Flute – UEBEL, Gerhard Rudolf

Flutes

This amazing Boehm-system vintage aluminium flute was manufactured by Gerhard Rudolf UEBEL (1915-1991) in Eastern Germany (GDR) in the 1960s. He was the grandson of the founder of the UEBEL company, Friedrich Gustav UEBEL (1855-1915) in Saxony, Germany.

Gerhard Rudolf Uebel experimented with new materials and mechanical construction techniques and this flute is a fine example of his innovation work.

The body of the flute is made from one single rod of aluminium – silver grey anodised. There is no separate foot joint. It is therefore made in a similar way to a wooden flute rather than a modern metal flute. The flute is tapered at both ends so it looks a bit like a cigar, which is where its nickname ‘cigar flute’ originates. The head joint and deep-cup, undercut keys are made of silver-plated German silver. The head joint itself is simply inserted directly into the body without a tenon socket. There is no head joint cork assembly. The aluminium crown is fixed in place. It has a black plastic reform lip-plate. Tiny screws rather than pins are used to connect the rods of the keys. The posts have set screws which enable the pivot screws to be finely adjusted. It is a closed G-sharp flute.

Production of these flutes lasted from 1959 for around ten years. Unlike other examples to be found in museums, this particular Uebel aluminium flute only has a four-digit serial number: 6034. This means that it was possibly made in 1960, just after production had started. A couple of famous jazz players are known to have played the Uebel aluminium flute – Hermeto Pascoal and Bobbie Humphry.

With a pitch of a=441 Hz, this flute has a bright and colourful sound. It is powerful and focused with a nice warm roundness.

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G-sharp key

Open/closed G-sharp key
The open G-sharp key was promoted by Theobald Boehm. So, G-sharp is fingered like a G on the modern-day flute and G is fingered like the modern-day G-sharp. The open G-sharp key mechanism avoids having an additional second G-sharp tone hole, which is not optimal in acoustical terms.
The closed G-sharp key is the regular mechanism on modern day instruments as well as traditional conical wooden more-keyed flutes. G-sharp is obtained by pressing the G-sharp lever. G is produced by pressing down all four fingers of the left hand.
Theobald Boehm’s open G-sharp was not successful in the end and is no longer used in flute-making, with some exceptions.