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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 by the end of 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: Leubald (drama), 1828 (see p.24):

    At the age of 13, Richard Wagner began to write a play, a drama strongly influenced by the works of Shakespeare and Goethe. Leubald, an extensive work of five acts, was finished in 1828. That same year, Richard began taking lessons in composition, quite likely driven by the desire to set Leubald to music. The manuscript, containing the complete text but no music, was lost for 150 years and rediscovered in 1978. In 1989, the première of Leubald took place in Bayreuth, under the direction of Uwe Hoppe. The musical accompaniment was provided by pianist Hans Martin Gräbner, using material from Wagner's later operas. In the form of this production, Leubald was a considerable success, with regular performances in Bayreuth since 2013.

  • Richard Wagner: Der Ring des Nibelungen (cycle of four operas), 1854-1874 (see pp.32, 38-39, 40):

    Widely considered the core of Richard Wagner's œuvre, the four operas that form the Ring cycle were conceived to realise a new art form, in which music and poetry perfectly complement each other. When he fled from Dresden, in the aftermath of the May uprising of 1849, ideas for what was to become Richard Wagner’s opus summum had been on his mind for at least five years. In 1852, the third year of his exile in Zurich, his work on Der Ring des Nibelungen kicked into high gear. Wagner’s goal was to realise his ideal of the Gesamtkunstwerk. Early on, he decided that this work, once finished, should be performed in the form of a festival, organised specifically for this purpose, over the course of four days. While the work was to be rooted deeply in Germanic mythology, Wagner intended it to be a critical reflection of society in the mid-19th century. In February 1853, the text - which Wagner referred to as poem - was completed and read, by Richard Wagner himself, over the course of four evenings, to a sizeable audience, including his friends and members of the general public, at the Hotel Baur au Lac in Zurich. Shortly after, he began setting the 700-page poem to music. 18 months later, in the Autumn of 1854, the first of the four Ring operas, Das Rheingold, was completed, followed by Die Walküre in 1856, Siegfried in 1871 and Götterdämmerung in 1874; altogether, the four pieces are over 14 hours long.

    The first performance of the complete Ring cycle took place, over the course of four evenings, in August 1876 in Wagner's new festival theatre in Bayreuth and was met with enthusiasm and admiration by the critics, musicians and audience, which included many celebrities of the time.

    Up to this day, the Ring operas are performed regularly, in Bayreuth and around the world, and countless excellent recordings exist. For an accessible and intriguing impression, we recommend a widely known compilation of orchestral highlights spanning all four operas:

    Between 2011 and 2018 the German conductor and composer Eberhard Kloke completed transcriptions of all four Ring operas for a significantly smaller orchestra than Wagner's original versions, making use, however, of several additional instruments, including the heckelphone. Kloke wrote about these transcriptions: "In the course of arranging the work, the Klangfarben of the orchestra were expanded and 'modernised' by greater differentiation within the historically given spectrum and by introducing new instruments. I strove both to expand and condense the sound, especially since I of course kept the instruments typical of the Ring (Wagner tuba, bass trumpet, contrabass trombone, etc.); the newly introduced ones (alto flute, heckelphone, contrabass clarinet, contrabassoon and cimbasso, the latter as a link between tubas and trombones) become especially significant as additional dramatic-psychological sonic elements."

    Unfortunately, up to now, there appear to be no recordings of Kloke's transcriptions available. (Further information can be found here.)

  • The lure (see p.37):

    The lure is an ancient type of valveless trumpet whose origins date back to the Bronze Age, with more recent types used in Nordic countries well through the Middle Ages. Bronze lures were used as war instruments in ancient Greece as well as throughout northern Europe, while more recent designs, mostly used by farmers and milkmaids for signalling and cattle calling, are made of wood. Bronze lures are between one and two metres long and shaped so they could be played, likely in pairs, while marching. When Richard Wagner, working on his Ring cycle, initiated the design of a new brass instrument (which would ultimately be realised as the Wagner tuba), he took inspiration from the sound of the lure. Although there exist several playable ancient lures, these instruments are nowadays rarely heard.

  • Richard Wagner: Siegfried-Idyll (symphonic poem), 1869 (see pp.38-39):

    In 1866, shortly after the death of his estranged wife, Minna, Wagner rented a house in Tribschen, idyllically located on a peninsula on the shores of Lake Lucerne. There, he could finally live with Cosima, with whom he had had a daughter, Isolde, in 1865, while she worked as his secretary in Munich. In 1869 — the year in which his son Siegfried was born and Cosima finally filed for divorce from his former friend, the famous conductor Hans von Bülow — Wagner finally resumed work on his Ring cycle. On Christmas Day 1870, on the occasion of her 33rd birthday, he surprised Cosima with the première of a new composition, an intimate piece of chamber music, quite unlike any other of his works, titled "Tribschen Idyll with Fidi's birdsong and orange sunrise, a symphonic birthday greeting" (known today as the Siegfried- Idyll), performed by members of the Tonhalle Orchester Zurich on the stairs of their villa in Tribschen. Today, the Siegfried- Idyll is one of Wagner's most widely known and performed orchestral pieces, and many recordings are readily accessible.

  • 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.

    In 2016, the German conductor and composer Eberhard Kloke completed a transcription of Parsifal for a significantly smaller orchestra than Wagner's original version, making use, however, of several additional instruments, including (in the first and third act), the heckelphone. Unfortunately, up to now, there appears to be no recording of Kloke's transcription available. (Further information, in German, can be found here.)

  • Richard Strauss: Bläserserenade Es-Dur (Serenade for Wind Ensemble in E-flat major), op.7, 1881 (see p.67):

    When Strauss completed his wind serenade, op.7, he was 17 years old and still attending secondary school. The work, written for 13 wind instruments (two flutes, oboes, clarinets and bassoons, four French horns and contrabassoon or double bass), was first performed in November 1882 in Dresden. It made a great impression on Hans von Bülow, at the time principal conductor of the Meiningen Court Orchestra, who not only arranged further performances of the work in several German cities, including Berlin, but also offered young Richard Strauss a position as assistant conductor in Meiningen, which the latter gratefully accepted and took up in 1885. Since then, the work has been performed regularly, and many recordings exist.

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 and 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: Lebenstanz (tone poem), 1899, revised 1901 and 1912 (see p.116, p.129):

    Likely influenced by the success of Richard Strauss's tone poems, between September 1898 and February 1899, Delius wrote the first version of this symphonic poem, inspired by the play Dansen gaar by the Danish writer Helge Rode (which, around the same time, also provided inspiration for a painting by Edvard Munch). This first version of Delius's piece, entitled La Ronde se déroule and completed in early 1899, was performed only once, in May 1899 in London. After hearing this performance, Delius enlarged and revised the piece, also renaming it Lebenstanz (Life's Dance); this version, complete in 1901, received its first public performance in early 1904 under Julius Buths in Düsseldorf and was played again later the same year in nearby Elberfeld under Hans Haym. The third and final version was prepared by Delius in 1912 and first performed by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra under Oskar Fried in November 1912. Delius considered Lebenstanz to be one of his best compositions, and the piece is known to have impressed Richard Strauss, who heard it 1903 in Cologne. Nowadays, Lebenstanz is relatively rarely played; nonetheless, several recordings are readily available.

  • 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.

  • Scott Joplin: Maple Leaf Rag, ~1898 (see p.193; p.222):

    In his work, Joplin sought to develop a refined version of the rag-time pieces that were quickly becoming popular when he learned to play the piano. In his compositions, he achieved this goal by combining elements of Afro-American folk music with those of the classical romantic tradition, adding rhythmic, melodic and harmonic structure and complexity to the original improvisational style. The Maple Leaf Rag, written near the end of the 19th century, brought Joplin lasting fame. Purportedly, Joplin anticipated the success of the piece and told his later student Arthur Marshall prior to its publication: "The Maple Leaf will make me the king of ragtime composers". Up to this day, the Maple Leaf Rag is immensely popular and frequently performed, with many recordings readily available.

  • 🌡 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.

  • 🌡 Rudolf Friml: Chanson/Chansonette, 1920/1922 (see pp.206-207):

    After studying the piano and composition at the Prague Conservatory with Antonín Dvořák, Czech-born Rudolf Friml had moved to the United States in 1906 and achieved his first major success in 1912 with the broadway operetta The Firefly. Friml originally wrote Chanson for solo piano in 1920. The piece quickly became popular, and Ferdie Grofé's 1922 arrangement for the Paul Whiteman Orchestra, which was released, under the title Chansonette in 1923 by the Victor label, further contributed to its success, which reached its peak when a new and rather heavily modified version, entitled The Donkey Serenade was included in the 1937 film adaptation of The Firefly. To this day, piece remains very popular, and numerous recordings of different versions are readily available.

  • (🌡) 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.

  • 🌡 Percy Grainger: Hill-Song No. 1, 1923 (see p.227):

    One year after he abandoned his studies in Frankfurt and, accompanied by his mother, moved to London, in 1902, Percy Grainger completed Hill-Song for 2 piccolo flutes, 6 oboes, 6 cors anglais, 6 bassoons and contrabassoon. The highly original piece greatly impressed the renowned composer and piano virtuoso, Ferruccio Busoni, with whom Grainger studied briefly in 1903. Twenty years later, after a period of experimentation with material from Hill-Song, Grainger revised the piece into Hill-Song No. 1, using a highly unusual instrumentation, including parts for two rare and unusual woodwind instruments: the sopranino and tenor sarrusophone; for the lower of those parts, he indicated that it could also be played by bass oboe or heckelphone. This version was first performed on 26 April 1925 in New York City (NY), USA, under the baton of the composer, who, much later, towards the end of his life, would come to regard Hill-Song No. 1 as his best composition. Today, Hill-Song No. 1 is rarely performed; however, at least two recordings are readily available.

Chapter 5: Potpourri

  • Franz Liszt: Bagatelle sans tonalité, 1885 (see pp.244-245; pp.275-276):

    Written for solo piano and originally entitled "Fourth Mephisto Waltz", this piece makes heavy use of dissonant intervals - in particular, tritones and diminished sevenths - and lacks the clear tonal centre usually associated with the use of a specific key. Still, while extremely chromatic in its composition, and thus making use of all twelve notes of the chromatic scale, rather than being strongly focussed on the seven notes found in a specific major or minor scale, overall, the Bagatelle is not especially dissonant; furthermore, its rhythmic structure, based on that of a waltz with variations, is rather conventional. Up to this day, the Bagatelle sans tonalité is often performed, and many recordings exist.

  • Arnold Schönberg: Fünf Orchesterstücke (Five Pieces for Orchestra), op. 16, 1909 (see p.248):

    Composed in 1909, more than a decade before Schönberg would introduce his twelve-tone technique, these five pieces were first performed at a Promenade Concert on 3 September 1912 in the Queen's Hall in London, conducted by Henry Wood. The performance of the dense and intensely chromatic piece was not received well by the audience, nor the musicians. However, later, Five Pieces for Orchestra became one of Schönberg's better known pieces, and today, many recordings are readily available. Musical scholars see in the third movement, later entitled Farben (colours), an early instance of the concept of Klangfarbenmelodie (timbral melody). Schönberg produced several versions of the piece, the first one for large orchestra (1909, revised in 1922), a second for chamber orchestra (1920), and a third for standard orchestra (1949).

  • 🌡 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.

  • Adolphe Adam: O Holy Night, 1847 (see p.264):

    This well-known Christmas carol, written and first performed in France in 1847, was prominently included in the first radio broadcast of music, on 24 December 1906, from Brant Rock, a small village on the coast of Massachusetts. Reginald Fessenden, a Canadian-born inventor and pioneer of radio, had worked for years on a practical system for wirelessly transmitting audio signals and finally succeeded: on that Christmas Eve, the very few stations who'd been able to receive his broadcast could listen to several pieces of music, including O Holy Night, played by Fessenden himself on the violin. Many versions of this frequently performed piece exist, and there is a wide variety of easily accessible recordings.

  • (🌡) 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

  • Erik Satie: Entr'acte (film score), 1924 (see p.304):

    This 20-minute film was produced by René Clair to be shown accompanying performances of Francis Picabia's Dadaist ballet Rélache; it's first scene was screened at the beginning of ballet, after the overture and before the curtain was raised, the remaining, longer part of the film during the intermission. Erik Satie wrote the music for the ballet and the film, in whose opening scene he also appears as an actor. To solve the problem of synchronising the music with the silent film, Satie composed a number of short, evocative motifs that could be varied in tempo and repeated as needed. The film is notable for its use of special effects.

  • 🌡 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.

  • 🌡 Paul Hindemith: Cardillac (opera), revised version, 1952 (see p.317):

    Set to a libretto by Ferdinand Lion based on characters from E.T.A. Hoffmann's short story "Das Fräulein von Scuderi", Paul Hindemith completed the first version of Cardillac in 1926. Much later, he grew discontent with the piece and substantially reworked the text as well as the music. The resulting revised version of Cardillac was first performed at the Zürich Stadttheater on 20 June 1952; unlike the earlier version, it includes a part for tenor saxophone, which Hindemith specified could be substituted by heckelphone — not without adding, however, that "the effect, as intended by the composer, will not be attained as a result thereof.” After 1953, Hindemith insisted that only the 1952 revised version could be staged. Only after the composer's death in 1963, the original 1926 version became once again available for production and turned out to generate significantly higher traction; as of this writing, the 1952 revised version has not been performed since 1969, and only a single recording appears to exist. The original version of Cardillac is also very rarely performed, and very few recordings are broadly available.

  • 🌡 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.

  • 🌡 Alex North: Spartacus (film score), 1960 (see pp.320; 334-335):

    When he composed the score for Spartacus, Alex North had already been nominated for six Academy Awards and was firmly established as one of Hollywood’s leading composers. To complete the work, North was given an unprecedented thirteen months of time, which allowed him to write the music whilst the film was being produced. In the end, he delivered a complex, highly modernist score, using a very large orchestra with a number of unusual instruments, including the heckelphone, which he had never written for previously. The film - one of the most elaborate and expensive completed up to that time - and specifically the music North had written for it were very well received, earning Alex North a nomination for an Academy award.

  • 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.

  • 🌡 Alex North: The Devil's Brigade (film score), 1968 (see p.336):

    The last time noted Hollywood celebrity composer Alex North is known to have written for the heckelphone was in his score for the 1968 film The Devil’s Brigade. Based on the eponymous 1966 book by Robert H. Adleman and George Walton, the film provides a fictionalised account of the formation and exploits of an American-Canadian commando unit during the second world war. Alex North's music for the film included a theme from an earlier, rejected score for the pilot episode of an WWII action and adventure television series entitled The Rat Patrol. The Devil’s Brigade was first screened in Detroit (MI, USA) and in Windsor (Ontario, Canada); although it was positively received by critics and audiences, its performance at the box office remained underwhelming.

  • Alex North: 2001: A Space Odyssey (film score), 1968 (see p.336):

    In 1968, Alex North, Hollywood's leading film composer at the time, experienced one of the few major setbacks in his career, when Stanley Kubrick rejected the music he had written for 2001: A Space Odyssey and replaced it, at the last moment and unbeknownst to North until the première, with existing recordings of various pieces of classical music, prominently including parts of Richard Strauss's Also sprach Zarathustra, Johann Strauss's Blue Danube, Aram Khachaturian's Gayane Ballet Suite as well as György Ligeti's Lux Eterna and Atmosphères. The original recording of North's rejected soundtrack, conducted by Henry Brant, who also assisted North with some of the orchestrations, survived and was released in 2007. Earlier, in 1993, a re-recording under the baton of noted film composer Jerry Goldsmith had been released. Both recordings are readily available and invite speculation what the iconic film would have been like if Kubrick had used North's soundtrack.

Epilogue: Fermata

  • 🌡 Heinrich Konietzny: Rezitativ für Heckelphon und Klavier, 1965 (see p.344):

    A student of Paul Hindemith, Konietzny was a prolific composer who, in addition to many symphonic and chamber works, also wrote music for ballets, films, radio programmes and amateur performances. This piece was written for heckelphonist Georg Meerwein; sadly, unlike many other compositions by Konietzny, it never appeared in print and no recording is known to exist.

  • 🌡 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.

  • 🌡 Rudolf Hindemith's works for heckelphone, 1930-1953 (see p.345):

    Rudolf Hindemith wrote six pieces with heckelphone parts:

    • Konzertmusik für Orchester (chamber music for orchestra), 1930
    • Symphonie für 16 Bläser (symphony for 16 wind instruments), 1930-1931
    • Konradin, der letzte Hohenstaufer (opera in 3 acts), 1936-1937
    • Ballettmusik as der Oper Konradin (ballet music from the opera Konradin), 1936-1937
    • Militärmärsche (marches for military band), 1939-1941
    • Ballettmusik aus der Oper des Kaisers neue Kleider (ballet music from the opera The Emperor's New Clothes), 1953

    Unfortunately, no recordings of any of these works known to exist; however, the scores and parts of two of them, namely the symphony for wind instruments and the military marches, are available from Karthause-Schmülling music publishers. Since the 1990s, the works of Rudolf Hindemith, which had been mostly forgotten at that point, are receiving increasing attention, so that perhaps someday, there will be performances or recordings of the six works in which he used the heckelphone.

The Heckelphone: cover

This page is still under construction; latest version as of 2024/12/13