11.2

Barrel Organs, Orchestrions and Player Pianos from the Black Forest

Apart from musical clocks, barrel organs, orchestrions, and pneumatically controlled pianos were also being made in the Black Forest.

In Waldkirch Ignaz Bruder established himself as a manufacturer of barrel organs in 1834. His sons expanded this family operation so that it became a factory. In addition to the street barrel organs, as from about 1880 larger fairground organs were produced. Other companies such as Ruth  and Frei  followed. Waldkirch became a centre for the construction of mechanical organs.

As from 1833 Michael Welte built his first musical clocks in Vöhrenbach. He soon began manufacturing huge orchestrions for dance halls throughout the world. Welte moved his business to Freiburg in 1872. His was the first company to use perforated rolls of paper for carrying the melody. 

This new technique permitted extraordinary effects. In 1904 Welte had great success with their Welte-Mignon reproducing piano. All shades of intonation and tempo of a pianist’s performance could be reproduced thanks to the ingenious pneumatic reading mechanism. By the beginning of the 1930s, up to 4000 performances by the celebrated pianists of the time had been recorded in Freiburg.