Page:The story of the flute (IA storyofflute1914fitz).djvu/81

 and some fine Studies. Böhm continued to play after he was seventy-eight years of age and had a set of false teeth; and though his sight was bad, he was erect in figure, and walked with a firm step up to the very end of his long and extremely temperate life (November 25th, 1881). He was a fine billiard and chess-player, even when he could hardly see the balls or the men.

On April 9th, 1894, all the members of the family then living near Munich assembled in the house in which Böhm was born, in order to celebrate the centenary of his birth, and countless letters and telegrams were sent from all over the worlda fitting tribute to an inventive genius of no mean order.

During their mutual acquaintance no controversy ever arose between Böhm and Gordon as to the priority of their inventions; they were always on friendly terms, and Böhm always spoke and, wrote of his rival in words or praise, as "a gentleman in every respect." He appears to have tried to assist Gordon's efforts in every way. After all, there was not very much originality or invention in the key-mechanism of either of their flutes; both freely adopted the somewhat crude ideas and devices of previous workers in the same field, but it was Böhm who rendered them of practical value. The controversy was concerned chiefly with the keys, and was entirely confined to Bohm's model of 1832: it had nothing to do