t-p was asking about the chalumeau on another thread. Just in case I'm not the only Baroque music anorak around here maybe a word or two on the subject where it will be easier to find...

It's like a clarinet which only (or almost only) plays in the low register. It's often described as an ancestor of the clarinet but it's not that simple: the two instruments are really more like siblings or cousins. The chalumeau and the Baroque clarinet reached maturity at about the same time and various composers wrote music for both of them. The Baroque clarinet is built to favour the upper register - the concertos by Molter only rarely visit the lower register. The chalumeau was hardly ever played in the upper register, and then only to extend the range upwards one or two notes (in a couple of pieces by Graupner, for instance, who wrote about 80 overtures which use chalumeaus of various sizes).

The Baroque clarinet sounds rather spectacularly different from Classical and later clarinets. It sounds like a high Baroque trumpet more than anything else - hence the name of course. Lots of the instruments have survived but relatively little repertoire - there is at least one source from the time that suggests they might indeed have been used to play trumpet music. The Molter concertos are on this disc:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Six-Concertos-Veilhan-Academie-Sainte-Cecile/dp/B00002405P/sr=8-2/qid=1171037739/ref=sr_1_2/202-5397667-6851047?ie=UTF8&s=music

The chalumeau is a very vocal, pastoral instrument; you can hear it on the Musica Antiqua Köln disc of Telemann wind concertos, which has a lovely performance of the concerto for 2 chalumeaus and strings and which should be in everyone's library anyway. It died out around the time the Classical clarinet came long, but then so did the Baroque clarinet and for my money it's more the characteristics of the chalumeau which continued in the new instrument.

Here's Guntram Wolf's price list. It includes pictures of 4 chalumeaus and is one of the best places to see the true bass chalumeau, which plays as low as a bassoon.

http://www.guntramwolf.de/instruments/historical/clarinet/index_clarinet_hist.htm

And here's Christian Leitherer's website with a couple of sound clips (click on the 'Hörproben') played on the tenor chalumeau (which plays down to F below middle C - the nomenclature is a bit confused).

http://www.leitherer.de/diskografie.htm

I have two chalumeaus made by Guntram Wolf on the way. I'm rather looking forward to it.

(I use the plural chalumeaus for the same reason I don't write bureaux. I don't expect it to catch on.)

Knock, knock.

Who's there?

Chalumeau.

Chalumeau who?

Shall you mow the lawn or do I have to?

Sometimes the terms 'chalumeau' and 'clarinet' were used interchangeably during the 18th century, which adds confusion in terms of establishing which instrument was actually intended by the composers concerned. A little later, others would sometimes used the term 'chalumeau' to signify the lowest register of the clarinet.

Fux was very fond of the soprano chalumeau, using it prominently in his operas and oratorios, and Vivaldi wrote concertos for it. Both Telemann and Vivaldi wrote chalumeau parts some time after having written for the clarinet, making it clear that the two instruments were considered separate (pay attention, oh period instrument detractors!). There are also some prominent chalumeau parts in the orchestral writing of Gluck.

In Colin Lawson's book on the Early Clarinet (Cambridge: CUP, 2000), he says that:

'The soprano chalumeau, equivalent in size to sopranino recorder, is an obvious starting point for studying the instrument, since the entire Viennese repertory was composed for it.' (p. 12)

then describes Fasch's 1730 concerto as being for it, as well as an obbligato in Vivaldi's oratorio Juditha triumphans (1716). Presumably at least a drawing of a soprano chalumeau must therefore have been seen, then? I have to be in touch with him at some point soon, so will ask. You know that one of his earlier books was 'The Chalumeau in Eighteenth-Century Music' (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1981)?

Later he says that 'on the soprano chalumeau it is especially important to tune the cross-fingerings so that the instrument will play chromatically with accurate intonation. The higher part of the compass must be stable and controllable.' (p. 34) which suggests having played one?

I have a recording of Juditha triumphans (Alessandro de Marchi/ Academia Montis Regalis in Naïve’s Vivaldi Edition) and clarinets are listed (played by Lorenzo Coppola and Danilo Zauli) as well as a salmoè – how closely is that related to a chalumeau, Ollie?  

Yes, there's a Vivaldi concerto (RV588) which is for two violins 'in tromba marina', two mandolins, two theorbos, two salmoè and cello...and on one recording I have (Biondi/ Europa Galante) they are listed as chalumeaux.

Vivaldi's designation of single-reed instruments is quite confusing, but comparing the pieces (some of the big concerti, and Juditha) with Ollie's previous comments would seem to indicate that the "salmoè" are indeed chalumeaux, playing in the low register, while the clarinets tend to play higher and more trumpet-like parts.

It all begins to make a kind of sense... but then there's this:

As it happens I was listening to that recording od Juditha a couple of days ago. In most regards I think it puts previous recordings in the shade, making Robert King's for example sound colourless, inexpressive and very English. But the idea of "adapting" the score for all-female chorus by transposing the tenor and bass parts up an octave (so that the tenor part frequently rises above the sopranos) doesn't sound at all right, even though Vivaldi presumably wouldn't have had male singers for his church music.

That's right, as far as I can remember, although the chalumeaux sound lower.