Last night at FitzGerald’s, I gave a presentation during the latest round of 360 Oak Park, a recurring program that selects a different theme and setting and features anywhere from six to eight presenters to expound, but you only get six minutes, accompanied by slides. And it has to have a local slant. This was a challenge for a wordy, free-range columnist like myself, but I relished the discipline. The theme was music. Here’s what it sounded like:
What the hell is a Violano Virtuoso?
A mechanical music device combining violin and piano, hence “Viol-ano,” which originally played songs using paper rolls, coin-operated, a nickel a song, powered by a 110-volt DC motor. All of this crammed ingeniously into a 3-by-5-foot mahogany cabinet.
A spinning celluloid wheel simulates the violin’s bow, metallic “fingers” operated by electromagnets press the fret, and wooden hammers strike the piano harp. It has 123 separate functions, 1,500 individual parts, and 27 miles of wire, each the thickness of a human hair.
Invented by Henry Sandell in 1904, the U.S. Patent Office called it “the engineering wonder of the decade.”
Why did Herbert Mills have a Violano in his living room?
The second owner of Pleasant Home ran Mills Novelty Co., one of the largest employers in Chicago. His army of mechanical engineers produced slot machines and other gambling devices, which made his fortune, but hindered his social standing. So when classy inventions like the Violano came along, he embraced them.
A practical joker, Mills electrified his dining room table and, with the push of a button, could give his dinner guests a small shock when they picked up their forks. He probably kept a Violano in his living room to soothe his guests’ shattered nerves.
Mills died in 1929 and Pleasant Home was sold to the Park District. The furnishings left behind did not include the Violano.
How do David Wendell and Jasper Sanfilippo figure into this saga?
David Wendell, a remarkable history geek, rented a parking space behind my house. One day in 1997 he showed up at my back door and asked, “How would you like to go see a Violano Virtuoso?” As always in such situations, I said, “Sure! … What the hell is a Violano Virtuoso?” He had plenty of time to explain on our drive to Barrington Hills to visit the Victorian Palace of Jasper Sanfilippo, CEO of what is now Fisher’s Nuts. With more than an acre of floor space, his palace houses the largest collection of restored automatic musical devices in the world, many produced by Mills Novelty, tended to lovingly by his staff of mechanical wizards.
Our tour was eardrum-blowing and eye-opening.
How did a Violano finally find its way back to Pleasant Home?
I wrote about Mills and his marvel in Wednesday Journal in 1997 and many times after, promoting the idea of bringing a Violano Virtuoso back to Pleasant Home. In 2004 (the Violano’s 100th birthday), Laura Thompson took over as head of the Pleasant Home Foundation. Shortly after, by happy coincidence, she attended a fundraiser at Sanfilippo’s mansion and managed to mention the Violano and the Pleasant Home connection to Jasper, who agreed to donate one — if she could raise the 17 grand needed to restore it.
Five years later, thanks to generous donors like Lake Theatre owners Willis and Shirley Johnson, a refurbished Violano arrived. Meanwhile, Bob Brown, another Mills devotee, donated a computer interface, which increased the repertoire to over 300 songs — everything from Mussorgsky’s “Night on Bald Mountain” to the University of Wisconsin Fight Song.
What’s so virtuosic about the Violano Virtuoso?
It can’t compete with the CSO, but 121 years later, it’s still an engineering marvel. The Violano also connects us to a fascinating part of Oak Park history.
The Violano Virtuoso represents an audacious marriage of machinery and musicality, and in the Age of AI is a welcome reminder that even the most ingenious mechanism still needs us to tune in and keep it tuned (and tamed). Otherwise it’s merely a marvel in a forest with no one there to hear.
So what does a Violano sound like?
A recording doesn’t do it justice. You really need to experience this musical marvel in person. And you can do that by taking a tour of Pleasant Home. The two docents, Teresa Czarnik and Roseann Spencer, really know their stuff, and they can also show you some of Mills’ gambling machines upstairs (non-operable of course). Voluntary donations ($2 suggested) go to Beyond Hunger.
Tours are Thursdays, noon to 3 p.m., and first Sundays, also noon to 3. And sometimes they leave the porch door ajar and let the Violano play to lure unsuspecting passersby inside to be surprised by the greatest invention of the first decade of the 20th century.