty for the artist himself. I would, however, call this a probable, or even a likely recorder, especially as its dating is similar to the unambiguous Aragonese representations discussed later in this article.
The fame of Bourges increased when its archbishop became Pope Alexander V in 1408, although he died a year later. His arms may be found in the unrestored tracery glass high up in the south ambulatory chapel now dedicated to St Solange.30 In the glass immediately to the right of the pope's arms is an angel playing a duct-flute (illus.10). His cheeks are unnecessarily puffed, and, as at Evreux, the artist seems to have been uncertain about the actual number of finger-holes in what was to him probably an unfamiliar new instrument. To err in the right direction he has therefore marked in some nine or ten holes, with confusion of fingering to match. The other recorder in the stained glass at Bourges is mid-15th century and unambiguous; between and below the paired little-finger holes it unusually has a small tuning hole. It is roughly coeval with another alto recorder representation in the stained glass of the Cathedral of Moulins, not greatly distant.
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Three possible recorder representations which are all from the 14th century may be found in small jewel-like enamel insets in three-dimensional objects. Two of them are from the crozier of William of Wykeham, displayed in the chapel of his New College at Oxford. The many musical instruments played by angels on the crozier have been described in detail by Jeremy Montagu in an article with colour illustrations of all the musical enamels.31 Of the instrument in the panel which he describes as ‘Peter 5’ (illus.11a), Montagu writes, ‘There is a trace of what might be a mouth; if so, it indicates that this is a duct-flute. I believe that this may be one of the first representations of a recorder’—he suggests the date as 1367 when William of Wykeham was consecrated as Bishop of Winchester.32 He continues, however, ‘One can seldom be certain ...’ He conjectures, but with even more uncertainty, that ‘Peter 8’ (illus.11b) might depict a shawm, but the outline of thickening at the bell-end, to protect against cracking and perhaps to facilitate bore reaming, could just possibly suggest that this is another recorder; some instruments are repeated on the crozier and, with its symbolism of the cult of the Virgin Mary, all the instruments except for some light percussion are bas rather than haut. But neither ‘Peter 5’ nor ‘Peter 8’ shows a clear window/labium, and the lower hand in each case is too high up the instrument for recorder playing.
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Illus.12 is of an enamel set into a late 14th-century decorative table-fountain. It shows a man and (it seems) a woman seated on ornamented bench-chairs in a garden environment. The woman holds what has been identified as a psaltery, although the fingers of her left hand seem to be in a position to play a portative organ, and the man plays an alto-size duct-flute, all fingers down but with an uncovered offset little-finger hole close to the flared bell-end. Terence Ford describes it as a ‘recorder’.33 This image certainly gives the impression of informal upper-class domestic music-making. One could fancifully conjecture34 that they are playing a two-part motet or ballade already learnt by heart as sung music, which the man has chosen to play on a seven-holed outwardly conical duct-flute, originally a minstrel's instrument. It cannot be assumed to be a recorder, as the artist has shown the players' hands too sideways-on to be able to cover a thumb-hole.
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Identification of different 14th-century wind instruments of the same length and much the same shapes, such as alto-sized six-holed duct-flutes, recorders, shawms and early cornetts35 confuses and challenges even experienced organologists such as Ford, Montagu and Howard Mayer Brown. Yet they have seen both original instruments and many later accurate representations in works of art. Consider then the problems facing a non-musical 14th-century artist wishing or required to depict one of these instruments. He would have had no actual instrument or even an unambiguous picture to copy, so had to rely on his memory of having at some point seen the instrument being played. It is not surprising that he fell back on hazy recollections, imagination or invention. Moreover, artists often had to depict instruments in very small spaces. Their confusion would have been exacerbated during a period when instruments were in a process of evolving in response to changes in musical expression. It may well be the case, therefore, that some depictions which do not satisfy all identification criteria were nevertheless intended to represent the new and unfamiliar recorder.
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Frescoes |
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Unfortunately the sections of Western European late medieval frescoes which might have depicted recorders are those that have been most subject to damage. This is the case with one dated 1390–1404 in the chapter house of Westminster Abbey which Jeremy Montagu suggests may be a recorder,36 and also with The Annunciation to the Shepherds on the north choir wall of the church at Blassac, Haute Loire.37 There is a very likely recorder tucked into the waist-bag of a shepherd in a Nativity fresco fragment in the parish church of Boussac, Creuse, but it cannot be dated more precisely than ‘15th century’—probably mid-century.
Images are clearer in some Eastern European frescoes which have been better preserved and recently well restored. Several Greek Orthodox painted churches in remote and peaceable parts of the Troodos Mountains in Cyprus, which were left unravaged during the rule of the Ottoman Empire, show, according to Byzantine pictorial convention, three shepherds receiving the angel's message at the top right of Nativity scenes, one of whom is sitting, apparently unconcerned, playing a single pipe. The best examples are at Lagouthera (1192), which shows a small slender cylindrical pipe with no details, and at Asinou (third quarter of the 14th century) where a fatter, more conical, beaked pipe has a window/labium and six or seven finger-holes. From about 1200 to 1500 Cyprus was an outpost of Western European culture, and recorders might in due course have become known in the eastern Mediterranean. A Nativity wall-painting in the south aisle of the monastery of the Peribleptos at Mystra in Sparta, also from the third quarter of the 14th century, shows the seated shepherd playing a cylindrical pipe with paired little-finger holes near an unflared bell-end, but other details are unclear. A similar figure from c.1430 in the neighbouring Pantanessa monastery plays a duct-flute with a window/labium, but no other visible details.
This is fortunately not the case with the tantalizing duct-flute in a depiction of the Mocking of Christ in a fresco from 1315–18 in the church of Staro Nagoricõino, Macedonia, which has been thought to be a recorder (illus.13). This church is one of about a dozen painted wholly or partly by Michael Astrapas and Eutychios, court painters to the powerful and devout King Milutin, who ruled Serbia from 1282 to 1321 and rebuilt and redecorated some 40 monasteries.38 The scene of the Mocking of Christ appears in the Passion cycles in seven of these churches.39 The mocking is by insults, loud noise and the lewd dancing of mummers in a parody of homage. In Devi
's listing (see his n.30, p.84), loud instruments, including huge horns, predominate, but instruments to accompany dancing (vielle or rebec, castanets, psaltery) also appear, among them the duct-flute in illus.13b, where it is supported, rather in the manner of a pipe and tabor, by a drum, as well as the mummers' cymbals. In such a role the shrill tones of a lively flageol would have been particularly effective. The instrument may be an early version of the short cylindrical six-holed frula, the most popular of present-day Serbian duct-flutes.40 The position of the player's right thumb makes it unlikely that the instrument has a thumb-hole; there are no paired little-finger holes, and the hole very close to the bell-end is probably for tuning as it is out of reach of the player's left little finger.
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ino, Macedonia, 1315–1317/18 (Photo: Bridgeman Art Library); (b) detail of the players for the mummers' dance, showing the duct-flute more clearly. The bearded man is not actually playing his drum—his left hand seems to be otherwise engaged. Their facial expressions suggest that there is ‘something going on’ between the three characters here! |
Paintings |
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During the period under review, roughly 1300 to 1430, there are rather more representations of single duct-flutes in panel paintings than is the case with other two-dimensional media. Inexpert restoration, however, has often confused identification. This is the case with the instrument played by the angel-musician in the gallery at Palermo which was shown as illus.8 in part 1 of this article. Illus.14 shows it after restoration. In the decades after Howard Mayer Brown took his photograph, the painting deteriorated considerably, making restoration difficult. The window/labium is still clear, however, and so is the outstretched thumb which strongly suggests the presence of a thumb-hole. The two lower finger-holes can still be made out, giving a recorder's tally of seven finger-holes, even though the seventh is not doubled. For some reason the restorer has left this angel with only three fingers on each hand, but the third finger of the lower hand remains where it was originally, supporting the instrument and not in a playing position. Moreover, its long-held attribution to Turino Vanni, who died in 1397, has been changed to an artist active in the early 15th century. This more ambiguous dating reduces its significance at a critical period in the history of the recorder.
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The group of musical angels in the upper part of a Coronation of the Virgin painted in 1381 by Stefano (presumably) Veneziano (illus.15) includes four pipes, of which three can be identified as shawms by their players' puffed cheeks and the presence of a pirouette at their lips. The angel playing the fourth pipe, second from right, has relaxed cheeks and lips, eliminating identification as either shawm or cornett, but there is no clear window/labium. All fingers are down with no finger-holes showing, and the hands seem too sideways-on to reach a thumb-hole. But the instrument is of alto size, and it could be a ‘transitional’ seven-holed recorder. In another Coronation of the Virgin, by the Florentine artist Mariotto di Nardo, dated 1408, and now in the Minneapolis Institute of Arts,41 a possible alto recorder is shown from the side. The angel's cheeks and lips are relaxed, and his wrists are placed almost under the instrument, suggesting that there might be a thumb-hole; his lower little finger is outstretched, and the instrument shows no sign of outward conicity. But no window/labium can be seen.
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Even if only for cautionary purposes, mention must be made of the Sienese ‘Ring of Angels’ paintings, where a circle of angel-musicians surrounds the Virgin Mary at her Assumption. Although it is said that the original was painted by Simone Martini, the first extant picture of the group is dated c.1340 (illus.16a). Artists then copied from one another, with no substantial variation, until around 1400, although the design of duct-flutes had been subject to considerable change during these 60 years. The detail in illus.16b is from one of the latest of those Sienese paintings, now dated c.1400.42 Both the double-pipes and the single pipe in each of these paintings are outwardly conical and roughly the same length. None shows a window/labium, and the pipes are not beaked. The only differences in the single pipes in illus.16 are that in illus.16b the pipe is played laterally, not upwards, although the double-pipes are played downwards (but the positionings may be for artistic effect), and that the artist marks finger-holes. Above the left hand there are six holes in line, and just below the right hand, offset to that side, are two more holes in line. Perhaps the artist had seen, but misplaced, the paired little-finger holes of the recorder. Although the latest of these pictures is closest to being a recorder, the artist has still painted the instrument as outwardly conical. A duct-flute with an expanding bore would have had a limited compass, and it would have been difficult to coax its upper notes into playing softly while still remaining in tune and of good quality. And, of course, there is no sign of a thumb-hole.
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This article has so far shown that late-medieval representations of duct-flutes resembling recorders are rare in most parts of Western Europe,43 particularly in two-dimensional media. This is less the case, however, in the kingdom of Aragon, perhaps partly because Spain was rather less affected by later iconoclasm than France and northern Europe. Single duct-flutes may have been more widely used in the Catalan region during the 14th century, as there are occasional instances of shepherds in Nativity paintings playing a duct-flute rather than the usual bagpipe.44 A late 14th-century example is given in illus.17, where, were it not for the uncertainties at the mouthpiece, the instrument might be a recorder. Two early 15th-century paintings in the diocesan museum at Vic, near Barcelona, show shepherds with duct-flutes;45 in the later of them one shepherd has a recorder and another a bagpipe. But most duct-flutes in Catalan altarpieces are played by angels,46 and many of them are recorders.
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Jordi Ballester of Barcelona Autònoma University has carried out a survey of late-medieval Aragonese works of art, mainly altarpieces, with musical subject-matter,47 of which 27 out of 315 include representations of the recorder. While this is not a large part of the whole, in comparison with the scattered distribution of examples elsewhere in Europe it is exceptional. Most of the representations are from the 15th century, but Ballester has given special attention to those from before 1400.
The key picture in the search for the first unambiguous depiction of a recorder is the central panel of Pere Serra's Tortosa altarpiece, Virgin and child with angels (c.1385–1390?),48 now in the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya, Barcelona, where an angel at top left plays a duct-flute (illus.18). Angelo Zaniol agrees,49 with the authority of a scholar-craftsman who has made copies of early recorders, that the instrument shown here was probably modelled on an actual recorder.50 The first finger of the lower (left) hand is lifted, showing its uncovered finger-hole 4 as an open ring. But immediately to its left, slightly higher up the instrument, is the mark of a hole that has been filled in, and there seem to be two similar in-filled holes yet further up.51 The placing and size of finger-hole 4 in a recorder is critical to the accurate tuning of the sharp 4th, necessary in a C recorder for playing in the ‘hard’ hexachord of G, which was not obtainable with accuracy and good quality on the recorder's predecessors. (See part 1 of this article, p.561.) The maker of this instrument, like others after him, has needed to make more than one attempt to get the tuning right. Zaniol also said that a wide-bore cylindrical recorder such as this would need some constriction at or near the bell-end (observe how the sides curve inwards there, narrowing the diameter of the bore opening), together with a narrow, deep and square window/labium, in order to achieve accurate intonation in the overblown upper octave. He adds ‘Serra probably had an actual recorder in front of him when working, but he certainly had no player; this explains the odd position of both hands.’ Remembering what he had seen, Serra has placed the wrists low enough for the upper hand thumb to reach a thumb-hole, but has overstated the resultant curve of the fingers, and misplaced the little finger. He has not positioned the lower hand quite far enough down the instrument for the left little finger to be opposite its paired hole, which is shown in black to denote that this unused hole is plugged with wax. Anxious to show all these details, Serra has slightly turned the recorder towards the viewer.52
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The promising young painters Pere Serra gathered as pupils in his workshop were, I believe, mainly responsible for an altarpiece closely derived from the Tortosa altarpiece, now in the monastery of St Cugat del Vallès, Barcelona, and probably painted during the last decade of the 14th century. The recorder-playing angel is on the Virgin's right, but the instrument could not have been copied from an actual recorder as it shows eight finger-holes in line higher up the instrument than the whole of the player's lower hand, below which one of the paired little-finger holes may be seen. As the recorder had half as many holes again as the old and familiar flageol, artists remained confused about their actual number; an altarpiece in the diocesan museum at Tarragona includes a recorder providing holes for 11 fingers!53 Pere Serra's pupil Jaume Cabrera in an altarpiece attributed to him and possibly the one installed in 1400 in the cathedral at Vic, has marked six holes in his recorder in red, the other one being covered by a finger. Although generally faithful to his teacher's original, even twisting the instrument towards the viewer, he—unlike the artists at St Cugat del Vallès and Tarragona—has omitted the paired little-finger holes. But in fact not all early recorders had them.
Jordi Ballester has drawn my attention to a further pre-1400 representation of a recorder in the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya,54 which, because I had assumed that its rimmed mouthpiece-end was a pirouette, I had taken to be some kind of shawm (illus.19). Unfortunately the dating of this altarpiece is elusive—it could be before or after Pere Serra's Tortosa altarpiece. But this is certainly a recorder, as a curiously cut-out window/labium can be seen, shown side-on, and the angel's cheeks and lips are as completely relaxed as they are with Serra's angel—in fact the faces are remarkably similar. The blowing end of a duct-flute need not be beaked, as it is quite comfortable to place one's lips against a slightly concave surface, as with my Bulgarian duduk.55 The angel's little finger is clearly lifted for action. This picture proves that before 1400, and perhaps well before, Catalan artists were painting different types of recorders, not simply copying from each other.
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The existence in the kingdom of Aragon of different designs, and then different sizes of recorder, is substantiated by illus.20, showing that by about 1410 the potential recorder consort included a tenor-sized instrument (illus.20b). The angels in this painting also play a large cantus or small alto recorder (illus.20a), a vielle and a harp, which would make a delightful soft-music ensemble. This painting came from a church near Zarago
a, which, like Valencia, was one of the centres of music-making of the Aragonese court away from its principal location in Barcelona. It is even harder to resist illusions of reality in illus.21. The welcoming trio of lute, vielle and recorder is surely creating heavenly harmony as an ensemble.
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The recorders in the Catalan altarpieces, presumably based on those used in Aragonese court circles, were generally of fairly wide bore, and cylindrical.56 They are therefore likely to have had a quite strong, firm, clear and open tone-quality, and to have been stable and probably accurate in their intonation over the normal range of the voice they represented. In part 1 of this article it was suggested that a recorder might occasionally have substituted for vocalization in a line of three-part polyphony in Ars Subtilior music, where rhythmic complexity and clever interrelationship of parts was of more importance than word-rhythms and the clear communication of each word of a text. The Catalan recorders would have been well suited to this purpose, with plenty of variety of articulation. Several pieces in the Chantilly Codex,57 the main source of Ars Subtilior music, were written for King John of Aragon (r 1387–96) who, having in succession three wives from France, cultivated French music in the Aragonese courts, maintaining close connections with the Papal court at Avignon58 and other French cultural centres.59 The remarkably complete archives for this period in Barcelona60 show that King John went out of his way to secure the leading Ars Subtilior composer Trebor as a resident chantre in his court.61 But in the many references to the temporary employment of minstrels,62 who were needed to take turns in providing music for the king almost throughout the day,63 there were none who specialized in flute or recorder.64 An Aragonese court inventory from 1410, however, included ‘Item tres flautes, dues grosses e una negra petita’ and ‘dues flautes, una negra petita e 1 alta travessada’.65 But the Ars Subtilior music of the time was nevertheless probably regarded as the preserve of intellectual upper-class amateurs,66 and possibly a few well-educated household musicians who could sing and play from its complex notation.
King John's own enthusiasm for the recorder is attested by an archive discovery quoted and discussed by Ballester.67 This is a letter sent on 23 July 1378, while he was still the Infante Don Juan, from Saragossa to Valencia asking for the delivery from a Valencian maker of ‘los lahuts e les flahutes al pus breu que porets’ (‘send the lutes and ?recorders [to Saragossa] as soon as possible’). The wording of the letter gives the impression that the instruments were for John's personal use. It does not seem unreasonable to speculate that in the Aragonese courts an instrument which the king had seemed to like, and which was ideally suited for the purpose, might have become associated with the Ars Subtilior style of music dedicated to him. The recorder would then have become accepted in the performance of secular polyphonic art music. If the effect68 and the sounds created were both enjoyable and novel, and as different sizes of recorder became available to form the equivalence of a recorder trio,69 the practice would have spread to other musical centres, eventually culminating in wholly instrumental performances of chansons, canzonas and other polyphonic forms in musical centres throughout Europe.70
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1 Two French-government-sponsored websites, www.enluminures.culture.fr and www.liberfloridus.cines.fr, have between them over 110,000 images from medieval illuminated manuscripts in 100 publicly funded libraries in France, excluding the vast collection in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, of which only a few thousand are as yet available digitally.
2 The Recorder iconography catalogue at www.recorderhomepage.net/art.html includes only 14 entries from 14th-century manuscripts—fewer than those from 14th-century frescoes and panel paintings (24 entries), or from three-dimensional artefacts (18 entries). Very few, if any, of these representations meet all the stringent criteria set out in part 1 of this article for an unambiguous identification of a recorder.
3 L. Randall, Images in the margins of Gothic manuscripts (Berkeley, 1966).
4 This is at f.249 of the music manuscript Office de Saint Guillaume from the late 13th century, now in the Bibliothèque Municipale at Troyes, Ms.1148, decorating the initial ‘M’. Interestingly, the player is a woman wearing a crown—a queen, not a jongleur.
5 See J. Montagu, The world of medieval and Renaissance musical instruments (Newton Abbot, 1976), pp.26, 31, 35, 39, 41, 43, 45 (esp.), 46.
6 There is a direct-blown pipe, possibly an early cornett, at f.134v of the Macclesfield Psalter, which was purchased in 2005 by the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. Jeremy Montagu will be contributing an article to Early music on musical instruments depicted in this manuscript.
7 F. W. Galpin, Old English instruments of music (London, 1910), fig.26 (p.104). I am indebted to Martin Kaufman, Medieval Manuscripts Librarian at the Bodleian Library, for allowing me to examine the original, which is in a perfect state of preservation. A colour photograph of the whole of the relevant page is available online at http://gallery.euroweb.hu/art/zgothic/miniatur/1301-350/07e_1300.jpg.
8 Illustrated in Montagu, The world of medieval and Renaissance musical instruments, plate 36 (p.45). The Gorleston psalter is in the British Library (Add. Ms.49622). Montagu has located four duct-flutes in this psalter (personal communication, May 2005).
9 The Pierpont Morgan Library, M.756. Illustrated (Item 84, p.44) in T. Ford and A. Green, RIdIM/RCMI inventory of musical iconography, no.3 (New York, 1988).
10 Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, Ms.Lat.18014.
11 Cleveland Museum of Art, Ms.64.40, the work of five illuminators. See T. Ford, RIdIM/RCMI inventory of musical iconography, no.8 (New York, 1991), item 63, p.3.
12 T. S. R. Boase, English illuminations of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, Bodleian Library Picture Book, no.10 (Oxford, 1954), plate 21a.
13 I. Hottois, L'iconographie musicale dans les manuscrits de la Bibliothèque Royale Albert Ier (Exhibition Catalogue Brussels, 1982), plate 37 (cat.78), plate 52 (cat.35), plate 83 (cat.35), being Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, Ms.9294, f.38r, Ms.9006, f.293v, and Ms.9005, f.3r, respectively.
14 ‘deux joueurs de chalemie (du type chalemie). L'imprécision du dessin ne permet pas de décrire ces instruments.’
15 Hottois, L'iconographie musicale dans les manuscrits de la Bibliothèque Royale Albert Ier, plate 36 (cat.84), illuminated in Lille by Jean Miélot, Brussels, Bibliothèque Royale, Ms.9392, f.29v.
16 See A. Watson, The early iconography of the Tree of Jesse (London, 1934).
17 Four examples are cited in Watson, The early iconography of the Tree of Jesse, one being in the British Library and three in the Bibliothèque Royale, Brussels.
18 Hottois, L'iconographie musicale dans les manuscrits de la Bibliothèque Royale Albert Ier, plate 41 (cat.32).
19 Montagu, The world of medieval and Renaissance musical instruments, plate VI and caption p.45, identifies it as ‘cornett or duct-flute’.
20 Ford and Green, RIdIM/RCMI inventory, no.3, item 539, p.19 & front-cover illustration.
21 Pierpont Morgan Library, M.526, f.19v. Ford and Green, RIdIM/RCMI inventory, no.3, item 196, pp.7, 52.
22 There is a probable duct-flute, with a beaked mouthpiece, played by an angel-musician, in the 15th-century Rouen glass in the church of St Taurin, Evreux, in the top left tracery of the large window on the south side of the chancel.
23 Montagu, The world of medieval and Renaissance musical instruments, plates 45, 47, 55, 58, and pp.56, 60–76, 81, 91; Montagu does, however, identify two small duct-flutes, held as recorders, but with no clear details, in his caption to plate 45. The window was installed by 1449.
24 The 27 angel-musician medallions set within grisaille in these upper lancet sections, three in each lancet, are probably not intended as an instrumentarium representing all musical instruments. The Virgin Mary dominates the central window and there are more soft instruments than loud, and some instruments appear twice.
25 Pierre de Navarre, Count of Mortain, is portrayed in one of the windows (see also part 1 of this article, n.18). The dating is given by J. Lafond, ‘Les vitraux royaux du XIVe siècle à la cathédrale d'Evreux’, Bulletin monumentale, ci (1942), pp.67–93.
26 Corpus vitrearum Medii Aevi (France), recensement VI—Haute-Normandie (M. Callias Bey, V. Chaussé, F. Gatouillat and M. Hérold, Paris, 2001), where the Rosary Chapel windows are numbered bays 15, 17 and 19 (p.149 and illus. at p.145). Elsewhere they are differently numbered, e.g. 14, 15 and 16. 1397 was suggested as the earliest date of installation by M. Baudot: see Grodecki, ‘Les vitraux de la cathédrale d'Evreux’, Bulletin monumental, cxxvi (1968), pp.55–73, at pp.62–3.
27 Now in the Cloisters Museum, New York. Also known as ‘The Hours of Pucelle’, probably given as a wedding present to the 14-year-old Jeanne in 1324. Charles IV reigned 1325–8.
28 The influence of Parisian manuscript illumination on these windows, especially the style of Jean Pucelle, is discussed by Monique Beucher in ‘Les verrières du choeur d'Evreux’ in ‘Découvrir et sauver les vitraux’, Dossiers de l'archéologie, xxvi (Jan–Feb 1978), pp.63–75.
29 Grodecki, ‘Les vitraux de la cathédrale d'Evreux’, p.62: ‘sans doute du même atelier’. He is prepared to agree with Baudot on the 1397 dating.
30 C. Brisac, Les vitreaux de la cathédrale de Bourges (n.d., Paris), p.22. The chapel was originally dedicated to St Thibault.
31 J. Montagu, ‘The crozier of William of Wykeham’, Early music, xxx (2002), pp.540–62
32 I am grateful to Penry Williams, Fellow of New College, for reassurance regarding the dating of the crozier.
33 Ford, RIdIM/RCMI inventory, no.8, item 36, p.2.
34 A warning against such conjectures is given in C. Page, ‘Polyphony before 1400’, Performance practice—music before 1600, ed. H. M. Brown and S. Sadie (London, 1998/90), p.93. For example, two players could be doubling a single line of a chanson. And in the period under review, and later, artists would rarely have directly depicted actual performance practice, even where written music is shown.
35 S. Marcuse, A survey of musical instruments (Newton Abbot, 1975), p.776: ‘Taddeo Gaddi's Coronation of the Virgin, painted about 1335, includes an angel playing a perfectly developed straight cornett, her [sic!] cheeks puffed out with the effort, and the lowest finger-hole is often duplicated in later fourteenth- and fifteenth-century materials.’
36 J. Montagu, ‘The restored chapter house wall paintings in Westminster Abbey’, Early music, xvi (1988), pp.238–49, esp. illus.13 at p.244.
37 14th century. Identified as a bagpipe in the website of C. and J.-L. Matte, ‘Iconographie de la cornemuse en France’, http://jeanluc.matte.free.fr.
38 The main studies in this field are E. I. Kouri, Die Milutinschule der byzantinischen Wandmalerei in Serbien, Makedonien, Kosovo-Metohien und Montenegro (Helsinki, 1982), and B. Todi, Serbian medieval painting: the age of King Milutin (Belgrade, 1999), and, on their musical iconography, D. Devi, Medieval frescoes in Macedonia and Serbia with musical instruments, Studia Instrumentarum Musicae Popularis, iv (Balatonalmadi, 1973), pp.78–84.
39 Kouri, Die Milutinschule der byzantinischen Wandmalerei, pp.20–21.
40 See ‘Yugoslavia’, New Grove II, xxvii, p.690.
41 Illustrated in The Cambridge companion to the recorder, ed. J. M. Thomson (Cambridge, 1995), plate 3 (p.6).
42 The two main studies of this series of seven Sienese paintings are H. W. van Os, Marias Demut und Verherrlichung in der Sienesischen Malerie, 1300–1450 (The Hague, 1969), and, in part, D. Norman, Siena and the Virgin (New Haven, 1999).
43 Howard Mayer Brown, having carried out his comprehensive iconographic review of 14th-century Italian painting (see part 1 of this article, n.53), concluded that ‘the recorder’ (here meaning single duct-flute) ‘does not appear in Italian paintings until the very end of the 14th century’, Performance practice—music before 1600, ed. Brown and Sadie, p.18. He adds that ‘the transverse flute appears to have been completely unknown in 14th-century Italy’; he says that it was reintroduced into Europe by way of Germanic lands.
44 For the instruments played by shepherds, especially in Italian art, see N. Staiti, Angeli e pastori: l'immagine musicale della Natività e le musiche pastorali natalizie (Bologna, 1997), and J. Ballester, ‘El pastor músico y la flauta dulce en la pintura catalana y valenciana del siglo XV’, Revista de flauta de pico, xvi/2 (2000), pp.11–15.
45 They are Ramón de Mur, Moses on Mount Horeb, section 5 of a vast altarpiece originally in the church of Guimerà, dated c.1402–12, a very likely recorder; and Jaume Ferrer II, Adoration of the Shepherds, one of several large scenes in an altarpiece dated c.1432–4, from the church of Santa Maria de Verdù (detail reproduced in colour on the front cover of Recorder magazine, xvi/4 (1996)).
46 The ‘naturalness’ of Catalan paintings showing groups of angels playing soft instruments almost as if they were doing so in reality may to some extent derive from occasions when players dressed as angels took part in quasi-dramatic events, such as playing soft music, most likely on stringed instruments, in Corpus Christi processions. It is easy to be led into imagining that some of these paintings reflect real-life performances. It is just possible that, in a very few instances (see illus.21), they might actually do so. I have drawn my information on Catalan altarpieces from two main sources: C. R. Post, A history of Spanish painting (Cambridge, MA, 1930–), and J. Gudiol and S. Alcolea, Pintura gótica catalana (Barcelona, 1986). From Post's History, I have consulted vols.ii (1930), iii (1930), iv/1 (1933), vii/1–2 (1938), and xii/2 (1958)—Catalan School of the early Renaissance.
47 The first stage of this survey was published as ‘Retablos marianos tardomedievales con ángelos músicos procedentes del antiguo reino de Aragón. Catálogo’, Revista de musicología, xiii/1 (1990), pp.123–201, when Ballester had identified 18 ‘flauta recta’ representations in 141 Aragonese altarpieces. My three articles on ‘La flauta de pico en el arte Catalán’, trans. B. Sela, then appeared in Revista de flauta de pico, vi (1996), pp.15–20, vii (1997), pp.9–15 and viii (1997), pp.9–13; a version of the first two also appeared as ‘Recorders and angels: first sightings in Catalan art’, American recorder, xxxvi/5 (1998), pp.7–13. Ballester's article ‘La flauta dulce en la antiqua Corona de Aragón a finales del s.XIV: nuevas aportaciones’ appeared in Revista de flauta de pico, xv (2000), pp.8–12, followed by ‘El pastor músico y la flauta dulce en la pintura catalana y valenciana del siglo XV’ (see n.44 above). This collaboration continues, and I am grateful to Jordi Ballester for his comments on the present article. All the above are fully illustrated with extensive commentaries, including references to Post and Gudiol, and I have therefore here confined myself to those examples that are most relevant to the substance of these two articles.
48 As there is no documentation relating to the Tortosa altarpiece, the painting can only be dated stylistically (Pere Serra was known to be active up to 1406). The art historian Rosa Alcoy (University of Barcelona) convincingly argues in her entry in the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya, Department of Gothic Art catalogue, pp.244–8, that stylistically the Tortosa altarpiece predates, but not greatly, Pere Serra's works for Manresa dated 1394 and 1395. Although the date she cautiously assigns to the picture is 1375–90, it seems to me to be a work of such confidence and maturity that it is likely to belong to the later part of this period, say c.1385–90?, during which time the more forward-looking Pere had gained experience as head of the most important studio in the kingdom of Aragon.
49 Personal correspondence, January 2004. Angelo Zaniol was until recently Romance languages specialist at the Ca' Foscari University, Venice, and he has written many journal articles in several languages on early recorders. I am grateful to him for his help and friendship.
50 As a court painter, Pere Serra would presumably have had no difficulty in borrowing a recorder from a court musician.
51 It looks as though the maker may have tried to obtain the sharp and natural 4ths by making double holes for finger 4. This system is used on some later recorders, but is not altogether satisfactory.
52 Unfortunately, not knowing the instrument's significance, a recent restorer has removed the offset little-finger hole, marked the open hole 4 in black and removed the traces of its filled-in holes, and added a further (black) finger-hole above the upper hand, and another below. The positioning of the left thumb is less clear. The chief restorer tells me that this was not on the basis of any archival evidence of the instrument's appearance before any earlier restorations. As the instrument has now, as it were, been rendered unplayable, it is hoped that it will soon be restored to its original state.
53 Painted by the Master of La Secuita between 1425 and 1440. See also the Bourges stained glass (illus.10).
54 See Ballester, ‘La flauta dulce en la antiqua Corona de Aragón’, p.10.
55 See part 1 of this article, pp.560, 572 (n.20), 574 (n.56).
56 The opening of the bore in the bell-end can be seen in a number of the Aragonese recorder representations, and their ‘general fatness’ may be guessed at from the external shape. But, of course, it is not possible to determine the often complex internal dimensions of recorder bores from pictorial representations.
57 Musée Condé, Chantilly, Ms.564. Ballade no.20, Trebor's En seumeillant, is dedicated to John I, and refers to his planned expedition to Sardinia in 1389. Quant joyne cuer refers to King John's red and yellow standard, and Passerose de beauté refers to John's marriage in Perpignan to Yolande de Bar on 30 April 1380. The Chantilly Codex and its various links with John I, especially the music of ‘Trebor’, are discussed in M. Gómez, ‘La musique de la maison royale de Navarre à la fin du moyen-âge et le chantre Johann Robert’, Musica disciplina, xxxviii (1984), pp.110–51, at pp.133–51. En seumeillant and Quant joyne cuer are recorded on the CD Medée fu referred to in n.15 of part 1 of this article.
58 In 1394 the Aragonese Pedro de Luna became ‘Benedict XIII’, the last Avignon Pope. During his short tenure he invited Catalan artists to Avignon, as some of his predecessors had done. I have so far found no iconographic evidence that the recorder was played in Avignon during the later papacy years, although the papal court there was probably the most important centre in Europe for the performance of Ars Subtilior music.
59 One such centre was at Foix, an independent region of France bordering upon the kingdom of Aragon across the Pyrenees. Some Ars Subtilior music in the Chantilly Codex is dedicated to Gaston Phebus, Comte de Foix, and to his nephew and successor Mathieu de Foix. Archives from this period are now at Pamplona, together with those of the kingdom of Navarre, with its associations with Evreux and Paris. The musical references in them, especially relating to the employment of minstrels, have been studied in detail by Higinio Anglès, Historia de la musica medieval en Navarra (Pamplona, 1970), in which see ch.8, ‘La musica instrumental y cortesana durante el reinado de Carlos II’, esp. pp.208–9, 221–2; Ch.10, ‘La musica instrumental y cortesana en tiempo del Rey Noble (1396–1405)’, esp. pp.298–300, 316; and Ch.13, ‘Intercambio musical entre las casas reales de Aragón y de Navarra con la de los condes de Foix; El códice musical de Chantilly’, esp. pp.356–60. Among many references to a wide range of musical instruments played, there are none to recorders. As it seems incredible that the recorder could have been totally unknown in the territories immediately bordering those of Aragon, it can only be assumed that the instrument was played by members of the ruling families and their retinues rather than by the temporarily employed peripatetic minstrels whose names appear in the archives.
60 They have been scoured for musical references both by Maricarmen Gómez and Jordi Ballester, for whose application and scholarship I am thankful.
61 Gómez, ‘La musique de la maison royale de Navarre’, pp.133–51. ‘Trebor’ is an anagram of this composer's name, (Jean) Robert, a kind of word-game befitting the compositional play of Ars Subtilior music.
62 King John employed, during one year, 22 of the best available minstrels from France, playing instruments such as cornemuse, portative organ, trumpet, etc.: M. Gómez, ‘Musique et musiciens dans les chapelles de la maison royale d'Aragon’, Musica disciplina, xxxviii (1984), pp.67–86.
63 King John was, as Jordi Ballester puts it, ‘passionately enthusiastic’ about music, and required his minstrels to play (in three shifts) throughout the day, even when he was working on matters of state. They presumably did not then play disturbing loud music. The standard repertory of instruments was music for dancing, but would this have been wanted continuously? Surely, for contrast, there could have been interspersed accompanied songs, or vocal polyphony played on soft instruments (but not Ars Subtilior music which requires one's full concentration), perhaps plucked on three gitterns; Maricarmen Gómez, in ‘Some precursors of the Spanish lute school’, Early music, xx (1992), pp.583–93, at p.592, suggests that ‘the performance of three-part polyphony with that particular instrument was not unheard of’. Or were three-part vocal pieces performed by the type of instrumental group shown playing soft music at the gates of Heaven as depicted in illus.21?
64 Of course, minstrels specializing in other wind instruments might have played the duct-flute, but recorders were probably originally regarded as being more for singers, especially upper-class amateurs. In the 15th century, players in shawm bands are likely to have doubled on recorders.
65 K. Polk, ‘The recorder and recorder consorts in the fifteenth century’, Musicque de joye, ed. D. Lasocki (Utrecht, 2005), pp.17–29, and Lasocki at pp.420–21. Polk lists this and other references, with their sources, to what may be recorders at pp.25–9, but caution needs to be exercised where early references are to ‘pipes’ and even to ‘fleutes’, as both words could have generic meanings; in particular, ‘pipes’ and ‘piping’ might refer to reed as well as edge-tone instruments. It seems rather unlikely that the ‘flusteurs musicals’ at the wedding of Charles VI at Cambrai in 1385 would have made much impact alongside ‘molt brafs cantres’ (‘many splendid singers’) if they had been playing flûtes douces.
66 All Ars Subtilior music was associated with ‘casas de la nobleza mas influyente del siglo XIV y primer tercio del XV’: M. Gómez, La música en la casa real catalana-aragonese durante los años 1336–1432 (Barcelona, 1979), p.4.
67 Ballester, ‘La flauta dulce en la antiqua Corona de Aragón’, pp.11–12. By intriguing and perhaps significant coincidence, the letter quoted in n.18 in part 1 of this article, written on behalf of Pierre de Navarre (who commissioned the royal windows of Evreux Cathedral), which also seems likely to refer to a recorder, was sent in the same year, 1378, but six months earlier, as John's letter requesting ‘flahutes’ from Valencia.
68 Particularly the effect of keeping the pitch of voices steady when singing complicated and challenging polyphonic music—see part 1 of this article, pp.562, 574 (n.45).
69 On the evidence of the Catalan altarpieces, a cantus, alto and tenor recorder trio corresponding in voice-ranges to a vocal trio would have been in place by 1410. This emphasizes the close relationship which was perceived between recorders and voices. Perhaps they were often seen as interchangeable.
70 Additional note (October 2005): I have just heard from Arnold den Teuling that one of the two pages, f.197v, of the Casanatense Missal (French, perhaps Avignon, c.1400) owned by the Royal Library, Windsor Castle, cat. 25010, shows an angel at the right border playing an unmistakeable recorder, about cantus/alto size. By the time this article appears, there will be more details about this early representation in the Recorder iconography internet catalogue. The illuminator was a miniaturist from the Duchy of Gelre in Holland, but no evidence is available to allow for a more precise dating of the work than ‘c.1400’, or perhaps ‘1390–1408’. Nevertheless there remains the possibility that this may be the first finding of a recorder representation from the papal court at Avignon, centre of Ars Subtilior music.
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