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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW.
Autoharp Progress.
Color Music the Latest,
HOW ALFRED DOLCE & SON HAVE ADVANCED
AND IMPROVED THE AUTOHARP, UNTIL
ZIMMERMAN, ITS INVENTOR, SCARCELY
KNEW IT.
ORGAN WHOSE MELODY IS FLASHED IN COLOR
HEN the Autoharp with all"its inter-
ests, passed into the hands of Alfred
Dolge & Son, some two years ago, it was a
successful musical novelty. No one at that
time looked upon the Autoharp as an in-
strument which had a great future as a
musical instrument. Immediately upon
the transfer of the manufacturing plant to
Dolgeville, experiments were made to per-
fect the Autoharp. A complete chromatic
scale correctly drawn, a body on the lines
of the most approved piano construction, a
new and ingenious action, resulted in the
Concert Autoharp. This instrument has
awakened the interest of our leading musi-
cians, and the great artist and composer,
Xavier Scharwenka, has composed several
selections for it.
Recently Mr. Aldis J. Gery, when on his
tour with Gilmore's Band, called upon Mr.
Zimmerman, in Philadelphia, and played
the Concert Autoharp. The inventor
scarcely recognized this perfect instru-
ment, as the "Autoharp idea" had been
developed so far beyond his original in-
vention.
While the Concert Autoharp was being
perfected, however, they have as persist-
ently worked for the improvement of all
their then existing styles, and the introduc-
tion of new ones. They have just com-
pleted, and have now ready for the market,
a new style (which we illustrate herewith)
W
called the 2^3. This instrument is sure to
create a healthy rivalry between the popu-
lar style 2^4 and itself. It is a little longer
and wider than the 2 ^ , giving it more
tone. It has twenty-eight strings (five
more than the 2^), and seven bars, pro-
ducing the following seven chords: C, F
and B flat major, C and F seventh, and A
and D minor. This allows complete modu-
lation with a minor key, and will certainly
meet with favor. The retail price of this
style, too, is just right—$7.50—half way
between the 2% and the desirable $3.
They are going to push this good style, be-
cause they know it will suit the public.
They have in preparation five or six other
styles which will be noticed when they are
produced.
TONES ON A SCREEN.
AN sounds be translated into color,
and can the musical tones that now
exist solely for the ear be transformed un-
til they appeal definitely to the eye as well?
That is the modern and also an old ques-
tion,which is being answered in the affirma-
tive by the devotees of what is known as
"color music."
The art has suddenly become a serious
one, and a wealthy artist named Rivington,
who lives in London, has recently invented
and put into operation, at a cost of nearly
$10,000, a "color organ," by means of
which, as certain notes are struck, the
melody is reproduced in a bewildering suc-
cession of color tones and combinations on
a screen, at the same instant they are
heard by the ear.
At a preliminary "recital" in St. James'
Hall the other day, the exquisite delicacy
of the mechanism of this new instrument
was tested, and its responsiveness was
found to be wholly adequate. Chopin's
preludes were played, and the screen
showed a bewildering succession of
rhythmical waves of color, passing so rap-
idly that it was hard for the eye to take
them all in, ranging from beginning to end
of the spectrum, and flashing not only the
intermediate tones, half tones and quarter
tones of color, but also innumerable lovely
combinations which hitherto had never
suggested themselves to the imagination,
but were the inevitable lesults of a har-
mony that worked the same for the eye as
for the ear.
Hardly possible, and more within the
domain of fairyland than the regions of
actual science, seems this art of "color
music," but it is certain that this much
was actually accomplished; that unending
combinations of. color were produced by
the mechanical principles that govern the
diatonic scale and musical octaves.
What the exact details of this instrument
may be, and just how each color is pro-
duced, Mr. Rivington will not divulge. All
that is known is that the new "color or-
gan" is played upon a keyboard which is
almost the exact counterpart of that used
for a piano, and that whenever a note is
struck its color appears upon the screen.
Chords show combinations of tints that are
only comparable to harmonic combinations
of musical notes, middle C corresponding,
for example, to the low red of the spec-
trum. The other C's of the keyboard,when
struck, show yet other reds, toning per-
fectly.
Without carrying the description further,
it may thus readily be seen how the colors
grade, shade and tone, and how the sharp-
ening of a piano note or its flattering
makes the suggestion of a change in color
hardly to be expressed with a painter's
brush, yet quite perceptible to the visual
senses.
This instrument has an especial fascina-
tion, for the reason that it is the first in the
world to show a definite connection be-
C
tween sound and color. It was the belief
of one of the ancient schools of philosophy,
at least, that these two perceptions came
closely together, and that the borderland
between them was narrow and readily to be
bridged. There has existed, at all events,
among some few people a mysterious fac-
ulty of "color hearing.' This was first
brought to notice comparatively recently
in the experience of Dr. Nussbaumer.
For Nussbaumer, each sound had its
peculiar color—this word corresponding to
red, this note to blue, this to yellow and
this to green. While a child he was strik-
ing in his play a fork against a glass. As
he heard the sound an impression of a color
flashed quickly into his mind, varying in
tint with the energy with which he struck
the glass, and after stopping his ears tight-
ly he could divine merely by his eyes just
how loudly the glass had sounded.
Other men may be instanced to whose
organs of sight the waves of sound were in
some way perceptible. There was a youth
of Zurich recently to whom musical notes
presented themselves in shades and tints,
high-pitched sounds showing clear and
brilliantly to the sight and low ones dully
and somberly. M. Pedrono, an opthal-
mologist of Nantes, had a friend, whose
name has not been recorded but whose
peculiarity along these lines was very
marked. Several young fellows were talk-
ing in his presence one day, and a joking
expression, "That's as fine as a yellow
dog," being popular in their set, they ap-
plied it to a man who was heard shouting
across the street. The gentleman, who
heard in color, immediately lifted himself
up in response.
"No," he said, "his voice is not yellow;
it is pure red."
When pressed for an explanation, he
answered quite simply that he could see
the color of the voices. Medical men ex-
amined him, and found that his hearing,
his sight and his general health were all
perfect. In explaining the phenomenon
they agreed that it was that his chromatic
sensitiveness was so sharp that the lumin-
ous impression was made before the sonor-
ous one, for they found that before he
could judge of the quality and intensity of
a sound he had seen it and knew its color.
Most interesting of all, there was no sen-
sation of the eye at times. When his eyes
were shut and bandaged sounds conveyed
direct color impressions to his mind.
When his eyes were opened and looking
directly at the sonorous body the sound ap-
peared in its color, according to his state-
ment, as near as possible to the body itself.
Should a piano be played, the color was
over the keys. In the case of a guitar it
hung on the vibrating strings, and as re-
gards singing, points of color came and
went in rapid succession directly over the
vocalists' heads.
In the light of history Rivington's in-
vention has not that newness and novelty
it would seem to have. So far back as
1734 Father Castel, a French Jesuit, con-
structed a model of a "color harpsichord."
That this ingenious priest died before his
device was quite perfected does not destroy