Theobald Böhm, photograph by Franz Hanfstaengl, ca. 1852. Theobald Böhm (or Boehm) (9 April 1794 – 25 November 1881) was a German inventor and musician, who greatly improved the modern

Western concert flute The Western concert flute can refer to the common C concert flute or to the family of transverse flute, transverse (side-blown) flutes to which the C flute belongs. Almost all are made of metal or wood, or a combination of the two. A musician w ...

and its fingering system (now known as the "Boehm system"). He was a Bavarian court musician, a virtuoso flautist and a renowned composer. The fingering system he devised has also been adapted to other instruments, such as the

oboe The oboe ( ) is a type of double-reed woodwind instrument. Oboes are usually made of wood, but may also be made of synthetic materials, such as plastic, resin, or hybrid composites. The most common type of oboe, the soprano oboe pitched in C, ...

and the

clarinet The clarinet is a Single-reed instrument, single-reed musical instrument in the woodwind family, with a nearly cylindrical bore (wind instruments), bore and a flared bell. Clarinets comprise a Family (musical instruments), family of instrume ...

.Philip Bate/Ludwig Böhm, ''Boehm, Theobald'' in ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' edited by Stanley Sadie, volume 3, pages 777-778

Life and works

Born in

Munich Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...

in the

Electorate of Bavaria The Electorate of Bavaria () was a quasi-independent hereditary electorate of the Holy Roman Empire from 1623 to 1806, when it was succeeded by the Kingdom of Bavaria. The Wittelsbach dynasty which ruled the Duchy of Bavaria was the younger ...

in the family of goldsmith Carl Friedrich Böhm and Anna Franziska, née Sulzbacher, daughter of a court haberdasher. Boehm learned his father's trade of goldsmithing. After making his own flute, he quickly became proficient enough to play in an orchestra at the age of seventeen, and at twenty-one he was first flautist in the Royal Bavarian Orchestra. Meanwhile, he experimented with constructing flutes out of many different materials—tropical hardwoods (usually Grenadilla wood), silver, gold, nickel and copper—and with changing the positions of the flute's tone holes. After studying

acoustics Acoustics is a branch of physics that deals with the study of mechanical waves in gases, liquids, and solids including topics such as vibration, sound, ultrasound and infrasound. A scientist who works in the field of acoustics is an acoustician ...

at the

University of Munich The Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (simply University of Munich, LMU or LMU Munich; ) is a public university, public research university in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. Originally established as the University of Ingolstadt in 1472 by Duke ...

, he began experimenting on improving the flute in 1832, first patenting his new fingering system in 1847. He published ''Über den Flötenbau'' ("On the construction of flutes"), also in 1847. His new flute was first displayed in 1851 at the London Exhibition. In 1871 Boehm published ''Die Flöte und das Flötenspiel'' ("The Flute and Flute-Playing"), a treatise on the acoustical, technical and artistic characteristics of the Boehm system flute. Boehm's experience as a goldsmith was a key factor in his ability to redesign the flute. For example, in ''The Flute and Flute-Playing'' he recounts having made a flute with moveable tone holes, in order to determine the proper location of each hole for correct intonation—a remarkable piece of metal-working. Traditional flutes were limited in size because the player had to be able to reach all the tone holes in the span of two hands. By substituting mechanically covered tone holes, Boehm eliminated this limitation, and was able to make larger, deeper flutes, such as the

alto flute The alto flute is an instrument in the Western concert flute family, pitched below the standard C flute and the uncommon flûte d'amour. It is the third most common member of its family after the standard C flute and the piccolo. It is chara ...

. Boehm was very fond of the alto flute, and recounts a time he was playing it when someone mistook it for a French horn.

Legacy

Some of the flutes he made are still being played. The fingering system he devised has also been adapted to other instruments, such as

, and

saxophone The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of brass. As with all single-reed instruments, sound is produced when a reed on a mouthpiece vibrates to p ...

. He inspired Hyacinthe Klosé, the inventor of the modern clarinet fingering system. Klosé invented a system for the clarinet that today is the standard nearly worldwide (except Austria, Germany and others). Boehm was his inspiration, and so Klosé named the new system the Boehm system just like the modern western flute. The main differences between the fingering systems of Boehm system clarinets and flutes are overblowing and key. The clarinet's second register is a twelfth above its lowest register, unlike the flute's which is an octave higher. The B clarinet is a

transposing instrument A transposing instrument is a musical instrument for which music notation is not written at concert pitch (concert pitch is the pitch on a non-transposing instrument such as the piano). For example, playing a written middle C on a transposing ...

, so a C on a clarinet is played as a B on the flute. The clarinet has additional keys to compensate for the increased distance between the registers, and there are other smaller differences, such as the differences in fingerings for F.

Selected works

* Grand Polonaise in D Major, Op. 16 * Variations sur un air tyrolien, Op.20 * Fantasie sur un air de F. Schubert, Op.21 * Variations sur un Air Allemand, Op.22 * 24 Caprices-etudes, Op.26 * Souvenir des Alpes, Opp.27–32 * Andante for Flute and Piano, Op.33 * 24 Etudes, Op.37 * Elégie, Op.47

References

External links

*
Alto flute, Boehm and Mendler, Munich, ca. 1880
at

The Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the third-largest museum in the world and the largest art museum in the Americas. With 5.36 million v ...

The Flute and Flute-Playing in Acoustical, Technical, and Artistic Aspects
The Flute and Flute-Playing in Acoustical, Technical, and Artistic Aspects (Kindle Edition)
On the construction of flutes
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Boehm, Theobald 1794 births 1881 deaths Musicians from Munich People from the Electorate of Bavaria German classical flautists German Romantic composers 19th-century German inventors Flute makers Composers for flute German musical instrument makers 19th-century German classical composers German male classical composers 19th-century German male musicians

Life and works

Legacy

Selected works

See also

References

External links