A Hungarian in ViennaJohann ZIEGLER was born in Komárom in Hungary in 1794/5. Komárom is on the northern bank of the Danube River. Little is known about his early life and his beginnings in Vienna. We do know that he learnt his woodturning skills under the watchful eye of Stephan...
If you are interested in learning more about flute acoustics, we have an interesting article written by Jens Holger Rindel, a senior consultant at Multiconsult in Norway, senior researcher in Odeon A/S, Denmark, former Professor in acoustics at the Technical University of Denmark… and flutist!It was presented at the Baltic-Nordic...
A pitch pipe or pitchpipe is a small device that sounds one note or notes. It is used to establish the correct starting note or pitch reference for musicians or singers. Pitch pipes come in all shapes and sizes.Early pitch pipesEarly pitch pipes looked very similar to a recorder, but...
We’ve all heard of apprentices and masters. The apprenticeship model is the journey towards mastering an art and becoming a master with the ability to teach others. But what is a journeyman? Read on to find out more about a journeyman’s life.GuildsThroughout history, most trades, such as carpentry, shoemaking or...
Very little is known about Ernst Robert LEIBL. It seems that he was born in Adorf in Vogtland, located in Saxony, Germany in 1871. Ernst Robert, or Robert LEIBL [which it seems he preferred] may well have been the son of Robert LEIBL. Robert LEIBL senior lived and worked for...
This French flageolet was made by Frédéric Eléanor GODFROY. He was born in 1805 in Paris and was the eldest son of Clair Godfroy (1774-1841). He was a woodwind instrument maker from 1827 to 1844. The GODFROY family was active in the 18th and 19th centuries. They were initially in...
This is a 10-keyed flute by the famous Bavarian maker STENGEL, Johann Simon made around 1850 from Boxwood with brass keys and horn rings. The flute has the typical features of a ‘romantic’ flute, with a tuning slide, low B-flat key and even a high trill key.Its total length is...
A four-keyed boxwood flute created by the Englishman Robert WOLF (1808-1844), pitched at around a=440 Hz. Robert Wolf & Co was active between 1837 and 1845. Originally registered at 79, Cornhill, the company moved to 20, St. Martin’s Le Grand and worked from there between 1843 and 1845. From 1846,...
A five-keyed C clarinet by the English maker Zenas Trivett PURDAY (1792-1866). He was the son of Thomas PURDAY (1765-1838) of Purday & Button, a music publishing house for mainly sacred vocal music. Zenas Trivett Purday had two brothers: a rival publisher and instrument maker Thomas Edward PURDAY (1971-1873) and...
The STENGEL family and BayreuthThe Stengel family had a woodwind instrument business for almost a century in the German town of Bayreuth or Baireuth. Bayreuth is located in the north of Bavaria, on the Red Main river. Its roots go back to 1194. It is very famous, among other things,...
Boxwood is a lovely wood and it’s hardly surprising that it remains quite a favourite among today’s woodwind instrument makers. Buxus sempervirens, known as European boxwood, or common boxwood, is a species of flowering plant. It is an evergreen bush really, rather than a tree. It takes a long time to grow and it is difficult to find completely straight trunks without knots to use for items such as flutes.
Boxwood has a uniform grain and is very dense and hard, which is why it was so popular for wood turning and instrument making in the 18th century. At that time many instruments were predominantly made from boxwood. Then several tropical hardwoods became popular during the 1800s as tonewood. People wanted to have furniture and also instruments made from exotic types of wood. So, boxwood lost ground to these newcomers to Europe.
There were also some disadvantages to boxwood: its tendency to warp and easily soil. This led to the ‘banana’ effect with flutes for example, as the wood warped over time.
The wood is naturally yellow in colour and can be left with a natural, polished finished. Boxwood then darkens over time to have a nice honey-yellow colour. It can also be stained using acid staining to give it an orange-brown or dark-brown colour, and in wooden flute construction, many makers use a violin varnish for the finish. This is an extremely arduous technique that requires expertise and precision.
Sadly, since around 2006, the spread of the box tree moth called the Cydalima perspectalis has led to huge losses of boxwood ‘trees’ that have taken hundreds of years to grow. It was sad to see forests of boxwood reduced to almost nothing.
Now it’s very rare and wonderful to see just one full grown 100+ year boxwood tree. So, when that happens – some people just can’t resist and have to hug it!
Unicorns have become all the rage over recent years and we are often confronted in our daily lives with unicorns in the form of cartoons, cuddly toys, pencil cases, hairbands and even inflatable pool loungers. A unicorn is a beast that typically looks like a horse and has one single, pointed horn that spirals out from its forehead. Unicorns were a symbol of purity and grace. The appeal of these very special, mythical creatures has never ceased over time. As a symbol of magic, rarity and specialness, they didn’t go unnoticed by flute makers either.
