Bottle organ

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A bottle organ is an organ-like musical instrument, the sounds of which are produced with the help of differently filled bottles.

The most famous bottle organ is that of Johann Samuel Kühlewein from Eisleben from 1798. It is now in the City Museum in Liverpool. It was described in detail in 1914, when it was privately owned in Leipzig. The instrument would have been in Hildesheim for many decades. In 1928 it is described as part of a collection of the organ building company Rushworth and Dreaper in Liverpool, now with the note that the organ was built for Heligoland, but this cannot be confirmed in the well-researched history of Heligoland. In 1838 the lack of an organ in the Heligoland church was interpreted as a sign of freedom. The first organ was built in the island church in 1844.

In 1998, at Peterson Electro-Musical Products, Inc. in Illinois, USA, organ builder Gary Rickert came up with the idea of ​​building an organ out of beer bottles on the occasion of the company's 50th anniversary. The device was designed and constructed together with Joe Farmer and Bill Bernahl. For this purpose, the reference to Heligoland was further expressed: On the island of Helgoland , the organ of the island church was constantly out of tune due to the weather. An organ tuner had to travel from the mainland to the island, which caused high costs for the parish. The instrument maker is tasked with designing an instrument that is not so easily out of tune. He used almost 100 glass bottles instead of wooden or metal pipes. The organ was tuned with sealing wax.

In the illustrations of the bottle organ, it does not appear as a church instrument, but rather like a contemporary piano. In Hildesheim she was in a private household in the 19th century.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ https://www.europeana.eu/de/item/09102/_MINIM_UK_31565
  2. ↑ [1] | Zeitschrift für Instrumentenbau, Vol. 35, Leipzig, 1914-15, page 584 f (with illustrations) [2] | Journal of the Harz Association for History and Archeology, 1914, Volume 47, page 236
  3. ↑ [3] | The Strad, Volume 39, 1928, p. 220
  4. ↑ [4] | Wilhelm Hocker, Poetic Writings, Kiel 1844.3. Edition, page 153 f
  5. ↑ [5] | Siebs and Wohlenberg, Helgoland and the Helgoland, Kiel 1953, page 209
  6. ↑ Further references to Helgoland in: Kassinger, Build a Better Mousetrap: Make Classic Inventions, Discover Your Problem-Solving Genius, and Take the Inventor's Challenge, New York 2002