a late sixteenth-century portrayal of the jointed dulcian

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A Late Sixteenth-Century Portrayal of the Jointed DulcianAuthor(s): Beryl Kenyon de PascualSource: The Galpin Society Journal, Vol. 43 (Mar., 1990), pp. 150-153Published by: Galpin SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/842484 .

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To the rightof the keyboards anotherbutton,whichhadbeenpaintedseveraltimestogetherwith the caseuntilit wasrigid.Itwas withgreat curiosity I opened the instrument to look underneath thesoundboard.The buttonoperatesapairof bellowspumpingairinto twowooden stopped pipesmakingthe sound of a Cuckoo (see Pl. XIX (b)).The soundboard must have been taken out to put this underneath,possiblyatthe same time asthe pantaleonregisterwasmade.(Ibelieve itto have been done later because to make openings, the wood in someplaces scutin away thatmakestheconstructionmoreunstable,andalsothroughwoodenpegs.)It is possibleto changethe pitchof the Cuckoo with extremelyslowor fastmovement. But with 'normal'pressure he flutesare likeg' andc"withtuning '= 405.2Hzforc"anda'= 405.9Hzforg'. (Theg' canbevariedbetweena'= 403 Hz - 410 Hz, andc" canbe variedbetweena'= 402Hz- 429Hz.)Thepitchof 405Hz fitsquitewell intothepitchstandard ow thought o be common n the lateeighteenth entury.ODD AANSTAD

A LATESIXTEENTH-CENTURYPORTRAYALOF THEJOINTED DULCIAN

The black-and-whitellustrationsaccompanying paperby Jose deMesaonorgansnPeruduringheruleof theSpanishiceroys1ncludedetail romapaintingwithangelmusiciansobe found n aconventnCuzco.As well as therealejopositive rgan),whichwasthesubject fSrde Mesa's omments,hepicture howsacornetto nda bassdouble-reed instrument.AlthoughI have so far been unable to obtainaphotographf thepaintingorfurtherpublication,hereed nstrumentisof suchhistoricalnteresthat feelit is worthreporting,venthoughonlyatraced utlinecanbeprovided ywayof illustrationseeFig.1).Thetop three-quarters?)of the nstrumentsvisible nthepainting.Theupperpartconsists f twoseparateoints:anarrow ube(withoutwing)andalonger,wider ubewithagently laring, lightly symmetricbellsimilarothedulcian's. double-curverookemergesrom hetopofthenarrowube,which hows omethickeningtthesocket.Thejoinbetweenthesetwo sectionsandthe butt is concealedby the player'supper (right)hand. The surfaceof the instrument ppears o becompletelymoothandtheartistdoesnot seemto have ndicatedanyfingerholes uthe hasshown hecrookandthereedquiteclearly.Thecrook sobviouslyonical.Thefirstbend, .e. thatnearest othereed, s150

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almost a right angle, while the second, nearestto the socket, is semi-circular.The reed is relatively short but has a wide flare.

FIG. 1. Outlineofajointed ulciannda cornetto-playersdepictednBernardoitti'spainting1590-95)LaAsunci6nde la Virgen(ConventoelaMerced, uzco,Peru).The trioofangelmusiciansormspartof thepainting aAsuncidne aVirgenytheItalian rtistBernardo itti,whopaintednthe manneriststyleandworked n Peru.Bitti (1548-c. 610)was born n Anconabutstudiedn Rome,wherehe becameaJesuit aybrother.He arrivednPeru n 1575.The dategiven by Srde Mesa for thispicture,whichbelongs o the Conventode laMerced,s 1590-95. Thepaintinghus

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predatesMersenne's1636 diagrams f the jointed bassonndfagot,hitherto onsideredo be theearliest llustrationsf theirkind.Bitti'sinstrumentsclosest oMersenne'sdrawing f afagotwitha flaredbell.It may also be compared o the jointed dulcian(C. 201) in theKunsthistorischesMuseumin Vienna,in so far asthe tenorjoint hasnowing,whereashebellismoresimilar o thatof theeighteenth-centurythree-piecedulcian NQ1551)in the Museo del PuebloEspafiolnMadrid,2 lthough he latter's enorjoint has a definitewing. Thepainting'sbassjoint, however, is more thantwice as wide as the tenorjoint, .e. muchwider hannanyof theexamplesustquoted. t s apitythat the keys of the instrumentare out of sight.Bitti was obviouslynot attempting o reproducethe musicalinstrumentswith 100%accuracy,nor was he completely familiarwiththem. The cornetto,forexample,is shown with the mouthpieceactuallyin the player'smouthandthe bell raisedhighin the air.It is improbable,however, that he would go so far as to depict a separationof the twobores of the dulcian f such instrumentswere alwaysmadein one piecein hisday.Indeed,it isunlikelythatthe ideawould even occurto him. Itmaythereforebe assumed hathe hadactuallyseenaninstrumentof this

type. If the painter s to be trusted n the more specificdetail of the sizeof the bell, thispicturewould supportthe idea thatthe dulcian'sboresmight occasionally have been separated before the compass wasextended downwards to a bassoon's Bb (with the consequentlengtheningof the bell). In this one respectBitti's instrumentmightbeconsidered to be a proto-bassoon,althoughall the other mainfeatures,including the markedconicity of the bore, are those of a dulcian.Bitti's painting provides datable information relevant to theevolution of the bassoon.Unfortunately,far from solving the questionof the bassoon's (as opposed to the dulcian's)geographical origin, itmerely shifts the focus to the Mediterraneanarea and its sphere ofinfluence, since the artistwas anItalianwho hadbeen working in LatinAmericaor manyyearsduringthe ruleof the Spanish iceroys.Itmayberecalledthatother datableevidence of the furtherdevelopmentof thedulcianis to be found in Spain, namely, in the will of the instrument-maker,Bartolom6de Selma(t 1616),"whichrefersto bothtwo-key andthree-key bajonesbass dulcians). It is surprising,therefore, that thesurviving nstrumentsof Bartolom6andAntonio de Selma's successorsin the SpanishRoyal Chapel- PedroAldao'sbajdnn ParisandMelchorRodriguez'sbajoncillosnd bajonesn Brussels,El Escorialand Avila4-are all two-key models and that no evidence of bassoon-makinginseventeenth-century Spainhas yet emerged.BERYL KENYON DE PASCUAL152



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NOTES1Jos6 de Mesa: 'Ensayopreliminarsobre los 6rganos en el VirreinatodelPerui' n El OrganoEspaiol.Actas del II CongresoEspaiol de Organo Madrid,1987), pp. 357-441.2 Described in B. Kenyon de Pascual: A Brief Survey of the Late SpanishBajdn',GSJ XXXVII (1984), pp. 72-79.3 See B. Kenyon de Pascual: The Wind-instrumentMaker, Bartolome deSelma (t- 1616), his Familyand Workshop', GSJ XXXIX (1986), pp. 21-34.4 This plain, hithertounreported,bajoncilloontralto, hich is now exhibitedin Avilacathedralmuseum,is similarto the bass in El Escorial(andthe tenor inBrussels) and is likewise in poor condition. My attention was drawn to itsexistence in the cathedral archives by Sr Alfonso de Vicente. It may bementioned here that an anonymous, somewhat damaged bajdnwas also

discoveredrecently in Avila cathedralby the archivist,canon AndresSinchez,who kindly allowed me to examine it.

CALLCOTT'S RADIUS FRENCH HORN:SOME FURTHER OBSERVATIONSThe Callcott horn's most interesting eatureswere described n 1949byPhilip Bate, who found it, and in 1950 by the late ReginaldMorley-Pegge, who acquired t fromhim next. Frequentquotationsfromthosetwo sourceswill be made here, but for full backgroundinformationreadersareadvisedto consultthose two valuablecontributionsdirectly.'The horn (see P1.XX) is now in the Bate Collection of HistoricalMusical Instruments,Faculty of Music, Oxford University. Whenrecentlyputtingthisinstrument nto full workingorder, t wasnecessaryfor me to carry out a number of minor repairsto the body of theinstrumentandto the pistons,butprincipally o makea new linkageforthe connector. As noted by Bate in his article, 'the inner tube of therotatingslide was missingwhen the hornwas found'2He describedthehorn as consistingof the following sections:(1)mouth-pipe length22"- expanding s in the normalhorn rom s/16"diametero7/16";2) [Valves,ddedater, eebelow.Author]'3)aflatopencoilof 7/16" cylindricalubeof fourcompleteurns,ength120" hereafterermedthe'crook-coil';4)thebellandbell-pipe,58"long,flaringntheusualmannerfrom 7/16" to a typicalhornbell of 103/4"iameter.The bell has the usualgussetandwiredrim.Theinnerendof thebell-pipe s turnedsharply cross he flatcoil (no.3)till it reaches hecentre,where t is fittedwithtwomovableright-handjoints,andterminatesn the outer ubeof a single elescopic lidesome21/2" ong.Bymeansof thetwo movablejoints hisslidecanrotatentheplaneof the crook-coiland also at right-angleso it.Thebell-pipeconnectsby meansof therotating ectionandslidewith thecrook-coilatits innerend,or atanyone of twelvepositions long ts length,eachof thesepositions ringingntocircuitaportionof the coilequivalentoone or otherof the crooksof a normalhorn.The totallengthof the coil is

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a late sixteenth-century portrayal of the jointed dulcian

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