11.3

Cabinet Flute-Clocks, Orchestrions and Musical Boxes from Throughout the World

Automatic musical instruments were not only built in the Black Forest but in other places as well. Many regions developed their own specialties.

So-called cabinet flute-clocks were a specialty of the Austrian manufacturers in the time between 1780 and 1850. Larger style automated musical instruments with an entire series of musical instruments would replace an entire orchestra; accordingly they were called orchestrions. The simpler instruments were mechanically driven; a pneumatic system was used to activate the more complicated instruments.

The musical boxes are a separate kind of automatic sound-generator. Tones are generated by vibrating steel teeth. This procedure was invented in Geneva in 1796. Switzerland was the most significant producer of these instruments until about 1950. Between 1880 and 1900, disc music boxes were manufactured in Leipzig in large quantities. In these instruments, the music programme is stored on a perforated metal disc.

The last specialty mentioned here is the singing-bird box. Birdsong was imitated with a  mechanically controlled bird whistle for the chirping and a small bird figure which moved in keeping with the sound. Such bird automata were manufactured in Geneva, Paris and the Black Forest.