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Oskar Sala

July 1910

Oskar Sala (18 July 1910 – 26 February 2002) was a German composer and a pioneer of electronic music. He played an instrument called the Trautonium, an early form of electronic synthesizer.

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1929

Sala was born in Greiz, Thuringia, Germany. He studied piano and organ during his youth, performing classical piano concerts as a teenager. In 1929, he moved to Berlin to study piano and composition with composer and violist Paul Hindemith at the Berlin Conservatory. He also followed the experiments of Dr. Friedrich Trautwein, at the school's laboratory, learning to play with Trautwein's pioneer electronic instrument, the Trautonium.

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1930

On 20 June 1930 Sala and Paul Hindemith gave a public performance at the Berliner Musikhochschule Hall called “Neue Musik Berlin 1930″ to introduce the Trautonium. Later Sala toured Germany with the Trautonium; in 1931 he was the soloist in a performance of Hindemith's Concert for Trautonium with String Quartet. He also soloed in the debut of Hindemith student Harald Genzmer's “Concert for Trautonium AND Orchestra”.

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1935

Sala studied physics at the University of Berlin between 1932 and 1935. He helped to develop the "Volkstrautonium", a Trautonium that Telefunken hoped to popularize. In 1935 he built a "Radio-Trautonium", and in 1938 a portable model, the "Konzerttrautonium".

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1948

In 1948, Sala further developed the Trautonium into the Mixtur-Trautonium. Sala's invention opened the field of subharmonics, the symmetric counterpart to overtones, so that a thoroughly distinct tuning evolved. Pioneering music therapist Maria Schüppel studied and worked with Sala during the 1950s.

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1952

Sala presented his new instrument to the public in 1952 and would soon receive international licenses for its circuits. That same year, Harald Genzmer delivered the score to the first Concert For Mixtur-Trautonium And Grand Orchestra.

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1958

In the 1940s and 1950s, he worked on many film scores. In 1958, he established his own studio at Mars film GmbH (4th incarnation) in Berlin. It was there that he produced electronic soundtracks for such films as Veit Harlan's Different from You and Me (1957), Rolf Thiele's Rosemary (1959), and Fritz Lang's Das Indische Grabmal (1959).

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July 2022

On 18 July 2022, Google celebrated his 112th birthday with a Google Doodle.

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