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. Although the Theatre Organ was originally designed to accompany silent films, not many were installed in cinemas in the U.K. before 'talking pictures' were introduced.
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.
Choose "Open from current location" and let your browser take over, or "Save file" for downloading and listening later.
Click here to read about our Compton Theatre Organ, custom built for use by the BBC at its Maida Vale studios.
