Playable BooksHector Berlioz · section 25 of 67
The Alto Flute
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orousness of the flute by permitting it to play in one of its favorable keys when the piece is written in a difficult key. For instance, in a piece in E? it is obviously prefer- able to use, instead of the piccolo flute in the octave, the one in the minor ninth (D>); for the latter then plays
in D, which is much easier and more sonorous.
It is a pity that the fléte d’amour has been allowed to fall into disuse. It was tuned in A, a minor third below the ordinary flute:
It would complete the lower range of this family of instruments (which, incidentally, might be made as numerous as the clarinet family, if necessary). and its soft and mellow timbre would produce excellent effects, either as a contrast to the high flutes and oboes, or to lend more sonority and color to the very peculiar harmonies produced by combining the low notes of flutes, English
horns and clarinets.
The most effective manner of employing the piccolo flute is to use two piccolos unisono as is shown by Siegfried's scene at the forge in the first act of “‘Siegfried”. In “Der fliegende Hollaender” Wagner even requires three piccolos to depict, most effectively, the howling and whistling of the hurricane.
The alto
P Theobald Boehm, to whom the flute owes so many of its improvements, constructed a flute in low G. in response to the need for lower-pitched and at the same time more sonorous and powerful flute tones. The notation as well as the fingering is the same as on } the flute in C (from low C to high A}; but the “alto flute in G’’ sounds a fourth lower. Its tone production
is easier and more secure than that on the ordinary large flute; its tone is richer in shadings and can be increased to an astonishing power. All these advantages make it highly desirable that Felix Weingartner’s recent initiative in reintrodycing the instrument {in his “Gefilde der Seligen”) will be followed by others.