Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Fleury, Claude" to "Foraker" / Volume 10, Slice 5

by Various

To increase the number of keys, to improve their system of plugging, and to extend the

scale of the instrument in the lower region,—these had hitherto been the principal problems dealt with in the improvement of the flute. No maker, no inventor to whose labours we have called attention, had as yet devoted his attention to the rational division of the column of air by means of the lateral holes. In 1831 Theobald Boehm, a Bavarian, happening to be in London, was struck with the power of tone the celebrated English performer Charles Nicholson drew from his instrument. Boehm learned, and not without astonishment, that his English colleague obtained this result by giving the lateral holes a much greater diameter than was then usually admitted. About the same time Boehm made the acquaintance of an amateur player named Gordon, who had effected certain improvements; he had bored the lateral hole for the lower E, and had covered it with a key, while he had replaced the key for F with a ring. These innovations set Boehm about attempting a complete reform of the instrument.[50] He went resolutely to work, and during the year 1832 he produced the new flute which bears his name. This instrument is distinguished by a new mechanism of keys, as well as by larger holes disposed along the tube in geometrical progression.

Boehm’s system had preserved the key of G♯ open; Coche,[51] a professor in the Paris Conservatoire, assisted by Auguste Buffet the younger, a musical-instrument maker in that city, modified Boehm’s flute by closing the G♯ with a key, wishing thus to render the new fingering more conformable to the old. He thus added a key, facilitating the shake upon C♯ with D♯, and brought about some other changes in the instrument of less importance.

Boehm had not, however, altered the bore of the flute, which had been conical from the end of the 17th century. In 1846, however, he made further experiments, and the results obtained were put in practice by the construction of a new instrument, of which the body was given a cylindrical bore, while the diameter of the head was modified at the embouchure, the head-joint becoming parabolic (see fig. 2). The inventor thus obtained a remarkable equality in the tones of the lower octave, a greater sonorousness, and a perfect accuracy of intonation, by establishing the more exact proportions which a column of air of cylindrical form permitted.

The priority of Boehm’s invention was long contested, his detractors maintaining that the honour of having reconstructed the flute was due to Gordon. But an impartial investigation vindicates the claim of the former to the invention of the large lateral holes.[52] His greatest title to fame is the invention of the mechanism which allows the production of the eleven chromatic semitones intermediate between the fundamental note and its first harmonic by means of eleven holes so disposed that in opening them successively they shorten the column of air in exact proportional quantities.[53] Boehm (Essays, &c.) published a diagram or scheme to be adopted in determining the position of the note-holes of wind instruments for every given pitch. This diagram gives the position of the intermediate holes which he had been enabled to establish by a rule of proportion based on the law of the lengths of strings.

The Boehm flute, notwithstanding the high degree of perfection it has reached, has not secured unanimous favour; even now there are players who prefer the ordinary flute. The change of fingering required for some notes, the great delicacy and liability to derangement of the mechanism, have something to do with this. In England especially, the ordinary flute retains many partisans, thanks to the improvements introduced by a clever player, Abel Siccama, in 1845 (Patent No. 10,553). He bored the lateral holes of E and A lower, and covered them with open keys. He added some keys, and made a better disposition of the other lateral holes, of which he increased the diameter, producing thus a sonorousness almost equal to that of the Boehm flute, while yet preserving the old fingering for the notes of the first two octaves. But in spite of these improvements the old flute will not bear an impartial comparison with that of Boehm.

A flute constructed on a radically new system by Signor Carlo Tommaso Georgi and introduced in 1896 places the technique of the instrument on an entirely new and simple basis. The principal features of this flute consist in an embouchure placed at the upper extremity of the tube instead of at the side, which allows the instrument to be held in a perpendicular position; no tuning cork is required. There are eleven holes mathematically placed in the tube which give the semitones of the scale; there are no keys. The eleven holes are fingered by the fingers and thumbs, the C♯ hole being closed by the side of the left fore-finger. All the notes are obtained by means of simple fingering as far as G♯ of the third octave, the remaining notes of which are produced by cross-fingering. For the convenience of players with short fingers keys can be added, and the head of the Georgi flute can be used with any cylinder flute. The compass of the Georgi flute is almost the same as that of the concert flute; viz.

If the lower C and C♯ are required, extra holes and keys can be added. Everything that is possible on the Boehm flute is possible on the Georgi and more, owing to the simplicity of the fingering; each finger having but one duty to perform, all trills are equally easy. The tone is the true flute tone, brilliant and sympathetic.[54]