The player takes a calm, firm, easy, and often graceful, attitude before his desk. Good flute-players also learn a great proportion of their music by heart.
Staccato notes and ornamental passages are produced by “single tonguing,” and “double tonguing,” and “triple tonguing.” For different effects the player makes an effort to pronounce certain consonants, k or t for example; but instead of pronouncing them he blows them off his tongue in a little kind of explosion. But all this is done quickly and with ease by a virtuoso.
The tones of the first octave are rather faint; those of the second octave, produced by exactly the same fingering as those of the first and with a stronger blowing of the breath, are stronger; and those of the third octave, also produced by the same fingering, are more penetrating.
Boehm’s explanation is worth quoting to help us understand the production of tone. He says: “The open air-column in a flute’s tube is exactly comparable to a stretched violin string. As the string is set into vibration by the bow, the air-column in the flute is set into vibration by the blowing of the performer’s breath and management of the lips. As the clear quality of tone of a violin depends upon the proper handling of the bow, so the pure quality of tone of a flute depends upon the direction of the ‘air-stream’ blown against the edge of the mouth-hole.
“Each octave requires a different direction of the ‘air-stream’; and, by increasing the force of the breath, the tone is increased. By ‘over-blowing,’ each tone can be made to break into higher tones.”
Older composers seem to have cared very little for the flute. They did not have the modern improved Boehm flute. They found that the performer often played out of tune. Cherubini said: “The only thing in the world that is worse than one flute is two.” Many agreed with him. However, Haydn wrote a trio for flutes in his oratorio of The Creation and Handel wrote a beautiful obbligato for it in the aria, “Sweet bird that shun’st the noise of folly,” in Il Penseroso, where it imitates the bird. Bach wrote six Sonatas for the flute.
Handel’s aria, “O ruddier than the Cherry,” in Acis and Galatea, now played on the piccolo, was originally written for the flute.
Mozart wrote two concertos for the flute and one for flute, harp and orchestra. It is very evident in the Magic Flute.
A solo passage in Beethoven’s Leonora Overture, No. 3, is very famous. In Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony it impersonates the nightingale.
Mendelssohn loved the flute dearly. It is very important in his Midsummer Night’s Dream music. It plays lovely sustained chords in the Overture, a beautiful part in the Nocturne and the Scherzo contains one of the most celebrated passages ever written. He also gave it an exquisite obbligato in the quartet O Rest in the Lord in the oratorio of Elijah.