Silke Becker, the fantastic up-and-coming flutist we've interviewed here, is delighted to have a new treasure:
"Most likely the world's first left-handed piccolo - thank you, Nina Mehnert! I am just happy to have the opportunity to play such a beautiful instrument again. And I don't have to explain that it feels great to play on the left side... ;) Also, a heartfelt thank you to the Eugen & Helga Seitz Foundation for supporting me so lovingly in my whole endeavor!"
Thus, what the American author Philip Everett Curtiss depicted as a total absurdity in his eponymous story a good hundred years ago has become a reality: "The left-handed piccolo player"!
'There is one question on which everything depends,' Rosa said, as we talked it over. 'Do you happen to be left-handed?' My heart gave a leap. I saw it was fate. Left-handed was one of the few things I happened to be. 'And one other thing,' she pursued. 'Can you play the piccolo?'
Curtiss' story is about a man telling others about a (obviously fictional) concert tour as a left-handed piccolo player... Well, the 'piccolo' in the story turns out to be a rare silver flute. And it was built left-handed because the musician who was originally supposed to play it was deaf in the right ear....
A real surviving instrument by George Howarth 1894, described as 'Piccolo in C, Left-Handed', proves to be suspiciously right-handed even at first glance....
So, congratulations, Silke! :)
Photo credits: private