[Kort Instrument, Kurz Pfeiff] (from Ger. kurzes Holz: ‘short woodwind’)
A generic term, referring to double-reed instruments from the 16th and 17th centuries with bores that double back on themselves (as in bassoons). The pitch of such instruments is thus deeper than their length would suggest. Specifically the word ‘Kortholt’ was applied to four kinds of instrument: a dulcian or early Bassoon (especially in England, according to Praetorius (2/1619), where the word ‘curtal’, a corruption of Kortholt, was used); a Racket, according to various late 16th- and early 17th-century inventories cited by Kinsky and Boydell; a Sordun, or ‘courtaut’ as Mersenne (1636–7) called a similar instrument; and a wind-cap sordun.
The instrument Praetorius illustrates as a Kortholt is of the last type; it has a wind cap over a double reed and an apparently cylindrical bore, doubled back on itself within a single wooden column (see illustration). The bore issues through a small lateral hole at the back below the wind cap. The instrument has 16 soundholes in all: the tips of all the fingers and the thumbs cover ten holes, and the joints of the index fingers cover two more; the latter and the little-finger holes are duplicated to allow for left- and right-handed playing (the four holes not in use are presumably stopped with wax). There are two closed keys which extend the range upwards. The range is shown in the illustration as ...