# A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Æolian Harp

From volume 1 of the work.
​ÆOLIAN HARP. (Fr. La Harpe Æolienne; Ital. Arpa d' Eolo; Ger. Æolsharfe Windharfe.) The name is from Aeolus the god of the wind. The instrument, of which the inventor is unknown, would appear to owe its origin to the monochord, a string stretched upon two bridges over a soundboard. The string happening to be at a low tension and exposed to a current of air would divide into various aliquot parts according to the varying strength of the current, and thus give the harmonics or overtones we hear in the music of this instrument. Had the principle of the Æolian harp never been discovered, we should in these days of telegraphy have found it out, as it is of frequent occurrence to hear musical sounds from telegraph wires which become audible through the posts which elevate the wires, and assume the function of soundboards. Once recognised on a monochord, it would be a simple process to increase the number of strings, which, tuned in unison, would be differently affected in relation to the current of air by position, and thus give different vibrating segments, forming consonant or dissonant chords as the pressure of wind might determine. That musical sounds could be produced by unaided wind has been long known in the East. According to tradition King David's harp (kinnor) sounded at midnight when suspended over his couch in the north wind; and in an old Hindu poem, quoted by Sir William Jones, the vina, or lute of the country is said to have produced tones, proceeding by musical intervals, by the impulse of the breeze. In the present day the Chinese have kites with vibrating strings, and the Malays have a curious Æolian instrument, a rough bamboo cane of considerable height, perforated with holes and stuck in the ground. This is entirely a wind contrivance, but they have another of split bamboo for strings. (C. Engel, 'Musical Instruments,' 1874, p. 200.) St. Dunstan of Canterbury is said to have hung his harp so that the wind might pass through the strings, causing them to sound, and to have been accused of sorcery in consequence. This was in the 10th century. It was not until the 17th we meet with the Æolian harp itself. Kircher (1602-1680) first wrote about it. He speaks of it in his 'Musurgia Universalis' as being a new instrument and easy to construct, and as being the admiration of every one. He describes the sounds as not resembling those of a stringed or of a wind instrument, but partaking of the qualities of both. This is quite true, and applies to any stretched string the sound of which is made continuous by any other agency than that of a bow, and not dying away as we usually hear the tones of pianofortes, harps, and guitars. Thomson, in the 'Castle of Indolence,' in well-known lines, describes the Æolian harp, but except one phrase, 'such sweet, such sad, such solemn airs divine,' misses the elegiac note that distinguishes the instrument. Matthew Young, bishop of Clonfert, in his 'Enquiry into the Principal Phenomena of Sounds and Musical Strings' (1784), gives full particulars of it, and ​offers a theory of its generation of sound. It also gained attention in Germany about the same time, through a description of it in the 'Gottingen Pocket Calendar' for 1792. H. C. Koch, a German, appears to have bestowed the most attention upon the effects obtainable by varying the construction and stringing of the Æolian harp; but it is of little importance whether the tone be a little louder or a little softer, the impression to be derived from the instrument is as attainable from one of simple build as from double harps, or from one with weighted (spun) strings added.
[ A. J. H. ]