Philipps Model 3 Keyboard Style Paganini
This Paganini was originally sold by Gerard G.I., a Philipps distributor in Brussels to an unknown café. Eugene DeRoy, a well-known technician, dealer, and music roll maker in Antwerp, found it and sold it to Hathaway and Bowers circa 1970. From there it went to Alex Jordan, who used parts of it to provide music for his “Blue Room” fantasy music machine at The House on the Rock near Spring Green, Wisconsin. The parts were eventually replaced with an audio system to play along with the room full of automated display orchestral instruments. The Paganini parts were then reunited, and acquired from Jordan by the Place de la Musique Collection near Chicago in 1986.
Another view of the Paganini, which was Philipps’ answer to the Hupfeld Phonoliszt-Violina but incorporating realistic-sounding violin pipes instead of real violins.
Paganini piano and cabinet completely restored, including structural repairs, soundboard, pinblock, restringing, piano action, keyboard, veneer, etc. It is now ready for installation of the wiring, player mechanisms, pipes and chest.
Ranks of 117 fine scale, very imitative soft violin, loud violin, and flageolet pipes. The sophisticated tremolo or vibrato device at the lower left speeds up and slows down as the swell shutters open and close, simulating a human violinist’s expression more accurately than an ordinary single-speed pipe organ tremolo mechanism. (The immense Wanamaker organ in Philadelphia is one of the few pipes organs ever made in the United States with a variable speed tremolo, controlled by one of the swell pedals in the console.)
Detail of several piano control mechanisms, new tubing and wind lines.
Rex Kennedy (left) and Bob Grunow (right) with the completed Paganini partially disassembled for shipping. The large wooden box at the top is a 44-note harmonium (reed organ), which plays in the lower register to accompany the pipes, either with or without the piano.
The completely restored Paganini with all parts installed except for the front and back panels. The 117 pipes are mostly hidden behind the harmonium.
