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Bass recorder

'Boxwood in one piece, with brass mounts. The holes are steeply undercut, obliquely in the cases of front holes 1, 3, 4 and 6. A fish-tailed brass key, with brass leaf spring and leather pad stitched on with thread, is partially enclosed within a removable boxwood barrel pierced with six rosettes of airholes. At the top of the instrument is a removable cap (probably not original) with a blowing hole not quite in the centre of the top. Under the cap, the upper end of the instrument is partially cut away, presumably to make a space to contain a sponge for absorbing condensed moisture, leaving the full length of the wind-way intact.' Anthony Baines, Catalogue of Musical Instruments in the Victoria and Albert Museum - Part II: Non-Keyboard Instruments (London, 1978), p. 85.

  • Date:
    1570 - 1620 (Made)
  • Maker:
    Unknown
  • Collection:
    Victoria and Albert Museum
  • Inventory number:
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  • Place of production:
    Germany
  • Culture:
  • Period:
  • Materials:Turned and bored boxwood with bronze keys
  • Specific materials/techniques:
  • Decorative elements:
  • Inscriptions:\ /
  • Hornbostel-Sachs category:
  • Repository:Victoria and Albert Museum
  • Measurements:Length: 84 cm including the cap at the top, Length: 81 cm without the cap at the top, Diameter: 3.1 cm diameter or bore of top finger-hole, Diameter: 2.7 cm diameter or bore of bottom finger-hole, Length: 75.5 cm sounding length