NINETEENTH-CENTURY
INSTRUMENTS
Castel had proposed a color-music technology employing diffuse reflection of light from pigment. In 1789, Erasmus Darwin (grandfather of the renowned naturalist) suggested that the newly invented Argand oil lamps might be used to produce visible music by projecting strong light through `coloured glasses'. This is probably the basis for the instrument described by D.D. Jameson in his pamphlet Colour-Music (1844).
Jameson specified a system of notation for the new art form and also described his apparatus in some detail. A darkened room in which the walls were lined with reflecting tin plates provided the setting for his `colourific exhibition'. In one wall, 12 round apertures revealed glass containers filled with liquids of various colors corresponding to the chromatic scale—"the bottles seen in the windows of druggists' shops can be used for this purpose". These acted as filters for light projected from behind the wall. Moveable covers were activated by a seven-octave keyboard, and each was raised a specific height depending on which octave was chosen.
Another intriguing instrument was constructed in England between 1869 and 1873 by Frederick Kastner. This was a type of gas organ which the inventor called a Pyrophone. He undoubtedly developed his idea after hearing the hissing sound made by gas jets, which were commonly used for interior lighting before electricity. Supposedly, his apparatus produced sounds similar to the human voice, piano or full orchestra. Cylindrical filters covered ignited gas jets (Fig. 1). Kastner later extended the
possibilities for the visual portion of his experiments after electricity became available. A device he termed the `singing lamp' was essentially,
a sort of pyrophone with thirteen branches, all decorated with foliage and furnished with burners containing several gas jets, which opened into crystal tubes. These burners were brought into play electrically, through an invisible wire that connected to a keyboard in a neighbouring room or street-or indeed another part of the town [14].
In the United States in 1877, Bainbridge Bishop, who had been interested in the concept of `painting music', constructed a machine that was to be placed on top of a home organ (Fig. 2). A system of levers and shutters allowed colored light to be blended on a small screen at the same time as a piece of music was being performed on the organ. Sunlight was first used as the source of illumination, but later an electric arc was placed behind the colored glass. Bishop's invention attracted P.T. Barnum's attention, and the famous showman later had one of the instruments installed in his Connecticut residence [15].