The flute or pipe of the Greeks and Romans was only distantly related to the true flute, but was the ancestor of its orchestral companions, the oboe and clarinet.  These instruments are sounded by being blown in at the end, and the tone is created by vibrating reeds, whereas in the flute it is the result of the impinging of the air on the edge of the hole called the embouchure, and the consequent stirring of the column of air in the flue of the instrument.  The reeds are thin slips or blades of cane.  The size and bore of the instruments and the difference between these reeds are the causes of the differences in tone quality between these relatives.  The oboe or hautboy, English horn, and the bassoon have what are called double reeds.  Two narrow blades of cane are fitted closely together, and fastened with silk on a small metal tube extending from the upper end of the instrument in the case of the oboe and English horn, from the side in the case of the bassoon.  The reeds are pinched more or less tightly between the lips, and are set to vibrating by the breath.

[Sidenote:  The oboe.]

[Sidenote:  The English horn.]

The oboe (Plate IV.) is naturally associated with music of a pastoral character.  It is pre-eminently a melody instrument, and though its voice comes forth shrinkingly, its uniqueness of tone makes it easily heard.  It is a most lovable instrument.  “Candor, artless grace, soft joy, or the grief of a fragile being suits the oboe’s accents,” says Berlioz.  The peculiarity of its mouth-piece gives its tone a reedy or vibrating quality totally unlike the clarinet’s.  Its natural alto is the English horn (Plate V.), which is an oboe of larger growth, with curved tube for convenience of manipulation.  The tone of the English horn is fuller, nobler, and is very attractive in melancholy or dreamy music.  There are few players on the English horn in this country, and it might be set down as a rule that outside of New York, Boston, and Chicago, the English horn parts are played by the oboe in America.  No melody displays the true character of the English horn better than the Ranz des Vaches in the overture to Rossini’s “William Tell”—­that lovely Alpine song which the flute embroiders with exquisite ornament.  One of the noblest utterances of the oboe is the melody of the funeral march in Beethoven’s “Heroic” symphony, in which its tenderness has beautiful play.  It is sometimes used effectively in imitative music.  In Haydn’s “Seasons,” and also in that grotesque tone poem by Saint-Saens, the “Danse Macabre,” it gives the cock crow.  It is the timid oboe that sounds the A for the orchestra to tune by.

[Sidenote:  The bassoon.]

[Sidenote:  An orchestral humorist.]

[Sidenote:  Supernatural effects.]