Sala, Oskar (EN)

Sala Oskar, *18 July 1910 Greiz (Thuringia), †26 February 2002 Berlin, German physicist, composer, designer of electronic instruments, virtuoso of the trautonium, pioneer of electronic music. He learned to play the piano and organ in Greiz and studied piano and composition at the Berlin Academy of Music with P. Hindemith from 1929. In 1930, he met F. Trautwein, the designer of the trautonium, and helped him improve this instrument. He took part in the first performances of P. Hindemith’s works: Triostücke für 3 Trautonien in 1930 (the first piece written for these instruments), and Konzertstück for trautonium and string orchestra in 1931. In 1932–36, he studied acoustics at the University of Berlin. In 1935, he independently constructed an improved version of the instrument called the Rundfunk-Trautonium for the Experimentalzentrum des Berliner Rundfunks; in 1938, he created a portable and improved version of the instrument – ​​the Konzert-Trautonium, with which he toured Europe from Budapest to Florence, and took part in the first performance of the Concerto for trautonium and orchestra by H. Genzmer. After World War II, he returned to concert and composition activities; in 1952, he constructed a new version of his favourite instrument called the Mixtur-Trautonium and composed numerous pieces using it. He intensively gave intensive in 1953–57. In 1958, he founded his own studio in Berlin’s Charlottenburg district. In the following years, he created a number of musical illustrations for films, mainly documentaries, but also feature films, including A. Hitchcock’s The Birds (1963). He was active as a composer and performer until the end of his life. In 2000, he donated patent documentation, correspondence, photographs, recordings and a collection of trautoniums to the Deutsches Museum in Munich.

Sala was the first virtuoso of the trautonium and its varieties, up to the Digital-Trautonium and, at the same time, the designer or co-designer of these instruments, which were an important intermediate link between the Martenot waves and modern synthesisers. It was the most advanced electronic instrument of its time, allowing for the production of electronic music in real time. Sala did not create scores; he recorded the pieces immediately on various sound carriers. His artistic activity paved the way for the activities of P. Schaeffer and H. Eimert.

Literature: Schmidt D., Filmmusik von Oskar Sala. Katalogisierung, Analyse, exemplarische Beispiele, Berlin 1990 (graduate work); Thiele A., Oskar Sala und sein Trautonium, Hamburg 1993; Frieß P., Krumbacher G., Seydel K., Oskar Sala im Gespräch, in: Frieß P., Steiner P.M., Deutsches Museum Bonn. Forschung und Technik in Deutschland nach 1945, Berlin 1995, pp. 215–236; Badge P., Oskar Sala – Pionier der elektronischen Musik, Bonn 2000; Berdux S., [entry:] Sala Paul Heinrich Oskar, in: Neue Deutsche Biographie, vol. 22, Berlin 2005, p. 360 et al.; Richter Th., [entry:] Sala Oskar, in: MGG Online, published by L. von Lütteken, New York–Kassel–Stuttgart 2016, https://www.mgg-online.com/mgg/stable/26284https://www.mggonline.com/mgg/stable/26284 (access: 01.01.2023); Donhauser P., Oskar Sala als Instrumentenbauer. Ein Leben für Trautonium, Munich 2022.