About the Site

Welcome to flutehistory.com. The site provides some information about the history of the transverse flute and flute-playing in Western culture. I created it to serve as a companion to a book on that subject I wrote for Yale University Press (London, 2002).

flutehistory.com is a work in progress. In its present form the site is meant to provide some basic details about the flutes and playing styles of the past, and to help you find published resources to learn more. Eventually, more extensive sound and image resources are planned, as well as more informative text, mostly including material that has no place within the structure of my book.

I have tried to address the needs of various different groups of visitors. There's an introductory page for those of school age, and I hope the site will also help university students think of research topics. I welcome and will gratefully acknowledge all corrections, additions, rants, and praise.

In case you're wondering who I am, I'm Ardal Powell, a partner in Folkers & Powell, Makers of Historical Flutes and President of Full Circle Flute Company Ltd. I'm also the editor of TRAVERSO, a quarterly newsletter for historical flutists and instrument collectors founded in 1989. If you want to know more about me or see a list of my published books and articles, visit my personal web site.

Technical

The site must be viewed with a Javascript-enabled browser. It is designed in the first place for Microsoft Internet Explorer®, and has also been tested with Netscape®, Opera®, and Firefox on Windows and Macintosh platforms. Cut-N-Paste Javascript, Matt Wright, and the people at Hotscripts.com wrote scripts I modified for this site.

If you do not already have it installed, get the Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Shopping

Orders from flutehistory.com are now handled by Amazon.com. The selection is limited and many important series, such as those from Frits Knuf and SPES, are hard to get. If what you want is unavailable try the Early Music Shop in Bradford, UK, or the Early Music Shop of New England in Cambridge, Mass.

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Thanks for visiting.

Ardal Powell