Some time before 1636 the one-piece curtal was transformed in France into a separately jointed instrument, the bassoon. It became known in England and Germany as the French bassoon. The first inkling we get of this new development is from passages in
Mersenne
and Tricher; the former describes a two-piece woodwind that he designates as fagoté or lié (i.e., bound), and provided with three keys, the latter states that bassons are composed of two tubes joined together, one being a...
