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...
This brass post horn was made by the Julius Heinrich ZIMMERMANN (1851-1922) company. Zimmermann was an extremely successful entrepreneur in the manufacture of musical instruments and also publishing. He had branches of his company in St. Petersburg, Moscow, London, Riga and Leipzig.This particular instrument is stamped ‘LEIPZIG’, where he set up his...
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 oboe was made by the company Gebrüder Alexander, based in Mainz, Germany. The company was first established way back in 1782 as a small workshop by Franz Ambros ALEXANDER (1753-1802). When Franz Ambros died, the business was carried on by his widow Katherina, and the four sons, the brothers...
This beautiful late-Romantic oboe was made by Ferdinand Julius Hermann ALTRICHER (1842-1915) who was native to Frankfurt an der Oder. This city is in today’s German state of Brandenburg. He started out around 1868 as a mouth-organ or harmonica manufacturer before he turned his hand to brass and woodwind instrument...
This ocarina was made by the great master and inventor of the ocarina himself Giuseppe DONATI (1836-1925). Donati lived and worked in his hometown of Budrio at the outset of his career as an ocarina maker. He moved to Bologna in 1878 where he lived and worked. In 1904 he opened...
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...
This cocuswood flute was made by the master himself – Louis LOT (1807-96). By checking the serial number 1889, we can date this flute to 1874. All three sections of the instrument are stamped with the Louis Lot stamp, plus the serial number. This proves that the parts of the instrument all belong...
This Luigi VANOTTI flute, including its mechanism, is made of solid 900 silver – evidenced by its hallmarks. It was made around 1910. Luigi Vanotti worked for the company Rampone & Cazzani before setting up his own business in 1909 in Milan, at Via Solferino 46. He specialised in making...
A post horn is a valveless cylindrical brass instrument with a cupped mouthpiece. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, stage coaches were used to carry letters and parcels. People were also transported and had to endure extremely bumpy rides and often accidents. Along each route or road, there were stations or ‘stages’ where the stagecoaches stopped.
The postillion was the person who guided the horse-drawn coach while actually mounted on the horse or pair of horses. A coachman would control the horse from the actual vehicle itself.
They blew the post horns to announce their arrival at or departure from postal stations. This meant that everything could be ready for when they arrived, including for example, a change of horses. They went into disuse with the modernisation of postal systems. Yet the post horn remains a symbol of mail systems in many countries, including Germany with the Deutsche Post for example.
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!
