The Orphéal was a

keyboard instrument A keyboard instrument is a musical instrument played using a keyboard, a row of levers that are pressed by the fingers. The most common of these are the piano, organ, and various electronic keyboards, including synthesizers and digital piano ...

invented by the Belgian

Georges Cloetens Georges Cloetens (born Josse Léopold Cloetens, March 7, 1871, in Brussels – August 13, 1949, in Ixelles) was a Belgian organ builder and inventor, mainly known for the invention of the orphéal (1908) and the luthéal (1919). Biography Geo ...

in 1910. It appears to have been a combination of piano, organ and harmonium, capable of reproducing approximations of the sounds of the cello, horn, etc.Closson, Ernest.
Histoire du Piano
", p.58. ''PianoMajeur.net''. The only occasion that people these days are likely to come across its name is on the back of Durand editions of

Maurice Ravel Joseph Maurice Ravel (7 March 1875 – 28 December 1937) was a French composer, pianist and conductor. He is often associated with Impressionism in music, Impressionism along with his elder contemporary Claude Debussy, although both composer ...

's music, where an advertisement for Petit Poucet from

Ma Mère l'Oye ''Ma mère l'Oye'' (English: ''Mother Goose'', literally "''My Mother the Goose''") is a suite by French composer Maurice Ravel. The piece was originally written as a five-movement piano duet in 1910. In 1911, Ravel orchestrated the work. Pian ...

, arranged for Orphéal, still exists. Cloetens also invented the

Luthéal The luthéal is a kind of hybrid piano which extended the "register" possibilities of a piano by producing cimbalom-like sounds in some registers, exploiting harmonics of the strings when pulling other register-stops, and also some registers maki ...

, which Ravel used in two works,

Tzigane ''Tzigane'' is a rhapsodic composition by the French composer Maurice Ravel featuring a virtuosic violin part. The original instrumentation was for violin and piano (with optional luthéal attachment). The first performance took place in Londo ...

and

L'Enfant et les Sortilèges ''L'enfant et les sortilèges: Fantaisie lyrique en deux parties'' (''The Child and the Spells: A Lyric Fantasy in Two Parts'') is an opera in one act, with music by Maurice Ravel to a libretto by Colette. It is Ravel's second opera, his first b ...

References

External links

Reconstruction of the original Orphéal from Cloetens in the organ of Oudenaarde (Belgium)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Orpheal Keyboard instruments 1910 musical instruments Experimental musical instruments