Marion Verbruggen Discography

The Recorder
The recorder is a woodwind instrument of the "fipple flute" family - the flutes that use a whistle-type mouthpiece and one of the oldest of the wind instruments. The earliest recorders were made out of a single piece of wood with a cylindrical bore, but the more modern instruments have a tapered bore made into three joints or sections - the mouthpiece, the middle joint with six finger holds and a thumb-hole on the back, and the foot joint with a small bell and the seventh finger-hole. The thumb-joint is what distinguishes the recorder from other types of fipple flutes. In its heyday the recorder came in a variety of sizes, but today there are four basic sizes - the descant or soprano, the treble (or alto in the U.S.), the tenor, and the bass, which uses a metal crook or pipe similar to the bassoon to bring air to the top of the instrument. Its name derives from the Latin word recordari - to think over or to recall - or the Italian ricordo, meaning souvenir or memento, probably a reference to the instrument's sweet, melancholy tone.

The recorder, known as the "flute" for many centuries, was a staple ensemble instrument up until about 1800. Henry VIII's posthumous effects listed 76 recorders among his many musical instruments, and recorders were used extensively by Baroque composers such as Purcell, Bach, Handel, and Telemann, especially to create atmosphere for love scenes, or to denote pastoral beauty, bird song, or supernatural events such as the appearance of witches or angels. It was also highly popular as an instrument for amateur musicians and played at home in family ensembles.

Gradually, though, the recorder or "common flute" was replaced by the "German" or traverse flute, a wooden flute with a conical bore and one key, perfected around 1680. Bach, who was writing in the early 18th century, used both types of flutes in his compositions, but by the end of the century the recorder was all but obsolete except among aficionados. Like other earlier instruments, the recorder's tone was not dynamic or strong enough for the growing orchestras and larger concert halls of the 19th century. Since the early 20th century the recorder has had a renaissance of its own - not only do we hear it now again in early music ensembles, but also in the works of modern composers.