Restoration of historical flutes
The atelier is known for its specialized work on historical instruments. Daniël often works on restoration projects for museums and private collectors. They praise him for his historical approach. Each restoration comes with an extensive photo gallery.
Clair Godfroy Ainé
The restoration of a unique instrument.
Historical placement of this ring-key flute built by Clair Godfroy's son, Vincent Hypolite, in collaboration with Louis Lot, based on the 1832 invention of Theobald Boehm.
before restoration
after restoration
They always signed their instruments with Clair Godfroy Ainé. To what extent Clair Godfroy Ainé still had a share in the construction of this instrument, we can only assume.
A cartouche with the name "Clair Godfroy ainé à Paris" with a paw print (faded) at the top and the monogram CG at the bottom.
This ring-key flute marks the end of the evolution of the conical flute. But in its time, this ring-key flute was the Rolls-Royce of flutes.
The time spirit in which this flute was built
We begin the history from the mid-18th century because it is the most relevant to place this instrument of Godfroy and Lot in its zeitgeist.
The common traverso in the mid-18th century was a four-piece wooden instrument, consisting of a head joint, body, intonation section and foot joint, conical bore, six finger holes and a key for D#. From the tracts of J. Quantz and J.G. Tromlitz, the limitations appear to be mainly intonation and tuning. The basic scale of the traverso is D major. Apart from the tone D#, for which a first key is added in the second half of the 17th century, non-tone scales (of D) require fork fingerings. However, these did not benefit tuning and tone shaping. These "fork fingering" tones sounded dull and required intonation correction. According to the sound ideal of the Baroque period, however, this imbalance in tone color was not considered a defect, but a quality.
The reason for the further development of the flute are changes in composition and performance practice and a change in the sound idiom around 1750. A decisive step towards an instrument with new sound and playing technical possibilities was the drilling of additional holes for notes outside the D-major scale and the addition of corresponding keys. In addition to the D# key, three keys are initially added for the tones f, g# and b. H.G.Tromlitz is said to be at the forefront of this and is the first flute maker to create an instrument with a fully enclosed key system.
The eight-key flute represents a crucial stage in the development of "multi-key flutes". In the course of the 19th century the instrument is expanded with a whole series of correction keys, trill keys and auxiliary mechanisms. Because many flute makers develop their own key systems, thus contributing to a wide variety of flute models, there is no instrument that can be considered "the multi-key flute."
The main advantages of the "multi-key flute" are primarily a relatively balanced sound in all registers and improved intonation. The flute player has the full tonal range at his disposal, making a restriction to D major as the root tone and adjacent tonalities no longer necessary. However, the acceptance of this flute is quite hesitant due to its relatively unreliable key mechanism and the conservative attitude of some flutists to make the switch.
It is not until around 1800 that the multi-key flute finally wins over the traverso, but does not completely supplant it. The variety of different models of the multi-valve flute with three to eight, sometimes even ten or more keys becomes a common denominator in the 19th century.
A newly designed flute with tone holes in the most acoustically correct place and with a completely new key system was developed by Theobald Boehm in 1832. He broke completely with the then current construction and addition of keys. Read more about it here.
This flute is the prelude to the great revolution that occurred a few years later with the introduction of the cylindrical flute by Theobald Boehm in 1847 but that is another story. Read more here.
Back for a moment to this Godfroy flute, its history and restoration
This unique flute was manufactured under the wings of French flute maker Clair Godfroy Ainé, but the business was officially left to his son Hippolyte and his son-in-law Louis Lot around 1836. Lot, in fact, was married to the daughter of Godfroy Ainé.
The Godfroy-Lot family, active from 1814-1888 in Paris, along with Buffet, were among the most prominent instrument makers in France. Although the Paris Academy placed Godfroy first in line of recommended flute makers.
This flute, dating from 1851, testifies to the early stages of pioneering changes in flute making. In an 1837 advertisement, the Godfroy firm first promoted "la flûte traversière avec la nouvelle système". The flute has No. 546 which corresponds to the year of construction of 1851 and is in many ways still in a trial condition. (The first conical flute of the firm Godfroy Ainé dates from 1837, in 1847 there were 300, in 1854 the number was 900.)
This Godfroy flute is unique not only because of the many modifications Godfroy made to Boehm's basic instrument. In a first stage, the left and right hand mechanisms were built with a shaft on the opposite side. Next photo of a Godfroy flute dates from 1844.
What is also very striking is the corresponding b-foot. History tells us that Godfroy Ainé was behind the development of the c-foot on the conical Boehm flute. In my humble opinion, therefore, this is the first b-foot on the Boehm system and probably designed by Godfroy Ainé himself, inspired by his c-foot. Admittedly in a first trial run with a rather flimsy mechanism made of silver. The crazy thing is that the foot is slid into the body. We can infer that no flute box had yet been made for this flute and in all probability the flute had been placed in an existing flute box for c foot.
Inside this simple box is a three-piece constructed instrument, as we still know it today, with head joint, body and b-foot.
Also present are some silver rings (placed vertically in some holders) of various thicknesses that can be slid into the connecting bushing between the head joint and the body. The wider the ring, the lower the flute intonates. Whereas we intonate our contemporary flute by shifting the head joint, it used to be done with the addition of sealing rings because otherwise the inner space between the body and the head joint became too large and gave acoustic interference. These gaps were filled with spacer rings to minimize this interference.
The wooden head joint is inlaid with a beautiful silver plate embedded in the undulation of the wood.
Marquetry was commonly used in the furniture industry in the 19th century and carried over into instrument making. This marquetry with silver instead of wood is technically a feat considering the formation of the lip plate and the silver ring that nicely surrounds the blow hole "the embouchure".
The body has a silver mechanism, a delicate construction with small chairs (pivots) between which the thin, fragile mechanism is placed. The little seats are in all likelihood an invention of Claude Laurent, who first used them on his four-key crystal flutes.
The tubes of the mechanism are custom "rolled" from a sheet of silver and carefully soldered, a technique requiring craftsmanship of the highest level. The flute also contains remnants of a small jar of grease for lubricating the cork, making it easier to slide the flute together.
The restoration of this instrument took two years, carefully taking into account the history of the flute. The wood was thoroughly cleaned, broken tone chimneys invisibly repaired, and the mechanism was cleaned and given new oil and pads. The original polsters were lined with felt encased in goatskin leather. So were the new ones.
step 1
step 2
The first thing that needed to be done was a thorough polishing. With cotton swabs, moistened with a light soapy water, the wood of the instrument was cleaned inside and out.
Some tone chimneys had broken off and were restored almost invisibly with the same wood.
step 3
Head joint cleaning and cap assembly on the turn table
step 4
Cleaning the mechanism
Final result
The restoration, in close cooperation with the owner, aimed to make the instrument playable again, taking into account the physical shortcomings of the fragile mechanism. Everything was kept in its original state except for the pads).
Theobald Boehm
About Boehm's experiments with multi-key flutes
Boehm's experiences with building multi-key flutes provide the starting point for his new design. As a young man, Boehm built his first flute with four keys according to a model by Karl August Grenser. In 1828 he opened his own flute atelier in Munich and produced flutes with eight or nine keys analogous to the Tromlitz flute. Boehm realizes that all efforts to achieve equality of tones and purity of tuning are fruitless as long as the spread of the fingers continues to determine the drilling of the tone holes.
Acoustics as the driving force for an innovative key system
Important innovations in Boehm's new flute are the drilling of the tone holes taking into account acoustic considerations and a key system that follows the steps of the chromatic scale. It makes it possible to cover fourteen tone holes with nine fingers. The smaller number of fingers is compensated by a key mechanism that makes it possible to play multiple keys simultaneously with one finger. The position of the tone holes does not depend on the spread of the fingers, as in flutes of ancient construction. The new key system places the tone holes at acoustically correct points and all possible tone connections can be played cleanly and safely. Unlike the Tromlitz flute, which has almost exclusively closed keys, the Boehm flute, with the exception of the D key, has open keys.
Successor to the multi-key flute: the Ring-key flute
The model from 1832, the so-called Ring Key Flute, is equipped with five ring keys. By pressing a ring directly above the key hole, a key above another tone hole is closed via a coupling along a longitudinal axis. While the old construction flute often required forward, sideways and backward movements of the fingers, the new mechanism allows playing without the fingers having to change position. The resulting key system also has the advantage that the direction of movement of the fingers matches that of the pitches.
The ring-key flute still retains the traditional inner bore of the single and multi-key flutes with a cylindrically drilled head joint and a conical, conical sloping or narrowing center bore.
How Boehm turned out to be the founder of our contemporary, cylindrical flute
However, the response and sound of low and high tones remain below expectations. Theobald Boehm understood that this could only be achieved by completely changing the bore of the body. Boehm acknowledges that an improvement in borehole ratios cannot be achieved through empirical experiments alone. So he decided to ask science for help, and after two years of studying acoustic principles under the guidance of Professor Dr. Carl Schafhäutl, and after many experiments, he finally succeeded in making flutes according to a scientifically based system in 1847. The cylindrical flute was born or even better 'our contemporary flute' was born.
Louis Lot
Hopefully the name Louis Lot rings a bell for many of us as the first French flute maker of our contemporary cylindrical instruments. That was also an invention (1847) by Theobald Boehm who gave Godfroy and Lot the license for production in France. These flutes are highly sought after items.
Make no mistake, however: I personally place the cylindrical flutes from the Godfroy Ainé company at an even higher level in terms of craftsmanship and tone formation. They are therefore of museum quality and are the last witnesses to the aesthetic beauty of the Romantic French sonority that is rarely heard today.
Fortunately, many conical Boehm flutes from Louis Lot have also survived the test of time.
Photo of a Louis Lot flute
Private collection.
General history and evolution of the flute
If you want to dig even deeper into the history of 19th century flute makers, I would like to refer you to the book "The Lot & Godfroy Families" by T. Giannini.