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Re: Origin of Forked F fingering

Author: JRC
Date: 2011-05-29 01:17

Burgess and Haynes showed photo of Boehm oboes made by Rudall-Rose-Carte, Tirebert, Buffet and Sharpe in late 1800s in their book "The Oboe". Boehm models eliminated the forked fingered F. But , perhaps too ambitious, to have made their oboes to go down to A among other improvements. They look almost like clarinet. I was looking for reasons for these Boehm models' demise. It was not clear. Goossens, Burges & Haynes, and Bate all implied in their books that their sound quality was not good without going into much details. At least the tone was not embraced by the players and the listeners alike, as it appears. An oboist named Lavigne was mentioned in the books as the best known oboist with Boehm oboe who actually participated in designing the Boehm oboe system. His musical ability was highly praised but his tone was described as "loud" and "reedy", another words "not good". On the other hand, oboe sounded bright and "reedy" in general in that era. So I am a bit confused as to why oboists at the time did not embrace using the oboe that eliminated the forked fingerings altogether and made it easy to play.

Any one heard or read about why the Boehm oboe system was rejected by the oboist community in late 1800's?

I have a theory about how the forked fingered F came about but I am still checking references to make sure the theory is indeed plausible explanation supported by the historical facts. It is related to six hole primary scale and forked finger half notes. But my theory seems convoluted even though it makes good sense. I am still digging for information. I think the key is in the process of inventing the hauboy in 1680s in France. That was when they added the first key & pad to oboe (right pinky key) to produce a note below what was allowed in the six hole primary scale system. That would be today's low C. I wonder who decided that note to be low C. It could have easily been B or Bb instead.

If any one heard or read about story relating to this?

Post Edited (2011-05-29 01:20)

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Origin of Forked F fingering new

JRC

2011-05-28 13:38