Zimmerman Flute Lepzig

Irish Flute
1

Hi all, I’ve been lurking for a while reading all your postings with great interest. Anyway I’m in New Zealand at the moment and had left my flute in Ireland(silly I know ) but I hadn’t played regularly for a few years. I have an ugly ganley which sounds okay and my Dad has an antique (german I think) blackwood flute which looks pretty with an ivory middle piece but I could never get a decent sound out of it.. Anyway I looked around here and one of the shops had two flutes a new keyless Martin Doyle and an antique eight keyed ebony flute by Zimmerman who I’d never heard of. It’s perfect and newly restored .. I tried both and the Martin Doyle flute had a loud full sound and was easy to fill but the antique flute just spoke to me.. it has this fantastic rich full sound, it’s not as loud as the Doyle and its a bit harder to fill, the upper octave needs a bit of lip to keep it in tune.. But I’m in love so I bought it… All I can find out about Zimmerman is that he had factories in London Lepzig and Russia in the last half of the 19th century and made a lot of instruments.. Has anyone else come across one of these flutes.. It was cheaper than the Martin Doyle but I would have paid more for it the tone is so rich but then I always liked antique flutes.. Anyway I’m a happy girl…
Any info on the maker though would be appreciated..
Thanks
Edith

[ This Message was edited by: oreganem on 2002-10-16 23:56 ]

2

Congratulations - you got a beautiful instrument even if it’s provenance is difficult to determine.

I looked at it 3 weeks ago but couldn’t get much out of it because of inexperience with the embouchure required for a flute of that type. The price was tempting though . Good buying and Alistair was a pleasure to talk to as a bonus. No doubt he showed you his reference book indicating that Zimmerman may have also made violins.

I suggest you might double your chances of getting a historical perspective on it by also posting your query at the newsboard at wooden flute.com Amazing threads about antique instruments and construction here.

I found a couple of book references from a “zimmerman” search at flutehistory.com as follows:

Selbstunterricht im Flöten-Spiel Op. 525, Leipzig: Zimmerman, c.1898-1903

Prill, Emil, Schule für die Böhm-Flöte. Method for the Boehm Flute, Op. 7, Leipzig: Wilhelm Zimmerman, c.1898-1903

These might give you a path to follow. Good luck and enjoy that instrument you lucky thing.

3

I suggest you go to the Terry mcGee site at http://www.mcgee-flutes.com/ and check for it. Terry is a flute maker and historian in Australia. Go to his email address and send him the infor. He’ll get back to you. You can also post it on
http://woodenflute.com Enjoy it at any rate.

BillG