The chalumeau (; ; plural chalumeaux) is a
single-reed woodwind instrument
Woodwind instruments are a family of musical instruments within the greater category of wind instruments. Common examples include flute, clarinet, oboe, bassoon, and saxophone. There are two main types of woodwind instruments: flutes and Reed ...
of the late
baroque
The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...
and early
classical eras. The chalumeau is a folk instrument that is the predecessor to the modern-day
clarinet
The clarinet is a musical instrument in the woodwind family. The instrument has a nearly cylindrical bore and a flared bell, and uses a single reed to produce sound.
Clarinets comprise a family of instruments of differing sizes and pitches ...
. It has a cylindrical bore with eight tone holes (seven in front and one in back for the thumb) and a broad mouthpiece with a single heteroglot reed (''i.e.'' separate, not a continuous part of the instrument's body) made of cane.
Similar to the clarinet, the chalumeau
overblows a
twelfth.
History
The word ''chalumeau'' first begins to appear in writing during the 1630s, but may have been in use as early as the twelfth century.
Several
French dictionaries in the sixteenth century use the word to refer to various types of simple, idioglot reed-pipes all with tone holes. The heteroglot style reed was later adopted in the seventeenth and into the eighteenth centuries.
These single-pipe instruments probably evolved from earlier multiple-pipe instruments through the abandonment of the drone tube.
(See
Similar instruments, below. The
etymology
Etymology ()The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) – p. 633 "Etymology /ˌɛtɪˈmɒlədʒi/ the study of the class in words and the way their meanings have changed throughout time". is the study of the history of the Phonological chan ...
is discussed in detail at
Shawm#Etymology.)
The use of the chalumeau originated in France and later spread to Germany by the late seventeenth century.
By 1700, the chalumeau was an established instrument on the European musical scene.
Around this time, well-known
Nuremberg
Nuremberg ( ; german: link=no, Nürnberg ; in the local East Franconian dialect: ''Nämberch'' ) is the second-largest city of the German state of Bavaria after its capital Munich, and its 518,370 (2019) inhabitants make it the 14th-largest ...
instrument maker
Johann Christoph (J.C.) Denner made improvements to the chalumeau, eventually developing it into the Baroque clarinet. The chalumeau is distinguished by two keys (thought to be added by Denner), which cover tone holes drilled diametrically to each other. The position of these tone holes prohibits the instrument from overblowing, limiting its range to only twelve notes.
In order to counteract the limited range, multiple sizes of chalumeau were produced ranging from bass to soprano.
Over a period of about 20 years, the clarinet became distinguishable from the chalumeau due to a number of structural improvements. The first and most important development was the displacement of the rear key up towards the mouthpiece. Denner also reduced the size of the hole and inserted a small tube to facilitate overblowing, greatly increasing the range of the instrument to nearly three octaves. The instrument was also lengthened to increase accuracy of tuning, the recorder-like foot joint of the chalumeau was replaced by a bell similar to the
oboe
The oboe ( ) is a type of double reed woodwind instrument. Oboes are usually made of wood, but may also be made of synthetic materials, such as plastic, resin, or hybrid composites. The most common oboe plays in the treble or soprano range.
A ...
, and a key on the lower joint was eventually added to sound a b’.
This new instrument eventually became the Baroque clarinet and specialized in the higher ''clarino'' register, as opposed to the lower chalumeau register. In its early development, the clarinet could not be tuned across the range of the instrument, so the chalumeau was still used for music in the lower range. Later developments in the key work allowed better intonation throughout the range of the clarinet, and the chalumeau register on the clarinet eventually rendered the chalumeau itself superfluous.
The limited range and modest strength of sound compared with the clarinet made the chalumeau increasingly impractical.
By 1800, the chalumeau had disappeared from the repertoire entirely and the clarinet was well-established on the European musical scene.
These improvements are attributed to J.C. Denner, but may have also been an invention of his son Jacob Denner who was trained by his father. Another son, Johann David, helped with the business but is not recorded as an instrument builder.
The Denners were the only instrument builders to produce both chalumeaux and clarinets.
Music for the chalumeau
Composers initially favored the chalumeau, but the clarinet soon overtook it in repertoire and ubiquity.
Estienne Roger
Estienne Roger (1664 or 1665 in Caen, France – 7 July 1722 in Amsterdam) was a francophone printer, bookseller and publisher of sheet music working in the Netherlands.
Life
Roger was born a French Huguenot. The revocation of Edict of Nantes ...
in Amsterdam published a set of duets for two chalumeaux in 1706 (prior to the first duets for clarinet). And in 1716, the same publisher released six volumes of duets for chalumeaux.
In the first decades of the eighteenth century, the chalumeau was especially popular in the
Habsburg court, as evidenced by chalumeau parts in over forty operas and oratorios, and the Denners had many orders for chalumeaux from royalty all over Europe.
Composers
Fux, the
Bononcini Bononcini is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:
*Antonio Maria Bononcini (1677–1726), Italian cellist and composer
*Giovanni Bononcini (1670–1747), Italian Baroque composer, cellist, singer, and teacher
*Giovanni Maria Bononcin ...
brothers,
Zelenka,
de Rossi De Rossi () is an Italian surname, and may refer to:
Actresses
* Alessandra De Rossi (born 1984), Philippine actress
* Assunta De Rossi (born 1983), Philippine actress
*Barbara De Rossi (born 1960), Italian actress
*Portia de Rossi (born 1973), A ...
,
Vivaldi
Antonio Lucio Vivaldi (4 March 1678 – 28 July 1741) was an Italian composer, virtuoso violinist and impresario of Baroque music. Regarded as one of the greatest Baroque composers, Vivaldi's influence during his lifetime was widespread a ...
,
Telemann
Georg Philipp Telemann (; – 25 June 1767) was a German Baroque composer and multi-instrumentalist. Almost completely self-taught in music, he became a composer against his family's wishes. After studying in Magdeburg, Zellerfeld, and Hilde ...
and
Hasse wrote for the chalumeau but chalumeau parts were not common in the second half of the century.
Graupner wrote extensively for all sizes of chalumeaux and featured the instrument, often in groups of two or three, in numerous Ouverture-Suites, Concertos, Church Cantatas and Trio Sonatas. During the brief revival of chalumeau after 1760, Florian Gassmann included a chalumeau part in two pieces, and chalumeau parts were included in several ballets in the 1770s. But later renditions of these pieces transposed the chalumeau parts to clarinet or flute.
The chalumeau was often included in music dictionaries until the early nineteenth century.
Timbre and tone
The chalumeau sounds much lower than one might expect, due to the acoustical nature of a cylindrical stopped pipe. It has an intimate, cantabile-like quality – as opposed to the trumpet-like sound of the Baroque clarinet – and is very similar to the sound of speaking.
Historical and modern chalumeaux
About ten original chalumeaux are extant, but modern craftsmen produce replicas based on these original instruments. Of the original instruments, most are made of boxwood and all feature two keys placed opposite each other to be played by the thumb and first finger of the left hand. The mouthpieces of these instruments usually have the reed placed on top so that it vibrates against the upper lip when played.
The surviving chalumeaux were made between the beginning of the eighteenth century and about 1760 by five known instrument makers including J.C. Denner, W. Kress, Liebau, Klenig, and Muller.
Of these instruments, there is one soprano and one bass chalumeau, several tenor and alto chalumeaux, and one rare chalumeau d’amour. The chalumeau d’amour has a bulbous bell like its rare contemporary the
clarinette d’amour
The clarinet d'amore or clarinet d'amour is a musical instrument, a member of the clarinet family.
Construction and tone
In comparison with the B and A soprano clarinets, the clarinet d'amore has a similar shape and construction, but is gener ...
and the modern-day
English horn.
Present day makers of replica chalumeaux include Peter van der Poel, Andreas Schöni, R. Tutz, François Masson, and Guntram Wolf. Other makers, including Tupian, Hahl, and Kunath, produce modern adaptations of the chalumeau.
Similar instruments
Similar single-reed folk instruments with single, cylindrical tubes are found in many
Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...
and
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
an cultures throughout history. See
Single-reed instrument
A single-reed instrument is a woodwind instrument that uses only one reed to produce sound. The very earliest single-reed instruments were documented in ancient Egypt, as well as the Middle East, Greece, and the Roman Empire. The earliest types o ...
,
Albogue,
Alboka
The Basque ( es, albogue) is a single-reed woodwind instrument consisting of a single reed, two small diameter melody pipes with finger holes and a bell traditionally made from animal horn. Additionally, a reed cap of animal horn is placed arou ...
,
Diplica
Diplica or diplice is a single-reed instrument from the Balkans, which has been playing in different forms through many parts of Croatia, but now survives mainly in the Baranya Baranya or Baranja may refer to:
* Baranya (region) or Baranja, a regi ...
,
Hornpipe
The hornpipe is any of several dance forms played and danced in Britain and Ireland and elsewhere from the 16th century until the present day. The earliest references to hornpipes are from England with Hugh Aston's Hornepype of 1522 and others r ...
,
pibgorn, and
Sipsi
The sipsi () is a clarinet-like, single-reed instrument used mainly in folk music and native to the Aegean region of Greece and Turkey. The word ''sipsi'' is possibly onomatopoeic. In ancient Greece, it was known as kalamavlos (καλάμαυλος ...
. A similar instrument called the
xaphoon
The xaphoon ( ) is a chromatic keyless single-reed woodwind instrument. It has a closed cylindrical bore and a very slightly flared bell. The xaphoon has a full chromatic range of two octaves, and overblows at the twelfth like the clarinet.
His ...
(also called "Maui bamboo sax" or "pocket sax") was developed by
Hawaii
Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only stat ...
an craftsman
Brian Wittman. A similar instrument called the
venova
The Venova is a single-reeded woodwind musical instrument, currently produced by the Yamaha Corporation. The original model, the YVS-100, was released in 2017 and an alto model, the YVS-120, was released in 2019.
The Venova features a predominan ...
was created and sold by Yamaha Corporation in 2017.
Notes
The name 'chalumeau' is used by European organ-builders to denote an eight-foot short-resonator organ stop used for color effects. This was first encountered in the organ of the
Frauenkirche at Dresden and was built by celebrated organ builder
Gottfried Silbermann
Gottfried Silbermann (January 14, 1683 – August 4, 1753) was a German builder of keyboard instruments. He built harpsichords, clavichords, organs, and fortepianos; his modern reputation rests mainly on the latter two.
Life
Very little is kn ...
between 1732 and 1736. Silbermann was so pleased with the sound of this new invention that he included it in most of his later organs.
References
External links
List of works featuring the Chalumeau at IMSLP*
Delicacy, sentimentality and intimacy: the chalumeau as 'signifier' - Ingrid Elizabeth Pearson
{{Authority control
Single-reed instruments
Early musical instruments