Hello! I would like to buy a good baroque instrument for a friend. I want a nice one - such as a Rod Cameron instrument. If anyone has one to sell, or knows of one, can you please e-mail me? Thanks a lot!
If you’re looking for a good baroque flute, then try http://www.earlymusic.com
Friedrich von Huene is just about the best there is (my opinion, of course), but prepare for the sticker shock.
Incidentally, Friedrich is also the chap who taught Seth Gallagher (of uilleann pipe fame) how to make musical instruments.
John Harvey
Webmaster
http://www.johndharvey.com
http://www.rhodeirish.net
http://www.skiphealy.com
http://www.marcbernier.com
http://www.varnumcontinentals.org
[ This Message was edited by: rhodeirish on 2002-09-13 09:37 ]
Peter Noy makes outstanding baroque flutes as well…smooth!
Hi guys
thanks so much for the attention. I know of Von Huene, of course. But I really want a used flute, with an attractive price tag…
You might find out if Rod Cameron still modifies Aulos polymer Baroque flutes. These have a high reputation; see the discussion at
http://archive.woodenflute.com/woodenflute.199902
for more info.
For really high-end Baroque period in$trument$, check out http://www.baroqueflute.com.
Best wishes,
–James
http://www.flutesite.com
On 2002-09-14 00:32, peeplj wrote:
You might find out if Rod Cameron still modifies Aulos polymer Baroque flutes. These have a high reputation; see the discussion at
They have an extraordinary reputation, in fact; or had. At the beginning of 2002, on January 1, indeed, Rod posted this to the Yahoo earlyflute group (I’m reprinting without permission):
There had been a few letters to earlyflute on the subject of the modified Aulos
traverso that I have supplied over the years to colleges and people starting
into early flute.
This posting it to let players know that I will no longer be offering the
modifed Aulos.
I feel that it works well, but the labor involved cannot justify the relatively
low price.
I have four Aulos left that are available, and after that I will quietly close
this modified model down.
In the event that new players may still be interested, I am sure that a
colleague of mine by the name of John Gallagher may undertake to supply the
design. He may be reached at:
johnnygallagher@h...
It may be of passing interest as to what I did to the standard model.
In my opinion, the black Aulos called a 'Grenser' was nothing like a Grenser on
the inside. That is not to say that it was not a reasonably good flute, given
that it was molded, and I can see that a lot of careful thought was put into
its production. However the headjoint was very tapered inside in a way that I
have not seen in any traverso. I chose to wipe out this bore with a set of
reamers based upon an authentic old flute that was wide enough to do the job,
and chose the Brueggen Rottenburgh reamers. This worked reasonably well at
A440, or should I say A442 as the Japanese prefer this higher pitch for modern
music. However at A415 the lower joint was much too short to work with the
"made from scratch" new A415 middle joint. It had always occured to me that a
foot register mechanism should be placed as an extension of the lower joint,
and not as it always happens... as an extension at the end of the footjoint.
Conventional footjoints certainly can drop the D notes as you go to longer
joints, but not the E flat/ D sharp notes. Those of you who have seen my
modified Aulos will note that at A415, a "register" extension is placed on the
end of the lower joint to lengthen it to be equal to the Brueggen lower joint.
This drops the E flat and D notes. Thoughful readers will immediately conclude
that this has the effect of appearing to shift the lower joint three holes
upstream in relation to the footjoint. It seemed to me the Quantz tended to use
small tone hole a bit more upstream that average, allowing the f sharp to speak
well with a smallish hole upsteam, and hence allowing it to be sharp enough to
be in tune, at the same time the small hole allows the f natural to fork nicely
in tune.
This whole exercise started only out of interest to see if the black Aulos
could be made to play at two pitches, but I was surprised how well in tune both
joints ended up. I grant you that it is an unusual approach. Over the years it
allowed many colleges to supply a 'student proof' traverso to their music
departments. I also sweetened the voicing (already too large) by rounding the
edges just a little on the north and south, rounded the rims of the tone
holes, and modified the undercutting. The A415 joint, which I had to make from
scratch, was turned from a matching synthetic material. Finally the key touch
piece was hammered to lengthen it slightly, and the outside of the flute was
sanded to get rid of the shiny plastic look.
I do not expect that makers will want to experiment with any of this, but
please regard this information as public domain if anyone wants to similarly
modify their own plastic flute.
Happy New Year !
Rod Cameron
And so it goes. I would imagine that by now the flutes are spoken for. Rod's reputation among Baroque flute makers is incomparable. Other makers make copies or reproductions of earlier instruments--one of the reasons that Rod Cameron's instruments are preferred among performers is that he really seems to adapt earlier flutes rather than make museum copies. It's as though he is making a new model instrument based around an earlier model flute. A few months ago I sat in a church in Cambridge, MA listening to a woman play French baroque music on a gorgeous blackwood flute with silver banding. It had an absolutely gorgeous tone and, curiously, looked for all the world like a Healy flute. I asked the player who made her flute--it turned out to be a Cameron copy of a Bressan early 18th century flute, one that had been praised to me almost a year before by John Thow, flutist and composer at the University of California at Berkeley as perhaps the best baroque flute he'd ever heard or played.
Of course the flute was unaffordable then and is even less so now especially since Rod does not take plastic (I once called him up in Scotland and asked:-(). Oh well....
Ken
[ This Message was edited by: KenWolman on 2002-09-15 15:30 ]