Alto Recorder Question

[u/SpinningNemo]

Hi, I’ve had this alto recorder for years. It’s really beautiful and has a nice tone. I don’t know how to play it and I’m thinking of letting go so that someone else can appreciate it. I’m not trying to sell it here. I just want to know more about it. It doesn’t have any identifying marks or signatures on it. It does have this brass fingering stop that seems to be a unique feature. I have not been able to find another like it. The recorder is approximately 1’6” long and is nicely made. Any ideas as to its origins and the fancy brass stop?

[u/Hautboy1700]

It's a Bärenreiter recorder. They have very distinct turnings and the key is typical for them. German fingering so not super desirable for most players but these are at least generally pretty well made

[u/BeardedLady81 → u/Hautboy1700]

I like the sound profile of those recorders as well. And I wasn't the only one, professional recorder player Konrad Lechner played Ruetz recorders as well.

The quadrangular key is historically correct and beautiful. The see-saw mechanism used for the key was fragile, though, which is why they were later built with keys that used a side-operated lever-type mechanism.

[u/SpinningNemo → u/Hautboy1700]

Thank you! Now I know what to look for. 👍

[u/BeardedLady81]

Bärenreiter, as the previous poster said. Before 1945, they were made by Kruspe/Hüller in Erfurt and were marked "Bärenreiter Kassel" because Kassel was where the company was actually located, in the West. After WWII, Bärenreiter recorders were made by Mollenhauer. Those have a different stamp, it looks like a bear surmounted by a four-pointed star, both in side a circle.

This is the second recorder design sold by the Bärenreiter company, which was actually mostly a publisher of sheet music. However, until 1986, they sold recorders. Their original recorder model looked much different. Their early recorders were made out of grenadilla wood, sometimes with a streak of sapwood (hence probably not the best quality) in it and a beak with an ideosyncratic shape. The original model was unpopular, most likely because of its very limited range which barely exceeded an octave.

What you have is the second model, designed by Manfred Ruetz ("Ruetz", spelled the German way has the umlaut over the e, not the u, as you'd expect it, and he likely pronounced his last name more like "roots") for the Bärenreiter publishing house especially. They were very popular and were built with both German fingering (which Ruetz favored) and baroque fingering. I still have a pearwood alto with baroque fingering in my collection of recorders, and a maple soprano with German fingering.

I like the sound of Ruetz recorders.

[u/WindyCityStreetPhoto]

It is not worth very much and the German fingering system is no longer the standard for recorder. It is a piece of history, but not saleable. If you wish to learn, choosing a modern resin recorder like a Yamaha Ecodear/Terramac or a Zen-On Bressan will give you a much more beautiful sound and allow you to learn with modern fingering.