Augustus Stroh's Phonographic Violin

Augustus Stroh's Phonographic Violin.
A Journey: Victorian London, Australia, Transylvania

Author(s): Alison Rabinovici
Source: The Galpin Society Journal, Vol. 58 (May, 2005), pp. 100-123, 220-224
Published by: Galpin Society
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25163830 .
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ALISON RABINOVICI
Augustus
Stroh's
Phonographic
Violin.
A
Journey:
Victorian
London, Australia,
Transylvania
The
story
of the Stroh violin and its
inventor,
Augustus Stroh,
was
reported
in several
contemporary journals
at the turn of the
century,
but was not
again
the
subject
of detailed
investigation
until
Julian Pilling's article;
'Fiddles
with Horns'
appeared
in 1975.l The Stroh violin
did not
reappear
in the literature as a
major topic
until the
publication
of
Cary
Clements'
impressive
and detailed research in the 1990s.2
My
intention
is to
explore
the
origins
of the instrument and to
comment on the
impact
it had on the
development
of other horned instruments.3
The work and achievements of
Augustus
Stroh are not
sufficiently
well known
today.
A
watchmaker,
a maker of
telegraph instruments,4
a
telegraph
and mechanical
engineer
of
high repute,
Stroh was also the inventor of the first
mechanically
amplified
musical instrument. His
phonographic
violin5
inspired
the
design
of
many
other horned
mechanically amplified string
instruments in the
years
after its introduction in 1899.6
Large
numbers
of
patents
for such instruments were
registered
in
both Great Britain and the United States in the
first half of the twentieth
century.
There
may
be a
Stroh violin. ? Aleksander Kolkowski
general perception
that the Stroh violin is a
quaint
oddity
from a
bygone age,
a
period
notable for
inventions,
often more bizarre than
practical.
As
1
Julian Pilling,
'Fiddles with
Horns',
The
Galpin Society Journal XXVII, (1975) pp.86-92.
2
Cary Clements, 'Augustus
Stroh and the Famous Stroh
Violin', Experimental
Musical
Instruments,
x/4 1994-5.
'Historical Patents for Horned
Violins', Experimental
Musical
Instruments,
xiii/2 1995-96. 'Extra Extra: Stroh
Violins Still
Being Made!!!', Experimental
Musical
Instruments,
xiv/4 1988-9.
3
Biographical
information is drawn from the St Catherines' House Index of Births Deaths and
Marriages.
Business
and residential information is
largely
drawn from the Post Office London Directories.
4
The Science Museum
(London)
has three Stroh instruments: an astatic
galvanometer
with torsion head and
reading microscope,
a
type-printer
for the Wheatstone ABC
communicator,
and Stroh's
curve writer
(made by
W.Groves).
The Berlin 'Communications' Museum has two
telegraph devices,
a receiver and a
sender,
both built
by
Stroh,
named after Wheatstone and dated 1867.
5
'A
Phonographic Violin',
The New York
Times,
from The London
Mail, Sunday January 26, 1902, p.9.
6
Details of all
patents
mentioned in this
paper
can be found in
Appendix
C.
100
Rabinovici?Stroh Violin 101
an instrument used in sound
recording
when that
technology
was in its
infancy,
it holds a
particular
place
in the
history
of recorded sound. In
design
it
was the first radical
departure
from the traditional
form of violin
making;
a
bodyless
instrument of
mahogany
and
aluminium,
it was to influence in
a
profound way
the
design
of electric violins until
the
present day.
It influenced
particularly
the
design
of the
Beauchamp
Electro
Violin,
the first
electric violin to have a
degree
of
practical
success
in America in the nineteen thirties. In a
practical
sense,
Stroh's aluminium
diaphragm
attached to
the side of the violin was the direct
inspiration
for
the interior
diaphragm
of the resonator
guitar
and
for sound
system speakers. Indeed,
the resonator
guitar
was the invention of
John Dopyera,
a
Czech,
resident in America. His British
patent
of 19287
referred
directly
to Stroh's own
patent
of 1899.
Resonators were set within the
body
of the
guitar,
rather than as an exterior
attachment,
as in the
Stroh violin.
And what of the Stroh violin itself?
By
the mid
1920s it had outlived its relevance for
recording
purposes
as the
technology improved rapidly
with the introduction of electric
recording
and
amplification.
The Stroh violin never
quite
disappeared however, achieving
a new relevance in
the music
hall,
in folk music and in dance bands
between the two World
Wars,
both in
England,
Australia and America.
Notably,
Stroh's violin
inspired
the
development
of a number of other
instruments that have their own
story
and their
own
relevance to the
place
and social
setting
of
their
origin.
Of
particular
interest is the
Phonofiddle, which,
contrary
to
perceived wisdom,
was an instrument
with a
provenance quite
distinct from that of the
Stroh violin. As a
horned
stringed instrument,
it was
influenced
by
the
Stroh,
but also informed
by
other
influences;
built not for the
recording studio,
but
for the music hall
and,
with the notable
exception
of
the music hall
artist,
G. H.
Chirgwin,
for
humbler,
less skilled musicians. As an instrument with
an
even shorter life than the Stroh
violin,
it had
slipped
into
obscurity by
the end of the Second World
War,
and with it
disappeared
the remarkable
story
of
the inventor of the
phonofiddle,
A.T.Howson. The
music hall connection was continued in Australia
with
Rupert
Hazell and his Cello
Cordo,
an
instrument with undoubted Howson similarities.
The
story
of Hazell's instrument adds to both the
Howson
story
and also in a small
way
to the
story
of music hall and vaudeville.
Finally
the vioara cu
goarna (literally
'violin with
horn') appeared
in
Transylvania
between the wars
and is claimed
by
the Romanians as a Romanian
folk instrument. It is
part
of the musical tradition
of the
area,
and is still in use
today.
The Stroh violin
may
be 'but a
footnote in
music
history',8
but its
unique
tonal and acoustic
peculiarities
have
given
it a
place
in the world
of new and
experimental music, adding
further
validity
to the need for a more detailed account of
the instrument and its inventor.
JOHN
MATTHAIS AUGUSTUS STROH
(1828
1914)
Augustus
Stroh was held in
high regard by
his
contemporaries,9 respected
both for his
pioneering
work
as a
telegraph
instrument maker
and
telegraph engineer
and for his
qualities
of
character. He was remembered for his
great
skill
as a
craftsman and for the
accuracy
and
beauty
of
the scientific instruments that he
made;
a
legacy
of his
early training
as a
watch and clock maker.
He was remembered also for the
part
he
played
in
the
development
of the
telegraph through
his
long
association with the
engineer,
Charles Wheatstone
and for his
investigations
into the field of acoustics.
Among
the more famous of Stroh's associates were
William
Preece, Engineer
in Chief and Electrician
of the Post
Office,
Silvanus
Thomson, J.A.Fleming,
Alexander Graham
Bell,
Thomas Alva Edison and
D.E.Hughes.
Born
Johann
Matthias
August
Stroh in
May
1828 in Frankfurt
am
Main,
Stroh was
apprenticed
as a
watch and clock maker.10 He moved to London
in 1851 where he started his own
business as a
7
'It has
previously
been
proposed
to construct violins and other
stringed
instruments wherein the
bridge
is seated
upon
a
rocking
lever that is connected to one or more
diaphragms
situated in a
casing adjacent
and in connection
with the
instrument,
and to
provide
in combination with such an instrument a
horn, trumpet,
or the like.'' Patent
GB294806,
1928-08-02.
8
George Paul,
'The Stroh
Recording
Violin' in The New Amberola
Graphic
No.
79, January 1992, p.7.
9
'The Late Mr.
Augustus Stroh', Engineering:
An Illustrated
Weekly Journal
Vol.
XVCIII, July
-
(Dec.1914.
Nov.
13), p.599-600.
The Electrician: a
Weekly
Illustrated
Journal of
Electrical
Engineering, Industry,
Science
and Finance Vol.
LXXIV,
Oct. 9 1914
-
April 2,
1915.
Obituary, (Nov.20, 1914) pp.203-204.
The Electrical
Review Vol. LXXV
July
3
-
Dec.
25,
1914
Obituary p.699.
Conrad W.
Cooke, Obituary, Journal of
the Institution
of
Electrical
Engineers,
Vol.
53, (1915), pp.871-872.
W. M.
Mordey, Proceedings of
the Institution
of
Electrical
Engineers, Speech
at the
Ordinary meeting
of 14
Jan, (1915), pp.273-274.
10
The Electrical Review Vol. LXXV
July
3
-
December
25,
1914.
Obituary, p.
699.
102 The
Galpin Society Journal
_____HiL
>:.'___________
HlllllllllllL^3lik-.
^;^;
i*________H
H__________H_i'''^^^'^
__________
HHHHHHHHHHHH-H'^'"?
-
u_"' _SHHHHHHHHH1
^^^^^^^^^^^^Bi_Uv_*^ _I^^^^^^^^^^H
____________________________________________K^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^__I
Figure
1.
Photograph of Augustus
Stroh.
By
kind
permission of
the Institution
of
Electrical
Engineers,
London.
watchmaker in
1857,
a business he continued until
1862. Stroh married Emma
King
in 1863 and
became a naturalized British
subject
in October
1869.11 His first
patent,12
a month
later,
reflected
his
early occupation
as a watchmaker. It was for
'Improvements
on
Electro-Magnetic
Clocks...'.
By
1858 Stroh was
working
as
telegraph
instrument
maker for Charles
Wheatstone,13 establishing
himself
finally
at 42a
Hampstead
Road
by
1865.
Within two or three
years
of his arrival in
England,
Stroh was
employed
as an mechanician
by
the
Post
Office,
where
together
with Wheatstone
he remodelled and
improved
the
apparatus
for
Wheatstone's
telegraph;
one of these
pieces
of
equipment being regarded finally
as 'one of the
most
perfect pieces
of mechanism
employed
in
any
art.14 Wheatstone used one such instrument
in a demonstration to the
Royal Society
in 1867.15
Wheatstone's earliest scientific
investigations
were
in the field of
acoustics,
an interest
stemming
from
his father's trade as a seller of musical instruments.
He first
registered
a
patent
for the concertina in
1844,
and continued to
improve
it over the
years.
In 1872 Wheatstone and Stroh were
jointly granted
a
patent
for
'Improvements
in Musical Instruments
in which
Vibrating Tongues
Acted
upon by
Air
are
employed.'16
In other
words,
a
single vibrating
reed
produced
a
gliding
action from one note to
another,
suitable for use in instruments such as
harmoniums, organs,
mouth-blown instruments
and concertinas.17 Stroh continued to work with
Wheatstone until his death in 1875. He was awarded
the Gold Medal
(Medaille
de
Collaborates)
at the
Paris Exhibition of 1878 for his
'joint
invention'
with Wheatstone of the Wheatstone Automatic
System.18
THE PHONOGRAPH AND THE PHONO
GRAPHIC VIOLIN
It can be
argued
that the
origin
of the idea for
Stroh's violin can be traced to the
year
1879.
Consequently,
the
history
of the instrument cannot
be considered without reference to the
development
of the
phonograph
and to Stroh's own work in the
field of acoustics. The
long
evolution of the
history
of recorded sound
really began
with Edison's
invention of the
phonograph
in 1877. The basic
principle
of the
phonograph
is that the action of
sound
waves activates the vibration of a
diaphragm,
which, through
an attached
stylus,
inscribes
a tinfoil
wrapped cylinder.
When the
stylus
is
returned to the
beginning
of the indentation and
the
cylinder rotated,
the indented tinfoil in
turn,
activates the
stylus,
and the recorded sound is
thus made audible. The first detailed account of
the
phonograph appeared
in the
English press
in
The Times in
January
1878. It aroused enormous
11
National Archives
(UK)
Naturalization
Papers: Stroh, John
Matthias
Augustus,
Certificate
6299,
10
September
1869 Record number: HOI/158/6299,
[http://www.catalogue.nationalarchives.gov.uk
accessed 16
February 2004].
12
For details of all
patents
discussed in this
paper,
see
Appendix
C.
13
W.H.Preece,
'Recent Advances in
Telegraphy', Journal of
the
Society of Arts, Vol.XXVII,
October
24, 1879,
p.982.
14
William H.
Preece,
'On Recent Advances in
Telegraphy',
The
Telegraphic Journal, Sept. 1, 1878, p.358.
15
Dictionary of
National
Biography,
Vol.
LX,
London
1899, p.435.
16
GB
patent No.39,
1872.
17
The
gliding
action was a feature of Victorian
popular
music. Patent
No.39, (January 1872)
was the second of
three Wheatstone/Stroh
patents.
18
Conrad W. Cooke
Obituary Notice, Journal of
the Institute
of
Electrical
Engineers
Vol.
53, 1915, p.871.
Rabinovici? Stroh Violin 103
^fc^H
<; .
'
^^f^|f|fff|||^ffl||^^|nB^^M vilffKlllr IP
|||||?^
illiflî'-:".
'
"'".
t""^^
m
.
Figure
2.
Augustus
Stroh's
phonograph of
1878. Illustration
from Engineering,
an Illustrated
Weekly Journal
Journal,
8 March 1878.
interest in scientific and academic circles and
William H
Preece,
Chief
Engineer
of the British
Postal
Telegraph Department,
was
prominent
in the
presentation
and demonstration of the instrument
to the various scientific societies and institutions.
He demonstrated it for the first time in
England
as
part
of the
presentation
of his
paper
on 'The
Telephone'
at the
Royal
Institution19 on 1
February
1878. Preece had been
provided
with the
drawings
of Edison's
phonograph only
the week
before,
and
had enlisted the services of
Augustus Stroh,
'the
greatest
mechanician of the
day', who, by working
day
and
night,
constructed
a
phonograph
in time
for the
presentation.20
In
quick
succession Preece and Stroh then
demonstrated the
phonograph
to the
Society
of
Telegraph Engineers,
The
Society
of Arts and
The
Physical Society.
Extensive accounts of these
meetings appeared
in the
respective journals
and in
the
general
and scientific
press.
Stroh's
phonograph
was an
improved
version of Edison's
instrument,
to which he had added 'clockwork and a
governor'
to
produce
'uniform rotation' as
Edison's
original
rotation
by
hand was
inevitably
uneven. Stroh
continued to make
phonographs
for the almost
daily
exhibitions
given by
the London
Stereoscopic
Society, reproducing any improvements
made
by
Edison,
with the result that the instruments became
obsolete almost
as soon as each was
completed'.
Not
only
was the
phonograph
the
object
of intense
scientific
curiosity,
the
general public
also were
provided
with
ample opportunity
to see and hear
the new
marvel. The London
Stereoscopic Society
presented
the
phonograph
to the
general public
for
the first time at the
Crystal
Palace over the Easter
holiday period
in
1878, where,
on one
day alone,
some
13,000
people
had entered the
grounds
of the
Palace
by
mid afternoon.
Again,
the instrument
exhibited was built
by Augustus
Stroh.21
Stroh and Preece continued to work
closely
19
Proceedings of
the
Royal
Institution
of
Great Britain
Vol.VIII, February 1, 1878, p.501-7.
20
'The
Phonograph
at the
Royal
Institution' in The
Graphic
An Illustrated
Weekly Newspaper, Vol.XVII, No.433,
March 16
1878, p.259,
262.
21
'Good
Friday',
The Times
April 20, 1878, p.9.
104 The
throughout
1878 on the acoustic
properties
of the
phonograph,
and almost
exactly
a
year later,
on
27
February 1879, together presented
a
paper
to
the
Royal Society
entitled 'Studies in Acoustics I.
On the
Synthetic
Examination of Vowel Sounds'.22
Stroh's
'phonographic
violin' was not
patented
until 1899 but the first reference to a 'new musical
instrument' made
by
Stroh
appeared
in a
preliminary
announcement for the above mentioned
meeting
of
the
Royal Society
which
appeared
in Nature on
20
February
1879:
...Several new instruments of
great novelty
and
marvellous
ingenuity
will be
exhibited, including
a new
phon-autograph,
an automatic
phonograph,
a
compound
curve
tracer,
a new siren and a new
musical instrument.23
A later notice in the same
journal
added the further
information that it was a 'new musical instrument
dependent
on the vibration of a
diaphragm'.
In
fact,
the
presentation
of the 'new musical
instrument' did not take
place
at the
Royal Society
meeting,
as it was based on an idea for 'which there
has been no time as
yet
to mature'.24 Does the
origin
of Stroh's
mechanically amplified violin, then,
dependent
for
amplification
not on the resonance
of a wooden sound
box,
but on
the transference
of vibrations from the
bridge
to a
large diaphragm
attached to the
frame,
lie here?
The Times of 3 March 1879 also
reported
the
presentation
of the
paper
to the
Royal Society,
noting
that of the several instruments which were
constructed to
reproduce
vowel sounds:
One of them makes a
simple
and
good siren,
reliable
for
measurements,
and
gives promise
of
introducing
a new musical machine which will
give
sweet sounds
by
the mechanical vibration of a disc.
It seems safe to
say, then,
that
contrary
to the
popular view;
Stroh did not
develop
his
amplified
violin
purely
as a
response
to a
practical
need for
a
louder and more directional violin for an as
yet imperfect recording technology. Rather,
its
origin
is
clearly twenty years
earlier and was
part
of a more
complex thought process;
the musical
instrument with a
diaphragm
was one of several
instruments constructed for the
experiments
in the
study
of
acoustics,
for which the invention of the
phonograph
had been a
great
stimulus. We shall
never know
just
what form the musical instrument
took in
1879,
or
why
Stroh decided not to introduce
his new musical instrument rather
sooner,
but the
Figure
3. Violin
patent
-
Stroh's BritishPatent No.
9418,
1899.
result after a
twenty-year
gestation period,
was the
Stroh violin.
By
1881 Stroh had sold
his
factory
at
Hampstead
Road to the Post
Office,
a sale from which he
made a considerable sum
of
money.
He was able
to 'retire from business
and to devote the whole
of his
energies
to
original
work in connection with
almost
every
branch of
physical
and mechanical
science'. Stroh continued
his mechanical and
acoustic
investigations,
and no
doubt,
his work
on the 'new musical
instrument
dependent
on a
diaphragm'
at his
home at 98 Haverstock
Hill, Hampstead.
The
patent
for the Stroh
violin was
registered
first
22
Proceedings of
the
Royal Society,
Vol.28
February 27, 1879, pp.358-367.
23
Nature a
Weekly
Illustrated
Journal of
Science Vol.XIX Nov. 1878
-
Apr.1879, February 20, 1879, p.374.
This
announcement was also made in The London
Times,
20
February 1879, p.10,
column 'e'.
24
Proceedings of
the
Royal Society,
Vol.28
February
27 1879 sec.17
p.364.
in
England
in 1899
just
before Stroh's
seventy
second
birthday.
An American
patent application
followed almost
immediately;
the
application
was
filed on 21
August
1899 and was in fact finalized
on 6 March
1900,
a little earlier than the
English
patent.
The
patent
was also
registered
in Austria
in 1900 and in
Germany
the same
year.
The
American
patent
is a somewhat abbreviated version
of the
English patent
and describes the invention
as
relating 'primarily,
to a violin which has a
diaphragm
or
membrane and a resonator instead of
the
ordinary violin-body
or
sounding-board'.
The
English patent
is rather more detailed:
In a
stringed
musical instrument in which the
bridge
supporting
the
strings
is mounted on a
rocking
lever
and the vibrations of the latter are transmitted to a
diaphragm,
the combination of the said
diaphragm
with a
trumpet-shaped
resonator
adapted
to receive
and distribute the sound waves
produced by
the
vibrations of the
diaphragm.
The Austrian
patent
was
registered
as an
'
Or ch ester
instrumente\ reflecting
Stroh's own
intentions for the instrument's use for orchestral
recording.
One could assume that Stroh intended
to
export
his instruments to central
Europe,
and
by registering
his
patent
in Austria and
Germany,
was therefore
protecting
his invention there. Stroh
violins were constructed
using
a standard
gauge
making
mass
production possible
and
allowing
the
easy replacement
of
damaged parts.25
The later
'invention' of the Tiebel violin in Markneukirchen
in 1928
may
well have relied to an extent on the
existence of Stroh's
European patents
and the
early
presence
of Stroh's instruments in Central
Europe.
Export
of Stroh violins to America and
Europe
would have started soon after the
registration
of
the
patents,
and in the time of the Stroh
family
control of the business.
Photographic images
of instruments used in
early recordings,
both
in
Germany
and
America,
shows Stroh violins
without the
trademark,
which was
registered only
in 1910.
Among
these are the instruments used
by
the Victor
Company
in America and listed in their
catalogues
as 'Viol-horns'. The
photograph
of the
one
remaining
instrument
clearly
has no transferred
trademark decal on it. A second
example
of a Stroh
violin without the trademark can be seen in the
photograph
in Donovan's article in The Strand
Magazine
of 1902.26
Of interest also is Stroh's final
patent
of 1901 for
a
conically shaped, ridged diaphragm.
It followed
an earlier
patent registered by
the Edison Bell
Phonograph Corporation Limited,
with
Augustus
Stroh for
'Improvements
in or
applicable
to
Phonographs'.
The
improvement
to the basic
design
of the
diaphragm
in the 1901
patent
was to have
long-lasting implications
for the
amplification
of
sound. The
cone-shaped diaphragm
with three
concentric
corrugations
around the circumference
served to 'render the vibrations more uniform
over the entire area of the
diaphragm.' Curiously,
unlike the Stroh violin
patent,
the
diaphragm
was
only patented
in
England.
Even this
'improvement'
had its earliest
origin
in the work of Preece and
Stroh in 1879 on the examination of vowel sounds.
After much
experiment, they
arrived at a new form
of
diaphragm,
'a stretched membrane of thin India
rubber rendered
rigid by
a cone of
paper'.27
This cone
shaped diaphragm appears
not to have been made use
of
again
until the
diaphragm patent
of 1901.
The first
report
of a
performance using
the Stroh
violin was of a recital
given
at Prince's
Restaurant,
/
-*/-.
.
-
Figure
4.
Diaphragm patent.
Stroh's British Patent
No.3393,
1901.
25
'The Stroh Violin' in
Bazaar,
The
Exchange
and
Mart,
27
November,
1901.
Reprinted
in The
Talking
Machine
Review
International, No.35, August 1975, p.421.
26
D.
Donovan,
The Stroh
Violin',
The Strand
Magazine
Vol.
XXIII, January 1902, No.133, pp.90-91.
27
Engineering
an Illustrated
Weekly Journal,
March
7, 1879, p.200,
and
'Improved Diaphragm
for the
Phonograph',
The
Popular
Science
Monthly
Vol.XV
May-Oct. 1879, p.423-4.
28
'A
Phonographic
Violin' from The London Mail in The New York
Times, Sunday January 26, (1902) p.9.
106 The
_______BhH__SVV-B--mHhKi__H_1
nuufl
__-_^^B_B^__Wlii^fl__3 ri_î?^^îiT
ll^ô_M:_________-_____I___i
*
> ;<
I ;--*i->'___ _!!
L__i i[__H: _______?9
_
I
r
____
Sr __B%w_tr %_Pb!&__BW _!1 __?l __i>w^_PV
_______r?jP^^îli^K^^M^B
*
B_F %B^B-L'; -~^_r
__ ?_
^
^jSh^^-t"* ^___mH
HHHHHHHHB^vW-__0_HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH_îl
^^B__K ________________________K^!
^HM_J^^H______________B_________îi
Figure
5.
Professor J.A.Fleming delivering
his Christmas 1901/02
lecture at the
Royal
Institution. Illustration
from
The
Graphic,
18
January,
1902.
By permission of
the State
Library of
Victoria
Piccadilly28
in
November,
1901
by
a Mr.
George
Collins,
who was 'able to show that for sweetness
of
tone,
and
power,
it can
compare very favourably
with
many
of the old and celebrated makes of the
violin...'.29 Within two weeks of the
acceptance
of
the
diaphragm patent,
Stroh's violin was introduced
again
to the
public
on 4
January 1902, by
none
other than
John
Ambrose
Fleming,
first Professor
of Chemical
Engineering
at
University College,
London and inventor of the thermionic valve. He
delivered a series of six Christmas Lectures in
1901/2 at the
Royal
Institution on the
topic
of
'Waves and
Ripples'
and the fourth
of these
lectures,
on the
principles
of
resonance,
used the Stroh violin as
part
of an illustration of the action of
air vibration in musical instruments.
The lectures were
published
in 191230
and the violin was described thus:
Quite recently
an
entirely
new
departure
has been made in violin construction
by
Mr.
Augustus Stroh,
a well-known
inventor. He has abolished the wooden
body
and
bridge,
and substituted for them
an aluminium
trumpet-shaped
tube as the
resonant
chamber, ending
in a circular
corrugated
aluminium
disc,
on the
centre of which rests an aluminium lever
pivoted
at one
point...
The tone of the
new violin is declared
by
connoisseurs to
be
remarkably full, mellow,
and resonant.
The notes have a richness and
power
which satisfies the
ear,
and is
generally
only
to be found in the handiwork of the
classical construction of the
ordinary
form of the violin. One
great advantage
of the Stroh violin is that
every
one can
be made
perfectly
of the same excellence.
The aluminium discs are
stamped
out
by
a steel
die,
and are therefore all identical.
The element of chance or
personal
skill
in
making
has been eliminated
by
a
scientific and mechanical construction.
Thus the musician becomes
possessed
of an instrument in which scientific
construction
predominates
over individ
ual art or tradition in
manufacture, yet
at
the same time the musical effects which
skill in
playing
can
produce
are not at
all diminished.
The lectures were also
reported
in detail in the
London
Times,
the London Chronicle in
January
190231 and in The
Graphic. Fleming, according
to
that
paper,
was
evidently
a fine lecturer:
proving
himself the
equal
of his
predecessors
alike in
the difficult art of
accommodating
a trained scientific
intelligence
to the
understanding
of children and
in the not less difficult task of
sustaining youthful
interest in the
subject
matter.'32
A
young lady played
the instrument for the
audience on that occasion.
Possibly
it is her
photograph
which
appeared
in an article entitled
29
'The Stroh
Violin',
in The
Talking
Machine Review
International,
No.35
(1975), p.420-421. Reprinted
from
Bazaar,
the
Exchange
and
Mart,
27 November 1901. This article
gives
an
admirably
clear account of how the
instrument
operates. My
thanks to
Cary
Clements for
sending
me this article.
30
'Waves and
Ripples
in
Water,
Air and
Aether, being
a course of Christmas Lectures Delivered at the
Royal
Institution of Great Britain. December
1901/January
1902. Published
by
the
Society
for
Promoting
Christian
Knowledge, 1912, Chapter
4 'Sound and
Music', pp.147-184.
31
Reprinted
in The New York
Times,
19
January 1902, p.25.
32
The
Graphic (London)
An Illustrated
Weekly Newspaper,
18
January,
1902
Vol.LXV, No.1,677 p.88.
Figure
6.
Image of
a
young lady playing
the
Stroh
violin,
Strand
Magazine,
1902.
By
permission of
the State
Library of
Victoria.
'The Stroh Violin' in the Strand
Magazine
in 1902.33
(The
instrument
being played
here is an
early
one;
it has no second
horn.)
The 1899
patent
does not
have a second smaller horn. The
directionality
of
the
large
horn assisted the
recording process,
but
no doubt also made it harder for the musician
to hear
himself, thus,
the addition of a
second,
smaller horn attached to the
diaphragm housing
or
on the horn itself and directed toward the
player
(see Figure 7,
colour
supplement).
How did the Stroh violin sound to
contemporary
ears?
Perhaps
somewhat
optimistically,
one writer
said, 'Although
the
diaphragm
is made of metal
aluminium there is no metallic sound audible...
.
The rich mellow
tones...require
no
forcing.
The
slightest
contact of the bow will
bring
them
forth,
and make the
player imagine
himself a far better
player
than he
really
is'.34 This article is one of the
few
contemporary
references to the violin's use for
recording purposes.
The Victor
Company
made
the first American
recordings using
the Stroh violin
in 1904. Their
catalogue
of 1905
said,
'The tone
of the Viol-Horn is
very
like that of the violin but
much louder'.35
Recordings
were also made at the
Edison
Recording
Studios around 1907-10.36
The
relationship
of the Stroh violin with the
phonograph
was made
quite explicit:
The
application
of the
principle
of the
phonograph
to the violin is the latest musical
curiosity....
The
instrument
produces
the tones of an
ordinary violin,
but it is claimed that the tones are richer.37
Not all
contemporary
accounts were
glowing,
however:
Surrounded
by
these fortuitous
gadgets
of sound
concentration,
the lot of the
recording
artiste in
those
days
was
hardly
an enviable one. Illustrative of
the dilemmas is a news item from
December, 1904,
which announces: Kubelik has made two records
with his own
Stradivarius,
not a Stroh.38
These
contemporary reports
made clear that
Stroh's instrument received serious and considered
attention,
both from the
press
and from his
contemporaries.
By 1903,
Stroh's
phonograph
had made its
way
into the
popular imagination39
and the Stroh violin
was
taking
its
place
in the
recording
studios of the
day.
Stroh lived to see the first solo
recordings
and
orchestral
recordings
made in
1904,40
the same
year
that his
son,
Charles
Stroh,
established himself as
a violin maker and manufacturer of Stroh violins.
At the time of his death in
1914, aged eighty-six,
it
was remarked that:
He was one of the most modest and
retiring
of
men,
and there can be but little doubt that but for
these admirable
qualities
he
might
have received the
33
D. Donovan 'The Stroh Violin' The Strand
Magazine
Vol.XXIII
January
-
June
No.
133, January 1902, p.89
91. It is
probable
that the
subject
was indeed one of
Augustus
Stroh's three
daughters.
34
'The Stroh
Violin',
Bazaar,
The
Exchange
and
Mart,
27 November
1901, Reprinted
in The
Talking
Machine
ReviewNo.35, August
1975
p.421.
35
George Paul,
'The Stroh
Recording
Violin' in The New Amberola
Graphic January 1992, p.7.
36
Cary Clements,
'The Stroh
Violin', Experimental
Musical Instruments Vol.10/4
June
1995
p.137.
37
'A
Phonographic Violin',
The London
Mail, reprinted
in The New York
Times, Sunday
26
January 1902, p.9.
38
Joe
Batten's Book the
Story of
Sound
Recording: Being
the Memoirs
of Joe Batten,
1956.
39
T. C.
Hepworth,
'The
Phonograph',
CasselVs
Popular Science, Vol.1,
1903. An
admirably
clear illustrated
explanation
of the
workings
of the
phonograph.
40
George Paul, 'Phonograph
Forum
-
The Stroh
Recording Violin',
The New Amberola
Graphic,
No.
79,
Jan. 1992, p.7.
Victor Records
-
no. 2828
-'
Military Serenade',
No. 2770
-
'Donkey
&
Driver',
No. 2920
-
'Andantino',
no. 2804
-
'Favorite
Hymns'.
108 The
highest
honours41 in this and other
countries;
but he
was honoured and beloved
by
all his
friends,
who
know his worth and admired his character.42
Perhaps
the lack of official
recognition
was also
due to Stroh's German
origins.
He was buried in
the
Hampstead Cemetery.
An illustration of a Stroh
violin is at
Figure
7 in the colour
supplement.
AUGUSTUS CHARLES STROH AND GEORGE
EVANS,
VIOLIN MAKERS
Augustus
Stroh's son Charles
(1866-1923)
is
sometimes credited with a
greater
role in the
production
and
development
of Stroh violins than
was in all
probability,
the case.
Charles Stroh
trained as a mechanical
engineer
at the Government
Telegraph
Works in London43 and at
nineteen,
left
for
Australia, arriving
in Melbourne in
June
of
1884.44 He remained in Australia for over
fifteen
years.
Charles claimed to have been
'appointed
to
responsible positions
in the Government
Telegraph
Service of Australia' and to have held
'important
positions
as
advisory engineer
to various firms'.45
Charles returned to
England by
1901 at which
point
he
appears
to have taken
up
an active role
in the
production
of Stroh
violins, being
listed as
a violin maker in
Albany Street, Regent's
Park
by
1904.
The whole
question
of Charles's involvement
with Stroh violin
production
is confused
by
his
listing
as a violin maker in the London Post Office
Directory,
from 1904 to 1924 inclusive. In fact the
Russell
Hunting
Record Co.
Ltd., previously
the
Sterling
Record
Company,
had taken over the entire
production
of Stroh violins
by
1906. Charles's
involvement with the Russell
Hunting
Co. was as a
director and a
major
shareholder of that
company.
He was
by
his own
account,
involved at a
practical
level in the
production
and in 1906
spoke
with
enthusiasm about the
expansion
of the
factory
in
Bishop's Road, Cambridge
Heath.46 However
by
1908 the business had failed47 and was taken over
by George John
William Evans in 1909. It was
Evans,
not Charles Stroh who first
registered
the
'STROVIOLS' trade mark in
England
in
April
of
1910,48 giving
his address as 94
Albany
Street and
his
occupation
as 'manufacturer'. Charles Stroh's
further connection with
George
Evans & Co.
remains unclear.
George
Evans' choice of trade
mark was an
interesting
one;
Augustus
and Charles
Stroh were still
very
much
alive,
and
by omitting
the 'h' from 'Stroviols' he
was
able to
capitalize
on
the well-known Stroh name. The Great War
saw
the
development
of anti- German sentiment
in Britain and as did
many
others with German
names,
Charles divested himself of the Stroh
name
in
1915,
less than a
year
after his father's
death,
taking
the name of 'Stroud'.49 Charles married in
1917 and remained in London until at least 1919.
He and his wife died within
days
of each other in
May 1923,
in
Hove,
near
Brighton.
Charles's
listing
as a 'violin maker' was to remain in the London
Post Office
Directory
for another
year
and
George
Evans was
finally
listed at the
Albany
Street address
as a violin maker in
1925,
fifteen
years
after he first
used the address in 1910 in the
registration
of the
Stroviols trademark.
Augustus
Stroh himself had
clearly signalled
his intention of
extending
the
application
of his
invention to
'violincellos, mandolins, guitars
and other
stringed
instruments'.50
George
Evans
produced violas, cellos,
and
ukuleles, guitars,
and
string basses,
all
bearing
the 'Stroviols' trademark
41
It is a matter of
speculation
whether Stroh's
position
as a Post Office
employee
was also a factor in his lack
of honours. While
according
to
W.H.Preece,
Wheatstone's
telegraph apparatus
had been
'entirely
remodeled and
improved by
the Post Office Electricians.
Nothing
but the
original
idea remains and the machine now turned out
by
Mr. Stroh is one of the most
perfect pieces
of mechanism
employed
in
any
art.'
(The Telegraphic Journal
Vol. 6 No.
118
p.358 September 1, 1878)
a
reply
two weeks later was not so
sympathetic.
'The officers of that
service, [Postal
Telegraph]
no
doubt,
effect some small
improvements
on
apparatus
submitted to their
care;
but it is not to them that
we must look for inventions.'
(The Telegraphic Journal
Vol. 6 No. 135
p.358 September 15, 1878).
42
Conrad W.
Cooke, Obituary
in The
Journal of
the Institution
of
Electrical
Engineers, Vol.53, 1915, p.
872.
43
'Talking
Machine Pioneers No.7 Charles Stroh'
(from
Phono Trader and Recorder
Sept.1906) reprinted
in The
Hillandale News The
City of
London
Phonograph
and
Gramophone Society
No.73
June
1973
p.75
I am
grateful
to
Cary
Clements for
sending
me this article.
44
Public Record Office Victoria
-
Database: Unassisted
Immigration
to Victoria 1852-1911.
[http://www.
proarchives.imagineering.com.au/index_search_results.asp]
45
'Talking
Machine Pioneers No.7 Charles Stroh' from Phono Trader and Recorder
Sept.
1906
reprinted
in The
Hillandale News The
City of
London
Phonograph
and
Gramophone Society, No.73, June 1973, p.75.
46
Ibid.
47
V. K.
Chew, Talking Machines,
Science
Museum,
London: Her
Majesty's Stationary Office,
1967
p.55.
48
The Trade Marks
Journal No.1676, Wednesday May 11, 1910, p.748
Trademark
No.322,242.
49
The
Times, September
25
1915, p.3
column a.
(Name change registered
on 21
September 1915).
50
Stroh's British
patent
No.
9418, 1899, p.4.
and all
having
the characteristic Stroh
diaphragm.
These
instruments, according
to the
advertising,
strictly
adhered to the dimensions of the instruments
upon
which
they
were modelled.51
The
exception
was a
single stringed,
horned
monochord with a
diaphragm
built into the
body
of the instrument itself. Instead of a transferred
trademark,
it bore a
stamped
trademark on the
external metal
plate covering
the
diaphragm
housing.
This
'one-string
fiddle' was advertised in
1931 as a
'
"Stroh"
Jap
Fiddle'52
(see Figures 9,
10
and 11 in the colour
supplement
for three views of
a Stroh
'Jap' fiddle, by permission
of the
owner,
John
Ferwerda.
Photographed by
the
author)
In
June
1924
George
Evans
registered
the
Stroviols trademark in
Australia,53
a
strong
indication that the instruments were
exported
there
and
possibly
also connected with Charles Stroh's
earlier
years
in Australia. The
registration gives
his
full name as
'George John
William Evans' and his
occupation
as 'Musical Instrument
Maker', again,
giving
the
Albany
Street address. Two
years
later
in
July 1926,54
he also
registered
the trademark
in
America, listing 'Violins, Violas, Violoncellos,
Guitars,
Mandolins and
Jap
Fiddles'.
Certainly
other
companies
also
exported
Stroh instruments.
Stroh instruments were
exported
from
England by
John
E. Dallas & Sons in the 1920s.
'George
Evans
& Co. violin makers' was listed for the last time
in 1941. Demand for the Stroviols instruments had
dwindled to such an extent that the Stroh violin
had
finally
become
completely
obsolete. There was
no
listing
in
1942,
but from 1943 until
1957,
the
business was listed
as 'mechanical
engineer',
after
which the
listing finally disappeared altogether.
Stroh violins
were used for
recording purposes
for
only
a few
years.
Columbia started electrical
recording
in
1924,
Victor in
1925,
ahead of
Edison discs in 1927.
By
the
early 1920s, recording
technology
had advanced to the
point
at which
the Stroh violin had moved out of the
recording
studio and into the music hall. This is
strikingly
illustrated in a
patent registered by
a Miss
Evelyn
Barton 'otherwise known as Eva Evalda' in 1922:
I fit
by
means of
clips,
or the
like,
a number of
electric
lamps,
to the
horn,
or
any part
of a Stroh
violin,
or other similar
stringed
musical
instrument,
played
with a
bow,
and intended for use on music
hall
stage.
I
preferably
use 6 small electric
lamps
in
parallel,
fitted round the
edge,
of the
large
end
of the horn. The
power
for the
lamps
is
preferably
':'''^^M________________E1' 'ii^^Bllll:
Figure
8. Stroviols ukulele. Photo
by permission of
Frank Ford.
obtained from a
battery
or
accumulator,
carried on
the
person
of the
player,
& connected
by
flexible
leads.
Rather a contrast to Stroh's Austrian
'orchesterinstrumente'
patent!
It later became a
popular
instrument for Morris
dancing,
and was
occasionally
used
by
folk
fiddlers,
such as
James
Scott Skinner.
ONE-STRINGED FIDDLES WITH HORNS
Within a few
years
of the invention of the Stroh
violin,
another
mechanically amplified instrument,
a, horned, one-stringed
monochord made its
appearance. They
were
produced by
a number
of
companies, among them,
Rose Morris &
Co.,
George
Evans &
Co., (see above)
and A.T.Howson
& Co.
One-stringed
fiddles with no
amplification
had
existed, prior
to
this,
both in
England
and in
America. The
English
instruments were known as
'Japanese
fiddles' or 'one
stringed
fiddles' and date
quite possibly
from the 1860s.
The music hall
artist, George
H.
Chirgwin,
was
51
Mugwumps Vol.5, No.l,
1976. Stroviols Advertisment.
52
Julian Pilling,
'Fiddles with
Horns',
The
Galpin Society Journal,
Volume
XXVIII, 1975, p.90.
53
Australian
Official Journal of
Trade Marks Vol.19
No.34,
5
September 1924, p.593.
Trademark No.39152.
54
US
Trademark,
Series
No.234,570.
110 The
J
Figure
12.
Single string fiddle by John Grey,
1909.
an
early player
of the instrument.
According
to a
notice in the music hall
journal,
'The
Era\
of
1877,
Chirgwin played
the violoncello 'like an
artiste',
and was also
proficient
on
'guitar,
the
Japanese
violin,
the
banjo,
the
violin,
the
flageolet,
and
other instruments'.
Quite possibly
the
origins
of
the
Japanese
fiddle can be found in the musical
instruments used
by Japanese variety artists,
such
as Tannaker's
Minstrels,
who worked in the music
halls from the 1860s until the
early years
of the
twentieth
century. Just
when the
'Japanese
fiddle'
departed
from the form of the
original Japanese
instrument that it was based
on,
and became
an
English 'Japanese
or
one-string fiddle',
is an
interesting question.
The
appearance
of the
amplified one-string
fiddle
around 1906 did not
entirely supersede
the non
amplified
instrument.
Joseph
Wallis & Son
Ltd,
was
advertising
nine different forms of
'Japanese'
fiddle
in
1906,55
and
they
were still
being
advertised as
late
as 1931. An
American, John Grey, patented
an
instrument of this
type
without a horn in
England
in
1909,
an
interesting
indication that it was not
unknown in America. He claimed that his
single string
instrument...
[was]
a
simple
and
practical
instrument... novel and attractive in
appearance
and
which
may
be
effectively
used for entertainment with
a
piano
or orchestral
accompaniment.
Perhaps
it was a
little ambitious to
imagine
that
it would stand
up
to an orchestral
accompaniment.
The need for
greater
volume was no doubt the
inspiration
behind the instruments of Rose
Morris,
Evans and Howson.
One-stringed
horned fiddles made
by George
Evans & Co. bore the 'Stroviols'
trademark,
stamped
on the metal
diaphragm
cover. Rather
longer
than a
violin,
it has a
range
of two and
a half octaves. Evans's American 'Stroviols'
trademark
registration
of 1926 mentions these
specifically
as
'Jap
Fiddles' and
by 1931, they
were
advertised as 'The "Stroh"
Jap
Fiddle'.56 These
one-stringed
fiddles were different from all the
other instruments manufactured
by George
Evans
in that the
diaphragm
was set into the
body
of the
55
Joseph
Wallis & Son
Ltd, Catalogue,
15
September
1906.
56
Page
from Rose Morris
Catalogue. Julian Pilling,
'Fiddles with Horns' The
Volume
XXVIII,
1975
p.90.
Rabinovici
?
Stroh Violin 111
instrument,
rather than as an
exterior attachment
to the structural framework. A rare
two-stringed
Stroviols fiddle exists in which the
diaphragm
is
attached
externally,
as with the
four-stringed
Stroh
violin. The
'Jap'
fiddles and
phonofiddles generally
use a mica
diaphragm
instead of the
profiled
aluminium one used in the
violins, cellos, guitars
and mandolins. A.T.Howson & Co. was the other
important
maker of
one-string fiddles; many
of his
instruments were
distinguished by
a curved stem
and a flared bell.
WHO INVENTED THE PHONOFIDDLE?
It is
commonly
assumed that the Stroviols
'Jap'
Fiddle or
single-string
fiddle was the first
amplified
horned
single-stringed instrument,
of its
type,
and that the Howson 'Phonofiddle' was
merely
a
copy.
This was the view of
Julian Pilling,57
but
not a view
readily supported by
the facts. It seems
that no
patents
were
registered
for either
'Jap'
Fiddles or
Phonofiddles,
as
such, by
either
George
Evans or
A.T.Howson,
but Howson
registered
his
trademark 'A.T.Howson Phono Fiddle' in
1906,58
four
years
before
George
Evans
registered
the
Stroviols
trademark, effectively preventing any
other maker from
using
the term 'Phono Fiddle'.
Howson's first
employer
in London in 1886 was the
firm of
Joseph
Wallis &
Son,
musical instrument
makers,
whose trade
catalogue
of 1906 advertised
Howson's Phono
Fiddle, simple
model.
By
1910 the
Wallis
catalogue
advertised five different models of
'Howson's Patent Phono Fiddle'.
The use of a horn resonator was
obviously
inspired by
the Stroh violin of
1899,
but
Howson used a
diaphragm arrangement
that
was
sufficiently
different from the Stroh to avoid
accusations of breach of Stroh's
patent copyright.
The term 'Phonofiddle' has come to be used rather
indiscriminately
in reference to both Stroh violins
and horned
one-stringed
instruments. For the sake
of
clarity
I will use the terms as
they
were used
originally; 'Jap
Fiddle' for the Stroviols instrument
and 'Phonofiddle' for Howson's instruments.
Augustus
Stroh's 1899
patent gave
no
suggestion
of a
one-string instrument, although
the
guitars
and mandolins that Evans later
produced
were
mentioned in the Stroh's
specification. George
Evans could
hardly
have introduced the one
stringed Jap
Fiddle until after he took over
94
Albany
Street in 1909. It is more
likely, then,
that
George
Evans
picked up
Howson's idea of
a
one-stringed
horned fiddle with its smaller
:..? iÂ
*
Figure
13.
Phonoftddle. By courtesy of
the Horniman
Museum. Note the
copper horn;
the Howson
phonoftddle
more
usually
had a brass
horn, although
the
early, cheaper
models had aluminium horns.
diaphragm
based on a
gramophone
sound
box,
an instrument that was
clearly being
made
by
Howson
by 1906,
and added it to the Stroviols
collection of horned instruments. The
placement
and
type
of
diaphragm
made the
Jap
Fiddle the
'odd one out' of the Stroh instruments. Howson's
Phonofiddles had a distinctive
horn, usually
with a
curved stem and a
widely
flared bell
connecting
to
the stem
by
means of a screw
thread,
rather in the
manner of a French horn. The Stroviols
Jap
fiddle
has a narrower
horn, differently tapered
from that
of the Stroh violin and
relating
more
closely
in
appearance
to an
early phonograph
horn.
57
Julian Pilling,
'Fiddles with Horns' The
Volume
XXVIII,
1975
p.91.
58
The Trade Marks
Journal
No.
1504, Wednesday,
23
January
1907.
Registered
Trademark
No.287,991.
112 The
ARTHUR THOMAS HOWSON
(1866-1928)
A.T.Howson was
born in
Nottingham,
the son of
Matthew Howson
(1833-1906),
a
Nottingham
accordion
maker,
with whom he
worked, making
accordions,
at least until the
age
of fourteen.
Howson
began
his
employment
in London in
1886, aged nineteen,
with the
large
musical
instrument
making
firm of
Joseph
Wallis & Son.
Howson would have had
ample opportunity
to
acquire
the skills needed to make his
extraordinary
Phonofiddle horns when
working
for this
firm,
who
made and sold
violins, Japanese fiddles,
musical
boxes, banjos, concertinas, clarionets, flutes,
flageolets, harmoniums, pianos,
and
military
musical instruments.
By 1890, aged twenty-three,
Howson was
working independently
in
Deptford,
London as a
musical instrument maker. Matthew
Howson
(senior)
continued to make accordions in
Nottingham
until around
1900,
after which he
worked in
London, making
and
selling
concertinas.59
He died in
Nottingham
in 1906. Matthew Howson
(junior) (1869-1952),
brother of
A.T.Howson,
worked in
Middlesbrough
in the
piano trade,
but
came to
Deptford
at some
point
and worked with
A.T.Howson in the business. Matthew
eventually
opened
his own instrument
repair
business in 1935
after the closure of A.T.Howson & Son.
LAURA ELLEN HOWSON
(1861-1917)
If the earlier existence of Howson's trademark
registration
and the
Joseph
Wallis
Catalogue
listing
of 1906 does not
clearly enough support
his
claim to invention of the
Phonofiddle,
a remarkable
publication by
Laura
Ellen,
violin teacher and wife
of
A.T.Howson, certainly
reinforces that claim.
L.E.Howson
published
a tutor for the
phonofiddle
in
1910,60
a
year
later
an Album of Melodies for
Phonofiddle,
with
pianoforte accompaniment,
and in
1916,
the
year
before her
death,
a second
edition of the Phonofiddle tutor. The title
page
of the 1910 tutor indicates that the instrument is
'Howson's Invention' and that 'No Phonofiddle is
genuine
without the above Trade
Mark',
while the
second
page encourages
the reader to 'Beware of
Worthless Imitations'. The tutor comes
complete
with a
notation/fingering chart, which,
for
beginners,
could be stuck on the
fingerboard.
It is a
persuasive document,
which no doubt was intended
to
encourage
the sale of
phonofiddles.
It
warmly
recommends the
clear tone of wonderful
carrying power,
which is
mellowed and intensified in richness and volume of
sound
by
means of the
trumpet.
Further,
The Phono-fiddle is a remarkable instance of the
intimate
sympathy
and
relationship
which can exist
between a
performer
and his
instrument,
and in this
respect
it is
only
rivalled
by
the human voice. This
makes it
specially
suitable for solos and
obbligatos.
Its
power
in the hands of a
good performer
to
express
musical ideas in
melody
is
inexhaustible,
as it is
capable
of
yielding
effects of wondrous
beauty.61
The tutor is written with the
requirements
of
the
beginner
in mind. One of the virtues of the
Phonofiddle was its 'extreme
simplicity, having only
one
string,
which is reinforced
by
a
trumpet...
It is
almost as
easy
to
play
the Phonofiddle
by
ear as it is
to whistle
or
hum a tune'.
Holding
the instrument
and
bow, position
of
right
hand and
arm,
rudiments
of
music, fingering, glissandos
and tremolos are all
covered. The
repertoire
was
decidedly lightweight,
leaning
towards sentimental
popular
tunes and
folk
songs.
It was not to be
compared
with the full
orchestral
capabilities
of the Stroh violin. There is
certainly something
of a feminine touch in Laura
Howson's
writing.
It is 'A
graceful
instrument for a
lady,'
It is
'ungraceful
and inconvenient' to hold the
phonofiddle
too
high.
The movement of the arm
'should
appear
free and
graceful'
and
holding
the
instrument too far from the
body
would
'appear
ungainly'.
One could even avoid
annoying
others:
The Phono-fiddle has one
advantage
over
many
other
instruments,
that
is, by removing
the
trumpet
the student when
practicing
can
play
so
softly
as
not to be in
any way
an
annoyance
to those who are
compelled
to listen to it.
Only
a woman would have written in this
way!
Contrary
to the view of
Julian Pilling,
who saw
the
single-stringed
instrument as
lending
itself to
slides and
glissandi
for sentimental
affect,
Laura
Howson's
opinion
was that 'The close
shake,
or tremolo
...
is
very
much abused
by being
used
too
frequently.
It is bad taste to use tremolo
upon
nearly every
note'. One
gets
the
impression
that
despite
the advertised recommendation
by George
H.
Chirgwin,
music hall
artist,
Laura Howson was
trying
to
give
this instrument a touch of
gentility
hoping, perhaps,
to elevate it to a
place
in the
drawing
room.
59
Tracy Howard, great granddaughter
of A.T.Howson.
60
L. E.
Howson, Phonofiddle
Tutor. A New Musical Instrument.
(Howson's Invention),
London
1910;
L.E.Howson,
Album
of
Melodies
for Phonofiddle,
with
pianoforte accompaniment,
or
for
One
String
Fiddle.
Arranged...by
L.E.Howson
Composer:
L.E.Howson. Publication: London L.E.Howson 1911.
L.E.Howson,
Phonofiddle
Tutor,
etc. London L.E.Howson
[1916].
61
L.E.Howson,
Phono Fiddle
Tutor,
p.2.
HOWSON'S PATENT PHONO FIDDLE.
R*fi?t<>rrd
No. 423256,
^
Invented and made
by
A. T.
Howson,
314 New Cross Road, S.E.
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?THE
PHONO FIDDLE
HOWSON.
Figure
14.
Joseph
Wallis & Son
-
Catalogue,
1910 with
photo of George Chirgwin, (The
White
eyed Kaffir).
Collection
of Tony Bingham,
London.
114 The
Laura Ellen Howson would have been one of
a
very
small number of women who either wrote
or
published
instructional material for
a
musical
instrument in the
early part
of the twentieth
century.
She died
aged fifty-six
on 30 December
1917,
a
year
after the
publication
of the second
edition of her
phonofiddle
tutor.
The Stroh Violin and the Howson Phono Fiddle
were from two different worlds. Stroh's instrument
was in its
day,
at the
leading edge
of
technological
development,
and indeed made its first
appearance
in scientific circles. Howson's Phono
Fiddle,
on the
other
hand,
had its roots in the musical instrument
making
trade. Stroh's instruments were
exported
to
Europe,
to
America,
and to the British
Empire.
Burma,
even
today
is still
producing copies
of
the Stroh violin for sale in the west. Of the few
contemporary
articles about the
instrument, one,
entitled 'A.T. Howson Father of the Phonofiddle'
was
published
in The
Hippodrome,62
a music
hall
journal. Augustus
Stroh and A.T.Howson
were
responding
to the needs of two
quite
different markets. Howson
supplied
the music
hall entertainers with
'curiosity'
instruments that
were
used
effectively
in
comedy
routines
and,
more
importantly, provided
much needed
amplification
in
large
and crowded music halls. The Stroh
instruments,
at least
initially,
were built for use
in the
early recording
sessions.
They necessarily
required
trained musicians to
play
them while
performance
on the
single stringed phonofiddle
was much more within the reach of the musician
who lacked formal or extensive classical
training.
GEORGE CHIRGWIN AND THE PHONO
FIDDLE
The
early
success of Howson's Phonofiddle was due
in no uncertain terms to the
great
music-hall
artist,
GeorgeH. Chirgwin, (1854-1922)
'The
White-Eyed
Musical Kaffir'
(see Figure 14). Probably
the first
music hall artist to
play
the Howson
Phonofiddle,
he was one of a handful of entertainers who
played
the little-known
'Japanese Fiddle',
the non
amplified originator
of the Phonofiddle.
Chirgwin
was on the music hall
stage
for well over
fifty
years,
from the
age
of
six,
until some
years
after he
celebrated his
jubilee
in
May
1911. On
stage,
his
appearance
was
unique;
a 'burnt cork' artist with
an
individual
twist,
a diamond
shaped
white
patch
over one
eye,
an
enormously
tall
hat, emphasizing
the extreme thinness of his
youthful days,
and
always
dressed in black and white. In this
way,
he
made the reference to his minstrel
origins,
while
maintaining
a
style
that
was,
to use
the
language
of
the
day, 'grotesque'
and
certainly
individual.
Apart
from his musical
talents,
he was an
exceptional
dancer,
and could and did
sing
at times with
an
extraordinarily powerful
falsetto voice. A talented
musician,
his skills were
acquired early
in his career
when
performing
with the minstrel
troupes.
In his
fifty years
on the
stage,
he
appears
to have had
no
equal
as an
instrumentalist. He
played cello, violin,
the
bagpipes,
the
banjo, flageolet,
and the
Japanese
fiddle,
the latter mentioned in reviews as
early
as
1877. It was with this instrument that he became
famous for the sentimental
song 'My
Fiddle is
My
Sweetheart.' It is
extraordinary
to think that
with this small
instrument, Chirgwin produced
a
sound that could be heard in music halls that often
had the
capacity
to accommodate two or three
thousand
people.
Not
only that;
audiences were
often
noisy,
with
drinking
and
smoking
allowed in
the auditorium.
Chirgwin,
who
played
'
"The Minstrel
Boy"
on the
Japanese
fiddle in a manner that should
obtain him the
appointment
of chief fiddler to the
Mikado',63
was one of the most famous music hall
artists at the time Howson invented his
phonofiddle,
which was on the market
by
1906. For
Chirgwin
to take
up
Howson's instrument
virtually
ensured
its success and must have been
warmly
welcomed
by Chirgwin
and other
players
of the
Japanese
fiddle,
both for the
novelty
of its
appearance,
but
primarily
for the
significant
increase in volume.
Indeed,
his enthusiasm for the instrument was
obvious, judging
from his endorsement of the
instrument advertised in L.E.Howson's Phonofiddle
tutor: 'Dear Mr.
Howson,
I must
say
that the last
Phono-fiddle
you
made for me is the finest one
stringed
instrument I have ever
played
on;
it far
surpasses anything
in that line'. The
phonofiddle
was
Chirgwin's
instrument of choice64 for his
appearance
at the
Royal
Command
performance
for the
King
and
Queen,
which took
place
at
the Palace
Theatre,
1
July
1912.65
Chirgwin
was
followed
by
a number of other entertainers who
also
played
the
phonofiddle,
but it is
possible
that
the
phonofiddle
heralded the
end, finally,
of the
62
'A.T.Howson Father of the
Phonofiddle',
The
Hippodrome,
1911.
63
The Era
April 28, 1888, p.15
64
L.E.Howson, Phonofiddle Tutor, 1916, reprint
of article from
'Keynotes',
1913 entitled 'The Phonofiddle and
its Inventor'.
65
A.Dent,
'At the Music Hall The Good Old
Days
of the Famous
Halls',
The Strand
Magazine,
Vol.
117,
No.
705,
September
1949.
Japanese,
or
one-stringed
fiddle.66
Perhaps
the
last of the
variety
entertainers to
play
a Howson
phonofiddle
was
Rupert
Alexander Hazell.
(See
later
entry).
Figure
15. Phono Fiddle
(Ukulele Model)
O.S.Hocuson.
Reproduced by
kind
permission
from
the collection
of Roger Lewis,
Melbourne.
A.T. HOWSON & CO.
As noted
above,
after
starting
his
working
life in
London in the firm of
Joseph
Wallis &
Son,
Howson
set
up
his own business
as a
musical instrument
maker in
Deptford
in
1890,
a
business that lasted
until 1934. He
occupied
a
remarkable number of
business
premises
in and around
Deptford
over
the
years,
listed either as
'Arthur Thos. Howson'
or 'A.T. Howson & Co.'. Howson's
specialty,
the
Phonofiddle,
was of
relatively simple construction;
the 'stick' was
sufficiently
narrow to be cut from a
single piece
of wood while the
diaphragm,
which
was set into this
stick,
was easier and
cheaper
to
produce
than that of the Stroh violin. The
tuning
was
different, also,
from the Stroviols
'Jap' fiddle,
which is
generally
tuned to
D,
while the Howson
phonofiddle
was a C instrument.67 The
phonofiddle
was a
'popular' instrument, easy
to
play
and an
ideal
instrument,
as we
have
seen,
for the music
hall. The establishment of Howson's business in
Deptford
in 1890 coincided with the
great
era of the
British music hall and his various locations in and
around South East London were
ideally
situated to
service, repair
and
provide
musical instruments for
entertainers and musicians
working
in the
many
music halls in South East London.
Similarly,
his
pianoforte dealership
in
King
Street Hammersmith
was also close to the Hammersmith Palace of
Varieties.
By 1910,
Howson was
making
five different
models of the
one-stringed
Phonofiddle.68 Scrolls
were
differently shaped;
on some models the
fingerboards
were
fretted,
while others had
pearl
positions,
size and
quality
of the sound boxes
differed and the lower
segment
of the horn was
either curved or
straight.
Horns were
of different
diameters and those of the better
quality
models
were of
brass;
others were of
aluminium,
and in
the case of the Horniman Museum
Phonofiddle,
of
copper.
The
single-stringed
'Grand Concert'
models,
as
played by Chirgwin,
had a
compass
of
over three octaves.69
Howson also
produced
two
phonofiddles
which are now
very rare,
a
two-stringed
and a
four-stringed phonofiddle.70 George
Evans & Co.
also made a
two-stringed instrument,71
perhaps
better described as a
two-stringed
cello than as
a
two-stringed 'Jap' fiddle,
as
the
diaphragm
is
externally placed,
in
exactly
the same manner
as
the Stroh violin and the Stroviols
cello,
rather
than the interior
arrangement
common to both the
Stroviols
'Jap'
fiddle and Howson's Phonofiddle. It
is
interesting
to
speculate
here
just
where the two
stringed
instruments fitted in the
chronology
of
Stroviols and Howson manufacture.
66
The news archive of British Pathe can be found at
www.britishpathe.com
Williams 6c Bennett
(Quiet Please)
Film ID is 1572.32.
67
L.E.
Howson,
'Phonofiddle Tutor' 'It resembles the concert flute in
many respects,
the lowest note
being
the
same
pitch
on both instruments'.
68
Joseph
Wallis & Sons
Catalogue
1910 'Howson's Patent Phonofiddle'
p.265.
69
L.E.
Howson,
Phono-Fiddle
Tutor,
London 1910.
70
Confirmed
by Tracy Howard, great granddaughter
of A.T.Howson.
71
Mugwumps
Vol.
5,
No.
1, July-August
1976. Front cover illustration.
116 The
A book about
banjos may
seem an
unlikely place
to find a
phonofiddle,
but Akira Tsumura's
Banjos:
the Tsumura Collection72 includes an illustration
of what is most
probably
a
4-stringed, fretted,
Howson
phonofiddle.
It is labelled 'Phono Fiddle
(Ukulele Model)
O. S. Hocuson'
(see Figure 15),
probably
a
mis-reading
of Howson's trademark
signature,
'A.T. Howson'. L.E.Howson referred to
fretted
phonofiddles
in her Tutor:
'They
are made
with or without frets. It is no more
necessary
to
fret a Phonofiddle than to fret a violin or
'cello,
but
the
fretting
makes the Phonofiddle much easier to
learn.'
The
four-stringed
'ukulele model' has the same
widely
flared bell of the
one-stringed
Howson
Phonofiddle and like the other Howson
instruments;
the bell is attached to the stem with a
wing
nut.
Both the Tsumura instrument and the
two-stringed
phonofiddle
have the same
heart-shaped
wooden
backing plate/knee grip attaching
to an
equally
distinctive
footplate.
Both also
appear
to be
fretted,
hence the term 'Ukulele Model' in the Tsumura
text. Howson's
single-stringed phonofiddle,
on
the
other hand does not have
frets,
the nature of the
instrument
requiring
too much
sliding
for frets to
be
practical.
Unlike the Stroviols
ukulele,
which
is
played
in a horizontal
position,
the Howson
'Ukulele Model'
phonofiddle
is
positioned vertically
and
played
with a bow in
exactly
the same manner
as the other Howson instruments. One final
point
of
comparison
is the scroll. Both the
two-stringed
and the
four-stringed
instrument have a
slightly
angled scroll, finishing
with a cube
shaped
end.
Both also have
guitar-type
machine head
tuning
pegs.
Is the Tsumura Phono
Fiddle, then, perhaps
the
only surviving
illustration of a Howson four
stringed
ukulele model
phonofiddle?
THE ELECTRIC PHONOFIDDLE
On 14
May 1913,
Howson
registered
a
patent
for an
electrically amplified phonofiddle (see
Figure 16),
thus
making
a
fascinating
contribution
to the
history
of
amplified stringed
instruments.
It was for
'Improvements
in or connected with
Phonofiddles,
Violins and other
Stringed
Musical
Instruments'.
My
invention relates to the electrical transmission
of the sound of a
stringed
musical instrument to a
horn or
sounding
device...the invention
being mainly
intended for use in connection with the musical
instrument known as the
phonofiddle,
but
being
also
applicable
to other
stringed
instruments.73
Howson advocated
a
peculiar arrangement
whereby
a
microphone
transmitter
diaphragm
is
placed
next to the
mechanically
activated
diaphragm,
which connects to the
string bridge.
The two
diaphragms
are connected with
a
spiral
spring,
which transfers the vibrations from the
bridge diaphragm
to the transmitter
diaphragm.
The vibrations from the
microphone diaphragm
would be transmitted
electrically
in the same
manner,
as would be the case in a
telephone
of
the
day.
The sound
quality
would
necessarily
have
been
poor,
due to there
being
too
many
mechanical
connections between the
bridge
and the
microphone
diaphragm.
In
particular,
the
spring
connection
between the two
diaphragms
would not transmit a
true vibration
-
there would be a
lag
and residual
vibrations would lead to a
very poor quality
in
vibration transmission.74
Howson's
electrically amplified phonofiddle,
although ultimately
not
successful,
would have
been
one of the earliest
examples
of an
electrically
amplified stringed
instrument. There had been
many
earlier instances of electrical activation
of musical
instruments,
but most were novelties
such as Edison's
talking doll,
for
instance,
or
the
automata
-
self-playing
musical instruments that
would have been activated
by
a coin in the slot and
were to be found at fairs and seaside resorts. There
were
many
such
self-playing
musical instruments
patented
around
1910, particularly
in
Germany.
Howson's
patent
has detailed illustrations of the
diaphragm
or
reproducer,
which afford
interesting
comparisons
with the Stroh violin
patent
diaphragm drawings.
The two
diaphragms
are
quite
different. This was Howson's own
adaptation
of a
gramophone reproducer
for use in a musical
instrument.
Perhaps George
Evans had been able
to use a similar
diaphragm
in his own
'Jap'
Fiddle
because Howson had never
registered
a
patent
for
his own Phonofiddle.
By 1925,
Howson had added the word
'phonofiddle'
to his
entry
in the Post Office London
Directory.
The
company
had become A.T.Howson
&
Son, by
1927.
Following
Howson's death in
November
1928,
the
company passed
into the
hands of his
son,
Thomas Moss Howson
(1899
1983),
musical instrument manufacturer.
By 1930,
A.T.Howson & Son were listed as 'Inventors and
sole manufacturers of "The Phonofiddle"'
as well as
being
'musical instrument manufacturers & dealers
72
A.
Tsumura, Banjos:
The Tsumura Collection
Harper
&
Row,
NY
1984, p.87.
73
Specifications
of
Inventions,
Vol. CXXXI
-
No.
26,143
-
A.D. 1913.
74
I am
grateful
to Peter
Lourey
for
clarifying
the content of this
patent
and for his comments
regarding
its
feasibility.
Mffl Fu/2
. b
'
h
LH!|h_T__J
r
r\
p
Figure
16.
A.T.Howson,
Patent No.
26143,
1913
for
electrical
amplification of stringed
instruments.
&
gramophone
& wireless
supplies
dealers...'75 The
association of musical instruments and
gramophone
parts
was not uncommon at the
time,
and was an
early
instance of the later common association of
the sale of musical instruments in the same store as
electrical
equipment.
Other
companies making
and
selling
both musical instruments and
gramophone
parts
included Rose Morris &
Co.,
the
Gramophone
Co.
Ltd.,
and the
English
Violin
Manufacturing
Co.
The last and final
listing
for 'A.T. Howson & Son'
was in
1934,
six
years
after A.T.Howson's death.
Thomas Moss Howson retired to Eastbourne and
died there in
1983,
at the
age
of 84.
Arthur Howson worked in the
Deptford/
Lewisham
area,
making, selling, inventing
and
repairing
musical instruments. The business itself
survived for
forty-four years,
from 1890 until 1934
and would have formed a
unique part
of local
commercial
enterprise.
Howson died in Forest
Hill,
South London not far from where he had worked
all his life. Arthur Howson's
brother,
Matthew
(1869-1952)
after
working
for A.T.Howson &
Son,
opened
his
own
business as a
musical instrument
repairer
in
Lewisham,
in 1935. The closure of his
repair
business in 1944 marked the end of over
fifty
years
of three
generations
of Howson involvement
with musical instruments in South London.
THE CELLO CORDO
-
AN AUSTRALIAN
HORNED FIDDLE
A
strong
Howson influence can
be seen in the
four-stringed
look-alike 'ukulele model Phono
Fiddle' found
quite by
chance in a
second hand
musical instrument
shop
in Melbourne.76 It has
a
transferred decal with the
following
text: 'Cello
Cordo
Rupert
Hazell Patent
applied
for'. Cut from
a
single piece
of
timber,
it is 66cm in
length.
The
'Cello Cordo' has six
pegs,
but
only
four
strings.
It has a
flat,
fretted
fingerboard
and a flat metal
bridge
connected to a
nickel-plated
sound box or
reproducer,
which in turn is attached to a fixed
metal
three-part
horn. The horn is nickel silver
with a
crudely
attached bell of aluminium. It
also has what
appears
to be a bow
guide
and is
played
in the same manner as a
one-string
fiddle
or a
Phonofiddle. The three
patents registered
for
this instrument
proved
to be an
excellent source of
information about the
maker, Rupert
Alexander
Hazell,
and the instrument itself.
(Figures 19,
20
and 21
showing general
views of the Cello Cordo
will be found in the colour
supplement.)
RUPERT ALEXANDER HAZELL
(1886
-
1958)
Rupert
Hazell was born into a
working
class
family
in East
Ham,
London in 1886.
By
the
age
of fourteen he was
working
as a clerk at the
Royal
Naval Stores.
By
the nineteen
twenties,
Hazell had
left his
position
there and was on
the
stage.
With his
wife,
Elsie
Day,
he became one of the
many
British
music hall entertainers who also
appeared
on the
Australian vaudeville circuit.
By
the
1930s,
Hazell
had returned to
London,
where his
comedy
routines
for the BBC included the
telling
of humorous tales
about life in the Australian bush.
Remarkably,
archival film
footage
survives
showing
Hazell
playing
a Howson
phonofiddle.77 Rupert
Hazell
died in
Hampstead
on
18
April
1958. His career
had coincided with the
dying years
of the music
hall;
he started as a vaudeville artist and
by
the end
of his
working
life he was a B.B.C. radio star.78
Hazell's first
patent,79
for a
'Musical instrument
of the
stringed type'
was
registered
in Australia
75
Post Office London
(1930),
317 New Cross
Road,
London SE4.
76
Instrument from the collection of
Roger Lewis,
Melbourne.
77
Film Archive of British Pathe can be found at:
www.britishpathe.com
78
Obituary
in The
Times, Monday April
21
1958, p.10.
79
Commonwealth of
Australia, Specifications
of Inventions 1925 Vol. 422 Patent no.
26,067/25 (1925).
118 The
-mix j. m M^t
<3F
.(?222229
jz?->rnev>raf
Figure
17. Hazell's American
patent (US
Patent
No.
1625538, 1927) for
the Cello Cordo. The
drawing
is identical to the Australian
patent drawing.
in 1925. An identical
patent
was
registered
in
America in
April
1927. The
drawings
for both
patents
are the same
(see Figure 17).
The Australian
specification gives
Hazell's address and
profession
as 'Tivoli
Theatre,
Bourke
Street, Melbourne,
in
the State of
Victoria,
Commonwealth of
Australia,
Musical Entertainer'.
Twenty years
after
George
Chirgwin
first
played
a Howson Phono
Fiddle,
we
find
Rupert Hazell,
also a
variety artist,
not
only
playing
the same
instrument,
but also
patenting
his
own version. The
shop
in which the Cello Cordo
was found is
just
a few hundred
yards
from the
Tivoli Theatre where Hazell
performed.
The Cello Cordo has much in common with
Howson's
instruments, particularly
the four
stringed
'ukulele model' Phono Fiddle. The
fingerboard
with seventeen
frets,
knee
grips,
detachable horn and
widely
flared horn bell and
a
bridge connecting
to the
stylus
are all features
common to both Hazell and Howson instruments.
Howson also made
phonofiddles
with
straight
stemmed horns
resembling
the Cello Cordo horn.
The main
point
of difference is Hazell's
'straight
edged bridge [which]
enables all
strings being
\
/
F*0.1.
Figure
18. Hazell's British
patent (British
Patent
No.
276416, 1927) for
the Cello Cordo.
bowed
simultaneously, thereby obtaining
chords...'
Hazell also
suggests
that the
bridge
could assume
'an
opposite angular
inclination' or 'a
very slight
curve' for an easier combination of chords and solo
lines. The
provision
of a detachable
bowing guide
is also
peculiar
to this
instrument,
to be removed
'when one becomes skilled in the
manipulation
of
the instrument...'.80 In
keeping
with the sentiments
of Howson's Phonofiddle
Tutor,
the Cello Cordo
'may
be handled
successfully by
one who is
quite
unskilled in the
usage
of
stringed
instruments and
in a
remarkably
short
space
of time
play
tunes
wholly
in
chords,
or in
part...'.
In almost
every aspect,
the Cello Cordo is
closely
related to Arthur Howson's
phonofiddles.
Hazell
has
not, however,
made reference to
'Jap' fiddles,
one-string
fiddles or used the term
'phonofiddle'
at
any point
in the Australian or American
patents.
In 1927
Rupert
Hazell
registered
his third
patent
for
'Improvements
in
Stringed
Musical Instruments'
in
England. Again,
the terms 'Cello Cordo' and
'phonofiddle'
do not
appear.
The
drawings
bear a
much closer resemblance to the instrument itself
than the
slightly
earlier Australian and American
patents. By
now,
Hazell was in
Sydney,
still
performing
on the Tivoli Theatre
circuit,
and has
this to add to his earlier
patents:
80
Australian Patent no.
26,067/25
Column 2.
Figure
22.
Rupert
Hazell.
Photograph from
British Pathe.
This invention... in which a sound
amplifier
horn
or other
amplifying
device is
employed
for
emitting
the sound... Instruments of this
type
are now known
under the name of ukulele'.81
Although
I have found no
record of Howson
using
the term
'ukulele',
this does
help
to make the
connection with the 'O. S. Hocuson Phono Fiddle
(Ukulele model)'
illustrated in Tsumura's
Banjos:
The Tsumura Collection. A
peculiarity
of the Cello
Cordo is that it had the
possibility
of six
strings,
having
six
tuners,
but it was set
up
with
only
four
strings.
The British
patent
refers to six
strings,
while
allowing
that 'In its
simplest
form the instrument
has four
strings
attached...' it was
suggested
that
new effects could be obtained
'by playing upon
three,
four or more
strings simultaneously.'82
The combination of six
strings
and a flat
bridge
would
probably
have been
unplayable,
so it is not
surprising
that the Cello Cordo does not
appear
to
have ever been set
up
with six
strings.
The rest of
this
patent
is
essentially
the same as the Australian
and American
ones,
with a more detailed account
of the
arrangement
of the
diaphragm.83 Again,
the
possibility
of an
angled bridge
is
explored
in detail.
For
example
an instrument
may
be constructed
having only
four
strings
all in one
plane,
or
the
bridge may
be of inverted
V-shape
so
that
three of the
strings
are in one
plane
and the
other three in a
plane
inclined at an
angle
to
l
the first. It is then
possible
to
play
on either
set of three
strings
in
harmony
or to
play
solos on the outermost
strings
or the
strings
nearest the middle
simultaneously.
Rupert
Hazell's invention was so
similar to the instruments made
by
A.T.Howson
twenty years
earlier that it
was
essentially
a
copy,
with
particular
reference to Howson's
four-stringed
'Ukulele model'
phonofiddle. Hazell,
did, however, completely
avoid
using
the
word
'Phonofiddle',
a term 'Coined and
registered by
A. T. Howson'.84 The new
features of Hazell's
instrument,
the flat
bridge
and the bow
guide,
rather than
constituting
an
improvement,
would
only
have served to make the instrument
less
playable. Rupert
Hazell's Cello
Cordo,
while at first
appearing
to have
been altered at some
time,
as it has four
strings
but six
tuning pegs,
is
probably,
in this
respect
at
least, exactly
as it was
at the time of manufacture.
What is
unique
about the Cello Cordo is not so
much its intrinsic value as a musical
instrument,
but the
way
in which the
patents clarify
the
intentions of both its inventor and his
model,
A.T.Howson. The
similarity, indeed,
the derivative
aspects
of the
patents give indirectly
a wider view
of Arthur Howson's own
phonofiddle,
and the
extraordinary relationship
to Howson's much
lesser known
instruments,
the
two-stringed
and
the
four-stringed phonofiddles.
It also
highlights
Howson's
importance
in the world of music hall.
That Hazell was familiar with Laura Howson's
phonofiddle
tutor is clear from the
way
in which
he
highlights
the value of the instrument to
beginners.
The connection of
phonofiddles
with
music hall and
variety
entertainment is
again
made
extraordinarily
immediate.
Rupert
Hazell must
stand alone in
being
the
only practicing
'musical
entertainer' to write in such detail about 'a new
musical
instrument',
one that
obviously
held an
important place
in his
professional
life.
The
phonofiddle,
invented around the turn of the
81
Provisional
specification, p. 1,
lines 6-10.
82
British
patent
GB
276416, page 2,
lines 69-84.
83
'...since the
diaphragm
is
exposed
at its inner face to the hollow interior of the
instrument,
vibrations
may
be
imparted
not
only by
the direct connection to the
bridge
but also
by
the
body
of the instrument itself and the sound
vibrations
resulting
there-from in the hollow
body.'
84
Back
cover,
Howson's Phonofiddle
Tutor,
1916 edition.
120 The
century,
had a brief but
interesting
life in the world
of music hall and vaudeville.
Despite
its
relatively
recent
invention,
the
story
of this instrument had
slipped
out of view
leaving
little trace. Hazell's
instrument and his
patents
have
helped
to
bring
to life
again
this
intriguing
instrument and its
history.
THE TIEBEL VIOLIN
Many patents
for horned
string
instruments were
registered
in the first half of the twentieth
century.
Unfortunately very
few extant
examples
of these
instruments survive
today.
One such survivor is
an instrument
patented by
Claudet &
Co.,85
in
both Switzerland and
France,
and the
other,
of
which several
examples
survive both in
Europe
and
Australia,
is the instrument
patented by Willy
Tiebel in October 1928 in
Markneukirchen,
a
centre of musical instrument
production
in
Saxony,
east
Germany.
The Tiebel was a close
copy
of the Stroh
violin,
somewhat
lighter
in
weight,
characterized
by
a
rectangular post,
rather than the distinctive round
post
of the Stroh
violin,
with
a
horn of
spun
aluminum. There are some
significant
differences
in the
way
the oscillations from the
bridge
are
transferred to the
diaphragm.
The
bridge
sits on
a
heart-shaped
aluminium
'ring',
which
completely
surrounds the
post.
It is connected to the
diaphragm by
a metal
pin,
in a similar
fashion to the Stroh violin connection.
The Stroh violin has
just
one
curved lever
connecting
the
bridge
to the
diaphragm,
rx___,
and the
design
is
ingenious
in the manner
nr^~r
in which oscillations are
transferred,
*r?~"
allowing great
freedom of movement with A
very
little direct
pressure
transferred to the \\
diaphragm.86
The
diaphragms
of both the
Stroh and the Tiebel violin are of a similar
size and
shape.
The Tiebel uses the same
knife-edge rocking
lever
system
as the
early
Stroh
violins,
and
although
the violin
playing parts
are well
made,
the
diaphragm
casing
is not well
designed
and it therefore
lacks the volume of the Stroh violin. Tiebel
made some instruments with an additional
monitor horn attached
directly
to the
base of the main horn. The better
quality
Stroh violins have a monitor horn mounted on the
diaphragm casing,
which can be rotated to direct
the sound to the
player's
ear.
Willy
Tiebel would have been familiar with the
Stroh instruments used for orchestral
recording
in
the
early part
of the
century
in
Germany
and the
Stroh
patents, registered
in Austria and in
Germany
in 1900. His
design
was
sufficiently
different to
enable him to
register
his
own
patent. (Figures
24
and 25 in the colour
supplement
show two views of
the Tiebel
instrument.)
THE VIOARA CU GOARNA87
The Romanian
musicologist,
Tiberiu
Alexandru,
writing
in
1980,
had this to
say
about the vioara
cu
goarna:
During
the inter-war
period
a curious kind of violin
began
to
spread
in the
country,
with a metal
horn,
or even
two,
instead of a sound
box,
with its
bridge
supported
on a mica
membrane...Originally
it was a
factory-made
instrument
(the
'Tiebel-Radio
system
violin')
like the Stroh violin in
England
and America
which the lautari
[village musicians]
call vioara cu
goarna,
or vioara cu
corn,
or lauta cu telcer
(bugle
fiddle,
horn
fiddle). By 1980, villagers
were
making
the instrument for themselves.88
The vioara cu
goarna
is still
played today
in the
Bihor
county
of
Transylvania,
a
region
of Romania.
Transylvania
is an
ethnically
diverse
region
with
Figure
23. TiebeVs German
patent,
1928.
85
See
Appendix
for
patent.
86
See
figure
9 of the
drawings
from the Patent No.
9418, GB,
1899.
87
Museum of the Romanian Peasant
http://www.virtualmuseum.ca/Exhibitions/Instruments/Anglais/mpr_c_
txt04_en.html
The
Ethnographical
Museum
(Neprajzi Muzeum), Budapest,
also has a vioara cu
goarna
in their
collection but do not
regard
it as a
Hungarian
folk instrument.
88
Tiberiu
Alexandru,
Romanian Folk Music
(translated by
Constantin
Stihi-Boos,
translation revised
by
A.L.
Lloyd),
Musical
Publishing House, Bucharest, 1980, p.105.
Rabinovici?Stroh Violin 121
both Romanian and
Hungarian populations
but it
is the Romanians who
firmly
claim this instrument
as their own. The instrument is also known in
Hungarian
as
'Higheghe'
or 'Tolcseres
Hegedu\
The
repertoire
of the vioara cu
goarna
is
part
of the
ethno-musicological
treasure of the
region. Played
both
by gypsy
fiddlers and
by
the
perhaps
more
formally
trained musicians from the small
towns,
such as the Rada
family, many
older Romanians
have memories of
hearing
the vioara cu
goarna
played
around
railway
stations and
public places.
(Figures
26 and 27 in the colour
supplement
show
two views of the
Transylvanian fiddle,
vioara cu
goarna.)
The vioara cu
goarna
is rather
lighter
and
smaller than the Stroh
violin,
with a smaller
diaphragm
and a
correspondingly
narrower horn.
Less
sturdily
attached to the
diaphragm,
the horn
is
supported by
a cross-arm
connecting
with the
body just
below the neck. The
diaphragm
itself is
set into the wooden
body
of the instrument. The
bridge
of the vioara cu
goarna
has one foot on a
metal
pin
attached to the
belly,
and the other foot
sits on a rather
larger
metal
pin,
which connects
directly
with the
reproducer,
or
diaphragm.
It
is,
of
course,
easier to make and less
fragile
than
a
conventional
violin,
and as one would
expect
of a
cottage industry,
it can be found in several different
forms,
one of the more unusual
being
that made
by
Dumitru
Vranceanu,
a
peasant
musician from the
Bihor
region.
His instrument does not
entirely
lack
a
body,
but has the lower bouts of nickel
tin,
made
from his own moulds and soldered
together.89
This
journey began
with the intention of
investigating
the
emergence
of the vioara cu
goarna
in
Transylvania,
and
perhaps
of
finding
closer and
more detailed connections with its
ancestor,
the
Stroh violin. The search led to other
unexpected
and
fascinating discoveries,
but
just
how the idea of the
horned fiddle reached
Transylvania
still remains a
subject
for further
investigation.
One could assume
that Stroh violins were available in the cities of
Central and Eastern
Europe and, somehow,
the
idea of a
horned, mechanically amplified
fiddle90
filtered
through
to a remote corner of the former
Austro-Hungarian Empire.
What can be added to
that is to note the further connection with the
'Jap'
fiddle and the
phonofiddle.
All three instruments
have
a
gramophone-like
sound
box,
set into the
body
of the
instrument, making
it
likely
that these
instruments all came from the same source. It
may
well have been the
export
of
George
Evans'
Stroviols
instruments, 'Jap'
Fiddles
included,
that
led to the
appearance
of the vioara cu
goarna.
Its
continued
use in
Transylvania
was a
consequence
of a
way
a life in
villages
that
changed
little over
the
years
and where traditional musical structures
remained an
integral part
of
village
tradition and
identity.
It
provided
a
simple
means of
amplification
for the
fiddle,
a traditional folk instrument
and one with a
long-standing repertoire.
The
'laurtari'
or
village
musicians were
often virtuosic
players
who would not have found a use for the
single-string phonofiddle,
with its technical and
musical limitations. The
adoption
of
phonofiddle
amplification
served its
purpose.
The Stroh violin made a remarkable and
fascinating journey. Starting
life as a
musical
instrument at the
cutting edge
of Victorian
technology,
it was
peculiarly representative
of some
of the more
imaginative
and
strange
inventions
of the Victorian
age.
After a brief
'golden age'
it
was soon made obsolete
by
new
developments
in
recording technology, yet
it also found a new
validity
and
vitality
in the music halls of
London,
strikingly
illustrated in
Evelyn
Barton's
patent
for
the Stroh violin 'intended for use in the music hall'.
Howson's
phonofiddle,
a more
peculiar
offshoot
of the
Stroh,
was
primarily
an instrument for the
working
classes and the music hall. As a 'radio'
instrument,
the Stroh violin
appeared
in Switzerland
in the form of Claudet & Co.'s
'violiphone'
and in
Germany
as an invention of
Willy
Tiebel.
Finally
it maintains a continued musical
validity today
in
the form of the 'vioara cu
guarna',
Romania's own
folk 'horned
fiddle',
an instrument that is
part
of an
unbroken tradition in
Transylvania
from the time
of its introduction. The Stroh violin itself continues
to be used in folk
music,
both in
Australia,
the
United States and
Europe.91
In an
age
of
digital
and
electronic
music,
the
peculiar
mechanical and tonal
characteristics of the Stroh violin are
coming
to life
again
in the field of
experimental composition
and
contemporary composition
and
performance.92
89
'Mastile si viorile lui Mos Tach fac
inconjurul
lumii' in
Curentul,
New
Series,
No. 305
91276),
29
December,
2001.
90
I came across a
(fairly unlikely) suggestion
that the instrument was first
played by
a folk ensemble from
Chechnya
in 1953 as a
normal violin with a
gramophone
attached and that the addition of a horn and the
modification of the
body
was the idea of a Romanian from Oradea
(Capital
of
Bihor).
91
Marcus Holden
(Australia),
Piotr
Sapejta (France),
Marcel
Stefanet,
Moldova.
92
Hugh
S. Davies
(England), Jon
Rose
(Australia, Germany),
Aleksander Kolkowski
(England, Germany),
TomWaites(USA).
122 The
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
My
sincere thanks
go
to Paul Davies for the loan
of the Tiebel
violin, John
Ferwerda for the loan
of the Stroviols
'Jap' fiddle, Roger Lewis,
owner
of the Cello Cordo and
my brother,
Andrew
Bottomley, who,
when
looking
for a Stroh
violin,
found the Cello Cordo instead. Thank
you
also
to
Tony Bingham
for the
catalogue images.
I
am most
grateful
to Dr. Robert Horvarth of the
University
of Melbourne and
Morfydd Campbell,
who both read
preliminary
drafts of this
paper
and made valuable
suggestions.
To
my husband,
Dan,
I am ever
grateful
for
introducing
me to the
mysteries
and
delights
of on-line databases. I owe
an enormous debt of
gratitude
to
Cary
Clements
who shared with such
generosity
his own research
materials. To Aleksander
Kolkowski,
I owe an
equally large
debt of
gratitude
for a critical
reading
of the
text,
for
many
valuable
suggestions,
and
for clarification of much technical detail. Aleks's
knowledge
of
instruments,
which I have
not,
at
the time of
writing,
had the
opportunity
to
study
first
hand,
was
invaluable,
as was time
spent
in
the British
Library
on
my
behalf. Thanks are due
also to Dr E.
Bradley Strauchen, Deputy Keeper
of
Musical Instruments at the Horniman
Museum,
and
Tracy Howard, great granddaughter
of A.T.
and L.E.Howson
APPENDIX A
Augustus
Stroh's
published papers:
William H. Preece and
Augustus Stroh,
'Studies
in Acoustics. I. On the
Synthetic
Examination of
Vowel Sounds'
Proceedings of
the
Royal Society of
London, Vol.28, (1878-1879),
27
February 1879,
pp.358-367.
Augustus Stroh,
'On the Adhesion of Metals
Produced
by
Currents of
Electricity', Journal of
the
Society of Telegraph Engineers, Vol.IX, 1880,
pp.182-191.
Augustus Stroh,
'On Attraction and
Repulsion
Due
to Sonorous
Vibrations,
and a
Comparison
of the
Phenomena with Those of
Magnetism' Journal of
the
Society of Telegraph Engineers, Vol.??,
27
April
1882,pp.l92-228.
Augustus Stroh,
'On
a New Form of
Stereoscope',
Proceedings of
the
Royal Society of London, Vol.40,
1
April, 1886, pp.317-319.
APPENDIX B
Horned
String
Instruments
-
Measurements
Stroviols
one-stringed 'Jap'
fiddle:
Length:
875mm
Depth:
100mm
Width: 110mm
Fingerboard
width: 22mm
Fingerboard length:
545mm
Sounding length
of
String:
630mm
Diameter of horn: 185mm
The Horniman Museum Howson Phonofiddle
(This
instrument
appears
to be Model 1 in the
Rose,
Morris & Co. Ltd.
Catalogue, 1931,
in
Julian Pilling,
'Fiddles with
Horns',
with the
exception
of the
horn,
which is
copper,
rather
than
brass.)
Overall measurements at
largest points:
Length:
820mm
Depth:
150mm
Width: 390mm
Sounding length
of
string:
750mm
Howson
two-stringed
Phonofiddle
Length:
685mm
Depth: body
10mm
Width: knee
grip
10mm
Fingerboard
width: 23mm
Sounding length
of
string:
445mm
R. A. Hazell Cello Cordo
Total
length:
660mm
Fingerboard length:
330mm
Fingerboard
width: 44mm
For APPENDIX C see next
page
APPENDIX C
Patents
-
all
patents
with the
exception
of those marked
*
can be found on the
European
Patents Office
website at
www.esp@cenet.com
Column A is the date of
application,
and column B the date of
acceptance.
A B
NUMBER_PATENT_
1869
*
GB 3028
J.M.A.
Stroh
-
'Improvements
on
Electro-Magnetic Clocks,
Part of which
Improvements
are
Applicable
to Mechanical Clocks'.
1870 GB 2897 C. Wheatstone and
J.M.A.
Stroh
-
'Improvements
in Fast
Speed
Electro
Magnetic Telegraphs,
and in
Apparatus Relating
Thereto'.
1871 GB 2172 C. Wheatstone and
J.M.A.
Stroh
-
'Improvements
in
Electro-Magnetic
Telegraph Apparatus'. (Provisional Specification only)
1872
*
GB 39 C. Wheatstone with
J.M.A.
Stroh
-
'Improvements
in Musical instruments in
which
Vibrating Tongues
acted
upon by
Air are
Employed'.
1872 1872
*
GB 473 C.
Wheatstone, J.M.A.
Stroh
-
'Improvements
in
Electro-Magnetic Telegraphs
and in
Apparatus
connected therewith...'.
1877 1877
*
GB 4133
J.M.A.
Stroh
-
'Regulating
the
Speed
of Clockwork for
Telegraphic
and other
Purposes'.
1896 1897 GB 17103 Edison Bell
Phonograph Corporation Limited,
and
Augustus
Stroh
-
'Improvements
in or
applicable
to
Phonographs'.
1899 1900 GB 9418
J.M.A.
Stroh
-
'Improvements
in Violins and other
Stringed
Instruments'.
1899 1900 US 644695
J.M.A.
Stroh
-
'Violin or other
Stringed
Instrument'._
1900 1901 AT 3436
J.M.A.
Stroh
-
'Saiteninstrument mit Schalltrichter zur
Verstarkung
der Tone'.
1900 1900
*
DE
J.M.A.
Stroh
-
'Saiteninstrument'.
1125481405
1901 1901 GB 3393 Stroh
-
'Improvement
in the
Diaphragms
of
Phonographs,
Musical
Instruments,
and
analogous Sound-producing Recording
or
Transmitting
Contrivances'.
1909 1909 GB 7961
J.M. Gray
-
'Improvements relating
to Violins or similar
Stringed
Musical
Instruments'.
1913 1914 GB 26143 A.T. Howson
-
'Improvements
in or Connected with
Phonofiddles,
Violins and
other
Stringed
Musical Instruments'.
1913 1913 GB 2565 L.E. Howson
-
'Improvements
in Knife-boards'.
1915 1915 GB 422 W.
Thompson
and A.T. Howson
-
'Improvements
in Means for
Opening
Envelopes', (provisional specification)
1921 1922 GB 189321
Evelyn
Barton
-
'Improvement relating
to
Stringed
(provisional specification)
1925
*
AUSTRALIA R.A. Hazell
-
'Musical Instrument of the
Stringed Type'.
_26,067/25_
1926 1927 US 1625538 R.A. Hazell
-
'Musical Instrument of the
Stringed Type'.
1926 1927 GB 276416 R.A. Hazell
-
'Improvements
in
Stringed
1925 1928 DE 467709
Willy
Tiebel in
Markneukirchen,
Sa.
-
'Saiteninstrument'.
1926 1927 CH 118019 Claudet 6c Co. Vufflens-laVille
(Schweiz)
-
'Streichinstrument'._
1926 1927 FR 617080 Claudet & Co.
-
'Instrument a cordes'.
(violiphone)
1927 1928 GB 294806
J. Dopyera
-
'Improvements
in
Stringed
1927 1930 DE 507102
J. Dopyera
-
'Saiteninstrument'._
220 The
Augustus
Stroh's
Phonographic
Violin
-
Alison Rabinovici
il!___K y' _____i
Figure
7. A Stroh violin
fitted
with both
large
horn and small horn.
Photograph
? Aleksander Kolkowski.
Colour
Supplement
221
Augustus
Stroh's
Phonographic
Violin
-
Alison Rabinovici
9|________________________S?lii_H
^
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.
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Figures 9,
10 and 11. T/?ree views
of
a
Îff^^^ffiwB
,SYro/;
7^7// fiddle, from
the collection
of
l_i^^^_i__ii^^^^^^^^^^^^^H^__^_î_fi
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Ferwerda. Photo with
permission.
flHHgHB^9B9H|^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^H
^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^^p^^^^
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222 The
Augustus
Stroh's
Phonographic
Violin
-
Alison Rabinovici
R.A. Hazell's Cello Cordo.
^ ^ ^ ^ ^ flP^BH ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^
HS
from
the collection
of Roger
Lewis,
^^^^^^^^^^^ÊtiiÊ_.^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ÎB
Melbourne. Photo
by Roger
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-
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Colour
Supplement
223
Augustus
Stroh's
Phonographic
Violin
-
Alison Rabinovici
Ml ll\Wlkib> "JM^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^Hl
...
Ûm^^^mmattl^^^ ^^^mmmmmmmmmmmmm^mmmm^^^mmmmmmmm
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Figures
24 and 25. Two views
of
the Tiebel instrument.
From the collection
of
Paul
Davies,
Castlemaine. Photo
by
kind
permission.
224 The
Augustus
Stroh's
Phonographic
Violin
-
Alison Rabinovici
aBBBBBBBBBBBBBBMHHBMBm^^
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Figures
26 and 27. Two views
of
the 'vioara cu
goarna*
or
horned
fiddle.
Instrument
from
the collection
of Cary
Clements. Photo
by Gary
Clements.

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