the magazine for independent music makers - The Music Maker Guide

The SS Mosel as depicted in an 1870s postcard issued by the NorddeutcherLloyd Comp any
Obviously Captain Hesse had had the good
sense to reduce the speed of the single screw
compound engine, or perhaps ordered it to be
thrown into reverse, and the Mosel ran aground
rather than ramming the rocks head on. In
addition to the immigrants on board (returning
to Germany from America), the Mosel carried a
modest cargo, among it being a consignment of
Richter mouth-organs, possibly exported by the
Hohner company.
The ill fated immigrant ship SS Mosel on the
rocks off Lizard Point, Cornwall, on August 9th,
1882
The mundharmonika, to give the instrument it s
German name, in its earliest form dates back to
1821, when sixteen-year old Christian Friedrick
Buschmann registered the first European
patents for a new musical invention known as
an ‘Aura’, although musical historians have also
called it the ‘Aeolina’ or ‘Aeolian’ and attributed
it to others. Buschmann’s creation was a freereed
instrument consisting of a series of steel
reeds arranged together horizontally in small
channels and offering only ‘blow’ holes
arranged chromatically. To cut a long story
short, Buschmann’s ‘Aura’ looked like a
conventional simple modern mouth-organ but
MUSIC
MAKER
with the side plates removed.
The harmonica – or mouth-organ – as we know
it today might owe its existence to a Bohemian
instrument maker by the name of Joseph
Richter, who is credited by many with having
made the most important advancements in
early harmonica design in 1826. Richter is said
to have developed a variation of Buschmann’ s
original instrument that consisted of ten holes
and twenty reeds, with separate ‘blow’ and
‘draw’ reed plates mounted on either side of a
cedar wood comb. Joseph Richter ’s tuning,
utilizing a diatonic scale, became the st andard
configuration of what Europeans called the
mundharmonika.
HOHNER
The most famous name in harmonicas is that of
Hohner. Matthias Hohner was a German
clockmaker and astute businessman, who saw
a niche in the market for a small, port able
musical instrument and began by marketing
and exporting Richter’s mouth-organ. By 1857,
Hohner began manufacturing his own
harmonicas and in that first year was able to
make a total of 650 instruments, before
developing a mass-production technique and
introducing the harmonica to North America in
1862. By 1887, Hohner was producing more
than a million harmonicas annually and mong
its most notable players during the Victorian era
were Wyatt Earp and Billy The Kid, no less!
Hohner’s Marine Band, named after the famous
band led by American bandmaster John Philip
Sousa, became the most successful harmonica
of all time.
The name ‘Richter’ can still be easily discerned
on my little brass relic, although it does not
show up on the accompanying photograph.
The fact that it spent the best p art of eighty
years – or more – on the sea bed and is still
recognisable as a mouth-organ is remarkable,
particularly as some of the cedar wood remains
intact. According to the Shipwreck Centre,
when some of the Richter mouth-organs
brought up from the wreck of the SS Mosel
were subjected to gently acid cleaning amd
removal of marine detritus, they were playable!
Equally remarkable in another sense is that the
Mosel survived another disaster in the port of
Bremerhaven in 1875, when a man named
Thomassen, in a dispute about a cargo of
goods stowed on her, placed a time-bomb on
board the ship and the subsequent explosion
killed 128 people. Thomassen confessed to his
crime and apparently tried to kill himself but we
do not know what finally happened to him.
It is also something of a miracle that between
us, Wolfgang and I have been able to trace
drawings and photographs of the Mosel and
some are reproduced here.
The humble mouth-organ has played a vit al role
in the development of popular music since
DeFord Bailey first made his mark on the
Grand Ole Opry in 1926 and remained there
until 1941. It was Larry Adler, however, who
finally dragged the harp out of the back street
bars and honky-tonks and into the world’ s
concert halls and gave the instrument the
status it deserved.
These days, of course, the harmonica is an
integral part of rock, pop, blues, country, folk
and jazz and the list of great players of all
genres, past and present, is enormous and
includes Lonnie Glosson, Sonny Terry, Doc
Watson, John Mayall, Charlie McCoy, Sonny
Boy Williamson, Roger Daltrey, Delbert
McClinton, Paul Jones, Terry McMillan, Robert
Plant, Stevie Wonder, Jean ‘Toots’ Thielmans,
Onie Wheeler, Max Geldray, Jerry Murad,
Mickey Raphael, Lee Oskar, Paul Butterfield,
Johnny Mars and, of course, Music Maker ’s
very own Matt Walklate.
It’s incredible to think that my venerable and
battered chunk of brass and wood, for so long
a seemingly insignificant part of my collection of
instruments, which includes autoharp, rhythm
harp, jews-harps, banjolele, guitars, ukulele,
Cajun/Zydeco rub-board, fiddle, didgeridoo,
First World War bugle and mouth-bow, should
finally emerge as the star exhibit after 38 years!
BRYAN CHALKER
Some of Bryans other instruments: from left to
right...1950s childs guitar, ukelele, rythm harp,
autoharp, and in the background, left, a 1930s
king Cotton Cajun Rub- board.
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