The Keyed Flute by Johann George Tromlitz: (17 Early Music Series)

The Keyed Flute is a translation and study of J.G. Tromlitz's tutor for the 8-keyed flute, first published in German in 1800 when the design of the flute was multifarious. It is the first serious 19th-century method book for the instrument, explaining in great detail how to play flutes of Tromlitz's own special design. Powell's study of the late 18th-century flute places the Tromlitz flute in its context. He offers a new approach to the instrument's history, relating the design and manufacture of the flute, its tone and intonation, to contemporay evidence of playing technique, performance practice, composition style, developments in the flute market, and the flute's important place in society. Documentation of the history of the flute in this period is the most complete to date, revealing a clear picture of Tromlitz's importance and of his contemporary influence. The edition contains information vital to the historically informed performance of classical and Romantic music.

About the Author :
Partner, Folkers & Powell, Makers of Historical Flute, New York

Review :
`If no other praise were due, the mere fact of his translating these books would have indebted the general, and specifically the English-speaking readers to Ardal Powell...More, and even higher praise is merited by the fact that Mr Powell placed this text in its historical context and perspective...The translation of Tromlitz's text makes fluent and comfortable reading. It does not feel as a translation. No mean feat!...Ardal Powell suceeds eminently in establishing Tromlitz, with Johann Joachim Quantz before and Theobald Boehm after him as the pioneering maker, teacher and theoretician he undoubtedly was. providing the flute world with a book that puts the development of the flute from 1800 to this day in a better and more consequential perspective. Bravo.' FOMRHI `Powell's exemplary and exhaustive scholarship provides a contextual historical introduction on 18th-century flute history and flute-playing....A must for music research libraries and wind instrument historians' Choice `Powell's translation of the treatise itself reads well. Rarely are technical texts in German so neatly yet comfortably rendered into enjoyable English ... Powell provides both practical and theoretical material of great use to historians, musicians, and organologists. Tromlitz's treatise becomes a vehicle for Powell to write about the flute in the eighteenth century, something that he does extremely well, even brilliantly ... his discussion of the treatise is, I believe, even more important than his fine translation of the treatise itself.' Peter H. Bloom, Journal of the American Musical Instrument Society