I have been pleased to read the interesting comments from Brian
Chesters and Paddy Handscome regarding designs for piano cases by
Baillie Scott and Rennie Mackintosh.  It can be important to find areas
in which our hobby, considered as a "niche interest" by so many,
relates to other areas, in particular those of architecture and design,
thereby to make connections which enrich and clarify our understanding
and appreciation of the heritage which interests us so much.

One area in which such connections are readily to be made is in case
design, not just of art-cased pianos, but in the bespoke casings of
some musical boxes, orchestrelles, orchestrions and residence organs.
This is a whole field of study just waiting to be explored.

As a case in point, the mention of Baillie Scott and Rennie Mackintosh
reminded me that there is a surviving Aeolian pipe organ with a case
designed by their famous Glaswegian contemporary, George Walton, and
I hope that some readers may find this interesting.

Aeolian's client was George Davison, an American who became the head
of Eastman Kodak for Europe.  Walton had worked alongside Mackintosh
on the interiors for the famous Miss Cranston's tearooms in Glasgow
and had become an interior designer of some renown.  Davison, who loved
Walton's work, commissioned him to design the main Kodak showrooms in
London, at 59 Brompton Road, and in the Strand, and also in Brussels.

George Eastman was initially unhappy that Walton, who was expensive,
had been given the commission, but Walton's work had conquered Davison.
Davison had a talent for squeezing money out of Eastman in order to
promote the Kodak brand in Europe and by the end of 1898 they had
renamed Walton's work for the showrooms as "Kodak-oration, the decorative
work of George Walton".  By that time the names of George Walton and
the Eastman Company were fused as one.

Davison commissioned George Walton to design for him a large country
house in Wales, "Wern Fawr", one of Walton's principal works as an
architect and, possibly following the example of his boss, he bought
his first Aeolian pipe organ, opus 1060, a "stock" organ, 0/8.  This
was later enlarged to 2/15, Harp and Chimes and renumbered as opus 1075.

Davison also commissioned Walton to re-design the interiors of his
Victorian town house at 32 Holland Park London where a further Aeolian
pipe organ, opus 1150, was installed in 1911.  This was also bought as
a "stock" organ but was later enlarged to 2/17, Echo, Harp and Chimes.

This organ survives, along with Walton's quite modernistic facade
(which was originally the end wall of a panelled room) at the
Mechanical Music Museum at Les Gets in the Haute Savoie region of
France.  The organ sits, slightly incongruously, on a gallery in
a mediaeval church.  It is, by all accounts, beautifully maintained
and, to the shame of the rest of the world, where we habitually
undervalue such instruments, the French Government have classified
it as a National Monument.

  http://lemuseedesgets.free.fr/Textes2/cadregets.htm

Rowland Lee
Lincolnshire, UK
http://www.rowlandlee.com/