Polish concert pianist Slawomir Zubrzycki has built a beautiful version of Leonardo da Vinci’s viola organista.
It’s questionable whether this type of machine can accurately be called bowed since it uses rubbing wheels like a hurdy-gurdy. But it’s definitely not plucked, so it cannot be included in the excellent Atlas of Plucked Instruments.
The Atlas doesn’t currently include one-off variants like the Millenium Falcon guitars either.
I’ve always liked hurdy-gurdies… the bee-like buzzing of the rosin wheel, backdropping the melody like the drone of a bagpipe, appeals to me. But this ain’t yer great-grandpappy’s hurdy gurdy – about halfway through, the electronics hidden inside the beautiful woodwork become more than apparent. Performance by Guilhem Desq. As somebody on Reddit pointed out, if you’re too twitchy to listen to a 4-minute musical performance you shouldn’t bother with this.
German studio photographers Mierswa & Kluska shot these beautifully lit images from the inside of musical instruments for Bjoern Ewers and Mona Sibai as part of an advertising campaign for the chamber ensemble of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra in 2009.
