Google is honouring Oskar Sala on his 112th birth anniversary by dedicating a doodle to the German composer and physicist.
Born on July 18, 1910, in Greiz, Germany, Sala is known for producing sound effects on a musical instrument called the mixturtrautonium for TV, radio and films. The trautonium is the predecessor to the synthesiser. One of his most notable works includes the eerie bird sounds in Alfred Hitchcock's ‘The Birds’ (1962) and in ‘Rosemary’ (1959).
Early start
Sala’s mother was a singer and his father an ophthalmologist with interest in music. Sala was interested in music since birth. At the age of 14, Sala started creating compositions and songs on the violin and piano. In 1929, Sala shifted to Berlin to study piano and composition with composer and violinist Paul Hindemith. It was during this period that he was first introduced to the electronic instrument trautonium, which was part of the experiments of Dr Friedrich Trautwein at the school laboratory.
Mastering the trautonium
“When Sala first heard a device called the trautonium, he became fascinated by the tonal possibilities and the technology the instrument offered,” the Google Doodle page said.
The, he made it his life’s mission to master the instrument and develop it further. This inspired him to study physics and composition at school.
On June 20, 1930, Sala along with Paul Hindemith took part in a public performance to introduce the trautonium at the ‘Neue Musik Berlin 1930’ at the Berliner Musikhochschule Hall. He then toured Germany to introduce the new instrument. The following year, Hindemith wrote a Concert for Trautonium with String Quartet, which was performed live by Oskar Sala as a soloist.
War years
Between 1932 and 1935, Oskar Sala helped develop the Volkstrautonium, which was a popular trautonium produced by Telefunken, a German radio and television apparatus company. However, under Adolf Hitler’s Nazi dictatorship, Trautwein’s laboratory was shut down and electric music was banned. After a meeting with the minister of propaganda, salagot the approval of the Reich to carry on with their investigations.
In 1935, Sala build the Radio-Trautonium and three years later the Konzerttrautonium, which was a portable model for live perfrmances.
Sala was drafted to the war in 1944 where he was injured. It was only in 1946, after the war ended, that Sala got back to his laboratory in Berlin.
In 1948, Sala started his work on the definitive instrument, the Mixturtrautonium, which was completed and presented in 1952. The mixturtrautonium was capable of producing several sounds or voices simultaneously.
Awards
Sala received several awards for his work, including the Best Music Award at the Industrial Film Festival in Berlin and the Merit Cross for a lifetime dedicated to music. In 1995, Sala donated his original mixturtrautonium to the German Museum for Contemporary Technology.
(Edited by : Sudarsanan Mani)
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