Gavioli Monkey organ
By Marc Kaufman
Bob, I am copying this to the rolls list because there might be some more general interest or insights. Hope you don't mind.
I saw your posting about German organs, and hope you might have collected some information about French organs as well.
In your organ research, have you come across anything about the Gavioli "Harmoniflute"? I have an 8-tune 38 note barrel organ I purchased from Larry Karp. It is a "Harmoniflute a Trombone" organ made by Gavioli in about 1861. I am sure of the date, because when the organ was restored in the 1980s, the air reservoir was found lined with a Paris newspaper from 1861!
The most interesting part is the base (trombone) pipe, which is pear shaped and contains the 3 lowest base reeds (all in the same pipe, with segmented resonator). In other Gavioli literature, this is called a "Uniflute". [accents on the u omitted] The other pipes are all standard stopped flutes.
There were 7 pipes standing in the front of the organ, but those were all lost and were replaced fairly recently. I am not sure that they are even the correct notes, now, so I am looking for any information I can find.
Marc Kaufman
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(Message sent Tue 5 Dec 1995, 05:58:16 GMT, from time zone GMT-0800.) |
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