I received announcements of this event on almost the same day in e-mail
press releases from Germany, and in the just-arrived July 1997 edition of
Das Mechanische Musikinstrumente (DMM), the publication of the German
Society for Self-playing Musical Instruments (GSM).

The short article in DMM was written by Dr. Juergen Hocker, and the
longer press-release originated at the Siemens corporate public relations
office in Munich.  I translated and combined both articles into the
following report.

Robbie Rhodes

 - - - - - -

    Historic fair-organs -- New compositions.  A project of the
    "Siemens Culture Program" in cooperation with the GSM.

A festival of a totally special type will occur 29 to 31 August in
Magdeburg, one of Germany's most important mechanical engineering
centers.  At the focus of this festival stand historic "music-machines"
upon which contemporary music will sound.  The Siemens Culture Program
has therefore engaged five composers to write original-compositions of
approximately 10 minutes duration for five historic carousel-organs,
which will be introduced for the first time to the audience in Magdeburg.

Ever since there were music instruments people have attempted to make
them play by themselves: the ancients already knew all the essential
elements of a player organ.  The oldest mechanical music instruments
preserved are the glockenspiels in the monumental clocks of the late
Middle Ages.  During the renaissance craftsmen in Augsburg created
valuable music-automatons and self-playing spinets which were controlled
by pinned cylinders, and important composers like Mozart, Handel and
Beethoven composed original pieces for the flute clocks which arose in
the 18th century.

Around 1700 the little hand-cranked organ, of the street scenes of
European cities, was no longer in vogue.  With the spread of carrousels
at fairgrounds and county fairs about 1870, increasingly bigger organs
became necessary to overpower the noise.  With them came artistically
carved facades, animated figures, and -- not the least -- the music to
focus the attention of the audience upon the organ itself.

The best-known center for the manufacture of carrousel organs in the
1890s was Waldkirch im Breisgau.  From this locale also come most of the
instruments with "mechanics" installed.   By the turn of the century the
pinned-cylinder technology was replaced with modern pneumatic systems and
book-music, so that the duration of the compositions was no longer
limited to one revolution of a cylinder.  In addition there came the
steady improvement of the sound sources themselves.  With the emergence
of the gramophone and radio broadcasting, mechanical music instruments
increasingly ended up in oblivion.  Publicly playing organs today also
reproduce most of the music of bygone epochs.

The Siemens Culture Program has invited five composers to enliven
historic fair-organs with contemporary compositions.  Each of the five
chose "his" organ from a selection of organs with different dispositions,
peculiarities and instrumental possibilities, which were provided by the
experts of GSM.  The following composers are creating works for the
fair-organs:

  Detlev Glanert (born 1960 in Hamburg) for 79er Gebr. Richter organ
(owner: Ludwig Blome, Petershagen-Lahde);

  Peter Michael Hamel (born 1947 in Munich) for a Model 33 A. Ruth &
Sohn fair organ (owner: Stefan Fleck, Waldkirch);

  Steffen Schleiermacher (born 1960 in Halle an der Saale), for a
Gebr. Wellershaus fair organ (owner: Ludwig Blome);

  Gerhard Staebler (born 1949 in Wilhelmsdorf bei Ravensburg) for
Gebr. Bruder Model 109 fair organ (owner: Arno Tacke, Minden);

  Joerg Widmann (borh 1973 in Munich), for Gebr. Wellershaus fair organ
(owner: Henning Ballmann, Rengsdorf).

The composers became acquainted with the possibilities and limitations
of fair-organs in meetings with Henning Ballmann in Rengsdorf.  When the
works are finished, Mr. Ballmann will then transfer the musical scores
to book-music, which he punches by hand, hole-for-hole.  The resulting
"mechanical" compositions transcend by far the physical capabilities of
even the most proficient instrumentalists.  A CD-production and documen-
tation should be duly available before the premiere of the works in
Magdeburg.

The five organs will take turns playing nearby the town hall in Magdeburg
on 29 through 31 August.  On 30 August at 5 P.M. there will be a concert
in the Moritzhof in Magdeburg featuring Parisian virtuoso Pierre Charial,
performing traditional and contemporary music up through jazz, played on
his hand-cranked Odin organ.

The preparations of the fair-organ project have already created a big
interest, such that several subsequent events are already firmed up.
Further information as well as a press-folder may be obtained from the
following address:

  Siemens Culture Program * Leonore Leonardy * 80312 Munich
  Telephone: +49 89 234-33594   Fax: +49 89 234-33615

and also possibly from this email address, from which the press-release
was sent:  <Jens.Cording@munich.netsurf.de>.

See also the list of mechanical music events in Europe at the
Musica Mechanica web site (maintained by MMDer Philippe Rouille):

    http://www.cnam.fr/museum/musica-mecanica/musica-index.html/