Theobald Boehm
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Theobald Böhm, photograph by Franz Hanfstaengl, ca. 1852. Theobald Böhm (or Boehm) (9 April 1794 – 25 November 1881) was a German inventor and musician, who perfected the modern
Western concert flute The Western concert flute is a family of transverse (side-blown) woodwind instruments made of metal or wood. It is the most common variant of the flute. A musician who plays the flute is called a flautist (in British English), flutist (in Ameri ...
and improved its fingering system (now known as the "Boehm system"). He was a Bavarian court musician, a virtuoso flautist and a renowned composer. The fingering system he devised has also been adapted to other instruments, such as the
oboe The oboe ( ) is a type of double reed woodwind instrument. Oboes are usually made of wood, but may also be made of synthetic materials, such as plastic, resin, or hybrid composites. The most common oboe plays in the treble or soprano range. A ...
and the
clarinet The clarinet is a musical instrument in the woodwind family. The instrument has a nearly cylindrical bore and a flared bell, and uses a single reed to produce sound. Clarinets comprise a family of instruments of differing sizes and pitches ...
.Philip Bate/Ludwig Böhm, ''Boehm, Theobald'' in ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' edited by Stanley Sadie, volume 3, pages 777-778


Life and works

Born in
Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the States of Germany, German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the List of cities in Germany by popu ...
in 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. Meanwhile, he experimented with constructing flutes out of many different materials—tropical hardwoods (usually
Grenadilla ''Dalbergia melanoxylon'' (African blackwood, grenadilla, or mpingo) is a flowering plant in the family Fabaceae, native to seasonally dry regions of Africa from Senegal east to Eritrea and south to the north-eastern parts of South Africa. The ...
wood), silver, gold, nickel and copper—and with changing the positions of the flute's tone holes. After studying
acoustics Acoustics is a branch of physics that deals with the study of mechanical waves in gases, liquids, and solids including topics such as vibration, sound, ultrasound and infrasound. A scientist who works in the field of acoustics is an acoustician ...
at the
University of Munich The Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (simply University of Munich or LMU; german: Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München) is a public research university in Munich, Germany. It is Germany's List of universities in Germany, sixth-oldest u ...
, he began experimenting on improving the flute in 1832, first patenting his new fingering system in 1847. He published ''Über den Flötenbau'' ("On the construction of flutes"), also in 1847. His new flute was first displayed in 1851 at the London Exhibition. 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. 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 The alto flute is an instrument in the Western concert flute family, the second-highest member below the standard C flute after the uncommon flûte d'amour. It is the third most common member of its family after the standard C flute and the ...
. Boehm was very fond of the alto flute, and recounts a time he was playing it when someone mistook it for a french horn.


Legacy

Some of the flutes he made are still being played. The fingering system he devised has also been adapted to other instruments, such as the
oboe The oboe ( ) is a type of double reed woodwind instrument. Oboes are usually made of wood, but may also be made of synthetic materials, such as plastic, resin, or hybrid composites. The most common oboe plays in the treble or soprano range. A ...
and the
clarinet The clarinet is a musical instrument in the woodwind family. The instrument has a nearly cylindrical bore and a flared bell, and uses a single reed to produce sound. Clarinets comprise a family of instruments of differing sizes and pitches ...
. He inspired
Hyacinthe Klosé Hyacinthe Eléonore Klosé (11 October 1808 – 29 August 1880) was a French clarinet player, professor at the Conservatoire de Paris, and composer. Life and music Klosé was born in Corfu (Greece). He was second clarinet at the Théâtre Ita ...
, 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 Boehm system clarinet and flute are not exactly the same. If one plays the clarinet with the register key on, the fingerings are the same as the flute when the flute is in the lower and middle register. The main differences between the fingering systems of Boehm system clarinets and flutes are
overblowing Overblowing is the manipulation of supplied air through a wind instrument that causes the sounded pitch to jump to a higher one without a fingering change or the operation of a slide. Overblowing may involve a change in the air pressure, in the ...
and
key Key or The Key may refer to: Common meanings * Key (cryptography), a piece of information that controls the operation of a cryptography algorithm * Key (lock), device used to control access to places or facilities restricted by a lock * Key (map ...
. The clarinet's second register is a twelfth above its lowest register, unlike the flute's which is an octave higher. The B clarinet is a
transposing instrument A transposing instrument is a musical instrument for which music notation is not written at concert pitch (concert pitch is the pitch on a non-transposing instrument such as the piano). For example, playing a written middle C on a transposing i ...
, so a C on a clarinet is played as a B on the flute.


Selected works

* 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 also

* Friedrich Dülon * Justus Johannes Heinrich Ribock


References


External links

*
Alto flute, Boehm and Mendler, Munich, ca. 1880
at
The Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 F ...

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
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Boehm, Theobald 1794 births 1881 deaths German classical flautists German Romantic composers 19th-century German inventors Flute makers German musical instrument makers 19th-century classical composers German male classical composers 19th-century German composers 19th-century German male musicians 20th-century flautists