Carnegie Hall

What is the most unusual musical instrument you’ve ever heard? Carnegie Hall’s stages have been home to many exotic instruments, including the anvils, automobile horns, electric bells, and airplane propellers in the 1927 US premiere of George Antheil’s Ballet mécanique. Composer Ferde Grofé introduced a bicycle pump to the scoring of his Free Air (“Variations on Noises from the Garage”) in a 1928 concert by Paul Whiteman and His Orchestra. And in what must have been an unforgettable performance in 1929, the Musicians Gambol included two lawnmowers in a piece by Sousa. While there are no lawnmowers in our list of five unusual instruments, there are definitely some surprises.

Musical Saw

A saw does more than cut two-by-fours. Armenian composer Aram Khachaturian added a musical saw—bent and played with a bow—to join the violins in the second movement of his Piano Concerto. The piece had its Carnegie Hall premiere on November 20, 1943, with pianist William Kapell and the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Serge Koussevitzky. We don’t know who played the saw in that performance, but we do know one notable virtuoso: The glamorous film star Marlene Dietrich played it in her 1920s cabaret act and was called the “First lady of the musical saw.”

Ondes Martenot

French composer Olivier Messiaen explored new sounds throughout his career, creating music glowing with kaleidoscopic color. His gargantuan Turangalîla-symphonie weaves the Ondes Martenot into the work’s vast orchestral fabric. Invented by Maurice Martenot, the electronic instrument’s swooping pitches are created using a keyboard, a pull-wire, and a ribbon manipulated by the performer. Its sound is otherworldly; when its disembodied voice is heard rising from the orchestra, the effect is stunning. Martenot’s sister, Ginette, played the instrument on December 10, 1949, when Leonard Bernstein conducted the Carnegie Hall premiere of the Turangalîla-symphonie. The instrument remains popular and is a favorite of Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood.

Wind Machine

An aeoliphone—more commonly known as a wind machine—is a barrel frame covered with silk or canvas that imitates the sound of wind when rotated. It made an early appearance in Rameau’s 1763 opera Les Boréades, a mythological tale about the god of the north wind. When coupled with wordless voices in Vaughan Williams’s Sinfonia Antartica, the effect is suitably chilling. But for pure excitement and the roar of nature’s power, the mountain storm in Richard Strauss’s Eine Alpensinfonie is unsurpassed. Carnegie Hall audiences heard the gusts for the first time on October 26, 1916, when the New York Philharmonic conducted by Josef Stransky gave the New York premiere of Strauss’s work.

Theremin

Many will recognize the sound of the theremin from several film soundtracks and the opening of the Beach Boys’ classic song “Good Vibrations.” Russian physicist (and cellist) Lev Termen had a fascination with radio interference and created a unique instrument—sometimes called a termenvox—in which the fluctuating frequencies of its single pitch are controlled by the space between the performer’s hand and an antenna attached to the instrument. Its ethereal sound captivated composers such as Varèse, Schnittke, Martinů, and others. Termen was a bit of a showman and convinced Soviet authorities (Lenin was actually fond of the instrument) to take his invention on tour to the West. In 1928, going by the name Professor Léon Théremin, he performed a “Music from the Ether” concert at Carnegie Hall.

Cloud-Chamber Bowls

Harry Partch was a remarkable iconoclast: a composer and theorist who rebelled against tradition who constructed or adapted instruments that worked best for his unconventional compositional voice. He created instruments such as the cloud-chamber bowls (large glass gongs or Pyrex containers suspended in a wooden frame and struck with mallets), chromelodeon (reed organ), and blow boy (a bellows attached to an auto exhaust and three organ pipes). Partch premiered a number of his works at Carnegie Hall in 1944, and his Daphne of the Dunes was featured in one of 2012’s American Mavericks concerts with Michael Tilson Thomas and members of the San Francisco Symphony.

Photography: Header, Antheil flyer, Strauss, and Théremin program page courtesy of the Carnegie Hall Rose Archives; cloud-chamber bowls and chromelodeon by Steven Severinghaus.