Physharmonica – The Aeolodicon of the Esterházy Foundation

In “Physharmonica – The Esterházy Foundation’s Aeolodikon,” Anton Holzapfel and Jutta Täuber-Holzapfel introduce a rarely heard precursor to the harmonium. Developed around 1810, the Aeolodikon uses air from a foot-operated bellows to set metal reeds vibrating. The program combines this instrument with the fortepiano and shows how familiar music was arranged for this unusual combination.

The program focuses on arrangements by Carl Georg Lickl: the minuet from Ludwig van Beethoven’s Septet, Franz Schubert’s “Ständchen,” Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy’s “Venezianisches Gondellied,” and selected movements from Joseph Haydn’s “Die sieben letzten Worte unseres Erlösers am Kreuze.” These are complemented by Lickl’s “Motif de Fr. Schubert,” a four-hand fortepiano sonata by Johann Georg Lickl, and Karel František Pitsch’s arrangement of the hymn “Gott erhalte.” In this way, the history of the instrument takes shape through concrete examples from its repertoire.