MUSICAL JUMBOMANIA.
"The piano with a thirty-foot keyboard, forty-five octaves, and five hundred and twenty-two keys, which Mr. Alfred Butt will 'present' in 'Follow the Crowd' at the Empire Theatre, is now in course of construction. Six pianists will play it, and Mr. Irving Berlin, the composer of 'Watch Your Step,' is composing some special melodies for them."—Sunday Paper.
The new Bombastophone which the Titanola Company are constructing for Mr. Boomer, the famous War lecturer, is approaching completion. This remarkable instrument, which roughly resembles a double-bassoon, stands about 45 feet high, and has a compass of 500 octaves, from the low B flat in profundissimo to the high G on the Doncaster St. Leger line. The use that Mr. Boomer makes of the Bombastophone is very original and effective. Whenever he sees that the attention of his audience is flagging he introduces an interlude of "bombination," which renders lethargy impossible and exercises an indescribably stimulating effect on the tympanum. The current of air is supplied by a bellows operated by an eight-cylinder Brome engine, but Mr. Boomer works the keys himself, climbing up and down them with a rapidity which must be seen to be appreciated.
Another instrument which is expected to work a revolution in the realm of sonority is the Clumbungo Drum, on which Mr. Wackford Bumpus will shortly give a recital at the Albert Hall. The drum, which is made of teak and rhinoceros hide, is three hundred feet in circumference, but only twenty feet high, and the drumsticks are of proportionate length. As Dr. Blamphin, the eminent aurist, remarks, "The merit of the notes of this momentous instrument is their profound sincerity. They cannot be disregarded even by the most absent-minded auditor."