1271 - The History of the Musical Box and of Mechanical Music 1980
CHAPUIS AlfredORIGINAL ENGLISH TRANSLATION - CLOTH BOUND WITH DUST JACKET.
Alfred Chapuis devoted a chapter to musical pieces in his book La montre chinoise and despite the wishes often expressed, he refused for a long time to write a book on music boxes. ?One day, he changed his mind, on the condition that it would be a lively book and that it would have to expand and embrace the whole history of mechanical music! He surrounded himself with a group of competent specialists and this book is the result of this friendly collaboration, as he put it.
As always, Alfred Chapuis goes back to the sources and his starting point is the production of sound and its characteristics. He then takes us into the fascinating history of the beginnings of mechanical music, the barrel and fairground organs, the orchestrion and even a mechanical conductor, not forgetting the Compodium created by T.N. Winkel in 1821 who improvised an infinite number of variations himself.
It then goes on to discuss the many developments in mechanical music and its industrialisation, and then gives pride of place to La Vallée de Joux, Sainte-Croix and the association of watchmaking and mechanical music.
?Today, this book is all the more important since the production and know-how of this type of object have been reduced to a trickle.
303 pages
Edition : 1980
Langue : anglais
