#organ #berlin #musicalinstrument
00:00:00 The Mighty Wurlitzer organ
00:01:00 Demonstration - The Mighty Wurlitzer
00:04:47 Second floor instruments chambers
"The Mighty Wurlitzer is one of the largest instruments of its kind on the European continent. Werner Ferdinand von Siemens, the grandson of the company founder, acquired the four-manual instrument in 1929 from the Rudolph Wurlitzer Company in the USA. The organ has 1228 pipes and more than 200 stops. In addition there is a large number of percussion and effect instruments." - https://www.museumsportal-berlin.de/en/events/demonstration-der-mighty-wurlitzer-theaterorgel-2/
"Werner Ferdinand von Siemens was one of Germany's leading industrialists. He lived in a 72 room villa in Gärtnerstraße 25-32, Berlin Lankwitz, where he already had installed a two manual Christie organ.
He was a real music enthousiast and a fine conductor, too. For his musical ambitions he had built a huge concert hall. There he conducted many times the entire orchestra of the Stadt Opera in a private concert for his friends.
In 1928 he travelled to America and ordered a two manual, eight ranks Wurlitzer organ type 200 special (Opus #2019) from the Rudolph Wurlitzer Company.
When this organ was delivered to Germany on January 28th in 1929, he already had ordered (for approx. $85.000,-) a much bigger organ - the four manual, 16 rank Mighty Wurlitzer type 250 special (Opus #2064)!
He sold the Wurlitzer 200 special to the UFA Palast, Berlin's leading movie theatre am Bahnhof Zoo (which was destroyed with the organ by World War II, and was rebuilt in 1956 as the Zoo Palast).
The type 250 special was installed in Siemens' concert hall in August 1929 by Walter Pierce, who had the Wurlitzer franchise for all Europe (see Installation Plan from Marvin E. Merchant for details).
At the end of World War II the villa, the concert hall and the organ became property of the German Reich. The Mighty Wurlitzer survived the war, but was seriously damaged in 1962 by a fire, which was caused by a careless cigarette.
From February 1963 to December 1963 Marvin E Merchant, a Berlin stationed G.I. repaired the organ at his own expense (see Restauration for details).
In 1982 it was given to the Staatliches Institut für Musikforschung Preußischer Kulturbesitz, where it was restored completely and installed in the museum by Eberhard Friedrich Walcker GmbH & Co. in 1984." - http://www.theatreorgans.com/berlin/
"The Mighty Wurlitzer is the crowning achievement of the Wurlitzer Company’s many years of developing cine ma and theatre organs. The »mighty« tone richness elicited from this great work is how it got its name. In the museum itself, one’s eyes initially fall on the horseshoe-shaped console in a white varnish finish offset with gold, from which the organ is put »into operation«. On the second floor, directly above, is the full line of Wurlitzer instruments in three large, accessible rooms: the main chamber, the orchestra room and the solo room. Downstairs, inaccessible to visitors, are the relay stations, an electrical wind machine and the bellows for wind generation. The airflow is fed from there through a canal (conducts) to the organ pipes in the chambers. The Mighty Wurlitzer is, just like the church organ, at first a simple pipe organ. However, using its rows of pipes, called ranks, it is able to imitate specific orchestra instruments. This includes elaborate percussion (xylophone, glockenspiel or marimba harp, with a large drum, snare drum, hi-hat or tom-tom) and an entire array of special sound effects like birds chirping, wind howling, a train rushing by or foghorns. The sheer variety of instrumental sounds and effects initially served as background music to the plot of silent f ilms, its primary function being a cinema organ. Of course, only the owners of large cinemas could afford such a large and expensive instrument – which also required a seasoned player who knew how to use it effectively – while a piano or reed organ sufficed in smaller theatres. However, should the great investment in such a cinema organ actually pay off, it had to carry out other tasks beyond the accompaniment of silent films. These primarily included holding independent concerts. The conception of the instrument as a »one-man orchestra« (unit orchestra) gave it the effortless ability to entertain a large audience in a wide variety of ways with only one player. To this end the player used the myriad technical possibilities offered by such a massive instrument. The majority of sounds and effects, as well as their many possibilities for combination, served to enchant the audience." - https://www.simpk.de/fileadmin/user_upload_sim/Dokumente/Museum/Sammlung/FuehrungsBlaetter_22_GB_pre.pdf
