Editing Recorder (musical instrument) (section)

===Renaissance===
In the sixteenth century, the structure, repertoire, and performing practice of the recorder is better documented than in prior epochs. The recorder was one of the most important wind instruments of the Renaissance, and many instruments dating to the sixteenth century survive, including some matched consorts.<ref name=":13" /><ref name=":12" /> This period also produced the first extant books describing the recorder, including the treatises of [[Sebastian Virdung|Virdung]] (1511), [[Martin Agricola|Agricola]] (1529), [[Silvestro Ganassi dal Fontego|Ganassi]] (1535), [[Gerolamo Cardano|Cardano]] (c.1546), [[Philibert Jambe de Fer|Jambe de Fer]] (1556), and [[Michael Praetorius|Praetorius]] (1619). Nonetheless, understanding of the instrument and its practice in this period is still developing.

==== Structure ====
In the sixteenth century, the recorder saw important developments in its structure. As in the recorders of the Middle Ages, the etiology of these changes remains uncertain, development was regional and multiple types of recorder existed simultaneously. Our knowledge is based on documentary sources and surviving instruments.

===== Surviving instruments =====
Far more recorders survive from the Renaissance than from the Middle Ages. Most of the surviving instruments from the period have a wide, cylindrical bore from the blockline to the uppermost fingerhole, an inverted conical portion down to around the lowest finger hole (the "choke"), then a slight flare to the bell. Externally, they have a curved shape similar to the bore, with a profile like a stretched hourglass. Their sound is warm, rich in harmonics, and somewhat introverted.<ref name=":7" /> Surviving consorts of this type, identified by their makers marks, include those marked "HIER S•" or "HIE•S" found in Vienna, Sibiu and Verona; and those marked with variations on a rabbit's footprint, designated "!!" by Adrian Brown, which are dispersed among various museums. The pitch of these recorders is often generally grouped around A&nbsp;=&nbsp;466&nbsp;Hz, however little pitch standardisation existed in the period. This type of recorder is described by Praetorius in ''De Organographia'' (1619). A surviving consort by "!!" follows the exact size configuration suggested by Praetorius: stacked fifths up from the basset in F<sub>3</sub>, and down a fifth then a fourth to bass in B{{music|b}}<sub>2</sub> and great bass in F<sub>2</sub>. Instruments marked "HIER S•" or "HIE•S" are in stacked fifths from great bass in F<sub>2</sub> to soprano in E<sub>5</sub>.<ref>{{Cite web|title = Renaissance recorder makers|url = http://www.adrianbrown.org/recorder_types/rrm.html|website = www.adrianbrown.org|access-date = 10 February 2016|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20161008004008/http://www.adrianbrown.org/recorder_types/rrm.html|archive-date = 8 October 2016|url-status=dead}}</ref> Many of these instruments are pitched around A&nbsp;=&nbsp;440&nbsp;Hz or A&nbsp;=&nbsp;466&nbsp;Hz, although pitch varied regionally and between consorts.

The range of this type is normally an octave plus a minor 7th, but as remarked by Praetorius (1619) and demonstrated in the fingering tables of Ganassi's ''Fontegara'' (1535),<ref name="ReferenceA">[[Silvestro Ganassi dal Fontego|Sylvestro di Ganassi dal Fontego]], ''Opera Intitula Fontegara, Laquale isegna a sonare di flauto cho tutta l'arte opportuna a esso istrumento massime il diminuire ilquale sara utile ad ogni istrumeno di fiato et chorde et anchora a chi si dileta di canto'' (Impressum Venetiis: per syluestro di ganassi dal fontego Sonator dalla illustrissima signoria di Venetia hautor pprio., 1535). Facsimile reprint, Collezione di trattati e musiche antiche edite in fac-simile ([Milan]: Bollettino bibliografico musicale, 1934). Facsimile reprint of the 1542 edition, Bibliotheca musica Bononiensis 2:18 (Bologna: Arnaldo Forni Editore, 1969; reprinted 1980 and 2002). Facsimile reprint, edited by Luca de Paolis, Prattica di musica, Serie A 3 (Rome: Società italiana del flauto dolce: Hortus Musicus, 1991).{{Page needed|date=March 2014}}<!--In particular, a page reference is needed for the claim that Ganassi says (without qualification) that the recorder in his day had a range of two octaves and a sixth.--></ref> experienced players on particular instruments were capable of playing up to a fourth or even a seventh higher (see [[#Documentary evidence: treatises]]). Their range is more suitable for the performance of vocal music, rather than purely instrumental music. This type is the recorder typically referred to as the "normal" Renaissance recorder, however this modern appellation does not fully capture the heterogeneity of instruments of the sixteenth century.

Another surviving Renaissance type has a narrow cylindrical bore and cylindrical profile like the medieval exemplars but a choke at the last hole. The earliest surviving recorders of this type were made by the Rafi family, instrument makers active in Lyons in Southern France in the early sixteenth century. Two recorders marked "C.RAFI" were acquired by the Accademia Filarmonica, Bologna in 1546, where they remain today. A consort of recorders or similar make, marked "P.GRE/C/E", was donated to the Accademia in 1675, expanding the pair marked "C.RAFI". Other recorders by the Rafi family survive in Northern Europe, notably a pair in Brussels. It is possible that Grece worked in the Rafi workshop, or was a member of the Rafi family. The pitch of the Rafi/Grece instruments is around A&nbsp;=&nbsp;440&nbsp;Hz. They have a relatively quiet sound with good pitch stability favouring dynamic expression.<ref>{{Cite web|title = Recorder Home Page Databases|url = http://www.recorderhomepage.net/databases/Historic_Makerslist.php?start=41|website = www.recorderhomepage.net|access-date = 10 February 2016|archive-date = 17 February 2016|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20160217013959/http://www.recorderhomepage.net/databases/Historic_Makerslist.php?start=41|url-status = dead}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|title = Recorder Home Page Databases|url = http://www.recorderhomepage.net/databases/Historic_Instrumentslist.php?x_Maker_Abbreviation=Rafi&z_Maker_Abbreviation=LIKE&cmd=search|website = www.recorderhomepage.net|access-date = 10 February 2016|archive-date = 17 February 2016|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20160217013738/http://www.recorderhomepage.net/databases/Historic_Instrumentslist.php?x_Maker_Abbreviation=Rafi&z_Maker_Abbreviation=LIKE&cmd=search|url-status = dead}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|title = Recorder Home Page Databases|url = http://www.recorderhomepage.net/databases/Historic_Makersview.php?showdetail=&Makers_Number=27|website = www.recorderhomepage.net|access-date = 10 February 2016|archive-date = 17 February 2016|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20160217030024/http://www.recorderhomepage.net/databases/Historic_Makersview.php?showdetail=&Makers_Number=27|url-status = dead}}</ref>

In 1556, French author [[Philibert Jambe de Fer]] gave a set of fingerings for hybrid instruments such as the Rafi and Grece instruments that give a range of two octaves. Here, the 15th was now produced, as on most later recorders, as a variant of the 14th instead of as the fourth harmonic of the tonic, as in Ganassi's tables.

===== Documentary evidence: treatises =====
{| style="margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto; border:none;"
!colspan=3|Recorders in sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century books
|-
|style="width:140px|[[File:VirdungP100crop.jpg|x300px|frameless]][[File:VirdungP14crop.jpg|x300px|frameless]]
|style="width:100px|[[File:AgricolaP16crop.jpg|x300px|frameless]]
|style="width:100px|[[File:Barocke Blockflöten.png|x300px|frameless]]
|-
|Virdung, {{Lang|de|Musica getutscht}} (1511)
|Agricola, {{Lang|de|Musica instrumentalis deudsch}} (1529)
|Praetorius, ''[[Syntagma Musicum]]'' (1629)
|}
The first two treatises of the sixteenth century show recorders that differ from the surviving instruments dating to the century: these are [[Sebastian Virdung]]'s (b. 1465?) {{Lang|de|Musica getutscht}} (1511), and [[Martin Agricola]]'s (1486–1556) similar {{Lang|de|Musica instrumentalis deudsch}} (1529), published in Basel and Saxony respectively.

{{Lang|de|Musica Getutscht}}, the earliest printed treatise on western musical instruments, is an extract of an earlier, now lost, manuscript treatise by Virdung, a chaplain, singer, and itinerant musician. The printed version was written in a vernacular form of [[Early New High German]], and was aimed at wealthy urban amateur musicians: the title translates, briefly, as "Music, translated into German ... Everything there is to know about [music] – made simple." When a topic become too complex for Virdung to discuss briefly, he refers the reader to his lost larger work, an unhelpful practice for modern readers. While the illustrations have been called "maddeningly inaccurate" and his perspectives quirky,<ref>{{Cite journal|url = http://scholarship.claremont.edu/ppr/vol7/iss2/12|title = "Musica getutscht: A treatise on musical instruments (1511)" by Sebastian Virdung. Trans. and ed. Beth Bullard|last = Polk|first = Keith|date = 1994|journal = Performance Practice Review|doi = 10.5642/perfpr.199407.02.12|issue = 2|volume = 7|pages = 242–247|doi-access = free}}</ref> Virdung's treatise gives us an important source on the structure and performing practice of the recorder in northern Europe in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries.

The recorders described by Virdung have cylindrical profiles with flat heads, narrow windows and long ramps, ring-like turnings on the feet, and a slight external flare at the bell (above, far left and middle left). Virdung depicts four recorders together: a {{Lang|de|baßcontra}} or {{Lang|de|bassus}} (basset) in F<sub>3</sub> with an anchor shaped key and a perforated fontanelle, two tenors in C<sub>4</sub> and a {{Lang|de|discantus}} (alto) in G<sub>4</sub>. According to Virdung, the configurations F–C–C–G or F–C–G–G should be used for four-part music, depending on the range of the bass part. As previously mentioned, the accuracy of these woodcuts cannot be verified as no recorders fitting this description survive. Virdung also provides the first ever fingering chart for a recorder with a range of an octave and a seventh, though he says that the bass had a range of only an octave and sixth. In his fingering chart, he numbers which fingers to lift rather than those to put down and, unlike in later charts, numbers them from bottom (1) to top (8). His only other technical instruction is that the player must blow into the instrument and "learn how to coordinate the articulations ... with the fingers".<ref name=getutscht />

Martin Agricola's {{Lang|de|Musica instrumentalis Deudsch}} ("A German instrumental music, in which is contained how to learn to play ... all kinds of ... instruments"), written in rhyming German verse (ostensibly to improve the understanding and retention of its contents), provides a similar account and copies most of its woodcuts directly from {{Lang|de|Getutscht}}. Agricola also calls the tenor "altus", mistakenly depicting it as a little smaller than the tenor in the woodcut (above, middle right). Like Virdung, Agricola takes it for granted that recorders should be played in four-part consorts. Unlike {{Lang|de|Getutscht}}, which provides a single condensed fingering chart, Agricola provides separate, slightly differing, fingering charts for each instrument, leading some to suppose that Agricola experimented on three different instruments, rather than copying the fingerings from one size to the other two.<ref>{{Cite journal|title = Martin Agricola's Poetic Discussion of the Recorder and Other Woodwind Instruments|last = Hettrick|first = William E. |date=1980–1983|journal=American Recorder}}</ref> Agricola adds that graces ({{Lang|de|Mordanten}}), which make the melody {{Lang|de|subtil}}, must be learned from a professional ({{Lang|de|Pfeiffer}}), and that the manner of ornamentation ({{Lang|de|Coloratur}}) of the organist is best of all.<ref>{{IMSLP|work=Musica instrumentalis deudsch (Agricola, Martin)|cname=Musica instrumentalis Deudsch (Agricola)}}</ref> A substantial 1545 revision of {{Lang|la|Musica Instrumentalis}} approvingly mentions the use of vibrato ({{Lang|de|zitterndem Wind}}) for woodwind instruments, and includes an account of articulation, recommending the syllables ''{{Not a typo|de}}'' for [[Note value|semiminims]] and larger, ''{{Not a typo|di ri}}'' for semiminims and smaller, and the articulation ''{{Not a typo|tell ell ell ell el le}}'', which he calls the "flutter-tongue" ({{Lang|de|flitter zunge}}) for the smallest of note values, found in ''passagi (Colorirn)''.

The next treatise comes from Venice: Silvestro Ganassi dal Fontego's (1492–mid-1500s) ''Opera Intitulata Fontegara'' (1535), which is the first work to focus specifically on the technique of playing the recorder, and perhaps the only historical treatise ever published that approaches a description of a professional or virtuoso playing technique. Ganassi was a musician employed by the [[Doge of Venice|Doge]] and at the [[St Mark's Basilica|Basilica di San Marco]] at the time of the work's publication, an indication of his high level of accomplishment, and later wrote two works on the playing the viol and the violone, although he does not mention being employed by the Doge after ''Fontegara''.<ref>{{Cite web|title = Ganassi, Silvestro di|url = http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/silvestro-di-ganassi_(Dizionario_Biografico)/|website = www.treccani.it|access-date = 12 February 2016|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20160312033909/http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/silvestro-di-ganassi_(Dizionario_Biografico)/|archive-date = 12 March 2016|url-status = dead}}</ref>

''Fontegara'' can be broadly divided into two parts: the first concerns the technique of playing the recorder, the second demonstrated divisions (regole, passagi, ornaments), some of great complexity, which the player may use to ornament a melody or, literally, "divide" it into smaller notes. In all aspects, Ganassi emphasises the importance of imitating the human voice, declaring that "the aim of the recorder player is to imitate as closely as possible all the capabilities of the human voice", maintaining that the recorder is indeed able to do this. For Ganassi, imitation of the voice has three aspects: "a certain artistic proficiency", which seems to be the ability to perceive the nature of the music, {{Lang|it|prontezza}} (dexterity or fluency), achieved "by varying the pressure of the breath and shading the tone by means of suitable fingering," and {{Lang|it|galanteria}} (elegance or grace), achieved by articulation, and by the use of ornaments, the "simplest ingredient" of them being the trill, which varies according to the expression.

Ganassi gives fingering tables for a range of an octave and a seventh, the standard range also remarked by Praetorius, then tells the reader that he has discovered, through long experimentation, more notes not known to other players due to their lack of perseverance, extending the range to two octaves and a sixth. Ganassi gives fingerings for three recorders with different makers' marks, and advises the reader to experiment with different fingerings, as recorders vary in their bore. The maker's mark of one of the recorders, in the form of a stylised letter "A", has been associated with the Schnitzer family of instrument makers in Germany, leading Hermann Moeck to suppose that Ganassi's recorder might have been Northern European in origin.<ref>{{Cite journal|title = Flötensignaturen auf alten Gemälden|last = Moeck|first = Hermann|date = 1994|journal = Tibia |trans-title=Maker's marks in old paintings |volume=19 |issue=2 |pages=128–129}}</ref> (see also Note on "Ganassi" recorders)

Ganassi uses three basic kinds of syllables ''{{Not a typo|te che}}'', ''{{Not a typo|te re}}'', and ''{{Not a typo|le re}}'' and also varies the vowel used with the syllable, suggesting the effect of mouth shape on the sound of the recorder. He gives many combinations of these syllables and vowels, and suggests the choice of the syllables according to their smoothness, ''{{Not a typo|te che}}'' being least smooth and ''{{Not a typo|le re}}'' being most so. He does not, however, demonstrate how the syllables should be used to music.{{Clarify|reason=seems to be missing a word|date=July 2021}}

Most of the treatise consists of tables of diminutions of intervals, small melodies and cadences, categorised by their meter. These several hundred divisions use quintuplets, septuplets, note values from whole notes to 32nd notes in modern notation, and demonstrate immense variety and complexity.

The frontispiece to ''Fontegara'' shows three recorder players play together with two singers. Like Agricola and Virdung, Ganassi takes for granted that recorders should be played in groups of four, and come in three sizes: F<sub>3</sub>, C<sub>4</sub> and G<sub>4</sub>. He makes a distinction between solo playing and ensemble playing, noting that what he has said is for solo players, and that when playing with others, it is most important to match them. Unfortunately, Ganassi gives only a few ornamented examples with little context for their use. Nonetheless, Ganassi offers a tantalising glimpse at a highly developed professional culture and technique of woodwind playing that modern players can scarcely be said to have improved upon.<ref>{{IMSLP|work=Opera intitulata Fontegara (Ganassi, Sylvestro)|cname=Opera intitulata fontegara (Ganassi)}}</ref>

[[Gerolamo Cardano]]'s ''De Musica'' was written around 1546, but not published until 1663 when it was published along with other works by Cardan, who was an eminent philosopher, mathematician and physician as well as a keen amateur recorder player who learned from a professional teacher, Leo Oglonus, as a child in Milan.

His account corroborates that of Ganassi, using the same three basic syllables and emphasising the importance of breath control and ornamentation in recorder playing, but also documents several aspects of recorder technique otherwise undocumented until the twentieth century. These include multiple techniques using the partial closing of the bell: to produce a tone or semitone below the tonic, and to change semitones into dieses (half semitones), which he says can also be produced by "repercussively bending back the tongue".<ref name=":21" /> He also adds that the position of the tongue, either extended or turned up towards the palate, can be used to improve, vary, and color notes. He is the first to differentiate between the amount of the breath (full, shallow, or moderate) and the force (relaxed or slow, intense, and the median between them) as well as the different amount of air required for each instrument, and describes a trill or vibrato called a {{Lang|la|vox tremula}} in which "a tremulous quality in the breath" is combined with a trilling of the fingers to vary the interval from anything between a major third and a diesis. He is also the first writer to mention the recorder in D{{sub|5}} ("discantus"), which he leaves unnamed.<ref name=":21" />

Composer and singer Philibert Jambe de Fer ({{circa}} 1515{{Snd}} {{circa}} 1566) was the only French author of the sixteenth century to write about the recorder, in his ''Epitome musical''. He complains of the French name for the instrument, {{Lang|fr|fleutte à neuf trouz}} ('flute with nine holes') as, in practice, one of the lowermost holes must be plugged, leaving only eight open holes. He prefers {{Lang|fr|fleute d'Italien}} or the Italian {{Lang|it|flauto}}. His fingering chart is notable for two reasons, first for describing fingerings with the 15th produced as a variant on the 14th, and for using the third finger of the lower hand as a buttress finger, although only for three notes in the lower octave.<ref name=":21" /> (See also Renaissance structure.)

Aurelio Virgiliano's "{{Lang|it|Il dolcimelo|italic=no}}" ({{circa}} 1600) presents ricercars intended for or playable on the recorder, a description of other musical instruments, and a fingering chart for a recorder in G<sub>4</sub> similar to Jambe de Fer's.<ref>{{IMSLP|work=Il Dolcimelo (Virgiliano, Aurelio)|cname=Il Dolcimelo (Virgiliano)}}</ref>

The ''Syntagma musicum'' (1614–20) of Michael Praetorius (1571–1621) in three volumes (a fourth was intended but never finished) is an encyclopaedic survey of music and musical instruments. Volume II, ''De Organographia'' (1619) is of particular interest for its description of no fewer than eight sizes of recorder ({{Lang|de|klein Flötlein}} or ''exilent'' in G<sub>5</sub>, ''discant'' in C<sub>5</sub> or D<sub>5</sub>, ''alt'' in G<sub>4</sub>, ''tenor'' in C<sub>4</sub>, ''basset'' in F<sub>3</sub>, ''bass'' in B{{music|b}}<sub>2</sub>, and {{Lang|de|grossbass}} in F<sub>2</sub>) as well as the four-holed {{Lang|de|gar kleine Plockflötlein}}.

Praetorius was the first author to explain that recorders can confuse the ear into believing that they sound an octave lower than pitch, which phenomenon has more recently been explained in relation to the recorder's lack of high harmonics. He also shows the different "registers" of consort possible, 2′ (discant, alt, and tenor), 4′ (alt, tenor, and basset), and 8′ (tenor, basset, and bass) (see also [[#Nomenclature|Nomenclature]]). Additionally, he proposed cutting the recorder between the beak and the first finger hole to allow for a kind of tuning slide to raise or lower its pitch, similar to the Baroque practice of adjusting a recorder's pitch by "pulling out" the top joint of the recorder.

The recorders described in Praetorius are of the "stretched hourglass" profile (see above, far right). He gives fingerings like those of Ganassi, and remarks that they normally have a range of an octave and a sixth, although exceptional players could extend that range by a fourth.

===== "Double recorder" =====
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<!--image 1-->
 | image1            =Double fipple flutes, detail of painting The Concert of Angels by Gaudenzio Ferrari.jpg
 | width1            =250
 | caption1          =  Circa 1534—1536, Italy. Double fipple flute played like [[aulos]], detail from a painting The Concert of Angels by [[Gaudenzio Ferrari]].
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 | image2            = Simone Martini 037.jpg
 | width2            =133
 | caption2          = Circa 1312—1317, Italy. Flutes and gittern, from scenes from the life of St. Martin of Tours, by [[Simone Martini]].
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}}
Some paintings from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries depict musicians playing what appear to be two end-blown flutes simultaneously. In some cases, the two flutes are evidently disjoint, separate flutes of similar make, played angled away from each other, one pipe in each hand. In others, flutes of the same length have differing hand positions. In a final case, the pipes are parallel, in contact with each other, and differ in length.<ref name="dolciflauti » Double Recorder">{{Cite web|title = dolciflauti » Double Recorder|url = http://www.livirghi.com/instruments-of-the-middle-age/flutes-of-the-middle-ages/|website = www.livirghi.com|access-date = 7 February 2016}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|title = Catalogus: A Corpus of Trecento Pictures with Musical Subject Matter|last = Brown|first = Howard Mayer|publisher = Imago Musicae|ref=none}}</ref> While the iconographic criteria for a recorder are typically a clearly recognisable labium and a double handed vertical playing technique,<ref name=":8" /> such criteria are not prescriptive, and it is uncertain whether any of these depictions should be considered a single instrument, or constitute a kind of recorder. The identification of the instrument depicted is further complicated by the symbolism of the [[aulos]], a double piped instrument associated with the satyr [[Marsyas]] of [[Greek mythology]].

An instrument consisting of two attached, parallel, end-blown flutes of differing length, dating to the fifteenth or sixteenth century, was found in poor condition near All Souls College in Oxford. The instrument has four holes finger-holes and a thumb hole for each hand. The pipes have an inverted conical "choke" bore (see [[#Structure 2|Renaissance structure]]). Bob Marvin has estimated that the pipes played a fifth apart, at approximately C<sub>5</sub> and G<sub>5</sub>.<ref>{{cite journal |url=http://www.fomrhi.org/uploads/bulletins/Fomrhi-031.pdf |first=Bob |last=Marvin |title=A Double Recorder |journal=FoMHRI Quarterly|publisher=Fellowship of Makers and Researchers of Historical Instruments|date=April 1983 |issue= 31 |others=Communication 453 |pages=42–43 |access-date=6 August 2015 }}</ref> The instrument is [[sui generis]]. Although the instrument's pipes have thumb holes, the lack of organological precedent makes classification of the instrument difficult. Marvin has used the terms "double recorder" and the categorisation-agnostic {{Lang|it|flauto doppio}} (double flute) to describe the Oxford instrument.

Marvin has designed a {{Lang|it|flauto doppio}} based on the Oxford instrument, scaled to play at F<sub>4</sub> and C<sub>5</sub>. Italian recorder maker Francesco Livirghi has designed a double recorder or {{Lang|it|flauto doppio}} with connected, angled pipes of the same length but played with different hand positions, based on iconographic sources. Its pipes play at F<sub>4</sub> and B{{music|flat}}<sub>4</sub>.<ref name="dolciflauti » Double Recorder"/> Both instruments use fingerings of the makers' design.

===== Note on "Ganassi" recorders =====
In the 1970s, when recorder makers began to make the first models of recorders from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, such models were not always representative of the playing characteristics of the original instruments. Especially notable is [[Fred Morgan (recorder maker)|Fred Morgan]]'s much copied "Ganassi" model, based loosely on an instrument in the Vienna Kunsthistorisches museum (inventory number SAM 135), which was designed to use the fingerings for the highest notes in Ganassi's tables in Fontegara. As Morgan knew, these notes were not in standard use; indeed Ganassi uses them in only a few of the hundreds of diminutions contained in Fontegara. Historically, such recorders did not exist as a distinct type, and the fingerings given by Ganassi were those of a skilled player particularly familiar with his instruments. When modern music is written for 'Ganassi recorders' it means this type of recorder.<ref name="Brown">Adrian Brown, ''The Ganassi recorder: separating fact from fiction'', American Recorder 47(5): 11–18, 1984.</ref>

==== Repertoire ====
Recorders were probably first used to play vocal music, later adding purely instrumental forms such as dance music to their repertoire. Much of the vocal music of the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries can be played on recorder consorts, and as illustrated in treatises from Virdung to Praetorius, the choice appropriate instruments and transpositions to play vocal music was common practice in the Renaissance. Additionally, some collections such as those of [[Pierre Attaingnant]] and [[Anthony Holborne]], indicate that their instrumental music was suitable for recorder consorts.<ref name=":18">Anthony Holborne, ''Pavans, Galliards, Almains and other short Aeirs, both grave and light, in five parts, for Viols, Violins, recorders or other Musicall Winde Instruments'', published in 1599</ref> This section first discusses repertoire marked for the recorder, then briefly, other repertoire played on recorder.

In 1505 Giovanni Alvise, a Venetian wind player, offered Francesco Gonzaga of Mantua a motet for eight recorders, however the work has not survived.

[[Pierre Attaingnant]]'s ({{floruit}} 1528–1549) {{Lang|fr|Vingt & sept chansons musicales a quatre parties a la fleuste dallement...et a la fleuste a neuf trous}} (1533) collects 28 (not 27, as in the title) four-part instrumental motets, nine of which he says were suitable for performance on flutes ({{Lang|fr|fleustes dallement}}, German flutes), two on recorders ({{Lang|fr|fleuestes a neuf trous}}'','' nine-holed flutes, "recorders"), and twelve suitable for both. Of the twelve marked for both, seven use ''[[Chiavette|chiavi naturali]]'', or low-clefs typically used for recorders, while the others use the {{Lang|it|chiavette}} clefs used in the motets marked for flutes. Hence, the seven notated in {{Lang|it|chiavi naturali}} could be considered more appropriate for recorders. {{Lang|fr|Vingt et sept chansons}} is the first published music marked for a recorder consort. Earlier is a part for [[Jacobus Barbireau]]'s song "{{Lang|nl|Een vrolic wesen}}", apparently for recorder, accompanying the recorder fingering chart in {{Lang|fr|Livre plaisant et tres utile}}''...'' (Antwerp, 1529), a partial French translation of Virdung's {{Lang|de|Musica getutscht}}.

[[Jacques Moderne]]'s {{Lang|fr|S'ensuyvent plusieurs basses dances tant communes que incommunes}} published in the 1530s, depicts a four-part recorder consort such as those described in Virdung, Agricola, Ganassi and others, however the dances are not marked for recorders. His {{Lang|fr|Musique de joye}} (1550) contains ricercares and dances for performance on "{{Lang|fr|espinetes}}, {{Lang|fr|violons}} & {{Lang|fr|fleustes}}".

In 1539–40, Henry VIII of England, also a keen amateur player (see Cultural significance), imported five brothers of the Bassano family from Venice to form a consort, expanded to six members in 1550, forming a group that maintained an exceptional focus on the recorder until at least 1630 when the recorder consort was combined with the other wind groups. Most wind bands consisted of players playing [[sackbut]]ts, [[shawm]]s, and other loud instruments doubling on recorder. Some music probably intended for this group survives, including dance music by Augustine and Geronimo Bassano from the third quarter of the sixteenth century, and the more elaborate fantasias of Jeronimo Bassano ({{circa}} 1580), four in five parts and one in six parts. Additionally, the Fitzwilliam wind manuscript (''GB-Cfm'' 734) contains wordless motets, madrigals and dance pieces, including some by the Bassano family, probably intended for a recorder consort in six parts.<ref>{{Cite journal|url = http://www.instantharmony.net/Music/AR-08-84.pdf|title = The Recorder Consort at the English Court 1540–1673: Part I|last = Lasocki|first = David|date = 1984|journal = American Recorder|issue = 8|access-date = 14 February 2016|archive-date = 22 February 2016|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20160222211343/http://www.instantharmony.net/Music/AR-08-84.pdf|url-status = dead}}</ref>

The English members of the Bassano family, having originated in Venice, were also probably familiar with the vocal style, advanced technique, and complex improvised ornamentation described in Ganassi's ''Fontegara'', and they were probably among the recorder players whom Ganassi reports having worked and studied with: when they were brought to England, they were regarded as some of the best wind players in Venice. While most of the music attributed to the consort uses only a range of a thirteenth, it is possible that the Bassano's were familiar with Ganassi's extended range.<ref name=":19">''The Cambridge Companion to the Recorder'', p. 15: "By far the largest amount of space in [Ganassi's treatise published in 1535] is devoted to details about ornamentation, which suggest a high level of extravagant embellishment in a remarkably rhythmically free manner..."</ref>

Recorders were also played with other instruments, especially in England, where it was called a mixed consort or "broken consort".

Other sixteenth-century composers whose instrumental music can be played well on recorder consorts include:
* [[Anthony Holborne]] (c. 1545{{Snd}}1602)
* [[Tielman Susato]] (c. 1510{{Snd}}c. 1570)
Other notable composers of the Renaissance whose music may be played on the recorder include:
* [[Guillaume Dufay]] (1397{{Spaced en dash}}1474)
* [[Johannes Ockeghem]] (1410/1425{{Spaced en dash}}1497)
* [[Josquin des Prez]] (1450/1455{{Spaced en dash}}1521)
* [[Heinrich Isaac]] (1450{{Spaced en dash}}1517)
* [[Ludwig Senfl]] (1486{{Snd}}c. 1542)
* [[Orlando di Lasso]] (c. 1530{{Snd}}1594)
* [[William Byrd]] (c. 1539{{Snd}}1623)
* [[John Dowland]] (1563{{Spaced en dash}}1626)

==== Cultural significance ====
The recorder was widely used in the sixteenth century, and was one of the most common instruments of the Renaissance. From the fifteenth century onwards, paintings show upper-class men and women playing recorder, and Virdung's didactic treatise {{Lang|de|Musica getutscht}} (1511), the first of its kind, was aimed at the amateur (see also Documentary evidence). [[Henry VIII of England|Henry VIII]] was a recorder player; at his death in 1547 an [[Inventory of Henry VIII of England|inventory of his possessions]] included 76 recorders in consorts of various sizes and materials.<ref name=":14">''Oxford Companion to Music''. see section 2 of the article on "Recorder Family"</ref> Some Italian paintings from the sixteenth century show aristocracy of both sexes playing the recorder, however many gentlemen found it unbecoming to play because it uses the mouth, preferring the lute and later the viol.<ref name=":7" />

[[William Shakespeare|Shakespeare]] mentions the recorder in ''[[Hamlet]]'', written at the turn of the seventeenth century,<ref name=":15">''[[Hamlet]]'', [[s:Hamlet (1917) Yale/Text/Act III|Act 3, scene 2, lines 307–308]], Hamlet: "Ah, ha! Come, some music! Come, the recorders!"</ref> as does [[John Milton|Milton]] in ''[[Paradise Lost]]'' published in 1667, in which fallen angels in Hell "move / in perfect phalanx to the Dorian mood / of flutes and soft recorders".<ref name=":16">''Paradise Lost, Book I'': "Anon they move/ in perfect phalanx to the Dorian mood/ flutes and soft recorders"</ref><ref name=":17">Nicholas S. Lander, "[http://www.recorderhomepage.net/literary-theatrical-references/ Literary References] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140620104307/http://www.recorderhomepage.net/literary-theatrical-references/ |date=2014-06-20 }}", Recorder Home Page (1996–2014), last accessed 30 June 2014.</ref>