Roberto Fabbriciani with hyperbass flute.

The hyperbass flute is the largest and lowest pitched instrument in the flute family, with tubing reaching over 8 metres in length. It is pitched in C, four octaves below the concert flute (three octaves below the bass flute, two octaves below the contrabass flute, and one octave below the double contrabass flute), with its lowest note being C₀, one octave below the lowest C on a standard piano. At 16 Hz, this is below what is generally considered the range of human hearing (20 to 20,000 Hz).

The hyperbass flute is made of PVC and wood.^[1] There appear to be wide tone holes, made from standard tee fittings, but without keys; these are covered with the palms of the hands.

The only known example of the instrument is a prototype built for Italian flautist Roberto Fabbriciani (born in Arezzo, 1949) by Francesco Romei, a Florentine craftsman. Fabbriciani is the inventor and primary performer of this unique instrument. He calls it flauto iperbasso in Italian.^[2]

[edit] Repertoire

The first composition for the hyperbass flute with live electronics and magnetic tape is Persistenza della memoria by Alessandro Grego, published in 2001 by the ARTS label on the CD Flute XX vol.2.^[3]

In 2002, the Roman composer Nicola Sani composed Con Fuoco (for hyperbass flute and 8-track magnetic tape) which Fabbriciani recorded it at the electronic studio of the Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR) in Cologne, Germany. The track was released on a CD entitled Elements.^[4]

In March 2005 Fabbriciani released an entire CD of music for hyperbass flute and tape, entitled Glaciers in Extinction, on the Col Legno label.^[4][5]

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Discussion of hyperbass flute

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