This study’s results have been presented as both this online thesis and as a PDF. The aim of this study is to connect several snippets of historical information in order to explore the Republiek der Zeven Verenigde Nederlanden’s[1] double-reed players variety of roles, as well as the repertoire which they played. This was greatly inspired by the work of Samantha Owens. I consulted every provincial archive in the Netherlands, as well as some smaller archives such as the Koninklijke Verzamelingen in The Hague, in the search for relevant information — often just sentences in lengthy notary records. I also inspected every Netherlandish newspaper from the period of study, as well as plays, poems, and songs, all of which proved useful in constructing an overview of double-reed culture in the Republic.
There has been a substantial body of work written about Dutch woodwind instruments, including double-reed instruments from the period of study. This has largely been restricted to organological analyses, such as those by Rob van Acht,[2] Jan Bouterse,[3] and Mathew Dart.[4] Although useful from a contextual perspective, the works cited in these authors’ studies have been imperative in finding lesser-known primary sources and relevant secondary literature. A recent article by Giovanni Paolo Di Stefano[5] also provided further insight into the instruments from the period of study. Regarding musical culture in the Republic as a whole, the writings of Rudolf Rasch, particularly Muziek in de Republiek and his work on the publishing house of Estienne Roger, complemented the archival material well.
Once most of the information was collected, I was able to categorise each source as being relevant to different sectors of music. These sectors have been divided into Chapters 4–8. I chose to focus on the instruments listed in Chapter 2 as those were the instruments which seemed to appear the most in my research. To understand the terminology used in the period, I consulted every known surviving dictionary of the period of study, both in Dutch and in other languages. This resulted in the material in Chapter 3 becoming the basis of interpreting the instrument terminology to which sources of the period refer. Much of the existing body of knowledge regarding the theatres of the Republic is, unfortunately, based on research from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries[6]. In cases where newer secondary sources cited these works, I was able to compare the findings with archival material, sometimes arriving at different conclusions.
The content of Appendix A was mainly compiled by inspecting the catalogues of Estienne Roger, all of which are available as scans online. Other information, such as the libraries which hold published works, was retrieved from Rasch’s website on the publishing house of Estienne Roger[7] and from Répertoire International des Sources Musicales[8] (RISM). Rasch’s descriptive lists of works, while certainly comprehensive, do not list the instrumentation of each work, rather only providing the information from the title pages and partbooks. Appendix A differs in this regard as I have provided the instrumentation of all double-reed-related works, based on not only the works’ title pages and partbooks, but on information from Roger’s catalogues which categorise the works by instrumentation, national style, and genre.
Appendix B is by no means comprehensive; several works of art are kept in private collections, the extent of potentially-relevant works is unknown, and it is possible that some art is incorrectly dated. With that being said, I consulted the catalogues and collections of all historical art museums in the Netherlands, in addition to RKD-Nederlands Instituut voor Kunstgeschiedenis to find as many examples of iconography as possible. These artworks were valuable in forming a greater overview of Netherlandish culture, seeing how double-reed instruments and players were portrayed in art, regardless of each work’s realism.
As this study aims to contextualise the subject matter, I have avoided personal speculation, reserving this for external presentations on the subject matter. In the process of writing this dissertation, I presented two lectures on extrapolative information from this study at the Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Graz.[9] These lectures assisted me in separating my own speculations from the historical facts presented in sources.
[1] “Republic of the Seven United Netherlands”, henceforth referred to as “the Republic”.
[2] Van Acht, Rob, Bouterse, Jan, and Dhont, Piet, Niederländische Doppelrohrblattinstrumente des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts / Dutch double reed instruments of the 17th and 18th centuries (Laaber: Laaber-Verlag, 1997).
[3] Bouterse, Jan, Dutch Woodwind Instruments and Their Makers, trans. Koenig, Ruth (Utrecht: Koninklijke Vereniging voor Nederlandse Muziekgeschiedenis, 2005).
[4] Dart, Mathew, ‘The Baroque Bassoon: Form, Construction, Acoustics, and Playing Qualities’ (Doctor of Philosophy, London, London Metropolitan University, 2011).
[5] Di Stefano, Giovanni Paolo, ‘The Rijksmuseum’s Remarkable Collection of Oboes’, The Double Reed 44, no. 2 (2021): 93–127.
[6] For example, Worp, Jacob Adolf, Geschiedenis van den Amsterdamschen Schouwburg, 1496–1772 (Amsterdam: S. L. van Looy, 1920); Balfoort, Dirk J, Het muziekleven in Nederland in de 17de en 18de eeuw (Amsterdam: P. N. van Kampen & Zoon, 1938).
[7] Rasch, Rudolf, ‘The Music Publishing House of Estienne Roger and Michel-Charles Le Cène’, Utrecht University, 2018, https://roger.sites.uu.nl/.
[9] Athayde Santos, Luis Tasso, ‘The Context and Repertoire of Richard Haka’s Kleine Schalmei’ (Lecture, Eröffnungstag des Instituts 15, Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst, Graz, 30 September 2024); Athayde Santos, Luis Tasso, ‘Richard Haka’s Schalmeien’ (Lecture, Instrumentenkunde, Historische Oboenklasse der Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Graz, Graz, 15 November 2024).