While in the New York City area visiting family during Christmas, I took
a tour of Boscobel, a restored 1804 Federal mansion in Garrison, NY.
The house & grounds, overlooking the Hudson River, were beautiful.  The
furnishings are based on a family inventory of the period, and include
a wonderful little chamber barrel organ.  The organ is labeled inside
"Longman's & Broderip, London" and dates from ca. 1790.  It has a simple,
beautiful mahogany case, with an oval-shaped picture of a woman playing
a spinet on the front.  It's much smaller than other chamber organs I've
seen, standing only about 42" high. It has 3 barrels (10 songs each).

Being in the market for a chamber organ myself, of course I stood
transfixed in front of it, hoping the tour guide would play it!  She
explained that it had been rebuilt/restored, and to save wear & tear,
they had recorded a CD of the organ, from which she then proceeded to play
a short selection.  I was overjoyed to discover that the CD was sold in
the gift shop (the guide said I was the only person who'd ever asked if
it was available!), so guess what I bought for $9.99 on the way out!

The recording is wonderful, and contains all 30 songs/airs from the organ,
each about 45 seconds long, complete with mechanical clicks and sounds.
If I close my eyes I can pretend I have a chamber organ in my living room!
I highly recommend it to any Mechanical Music fan. If you'd like to try
ordering it, Boscobel's phone number is 914-265-3638.

Happy New Year everyone!

Jim Canavan¶
CYBRFLASH@aol.com¶
Alexandria, VA