A bit of musical instrument history

[Uncle Al]

Thought you folks would enjoy this bit of musical instrument history.

Seeburg Style H Orchestrion plays Maple Leaf Rag

Uncle Al

[Kirbstone]

Stunning machine, Uncle Al. I've added it to my favourites. Also great is the array of related u-tubes that come up with it. They'll keep me entertained for hours.

Thanks for that.

Tom.

[Uncle Al]

Anytime Tom

Uncle Al

[Kirbstone]

No tapes or recordings yet, but last w/end our choir traveled West to Clifden, Co. Galway where we gave a full concert on the Saturday evening and two shorter performances on the Sunday, one in Kylemore Abbey, a vast Victorian-gothic pile nearby, set in stunning scenery.

Of interest historically is that a violent electrical storm & downpour mid-afternoon on the Saturday deprived the whole town of power. We had our rehearsal in the local church using manpower to pump the organ. An enquiry elicited that they expected the power to be back on at 'around 8PM' and our concert proper started at 6.30 PM in good daylight, but the first work, Faure's Requiem had to be performed with two blokes behind the curtain taking turns to pump the organ manually. It was an education for choir & punters alike to hear such a work performed as it would have been before electricity.

At 7.05PM during the 'Libera me' the lights came on to the palpable relief of everyone. At the interval our two organ-pumpers got serious applause and our professional organist put Bach's Toccata & Fugue in D minor back on the menu for the 2nd half.

Tom

[crfriend]

[...]Faure's Requiem had to be performed with two blokes behind the curtain taking turns to pump the organ manually. It was an education for choir & punters alike to hear such a work performed as it would have been before electricity.

It's astounding that the "manual reversion" was retained once blowers came into use. I am sure that was quite the lesson for the folks in the audience!

At 7.05PM during the 'Libera me' the lights came on to the palpable relief of everyone. At the interval our two organ-pumpers got serious applause and our professional organist put Bach's Toccata & Fugue in D minor back on the menu for the 2nd half.

It's also good to see the acknowledgement of the work done to allow the performance to proceed. I'll raise a glass to those working the bellows as well!

Finally, thanks for posting those pictures. What astounding beauty!

[Tor]

Beautiful looking instrument in a beautiful location. You certainly have some very nice green hills about you there. Glad your concert was able to move forward despite the disruption in power. Something to be said for the benefits of old technology, however many advantages modern stuff may often have.

[Sinned]

Excuse my iggorance on all this organ music - I knew someone who was a very accomplished organist ( he's passed away now ) and he could play some very complex and technical pieces on piano and organ. Well any way this here Bach's Toccato and Fugue in D minor that you mentioned doesn't seem to correspond to the one I had in memory. I was thinking of the one that Bart jn the Simpsons slipped into the Church service and had the organist just about exhausted. Which one was that? I've listened to the ones in D minor, D major, G minor and G major and it doesn't seem to be any of those. Help! Maybe it's just me.

[Kirbstone]

Dennis,

I hope this serves to relieve your 'iggorence' by homing in on the work in question. It starts off as a sort of test piece with both hands playing the same little few bars, first right up top, then repeated three times ever lower until it is finally played at the bottom end with pedals only, ending in a diminished sustained arpeggio resolving into the major chord. Then there is a pause and he launches into the fugue proper,

Bach Toccata piano transcription.jpg

In full version it takes about 12 minutes to play it all and an assistant stops pusher/puller or pre-programmed electronic equivalent is mandatory.

Tom

[Sinned]

Thanks Tm, I have utmost admiration for organ players as each foot and hand are doing different things. I used to watch my friend Gordon playing and it seemed so natural for him. Not only that there are multiple keyboards to consider each one set up with a different sound. Playing the piano seems trivial in comparison. I would love to have learned but I guess that I am too old now to even start. The versions of Bach's T&F have probably not been the full versions at only about 8 or 9 minutes long. I'll look out for a better version.

Happy Father's Day everyone BTW. Hope you have all had suitable felicitations from your offspring, I know I have.

[Uncle Al]

Thanks Tm, I have utmost admiration for organ players as each foot and hand are
doing different things. <snip> Playing the piano seems trivial in comparison.
I would love to have learned but I guess that I am too old now to even start.

Dennis;

If William T. Piper - Founder of Piper Aircraft, in the U.S., can get his Multi-Engine rating
at age 70, YOU are not to 'old' to learn the piano.

Uncle Al

[Sinned]

Thank you ncl l,

Suitably chastened. I do have a little Casio keyboard in the loft that my second eldest son started to learn to play before he sadly succumbed to leukaemia and died at age 28. Such a young age and such a loss. We still feel it and miss him immensely.

Anyway I will see if there are any online courses. I seem to remember that you don't actually need a keyboard but draw the keys on a piece of card and practice that way. I still have flexibility in my fingers and no evidence of stiffness of any of the joints. I think that if there's any piece of music I would like to learn to play first on the piano it's "Bridge Over Troubled Waters" as I have long been a fan of Paul Simon since the 1970's and it is an emotive song for me. Don't think it would be easy to play but just to play something simpler at first would be an achievement. Baby steps, baby steps.

[Kirbstone]

Dennis,
I'm profoundly sorry to hear that you had lost your son, having raised him to age 28. That would break my heart.

The trouble with keyboards is that they have no 'weight' in the action and never even remotely feel like a piano to play. Electric pianos have weighted keys and approximate the 'feel' of a real instrument. There is also further the simply ghastly sound yer-average keyboard makes. That would put me off for life!

Bridge over troubled water is a number our choir performed in SATB version for an informal concert last year, and is deservedly a very popular piece. As to versions of it, satisfaction can be achieved at any level. I will quote an instance from some years back, when the rehearsal pianist who regularly played for my (Hartley-Wintney, Hampshire) choir took me up to the Barbican in London to see Stephan Grapelli play 'The Pianoforte', leaving his Stradivarius violin resting on a cushion. He sat down and proceeded to play just one tune...'Tea for Two'....for 21 minutes. We timed him! After that he wobbled off the stage (he was a frail 76yrs. old) to a standing ovation from all 2500 punters there.

So a simple tune CAN be quite complicated!

Tom