# What was the range of the flute in Mozart's time?



## GSHAPIROY (Oct 25, 2017)

It seems that the upper range of Mozart's flute was, for the most part, limited to a g[SUB]3[/SUB]. However, the C Major Piano Concerto K. 503 contains something rather strange. In the first movement (m. 31), we find an a[SUB]3[/SUB] in the flute part. However, in the last movement of this same concerto (m. 283), Mozart very clearly avoided writing above the g[SUB]3[/SUB] in the flute part. This limiting of the flute range to the g[SUB]3[/SUB] seems to be normal in Mozart's works, however, there are a few other higher notes that seem to prove that the above example of the a[SUB]3[/SUB] in the first movement of K. 503 was not simply a writing slip:

Symphony in E-Flat Major, K. 543 (fourth movement, m. 71)
"Jupiter" Symphony in C Major, K. 551 (first movement, m. 279)

In Beethoven's Symphony #9 in D Minor, op. 125, the score clearly shows that the limit of the flute is at that point an a[SUB]3[/SUB]; there are numerous of these notes but on several occasions he is forced to jump down an octave for the intended b-flat[SUB]3[/SUB] (nowadays many players play these notes up an octave to make it sound smoother).


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

As I understand it, the range of the flute a was about the same as a recorder; in fact, as far as I know, one can play just about entire Classical era flute repertoire on recorder.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

Classical flutes were not the same as baroque flutes and could reach that A much more easily. The mid 18thC flutes had interchangable middle bodies to play different pitches. The one-key flute (standard concert flute of Mozart's time) wold have played high, brilliant notes easier than low notes.


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## RICK RIEKERT (Oct 9, 2017)

While Mozart's flute writing in his earlier works is by and large relatively simple, if not always idiomatic, in his works composed for the scholar-physician and excellent flautist Ferdinand Dejean, the G major concerto and the D major quartet, there are passages which exploit the brilliance and clarity of the flute in its upper register (the flute ascends to high g"' several times in succession in the recapitulation of the first movement of the concerto). In his later operas, symphonies and concertos, Mozart often pushed the flute to extremes, utilizing its third octave extensively (usually stopping with g'" but occasionally going as high as a"' ♭ and a"'), assigning it chromatic passages and requiring it to play in difficult keys, and treating it as an equal member of the ensemble.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

It was not difficult to play that A on a classical, one-key flute. The business of generally writing to g was a baroque hangover.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

According to the scholarly study of *Mozart and the Flute* by Jane Bowers, the flute's bottom range would typically go down to a low Eb or D#, but the flutes weren't standardized in the same way that they are today. He apparently had something of a love/hate relationship with the instrument.

"What sorts of flutes would the musicians who played Mozart's works have used? And would Mozart's later works have demanded flutes of a different sort from his earlier ones? Without a doubt, the flautists playing Mozart's early works would have used the type of four-piece one-key flute that emerged during the third and fourth decades of the 18th century... closed key that could be opened to produce the lowest semitone (e'b /d'#) on the instrument, as well as certain other pitches..." Much more:

http://woodwindsresourcefile.weebly.com/uploads/1/4/0/3/14034613/mozart_and_the_flute.pdf


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