The Sound of Fine Wine

Glassware rings and clinks.
Crockery rattles and clangs.
Bottles tinkle and plink.
These are sounds which most people know well
but few bother to study as a musical art.

Wine bottles in particular
possess a vibration potential
that varies with the amount of alcohol removed
and mimics the percussive sound of bells and chimes.

Once upon a time there was a musician
who became a master of bells, bottles, jingles and more.
His name was Heinrich Rodenbusch.

Heinrich Rodenbusch,
vom kaiserlichen Musikdirektor geprüfter,
von der hohen Regierung
anerkannter Musik-Virtuose
~

examined by the imperial music director,
recognized by the high government
as a music virtuoso

Ständige Adresse:  RODENBUSCH, Lennep (Rheinland)
Permanent address:                                                                   

Herr Rodenbusch stands next to rack from which eighteen wine bottles are suspended. On a table in front are a collection of tuned hand bells. He is leaning against an upright piano on which a set of jingle bells hang from another rack. On the floor in front of him is a bass drum and cymbals, a snare drum, a small metal xylophone, and a wooden xylophone in a trapezoidal shape. This instrument was a popular Tyrolean folk instrument, oddly called a Strohfiedel or Straw Fiddle.

The postcard was sent on 17 June 1901 from Cöln, an old style spelling of Köln or Cologne, Germany to Oberpleis, a district of Königswinter near the Siebengebirge or Seven Mountains  a hill range of the German Central Uplands on the east bank of the Middle Rhine.

A few years later Heinrich returned with a display of his many musical instruments: an upright piano, a table with the wooden xylophon, the small glockenspiel xylophon, bass drum cymbal, and snare drum, a second table with gleaming hand bells, a very large rack of tubular chimes, and a rack of twenty wine bottles. The two tables are covered in velvet cloth embroidered with his monogram. The caption is similar but starts with a different ensemble and now a telephone number.

Blinden Solisten Kapelle
~
Blind soloist band  Heinrich Rodenbusch

Telephon-Ruf ANRATH 25.

This postcard was postmarked 11 October 1910 from possibly Bresslau(?) to someone in Oberhausen, a city in northwest Germany’s Ruhr region.

In his 3/4 portrait, Heinrich Rodenbusch wears white tie and tailcoat, along with a handsome Prussian 'stach, and holds a roll of music in his hands, a symbol for a keyboard artist. The caption again refers to his eminent musical credentials and that he directs the Blinden Solisten Kapelle. This card was sent from Berlin on 28 October 1911.  The remark at the top was written by the postcard dealer. I hate when they do that.

We can't be certain of course, but Heinrich Rodenbusch may in fact have been blind, despite his clear gaze in his postcard images. But in a fourth postcard he stands with three other musicians who do have a distracted look of a sightless person. Seated at a table is a violinist. On the table are some brass trumpets. Standing next to Herr Rodenbusch is a large man with a Prussian mustache and a very long piston valve herald trumpet. Next to him is a smaller and younger man holding a blackwood flute with ivory headjoint.

There is piano, presumably Heinrich's main instrument, but the bells, drums, and wine bottles are gone. The postcard was never mailed but the caption reads:

Blinden Kapelle  Rodenbusch
Ständige Adresse:  RODENBUSCH, Anrath im Rheinland

These four postcards imply that Herr Rodenbusch had a musical career lasting at least 11-12 years in the first decade of the 20th century. The style of his postcards match the kind of promotional material that thousands of German/Austrian music hall artists used for connecting to theater managers and entertainment booking agencies. Herr Rodenbusch's use of wine bottles, bells, chimes, and xylophones was not unusual as I have several other examples of small ensembles that used high pitched metallic percussion instrument. Tuned wine bottle were cheap.

What's interesting is his promotion of a band of blind musicians. It's a strange idea that the public would be attracted to a performance of musicians who are unable to read sheet music. There's nothing unusual about any musician playing by ear and by memory, so perhaps Herr Rodenbusch's blind soloists were a kind of sideshow novelty. Their choice of instruments in the last postcard suggests a refined salon style music. Did they sing too? Who knows?

But blindness is certainly no handicap for savoring fine wine and appreciating the music of empty bottles..

This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday
where the barman is never there when you need him.