A Comparative study of the Traverse Flutes of the Haupt and Silva Families

Abstract

The 18th and 19th centuries saw the greatest development in the construction of woodwind instruments in Europe. In Portugal, this was due to the Haupt and Silva families of builders. In order to understand the interpretation of the time, through the characteristics of the instruments themselves, as well as all the cultural involvement, data was analyzed to understand the difference between the constructions of the Haupt and Silva families, the main builders of the traverse flutes of the time. Historical research was carried out and important data was also collected by interviewing flutist and traverse flute teacher Olavo Barros, who owns one of the original Silva flutes (the Haupt flute belongs to flutist and transverse flute teacher Manuel Cochofel). The sound quality results were obtained from the recordings made by Teacher Olavo Barros of all the notes produced on each flute and were compared and analyzed, represented in graphs, using Spectrogram no. 16 by Richard Horne software.