Johan Richter double harmonica The Johan Richter harmonica is one of the oldest and most valuable harmonicas in my chromatic harmonica collection. In actuality, it is not per se a chromatic harmonica, as I will explain below. The first time I saw a similar instrument was a couple years ago on a German television show, where somebody presented a complete set of two singles and a double Richter harmonica. Immediately, I was fascinated. I can narrow down the date of my Richter harmonica to around 1875, based on the ribbon that is attached to the top of the accompanying case. It says: Gebrüder Hug (Hug brothers). Hug was/is the biggest music store in Switzerland until today. The ribbon lists all store locations at that time. The latest store branch to open was in Lucerne (Luzern) in 1874-75.
CHROMATIC HARMONICA A short history Mark Weber
This double harmonica comes with a pair of top and bottom covers, which can either block the top or the button reeds, depending on pushing one of the lower covers towards the reed plate. This interaction automatically lifts the top cover up and blocks the lower one. By releasing the lower covers, the opposite occurs. In theory, it would have been possible to use that exact mechanism to play chromatically, similar to today’s chromatic harmonicas. But instead of pushing a slide button, one could just push or release one of the lower covers. Besides, I was assuming that Johan Richter (most likely born in Bor, now in the Czech Republic) knew about the Joseph Richter Tuning. Based on his name, it is likely that he is a relative or even Joseph Richter’s son. Unfortunately, I was not able to verify that assumption. After some examination of all reeds and tuning, I got somewhat confused. The tuning is definitely not even remotely chromatic and not very coherent. It is possible some of the reeds are out of tune, but I think I could, in most cases, detect that. I was able to gather more information from the harmonica museum in Trossingen, Germany. The museum has a similar instrument displayed. There, it is described as a double-tremoloharmonica tuned in A flat, F, D flat, and G flat (as written on the accompanying case).
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The magazine for HarmonicaUK
