Carl Wilhelm Moritz

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Carl Wilhelm Moritz (* 1810 in Berlin ; † 1855 there ) was a German court instrument maker and owner of a manufacture for percussion instruments.

Life

He was the son of Johann Gottfried Moritz , the inventor of the bass tuba with 5 valves, for which he and Wilhelm Wieprecht received the patent. In 1835, CW Moritz received from Wilhelm Wieprecht, who was appointed director of the Royal Guard Music Corps because of his services to the wind instruments, the sole contract to produce baroque kettledrums and military drums , which were then used in the course of the reform of military music . Moritz developed a new, copper drum shell with thinner walls than previously usual and a larger number as well as a newly calculated arrangement of the tuning screws. On May 8, 1838, on the occasion of a visit by Tsar Nicholas I to Berlin, these timpani were used for the first time at a concert with 1,000 musicians and 200 drums from all of Berlin's music corps. The instruments were only used in the royal Berlin military music corps and at the royal court.

Original Moritz timpani and drums are only preserved in museums today. Like his father, Carl Wilhelm Moritz also invented a number of new wind instruments , including a. a tuba in tenor position and a low bassoon . After his death, his son Carl Albert Moritz continued his father's construction of instruments and made Richard Wagner's bass trumpets (1866) for the operas and double bass trombones for the Ring productions . Moritz's construction of a horn tuba , the so-called Wagner tuba , was also based on Richard Wagner's suggestion.

In 1955, as a result of the two world wars and the competition that developed at home and abroad, the Moritz company in Berlin was dissolved. The Moritz family of instrument makers worked from 1808 to 1955.

literature

personal data
SURNAME Moritz, Carl Wilhelm
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German instrument maker
DATE OF BIRTH 1810
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH 1855
Place of death Berlin