Violin piano

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Violin piano refers to a musical instrument that imitates a piano combined with a register of organ pipes, combined with the sound of a violin . With particularly fine gradations of dynamics and vibrato , they were able to reproduce the sound of a violin played as a soloist realistically and vividly. It is controlled by paper tape rolls . The violin piano, like the orchestrion and string piano , is a mechanical musical instrument.

history

The company JD Philipps & Sons in Frankfurt / Main manufactured violin pianos, which became known as "Pianella Paganini". From 1910 Philipps produced the Paganini series, named after Niccolò Paganini , the most famous violin virtuoso of the 19th century. You are thus in a series of different attempts to integrate the violin sound in automatons. Philipps has applied for a patent for the Pianella Paganini.

variants

The product range of the Philipps violin pianos with piano and violin register also includes violin orchestrions with several pipe registers and other instruments such as clarinet, xylophone, drums, tambourine, cymbals, triangles and castanets.

Philipps offered the violin pianos both with a simple mechanism for inserting a roll and with an automatic roll change mechanism for holding several rolls, which enabled them to be played without delay. This mechanical variant was used especially in the movie theaters of that time until the introduction of the sound film. As an option, there was also a remote control that a projectionist could use to control the violin piano.

Preserved instruments

Since 2012, a well-preserved violin piano by Philip's "Pianella Paganini Model 1", built around 1911, has been exhibited in the Deutsches Museum in Munich. According to the information provided by the Deutsches Museum, the acquisition costs at that time were between 4,890 Marks for violin piano model 1 with a simple mechanism and 19,500 Marks for the "violin orchestra model 12" with revolver mechanism .

See also

JD Philipps

swell

  • Q. David Bowers: Encyclopedia of Automatic Musical Instruments, Vestal, NY: Vestal Press 1972, pp. 563-579 and 684-702.
  • Catalog: Frankfurter Musikwerke-Fabrik JD Philipps & Söhne, Paganini violin pianos, Paganini violin orchestrions, reprint, 56 pages, A4, landscape format
  • Catalog: Philipps, Pianella Musikwerke, reprint, 139 pages, 25 cm × 18 cm, portrait format ( Society for Self-Playing Musical Instruments eV )
  1. ↑ Violin piano 1911 from the company JD Philipps & Sons in Frankfurt / Main in the Deutsches Museum