Theobald Boehm
Theobald Böhm (or Boehm) (9 April 1794 – 25 November 1881) was a German inventor and musician, who greatly improved the modern Western concert flute and its fingering system (now known as the "Boehm system"). He was a Bavarian court musician, a virtuoso flautist and a renowned composer.<ref name="bohm">Template:Cite book</ref>
The fingering system he devised has also been adapted to other instruments, such as the oboe and the clarinet.<ref name="bate">Philip Bate/Ludwig Böhm, Boehm, Theobald in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians edited by Stanley Sadie, volume 3, pages 777-778</ref>
Life and worksEdit
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Born in Munich in the Electorate of Bavaria in the family of goldsmith Carl Friedrich Böhm and Anna Franziska, née Sulzbacher, daughter of a court haberdasher. Boehm learned his father's trade of goldsmithing. After making his own flute, he quickly became proficient enough to play in an orchestra at the age of seventeen, and at twenty-one he was first flautist in the Royal Bavarian Orchestra.<ref name="bate"/> Meanwhile, he experimented with constructing flutes out of many different materials—tropical hardwoods (usually Grenadilla wood), silver, gold, nickel and copper—and with changing the positions of the flute's tone holes.
After studying acoustics at the University of Munich, he began experimenting on improving the flute in 1832, first patenting his new fingering system in 1847.<ref name="bate"/> He published Über den Flötenbau ("On the construction of flutes"), also in 1847.<ref name="bohm"/> His new flute was first displayed in 1851 at the London Exhibition.<ref name="welch">Template:Cite book</ref> In 1871 Boehm published Die Flöte und das Flötenspiel ("The Flute and Flute-Playing"), a treatise on the acoustical, technical and artistic characteristics of the Boehm system flute.<ref name="bohm"/>
Boehm's experience as a goldsmith was a key factor in his ability to redesign the flute. For example, in The Flute and Flute-Playing he recounts having made a flute with moveable tone holes, in order to determine the proper location of each hole for correct intonation—a remarkable piece of metal-working.
Traditional flutes were limited in size because the player had to be able to reach all the tone holes in the span of two hands. By substituting mechanically covered tone holes, Boehm eliminated this limitation, and was able to make larger, deeper flutes, such as the alto flute. Boehm was very fond of the alto flute, and recounts a time he was playing it when someone mistook it for a French horn.
LegacyEdit
Some of the flutes he made are still being played. The fingering system he devised has also been adapted to other instruments, such as clarinet, oboe, and saxophone.<ref name="bate"/>
He inspired Hyacinthe Klosé, the inventor of the modern clarinet fingering system. Klosé invented a system for the clarinet that today is the standard nearly worldwide (except Austria, Germany and others). Boehm was his inspiration, and so Klosé named the new system the Boehm system just like the modern western flute. The main differences between the fingering systems of Boehm system clarinets and flutes are overblowing and key. The clarinet's second register is a twelfth above its lowest register, unlike the flute's which is an octave higher. The BTemplate:Music clarinet is a transposing instrument, so a C on a clarinet is played as a BTemplate:Music on the flute. The clarinet has additional keys to compensate for the increased distance between the registers, and there are other smaller differences, such as the differences in fingerings for FTemplate:Music.
Selected worksEdit
- Grand Polonaise in D Major, Op. 16
- Variations sur un air tyrolien, Op.20
- Fantasie sur un air de F. Schubert, Op.21
- Variations sur un Air Allemand, Op.22
- 24 Caprices-etudes, Op.26
- Souvenir des Alpes, Opp.27–32
- Andante for Flute and Piano, Op.33
- 24 Etudes, Op.37
- Elégie, Op.47
See alsoEdit
ReferencesEdit
External linksEdit
- Template:IMSLP
- Alto flute, Boehm and Mendler, Munich, ca. 1880 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art
- The Flute and Flute-Playing in Acoustical, Technical, and Artistic Aspects The Flute and Flute-Playing in Acoustical, Technical, and Artistic Aspects (Kindle Edition)
- On the construction of flutes
- Template:Cite Americana