Orchestrion
Favorites from the Frick is a professionally mastered CD of the
Frick Welte Orchestrion. It is a handsomely crafted compact disc album featuring
popular and classical tunes played by the famous Welte Style 6 Concert Orchestrion
at Clayton -- the Frick Mansion in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. To get a copy of
the Frick Welte CD go to the
Carousel Music web site and click on the "Go Shopping"
button at page top.
Original Catalogue Specifications:
-
Welte
Number 57
- Date: 1893
- Unit chassis inside free standing wrap-around case.
- Single semi-automatic roll mechanism with windmotor forward drive.
- Uses Welte 75-key rolls.
- Approximate Dimensions and Weight:
Height: 11' 0"
Width: 8' 0"
Depth: 4' 3"
Shipping Weight: 4,500 lbs.
52 Note Musical Scale -- 294 pipes:
- 34 Clarinette pipes from c' - a''', voiced at a 16' pitch. The lowest
7 pipes are open wood flue pipes, with the remaining 27 having wooden boots
with tunable free reeds and tin resonators, which on this organ are located
inside the case.
- 52 Zinn pipes from FF - a''';
from FF - E, stopped l6'
wood bass pipes;
from F - B, open wood pipes;
from c' - a''', open tin pipes visible as the front rank.
- 27 Trompette pipes from g' - a''', wood boots with tunable free reeds,
brass resonators forming part of the center sunburst arrangement. The top
9 treble pipes are open wood flues.
- 25 Posaune pipes from FF - B, wood boots with tunable free reeds, brass
resonators, the five brass pipes visible on the left and right sides of
the center sunburst arrangement, with 8 more brass pipes located toward
the rear of the case and the remaining 7 in the center sunburst group.
- 52 Gedeckt pipes from FF - a''', stopped wood pipes.
- 52 Octave pipes from FF - a''', 4' pitch; open wood pipes located inside
the case.
- 52 Wald Flöte pipes from FF - a''', open wood with cylindrical mouths
located toward the rear of the case.
- Triangle
- Snare drum (single beater with reiterating pneumatic action)
- Bass drum, with cymbal (loud and soft stroke)
- Kettle drum (tympani effect using two beaters)
Notes:
- The notation shown above is in German, whereby the English "a#" = German
"b," and the English "b" = German "h."
- There are 52 playing notes, beginning with F, skipping F# and then chromatically
up to A.
- The instrument contains seven pipe ranks, all of which are automatically
controlled from the music roll.
- An eighth automatic register controls the crescendo function (swell
shades).
- The music roll frame is of the Welte semi-automatic type: the music
roll shuts off at the end of playing and the operator must then shift the
roll frame into rewind mode. Earlier types required manual rewinding,
while later types were fully automatic.
- The wind pressure on this organ is 64 mm (2-1/2"). While standard for
certain brands of early orchestrions, this level of wind pressure is very
low compared to that used by orchestrions manufactured during the 1900's
and that required very quick actions and comparatively loud pipe tones.
Chronological History:
Circa 1893
Manufactured by M. Welte and Söhne, Freiburg,
Germany.
Circa 1893
Henry Clay Frick Residence (Clayton),
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Henry
Clay Frick (1849-1919) was a noted American industrialist and philanthropist,
who in 1871 organized the H. C. Frick Coke Company, which was to become one
of the largest coke-producing firms in the world. With the aid of the great
financial panic of 1873, Frick cleverly took control of his competitors and
the coal fields of Connellsville, Pennsylvania, greatly expanding his control
over mining and coking operations. Then, with the finest metallurgical grade
of coke under his firm grip -- a product that he sold to Carnegie Steel -- Frick
became a millionaire by the age of 30, as well as being known as the undisputed
"King of Coke."
Clayton,
the family home in Pittsburgh, was purchased in early 1883, and was enlarged
in 1891 to accommodate the family's growing needs, making the old 11-room house
into the spectacular 23-room chateau-style mansion that can be seen today. A
couple of years later, in 1993, the Welte Style 6 Concert Orchestrion was brought
into the house and installed in the front parlor. It was originally escapement
driven, i.e., powered by two large weights hanging on cables located on the
backside of the instrument. The right-side weight powered the music roll frame
and pumped the four wide pressure feeders (bellows) on the right side of the
instrument. The left-side weight powered four narrow pressure feeders, which
are coincidentally located on the left side of the feeder assembly, and that
are also connected to and operate the four narrow vacuum feeders directly under
them. Once one of the weights reached the floor it had to be raised again, a
task that was accomplished by turning a ratcheted hand-crank arrangement. Having
to "wind-up" the orchestrion frequently must have been an inconvenient and unwelcome
chore, so much so that in 1904, when electricity was becoming fairly commonplace,
Emil Welte was summoned to Clayton in order to convert the large orchestrion
to electric operation. The Welte orchestrion may have been moved to the front
sun porch at that time.
Frick eventually became a director on the board of many prominent corporations,
and in 1901 he took a leading part in the negotiations that resulted in the
formation of the United States Steel Corporation. When Frick died in 1919, he
left behind a fortune worth 145 million, most of which went to purposes for
which the public would benefit. His New York home, which became his principal
residence in 1905, was to house the Frick Collection of art (http://www.frick.org).
In Pittsburgh his legacy included the 151-acre Frick Park, as well as some of
the city’s greatest buildings, which include the William Penn Hotel, the Union
Trust building, and the Frick Building. He also gave millions to Harvard, MIT
and the Educational Commission of Pittsburgh, with other generous gifts to hospitals
located in coke and steel region towns.
Of four children (two sons and two daughters), the surviving daughter, Helen
Clay Frick, who was 31 years old at the time of Frick's death, was bequeathed
$6.5 million to be used for charitable and educational purposes. After Helen
Frick's death, the family home of Clayton became the Frick Art & Historical
Center (http://frickart.org/home/),
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The Welte orchestrion still resides at Clayton, and
is one of only a few orchestrions of any make or type to have remained in their
original location. Clayton is open to the public, and the Welte can be heard
at the end of each tour.
Circa 1960
The Welte was "Modernized" in the 1960's. This was a fairly common practice
before automatic musical machine were generally considered to have much, if
any, intrinsic monetary or historical value, and such "improvements" were vastly
cheaper and more convenient then actually restoring an instrument to its original
state. To accomplish this particular "modernization," vacuum and pressure blowers
were added, bypassing the original feeder pumps, and gear motors were added
to the music roll frame, taking the place of the original round belt drives
and manually operated linkages. While such attempts at "improvement" are now
considered to be flagrantly disrespectful, if not outright vandalism, such practices
are generally shunned by collectors today. Nonetheless, this early practice
did keep many machines operational, even if an unsightly fix, saving many of
these mechanical music relics from the dump heap.
1991
The
Welte orchestrion was beautifully and meticulously restored by Durward R. Center
in 1991, returning this superb example of an early and large Welte Concert orchestrion
to its original splendor. Moreover, the original factory "modernization" by
Emil Welte, done in 1904, and which upgraded the Welte so that it could be powered
by electricity instead of escapement weights, was left intact and restored right
along with the rest of the machine.
During
the year 2001 the Frick Art & Historical Center, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (http://www.frick.org),
released Orchestrion Favorites from the Frick, a new compact disc album
that was professionally mastered and produced, and that captures the very heart
and essence of the magnificent Welte Style 6 Concert Orchestrion at Clayton,
the Frick Mansion. This beautifully manufactured compact disc is filled with
popular and classical renditions that really demonstrate and show-off the huge
instrument. This splendid recording was made by the Frick Art & Historical Center
so that the enchanting sound of this classic mechanical musical treasure could
be enjoyed by countless music fans everywhere. To obtain a copy of the Frick
CD album go to the
Carousel Music web site, and then navigate to and click on the "Go
Shopping" button at page top.
Credits:
Historic and technical information provided by Durward
Center.
Photographs:
Durward Center and William E. Black (CD album).
