Flautist

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A flautist or flutist or flute-player is a musician who plays the flute.

1 Naming Controversy: 'Flautist' Vs. 'Flutist'
2 Notable flautists
3 Notes
4 External links

[edit] Naming Controversy: 'Flautist' Vs. 'Flutist'

The choice of "flautist" (from the Italian flautista, from flauto, and adopted due to 18th century Italian influence) vs "flutist" is the source of minor dispute among players of the instrument. "Flutist" is the earlier term, dating from at least 1603 (the earliest quote cited by the Oxford English Dictionary), while "flautist" is not recorded before 1860, when it was used by Nathaniel Hawthorne in The Marble Faun. While the print version of the OED does not indicate any regional preference for either form, the online Compact OED characterizes "flutist" as an American usage.<ref>flutist. Compact Oxford English Dictionary. Retrieved on September 16, 2005.</ref>

Richard Rockstro in his three volume treatise "The Flute"<ref>Richard Shepherd Rockstro, The Flute (Fritz Knuf - Buren, The Netherlands, 1986[1890])</ref> written in England in 1890 uses "flute-player".

The US player and writer Nancy Toff, in her The Flute Book, devotes more than a page to the subject, commenting that she is asked "Are you a flutist or a flautist?" on a weekly basis. She says "Ascribe my insistence either to a modest lack of pretension or to etymological evidence; the result is the same." She describes in some detail the etymology of words for "flute". (She is an editor for Oxford University Press.[1]) She compares OED, Fowler's Dictionary of Modern Usage, Evans' Dictionary of Contemporary American Usage, and Copperud's American Usage and Style: The Consensus. Fowler says "flautist" has displaced "flutist" in usage, though "flautist" is not so popular in the USA. She prefers "flutist" personally and etymologically. <ref>Nancy Toff, The Flute Book (Scribners, 1985), "Flutist or Flautist?" pp. xiv-xv</ref>