Musical Freaks: The Horn Violin

I believe in ghosts
because I've seen them.
With a light shining behind
they are barely visible as 
transparent phantoms
with strange shadowy features.

They do not speak,
but some of these supernatural beings
do have musical talent and
can play instruments
that we cannot hear. 

Today I present a story
about two of these musical ghosts
preserved on glass negatives
with their unearthly instrument,
the Violinophone
or the Horn Violin.

But first I must summon the digital fairies
to do their magic and restore the ghosts
into their mortal forms.


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My first spirit is a young man dressed in formal white tie and tailcoat. He stands in a photographer's studio playing a violin that appears to have a brass horn bell attached to the chin rest. He gazes into the camera lens with a faint hint of a smile.

Most of the instrument is clearly a violin with its familiar curvaceous body, fingerboard, scroll, and of course, bow and strings, too. But above the man's head is a flared bell of a brass instrument very similar to the diameter of a horn, roughly 12 inches, which is larger than bells of trombones or trumpets. When I first encountered these ghostly glass negatives listed on eBay I recognized that the musician holds an uncommon instrument which I only knew from books on the history of obscure musical instruments. It was a hybrid instrument designed to solve an acoustic problem of the early days of sound recording. 

Sir Edward Elgar in a recording session
with members or the London Symphony Orchestra in 1914
Source: Centre for the History and Analysis of Recorded Music

The first recording studios did not use microphones, which had not been invented yet, but instead relied on the acoustic energy of sound waves funneled into huge megaphones that transmitted sonic vibrations into a needle that then recorded the music onto a wax cylinder or disc. This was an age of low fidelity recordings that captured only a portion of the full sonic spectrum. In order to record an orchestra since brass instruments were the loudest they were positioned at the back of the studio, with French horn players facing backward with their bells turned toward the megaphone. Woodwind instruments were closer but players had to raise their bells for solo passages. String instruments inherently make a diffuse sound so these players were seated closest to the recording megaphone. The nuance of concert hall dynamics were generally ignored and instead musicians just played loud and louder. 

Edison Recording Studio, New York, NY 1916
Source: Wikimedia

Reproducing a proper musical instrument sound was a major challenge in the first era of recording when only mechanical machines were available for picking up acoustic waves. It was not until the advent of electronic  technology in the mid-1920s that more sensitive devices could register the full tones of music and voices. But in prior decades many inventors created a different kind of violin that used simple physics to give a violin a bigger dynamic range.

Jar Krumphans Resophonic Violin, c. 1900
Source: Retrofret.com 

The clever solution was to graft a metal horn bell onto a violin which would amplify the string sound and gave it a more directional sonority like a brass instrument. The horn-violin instrument above was made in Prague in the 1900s, then part of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, and called a Resophonic Violin or a Violinophone. Its construction is very similar to the instrument in my first ghost photo. The conical bell tubing is connected to a metal resonator under a traditional violin bridge that receives the strings' vibrations. Notice that like most band instruments the bell has a lyre for sheet music. Maybe this instrument was intended for use in a marching band? 

My second phantom musician is also in formal wear and in a photographer's studio. He stands on a fur carpet with his eyes closed, passionately playing a standard violin. But resting on a small table next to him is another Violinophone with a large bell. I can't say that the two musicians are the same man. They are roughly the same height (measured by the length of their violin bows) and they share a similar facial structure, but the similarities are not entirely convincing for me. However the instrument does look the same, though with the bell twisted over to the left, perhaps in order to balance it on the tabletop.   

My ghost violinists were preserved on the most fragile of photographic ephemera, thin glass plate negatives, roughly 4¼" x 3¼". Where the photos were taken is unknown but I have a hunch they are European in origin and date from around 1910-1920. How they survived is another matter as negatives are delicate vessels that contain the camera lens' original light. I believe they likely came from a photographer's studio, as only a photographer would save negatives for posterity.

Violinophone built by Klaus Eberle, c. 2020
Source: Wikipedia

The horn-violin instrument is perhaps better known as a Stroh Violin, an instrument patented in London in 1899 by Johannes Matthias Augustus Stroh, an electrical engineer from Frankfurt, Germany. His design was successfully manufactured by George Evans & Co. from 1909–1942. 

two views of a Stroh Violin
Source: Wikipedia

The bell is smaller and affixed to a minimal violin "stick" just stout enough to withstand the string tension but without the regular violin body. It resembles a modern electric violin but here the sound is amplified by simple acoustic principles that send the sound vibrations through the bridge to a small resonator disc, not unlike the disc on an early wind-up gramophone, and then out through the bell. 

The Strand Magazine
February 1902

The Stroh was featured in magazines as a modern scientific improvement on the old luthier craftsmanship. The bell was patterned after the cornet, the premier solo wind instrument of the time, and made from aluminum, which was then a new material which did not yet have the connotations of cheapness it does now. At the time it was not an inexpensive instrument as it sold for 4 to 6 times the price for a good factory-made violin. It was first marketed to professional violinists to use in theaters and music halls which had limited space for a large string section. Eventually the idea of adding a horn amplifier to a string instrument was incorporated with the viola, cello, double bass, ukulele, mandolin, and guitar. 

The Violinist, January 1912

The Stroh Violin was introduced to American musicians a few years later and used by the Victrola Company in its recordings. In 1912 a Texas violin teacher, Mr. Conway Shaw, promoted the instrument to The Violinist, a leading American music magazine. He claimed that "one Stroh had the volume of 10 or 11 ordinary violins; so that two of them for each part, as against the usual number of wind instruments, gave the proper balance, and could be placed to take a good record." The reporter agreed that the Stroh violin made a stronger sound but he was not so impressed that it would replace the traditional violin.

St. Johns AZ Herald
25 May 1901

In an Arizona newspaper article from May 1901 it was reported that a Swedish-American inventor, Alex Lundgren, had created his version of a hybrid horn violin that he called a "violo-horn." Mr. Lungren, who worked in the "marqueterie" (decorative wood inlay) department of the Pullman railcar company in Pullman, Illinois had been inspired after listening to a violin and horn duet to combine the two instruments. He had shown his instrument to a few friends in Chicago and expected to have it placed on the market soon. The illustration with the article shows an instrument with a horn similar to the one in my photos. Unfortunately there was not enough description to know if the horn part of the "violo-horn" came with a a mouthpiece.

Recording session at Victor Records studio
Source: Centre for the History and Analysis of Recorded Music

In this undated photo of another early recording studio at Victor Record Company we can see another arrangement of a small orchestra around the recording megaphone. A single cellist is seated on a table bench practically on top of the violins. The nearest violinist and two at back center are playing Stroh violins. 

Stroh violin at the Museu de la Música de Barcelona
Source: Wikipedia

There is no longer a need for the Stroh violin in recording studios. With modern sound engineering a few instruments can now be easily multiplied into 101 strings. But the horn violin is still played in the traditional music of Transylvania and the Romani people. Their folk instrument takes the simple construction of the Stroh violin and adds their own handicraft ideas.

Closeup of Romanian Stroh type violin bridge and diaphragm resonator
Source: Wikipedia 

Here is a short video of a busker playing a Romanian style horn-violin. He was filmed on a street in Perth, Perthshire, Scotland. Notice how despite lacking a violin's wooden body the instrument's bell amplifies the string sound very much as a trumpet's bell does for a player's lip vibrations. But without the need for a spit-valve. 

I could only find one video of someone playing an instrument like the Violinophone in my two photos. The performance is of the Originální Pražský Synkopický Orchestr from a concert in Prague's Blues Cellar on 26 May 2098. The musician on violinophone is Jan Šimůnek. His solo begins about 1:10 into the video. 

Notice how the bell is twisted around and above his head, not unlike a bass helicon or sousaphone. I wonder if someone has tried melding a tuba with a double bass. That kind of hybrid would make a monster Steampunk Franken-instrument!  

This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday

where mother's stories are always best.