Lotte’s mother was regularly surprised by a representative from the firm holding a bill under her nose. A quarrel about money then flared up through the music in the evenings. ‘I’ve already paid it.’ ‘You haven’t paid it. They were at the door again. That’s no way to behave.’ Jet and Lotte slid out of bed and sat on the top stair, their arms round each other’s shoulders. What had merely sounded like a threat from the bedroom grew into danger out here. The music continued mercilessly , their parents’ anger raised above it. Sometimes an object hit the floor with a bang. Eventually they descended the stairs crying, and entered the scene of battle in bare feet, preparing themselves for the very worst. ‘We had a bad dream,’ was their alibi. Lotte held on tightly to the sleeve of Jet’s night-dress. An instant ceasefire was declared. Their father went to the miraculous object to put another record on; their mother hugged them guiltily to her bosom.
Their father’s hunger for new music was, however, surpassed by his addiction to sound machines. Soon the reproduction of the gramophone no longer satisfied his demands. The Concertgebouw in Amsterdam was his standard; that was how it had to sound in the living-room too. He installed all kinds of experimentaladvances in his workshop, amid a chaos of transformers, distributors , switchboards, loudspeakers and earth electrodes – the tips of his moustache were singed from the soldering. He already had a series of successful attempts as a radio builder to his name; his home-made Chrystalphone surpassed those from the Edison works. He introduced so many ingenious alterations to the gramophone that the original machine could hardly be recognized any more. When an Ultraphone was unexpectedly launched on the market, he adapted it immediately. This machine, which delighted even the most reserved of critics, had two sound arms and two needles at its disposal, so that the sound was transmitted twice with a short pause in between – a stereo effect ahead of its time. The gramophone with the human voice, wrote the press. Lotte’s father took this as a personal declaration of war. Once more he stationed himself in his workshop; he did not rest until he had built a unit with two conical loudspeakers. Not only did the sound come from different sides, as in the concert hall, but he was the front-runner in the race to conquer surface noise. The two polished beech cases that dominated the room brought him a fame that extended beyond the rivers Maas and Waal. Engineers from the light bulb industry drove north in a company car to hear the acoustic phenomenon with their own ears. Sound technicians from the broadcasting company, musicians, hobbyists, vague acquaintances followed – evening after evening new interested parties enjoyed the brilliant sound reproduction and the ever expanding record collection . The instigator of all these technical and musical tours de force , completely autodidactic in the world of sound, found himself in a permanent state of spiritual inebriation as a result of the overdose of interest and recognition. He put his records on the turntable with just as much vanity as a violinist tucks his violin under his chin. His moustache, once again restored to its former glory, shone as never before.
As a result of these exciting evenings, the local community’s power and water supply was at risk. These were his responsibility –a job he had attained through years of self-tuition about electrical theory. He was sleeping late in the mornings. Because there was no one else to do it, on dark winter mornings his wife got out of bed, where she had spent no more than four hours, putting a housecoat over her night-dress, to turn on the pressure pumps in the ice-cold water-tower. Sometimes it got too much for her. ‘You think only of yourself,’ she flung at his head when he eventually stumbled downstairs, his eyes still thick with sleep, ‘when it suits you.
Their father’s hunger for new music was, however, surpassed by his addiction to sound machines. Soon the reproduction of the gramophone no longer satisfied his demands. The Concertgebouw in Amsterdam was his standard; that was how it had to sound in the living-room too. He installed all kinds of experimentaladvances in his workshop, amid a chaos of transformers, distributors , switchboards, loudspeakers and earth electrodes – the tips of his moustache were singed from the soldering. He already had a series of successful attempts as a radio builder to his name; his home-made Chrystalphone surpassed those from the Edison works. He introduced so many ingenious alterations to the gramophone that the original machine could hardly be recognized any more. When an Ultraphone was unexpectedly launched on the market, he adapted it immediately. This machine, which delighted even the most reserved of critics, had two sound arms and two needles at its disposal, so that the sound was transmitted twice with a short pause in between – a stereo effect ahead of its time. The gramophone with the human voice, wrote the press. Lotte’s father took this as a personal declaration of war. Once more he stationed himself in his workshop; he did not rest until he had built a unit with two conical loudspeakers. Not only did the sound come from different sides, as in the concert hall, but he was the front-runner in the race to conquer surface noise. The two polished beech cases that dominated the room brought him a fame that extended beyond the rivers Maas and Waal. Engineers from the light bulb industry drove north in a company car to hear the acoustic phenomenon with their own ears. Sound technicians from the broadcasting company, musicians, hobbyists, vague acquaintances followed – evening after evening new interested parties enjoyed the brilliant sound reproduction and the ever expanding record collection . The instigator of all these technical and musical tours de force , completely autodidactic in the world of sound, found himself in a permanent state of spiritual inebriation as a result of the overdose of interest and recognition. He put his records on the turntable with just as much vanity as a violinist tucks his violin under his chin. His moustache, once again restored to its former glory, shone as never before.
As a result of these exciting evenings, the local community’s power and water supply was at risk. These were his responsibility –a job he had attained through years of self-tuition about electrical theory. He was sleeping late in the mornings. Because there was no one else to do it, on dark winter mornings his wife got out of bed, where she had spent no more than four hours, putting a housecoat over her night-dress, to turn on the pressure pumps in the ice-cold water-tower. Sometimes it got too much for her. ‘You think only of yourself,’ she flung at his head when he eventually stumbled downstairs, his eyes still thick with sleep, ‘when it suits you.
Similar Books
