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The Heckelphone: A Window into the History of Music / Works

From Adam Adolphe's O holy Night to Au claire de la Lune by an unknown 18th-century composer, 208 musical works are mentioned in the book and found in the List of Works. For most of these, recordings are widely available, and listening to (some) of those will add to the reading experience. The following list provides links to recordings, in the order in which the respective works are mentioned in the text. In addition, some pieces and recordings are included that showcase instruments mentioned in the book.

Currently, this is work in progress and will likely be completed later in October 2024; in the meantime, do come back to check for additions. Enjoy!

Prologue: Basse de Musette

  • Shawms and pommers (see p.6):

    These early double reed instruments were commonly used in the Renaissance. They are rarely heard nowadays and quite limited by their lack of complex mechanics, as later developed for the oboe and other woodwind instruments.

  • Dulcians and rackets (see pp.9-10; p.18):

    Like the shawms and pommers, dulcians and rackets are double reed instruments that were commonly used in the Renaissance but are rarely heard nowadays. The dulcian is a precursor of the modern bassoon. It existed long before the first oboes and may have been the first double reed instruments played with a fully exposed reed. The racket (or sausage bassoon) was made from a compact cylinder of wood, into which nine parallel bores were drilled and then connected to form a single, intricately wound passage. Some racketts had a looped bocal, similar to that of the basse de musette.

  • Basse de musette (see p.13):

    The following recordings can be found on the GEFAM website (see Online publications / Les hautbois d'église)\ and showcase the basse de musette, solo and in its use for accompanying congregations in psalm-singing. The first recording was made at the Schweizer Radiostudio in Bern for an audio installation at the Grenette Museum in Burgdorf, Switzerland, featuring Alain Girard playing a historical basse de musette from the collection of K. Burri, Bern. The second recording was made during a service on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the Centre du Sornetan in the church of Sornetan, Switzerland on 20 May 2001 and features The instrumentalists are Michel Piguet (dessus de musette), Christophe Pidoux and Alain Girard (basses de musette) and Nicolas Rihs (basson d'amour), playing on historical instruments from the collection of the Centre du Sornetan.

Chapter 1: Rheingold

  • Richard Wagner: Symphony in C major, 1832 (see p.44f; p.104):

    The only symphony completed by Wagner, at the age of 19, this work uses a rather small orchestra, but does call for a contrabassoon - an instrument for which Wagner would not write again until 50 years later, in Parsifal. His symphony in C major was also the last work conducted by Wagner, on Christmas Day 1882, at the opera house La Fenice in Venice - a present for his wife Cosima, whose birthday was the day before. Only seven weeks later, on 13 February 1883, Wagner, whose health had been deteriorating for months, died from a heart attack at Ca' Vendramin Calergi, the 16th-century palazzo where he stayed with his family. Despite being sometimes seen as an immature work, Wagner's symphony is performed quite regularly, and a fair number of recordings are readily available.

Chapter 2: The Seven Veils

  • Richard Wagner: Parsifal (opera), 1882 (see p.61; p.103, p.108):

    Wagner had produced first sketches of Parsifal in 1857, after moving with his first wife, Minna, into the house made available to him in Zurich by his patron, Otto Wesendonck, but then put aside the project for many years. After the completion of the Ring cycle and its première at the first Bayreuth Festival in 1876, Wagner's second wife, Cosima, encouraged him to revisit Parsifal, and her diaries provide many details on Wagner's progress over the next five years. Loosely inspired by the medieval epic Parzival by Wolfram von Eschenbach, which links to the legend of King Arthur and the holy grail, Wagner's ambition with Parsifal was an artistic representation of religious concepts, notably compassion, self-renunciation and re-incarnation. The première of Parsifal took place in the Bayreuth Festspielhaus, on 26 July 1882, under the baton of Wagner's long-time friend, Hermann Levi, and a resounding success. In the audience that evening was Richard Strauss, then 18 years old and quite sceptical of, yet increasingly fascinated by Wagner's music. In the weeks that followed, fifteen additional performances were given, and towards the end of the last of these, Wagner appeared in the orchestra pit, his "mystical abyss", took the baton from Levi and conducted the final scene of act III. This was the only time Wagner conducted a public performance in his opera house. Less than a year later, on 13 February 1883, Wagner died in Venice.

Chapter 3: Paa Vidderne

  • Frederick Delius: Piano Concerto in C Minor, 1904 / revised version 1907 (see p.115):

    Three versions exist of this work. Delius completed the first, entitled Fantasy in C minor for Piano and Orchestra, in 1897, but it was never performed in public. This was reworked substantially into the version mentioned in the chapter, premièred on 24 October 1904 in Elberfeld, with Julius Buths at the piano, under the baton of Hans Haym. The third and final version, which moved the piece somewhat closer to its first incarnation, saw its first performance under the lead of Henry Woods at the Proms, in 1907, with Theodor Szántó as soloist, to whom this version was also dedicated - partially in light of his substantial involvement in changes to the solo piano part. Although the concerto remained one of the lesser known pieces of Delius, several recordings exist.

  • Frederick Delius: Florida Suite, 1887 (see pp.123-124; p.159):

    Delius wrote this piece in 1887, after returning from Florida, where his family had sent him to operate an orange plantation. Instead, the landscapes, moods and people of the American South inspired his musical imagination. The first of the four movements of the Florida Suite prominently features a memorable melody Delius referred to as La Calinda, and which he later reused in his opera Koanga. First performed in 1888 in Leipzig, where Delius studied at the time, the piece showed much of the style that would later bring him great success. To date, the piece if performed occasionally, and several recordings exist.

Chapter 4: Aeolian

  • Ludwig van Beethoven: Wellingtons Sieg, 1813 (see p.182):

    Originally written for Mälzel's panharmonicon, a fully mechanised orchestra comprising a large number of wind and percussion instruments, Wellingtons Sieg was soon expanded into a "battle symphony" for an unusually large orchestra. This latter version was first performed, to great success, on 8 December 1813 in Vienna. The last panharmonicon, located in Stuttgart, Germany, was destroyed in World War II, and no recording of the piece performed on an actual panharmonicon exists. Over time, the orchestral version lost most of its original appeal and is now rarely performed; still, several recordings exist.

  • 🌡 Paul Whiteman & Ferde Grofé: Oriental Fox Trot, based on Orientale by C. Cui and material from Samson et Dalila by C. Saint-Saëns, 1922 (see pp.197-200, p.203, pp.206-207; pp.222-223):

    One of the most popular pieces of Paul Whiteman's band, the Oriental Fox Trot is essentially a version of César Cui's Orientale, arranged in the style of a fox trot, with an insertion of another well-known melody, from the aria Mon cœur s'ouvre à ta voix (Softly awakes my heart or My heart at thy sweet voice) - the centre piece of Camille Camille Saint-Saëns's opera Samson et Dalila. Paul Whiteman and his band recorded three takes of Oriental Fox Trot on 23 May 1922 in New York City, and a second set of four on 15 June 1922 in Camden, New Jersey, of which the third was released as Victor 18940, while all other takes were purportedly destroyed. Information from the DAHR database suggests that heckelphone might have been used only for the first three takes. Since the quality of the final acoustical recording is rather poor, it is difficult to determine, whether heckelphone or tenor saxophone are used for the melody from My heart at thy sweet voice. The instrumentation was further changed for a new, electric recording, which took place on 9 February 1928 in New York City; this version prominently uses oboe instead of tenor saxophone in the opening solo, and tenor saxophone in My heart at thy sweet voice.

  • (🌡) George Gershwin: Concerto in F, 1925 (see pp.212-213; pp.216-217, p.218):

    This piece was commissioned by Walter Damrosch shortly after the première of Rhapsody in Blue. Unlike Rhapsody in Blue, Gershwin originally orchestrated Concerto in F himself, and that version was premièred on 3 December 1925 in Carnegie Hall, New York City, by the New York Symphony Orchestra under Walter Damrosch, with Gershwin at the piano as soloist. Three years later, on 7 October 1928, the piece was prominently performed by Paul Whiteman and his Orchestra in Carnegie Hall, in a new, abridged arrangement by Ferde Grofé, which rather prominently included the heckelphone. Gerswhin is known to have been irked by Whiteman's insistence on the use of Grofé's arrangement, but in the end had come to accept it. Grofé's arrangement was also the one used in the first recording of the piece, made mere days before the 1928 Carnegie Hall Concert, by Paul Whiteman and his Orchestra, with Roy Bargy, Whiteman's regular pianist, on piano. On that occasion, as in the liver performance at Carnegie Hall, the heckelphone was played by Charles Strickfadden.

  • 🌡 Ferde Grofé: Metropolis - A Blue Fantasy, 1928 (see pp.213-214; 217):

    This symphonic jazz tone poem was premièred in the same concert as Grofé's arrangement of Gershwin's Concerto in F for the Paul Whiteman Orchestra, on 7 October 1928 at Carnegie Hall, with Charles Strickfaden on heckelphone. Metropolis, prominently uses woodwind instruments, including the saxophone and the bassoon. According to several sources, including Thomas DeLong's biography of Paul Whiteman, the piece was not too well received by the audience. The piece has been rarely performed and very few recordings exist.

  • 🌡 Victor Herbert: Suite of Serenades, 1924 (see p.215):

    Like Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue this piece was commissioned by Paul Whiteman and premièred on 12 February 1924, in Aeolian Hall, New York City (NY), USA, by the Paul Whiteman Orchestra, with Ross Gorman playing the heckelphone in No. 4 "Oriental". The historical recordings referenced here were made in December 1924.

  • Au claire de la Lune, phonautograph recording, 1860 (see p.220):

    In 1860, Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville, a Parisian typographer and inventor, recorded the song Au claire de la Lune using the phonautograph, a device he had patented three years earlier. Unlike later devices by Charles Cros and Thomas Edison, the phonautograph was never intended for recording sound for later reproduction, but solely for creating visual representations of sound waves for scientific study. This was accomplished by mechanically transcribing sound waves into lines on a glass cylinder covered in a thin layer of soot. In 2008, a team of American researchers used computer-based image processing techniques to achieve an intelligible playback of Scott's visual recording of Au claire de la Lune, which thereby became the oldest known intelligible recording of the human voice.

Chapter 5: Potpourri

  • 🌡 Raymond Moulaert: Andante, fugue et final, 1907 (see pp.255-256; pp.278-279):

    This is believed to be the first piece of chamber music written to expressly include the heckelphone. The Andante, fugue et final for oboe, oboe d'amore, cor anglais and heckelphone was likely inspired by Richard Strauss's treatment of the oboe family in Salome, which had been performed at the Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels in March 1907. Moulaert, a professor of organ and counterpoint at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels, had been involved as an accompanist in the rehearsals of Salome and thus studied Strauss's score in great detail. Likely because he was well aware of the scarcity of heckelphones, shortly after completing the original version for double reeds, Moulaert prepared an arrangement of his new piece for saxophone quartet. While no recording appears to exist of the original version of Andante, fugue et final, this latter arrangement became quite popular, and several recordings are readily available.

  • 🌡 Carlos Chávez: Sinfonía de Antígona, 1933 (see pp.260-262; 280):

    Based on the music had Chávez had written for Jean Cocteau's modern version of the tragedy by Sophocles, the Sinfonía de Antígona turned out to be a powerful and unique piece, archaic and modern at the same time, austere yet permeated from its very beginning by an intense feeling of impending doom. Chávez's treatment of the woodwinds, and in particular, the oboe family comprising the heckelphone, plays a significant role in establishing the captivating character of the piece. In the many perfor-mances following its première on 15 December 1933 under the baton of the composer, audiences and critics alike picked up on the exhilarating intensity of the piece, on its unique harmonic treatment, and on the unusual combinations of timbres making up much of its sparse harmonic structure.

  • 🌡 Aaron Copland: Short Symphony, 1933 (see pp.262-264; 280f, 283):

    Aside from several pieces in a romantic style written before and while studying composition, up until his Short Symphony, Copland's music was decidedly modernist in a way that was appreciated by his peers, but unappealing to broader audiences. This changed after Copland met and befriended Carlos Chávez, to whom he dedicated this 15-minute piece, which originated around the same time Chávez worked on his Sinfonía de Antígona, and it is almost certainly no coincidence that both pieces made use of the heckelphone. Copland's Short Symphony was rarely performed during his lifetime. The piece, whose complex rhythmical structure was significantly influenced by Copland's interest in jazz, was considered "difficult to perform and difficult for an audience to comprehend" by its composer, who nonetheless considered it "one of the best things I ever wrote". To make the Short Symphony easier to perform, in 1937, Copland arranged a sextet version, scored for clarinet, string quartet, and piano, which was met with considerable praise by critics and musicians alike.

  • (🌡) Paul Hindemith: Des kleinen Elektromusikers Lieblinge, 1930 (see pp.265-266; p.285):

    Not unlike the way in which Richard Wagner is believed to have inspired the construction of the heckelphone, Paul Hindemith encouraged Friedrich Trautwein, an electrical engineer with an interest in music who had been involved in establishing the first radio station in Germany, to build the trautonium, an electronic instrument designed to produce a wide range of timbres and sounds via a standard radio receiver. The instrument was first presented to the public in June 1930, when three trautoniums were used to perform seven short trios Hindemith had composed specifically for the occasion. Little could anyone know that these pieces, intriguingly entitled Des kleinen Elektromusikers Lieblinge (The little electro-musician's favourites), would be arranged for three heckelphones and broadcast globally nine decades later. The trautonium was also used prominently in the soundtrack of Alfred Hitcock's film The Birds.

    To find out more about the trautonium, we also recommend the following:

  • 🌡 Graham Waterhouse: Vier Epigraphe nach Escher, 1995 (see p.274):

    Written for the same instrumentation as Paul Hindemith's trio, op. 47, namely heckelphone, viola and piano, the four movements of this piece have been inspired by prints of M.C. Escher. One recording of the piece, with bass oboe rather than heckelphone, exists and is readily available on CD.

Chapter 6: The Agony and the Ecstasy

  • 🌡 Gordon Jacob: Variations on Annie Laurie, 1956 (see pp.318f; 333):

    Composed for the first Hoffnung Music Festival and first performed there, in November 1956, under the baton of the composer, the piece features the most unlikely ensemble of instruments: two piccolo flutes, heckelphone, two contrabass clarinets, two contrabassoons, serpent, contrabass serpent, harmonium, hurdy-gurdy and subcontrabass tuba. At the time, Gordon Jacob was among the most recognised composers in Britain. Nonetheless, in the spirit of Gerhard Hoffnungs festival, in this piece, he aimed to surprise and delight the audience not only with rarely heard (and seen) instruments, but also with some rather bizarre combinations of timbres. Heckelphone, played by James McGillivray, can be heard prominently in the theme and many of the variations.

  • 🌡 Paul Dessau: Deutsches Miserere, 1947 (see pp.312-313; 331):

    Performances of this large-scale oratorio are accompanied by projection of 28 photographs from Berthold Brecht's book, Kriegsfibel, which was completed in 1945, but published only in 1955. The première of Deutsches Miserere took place on 20 September 1966 in Leipzig and was directed by Kegel. The piece is scored for a very large orchestra, including alto flute, heckelphone, bass clarinet and contrabassoon; it is rarely performed and very few recordings exist.

  • Theatre organs (see pp.329-330):

    First developed in the early 1900s in by Robert Hope-Jones, an English organ builder who had emigrated to the United States, theatre organs were used for decades to accompany the projection of silent films. Conceived as a "one-man orchestra", the typical theatre organ included percussion instruments, such as bells, drums and marimbas, as well as special effects, such as gunshots. The Wurlitzer company, the largest and most widely known producer of theatre organs, built over 2000 of these instruments between 1914 and 1942. While most of these were installed in the United States, some were shipped to the UK and other overseas destinations. After the advent of sound film in the late 1920s, the use of theatre organs declined; today, very few of them remain installed in cinemas, where they are sometimes played before movie screenings and on special occasions.

Epilogue: Fermata

  • 🌡 Harald Genzmer: Sonate für Heckelphon und Klavier, 1993 (see p.344):

    This piece was written for noted heckelphone player and expert, Dr. Gunter Joppig, motivated by the desire to further expand the chamber music repertoire for the instrument. Genzmer was a student of Paul Hindemith who also worked closely with Oskar Sala, the inventor and virtuoso player of the trautonium. Sadly, no recording of Genzmer's sonata for heckelphone and piano is known to exist and performances have been, and continue to be, very rare. The sheet music is, however, readily available from Wise Music / Edition Peters.

  • 🌡 Hans Mielenz: Concerto für Heckelphon und Orchester, 1959 (see pp.346-348; p.354):

    This was the first solo concerto written for heckelphone (not counting Wilhelm Hermann Heckel's 1946 concertino for bassoon and piano, which expressly allows for heckelphone as an alternate instrument) and remained the only such piece until 1990. It is based on Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique, yet does not shy away from tonal harmony, especially in the slow middle movement. The piece was first heard in a recording broadcast on public radio in November 1982, performed by Georg Otto Klapproth (heckelphone) and the Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie under Reinhard Peters. The first (and only) live performance took place on 5 May 1985 in Darmstadt, Germany, again with Georg Otto Klapproth as soloist, with the Staatstheaterorchester Darmstadt under Hans Drewanz. A version for heckelphone and piano also exists. The author of these pages has heard the 1982 recording, but unfortunately, so far, has not succeeded in ensuring that it is made publicly available.

The Heckelphone: cover

This page is still under construction; latest version as of 2024/08/10