(Fr. boîte à musique; Ger. Spieldose; It. scatola armonica; Sp. caja de música).
A Mechanical instrument in which tuned steel prongs (lamellae) are made to vibrate by contact with moving parts driven by a clockwork mechanism. Probably several French, German and Swiss watch-makers discovered that tuned steel strips could replace flat bells in musical watches (see Musical clock); but it was their application in 1796 by Antoine Favre of Geneva that started the development of larger brass cylinders with steel pins playing, firstly, a line of separate tuned teeth, and, later, a one-piece tuned steel comb (see Mechanical instrument, fig.3), with the essential refinement of steel dampers. Small musical movements were first made in quantity for snuff-boxes (Fr. tabatières) and were known by the French term. Similarly, large movements, known as cartels, took their name from the wall and bracket clocks for which they were first made. These two descriptive names replaced the early term carillons à musique.
By about 1825 the musical box was well established in its standard form, with combs having as many as 250 teeth covering a range of about six octaves, and generally tuned to an unequal temperament. Cylinder sizes ranged from those designed for snuff-box miniatures (less than 10 mm in diameter) through the common type with diameters of 54 mm, playing one minute per tune, to 100 mm and sometimes even larger, giving playing times of three minutes per tune. Cylinder lengths range from as little as 20 mm to more than 500 mm; a typical good quality box playing eight airs of one minute each with a comb of 96 teeth would have a cylinder of 330 mm. Those with larger diameters were often pinned to play operatic overtures; the tune arrangers became very accomplished, and most effects in an orchestral score were skilfully imitated.
Musical box manufacture grew up mainly in Switzerland (particularly in the Geneva to St Croix region), long famous for precision horology; makers who soon became renowned include Brémond, Ducommun Girod, Junod, Langdorff, Lecoultre, Mermod, Nicole and Paillard. Those working elsewhere included such makers as Rebícek in Prague, Olbrich in Vienna and L’Epée near Montbéliard in France. L’Epée also produced the ‘manivelle’, a small hand-cranked musical box for children, generally with tinplate body and playing only one tune.
The combined technical and musical skills of these makers led to various refinements and additions. These included the Mandolin, in which the comb had groups of up to eight teeth tuned to the same pitch and capable of being sounded in rapid succession like a mandolin or for sustained note effect; the Piccolo, in which the comb had additional treble teeth to decorate the melody; and the Forte-Piano, which had a second, shorter comb to permit better dynamic contrast. In 1874 Paillard patented the Sublime Harmonie, which had two or more combs with teeth tuned to within about 4 Hz of the same pitch and thus offering both a beat effect and different harmonics which together enhance the performance. The harp-like accompaniment of the Harp Eolienne was effected by a short second comb with a tissue-paper ‘zither’ below (such tissue rolls could also be applied above the comb). Tuned bells (three to 12), drum (with vellum or brass head, normally with eight strikers) and castanet (hollow wooden block with six or eight strikers) were occasionally added, generally with separate provision to disconnect them. These were operated from untuned teeth on additional combs, which meant longer cylinders or fewer tunes or fewer notes. In the organ attachment, paired reeds (12 to 30) were fitted, tuned to differ in frequency by about 8 Hz, giving the beat effect described as ‘Flûte voix célestes’. Only the bells and organ were generally regarded as attractive additions.
Most manufacturers produced most of these varieties under numerous descriptive names (e.g. Flutina, Harpe Harmonique, Expression Extra, Symphonie) that appeared on the tune sheets. But of the thousands of cylinder musical boxes (Nicole Frères alone made about 50,000), the vast majority were of the unadorned single-comb type. Besides sacred and popular music, arias and overtures from most operas popular between 1830 and 1890 were faithfully reproduced.
The small, plain cases of early musical boxes gave way about 1840 to cases of high quality, the lid and front embellished with fine marquetry and sometimes metal and mother-of-pearl inlays. Larger cases also improved the radiation efficiency of the bass notes. Lever winding displaced the separate winding keys about 1860. Longer playing time for one winding was provided on some boxes by double and occasionally quadruple springs. Longer compositions were usually handled by allowing them two or more turns of the cylinder; other devices invented for continuous long-playing were too complex for commercial success.
The basic shortcoming of the cylinder musical box was its limitation to the tunes on its one cylinder. The introduction of interchangeable cylinders left two remaining problems: vulnerability of the comb teeth during the change, and storage of spare cylinders. The latter was sometimes solved by building the box into a piece of furniture with storage drawers. Continued experiments to replace the cylinder by a simple steel disc with projections or slots to play one tune succeeded in about 1889 when Paul Lochmann set up his Symphonion factory in Leipzig. Soon two of his staff left and set up the rival Polyphon factory, also in Leipzig, and in 1892 they started production in New Jersey, USA, under the name Regina. Mermod and other Swiss manufacturers joined in, and by about 1900 disc machines were available in tremendous numbers and varieties, with discs up to 850 mm in diameter and including such effects as Sublime Harmonie and bells. Slot machines were made for use in public places, some fitted with automatic disc change. The disc machines were mostly mass-produced; their almost unlimited tune variety resulted in their soon eclipsing the cylinder musical box, being themselves duly eclipsed by the gramophone.
Manufacture of musical boxes survived to a limited degree in Switzerland and a strong revival of interest from the 1950s onward prompted the growth of a new industry in Japan and the USA.
For further illustration, see Mechanical instrument, fig.5; see also Bird instruments, §2.
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M.M. Curtis: The Story of Snuff and Snuff Boxes (New York, 1935)
R. Mosoriak: The Curious History of Music Boxes (Chicago, 1943)
J.E.T. Clark: Musical Boxes: a History and an Appreciation (Birmingham, 1948, 3/1961)
A. Chapuis and others: Histoire de la boîte à musique et de la musique mécanique (Lausanne, 1955; Eng. trans., 1980)
A. Buchner: Hudební automaty (Prague, 1959; Eng. trans., 1959/R, as Mechanical Musical Instruments)
F. Baud and others: Au temps des boîtes à musique (Lausanne, 1970)
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R. Maas and J. van Witteloostuijn: Muziek uit stekels en gaten (Buren, 1984)
H.A.V. Bulleid: Cylinder Musical Box Design and Repair (New York, 1987)
H.A.V. Bulleid: Cylinder Musical Box Technology (New York, 1994)
A.W.J.G. Ord-Hume: ‘Celebrating Two Hundred Years of Antoine Favre’, Mechanical Music, xliii (1996), 2–12
A.W.J.G. Ord-Hume: The Musical Box (Atgelen, PA, 1996)
J.-C. Piguet: Les faiseurs de musiques (Sainte-Croix, Switzerland, 1996)
H.A.V. BULLEID