Old Musical Instruments & Modern Reproductions!

Started by SonicMan46, March 14, 2009, 02:29:05 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Gurn Blanston

#260
I posted this disk in my Mass thread the other day, since there aren't enough Reutter disks around to discuss collecting his music!



Eight of the eleven works on this disk were originally written for an instrument called the 'pantaleon', named after the inventor, Pantaleon Hebenstreit. It was a huge hammered dulcimer, for all intents and purposes, but the hammers were keyed, and thus it was a keyboard instrument and is considered a predecessor of the piano.

Quote from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PantalonCompositions
Compositions made for Hellman include three by Caldara, eight by Johann Georg Reutter and an aria by Johann Joseph Fux in the Festa teatrale Giunone placata (1725).[1] Ramee has released CDs of the Caldara (RAM0405) and Reutter (RAM1302) (the present disk)

What surprised me in the liner notes of this disk was my discovery that there is no single extant specimen of a pantaleon, nor even a structural drawing! Thus one cannot be reconstructed like tangent pianos have been, for example. I really wanted to see one in action, but alas.

The works on this disk are played (beautifully) on a saltiero, a type of Italian or Iberian dulcimer. One of the works has an obbligato duet for saltiero and archlute! The lutenist in this group also plays a theorbo continuo. Anyway, since no one can say exactly what a pantaleon sounded like, it must be extrapolated from similar instruments, and this bunch has done a great job of it. This is a very reasonably priced CD (I paid $12 new at importcd's) and will give you some interesting sonorities making up some pretty good music. Reutter didn't get to be the Top of the Heap in Vienna for 30 years without having a little bit of talent!  :)

8)
Visit my Haydn blog: HaydnSeek

Haydn: that genius of vulgar music who induces an inordinate thirst for beer - Mily Balakirev (1860)

SonicMan46

Quote from: Gurn Blanston on May 31, 2014, 04:43:24 PM
I posted this disk in my Mass thread the other day, since there aren't enough Reutter disks around to discuss collecting his music!



Eight of the eleven works on this disk were originally written for an instrument called the 'pantaleon', named after the inventor, Pantaleon Hebenstreit. It was a huge hammered dulcimer, for all intents and purposes, but the hammers were keyed, and thus it was a keyboard instrument and is considered a predecessor of the piano.

What surprised me in the liner notes of this disk was my discovery that there is no single extant specimen of a pantaleon, nor even a structural drawing! Thus one cannot be reconstructed like tangent pianos have been, for example. I really wanted to see one in action, but alas.

The works on this disk are played (beautifully) on a saltiero, a type of Italian or Iberian dulcimer. One of the works has an obbligato duet for saltiero and archlute! The lutenist in this group also plays a theorbo continuo. Anyway, since no one can say exactly what a pantaleon sounded like, it must be extrapolated from similar instruments, and this bunch has done a great job of it. This is a very reasonably priced CD (I paid $12 new at importcd's) and will give you some interesting sonorities making up some pretty good music. Reutter didn't get to be the Top of the Heap in Vienna for 30 years without having a little bit of talent!  :)

BOY - I've not really heard of this composer (or at my age may have forgotten?) - but the instrumentation sounds quite interesting - price for the CD is a little steep @ Amazon but the MP3 DL would be acceptable - is this worth the price?  Dave :)

Gurn Blanston

Quote from: SonicMan46 on May 31, 2014, 05:49:17 PM
BOY - I've not really heard of this composer (or at my age may have forgotten?) - but the instrumentation sounds quite interesting - price for the CD is a little steep @ Amazon but the MP3 DL would be acceptable - is this worth the price?  Dave :)

I bought from importcd's on the AMP. I never buy CD's from Amazon itself! What's the MP3's, $8.95?  If so, yes, that's a fair price. It is a specialized sort of music, mostly church music but it sounds like a typically Austrian small ensemble, with an organ continuo. It is easy to see plugging any of the motets into a contemporary Mass Ordinary, with maybe an organ concerto to go with it and some solo organ pieces. Really quite wonderful, the sound of the saltiero is really unique for this type of music, although dulcimer music of different styles would inform you of what it would sound like. Doesn't Susan play one? I thought you had mentioned that one time.

8)
Visit my Haydn blog: HaydnSeek

Haydn: that genius of vulgar music who induces an inordinate thirst for beer - Mily Balakirev (1860)

Gurn Blanston

Here is the Ramée web site, Dave. Their catalog is very small but also very interesting. I have 2 or 3 on my wish list. :)

Ramée

8)
Visit my Haydn blog: HaydnSeek

Haydn: that genius of vulgar music who induces an inordinate thirst for beer - Mily Balakirev (1860)

Moonfish

Repost:

Check this out:
Elisabetta Lanzoni - harpsichord painter!!!   :)
These are some beautiful instruments (at least visually)!

http://www.elisabettalanzoni.com/index.htm

Lots of examples. Here are two:
[I WANT one of these! I would spend the rest of my life playing the harpsichord....]



or

"Every time you spend money you are casting a vote for the kind of world you want...."
Anna Lappé

SonicMan46

Thanks Moonfish for reposting the harpsichord pics and the links - I went to the website and looked at the many painted instruments - was impressed w/ the artist's skills and curious about the prices (usually these keyboard replications, of course depending on the maker & the intricacy of the finishing, run in multiples of $10K). I particularly liked Riccardo Muti's harpsichord (shown below).  Dave :)

 

Cosi bel do

One of the most beautiful modern harpsichords I've seen is Skip Sempé's Bruce Kennedy.



The figurative paintings on many copies seem really fake when you see them in reality, but this one doesn't, it's really perfect (and the instrument is wonderful too).

And apart from that, my favourite harpsichord visually and one of my favourites musically is the harpsichord of the Château d'Assas (builder unknown). Scott Ross's (and it sounds wonderful on more recent recordings, the Duphly/Joyé for instance.


Gurn Blanston

I don't think the mid-19th century is 'old' in this context, but I have always been curious about this instrument, and here is a chance to see and hear one. Freaking amazing, actually. :)

The Octobass

8)
Visit my Haydn blog: HaydnSeek

Haydn: that genius of vulgar music who induces an inordinate thirst for beer - Mily Balakirev (1860)

SonicMan46

Quote from: Gurn Blanston on January 22, 2015, 07:01:24 PM
I don't think the mid-19th century is 'old' in this context, but I have always been curious about this instrument, and here is a chance to see and hear one. Freaking amazing, actually. :)

The Octobass

Hi Gurn - watched the video - amazing instrument w/ notes below the lower human threshold of hearing (i.e. 20 Hz) (pic below) - might have been a great instrument to use in those old '50s sci-fi films that I love - kind of like the theremin which produce some eerie sounds in those movies.  Dave :)

 

Szykneij

Men profess to be lovers of music, but for the most part they give no evidence in their opinions and lives that they have heard it.  ~ Henry David Thoreau

Don't pray when it rains if you don't pray when the sun shines. ~ Satchel Paige

SonicMan46


Gurn Blanston

Quote from: Szykneij on January 23, 2015, 10:46:07 AM
Almost as scary as the OctoMom!

Yes, I suppose it would be to someone who plays just one of those tiny little 'fiddle' things... :D  :D

8)
Visit my Haydn blog: HaydnSeek

Haydn: that genius of vulgar music who induces an inordinate thirst for beer - Mily Balakirev (1860)

Pat B


jochanaan

Berlioz mentions the octobass in his Treatise on Instrumentation. 8)

Pat, I wonder if an instrument like that tuba was what Edgard Varese was thinking of when he included a "contrabass" tuba part in Arcana... ;D
Imagination + discipline = creativity

Fagotterdämmerung

  I have a strong preference for earlier pianos. Not the very early pianos of the late baroque, which sound sort of like harpsichord-cimbaloms, but the piano of about Mozart to Chopin. What I really notice in these is the larger variety of color: I find modern piano town a bit colorless and too even across the range, the early pianos sound intriguingly steely-reedy in tone in the lowest notes and very bright and crystalline up top, sounding the most like the modern piano in the mid ranges.

Gurn Blanston

Quote from: Fagotterdämmerung on January 27, 2015, 09:53:06 AM
  I have a strong preference for earlier pianos. Not the very early pianos of the late baroque, which sound sort of like harpsichord-cimbaloms, but the piano of about Mozart to Chopin. What I really notice in these is the larger variety of color: I find modern piano town a bit colorless and too even across the range, the early pianos sound intriguingly steely-reedy in tone in the lowest notes and very bright and crystalline up top, sounding the most like the modern piano in the mid ranges.

I like even the earlier ones than those (although I agree 100% on those). One of my favorite instruments is the Tangent Piano (Tangentenflügel) which you can hear to good effect in Spanyi's CPE Bach disks, for example. Not to mention, of course, the clavichord... :)

8)
Visit my Haydn blog: HaydnSeek

Haydn: that genius of vulgar music who induces an inordinate thirst for beer - Mily Balakirev (1860)


Gurn Blanston

Visit my Haydn blog: HaydnSeek

Haydn: that genius of vulgar music who induces an inordinate thirst for beer - Mily Balakirev (1860)

SonicMan46

Quote from: Brian on May 28, 2015, 01:05:57 PM
Interview with fortepianist Penelope Crawford (by me)

Hi Brian - thanks for posting a link to your interview w/ Penelope Crawford - loved her instrumental & woodworking projects - could use her in my workshop!  Excellent job, as expected!  Dave :)

SonicMan46

Quantz, Johann (1697-1773) - Mary Oleskiewicz on various Baroque flutes - my two newest acquisitions of Quantz's music below.

Earlier in this thread, Bill (a.k.a. Bogey) and I exchanged some posts about the flute music of this composer and also the flutist - well, after 2-3 years, I just added the two CDs below to my collection.  Mary Oleskiewicz is not only a Baroque flutist but an Associate Professor of Music at the U of Mass in Boston (her Credentials); she obtained her PhD in music in my 'neck of the roads', i.e. Duke University in Durham, N.C.  As a teacher (her specialization is the music of Quantz and the Bach family) and writer, she composed the liner notes for the discs below - second set of images shows her & Quantz - the final image, some Baroque flutes.  On the quartet recording, she plays a copy of a Quantz flute which is in the Library of Congress (LOC), Dayton C. Miller Collection (tuned to a pitch, a' = 385 Hz); on the concerto disc, she plays a two-keyed Baroque flutes (not sure if the same?) after Quantz (who was a flute designer/maker, also) made for Frederick the Great, now also in the LOC, and built by Jean-Francois Beaudin; tuned the same.

Johann Quantz was a virtuoso flute player, composer, flute maker who also wrote an important 18th century treatise on the flute.  His benefactor and 'pupil' for which he composed much of his flute works was the Prussian king, Frederick the Great (who also composed & was apparently an excellent performer on the instrument).  Quartz composed about 200 solo sonatas, 40 trio sonatas, & 300 concertos for the flute; the quartets were recently found and received their premiere performances by Dr. Oleskiewicz (recording from 2003).  Dave :)

   

 

Below some Martin Doyle Baroque Flutes: