Free Reed History

[Leo]

I found this interesting to watch, although I haven't a clue as to the text. I wish it were in English, but it's not. The credits are impressive though.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZ-CvddFfyA&fmt=18

 

Thanks

Leo

[Hereward]

I found this interesting to watch, although I haven't a clue as to the text. I wish it were in English, but it's not. The credits are impressive though.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZ-CvddFfyA&fmt=18

 

Thanks

Leo

 

That was great thanks. Spoken would have been more difficult but reading it was no problem.

 

Ian

[Dan Worrall]

I found this interesting to watch, although I haven't a clue as to the text. I wish it were in English, but it's not. The credits are impressive though.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZ-CvddFfyA&fmt=18

 

Thanks

Leo

 

That was great thanks. Spoken would have been more difficult but reading it was no problem.

 

Ian

Leo,

 

Thanks for posting this; interesting.

 

Leave it to an accordionist to get it wrong with regards to concertinas. My German reading isn't great, but there is one frame where concertinas are mentioned. It shows Charles Wheatstone, his 1829 Symphonium, and mentiones that his first concertina came from that. That is fine, but then it shows pictures of later concertinas, inferring that all concertinas all came from Wheatstone's invention. There is a square, three-row German concertina (the ancestor of the Anglo) pictured there. Wheatstone had nothing to do with that! That was Carl Uhlig's 1834 invention (of Chemnitz in Saxony), and he called it 'a new type of accordion.' It was invented in parallel with Wheatstone's early concertina, and in truth it has more similarities with the early accordion than it does with the English concertina. Ten or twelve years later, in London, Carlo Minasi and perhaps some English merchants began calling it the German concertina.

 

One would think that a German video-maker would have picked up on that.

 

Maybe I missed something in my grade-school level translation?

 

Dan

[Leo]

There are also two others posted on their YouTube user page, although I don't think there is additional information. It looks to me like the original was split into two parts. I'm pretty sure from the credits at the end they received good information, but who knows what happens in the edits and production processes.

 

Geschiedenis van het Accordeon - Deel 1

 

Geschiedenis van het Accordeon - Deel 2

 

It also lists his/her country of origin as Netherlands, but that may also mean anything.

 

Thanks

Leo

Updated links

Edited June 29, 2009 by Leo

[Dan Worrall]

It also lists his/her country of origin as Netherlands, but that may also mean anything.

 

Thanks

Leo

Of course you are right....it is in Dutch not German! Maybe that is why they left out poor Carl Uhlig?

 

Dan

 

Here is the Dutch phrasing:

Sir Charles Wheatstone (1802-1875) vroeg in Engeland voor zijn (nog mondgeblazen) symphonium in 1829 patent aan. Dit zou jaren later tot de eerste eigenlijke concertina leiden.

 

Here is my grade-school translation:

Sir Charles Wheatstone (1802-1875) in England applied for his (still mouth-blown) symphonium patent in 1829. This would lead years later to the first actual concertina.

 

Let's not get into that old debate about when Wheatstone actually built his first concertina....there are several threads on that!! I only pick a nit about these guys associating Uhlig's later-to-be-called 'German concertina' with Wheatstone.

Edited May 8, 2009 by Dan Worrall