Schiedmayer Dominator

Hello everybody,

some information about my new instrument:



Schiedmayer harmonium-celesta 55238 (1924), tuning 440hz

Damned !

Congratulations ! And now, we're waiting for recordings and a lot of other pics !

Merci beaucoup Olivier,

Je vais commencer a le jouer un peu, mais d'apres je peux prendre quelques photos des anches,
de la souflerie, celesta etc. Je vous tiens au courant.

Faut avouer que là, on n'est plus dans l'Orgue à cent francs...

Hello Nils,

You can't imagine how happy I got when I read this message telling that us that you got to purchase this awesome instrument!!
After all what happened, I'm quite convinced that God always brings what's meant to be ours.
I am sure that from now on this rare Schiedmayer will be an important part of your daily life.
Furthermore we hope to soon be pleased with a video of you showing your harmonium-célesta qualities.
All my best friendly cumpliments for you,

Dib Franciss

Magnifique !!
Félicitations !

Bravo.

Thank you for the nice comments! I appreciate it!

I will make some sound samples very soon when I have a better recorder, together with
some pictures of the inside parts.

Very nice, Nils !!
But please, post a video with its sound...play some excerpts, just to give us the idea of the Dominator !!
We're all curious about it...
Best,
Dib

Nils871 a écrit:

Hello everybody,

Congratulations!!!

And the even better part of it: Nils also acquiered a copy of a the book "Schiedmayer Dominator for dummies"

Nils, do you happen to have catalogs of the Dominator?

Citation :

Congratulations!!!

And the even better part of it: Nils also acquiered a copy of a the book "Schiedmayer Dominator for dummies"  

Nils, do you happen to have catalogs of the Dominator?  

I would like to thank Frans from harmoniumnet.nl for some extremely nice catalogues of the Schiedmayer Dominator & Scheola models he has been making these last several weeks.
One of the catalogues mentions a "universal harmonium schule" available for purchase specially written with the Schiedmayer Dominators in mind. Frans managed to collect all 3 volumes,
of wich I shall receive a copy, thanks again for all your help! The beautiful Schiedmayer harmoniums have remained undocumented for far too long. I hope that some of this information will
be made public on your beautiful website http://www.harmoniumnet.nl/schiedmayer-dominator.html

Nils871 a écrit:

Playing Grand-jeu WITH expression is quite easy on this Schiedmayer. I think it's one of the biggest qualities of this instrument: bellows and air supply in general.
I would like to open up the instrument, but for now everything is working well, should I wait or not? Everytime I opened up one of my previous instruments something stopped working..

Opening the case is not a problem at all, as long as you know where the screws are.

One item should be handled with extreme care:

The toggles above the stops to limit the stops to C-H and c-e' are fragile. During my visit to Wendlingen where I have seen the Rossini (no Celesta) at the inside how thin the connections are.

But, aren't we the type of guys only using a historic musical instrument with the most amount of care?

By the way, I have been thinking about the Stop at the right hand "Damper" above the keyboard.

Given the fact that all Dominators in the catalogs have 5 octave Celesta, and this particular instrument has a 4 octave Celesta.
From the documentation it shows that in all Dominator instruments the Celesta is a separate part of the instrument, i.e. it can be lifted of the Harmonium.

This brought me to the thought that the Celesta part could be purchased for later adding to - lets say a Rossini - to put it on top of the Harmonium.

When purchased Harmonium-Celesta, there is a heel lever at the right activating the Damper.

So, I think this Dominator had the Celesta added at a later date.

Meaning that both harmonium and Celesta are GENUINE Schiedmayer, only purchased and paid in 'installments'.

Final warning:

Universalschule is 328 pages. Only available in exchange of a considerable amount of euro's. (My arrangement with Nils is a "contract") For anyone other than Nils:
Just because I have to do the work (scanning/copy). It might be a shock to know that I am human. I need to buy my food. And paper. And ink-cartridges. And lots of marihuana to keep my partner happy, because I am all the time at my desk & compuer. .

posted twice it seems

Nils871 a écrit:

Hello everybody,

I hope it's not a problem that I'm posting this message in english, if someone would like to reply I understand also french.

Like some of you may know, I have been searching quite some time for a reasonable priced kunstharmonium, as this seemed
to be impossible I started selling all my harmoniums and was able to find this nice Schiedmayer harmonium with celesta




The serialnumber is 55238 (1924), the instrument is tuned to 440hz

Nils,

I wonder:

What are these labels on the key cheeks? What are the texts on these labels?


Frans

Citation :

Final warning:

Universalschule is 328 pages. Only available in exchange of a considerable amount of euro's. (My arrangement with Nils is a "contract") For anyone other than Nils:
Just because I have to do the work (scanning/copy). It might be a shock to know that I am human. I need to buy my food. And paper. And ink-cartridges. And lots of marihuana to keep my partner happy, because I am all the time at my desk & compuer.     .

thanks again for this, there is a chance that I will be able to get my hands on a Schiedmayer catalogue too, I will keep you informed.

*******************************************************************************************************************************

Citation :

Very nice, Nils !!
But please, post a video with its sound...play some excerpts, just to give us the idea of the Dominator !!
We're all curious about it...
Best,
Dib

Citation :

This brought me to the thought that the Celesta part could be purchased for later adding to - lets say a Rossini - to put it on top of the Harmonium.

When purchased Harmonium-Celesta, there is a heel lever at the right activating the Damper.

So, I think this Dominator had the Celesta added at a later date.

Meaning that both harmonium and Celesta are GENUINE Schiedmayer, only purchased and paid in 'installments'.

This is only possible IF the instrument was purchased as a celesta model without the celesta.
The model Rossini has only one manual, you can't add a manual to an instrument. But yes, a 4 octave celesta would certainly have been less expensive than a
5 octave model as well. It could have been a special order. For now it's the only 4-octave Schiedmayer harmonium-celesta I know, ..wich makes it
the largest 4-octave harmonium-celesta in the world just joking.

Citation :

Nils,

I wonder:

What are these labels on the key cheeks? What are the texts on these labels?


Frans

"Jalousie geöffnet" and "Jalousie geschlossen"

These are meant for the Forte fixe and the Metaphone on both sides.
The label right of the keyboards says: / Ceux-ci sont destinés à la Forte fixe et la Metaphone des deux côtés.
L'autre étiquette dit:

"55238
440"

the serial and the tuning.

Hello Niels !!

What a wonderful sound your Dominator has !
I got really amazed by the orchestral colour of the harmonium sound, and the mixture of its sound with the célesta is something awesome, magic !!
Thanks for granting us the pleasure of listening to this rarity in action.
I've always regreted that it is rather hard to find videos of those rare instruments on youtube. It should be a kind suggestion for all great collectors, to post them on youtube.
We are so eager to listen more...!
Thanks and thanks again,

Dib

Just judging from your photos and the circular spot above the right pedal which is brighter in colour than he rest, there seems to be one porcelain plaque missing, apparently the one for the damper lift:




Am I right?

If the celesta is a Mustel celesta indeed, it should have a Mustel serial number at the front on the left side together with a stamp "V. Mustel" looking like a hand-written signature.
Is there such a number?

mustelart a écrit:

If the celesta is a Mustel celesta indeed, it should have a Mustel serial number at the front on the left side together with a stamp "V. Mustel" looking like a hand-written signature.
Is there such a number?

Schiedmayer made the Celestas themselve. They were not acquired from the Mustel company.

Further more: the missing stopface is one. But the heel lever is not there too.


Frans.

dibfranciss a écrit:

Hello Niels !!

What a wonderful sound your Dominator has !
I got really amazed by the orchestral colour of the harmonium sound, and the mixture of its sound with the célesta is something awesome, magic !!
Thanks for granting us the pleasure of listening to this rarity in action.
I've always regreted that it is rather hard to find videos of those rare instruments on youtube. It should be a kind suggestion for all great collectors, to post them on youtube.
We are so eager to listen more...!
Thanks and thanks again,

Dib

Another option is to buy the cd of Nico Declerck, available at the HVN (Reed Organ Society in Holland)

Here are multiple sound clips: Orgue Harmonium-Celesta Mustel

http://www.harmoniumnet.nl/cd-06-clochesdusoir.html

@ Frans: you are absolutely right; but nevertheless newly assembled and modified instruments do exist: e.g. orgue-célestas by Mustel where the celesta part was removed and replaced by another one lateron, Mustel instruments later modified by Schiedmayer etc.

The missing stopface and heel lever are quite clear indications that somebody tampered with the celesta ...

So it doesn't seem absolutely implausible to me that the original 5-octave celesta was removed once and replaced by a Mustel celesta at a later date.
But before starting such "wild" speculations, we definitely need some photos of the interior!!

Another question: why are there so many wooden parts in light colour? They don't seem to be original, either, do they?

mustelart a écrit:

@ Frans: you are absolutely right; but nevertheless newly assembled and modified instruments do exist: e.g. orgue-célestas by Mustel where the celesta part was removed and replaced by another one lateron, Mustel instruments later modified by Schiedmayer etc.

The missing stopface and foot lever are quite clear indications that somebody tampered with the celesta ...

So it doen't seem absolutely implausible to me that the original 5-octave celesta was removed once and replaced by a Mustel celesta at a later date.
But before starting such "wild" speculations, we definitely need some photos of the interior!!

Another question: why are there so many wooden parts in light colour? They don't seem to be original, either, do they?

My idea would be:

Interested people come to the meeting in Belgium that soon will be. I will bring my axe and my camera stuff. Visitors will be cleared by a test. If you can say "Hello" in English you are allowd to come in. How many of us have heard the sound of the Vox Angelika? So please join us. Details about date and place will be announced later. The event will go on when twelve people will be there. 10 of them to lift and bear the Dominator Celesta to the Museum. Nils and I will walk in front of you and will wave to the audience along the streets. Both Belgian and Dutch television will record the event.

Definitely too much marihuana, Frans ;-)

Citation :

If the celesta is a Mustel celesta indeed, it should have a Mustel serial number at the front on the left side together with a stamp "V. Mustel" looking like a hand-written signature.
Is there such a number?

I will check this tomorrow when I get back home.

Citation :

How many of us have heard the sound of the Vox Angelika?

It's a beautiful registre. It's the sharp sounding musette-tuned 16 foot.

clarinette 16'  + vox coelestis16'  = 3 detuned 16' reeds with same colour
musette 16' + vox angelica 16' = 3 detuned 16' reeds with same colour

The instrument posseses many "registers ondulants", there is also the 8 harpe eolienne 8' and of course the 5 harpe eolienne 2' on the left side.