Falstaff
Historical instruments

Our bassoonist Carles Cristobal presents his original Heckel bassoon from 1883.

Ralf Müller presents his cimbasso here and explains why it corresponds to Verdi’s ideal sound of a bass trombone.

In Verdi’s time, it was common to use the so-called bombardone as the bass voice under the classical three-part trombone part. In 1872 Verdi complained in a letter to Giulio Ricordi about the sound of the bombardone in a performance of Aida at La Scala and asked for a fourth trombone, the trombone basso.

The Pelitti workshop in Milan subsequently built an instrument in 1881, which was used as the Trombone-Basso Verdi in Bb in Falstaff and Othello.

Our harpist Margaret Köll presents her historical pedal harp by Erard from around 1880.

The central differences to the modern harp are described as follows: “The historical pedal harp has a clearer and more compact sound than a modern instrument. The lower string tension makes it more pleasant to play, but the less accurate action is challenging for the player, especially with regard to tuning the mechanically formed semitones.“

Our hornist Ulrich Hübner presents here important information on the valve horns used as well as on the natural horn (« Corno senza chiave ») in As basso for the incidental music, which Verdi expressly asked for in the score.

The oboist Meike Güldenhaupt presents her instrument by Leschke from the 1890s and reports on what it means to find a historical instrument, restore it and make it playable again for concert use.

Picture and short description of the historic machine timpani used by our timpanist Maarten van der Valk in Falstaff.

Our trombonist Matthias Sprinz presents here his valve trombone, which comes from the factory of G. Battista Cazzani in Milan around 1890.

Valve trombones were common in Italian orchestras in the 19th century. In Falstaff in particular, Verdi made specific use of the special playing techniques of the valve trombones: double and triple grace notes, trills in low registers, light, fast chromatic playing, etc.

The trombone’s overall brightness and lightness were in keeping with the orchestra’s style. All in all, their bright, light sound corresponded far more to the Italian sound ideal at the end of the 19th century than the grave, sublime dark sound of the (slide) trombones in the orchestras of the German-speaking world.