We're here at Kew Palace where King George III
spent some time recovering from one of his
bouts of illness.
King George III and Queen Charlotte both
played the harpsichord. George also was
quite proficient on the fortepiano and the flute.
The flute was an instrument for gentlemen
and his cousin Frederick the Great probably
made the flute quite famous in the 18th century.
Porcelain flutes were very rare. In fact
Baroque flutes tended to be made of wood-
ebony, boxwood or fruitwoods and very
ocassionally ivory.
But almost unique is to find an instrument
like this made of porcelain.
In 1738 a comment made in the Meissen factory
talks of one of their greatest mold makers
producing a mold in order to make a flute.
So this gives certain credence to the belief
that this was made in the Meissen factory.
Beautiful floral swags along it and the
gold gild is later added after the flute
has been fired in the kiln.
This is the head joint here, and it's a
conical shape so the widest point is here
where you blow in. And the foot joint,
at the end of the flute, is the narrowest.
So it tapers quite considerably.
And then in the middle you would put
one of these three centrepieces.
Now why are there three?
You would only use one at a time.
But a traveling musician in the 18th century
would travel through cities, possibly in
different countries, and play with different
musicians, and each ensemble or orchestra
they'd play with would be at a different pitch
So by selecting the right centrepiece you would
be at the right pitch for the ensemble.
These centrepieces are known as chord de rechange.
And classical and Baroque flute were often
made of between 3 and 7 of these pieces.
The difference centrepieces look pretty similar
but they're built in increments of about 5 mm
which affects about 5 Hertz of tuning.
And this enables the flute to sound lower
if it's a longer piece and slightly higher if it's
a shorter piece.
The sound is quite unique. The overtones
make it feel very warm and inviting to play
and quite different from a wooden flute
that most people are used to hearing from
this period of time.
So this is the centre joint here with the
finger holes cut through the porcelain.
And that extends to the foot joint and the
bottom key at the end here. That's why it's
called a one-keyed flute that enables you to
open and close the lowest hole which you
otherwise wouldn't be able to reach with
your fingers.
This is beautiful instrument to look at,
not so easy to play.
First of all Meissen porcelain is certainly
substantially heavier than wood. So it's quite
tiring to play.
And because it's cast in a kiln, it's very difficult
after production to actually make any small
adjustments to tuning, which is what the
wooden flutes were able to do by
undercutting the holes. You can see the holes
here are inlaid with gilt, which means once it's
inlaid you can't actually make very many
adjustments. So the pitch of the instrument
is what you have before you and it's the
challenge of the musician to find a way of
trying to play this in tune.
Now I don't think King George III would
have enjoyed playing that flute for too long.
So with a few minor adjustments with the
embouchure it's possible to play the
instrument in tune.
When King George was suffering some of his
bouts of illness and he retired to Kew Palace
he played the flute as a way of trying to feel
better for himself. It's quite likely that
George played works by Handel. Handel's
a composer who was well known in England
and his music and the sonatas for the flute
were probably in George's library at the time.
We do not know for certain that this flute
belonged to King George III but in an
inventory in Windsor in 1838 it mentions
a China flute belonging to King George III
and we'd like to think that this instrument
in front of me is the instrument that is
referred to.
King George III clearly loved Handel's music
and Handel wrote sonatas for the flute
so it's no surprise really that I present
one of his dances from the G major flute sonata,
a bourrée, a courtly dance that was enjoyed
at the court
and is not too substantial in length and
has a lively spirit which may have uplifted
George III's spirit when he was playing
here at Kew in 1789.