Portable harmonium (reed organ)
Dublin Core
Title
Portable harmonium (reed organ)
Subject
Description
Wood, ivory, felt, metal.
Grainger wrote in 1929, ‘If I were forced to choose one instrument only for chamber music – I would choose the harmonium (reed-organ) without hesitation; for it seems to me the most sensitively and intimately expressive of all instruments… No other chord-giving instrument is so capable of extreme and exquisitely controlled pianissimo… Both in chamber-music and in the orchestra it provides the ideal background to the individualistic voices of the woodwinds.’
This portable harmonium was probably used by Grainger for Free Music experiments, as some of the keys have been adjusted and there is string tied to some of the black keys.
Grainger wrote in 1929, ‘If I were forced to choose one instrument only for chamber music – I would choose the harmonium (reed-organ) without hesitation; for it seems to me the most sensitively and intimately expressive of all instruments… No other chord-giving instrument is so capable of extreme and exquisitely controlled pianissimo… Both in chamber-music and in the orchestra it provides the ideal background to the individualistic voices of the woodwinds.’
This portable harmonium was probably used by Grainger for Free Music experiments, as some of the keys have been adjusted and there is string tied to some of the black keys.
Date
n.d. (before 1941)
Type
Identifier
00.0036