Part 2: 112 Key Mortier Dance Organ Dansorgel plays Urbain van Wichelen

Here is Part 2 of my June 2011 videos of the large and mostly original 112 Key Mortier Dance Hall Organ 'Neptune' at Preston Court near Canterbury, Kent, before and during the Preston Rally weekend. The organ has an extensive repertoire of its old dance books of music, and here I've selected several arranged by the talented Urbain van Wichelen.

Tunes played here are:

0:06 Aai moeke, aai vake (Pierre Dedeken)
1:45 Rosa Rosa Nina (Das Musikanten Quartett)
3:15 Woody Woodpecker (Tibbles & Idriss)
5:07 Geef mij maar Amsterdam (Pi Vèriss / Piet Visser)
6:44 Bernadine (Johnny Mercer)
8:19 La Mouette (I think - handwriting hard to read!)

Urbain van Wichelen was born on the 21th August 1892 in Wetteren, Belgium. He was a professional musician and played the violin, clarinet, saxophone and bombardon. Before WWII he was a member of a dance band on the 'Congo-boat' and in the forties he and his son Achiel (Willy) were performing at the 'Oud-België' theatre in Antwerp.

He worked as a music marker for the Mortier firm between 1925 and 1932 - and in the late 1940s he gave some arranging lessons to the then young Albert Decap. One 'tell-tale' characteristic of his arranging is the glissandos using the Jazzflute rank. Urbain van Wichelen died in January 1964.

The organ's front has recently been restored by David Burville, now including its imposing top facade. The owner has decided to retain the white colour for the time being. The organ was built in 1937 and is serial number 1076. It was used in a mobile dance tent called 'Luxor', and has a fully working accordion, plus piccolo pipes worked from the extra keys (compared to a 'standard' 101 key Mortier).

These instruments were originally intended for and used in large Dance Halls and travelling Dance Tents around Belgium, before the 2nd World War - and they excel at playing the light dance tunes of their day, all short pieces of music so that the owners could maximise revenue (pay per dance).

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• neptune
• mortier
• dance
• organ
• orgue
• danse
• dansorgel
• belgian
• belgium
• antwerp
• theofil
• decap
• bursens
• preston
• kent
• urbain
• wichelen
• keyframe
• books
• accordion
• piccolo
• marker
• arranger

[perleeman]

Mortier books with numbers are not restricted to Peersman arrangements. In fact I believe this organ has many Mortier books from the 30s which will actually be Bartier arrangements as he was Mortier's staff arranger then. Peersman took over from Bartier in 1941.

[nickn5nl]

@perleeman Hi, thanks for your comment! Useful to know that information - of course the organ also does have one or two 'proper' Bartier books, I did video some of these, and some of the 'generic' Mortier books too.

[petermackett37]

The first tune is on both the Mortiers in the Hine collection in Shaftesbury,Dorset,both being Schollaert arrangements.,i see you found Woody Woodpecker,i couldn't find this book when i was there a few years ago!,the titles are always notoriously hard to read on these old books,they are mostly in Flemish!

[nickn5nl]

@petermackett37 Hi Peter - that's interesting that Schollaert also arranged the tune for Mortier - and yet this one is a Wichelen book. I suppose that did happen now and again. And yes, I can hardly ever find the books I want without a very long search.

[petermackett37]

@nickn5nl Many of the Belgian arrangers did their own versions of the popular tunes of the time,they also worked freelance as well as for Mortier and others so that is why you will find several different arrangements of the same tune!,there are many books on this organ with a Mortier cover and you will find that if they have a number inside they will be Eugene Peersman arrangements.

[nickn5nl]

@petermackett37 Thanks for that :) After my Wichelen videos I will have one featuring several of those Mortier books - they don't tend to play as well because they use the accordion as solo, which is too quiet really - but they are still fun books with good arranging.

[bietebouwer]

@nickn5nl @petermackett37 It would be interesting to see the handwriting in which the book number was written. Peersman's writing was quite 'large' and careless. I've found that there is no consistecy in the numbering of the books - sometimes a book was numbered, sometimes not.

[mortierfreak]

the composer is louis marischal-as per credits on Ronnex 20070-78 rpm record featuring the Decap organ from the famous dance hall/café "In de 14 Billekens"

Urbain Van Wichelen also built organs and is buried in my hometown.

Keep up the good work!

[oldbear52]

This is a Big one with big sounds!!!

Great video, Nick!

[geetarxist]

crazy