As a recorder and traverso player, J.S. Bach’s works form a crucial part of my repertoire. They include some of the most technically advanced music written for the recorder, in which the instrument seems to be pushed to its limits. Meanwhile, the traverso is welcomed into the orchestra, and it has come to stay. In a similar way, the traverso came into my life, about eight years ago. Having started on the recorder as a child, the traverso opened a whole new world for me. And with it, important questions for my future as a flutist.
During the preparation for my final bachelor presentation on the recorder, I became aware of some of the difficulties of performing Bach’s early cantatas at historical pitch. These problems made me curious and formed the start of this research. Soon however, I discovered that in Bach’s music, the story of the recorder is in many ways connected to the traverso. And since I was now obtaining my master’s degree on the traverso, a growing need emerged in me to understand how Bach treated each of the two instruments individually. I needed to find their characteristic differences, so that I, in my artistic practice, could benefit from not only knowing how, but also why Bach used the recorder for one composition, and the traverso for the other.
This led me to my research question:
"What are the characteristic differences between recorder and traverso parts from J.S. Bach's compositions and what can be learned from them regarding their performance?"
In answering this question, I have used my experience in playing both woodwinds to my advantage. My journey has led me through an analysis of terminology, clefs, pitch, tonalities, tessitura, orchestration and symbolism surrounding Bach’s flute parts, making use of the original sources and the relevant contemporary studies. For context, I have compared Bach’s use of the recorder and traverso with that of his contemporaries. I have organized the outcomes in three chapters, that answer the following sub-questions:
Chapter One: What has Bach written for the flute and what different flute types did he use in his compositions?
Chapter Two: How does Bach use the recorder and the traverso in the parts?
Chapter Three: Why does Bach choose the recorder in one composition, and the traverso in the other?
With my research, I present an overview of the characteristic differences between the two instruments in Bach’s music, giving my own artistic view on some of the unsolved mysteries surrounding Bach and his use of flutes. My hope is that my research provides valuable insights and answers for those who perform J.S. Bach's music on historical flutes, and that it inspires multi-instrumentalists to use their knowledge of different instruments to their advantage in their artistic practice.
Inspired by the historical sources, I will use the word flute when talking about the recorder and traverso in general. Whenever I talk about one flute specifically, I will name them accordingly.