Flûte d'amour

The flûte d'amour (Italian: flauto d'amore, German: Liebesflöte, translates as: Love Flute) is an uncommon member of the Western concert flute family, pitched in A♭, A, or B♭[1] and is intermediate in size between the modern C concert flute and the alto flute in G. It is the alto member of the flute family.[2] It is also sometimes called a tenor flute.[3]

Flute d'Amour, Radcliff system, Alto flute in B-flat, silver, used by John Amadio, made by Rudall Carte & Co Ltd, London, England, 1923

It is 100–205mm longer than the concert flute and plays either a major second, minor third, or major third below the standard C flute. A number of these instruments have survived. Apart from their length, they do not differ in any way from the concert flute; the bore diameter and embouchure are identical. Although the flute d'amour has the same tuning as the French three-piece flute, its sound quality is quite different, and in the middle and upper registers the very narrow bore produces a haunting, veiled tone. It is as expressive as the French flute, but its timbre is quite different, being darker, more inning.[4]

The flute d'amour is unsuitable for combination with an orchestra for two reasons. First, it is at a different pitch from the other instruments (though this could, of course, be solved through transposition). The main disadvantage, however, is its mellow, intimate tone quality, which tends to blend rather than contrast with string instruments. Orchestral music demands a level of uniformity and balance between instruments that we take for granted, but which was signally lacking at the beginning of the 18th century. The flute joined forces with the orchestra only after its design and technique had been considerably modified-that is to say, after it had become transformed from a basically low-pitched instrument into the soprano instrument that it has remained. There are nevertheless a dozen or so pieces for flute d'amour and orchestra written in the late 1720s and early 1730s by Telemann, Graupner and Molter (possibly for one particular player). The striking thing about these compositions is their unity of idiom. They all have a distinctly pastoral air, and in one of them Telemann actually calls the instrument the 'flute pastourelle'. It is significant that the only piece in which Bach combines the flute d'amour with orchestra is the Pastorale from the Christmas Oratorio. (This group of pieces is the only context in which I have encountered the name 'flauto d'amore' in manuscripts of the period; unless we are to conclude that the instrument was seldom played, this must mean its use was so normal that it was only exceptionally specified by name.[5]

"When Verdi composed the opera Aida for performance in Cairo in 1871, he conceived the 'Sacred Egyptian Dance,' the finale of Act I, as being played by a group of three flûtes ď amour, and three such flutes were especially constructed in Milan. ... In present-day performances of this opera, the music for the flûtes ďamour is usually assigned to other instruments."[6]