How did the flute find its voice?

The flute is one of the oldest musical instruments in the world. Surviving examples made from bone date back tens of thousands of years, but the instrument you’ll see and hear at a Manchester Baroque concert is rather different from the modern flute most of us recognise today.

Manchester Baroque’s General Manager and flautist, Dr Martyn Shaw, takes us on a journey through its fascinating history.

The rise of the Baroque flute

Over the centuries, the flute has appeared in many different forms, but the side-blown, or transverse flute became particularly fashionable in Europe during the Baroque period.

Unlike today’s predominantly metal instruments, Baroque flutes were made from wood, with boxwood and ebony among the materials used. Their development is closely associated with the French flautist, composer and instrument maker Jacques Hotteterre, although, curiously, the instrument was often known in England as the ‘German’ flute, to identify it from the recorder which was also called a flute!

And compared with a modern flute, its construction was remarkably simple. The Baroque flute has six finger holes and just one key, which is why you may also hear it called the one-keyed flute. Its fingering system is very different to that of a modern flute.  Any notes which don’t appear in the scale of D Major are produced using ‘cross’ fingering and through subtle adjustments to the player’s breath and embouchure.

The result is part of what gives the Baroque flute its distinctive character: a softer, warmer sound, with different colours and qualities across its range.

An instrument that’s still evolving

The story didn’t end there.

Over time, the flute was developed with more and more keys and with greater volume, in response to changing styles and larger performance spaces - this led to the 1847 system invented by Theobold Bohm. The modern flute which most flautist play today is based largely upon this system of flute.  Bohm had trained as a goldsmith, which perhaps led to his preference for making flute from metal rather than wood!  

During the twentieth century, Albert Cooper refined the size and positioning of the flute’s tone holes to improve tuning and balance, while makers continued developing stronger, quieter and more responsive mechanisms.

Innovation continues today, from instruments capable of playing a complete range of quarter-tones to ongoing experiments with materials including gold and platinum.

Yet despite centuries of development, the beautifully simple one-keyed wooden flute of the Baroque period still has a sound all of its own.

Next time you hear one at a Manchester Baroque concert, listen closely. Its warmth, delicacy and changing colours are all part of the sound world composers such as Bach, Handel and Telemann would have known.

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