Dolcan English, German (Primary)
Dolkan Unknown
Trichterflöte German
Dulcan Unknown
Dulzaen Unknown
Dulzain Unknown
Description:
The pipes of the Dolcan are inverted conical metal, or occasionally inverted pyramidal wood. Only a few flue stops are always made of inverted conical pipes (wider at the top than at the bottom), and the Dolcan is the most common of these. Found at 16', 8' or 4' pitch, its tone resembles that of the Dulciana, but is brighter and more open. According to Williams, the tone of the Dolcan seems to have not changed much over the centuries. Sumner calls it the precursor to the modern Dulciana. Grove dates it from around 1580 in the Netherlands and northern Germany. Audsley, who provides the illustration reproduced here, specifies a 1/5 to 2/9 mouth with a 1/5 to 1/4 cut-up, and gives the following representative scale:
Variants:
Examples:
Osiris contains fourteen examples of Dolcan at 8' pitch, five at 4' pitch, and one at 16'; three examples of Dolkan at 8' and four at 2' (all from the late 20th century); and four examples of Trichterflöte at 4' pitch, and one each at 8' and 2' (all from the 20th century). No examples of Dulcan, Dulzaen, Dulzain, Scharfpfeife, Tolkaan or Trichterpfeife are known.