Gordon, James Carel Gerhard

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Gordon, James Carel Gerhard

Gordon, James Carel Gerhard, flute maker; b.Cape Town, May 22, 1791; d. Lausanne, c. 1845. He was born of a Dutch captain and a Swiss mother. He joined the Swiss Guards of Charles X in Paris in 1814. He concurrently studied flute with Tulou, and worked on improvements of its mechanism more or less at the same time as Bohm, so that the priority of the invention became a matter of insoluble controversy. He escaped with his life during the attack on the Swiss Guards in the Revolution of 1830. He was pensioned and retired to Switzerland when his mind became deranged.

Bibliography

C. Welch, History of the Boehm Flute (London, 1896).

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire

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