A mystery instrument created

Mozart’s Magic Flute uses a glass harmonica or keyed glockenspiel to represent a set of magic bells.

“Mozart’s original score for the 1791 opera The Magic Flute called for a glass harmonica or keyed glockenspiel to represent a set of magic bells.

The instruments were obscure even in Mozart’s day but more than 200 years after his death they no longer exist and no one knows how they worked.”

British organ maker Robin Jennings has recreated the mystery instrument.  


Louise Schwartzkoff, “The otherwordly feeling of Mozart’s magic”, The Sydney Morning Herald, 28 July 2009

Click here to read article.

Posted

in

by

Greg

Tags:

, , ,

Featured Content

Beethoven’s compositional process
Beethoven was revising Fidelio when he wrote to Georg Freiedrich Treitschke (who was helping to revise the libretto) (1): Now, of course, everything has to be done at once; and I could composer something new far more quickly than patch up the old with something new, as I am now doing. For my custom when I […]
We arrived here safely yesterday morning at 9 o’clock. – We spent the first night at Vögelbruck; – on the following morning we reached Lambbach – just in time for me to accompany the Agnus Dei on the organ during the mass. – The prelate was most delighted to see me again … We stayed […]
A Beethoven fan
In an interview with Beethoven scholar K. E. L. Nohl, Schubert’s friend, Moritz von Schwind revealed that Schubert sold his books so that he could get tickets to the third version of Beethoven’s opera, Fidelio. Ferdinand Luib In an interview with Ferdinand Luib, Anselm Hüttenbrenner stated that Schubert’s favourite works were Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, Mass […]
Too much pedal
Johannes Brahms could be incredibly rude, even to his friends. While playing a Beethoven sonata with a cellist friend one day, he applied his piano’s pedals with more enthusiasm than the friend had hoped. “Softer,” he pleaded, “I can’t hear my cello.” “You are lucky,” Brahms replied. “I can.” Source: N. Slonimsky, Book of Musical […]
Rehearsal conditions must be suitable
Strengthened by his initial triumph and by daily evidences of the ever-mounting appreciation and support of the Philadelphia’s new claim to artistic fame, Stokowski tried once again to convince the board that first-class musical results were impossible unless the orchestra rehearsed exactly where they performed.  The men engrossed in the financial problems of balancing budgets […]
Stokowski and his audience
The conductor Leopold Stokowski had a love hate relationship with his audience: He wooed them and cajoled them, flattered them and then gently reproved them.  When they grew fidgety, he shamed them into attentiveness and concentration.  “Please don’t do that,” he once admonished an audience of program shufflers.  “We work hard all week to give […]
Loneliness versus solitude
“Language has created the word loneliness to express the pain of being alone, and the word solitude to express the glory of being alone.” – Paul Johannes Tillich, German American theologian and philosopher
Two paths for the future of classical music
Greg Sanders ponders the position of classical music and describes the need for it to catch up with culture, without simply “dumbing it down”: “Of course, I think that if we really understand current culture, we’ll want to go the other way, and make classical music smarter.” Greg Sanders, Arts Journal Blog, February 2, 2009. […]
Brahms’ post-concert adventure
Brahms was invited to the family of one of his students, Fräulein von Meyensbug, in Detmol : The Meysenbug ladies proved very prim and conventional. Brahms was ill at ease. He was so afraid of shocking his aristocratic hostesses that he hardly knew what to say or how to behave. Their young nephew Carl, however, […]
Conducting gloves
The practice of wearing white gloves whilst conducting was common in the nineteenth century. The Musical times reported in July 1884 that: “A German conductor,” we are told, “in order that the public may be more deeply impressed with the feeling of grief intended to be produced by the Funeral March in Beethoven’s ‘Eroica Symphony,’ wears […]