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Mechanical Music in Stockholm, Sweden
By Douglas Heffer

For your information, the "biggest music box in the world" is there
in Stockholm.  It was exhibited in the "Telemuseum", today closed
for public viewing, but sometimes they will let you see the instrument
on request.

L. M. Ericsson, the founder of the telephone company, made it for an
1897 exhibition in Stockholm.  It is a music box using tuned telephone
bells (about 90 bells, as I remember) activated by an electromagnetic
system, all controlled from a music box cylinder.  It's all installed
in a wood tower about 4 meters high and several meters of diameter.
The instrument was playing for the king, Oscar II, when he opened the
exhibition.

I have all information about the instrument: descriptions, photos,
etc.  For more information you could contact the technical museum in
Stockholm.  The room where the instrument plays is not always open to
the public.

The only "instant" reproducing piano ever made, "Melographe piano",
also sponsored by LM Eriksson, is at the technical museum in Stockholm
and it doesn't work today.  On this instrument you could rewind the
recording and listen to your recording immediately after.  The instrument
doesn't use perforated paper rolls, like most instruments.  I have
studied the instrument and I think I have all information around this
instrument.

Good luck!

Douglas Heffer


(Message sent Thu 17 Mar 2016, 16:30:10 GMT, from time zone GMT+0100.)

Key Words in Subject:  Mechanical, Music, Stockholm, Sweden

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