Resurrecting the Lituus

Researchers from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and the University of Edinburgh collaborated on a study to re-create an old musical instrument known as the lituus.

Although music was written for the instrument - Bach's choral musical composition "O Jesu Christ, meins lebens licht" was one of the last pieces of music written for it – nobody alive had ever seen one, knew what it looked like or exactly what it sounded like. However, software that was developed by Alistair Braden to improve the design of modern brass instruments enabled researchers to recreate the instrument.

Researchers developed a system that enabled them to design the Lituus from the best guesses of its shape and range of notes. According to the BBC the result was a 2.7m (8.5ft) -long horn, with a flared bell at the end. It is an unwieldy instrument with a limited tonal range that is hard to play. But played well, it apparently gives Johann Sebastian Bach's work a haunting feel that couldn't be reproduced by modern instruments.

Dr Braden and his supervisor Professor Murray Campbell, were approached by a Swiss-based music conservatoire specialising in early music, the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, to help them recreate the Lituus. SCB gave them their expert thoughts on what the Lituus may have been like in terms of the notes it produced, its tonal quality and how it might have been played.