Sound Recording and Playback Section

"Sound Recording and Playback" Section of "Stefan Procopiu" Science and Technique Museum

The collection of music automata was initiated in 1958, and has been continuously enriched through purchasing and donations. Inaugurated in 1972, this museum section was reorganized in the current shape in 2003. Within the five rooms of the museum, there is displayed a collection of music devices and automata unique in Romania. The museum team is organizing every two years an International Festival of Mechanical Musique in order to better present these very special items. The exhibits are presented in groups of devices, according to the recording principle used.

ROOM 1 includes the forerunners of the music automata and devices in which the melody is recorded on pin reels. Among such predecessors of the music automata, mention should be made of the viela, a kind of semi-automatic violin, invented during the 10^th century in Europe. The regional Romanian words are lauta for Transylvania and lerla for Moldavia. The pin reel was invented in Europe, during the 14^th century, being part of the carillon. The carillon is a group of tuned bells, of different dimensions, arranged so to play together.

The principle of the pin reel was applied when building devices such as: music boxes, mechanical pianos, Barbarie or street organs, clocks, photo albums, orchestrions. Mos of the exhibits are dated to the 19^th century.

ROOM 2 displays music boxes in which the recording system functions with perforated disks of metal or cardboard paper. The devices named Ariston, Intona, Amorette from the name of the producing company, and are part of the category of reed organs with perforated disks of cardboard or metal. In1885, Paul Lochman from Leipzig invented the metal disks with pins. Symphonions, polyphones etc are devices which use such disks. They were built in numerous options, with horizontal or vertical disk, with or without library of records, with one or several disks playing simultaneously, fix or portable. Some of the devices are also equipped with a clock, whose pendulous hour marker would determine the music mechanism to play every sharp hour.

ROOM 3 contains the presentation of the automata with the music recorded on perforated cards and rolls. The most common devices with perforated cards were the mechanical pianos, with vertical or horizontal.

The pianola, invented by Edwin S. Votey in USA in 1895 is an automaton which consists in an external device, attached to the piano, or an internal one, mounted inside the piano. Such automata play the music from the recordings on rolls of perforated paper. The pianolas can be mechanical or electrical.

Together with the above automata, the museum also displays part of the collection of perforated rolls with pieces of both classical music and Romanian music.

ROOM 4 continues the presentation of the music automata with music recorded on rolls of perforated paper and includes two automata unique in Romania. The electrical orchestrion Popper’s Bianca, made in Germany, around 1910 and the electro-pneumatic orchestrion Hupfeld Phonoliszt-Violina which contains a piano and three violins, made in Germany, in 1920.

ROOM 5 displays devices of direct sound recording and playback, and illustrates the mechanical, optical and magnetic recording systems. Among the devices with mechanical recording and playback, mention should be made of the phonograph (invented in 1877, USA), the graphophone (invented in 1886, USA), the gramophone (invented in 1887, USA) and the patephone, built after 1900, and in which the acoustic horn is replaced by a resonance box. The exhibits (which were either for interior use, in salons, on tables, or portable for exterior usage,  in the open) were created by famous companies such as Pathé, Victor, Columbia, His Master's Voice, Odéon. The huge variety of records on disks completes this generation of devices, popular during the first decades of the 20^th century.

The optical sound recording and playback was used at recording the sound on the cinematographic film. In this room of the museum is displayed a device of cinematographic projection T16 made in Romania, in 1950.

The magnetic sound recording and playback is used in the case of the tape recorder with magnetic tape (1941) and of the cassette tape (1963) of the cassette player.