A good friend of mine had a Schwarzer Arion piano back zither that I was borrowing for a few weeks. It was beautiful but I found the instrument hard to play and the tone was way different from what I was used to. The sound had a lot of high end in it when compared to a modern instrument. I found it rather harsh but it did carry very well. I think that since these were 19th century instruments, they were designed for an acoustic sound environment that was noisy. The Schwarzer was excellent for the bottleneck blues that I played on it but not so satisfying for other material. I have only played a couple of Schwarzers so I don't have much of a basis for comparison. I'd be very interested to hear what others have to say.

Ken Bloom

Sepp,

You can find the Schwarzer publication offered at the following link -- look for the one listed as "Missouri Historical Review, Franz Schwarzer Article." It's $4, and whatever shipping charges may apply. The booklet is 30 pages and contains a lot of great information regarding Schwarzer and his enterprise.

http://washmohistorical.org/whs_publications.htm

Greetings from Maryland,
Dave

Hi Ken,

You are right. The piano bottom zithers sound usually quite different than regular built zithers. Their Klang is sharper, harder, shriller, louder and therefore not as melodious as most other zithers. One could say that they are really suited only for a certain kind of music.

Still, I'll keep my eyes open for a nice Schwarzer piano bottom zither. Just to be able to demonstrate that piano bottom zithers had been built in the US as well.

Sepp

Dave,

Thanks for the information about the Schwarzer publication. I'll try to get one.

Sepp

HI Sepp,

You're absolutely right about the tone. I wish I had one for playing blues on. It's the best for that. My Meinel perfekta does ok and much better than my Meinel Jr. 42 string for blues, but the edge of the Schwarzer really makes the bottleneck stuff come alive.

Ken