Baroque Flute

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (1712-1788) composed in a very expressive, sensitive style called "empfindsamer Stil." It is characterized by sudden dynamic changes, large intervals and the use of silence. A great example of that is found in the Poco Adagio movement of CPE Bach's solo flute Sonata in A minor. This excerpt of the opening phrase is demonstrated on an eighteenth century style traverso. 

Eighteenth century vibrato on the flute, known as the traverso, was achieved with one's finger rather than with pulses in the air column which wavers both above and below the pitch. Finger vibrato was a type of ornament called "flattement" in French or "Bubung" in German. The flutist would gently move his or her finger over the next open hole at varying speeds or heights, which would lower or raise the pitch slightly. As opposed to modern vibrato, flattements could only be used to decorate long notes and it either makes the note flat or sharp, but not both on the one note. This recording is of the melody line from the first movement of Handel's Sonata in G major, Op. 1 No. 5. Flattements are demonstrated on all of the long notes, at approximately the 2, 6, 10, 27 and 30 second marks.

The "traverso," also commonly known as "transverse flute" or "one-keyed flute," was the most popular model of the flute from the late seventeenth through the eighteenth century. It is made of wood and has one key, made of brass or silver. As was common in the eighteenth century, this particular instrument is tuned to A 415, which means that it sounds approximately a half-step lower than modern instruments. This excerpt demonstrates the traverso with the opening of the Allegro movement of Telemann's Fantasia No. 3 in A minor for solo flute.