The lira organizzata (organ-ized lyre) was essentially a souped-up hurdy-gurdy, fitted out with a set of small organ pipes. The instrument was ordered up by the Neapolitan King Ferdinand IV to set himself apart from the more humble versions that were, and still are, popular on the streets of that wide-open city. First Pleyel, who visited Naples, and then his teacher Haydn, were commissioned to write music for the instrument; Haydn complied around 1786. It is curious that, with all the long mania for authentic performance, ...
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The lira organizzata (organ-ized lyre) was essentially a souped-up hurdy-gurdy, fitted out with a set of small organ pipes. The instrument was ordered up by the Neapolitan King Ferdinand IV to set himself apart from the more humble versions that were, and still are, popular on the streets of that wide-open city. First Pleyel, who visited Naples, and then his teacher Haydn, were commissioned to write music for the instrument; Haydn complied around 1786. It is curious that, with all the long mania for authentic performance, so few players have specialized in playing Haydn's compositions for unusual instruments on the devices for which they were written. There exists a vigorous subculture of amateur builders specializing in small organ-related instruments of all kinds, and various modern examples of lira organizzata are available. The various pairings of recorder, oboe, and flute used in the pieces on this recording, each of which was written for two lire organizzate, must be poor substitutes for the real...
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