TIDBIT: LEONARDO DAVINCI’S VIOLA ORGANISTA FINALLY BUILT AND ...

have to share this, both because I love classical music, keyboard instruments, and Leonardo DaVinci, who invented a keyboard instrument called the viola organista, which bows its strings. Well, someone in Poland finally built one(the first in history), and debuted it at Krakow's music conservatory, and best of all, a nice performance of Boccherini's Minuet in G at the end of the performance. A bit of engineering craft and beauty and some lovely music:

Leonardo Da Vinci's Wacky Piano is Heard for the first time after 500 years

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Joseph P. Farrell

Joseph P. Farrell has a doctorate in patristics from the University of Oxford, and pursues research in physics, alternative history and science, and "strange stuff". His book The Giza DeathStar, for which the Giza Community is named, was published in the spring of 2002, and was his first venture into "alternative history and science".

17 Comments

  1. Margaret on November 24, 2013 at 6:31 pm

    Da Vinci’s mechanical lion that was presented to the French king François I has been recreated. It is very whimsical and must have been quite a sensation when it made its presentation.

    Da Vinci’s mechanical lion walks
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNWE2AdfNuo

    Leonardo Da Vinci’s Lion Robot for the King of France, Year-1515
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jBkwCWxaic
    (shows the inner mechanisms)



  2. Milton Zentmyer on November 24, 2013 at 5:05 pm

    This is such a joy and a wonder! Thank you Joseph. What an exquisite piece of art this instrument is!

    Have you ever thought about writing about Da Vinci? This man was beyond other visual artists of his time. With your deep research and musical background,……Oh, you got to do it!!!!!



  3. marcos toledo on November 22, 2013 at 7:18 pm

    One word WOW.



  4. RAJM on November 22, 2013 at 1:01 pm

    Maybe someone will build his helicopter?

    There is a stunning apple app with all LDV’s anatomical drawings and notes which have been translated from their mirror writing.

    Until this came out it was impossible to view them as the Queen of England keeps them locked in Windsor castle. Occasionally some go on view.

    If anyone has an interest in anatomy and LDV’s genius & art, that app is well worth the $14.00. I would have paid far more just to view them. The only shame is, as far as I know, the app is only available in itunes.



  5. kchuray on November 20, 2013 at 10:28 pm

    Wow, that is so cool! What an exquisite sound. Trust the music-loving Poles to find a way to build it.



  6. Frankie Calcutta on November 20, 2013 at 11:45 am

    It was a popular instrument back on Atlantis. I remember my mother would play hers for hours out on the crystal terrace, sometimes under the light from the two Moons. It wasn’t unusual to see woodland creatures scurry out of the forest to be close to the wonderful sounds. It was believed the music from a viola organista could subdue the nearly insatiable lust of a satyr and even pacify the anger of an irate griffin. Then one day some wicked men came and took my mother’s viola organista away. They said my father had run up a hefty debt to the immigrant money lenders— smoking their enslaving grog in their houses of debauchery. Eventually he was forced to work in their mines and death came soon after. My mother supported me and my blessed hermaphrodite sibling after my father’s death by playing the viola organista for the moneylenders in their sordid meeting places. The degradation and the vileness of the men and their utter contempt for beauty drove my mother to an early grave also. Soon after, the money lenders grew interested in my hermaphrodite sibling and the others that lived in our lands. Hermaphrodites were considered sacred among our people. As the King of our lands went further and further into debt to the money lenders just like my father, he decreed under duress that all hermaphrodites were now the property of the foreigner money lenders. It was a fateful day and I never saw my sibling again. Soon I too, along with all the others who refused to work in the money lenders’ houses of debauchery, were forced to work in the mines as well. I never heard the enchanting sounds of the viola organista again. Music was under the control of the money lenders and it became a witchcraft to disorient our minds. But as I smoked my grog late in the evening, watching nature die all around me, I could still hear the celestial music of my mother’s viola organista in my rotting mind.



    • jedi on November 20, 2013 at 1:17 pm

      I am writing a novel about that era, its called cinder fella…..set to a melodic drama, where the animals all come to listen to the music playing, and in one double feature, the slaughter started, and the grog comforted the sleepers.



    • Vader_Etro on November 20, 2013 at 4:50 pm

      A lover of classical music as well (and the ‘king of music’ in particular), I was in a state of rapt, astonished attention for the duration of this piece, and thank you for this experience, Dr. Farrell.



      • Vader_Etro on November 20, 2013 at 7:31 pm

        Ach! “King of Instruments’, that is…

        Never rush a post!



  7. Robert Barricklow on November 20, 2013 at 8:47 am

    This tripped my wife’s hot botton.



  8. LSM on November 20, 2013 at 7:01 am

    as I am a professional musician (opera singer) this kind of info interests me greatly- however, this video has been around for awhile- I can’t keep my mouth shut about the following:

    I hate to burst anyone’s bubble (including my own but sadly exactly that occured a long time ago);

    Scottish musicologist Robert Newman (his interviews are available on RedIce: “The Manufacture of Mozart” and “The Music Industry”) has asserted, due to his research, that just about everything attributed Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (throw in Haydn and Beethoven as well) was not written by Mozart but by various composers (no copyright laws back then); the concept of ‘Mozart childhood genius” was a ficticious creation of 18th century money hungry thugs trying to lure investors (“The Producers,” anyone?) to finance the ficticious works of a fabricated childhood genious; ‘Mozart’ never achieved much notariety during his lifetime; any wonder?- but his handlers probably laughed all the way to the bank- and once he was no longer saleable he was cast to the side to die as a pauper-

    Robert Newman’s oral interviews are obviously not foot-noted and neither is this published article- so for those who can only believe a concept if it’s foot-noted believes exclusively on orthographic hear-say-

    no offense whatsoever, Dr. Farrell; I’m a tremendous fan of yours (otherwise I wouldn’t be here and wouldn’t voraciously devour your books like I do); but let’s connect some dots here, OK?- the “alleged” Da Vinci perfectly-tuned piano was during the Renaissance, OK?, long before whoever J.S. Bach might’ve been who tampered with the clavichord (official story) erasing the last remnants of quarter tones- so who got there first?- Da Vinci or Bach?-

    I’m “mystified” how this went past your otherwise finely tuned radar, Dr. Farrell-

    please continue to be well Dr. Farrell and readers-

    Larry in Germany



    • Robert Barricklow on November 20, 2013 at 8:48 am

      Today’s modern day Bill Gates



      • jedi on November 20, 2013 at 9:13 am

        yup, nothing new under the sun….but lots too reknow



  9. BetelgeuseT-1 on November 20, 2013 at 2:05 am

    Exquisite.
    Thanks Dr Farrell for sharing it.



  10. Margaret on November 19, 2013 at 11:21 pm

    Elegant music for an elegant instrument … a work of art on its own. Now that 3D printing is here, Mr. Zubrzycki can shave hours and years off building a companion viola organista. Thanks for sharing … appreciated seeing and hearing it!



  11. James on November 19, 2013 at 9:53 pm

    Sublime. Brilliant. Genius.
    Thank you for sharing this find.



  12. simonjester on November 19, 2013 at 9:42 pm

    Why did it take so long before someone built one?



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