The dulcian is a Renaissance woodwind instrument, with a double reed and a folded conical bore. Equivalent terms include English: curtal, German: Dulzian, French: douçaine, Dutch: dulciaan, Italian: dulciana, Spanish: bajón, and Portuguese: baixão.

The dulcian is a Renaissance-era woodwind instrument, recognized as the direct predecessor to the modern bassoon. Its rich, reedy timbre and versatility made it a staple in both secular and sacred music from the mid-16th to the early 18th centuries.

Structure and Playing Technique of the Dulcian. Dulcians are usually made of maple or sycamore although cherrywood, cedar, ebony, oak, rosewood or walnut have been used with varying success.

The dulcian is a double-reed instrument with a folded conical bore that doubles back on itself by way of a tight U-shaped turn at its bottom end. It is constructed from a single shaft (with an oval cross-section) of wood (often maple) with two parallel bores …

The name dulcian (also dulzian, dulzian, dolzone, delzan, dulcan, dolcan) is from the Latin dulcis (sweet). This instrument was also called the curtal (or curtoll, curtail) from the Latin curtus(short). By the end of the sixteenth century the dulcian had become a part of the town band.

Sep 27, 2006 · The true English Dulciana is a diminutive Diapason, smaller in scale, softer and more delicate in tone. It is often the softest stop on the organ in which it is placed. It was introduced to England by John Snetzler in 1754 at the Church of …

The name dulcian (from the Latin dulcis = "soft, sweet," referring to the instrument's more subdued tone quality) is commonly used for the original version of the instrument in one piece, as opposed to the later type in joints, called bassoon.

Dec 4, 2024 · The dulcian was made in several sizes and has a range of about two and one-half octaves (C to g1). As the name indicates, the tone has a dolce quality when compared to the shawm. The bass size was the one which lasted as the forerunner of the bassoon.

The curtal or Dulzian (often rendered in English as dulcian) seems to be the first woodwind instrument to be double-bored, that is, to have its trunk of wood bored through in two places with a connection at the bottom so that the tube doubles back on itself.

Early depictions of the dulcian in Flemish/Dutch painting are known from Denis van Alsloot (fig. 2) or Antoine Sallaert (c.1620) (fig. 6) whose copies showed varied groups of six musicians, playing a cornett, three shawms, a sackbut and a bass fagot, in three other paintings.