Imagine a four-part, full ivory flute made by one of the Scherers – Georg Henrich SCHERER (1703-1778). The Scherers made woodwind instruments for the rich and royal, including Frederick the Great (1712-1786), the King of Prussia. Father and son made some extremely beautiful woodwind instruments – this flute is no...
This is a beautiful, boxwood flute made at the turn of the nineteenth-century by no other than Thomas CAHUSAC Junior or Thomas II (1756-?1843). The Cahusacs were among the first woodwind instrument makers in London and became extremely famous.Thomas Cahusac II was at the 41 Haymarket address from 1800 to...
This reform flute was made by Josef KREISEL who was active making mainly flutes, clarinets and piccolos in the city of Cologne, Germany towards the end of the nineteenth century. He learnt his skills from E. JEHRING in Altenburg and spent some of his journeyman years with the Wünnenberg family...
What gorgeous figured boxwood! It was of course very specially selected, turned and finished to the delight of its then new owner.This lovely flute was made by the Englishman Richard John BILTON (1792-1870). Bilton had previously worked for John Cramer and his successors before setting up on his own in...
This exceptional late-Romantic flute was made by the company Rampone & B. Cazzani & C in Milan. On the death of the famous woodwind instrument maker Agostino RAMPONE (1843-1897), his son Egidio (1872-1937) went into partnership with Battista CAZZANI (1846-1920), a watchmaker and brass instrument manufacturer and married Cazzani’s daughter....
This is a fully restored, eight-keyed, boxwood flute in four sections made by Goulding D’Almaine Potter & Co. D’Almaine & Co. was a firm of musical instrument makers, music sellers, publishers and printers that was in existence in one form or another for around eighty years. It was first established...
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...
Here we have a jewel of silver flutes… which is also extremely rare! It was made by Ernst Robert LEIBL (1871-1957), who took over the famous Boehm & Mendler workshop in 1903. He continued to construct his instruments in exactly the same manner. It is estimated that LEIBL only made around 100...
This flute really needs no introduction to many flutists – the famous ‘Siccama’ flute. The Siccama flute was invented by Abel SICCAMA (c. 1810–65). He was a Dutch professor of languages and amateur flutist who had settled in London. It seems that Siccama created several flute designs. But his ‘Diatonic’...
This lovely, Romantic flute was made around 1840 by the master woodwind instrument maker, Christian Wilhelm LIEBEL (1793-1871). Wilhelm, as he preferred to call himself, was one of Dresden’s finest flute makers during the mid-nineteenth century. Born in Adorf and initially trained by his father, Liebel spent his journeyman years...
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.
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!
