Gerhard Huber Recorders

These premium-quality Swiss-made instruments, available in the United States only from our workshop, are superior in quality of wood, workmanship, appearance, and performance to most other recorders currently available. The Model II pearwood recorders are excellent general-purpose modern instruments with a full, robust, dark, and complex tone quality that is ideally suited to ensemble playing. The Model III hardwood instruments have a light, clear, well-focused tone that lends itself equally well to solo and ensemble use. The Model IV baroque recorders are authentic overtone-rich baroque designs, but are not copies of any one particular maker. All Huber recorders feature extremely easy and accurate response in both high and low registers.

Model I School Recorders

Outstanding pearwood student instruments, with simple profile. The Model I soprano recorders have been discontinued, but the 6-tone kindergarten flute is still available. We do not stock this item, but are happy to obtain it on special order for educational customers

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Model II Recorders

Modern instruments made from fine quality European pearwood, with a simple modern profile. These recently-redesigned instruments have a large, meaty, dark, and rich tone quality, with excellent high register response and an unusually full middle and low register. They are superb ensemble instruments which blend well with other recorders, yet make themselves heard in a complex texture. For many years, they have been and continue to be our first recommendation to our customers wanting to trade up from a plastic recorder to an excellent, all-purpose, easy-to-play wooden recorder at a relatively inexpensive price point.

Note: new for 2014 is a Model II tenor recorder of bent-neck design, available only in pearwood. This extremely ergonomic design, which also features a greater offset of the third hole (ring finger, left hand) make this instrument easily playable even by very petite players with short arms.

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Model III Recorders

Modern instruments made from a variety of fruitwoods and tropical hardwoods, with an elaborate baroque profile. These instruments have a bright, clear, well-focused tone and extremely fast and clean response that renders them well-suited to solo playing, although the softer woods are also well-suited for ensemble use.

The keyless tenor recorders are easily the most ergonomic tenor instruments available from any maker. Their outstanding bass recorders, the finest made by any maker, are once again available after having been out of production for several years. The keywork has also been completely redesigned and is highly ergonomic. All of the padseats are bushed with a non-hydroscopic material, so they will remain wholly stable, not warp, and the pads will continue to seal tightly and not leak after a period of time, a common problem with virtually all other bass recorders which causes increasing weakness in resonance of the lowest notes.

Please note: in the past, all of the Model III sopranos were made as three-piece instruments. Currently, all instruments are being made only in two pieces, with the exception of the grenadilla and European boxwood models, which continue to be made in three pieces. However, we still have a few three-piece bubinga, palisander, and violetwood instruments available, for those players who would prefer an adjustable footjoint.

The outstanding Huber bass recorders are available only on special order, and delivery times are currently about four to six months.

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Model IV Recorders

These are superb baroque reproduction instruments with narrow curved windways and heavily undercut tone holes, having a rich, reedy, intensive tone quality and excellent pitch stability and projection. They are based on the original Jacob Denner alto recorder in the Copenhagen museum collection and are ideally suited to the authentic performance of late baroque solo and mixed ensemble literature. The boxwood model is made from wood which has been aged for over thirty years and is extremely stable.

Egyptian Recorders

These are unique instruments with a fascinating history. A few years ago, the Huber workshop obtained a small quantity of wood from a recently-discovered and well-preserved 4,500-year-old swamp oak tree. Since this tree grew during the period during which the Egyptian pyramids were built by the pharaohs, Huber decided to make a limited series of soprano and alto recorders from this extremely rare hardwood, with exterior designs based on those of Egyptian flutes depicted in iconographical sources and hand-carved hieroglyphics on the headjoint. Each instrument was housed in a wooden case and accompanied by a certificate of authenticity. In addition, for those who wanted a piece of ancient history at a much lower price, a larger number of instruments with the same ancient profile but without the hand-carved hieroglyphics were made from modern plumwood. These instruments were later discontinued and unavailable for almost a decade, but Huber has once again decided to make them on special order in limited quantities and in a choice of three woods.

Transverse Flutes and Chalumeau

The Huber workshop has just added to its catalogue three wholly new historical woodwind instruments at extremely attractive prices: soprano and alto transverse flutes, which are essentially baroque recorders with transversely-blown headjoints that use standard recorder fingerings, and a keyless, non-overblowing soprano chalumeau with a range of a ninth that uses a standard modern Bb clarinet mouthpiece and inexpensive reeds that are available in any music store. These three instruments should prove very useful to adult recorder players wanting to expand their horizons to other types of historical woodwind instruments as well as younger players wanting to transition to modern flute or clarinet, and at a bargain price as well.

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