A couple of years ago Q. David Bowers sent this author two large boxes
stuffed with the paper remnants of his long and in-depth adventure into the
world of automatic musical instruments. Amongst the yellowing papers was an
undated, hand-typed nine-page manuscript on Mekanisk Musik Museum letterhead,
complete with typos and numerous corrections. The text, written by Claes O.
Friberg, probably circa 1975, and who died in April of 1996 at the age of 51,
was obviously meant to be published, but if so, and by whom, is unknown to this
author. Nonetheless, the manuscript, which in hindsight ought to be interesting
to collectors today, illustrating a bit of drama from the past, is essentially
presented below in its entirety, except that no typos or uncorrected text have
been included.
Behind the Iron Curtain -- by
Claes O. Friberg
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Claes O. Friberg, circa 1975, happily seated at a
player piano in the Mekanisk Musik Museum.
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There is one thing that most collectors of automatic musical
instruments have in common: they are all irresistibly attracted by the unusual
-- the unknown, just like an explorer in the jungle of Africa. We all know that
special feeling it gives to search in dusty, previously unexplored corners of
an old antique store, with the hope of finding a price example of a music box.
Honestly, this digging in old rubbish only rarely gives any result, and nowadays
it is almost impossible to find any sensations. I feel that I have spent the
best time of my youth going through piles of piano-rolls in dirty attics in
the hope of finding a roll played by Jelly Roll Morton, or a Ragtime selection
played by Scott Joplin, but the only result that I have achieved till now are
58 copies of Maidens Prayer, 70 copies of At Dawning, 46 copies of By the Waters
of Minnetonka, 53 copies of Rose Marie -- and the list could go on. I have a
friend that always likes to compete with me on rolls. The other day I discovered
that he has 24 copies of the Duo-Art roll Medley of Plantation Songs. I discovered
that I just have 18 copies of that roll, so if anyone of you has got some copies
I would like to buy 6 - 7 rolls featuring the Plantation songs.
I have always wanted to own some real big orchestrions of
the type that used to stand in German restaurants many years ago. So I went
on some trips to Bundesrepublik Deutschland, or West-Germany as you call it
over here, and visited the different gast-hauses as they call it over there.
When walking into these gast-houses I had to order something in order to make
a good impression on the owner of the place, and since beer is the only thing
you can get in these small places I would then have to order a glass of this
liquid. The conversations were always very friendly -- Germans like to talk
to foreigners that speak their own language, and I have always been very good
at learning languages -- but the result of these conversations were normally
that he would refer me to a gast-haus in the nearby village where they might
have some information about an orchestrion. All this was a very hard task. I
have nothing against beer, but as I had to drive my car also this gave me some
problems. Fortunately, most gast-hauses have many plants and flowers, so much
of the beer disappeared in the flowerpots. I have always feared to return to
these restaurants after this crime of killing their flowers, but I did not intend
to harm anyone.
A number of electric pianos and smaller orchestrions really
turned up from time to time, but it seemed as though all the large ones were
nearly gone. The normal reply I got when asking about what happened to the large
instrument was either: We burned it 15 years ago -- or there was a friendly
American here who bought it -- I think his name was Bowers, or something like
that.
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Front view of the Mekanisk Musik Museum, circa 1975, at Vesterbrogade
150, Copenhagen, Denmark.
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At that time I only had a faint idea of who this Bowers could
be, but strangely enough this same person should be the one to bring new dimensions
into my search for instruments. When he started the first preparations for the
Encyclopedia several years ago he wrote to me and asked me a few details about
some European instruments. He explained to me in a later letter the whole idea
of the Encyclopedia, and I became fascinated of this project and promised to
write some articles on various subjects, and help with the preparation of the
book through old catalogs, technical descriptions, scales for instruments, etc.,
etc. When working on my part of the project I also looked at the geographical
factor and discovered that there were two main areas where instruments had been
produced. The one was Waldkirch, where the organ industry was flourishing and
where Weber produced his orchestrions, and in the nearby town of Freiberg where
Welte had his factory, and in Vöhrenbach, not very far from Waldkirch either,
where Imhof and Mukle had their business. The other center of music was Leipzig,
where the orchestrion and music-box manufacturers and dealers were numerous.
In Leipzig we find such prominent names as Polyphon, Zimmermann (makers of Adler
and Fortuna music-boxes), Kalliope, Lochmann, Monopol, Orphenion, Symphonion,
Troubadour, Hupfeld, Dienst, Losche, Popper -- just to mention the most well
known.
I had been in the Waldkirch area several times, but I had
never been in Leipzig because that is in Der Deutsche Demokratische Republik;
or East-Germany as we usually call it in the western world, and no one from
our world ever goes to East-Germany. However, it took me only approximately
30 seconds to decide I want to go to Leipzig and the surrounding areas to find
information for the Encyclopedia -- and to find instruments. What a challenge
-- the first instrument collector from the western world ever to put his feet
on East-German land -- the first one to put his hands on a large Hupfeld Helios
or Pan orchestrion standing in a Leipzig restaurant.
From the moment that I decided to visit the East to the moment
when I arrived there was a long waiting time. All sorts of formalities are necessary,
but the arrangements worked out very well. Dave Bowers once told me that he
asked the East-German government about permission, but that was refused, so
I was very afraid that something should go wrong. However, Denmark has a friendly
relationship with DDR, so I was allowed to go. Since then, I have been there
at least 15 times, and just before I arrived in U.S.A. I spent a week traveling
to Berlin, Leipzig, Dresden, and some smaller towns. I am a good friend of the
Hupfeld family and the Bacigalupo family, just to mention a few, and I have
the best connections to the government. I continuously get interesting historical
information out of the country, and also I have the permission of exporting
instruments to other West-European countries. It was a lot of hard work to get
the license for exporting instruments, and it only worked out because of the
formal friendship between Denmark and East-Germany.
I thought that it would be interesting for members of the
MBS here in U.S.A. to hear about a complete different world behind the iron
curtain, so let me explain how a typical visit to DDR would take place:
First I will have to call up my travel agent in order to get
hotel-reservations in advance. Without these advance-reservations you can get
no visa at all and no permission to go into the country. The travel agency will
then contact an East-German travel agency who will contact someone in the government,
who will then investigate your personal facts. When this is done the hotels
will be contacted, and after a while you will hear from your travel agency that
the reservations are O.K. The first time I picked up my tickets I asked them
to send me an invoice, just like they used to do on trips they have arranged
for me to other countries, but they insisted on getting payment right away.
"We don’t know if you ever come back," they told me, "we have had some bad experiences."
This was indeed inspiring -- I smiled grimly and issued a check.
The day of the departure arrived, and I took my suitcases
down in my Toyota car and headed for the ferry-boat. I had arranged to drive
in my own car in East-Germany, and compared to other European cars my Toyota
is a rather large car, and I planned to take a number of music-boxes back to
Denmark. I bought this car a few years ago, because it could accommodate 2 Welte
Vorsetzers, a Polyphon 22-1/2" disc-changer, 10 - 12 smaller music-boxes, 2
barrel organs, 1 Ariston, 3 Gem roller organs, approximately 300 Red Welte rolls,
plus some 88-note rolls and other types, and if packed correctly also a tracker-bar
pump. Unfortunately enough this quantity described is not always what I buy,
and buying a Polyphon 25"` disc-box with disc-bin, instead of a 22-1/2" changer,
is a catastrophe, and will not leave enough space for the Welte Vorsetzer. However,
sometimes I throw a few 88-note rolls out, and I can get the Vorsetzer loaded.
The ferry-boat that I am going on with my car goes from Gedser,
which is a harbor in the southern part of Denmark, and goes directly to Warnemunde
in East-Germany. The trip takes nearly two hours according to the timetable,
but it is always delayed. It transports mainly trucks and trains that are going
transit from Denmark to West-Germany and West-Berlin, but the constructor of
the ship must have had an off-day when he designed it. All trucks will have
to drive backwards into the boat, and the entrance is so narrow that this takes
quite a bit of time to do. Therefore this East-German Ferryboat is always very
delayed -- only once it was not, so I missed my boat and had to wait a whole
day for the next one.
Onboard the ferry-boat you will find some offices where you
will have to report on turn. This takes quite some time to go through. In each
small chamber there are two persons sitting and you go with your documents to
one of them. In the meantime the other one is staring out into the air as though
he was looking at some invisible tableaux taking place. The first guy will look
at you and look very carefully several times in the passport and your papers.
He will then make some notes on a paper, and give the whole thing to his neighbor.
We will then go through exactly the same thing again, while the first one now
looks at the invisible things whatever they are. All this goes very slow, and
when No. 2 officer is finished they both compare their notes. If they are equal
you are lucky and now have the right to go on to the next office. In each office
something different happens, but it always happens two times -- they call it
control. It is very popular among those officers to be staring out into the
air with a completely empty and unconcerned look in their eyes. I have tried
this several times; the last time was when I was attending the MBS meeting in
London, but I still have much to learn.
After you have passed through all formalities you can go to
the restaurant. This is really fantastic. The architect did not create much
space for the trucks and on the car-deck, but when it comes to the restaurant
he has been enormously generous. There are at least seats for 300 - 400 persons.
You of course will have to consider that there is only space for 25 trucks at
its height on the ship, but here you can really bring as many friends as you
wish to join you. The times I have been in this gorgeous restaurant we have
been 6 truck-drivers, 2 train-drivers, one private person that I could not put
into any category -- he might have been a spy -- and myself. The menu is not
very exiting, but I can recommend a cheese-burger.
Coming to the customs is always very exiting. A number of
people have been shot down when trying to escape from East-Germany, and it is
always a very unusual feeling to stand at a line that can be so dangerous. I
am very afraid of making sudden moves -- they tend to ask questions afterwards,
and I always sit quietly in my car and looks extremely friendly and socialistic.
My passport will be taken and put into a hole that leads to an extremely secret
room. Rumors says that here they have complicated devices that can detect if
your passport is false, and all sorts of machines to find out about your intentions
in East-Germany. No one has ever been in such a room that I know of, but I have
a very certain feeling that all they have are two persons of the type described
earlier looking very carefully at the passport and holding it up against the
light or something like that.
My passport will appear again though another hole and now
it is time for customs. Before this I have filled out a form saying how much
money I bring with me in different currencies. I have a warning to everybody
that goes to DDR. It is illegal to take money out of DDR, so if you arrive there
with East-German money you are a criminal and will be arrested. You might have
got the money from someone else who by mistake took out the money, but that
is no excuse, so be careful. Often they will look in your wallet to see if the
amount declared is right. Now the car is being searched through. They will look
with mirrors under the car, and jump up and down in your seats regardless of
your protests to find anything hidden there, and they will investigate the motor.
Talking about motors, the population of East-Germany is not used to such large
cars as a Toyota, so you will have to be prepared to answer all possible questions
about the technical details of your motor. I have decided to print a small leaflet
telling everything about my Toyota that I can give to people passing by.
Now comes the investigation of your personal belongings. A
typical conversation will go like this:
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Customs-Officer: Open your suit-case.
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Claes Friberg: Yes, certainly.
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CO: What is this?
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CF: Toothpaste, Sir.
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CO: Open it.
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CF: Of course.
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CO: Tastes O.K.
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CF: It’s the best quality, Sir.
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CO: (sarcastic) Thank you. What is this?
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CF: (showing a small Kodak Instamatic Camera) It’s a camera.
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CO: That small! I can't believe it. How does it work?
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CF: I'll show you -- Knips (CF takes a photo of the customs control).
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CO: (shouts) How dare you -- did you not see the sign saying that
photographing is not allowed!
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CF: I'm so sorry, but you asked me to demonstrate it.
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CO: No I did not, no further discussion, I mist confiscate the
film and the camera.
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CF: Please Mr. customs-officer; I have photos of my family on
that film.
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CO: I said no discussion, it is against the law to take photos
here, and you can be happy that I do not ask you to leave our socialistic
country immediately. I will destroy the film, and keep the camera here until
you return again.
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CF: Well, O.K. -- thank you for not putting me in jail.
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CO: What are these postcards you have here -- pornographi?
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CF: No, sir, they are from my museum -- have you ever heard about
the MMM.
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CO: (ignoring the question) They are advertising material from
a capitalistic country, and I will not allow you to bring them into our
country. And besides what are these -- records -- six of them. What is that?
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CF: This is pleasant socialistic music from Leipzig, Mr. customs-officer.
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CO: Well, could be, but we will have to listen through the records
first before we can allow you to take them with you.
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CF: Well, never mind, take them as a gift for yourself, I do not
need them.
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CO: Are you trying to corruption on me -- you can be happy that
I do not report this.
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CF: My, My, My.
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CO: What do you say?
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CF: Oh, sorry I was just advertising for my museum -- it will
never happen again.
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CO: We will keep the records here and listen to them when the
haupt-custom-officers are all here tomorrow, and you can come back and get
our decision on the records two days from now -- we will have to ask the
government.
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CF: I hope you will enjoy them -- By the way, we have a special
record deal on our MMM records we can offer you....
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CO: Stop -- no imperialistic and capitalistic advertising, I told
you.
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CF: Oops.
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CO: What is this now -- a big book -- is it the bible.
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CF: Oh no, it is the Encyclopedia of Automatic Musical Instruments
-- a fantastic reference work on automatic musical instruments by Q David
Bowers: You see, I collect such things, and I must say that I helped Mr.
Bowers quite a bit when he wrote the book. It has got 1008 pages and the
price is just Twen.... I mean it is a prize book.
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CO: Open it!
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CF: Oh yes -- so you are interested in automatic musical instruments
-- why didn't you tell me? Well, see, look at this -- it covers all fields
from music-boxes to street-organs -- and here is a photo of me -- do you
like it? Let me show you the various sections of the book. First we have...
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CO: Stop, stop, stop -- I can’t read one word of it -- it is in
English. We will have to keep the book and find out if it contains paragraphs
that are against our anti-imperialistic and socialistic and communistic
ideas.
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CF: Well, O.K. I am glad you will do that. I'm always delighted
when someone shows interest in the instruments and their history -- and
besides I have one more book with me, so that's O.K.
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CO: Are you completely out of your mind -- give me that book also.
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CF: (silently) why can't I keep my mouth shut?
After more formalities the trip goes on, and I drive south
down to Berlin, which usually is my first stop. The roads are not very good,
but still it is rather safe to drive because you will never find any heavy traffic.
A small East-German car cost 5 times as much as a big American car, and you
will have to send in your application for a car 2 - 3 years in advance. This
reduces the traffic, and accidents only rarely happen. The houses are without
paint -- if you try to paint the house the paint will fall off within a few
months, because of the poor quality, so there is no reason for starting the
painting-job. After the war some big towns were partially in ruins, and in West-Germany
new houses were soon built. In DDR they had a great idea. They removed the ruins,
and made big squares with the names of Lenin-Square, Karl-Marx-Place. This is
very popular, and much easier than just building new houses. DDR was not as
badly hurt as West-Germany, so there are still lots of old houses where people
can be stored -- and so they are.
From my viewpoint this creation of big open places in the
middle of the towns was a bad thing. I tried to locate the old factories, but
this was nearly impossible, because the streets did not exist any more. Also
the streets have many houses missing -- houses that were badly damaged during
the war and then later demolished, because it was too much work to build them
up again. Not even new houses have been built, so it is rather difficult to
locate where the old ones were.
In Berlin I found the old Bacigalupo factory, which is still
operating. Mr. Giovanni Bacigalupo is 87 years old now, and has been active
until a few months ago. His sight is not very good any more, so he has stopped
arranging new music on barrels, but the work shop is still repairing and hiring
our organs in East-Berlin. Mr. Bacigalupo has been a good friend of mine for
many years, and he is one of two persons that are allowed to smoke in my car.
His company Bacigalupo- Söhne, the successor of Cocchi, Bacigalupo & Grafigna,
was the company in the world that made the most barrel-organs and although this
can be discussed I still feel that the company made the best quality barrel-organs
in the world. In the MMM we have around 10 barrel-organs that all have been
restored and repined by the Bacigalupo factory during recent years. I think
this is interesting because it is today actually impossible to go to a factory
and say -- well I bought from you in year so-and-so a KT special, will you please
service it or trade it in for a newer model. This has happened to me in East-Berlin,
and it has been a most wonderful feeling.
I wished I could have done the same thing in Leipzig when
I visited the Hupfeld factory. I told them that I had a model A Phonoliszt-Violina,
and that I wanted to have either a Violina Orchestra Model I or II, but that
I could not make up my mind whether of the two models would be the best for
my purpose. I was very interested also in acquiring a 10-roll changer with remote
control installed in the instrument. However no one seemed to know anything
about the instruments, so I was told that these were not carried in stock any
more. I thought that this was bed service, and I asked to talk to Mr. Hupfeld
himself. And 10-minutes later I sat in the cafeteria together with Mr. Gunther
Hupfeld.
All this needs an explanation of course. The Hupfeld factory
decided in 1928 to stop manufacturing pneumatic instruments, and that the production
within a few years should come down to zero. It was hard times for the trade,
and Hupfeld, who had invented the new interchangeable metal valve unit that
was now to be installed in most instruments, had so tremendous problems with
this system that they decided to stop. In the 30's only normal pianos were made
together with furniture, billiard tables, toys and when the Second World War
started the war materials were an important part of the manufacture. After the
war the Russians occupied the Leipzig area, and a new epoch was starting.
In the late 20's, the Zimmermann brothers had much influence
on Hupfeld, since they supplied pianos that sold well, but Hupfeld manufactured
pneumatic systems that were not selling so well any more. The bank that had
much money invested in Hupfeld forced the factory to merge with Zimmermann,
and when this happened Zimmermann brothers put Ludwig Hupfeld out of the game,
and fired a large part of the staff -- amongst these were the inventors of a.
o. the Violina: Karl Gustav Hennig. The son of Ludwig Hupfeld, Gunther Hupfeld,
got a job at the factory as supervisor -- a job that he carried on until his
death in December of last year. The occupation of the Russians meant that the
Hupfeld family had to leave their stately mansion and move to a 2½ room apartment.
They got 2 hours to leave the house when the Russians came, and today the old
house serves as a home for children. I met the Hupfeld family in their small
apartment first time in 1971 and I have been there many times since then. Mr.
Hupfeld was always happy to see me, and he gave me much valuable information.
He liked to smoke and I always brought him 200 American cigarettes. When we
sat down and discussed the old days he always went out into the small kitchen
and opened a bottle of fine wine. He never complained about the sudden change
in his life and was just happy that he still could work in the old factory.
He worked until his sudden death last year and left his unmarried daughter and
unmarried sister Miss Erika Hupfeld, who still lives in the apartment in Bohlitz-Ehrenberg
in Leipzig.
Another interesting experience during my last trip to DDR
was when I met Mr. Ernst Bruno Hennig, who is mentioned in the Encyclopedia
as being co-inventor together with his brother Karl Gustav Hennig of the Phonoliszt-Violina.
Mr. Hennig told me that in fact he was not to be given any credit for the invention
of the Violina, but he of course helped his brother from time to time. Karl
Hennig was an unskilled worker at the Hupfeld factory who had a very good mind
for mechanics. He always came up with lots of improvements and new ideas, and
around 1910 he became the leader of all the workers at the factory. It gave
him lots of problems to go from being an unskilled worker to become in charge
of approximately 1000 people, and there was much jealousy around. Still he was
a fantastic creator and inventor and Hupfeld owes much of its success to him.
The Zimmermann brothers did not like him -- in fact they did
not like the pneumatic instruments and when his invention of the metal valve
units showed to be a failure they fired him. Karl Hennig then tried to sell
some of his inventions to Philipps and the Aeolian Company in Germany, but they
were not at all interested in any violin-playing devices. Hennig soon did not
have any more money left and then sued Hupfeld, because he was holding the patent
on the bow that was used by Hupfeld. By the time the lawsuit was to take place
Hupfeld had manufactured its last Violina, and nothing came out of that. It
is interesting to notice that most of the work in creating the Violina was done
by the Bajde Brothers together with Fromsdorf from Hupfeld, while Karl Hennig
was responsible for the bow only.
There were 3 Hennig Brothers: Kurt, Ernst, and Karl. Only
Karl was the one that worked with the mechanical part of the instruments. Ernst
Hennig was employed by Hupfeld in Dresden, where he was selling instruments
-- mainly Phonolas, and Kurt Hennig was selling Hupfeld in Berlin. When I visited
Ernst I heard him perform on a Hupfeld Solo-Phonola foot-operated, and I have
never heard a Phonola sound that good -- so I am sure that he must have sold
many.
Karl Hennig tried to establish his own business in the beginning
of the 30’s dealing in luxury articles, but this was probably the worst time
to sell such things, so he went bankrupt. Then he again started to construct
an instrument and he made a self-playing mouth-organ (accordion) with rolls
-- in many ways similar to the organettes manufactured in the 1880's. However
there was no interest and only 3 or 4 instruments were built as samples, and
a small leaflet was printed. Ernst Hennig said that he had one of these that
his brother made as a sample and 20 rolls, so he went up on the attic and brought
the instrument down. It played very well, and I thanked him for the performance,
but he then said -- oh well, you can have it. Well, I did not expect that, but
asked how much I owed him. He did not want anything -- it had been such a pleasure
for him to talk about the old days, and it was a gift to me. So now the MMM
owns the last instrument manufactured personally by the constructor of numerous
Hupfeld devices.
Claes O. Friberg
Mekanisk Musik Museum, Circa 1975
Credits:
Original document provided by Q. David Bowers.
Comments by Terry Hathaway
Photographs:
Courtesy of Q. David Bowers.
