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Robert Heilbuth Collection Video
By Timothy Tikker

Thanks for posting the link to the video about Robert Heilbuth.  I have
a VHS copy of that, and hadn't known that it was available online.

The pipe organ with three player mechanisms is still dismantled, in
storage in my home, now in Dexter, Michigan.  I rent my current home,
so am waiting for a home I can own before I set up and restore the
organ.

Why the organ had three player mechanisms?  The first player was made
in Robert's youth in Hamburg, Germany, and was a tiny affair with small
wooden pipes, winded from a hair-drier(!), and the pipes fed their wind
directly through the holes in the paper roll.

Sometime after moving to the USA he built a larger organ but still
wanted to play the old rolls as well, so he simply fitted the two roll
players onto the one larger organ.  Then that organ was enlarged and a
player added to handle that as well, and again the two old roll players
were kept.

The first two players control the lower manual of the organ and, I
believe, just the low 12 pedal notes (or maybe just the second player
controls pedals?).  The third player adds a Solo section of four stops,
three of which are completely unavailable in the manually controlled
portions of the organ; that player may also play more pedal notes.

To the best of my knowledge, all the other instruments are in the
possession of Robert's inheritor, who last I heard (I contacted him on
what would have been Robert's 100th birthday) was still living in what
had been Robert's house.

Timothy Tikker
tikkertimothy@gmail.com.geentroep


(Message sent Sat 29 Aug 2015, 17:13:05 GMT, from time zone GMT-0400.)

Key Words in Subject:  Collection, Heilbuth, Robert, Video

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