CD review: Chamber Organ at Boscobel
By Jim Canavan
While in the New York City area visiting family during Christmas, I took a tour of Boscobel, a restored 1804 Federal mansion in Garrison, NY. The house & grounds, overlooking the Hudson River, were beautiful. The furnishings are based on a family inventory of the period, and include a wonderful little chamber barrel organ. The organ is labeled inside "Longman's & Broderip, London" and dates from ca. 1790. It has a simple, beautiful mahogany case, with an oval-shaped picture of a woman playing a spinet on the front. It's much smaller than other chamber organs I've seen, standing only about 42" high. It has 3 barrels (10 songs each).
Being in the market for a chamber organ myself, of course I stood transfixed in front of it, hoping the tour guide would play it! She explained that it had been rebuilt/restored, and to save wear & tear, they had recorded a CD of the organ, from which she then proceeded to play a short selection. I was overjoyed to discover that the CD was sold in the gift shop (the guide said I was the only person who'd ever asked if it was available!), so guess what I bought for $9.99 on the way out!
The recording is wonderful, and contains all 30 songs/airs from the organ, each about 45 seconds long, complete with mechanical clicks and sounds. If I close my eyes I can pretend I have a chamber organ in my living room! I highly recommend it to any Mechanical Music fan. If you'd like to try ordering it, Boscobel's phone number is 914-265-3638.
Happy New Year everyone!
Jim Canavan
CYBRFLASH@aol.com
Alexandria, VA |
(Message sent Tue 31 Dec 1996, 20:21:22 GMT, from time zone GMT-0500.) |
|
|
Mechanical
Music Digest™ Archives
