Donation from the descendants of Louis Boffard, founder of the Toccata Museum in Tarare (France).

We are preparing a room for these instruments: the Louis Boffard room.

Harmoniphon with 2 keyboards

Harmoniphon with 3 keyboards

The Harmoniphon or the "Spanish Dereux"

By Thierry CORREARD

The Harmoniphon can be seen as a continuation and improvement of the electrostatic disc organ developed by Jean-Adolphe Dereux.

Towards the end of the 1960's, it was Javier Mugica who, at the head of a factory of harmoniums and electronic organs for churches and temples, founded in 1948 in San Sebastian (Spanish Basque country), bought the patents of J.A. Dereux and started to manufacture electrostatic organs under the brand name " HARMONIPHON ".

J. Mugica wished to modify the presentation of the instruments by proposing particularly neat consoles. However, he will keep the famous dominoes of stops, very characteristic of Dereux organs.

But J. Mugica wanted to offer larger electrostatic organs: 3 manuals, 44 stops, high power output with separate cabinet, magnificent console with wooden curtain.

These three-manual models were very successful in Spain and large churches were equipped with them, such as the Del Carmen church in Murcia in the south of Spain. In the 1970s, they represented the ultimate in "pipeless organs" in Spain.

These instruments were of course swept away by digital models at the end of the 20th century or replaced by real pipe organs, as was the case for the Del Carmen church in Murcia, which was equipped with a very fine instrument by the organ builder Frédéric Desmottes. Nevertheless, they bear witness to the great hours of the electrostatic organ (i.e. with an electrostatic disc generator) invented by the brilliant Jean-Adolphe Dereux.

More information will follow soon!