Sphärophon
An early electronic musical instrument by Jörg Mager from the 1920s.
What it means
The Sphärophon is an early electronic musical instrument developed by the German inventor Jörg Mager in the 1920s. It generated tones electronically by vacuum tube and, unlike most keyboard instruments of the time, allowed continuous gliding between pitches.
The name deliberately alludes to the ancient idea of the music of the spheres, the cosmic harmony of the celestial bodies.
Musical use
Mager was especially interested in microtonality, that is, pitch gradations beyond the twelve-step tempered system, and saw the Sphärophon as a tool for making such in-between tones practically playable. This places the instrument within the early history of electronic music, alongside instruments such as the theremin and the trautonium.
The spread and lasting influence of the Sphärophon remained limited; unlike the theremin it did not become established as a well-known concert or film-music instrument, and only a few examples are documented today.
The Sphärophon should be distinguished from the theremin, played without touch through the hands' proximity to antennas, and from the trautonium, operated via a resistance wire strip; all three belong among the early monophonic electronic instruments but differ in construction and operation.
Performance practice
If you engage with the Sphärophon, for instance in the context of the history of electronic music, note its role as an early experimental field for microtonality, not as a practically established standard instrument of its time.