Trautonium
The Trautonium is one of the first electronic musical instruments and thus a forerunner of today's synthesizers . The instrument is named after its inventor Friedrich Trautwein (1888–1956). It was presented to the public for the first time at the music conference “New Music Berlin 1930”.
functionality
The Trautonium has an infinitely variable tone generator that is rich in overtones and works as follows: A string wound with resistance wire is stretched over a long metal rail, which creates electrical contact with the rail when it is pressed down. A capacitor is charged via this variable resistor. A glow lamp is connected in parallel to this . As soon as their ignition voltage is reached, the capacitor is suddenly discharged. This creates a tilting oscillation . The point at which the rail touches the resistance wire when playing determines the frequency of the tilting oscillation and thus the pitch. Since the ignition voltage of the glow lamp is subject to fluctuations, it was later Trautwein by a thyratron - tube replaced with more constant switching behavior. A carbon pressure resistor to influence the volume is located under the rail. For this purpose, the device has a so-called formant filter , which emphasizes individual frequencies in the spectrum. According to Trautwein, the influence of the sound is based on the increase in resonance of the oral cavity when people speak and works with downstream resonant circuits . The wire manual was viewed by contemporary electrical engineering as a way to play microtonal intervals.
history
In the 1920s, Trautwein was dissatisfied with the quality of the microphones of the time and looked for ways to simply omit them for music and to generate sounds directly with amplifier tubes or transformers. At the radio test center of the Berlin Musikhochschule he met the composer Paul Hindemith , who thought the idea was great and is quoted as saying:
"Build me an electronic musical instrument"
In 1930 Trautwein developed the first prototype of the instrument together with Oskar Sala (1910–2002) . A small series of 200 pieces was built by Telefunken from 1933 and advertised as an instrument for house music . It is now known as the “folk trautonium”, but was not initially referred to as such. Telefunken itself called it “Trautonium Ela T 42” (“Ela” stands for “electroacoustics”). Sala participated in the development. Telefunken registered two of his inventions as patents. The instrument was presented in Berlin on August 2, 1933. Sala he recorded the third movement of a flute concerto from Frederick the Great for a record distributed at the press conference .
In April 1935 Sala played together with Rudolph Schmidt and the cellist Peter Herbert Lehmann at a presentation of the instrument to Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels in the Propaganda Ministry. According to a newspaper note under the heading “ Electronic music in the Propaganda Ministry”, State Secretary Walther Funk and music experts were present alongside Goebbels . Sala later reported that Goebbels had inquired whether the Trautonium could be used for major events and that he had given his approval to the project by saying “go ahead”.
With Trautwein, Sala experimented in the autumn of 1935 with filling the Dietrich Eckart stage (today Waldbühne ) in Berlin with the Trautonium for mass events. Sala played classical compositions by Harald Genzmer and Handel's Herakles, among others . The Trautonium was amplified with large loudspeakers from Telefunken and accompanied by the Air Force orchestra . According to Salas, the orchestra, unlike the Trautonium, could hardly be heard in the audience.
Due to the high price of 380 Reichsmarks at the time , the Telefunken Trautonium was not a market success and was not continued. Therefore, there are only a few historical instruments on the market (around 10 pieces). From then on, Sala's bon mot was valid :
"If you want a Trautonium, you have to build one."
The trautonium, which Sala developed even before the outbreak of war ("radio trautonium" and "concert trautonium") and later as the "mixturtrautonium", was based on the subharmonic tone series . The combination of several subharmonic tones is called a mixture. These act like a multi-sound . Sala's instruments remained prototypes. A similar instrument, the subharchord , which, in contrast to the Trautonium, is played with keys, was developed in the GDR in the 1960s (1959–1968) and a few copies were produced.
Oskar Sala became the most important interpreter of the Trautonium, which he developed into the two-manual Mixturtrautonium after separating from Trautwein. The series of undertones , which only sound naturally in tinkling plates or bells, can be implemented on this device . It allows many variations of the tone color synthesis - decay device , noise generator and frequency converter enable the finest nuances. The frequency converter, which was an external device and Oskar Sala's own tube-based construction, like his early Trautonia, is now in the Deutsches Museum in Munich together with Sala's entire estate . He also used the converter for the "Mixturtrautonium according to Oskar Sala on a semiconductor basis ", realized by the Deutsche Bundespost University of Applied Sciences , which he played from 1988 and which is now in the Berlin Musical Instrument Museum . With the commitment to the film music for Alfred Hitchcock's Die Vögel , the instrument gained notoriety beyond the music scene.
A similar instrument is the Hellertion developed in 1928 by Bruno Helberger (1884–1951) and Peter Lertes . After the Second World War, Helberger developed an improved version called the Heliophon .
Modern versions
In the 1990s, the Doepfer company started a project to reissue the Trautonium as a modular system of individual components. Among other things, the " MIDI Ribbon Controller" interface based on the analog manual of the Trautonium was developed for this purpose. Sala himself was often disappointed by the reduced possibilities (the use of MIDI results in a limitation of the basically unlimited analogue range to 128 discrete MIDI units) and the slow progress of this development. In addition, Sala emphasized the nuanced way of playing a “real” tape manual compared to a ribbon controller. Since 2010 the company "Trautoniks" has been building trautonia in simple and complex designs in historical cases. She exhibited her products for the first time at the 2012 Frankfurt Music Fair. In 2020 the American synthesizer manufacturer Moog brought the "Subharmonicon" onto the market, the construction of which is based on the Trautonium with 2 VCOs and four subharmonic oscillators.
Works for trautonium
Paul Hindemith wrote his first compositions for trautonium in 1930 with seven pieces The Little Electro Musician's Favorite for three Trautonia, in 1931 with the Concertino for Trautonium and string orchestra and in 1935 with the Slow Piece and Rondo .
Other works:
- Paul Höffer: Small Chamber Music 1932
- Wolfgang Jacobi : Evening Fantasy for Bass Voice and Electric Orchestra 1932
- Harald Genzmer : Two concerts with orchestra in 1936 (second version 1939) and 1952, Suite de danses 1964, Cantate pour soprano et sons éléctroniques 1964
- Herrmann Ambrosius: Rhapsody 1941
- Julius Weismann : Variations and Fugue with Orchestra 1943
- Hanns Eisler : The Council of the Gods 1950
- Klaus Jungk : Music for Trautonium and String Quartet 1951
- Paul Dessau : Lucullus 1951
- Carl Orff : Entrata 1954
- Jürg Baur : Concerto for Mixtur-Trautonium and String Quartet 1956
- Liesl Ujvary, Oliver Stummer: Trautonium Jetztzeit 2008
- Wolfgang Gerhard Müller; Recalibrations 2010
- Jens Marggraf: Devils. 7 portraits for Trautonium, Phonola and Orchestra 2012
- Manuela Kerer : Firing Soul for Mixturtrautonium and Orchestra 2016
Current artists
Oskar Sala developed the Mixturtrautonium further, but did not train any students. In 1988 a young Munich musician, Peter Pichler, became aware of the instrument. In 1996 Pichler visited Oskar Sala.
For economic reasons, Peter Pichler could not actively pursue the Trautonium at this point. After his research on and with the instrument, he commissioned a mixed trautonium from the Trautoniks company in 2009. Pichler had written the music theater piece "Wiedersehen in Trautonien" about the fathers of the Trautonium, which was performed, among other things, as part of the centenary of Oskar Sala's birthday in the Deutsches Museum in Munich. To this end, he had three folk trautonia built at his own expense, one of which the Deutsches Museum acquired for its permanent exhibition. Since then, Peter Pichler has made regular appearances in various musical genres on the Mixturtrautonium. The classical literature, which z. B. was written by Paul Hindemith, Harald Genzmer or Oskar Sala for this instrument, is extremely demanding even for experienced musicians. In 2017 he was the first artist after Oskar Sala to publish a CD in cooperation with the Harald Genzmer Foundation with original, mostly previously unpublished works for Trautonium by Harald Genzmer . Pichler also accompanies films live that have been set to music with Trautonium. B. “ The Birds ” by Alfred Hitchcock or many documentaries with Trautonium soundtrack by Manfred Durniok or Alfred Ehrhardt .
literature
- Hans Mersmann : Dr. Trautwein's electrical music . In Melos , 9th year, issue 5/6, No. 7, 1930, ISSN 0174-7207 , p. 228 ff.
- Friedrich Trautwein : Electrical Music (= publications of the radio test center at the State Academic University of Music , Vol. 1, ZDB -ID 597113-5 ). Weidmannsche Buchhandlung, Berlin 1930
- Joachim Winckelmann: The Trautonium. A new radio musical instrument. Detailed building instructions (= Deutsche Radio-Bücherei , Vol. 17, ZDB -ID 1000872-x ). Deutsch-Literarisches Institut J. Schneider, Berlin-Tempelhof 1930 (plus 1 (color) construction plan in natural size, with illus.)
- Oskar Sala : Trautonium School . Edited by Friedrich Trautwein. B. Schott's Sons, Mainz 1933
- Peter Donhauser: Technical gimmick or fantastic reality? Telefunken and the first electronic instruments in Germany. In: Stefan Poser (Ed.): Playing with technology . Catalog for the exhibition in the German Museum of Technology in Berlin. Koehler & Amelang, Leipzig 2006, ISBN 3-7338-0353-1
- Peter Donhauser: Electric sound machines. The pioneering days in Germany and Austria . Böhlau, Vienna et al. 2007, ISBN 3-205-77593-7
- Thomas Patteson: Instruments for New Music: Sound, Technology, and Modernism (Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2016), ISBN 978-0-520-28802-7
Web links
- Peter Pichler - Trautonium player
- trautonium.de - Website about the Trautonium
- Trautonium at the Oskar-Skala-Fonds at the Deutsches Museum
Individual evidence
- ^ A b Forum contribution on the Volkstrautonium at Radiomuseum.org. Retrieved April 7, 2017 .
- ↑ Joachim Stange-Elbe: Electrical musical instruments. A historical review with contemporary documents. Part 6: Saitenspiele (1) , in: Bulletin of the Center for Electronic Music eV Freiburg , No. 15 (September 1994), p. 7 ff, accessed on December 8, 2018
- ↑ A. Lion-Berlin: "Das Trautonium", in: Die Musik XXIV / 11, pp. 833–835; P. 835.
- ↑ https://www.br-klassik.de/themen/klassik-entdecke/trautonium-erstmals-vorgestell-trautwein-sala-was-heute-geschah-1930-100.html
- ↑ Peter Donhauser: Electrical sound machines. The pioneering days in Germany and Austria . Böhlau, Vienna et al. 2007, p. 247 f.
- ^ Thomas Patteson, Instruments for New Music: Sound, Technology, and Modernism (Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2016), p. 131.
- ^ Deutsches Museum: Oskar Sala Fund at the Deutsches Museum: Volkstrautonium. Retrieved May 19, 2020 .
- ^ Deutsches Museum: Oskar Sala Fund at the Deutsches Museum: Large view 2. Accessed on May 20, 2020 .
- ↑ a b Klangspiegel - electronic & classic - conversation with Oskar Sala. Retrieved on May 20, 2020 (German).
- ↑ Deutsches Museum: Oskar Sala Fund at the Deutsches Museum: 1933 - 1935. Accessed on May 19, 2020 .
- ↑ 'Deutschlandradio Kultur': Culture tip March 1, 2007
- ^ Baines, Anthonie: Lexicon of musical instruments. JB Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 1996/2010, p. 132
- ↑ Electronic musical instruments , State Institute for Music Research
- ↑ Page on the MIDI Trautonium at Doepfer.de. Retrieved January 31, 2011 .
- ↑ Michael Geisel: Moog Subharmonicon - The semi-modular synthesizer is coming! In: bonedo.de. May 12, 2020, accessed May 20, 2020 .
- ↑ Trautonium Player. Peter Pichler, accessed on March 21, 2018 .
- ^ Kristin Amme, Thomas Schulz: CD - Harald Genzmer: Works for Trautonium. BR Klassik , January 20, 2017, accessed March 21, 2018 .
- ^ Alfred Hitchcock's “Die Vögel” with live Mixturtrautonium accompaniment by Peter Pichler - Filmmusiktage 2017. Accessed on March 21, 2018 (English).