About Shawms
Shawm is a historic wooden wind instrument from the family of double reed instruments. It is the ancestor of today's oboe or bassoon.
The instrument, called the surna, probably originated sometime in the first centuries AD in the Middle East, from where it later spread with Arabic conquests to most of the then known world. The original surna did not have a wind cap; it only had a flat disc-shaped pirouette and was used more for ceremonial and military purposes. Essentially identical instruments can still be found, for example, in Turkey.
The shawms were probably brought to Europe by the Crusaders and quickly became popular, especially in dance music, due to their considerable volume compared to the flutes or single-reed pipes already in use. Further design development took place in Europe: the disc-shaped pirouette was replaced by a more perfect funnel-shaped type enabling a controlled embouchure.
In the Middle Ages, the shawms were first played by wandering artists, performing not only music but also theatre, juggling etc.
In the 14th century, larger instruments began to appear and shawms merged into bands along with other woodwind and brass instruments. A typical group had 3-4 musicians consisting of a treble shawm, alto shawm and 1-2 musicians playing the slide trumpet (the ancestor of sackbut and today's trombone). Such a loud ensemble was called the alta capella and acted as the opposite of sets of quieter instruments (lute, harp, flutes) - these were called bassa capella.
The Renaissance brought a developing polyphony to music, which placed higher demands on the range of musical instruments. The shawms therefore lengthen further and began to group into sets, of which the deepest instruments reached a length of more than 2 m. For some types, the reeds were later enclosed in a windcap. The extension was also associated with the addition of keys, sometimes covered with a fontanelle. Lower windcap shawms with keys and a fontanelle have sometimes been called pommers since the Renaissance. A unique collection of Renaissance shawms and pommers can be seen in the Prague Museum of Music and originally served musicians at the Rosenberg court in Český Krumlov. Over the following centuries, shawms were increasingly replaced by oboes and bassoons, and shawms themselves survived only in folk music.
To this day, we can find them in a number of folk instruments around the world, such as bombarde (Brittany), piffaro (Italy), zurla, zurna (Balkan countries), shenai (India), hichiriki (Japan) or the UNESCO Intangible Heritage Monument - Armenian duduk.
Written sources suggest that shawms could have survived in the folk environment in Moravia and Bohemia until the end of the 19th century, but unfortunately clear information or even material documents are missing.
A. Baines, Woodwind instruments and their history, London 1967
Pavel Kurfürst, Hudební nástroje, Praha 2002
B. Boydell, The crumhorn and other renaissance windcap instruments, Buren 1982
A. Hopchet, How to play the shawm
