Fife [Fragment]
Fife (Fragment) Dayton C. Miller's lifelong interest in collecting wind instruments may have been sparked during childhood when he found a fife that his father and another unnamed man had played less than a decade earlier in the Civil War. Miller's ledger book lists this fife fragment as No. 1 in his collection, and his entry includes a confession that the battered condition of…
Gold Flute
Gold Flute At the turn of the twentieth century, Dayton C. Miller entertained the idea of purchasing a gold-alloy flute from the highly respected firm of Rudall Carte & Co., London. Facing the reality that he could not afford to buy one in the foreseeable future, he decided to attempt making such a flute himself. He did so over a three-and-a-half-year period (1902-5), and…
Glass Flute
Glass Flute In 1806, the Parisian woodwind instrument maker Claude Laurent obtained French patent number 382, "nouvelle fabrication des flûtes en cristal" ("a new [method of] making flutes from crystal"). His innovation did not claim any special qualities of sonority, but rather a greater ability than wood or ivory to resist problems caused by changes in humidity and temperature. Laurent's new design was also…
Transverse Flute
Transverse Flute Until the middle of the nineteenth century, the most frequently used material for flutes, oboes, and clarinets was boxwood stained with nitric acid. This example from late in the second quarter of the century is by Louis Michel François Chabrier de Peloubet, the principal member of a French immigrant family of wind instrument (and later reed organ) makers working in New York…
Quantz Flute
Quantz Flute Frederick the Great, king of Prussia (1712-1786), one of history's most famous amateur musicians, maintained a superior eighteenth-century European court orchestra. It included among its principal players Karl Philipp Emanuel Bach (1714-1788), son of Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750). Although a gifted amateur composer, Frederick was chiefly a passionate flute player. In 1741 he secured the services of Johann Joachim Quantz (1697-1773) to…
Fife [Fragment] Fife (Fragment) Dayton C. Miller's lifelong interest in collecting wind instruments may have been sparked during childhood when he found a fife that his father and another unnamed man had played less than a decade earlier in the Civil War. Miller's ledger book lists this fife fragment as No. 1 in his collection, and his entry includes a confession that the battered condition of…
Gold Flute Gold Flute At the turn of the twentieth century, Dayton C. Miller entertained the idea of purchasing a gold-alloy flute from the highly respected firm of Rudall Carte & Co., London. Facing the reality that he could not afford to buy one in the foreseeable future, he decided to attempt making such a flute himself. He did so over a three-and-a-half-year period (1902-5), and…
Glass Flute Glass Flute In 1806, the Parisian woodwind instrument maker Claude Laurent obtained French patent number 382, "nouvelle fabrication des flûtes en cristal" ("a new [method of] making flutes from crystal"). His innovation did not claim any special qualities of sonority, but rather a greater ability than wood or ivory to resist problems caused by changes in humidity and temperature. Laurent's new design was also…
Transverse Flute Transverse Flute Until the middle of the nineteenth century, the most frequently used material for flutes, oboes, and clarinets was boxwood stained with nitric acid. This example from late in the second quarter of the century is by Louis Michel François Chabrier de Peloubet, the principal member of a French immigrant family of wind instrument (and later reed organ) makers working in New York…
Quantz Flute Quantz Flute Frederick the Great, king of Prussia (1712-1786), one of history's most famous amateur musicians, maintained a superior eighteenth-century European court orchestra. It included among its principal players Karl Philipp Emanuel Bach (1714-1788), son of Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750). Although a gifted amateur composer, Frederick was chiefly a passionate flute player. In 1741 he secured the services of Johann Joachim Quantz (1697-1773) to…