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Unidentified European Instruments |
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| There are very few instances of artists painting actual harp guitars. Clearly this was based on an real instrument. | A young Luigi Mozzani holds a standard guitar. Unknown player with a non-Mozzani instrument | And close-up | Postcard of Benedetto di Ponio, Italian harp guitarist | Postcard of Alpinolo Nunzi, Italian harp guitarist |
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| Postcard of Italian virtuosos Silvio Casale and Mario Bosio | A wonderful group of Italians in costume, c.1880(?) with three different harp guitars. One has removed the sub-bass strings from his instrument. | |
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Another Italian instrument similar to one of those above |
The Costantino Quaranta orchestra from Brescia, Italy includes an unidentified Italian harp guitar. The others play Embergher instruments (see the wonderful new site on Embergher mandolin history, Embergher.com created by Alex Timmerman). |
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| The "Karalis Quartet"
from Sardinia; Giuseppe Piroddi is the harp guitarist. Courtesy of Marco Piroddi |
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| No idea what country this group or the instrument hails from.... | |
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This interesting hollow-arm harp guitar looks like an Italian instrument, though the group is Australian. This is the Melbourne Hawaiian Club with Les Adams on steel guitar, c.1939. |
The harp guitar on the right may be American-built, but looks vaguely Italian or ? From a Washburn catalog. |
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| Photo taken in Minneapolis, yet the instruments look European | |
| Courtesy of The Musical Eye, www.musurgia.com | |
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| Austrian,
German? Courtesy of The Musical Eye, www.musurgia.com |
What country? | |
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Austrian |
Another
German/Austrian instrument |
And similar |
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More European instruments of unknown origin. |
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| This is an extremely unusual European instrument with separate necks and reverse Stauffer-style headstocks | |
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| This photographic postcard may have been reversed or not | Presented as a right-handed model... | An unusual artistic studio shot where the instrument is "front and center" |
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Postcard sent from Sweden, 1910 |
From the decoration, chunky bridge and the rosette shape, guitar expert James Westbrook identified this as a German instrument made in Markneukirchen. The tuners are made by Wettengel also of Markneukirchen. |
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Not a lute-guitar, despite the oval outline - this is a
strange harp guitar with a very strange headstock and even stranger
tuners. 2 sub-bass strings. At right is the same instrument, now with one string.
Researcher/guitarist Andreas Stevens identified the player as Willi Meier-Pauselius.
He says the strange instrument "is possibly his own creation. He and
his father were violin makers and he announced in Der Gitarrefreund an
instrument he had created." Andreas further adds.
"Willi
M-P was living in America in the 'twenties, and toured quite a lot. I
received this information through one of his pupils." Addendum:
8/08: the instrument appears to indeed be original, but not his invention
- it is a close copy of a recently discovered J.G.Stauffer. |
Godfred Christensen. Courtesy of Erling Moldrup, from Guitaren: Et eksotisk instrument i den danske musik. |
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An Italian or Greek instrument played by a Gypsy |
A Greek band with a
harp guitar of unknown provenance. |
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| L-r: Iánnis Dávos (mandola),
Andónis Dalgás (harp guitar), unknown singer, Dimítros Sémsis (violin),
Dimítros Kallínikos 'Arapákis' (santouri) c:a 1930 Copyright and courtesy Tony Klein / Arko Records |
| In Austria, "contra" or "bass" guitars eventually became known as "Schrammel" guitars - named after a general style of popular yet refined music developed by the Schrammel brothers. See Iconography: Identified European Instruments. |
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| This illustration depicts a Schrammel group that the clarinetist Georg Dänzer (of the original Schrammel Quartet) played with (Nov 12, 1882) | A garden party (with the same group?) |
Here are some more formal Schrammel groups and other ensembles with Austrian, Bavarian or German harp guitars.
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A very fancy wappen-shape harp guitar. |
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And a very unusual wappen harp guitar Danish player. |
F. Schult, with no less than 5 very different models, including a nice cutaway! |
| Both courtesy of Erling Moldrup, from Guitaren: Et eksotisk instrument i den danske musik. | |
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Boris Perott |
Still from the 1944 Austrian movie, "Schrammeln" |
Modern performer Eduard
Reiser. |
| Here are more casual players and groups: |
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This series of four
c.1950 German photos shows the same harp guitar-playing gentleman. |
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| An informal group in Berlin | A very early album cover of Roland Neuwirth & Extremschrammeln |
| Schrammel groups of the more tourist-geared Lederhosen variety... |
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2 different postcards of the same photograph |
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| This Viennese
harp guitar is particularly unusual. (image courtesy of the Special Collections Department, University of Iowa Libraries) |
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From a Wilhelm Kruse Markneukirchen catalog, c.1914 |
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While 6-string guitars of this uniquely-shaped guitar are somewhat well known, no harp guitar specimen is known to me |
Koos (or Jacobus) Speenhoff (1869-1945), a Dutch cabaret singer (Thanks to Job A. Gorree) |
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| A balalaika and domra ensemble with an unusual harp guitar | This woman plays a wappen-shaped 7-strings-on-the-neck Russian harp guitar |
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If you enjoyed this article, or found it
useful for research, please consider making a donation to The
Harp Guitar Foundation,
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All Site Contents Copyright © Gregg Miner,2004-2020. All Rights Reserved. Copyright and Fair Use of material and use of images: See Copyright and Fair Use policy. |
