Enjoy:
According to this YouTube blurb:
The largest pipe organ ever built, based on number of pipes, is the Boardwalk Hall Auditorium Organ in Atlantic City, New Jersey, built by the Midmer-Losh Organ Company between 1929 and 1932. The organ contains seven manuals, 449 ranks, 337 registers, and 33,114 pipes. It weighs approximately 150 tons....More information HERE and worth your time. What a treasure!
I had not idea.... what a wonderful treasure and sound. Thanks..
ReplyDeleteFranco must be drooling... ;)
ReplyDeleteFJ,
DeleteBlog-keeping note: therapy dog will re-post next week. I didn't mean for it to publish today in the first place.
Probably the best thing still extant in Atlantic City since the Crass, Crooked Casino Crowd moved in cheapened the place, and destroyed almost everything that had once made Atlantic City attractive to decent middle-class citizens seeking a respite from the workaday world –– a brief escape to an atmosphere of Olde World Seaside Elegance reminiscent of upper-class spas from Europe's Belle Epoque.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad the instrument –– really a quaint relic from a regrettably bygone era –– is being restored, but –– as something of an xpert in the field – I have to say that when it comes to organs "Bigger is Not Always Better."
( wonder what they plan to do with the instrument in this tawdry era of horrifyingly vulgar bearded, bare-chested, sweaty, tattooed, drug-addicted, foul-smelling electronic bands grinding out Rock, Rap, Hip-Hop and Country & Western Crap and God knows what else.
Maybe they'll have a bevy of organ virtuosi, –– most of whom are tragically underemployed these days ––, take turns playing Danse Macabre, The Funeral March of a Marionette. "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot," and Selections from Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, and Phantom of the Opera, every hour on the hour –– and of cours Bach's "MONSTER FANTASIA." That might be appropriate.
Maybe composers will write new works with it in mind? I loved the 2014 film Interstellar, which had a fabulous score by Hans Zimmer including some fantastic moments on a large pipe organ (not this one, obviously).
DeleteJez,
DeleteThanks for mentioning that possibility.
A so ewhat more detailed video about this organ's restoration:
ReplyDeletehttps://youtu.be/mFw5C3tHGe0
Worth seeing, if you're really interested.
Franco,
DeleteExcellent info in that video! Thanks.
A Bach recital recorded on this same organ in 1958 by Robert Elmore:
ReplyDeletehttps://youtu.be/Qb_VDTaRfM4
My COMMENTS on Robert Elmore's playing and the quality of the Atlantic-City instrument as it was sixty-one year ago and 29 year after its birth:
Delete1. Grotesquely inauthentic "tubby" "muddy" sound for Bach, and much too fast a tempo for the D-minor Fugue, but thrilling all the same. Bach's incredible integrity always shines through even the most grotesque distortions as long as all the notes sound accurately.
2. I'm glad Elmore treated the exquisitely sensitive, introspective Adagio from the Toccata Adagio and Fugue in C-major] with the respect it deserves, and I have to admit the C-major fugue sounds very well at this unusually sprightly tempo. The lighter registration helps emphasize the frolicking merrriment inherent in this fugue from Bach's young years. It virtually dances a jig. Too bad he muddied up the registration towards the end –– probably to achieve a more "sensational" effect.
Bach is more than sensational enough on his own terms. He never needs to be sensationalZED.
Franco,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your expert comments.
I do realize that I have to say that when it comes to organs "Bigger is Not Always Better." But I must say that what attracted me to posting on this Atlantic City organ is the amazing size of the instrument's pipes.
Yep, it's awesome technically, even if it doesn't always make the most sense musically.
DeleteAs a devotee of bass, there's no real substitute for size!