(It.).
A woodwind instrument. The use of the term (an Italian cognate of fife and Pfeife) goes back at least to the 15th century. In the 16th century the term denoted a Shawm; the closely related term fiffaro was used to indicate a transverse flute. 17th-century documents, however, imply that the term piffaro could also be used for a flute, and this ambiguity has been the source of some confusion. In present-day Italy the name is still applied to the small shawms that peasants from the Abruzzi (pifferari) play at the Christmas season in the streets of Italian cities, accompanied by zampogne (bagpipes), but it is also used as a generic name for woodwind instruments. In the 16th century and the early 17th the term also indicated an instrumentalist who played in a wind band.
H. Geller: ‘I pifferari’: musizierende Hirten in Rom (Leipzig,1954)
F. Puglisi: ‘The Renaissance Flutes of the Biblioteca Capitolare of Verona: the Structure of a “Pifaro”’, GSJ, xxxii (1979), 24–37
W. Prizer: ‘Bernardo piffaro e i pifferi e tromboni di Mantova: strumenti a fiato in una corte italiana’, RIM, xvi (1981), 151–84
G.M. Ongaro: ‘16th-Century Venetian Wind Instrument Makers and their Clients’, EMc, xiii (1985), 391–7
HOWARD MAYER BROWN/GIULIO ONGARO