The first 'moving pictures' were shown just over 100 years ago and this new entertainment medium soon became very popular. The first film programmes were presented in the travelling 'Bioscope' shows which toured the country with the elaborate fairground frontages. The Bioscope itself was a little more than a large tent with wooden floor and seating. However, the frontage was extremely eye-catching and often contained a suitable impressive fairground organ. The forthcoming music would not only attract patrons, but would also help to drown the noise of the projector within!

Once purpose-built 'Kinemas' began to appear about 1910, it was soon discovered that a pianist tucked away in a corner below the screen, could follow the actions and moods of the storyline and provide suitable music to accompany the silent, flickering images. In this way, a lot more life and feeling was added to the show.

The Photoplayer was essentially a Player Piano which was augmented with various organ pipes, percussion instruments and other sound effects, and provided the effect of a small orchestra under the control of one person. The museum's 'Fotoplayer - Model 20' (trade name!) was fitted with two spoolboxes so that whilst one spoolbox was providing the music for the current scene, the second spoolbox could be rewinding, ready to be fitted with music of a different nature ready for the change of scene. The music rolls, specially produced, were labelled with such helpful descriptions as 'light comedy', 'turmoil' or 'dramatic response'! This fotoplayer is one of only three left in existence, one other is in regular use at the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney, Australia.

Whilst the Photoplayer was able to supply music for the small picture houses of the 'teens, the much larger 'movie palaces' of the 1920s demanded a much larger, grander instrument. The Wurlitzer Company, who were building Player Pianos and Orchestrions, adopted the ideas of English organ builder Robert Hope-Jones and developed an instrument which was given the rather grand name of the 'Wurlitzer Hope-Jones Unit orchestra'! It was an instrument designed to sound as much like an orchestra as possible, but to be played by a single person - a pre-electronics synthesiser in fact. although many other firms in the U.S.A., England and elsewhere began to build these Theatre Organs, none of then caught the public's imagination so much as the 'Mighty Wurlitzer'.

The Museum's Wurlitzer was actually built in 1929 as a residence instrument, but it was very soon enlarged and re-installed in the Regal Cinema, Kingston-upon-Thames in 1932.

These amazing instruments, with their myriad of sounds were then used to provide musical interludes and to accompany the stage acts which formed a part of many cinema programmes back in the 1930s. The hundreds of organ pipes, the percussion instruments and the many sound effects which make-up this unique instrument were tucked away behind the decorative proscenium of the cinema and were connected to the illuminated console containing several thousand wires.

When re-installed in the Musical Museum, the organ was connected to a very rare Wurlitzer Automatic Roll Playing Cabinet, enabling the performances of many American Theatre Organists of the 1920s to be faithfully recreated.

Click Cry me a River to download and hear this classic performed on the Wurlitzer at Brentford by Len Rawle. (MP3 File 4.23MB) Available from the Museum Shop.

Click River deep, mountain high to download and hear this classic performed on the Wurlitzer at Brentford by Len Rawle. (MP3 File 2.3MB) Available from the Museum Shop.

Click here to read about our Compton Theatre Organ, custom built for use by the BBC at its Maida Vale studios.