Orchestrion in Andrew Carnegie Show on PBS TV
By Harvey Chao
Stumbled across and got hooked watching a PBS show last night that
was a biography of Andrew Carnegie. They showed shots of the house
of a former board member and senior manager of his as they described
a dinner the two had to redress an earlier falling out. The general
date of the meeting was the very late 1890s or so.
They showed video shots of an orchestrion, accompanied (presumably)
by the music coming from the instrument. The video shots included
views of the paper roll and the metal gear mechanism that I assumed
were part of the roll transport as well as a tight shot of a couple of
small bellows and some polished organ pipes. Interesting -- would be
nice to see and hear one live and in person some day. It was alluded
that this was quite a "rich man's" device of the day.
Anyone else see this ?
Harvey Chao
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(Message sent Tue 22 Feb 2000, 15:51:17 GMT, from time zone GMT-0800.) |
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