Carl Almenräder was a German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 performer, teacher and composer.

The design of the modern bassoon

Bassoon

The bassoon is a woodwind instrument in the double reed family that typically plays music written in the bass and tenor registers, and occasionally higher. Appearing in its modern form in the 19th century, the bassoon figures prominently in orchestral, concert band and chamber music literature...

 owes a great deal to Almenräder, who, assisted by the German acoustics

Acoustics

Acoustics is the interdisciplinary science that deals with the study of all mechanical waves in gases, liquids, and solids including vibration, sound, ultrasound and infrasound. A scientist who works in the field of acoustics is an acoustician while someone working in the field of acoustics...

 researcher Gottfried Weber

Gottfried Weber

Jacob Gottfried Weber , was a prominent German writer on music , composer, and jurist....

 developed the 17-key bassoon whose range

Range (music)

In music, the range of a musical instrument is the distance from the lowest to the highest pitch it can play. For a singing voice, the equivalent is vocal range...

 spanned four octave

Octave

In music, an octave is the interval between one musical pitch and another with half or double its frequency. The octave relationship is a natural phenomenon that has been referred to as the "basic miracle of music", the use of which is "common in most musical systems"...

s. Almenräder's improvements to the bassoon began with an 1823 treatise in which he described ways of improving intonation

Intonation (music)

Intonation, in music, is a musician's realization of pitch accuracy, or the pitch accuracy of a musical instrument. Intonation may be flat, sharp, or both, successively or simultaneously.-Interval, melody, and harmony:...

, response, and technical ease of playing by means of augmenting and rearranging the keywork; subsequent articles further developed his ideas. Working at the Schott

Schott

- People :People with the surname Schott:* Basil Schott, Byzantine Catholic archbishop* Ben Schott, author of Schott's Miscellanies & Schott's Almanac* Charles Anthony Schott, a German scientist* Cécile Schott, the real name of electronic musician Colleen....

 factory gave him the means to construct and test instruments according to these new designs, the results of which were published in Caecilia, Schott's house journal

Magazine

Magazines, periodicals, glossies or serials are publications, generally published on a regular schedule, containing a variety of articles. They are generally financed by advertising, by a purchase price, by pre-paid magazine subscriptions, or all three...

; Almenräder continued publishing and building instruments until his death, and Ludwig van Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...

 himself requested one of the newly made instruments after hearing of the papers. Almenräder left Schott to start his own factory along with partner Johann Adam Heckel

Johann Adam Heckel

Johann Adam Heckel was a German instrument maker. He founded the family firm in Wiesbaden-Biebrich in 1831, and became the foremost German bassoon maker, making many improvements to the instrument. His company, Wilhelm Heckel GmbH, is still regarded as one of the top makers of bassoons in the...

 in 1831.

Media

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