Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 68.djvu/247

 Rh skill, and of him the following story is told. One summer evening, sitting by an open window, the king overheard strains of music of unusual quality, and on making enquiry learned that they arose from a jewsharp played by a soldier doing sentinel duty in the garden. Thereupon Frederick commanded the musician to ascend to his suite of apartments and to play before him, but young Koch politely refused to do so without an order from his colonel. 'But I am king,' said Frederick. 'I know it, your majesty, but I can not leave my post, or I shall be punished.' Although very angry, the king respected the sentinel's candor and fidelity. On the following day Koch, by invitation of the king and an order from the colonel, played in Frederick's apartments and so delighted him that the king gave him a sum of money and an honorable discharge from the army. Koch then traveled through Germany, giving exhibitions of his skill and playing in concerts, whereby he accumulated a moderate fortune. The chief attraction of Koch's playing was his descriptive music, pieces similar to the 'Turkish Patrol'; he used to depict a funeral procession marching along to the tolling of bells, the approach and passing of a chorus of mourners, and their singing of an old German popular dirge.

In the first decade of the century just closed Heinrich Scheibler, of Crefeld, invented an instrument which he called 'Aura'; it consisted of ten jewsharps of different keys grouped in two series of five each and fastened to a disk, with the bows towards the center, so that the jaws diverged like rays. With this combination he performed in concerts before large audiences, producing surprising and beautiful effects.

But by far the most eminent performer on jewsharps was a man named Charles Eulenstein, born in Würtemberg about 1802. He spent many years studying the capabilities of the jewsharp, and being an accomplished musician, he found that the best effects could only be obtained with instruments of different pitch, and he had manufactured sixteen jewsharps, on four of which he was able to play at once by connecting them with silken cords so arranged that he could grasp four with his lips. He appeared in London in 1827-8 and had great success playing in concerts and producing effects greatly admired by amateurs. Eventually his teeth were injured and he had them repaired by a clever dentist, who coated them with some glutinous substance that aided him in supporting the iron instrument. He also performed in Scotland and on the Continent; he was still living in 1878 at Ulm.

Wheatstone wrote of this expert as follows:

Mr. Eulenstein by using sixteen jewsharps was able to produce effects trulyoriginal and of extreme beautv. Those who have heard only the rude twanging to which the performance of this instrument in ordinary hands is confined can have no idea of the melodious sounds which in Mr. Eulenstein's hands it is capable of producing.