Taille des hautbois

Taille des hautbois (Fr.), oboe of the late 17th and early 18th c., resembling the ordinary oboe except that it was larger and pitched in F, a 5th lower. In band music its part was often abbr. to “taille.” Some models were made with the flaring bell of the oboe, others with a globular bell like that of the cor anglais. The reed was carried on a bent metal crook. In England the instr. was known as tenor hoboy (although it is an alto instr.). Henry Purcell scored for it in his Dioclesian of 1690…