A Liebesfuss (Liebesfuß, love foot, French pavillon d'amour) is a pear- or bulb-shaped element that narrows to a small opening in

double reed A double reed is a type of reed used to produce sound in various wind instruments. In contrast with a single reed instrument, where the instrument is played by channeling air against one piece of cane which vibrates against the mouthpiece and c ...

instruments such as the

oboe d'amore The oboe d'amore (; Italian for "oboe of love"), less commonly , is a double reed woodwind musical instrument in the oboe family. Slightly larger than the oboe, it has a less assertive and a more tranquil and serene tone, and is considered the me ...

cor anglais The cor anglais (, or original ; plural: ''cors anglais''), or English horn in North America, is a double-reed woodwind instrument in the oboe family. It is approximately one and a half times the length of an oboe, making it essentially an alto ...

and Heckelphon. It serves as a damper that gives these musical instruments a characteristically soft

timbre In music, timbre ( ), also known as tone color or tone quality (from psychoacoustics), is the perceived sound quality of a musical note, sound or musical tone, tone. Timbre distinguishes different types of sound production, such as choir voice ...

. It is the eponymous characteristic of the oboe d'amore, which was developed in the

baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...

alongside other particularly sweet-sounding instruments such as the

viola d'amore The viola d'amore (; Italian for "viol of love") is a 7- or 6- stringed musical instrument with sympathetic strings used chiefly in the baroque period. It is played under the chin in the same manner as the violin. Structure and sound The viol ...

and the

clarinet d'amore The clarinet d'amore or clarinet d'amour is a musical instrument, a member of the clarinet family. Construction and tone In comparison with the B and A soprano clarinets, the clarinet d'amore has a similar shape and construction, but is gener ...

, which originated around 1740, died out in the mid-19th century, and was redeveloped from 2017 to 2020 on the basis of a basset clarinet in G. A slightly larger and 90-degree angled love foot, which can be rotated both forwards and backwards, can be found on historical

basset clarinet , french: clarinette de basset; it, clarinetto di bassetto; , classification = Aerophon, clarinet-family , hornbostel_sachs = , hornbostel_sachs_desc = , inventors = Theodor Lotz and others , developed = aroun ...

s, as well as on a modern basset clarinet that adopts this detail from a historical clarinet, as

Charles Neidich Charles Neidich (born 1953 in New York City) is an American classical clarinetist, composer, and conductor. Early career A native New Yorker of Russian and Greek descent, Charles Neidich began his clarinet studies with his father, Irving Neidich ...

did.

References

Oboes clarinets {{DoubleReed-instrument-stub