Welte mignon

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Welte-Mignon Kabinett, early reproduction piano without keyboard, built 1904 - around 1908

The Welte Mignon reproduction piano was the first mechanical music automaton that enabled the largely authentic reproduction of piano pieces.

Description and history

Steinway Welte piano from 1919 with a view of the interior

The M. Welte & Sons company in Freiburg im Breisgau was already famous for its developments in the field of automatic music reproduction with program carriers and its orchestrations when it patented the reproduction process for the reproduction piano it had developed in 1904 . In 1905 this came on the market under the name Mignon , a little later as the “Welte Mignon reproduction piano”. This instrument used paper tape, the so-called "piano roll " or "piano roll" , as a sound carrier . The reproduction facility was a joint development by Edwin Welte and Karl Bockisch .

This made it possible to reproduce a pianist's playing, including the touch dynamics, as true to the original as possible. This technical marvel was a sensation then as it is today and allows an authentic reproduction of these recordings with the very few well-repaired instruments. Since these instruments, like the piano rolls, were extremely complex and expensive, they were only affordable for wealthy circles. According to the price list from 1924 , the Ibach Welt grand piano pictured below on the right cost over 8,000 Reichsmarks , which corresponds to around 33,200 EUR based on today's purchasing power  .

In the company's history, Welte has had two roller systems for reproduction pianos, T-100 (called Welte-red after the predominantly red roll paper) and T-98 (called Welte-green). The T-100 system used 100 control holes with a roll width of 12 7/8 inches = 329 mm. The T-98 system was developed later and came onto the market from 1919. The control now got by with 98 tracks, but could also play the normal pianola note rolls with a width of 11 1/4 inches = (around) 286 mm according to the standard of the Buffalo Convention .

Recordings by famous pianists and composers

Annette Essipoff plays for Welte-Mignon on February 7, 1906

The first recordings were made in 1904. As a result, the most famous pianists of the time were hired to record for Welte-Mignon. In total, the M. Welte & Sons company offered around 5,300 recordings by 1932, including numerous operas and operettas potpourris , but also entertainment pieces , hits, marches and dance music.

From 1905 to 1909 Welte & Söhne had a second recording studio in Leipzig with their then general agent Hugo Popper .

The repertoire of Welte piano roles from 1905 to 1928 includes, for example, recordings by Carl Reinecke , Ignacy Jan Paderewski , Ferruccio Busoni , Teresa Carreño , Artur Schnabel , Edwin Fischer , Télémaque Lambrino and Walter Gieseking . Shortly before the end of the era of the reproduction pianos around 1930, some of the greatest pianists of the 20th century were still playing for Welte, including Vladimir Horowitz in the spring of 1926 - these are the oldest recordings by this pianist. The last recordings of classical music were made in 1928 with Rudolf Serkin and Lubka Kolessa . From then until the end of the role production in 1932, only light music was recorded. Numerous composers have recorded their own works, including Claude Debussy , Camille Saint-Saëns , Alexander Scriabin , Max Reger , Edvard Grieg , Enrique Granados , Gustav Mahler , Xaver Scharwenka , Richard Strauss and George Gershwin .

Original compositions for Welte Mignon piano 1926

Ibach Welte grand piano from 1924

In 1926 Paul Hindemith , Ernst Toch and Gerhart Münch composed pieces for the mechanical piano “Welte-Mignon” for the “ Donaueschinger Musiktage (Donaueschingen Chamber Music Festival ) ”. The premiere was on July 25, 1926.

These pieces were not playable by hand. The possibility of programming the piano rolls to create almost any sequence of notes on such a piano gave the composer new freedom in sound design. The following works were premiered:

Paul Hindemith :

  • Rondo from Piano Music Op. 37. Arranged for mechanical piano
  • Toccata for mechanical piano Op. 40.1. Original composition for Welte-Mignon

Ernst Toch :

  • Study I. Original composition for Welte-Mignon
  • Study II. Original composition for Welte-Mignon
  • Study III. Original composition for Welte-Mignon
  • Study IV. The Juggler. (Arranged for mechanical piano)

Gerhart Münch :

  • Six Studies: Polyphonic Etudes for Mechanical Piano. Introduzione Maestoso - Prestissimo - Largo - Jazz - Andantino - Fugato. Original composition for Welte-Mignon.

Original compositions for Welte Mignon piano 1927

For the follow-up event taking place in Baden-Baden the following year , the "German Chamber Music Baden-Baden 1927" from 15-17 July 1927, other avant-garde musicians arranged and composed pieces for Welte-Mignon.
These pieces were presented in a sensational concert on July 16, 1927, which was exclusively dedicated to original works for mechanical instruments .

George Antheil arranged the first part of his Ballet Mécanique for the Welte Mignon piano.

  • Ballet mécanique, part 1, (arranged for mechanical piano)

Nikolai Lopatnikoff wrote a specially composed scherzo and a toccata for piano, which he arranged for mechanical piano anddrewon the piano roll .

  • Toccata for piano (arranged by the composer and drawn on the roll) - Scherzo (original composition for mechanical piano)

Hans Haass wrote a capriccio fugue and an intermezzo, both for mechanical piano.

  • Capriccio Fugue for mechanical piano

In addition, works for mechanical organ (Welte-Philharmonie-Orgel) by Ernst Toch and Paul Hindemith were performed.

  • Ernst Toch: Study for a mechanical organ
  • Paul Hindemith: Suite for mechanical organ

Philharmonic organ

From 1912 there was a similar system for organs, called the "Welte Philharmonic Organ". These organs were extremely complex instruments and most of them could be played conventionally both with automatic playing equipment and by organists. In the rich upper class, industrialists and aristocrats, but also some top-class hotels, ordered these self-playing organs in ever larger dimensions. These were mostly installed in rooms that were specially created for the organs.

Draft drawing of the organ for the Britannic , ca.1914

The Welte Philharmonic organ on the Titanic's sister ship , the Britannic , has since been rediscovered.

The ship was launched on February 26, 1914, and on August 4, 1914 Great Britain declared war on the German Reich. So it is unlikely that the instrument, which took many months to make, ever made it to Belfast. After the First World War, the instrument was sold to the Stuttgart camera manufacturer August Nagel in 1920. The organ came back to Welte around 1935 and was installed in 1937 in the "Radium lamp factory in Wipperfürth ". In 1969 the instrument was acquired by the Swiss collector Heinrich Weiss , whose collection now forms the Museum for Music Automatons in Seewen. Organ builders who could not speak English marked the components with "Britanik". Similar to the reproduction pianos, the marking was carried out with letters and numbers carved into the wood, in order to be able to identify the components of the instruments produced at the same time in the company. Since this was a prestige project, the design drawing was shown in the company brochures for the Philharmonie organ as early as 1912 or 1913, together with photos and drawings of other Philharmonic organs.

The most complex and largest Philharmonic organ was built for the auditorium of Sir David Lionel Goldsmid-Stern-Salomons ' estate in Broomhill near Royal Tunbridge Wells . The instrument with 32 registers has two playing apparatus - one for the Welte organ rolls and the other for the largest Welte orchestrion, the Type No. 10, which he had owned since 1900. The organ can also be played by hand. The organ console, which is hidden in the middle of the instrument behind a head-high panel, has three manuals in addition to the pedal . The large oak case with the enormous dimensions of over 9 meters wide and 6 meters high contains around 2,000 pipes and various percussion instruments .

As a special feature, this Philharmonic organ is equipped with a separate echo organ, which with its 349 pipes is located in a special room above the gallery at the rear end of the hall. This organ also almost fell victim to the war. On April 27, 1914, Sir David Lionel traveled to Freiburg to find out about the progress of the work. In July 1914 the instrument was delivered to Broomhill. After the outbreak of war on August 4th, the organ builder Johann Kaut from Waldkirch , who was staying for Welte in England for assembly, was called in to assemble the instrument, who together with assistants made the instrument ready to play. He was then interned on the Isle of Man until the end of the hostilities . Today the property is known as the Salomon Center and is part of Canterbury Christ Church University College. The organ, which had been silent since 1940, was extensively restored from 2005 to 2007 and presented to the public in April 2007. In 2011 a CD was released with recordings of the instrument, both with arrangements for an orchestrion from around 1890, with recordings by Edwin Lemare from 1913 and organists from the Royal Academy of Music.

For the Welte Philharmonic Organ, as with the reproduction piano, pieces of music were recorded by numerous well-known organists and sold as piano rolls. These organists included Marco Enrico Bossi , Eugène Gigout , Max Reger , Alfred Hollins , Edwin Lemare , Alfred Sittard and Karl Straube .

In the Villa Weilbach in Gornsdorf in the Erzgebirgskreis in Saxony there is probably the only Philharmonic organ in its original location and almost completely preserved. The villa belonged to the stocking manufacturer Clemens August Uhlmann, who moved into the villa in 1914. The organ has been in the same location since then and has never been rebuilt. The last concert took place in 1974; then the villa was used as a production building and kindergarten. After a long period of vacancy, a couple bought the building in 1999 and began repairing the instrument. Of the approximately 600 pipes, only ten are missing, which are now being reconstructed and made functional. The organ includes around 80 punched music rolls. The instrument should be playable again in mid-2020.

Welte-Mignon in literature

  • A Welte Mignon reproduction grand piano is described in Roberto Cotroneo's novel Presto con fuoco (German: The lost score ). It forms the showpiece in a collection of historical devices for mechanical sound reproduction that one of the figures has acquired. As part of the novel, the instrument gives rise to reflections on the transience of pianists' work and on the relationship between interpretation and technical perfection.
  • In William Gaddi's work Agapè Agape ( Eng . "The mechanical piano") a (fictional) prototype of the Welte Mignon piano is a main element, as is the previously unknown recording process.

Audio samples

See also

literature

  • Gerhard Dangel, Hans-W. Schmitz: Welte-Mignon piano rolls. Complete catalog of the European recordings 1904–1932 for the Welte-Mignon reproduction piano / Welte-Mignon piano rolls. Complete library of the European recordings 1904-1932 for the Welte-Mignon reproducing piano . Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 3-00-017110-X .
  • Automatic musical instruments from Freiburg into the world - 100 years of Welte-Mignon : Augustinermuseum, exhibition from September 17, 2005 to January 8, 2006. Ed .: City of Freiburg im Breisgau, Augustinermuseum. With contributions from Durward R. Center, Gerhard Dangel et al. (Red .: Gerhard Dangel). Augustinermuseum, Freiburg 2005.
  • Hermann Gottschewski : The interpretation as a work of art. Musical organization of time and its analysis using the example of Welte Mignon piano recordings from 1905 . Laaber-Verlag, Laaber 1996, ISBN 3-89007-309-3 .
  • Charles David Smith, Richard James Howe: The Welte-Mignon. Its music and musicians . Vestal Press, Vestal, NY 1994, ISBN 1-879511-17-7 .
  • Gerhard Dangel: History of the company M. Welte & Sons Freiburg i. B. and New York . Augustinermuseum, Freiburg 1991.
  • Gerhard Dangel: The history of the Welte family and the house of M. Welte & Sons. In: The Pianola Journal. London, No. 18, 2007, pp. 3-49. ISSN  0952-6323
  • Peter Hagmann: The Welte Mignon piano, the Welte Philharmonie organ and the beginnings of music reproduction . (= European university publications. Series 36: Musicology. Volume 10). Lang, Bern et al. 1984, ISBN 3-261-03464-5 online version 2002 from the University of Freiburg
  • Christine Mange: Le Piano reproducteur Welte-Mignon, son histoire, sa conception, son répertoire . Strasbourg 1982.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Patent No. 162708, patented in the German Reich from May 21, 1904: Device on mechanical keyboard instruments for gradation of the keystroke
  2. ↑ a b This figure was based on the template: Inflation determined, has been rounded to the nearest hundred and relates to January 2020.
  3. ↑ swr.de
  4. ↑ swr.de
  5. ↑ There is no proof of the construction of a philharmonic organ for the Titanic , only legends that have not yet been confirmed.
  6. ↑ Christoph E. Hänggi, David Rumsey: The origin of the Seewener Welte Philharmonic organ. (PDF; 3.6 MB)
  7. ↑ Christoph E. Hänggi: The Britannic organ in the Museum for Music Automatons Seewen Sun. Festschrift for the inauguration of the Welte Philharmonic organ; Heinrich Weiss-Stauffacher Collection. Ed .: Museum for Music Automatons Seewen SO. Seewen: Museum for Music Automatons, 2007; The Britannic Philharmonic Organ in the Music Automat Museum Seewen (Switzerland) ( Memento of the original from August 17, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.bundesmuseen.ch
  8. ↑ Andrew Pilmer, Thomas Jansen: The largest Welte Philharmonic organ in the world in Tunbridge Wells, England. In: From Freiburg into the world - 100 years of Welte-Mignon: automatic musical instruments. Augustinermuseum, exhibition from September 17, 2005 to January 8, 2006. Freiburg 2005, p. 178 ff.
  9. ↑ World restored . Royal Academy of Music, 2011.
  10. ↑ Julia Greipl: Sound from a thousand holes: A fully automatic philharmonic organ should sound again in Gornsdorf , in: Monuments , issue 1/2020, pages 62–64
  11. ^ Roland Flückiger-Seiler: Hotel Waldhaus Sils-Maria. Publisher: Swiss Art Guide GSK, Bern 2005, ISBN 3-85782-779-3 , p. 20.

Web links

Commons : Welte-Mignon  - Collection of images, videos and audio files