Dutch Street organs
| Contrary to popular belief, the roots of
the Dutch street organ are not lying in Holland at all, not even in the Netherlands. In
the early days, before 1900, the concept of a Dutch street organ as we know it now
did not exist yet. Street organs were, like in most other countries of Europe, small
hand-driven instruments that were worn around the neck and leaned on the belly
(buikorgel), or were supported by an unfoldable leg (pootorgel). Sometimes they were
mounted on a small cart. photo right: Mr. Hein de Bruin, the last of the "pootorgel" musicians in Amsterdam, about 1920 |
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Organ renting firms as Leon Warnies in Amsterdam, Goudswaard in Rotterdam and Denies in The Hague started to import book organs from France as early as 1902. The first book organs were built in Paris by the firms of Gasparini and Gavioli; later, after 1910, many "orchestrophone" organs were bought from Limonaire & fils and Marenghi. In WW I it was not possible to buy organs in France, so organs were bought from Belgian firms like Bursens, Devreese, Steenput, and others. Al these organs from France and Belgium were built and delivered for use on the fairground or in dance-halls. Many of them were, in fact, rented for that purpose. It was easy for showmen to rent a fair organ for the duration of their stay in a big city. Meanwhile, they had the opportunity to have their own organ repaired or repinned. |
| The original organs soon proved to have some nasty disadvantages. Stuffed with reed pipes as voix humaines, saxophones and clarinets they went out of tune very easily during their daily voyage over the cobbled streets of Amsterdam and other big cities. Due to the increasing traffic noise by motorcars their sound grew too soft to be heard properly. As a result, most of these organs were rebuilt in the twenties to match the changing circumstances. | |
Limonaire 56 key orchestrophone "Angels
chest" in use as a street organ in Rotterdam,
1914 
 90
key Carl Frei organ "de Pod" before WW II |
In the early twenties the
German organ builder, composer and music arranger Carl Frei set up an
organ business in the town of Breda, in the south of the Netherlands. He did most of the
rebuilding of the old French and Belgian organs, giving them the sound that is now so
typical of a Dutch street organ. In seeking a replacement for the vulnerable clarinets and voix humana's he invented a new register, consisting of two rows of stopped pipes with very bright intonation, one row tuned slightly sharp to the other. He called this register "bourdon céleste". This soon became a very popular sound among the growing crowd of organ-freaks; even to such an extent that street-organs were banned temporarily in Rotterdam in the thirties! Besides rebuilding older organs Carl Frei started building new ones according to this concept. The biggest of these, with 90 keys, were true "castles of the street". Many of these organs survived, still loved by many people in Holland and abroad. |
page updated 04-01-2010