A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Seraphine
SERAPHINE. In vol. i. p. 667a reference is made to the seraphine as a precursor of Debain's Harmonium. It was an English free-reed instrument resembling the German Physharmonica, which latter was brought to this country by the Schulz family in 1826, and introduced to the London public at a concert at Kirkman's rooms in Frith Street, Soho, by Edouard Schulz, then a boy of 14. In 1828 a similar instrument, but named Aeol-harmonica, was played by young Schulz in a Philharmonic Concert (Concertante for Aeol-harmonic and 2 guitars, April 28). In 1833, John Green, who had been Clementi's traveller, and had a shop in Soho Square, brought out the Seraphine. According to Mr. Peters (for many years with Messrs. Broadwood, and formerly Green's pupil), the reeds for the seraphine were made by Gunther the piano-maker, and the cases by Bevington the organ-builder, Green putting them together. Green engaged old Samuel Wesley to give weekly performances upon the seraphine at his shop, and managed for some time to dispose of his instruments at 40 guineas each. But the seraphine was harsh and raspy in tone, and never found favour with sensitive musicians. The wind apparatus, similar to the organ, was a dead-weighted bellows giving a uniform pressure, and a swell was produced by opening a shutter of a box placed over the reeds.
In the year 1841, Mr. W. E. Evans invented the 'Organo Harmonica,' the improvements on the seraphine consisting of thin steel reeds artistically voiced, and coiled springs in the reservoir to enable the player to produce a rapid articulation with a small wind pressure, and to increase the power of tone as the reservoir filled. Eminent musicians, among them Potter, Novello, and Sir George Smart, publicly pronounced Mr. Evans's instrument more valuable than the seraphine as a substitute for the organ, but neither the one nor the other was capable of what is now known as 'dead expression.'
Patents for various improvements of the seraphine were taken out by Myers and Storer in 1839, by Storer alone in 1846, and by Mott in the same year. There is further reference to it in patents of Pape 1850, and Blackvvell 1852. About the last-named date it was entirely superseded by the harmonium.[ A. J. H. ]