Note 92 — OLD INSTRUMENTS OF MUSIC [71]
Reading edition
Mr Dolmetsch, op. cit., p. 459, says that the serpent “was still common in French churches about the middle of the nineteenth century; and although, as a rule, the players had no great skill, those who have heard its tone combined with deep men’s voices in plain-song melodies, know that no other wind or string instrument has efficiently replaced it.”