Here Comes Treble: Flutes Through The Ages
...Recently, in the Ach Valley in Southern Germany, the earliest manufactured musical instrument was discovered. Thirty-five thousand years ago, our humanoid ancestors discovered that blowing across an opening in a hollow tube and creating other holes which the fingers closed and opened in various patterns, created melody. As a flautist, I was delighted that this historic instrument was my own beloved flute...
Isabel Bradley writes an ode to honour her favourite instrument.
To read more of her delicious words please click on http://www.openwriting.com/archives/here_comes_treble/
History tells us that our ancestors discovered that beating hollow items such as fallen tree trunks, or resonating items such as stalactites and stalagmites, with sticks or bones, created sounds that varied in pitch and timbre. They used these items to create rhythms to which they danced. They moaned and wailed as a precursor to singing, and even tried whistling to imitate the birds.
Recently, in the Ach Valley in Southern Germany, the earliest manufactured musical instrument was discovered. Thirty-five thousand years ago, our humanoid ancestors discovered that blowing across an opening in a hollow tube and creating other holes which the fingers closed and opened in various patterns, created melody. As a flautist, I was delighted that this historic instrument was my own beloved flute. According to scientific reports, it can still be played and is capable of producing a range of notes similar to the twentieth century version that I play. It was made from the hollow wing-bone of a giant, or griffon, vulture.
The excitement of this discovery reached me when Michael, a talented pianist, and I were working on a set of variations for flute and piano, written by Franz Schubert, on the musical theme of his song, Trockne Blümen. The variations begin with a contemplative Introduction, followed by the theme and then seven variations, and are fiendishly difficult for both piano and flute.
After many months of work, I reached the rewarding stage where my fingers found the notes easily and my mind was eventually free to explore the mood, style and musical differences which Schubert, master of music, had written into the sounds Michael and I were producing. I thought of the ages of history in which the flute and its own variations had lived through, from the moment when stone-age man first put his vulture-bone instrument to his lips and created the first musical prayer, the various uses this oldest of instruments was put to through the ages, its ability to express a huge range of human emotions, and on into the twenty-first century.
From these musings, grew the following set of poems, loosely composed along the lines of Schubert’s Introduction, Theme and Seven Variations for Flute and Piano on the theme, Trockne Blümen.
An Ode to Flutes
Introduction – Stone Age Flute
Ice and snow blow cold and long,
and food is scarce.
We sit,
bright fire at our hearth,
wrapped in furs of animals we hunted.
Pictures haunt rock-walls,
Figures prancing, flame-lit,
While sobbing flute begs spirits of winter:
“Leave and send Father Sun
To warm us…”
Theme – Contemplation on Flutes
From prehistoric times
Throughout the ages,
From Egypt to Greece and Rome,
Through times
When life was grim,
And into the Renaissance, and on,
Flutes have prayed, rejoiced
and grieved with man.
Variation One – Expressions of Love
Love –
Dancing down the meadow,
Scattering scent of wild-flower tapestry,
Skirts a-billow in spring breeze…
Love –
Dances to a silver flute!
Variation Two – Flutes at War
Fife and drum,
Signalling shrill over the noise of battle –
Shrieking defiance!
Little fifer’s life lost,
Though battle is won.
Variation Three – Glorious Music
Joy and beauty live on,
Eternally,
In glory of music,
Flute and piano intertwined.
Variation Four – Dancing to Flutes
Dance, as flute sounds soar,
High and pure through ballroom;
Glitterati in mirrors reflected,
Colours whirling and twirling,
Long skirts flying,
Heels tapping,
Eyes shining…
Variation Five – The Modern Flute
Glory, oh glory in the sounds of silver –
No longer made of wood or bone,
Flutes’ music takes wing,
Crystal-clear and faster and louder,
More joyous yet –
Sing, ‘glory to modern flute-makers!’
Variation Six – Historical Flutes
Back in time,
A couple of hundred years or so –
Elegant minuet tinkles
From harpsichord and wooden flute:
Men in brocade and lace,
Tripping as dainty
As ladies in silk, satin and diamonds,
Outdoors - thunder, lightning, wind,
Fierce;
But indoors,
flute’s silver sounds soar over all.
Variation Seven – Flute Triumphant
Army, triumphant,
Marches to joyous fife and drum.
Banners wave, flags fly,
And crowds cheer.
Little boys run beside soldiers,
Up and down,
Never tiring…
And so, through the ages,
flutes play on!
Until next time… ‘here comes Treble!’
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