Fiona M Simpson	9705782s@student.gla.ac.uk

There is pictorial evidence that the flute has existed for thousands of years.
An ancient Egyptian flute concert, using end-blown flutes, was painted before 2000BC in one of the pyramids at Giza (see right), and a carving of players with end-blown flutes can be seen in the Temple of Karnak in Luxor.
The oldest surviving Egyptian instruments can be dated from the Middle Kingdom, c.2160-1580 BC.

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hsA carving on a second century BC urn in the tomb of Volumni, near Perugia, shows the transverse in use, as does an 11th century wall-painting in Kiev Cathedral, Russia (see left) Notice the flute is being held to the left, instead of to the right.
hsIt has been recorded that vessel flutes, whistle flutes and panpipes have all existed, made from animal bones, at least since Palaeolithic and Neolithic times. End-blown flutes, similar to the Egyptian flutes, still exist in the Islamic world today, called nãy in Persian and qasaba or qussãba in Arabic.

The pastoralle was a popular medieval song forn of the troubadours, on the theme of a beautiful shepherdess wooed by a noble knight.

? Clicking on the title of the piece will take you to the Bibliography section. Clicking on the image will play the piece of music.

Pastourelle: Dehors lonc pré - French, anon. (13th century) Here, it is played on the transverse bamboo flute (China) and dulcimer.

Little is known about flute construction until after Medieval times. Could it be tuned? Were there standard sizes?
Pictorial evidence shows it similar to the 16th-century Renaissance flute - a cylindrical wooden tube, with a mouth hole and six finger holes, and no keys. The holes were often placed in groups of threes. This flute came in three sizes, each pitched a fifth apart - large (bass) on g, middle (tenor) on d and small (treble) on a, with ranges of more than two octaves upwards. Although fingered as fipple flutes, they lacked the bottom finger hole, therefore missing lower notes. Our concert flute is a direct descendant of the middle flute on d, two of which played the alto and tenor parts in four part music.

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shsAlthough Martin Agricola included this picture of four sizes of transverse flute in his book Musica instrumentalis deudsch (1545), the text shows that there were only three, ranging for more than two octaves above their lowest notes of G, D and A .

One of the most well-known melodies from the 16th century is the anonymously written Greensleeves.

Greensleeves - English, anon. Here, it is played on the Renaissance flute and harpsichord.

Flutes appeared in whole and broken consorts and as solo instruments, changing very little during the 16th century. A bass, two tenors and a treble played together, and many pieces of music were written specifically as "suitable for flutes".

De vous Servir - Claudin de Sermisy (1490-1562), as included in Vingt et sept chansons musicales a quatre parties (Pierre Attaingnant, Paris, 1533) (See "suitable for flutes")

However, from the 17th Century, the flute in D was considered the principal member of the family.

Contents | The Flute | Earliest Times | 17th Century | 18th Century | 19th Century | Boehm's Flute | 20th Century | Conclusion | Bibliography

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© Fiona M Simpson, April 2001