At 7:21 PM -0400 10/30/10, Kim Patrick Clow wrote:
I know you were asking about horns, but a flute/recorder friend of mine mentioned in passing that the Barenreiter edition of Handel's Water Music has the flute part( (in the G major suite) in the original French violin clef and it was for a flute tuned to G. She hated the fact she was having to do three types of transposing on the fly: the clef, the key, and then the octave required.
Using the original clef (if that's what it is) is a throwback to the older editing practice, so I wonder when that edition was made. Editions from the past 50 years or so would tend to have modern clefs, but give an incipit showing what the original was.
But there's always a bit of a question regarding the word "flute" in Handel's music. In fact it usually meant recorder, while "traverso" would have indicated the cross-flute. And the French violin clef was commonly used to transpose music for one instrument to the other, since the lowest notes of the traverso and the treble recorder were a minor 3rd apart.
A suite in G/B minor suggests traverso, sure enough, but an instrument in G?!!! Possible but highly unlikely. That would make me think it was for recorder, if your friend is judging from the lowest written note being a G4.
Modern flute players tend to ignore these distinctions, and assume that ALL music using the word "flute" was intended for their instrument. And they are often wrong.
John -- John R. Howell, Assoc. Prof. of Music Virginia Tech Department of Music College of Liberal Arts & Human Sciences Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A. 24061-0240 Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034 (mailto:john.how...@vt.edu) http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html "We never play anything the same way once." Shelly Manne's definition of jazz musicians. _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
