The first instrument I’m going to research in project one of part three is the Piccolo. I hope to demonstrate how the instrument has developed both technologically and within the orchestral family over the years. I’ve used musical examples from early on and the nineteenth century to demonstrate it’s development and advancement.
(Piccolo, 2012)
The piccolo has a brilliance to it’s sound and is a transposing instrument played an octave higher than it is written. The piccolo is an exceptionally effective instrument played in it’s higher register. In it’s middle and lower registers it is less effective, though still strong in the middle.
I recently watched the New York Met’s production of Giuseppe Verdi’s (1813-1901) Simon Boccanegra, which featured the piccolo in the opening to an interlude before act one. The opera was first produced in 1857 at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice and at La Scala in Milan in 1881. The piccolo featured extensively in this part of the work, coming in early in the prelude to give the texture of the prelude a fresh brilliant sound. The piccolo part returns towards the end of the prelude and again features strongly in Amelia’s aria at the opening of act one. Verdi seems to have been fond of the piccolo as it features in his Requiem (Montagu, 2012) and is also used in other operas.
The piccolo became an integral part of the orchestra in the earlier part of the nineteenth century following the use of the instrument by Beethoven in the Egmont Overture, and Symphonies 5, 6 & 9, although long before this Vivaldi wrote a concerto for the instrument. By the time of Wagner and Strauss the piccolo had become a well established instrument in the orchestra and most modern orchestras have a principle piccolo player among their ranks.
Early piccolos were of a conical nature, but as with the flute, the single biggest development came when Theobald Boehm (1794-1881) invented the cylindrical flute, having earlier introduced the use of rings to make the technique of flute playing better, by giving the player the ability to vary the size of the holes. His later instruments would also feature padded keys over the larger holes that featured on his instruments and the rectangular embouchure hole that is common today. It was one of Boehm’s pupils, Thomas Mollenhauer (1840-1914), who in 1862, produced the first piccolo using the Boehm method.
Although the new technology did not catch on in all countries (Wagner and other Germanic composers preferred the range of tone offered by the conical instruments), the Boehm model is the standard that is played today.
To get a feel for the instrument, I went back to an early work, with Vivaldi’s Piccolo Concerto in A minor, RV445. This work demonstrates the brilliance of the instrument, especially in the high register. The opening movement is at a fast even tempo (allegro), before the much slower middle movement (laghetto). Here though the solo piccolo parts dominate the rest of the orchestra, with the high piccolo drowning out the strings. The final movement returns to allegro, but at a slower and more variable tempo than the opening movement. I think this was a good place to begin with the piccolo before moving onto a more advanced nineteenth century work.
The other piece of work I am going to look at is Ludwig van Beethoven’s (1770-1827) Egmont Overture. Beethoven was commissioned to write this work following the occupation by Napoleon of Vienna in 1809 and a production of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s (1749-1832) play Egmont at the Hoftheatre, under the direction of Joseph Härtel. The play is set in 16th century Netherlands under Spanish occupation and repression, and was part of a series of plays celebrating the works of Schiller and Goethe marking the end of the French occupation (Rodda, 2010).
The work was written in the unusual key for Beethoven of F minor but changes to the major in the moment of victory. The full incidental score lasts a total of about forty minutes, but the overture is only just over eight minutes.
In the Egmont Overture, Beethoven uses the piccolo in both middle and higher register to give the work a brilliant sounding texture in places. But where Beethoven uses the instrument to its most meaningful effect is the coda at the end of the work, celebrating the triumph of the revolt lead by Count Egmont. Here the piccolo is heard with the fanfare type celebration as the trumpets and the trombone take center stage, the shrill contrast of the piccolo offsets the power of the brass instruments. In other parts too the piccolo plays a prominent part, as indeed do all the woodwind section as it responds to the strings. Beethoven sets this out from the start, as following the string opening chords, which are quite harsh, the oboe, clarinet and bassoon respond before being joined by the flute and piccolo.
The piccolo is a wonderful addition to the range of the orchestra that became more frequently used during the nineteenth century bringing it to the important place the instrument has in the modern orchestra. It’s brilliance of tone in the higher register especially make it a valuable member of the wind section.
References & Bibliography
Beethoven, L. (1862), Egmont, Op. 84. Leipzig. Breitkopf and Härtel. [Muisical Score][online]. Available from: http://http://petrucci.mus.auth.gr/imglnks/usimg/6/66/IMSLP35190-PMLP02711-Beethoven-Op084ov.Flute.pdf [Accessed December 15th 2012]
Black, D, Gerou, T. (1998),The Essential Dictionary of Orchestration. USA. Alfred Publishing Company, pp 99-102
Montagu, J. (2012), “Flute”, [online] Grove Music Online. Oxford Music online. Available from: http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/40569 [Accessed August 30th 2012]
Rodda, Dr R.E. (2010), Egmont Overture. [online]. Kennedy Center. Available from: http://www.kennedy-center.org/calendar/?fuseaction=composition&composition_id=2771 [Accessed December 15th 2012].
Sadie, S (ed.)(1996), The New Grove Book of Operas. London. Macmillan Press.
Unknown (2012), Piccolo [photograph][online image] Available from: http://www.cs.mcgill.ca/~aasbah/room.html [Accessed on October 24th 2012]
Unknown (2012), Programme Notes: Beethoven Egmont Overture. [online]. Brandon Hill Chamber Orchestra. Available from: http://bhco.co.uk/pages/node/71 [Accessed on December 15 2012]
Verdi, G (1881), Simon Boccanegra. [Score] IMSL.org. [online] Available at: http://erato.uvt.nl/files/imglnks/usimg/c/c7/IMSLP112750-PMLP55408-Verdi_-_Simon_Boccanegra_-_Act_I__orch._score_.pdf [Accessed on September 2nd 2012]
Neil Thomas's Listening Log 
Thank you for putting the spotlight on an often maligned or over-looked member of the orchestra. Although modern piccolo players have made claim to the three Vivaldi flautino concerti rather effectively, the key signatures and technical demands required seem to indicate that these works were composed for some type of recorder-like instrument and not the type of “tiny traverso” that was used from the 1730s in the Paris Opera by Rameau.