Volkstrautonium

Peter Donhauser
Clarinet, Double Bass and Trumpet in a Wooden Case

In 1929/30 the radio engineer Friedrich Trautwein, working at the Berlin Academy of Arts, developed a new electronic instrument in which he combined his own, long-patented ideas with those of others (the model on which the manual was based had previously been implemented by Bruno Helberger in Frankfurt). He named it after himself, the trautonium. Paul Hindemith, who also taught at the Academy, was particularly interested in the design. The way the device was played (pressing a string down on a bar) was very similar to the violin technique, which naturally appealed to the viola player Hindemith. It was accordingly he who wrote the first piece for the instrument (Des kleinen Elektromusikers Lieblinge), first performed in 1930 at the “Neue Musik Berlin” festival. ¹

In order to develop his trautonium, Trautwein began a cooperation with Siemens and, after the sale of the electro-acoustic business in 1932 ², with Telefunken. The aim was to go into series production, the chances looking good at a time when a number of electronic instruments were being created and arousing public interest. Moreover, the difficult economic conditions meant that a cheap and flexible instrument might be the easiest to market.

The instrument was subsequently advertised above all at Trautwein’s private initiative and by demonstrations at the Berlin Funkausstellung in 1931 and 1932. These demonstrations were arranged by the Berlin Heinrich Hertz Institute, an organization that was also involved in the development of electronic musical instruments. At the 1932 Funkausstellung, an entire hall was devoted to an “electric orchestra,” which brought together on one stage all the electronic instruments available at the time to provide a performance to astonish the assembled public. However, it took a further year before Telefunken was able to launch a trautonium that was ready for series production. The aim was to use as few components as possible to generate a whole range of timbres. Officially it was known as the Telefunken trautonium, but very quickly acquired the unofficial nickname Volkstrautonium (people’s trautonium). Oskar Sala, a pupil of Hindemith and from 1930 involved almost entirely with the trautonium, reported that the name arose during the development work (many other products also acquired the prefix “Volks” after 1933, such as the Volksempfänger [people’s radio], the Volkswagen, a Volksklavier [people’s piano] etc.).

A series of 200 instruments was built and presented at the 1933 Berlin Funkausstellung. Sales were extremely slow, and Telefunken soon lost interest. Sala described the teaching course specially published by Schott as a “flop.” ³ There were probably a number of reasons for this lack of success. Firstly the instrument was expensive, costing RM 431.25 including valves, more than five times the price of the Volksempfänger (designed as a cheap device for propaganda purposes to be sold to as many people as possible) and hence two and half times a worker’s monthly wage. Moreover, playing the trautonium was anything but easy. Despite the use of marker keys, hitting the notes of the scale exactly was difficult and required considerable practice. Finally, radio, records and sound films had led to a significant change in music reception, with the result that it was not only Telefunken but also many other instrument manufacturers that had difficulties selling their products.

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