SALA, Oskar

German composer/performer Oskar Sala is a fascinating figure not on account of his compositions—which are rather minor—but because of his nearly 70-year advocacy of a unique electronic instrument, the trautonium. Sala was a student of Paul Hindemith's in Berlin, and when, in 1930, Hindemith commissioned engineers connected to the experimental radio station of the Berlin Academy of Music to develop a new kind of electronic instrument, one utilizing strings, Sala quickly became involved...