Pressure instruments are extremely rare in North America, but when one does turn up, I tend to buy it. My most recent purchase, an early instrument labelled L. Fried. Moelich, came with a special feature that is right up my alley: enigma. It appears to be very old. But just how old is it? Is it a prototype? or a late rural example? What is it? Always keen for a good story, I rolled up my sleeves and started to take apart my new find.
A few details:
Perhaps the most interesting, and a hidden detail of the instrument, is that the bellows, reedpan, and table are sized with handwritten documents. The name L. Fried. Moelich is printed on a paper label below the keyboard. It also appears two times in handwritten form on the inside of the instrument. There are two full sheets of text written in German, in a uniform Gothic script. One of these pages ends with the date 29 Febr 1812. (leap year) The soundboard table is covered with several pages of Moelich’s ‘cahier d’études,’ evidence that he was studying French. Conjugations and more conjugations. The bellows are sized with handwritten musical scores.
The date of 1812 is very early for a free reed keyboard instrument, and in fact highly unlikely for such an instrument. ‘Ludwiga’ (the name I have given this project) has a full, 5 octave C-compass keyboard. She has two parallel rise feeders (not the common wedge shaped type) that are worked by a curious roller and S-curve lever mechanism. The reeds are made of a soft, silver-colored metal, and are mounted in groups of four on brass plates which speak into cells. They are of artisanal construction, hammered, hand-cut, and labelled in Germanic fashion, where ‘a#’ is ‘b’ and ‘b’ is ‘h.’ The final tuning was achieved by adding or removing glue size from the reed tongue.
Despite some seemingly anachronistic features, I think this instrument is quite old – perhaps dating to the end of the first quarter of the nineteenth century. There are no machine marks evident on the instrument, but rather traces from use of hand planes, brace and bit, chisels, cabinet scrapers, and files. I do not believe the feeder pedals to be original, as there is evidence of an earlier pedal lyre, and the connecting rods have an odd geometry. The bottom of the case is fastened to the sides with wooden pegs, and the sides are joined with slender dovetails. Still, I wonder what clues are hiding in the texts inside the instrument …I speak English and French, and enough German to get myself in trouble, but reading German Gothic script is well beyond my present abilities!
At this point, there are more questions than answers, and I feel like I am about to hit a brick wall. But it occurs to me, why not change course and have a look at some other Germanic instruments of the period? First stop, the fortepianos (1819, 1825, 1828) of Conrad Graf. Eureka! I wouldn’t be surprised if my instrument was conceived by a fortepiano builder, as quite a few of its odd details start to make sense:
- 5 octave C-compass, compared to 6 (or 6.5) octave C-compass of the fortepiano
- shape and profile of keylevers
- splayed keyboard
- archaic notched thumper rail
- feeder mechanism resembling fortepiano pedal mechanism
- typical early Biedermeier styling
- Tone attenuator of fine-grained spruce (rejected fortepiano soundboard?)
And the crowning jewel? The font used on the label of my instrument is nearly identical to the printed fonts used by Graf. This family resemblance is logical enough, as early free reed keyboards in Germanic countries -Physharmonica, Aeoline, etc- were often played in combination with Fortepiano. Indeed, contemporary concert bills prove the popularity of this combo. Both Graf and Stein (fortepiano builder) were advocates of the Physharmonica, and most likely had one in their ateliers when musicians such as Wieck, Schumann (both Robert and Clara,) and Beethoven came to test drive an instrument.
Perhaps Moelich was a shop worker at the Graf factory. Perhaps Ludwiga is a prototype or one-off instrument. Perhaps the musical scores glued inside are scraps of composition left in the Fortepianofabrik by one of the aforementioned composers. Then again, perhaps the instrument comes from a small village in Bavaria, and dates to 1850.
My research continues…
Dean ECKMANN
Pipe organ builder, freelance reed organ fanatic
Montréal, QC, CANADA
