Its ancestor was probably the zamr-el-kebyr, an Oriental reed instrument.

The schalmei was developed into a whole family, enumerated by Praetorius in the work already mentioned.

The highest of these, the little schalmei, was seldom used, but the "soprano schalmei is the primitive type of the modern oboe."[29] [Footnote 29: See "A Note on Oboes," by Philip Hale.

Programme Books of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, season of 1905-06, p.

644.] It is thus tolerably certain that the instrumental tone used to voice the pastoral character of the scene was the same as that which Beethoven used in his "Pastoral" symphony, as Berlioz used in his "Fantastic," as Gounod used in his "Faust," and that thus at least one element of the instrumental embodiment of Poliziano's story has come down to us..