The lively tunes of Bavarian Polka flowed all over the embankment outside the Royal Palace in Stockholm and people turned and wondered where it came from. Then they saw Bengt "Cello" Persson sitting in front of a odd gadget with smoke gushing out from it while he played. The "gadget" is a genuine steam organ - a steam calliope - and Cello tells me he built it himself in 1983 from the original blue prints from 1856 by the American Joshua C Stoddard. This man started the American Steam Company and he dreamed about entertaining at circuses and on paddle steamers with his Steam Calliope. Those organs on the steamers had more notes than ten that Cello has got on his calliope, but they are quite sufficient for a number of tunes. The steam organ is built to use the high steam pressure from in this case Ejdern´s boiler to the gleaming brass whistles of the instrument. When Ejdern participates on the day of the White Vessels in June, in Stockholm, Cello always entertains people playing his calliope. Somebody said this odd music is something in between entertaining and a provocation. But it is fun! Listen to the calliope
Picture: Cello also has On the Sunny Side of the Street, Dreaming about Elin and The Surge of the Hammar Torrent (Swedish walzes), At the Gorgia Camp Meeting and Uber den Wellen (and many more) on his repertoire.
Text: Sara Axelsson Translation: Birgitta Bengtsson
The lively tunes of Bavarian Polka flowed all over the embankment outside the Royal Palace in Stockholm and people turned and wondered where it came from. Then they saw Bengt "Cello" Persson sitting in front of a odd gadget with smoke gushing out from it while he played.
