Orchestral Bagpipes

BigWillyG

This is somewhat odd but what POD are required for bagpipes to remain popular instruments in most of Europe until the point at which they or some derivative would be incorporated into the selection of instruments in a modern orchestra?
I know they were popular throughout Europe in the Medieval period and its folk music stable mate the fiddle evolved into the violin. What sort of evolution might bagpipes have before Bach and Mozart are writing pieces for them?
 

Abdul Hadi Pasha

Banned
BigWillyG said:
This is somewhat odd but what POD are required for bagpipes to remain popular instruments in most of Europe until the point at which they or some derivative would be incorporated into the selection of instruments in a modern orchestra?
I know they were popular throughout Europe in the Medieval period and its folk music stable mate the fiddle evolved into the violin. What sort of evolution might bagpipes have before Bach and Mozart are writing pieces for them?
Click to expand...

The problem with bagpipes is that they have a very limited range. I suppose you could have modified them to make them more capable, but there was little reason to in the context of an orchestral ensemble.

Also, the idea of bagpipes in Bach's music is pretty funny. The rest of the instruments would disappear entirely when the bagpipes were playing. "Double Concerto for Lute and Bagpipes in b minor" Hee.

You could probably have a revival in the Romantic Era, especially once composers began to incorporate folk tunes in music. But there are two problems: This was to an extent driven by nationalism, and Britain was non-nationalist. Also, the English musical tradition was utterly destroyed by Handel, and I'm not sure Germans have ever really been into bagpipes.

Handel is one of the worst things to ever happen to England, BTW. If you listen to Purcell or Blow, you can hear what was lost.
 
Dan1988

Dan1988

Abdul Hadi Pasha said:
The problem with bagpipes is that they have a very limited range. I suppose you could have modified them to make them more capable, but there was little reason to in the context of an orchestral ensemble.

Also, the idea of bagpipes in Bach's music is pretty funny. The rest of the instruments would disappear entirely when the bagpipes were playing. "Double Concerto for Lute and Bagpipes in b minor" Hee.
Click to expand...

That would be interesting - though could the elimination of the drone (as exhibited in some variants of the bagpipes found in the Balkans) expand the range of the bagpipes?
 

BigWillyG

Be interesting to see what Stradivarius would have done with bagpipes. Considering the comments on Germans not being into bagpipes would a rise of classical music outside of Germany lead to my scenario of orchestral bagpipes?
 

Boto von Ageduch

I agree - droneless (and thus for Abdul, pointless) bagpipes plus
extension to a chromatic range; in later periods metal keys like for clarinets IOTL.

How can that be accomplished?
You have to make a region with bagpipes leading in Renaissance culture.

So there are two main possibilites:
Bagpipes in Italy, or some really lucky development of Scotland ...
 

Mysterion

Abdul Hadi Pasha said:
Also, the idea of bagpipes in Bach's music is pretty funny. The rest of the instruments would disappear entirely when the bagpipes were playing. "Double Concerto for Lute and Bagpipes in b minor" Hee.
Click to expand...

I'm feeling a sudden need for a bagpipe version of Tocatta With Fugue in B-minor.
 

Abdul Hadi Pasha

Banned
Boto von Ageduch said:
I agree - droneless (and thus for Abdul, pointless) bagpipes plus
extension to a chromatic range; in later periods metal keys like for clarinets IOTL.

How can that be accomplished?
You have to make a region with bagpipes leading in Renaissance culture.

So there are two main possibilites:
Bagpipes in Italy, or some really lucky development of Scotland ...
Click to expand...

I don't see it. Even without a drone bagpipes are just way, way, way too loud for any musical ensemble before Beethoven. You wouldn't even be able to hear a Renaissance or Baroque orchestra over bagpipes, at all, and even in the classical era it would totally overpower.

I just don't see any scenario where there is going to be continuity from earlier periods with bagpipes.

If you kill off Handel, you could see bagpipes introduced in the Romantic era in British music.
 

Boto von Ageduch

Abdul Hadi Pasha said:
Even without a drone bagpipes are just way, way, way too loud for any musical ensemble before Beethoven. You wouldn't even be able to hear a Renaissance or Baroque orchestra over bagpipes, at all, and even in the classical era it would totally overpower.
Click to expand...


For sure you have a point.
I can't offer a (technological) solution, but by comparison I infer that musical history
usually finds a way around such issues.

Take the trumpet: When it was used in baroque musique, it was rather low in volume;
there are pieces by Bach where a trumpet plays a solo role together with a block flute (!).
However, the trumpet survived its role in orchestral music despite its technogical progress
(or so the increase of WOOOOOOM is called).

I understand that for the bagpipe the situation is messier because it is loud in the first place;
but I still think that they would have found a way to sordine it.
If people really wanted to hear it.
 
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