FLUTE

A flautist (or flutist, flute player) is a musician who plays any instrument in the flute family.

"Flautist" versus "flutist"

The choice of "flautist" (adopted during the eighteenth century from the Italian word flautista, itself from flauto) versus "flutist" is a source of dispute among players of the instrument. "Flutist" is the earlier term in the English language, dating from at least 1603 while "flautist" is not recorded before 1860, when it was used by Nathaniel Hawthorne in The Marble Faun. Richard Rockstro, in his three-volume treatise The Flute written in England in 1890, uses "flute-player."

The first edition of the OED lists "fluter" as dating from circa 1400 and Fowler's Modern English Usagestates that "there seems no good reason" why "flautist" should have prevailed over "fluter" or "flutist." According to Webster's Dictionary of English Usagehowever, flautist is the preferred term in British English; and, in American English, while both terms are used, "flutist" is "by far the more common."

Also seen from around the mid seventeenth century was "flutenist," but this fell out of use by the end of the eighteenth century.

While the term "flautist" is not found in print before 1860, there is no doubt, considering the influence of the Italian and French schools of flute playing, that the Italian term flautista and French term flûtiste would have been well known in England long before this date. Because many significant composers during the Renaissance and Baroque periods were Italian or trained in Italy, most commonly used musical terms in English speaking countries are Italian in origin.

Today, most players use the term which is dominant in their country of origin, or simply use the neutral "flute player." Famous flute players have frequently entered the debate expressing their own personal views; for instance, Nancy Toff, an American, devotes more than a page of her book The Flute Book to the subject, commenting that she is asked "Are you a flutist or a flautist?" on a weekly basis. She prefers "flutist": "Ascribe my insistence either to a modest lack of pretension or to etymological evidence; the result is the same." Toff, who is also an editor for Oxford University Press, describes in some detail the etymology of words for the flute, comparing the OED, Fowler's Modern English Usage,Evans' Dictionary of Contemporary American Usage, and Copperud's American Usage and Style: The Consensus before arriving at her conclusion: "I play the flute, not the flaut; therefore, I am a flutist not a flautist."

Echoing the Toff quote above, James Galway summed up the way he feels about "flautist," saying: "I am a flute player not a flautist. I don't have a flaut and I've never flauted."