VIDEO OF THE WEEK: ROBOT VIOLINS
by Hazed
Robots aren’t as new as you think. Back in 1907, a company created a machine that played the violin and piano, to create a robotic quartet that could play Chopin.
The Hupfeld Phonoliszt-Violin was the creation of the Hupfeld Company, who were at the time the largest distributor of automatic instruments. Player pianos were all the rage, but Hupfield decided to add violins to the mix.
The auto-quintet features three violins, which are played by a spinning bow operated via a pneumatic system. Thousands of them were sold to hotels and restaurants which used them as background music, with about 900 different music rolls available. But by the mid-1920’s, the rise of the radio and the phonograph meant that the machines had lost their popularity.
You can see the Phonoliszt-Violin playing Chopin’s Nocturne Op. 9, No. 2 in E flat major here: http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/phonoliszt-violin-self-playing-instruments-player-piano-ludwig-hupfeld
