In revivalist groups in Europe, a kind of harmonium was often used to accompany the singing at gatherings in the 19th century. The early and simple versions are also known as Physharmonica (Wikipedia). The production of tones is similar to that of an accordion.
Following is a picture of a simple harmonium in the archives of St. Chrischona:
The first harmonium in Abyssinia appears to have been brought to Adwa by Maria Gobat in 1835 (Chojnacki, p. 83).
- Maria, the wife of (Bishop) Samuel Gobat, was the daughter of educator and hymnwriter Christian Heinrich Zeller and the mother of missionary and hymnwriter Dora Rappard.
Other individuals associated with missions in Ethiopia, who owned/ played a harmonium:
- Flad family
- Gebru Desta (cf. letter dated Dec. 1885)
- Onesimos Nesib
- The Revs. Diedrich Wassmann and Ernst Bauerochse
Please note that even the Head of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church from 1841 to 1867, abunä Sälama III, provided Krapf in 1855 with money to buy him a harmonium (Ostertag, Krapf’s Tagebuch, p. 150: “tragbare Orgel”). Abunä Sälama likely learned to play the harmonium in Cairo while attending the Church Missionary Society school and “seminary” directed by the Revs. Lieder and Kruse.
- Cf. Church Missionary Records 11 (1840): 102: “This class leads the singing at church, on Lord’s Day; and two of the elder lads join in reading the Psalms and Responses of the Liturgy in English. One of the lads—he who accompanied Mr. Krapf to Abyssinia—is privately instructed three hours a week in playing a small kind of organ, called Harmonica; and we hope he will in the course of next year be able to lead the singing at church by this instrument” (emphasis added).
Video
Physharmonica (explanations in German):
Introduction to more complex harmoniums (in English):
Further reading
Chojnacki, Stanisław. “Some Notes on Early Travellers in Ethiopia,” University College Review 1, no. 1 (1961): 71‒89. [View p. 83; JSTOR]
Flad, Pauline. Eine braune Perle: Erinnerungen aus dem Missionsleben in Abessinien. Neukirchen: Missionsbuchhandlung Stursberg, 1908. [On the harmonium, see p. 37; view online]
Ostertag, Albert. “Die Reise des Missionars Dr. Krapf nach Abessinien im Jahr 1855: Mit einer kirchen- und missionsgeschichtlichen sowie ethnographischen Einleitung über Abessinien,” Magazin für die neueste Geschichte der evangelischen Missions- und Bibelgesellschaften 41, no. 4 (1856): 76-183. [See p. 150; MDZ München]
Please note that the first keyboard instrument was introduced in Ethiopia as early as the 16th century:
- Cole, Janie. “From Lisbon to Shewa via Goa: Renaissance Keyboards in the Christian Kingdom of Sixteenth-Century Ethiopia,” in ‘Universum Rei Harmonicae Concentum Absolvunt:’ The Harpsichord in the Sixteenth Century, edited by Augusta Campagne and Markus Grassl, p. 167‒97. Vienna: mdwPress, 2024. [View online]
Cross-reference
» Musical history of St. Chrischona