Full Orchestral Antique Music Box
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 21 ต.ค. 2024
- A large and impressive full orchestral antique music box made by George Baker of Geneva. This box has everything going for it: 6 individually engraved and partly enamelled bells featuring an array of birds and flowers; a snare drum with six beaters; castanet; a retractable 18-note reed organ; 2 zither bars; large double springs for longer running time; speed control; and a tune selector. The drums, bells, castanet and, unusually, the organ can all be engaged and disengaged at will. The entire musical movement has been fully overhauled.
The box plays 12 operatic airs including Cavalleria Rusticana and Wagner's Wedding March. The case is veneered in beautiful bird's eye maple with a floral inlay to the lid, rosewood banding and boxwood stringing. It has the additional extra of its own purpose-made table. Very much a spectacle music box.
More details and images here: www.vincentfree...
I had no idea such a wonderful thing even existed, I can only imagine the level skill and patience it takes to make one.
Everything was fine and dandy until I saw just how many pickets there were on the comb, holy
eighteen? what comb exactly?
I think you mean the barrel, not the comb. And those are just notes (when combined with the comb, ofc), so not as tedius as you'd think.
By "pickets" do you mean "teeth"? And the reed organ is actuated by levers in the middle. Also, the "teeth" in the "combs" which play the percussion instruments are really silent dummies which act as spring loaded lever actuators acting upon linkage below them which connects to the beaters.
Never heard an organ box before. Exquisite piece in exquisite condition.
We had one when I was little it was over 200 years old and my cousins lost it in the fire. So sad.
Only hospitals have them these days. However, you'll get in trouble if you open one without permission cause that means they have to throw it away.
@@uriah4491 🤣🤣🤣
The Bornand Collection includes a music box with a reed organ, as well as a drum.
@@uriah4491 I call those things, LUNCH!
Respect for the creators of these instruments, for their imagination and knowledge
That's beautiful! Wonderful that the music box was lovingly restored. I imagine that before the invention of the phonograph, only rich folk could afford music boxes, and the machine would sit in a special place in a parlour with potted ferns and nicely draped tall windows. I enjoyed this video, because my mom had given me an LP record, "A Music Box Christmas", in which several Christmas or religious tunes were played by about three or four different music boxes. I play this album every Christmas.
As soon as I saw this post, before I even played the video, I thought of a similar record my parents had. It might even be the same one! Does yours have "O Sanctissima" on it? That is the only tune that readily comes to my mind. I wonder whatever happened to that album? 🤔
I think some poorer people could just about afford them , but it would have been a very big purchase, something that they would have saved up for for many, many years; and even then, buying the rolls compatible with the machine wouldn't have been easy, and still expansive - I can only presume that after placing the same tunes over and over again, they'd start to get on your nerves after a while, no matter how good they sounded upon first listen. Now I can buy a CD second hand for next to nothing, and play it on a system that's easily affordable. But this machine still has a beauty and craftmanship, and sound that makes it special.
I think some of the music from your LP record is also the same music that is played for the holiday BGM on Main Street at Disneyland and Magic Kingdom.
Music boxes make me so happy
It's amazing to think of a time when recording and reproducing audio was not conceived. Technology progressed towards autonomous live performance. One wax cylinder and an industry died, as many more were born.
It was conceived. This was the evidence. Just not fully achieved
Du grand art. Je suis toujours fasciné par la réalisation de telles merveilles par des artisans. Un plaisir pour les yeux et les oreilles, merci.
This music box reminds me of the old fashioned merry - go - round rides in Golden gate park, and the old Playland at the beach (In San Francisco ca. ) merry - go - round ride .
.They were the most beautifully made , and sounding merry - go --round rides ever built .They sounded very much like this music box , but at a louder volume .. made in the 1800's or earlier !?? They do NOT make things like they used too...
Thanks for sharing this phenominal music box !!
The instruments you would have heard on the carousels are called "band organs" or "fairground organs" and there are still many around to enjoy today. Just search on TH-cam.
Чудесная шкатулка! Какой красивый звук! Сразу это ощущение старины, сказки...
The absolute genius and skills it must have taken to make this is extraordinary! 🤔🙄🙏🇬🇧
That is so nostalgic 😊
For those that are curious, the song is Au fond de temple saint from La pecheurs de perles the opera.
Wow! I never knew there were any like this!
I've never seen one of those before but it's a beautiful compact little thing and whoever invented it must have been a genius in their own right. ❤❤❤.
The Ave Maria. Beautiful.
Best tone I've heard from an organ box
My grandmother had one very similar. She sold it to a relative. Listening to it was such a treat and this brought back a flood of memories.
The amount of genius behind these contraptions is mind-boggling 🤯👍
Not only did one have to be a musical maestro but a mechanical engineer and cabinetmaker of note too - absolutely multi talented at the highest level.
Well these instruments were not made completely by a single person, but were made in a "cottage industry" that in the early days took place in various home workshops in Switzerland. This is detailed in books such as "The Musical Box Makers".
Later on large factories were built, but most firms still had a major division of labor among multiple locations / teams who specialized each in one thing: combs, cases, bedplates, wheels (gears), governors, dampers etc. So each box by most companies was actually a group effort of multiple work teams. In this way the work of several Swiss ''makers" can be very hard to tell apart even by some experts, due to the sharing of the pool of talented artists and craftspeople there.
(Books attempting to differentiate between them based on certain clues, technical features, tune sheets, serial numbers etc include two fine 1980s/1990s books by the late Anthony (H. A.) Bulleid. )
Some firms were a bit more standalone (like Nicole Freres and Mermod Freres I believe), although that in no way makes them superior nor inferior to the others, as the build quality and finish of most Swiss cylinder musical boxes of this period (let's say 1840s to 1890s) was almost uniformly high.
The two main centers of activity were in Saint Croix and Geneva.
There were also lesser numbers of cylinder box (which are very rare today, and mostly not as fancy as this) made in Austria, Bohemia (now Czech republic and Slovakia) and other places.
Most disc musical boxes (1890s to late 1900s) were made in Germany or the USA, but a number of Swiss makers also joined in making these, with some success.
Nowadays most small musical movements come from Japan, with a few Swiss makers remaining (notably Reuge).
What a marvelous jewel!
A testament to human ingenuity. Amazing
Ça m'a même mis les frissons🥶🥰
Yes! Me too!
Nice! I didn't see the drum on the left used. Does it do other tunes?
These boxes usually have multiple tunes per cylinder. Usually at least 6 and as many as 12. There are little levers visible in front of the false combs which activate the percussions, to turn them off manually if desired. So the drum, bells, castanet and I think reed organ can all be individually shut off so only the music combs play. In this case I don't think the drum is turned off; more likely the music arranger did not think it was appropriate to use on this piece if music.
Absolutely BEAUTIFUL!
Absolutely beautiful machine
Wauw this isnt next level, this is next universe❤
Wario moment
What's amazing is that they put this much genius and effort into making this thing, and then it just plays one single, very basic, very short song. That's all it will ever play.
A beautiful, luxurious, useless toy for adults. You can go on for years admiring the exquisite work that was needed for making it, - and that's all it offers!
The Description says it plays 12 operatic airs.
@kabouktli You don't appreciate much, I would guess.
That's not quite right.
Almost all old Swiss cylinder musical boxes of this quality of this era play at least 4 tunes, and as many as 12, even on a fixed cylinder (the cylinder shifts sideways in progressive steps to get the different tunes; the pins and staples for the unplayed tunes pass in between the tooth tips on the comb).
Also, some more ambitious makers made fat cylinder boxes that are "two per turn" or "three per turn" (short tunes) resulting in a repertoire of 20 or 30 short tunes. Those are almost never orchestra boxes though. (other "fat cylinder" boxes known as "overture boxes" play fewer long form works like overtures, symphony movements etc and are more desired by the average collector).
Also, many later boxes (especially fancier ones) were made with interchangeable cylinders, and usually sold with at least one other cylinder, and sometimes as many as half a dozen or more, usually with a matching base cabinet or table with drawers to store them all. These were quite a bit more expensive than the average disc musical box which overtook them in the market in the 1890s, but did also offer more tunes than the fixed cylinder type.
The box and the music are beautiful!
It's basically a miniature version of a fairground organ. Everything miniaturized except the mechanism of music encoding.
Interesting! At first I was thinking the timing is too fast for this piece but then realized they have to fit the tune onto the cylinder.
Регулятор скорости воспроизведения, кажется - располагается в ближнем правом углу, стрелка стоит посередине между "медленнее" и "быстрее".
It sounds a bit slow to me actually. Although certainly there was a limited amount of space on the cylinder per tune, I think most of the makers and music arrangers were musically astute enough to try to make the music arrangements play back at a realistic tempo to (approximately) how it was played live in that period, instead of too slow or too fast. Some of the noteurs (arrangers) used different tricks to achieve this, since the cylinder speed is mostly fixed (with some boxes having a slight tempo adjustment acting on the governor... I think a friction brake). So they would subdivide the measures of the fixed speed cylinder in different ways, to end up with different numbers of bars possible per revolution, depending on the desired tempo. The pins and staples (staples hold long notes for the reed organ, just as in other standalone barrel organs) are thus spaced more closely together or further apart, for a given rhythm.
What a beautiful creation
The unique Reed Orgon where you can see in the center in between those two combs sounds like an accordion.
WOW...... The artistry is amazing
Nice, but I wanna hear something with ALL the instruments!
if you look up 'orchestral cylinder music box' (or 'musical box') on TH-cam, there are videos of other examples.
I need. I want. You have no idea how much I’m going to research on this
You can find these orchestral musical boxes for sale online. Usually they bring a premium price, but you can find a slightly simpler model with just bells and drum (no reed organ, and maybe no castanet) for a bit less. Several different Swiss makers made these including Paillard, Bremond, Mermod Freres, etc etc.
Magical! 💚
Is this one of Virgil Fox's boxes that Sandy Fleet owned before passing?? Beautiful!!
Magnificent.
This is incredible!
I'm disappointed that we didn't get to hear the percussion section. (Referring to the wood block and small drum)
Favoloso ❤️💖
I love the look of this Orchestral Music Box but I am not too keen on the sound it produces.
I was only mildly amused, until the full set of harmonies struck at :45 secs.
Then I literally went, "ah!" and sighed contentedly as the piece finished.
What a marvelous little music box!
Always wondered how the reed organ got its wind -- surely the mainspring for the playing barrel could not spare the energy.
Wow! What an incredible treasure!
Absolutely beautiful!
If you add "Ave Maria" to the title and description, this might give the visibility it deserves. The arrangement seems to be based on the melody Gounod re-re-re-remixed over Bach's Prelude in C Major. If you sprinkle some of those words into your title and description, you'll catch a few folks who are thirsty for alternative renditions of familiar tunes. 200K views after 10 years doesn't seem like enough. More people should see and listen to this, even if by accident.
Ah, the wonders of old mechanica!
That’s so cool. Thank you. God Bless.
WOW,,, LOVELY ❤.
Bell sound ok, but how mouth organ was played? Where was 'wind' source?
Amazing! Thank You
Das ist noch Qualität!
Gorgeous
Go see the House on the Rock in Wisconsin. I think it has the world's largest collection of automated music boxes. Totally amazing.
I don't know about the "world's largest" collection but it's a large collection of both original instruments and "fantasy music machines". There are also several dozen other mechanical music museums around the world; some smaller, others larger. Some are privately owned and run; others are owned and run by the state or local gov't. All would appreciate more visitors who love these things.
There was a list of public places with mechanical musical instruments (both dedicated museums; and other museums or tourist attractions with one or more instruments on display) done by MBSI and hosted on the late Phillippe Rouille's "Musica Mecanica" website (linked by the MMD), but that site is way out of date and although some of the places are still there and open, others have closed while still other newer ones have opened. Also a few other old museums that were open then (and still open now) were ommitted by accident. I am trying to make a new and better list in my spare time which is more comprehensive and should hopefully be a worthy successor to that list once it's online.
Thank you for sharing
Must be worth a fortune. Very nice
Eine aufwändige handwerkliche Arbeit!
Aber - ehrlich gesagt - schön anzuhören fand ich dieses "Ave Maria!" nicht.
Sooooo beautiful! 😲👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏😊👍👍
Wonderful
U do a rally good job on here mate keep up there good work on here mate form greg
That's very kind of you, thank you
See ok mate
amazing!!
O.M.G.
Super fantastic!
Great specimen.
Esa si que es una cahita de música orquestal increíble😊❤😊❤😊❤😊❤😊❤😊❤
really cool! Was the percussion ever functional or was it ornamental?
Thougt something similar.. Far right there's a wood block with 4 beaters. Surely other songs/combs use this.
Lovely
Digital music from the past.
Si así se escucha bien bonito, en vivo se ha de escuchar hermoso, muchas gracias...
Gracias Rebeca
Ave Maria (J.S.Bach/Gounod)
Yeah man!
👍🏼🙏🏼
Maybe, more andantino on speedwalve?
I want to hear those drums!
Amazing! Would it be possible to see the organ in action?
Did you play with sound on?
I have this. Please Suggest where to Repair this ? and Value of this ?
There is the cylinder with digital record like MIDI-file, that controls the instruments.
Fantástico 😳
An impressive technical marvel - but - I wonder why it doesn't play in tune ?
The mechanical part is flawless, and (by its workmanship) is precise and in tune with other mechanical "instruments."
But the pneumatic "organ" does not integrate with the mechanical sonically, and sounds discordant.
Perhaps the airflow or air pressure is not quite sufficient to create the exact "pitch", (the 'bellows" need adjusting,)
or maybe some sort of calibration to the organ's sound production.
Dang, where can I see one of these?
Would this be more considered a small Calliope rather then a music box?
The difference would be a calliope would use pipes rather than the metal chimes, I guess you would call them.
👍 different!
Only six bells?
Excelente.
Freebird!!!!
I can't see how the organ / strings sound is made.
Yes
That old box is very cool, but it needs to work on it's phrasing...👀 Now again with more feeling. Come on now! commit!!!
When do the drums kick in? Lol.
Probably for different songs I'm guessing
It was disengaged when the video was filmed.
@@FemaleFullmetalth-cam.com/video/65Gi-vdJ9a8/w-d-xo.html found a video of a song with drums
Cool 😎 robot music 🎶 machine!
❤❤❤❤❤
Where can I purchase something so beautiful
Please see our website for the music boxes we currently have available for sale: www.vincentfreemanantiques.com/antique-music-boxes
If you are interested in anything in particular, please contact us by email via the website.
Thanks in advance.
What song is this?
Ave Maria -
JS Bach/Gounod
❤
The neanderthal machine that put musicians out of work has evolved into the modern self checkout machine in stores.....😎
What is the music name?
Ave Maria
What will they think of next?
Lindo
Drum was not used. Wood block was not used.
Ahh.. Ave Maria -Bach/Gounod
Mmm😮😮😮