1932 Kimball Restoration by Reuter Organ Company—Minot State University

R. E. Coleberd is a contributing editor of The Diapason.

Introduction
This article is the second in a series exploring the role of the King of Instruments in American culture. The first article, “The Mortuary Pipe Organ: A Neglected Chapter in the History of Organbuilding in America,” was published in the July 2004 issue of The Diapason.1 (Others to follow will discuss organs in hospitals, hotels, soldiers’ homes and war memorials.) The era of the Masonic Lodge pipe organ, embracing close to 700 instruments, began in the 1860s, reached its zenith in the first three decades of the twentieth century, and with certain exceptions ended shortly after World War II.2 In the religious, ritualistic format of the Masonic movement, the pipe organ made a statement. It was deemed essential to crown the ambiance of the journey through the several chapters of the order (Blue Lodge, Royal Arch, Scottish Rite, Shrine and other “Rites”), and it complemented the majestic buildings, often architectural masterpieces, which contributed significantly to an attractive urban landscape. A closer look at the market, the instrument, and the builders reveals key features of this fascinating epoch, which surely belongs in the rich and colorful history of pipe organ building in America.

The Masonic Lodge
The Masonic Lodge was a broad-based, worldwide social and cultural movement with origins in antiquity, which counted the St. John’s Lodge in Boston, established in 1733, as its beginning in this country. George Washington and Benjamin Franklin were Masons.3 Encompassing immigration, urbanization, social solidarity and individual identity, it satisfied a desire to belong. Lodge membership was a mark of recognition and status in the community, and a transcending emotional experience in ritual and décor in the otherwise anonymous atmosphere of urban life. A noted German sociologist, Max Weber, visiting America in 1905, spoke of voluntary associations “as bridging the transition between the closed hierarchical society of the Old World and the fragmented individualism of the New World” and saw them performing a “crucial social function” in American life.4 The well-known social commentator and newspaper columnist, Max Lerner, in his epic work America as a Civilization, saw one of the motivations behind “joining” as “the integrative impulse of forming ties with like-minded people and thus finding status in the community.”5 Ray Willard, organist at the Scottish Rite Cathedral in Joplin, Missouri (M. P. Möller Opus 3441, 1922), observes that membership embraced all walks of life: from business and professional men, many of them community leaders and perhaps well-to-do, to everyday citizens.6 Masonic membership paralleled population growth and reached a peak in the first three decades of the twentieth century. New York State counted 872 lodges and 230,770 members in 1903.7 Pre-World War II Masonic membership in the United States totaled 3,295,872 in 1928.8
Of special interest is the long-recognized connection between the railroad industry and the Masonic Lodge. Railroad men were lodge men, and railroad towns were lodge towns. The railroad was the predominant conveyance in freight and passenger travel in the first decades of the last century. In 1916, railroad mileage in this country peaked at 254,000 miles, and in 1922, railroad employment reached over two million workers, the largest labor force in the American economy.9 These totals reflected the number of trains and crews, station, yard, and track workers, and the maintenance demands of the steam locomotive. The comparatively well-paid railroad workers were no doubt important in building Masonic temples. In 1920, average wages in the railroad industry were 33 percent above those in manufacturing.10 In one of what must have been numerous examples, Masonic employees of the Big Four Railroad in Indianapolis donated eight art-glass windows on the east wall of the second floor foyer of the Scottish Rite Cathedral there (q.v.).11

The market
The Masonic Lodge market differed significantly from other pipe organ markets. For the larger facilities in metropolitan locations, the Masonic building was typically a matrix of rooms, often on several stories, and each with a different décor, e.g., Corinthian Hall, Gothic Hall, Ionic Hall. Each chapter room required a pipe organ to support the ritual proceedings. The centerpiece of the building was the auditorium, manifestly different from a church sanctuary. Typically square in layout, it featured a large curtained stage in front, cushioned opera-chair seating on the main floor, and perhaps side and end balconies. The pipe chambers were quite often in the proscenium above the stage, with other divisions almost anywhere—in back of the stage, above a side balcony, in a rear balcony, etc. Occasionally, chambers with a pipe fence flanked either side of the stage. The organ console was on the floor in front of the stage.
It was especially important that the auditorium instrument look large. Just as an upright or spinet piano would have been out of place on the stage, so too would a two-manual organ console be inappropriate on the floor in front of the stage. It must be a concert grand piano on the stage and a three-manual, better yet a four-manual console on the auditorium floor, with lots of drawknobs or stop tabs for everyone to see. To achieve this image of “bigness” within the limitations of chamber space or perhaps budget, builders often resorted to extensive unification and duplexing.
The Masonic Lodge pipe organ era began in 1860 when E. & G. G. Hook built one-manual instruments for temples in Massachusetts: in Lawrence, 14 registers, Opus 275, and in New Bedford, 12 registers, Opus 281.12 In 1863, William A. Johnson built a one-manual instrument of nine registers, Opus 144, for the lodge in Geneva, New York.13 In 1867, Joseph Mayer, California’s first organbuilder, built an instrument for the “Free Masons” in San Francisco.14 The three organs built by Jardine in 1869 for New York City, in this case for the Odd Fellows Hall, marked the beginning of what would become a salient feature of the lodge market: multiple instruments for one building, often under one contract and several with identical stoplists.15 (See Table 1.) One particularly interesting example was the three instruments Hutchings built for the Masonic Lodge in Boston in 1899. The stoplists were identical (q.v.), but each one was in a different case to conform to the décor of the room. Wind from a single blower was directed to one instrument by a valve opened when the console lid was raised, turning on the blower.16
The pinnacle of the multiple contract practice came first in 1909, when Austin built twelve organs for the Masonic Lodge in New York City; in 1927, when Möller built nine for a temple in Cincinnati, Ohio. Eleven of the twelve Austins were identical two-manual instruments, eight of the nine Möllers.17 An Austin stock model that found its way into the Masonic market was the Chorophone, introduced in 1916. Austin sold nine of these instruments to Masonic Lodges. Opus 896 was exported to the lodge in Manila, the Philippine Islands, in 1920.18

The instrument
R. E. Wagner, vice-president of Organ Supply Industries, points out that the Masonic Lodge pipe organ followed closely—tonally and mechanically—the evolution of the King of Instruments in this country: from the one- and two- manual classic-style tracker organs of the nineteenth century to a brief sojourn with tubular-pneumatic action at the turn of the century, followed by the symphonic-orchestral tonal paradigm and sophisticated electro-pneumatic windchest and console action in the 1920s. It also followed a return to the American classic style beginning later in that decade.19 The liturgy-based nature of Masonic ritual would suggest a church-type instrument, one in which eight-foot pitch predominated. This was true in the beginning and in smaller instruments.
The three Hutchings instruments in Boston (q.v.), Opus 475–477, were each fourteen ranks.20 The eleven identical Austin instruments for New York City in 1909 had five ranks: an 8? Open Diapason on the Great with four ranks duplexed from the Swell (8? Stopped Diapason, 8? Dulciana, 8? Viol d’Orchestra, and 4? Harmonic Flute). There was no pedal. The twelfth organ on this contract was a 17-rank, three-manual organ with the Choir manual duplexed entirely from the ten-rank Swell manual. The seven stops of the Pedal organ were all extensions of manual stops.21 Austin’s two-manual Chorophone comprised four ranks—Bourdon, Dolce, Open Diapason and Viole—unified into 27 speaking stops from 16? to 2?.22
By the 1920s, the Golden Age of the Masonic Lodge pipe organ, the three- or four-manual organ in the lodge auditorium was frequently an eclectic instrument, embracing theatre stops and even toy counters in addition to traditional liturgical stops. Add to this a “quaint” stop now and then, i.e., a bugle call. Did you ever hear of Solomon’s Trumpet? (See 1926-2000 Kimball, Guthrie, Oklahoma q.v.) As Willard points out, these instruments were designed to play the marches, patriotic selections, and orchestral and opera transcriptions used in ritual work, as well as theatre organ and popular music of the day when the auditorium was used for entertainment.23
The mixing of liturgical and theatre stops reflected the fact that in the 1920s the concept of organ music was broadly defined, and with the introduction of the theatre organ, the distinction between liturgical and theatre voicing and sound was blurred. If anything, the eight-foot pitch tonal palette of the church organ, characterized then by wide-scale diapasons and flutes, narrow-scale strings, high-pressure reeds, and the absence of mutations and mixtures, served to further obscure this distinction.
Two stops particularly symbolic of this era and that disappeared until recently, the Stentorphone and the Ophicleide, were found in large lodge organs. Manuel Rosales, well-known California organbuilder, believes they can best be explained as items of fashion. “As the Hope-Jones ideas influenced the times with very large diapasons, the idea of the Stentorphone being a sort of superstar of the diapason family found its way into legitimate specifications. It was placed on the Solo manual rather than being put on the main divisions, and in that capacity wouldn’t destroy the balance between the stops on the Great. Couple the Solo to the Great and it works to beef things up.”24 With the tremolo on the Solo, the Stentorphone could also be used as a solo stop.
The ophicleide, a 19th-century brass orchestral instrument, was said to have been invented in Paris about 1817. It was popular in symphony and opera orchestras and in military bands of the 1830s and 1840s, being eventually replaced by the modern tuba. As a fashionable organ stop, the Ophicleide might appear on the Great manual as a powerful, high-pressure reed, a double tuba which, when coupled to the customary 8? Tuba on this manual, formed a chorus.25
The predominant characteristics of the three- and four-manual Masonic Lodge pipe organs, with the exception of those built by E. M. Skinner, seem obvious when viewed from the stoplists discussed below. They confirm our assumption that the Masonic Lodge instrument differed markedly from other pipe organs. Beginning with extensive unification and duplexing, the number of stops is double or more the number of ranks of pipes. Pedal divisions with only one or two independent ranks were typical, and duplicate consoles, the second perhaps a two-manual to control two divisions, were found. Sometimes second touch and a roll player were added to the console. The high-pressure reeds of the day, Ophicleide and Tuba, found on the Great division, required higher wind pressure than the flues to achieve their desired tone quality and power—ten inches versus six inchePs—and therefore were placed on a separate windchest. The Vox Humana was often placed in its own enclosure. Each manual division had a tremolo, and often individual stops such as the Diapason, Tibia and Vox Humana had separate tremolos. The entire instrument was often totally enclosed. Duplexing and unification were made possible by the complex and sophisticated switching in windchest and console innovations that marked the American builders during this period and that made their product by far the most technologically advanced in the world.
The three-manual Kimball organ, Opus 6781, in the Denver Scottish Rite Cathedral, now Consistory, with 19 ranks, 50 stops and 1,459 pipes, illustrates these features (see stoplist). On the Great division, five ranks comprise eleven speaking stops—four ranks with extensions—and only the 8? Tuba is an independent (one pitch) voice. The Diapason and Tuba each have their own tremolo. The Solo (second) division comprises 10 ranks and 20 stops, with the Gedeckt unified into six stops, from 16? to 13?5?. The third division, designated the Accompaniment manual, counts four ranks and seven unit stops duplexed from the Great. The organist, Charles Shaeffer, comments that the English Horn on the Accompaniment manual is unique to Kimball, voiced closer to the Oboe in contrast to an English Horn on theatre organs, which resembles an English Post Horn. He adds that the Marimba on the Solo is “reiterating,” meaning that it repeats rapidly and therefore contrasts with the single-stroke Harp on the Great.26 The String Mixture is wired from the Salicional, and the Orchestral Oboe from the Gedeckt and Viol d’Orchestra. The Tibia Clausa is independent and has its own tremolo. The nine-stop Pedal organ is entirely duplexed from the Great and Solo divisions. The bugle call is played by buttons above the keyboards. The manual compass is 73 pipes, adopted by many builders during this period to forgo upperwork and achieve brilliance through the 4? coupler, a primary registration aid.27 All divisions are enclosed, and each manual has at least one tremolo. The toy counter and pedal second touch complete the instrument.
The 8? Wald Horn on the Great, a departure from traditional pipework nomenclature, requires an explanation. A Wald Horn is customarily a chorus reed with English shallots, voiced somewhere between a Trumpet and an Oboe.28 In this example, unique to Kimball and employed briefly, 1922–1924, it is a spotted-metal tapered (one-half) open flue rank of medium scale. With more definition than a stopped flute, but with limited harmonics, it is horn-like and perhaps best described as a heavy spitzflute.29 Noteworthy in Kimball organs, and a lasting legacy of this builder, are the superb strings, the work of the legendary voicer George Michel. As the late David Junchen commented: “Michel’s strings set the standard by which all others were judged. Their richness, timbre and incredible promptness of speech, even in the 32? octave, have never been surpassed.”30

Four and five manuals
The four- and five-manual Masonic Lodge era began in 1912, when Hook & Hastings built a 53-rank, 62-stop, five-manual instrument for the Scottish Rite Cathedral in Dallas. Far less unified than later work and with a 61-pipe compass for manual stops, it reflected the church organ background of this eastern builder. But it did contain a Stentorphone and Ophicleide, two consoles, and a player mechanism.31 The next year, 1915, Austin built a five-manual, 74-rank, 89-stop, 4,860-pipe organ, Opus 558, for the Medinah Temple in Chicago. Now in storage, this instrument was for many years the largest Masonic Lodge pipe organ in America and was, perhaps, the best known among the organist fraternity.32
The four- and five-manual market was largely the province of the nationally known major builders Austin, Estey, Kimball, Möller and Skinner (see Table 2). They used large lodge installations in their sales pitch, and buyers were no doubt influenced by them in their choice of builder. Describing their four-manual Möller, Opus 3441, 1922, in Joplin, Missouri, the Scottish Rite Cathedral states: “There were five four-manual organs built by Möller in the early 1920s similar to the Joplin organ. They are in the United States Military Academy, West Point, N.Y., the Scottish Rite pipe organ in San Antonio, Texas, Temple Beth-El, New York City, and the Masonic Building, Memphis, Tennessee.”33 Michael Brooks, recent Sovereign Grand Inspector General of the St. Louis Scottish Rite Cathedral, points out that his temple is the proud owner of one of four Kimball four-manual lodge organs. The others are Guthrie, Oklahoma (q.v.), Minneapolis (now in storage), and Oklahoma City.34
The lodge market also reflected the work of John A. Bell (1864–1935), a prolific designer, who in 1927 was said to have drawn up specifications for over 500 pipe organs in the eastern United States. Bell, a Mason, was organist at the First Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh for over 40 years.35 Allen Kinzey, Aeolian-Skinner veteran, says Bell’s stoplists typically included a large-scale, heavy-metal, leather-lipped, unenclosed 8? Diapason on the Great. Also, all manual stops of 16? and 8? pitch (excluding celestes) had 73 pipes, while stops of 4? pitch and above had 61.36 Bell designed instruments for Masonic temples in Cincinnati and Dayton and the Scottish Rite Cathedral in Indianapolis.37 (q.v.)
Indianapolis
The Skinner/Aeolian-Skinner five-manual, eight-division, 77-rank, 81-stop, 5,022-pipe organ in the Scottish Rite Cathedral in Indianapolis, Opus 696-696B, is the largest instrument in the Masonic movement in America today (see stoplist). The building’s title is appropriate because it is most likely the largest such edifice ever built in this country and is beyond doubt the most lavishly appointed, replete with Masonic symbolism at every turn: stone carvings and figurines, 70 art glass windows, and elevator door decoration. This architectural masterpiece is crowned by a 212-foot main tower, housing a 63-bell Taylor (Loughborough, England) carillon. The Medieval Gothic interior features imported Carpathian white oak, Russian curly oak, and Italian, Tennessee and Vermont marble.38
This signature instrument was built in 1929 by E. M. Skinner, with four manuals, 65 ranks, 68 stops, 4,365 pipes.39 Skinner had defined his instrument in building church organs and he stayed very close to this paradigm in his lodge installations. With comparatively limited unification and duplexing, this organ features a mixture, mutations and principal chorus on the Great. This organ reflects the influence of John Bell (q.v.). Manual compass is 73 notes for foundation stops, 8? and below, and 61 notes for 4? stops and above. The First Diapason on the Great is 38 scale, heavy metal and leather-lipped. The Second Diapason is 40 scale, a customary scale for the first diapason. These two stops plus the 16? Open Diapason and 8? Gross Flute are unenclosed. The tremolo on the Great is described as high and low wind, reflecting the difference in wind pressure between the flues and the reeds. The Great reeds are on 12-inch wind as is the entire Solo manual, the latter likely because of the Stentorphone there, also 38 scale, heavy metal, and leathered. The Solo Tuba Mirabilis is on 20 inches of wind and not affected by the tremolo. The Diapason on the Swell is also 40 scale and leathered. The 4? Celestial Harp on the Great is subject to sub and super (octave) couplers. The Cathedral Chimes on the Echo has 25 tubes, from tenor C. A description in The Diapason commented: “Couplers and pistons will increase the number of playing devices at the command of the performer to 158.”40 In 1949, Aeolian-Skinner enlarged this instrument with two new divisions of four ranks each.41 A new five-manual console by Reisner was installed in 1969.42

St. Louis
The four-manual Kimball in the Scottish Rite Cathedral in St. Louis, now awaiting restoration, illustrates other features of the lodge pipe organ (see stoplist). With 113 speaking stops from 54 ranks of pipes, a virtually complete toy counter plus piano, marimba, xylophone, harp, chimes and orchestral bells, it is perhaps the apex of the four-manual lodge instrument, a veritable music-making machine. In this organ, the basic manual stop compass is 61 notes and the 8? pitch dominates the tonal palette. Among the 24 stops from ten ranks on the Great, the Principal Diapason is wood and the Twelfth and Fifteenth are taken from the Waldhorn (q.v.). This instrument doesn’t have a mixture on the Great or pretend to have a principal chorus; it is a collection of orchestral colors, including the luxury of three 16? open flues on the Swell, all oriented to fundamental tone as illustrated by the Phonon Diapason there, which emphasizes the eight-foot tone.43 The unit Gedeckt on the Swell speaks as six stops, from 16? to 13?5?. The Swell has separate tremolos for the Tibia Clausa and the strings. The Vox Humana vibratos on the Swell and the Echo are a tremolo. The Pedal organ counts 25 stops derived from two ranks; a 32? Bourdon, and a 32? Bombarde with three extensions. The rest are borrowed from or extensions of manual stops.

The builders
The lodge market was important to American builders in new installations, repeat sales, replacing trackers with modern instruments, additions and upgrades. The bulk of these organs were, not surprisingly, two-manual instruments, and some were stock models, designed to accommodate what we have elsewhere called the commodity segment of the market.44 For small instruments, there was scarcely any brand preference or real or imagined product differentiation to the buyer. To these lodges an organ was an organ and the sooner the better. As in other markets, a second-hand trade emerged with instruments sold to Masonic Lodges from elsewhere.
Table 3 portrays the work of thirteen builders, names familiar today. The larger firms—Austin, Estey, Kimball and Möller, well known coast-to-coast through numerous installations and with aggressive sales representation—accounted for the majority of lodge instruments. Factory production dominated the industry during this period, and these builders could meet any requirement: budget, placement and timetable. Regional builders Hillgreen-Lane and Pilcher also enjoyed lodge business, as did many local firms. In 1917, Reuben Midmer & Sons counted six organs for the Masonic Temple in Brooklyn. Lewis & Hitchcock built instruments for Washington, D.C. and Baltimore.45 In California, an early last-century firm, the Murray M. Harris Company, built lodge organs for Fresno, Oakland, and San Francisco, California as well as for Santa Fe, New Mexico.46 In 1928, the Rochester Pipe Organ Company built two identical three-manual, 20-rank instruments for the Masonic Temple in Rochester, New York.47 In 1908, the Adrian Organ Company rebuilt a nine-rank, one-manual organ, from two prior locations, for the Masonic Temple in Adrian, Michigan.48
The lodge market also figured in the locational history of the American organ industry. In 1859, the Pilcher Brothers, then in St. Louis, built a one-manual organ for the Golden Rule Lodge there. In April 1863, perhaps in search of a market opportunity, they moved to Chicago where, in September, they contracted to build a one-manual organ for the Oriental Lodge there.49 In 1919, the Reuter-Schwartz Company of Trenton, Illinois built an instrument for the Masonic Temple in Lawrence, Kansas. This prompted their move to Lawrence, having found a source of capital in the Russell family who, in turn, found a business opportunity for their son Charlie, just graduated from the University of Kansas. Charlie Russell became the bookkeeper at Reuter, and the Russell family owned Reuter for many years.50
Many of the larger instruments, sources of pride for these lodges, are regularly serviced and updated as needed, perhaps with major funding from prominent members. When the signature 1926 Kimball in the Scottish Rite Masonic Center in Guthrie, Oklahoma (four manuals, 67 ranks, 72 speaking stops, 5,373 pipes)51 required renovation in 1990, Judge and Mrs. Frederick Daugherty financed the project. The work, by long-time curators McCrary Pipe Organ Company of Oklahoma City, included solid-state switching and relays, new keyboards, and new stop and combination action. A digital recording and playback unit was installed, so the instrument can be played for tours of the building—a common practice in large temples. Completing the project was installation of a full-length 32? Pedal Bombarde, built by F. J. Rogers in England, and a horizontal trumpet, dutifully called Solomon’s Trumpet, reflecting the role of King Solomon and his temple in Masonic ritual.52

Summary and conclusions
The Masonic Lodge pipe organ is another illustration of the role of the King of Instruments in American culture. The Masons, a culturally and socially prominent feature of American life, found the instrument an economic and efficient vehicle in meeting the musical needs of their ritual proceedings. The tonal resources of the larger instruments afforded almost unlimited capabilities in the full spectrum of instrumental music. This was made possible by technological advances in organbuilding, which mark a singular achievement of the American industry. In many locations, these magnificent instruments enjoy the respect and admiration of today’s Masonic membership, and in the larger organ world are recognized as a vital segment in the rich and colorful history of pipe organ building in America.

For research assistance and critical comments on earlier drafts of this paper, the author gratefully acknowledges: Jack Bethards, E. A. Boadway, Michael Brooks, Mark Caldwell, John Carnahan, Ronald Dean, Dave Fabry, Steuart Goodwin, Keith Gottschall, Allen Kinzey, Fred Kortepeter, Dennis Milnar, Rick Morel, George Nelson, Albert Neutel, Orpha Ochse, Don Olson, Louis Patterson, Michael Quimby, Michele Raeburn, Robert Reich, Gary Rickert, Manuel Rosales, Dorothy Schaake, Kurt Schakel, Alan Sciranko, Charles Shaeffer, Jack Sievert, Richard Taylor, R. E. Wagner, Martin Walsh and Ray Willard.

J.H. & C.S. Odell,
East Hampton, Connecticut
Scarborough Presbyterian Church, Scarborough, New York
I remember receiving my first phone call from Scarborough Presbyterian Church in late January 2005. I was delighted to have the chance to become acquainted with this church and with its organ, my own family’s J.H. and C.S. Odell Opus 327, installed in 1894. Six years on, there is much to report.
One cannot help but be immediately taken in by the beauty of Scarborough Presbyterian, both interior and exterior. The church is set along old Route 9 in Briarcliff Manor. Approached from either north or south, the siting of the building (whose exterior is rich with classical elements) blends in gracefully with its setting.
Scarborough Church was a gift from Mrs. Elliott Shepard as a memorial to her husband in 1893. The architects of record for the church were Haydel and Shepard, a short-lived partnership of Stanford White’s nephew, Haydel, and a nephew of Mr. Shepard. Their only other significant building, the Fabbri Mansion on Manhattan’s 64th Street, echoes the neo-classical style of Scarborough Church—briefly called, “Shepard Memorial,” but organized later as Scarborough Presbyterian. A reprint of the dedication announcement from the May 12, 1895 edition of the New York Times includes copious detail of the building’s appointments, which in modern architectural parlance is properly classified as Beaux-Arts:

The main design of the ground plan is a cross, a porte cochere being one of the short arms of the cross, and the pastor’s study the other arm. The church is built of granite rubble, with trimmings of Indiana limestone. The granite is of a pink tinge, which harmonizes pleasantly with the grayish limestone, and the effect is very striking to the visitor.
The height of the tower from the steps to the top of the cross is about 120 feet. The architecture of the exterior is a distinctly American interpretation of the Renaissance idea as it was in the time of Louis XIV. The granite used in the body of the structure was quarried on the estate of Col. Shepard, which is a short distance south of the edifice.
In the three large windows of the main structure, each nineteen feet high, are stained glass designs. Strictly classical treatment has been used in the interior of the building. The main auditorium has a seating capacity of 350, and the Sunday-school room of 150 persons. The floors are of mosaic in the church, and the pews are of carved wood. The building is as near as possible fireproof, as little wood being employed in the construction as circumstances would permit.
The wood-paneled [coffered] ceiling is secured to the entablature by carved wooden corbels. This ceiling is one of the main features of the room. It is made of California redwood. Its side surfaces are enriched with twenty-eight panels, each six feet square, and with carved wooden rosettes in their centers. This design encloses, as in a large frame, a large panel, itself broken up and subdivided into a considerable number of smaller panels. In the center of the ceiling is a great carved redwood cross. The inner walls are of cement, tinted to harmonize with the ceiling.
The choir dome, under which the pulpit is placed, at the end of the church, is paneled with rosettes, and a large skylight admits light from above. The building is lighted at night with electric lights, and the heating is to be in the winter season by hot-air appliances from the basement. Perfect ventilation is secured by means of exhaust flues in the side walls from the floors to the roof. The organ is in the main tower, while the keyboard is under the choir dome.

As the article states, the console was originally placed in the chancel area, leading me to speculate that this organ was likely the first all-electric adaptation of the patented Odell tubular-pneumatic action. In comparison, there are appreciable, if minor, design differences in the primary mechanism employed in the manual chest action used in our Op. 313 at St. Michael’s Church on West 34th Street in Manhattan. That organ, which is presently under our care and slated for major restoration work in 2012, was originally all tubular-pneumatic when it was built only one year prior in 1893. It has been interesting to note the nuance in mechanisms, scaling, and voicing practices of two Odell instruments that were built at nearly the same time.
As one can easily imagine the unwieldiness of playing the gallery organ from the chancel, it is not surprising that the console was later relocated to the gallery. Apart from this, the organ remained largely intact until the first major campaign of rebuilding and revisions began in the late 1980s through the 1990s.
At one time, there had been ambitious plans for the instrument, evidenced in the documentation of the Peterson switching system installed by a prior technician. Most of these plans went unrealized, though the addition of an anachronistic and stylistically questionable “Positiv” division had been carried out. Other changes included additional reed stops in the Swell, as well as evidence of attempts at rescaling, mostly in the principal stops of the Great.
In the meantime, problems of the winding system and mechanism were largely ignored. It was in this state that I first examined the organ at Scarborough in 2005. The Swell chest was then largely non-functional, owing mostly to issues with stuck sliders and pallet actions in need of rebuilding. I quickly realized that not only would a program of full mechanical restoration be needed, but also a careful reversal of many of the tonal changes, if the final result were to resemble anything that would make sense to a properly trained organist.
In addition to the difficulties with the organ, Scarborough was managing a leadership transition, something that is always trying in the life of any parish. The congregation faced this while contemporaneously entertaining bids for the organ project from us and other local firms, as well as considering wholesale replacement of the organ with a new electronic substitute. It was not until I made a detailed presentation to the congregation that we were able to at least keep the latter option off the table.
While we eventually prevailed as selectee for the organ project, there was no appreciable progress in going to contract until the appointment of Kenneth Potter as organist and director of music in 2007. Potter took the position on the condition of the organ’s restoration. This was agreeable to the Session and we were at last able to proceed.
No sooner had Mr. Potter taken the position than he reached out to me, and a lively discussion ensued on how best to revise and restore the organ. Plans at one point had even branched out into an entirely new case design, for which I excitedly prepared several conceptual sketches, but these were later set aside for both practical and aesthetic reasons. With our limited budget, the majority of our work would have to focus on restoration of the pipes, console, and mechanism. Moreover, with limited gallery space and an already richly appointed interior, it was difficult to realize a case design that would match the level of ornamentation or allow for a proper sense of proportion without getting into models that we knew would be far too elaborate. We officially went to contract in late 2007 and set to commence work in early 2008.
Eventually we settled on the design one sees today, which in many respects closely resembles the organ’s 1894 specification. The floating “Positiv” is gone, its Oboe restored and returned to its proper place in the Swell. The Swell Vox Humana was likewise deleted in favor of the Bassoon 16′, though not without some regret. The addition of the Clarion 4′ was kept, though the stop was revoiced in order to be more in scale (in terms of power) with the rest of the division’s reed chorus. Apart from careful tonal finishing and some adjustments to the power of some of the stops, the rest of the division remains as original but for the replacement of the Aeoline with a matched Voix Céleste for the Salicional.
I approached the Great with similar care. In sorting through the pipework in the shop I was able to review (and correct) prior attempts in rescaling and revoicing. Thankfully, the critical backbone stops of the division (the Open Diapason 8′, Gross Flute 8′, Gamba 8′, and Harmonic Flute 4′) had been left mostly untouched. Efforts had been made to re-scale the principal chorus from 4′ upward with limited success: rather than inserting new pipes in the bass and shifting the entire rank upward, pipes from various sources were randomly inserted in the compass of the Principal, Twelfth, and Fifteenth. To the uninitiated this probably seemed a harmless practice, but I was determined to restore some sense of order. Thus we maintained (and in some cases increased) the rescaling, as my experience with Odell scaling practices from this era (as well as my review of this instrument in particular) called for a significant increase in order to balance the power of the stops of the chorus without attempting to “voice around the scale.” Thus I reoriented the prior attempts at rescaling by fabricating new pipes with properly matching 2/7 mouths, using matched common metal (roughly 70% lead) as opposed to the uncharacteristic spotted metal used before. This allowed better control in the adjustment of the power of these ranks as I worked on them in the voicing room.
The other changes to the Great included the addition of the original Swell Bourdon on new unit windchests, so as to be available at 16′ and 8′ pitch. The Dulciana was deleted in favor of a new, matching principal-scaled Seventeenth. This exchange was part of an overall plan to keep a third-sounding rank available in the division, since the original Great Cornet mixture (17-19-22) was to be rescaled and recomposed into a suitable chorus mixture based on 2′ pitch (15-19-22). The original Cornet Mixture in the Swell had been retained, and Ken and I were in agreement that one tierce mixture per organ was more than sufficient.
Apart from these changes, pipe restoration was straightforward. Along with the windchests and console, everything was brought back to our facility and carefully cleaned. Metal ranks went through our pipe shop for repair. Wooden pipes were repaired and pipe stoppers were repacked. But for the Bassoon 16′ in the Swell and the Trumpet in the Great (which I kept for myself to work on), the Swell reeds went to Trivo in Hagerstown for restoration. Broken reed pipes were properly reblocked, tuning inserts were replaced, and shallots, tongues, and wedges were carefully cleaned and refitted as required.
The rebuilding of the mechanism presented several challenges. The manual windchests were essentially Odell slider chests with electro-pneumatic pulldown motors and slider motors. Both chests were completely stripped down to their tables at our facility so they could be evaluated and repaired. Thankfully, re-tabling was not needed, though damage to some of the sliders was so severe that some of them had to be replaced. Unlike modern slider chests (where engineered plywood is used), the bottoms of the Odell chest grids are covered with motor cloth, and the pallet openings are formed by blocking in the channels inside the pallet box and covering the area with a layer of packing leather. All this was restored to match the original configuration, whereafter the grid channels were carefully sized with thinned shellac, as is the custom. It was an arduous, not to say messy process, but the result was the total elimination of the numerous runs and bleeds encountered prior to removal. Finally, the chest pallets were all re-dressed with new felt and leather, and the motor and primary systems rebuilt.
With the slider motor system we faced a particular difficulty: Odell pneumatic slider motors were an innovative design in their day, but they can be fickle. When they work, they work well, but they often grow slow and unresponsive. Knowing this, in the planning stages of the project I seriously considered conversion to an electric slider motor system, but instead held this out as a last resort. The original pneumatic motors were dutifully rebuilt, and after some experimentation I eventually realized a solution: by placing the slider motor assemblies on their own separate wind reservoir and increasing the pressure moderately, I realized two immediate benefits: the slider motion was now swift and sure, and the action of the sliders no longer had any effect on the divisional wind pressure as they were actuated. I owe the inspiration for this concept to my colleague Timothy Fink, who several years ago used a similar approach when he designed his own pneumatically powered slider system (based in part on the Odell design) for the new organ he built for Grace Lutheran Church in Naples, Florida.
As the Pedal division had recently had its action rebuilt, we were free to leave this section alone and concentrate our remaining efforts on the console, winding system, and façade.
Dealing with the winding system was simple. The original massive single-rise reservoir was replaced with four new properly sized Odell reservoirs, one for each division, and the fourth for the aforementioned slider motor assemblies.
The console carcass was gutted and fitted with new, rear-fulcrum keyboards with basswood levers, and the manual compass restored to the original 58 notes. The newer pedalboard was kept. The stop-action rail and stop-action magnets were replaced with a much more reliable Harris tilting-tablet assembly, whose appearance is more characteristic of a traditional Odell console. The interior of the console was fitted with new panels made of sapele. We installed a new, integrated control system with the customary modern feature set.
The façade, which contains the bottom seventeen notes of the Great Open Diapason, was carefully stripped, repaired, and restored. The original zinc tuning flaps were replaced with spotted metal tuning scrolls. I personally handled the preparation and finishing process. A catalyzed base primer that bonds directly to the metal was used as the undercoat, over which I applied specialized metal lacquer mixed with gold flake powder. The result is a richer, deeper gold color that was accented by the application of silver flake lacquer on the pipe mouth inserts.
Our final step was to replace the 1950s-era wall panels below the impost of the façade. The layout was sketched by my wife Susan, who is a classically trained architect. With no cues from me, she intuitively established a rail and stile pattern that picked up on the center point placements of the pipes in the façade, while maintaining symmetry throughout. The panel molding, which required a custom-made set of molder knives, is a duplication of the custom panel moldings used throughout the church. The panels themselves are made from the same sapele used in the console, and are stained to match the existing appointments. Though it is minor, this was a welcome embellishment to the appearance of the organ.
Members of the Odell staff who contributed to this project include: John Williams (chest restoration, new chest, panel, and reservoir fabrication), Stewart Skates (pipe repair, fabrication, and restoration), Scotty Giffen (site, restoration, and assembly work), David Wason (wiring, site, restoration, and assembly work), Douglas Keilitz (site work, tuning, and tonal finishing), and myself (design, planning, wood and metal pipe finishing, voicing, and tonal finishing). Rigging for the removal and reinstallation was handled by our friends at Auer’s of New York City, long known for their skill in handling this sort of work.
We are grateful to the staff and congregation of Scarborough Presbyterian Church for being given the opportunity to restore this instrument and return it to service. I am particularly grateful to Kenneth and Christine Potter (who have become great friends as well as champions of our work), and also the Reverends Chris Iosso, Dae Jung, and Tim Ives, worship and music committee chair Lindsay Farrell, and most especially the late Florence Fletcher, to whose memory the new organ façade is dedicated.
—Edward Odell
East Hampton, Connecticut

It isn’t often that an organist takes a job with the congregation already understanding that the organ needs to be rebuilt, and he gets a significant say in how it gets done. My first decision was to commit what one might call a heresy among organists. I agreed that the organ needed to be reduced in size; we went from 37 ranks to 30. The results speak for themselves, as much of that reduction involved removing redundant ranks, ranks that served no useful purpose.
Prior to the rebuild, the Swell had become almost completely unplayable and been more or less abandoned. We realized the removal of the entire instrument to the Odell shop would be needed. Now rebuilt, the Swell is a wonderful division of great subtlety and color.
It made sense to keep certain additions, but we wanted these additions to form a real ensemble, and for the organ to speak into the room naturally. A fine Clarion 4′ had been added to the Swell. The Bassoon 16′, Cornopean 8′, Oboe 8′, and Clarion 4′ formed a reed battery that we were loath to break up. In order to keep it, the old Vox Humana 8′ had to go. I deeply regretted this loss, but I love the full reed chorus as it is now. The Aeoline 8′ went the same way to make room for the Voix Céleste. There was more than enough pipework left for quiet music, with the very gentle strings, a Stopped Diapason 8′, and a lovely Rohr Flute 4′ of surpassing beauty.
In the Great division, the previous Tierce had been derived from a split slider on the Mixture. It never worked very well, but I felt it was important to have a full Cornet on the Great, so we sacrificed the Dulciana. The Seventeenth that took its place is the only wholly new rank in the rebuild. The Dulciana’s place in the tonal scheme was taken by an 8′ extension of the 16′ Bourdon. I felt that with the three other strong 8′ stops (Open Diapason 8′, Gross Flute 8′, and Gamba 8′) we needed a quiet 8′ flute. This Bourdon 8′ can be coupled with the Gamba 8′ and form a fonds doux, but it also works beautifully alone, or with the Principal 4′ or Harmonic Flute 4′. With all 8′ flue stops on the Great drawn, one has a close approximation of the classic fonds de huit. After rescaling and restoration, the Great chorus is powerful and intense. With the coupling of the Swell reeds, it becomes immense.
In the process of this rebuild, I learned a lot about what stops are truly necessary. As someone who cut his teeth on the Organ Reform movement, I had difficulty understanding a tonal scheme built on generously scaled 8′ stops, with smaller upperwork, or a second manual division without a Principal 4′. In time, I have come to understand this instrument on its own terms. The Violina 4′ really does serve a purpose, and I have come to love the very modest 4′ Rohr Flute in the Swell; it is delicate and very non-intrusive, and I never seem to stop finding uses for it. The Flute 2′ with the Cornet III makes a wonderful sparkle in that division without adding weight. The Oboe 8′, now returned to the Swell, is an excellent addition to the division’s chorus, adding just enough weight to balance the flues. So much for the Swell organs I was previously accustomed to, with their 8′ Gedeckt foundation and blazing upperwork!
It thrills me endlessly to have other organists come in and play. I love to wander around downstairs and listen, often asking what stops they have on. This organ, which sounds immensely powerful in the gallery, is gentle and convincing downstairs—the fullest registration is not overpowering, but rather full, blended, and satisfying.
There isn’t an ugly stop on the entire instrument. Every rank is distinct, beautiful, and makes the listener sit up and notice, whether quiet, mezzo forte, or loud. Nothing is overbearing and the range of color is amazing. Edward Odell has demonstrated great skill as a voicer, taking stops that had been poorly regulated, and restoring, focusing, and adjusting them to create a satisfying, integrated ensemble. He was ably assisted by Doug Keilitz on the tonal finishing.
Let me conclude by saying we are blessed with some of the finest acoustics I have ever experienced in a church, both for organ and choral music. The instrument is now inspiring our choir to new heights. As I had hoped, the wonderful sounds coming from the loft are enhancing our worship and attracting new members.
—Kenneth Potter
Organist and Director of Music

J.H. & C.S. Odell Opus 327
Scarborough Presbyterian Church, Scarborough, New York

GREAT
16′ Bourdon 70 pipes
8′ Open Diapason 58 pipes
8′ Gamba 58 pipes
8′ Gross Flute 58 pipes
8′ Bourdon (from 16′ Bourdon)
4′ Principal 58 pipes
4′ Harmonic Flute 58 pipes
22⁄3 Twelfth 58 pipes
2′ Fifteenth 58 pipes
13⁄5′ Seventeenth (new) 58 pipes
III Mixture 174 pipes
8′ Trumpet 58 pipes

SWELL – Expressive –
in reconfigured expression chamber
16′ Bourdon 58 pipes
8′ Open Diapason 58 pipes
8′ Stopped Diapason 58 pipes
8′ Salicional 58 pipes
8′ Voix Céleste 58 pipes
4′ Violina 58 pipes
4′ Rohr Flute 58 pipes
2′ Flute 58 pipes
III Cornet 174 pipes
16′ Bassoon 58 pipes
8′ Cornopean 58 pipes
8′ Oboe 58 pipes
4′ Clarion 58 pipes
Tremulant

PEDAL
32′ Resultant (special configuration,
from Open Wood and Bourdon)
16′ Open Wood 30 pipes
16′ Bourdon 54 pipes
8′ Gedeckt (ext 16′ Bourdon)
8′ Violoncello 30 pipes
4′ Flute (ext 16′ Bourdon)
16′ Bassoon (from Swell)

Mixture Compositions
Great
1 to 25 15-19-22
26 to 37 12-15-19
38 to 58 8-12-15

Swell
1 to 25 17-19-22
26 to 37 15-17-19
38 to 58 8-15-17

Couplers
Great to Pedal 8′ (reversible)
Great to Pedal 4′
Swell to Pedal 8′ (reversible)
Swell to Pedal 4′

Great to Great 16′
Great Unison Off
Great to Great 4′

Swell to Great 16′
Swell to Great 8′ (reversible)
Swell to Great 4′

Swell to Swell 16′
Swell Unison Off
Swell to Swell 4′

Pistons
12 generals (duplicated on toe pistons)
6 divisionals per division
4 reversibles (3 coupler, 1 Sforzando)

Accessories
32 levels of capture memory
12-step transposer
Programmable Sforzando
Memory controls in keyslip
Programmable Crescendo
MIDI for record/playback

Nolte Organ Building, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Parish, Kenosha, Wisconsin
What can you do with a late 1920s Kilgen organ that has a host of problems? That is the question the organ committee at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel in Kenosha, Wisconsin, asked us when we first met with them. They had already rejected both the idea of replacing the instrument with a new organ, and a lower-quality rebuild that would replace the electro-pneumatic action with an electro-mechanical action. Based on our preliminary look at the organ, we agreed to design a rebuilt instrument that would be visually attractive, mechanically reliable, and tonally more complete. Because of the reasonable but limited budget, we would use as much of the old instrument as possible, and some additions would have to be left as “prepared for.”
The worship space is a very modern room with good acoustics for music and the spoken word. The interior decoration is modern, tasteful, and quite plain. Stained glass windows depicting biblical scenes are located in the clerestory on either side of the sanctuary. They feature various shades of blue, purple, and brown. Stations of the cross are painted on the upper walls in shades of brown and gold. The lower walls form an elliptical footprint and feature mosaic art behind the two side altars. The baldachin is a free-form plaster and mosaic arch over the tabernacle, illuminated with an oculus in a sunburst of beams in the chancel ceiling. The reredos consists of simple paintings on the wall and two statues. In sharp contrast, the original organ, located in the balcony, was quite ugly.
The tonal resources of the organ consisted of three stopped 16' ranks, eight 8' ranks, and one 4' rank distributed over three manuals and pedal. The only reed was the Vox Humana. Through the former organist, the church had acquired several more ranks of pipes that were being stored in the balcony: a 32' Subbass, a 16' Open Diapason, a 16' manual Bourdon, and a capped 8' Oboe.
The console shell was in poor condition, and its style was not appropriate for the room. The three keyboards with ivory naturals and ebony sharps were in moderately good condition. The electrical switching system in the console and relay was the source of numerous dead notes in the stops and couplers.
The blower still worked, but would not last indefinitely. For budgetary reasons it would not be replaced. (The blower failed a few months after the organ was playing, and had to be replaced.) Two large regulators needed restoration. The two Swell boxes and their shutters were not serviceable. Because of the extensive unification of the organ, all of the chests were unit chests. The original chest leather, dating from 1928, was still in excellent condition and would provide many more years of reliable service.
The pipework had suffered some minor damage, and some pipes did not speak properly. The Great 8' Diapason was overly large and loud. Tonal improvements in the Principal chorus were the highest priority, especially since congregational singing has become more important than it had been when the organ was originally installed.
For the visual design of the organ, we began with a CAD drawing of a façade that would emphasize the vertical line of the organ, even though it was installed in a low, wide space measuring 12 feet by 29 feet. This drawing was further refined with an artist’s rendering, and finally a scale model was used to determine sight lines and other details. The façade includes narrow side towers and an arch to reflect elements in the chancel. To further emphasize the vertical line, the wood 16' Open was put into the façade, and a “V” was cut into the center of the wall in front of the organ to expose more length of the longest pipes. The toes of the treble pipes follow the line of the “V.” As the smaller pipes rise higher and higher, they seem to fade into the background like a perspective drawing. Shading the smaller pipes darker and darker enhances the illusion. The maple and purpleheart grilles that support the pipes also taper to the vanishing points that are located high on either side of the façade. The side towers and the arch are made of walnut and maple. The wall cap is walnut.
Tonal improvements were limited to the Principal chorus and the substitution of an Oboe for the Vox Humana. The Trumpet, Mixture, mutations and other stops to straighten the specification are dependent on the prosperity of the organ fund. The 30-note Open Wood has been extended with new pipes to play at 16', 8', and 4' in the Pedal. These pipes were painted and placed in the façade. The 8' Open Diapason in the Great was discarded, except for the bottom octave of open wood pipes. These were reconditioned and revoiced with the flues shimmed outward so beards are no longer necessary for good speech. Ten of these pipes are in the side towers of the façade. The original 4' Octave became the rest of the 8' Diapason, and new ranks were added at 4', 22⁄3', and 2' pitches. Because all of the stops are on unit chests, and the new relay and switching system utilizes a multiplex system, several stops are currently being played at additional pitches for greater flexibility in registrations. For example, the Choir Melodia has been wired to play at 22⁄3' and 13⁄5' just by adding a stop action and one wire.
While a new solid state switching system and multi-level combination system were always part of the design, originally we planned to renovate the old console because of the limited budget. We planned to save the keyboards and to repair and refinish the console shell. During the project, the organ fund did quite well, the 32' Subbass pipes were sold, and we gave the church a very good price on replacing the console shell. When the church agreed to add the new console, it exceeded the production budget and schedule, but we think the results are worth it.
The design calls for a very low profile three-manual console so that the organist can also direct the choir. The elliptical footprint of the sanctuary is carried over to the console footprint, and to the elliptical etched glass music rack. The music rack casts an elliptical purpleheart shadow onto the console top, and from the purple ellipse, there is a solid maple elliptical sunburst pattern to the console rim. The outside of the console is made from birdseye maple. The gorgeous grain patterns were book matched around the perimeter by carefully selecting and re-sawing the individual boards. The interior woodwork of the console is purpleheart, a South American tropical wood. The key cheeks, stop boards, knee panel, pedalboard, and sharps are all made of purpleheart. The same material is used in the upper part of the grille behind the façade pipes.
The original ivory and ebony keyboards were saved for the new console. The keyboards in the new console are adjustable so that the lowest manual can be set for any distance from 71⁄" to 10" of overhang in front of the pedal sharps. This covers the full range in the AGO console specifications, and allows each organist to adjust the keyboards to the most comfortable position. A pencil tray above the top manual slides in and out with the keys under the music rack so that the key tails remain covered when the keys are moved. Knobs under the keydesk lock the keyboards in place.
The organ committee and parish were a pleasure to work with. Some of the circumstances were a little unusual. The organ project began when there was no organist at the parish. During the project, the interim music director, whose expertise was piano and vocal music, preferred to have no input into decisions on the project. Also, several months after the contract was signed, the pastor, Rev. John Richetta, retired. We were able to have the organ playing for his retirement, although the project was far from complete. Special thanks are due to the parish secretary, Peggy Dixon. Through her efforts, even with significant changes in the parish staff, communication continued seamlessly. The new pastor is Rev. Dominic Thomas, and the new music director is Rita Torcaso.
John M. Nolte established Nolte Organ Building & Supply, Inc. in 1986. The firm currently employs five full-time and several part-time workers in their well-equipped shop. They are known internationally for their expertise in wood pipe making and voicing. They are also known for their innovative and creative designs. Benjamin Nolte assisted with the design of the façade and was responsible for building and installing it. Jeremy Nolte assisted with the design and building of the console.
The firm is currently building a three-manual and pedal mechanical-action practice organ. All of the pipes in this instrument are made of maple and walnut.
For more information and pictures, see <www.nolteorgans.com&gt;.
—John Nolte

Cover photo by Benjamin Nolte; other photos by Benjamin Nolte and John Nolte.

Original Kilgen stoplist

GREAT
8' Open Diapason
8' Doppelflute
8' Gamba
8' Melodia
8' Dulciana
4' Octave
4' Flute
Chimes

SWELL
16' Bourdon
8' Violin Diapason
8' Stopped Diapason
8' Quintadena
8' Salicional
8' Vox Celeste
4' Flute d’Amour
4' Salicet
2' Flautino
8' Vox Humana
Tremolo

CHOIR
16' Dulciana T.C.
8' Violone Cello
8' Melodia
8' Dolce
4' Flute
2' Piccolo
8' Synthetic Oboe
Tremolo

PEDAL
16' Subbass
16' Bourdon
16' Lieblich Gedeckt
8' Cello
8' Flauto Dolce

19 couplers

New Nolte stoplist

GREAT
16' Bourdon
8' Open Diapason
8' Doppelflute (ext Bourdon)
8' Gamba
4' Octave
22⁄3' Quint
2' Octave
IV Mixture (prepared)
8' Trumpet (prepared)
Chimes

SWELL
16' Lieblich Gedeckt
8' Violin Diapason
8' Stopped Diapason (ext)
8' Salicional
8' Vox Celeste
4' Violin Diapason (ext)
4' Flute d’Amour (ext)
4' Salicet (ext)
2' Flautino (ext)
8' Oboe
Tremolo

CHOIR
16' Dulciana (ext, 1–12 Lieb Ged)
8' Gamba
8' Melodia
8' Dulciana
4' Gamba (ext)
4' Flute (ext)
4' Dulcet (ext)
22⁄3' Nazard (ext)
2' Flute (ext)
13⁄5' Tierce (ext)
8' Clarinet (prepared)

PEDAL
16' Open Diapason (façade)
16' Subbass
16' Lieblich Gedeckt (Sw)
8' Open Diapason (ext)
8' Bourdon (Sw)
4' Choral Bass (ext)
16' Trumpet (prepared)
8' Trumpet (prepared)
4' Oboe (Sw)

10 couplers
32-level combination system
Transposer

Cornel Zimmer Organ Builders, Denver, North Carolina
The Community Church at Tellico Village, Loudon, Tennessee

From the director of music
This pipe organ is such a wonderful addition to our music ministry, and we are all excited about the ways in which it has already begun to enhance our worship. Cornel Zimmer Organ Builders has done an outstanding job restoring and creating a versatile and complete instrument from quite a diverse collection of historic pipework. In many respects, the organ reflects the nature of this congregation. People come to this community from all over the country, from various denominational and faith backgrounds. Rather than trying to conform to a particular creed or list of beliefs, and instead of spending time arguing about those differences, the people of this church simply start doing things together—good things, like building Habitat for Humanity houses, working in multiple ministries for the poor or our child advocacy center, and being the body of Christ to each other and to our community. I think all of that starts with worship, and our music each week is one of the unifying factors of the worship of our congregation. Cornel Zimmer Organ Builders has done the same with this pipework, finding ways to maintain the individual character of the sounds while shaping them to work together to create something more beautiful and effective.
—Rev. Dr. John R. Orr

From the senior pastor
Cornel Zimmer Organ Builders has brought to life an amazing musical instrument that enhances our worship services in ways we never imagined. The sweeping design of the exposed pipes is aesthetically majestic. The rich tones of the organ seem to enfold us acoustically with voices from the distant past as well as the here-and-now. As one parishioner recently said, “It’s like we are part of the music and the music is a part of us!”
But the new pipe organ provides more than beautiful music. It embraces us with deeper meaning. Worshipers lift up the hymns, knowing they are a part of a chorus of “voices” that first sang the songs of faith in Brooklyn, New York, in the mid-19th century and are now singing again in the 21st century in Loudon, Tennessee. The pipe organ connects us to a larger community of faithful people from north and south, past and present, Catholic and Protestant. This beautiful Cornel Zimmer instrument magnificently captures and expresses the essence of our church that seeks to be “as inclusive as the love of God.”
—Rev. Martin C. Singley, III

From the chair of the organ committee
The organ project of the Community Church at Tellico Village (Loudon, Tennessee) began, as many projects do, with a group of members who envisioned the day when their church could replace their digital organ with an authentic pipe organ. In 2003, the church began a serious effort to provide additional space for a growing membership and space for a new pipe organ. Soon, this informal group received the blessing of the church council to become the ad hoc pipe organ committee attached to the music committee. After investigating several organ companies and types of organs, Brad Rule of B. Rule & Co. suggested that we purchase an 1862 Henry Erben organ that was rescued from a church in Brooklyn, New York by the Organ Historical Society. By the fall of 2003, we did acquire the Erben from the Organ Clearing House and transported it from their New Hampshire warehouse to a storage facility in Tellico Village. Our intention was to purchase not only a historically interesting pipe organ but also a pipe organ costing significantly less than an all-new instrument.
Henry Erben was considered one of the most eminent organ builders of the nineteenth century. Additionally, the committee noted that Erben was a key participant in the mid- to late-19th century “Golden Age” of American pipe organ building. He adhered to classical principles that included significant ensembles of eight-foot stops, gentle voicing, and low wind pressures, producing a tone that is bright, free sounding, and decidedly unforced.
As happens with church projects, the expansion plans were delayed for about six years. The good news is that, instead of expanding our current sanctuary with many potential drawbacks such as inefficient physical design and undesirable acoustics, it was decided to build a completely new sanctuary that would seat over 800 members. We carefully designed the new sanctuary to provide the best possible space and location for the organ. This front and center location, facing the longest axis of the room, not only provides good sound projection for the congregation and accompaniment for our vocal and handbell choirs, but also adds a traditional focal point for people sitting in the pews. The floor of the organ platform is constructed of concrete, and the walls of concrete block, with a solid finish of old-fashioned smooth plaster.
Of course, after six years, the original pipe organ committee added new members to form the musical instrumentation team. This team visited with and interviewed several organbuilders, and finally selected Cornel Zimmer Organ Builders of Denver, North Carolina. Cornel Zimmer Organ Builders was very much interested in our project and the use of the 1862 Henry Erben as the centerpiece for an organ substantial enough to meet the needs of our fairly large worship space and our somewhat frugal budget. In every respect, they met and many times exceeded our expectations. Not only did they embrace the uniqueness of our Erben pipes, but they also provided other appropriate, and in some cases historically interesting, stops from a variety of used organs to create an organ that is a joy to hear and that meets the needs of our significant music ministry. This assemblage of pipes, with various backgrounds working together to form a unified voice, mirrors one of the most basic concepts of our Community Church.
—Lou Livengood

From the organbuilder
During the summer of 2008, Cornel Zimmer Organ Builders was approached by the musical instrumentation team of Tellico Village Community Church. The team had been formed for the purpose of choosing an instrument for their new sanctuary, which was still in the design stages. They presented us with several criteria and asked for our recommendation. The resulting dialogue introduced us to an enthusiastic group of individuals committed to having the best possible instrument for their new worship space. Their enthusiasm was immediately contagious, and the potential for an exceptional instrument in a fine room became clear.
The committee had previously purchased the pipework and some internal components from an 1862 instrument by Henry Erben. The pipework had been in storage near the church since 2003, and the committee was hopeful that some or all of the pipework could be incorporated into a new instrument. We were intrigued by the possibility of working with pipework from this era and, with the help of 15 volunteers, took a survey of all of the pipework in storage. The instrument, having been removed by Organ Clearing House, was well packed and all pipework was intact. We felt confident that the pipework could be successfully restored and would play a significant role in a new instrument. Of the 26 ranks of Erben pipework, 20 proved suitable for use in a new instrument.
When we were chosen to build the instrument during the design phase of the new sanctuary, we were able to work closely with the architects to plan a space for the organ that would allow maximum tonal egress and ensure easy access for maintenance and tuning stability. The resulting collaboration between all parties gave the organ prime placement, speaking directly down the axis of the nave. The walls behind and around the organ are either solid concrete or double-layered gypsum board, which allows for exceptional clarity and projection.
The new sanctuary can comfortably seat more than 850 and can accommodate more than 1,000 when filled to capacity. It was clear that the 20 Erben ranks would need to be augmented to fill such a large space and, while space was not a limiting factor, budget was. A final specification of 42 ranks was designed, leaving room for future growth. To complement the existing pipework, we built nine new ranks and carefully selected ranks from two other instruments—an early 1900s Haskell instrument and a 1929 Austin—for inclusion in the instrument.
We carefully cleaned and restored all of the existing pipework. Many of the flue ranks had several coats of paint and shellac that needed to be removed. We used a cleaning solution with a butyl de-greaser to strip the pipes down to the bare metal and either applied a clear coat of lacquer where needed or painted the pipes that would be displayed in the façade silver. We repaired and oiled wooden pipes and painted the largest Subbass 16′ and Open Wood 16′ pipes in various shades to accent the pipes. All reed pipes received a complete restoration by Greg Caldwell of Organ Reed Restoration in St. Louis, Missouri.
On an overcast day in late October 2010, an 18-wheeler loaded with 11 tons of organ set off from our shop in Denver, North Carolina, en route to Loudon, Tennessee. Our crew arrived at the same time as the tractor-trailer and was greeted by more than 50 cheering church members, ready to help unload. Young and old joined in the procession of parts and pipes, and the entire truck was unloaded in only a matter of hours. Working around a busy schedule of construction still being completed in the sanctuary, we completed the physical installation of the organ in December, and tonal finishing began in early January. The organ was first used in worship on February 6.
Our tonal approach on the Tellico organ was to maintain the original voicing of the principal and flute choruses in the 1860 Henry Erben pipework. After thorough cleaning and just a few repairs, we found that the flue pipes responded well on three inches’ wind pressure. Principal and flute stops alike speak smoothly with clear articulation at a moderate volume level. The Great division boasts a complete principal chorus from 16′ pitch through the 11⁄3′ Mixture IV. The Swell also contains a complete principal chorus based on the 8′ Diapason, and the Choir has a chorus through 2′. One unique Erben stop, which was quite challenging but a favorite of the Tellico organ committee, is the Bell Gamba that is playable at 16′ and 8′. It takes a prominent place in the visual aspect of the pipe layout and tonally provides a unique string timbre that works well alone or in combination with other stops.
To complete the specification, we carefully selected a number of reed and string stops to blend with the tonal character of the predominant Erben choruses. The Swell Viola and Viola Celeste are voiced on five inches, as are the Oboe 8′ and Trumpet 8′. To give added weight to this division, both the Viola and Oboe are extended to 16′, the resonators of the Petite Bombarde 16′ being full-length. The Open Wood, Subbass and Trombone 16′ also speak on five inches of wind. The Pedal Trombone 16′ is 7″ scale and is extended to 73 notes, allowing it to be played in the manuals. To further enhance the flexibility of this stop, it was made into a floating Tromba “division,” allowing the stop to be played at multiple pitches on all manuals. The Choir reeds are voiced on three inches and include the 8′ Clarinet, the only Erben reed that could be retained. Its somewhat edgy character gives it excellent carrying power, and it blends well with the Choir principals or flute stops to take on many different colors and uses.
The overall pitch of the Erben pipework was about one quarter-step sharp of today’s standard pitch. The Erben scales are moderate, compared to today’s trends, and the cubic volume of the new sanctuary is quite large. Therefore, we decided to rescale most of the stops up one note to achieve the tuning capability for a pitch standard of A=440. All pipework is placed on one level to promote tuning stability.
To work within the budget of the church, we decided to build electric action chests. Our preference, however, is to build pneumatic chests, and we were concerned that placing the pipes directly on electric action would result in difficulties with pipe speech. Our solution was to place all pipework on channeled electric action to help alleviate any unwanted effects on pipe speech. Larger bass pipes and the pipes of the 16′ Trombone are on pneumatic action. This choice of action allowed for judicious borrowing of stops between divisions and some extensions to enhance the flexibility and versatility of the instrument. For added power in the Pedal division, we also chose to include a 32′ resultant. After hearing a successful example of a “smart” resultant on the Fisk organ at St. Peter’s in Charlotte, North Carolina, we asked Peterson to program the resultant to quint the 16′ Subbass when it is drawn, but to then quint the Open Wood 16′ when it is drawn. The results are quite literally earth shaking! From a subtle purr under strings to a throaty rumble under full organ, this use of technology has proven remarkably successful.
Wind for the instrument is provided by a 3-HP Spencer blower and is regulated by reservoirs using both springs and weights to assure a steady wind supply. Solid wood and metal windlines ensure ample wind even under the greatest demands. A Peterson ICS-4000 system controls both the console and pipe drivers.
A respected friend and colleague in the business expressed some concern after hearing our plans for the instrument, wondering if a seemingly disparate collection of pipes could become a cohesive whole. One could easily understand his concern, but through careful selection of pipework and special attention to the scaling and regulation of each stop, the finished organ is indeed a cohesive instrument capable of great power, encouraging the congregation to sing while enveloping but not overwhelming them with sound. Effective swell enclosures allow the softest stops on the organ to speak at a delicate pianissimo and give the organist the ability to create a seamless crescendo. A complete array of couplers and a wealth of color and solo stops give the organist a broad palette with which to “orchestrate” works of many different genres.
Special thanks must be given to ministers, staff, and members of the Tellico Village Community Church, who had the vision to undertake both a large-scale building project and a substantial organ project. It has been a pleasure to be a part of this exciting project and to work with such an enthusiastic group. As many of the pipes in the organ reach their 150th anniversary, it is our hope that these pipes will speak for many more generations to come.
—Nathan Bryson, with contribution from Jim Twyne
Builders involved with this project:
Cornel Zimmer, president
Jim Twyne, tonal director
Nathan Bryson, project manager
George Zong, master cabinetmaker
Eric Molenaar, electrical engineer
Tommy Linder, pipemaker
Joisain Ninaber, pipemaker/cabinetmaker apprentice
Judy Abernathy, wiring/windchests
Morgan Lane, wiring/windchests

Cover photo by Bobbi Miller; all other photos by Rob Dolson.

Charles F. Swisher is a senior audio and acoustical consultant with wide experience in the design of systems for speech and music reinforcement, electronic architecture, video, recordings, and multi-media productions. He holds a bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois. Prior to joining Jaffe Holden Acoustics of Norwalk, Connecticut, in 1968, he worked for Ampex Corporation and Vega Electronics Corporation. He is a Fellow of the Audio Engineering Society and an audio consultant specializing in church sound system design and recording projects. Since 1994 he has been executive director of the American Pipe Organ Museum, Inc., a non-profit foundation to establish a national home to showcase the history of American pipe organ design. He became vice-president of the Atlantic City Convention Hall Organ Society, Inc. in 1997. Carl Loeser is curator of the Boardwalk Hall pipe organs in Atlantic City, New Jersey. A New Jersey native, he has worked in the pipe organ field for 30 years. Following college, he pursued a career in electrical engineering and concurrently started a side business doing organ maintenance and tuning. In 1988, he switched to pipe organ work on a full time basis. He has assisted in the installation of new organs and provided service for Schantz, Casavant, Reuter, and Austin. He has also done extensive rebuilding and restoration work. Among these projects was the complete restoration of the Ethereal Division of the John Wanamaker organ.

Eleven years have passed since the Midmer-Losh organ in Atlantic City’s Boardwalk Hall was last heard, when the ACCHOS CD/01 was recorded on November 3–4, 1998. The Atlantic City Convention Hall was renamed Boardwalk Hall and was closed for four years (1999–2002) to undergo a $90 million renovation, which, sadly, did not include work on the organ. The hall is now considered one of the finest performing arts facilities of its kind in America.

Background
In the early 1920s, Atlantic City decided to build a massive Convention Hall; 30,000 people gathered for its dedication in June 1929. New Jersey State Senator Emerson L. Richards designed both the Midmer-Losh organ and the ballroom’s Kimball organ. The Midmer-Losh Organ Company of Merrick, Long Island, installed the organ from 1929–1932. The organ is housed in eight chambers in a surround-sound configuration in the hall. Two ceiling chambers house the Fanfare and Echo organs, and two gallery chambers are located in the left and right forward and center areas of the hall.
The main console has seven manuals (located in a kiosk at stage level), and a movable console is available with five manuals. The organ has some 33,112 pipes and was listed for decades in the Guinness Book of World Records as the largest pipe organ in the world.
In the 1980s and ’90s, both organs fell into disuse and were neglected by management. In 1997, following an e-mail plea by Stephen D. Smith in London, the Atlantic City Convention Hall Organ Society, Inc. was formed to foster the preservation and restoration of both organs in the hall.
As it was, a lot of damage to both organs occurred during hall renovation. The architect at the time had the Kimball relay removed to make way for a stairway, and the left stage chamber relay of the Midmer-Losh was removed as the old balconies were demolished.
The Society has published two books, Atlantic City’s Musical Masterpiece and The Atlantic City Convention Hall Organ—A Pictorial Essay about the World’s Largest Pipe Organ. Two CD recordings and a DVD have also been released. The ACCHOS website
(www.acchos.org) continues to attract countless thousands of visitors from 41 countries around the world.
Worldwide interest in the Midmer-Losh organ is greater than ever. On April 20, 2008, the entire organ class from the Royal Academy of Music in Denmark flew over to get a firsthand look at the organ, and they were delighted. Board member and tour leader Harry Bellangy said they were all like Charlie in the Chocolate Factory!

Current status
In 2007, Carl Loeser was appointed curator of organs, and in 2008, Stephen D. Smith, ACCHOS president and author, was named Honorary Curator of the Boardwalk Hall Organs in perpetuity. The restoration of the two instruments has begun, and the results thus far have been very promising. Here is a general summary of where things stand as of June 2009.
In 1930, the hall’s first general manager wanted a straightforward theatre organ for the ballroom, but Emerson Richards had in mind an orchestral instrument that included some proper organ choruses. The resulting scheme of 42 voices—19 straight and 23 extended—was heralded as a “pioneer” organ and included the first brass stop installed by Kimball. Three wind pressures are employed among the 55 ranks and 4,151 pipes.
The Kimball organ was intact and fully functional before the building renovation, and therefore its restoration is relatively straightforward. The original relay system and booster blower were removed during the renovation to accommodate a new stairway. The booster blower is being relocated and a new Peterson relay system is being installed in the organ to replace the original relay. Ken Crome is restoring the console at his shop in Reno, Nevada. The relay installation should be completed this summer, and the console returned by the end of the year. The main blower room and static reservoirs have been completely restored. The instrument should be playable once again by early next year.
Work on the Midmer-Losh organ will not be quite so straightforward. Most of the organ is in reasonable condition, with a few isolated areas of water damage and vandalism. It is a testimony to the diligence and concern of the staff at Boardwalk Hall that the organ survived the building renovation process relatively unscathed. Anyone who has worked in this trade, and been involved with protecting a pipe organ during construction work, will realize how difficult this must have been for an instrument of this size, spread out as it is throughout the building. In fact, the organ has suffered from benign neglect more than anything else.
Work has begun on the right stage chamber, since it was the only portion of the organ that was kept in operating condition for many years and will require the least amount of work to be put back into operation. As many will recall from the 1998 recording, there were many dead notes. Although much of the chestwork in this chamber had been releathered over the years, many of the chest magnets had failed. They are of a compound type that, in addition to an armature, have an internal pouch and primary valve. The leather had failed in many of the magnets, and the zinc castings had become brittle, making it difficult to rebuild them. They had not been produced in decades, and no spares remained. The original magnets were manufactured by Klann Organ Supply Co., and Klann has been assisting in developing a direct replacement. Several prototypes are currently being tested, and it is anticipated that production of new magnets will commence before the end of the summer.
Once on hand, the new magnets will be installed where needed in the right stage chamber, and that should bring a large number of pipes back to life and allow much of the Great, Solo, and Pedal divisions to be put back into playable condition. If all goes well, this should be completed by early next year.
As an interesting aside, several of the old magnets were sent to Klann for evaluation. Paul Klann, retired from the firm, was visiting the plant one day and was shown one of the magnets, with no explanation given about them. He recognized them immediately and then expressed interest as to who was presently taking care of the Convention Hall organ in Atlantic City.

Restoration plans
The Swell division will be the first non-playable portion of the organ to be restored. This will include rebuilding the windchests, cleaning and repair of the pipes, and some repairs to the blowers and winding system. The pipes and windchests are being removed, and rebuilding work on them has begun. Again, if all goes well, the Swell division should be back in operation by the end of next year. Following the Swell restoration, the remaining parts of the left stage chamber will be restored, including the ranks of the Swell-Choir, Unenclosed Choir, String I, and Pedal Left.
As funding permits, the gallery and ceiling chambers will be restored, although the specific order for this has not yet been determined. These include:
Right Forward chamber (Brass Chorus and String II)
Right Center chamber (Gallery I and Gallery II)
Right Upper chamber (Echo including the 16′ Bassoon made of paper mâché!)
Left Forward (Choir)
Left Center (Gallery III, Gallery IV, and the Chickering concert grand piano)
Left Upper chamber (Fanfare and String III)
The Fanfare division is one of the real highlights of the Midmer-Losh. Stephen Smith wrote:

The Fanfare organ, with its blaze of mixtures and reeds, is intended to be a ‘super’ department. Its stentorian diapasons, 18 ranks of mixtures, and barrage of reeds (four of them voiced on 50 inches of wind) provide a stunning and formidable antiphonal opponent to the Main organ in the Stage chambers. It was reputed to have been Emerson Richards’ favorite department, and one can well imagine the majesty of its sound pouring into the center of the Hall, filling the room.1

A new control system for the entire Midmer-Losh organ will be designed, and the entire organ will be rewired. It is interesting to note that the entire coupling system for the seven-manual console was contained in the key contact trays for each keyboard, a very compact system. Not so with the original combination action, a portion of which is shown in the photo. It took up two entire rooms in the basement and, unfortunately, had a relatively short life, being ruined when the basement areas flooded during a hurricane in 1944.
Once the Midmer-Losh can be heard again, there will be a very pleasant surprise for everyone. Prior to the renovation the reverberation time in the main hall was over 7–9 seconds. Following removal of the asbestos-laden ceiling, a new more porous material was substituted. A small group of us were present in 2002 when the right stage chamber was fired up briefly in its new acoustic setting. The results were exciting. The reverberation time had been reduced to 5–6 seconds. All present agreed that the organ spoke with more precision, improved clarity and diffusion in the great space. This chamber alone with its 132 ranks well tuned, including the 64′ Dulzian, will provide an impressive experience next year.

The Unenclosed Choir
One of the very special parts of the organ is the Unenclosed Choir in the left stage chamber. Stephen Smith says:

It may come as a surprise to learn that the entire rationale behind the “core” of the Convention Hall organ can be summed up by looking at the stoplist of just one of the instrument’s departments. Even more surprisingly, it’s one of the smallest departments and its stops are voiced on the organ’s lowest wind pressure.
The department in question is the Unenclosed Choir (Quintaton 16, Diapason 8, Holz Flute 8, Octave 4, Fifteenth 2, Rausch Quint 12-15 & 19-22). It is this tiny department that encapsulates the message Emerson Richards was trying to put across to the American organ world at the time. That message was about the need for tonal cohesion and harmonic structure—in a phrase, “proper choruses.” Richards said this Unenclosed Choir was to be a “little Great organ . . . similar to the Silbermann organ familiar to Bach.” Of course “proper choruses” were nothing new; they had been included in organs for decades. However, that was in the past, and Richards and a growing number of other organists considered that the organ had “gone off” its tonal tracks since then. “Proper choruses” were out of favor; while an ever-increasing variety of flutes, strings, and diminutive reeds—usually at 8-foot pitch—were the vogue.
The Convention Hall instrument was to be the world’s largest organ and it would probably be the most publicized too. What better place could there be to make such a statement? The problem was that there were so many statements and so many attractions, that the Unenclosed Choir’s message was all but lost! Despite this, that message did, finally, get through. However, it wasn’t because of the Unenclosed Choir alone, nor was it due solely to the efforts of Richards—although he undoubtedly took the lead role in changing opinion and, thereby, preparing the way for a return to “proper choruses.”2
There are a number of videos that have been posted on YouTube.com. Some are from ACCHOS, but a wide variety of other posts are there as well.
Monthly tours are now available on a regular basis. The tours last about two hours. Detailed information is on the website at www.acchos.org and reservations can be made by sending an e-mail to [email protected].

Photos by Harry Bellangy, Fred Hess & Son, Antoni Scott

<p class=MsoNormal>Notes</p>

<p class=MsoNormal><span style='mso-tab-count:1'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>1.<span
style='mso-tab-count:1'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>Some
of the historical material has been extracted from the late Dr. David Lennox
Smith's 1979 dissertation &quot;Murray M. Harris and Organ Building in Los
Angeles: 1894-1913&quot; (The University of Rochester, Eastman School of Music,
D.M.A. 1979, available from University Microfilms International, Ann Arbor,
MI).</p>

<p class=MsoNormal><span style='mso-tab-count:1'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>2.<span
style='mso-tab-count:1'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>
The most significant partnership was with Henry C. Fletcher.<span
style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span>They installed two new Hutchings organs
in Pasadena churches as well as constructing their Opus 1 for Church of the
Ascension (Episcopal) in Sierra Madre, CA.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal><span style='mso-tab-count:1'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>3.<span
style='mso-tab-count:1'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>The
tonal style of Murray M. Harris organs is a reflection of traditional
19th-century classicism while simultaneously appealing to the trends in
stop-ists of the time. The flue choruses possess great clarity and richness
which preserve the integrity of the ensemble. Even a modest chorus, without a
mixture, is not muddy.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal><span style='mso-tab-count:1'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>4.<span
style='mso-tab-count:1'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>The
Stanford Memorial Church organ was restored from 1981-1995 by Newton Pipe
Organs, Rosales Organ Builders and Curators John DeCamp and Mark C. Austin. The
completed work was featured at the 1995 Convention of the American Institute of
Organ Builders.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal><span style='mso-tab-count:1'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>5.<span
style='mso-tab-count:1'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>Actually
this was not the first 32' reed in the City of Los Angeles. The no longer
extant 1906 Austin in Philharmonic Hall possessed a 32' Magnaton which
technically was a reed but sounded like a very refined Open Wood.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal><span style='mso-tab-count:1'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>6.<span
style='mso-tab-count:1'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>The
Echo 8' Vox Humana and the Swell 8' Concert Flute were missing. In the current
installation the Vox Humana from the 1926 Kimball at St. James' was retained but
the 8' Concert Flute was not restored.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal><span style='mso-tab-count:1'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>7.<span
style='mso-tab-count:1'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>Special
electric pull-downs were developed for the slider chests in order to avoid the
use of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span>leather. All of the slider
chest's pallets are augmented with electric relief valves. This allows the
windchest to operate on pressures in excess of 4&quot;without any hesitation on
the initial attack or quick repetition. These windchests will never require
re-leathering!</p>

<p class=MsoNormal><span style='mso-tab-count:1'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>8.<span
style='mso-tab-count:1'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>The
property remained vacant for ten years and is now the site of the Sanwa Bank.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal><span style='mso-tab-count:1'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>9.<span
style='mso-tab-count:1'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>Most
regrettable was the loss of this impressive and dramatic sacred space; a
beautiful and welcome refuge from the noise and chaos of downtown Los Angeles.
To get some sense of the Cathedral and its acoustics, one can visit All Souls'
Chapel at Good Samaritan Hospital, a 1/3rd scale replica of the Cathedral which
was designed by the same architect.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal><span style='mso-tab-count:1'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>10.<span
style='mso-tab-count:1'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>The
distribution of the stored material from St. Paul's Cathedral was as follows:
to St. James' went the Murray Harris organ, some stained-glass windows,
carvings and paneling. The pulpit and Cathedra were designated for eventual use
in the as yet un-built Diocesan Center. St. Athanasius Church (on the site of
the new Diocesan Center) received the chapel organ and a mixture wind chest
which had been added to the Murray Harris. The parts were installed in such a
poor manner that the organ was eventually sold for parts.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal><span style='mso-tab-count:2'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>St.
John's Church in West Adams District of Los Angeles was the recipient of the
antiphonal organ, the Aeolian-Skinner console and the lowest twelve notes of
the Murray Harris 32' Bombard (since the St. John's E. M. Skinner organ had
lost its lowest Bombarde octave some years prior). However, St. John's opted
not to install these large pipes, and eventually they found their way to St.
James'. The Antiphonal organ was installed and is in use, but the
Aeolian-Skinner console was eventually sold.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal><span style='mso-tab-count:1'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>11.<span
style='mso-tab-count:1'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>Actually
the organ was stored for 6 years by the Diocese and after the transfer of
ownership for 4 years by St. James' Church. </p>

<p class=MsoNormal><span style='mso-tab-count:1'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>12.<span
style='mso-tab-count:1'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>St.
James' was the only Episcopal Church in the Diocese which could have
accommodated an organ of that size without major alterations to the building.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal><span style='mso-tab-count:1'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>13.<span
style='mso-tab-count:1'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>See
The American Organist, August, 1994, p. 37.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal><span style='mso-tab-count:1'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>14.<span
style='mso-tab-count:1'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>In
places the walls were as thin as 1/2&quot;. In the chancel the walls have been
increased to a thickness of 2&quot;.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal><![if !supportEmptyParas]>&nbsp;<![endif]><o:p></o:p></p>

<p class=MsoNormal>The David John Falconer Memorial Organ is a gift of The
Ahmanson Foundation and from the Estate of Helen Parker</p>

A brief history of the project

The Murray M. Harris Company

Murray M. Harris (1866-1922) is generally regarded as the
Father of Organ Building in the West. Born in Illinois, Murray Harris moved with
his family to Los Angeles in 1884. In 1889, Murray Harris relocated to Boston
to receive his training in organbuilding with George S. Hutchings, at that time
one of the nation's premier organ builders. Harris returned to Los Angeles in
1894 both to represent and install Hutchings organs and to establish his own
organbuilding business. After a few short-lived partnerships, he formed his own
firm Murray M. Harris Organ Company in 1898.2

Fame and business soon came Murray Harris' way, and in 1900
he was able to attract a talented band of craftsmen from the East coast to help
him build better organs. This group included several famous organbuilders,
among them William Boone Fleming. Together these gentlemen revolutionized the
mechanism of the Murray Harris organ; the craftsmanship exhibited extraordinary
attention to detail, and the voicing produced an ensemble in step with the
orchestrally-inspired tastes of the day, but with an energy and drama all too
rarely encountered.3 Murray M. Harris himself imparted a coveted tonal
signature. His stature as the builder of some of the finest organs available in
North America brought the company many contracts, among them the organ of
three-manuals and thirty-five speaking stops for the First Methodist Episcopal
Church, Los Angeles. In 1901 he was awarded a contract for an instrument of
forty-six speaking stops for Stanford University's Memorial Church.4

From this prestigious beginning, the company grew rapidly,
securing the contract for the Louisiana Exposition organ (St. Louis World's
Fair) of 1904. At the time, this was the largest organ in the world, with one
hundred and forty stops (it would later become the nucleus of the organ in the
John Wanamaker Store, Philadelphia). Due to cost overruns and litigation, the project spiraled out of control, and the board of directors deposed Murray Harris as president of his own company. He severed all ties with the company, and for the next three years worked as an investment broker. The Board of Directors changed the company name to Los Angeles Art Organ Company.

In 1906, Harris re-entered organ-building with the help of
one of his former workmen, Edwin Spencer, under the name Murray M. Harris
Company. Based upon a different type of wind-chest (sometimes built of pine, at
other times redwood), the instruments from this era continued to exhibit the
same marvelous tonal qualities of the earlier work, and in some cases exceeded
them.

The new firm continued to build organs until 1912. In that
year Murray Harris returned to the investment world; he died in 1922 while on a
business trip to Arizona. However, the former Murray Harris craftsmen continued
to work through 1930, first as Johnston Organ Company, then as the California
Organ Company, and finally as the Robert-Morton Organ Company, becoming
prominent in both church and theater organs. The company continued to employ
many of the Harris concepts, scales and voicing techniques. The Robert-Morton
Organ Company's magnum opus was the four-manual organ for Bovard Auditorium at
the University of Southern California.

The organ for St. Paul's pro-Cathedral

One of the last large organs Murray Harris built was for St.
Paul's pro-Cathedral in Los Angeles. This edifice was built in 1889 as St.
Paul's Church, the largest Episcopal church in the city, located on Pershing
Square in downtown Los Angeles (the current site of the Biltmore Hotel). With
the 1895 election of Joseph Horsfall Johnson as the first bishop of the
Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles, St. Paul's was elevated to pro-Cathedral.

In 1906 Ernest Douglas, Mus.D., F.A.G.O., was appointed
organist and choirmaster of St. Paul's. Douglas was a Bostonian, a fine
musician and a product of distinguished organ education, having studied with Samuel B. Whitney in Boston, Sir Frederick Bridge at Westminster Abbey London and with Franz Xavier Scharwenka in Berlin. His arrival at St. Paul's marked a distinct improvement in the music program, making the lack of a suitable organ all the more glaring.

At long last, a contract was signed with Murray M. Harris
& Company in July 1910 for a new three-manual organ of forty-one speaking
stops; the price was $12,500. Several features would distinguish the new
instrument: concrete swell boxes and a movable console (both trademarks of the
notorious English organbuilder Robert Hope-Jones); the doubly-enclosed Echo,
playable on the Choir but enclosed within the Swell box; the duplexing of the
Swell reeds to the Choir manual for added flexibility; harp and chimes; and the
provision of a 32' Bombarde, the first such stop to be installed in Los
Angeles.5 The organ was scheduled for delivery before Christmas 1910, but
appears not to have been ready until the following spring.

Los Angeles was growing at an unprecedented rate with
churches and organbuilding prospering as a result. The Cathedral was no
exception, and by 1920 the congregation had grown sufficiently to warrant a new
edifice. On January 31, 1922, Douglas played a final recital on the Murray
Harris in its first home; the program was entirely of his own works. The organ
was then  placed in storage with
the intention that it would be installed in the new Cathedral. Old St. Paul's
was razed later that year, and the new St. Paul's simple, elegant building in
Spanish style was consecrated as the Cathedral in 1924, like its predecessor
one of the largest Episcopal churches in the region.

Fortunately, the new building possessed superb acoustics;
unfortunately, the architects had not provided adequate space or tonal egress
for the existing instrument. In charge of the organ installation was Stanley
Williams, who had worked with Harris in 1911 and had voiced the organ
originally. Williams was now representing the Chicago organbuilding firm of W.
W. Kimball, and thus the Harris organ was provided with a new Kimball console
which contained a number of stop preparations. Williams' only change to the
instrument was to move the Swell Concert Flute into the Echo organ. Otherwise,
the organ remained intact and the Kimball preparations never materialized.
(Also interesting to note, Stanley Williams sold the 1926 Kimball organ to St.
James' Church, Wilshire Boulevard.)

During the years when Frank K. Owen was Organist/Choirmaster
(1953-1974), the organ was well cared for. His admiration and fondness for the
instrument assured the preservation and enhancement of the character of the
original work. He facilitated the replacement of the Kimball console with an
Æolian-Skinner console, the installation of an antiphonal organ, the addition of two mixtures, as well as some other minor tonal changes. However, under another organist in 1975-76, a series of changes were made in an attempt to keep the organ abreast of current tastes in organ tone including the
transposition of ranks to higher pitches and the swapping of stops with the
Estey organ in the chapel. Fortunately, all except two original ranks of pipes
were to be found stored in the chambers.6

When in 1976 Mrs. Carol Foster was appointed organist and
choirmaster, she became determined to see the organ restored as its condition
was dismal; only the Great 32' Tuba unit, the added mixtures on their own
chests and the Antiphonal functioned with reasonable reliability. From 1977 to
1979 the organ was in the care of Manuel Rosales and the late David Dickson;
they could do no more than to keep the reeds in tune and chase after the
incessant ciphers. A meeting with Bishop Robert C. Rusack yielded a promise to
form a committee which would investigate the possibility either of significant
repairs or a revamping of the instrument on new slider chests (the plan
ultimately followed at St. James')7. Unfortunately, the committee took no real
interest nor further action.

In late 1979 the Bishop announced, to the great dismay of
the Cathedral community, that the building would be razed, apparently due to
structural and safety considerations. The Cathedral property was quickly sold,
and an urgency developed to evacuate the premises as quickly as possible.8 The
organ played its final service on Christmas Eve, 1979.

When no plans were announced to save the organ, the
furnishings or any of the Cathedral's architectural treasures, Mrs. Foster,
Dickson and Rosales once again submitted a proposal to the Bishop to find
suitable storage for the organ and to remove it and whatever else could be
salvaged of the building's interior appointments. Bishop Rusack accepted this
proposal. Of the organ, all the pipes, the chest for the Tuba unit, the
bellows, the console, the antiphonal section and its casework, and the chapel organ were removed.  Since the main
windchests were of redwood with ventil stop action, and had suffered from
alteration and poor maintenance, it was decided not to save them.9 & 10

For the decade-long period in which the Murray Harris organ
was in storage, some members of the Cathedral corporation searched for ways to
dispose of the instrument.11 Several suggestions were considered, including
donating it to a theater, a stadium, even the Hollywood Bowl. Eventually, the
Cathedral corporation consulted Manuel Rosales, who suggested that another
church in Los Angeles should be the first choice.

A new home at St. James' on Wilshire Boulevard

Concurrently with the Diocese's decision to dispose of the
Murray Harris, St. James' Episcopal Church in the mid-Wilshire section of Los
Angeles was beginning to realize that their 1926 Kimball was beyond reasonable
restoration. By 1980 it had undergone the kind of tonal changes that the
Cathedral organ had, but with so much of the original pipework discarded that
the original character could not be recaptured. At that point the Diocese then
approached St. James' and offered the Murray Harris at no cost.12

Realizing that this instrument could meet the needs of St.
James' parish, David John Falconer, organist and choirmaster, became keenly
interested in the project and obtained approval to seek funding. He had been
exploring a variety of options when he approached the Ahmanson Foundation,
whose grants director Lee Walcott invited him to submit a proposal. Sadly, Dr.
Falconer was killed in an attempted robbery April 22, 1994.13

The Ahmanson Foundation chose to fund the project, and the
Schlicker Organ Company of Buffalo, New York, was selected to perform the work.
David Dickson, who knew and loved the Murray Harris organ, was at that time
Schlicker's artistic director.

Concurrent with the developing plans for the organ, St.
James' decided to improve the Church's acoustics. Eventually, all
asbestos-laden fiberglass was removed from the clerestory, and the plaster on
the walls was increased in thickness, with particular attention paid to the
chancel surfaces.14

A plan was developed which involved incorporating all of the
existing Murray Harris pipework, its bellows and the 1926 Kimball Echo organ,
blower, and two ranks of pipes. To increase the tonal palette, the plan
included adding sixteen stops in the Murray Harris style. The instrument would
also require new slider wind chests, expression boxes and a state-of-the-art
console. Although this would result in essentially a new working mechanism for
the organ, the tonal character of the Murray M. Harris organ would be retained
and enhanced.

The rear gallery, as a place of installation, was ruled out
due to lack of space. It was decided to enlarge the front organ chambers by
adding cantilevered decorative cases, thus creating additional space and
improved egress of sound.

During the organ's re-construction phase, the project has
seen several changes. The Schlicker Organ Company began by designing new slider
wind-chests and a console; eventually, they would accomplish all of the
mechanical work. Some delays occurred, including the untimely early death of
David Dickson in 1991. The project was revived in 1993 when Austin Organs, Inc.
became principal contractor. Under the revised plan, Austin would oversee the
project and take charge of all voicing and pipework, while Schlicker, under the
direction of J. Stanton Peters, would remain in charge of the mechanical
aspects, console and installation. David A.J. Broome, Tonal Director of Austin
Organs, collaborated with Manuel Rosales on the scaling and voicing of the
added pipework, with Broome taking charge of artistic direction at the Austin
factory. The Austin Organ Company pipe shop and voicers are to be commended for
their excellent workmanship and care in the restoration and tonal finishing of
the pipework.

The organ arrived at St. James' in April of 1995, with
on-site installation performed by Schlicker personnel. Tonal finishing began in
August, under Austin's Assistant Tonal Director Daniel Kingman assisted by
Christopher Smith of Schlicker. In the final weeks of the finishing, reed
voicer Zoltan Zsitvay of Austin joined Mr. Kingman. Manuel Rosales and Rosales
Organ Builders supported and assisted throughout the installation and tonal
finishing.

In its present home, the revised and enlarged Murray M.
Harris organ displays its original character as well as an enhanced presence in
St. James' pleasant acoustics. The organ possesses clear and unforced Diapason
tone with a bountiful collection of unison colors.  The Great chorus is bold and well defined. The Swell and
Choir chorus are each appropriately softer and make excellent accompaniment
divisions.  The chorus reeds are
likewise varied in strength also making beautiful solo stops. The stops created
by Austin Organs were designed and voiced using examples and scales from other
Harris instruments, except for the Cornet V which is appropriately patterned
after a stop in the Metropolitan Cathedral, Mexico City. The entire ensemble is
underpinned by the original 32' Contra Bombarde whose low CCCC pipe is two feet
across!

The completed instrument was dedicated to the memory of
David John Falconer on November 5th, All Saints' Day, at a festival service
with The Right Reverend Frederick H. Borsch, Bishop of Los Angeles, presiding,
and The Reverend Kirk Stevan Smith, Ph.D., Rector assisting.
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  Organist & Choirmaster James P.
Buonemani was assisted by Associate Organist David McVey.

Australian David Drury of the University of Sidney performed
the opening concert. His program featured works of Saint-Saëns, Mozart,
Widor, Jongen, Jackson, Hakim and an improvisation on two submitted themes. Mr.
Drury's artistry and imagination well exhibited the varied resources of the
instrument.

Eighty-four years since the organ's construction, and
sixteen years since its removal from St. Paul's Cathedral, the cultural
community of Los Angeles celebrates a voice from the past which was created in
our city and now sounds forth again with restored majesty.
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