Having to play, with my band, pieces that are in A minor and C major, impossible scales for my keyless D flute, i’m thinking to purchase a flute in high G, also because my D flute (a polymer R&R) it’s too quiet to play outdoor.
To play traditional italian music (i mostly play this kind of music with my band) i use cane flutes or wooden fifes (as the tradition imposes), but sometimes I use also my R&R, to be a bit “exotic”, and my fellows and the audience like it.
I’m looking around but I don’t find a lot of makers that offer a keyed (I need at least 2 Keys on my flute, G# and C#, to play also D major) G flute, only Gilles Lehart.
I didn’t find on the internet pieces of iformation about historical G flutes (I found something about band F flutes).
over the last 10+ years I’ve owned several G flutes, for your very same reason (use them to play Italian trad).
the keyed G Lehart flute mentioned above in fact was mine, unfortunately it was not for sale, it was stolen. If anyone has seen an advertisment for a G lehart flute in Northern Italy PLEASE get in touch with me, either via PM or (better) at michelbalattiATtiscali.it
anyway.. I’ve had G flutes by Bleazey, Copley and Lehart. G it’s a strange key as there are no original antique flutes that were made in that pitch so every flute maker finds his/her own way to make it, either by scaling up a F flute design or by making a new design altogether. Bleazy’s G flutes is an original design, the wall thickness is quite tiny, making the flute feel a little like a cane flute. Copley’s and Lehart’s feel more like standard wood flutes, both designs are quite good IMO and very powerful (even too much!). the problem with many G flute designs is that they tend to be a little unbalanced and too shrilling in the higher octave.
I will soon take delivery of a new G flute model that Belgian flute maker Geert Lejeune has made for me. I have here a prototype model which is by a long way the best G flute I tried so far, nice deep round tone and evenly balanced between the two octaves.Finally a G flute design that can play really well either forte or piano and in between, well in tune. But if power is what you look for then Lehart it’s a better choice, and probably cheaper as well.
Antique fourth flutes (G) do exist. I’ve seen ones by Firth and Pond, J. Haynes, and William
Prowse. They are listed in some old flute catalogs. I believe Jem has one by Beckett???
Nowhere near as common as F (third) flutes, though.
Tom Abei is making a G flute he calls a bass piccolo. He is doing them keyed. They are designed to be loud to play harmony lines for Basel clique music.
I stand correct then! never seen one myself, and for a fact all the G flutes from modern makers I’ve tried were not copies of antiques. I’d be very curious to try an antique G flute.
As Jem said, Tony Millyard makes a very good G flute, here is a video of my early attempt at showing it on youtube. This is the Boxwood flute that Jem has now and at the end of the vid i play a blackwood which was to demonstrate the high register for a fellow fifer. It was three years ago so please excuse any errors.
Yesterday, reading a very well-made italian book about flute organology (“Il Flauto traverso” by Gianni Lazzari), I found that some english makers, in the first half of the XIX cent, started to make keyed flutes in G. Some of these flutes were still used in Italy, in the town bands, in the years before the World War I. G flutes were called, in Italy, “flauti quartini” (fourth flutes) becaUSE they are a fourth above the regular D.
In the book these are the only pieces of information I found about this size.
Here’s a photo of my G/4th flutes, all rather fortuitously acquired in quite a short time in mid 2014.
Top is the boxwood Millyard I bought from Stu, middle is the Beckett “from Wood & Ivy” (made between 1847-73) and bottom is a Tipple.
The Beckett has a very small, Baroque-style embouchure and small tone-holes and cross-fingers quite well (will do so better when it has a replacement key and has been restored!). It has a sweet, only moderate strength voice, as one might expect, and plays pretty much bang on A=440 as luck would have it.
The Millyard is an excellent general purpose instrument.
There are mentions of G/4th flutes in various C19th catalogues I have seen and indeed of almost all other tonalities. The Beckett is actually stamped with a “4”. The 1855 Rudall, Rose, Carte & Co, catalogue illustrated in Robert Bigio’s book about the firm offers (amongst other things) a complete set of 8 4-keyed military flutes and piccolos with tuning heads and stoppers in boxwood with ivory tips for £12 and 15/s, or plain heads and stoppers for £8 10/s - seemingly flutes in D, Eb, F and G and piccolos in Bb, C, D and Eb, though piccolos in other keys were available.
What I have yet to see any actual physical evidence of is an A/5th flute. They clearly offered them, but… We’re used enough to Bb and B 6th high flutes, though distinguishing what is what given the vagaries of reference pitches is difficult. I don’t think I’ve actually seen a C/7th picc/band flute either, though I have seen (own one) true fifes at that pitch.
