| QUOTE (Yogesh @ Jul 22 2004, 04:49 PM) |
| I'm a proud owner of Yamaha Series 300 Sopranino, Descant, Treble and Tenor recorders for about 2 months and I love playing them, especially the treble and tenor. Again, I don't have a teacher yet but I can play a few pieces now. Question: Should I add the bass recorder to my collection? ;) |
I see from your later post that you have decided not to buy a bass. It is true that most use for a bass is in ensemble music, and much of the best ensemble music that enthusiastic recorder players play is from the 16th and 17th centuries. I suspect that quite a few students of the recorder are taught mostly 18th and 20th C. music, since many excellent sonatas and other pieces for treble and keyboard were written then.
The point about this is that recorders come (broadly) in two designs: Baroque and Renaissance. Baroque recorders (or at least what modern makers sell as Baroque recorders) are designed to have a range of two octaves and one note; as a consequence, their lowest register is not very strong. Also, they are tuned fairly near equal temperament, the same as pianos and many harpsichords are. Renaissance recorders are designed to have a strong low register; this results in the top end being rather shrill, and in the larger sizes, from F bass downwards, some top notes may be impossible. The tuning is not equal temperament; it is somewhere near just intonation for the diatonic notes in the home keys, which means that their E, A and B sound flat to ears that have been brought up to think of piano tuning as being correct. These differences make them much more suitable than Baroque recorders for the contrapuntal music of Byrd, Gibbons, Giovanni Gabrieli, and the other Renaissance masters: many of these works have parts that range over one octave or a little more; they stay in the home keys; and their "harmony" (a word that did not have its modern sense in those days) makes extensive use of thirds and sixths, which sound very sonorous on these instruments, partly because of their tuning.
When you are considering buying a large recorder, you ought to think about what sort of music you will play on it. My best recorders are a Baroque treble by Adège, and Renaissance treble and bass recorders by Hopf, their Pretorius model. I use the Adège in Baroque and 20th C. compositions and in arrangements of Classical music, and the Hopf recorders in anything before 1700. I try hard not to get a tenor part in early music, because my tenor is a Baroque one by Roessler.