Description
In 1927 the pipe organ at the Toledo Museum of Art was installed by the Skinner Organ Company as its Opus 603 and was later moved by that company in 1933 to its current location. The organ is the largest Skinner Player Organ built with a fully automatic roll player. This pipe organ is capable of effectively accompanying a full orchestra with its refined but powerful reeds, including a Tuba on 18″ wind. After sitting silent for many years, the pipe organ was fully restored by the A. Thompson-Allen Company of New Haven, Connecticut. This CD uses the automatic rolls exclusively, which not only play the notes, but also change the stops and open and close the expression louvers. The rolls are played solely with original 1920s technology. The CD comes with a 32-page booklet, which contains an essay on the organ, an interview with Joseph Dzeda and Nicholas Thompson-Allen about their lives as organbuilders, a full stop list and tons of great photographs of the insides of this pipe organ.
Pete –
This excellent and rare (probably the only one) recording of this Skinner Player Organ shows what is possible with 1920’s technology. Nothing compares in today’s digital world.
By the way, the largest player organ known to me was M. P. Möller (Opus 5819, 1931) https://pipeorgandatabase.org/organ/8418 which met a tragic fate.