The 78 Key Mortier Dance Organ

This organ was built by the Mortier company of Antwerp, Belgium and its serial number (725) indicates that it pre-dates 1912 which makes it one of the five oldest Mortier's to have survived. The 78 key scale is now quite rare and it is fortunate that this example has kept almost all of its original features including a rank off accompaniment pipes mounted in the bottom of the centre case.

 

The organ has undergone a couple of rebuilds / modernisations in its lifetime and benefited from some additions such as the Accordion which is mounted high up in the centre of the main case. At present we are still trying to establish the details of its working life on the continent, but we do know that it had made its way to England by the 1960's when it was in the ownership of the late Charles Hart, founder of the St. Albans organ museum. It would seem that Mr Hart purchased the organ as part of a deal on some other organs and it is recorded that the organ was never played during its time at St. Albans.

The next owner was the late Frank Bond of Taunton, Somerset. Mr Bond purchased a number of organs from Mr Hart over the years and this one remained as part of his collection up until the disposal sale of the early 1980's. At this sale the organ was purchased by Douglas Berryman, a well known collector/dealer of mechanical musical instruments from Cornwall.

A few years later the organ passed into the ownership of the late Graham Whitehead who used it at his 'Nickelodeon Collection' entertainment venue at Ashorne Hall, Warwickshire. Here it featured alongside many other mechanical instruments, orchestrions and a exceptionally fine Compton theatre organ. This collection went from strength to strength and was a very popular tourist attraction which continually added new attractions including a spectacular miniature railway and in latter years a Wurlitzer theatre organ.

Following Mr Whitehead's death the collection was disposed of at auction by Christie's. The Mortier was purchased by the well known organ builder/restorer Jonny Ling from Norfolk who carried out further restoration work as well as adding to the repertoire of the organ with the purchase of additional music books from the very talented Dutch arrangers Jan Kees De Ruijter and Sjoerd Caspers.

During the latter part of 2009 Jonny decided to sell the organ and it was offered to Graham Atkinson who was pleased to be able to add such a rare, early example of a large Mortier dance organ to his collection. The organ was collected just after Christmas 2009 and a short while later Jonny travelled up to Scarborough to install the organ and carry out the necessary maintenance and tuning work, which resulted in the organ now playing to a very high standard.

The early Mortier's have a very distinctive sound to them and far greater volume than later examples, as well as a playing ability well beyond what the relatively small keyframe scale would suggest - infact in many ways they are comparable to the 101 key model, except for not having a fully chromatic scale.