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Flute Vibrato

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Flute Vibrato

ve read quite a few books on flute history andechnique. Unfortunately, most of them have little to

ay about vibrato, other than how to develop it. This

eflects a basic lack in modern musical pedagogy.

tudents are taught nothing about historical

erformance styles—because most of the teachers

now nothing about the subject either. There is an

xception, however: Nancy Toff's excellent The

Flute Book. (The second edition of this book is now

n print.) Although it deals mainly with the modernöhm flute, it is a comprehensive work filled with all

orts of flute-related information, including the

istory of performance techniques. The following

iscussion is drawn from that source.

pparently she has asked some people who put uncredited pieces of her book on the Web to remove them.

However, I believe that the citations below (which are properly credited) fall under the "fair use" provision

or the purpose of academic discussion. Since the time when I initially created this page, some other sources

ave appeared dealing with this topic, and I have added those in as well.

Contrary to popular legend, vibrato is not a modern invention. It began as an ornament—usually produced by

he fingers, only occasionally by the breath. The more continuous form did not emerge until the late

ineteenth century. Modern flutists should consider the roots of the technique.

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n his Musica instrumentalis deudch (1528), Agricola lists "trembling breath" as a "special grace."

raetorius (1619) discusses vibrato created by diaphragm action. Mersenne (1636) talks of "certain tremolos

which intoxicate the soul" and specifies that organ tremolo has a frequency of four vibrations per second,

which he suggests as a model for wind players. Hotteterre, in his Principes de la Flute (1707), discusses a

nger vibrato, called a flattement , which also appears in the methods of Corrette (about 1735) and Mahaut

1759). Quantz's Versuch (1752) discusses a messa di voce, a swelling and diminishing of volume within a

ingle note, produced by a finger flattement  on the nearest open hole. (Because this procedure also lowers the

itch, Quantz advised flutists to compensate with the embouchure.) Delusse (about 1761) speaks of a breathibrato, used in imitation of the organ tremulant, as a measured expression of "solemnity and terror." And

romlitz (1791) discusses the Bebung, a finger vibrato.

Nancy Toff

The Flute Book: A Complete Guide for Students and Performers

Charles Scribner's Sons, 1985

p. 109

Agricola is the first to discuss a consort of "Schweizerpfeiffen'. Here he gives fingering charts for a bass in D,

enor/alto in A, and descant in e … The range of each instrument is said to be three octaves, greater than that

mentioned by any other author.

He also writes that one should play with vibrato: 'If you want to have a fundament, learn to pipe with

rembling breath, for it greatly embellishes the melody'. He is alone in mentioning the use of a

iagphragmatic vibrato, as opposed to finger vibrato, in the sixteenth century. It is not referred to again in

ute tutors until the second half of the eighteenth century.

John Solum

The Early FluteOxford University Press, 1992

p. 17

Auch sey im Pfeiffen darauff gsind

Das du blest mit zitterdem wind

Dann gleich wie hernach wird

gelart

Von der Polischen Geigen art

Das zittern den gesang zirtAlso wirds auch alhie gespürt.

When playing remember that you know

Into the flute with trembling breath to

blow

As shortly we shall learn awhile

Of Polish violins and their style

That trembling ornaments the songThus must we sense it all along.

Raymond Meylan

The Flute

translated from the German by Alfred

Clayton

Amadeus Press, Portland, Oregon,

1988

p. 77

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Vibrato on the modern flute is used lavishly, in many cases virtually continuously, by contemporary players.

is regarded as essential for giving the flute the brilliance and projection needed for it to be heard in our

modern symphony orchestras and in our stadium-sized concert halls. A tone without vibrato is considered to

e lifeless and dull.

Although there was undoubtedly a great deal of variation in the amount and use of vibrato by different

layers on the traverso in the baroque and classical ages, the taste of the time obliged performers to regard

ibrato as an ornament. It was generally used only on longer notes as an expressive device, certainly not

ontinuously. Continuous vibrato reduces the opportunity to be expressive in other ways, such as shaping

minute gradation of dynamics. Sometimes the use of vibrato was notated in printed music by a wavy line …

Modern vibrato is usually produced by a pulsation of the windstream controlled by muscles in the throat and

iaphragm. Vibrato on the transverso is not usually made in this manner. Instead, the player's finger

uctuates at the edge of an open finger-hole on the instrument or sometimes opening and closing an entire

ole. The French call this vibration flattement , a name which reminds us that the effect actually involves

attening a given note and then returning it to the correct pitch in a fast fluctuation. Not until De Lusse's

reatise of about 1760 was vibrato referred to as involving the pulsation of the wind stream, blowing theyllables, hou, hou, hou, and doing it as often as possible.

John Solum, op. cit., p. 138-139

oday's modern Boehm-system flutist is accustomed to using a throat/diaphragm vibrato as a nearly constant,

ntegral part of the sound. Contrarily, careful study of representative tutors tells us that the tone most

ecommended for eighteenth and early nineteenth-century players was probably produced without vibrato.

Quantz (1752, p. 162) and others required instead a "clear and sustained execution of the air."

recommend that the one-keyed flute be played without any vibrato. Because vibrato has become such an

negral part of our modern flute technique, some flutists have difficulty playing historical instruments without

. Eliminating the vibrato at first seems cold and lifeless to some. Yet the ear soon accepts the clarity and

urity of tone of the one-keyed flute, and eventually the player does not feel the need to rely on vibrato as an

mportant means of expression. Ask what you might do instead. Explore ways to shape and color individual

otes. It will become immediately apparent that playing with a straight tone demands good intonation; vibrato

annot be used to cover intonation difficulties, as frequently happens with the modern flute.

An ornament the French called flattement  (a vibrato-like effect produced with the finger) most closely

esembles our modern vibrato. The flattement  is a wavering of the tone which is slower than that of a trill and

roduces an interval narrower than a semitone. Instead of fluctuating both above and below the tone (as the

modern breath vibrato appears to do), the flattement  produces a fluctuation with a pitch lower  than the given

one.

Unlike, modern vibrato, the flattement  was used sparingly and reserved for long notes.

.

romlitz (1791) said it could be applied to long notes, fermatas, and to the note before a cadence, but that it

was used infrequently. Two years later, Gunn (c. 1793, p. 18) expressed a real dislike of the ornament, saying

is "inconsistent with just intonation, and not unlike that extravagant trembling of the voice which the

rench call chevrotter , to make a goat-like noise, for which the singers of the Opera at Paris have been so

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ften ridiculed." By the time Gunn published his tutor, the flattement  was just one of many ornaments falling

ut of use.

.

he French tutor by Delusse (c. 1760, p. 9) is the only eighteenth-century flute tutor of nearly one hundred I

xamined which recommends producing vibrato with the breath. ...

romlitz (1791, p. 214) states firmly that vibrato is not done with the breath and claims it "makes a wailing

ound, and anyone who does it spoils his chest and ruins his playing altogether."

refer you to Catherine Parsons Smith, Characteristics of Transverse Flute Performance in Selected Flute

Methods (1969) for a study of vibrato in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

Janice Dockendorff Boland

 Method for the One-Keyed Flute: Baroque and Classical

University of California Press, 1998ISBN 0-520-21447-1

pp. 31-34

Harrington Young, in his 1892 method, … cautioned that

it should only be used in very pathetic movements—such as Adagios, Andantes &c. where great

pathos is desired; but, if too frequently used, this effect becomes vulgarized and unpleasant. Some

players produce the effect by a tremulous motion of the breath, which is inadvisable, as by its frequent

use it endangers the production of a steady tone, which is far more desirable than any artificial effect.

Vibration should, therefore, be produced only by finger movement.

Keep in mind that at the time vibration was a ornament, not an omnipresent element of tone. This was equally

ue of violin playing. A possibly apocryphal story is illustrative: the great Fritz Kreisler auditioned for the

Royal Opera House orchestra in Vienna, but was turned down because of his "restaurant vibrato." Yet later,

is "Golden Tone" became the ideal to be copied by all other violinists. And so taste changes.

Vibrato as we know it today—a more or less continuous pulsation or shimmer in the tone—originated in the

ate nineteenth century in Paris. Paul Taffanel and oboist Fernand Gillet were two of the instigators. This may

eem surprising in view of the statement in the Taffanel-Gaubert method:

There should be no vibrato or any form of quaver, an artifice used by inferior instrumentalists and

musicians [an interesting distinction!] It is with the tone that the player conveys the music to the

listener. Vibrato distorts the natural character of the instrument and spoils the interpretation, fatiguing

quickly the sensitive ear. It is a serious error and show unpardonable lack of taste to use these vulgar

methods to interpret the great composers.

Nancy Toff, op. cit., p. 110-111

Vibrato: It wasn't used. Well, there was a certain amount of finger vibrato used in England in the first

half of the century, especially by certain performers, and a much smaller amount in Germany. Most

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19C woodwind tutors don't mention vibrato at all--not one word. In exception are several bassoon

tutors, which dismiss or ignore breath vibrato and allow finger vibrato in selected and few instances.

Finger vibrato has a different quality, it allows more control of speed and intensity, in my opinion.

An appraisal of 19th century flute playing practices.

he advent of vibrato in

rance, around 1905, was

he fuel for a great debate.

ecause it was new, it was

ften not done very well

nd was used

ndiscriminately, and so itot a bad name.

urthermore, "talented

nstrumentalists had sought

or too long, not without

ifficulty, to find good tone

n all registers that was

ure, stable and flexible, not

o conceive of this

erfection as the height of

heir art." Or as Moyseoncluded, "Vibrato? It was

worse than cholera. Young

ibrato partisans were referred to as criminals. Judgments were final with no appeal. It was ruthless." Some

ritics, Moyse continued, labelled vibrato "cache-misère (literally misery hider, something to hide behind

when faced with problems of intonation and tone quality)."

Woodwind vibrato was brought to the United States by Georges Barrère, Georges Laurent, and oboists

Marcel Tabuteau (longtime principal of the Philadelphia Orchestra) and Gillet (who joined the Boston

ymphony). By 1940 it had become an accepted part of American orchestral woodwind performance. At theame time Moyse, newly arrived in the United States, despaired that, in France, "vibrato is used so

xcessively that all music is distorted by its constant waver."

lsewhere, however, vibrato was slower to catch on. Henry Welsh, for instance, wrote in the British

eriodical Music and Letters in 1951:

As for the woodwinds, I fail to see any aesthetical or technical reason why they should trespass on the

noble and intimate qualities which belong so inseparably and essentially to the strings. A plea that

vibrato-playing enhances the quality of tone cannot therefore be upheld. Wind instruments should be

played with a tone that is steady as a rock and as pure as crystal.

his was the Viennese as well as the British ideal, and it perturbed foreign critics, who accused the English of

oldness and lack of feeling. More recently, vibrato has infiltrated British flute style, though the technique is

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owhere as pervasive as in the United States and France.

he vibrato as first imported to the United States was, true to its roots, both rapid and naturally produced.

arrère's was reportedly very rapid indeed. In a 1944 article Barrère explained: "It being settled that

xpression in music must  be a love message, music has to be performed with a quiver in the tone, much as the

istrionic lover's lines must be spoken with a tremolo in the voice." But Barrère qualified this typically Gallic

tatement:

Vibrato!! That is the strong word, firmly established in reputation and popularity; recognized,

'patented,' and the only allowed designation for anything expressive … The notion has its starting-

point in that brand of instruction which teaches our future virtuosos to cater to the masses and to use

'sure-fire' means first … music with permanent vibrato is bound to win and hold a permanent business.

For the fifty years I had been tooting my instrument, my daily care was to avoid  the vibrato. Once I

literally scared an audience by asserting that vibrato was produced by taking a pure tone and moving it

above and below correct pitch at a certain rate of speed, thus indulging in playing more or less out of

tune! Today … to declare that Expression might sometimes be achieved just by the absence of

vibrato, would, in most quarters, only earn an incredulous frown. Isn't it still possible to express

Beauty by pure lines, such as we find in ancient Greek marbles?

One of Barrère's last students, Pittsburgh Symphony principal Bernard Goldberg, quotes his teacher as

aying, "For three hundred years flutists tried to play in tune. Then they gave up and invented vibrato."

Nancy Toff , op. cit., p. 112-113

ee my review of recordings by Barrère and his contemporaries.

What the modern-instrument player should not do, however, is to introduce anachronisms into the

erformance of baroque music. The prime example is vibrato. We have seen that the baroque masters made

ffective us of finger vibrato as an ornamental device, and a simulation of that technique is perfectly in order.

ut a wide, Brahmsian, orchestral-style vibrato is categorically out of place. Staccatissimo articulation is

imilarly inappropriate.

Nancy Toff, op. cit., p. 158-159

Note that Ms. Toff follows a commonly held error in associating a wide, constant vibrato with the music of

rahms. Recordings of Brahms' close friend, the violin virtuoso Joachim, show that he used only a shallow

ibrato as an ornament at phrase endings. Since most of Brahms' violin pieces were written to be played by

oachim, it seems very likely that Brahms himself intended them to be played this way. 

  The Irish flute preserves elements of 19th century English classical flute technique.

  19th century voice teacher Margaret Alverson discusses vocal vibrato.

  More discussion of vocal vibrato.

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Go to the Vibrato Page.

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