3-008-912 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The International Exhibition: the orchestrion, by M. Welte, of Vöhrenbach, in the Zollverein Department, 1862. Instrument '...named, "an orchestrion," from the number of different instruments it plays - producing the effect of a hand or orchestra on a small scale - of very ingenious and elaborate construction...The instrument has 39 barrels, 15 different registers, with 524 pipes - imitating flutes, flageolets, piccolos, oboes, trumpets, horns, trombones, &c....the instrument [also] contains a big-drum, kettle-drum, small military-drum, triangles, and cymbals. The orchestrion performs a number of overtures and pieces of music...some symphonies of Beethoven, &c., played with considerable precision and correctness...When the full number of instruments is played the tone is very powerful, and the effect almost equal to a small band. The self-acting machinery...is very ingenious...The music is marked on the barrels by a cleverly-contrived time-machine, which pricks or marks the spots where the pins are afterwards inserted which are to move the keys or levers which permit the notes to sound. By this time-machine the barrels can be marked with the greatest accuracy and precision, the marker playing the notes as if performing on a keyed instrument'. From "Illustrated London News", 1862.