Why an echo valve for the cornet? Should a clarinet be played electronically? And how can the organ be given a breath of fresh air?
Instrument makers have developed countless innovations to fulfill the wishes of musicians and composers - or to challenge them with new inventions...
AMOR & ECHO displays a number of such inventions and presents them in sound and video on our tablets.
Over 3000 years ago, bronze tubes were successfully cast and assembled into wind instruments, a petroglyph shows such "Lurs" (see photo). Around 250 years ago, clarinettists were in search of a bass instrument and an inventor drew a "Amor-Schall", a horn with a covered bell that produced a "love-sound" (see illustration). Around 200 years ago, a "double-piston valve" for brass instruments was patented in Vienna and a good 100 years ago, a physicist invented the first electronic instrument to be played without contact: the theremin.
And today? Organist Daniel Glaus is searching for a "wind-dynamic" organ on which he can vary the volume ("dynamics") at the press of the keys, and Ernesto Molinari is developing the "CLEX", a double bass clarinet with a mechatronic "extension".
Theremin - the touchless musical instrument
You can play it yourself in our exhibition:
Video: Leo Termen explains his ThereminCLEX, the Contrabass clarinet extended, presented by Ernesto Molinari:
Video CLEXThank you!
These institutions supported this exhibition:
DC-Bank, Zwillenberg-Stiftung, Gesellschaft zu Mittellöwen, Zunftgesellschaft zum Affen, Gesellschaft zu Ober-Gerwern, Freundeskreis des Klingenden Museums
