Mechanical Music Digest  Archives
You Are Not Logged In Login/Get New Account
Please Log In. Accounts are free!
Logged In users are granted additional features including a more current version of the Archives and a simplified process for submitting articles.
Home Archives Calendar Gallery Store Links Info

End-of-Year Fundraising Drive In Progress. Please visit our home page to see this and other announcements: https://www.mmdigest.com     Thank you. --Jody

MMD > Archives > March 2016 > 2016.03.17 > 02Prev  Next


Mechanical Music in Stockholm, Sweden
By Douglas Heffer

For your information, the "biggest music box in the world" is there
in Stockholm.  It was exhibited in the "Telemuseum", today closed
for public viewing, but sometimes they will let you see the instrument
on request.

L. M. Ericsson, the founder of the telephone company, made it for an
1897 exhibition in Stockholm.  It is a music box using tuned telephone
bells (about 90 bells, as I remember) activated by an electromagnetic
system, all controlled from a music box cylinder.  It's all installed
in a wood tower about 4 meters high and several meters of diameter.
The instrument was playing for the king, Oscar II, when he opened the
exhibition.

I have all information about the instrument: descriptions, photos,
etc.  For more information you could contact the technical museum in
Stockholm.  The room where the instrument plays is not always open to
the public.

The only "instant" reproducing piano ever made, "Melographe piano",
also sponsored by LM Eriksson, is at the technical museum in Stockholm
and it doesn't work today.  On this instrument you could rewind the
recording and listen to your recording immediately after.  The instrument
doesn't use perforated paper rolls, like most instruments.  I have
studied the instrument and I think I have all information around this
instrument.

Good luck!

Douglas Heffer


(Message sent Thu 17 Mar 2016, 16:30:10 GMT, from time zone GMT+0100.)

Key Words in Subject:  Mechanical, Music, Stockholm, Sweden

Home    Archives    Calendar    Gallery    Store    Links    Info   


Enter text below to search the MMD Website with Google



CONTACT FORM: Click HERE to write to the editor, or to post a message about Mechanical Musical Instruments to the MMD

Unless otherwise noted, all opinions are those of the individual authors and may not represent those of the editors. Compilation copyright 1995-2024 by Jody Kravitz.

Please read our Republication Policy before copying information from or creating links to this web site.

Click HERE to contact the webmaster regarding problems with the website.

Please support publication of the MMD by donating online

Please Support Publication of the MMD with your Generous Donation

Pay via PayPal

No PayPal account required

                                     
Translate This Page