Orchestrion
The Orchestrion is one of the mechanical music automatons . It had the purpose of imitating an entire orchestra if possible . The concert orchestrion was designed for playing in the salons of the high society and the halls of large hotels and played music such as Beethoven - symphonies , opera overtures , but also marches and dance music.
Some forerunners of these instruments were also called “orchestrions”, although they were not yet music automatons, such as a portable organ by Georg Joseph Vogler . On the other hand, early versions of the orchestrion were not yet called this - for example, Johann Nepomuk Mälzel called his music automaton, invented in 1805, “ Panharmonikon ”.
The first orchestrations resembled organs and mimicked brass music . In the first half of the 19th century, numerous companies took part in the further development of these instruments. In 1883, Emil Welte invented control using piano rolls (perforated strips of paper), a decisive innovation. The integration of an automatically played violin did not succeed until 1905 in Chicago , and a little later also in Leipzig . The last orchestrations were built around 1930.
Development history
precursor
In 1502 the oldest known mechanical stationary barrel organ or barrel organ with 200 pipes of the Salzburg bull was built by Archbishop Leonhard von Keutschach , which can still be heard every day at the Hohensalzburg Fortress . From 1502 on, this hornwork played a melody that was changed and expanded in several stages. In 1668 it was switched to three pieces of music and in 1893 to twelve melodies, one for each month.
In the 18th century barrel organs and flute clocks were already common in many European countries. At the end of the 18th century, music boxes were also produced on a larger scale. From the barrel organ - at about the same time as the orchestrion - the transportable street or fair organs , which were quite similar to the orchestrions, were created. The main difference was that the fair organs were transported back and forth between the different fairs or festivals, while a mature orchestrion was a stationary instrument.
In 1796 Georg Joseph Vogler had a transportable organ built by master organ builder Knecht from Tübingen , which was presented as the “Orchestrion” in Stockholm , later in 1801 in Prague and other European cities.
From the first music automaton to the concert orchestrion
In 1805, Johann Nepomuk Mälzel (1772–1838) completed the panharmonicon , in which he also built resounding reeds. Ludwig van Beethoven composed the second part of Wellington's Victory or the Battle of Vitoria (op. 91) for this device in 1813 . Vogler and Mälzel were in Vienna together from 1801 to 1805, and in 1806 and 1807 both performed in Paris with their new achievements . Vogler explained and showed the innovations everywhere.
After Wolfgang von Kempelen's death in 1804, Mälzel came into the possession of his Chess Turks . He went on tour with this and his jukeboxes. In 1825 he traveled to the USA with it and caused a sensation. It is possible that he was in the USA as early as 1811 - a panharmonicon was performed in New York , Boston and other cities in 1811 and 1812 .
Friedrich Kaufmann in Dresden recreated the Panharmonikon in 1812. Kaufmann himself writes that he was in Paris around 1806 at the same time as Mälzel and Vogler, and that he had good personal contacts with Vogler. A mechanical trumpeter from his hand is in the Deutsches Museum in Munich.
Further steps:
- In 1817 the English organ builder Flight & Robson in London built a similar automat as the Panharmonikon and named it Apollonicon .
- In 1823 William M. Goodrich copied Mälzel's Panharmonic in Boston, USA with others.
- In 1829 the mechanic Bauer showed his panharmonic in Vienna.
The production centers for the concert orchestras in Germany were Freiburg im Breisgau , Vöhrenbach in the Black Forest and Leipzig , and for fairground, street and barrel organs in Waldkirch im Breisgau .
Orchestras have also been built by the music box maker Carl Blessing in Unterkirnach in the Black Forest since around 1820 . The impetus for the Black Forest orchestrion building came from the Blessing family: In the decades that followed, the Blessing orchestras were sold to Russia. From 1845 to 1848 the Vöhrenbacher music box maker Michael Welte , a student of Blessing, built a musical work for a buyer in Odessa , which was supposed to imitate all the orchestral parts.
In 1851 a London newspaper described an automatic musical instrument called the Orchestrion , which Friedrich Theodor Kaufmann, a son of Friedrich Kaufmann , had developed in Dresden. It could imitate a complete brass band and additional drums - with kettledrum , drums , cymbals , tambourine and triangle .
The instrument, exhibited by Michael Welte at the world exhibition in London in 1862, became famous and was given the name Orchestrion by the press . The illustration of this instrument has been used in numerous reference works as an example for the entire genre of instruments.
The invention of the piano roll
In 1883 Emil Welte patented a process according to which the Welte orchestrations were controlled by perforated paper strips. These so-called piano rolls replaced the pen roll within a few years . Two further patents from 1889 (DRP 48,741 and 58,252) improved the process decisively. From then on, Welte switched the entire production to the piano roll, the patents were registered in Germany for M. Welte & Sons .
The integration of the violin
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In 1905 or 1906, the Mills Novelty Company in Chicago , USA, introduced the first orchestrion with an integrated violin . This instrument, the Automatic Virtuosa , had a built-in violin in the upper part, the strings were bowed by four rotating celluloid discs. From 1909 there was an improved model, the Violano-Virtuoso . It was produced in various versions until around 1930.
In addition to the Mills Novelty Company, Ludwig Hupfeld AG in Leipzig succeeded in building an orchestrion with a violin. At the autumn fair there in 1908, she presented the prototype of a violin-playing orchestrion, the Hupfeld Phonoliszt Violina . The oldest known model from 1909, which is now in the Rüdesheim Music Cabinet , has three upright violins arranged in a round arch. A " violin bow ", which consists of approx. 1400 braided horsehair, rotates around the three violins and strikes the strings. The attempt to construct violin orchestras with 2 × 2 violins, i.e. with all four strings or even with 2 × 3 violins, was probably too complicated and was given up after a short time. Only three violins were used in series production. The Phonoliszt Violina was built from 1909 to 1930.
A real hand-held violin usually has four strings. Hupfeld contented himself with three real violins, each with only one string playing (E, A and D). The violins could play pizzicato , staccato and flageolet , they could grip more than one person and play one, two or even three voices with a counter melody. Later models were named Phonoliszt Violina , they were equipped with slightly larger violins. Last models even had an automatic voice posture. The cases were named A, B and C. Model B was the most popular, of C only one example is known. There was a special version for cinemas and theaters in which the three violins were in a separate cabinet next to the piano. A theater violin is known at least once in Switzerland. A good Rönisch piano was used in almost all models, including the Hupfeld Phonoliszt , i.e. H. a piano that was equipped with various pneumatic refinements with regard to the different accentuation. The crowning achievement was the so-called DEA reproduction piano, which gave the piano human traits along with a fantastic violin accompaniment - or vice versa. Unfortunately, such a specimen is still unknown today.
Another manufacturer was the Popper company in Leipzig. Popper's Violinovo contained a real, recumbent violin that could play on only two strings - A and E, with vibrato . The drive of the bow consisted of a small cardan shaft , at the end of which approx. 10 smaller and 10 larger celluloid caps were alternately inserted into one another in order to better absorb the rosin . By means of pneumatics , the cardan shaft and the cone could be moved from one string to the other and the string pressure could also be varied. In addition to the piano and violin music, a mandolin effect , triangle , vortex drum, kettle drum , and Chinese cymbal could optionally be switched on. Currently only one copy is known. It was discovered by the orchestrion restorer Werner Baus in 1972 in Witzenhausen near Kassel and is also in the Rüdesheim Music Cabinet.
The Dienst company in Leipzig, founded in 1871 as the “First Leipzig Accordion Factory”, also sold orchestras and, from 1901, produced its own piano orchestras. Shortly before the turn of the century, she tried to bring a self-playing violin onto the market. Using a catalog, you can see a cylinder orchestrion with a standing violin and a real horsehair bow that leads the line across the violin. The exact functions cannot be found in the catalog. However, two utility models for a self-playing violin are known from 1911.
The end of the Orchestrion construction
With the introduction of new technologies such as radio and the electric record player around 1926, sales of orchestrations collapsed worldwide. With the now cheaper and simpler "electrical recording" of sound by the carbon microphone and the reproduction by amplifiers over high-volume loudspeakers , the complex orchestras and gramophones were no longer competitive. Within a short time their production was stopped worldwide.
Technical details
In the beginning, orchestras were driven by weight drives or cranks, and occasionally by steam engines , gas engines or water motors. Later they were mostly equipped with an electric motor . The music was initially transferred to the instrument with a wooden pin roller, later with piano rolls, and occasionally also through perforated discs or cardboard strips.
Individual evidence
- ^ Duden online: Orchestrion
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^ Wilhelm Schneider: Historical-technical description of musical instruments . Neisse and Leipzig, 1834, article Orchestrion , p. 116 :
“Two different instruments were named with this name. The first was invented by Abbot Vogler in 1789, it actually belongs under the wind instruments, but is listed here because of its name brother to avoid confusion. This Vogler'sche Orchestrion is a portable organ in the shape of a 9-shoe cube, but its sound is as strong as a 16-foot organ, and you can hear all the orchestral voices in it, which is why the inventor gave it this name. The instrument has 4 pianos, each of 63, and a pedal of 39 keys. The second so named instrument was invented by Anton Kunz, musician in Prague in 1796. This is a fortepiano in the shape of a grand piano, the case of which is 3 shoe 9 inches in height, 7 shoe 6 inches in length and 3 shoe 2 inches in front width is. " - ↑ http://www.salzburg.com/wiki/index.php/Salzburger_Stier#cite_note-1
- ↑ Allgemeine Musikische Zeitung, Volume 15, February 17, 1813, p. 117
- ↑ Kastner, Emerich; Kapp, Julius: Ludwig van Beethoven: Complete Letters , Leipzig 1923 (Repr. Tutzig 1975), p. 274: "I had Maelzel written a piece of battle symphony for his panharmonica without money on my own initiative."
- ↑ Allgemeine Musical Zeitung, Volume 10, March 5, 1823, pp. 149–155
- ↑ Allgemeine Musical Zeitung, Volume 10, March 5, 1823, footnote p. 153.
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↑ Carl Maria von Weber in: Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung, Volume 14, No. 41, October 7, 1812, p. 665 f. :
“A trumpet work with a clock of 24 trumpets and 2 timpani, which plays several pieces. Here each trumpet has only one tone: but the number of these produces variety, and Ref. Found it particularly remarkable that it possesses the alternation of piano and forte. In the case of the drum roll, the crescendo is brought about by a clapper made in a special way, which also avoids the unpleasantness of the involuntary double strike of the same in Mälzel's case. The mahogany and bronze case, where the trumpets themselves form a natural trophy, is tasteful and functional. - This machine is entirely modeled on the Mälzeische trumpet works, but more perfectly, especially because of the piano and forte, etc. […] The two music boxes are from the invention of their father, JG Kaufmann; the harmonichord was created through joint diligence: the trumpeter, however, is the sole creation of the son, Friedrich Kaufmann . May this active, enjoyable young man find the support and encouragement that is worthy of his praiseworthy endeavors! " - ^ Eduard Hanslick: History of concerts in Vienna , Vienna 1869, Volume 1, p. 259
- ↑ London Illustrated News, July 5, 1851. Quoted from: Arthur Wolfgang Julius Gerald Ord-Hume: Clockwork music . New York, Crown, 1973
- ↑ The London Illustrated News, No. 1106, Sept. 27, 1862, p. 321 (image), p. 323 (text)
- ↑ Drawings for US Patent 287,599, Emil Welte, New York, October 30, 1883
- ↑ Mechanical musical instruments: The Phonoliszt violina by Hupfeld ( Memento from September 23, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Musical instrument exhibition in the Deutsches Museum
- ^ Information on the Leipzig accordion and musical instrument factory by Eduard Dienst
literature
- Orchestrion . In: Meyers Konversations-Lexikon . 4th edition. Volume 12, Verlag des Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig / Vienna 1885–1892, p. 421.
- Automatic musical instruments from Freiburg into the world - 100 years of Welte-Mignon: Augustinermuseum, exhibition from September 17, 2005 to January 8, 2006 / [publisher: Augustinermuseum]. With contributions from Durward R. Center, Gerhard Dangel,… [Red .: Gerhard Dangel]. Freiburg, Augustinermuseum, 2005.
- Herbert Jüttemann : Orchestras from the Black Forest : Instruments, companies and production programs. Bergkirchen, PVMedien, Ed. Bochinsky, 2004. (Series of books “Das Musikinstrument”; Vol. 88) ISBN 3-932275-84-5
- Quirin David Bowers: Encyclopedia of automatic musical instruments : Cylinder music boxes, disc music boxes, piano players and player pianos… Incl. a dictionary of automatic musical instrument terms. Vestal, NY, The Vestal Press, 1988
- Peter Hagmann: The Welte Mignon piano, the Welte Philharmonie organ and the beginnings of music reproduction . Bern, Lang, 1984. Online version of the Freiburg University Library in Breisgau 2002
