Böhm's Flute of 1847
for England in 1847. Böhm published an extremely technical geometrical schema, or diagram, "with explanation, by which makers of tubular instruments can with the greatest accuracy construct their instruments according to any of the recognised pitches," which so puzzled the musical jury at the Paris Exhibition of 1867 that they refused to decide on its merits. Böhm's system is also applicable to oboes, clarinets, and bassoons, and it has to a certain extent been adopted by certain makers of the two first-named instruments, more especially for French military clarinets, but not nearly to the same extent as on the flute.
The model of 1847 (Page 68, Fig. 2) was awarded the gold medal at the London Exhibition of 1851, the report of Sir Henry Bishop stating that "M. Böhm has acquired not only a perfection in tone and tuning never before attained, but also a facility in playing in those keys which were hitherto difficult and defective in sonorousness or intonation"; and another juror remarks, "One person brings forward a flute with a fine note E, another with some other fine note, but what we want is a flute with all the notes equally fine, and this we find only in the flutes on Böhm's principles." It also gained the gold medal at the Paris Exhibition of 1855. Though largely taken up in most European countries and in America, Germany, strange to relate, was one of the last countries to adopt it. In 1866 they still played the old eight-keyed flute in Berlin and Vienna. In fact, even to-day some German conductors object to a Böhm flute in their orchestras.
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