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Virtual Tour of
"Beethoven & Berlioz, Paris & Vienna:
Musical Treasures from the Age of Revolution & Romance
1789-1848"
Ĉolina (Chord Harmonica) by Lewis Zwahlen, New York City, ca. 1831
NMM 9591. Ĉolina (chord harmonica) by Lewis
Zwahlen, New York,
ca. 1831. This unpretentious-looking little instrument, on which one can play chords in C, D, and G, is one of the earliest harmonicas known to survive. There are sixteen brass reeds, one reed per hole, with a wood casing
on the top and the reed plate exposed below. The few other surviving
examples were made in Europe and none to our knowledge has an original
cardboard box, which is lined, in this instance, with blue silk and
carries the label, Sold at The Depository of the Arts, Bourne's, 359
Broadway, New-York. A second cardboard flip-top box (not shown) fits
over the first box and has a red shoestring tie. Alan G. Bates
Collection, 2000.
The reed plate is mounted on a walnut "comb" cut with grooves that allow air
to enter each of the reed chambers.
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