Novachord

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Novachord

The Novachord is an electronic musical instrument with polyphonic sound generation. It is the first commercially mass -produced synthesizer with a conventional piano keyboard (in contrast to the Trautonium , developed in 1930 , which is played using tape manuals). The Novachord is played on a 72-key keyboard and uses an early form of the ADSR curve. To generate the sound, u. a. 12 tube oscillators and a total of 169 vacuum tubes . Each key has its own envelope, for example a key that has just been released can fade away while another key that has just been struck slowly settles in. A Novachord weighs around 250 kg.

The Hammond Organ Company built a total of 1,069 copies of the instrument between November 1938 and July 1942. It was the second musical instrument developed by Laurens Hammond after the Hammond organ . It cost $ 1,900 at the time (around € 35,000). It was presented in 1939 at the New York World's Fair both in the Rockefeller Pavilion and in another pavilion as part of the musical Railroads on Parade . For a short period of time, the Novachord was often used on the radio and especially in film music as background music for eerie scenes. Examples come from Erich Wolfgang Korngold ( The Sea Wolf , 1941), Hans J. Salter , Frank Skinner , Franz Waxman ( Rebecca , 1940) or Hanns Eisler ( White Flood , 1940; later adapted for concert use as Eisler's Chamber Symphony op.69 , which also provides the Novachord).

Production, which had come to a standstill as a result of the Second World War , was not resumed afterwards. Only a small number of playable instruments still exist; there are two fully restored instruments worldwide. The capacitors made of wax proved to be particularly problematic in terms of durability.

Web links

literature

  • Sebastian Berweck: Hanns Eisler, the Novachord and the Toaster , in positions No. 122, Berlin, February 2020, pp. 26–33

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Sebastian Berweck: Hanns Eisler, the Novachord and the toaster . In: Andreas Engström, Bastian Zimmermann (Ed.): Positions . No. 122 . Berlin February 2020, p. 26-33 .