The racket was a short double-reed instrument that looked like a kaleidoscope. It had nine parallel bores, all connected at alternate ends to form a continuous tube, with eight of them arranged around a central ninth. In this last a reed was inserted on a staple, much as in a shawm. The fingerholes were at the front and ...
France in imitation of the flute and oboe. Built with three keys by the Denners of Nuremberg, the new instrument allowed greater virtuosity in the player than the one-piece curtal and dulcian, which began to decline in favour of the bassoon at the end of the seventeenth century. The playing position of the hands settled as left up, ...
seventeenth century in military bands and church ensembles. It was also used as a soloist in orchestras. Similarly, the bassoon, which been around in guises such as the curtal, the bombard and the dulcian, became a regular member of the orchestra, doubling the bass line in the continuo group. In church music, the organ was ...
, the shawm was particularly popular in outdoor dance bands and was also used for military purposes. Styles & Forms | Renaissance | Classical Instruments | Racket, Dulcian, Curtal | Renaissance | Classical ...
followed the reconstruction of the shawm, a strident-sounding instrument often played in outdoor ceremonies during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Similarities in design and use also suggest the curtal or dulcian was the true forerunner of the bassoon. It was used in Henry Purcell’s 1691 score The History of Dioclesian and the English musicologist James Talbot identified ‘a bassoon ...
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