Chalumeau

What it means

The chalumeau is a simple woodwind instrument with a single reed, widespread in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. It had a cylindrical body with few finger holes and a limited range, essentially covering only the low register, with no means of overblowing into higher registers.

The clarinet developed from the chalumeau in the early eighteenth century, gaining additional keys and an improved mouthpiece that allowed overblowing into a higher register. The name chalumeau survived and still denotes the lowest register of the clarinet today.

Musical use

As an instrument in its own right, the chalumeau was used mainly in late Baroque chamber music, often alongside strings or as a substitute for more expensive wind instruments. With the rise of the more capable clarinet, it lost importance over the course of the eighteenth century and largely fell out of use.

In the clarinet, the term lives on as the name of the lowest register, the so-called chalumeau register. This register sounds dark, full, and somewhat rough compared to the brighter, more overtone-rich higher registers of the instrument, and is deliberately used as its own tone color.

The historical chalumeau as an instrument should be distinguished from the clarinet's chalumeau register: the former denotes a distinct instrument no longer in common use, the latter a register of its modern successor.

Performance practice

When playing the clarinet's chalumeau register, use a more open, warmer embouchure to bring out this register's full, dark character rather than treating it like the higher registers. On the historical chalumeau itself, pay particular attention to choosing suitable pieces because of its limited range, since overblowing is not possible.