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Harry Boyd As An Artist - And What Happened To The Bowing Valves?


BW77

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A week ago in another topic I asked : What is known about H.Boyd as a performer?


but I got no answer so I try to put the queston again here...



I had noticed a Lachenal price list from 1890s saying this:


"...characteristic features of the two latest models introduced by us. The Bowing Valves;


as used by Signor Alsepti, Messrs. J.P.Johnson, H.Boyd, J.Pirochnikoff, and other eminent artists, are helping to break down the prejudice against it amongst the most able musicians


of the present day."



So...is anything known about the "eminent artist" H.Boyd and were the bowing valves used at all ?




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Many thanks Wes ! Your website is a true gold mine !....

Now...just two pieces here of course, maybe hard to tell if they are representative, but what can be said about them

not to sound too pretentious?..."habile but not overwhelming"...quite good, but "not virtuouso" stuff...?

One thing is clear...in these two pieces not even theoretically there seems to be any place for the "bowing valves"

Have you got any recordings of slow, sensitive single note pieces like an "air" "serenade" "consolation" etc from

popular sentiment music of those days where we might expect the elusive bowing valves having been excelled in?

 

I guess James ("Signor") Alsepti who firstly was connected with the bowing valves had passed away at the time

so no recordings exist with him (?) but can there be anything written about his public demonstration of them ?

Do you possibly recognize the other two "eminent artists" in the quotation...J.P.Johnson and J. Pirochnikoff ?

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All these 78rpms, except perhaps for the Alexander Prince discs, are very rare and we are lucky to have been able to rediscover them. My website contains almost all the concertina recordings I have and I don't have any more apart from a few Prince discs yet to be added, and some cylinders that I'm attempting to get properly transcribed.

 

Alsepti died March 1897 (see here). Although cylinder recordings might have just been possible, I have found none in my database of around 65,000 cylinders, or any anonymous titles that might suggest him. Disc recording in the UK did not start until August 1898.

 

Pirochnikoff (as Piroshnikoiff) made 3 four-minute cylinders on the Everlasting label that were released 1912/13. He also made some disc recordings for HMV/Zonophone in March 1910 - search CHARM using PIROZHNIKOV.

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Again, many thanks. I read the article by Allan Atlas on Alsepti...seems as we have to live without much more substance

regarding the use of bowing valves unless someone having an instrument provided with them reports about efforts to

evaluate their practical function.

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