FREUNDESKREIS HERMANN VON HELMHOLTZ AND MUSIC A GOOD THING HE PLAYED THE PIANO Günther Wess and Eugen Müller
Image (top) For his composition Monophonie, the musician, sound artist, and DJ Phillip Sollmann wrote music scores for selected instruments made by Harry Partch, for the sound sculptures by Harry Bertoia, and for the double siren by Hermann von Helmholtz. The compositions were debuted at a premiere in 2017. The Helmholtz double siren – which is now in the Berlin Museum of Medical History of the Charité – was photographed by Anette Kelm for this occasion. Annette Kelm, Helmholtz Sirene, archival pigment print, 99.8 × 75 cm, 2017
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The 31st of August 2021 marked the 200th anniversary of the birth of the scientist and natural philosopher Hermann von Helmholtz, a name familiar to many due to one of Germany’s most prestigious scientific societies – the Helmholtz Association – being named after him. But what does this have to do with the Akademie der Künste or even with the current issues and debates in society today? Born when Goethe and Beethoven were still alive, Helmholtz died in 1894, before the dawn of modernity in art. So, what could he still have to say to us today? His life’s achievements are usually seen through the lens of the physicist, and his various contributions to physics, his services to the development of universities, and the founding of the Physikalisch-Technische Reichsanstalt (Germany’s national metrology institute) have long been acknowledged. During his lifetime, his work even gained a certain cult status in Berlin, where he was considered the “Reich Chancellor of Physics”. His contributions to music, on the other hand, have received little recognition. Yet they have never been surpassed and remain fascinating to this day, continuing to
point the way for all those involved in music, be they musicians, composers, conductors, sound architects, acoustic or sound engineers, instrument makers, or, of course, listeners. In 1863, he published a comprehensive work about music entitled On the Sensations of Tone as a Physiological Basis for the Theory of Music. It was based on his research, firstly, into the physics of tones and sounds and, secondly, into the physiology of the ear and the processes of hearing and sensation. His thinking was rooted firmly in the fundamental as well as in the overtones and the interactions that yield the sounds we perceive. This was followed by essays on the development of music, philosophical and psychological matters regarding music, and finished with the issue of aesthetics. In subsequent editions, the content was repeatedly supplemented with the latest findings from research in physics and physiology, written using practical examples to enable the layperson to grasp the phenomena described. In his Sensations of Tone, Helmholtz was the first to present an overall account of musical phenomena. His
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