Jörg Mager – 120 Years of Electronic Music

The Klaviatursphäraphon (1928) & Partiturophon (1930). Jörg Mager, Germany.

The Klaviatursphäraphon

The Klaviatursphäraphon or Klaviatur-Sphärophon was a keyboard-controlled variant of the Kaleidophon, designed and built by the pioneer of German electronic music, Jörg Mager, in 1928.

By the late 1920s, Mager’s position as the leading pioneer of electronic musical instruments was increasingly challenged by other designers developing instruments for a growing commercial market focused on home music and entertainment. The debut of the large, multi-vacuum-tube polyphonic Orgue des Ondes in Paris in 1928 spurred efforts in Germany, motivated by both national pride and commercial prospects, to create a comparable instrument. Friedrich Trautwein’s Trautonium, originally conceived as a ‘beautiful polyphonic organ,’ emerged in 1929 and was based on the design of the Hellertion. In France, Maurice Martenot received significant media attention for his Ondes Martenot in 1928. Simultaneously, Mager’s utopian vision of electronic microtonal music as a catalyst for a new and just society became increasingly unlikely and irrelevant as the National Socialist movement in Germany gained influence. In response to these sociopolitical changes, Mager abandoned the lever-driven, semi-circular, microtonal glissando-focused designs of the earlier Sphärophon in in favour of multiple keyboard controllers, aiming to produce a more user-friendly, familiar, and perhaps marketable instrument.

The instrument known as the Klaviatursphäraphon incorporated two, and later three, short monophonic keyboards that replaced the sliding pitch levers of earlier models. This design enabled more precise and convenient control of pitch and timbre. The shorter keys allowed simultaneous performance on both keyboards, producing a duophonic tone. Using a feature originally developed for the Kaleidophon, it was also possible to adjust the intervals between keys using a device Mager called the musikalischer Storchschnabel or ‘musical cranesbill’. This innovation enabled modification of the keyboard’s acoustic length. Consequently, established keyboard playing techniques could be applied to an electrically modified pitch space – this meant that Mager’s instrument could. ¹ Additional tone colour was added by passing the output through a series of filters – the formant filters developed for the Kaleidophon and specially formed acoustic resonant loudspeakers.

Mager’s studio in Darmstadt, with a collection of resonant objects used to add tonal colour to the sound of the *Klaviatursphäraphon*. Image: PIX magazine VOL 3, No. 2, JANUARY 14,1939.

Mager presented his new instrument with a demonstration of ‘Electronic Music’ at the annual convention of the Reich Association of German Musicians and Music Teachers in Darmstadt on October 6, 1928, with the hope that his new ‘commercial’ instrument would attract financial support to allow its continued development. ² Playing to the sensibilities of the new era of German nationalism, Mager stressed the need to support German ‘Electronic Music’ in the face of foreign competition, particularly the French Ondes des Orgues – even going so far as pointing out the Jewishness of Theremin’s manager, Julius Goldberg, as a threat.³

According to Mager’s friend and biographer Emil Schenck, the sound of the Klaviatursphäraphon was impressive:

“The sound and modulation capabilities of the rudimentary instrument were surprising. The audience was particularly impressed by the ability to swell the volume from the barely audible, whispering pianissimo to the most powerful fortissimo, even in the timbre of the wind instruments. Equally fascinating was the rich array of timbres, most of which cannot be produced by our most familiar instruments. The effect on the audience was overwhelming.”⁴

In January 1929, a consortium of Darmstadt industrialists and businessmen established the Gesellschaft für elektro-akustische Musik (‘Society for Electroacoustic Music’) to promote the electronic production of music with Mager as its head, probably the first electronic music studio of its kind. The studio’s board, comprising Emil Schenck, Louis Merck, and Dr August Roesener, financed the operation and offered Mager a three-year contract along with several technical assistants, including research and technical engineer Friedrich Wamboldt, mechanic Wend, engineer Christensen, and engineer Dr Jankovsky. The city of Darmstadt provided the Rococo Prinz-Emil-Schlößchen castle free of charge for the society’s use.⁵

The Pariturophon

On August 25, 1930, Mager presented the results of his work and the latest version of his instrument, which performed arrangements of works by Bach, Beethoven, Wagner, and Mendelssohn, to an invited audience. He named the instrument the Partiturophon, with ‘Paritur’ meaning ‘musical score’ in German, to highlight its capacity to perform conventional music. Aware that the monophonic nature of each keyboard represented a limitation, which other instrument designers were addressing at the time, Mager emphasised the instrument’s connection to the multi-timbral fugue scores of J.S. Bach:

“One is forced to treat this monophonic line individually, so that—as in the polyphony of Bach, for example—each voice can be brought out as in a three-dimensional relief. In addition, each keyboard, being independent, can maintain its own appropriate timbre, which makes possible mixtures and contrasts of tone colour of an almost orchestral quality.”⁶

The Partiturophon was an expanded version of the Klaviatursphäraphon, featuring three manuals and a pedalboard, which provided a total of four voices.

Jörg Mager’s early version of the Pariturophon c 1930.

The local Darmstädter Tagblatt of August 26, 1930, noted that:

“Mager demonstrated today a richly registered organ on which two-part playing is possible. The only difficulty at present is that each part must have its own keyboard, meaning that the four-part texture must be played on three manuals and the pedal. For this reason, the manuals are positioned so close together, and their keys so short, that one can comfortably play several manuals with one hand; for this reason, too, the scale of the keyboard is somewhat narrower than on a standard piano or organ keyboard. Apart from these difficulties, which require a special approach to playing the new instrument, it astonishes with its endless variety of tonal colours, its rich dynamic shading, and the expressiveness of its tone.”⁷

Jörg Mager working on the Pariturophon at the Prinz-Emil-Schlößchen, Darmstadt, 1930. Image: PIX magazine VOL 3, No. 2, JANUARY 14,1939.

Playing technique used to produce three-note polyphony on a three-keyboard, one-voice-per-keyboard Partiturophon.

The prominent conductor and advocate of modern music, Hermann Scherchen, authored a comprehensive report on Mager’s new instrument. He acknowledged its limitations, such as the absence of convincing brass and string timbres and a degree of tonal monotony across its registers, yet he strongly endorsed the instrument as “entirely ready for artistic musical purposes” and ready for mass production⁸ Scherchen was particularly interested in the application of the instrument for Klangfarbenmusik, or ‘tone colour music’, as it allowed for the use of distinct timbres on each keyboard that could be continuously varied throughout a composition.

Mager playing the Partiturophon, showing the unusual and difficult fingering technique needed to play four-note (or three note in this model) polyphony across the multiple keyboards. — Mager playing the *Partiturophon*, showing the unusual and difficult fingering technique needed to play four-note (or three-note in this model) polyphony across the multiple keyboards. Image: Schenck, Emil. (1952) Jörg Mager: Dem deutschen Pionier der Elektromusikforschung, herausgegeben von der Städtischen Kulturverwaltung Darmstadt, 1.

A later version of the Partiturophon added a fourth manual and a pedal board, thereby achieving five-voice capability. According to Schenck, Mager added what he called a “Bauchschweller” or ‘Belly Swell’ mechanism, where the proximity of the player’s body could alter the volume of the instrument, allowing the player to effect a crescendo without interrupting playing, and, with the domestic market in mind It was designed to be easily disassembled for portability.

The only known surviving recording of Jörg Mager’s Partiturophon broadcast by Herbert Eimert during a 1952, NWDR Nachtsprogramme

Eimerts’ translated commentary to the radio broadcast:

“Even before the First World War, Jörg Mager was exploring mechanical methods for dividing pitches. He soon realised that the problem of pitch division could only be solved with electrical aids, and from then on, he was determined to acquire a suitable electrical medium. He heard, for the first time, a continuously gliding pitch scale, albeit in a manner usually described as common feedback whistling. In this respect, the first radios, while unpleasant and involuntary, were nonetheless the first electronic sound instruments. Jörg Mager, however, was delighted by this whistling sound and, based on this principle, built his Spharophone, the first musical instrument ever on which all audible vibrations could be musically utilised in unison by means of a lever. With the support of K.W. Wagner and especially the Study Society for Electric Music in Darmstadt, Jörg Mager succeeded in the 1930s in penetrating almost all previously inaccessible areas of the musical sound sphere and proving that Busoni, Schoenberg, Hindemith, Max von Schillings, and others were right in their prophecies that promised new artistic possibilities through electric sound generation. Jörg Mager’s subsequent work consisted of demonstrating that the three foundations of musical art—vibration, sound structure, and dynamics—open new artistic horizons through the new technology of electric sound generation…And now the only remaining original recording of the Mager organ.”

In the early 1930s, Jörg Mager’s reputation was at its zenith and was widely recognised as a leading figure in electronic music. The Gesellschaft attracted numerous distinguished visitors who sought to witness the “sorcerer of sound” and the Zauberorgel, or ‘Magic Organ.’ Notable guests included Grand Duke Ernst Ludwig of Hesse, who contributed a valuable silver plate to serve as a loudspeaker resonator; General Tietgen; Wilhelm Furtwängler; Arturo Toscanini; Rudolf Kelterborn; Karl Böhm; Hermann Scherchen; Hermann von Keyserling; and Jonathan Zenneck, among others. Winnifred Wagner’s visit resulted in a commission to create electronically generated bell effects for the 1931 production of Richard Wagner’s Parsifal in Bayreuth, conducted by Toscanini – the ultimate seal of approval from the German musical establishment. Mager also brought to Bayreuth a ‘sound generator,’ where Mager’s noise-modulation function was used to create ‘thunder and collapsing sounds’ in Wagner’s Die Walküre, Siegfried, and Götterdämmerung.⁹

mager_parsifal_orgel_die_buhne_1936_pp415_416 — Mager’s ‘Parsifal Organ’ of 1931, which probably used electronically generated sounds modified through the resonant strings of a piano. Image: die Buhne, 1936, 415_416.

Despite achieving both fame and financial stability, Mager declined to participate in commercial contracts. For instance, he rejected an offer of collaboration from Siemens & Halske, a leading industrial electronics company, due to concerns about the security of his intellectual property. Mager’s already abrasive personality worsened as he became increasingly ill with diabetes, and this, coupled with his unwillingness to commercially exploit his works as agreed by the Gesellschaft, led the board to terminate his contract in 1932. Mager remained at the Prinz-Emil-Schlößchen, working on his instrument, until 1935, even as the water supply and, finally, the electricity supply were cut off. Mager returned to Berlin, where he made a few poorly attended ‘electronic music’ performances and performed a score by Rudolf Perak for the UFA film Stärker als Paragraphen on the Partituraphon in 1936.

Final four-keyboard version of Jörg Mager’s Partiturophon. Image: Zeitschrift für Instrumentenbau, Bd. 55, 1934-35, Leipzig 1935, 01.

__________________________________________________

Jörg Mager: Biography

Born 6 November 1880, Eichstätt, Bavaria, Germany. Died 5 April 1939. Aschaffenburg, Bavaria,

Bust of Jorg Mager by Heinrich Johst 1935. Image: Das Mager Buch 1935. — Bust of Jörg Mager by Heinrich Jobst, Darmstadt, 1932. Image: Das Mager Buch 1935.

Jörg Mager was a German inventor and self-proclaimed ‘Father of German Electronic Music’, who became a significant figure in the early development of electronic musical instruments. From around 1921 until his death in 1939, he created a family of electronic instruments that included the Elektrophon (1921), Sphäraphon (1924), Kurbelsphärophon (1926), Klaviatursphäraphon (1928), Partiturophon (1930) and Kaleidophon (1939). Central to Mager’s design concept was the pursuit of a utopian perfect musical instrument, one that could deliver on the microtonal promises outlined in Ferruccio Busoni’s influential text Entwurf einer neuen Ästhetik der Tonkunst (Sketch of a New Esthetic of Music, published in Germany in 1907 and 1917, and in English translation in New York in 1911).[MFN] Busoni, Ferruccio. (1911) Sketch of a New Esthetic of Music, New York (State): G. Schirmer, 23. [/MFN] Busoni argued that music needed new instruments to provide a new sonic palette – instruments that had a wider tonal and timbral range than the classical instrumentarium: “So narrow has our tonal range become, so stereotyped its form of expression”.

Mager was one of ten children born to watchmaker Edward and Cäcilia Mager in Eichstätt, a rural town in Bavaria, in 1880. After attending elementary and high school, Mager graduated from the Eichstätt teacher training college and, from December 1906, worked as a teacher and organist in Aschaffenburg, where he was also one of the founders of the adult education centre. Jörg Mager’s lifelong fascination with microtonal music began unexpectedly during the hot summer of 1911, when he heard an overheated, out-of-tune organ playing notes beyond the fixed tempered scale. Intrigued by the instrument’s strange sounds, he started exploring the concepts of half- and quarter-tone music, eventually self-publishing his work, Vierteltonmusik, in 1915. During this time, he also began designing an instrument capable of delivering microtonal and quarter-tone scales. The first of these was an acoustic harmonium called the Vierteltonharmonium (Quarter-Tone Harmonium), created in 1912.

Jörg Mager as a military nurse in Wurzburg 1915 during the First World War. — Jörg Mager during World War I, serving as a nurse in Würzburg in 1915. Image: *Das Mager Buch*, 1935.

Mager served as a nurse in the First World War, stationed in Wurzburg. After the war, he became involved in the short-lived Bavarian Soviet Republic. When the Republic was violently suppressed by the Freikorps in 1919, Mager fled to Berlin and, in 1921, found a part-time job at the Lorenz radio factory in Tempelhofer Hafen. At the same time, he joined a small group of young international composers interested in microtonal and quarter-tone composition (Viertelton or sometimes just ‘VT’), including Ivan Wyschnegradsky, Alois Hába, Willi Möllendorf, Richard Stein, Julián Carillo, Arthur Lourié, under the guidance of the renowned composer and prominent champion of microtonality, Ferruccio Busoni. The group embarked on several ultimately unsuccessful attempts to create acoustic microtonal pianos and harmoniums to be able to perform their microtonal work: Hába’s microtonal organ, constructed by the August Förster company in 1923, and Wyschnegradsky’s quarter-tone piano are two examples. However, it was Jörg Mager who, taking inspiration from Busoni’s evangelism of electronic instruments and his mystical description of the Telharmonium, decided that the problem of microtonality could only be solved through electricity. Mager was a typical utopian in an age of utopians: a ‘disciple’ of Tolstoy, Strindberg, Schopenhauer, and Gandhi, and a devoted champion of radical teaching reforms, Pacifism, Teetotalism, Esperanto, and Socialism. Mager had an unshakeable belief in the inherent transformative power of music alone, capable of bringing about a revolutionary new society of harmony and brotherhood. Mager inherited Busoni’s mystical belief in the socially transformational power of music, but, unlike Busoni, Mager attempted to put these utopian ideas into practice. Rather than adapting existing instruments, Mager decided to create an entirely new instrument based on emerging radio technology. This first instrument was named the Elektrophon, and after further development at a small studio provided by the Berlin Telegraphentechnische Reichsamt (the state radio research technical institute), it was renamed the Sphäraphon in 1924.

“The music of the future will be attained by radio instruments! Of course, not with radio transmission, but rather direct generation of musical tones by means of cathode instruments! […] Indeed, the cathode-music will be far superior to previous music, in that it can generate a much finer, more highly developed, richly coloured music than all our known musical instruments! ”

Jörg Mager: „Eine neue Epoche der Musik durch Radio“ (Berlin 1924)

In 1924, Mager published Eine Neue Epoch Der Musik Durch Radio, a short pamphlet that detailed his radical vision of electronic music and promoted his new instrument, the Sphäraphon (‘Sphere-o-phone’), as the ideal, universal instrument capable of ushering in his vision of a new utopian society. The name Sphäraphon referred to the semi-circular dial used to control the instruments, and it also emphasised the relationship with Pythagoras’s idea of ‘Music of the Spheres’ and echoed both Helmholtz’s and Busoni’s earlier writings. Invoking Pythagoras was not just a classical embellishment; Mager’s declared aim – following Busoni’s previous suggestions – was to create what he called the ‘Omnitonium’, an ideal universal instrument, able to play any pitch and any tone – an instrument that would supersede all other instruments, recreating the timeless Pythagorean dream of celestial music: ‘Absolute music! The pan-tonal circle lay before me! The ocean of tone in its immeasurability! The omnitonium, the musical ideal of all times!’

To achieve his utopian dream of socially transformative music, Mager planned to build ‘Sphäraphon Towers’ in which his microtonal electronic music would be amplified and projected across Berlin, inspiring a mass communal awakening. Mager describes this vision in his 1924 booklet Eine neue Epoche der Musik durch Radio:

“A spring day in Treptower Volkspark. In the middle of the park, a tower, the Sphärophon tower, higher than the [Treptower park] observatory. The instrument, operated by music engineers and Sphärophonmusikern, starts to sound. Tone-colour cascades spray over thousands of people, transforming the spring blossom splendour into tonal splendour. All the feelings evoked in the human soul by the miracle of spring – cheers and jubilation, affectionate intimacy and a childlike loftiness, the Sphäraphon sounds out to them from the distance, brings them together and raises them to the effervescent ecstasy of spring joy! A utopia! But how long will [it take for this] Utopia?! …”

¹⁰

Despite enthusiastic endorsements from musical luminaries such as Paul Hindemith, Georgy Rimsky-Korsakov, and Ferruccio Busoni, the Sphäraphon received a lukewarm reception when it was unveiled to the public in 1926. This was particularly evident when Mager’s performances of his rather austere microtonal music were showcased alongside Leon Termen’s flashy yet kitschy renditions of popular classical hits. Mager sought to address the shortcomings of the Sphäraphon with a new model called the Kurbelsphäraphon – ‘Kurbel’ being ‘crank’ or ‘handle’. This updated instrument featured a second manual dial, allowing players to interrupt the continuous output and avoid the Sphärophon’s characteristic endless glissando. Additionally, it included two pedals for controlling the volume and envelope of each note. The Kurbelsphäraphon was unveiled at the 1926 Donaueschingen summer music festival, once again to Mager’s frustration, alongside Leon Termen’s Theremin.

Mager and his assistant working on the *Sphäraphon* 1927. Image: Das Neue Frankfurt 1926-27, 145.

Jörg Mager’s complete dependence on wealthy patrons left him in constant financial distress; however, his tireless efforts to secure funding eventually bore fruit. In 1929, chaired by manufacturer Emil Schenck with assistance from the city of Darmstadt, the Heinrich Hertz Institute for Vibration Research (HHI), and the Reichsrundfunkgesellschaft (RRG – the state radio service), Mager established the Studiengesellschaft für Elektroakustische Musik (Society for Electro-acoustic Music) to develop and promote his work. The new workshop was located in the grand Prinz-Emil-Schlößchen castle in Darmstadt and was staffed by skilled technicians, including the future electronic instrument designer Oskar Vierling, known for creating the Elektrochordand Grosstonorgel, among other instruments.

With this resource at his disposal, Mager continued to develop his instrument design and created the Klaviatursphäraphon in 1928. In this model, he replaced the handles of the Kurbelsphäraphon with two short, keyed monophonic keyboards. The shorter keys allowed the player to play both keyboards simultaneously, producing a duophonic tone. By adjusting the capacitance of the sound-generating circuit, it was possible to alter the intervals between keys and scale the keyboard’s acoustic length. An octave could be compressed to as small as a major second, meaning that each successive step represented an interval of a 12th tone. Additional tonal colours were achieved through acoustic resonators, a series of filters, and specially designed resonant speakers – similar to the diffuseurs developed by Maurice Martenot in Paris for the Ondes Martenot.

Jörg Mager’s four manual *Partiturophon of 1930.* Visible behind the instrument is a row of gongs used to create harmonic overtones from the instrument.

Mager and a three-manual version of the *Partiturophon* at the *Studiengesellschaft für elektroakustische Musik* in Darmstadt.

Despite being free from financial concerns, Mager now faced pressure to deliver more commercially viable instrument designs. This required him to abandon his obsessive interest in microtonal music, which had by then become unfashionable and, during the Nazi period, dangerously reminiscent of Weimar-era modernism. Mager began to focus on timbre with the goal of creating a complex, polyphonic electronic organ. He developed two instruments: the Klaviatursphäraphon in 1928 and the Partiturophon in 1930. The name “Partiturophon,” derived from the word “partitur,” meaning musical score, reflected his aim of capturing the diverse combinations of orchestral timbre. The Partiturophon featured a four-keyboard (later five-keyboard) design. This arrangement required the player to learn a difficult bent-finger technique to produce four or five voices simultaneously, with one voice assigned to each keyboard. Additionally, it included a foot pedal that enabled transposition of the voices up or down by one octave. Mager claimed that the instrument could imitate the sounds of wind, string, and percussion instruments, as well as church bells, using a blend of electronic and electroacoustic techniques.

The instruments produced at the Studiengesellschaft für Elektroakustische Musik, though groundbreaking for their time, never achieved production readiness because Mager repeatedly rejected the constraints imposed on the economic use of his inventions. As a result, his abrasive personality, combined with his loss of support from the society’s board, led him to leave Darmstadt in 1936. Mager moved to Berlin and returned to semi-nomadic penury while seeking financial support for his ongoing work. By the mid-1930s, technological advances and techniques had outpaced Mager’s self-taught technical skills, leading to the emergence of more efficient and cost-effective alternatives in Germany and across Europe and the USA. Notable examples include the Mixtur Trautonium, developed by Friedrich Trautwein and Oskar Sala, and the KdF Grosstonorgel, designed by Mager’s former student, Oskar Vierling. Both of these instruments received support from the Nazi regime. His health deteriorated due to diabetes, accompanied by increasing disorientation and mental confusion. His daughter, Sofie, brought him back to Aschaffenburg, where he died on April 5, 1939, at the age of 59.

None of Mager’s instruments is known to have survived the Second World War. The castle in Darmstadt was heavily bombed by the Allies, destroying the last remnants of the Partiturophon and its predecessors. Mager’s son, Siegfried, became the heir and protector of Jörg Mager’s legacy. After the war, he actively, though unsuccessfully, attempted to restore his father’s reputation as the “Father of German Electronic Music.”

‘The first pioneer of ether-wave music’ A postcard produced by Jörg Mager in 1935 to promote his work.

References

1
Patteson, Thomas. (2016) Instruments for New Music, University of California Press, 76. ↩︎
2
This is possibly the first time the description Electronic/Electric Music has been used – previously, music produced by electronic music was called ‘Ether-wave Music’ or ‘Radio-electric Music’. ↩︎
3
Donhauser, Peter. (2007) Elektrische Klangmaschinen; Die Pionierzeit in Deutschland und Österreich, Brill, 212. ↩︎
4
Schenck, Emil. (1952) Jörg Mager: Dem deutschen Pionier der Elektromusikforschung, herausgegeben von der Städtischen Kulturverwaltung Darmstadt, 11. ↩︎
5
Schenck, Emil. (1952) Jörg Mager: Dem deutschen Pionier der Elektromusikforschung, herausgegeben von der Städtischen Kulturverwaltung Darmstadt, 14. ↩︎
6
Mager, Jörg. (1934) “Das ‘Partiturophon—Eine Hausmusik Lösung, Zeitschrift für Instrumentenbau 54, no. 21 (1934): 329 ↩︎
7
Prof. Dr Noack states in the Darmstädter Tagblatt of August 26, 1930 ↩︎
8
Patteson, Thomas. (2016) Instruments for New Music, University of California Press, 79. ↩︎
9
Schenck, Emil. (1952) Jörg Mager: Dem deutschen Pionier der Elektromusikforschung, herausgegeben von der Städtischen Kulturverwaltung Darmstadt, 19. ↩︎
10
Mager, Jörg. (1924) Eine neue Epoche der Musik durch Radio, Berlin-Neukölln, Selbstverlag des Verfassers, 5. ↩︎

The Kaleidophon (1926). Jörg Mager, Germany.

The Kaleidophon was a unique and little-documented musical instrument created by German pioneer Jörg Mager in 1926. Like Mager’s other inventions, the Kaleidophon evolved from his original concept, the Sphärophon. However, this particular instrument was designed to produce complex tone colours rather than microtonal notes. Mager described the Kaleidophon as “a monophonic electronic instrument with kaleidoscopic sound mixtures that follow the tonal principles of Arnold Schoenberg and Ferruccio Busoni.” Based on the limited documentation available, it appears that the Kaleidophon was a keyboard-controlled, monophonic instrument tuned in semitones. Its tuning could be modified by turning a lever that adjusted the basic intervals. Additionally, the instrument could generate the equivalent of chords by combining overtones in controllable mixtures, controlled via a touch-sensitive feature on the keyboard. According to Mager, it was also capable of producing “glissandos, vibrato, and timbre trills.” ¹

Mager first demonstrated the Kaleidophon in his own Sphärophon room at the Internationalen Ausstellung Musik im Leben der Völker in Frankfurt – 11.Juni – 28. August 1927. According to the critic and journalist Arno Huth, who had witnessed the still unfinished version of the instrument, the Kaleidophon was a “piano-like keyboard instrument that could alter the sound tone using types of organ stops, as well as the volume by connecting loudspeakers of any number and combination. Although not yet fully exploitable today due to their complexity, the instruments can produce all timbres, intervals, and dynamic levels” ²

It is likely that Mager used the formant filters developed by Karl Willy Wagner at the Telegraphentechnische Reichsamt, where Mager had a small studio, to alter the instrument’s timbre through subtractive synthesis. He also passed the instrument’s audio output through a series of acoustically resonant surfaces – metal sheets, steel springs, glass, etc., attached to loudspeakers to give the tone additional colour – a technique similar to Maurice Martenot’s ‘diffuseurs’ for the Ondes Martenot instrument of the same period.

Jörg Mager and his assistant Oskar Vierling experimenting with acoustic resonators to create complex sound timbres. Image: Das Neue Frankfurt 1926-27, 145.

Uniquely, Mager may also have used low and high frequency noise ³ to modulate the character of the sound and low frequency sound waves in a manner similar to more recent LFO modulation. Mager also developed a method that uses low-frequency square-wave modulation to generate the aforementioned “timbre trills”. ⁴ Many of these techniques were also applied to Mager’s later keyboard instruments, such as the Klaviatursphäraphon (1928), Partiturophon (1930).

Jörg Mager: BiographyBorn 6 November 1880, Eichstätt, Bavaria, Germany. Died 5 April 1939. Aschaffenburg, Bavaria,

örg Mager was a German inventor and self-proclaimed ‘Father of German Electronic Music’, who became a significant figure in the early development of electronic musical instruments. From around 1921 until his death in 1939, he created a family of electronic instruments that included the Elektrophon (1921), Sphäraphon (1924), Kurbelsphärophon (1926), Kaleidophon (1926), Klaviatursphäraphon (1928), and Partiturophon (1930). Central to Mager’s design concept was the pursuit of a utopian perfect musical instrument, one that could deliver on the microtonal promises outlined in Ferruccio Busoni’s influential text Entwurf einer neuen Ästhetik der Tonkunst (Sketch of a New Esthetic of Music, published in Germany in 1907 and 1917, and in English translation in New York in 1911). ⁵ Busoni argued that music needed new instruments to provide a new sonic palette – instruments that had a wider tonal and timbral range than the classical instrumentarium: “So narrow has our tonal range become, so stereotyped its form of expression”.

Jörg Mager: „Eine neue Epoche der Musik durch Radio“ (Berlin 1924)

Mager’s 1924 publication, ‘A New Epoch of Music Through Radio’, in which he outlined his ideas for electronic microtonal (quarter-tone) music.

The instruments produced at the Studiengesellschaft für Elektroakustische Musik, though groundbreaking for their time, never achieved production readiness because Mager repeatedly rejected the constraints imposed on the economic use of his inventions. As a result, his abrasive personality, combined with his loss of support from the society’s board, led him to leave Darmstadt in 1936. Mager moved to Berlin and returned to semi-nomadic penury while seeking financial support for his ongoing work. By the mid-1930s, technological advances and techniques had outpaced Mager’s self-taught technical skills, leading to the emergence of more efficient and cost-effective alternatives in Germany and across Europe and the USA. Notable examples include the Mixtur Trautonium, developed by Friedrich Trautwein and Oskar Sala, and the KdF Grosstonorgel, designed by Mager’s former student, Oskar Vierling. Both of these instruments received support from the Nazi regime. After he left Darmstadt, Mager’s health began to deteriorate due to diabetes, accompanied by increasing disorientation and mental confusion. His daughter, Sofie, brought him back to Aschaffenburg, where he died on April 5, 1939, at the age of 59.

Throughout his life, Mager maintained that he independently conceived the use of radio vacuum tubes to generate electronic sounds before Leon Termen developed his more famous Etherphone (later known as the Theremin). The Elektrophone was among the earliest electronic musical instruments, and Mager asserted that he was its true inventor and a pioneer of electronic music. However, the reality is that the domestic radio-howl effect, which underpinned sound generation in all vacuum-tube instruments, was already well known by that time. This effect inspired many designs of electronic musical instruments during that period and remained the primary method for generating tones until the introduction of transistors in the 1960s.

None of Mager’s instruments is known to have survived the Second World War. Despite Mager’s ambition to create a universal, ideal instrument, only one of each model was ever built. During the Weimar era, which was marked by hyperinflation and financial hardship, Mager often repurposed components from earlier instruments to create new variants. As a result, only one updated version of each model exists. In 1944, the castle in Darmstadt was heavily bombed by the Allies, destroying the last remnants of the Partiturophon and its predecessors. Mager’s son, Siegfried, became the heir and protector of Jörg Mager’s legacy. After the war, he actively, though unsuccessfully, attempted to restore his father’s reputation as the “Father of German Electronic Music.”

References

1
Davies, Hugh. (1984) Sphärophon, The New Grove dictionary of music and musicians, London: Macmillan Press, 436. ↩︎
2
Huth, Arno. (1927) “Elektrische Tonerzeugung,” Die Musik XX/1 (October 1927), 43). ↩︎
3
Jörg Mager, “Verfahren zur elektrischen Erzeugung von Geräuschen,” DE 541,812, Aug 1, 1929 ↩︎
4
Jörg Mager, “Electro-acoustic Musical Instrument,” United States Patent 1,829,099, 3, filed October 27, 1931 ↩︎
5
Busoni, Ferruccio. (1911) Sketch of a New Esthetic of Music, New York (State): G. Schirmer, 23. ↩︎
6
Mager, Jörg. (1924) Eine neue Epoche der Musik durch Radio, Berlin-Neukölln, Selbstverlag des Verfassers, 5. ↩︎

The ‘Baldwin Organ’ Winston E. Kock & J.F. Jordan, USA, 1946

Early Model of Winston Kock's Baldwin organ — Winston Kock’s Baldwin Organ Model Five 1947

The Baldwin organ was an electronic organ, many models of which have been manufactured by the Baldwin Piano & Organ Co. since 1946. The original models were designed by Dr Winston E. Kock who became the company’s director of electronic research after his return from his studies at the Heinrich-Hertz-Institute, Berlin, in 1936. The organ was a development of Kock’s Berlin research with the GrosstonOrgel using the same neon-gas discharge tubes to create a stable, affordable polyphonic instrument. The Baldwin Organ were based on an early type of subtractive synthesis; the neon discharge tubes generating a rough sawtooth wave rich in harmonics which was then modified by formant filters to the desired tone.

Tone modifying circuits of the Baldwin organ

Another innovative aspect of the Baldwin Organ was the touch sensitive keyboard designed to create a realistic variable note attack similar to a pipe organ. As the key was depressed, a curved metal strip progressively shorted out a carbon resistance element to provide a gradual rather than sudden attack (and decay) to the sound. This feature was unique at that time, and it endowed the Baldwin instrument with an unusually elegant sound which captivated many musicians of the day.

“How did it sound? I have played Baldwin organs at a time when they were still marketed and in my opinion, for what it is worth, they were pretty good in relative terms. That is to say, they sounded significantly better on the whole than the general run of analogue organs by other manufacturers, and they were only beaten by a few custom built instruments in which cost was not a factor. It would not be true to say they sounded as good as a good digital organ today, but they compared favourably with the early Allen digitals in the 1970’s. Nor, of course, did they sound indistinguishable from a pipe organ, but that is true for all pipeless organs. To my ears they also sounded much better and more natural than the cloying tone of the more expensive Compton Electrone which, like the Hammond, also relied on attempts at additive synthesis with insufficient numbers of harmonics.”

From ‘Winston Kock and the Baldwin Organ; by Colin Pykett

Electronic Generator of the earlt model Baldwin Organ — Electronic Tone Generator of the early model Baldwin Organ showing neon gas-discharge tube oscillators.

Kock’s 1938 Patent of the Baldwin organ

Winston Kock playing an early experimental design for an electric instrument — Winston Kock playing his early experimental electronic instrument 1932

Winston E. Kock Biographical Details:

Winston Kock was born into a German-American family in 1909 in Cincinnati, Ohio. Despite being a gifted musician he decided to study electrical engineering at Cincinnati university and in his 20’s designed a highly innovative, fully electronic organ for his master’s degree.

The major problem of instrument design during the 1920’s and 30’s was the stability and cost of analogue oscillators. Most commercial organ ventures had failed for this reason; a good example being Givelet & Coupleux’s huge valve Organ in 1930. it was this reason that Laurens Hammond (and many others) decided on Tone-Wheel technology for his Hammond Organs despite the inferior audio fidelity.

Kock had decided early on to investigate the possibility of producing a commercially viable instrument that was able to produce the complexity of tone possible from vacuum tubes. With this in mind, Kock hit upon the idea of using much cheaper neon ‘gas discharge’ tubes as oscillators stabilised with resonant circuits. This allowed him to design an affordable, stable and versatile organ.

Kock's Sonar device during WW2 — Kock’s Sonar device during WW2

In the 1930’s Kock, fluent in German, went to Berlin to study On an exchange fellowship (curiously, the exchange was with Sigismund von Braun, Wernher von Braun’s eldest brother –Kock was to collaborate with Wernher twenty five years later at NASA) at the Heinrich Hertz Institute conducting research for a doctorate under Professor K W Wagner. At the time Berlin, and specifically the Heinrich Hertz Institute, was the global centre of electronic music research. Fellow students and professors included; Jörg Mager, Oskar Vierling, Fritz Sennheiser, Bruno Helberger, Harald Bode, Friedrich Trautwein, Oskar Sala and Wolja Saraga amongst others. Kock’s study was based around two areas: – improving the understanding of glow discharge (neon) oscillators, and developing realistic organ tones using specially designed filter circuits.

Kock worked closely with Oskar Vierling for his Phd and co-designed the GrosstonOrgel in 1934 but disillusioned by the appropriation of his work by the newly ascendant Nazi party he decided to leave for India, sponsored by the Baldwin Organ Company arriving at the Indian Institute of Music in Bangalore in 1935.

Returning from India in 1936, Dr Kock became Baldwin’s Director of Research while still in his mid-twenties, and with J F Jordan designed many aspects of their first electronic organ system which was patented in 1941.

Winston E Kock (L) as the first Director of Engineering Research at NASA

When the USA entered the second world war Kock moved to Bell Telephone Laboratories where he was involved on radar research and specifically microwave antennas. In the mid-1950’s he took a senior position in the Bendix Corporation which was active in underwater defence technology. He moved again to become NASA’s first Director of Engineering Research, returning to Bendix in 1966 where he remained until 1971 when he became Acting Director of the Hermann Schneider Laboratory of the University of Cincinatti. Kock Died in Cincinatti in 1982.

Winston Kock was a prolific writer of scientific books but he also wrote fiction novels under the pen name of Wayne Kirk.

Acoustic lenses developed by Winston Kock at the Bell Labs in the 1950's — Acoustic lenses developed by Winston Kock at the Bell Labs in the 1950’s

Acoustic lenses developed by Winston Kock at the Bell Labs in the 1950’s

Sources:

Hugh Davies. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians

http://www.pykett.org.uk/drkock.htm

The ‘Multimonica I & II’, Siegfried Mager, Germany, 1951.

1953 *Multimonica II*. Image: Reverb Music Auction 2019. www.reverb.com

The Multimonica I, originally named the Mager-Straube-Kleinorgel (or sometimes Multimonica System Mager) designed in Germany the late 1940s and commercially available sometime around 1951, was one of the first mass-produced portable electronic musical instruments. The Multimonica was designed by Siegfried Mager, the son of the famous self styled ‘Father of German Electronic Music’, Jörg Mager and manufactured by the Straube Harmonium Company in Lich, Germany. ¹

The factory of the Straube Harmonium Company, Lich, Germany circa 1950 where the Multimonica I ( Mager-Straube-Kleinorgel) was manufactured. Image: Wirtualnym Muzeum Zabytkowych Instrumentów Muzycznych – https://zabytkoweinstrumenty.wordpress.com/

The Multimonica II, based on Mager’s original design was later (1952?) licensed and manufactured by the German company Matthias Hohner AG in Trossingen, Germany, well known at the time for their acoustic harmoniums and mouth-organs.

The Multimonica was a portable hybrid electronic/acoustic instrument with two keyboards; the lower one a 41 note wind-blown reed harmonium instrument, and the upper, an electronic monophonic sawtooth synthesiser. Housed in a modernist, streamlined black and white Bakelite casing, the instrument features a loudspeaker, tube-generated electromechanical vibrato, (The circuits were based on the Philips 13204 X, Philips EL41, Telefunken EF41 tubes in the Multimonica I, and EL41; ECC40; EF40 tubes for the Multimonica II ) 6 pre-set synth sounds, 2 switches for harmonic filtering, and 3 switches for the vibrato speed and amplitude, as well as a knee lever for volume control. Some versions of the Multimonica I had a medium wave radio built in to allow the owner to play along to broadcast music. The Multimonica II released in 1953 featured one loudspeaker and provided more types of harmonics filtering than the earlier Multimonica I, and the electro-mechanical vibrato was changed to a more sophisticated neon-gas-tube-based design.²

Neue elektronische Musikinstrumente. Funkschau Magazine 1953. ³

The Multimonica System Mager is a portable instrument that is placed on the table while playing. It has two manuals with 41 keys each. The lower one is operated, similar to an accordion i.e. vibrating tines excited by wind pressure for full-fledged polyphonic playing. The air is supplied by an electric operated fan. With a register arrangement you can set seven different tones.

The second manual above is used for purely electronic sound generation. By pressing the buttons, capacitors are connected in parallel to a constantly oscillating feedback tube generator, so that the individual tone frequencies are created. They are played back by speakers in the device. This manual enables unison playing. The sound colour can be changed electrically using conveniently arranged tilt registers and by switching the built-in speakers on and off. Vibrato tones can also be generated through frequency modulation. Each manual has a knee lever as a volume control. — In addition to these two playing options, the device contains a built-in radio receiver for the local or district station, with the electronic registers being used as sound panels..

The demonstration [that we saw] showed that a very versatile style of playing is possible on this instrument, whose particular strength comes into its own through harmonious and organ-like handling. The instrument can therefore be used on its own or as an orchestral instrument, whereby the reed manual can serve as an accompanying and filling instrument, while the electronic arrangement takes over solo parts. Price of the Multimonica: 1080 DM,

TV Newsreel of the Multimonica II at the Frankfurt Spring Fair 1952

Images of the Multimonica II

‘Multimonica’ II

References:

1
Heyde, Herbert.(1994) Musical instrument making in Prussia. Hans Schneider, 221. ↩︎
2
Davies, Hugh.(2014) The Multimonica, The Grove dictionary of musical instruments, New York : Oxford University Press, 529. ↩︎
3
Neue elektronische Musikinstrumente, FUNKSCHAU
1953/Heft, 18. ↩︎

The Electrophon (1921), Sphäraphon(1924), kurbelsphärophon (1926), Klaviatursphäraphon(1928), Partiturophon (1930) and Kaleidophon(1939). Jörg Mager, Germany.

Jörg (Georg Adam) Eichstätt Mager born November 6, 1880 Aschaffenburg, Bavaria, Died Aschaffenburg 1939 — Jörg (Georg Adam) Eichstätt Mager born: November 6, 1880 Aschaffenburg, Bavaria, Died: Aschaffenburg 1939

Jörg Mager, the German inventor and self proclaimed ‘Father of German Electronic Music’ was an important figure in the development of electronic musical instruments. ¹ From around 1921 until his death in 1939 he created a family of electronic instruments that included the Electrophon (1921), Sphäraphon(1924), kurbelsphärophon (1926), Klaviatursphäraphon(1928), Partiturophon (1930) and Kaleidophon(1939). Central to Mager’s design concept was the pursuit of a utopian perfect musical instrument, one that could deliver on the microtonal promises outlined in Ferrucio Bussoni’s influential text Entwurf einer neue Ästhetike der Tonkunst (‘Sketch of a New Esthetic of Music’, published in Germany in 1907 and 1917, and in English translation in New York in 1911). Busoni argued that music needed new instruments to provide a new sonic palette – instruments that had a wider tonal and timbral range than the classical instrumentarium: “So narrow has our tonal range become, so stereotyped its form of expression”.²

Jörg Mager’s lifelong fascination with micro-tonal music began accidentally during the hot summer of 1911 when he heard an out of tune organ playing notes beyond the fixed tempered scale. Fascinated by the instruments strange sounds he began to explore the concepts of half and quarter tone music which he eventually self-published in his Vierteltonmusik of 1915. At the same time he began to design an instrument that was capable of delivering micro-tonal and quarter tone scales, the first of which was an acoustic harmonium, the Vierteltonharmonium (Four-Tone harmonium) in 1912.

After his participation in the failed 1918 communist coup in Bavaria, Mager left for Berlin. Here he joined a small circle of microtonal musicians (Mager, Alois Hába, Richard Stein, Ivan Wischnegradsky ) under the wing of renowned composer and theorist Ferrucio Bussoni. This circle of musicians were united in their aim to liberate music from the tyranny of fixed-tonality, however, rather than adapt existing instruments, Mager decided to create an entirely new instrument based on the emerging radio technology of the time.

To survive in post WW1 hyper-inflationary Berlin, Mager accepted any unskilled labour he could find. It was while working in a radio vacuum tube factory that he hit upon the idea of using vacuum tubes as the basis for his first electronic microtonal instrument, the Electrophon in 1921. The Electrophon was a simple monophonic instrument based on the same heterodyne principal as that of the Theremin; a method by which two frequencies are combined within the radio frequency spectrum (not perceptible by the human ear) to produce a third frequency that is equal to the difference between the latter two frequencies and that itself is within the audible spectrum humans. In case of Electrophon two 50 Khz frequency oscillators were used. The novel feature of the Electrophon was that rather than being controlled by a fixed tone manual, notes were instead triggered by rotating a metal handle, creating a glissando type effect on a continuous tone. Under the handle was a semicircular plate marked with chromatic scale intervals. Changes in timbre could be applied through various filters. Further developments of the Electrophon were christened the Sphärophon after the Pythagorean legend of the music of the spheres.

“The music of the future will be attained by radio instruments! Of course, not with radio transmission, but rather direct generation of musical tones by means of cathode instruments! […] Indeed, the cathode-music will be far superior to previous music, in that it can generate a much finer, more highly developed, richly coloured music than all our known musical instruments! ”
Jörg Mager: ” Eine Neue Epoch Der Music Durch radio” (Berlin 1924)

Mager’s proposal in ” Eine Neue Epoch…” was that the medium of radio should be used to create and deliver a new type of utopian ‘free’ music by means of new electronic cathode-ray musical instruments, rather than just a means of transmitting mass content:

“…Radio firms have mobilised more energy for transmission of a radio-music but have hardly shown any interest in the most important problem: the production of music itself.”

“…the music of the future will be implemented largely by radio instruments not only in the sense that they can be easily transmitted, but especially that musical sounds can be produced directly through cathode-ray instruments . “

Mager’s fellow Microtonalist Czech composer Alois Hába added:

“This is a new era in the development, not only in building instruments, but in music in general . “

Further developments of the Sphärophon lead to the kurbelsphärophon unveiled at the 1926 Donaueschingen summer music festival (alongside Leon Termen’s Theremin). This adaptation added a second manual dial that allowed the player to interrupt the instrument’s continuous output and avoid the continuous glissando of the Sphärophon by queuing up another note and added two pedals to control each note’s volume and envelope.

Mager playing the kurbelsphärophon — Mager playing the Kurbelsphärophon

Though mostly ignored at the time, Mager’s instrument quickly gained notoriety throughout Germany; the composer Georgy Rimsky-Korsakov (Grandson of the Russian composer) composed some quarter-tone experimental pieces and Paul Hindemith enthusiastically endorsed Mager’s instrument. This support lead to the the formation in 1929 of the ‘Studiengesellschaft für Elektro Akustische Musik’ (‘Society for Electro-acoustic Music) in Darmstadt to support his research (funded by the city of Darmstadt, the Heinrich Hertz Institut für Schwingungsforschung and the Reichsrundfunk radio station) . The society was housed in a large, luxurious castle in Darmstadt and staffed with skilled technicians including the future electronic instrument designer Oskar Vierling.

With this resource at his disposal Mager continued to develop his instrument design, creating the Klaviatursphäraphon in 1928. In this model he replaced the handles of the Kurbelsphäraphon with two short keyed monophonic keyboards – the shorter keys allowing the player to play both keyboards simultaneously thereby producing a duophonic tone. It was also possible by adjusting the capacitance of the sound generating circuit to alter the intervals between each key and scale the acoustic length of the keyboard. An octave could be made as small as a major second, so that each successive step represented an interval of a 12th tone. Additional tone colour was added by mechanical resonators, series of filters and specially formed resonant speakers.

By now, Mager’s focus was moving from micro-tonality towards audio timbre. The “Partiturophon” (from the German ‘Partitur’ or musical score, reflecting his aim of capturing the varied combinations of orchestral timbre) was a four (in later models, five) keyboard and five voice version of the Klaviatursphäraphon produced in 1930. This instrument allowed the player to play four (or five) voices at once, one voice per keyboard:

“Mager produced today and organ with many registers on which four voice playing is possible. So far there is only one difficulty; that is, that each voice must have its own keyboard, thus the four voice movement must be played on three manuals and the pedal. For this reason the manuals must be close to each other and the keys short, so that one can easily play on several manuals with one hand. For this reason the keys are somewhat narrower than those on a regular organ or piano keyboard. Apart from these difficulties, which require a special adjustment to the playing of the new instrument, it is surprising in its infinite multiplicity of sound possibilities, through dynamic wealth of shading and through the possibilities of expression in the tones”

The critic and historian Frederick Prieberg on the Partiturophon

1932 marked the high point of Mager’s success. He had become a household name in Germany and received commissions, from Winifred Wagner herself, to provide the sound effects for the annual Beyreuth Wagner festival, and he was also commissioned to mark the centenary of Gothe’s death with a micro-tonal piece for thirty theatrical interpretations of drama Faust , which took place in Frankfurt and Darmstadt. Other plaudits came from composers and conductors Arturo Toscanini and Wilhelm Furtwängler , the latter the director of the orchestral interpretation of Parsifal in 1931.

Yet this success was short lived. A new electronic instrument had emerged in 1930; Dr Friedrich Trautwien’s ‘Trautonioum’. In contrast to Mager’s amateur enthusiasm, Trautwien was a trained engineer and managed to produce an instrument that was both novel, reliable and wasn’t shackled by the complexity of Mager’s devotion to micro-tonality. The final blow to Mager came in 1933 when Hitler’s National Socialists took power. Experimental music was labelled ‘Entartete’ or ‘degenerate’ and un-German; the great flowering of German musical innovation had come to an abrupt end. Mager tried to ingratiate himself into the new party “to get on the gravy train” but became increasingly paranoid and irritable, driving away many of his collaborators and supporters. In the struggle to develop the Partiturophon as a commercial domestic instrument, the contract for the ‘Studiengesellschaft für Elektro Akustische Musik’ lapsed and funding dried up. Mager spent the rest of his life leading an impoverished semi-nomadic existence. His state of health was increasingly precarious due to diabetes and growing disorientation and mental confusion. His daughter Sofie, brought him back to Aschaffenburg, where he died on April 5, 1939, at the age of 59.

spite the oppressive new political climate, Mager was commissioned to create sound effects with the Partiturophon in the 1936 film "Stärker Paragraphen als" by Jürgen von Alten , with music by Rudolf Perak. — spite the oppressive new political climate, Mager was commissioned to create sound effects with the Partiturophon in the 1936 film “Stärker Paragraphen als” by Jürgen von Alten , with music by Rudolf Perak.

None of Mager’s instruments are known to have survived the Second World War, The castle at Darmstadt was heavily bombed by the Allies, obliterating the last traces of the Partiturophon and it’s predecessors. The last of Mager’s family of instruments was the Kaleidophon completed in 1939 and only survives in notes as “…a monophonic electronic instrument with kaleidoscopic sound mixtures following the tonal precepts of Arnold Schoenberg and Ferruccio Busoni.”

Mager's colleague Alois Hába playing the Partituropohn — Mager’s colleague Alois Hába playing the Partituropohn

Mager’s instruments ultimately failed because of, on one hand, Mager’s single minded devotion to microtonality which had virtually no repertoire and was little accepted even by the avant garde of the time ( even Mager’s close circle of friends Hába, Wischnegradsky and Stein never realised their promises to compose for the instruments) and on the other, the fact that the instruments were in continual development, unstable and never completely finished making it difficult to become anything more than an interesting curiosity.

Sources

Jörg Mager: ” Eine Neue Epoch Der Music Durch radio” (Berlin 1924)

http://acousmata.com/post/27443169341/jorg-mager

http://www.audionautas.com/2010/10/jorg-mager-el-genio-hurano-i.html

Peter Donhauser, “Electric sound machines. Pioneer days in Germany and Austria,” Böhlau Verlag, ISBN 9783205775935

Fred Prieberg, “Music in the Nazi state,” Dittrich Verlag, ISBN 392086266XElena monster, “As the electronic music was ‘invented’ ,” Schott Verlag, ISBN 3795718910

MAGER Jörg: Eine neue Epoche der Musik durch Radio, Berlin-Neukölln 1924. : Vierteltonmusik, Aschaffenburg [1915].

The ‘Kaleidophon’ Jörg Mager, Germany, 1939

Little information survives of Jörg Mager’s last instrument the ‘Kaleidophon’ which he completed in 1939. The instrument was probably destroyed by allied bombing of Mager’s Darmstadt headquarters. The only references survives as notess “…a monophonic electronic instrument with kaleidoscopic sound mixtures following the tonal precepts of Arnold Schoenberg and Ferruccio Busoni.”

The Klaviatursphäraphon

The Pariturophon

Jörg Mager: Biography

References

References

Kock’s 1938 Patent of the Baldwin organ

Winston E. Kock Biographical Details:

Sources:

Neue elektronische Musikinstrumente. Funkschau Magazine 1953. 3Neue elektronische Musikinstrumente, FUNKSCHAU 1953/Heft, 18.

Images of the Multimonica II

References:

Sources

Neue elektronische Musikinstrumente. Funkschau Magazine 1953. ³