The mysteries of the musical Family Heindl

Abstract

The paper presents and hopes to elucidate the biographical details of the large musical family Heindl, which have confused historians of the flute until now, chiefly because of the coincidence of the professional names of Edward Martin Heindl (1837-1896), who emigrated to Boston and became flutist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and his older brother Johann Eduard Heindl (1826-1849), a prodigy who died tragically young after a spectacular career. Johann Eduard studied flute directly with Theobald Boehm, and was one of the first great flutists to use Boehm’s new instrument.