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 Klaviatursphäraphon

The Pariturophon

Jörg Mager: Biography

References

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