German makers of mechanical musical instruments. Samuel Bidermann (i) (b Ulm, c1540: d Augsburg, 7 Dec 1622) and his eldest son David (1582/3–1622) learnt the art of ‘barrel-pinning’ from the composer and organist H.L. Hassler, who built mechanical instruments as a side-line. They were also influenced by the organist Erasmus Mayr of Augsburg, who had examined the water organ at the Villa d'Este in Tivoli in 1576. While other Augsburg makers, such as Marx Günzer and Achilles Langenbucher, produced mainly automatic organs, Bidermann specialized in automatic spinets besides building small and large organs. Examples survive in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, the National Museum, Wrocław, and in the Mathematisch-Physikalischer Salon des Zwingers in Dresden. These instruments may be played either from the keyboard or by a clockwork-driven pinned barrel contained in the cabinet. The business was continued after Samuel Bidermann's death by his other sons, Samuel Bidermann (ii) (b Augsburg, c1600; d c1653) and Daniel Bidermann (b Augsburg, 1602–3; d Augsburg, 14 Feb 1663). Samuel Bidermann (ii) had previously worked as a journeyman with the cabinetmaker Konrad Eisenburger, and set up his own establishment in 1633. An automatic spinet by him is in the Rück Collection at the Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg.
Automatic spinets by all members of the Bidermann family occasionally were built into pieces of furniture (such as writing and sewing tables and ornate cabinets). An instrument combining a musical clock with a clockwork spinet, pipe organ and automaton parade is in the Time Museum, Rockford, Illinois. It bears the Augsburg cabinetmakers' marks and suggests that it is the result of a collaboration between the Bidermann family, the Langenbuchers and Eisenburger. However, for many years the Bidermanns and the Langenbuchers were locked in futile legal disputes. When Mersenne (Harmonie universelle, Paris, 1636–7/R) described the automatic spinet as a German invention he may well have had Bidermann instruments in mind.
P. Nettl: ‘Ein spielender Klavier-Automat’, ZMw, ii (1919–20), 523–34
J. Schlosser: Kunsthistorisches Museum in Wien, Publikationen aus den Sammlungen für Plastik und Kunstgewerbe, iii (Vienna, 1920)
M. Schneider: Seltene Musikinstrumente (Breslau, 1928)
A. Protz: Mechanische Musikinstrumente (Kassel, 1939)
E. Groiss: ‘Automatophone Musik: der Rechtstreit Bidermann-Langenbucher [über die Erfindung selbstschlagender Musikwerke in Augsburg]’, Die Welt als Uhr: deutsche Uhren und Automaten, 1550–1650, ed. K. Maurice and O. Mayr (Munich, 1980), 127–32; Eng. trans. in The Clockwork Universe (Washington DC and New York, 1980), 125–30 [exhibition catalogues]
HANS KLOTZ/ARTHUR W.J.G. ORD-HUME