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Perth, |
Organ rolls back the years
Helen Edmonds is delighted with her
restored Aeolian Orchestrelle, one of the
few working ones left in the
world. A lover of all
mechanical instruments, Grainger dedicated himself
to creating "free music" - music unrestrained by
pitch or regular rhythms. Particularly taken
with the intricate mechanics of the Orchestrelle,
he began to experiments with random musical
compositions that eventually inspired his eccentric
instrument, the Free Music Machine - a crude
forerunner to the electronic
synthesiser. On the 40th
anniversary of Grainger's death, one of the world's
few working Aeolian Orchestrelles has finally come
to the end of its long restoration period, to stand
proudly in the front room of a Claremont
home. Intricately
patterned mahogany gleaming, the mechanical music
machine sits in Helen and Peter Edmonds' small
lounge room, dominating the grand piano and
electric organ that fill the rest of the
space. The Aeolian
Orchestrelle, a reed organ mechanically operated by
rolls similar to a pianola, was made in New York
around the turn of the last century. Even in its
day it was a valuable instrument. In 1902 the
American publication, McClures magazine advertised
Aeolian Orchestrelles for between $US1500 and
$US2500. How it found its
way to Perth no one knows, but in 1940 Helen
Edmonds' grandfather, Wilfred Priestner, bought the
still playable organ at an auction with promises to
restore its complex mechanics to full working
order. Wilfred was a
Nedlands-based wrought iron craftsman of some
repute. An avid collector, his workshop was always
full of projects he planned to restore, repair or
create. His granddaughter
remembers him as a robust man and an excellent
musician who loved to play the mellow old
organ. He continued to
work until he was 88 years old and died a year
later without ever having restored the organ's roll
playing mechanism. It seemed the
instrument was destined to sit patiently in the
hands of people who didn't have time for it while
mice fed on its leather bellows, the pneumatic
tubes perished and termites turned the player rolls
into flimsy bits of paper lace. When Helen finally
took it into her home it could produce no more than
an elderly wheeze and a dying whistle. Bruce Shute was the
man Helen found to restore the instrument to its
former glory. A. D. Shute and
Son, the Subiaco piano tuning and restoration
business, already had a fine reputation for
restoring pianolas. The Orchestrelle is a
forerunner of the pianola and it was, for Bruce,
one of the most difficult jobs he had ever
undertaken. His exhaustive list
of repairs ended with an almost weary-sounding
"...and goodness knows what else". Now, with the help
of wood polisher Simon ten Tye, the glowing,
intricate organ once again pumps out its rich
mellow sound. The rolls for the
unique Orchestrelle are difficult to come by.
Various members of the Edmonds family have scoured
auction houses and antique shops in Australia and
overseas in the hope of finding a "fifty eight note
or six holes to the inch" roll. So far only nine
have been found. The anniversary
of Percy Grainger's death will be celebrated on
Saturday at 7.30pm in the Eileen Joyce Studio at
UWA's music department with a concert of his music
presented by the Royal School of Music Club and
featuring Helen Edmonds. Copyright © 1999 - 2006 Post Newspapers Pty Ltd. All rights reserved.
Australian pianist
and composer Percy Grainger first came across an
Aeolian Orchestrelle in England in the summer of
1900.
-Sarah McNeill
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Exhibitions:
Restaurants:
Cinema:
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Chefs make sure the 'time starved' are well fed
A fascinating foray south of the border