Mascioni Pipe Organs

6 Generations of Italian Craftsmenship

Building the World's Finest Pipe Organs Since 1829

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Early last century Northern Italy was under Napoleonic domain. Napoleon Bonaparte issued a decree by which he established the suppression of all religious orders. The history of the company roots back right to this time when two brothers and monks, Pasquale and Giuseppe Mascioni, were forced to take refuge at the foot of the Alps, in Cuvio, their hometown located in a green valley crossed by the stream Boesio which flows into Lake Maggiore.

The two brothers induced their nephew to become an organ master and so they sent him to study with the musician Pietro Della Valle.Years went by and the younger Mascioni learnt the secrets of the craft: in 1829 he founded the organ factory "Giacomo Mascioni" . After winning a name in the area in 1869 he made the first organ for a foreign country, Switzerland, in the Bernese Juras.

Soon Giacomo is helped in his art by three sons: Bernardo, Gaspare and Anacleto. Together they built several new instruments providing them with spring chests and mechanical actions in accordance with the classical Italian style of the period. After Giacomo it was time for his grandson Vincenzo to take over Mascioni's business. Thanks to his ability Vincenzo grew the firm not only in size but he also developed new working processes: forward-looking hydraulic machines were introduced. Transmissions became pneumatic, and the music that flowed out the new kinds of pipes sounds romantic and appealing for the Central European taste.

Throughout the 30s the firm specialized in the production of electric transmission organs and patented several technical devices (some are still in use for new consoles such as the special device which gives a pleasant key-touch).
Soon Mascioni's prestige spread out of Italy thanks to the manufacture of several instruments commissioned from Switzerland, Malta, etc. Through the 50s the firm Mascioni built even 16 organs per year, some of which were quite large instruments provided with four or five keyboards.

At Vincenzo Mascioni's death, his sons (Giacomo, Ernesto, Giovanni, Angelo, Vincenzo and Tullio) took over the business and the company grew bigger. In the 70s the organ production modified its standards of style: in order to meet the requirements by the new generation of organ players , models of the past were revised. Thus since those years mechanical tracker-action organs have been built and old instruments restored.

Nowadays Ernesto's sons and grandsons (Eugenio, Enrico and Mario, Andrea and Giorgio) carry on the business, so that the Mascioni have come to their sixth generation. From projecting to building, the company Mascioni guarantees total quality not only through new technological machinery and well organized method of production; but also by keeping a close collaboration with European specialists and taking part to technical workshop held by International Society Organbuilders (the firm Mascioni has been member since 1972).