Sordun

(Fr. sourdine; Ger. Sordun; It. sordone, or possibly dolzaine).

A double reed instrument of the late 16th and early 17th centuries in which the cylindrical bore doubles back on itself inside a single wooden column, so that this short instrument has a relatively low pitch. Zacconi (1592) was the first to mention sordoni. Praetorius (1619) wrote that they sounded like cornamusen (see Wind-cap instruments) or crumhorns, that is, fairly soft even though they did not have a wind cap. He described five sizes – the largest three with bassoon-like crooks – each with a range of about an octave and a 6th above their lowest note, F (Gross Bass), B (Bass), c (Bass), e (Tenor/alto) and b (Cantus). According to him they had 12 finger-holes – though some have two more controlled by keys – in addition to a hole at the bottom end for moisture and a hole above from which the sound issued. Mersenne (1636) and Trichet (c1640) described a similar instrument which they called ‘courtaut’, that is, a shortened bassoon or fagot. The courtaut, unlike the sordun, had short projecting tubes called tétines (teats), to simplify fingering the rear bore; three tétines were added to each side of the instrument, but one set was stopped with wax according to whether the performer played with his left hand above his right, or vice versa. Mersenne wrote that courtauts were used as basses to musettes.

The five surviving boxwood sorduns, each with six brass keys, are probably the work of the same maker and date from the late 16th or early 17th centuries. Four are in Vienna (see von Schlosser) and one in the Museo degli strumenti musicali, Rome (see Cervelli). They are very similar to each other in construction, but differ in a number of details from the sorduns described by Praetorius. The Viennese instruments comprise two great basses (of the same size as each other) and two basses of different sizes. The larger of the two basses is preserved almost complete. It has two cylindrical bores which are connected at the bottom (the closure at the lower end is missing). The slightly S-shaped mouthpiece was to be fitted into a side hole in the descending bore, which has six finger-holes at the front and a thumb-hole at the back. A closed key is operated by the forefinger of the upper hand, while the little finger of the lower hand can close an open key. The rising bore has four keys in all: two for the thumb of the lower hand, one for the little finger of the upper hand and one for the thumb of the upper hand. The air column ends in tone-holes at the top of the instrument, to the side. The turned foot section could be used to support the instrument or to store reeds or the crook. The great bass sorduns each have a short third bore in order to create a longer air column.

These instruments could not have been part of the consort of ‘sordani’ made up of two basses, three tenors, two descants and one small descant mentioned in the 1596 Innsbruck inventory of Archduke Ferdinand of the Tyrol (von Schlosser, 1920). There are copies of the Viennese sorduns in museums in New York (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1902) and Brussels (Mahillon, 1909). The incomplete sordun now in Rome is very similar to the larger of the two bass sorduns in Vienna. An instrument by W. Kress, now in Salzburg, was formerly thought to be a sordun but has been identified variously as a bass chalumeau, bass clarinet or basset horn (Birsak, 1973; Young, 1993).

The illustration shows a detail from an Italian oil painting of about 1600; a great bass sordun similar to the two surviving examples in Vienna is being played. A 17th-century engraving also shows a sordun being played with two cornetts, a shawm, and a trumpet at a ballet for Louis XIII; and a pavan by Francisco Segario in GB-Lbm Add.33295, a MS of 17th-century music from the court in Kassel, is scored for recorder (‘fiauto’), mute cornett, trombone, viola da gamba and ‘sordano’.

See also Organ stop.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

MersenneHU

PraetoriusSM

PraetoriusTI

YoungHI

V.C. Mahillon: Catalogue descriptif et analytique du Musée Instrumental du conservatoire Royal de Musique du Bruxelles (Gand, 1893–1912)

Catalogue of the Crosby Brown Collection of Musical Instruments of All Nations (New York, 1903)

K. Birsak: Die Holzblasinstrumente im Salzburger Museum Carolino Augusteum (Salzburg, 1973)

L. Cervelli: La galleria armonica: catologo del Museo degli strumenti musicali di Roma (Rome, 1994)

HOWARD MAYER BROWN/GERHARD STRADNER