Hitchcock's The Birds. The Trautonium was also used in the Dresden première of Richard Strauss's Japanese Festival Music in 1942 for emulating the gongs- and bells-parts and in the 1950s in Bayreuth for the Monsalvat bells in Wagner's Parsifal. Manufacturers The German manufacturer Doepfer sells some devices for the commercial market to allow for Trautonium-like synthesizer control. The German manufacturer Trautoniks sells custom made Trautoniums. Present Trautonium performers Oskar Sala developed the Trautonium further and worked with at least one pupil, music therapy pioneer Maria Schüppel. However, Peter Pichler, a Munich musician and artist, had heard the sound of the Trautonium when he was a young man and was fascinated by its emotional impact and dynamic range. Pichler found he could not forget the unique sound; he searched obsessively for anyone who could help him understand the instrument and he finally tracked down Sala. In 1996 the two met in Sala's studio in Berlin, and the result was the preservation of much of Sala's knowledge. Pichler was transformed by the experience but he had to wait fifteen long years before he could afford to commission his own Mixturtrautonium from the company Trautoniks. He wrote a musical theater piece about the fathers of the Trautonium, "Wiedersehen in Trautonien", which was performed at the German Museum in Munich, for the 100th birthday of Oskar Sala in 2010. For this theater piece Pichler commissioned three "Volkstrautonien" (a smaller version of the instrument), one of which was bought by the German Museum later for its permanent collection. Pichler is still cooperating closely with the German Museum in Munich that is administering Sala's estate. Since then, Pichler has been making regular appearances with the Mixturtrautonium in various musical genres. The classical music composed for this instrument by Paul Hindemith, Harald Genzmer and Oskar Sala for instance is extremely challenging for even an experienced musician to play. Pichler is one of the very few musicians in the world who has mastered this instrument and is also composing for it. Daniel Matz plays trautonium on the Agnes Obel albums, Citizen of Glass and Late Night Tales. The Dutch performer Thijs Lodewijk also plays the trautonium. Gallery See also Subharchord Ondes Martenot Theremin Telharmonium Continuum Fingerboard Swarmatron References Sources Klaus Ebbeke, Paul Hindemith und das Trautonium. HJb 11 (1982) Peter Donhauser, Elektrische Klangmaschinen. Die Pionierzeit in Deutschland und Österreich. Böhlau, Vienna et al. 2007, . External links http://www.peterpichler-trautonium.com