Staying with Oskar Sala [#2] - Studio Berlin Heerstrasse - 1997

Note: English & German subtitles provided. Utilize "Subtitles/CC".

Second part of a visit to German musician, composer, physicist and electronics engineer Oskar Sala (*18 July 1910 † 26 February 2002) on 28 January 1997. The creator of the famous "Mixtur-Trautonium" works and composes in his studio for electronic music in Berlin, Heerstrasse. Among aged tape recorders, effects units and customised audio-equipment, Sala addresses himself to the newly constructed Semiconductor Mixtur-Trautonium (1988), which has been built after his construction ideas by a team of professors and students of the former "Fachhochschule der Deutschen Bundespost Berlin".
[see also: http://mixtur-trautonium.de/]

In this episode Oskar Sala talks on
▪ playing the Mixtur-Trautonium
▪ the significance of his patented "Einsatzwiderstand" [equivalent resistor]
▪ constant and lifelong practising
▪ musical limitations because of 12 tones
▪ the subharmonic phenomenon
▪ the loneliness of the musician
▪ the lack of offspring for his art
▪ the Bayreuth Festival and the reliability of private power generation
▪ construction & modification of the "Halbleiter-Trautonium"
▪ the main difference between a Concert- and Semiconductor Mixtur-Trautonium
▪ the peculiar string manual that should never be chanced
▪ his early radio show "Music on the Trautonium" ["Musik auf dem Trautonium"]
▪ classical pieces which he no longer can play today

Names mentioned:
▪ Hans Heinz Stuckenschmidt (1901–1988) musicologist, writer on music, composer
▪ Hermann Diener (1897–1955) director of the chamber orchestra Collegium Musicum in Berlin, violin virtuoso, conductor, music educator
▪ Herbert Jäger (1902–1958) radio presenter ["Allerlei von 2 bis 3", Sundries from 2 until 3], pianist, organist, composer, arranger, orchestra leader
▪ Hans Knappertsbusch (1888–1965) conductor, teacher, general music director
▪ Wieland Adolf Gottfried Wagner (1917–1966) opera director, stage designer
▪ Wolfgang Manfred Martin Wagner (1919–2010) opera director, stage designer
▪ Carl Orff (1895–1982) composer, music educator, conductor
▪ Harald Genzmer (1909–2007) composer, music editor, music educator, conductor