Taille

The taille, also called the taille de hautbois or the alto oboe, was a Baroque alto oboe pitched in F. It had a straight body, an open bell, and two keys.

The instrument was first used in Alcidiane by Jean-Baptiste Lully in 1658 and in French ensembles known as the bandes de hautbois, in which it played the inner lines of polyphonic compositions. J.S. Bach employed it when a low-pitched oboe sound was needed to double the viola parts in several of his cantatas, but almost exclusively in movements of a jubilant or otherwise loud nature due to its having had a more piercing sound than that of the cor anglais.