New Music For Harmonium, Mixtur Trautonium & Synthesizer

Harmonium-Mixtur-Trautonium-SynthesizerLegowelt (Danny Wolfers) has released a new album of music for Harmonium, Mixtur Trautonium & synthesizer, Geruis Uit Somberdorp.

The album, by Zandvoort & Uilenbal {Wolfers and Jimi Hellinga) is a concert, originally commissioned for the Dutch classical Concertzender broadcast corporation, in early 2016.

The Harmonium & Mixtur Trautonium are two rarely hear instruments:

  • The 19th century Kimball ‘Parlor Organ’ Harmonium is a Victorian-era wood instrument with a haunting sound.
  • The Mixtur Trautonium is a more advanced version of the Trautonium, an early electronic instrument using neon tube relaxation oscillators that could produce sonic waveforms. Originally invented by Friedrich Trautwein from Berlin in 1929, it was further developed by German composer Oskar Sala.

You can preview the album below:

Here’s what they have to say about the album:

Geruis uit Somberdorp (Rustlings from Somberville) is influenced by the ‘idea of the somber coastal village’.

It was composed and recorded in the seaside town of Scheveningen (Holland) during the mundane atmosphere of a North Sea winter.

Musically the instruments are all their opposites: The old wooden harmonium, the sizzling electricity of the Trautonium and the digital sprinkle of the synthesizer. They all merge into an arcane porridge that stretches many centuries.

We can hear touches from the ‘madrigale spirituale’ of Renaissance madman Carlo Gesualdo de Venosa all the way to the hypnotic disymetrical patterns of Morton Feldman.

Credits:

  • Jimi Hellinga: Kinbal Parlor Organ Harmonium, Mixtur Trautonium, Synthesizers, Elka X705 Space Organ
  • Danny Wolfers: Mixtur Trautonium, Synthesizers, Electric Piano

Geruis uit Somberdorp is available now as a digital download, with physical media coming later this month.

2 thoughts on “New Music For Harmonium, Mixtur Trautonium & Synthesizer

  1. Geruis = Rustle/Noise
    Uit = From
    Somber = Dull/Dark/Gloomy, sometimes used for “being sad”
    Dorp = Village.
    And with that we conclude Dutch lesson #1. See you later.

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