Heckelmania: Music prof finds rare musical instrument on Internet

By Nancy Wick
University Week

In a Jan. 18 concert entitled “Rare Gems,” Music Professor Arthur Grossman will show off a rare gem of an instrument plucked off the Internet. Grossman will play the Heckelphone in Paul Hindemith’s Trio for Heckelphone, Viola and Piano.

Never heard of a Heckelphone? You’re not alone. Grossman says the instrument isn’t even well known among musicians and that fewer than 100 exist worldwide. But he’s known about Heckelphones since the 1950s, when he visited Germany’s Heckel factory while playing with the Seventh Army Symphony.

Arthur Grossman will play his Heckelphone at a School of Music concert next week. Photo by Cynthia StClair

Heckel is renowned as a maker of bassoons, Grossman’s usual instrument, so he visited a number of times and once, while visiting the factory’s instrument museum, he was permitted to pick up a Heckelphone and try to play it. He’s been fascinated with Heckelphones ever since.

According to Grossman, the instruments were created after composer Richard Wagner visited the Heckel factory in the 1880s and asked for an instrument that was in the range of a bass oboe and that had some of the qualities of an alphorn.

“The bass oboe is a very weak instrument and Wagner wanted something that could be heard in the orchestra,” Grossman explains.

Heckel built the instrument, but by the time the prototype appeared in 1904, Wagner had died. The Heckelphone might have been completely forgotten had not fellow composer Richard Strauss heard about it and traveled to the factory to hear it.

“He fell in love with the sound and used it quite a bit in his compositions,” Grossman says. “He used it in the operas Salome and Elektra, and in the Alpine Symphony, which incidentally is going to be played this year by both the Seattle Youth Symphony and the Seattle Symphony. I’ll be playing the Heckelphone.”

The Heckelphone looks most like an English horn, but is a reed instrument and is very long - so long in fact, that the musician must sit on a stool to play it. Grossman says the reed is more like that of a bassoon but the fingering system is more like an oboe. However, because each Heckelphone is custom made, no two fingering systems are exactly the same.

This lack of standardization feeds into the playing of the Heckelphone. “There’s no real accepted sound that you’re supposed to get,” Grossman says. “Everyone sounds a little different. But nobody knows what is an ‘authentic’ Heckelphone sound.”

Though Grossman’s first exposure to a Heckelphone happened 40 years ago, he’s only owned his for less than a year. In fact, it was 1999 before he saw his second Heckelphone, at the International Double Reed Conference. Unfortunately, that instrument got broken before it could be played, “so my Heckelphone hunger went unassuaged,” he laughs.

Then, last March, Grossman saw a Heckelphone for sale on eBay, the Web auction site. He says he immediately decided to bid on it, and gave himself a limit above which he would not go. “But of course I went beyond the limit because I got so excited by the idea of having a Heckelphone and I bought it.” Although Grossman won’t say how much he paid, he does say that a new Heckelphone goes for $25,000.

His instrument, which was made in 1919, arrived in a cardboard box and didn’t play very well, but Grossman didn’t give up on it. He took it to Keith Bowen, the man who works on his bassoons. Bowen admitted he had never seen a Heckelphone before and Grossman joked that he wouldn’t charge him for the learning experience. Under Bowen’s ministrations, Grossman’s Heckelphone has emerged as a more than adequate instrument that he says he’s delighted with.

At the concert, Grossman will play his Heckelphone in Hindemith’s trio, a work Grossman calls “a remarkable piece that shows the Heckelphone off to very good advantage.” He’ll play his bassoon on several other pieces.

Other works on the program - set for 7:30 p.m. in Meany Theatre - include Rudolphe Kreutzer’s Trio for Oboe, Viola and Bassoon, Ray Luke’s Contrasts, William O. Smith’s Sudana, Charles Berry’s Goethe, Novalis and the Melancholy Girl, Eric Ewazen’s Sonata for Trombone and Piano and Gunther Raphael’s Sonata for Oboe and Piano.

Music faculty Rebecca Henderson, oboe; Don Immel, trombone; and Craig Sheppard, piano will also perform, along with guest artists Roxanna Patterson, viola; and Peter Mack, piano. Tickets are available for $10 ($8 student and senior) at the Arts Ticket Office, 543-4880.

Free concerts set in January

In addition to its ticketed events, the School of Music also offers free concerts at Brechemin Auditorium in the Music Building.

On the schedule for January are a Seattle Opera Preview of Billy Bud, at 1:30 p.m. Jan. 12 and a recital of the school’s Voice Division at 7:30 p.m. Jan. 22.

For more information on these and other concerts at the school, see their Web calendar, http://www.music.washington.edu or call the events hotline, 685-8384.