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WILL IT BE GOLD, OR WOULD IT BE WOOD?
If flutists know anything at all about Jacques Zoon, they know that he plays a wooden flute. If they have heard him in performance, they also know that he draws from his wooden flute a uniquely rich, powerful, colorful, and flexible sound. Since, as second flute of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, my job is to match as closely as possible the sound and style of the principal and associate principal players, many people have wondered whether I would end up playing a wooden flute myself. After a year or so of experimentation, the answer turns out to be Yes.
Since
Jacques is an avid and creative flutemaker himself, it is serendipitous that he should have landed in Boston, a world center of flutemaking. His arrival gave sudden encouragement to the several Boston manufacturers, including Haynes and Powell, who had been thinking about bringing wooden Boehm-system flutes into production. Jacques associated himself with Wm. S. Haynes Co., Inc. to develop with them a wooden flute incorporating his own ideas and preferences. Last winter he brought to a BSO rehearsal the first instrument produced by this alliance, which I tried out for a week of rehearsals and concerts. The improvement in balance and blend was immediately apparent not only to Jacques and me, but, judging by the many enthusiastic comments, to our colleagues as well. Within a month or two Verne Q. Powell Flutes, Inc. loaned me their prototype wooden flute, which also I tried in the orchestra, with comparable results.
Since both instruments were prototypes, both went back to their respective manufacturers with suggestions for further improvement. By now I had concluded that I would probably end up playing a wooden flute in the BSO, although I was not about to abandon my present instrument. When one has been playing the same flute for some 25 years, the body, ear, and mind become so wedded to it that, despite of the temptations of other instruments, divorce becomes unthinkable. However, the fact that I would be playing on wood in the BSO, but on gold elsewhere, did influence my choice between the wooden flutes of Haynes and Powell.
Jacques' flute, the various headjoints he has made for it, and the flute he has developed with Haynes, are heavy--the diameter of the entire flute equals the diameter of the embouchure. The result is an instrument with a darker, richer sound, but which is also more resistant. The embouchure "plate" of the Powell stands out in relief from a thinner wall diameter; the instrument is lighter and therefore less resistant. I eventually settled on the Powell because it is more comfortable for me to alternate between the lighter wooden flute and my present instrument--even though I was able to match Jacques' tone quality even more closely on the Haynes.
Interestingly, in most repertoire I am also able to match Elizabeth Ostling's tone quality more closely on the wooden flute--even though she plays silver. So it's not an automatic matter of wood matching wood, metal matching metal, because the differences in sound between particular players can be even greater than the differences in sound between flutes of different materials.
In the wake of Albert Cooper, we all discarded our old-scale flutes in favor of modern-scale models. In the wake of Rampal and Galway, many of us also discarded our silver flutes in favor of gold. Now, some are wondering, must we all discard our metal flutes, and leap onto this latest bandwagon? Well, maybe; maybe not. Perhaps, a hundred years from now, everyone will agree that the flute is a woodwind instrument after all, and that all those metal flutes of the ancients were a passing fad. More likely, wooden flutes will regain a niche in the marketplace, broadening the spectrum of options from which all flutists may choose the voice they find most congenial. Variety is the spice of life, and of art as well!
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