The Castle Museum's collection of woodwind instruments has grown by donation around a substantial group of instruments assembled by Dr. John L. Kirk in the late ninetheenth and early twentieth centuries. Kirk's records show many acquisitions from the North Yorkshire area - especially Whitby, Scarborough and his own Pickering - as well as from further afield. Most of the instruments date from the early nineteenth century, though some are from up to a century earlier. The collection indicates the variety of music making in provincial areas. In addition to the standard woodwind, there are many examples of the 'novelty' instruments - Picco Pipes, flageolets, and musettes - popular with amateurs.

A large number of the collection's woodwind are the 'classical' types of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. They are closely akin to the 'baroque' types of up to a century before, the most obvious difference being that they have gained a few extra keys. The standard baroque woodwind - recorder, flute, oboe and bassoon - in turn emerged from a remodelling of older types around the mid seventeenth century. During this period the expressive potential of stringed instruments and voices was being extended, with a concomitant need for wind instruments capable of a wide range of mood and nuance.

This remodelling is associated with the royal courts of Europe, and especially the court of Louis XXV of France, where there was a notable concentration of musicians and craftsmen. The most famous were the Hotteterres: the elder Jean Hotteterre was, according to a contemporary account, ‘a man of unique talent for the making of all kinds of instruments in wood, ivory and ebony: musettes (bagpipes), recorders, flageolets and oboes'. Such artistes-ouvriers are generally credited with decisive reforms to the flute and recorder and the creation of the oboe. Little is known about their contribution to the bassoon, but it is worth noting that it was first named in a French score, and that it became widely known as the ‘French’ bassoon. The German states made contributions too; for example, in making the deeper varieties of oboe to a greater extent than elsewhere. The early development of the clarinet is accredited to the Denners of Nuremberg from about 1700.

England may have first heard the 'new' instruments in the hands of foreign musicians. Charles II acquired a taste for French music in exile, and from the Restoration French musicians were frequent visitors. With the subsequent arrival of Germans and Italians, London's musical life became thoroughly cosmopolitan. London became a major centre of woodwind manufacture, with a conservative tradition of following innovation elsewhere which continues to this day.

For the first half of the eighteenth century, composers seem to have been well satisfied with the woodwind. In addition to their prominent orchestral use, flute and oboe attracted an extensive solo repertoire. So did the bassoon, hardly less perfect as a melodic voice. After its early popularity, the recorder became a mid-century casualty unable to compete in an age of increasing sonority and expressiveness. As a late starter, the clarinet missed the Baroque high noon.

It seems remarkable that the wealth of baroque woodwind music was conceived for instruments as simple as the one-keyed flute or two-keyed oboe. Yet the writing was always practicable. It lay across an instrument's most telling register and within a narrow range of suitable keys, avoiding an undue number of weak notes and cross-fingerings. Three sharps to three flats was the rule. Many aspects of the music are left to the player's discretion. These include dynamics, phrasing, articulation and, within limits, the detail of the line itself. The written notes suggest; they do not insist. The emphasis is upon the spontaneous recreation of the spirit of the music: its finer details remain within the performer's discretion and technical command.

This may help to account for the instruments’ slow evolution in the first half of the eighteenth century, whilst in the second they were equally able to cope with the amiabilities of the newer galant styles. The incentive for advance may be linked to the decline of noble patronage and the growth of the public concert. Throughout the period, but more so later on, travelling virtuosos were spreading an awareness of their instruments' capabilities, and writing or commissioning showy 'war-horses'. These increasingly employed rapid chromatic movement, widely arpeggiated leaps and extremes of compass, and their publication presented musicians with new challenges. Additional keywork, long disdained by many players, became an indispensable adjunct to advanced technique. The clarinettist Hermstedt, for example, was forced to change from a five- to a thirteen keyed clarinet to meet the demands of Spohr's early nineteenth century concertos.

The clarinet reached an equivalent status with the other woodwinds in the second half of the eighteenth century. A characteristic use was in the wind ensembles called Harmonies, from which it began to displace the oboe, which had previously taken the melody line. Until the advent of more powerful instruments in the nineteenth century, the full-sized flute was too soft for outdoor use, and the shriller small forms, such as fifes, had long been preferred.

The simple state of many of the collection's instruments for their date is in part a reflection of their use in bands, where robust construction would have been more important than comprehensive keywork. Probably only a fraction of the instruments made ever saw any form of professional service: most were purchased by amateurs whose musical sights were set on nothing more demanding than simple sonatas and 'favourite airs'. Such instruments are hardly likely to represent ‘state of the art’ perfection. The use of simpler forms was also prolonged by influential players and teachers who were reluctant to accept too much innovation in their familiar systems.

Pewter plug pads on flutes of the mid 1800s. (Flute on the right has rollers to assist awkward slides: these include a low B key.)

The most common tube material is boxwood, which combines ease of working with attractive appearance. Ideally it was matured for several years, sometimes underground and sometimes in manure, to offer reasonable resistance to the extremes of humidity inside the bore which caused cracking. Many other woods were used, notably pear and maple for the larger joints. Jointed construction became normal for even quite small instruments in the seventeenth century. It was economical and made the bore accessible for detailed finishing: ebony and ivory were popular and expensive if wasted. Many opinions were advanced for the tonal superiority of particular materials, but evidently all were regarded as satisfactory.

Billets of the tube material a little larger than the finished joint were turned on a reciprocating pole-lathe, or later the fully rotary lathe. The external profiling included tenons, ornamental detail, and a protective thickening around the sockets. Raised rings were left to receive the keywork, and trimmed down to 'knobs' if they might interfere with the fingers. The bore was excavated with drills, long chisels and reamers; offsetting these from the axis of rotation allowing a variety of profiles to be achieved. During this stage, the working end of the joint was supported with its tenon in a perforated plate. Tone holes were put in by a variety of methods; none more elegant than a spear-bit driven by a bow-drill, which gave rapid controlled cutting from any angle. The holes were reamed for fine tuning, and undercut to improve the instrument's response. This was done from the outside with a small knife, or from within by passing a small conical burr up the bore and engaging it on a threaded stem passed in through the tone hole.

Tenons were given parallel grooves, to prevent their binding from slipping, and lapped with waxed thread. A tight fit guarded against leakage and helped the discontinuous tube to vibrate as a coupled unit. It is probably for this reason, as well as for tuning, that early instruments have long tenons and deep sockets. One result of the tight fit was that sockets often split. A standard way of repairing a crack was to open it and insert a shim. It was then bandaged with thread which was shrunk tight and varnished over. This was unsightly, and it is possible that sometimes light instruments were stained dark to hide the repair. Another method was to shrink-fit a metal band. Threaded pins could be inserted to pull a crack together. Ivory or metal mounts were often fitted as a matter of course to strengthen the extremities, or added later.

The finest keywork was hand-wrought from thin metal blanks. Cast keys were decidedly inferior. Key making was a cottage industry in France, and it is possible that some of the keywork here was imported. The keywork on some of the collection's instruments bears its makers' signature marks. Until keys came to be mounted on rotary axles there was no need for a fit to the minute tolerances of today's instruments.

The keys are usually simple levers for the closed-standing keys, and a bascule pair of such levers for the open-standing ones. They are returned by stout leaf springs riveted or screwed to their undersides. Some early keys are sprung from the tube. Later, double springing combining both arrangements was often used. The keys were mounted with pins in grooves in the raised rings and knobs. The dimensions of the grooves changed with humidity, making the keys bind or develop side-play, and often they were lined with metal inserts. Later, metal saddles were screwed directly to the tube.

The early pads were blocks of felt or leather, much larger than the holes and bedding onto a flat surround. They were far from airtight, and as keywork multiplied better a1ternatives were sought. One solution was to line the holes with metal rings which indented the pads. Eventually pads were made as small leather bags stuffed with wool. Sometimes these 'purse pads' were screwed into metal cups loosely connected to the key, so that they could bed down afresh each time. The most ingenious solution was patented in 1785 by Richard Potter. These were ‘pewter plugs’ - conical stoppers of soft metal bedding into metal faceplates, exactly like sink plugs. They were somewhat noisy, but gave a positive action and reduced the tone holes' chambering effect on the bore.

Plethora of thumb keys on a bassoon of the mid 1800s

Tuning the instruments for ensemble playing presented problems in an age which had no agreed standards of pitch. The practice of tuning to the oboe dates from this period. Bassoon players had considerable latitude, as their large reeds with long scrapes enabled them to 'lip' notes, and they could use different crooks. The other instruments were sometimes made with alternative top joints of different lengths. Flutes sometimes had half a dozen of these corps de rechange, to allow the player to adjust tone and volume for different sizes of ensemble without becoming uncomfortably sharp or flat. A simpler but less effective solution was to pull out the head on the long tenon. Both methods upset the instrument’s intonation and called for a compensatory resetting of its head cork. This came to be fitted with an ivory bar protruding through the stopper cover, with graduated markings corresponding to a series of markings on the tenon for optimum adjustment. Often this was controlled by rotating the stopper cover which engaged with the cork through a helical thread. In many later flutes the top tenon was replaced with telescopic metal slides, and often the whole head was given a metal lining.