Clarion call: recorder fans warn instrument heading for extinction

Preschool children play the recorder. Chetham’s school of music has reported an 80% fall in the number of young people playing the recorder in the past decade. Photograph: RichLegg/Getty Images

Depending on your view, the recorder is an instrument of “incredible versatility” or a tool of torture that has terrorised primary schools for too many generations.

But now, warn its champions, the Marmite of the woodwind world faces extinction, with one of the UK’s top music schools reporting an 80% decline in the number of young people playing the recorder in 10 years.