Oskar Sala
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Oskar Sala
Biography
Born the son of eye doctor Paul Sala and his wife Annemarie, Sala studied the piano and organ with a concert career in mind, and in 1927 debuted as a soloist playing Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 2 at the Tivoli Theater in Greiz. In 1929 he entered Paul Hindemith's master class in composition at the Musikhochschule in Berlin.At the radio broadcast research station, he became acquainted with Dr. Friedrich Adolf Trautwein who had invented a new monophonic electrical instrument called the Trautonium, first exhibited on July 18, 1930, in Hindemith's Sieben Triostücke für drei Trautonien (Seven Trios for Three Trautoniums) with Hindemith playing the upper voice, piano professor Rudolf Schmidt the bass voice, and Sala the middle voice.
The first Trautoniums, marketed by Telefunken between 1932 -- 1935, were based on a neon tube oscillator and were able to continually alter timbre. On a fingerboard was a horizontally stretched wire, which was pressed against the metal rod beneath it, marked with a chromatic scale; the electrical resistance controlled frequency over a three-octave range. A foot pedal controlled volume and the sound was broadcast through loudspeakers.
Between 1932 and 1936, Sala enrolled at the University of Berlin in order to further his knowledge of physics and mathematics. In 1933, he learned to play the Trautonium, and in 1935 undertook the building one for the radio; he broadcast a 15-minute program Musik auf dem Trautonium.
In 1938 he built a concert Trautonium and went on tours of many European cities from Budapest to Florence. The first version of this two-manual instrument, using Thoraton electric tubes, was constructed in 1936 for Harald Genzmer's Konzert. In 1942, Richard Strauss used Sala's improved Trautonium to simulate a gong in his Japanese Festival Music (1942). In 1947, Sala played the Trautonium in Honegger's Jeanne d'Arc au bûcher.
From 1949 until 1952, Sala constructed his microtonal Mixturtrautonium based on subharmonics for which he patented a circuit. A version with updated technology was built in 1988 by students at a Berlin vocational college. Currently, he is the only human being on the planet who owns and can play this instrument.
In 1958, he equipped his first independent studio in Berlin-Charlottenburg to produce concert, industrial, and film scores.
The high point in his film work was when he was asked to create bird sounds and other effects for Alfred Hitchcock's classic The Birds. Hitchcock wanted "something exceptionally strange with which to terrify people," and, on a tip from Remi Gassmann who had studied composition with Sala, Hitchcock sent Gassmann to Berlin with an edit of the scene of the surprise attack on the house. "I made a test version; it was created from the barebones. There were not only gulls, but also windows, doors, cabinets, hammer and nails and all sorts of things going on; a kind of work test of the synchronization technique. I must have passed the exam, because Gassmann came back with the complete film."
To date, Sala has created over 300 film scores and sound pieces. ~ "Blue" Gene Tyranny, Rovi
Discography
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Oskar Sala (18 July 1910 - 26 February 2002) was a 20th century German physicist, composer and a pioneer of electronic music born in Greiz.[1] He played an instrument called the Trautonium, a predecessor to the synthesizer.[2]
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Studies
Sala studied piano and organ during his youth, performing classical piano concerts as a teenager. In 1929, he moved to Berlin to study piano and composition with composer and violinist Paul Hindemith at the Berlin conservatory. He also followed the experiments of Dr. Friedrich Trautwein, at the school’s laboratory, learning to play with Trautwein's pioneer electronic instrument, the Trautonium.[1]
On 20 June 1930 Sala and Paul Hindemith gave a public performance at the Berliner Musikhochschule Hall called “Neue Musik Berlin 1930″ to introduce the Trautonium. Later Sala toured Germany with the Trautonium; in 1931 he was the soloist in a performance of Hindemith's Concert for Trautonium with String Quartet.[1] He also soloed in the debut of Hindemith student Harald Genzmer's “Concert for Trautonium AND Orchestra”.[3]
Sala studied physics at the University of Berlin between 1932 and 1935. He helped to develop the "Volkstrautonium",[4] a Trautonium that Telefunken hoped to popularize. In 1935 he built a "Radio-Trautonium", and in 1938 a portable model, the "Konzerttrautonium".[1][5]
Mixtur-Trautonium
In 1948 Sala further developed the Trautonium into the Mixtur-Trautonium. The Mixtur-Trautonium allowed for the first time in music history the execution of sounds which had only been known in theory since the Middle Ages, but were never actually playable. Sala's invention opened the field of subharmonics, the symmetric counterpart to overtones, so that a thoroughly distinct tuning evolved.[6]
Sala presented his new instrument to the public in 1952 and would soon receive international licenses for its circuits. That same year, Harald Genzmer delivered the score to the first Concert For Mixtur-Trautonium And Grand Orchestra.[7]
In the 50’s Sala also built the Quartett-Trautonium.
Film work
In the 1940s and 1950s he worked on many film scores. In 1958 he established his own studio at Mars film GmbH (4th incarnation) in Berlin. There he produced electronic soundtracks for such films as Veit Harlan’s “Das Dritte Geschlecht” (1957), Rolf Thiele’s “Das Madchen Rosemarie” (1959), and Fritz Lang’s "Das Indische Grabmal" (1959).[1]
He created the non-musical soundtrack for Alfred Hitchcock's film The Birds.[8] He received many awards for his film scores, but never an Oscar. He also did much work on German commercials, most notably one referred to as HB's little man.
He was an honorary Senator of Berlin.
Discography
- Trautonium-Konzerte
- (Wergo WER 286 266-2)
- Harald Genzmer's Konzert für Trautonium und Orchester (Concerto for Trautonium and Orchestra) (1938/39) and Konzert für Mixtur-Trautonium und großes Orchester (Concerto for Mixtur-Trautonium and Large Orchestra) (1952)
- My Fascinating Instrument
- Contains his own compositions, dating from 1955 to 1989
- Subharmonische Mixturen
- Contains Paul Hindemith's Langsames Stueck für Orchester und Rondo für Trautonium (Slow Piece for Orchestra And Rondo for Trautonium), Sala's own compositions, dating from 1992 to 1995, and his soundtrack to Der Wuerger von Schloss Dartmore (The Strangler of Castle Dartmore)
- Elektronische Impressionen
- Hindemith's 7 Triostuecke für drei Trautonien (7 Triopieces for three Trautonien), Konzertstueck fuer Trautonium und Streicher (Concertpiece for Trautonium And Strings) written in 1931 and recorded in 1977. Also contains Sala's Elektronische Impressionen (Electronic Impressions), 1978.
Literature
- Peter Donhauser (2007). Elektrische Klangmaschinen. Boehlau Vienna (in German).
- Peter Badge (2000). Oskar Sala:Pionier der elektronischen Musik. Satzwerk, 100pp. ISBN 3-930333-34-1
- Pablo Freire / Audionautas (2011/2012). Oskar Sala. El último artesano. Parts 1234 (in Spanish)
References
- ^ a b c d e "Oskar Sala – Biography". Intuitive Music. August 16, 2003. http://www.intuitivemusic.com/oskar-sala-biography. Retrieved 19 June 2010.
- ^ Hiller, Juergen (2001-2003). "Oskar Sala". http://www.trautonium.com/sala.htm. Retrieved 19 June 2010.
- ^ "Carl Schuricht". last.fm. November 21, 2008. http://www.last.fm/music/Carl+Schuricht. Retrieved 19 June 2010.
- ^ "Trautonium Ela T 42 T42 "Volkstrautonium"" (in German). Radiomuseum.org. http://www.radiomuseum.org/r/telefunken_trautonium_ela_t_42_t42vo.html. Retrieved 19 June 2010.
- ^ Rainier, Chris. "The Trautonium". myspace.com. http://www.myspace.com/thetrautonium. Retrieved 19 June 2010.
- ^ Doepfer Musikelektroniks editorial staff. "DOEPFER MUSIKELEKTRONIK GMBH The Trautonium Project". analogue organisation. http://www.analogue.org/network/traut_e.htm. Retrieved 19 June 2010.
A detailed technical insight into the Trautonium. - ^ Namlook, Peter (2002). "Oskar Sala 1910-2002". http://www.furious.com/perfect/ohm/oskarsala.html. Retrieved 19 June 2010.
- ^ Pinch, Trevor; Trocco, Frank (2004). Analog Days: The Invention and Impact of the Moog Synthesizer. Harvard University Press. p. 54. ISBN 0-674-01617-3.
External links
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