"Music Boxes - Music Machines of the Biedermeier"
18 June to 28 November 1999 at Geymueller Schloessel, Vienna

This year's showing of Geymuellerschloessel's collection of music boxes,
clocks and automata, "Spielwerke - Musikautomaten des Biedermeier",
presents for the first time the entire holdings of automatic musical
instruments in the possession of the Museum fuer angewandte Kunst --
MAK, the Museum for Applied Art.

The former collection of Dr. Franz Sobek is described in the catalog of
holdings, which includes a CD, and which has a supplement with the
latest findings by Dr. Erika Hellich, author of "Old Viennese Clocks".

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the music machines
entertained and amused the aristocracy and wealthy middle class.
The music best appreciated by the public was preserved on the pinned
cylinders of these automatic musical instruments, and the repertoires
enable a glimpse of the new plays and hit songs, from the opera and
ballrooms, which were popular at the time.  The tinkling witnesses
achieve an authentic acoustic dimension, by reproducing the music of
the era in the manner of the era, which was only achieved later with
Edison's sound recording processes.

From the artificial medium of the music boxes, the two artists Kristine
Tornquist and Cornelius Burkert have created an "experience sound space"
in the hedge walk of the garden, for the duration of the exhibition.
The un-synchronized movement of twenty-four melodic cylinders, placed in
a certain geometrical order, lets an infinitely varying, spatial music
piece emerge.

The exhibition visitor can experience this while moving through the
area.  It turns the passive consumer into the active participant of
a trip through Time and Space; a traditional medium thus finds a
contemporary language and resonance.

 [ from  http://www.nhm-wien.ac.at/bundesmuseen/mak/2/main.htm
 [
 [ Thanks to Claus Kucher for telling me of this this announcement.
 [ See also the article by Bill Maier in 990117 MMDigest, "Musical
 [ Clocks at Geymueller Schloessel, Vienna", in the Archives at
 [ http://mmd.foxtail.com/Archives/Digests/199901/1999.01.17.03.html
 [
 [ -- Robbie