BOOK REVIEW
JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MUSICAL INSTRUMENT SOCIETY, Vol. XXXIV, 2008, pp. 131-135
Jan Bouterse. Dutch Woodwind Instruments and their Makers, 1660—1760. Utrecht: Koninklijke Vereniging voor Nederlandse Muziekgeschiedenis, 2005. CD-ROM, 637 pp.: over 2,000 photographs and figures; accompanying book (cloth), 79 pp.: 22 color photographs, 2 black-and-white photographs, 4 line drawings. ISBN: 90-6375-198-2. €55,00.
The Dutch recorder and flute maker Jan Bouterse is known for his detailed articles on Baroque recorders, transverse flutes, and Schalmeien and for his contributions to two catalogs of woodwind instruments in the outstanding collection of the Gemeentemuseum in The Hague. His Dutch Woodwind Instruments and their Makers, 1660-1760 is a systematic investigation of the work of more than thirty makers in Amsterdam and the Republic of the United Netherlands from 1660 to 1760, discussing nearly 250 recorders, transverse flutes, oboes, bassoons, clarinets, and Schalmeien, now dispersed worldwide.
The CD-ROM is a revised and augmented version of Bouterse's Utrecht University doctoral dissertation of 2001, translated into English by Ruth Koenig. It contains instructions for use; an introduction; eleven chapters; a summary and conclusions (in both English and Dutch); a bibliography; and four appendixes. Besides photos and drawings of instruments, Bouterse includes photos of paintings, at least one engraving, and tables. The photos vary considerably in quality, as Bouterse notes in his text.
The text is organized in the strict, scientific style of many Germanic dissertations, with numerical divisions for each new subject discussed (1.5.1, 1.5.2, etc.). The longer chapters are on sources and methods (chapter 1); stamps and inscriptions (chapter 6); recorders and flageolets, with ninety-six recorders discussed (chapter 7); transverse flutes, with forty-five discussed (chapter 8); and oboes and deutsche Schalmeien, with ninety-six oboes and twenty Schalmeien discussed (chapter 9). Shorter chapters examine biographical data (chapters 2 and 3) and the production and distribution of instruments (chapter 5). The shortest chapters concern Dutch instruments that have survived in few examples: dulcians, bassoons (three survive), and racketts (two survive) (chapter 10); and chalumeaux and clarinets (two survive) (chapter 11). Appendix C is an extremely useful catalog, presenting a description of individual instruments, their location, museum number (if available), measurements taken by Bouterse over a period of twenty years, and a photo or photos. The commentary is in Dutch, but a concise English version is provided.
The booklet contains information selected by the author to highlight the CD-ROM contents: excerpts from the introduction; an overview of all the chapters; a list of instruments; and the summary and conclusions. It also includes photos of instruments, makers' stamps, and a trade card (Coenraad Rijkel's); line drawings of instruments; and color reproductions of a painting, Young Flute Player (before 1636), by Judith Lyster (Nationalmuseum, Stockholm). The drawings are also on the CD-ROM; the photos, taken especially for the booklet, are not. The instruments in the booklet's color photos are not identified.
The CD-ROM format allows users to move easily about the data using Adobe Reader. The text includes purple links to different sections, drawings (Bouterse calls them "tracings") of instruments, or bibliographical references; red links take the reader to footnotes. Most of the instruments have been photographed in various views, and there are additional photos of individual parts and the maker's stamps. The reader clicks on a square or rectangle outlined in red to go to a different view. After navigating away via links, the reader can backtrack by clicking on a green arrow at the bottom of the page.
Numerous cross-references enrich the rather factual text with fascinating details. For example, Bouterse writes in chapter 6 (p. 234, n. 46) about a stamp, found only on Dutch instruments, that shows a peculiarly flat fleur-de-lis. (William Waterhouse, The New Langwill Index [London: Tony Bingham, 1993], 31, s.v. "Beukers," suggested that it may represent a sheaf of wheat.) Bouterse provides a link to a photo of a beautiful yellow iris (Iris pseudacorus), commonly found in the Netherlands and sometimes called a fleur-de-lis, that may be the model for this stamp.
Bouterse writes in a very clear, common-sense manner, and his writing reflects his extensive knowledge of the literature. His background as a maker enriches his discussion of measuring instruments, woods used, and the structural details, including the bore, finger holes, turnery, keys, and springs. He is critical of the interpretation of certain details of instrument construction in earlier organological work, and he points out additional methods that can be used to study woodwind instruments. For example, he comments (chapter 1, pp. 26-27) on the extensive variations of makers' stamps of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and on the silence of specialized studies and even catalog descriptions regarding their size and location on the instrument. Although he rightly extols the virtues of the three extensive folio volumes that catalog the woodwinds in the Gemeentemuseum, Bouterse regrettably does not mention the detailed photos of keys and makers' stamps and the similarly precise measurements that appear in Martin Kirnbauer's catalog of the woodwind instruments in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg (Verzeichnis der Europäischen Musikinstrumente im Germanischen Nationalmuseum Nürnberg, vol. 2, Flöten- und Rohrblattinstrumente bis 1750: Beschreibender Katalog [Wilhelmshaven: Florian Noetzel, 1994]).
Although Bouterse makes some astute observations in chapter 11 on the construction of the clarinets by Boekhout and Borkens, he is weakest in his discussion of the clarinet. He does not recognize that it, unlike the other woodwinds, was a transposing instrument during the eighteenth century. His system of describing recorders, flutes, and oboes by the pitch of their lowest notes is not useful in describing eighteenth-century clarinets because the latter have varying downward extensions of one or more notes. Bouterse omits mention of an important photo of the Boekhout clarinet, including its now-missing mouthpiece-socket joint, in Phillip T. Young's Twenty-Five Hundred Historical Woodwind Instruments ([New York: Pendragon Press, 1982], plate XI). The English description of an incomplete five-key clarinet by Johannes van der Knikker (in Appendix C) misidentifies the F-sharp/C-sharp key (for the left-hand little finger) as an E-flat key.
One of the publication's most important contributions is the biographical data on makers, found in chapter 2. Much of this material, which Bouterse, J.H. Giskes, and Rob van Acht discovered in archival sources, is previously unpublished. (Some of it appeared in Rob van Acht, Jan Bouterse, and Piet Dhont, Dutch Double Reed Instruments of the 17th and 18th Centuries: Collection Haags Gemeentemuseum [Laaber: Laaber Verlag, 1997].) For example, Bouterse reports that Jan Boekhout (b. 1696), son of Thomas Boekhout, announced in the Gazette d'Amsterdam on June 14, 1718, that "[he] continues to make all kinds of instruments including recorders, oboes, [and] bass recorders, as well as a recently invented bassoon: he has also just invented another instrument called the Clarinet, which can be played in a large concert" (il continuë à faire toutes sortes de Flûtes, Hautbois, Basses de Flûtes, comme aussi des Bassons d'une nouvelle invention: il vient encore d'inventer un autre instrument, nommé Clarinet, dont on peut se servir dans un grand Concert). As a similar advertisement by T. Boekhout from 1713 (see Waterhouse, New Langwill Index) did not mention the clarinet, it seems possible that the one surviving two-key clarinet (Musical Instrument Museum [MIM], Brussels, M2561) stamped with "crown/T.BOEKHOUT/ lion rampant" was made by Jan Boekhout about 1718 or later. Its structure, appearance, and turning indicate that it was a copy of a clarinet by Johann or Jacob Denner.
Bouterse has thought deeply on many technical issues, with mixed results. He adds a disclaimer regarding differences that occur in measurements of instruments, taken by the same or different researchers, in different published sources. He sensibly suggests that builders who wish to copy particular instruments go to the museums and measure the instruments themselves. In chapter 1 (p. 19), Bouterse devises his own system for notation of pitches for the bassoon compass, using note letters with abbreviations for the fundamental, B-flatco, and the great octave, Cgr. The suffix 0 refers to the tenor oboe's fundamental of f°. The reviewer finds this new system unnecessary and unhelpful. However, Bouterse rejects Bruce Haynes's use of the term hautbois or hautboy for many early oboes since, for the sake of consistency, Bouterse would have to use old terms such as basson for bassoon and fluit does for the recorder.
Bouterse's bibliography and text indicate that his sources end at 1999: thus he relies on the 1980 New Grove Dictionary of Music, which is unfortunate, since many of the articles have been updated in the 2001 edition and in Grove Music Online. For the English translation, however, he has added a few sources up to 2002 and listed one catalog published in 2004. The index of names is a little cumbersome to use on the CD-ROM, since only page numbers are given, not the chapters into which the CD-ROM is divided. The reader must click on the main index with its full table of contents to find the chapter in which a certain page is located. The English translation of the text is very good, with only a few insignificant typographical errors; the English summary of individual instrument entries in Appendix C, written by Bouterse, is less adept.
Bouterse has produced an important reference publication for organologists and researchers. The CD-ROM and booklet format make it a powerful tool, allowing the user to move easily about the contents. The numerous photos and illustrations provide much useful information, especially when multiple views of an instrument are available. The work on makers' stamps and the new biographical data are significant, and the breadth and depth of the material are impressive. This publication belongs in all research libraries and the libraries of serious woodwind instrument makers, students, and researchers.
Albert R. Rice
Claremont, California