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August Gern and the Origins of the Pitman Action

by R. E. Coleberd

R. E. Coleberd, an economist and retired petroleum industry executive, writes frequently on the history and economics of pipe organ building. For research input and critical comments on earlier drafts of this paper, the author gratefully acknowledges: Wilson Barry, Larry Chase, David Harris, The Rev. B. B. Edmonds, Dorothy Holden, Ken Holden, Herbert Huestis, Paul Joslin, Alan Laufman, Charles McManis, Albert Neutel, John Norman, Barbara Owen, Robert Reich, Jan Rowland, Jack Sievert, John Speller, Robert Vaughan, and Randall Wagner.

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Introduction

Students of pipe organ economics and history are continually fascinated by the wide variety of non-mechanical windchest actions developed by American organbuilders in the last century. These ingenious mechanisms speak to the resourcefulness of enterprising men eager to find an efficient and reliable system to differentiate their product and, thereby, to carve out a niche for themselves and their firm in the highly competitive marketplace for pipe organs. Windchest innovations formed the core of the nonmechanical systems. They would become a defining characteristic of American organbuilding in the first half of the twentieth century and mark its contribution to the evolution of the King of Instruments during this period. Marvels of mechanical ingenuity, they far surpassed developments on the Continent. As James B. Jamison commented: "In mechanisms they excel the Old World product so far as to make comparison unfair."1 Among the most important and far reaching innovations was the electropneumatic pitman action windchest which traces its origins to an obscure nineteenth-century Continental organbuilder, August Gern.

In writing a paper in which I remarked that Ernest M. Skinner had taken the pitman windchest to "Mount Olympus," I recalled a comment years ago by the late Dr. Homer Blanchard that August Gern was the inventor of the pitman action.2 Some years later I verified Blanchard's observation in Audsley's The Art of Organbuilding.3 I was curious about Gern and his system. At the suggestion of Barbara Owen, I phoned Professor Christopher Kent at the University of Reading in the United Kingdom who referred me to his student, Paul Joslin. Paul has researched and written on Gern's tenure in the British Isles. He kindly briefed me on Gern and sent me a copy of Gern's patent which would shed light on this question.4

Windchests

To begin, we need to review briefly the nature of a windchest and the nomenclature of the so-called "individual valve" actions. A windchest is a rectangular wooden box working in tandem with the console as a transfer mechanism, i.e., it transfers wind from the bellows to the pipes enabling them to speak. A stop action and a key action are its two essential components. Differences in the design and operation of these two actions distinguish one system from another and establish the two broad categories of nonmechanical windchest action: ventil and universal.

A ventil chest is distinguished by the fact that the individual stops are not winded unless the stop is on, i.e., pulling the stop knob opens a valve and charges the stop on the chest. Widely used in the early decades of this century, it was closely associated with the novel pull-wire ventil employed by Hillgreen-Lane, was incorporated in Kilgen organs until the firm's demise in 1958, was the mainstay of the Estey Company and was built by Tellers well into the post WWII era. Organ Supply Industries continued to list the ventil windchest in their catalog until 1982.5

A universal windchest is any system in which the wind is under all the stops at all times. The term "universal" is closely associated with the ingenious Austin patented system, in the beginning a large walk-in enclosure located directly under the pipe valve mechanism. Technically, however, a pitman action is also a universal windchest because the wind is always under all the stops. The salient feature of a pitman action is the key and stop action. As Randall Wagner, Organ Supply Industries executive, explains, a pitman action is fundamentally a fluidics mechanism, an x, y switch in which both x for stop and y for key must be "on" for the pipes to speak.6 These switches are, as Jan Rowland points out, relief valves which are activated by a motor, in modern practice a leather disc (formerly with a wooden stem) or flap, akin to a solenoid, whose movement seals or exhausts the key and stop channels.7 In the lexicon of today's computers these switches would be known as an AND gate.

By 1900 the race was on as the transition from tracker to non-mechanical action swept the American organ industry. Ten years later if you did not have a workable windchest you were either out of business (Gratian) or severely handicapped (Hinners). But if you had an efficient and competitive system, it just might be the cornerstone of a long and prosperous tenure in the industry (Austin, Wicks). The universal airchest of the Austin Company, with the familiar decal on the enclosure door, and "Built on the Bennett System" on the nameplate of the Bennett Organ Company instruments, demonstrated that firms were eager to capitalize on their innovations in the rapidly growing market for non-mechanical organs.

The pitman action gradually emerged as the odds-on favorite of American builders and organists, initially because of the overriding influence of Ernest M. Skinner, whose mechanism became the generic term for the system, but also because of its perceived advantages. By the post WWII era it had become dominant. The ventil, aside from the exceptions cited above, virtually disappeared. Skinner's contribution notwithstanding, innovations in windchest and console design and construction are, most likely, the work of individuals and firms over time in several stages of development. One is, therefore, understandably reluctant to attribute a major technological development in organbuilding to one individual. Nonetheless, if we can establish, from an analysis of his patent, that Gern's system functions like a pitman action then we are safe in saying that he is one of the pioneers of this redoubtable mechanism.

August Gern and His System

August Friedrich Herman Gern (1837-1907), a native of Berlin, Germany, was the son of a cabinet maker whose family had lived for several generations in or near Berlin and whose ancestry was traced as far back as 1415 when one Christian Gern was baptized in Zwichau. After acquiring woodworking skills, most likely from his father, Gern obtained organbuilding knowledge, probably from Carl Friedrich Buckholz, although he may have also worked with Sauer, Lang and Diese. In 1860 he migrated to France where he was employee and foreman of the celebrated Aristide Cavaillé-Coll (Buckholz was a pupil of Cavaillé Coll). In 1866, after installing one of the Parisian master's instruments in the Carmelite Church in Kensington in the United Kingdom, Gern opened his own shop in London. He operated from several locations in London and, from 1872 to 1906, at Boundary Road, Notting Hill (the shop building is extant).8

On November 6, 1883 Gern filed a patent application (see diagrams) for "Improvements In Organs And Similar Wind Instruments." He described his invention as a key and stop action channel "designed to simplify the construction and operation of parts . . . and to avoid the loss of wind and objectionable sounds that often result from leakage."9 His reference to loss of wind and objectionable sounds was, perhaps, referring to the Kegellade or cone valve chest, the system then widely used by Ladegast, Sauer and other German builders. Although the key and stop channels, acting as relief valves, were the focal point of his invention, there were other far-reaching implications of his system. One was provision of two sets of relief channels to permit duplexing. Another was the use of chest wind to open the valve. In this respect his mechanism was, theoretically, similar to "Roosevelt" type actions which utilized chest wind as the operating force. Interestingly, and as if to anticipate the future, Gern asserted that "collapsible or bellows-like cells" (i.e., pouches) could also be used.

The following step-by-step analysis of Gern's patent is made with some trepidation and a note of caution. It is very difficult to comprehend the working of up to six valve positions of the mechanism in a single set of diagrams each portraying only one position. Have you ever tried reading Audsley? The diagrams are reproduced courtesy of Robert Vaughan, chief engineer of the Reuter Organ Company, who copied them from Audsley. Ironically, Audsley had discovered an apparent error in the Gern patent diagram regarding the position of the pitman.

Following the diagrams: Figure 1 is the key action. When the center-pivot key A is depressed as the note is played, the lug a on the key tail opens the leather-covered pallet B, exhausting the key channel D. When the key is released, wind from channel E pushes down on pallets C and B, charging key channel D. A closer look suggests that pallets C and B work much like a primary action in a modern pitman windchest.

Figure 2 is the stop action. As shown, the stop is "on" with channel L exhausted through slide G. When the stop is "off" slide G is moved to the right, causing wind from H to recharge channel L.

Figure 3 is the heart of the mechanism. In the Gern system the pitman "motor" is a teeter-totter, hinged in the middle and pivoting up and down at each end, shown as m1, m2. When the key channel is exhausted from Figure 1,  wind from the stop action channel L (the stop is "off") pushes m2 up and m1 down, sealing the exhausted key channel and maintaining wind pressure in cylinder n on piston N. This keeps valve O (shown open in Figure 3) seated securely against the bottom board on which the pipe stands, thus preventing the pipe from speaking.

When the key is "off" and the stop is "on," the position of the teeter-totter pitman is reversed. Then wind from the stop channel L is exhausted and wind from the key channel D pushes m1 up and m2 down, causing key channel wind to maintain pressure under the cylinder and the valve to stay closed.

When both key and stop are "on," i.e., channels exhausted, the pitman motor floats causing wind in the chest to push down on piston N and open valve O, allowing the pipe to speak. Duplexing is accomplished by a dual set of key and stop action channels D1, D2, L1, L2 as shown in Figure 4.

Gern's patent did not immediately become an innovation in the Schumpeterian sense, i.e., the commercial application of an invention, because all evidence indicates that he never used it in his work, nor did anyone else.10 Audsley laments that he has never seen a working model from which to make drawings, adding that although he was acquainted with Gern's instruments he had not examined the inside of the windchests in them.11 Gern most likely was dissuaded from utilizing his system because, in comparison with other mechanisms of the day, it proved impractical and uneconomical to build. Audsley appears to confirm this when he says:  " . . . in our estimation, it is attended by several serious drawbacks, and must, in the manner in which it is fixed in the chest, be somewhat difficult to reach for cleaning or repairs."12

It must be emphasized that Gern did not call his invention a pitman action, a term designated much later and closely associated with the work of Ernest M. Skinner who is credited with further refinements and whose model became the definitive example of the system. The term pitman is not confined to organbuilding: it has been associated in antiquity with such diverse occupations as coal mining and saw milling and in engineering to denote mechanical linkage as in a steam engine or a steering column.13

The Skinner System

The concept of the pitman windchest was revived in 1897 by C. F. Brindley of Sheffield, England in a patent for a pneumatic pouch action which Sumner comments "anticipated the actual pitman action."14 The key to developing the pitman idea into a workable system, as reflected in the Brindley patent, was the pouch valve as opposed to Gern's piston valve. The pitman concept made its American debut in a Hutchings-Votey instrument in the Flatbush Dutch Reformed Church in Brooklyn in 1899. This was during Skinner's tenure with Hutchings and after his first journey to England. Wagner points out that this instrument: "probably used their pouch and lever action similar to what EMS used in his Opus 140 at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Cleveland with pitman action in 1906. It was only later that the pitman rail was put under the pouch rail."15 Skinner recognized the pivotal role of the pouch when he wrote: "My second acknowledgment is made to Casavant Frères of St. Hyacinthe, P.Q., who brought this type of motor (sic, i.e., pouch) to the state of refinement shown in the present manual chests and which, through their gracious courtesy, was given to me."16

The term pitman is attributed to Audsley who so named it because of the design of the action motor in the prototype of his day. "The Pitman-valve consists of a disc of fine, smooth leather firmly glued and tacked to the end of a short cylindrical stem of hard wood and well black-leaded to reduce friction to a minimum," he explained.17 The stem is the man and the orifice in which it moves is the pit (see diagram). The Skinner diagram is reproduced courtesy Norm Kinnaugh of the Reuter Organ Company. The American Organist describes it: "The name means man-in-a-pit: There is no Mr. Pitman connected with it—the man happens to be, instead, Mr. Ernest M. Skinner."18 Typically, Skinner took credit for the system: "The pitman stop action valve . . . is my contribution to this important factor in the composition of the organ," he wrote.19 The pouch valve and key and stop action pitman rail under the toeboard, perfected by Skinner, became the generic term for the system. It is characterized today by either a leather disc (without the formerly used wooden stem) or a hinged leather flap which acts as the relief valve/switch in exhausting the key and stop channels. 

Summary

The triumph of the pitman action in the early decades of this century is attributable, apart from Skinner's influence, to its pronounced mechanical advantages during this period, in addition to the perceived weaknesses of the ventil system. Herbert Huestis, in an intriguing hypothesis, theorizes that organbuilding follows playing style, both then and now. In the first three decades of the twentieth century the crescendo pedal made possible the style of playing on the larger instruments characteristic of this period. This was the era of transcriptions as concert fare, and of large instruments built by Skinner, Möller, Austin and Kimball for municipal auditoriums and similar venues as well as for churches.20 As Wilson Barry comments: "Virgil Fox was Mr. Crescendo Pedal."21 The pitman windchest is optimally suited to the crescendo pedal, both in adding stops in the buildup to a powerful chorus and in reducing stops while holding a chord. Conversely, the ventil chest, with its much slower stop action, is woefully deficient in this respect. Momentary pitch variation in a ventil chest results in the transition period when wind pressure rises and falls as the ventil channel is charged and emptied. In addition, the pitman is adaptable to playing one rank as two stops; for example, a Diapason at eight and four foot pitches, and for playing a Fifteenth separately from a Mixture.

In retrospect, a ventil windchest is less complicated in layout and, with fewer borings, is less expensive to build than a pitman, although with the separate enclosure required for the stop action it is somewhat larger. The exception was the venerable Estey windchest, which could accommodate a 43 scale Diapason on the chest, and was even smaller than  a pitman. Another drawback of the  ventil is having wind on only one side of the leather stop action valve which seriously shortens its life. Only a small percentage of the time does a pitman pouch have wind on just one side. Furthermore, as Robert Vaughan points out, in former times when the blower was customarily located in the furnace room of the church, coal dust would be drawn into the organ action. Leather is permeable and as the wind filtered through the leather, as in a ventil stop action, the acidic compounds inherent in coal would be deposited in the leather hastening its demise. Finding organ leathers blackened with coal dust was a common experience of servicemen of yesteryear.22

The respected firms mentioned above continued to build the ventil windchest long after it was technically obsolete because they felt comfortable with it and, logically, took pride in their work and their innovations in the evolution of windchest action. The Kilgen key action, particularly when measured on a unit chest, has long been recognized by experts to be among the fastest key actions ever developed.23 These builders believed that whatever differences existed in stop action speed versus the pitman were either non-existent or minimal and, therefore, were of no consequence in the marketplace. As Huestis points out, they were builders of comparatively small instruments where the crescendo pedal was not a pivotal factor.24 Lacking personnel familiar with alternative systems they were fearful of failure. Windchest systems existed side by side in the organ industry because windchest cost is only a fraction of the total cost of building an instrument and, therefore, is not a determining factor. Otherwise, if windchest cost had been dominant, the Austin mechanism, so economically superior in design and manufacture, would have driven out the rest of the industry and monopolized the market.

August Gern, a relatively unknown and long-forgotten figure in nineteenth- century Continental organbuilding, deserves a small niche in the pantheon of notable organbuilders for his seminal contribution to the pitman action. His concept of using chest wind as the activating force was a milestone in the evolution of the pipe organ windchest and his uncanny switching mechanism laid the foundation for the highly successful pitman electropneumatic system.

Related Content

Trophy Builders and their Instruments A Chapter in the Economics of Pipe Organ Building

by R. E. Coleberd

R. E. Coleberd is an economist and petroleum industry executive.

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In his seminal article "The Economics of Superstars," in The American Economic Review1, Sherwin Rosen, professor of economics at the University of Chicago and recently (1994) honored as vice president of the American Economic Association, analyzed what he termed "an increasingly important market phenomenon in our time" and developed the economic implications of it. This is the phenomenon of the superstar, the tendency of talented performers to be singled out as superior to all others and, thereby, to dominate the market in which they perform. He asserted that the paradigm is found virtually everywhere in contemporary economic life; in professional athletics, arts and letters and in show business. In economic parlance, the analytical framework is "a special type of assignment problem, the marriage of buyers to sellers, including the assignment of audiences to performers, of students to textbooks, patients to doctors, and so forth."2  Superstars all share what is termed "box office appeal" which is the ability to attract a large following (audience) and to generate a substantial volume of transactions. Rosen was quick to comment that there is no magic formula for becoming a superstar but it involves a combination of talent and charisma in uncertain proportions.

Professional athletes and rock singers are obvious examples
of superstars today. However, Rosen gives one interesting example from the
world of music which occurred nearly two hundred years ago and which was cited
by the eminent nineteenth-century English economist Alfred Marshall.3 In 1801,
a Mrs. Elizabeth Billington reportedly earned the then princely sum of between
£10,000 and £15,000 singing Italian Opera in Covent Garden and
Drury Lane.4 With her extraordinary voice she defined Italian opera and female
vocal performance to the sophisticated urban gentry who flocked to her
performances throughout her career and who discounted other singers of lesser
ability.

Upon reflection, the author, an economist and longtime
student of market phenomena and the economics of pipe organ building, believes
the concept of superstars described by Rosen has a novel and intriguing
application to the King of Instruments and its builders in the last 100 years.
Perhaps it offers a partial explanation of the quixotic, always fascinating,
and endlessly intriguing market for the pipe organ and for the fortunes of
several builders. A glance at the history of the industry shows that certain
builders enjoyed a large following or "box office appeal" during
their era. What was the combination of "talent and charisma" that
accounted for their success?

Our definition of superstar as it applies to the pipe organ
hinges upon the ability of a builder to preempt substantially a particular
market during his era through tonal or mechanical characteristics, perhaps
working together, in his instruments. This builder virtually redefines the pipe
organ with the result that previous instruments are now considered obsolete and
the work of other builders noncompetitive. In economic analysis this concept
rests upon "imperfect substitution" among sellers which, in the
superstar market phenomenon, means that buyers invariably will single out a
particular product or service as best meeting their (individual and group)
needs. They do not consider other products and services to be an acceptable
alternative. Parallel to Rosen's observation of a conspicuous concentration of
output among sellers who have the most talent (as in rock singers) is the share
of certain nameplates in particular well-defined markets for pipe organs.
Although the pipe organ historically has had a large and diverse audience, we
must look at specific categories of the general market:
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movie theaters in the 1920s in which
Wurlitzer fits the definition, the residential market of that period in which
Aeolian gets the nod, and the college and university market in the immediate
postwar period in which Holtkamp is the outstanding example, and Schlicker is
perhaps a very good one.

A word of caution: definitions and concepts are always
arbitrary and frequently narrow. Thus they will evoke different interpretations
and diverging opinions among other observers. The author elects to make Rosen's
word "superstar" synonymous with his own term "trophy
builder." The readers, in their definition of trophy builders and
instruments, may elect to focus on certain instruments (The Mormon Tabernacle),
regions (New England), the work of tonal architects and voicers (Richard O.
Whitelegg) or inventions and systems (John T. Austin). Or, they may wish to
recognize, if not include in the definition, Robert Hope-Jones, whose
pioneering work in the emerging instrument at the turn of the century, was to
exert a pronounced influence on the industry. Well and good. The author merely
hopes that his own interpretation in the following discussion will shed light
on a unique aspect of the rich history of pipe organ building in America.

Roosevelt

Our first illustration of the superstar concept in American
organbuilding is Hilborne L. Roosevelt. His instrument for the Centennial
Exposition in Philadelphia, and many that followed, were truly a watershed in
the evolution of the pipe organ. As noted historian Orpha Ochse observed:
"One may say that the Roosevelt organs actually marked the beginning of a
new era in organ history."5 Through successful application of electricity
in non-mechanical action and the introduction of several new stops, he, in
effect, redefined the instrument. Now tracker action was increasingly
considered out of style in the growing urban market characterized by the
construction of large churches. 
The new voices, embracing the European romantic tradition, made possible
in part by the new action, suggested that the tonal pallet of the tracker was
out of date as well.  His
instruments embodied the hallmarks of the new era:  liberal use of enclosed divisions in divided chambers, echo
divisions, a detached console, 
adjustable combination action and the electric motor blower for wind
supply.  The affluent urban
customer got the message: there was something new in  pipe organs out there. They were quick to recognize it and
they were interested.  Roosevelt's
star rose swiftly and in the brief two decades he flourished he won what must
have been a lion's share of the business in New York City, and important
contracts elsewhere as well. News of the "new organ" traveled swiftly
across the country. Thus we had Roosevelt instruments in Danville, Illinois and
Kansas City, Missouri, among other 
small cities, all of considerable distance from New York. The most
widely publicized instrument of the Roosevelt era, if not in retrospect its
crown jewel, was the four-manual for the Cathedral of the Incarnation in Garden
City, Long Island.6

Ernest Skinner, who was to pick up the baton after
Roosevelt's untimely death (and his brother's decision to liquidate the
business), acknowledged Roosevelt's position in the evolution of the instrument
and the industry when he wrote: "Many organs were built by Roosevelt
according to the above plan (individual valve chest), which, together with his
fine tone, earned for him the most distinguished name of any builder of his
time."7

E. M. Skinner

The next trophy builder, who fits our definition eloquently,
is the renowned Ernest M. Skinner. Roosevelt had opened the door to a new era;
now Skinner would hoist his banner and march triumphantly through the city
church landscape for the next three decades.  The Skinner name became a household word and defined the
pipe organ among the knowledgeable urban gentry. What Tiffany was to glass
Skinner was to the pipe organ among socially conscious city folks. "And we
have a Skinner Organ" is one of the ways these people described their churches. This type of product identification, with perhaps no parallel in the pipe organ industry, is the dream of every advertising manager in business today. Skinner also enjoyed the same preferred position in the college and university market during his era that Holtkamp and Schlicker were to savor in the period after World War II.

Like Roosevelt's, Skinner's instruments were a combination
of mechanical and tonal innovations. "The mechanical and tonal factors of
the organ are dependent upon each other for a fulfillment of their
purposes,"8 he wrote. A major contributor was the pitman windchest,
light-years ahead of the Roosevelt ventil system, which would stand the test of
time and be adopted by numerous builders in succeeding decades. The origins of
the pitman action are found, no doubt, in the many experimenters in
single-valve action during the turn of the century.  One of them, reportedly, was August Gern,
Cavaillé-Coll's foreman, who later built organs in England under his own
name. But it remained for Skinner to take it to Mount Olympus. When the
lightning fast  pitman key action
(thirty-three milliseconds between key touch and pipe speech) and equally
responsive (and quiet) stop action was coupled with exotic orchestral voices,
the Skinner organ quickly became the "box office favorite."

William H. Barnes listed the stops, not always invented by
Skinner, but developed and utilized in his trophy installations, which became
hallmarks of his work and era. All stops are 8' unless otherwise noted.9

Erzähler-Christ Church, Hartford, Connecticut

Orchestral Oboe-Tompkins Avenue Congregational Church,
Brooklyn, New York

English Horn (8' and 16')-City College, New York

French Horn-Williams College, Williamstown, Masssachusetts

Kleine Erzähler-Fourth Presbyterian, Chicago

Gross Gedeckt-Second Congregational, Holyoke, Massachusetts

Corno Di Bassetto-Williams College, Williamstown,
Massachusetts

Tuba Mirabilis-Cathedral of St. John the Divine, New York

French Trumpet-Cathedral of St. John the Divine, New York

Orchestral Bassoon (16')-Skinner Studio, Boston

Gambe Celeste-Cathedral of St. John the Divine, New York

Bombarde (32')-Cathedral of St. John the Divine, New York

Violone (32')-Cathedral of St. John the Divine, New York

Sub Bass (32')-Cathedral of St. John the Divine, New York

Contra Bassoon (32')-Princeton University, Princeton, New
Jersey

Skinner's icon image was eloquent confirmation of the
fact  that an organbuilding
enterprise is the lengthened shadow of the key figure behind it.
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As his biographer Dorothy Holden wrote:  "In all truth, it was this ability to infuse his instruments with all the vitality, warmth, and charm of his own personality that created the very essence of the Skinner organ."10

Aeolian Skinner and G. Donald Harrison

The Aeolian Skinner organ was the gold standard for affluent
urbanites with champagne tastes, many of them Episcopalians, who viewed the
church and its appointments as the logical extension of their commanding
economic and social position in the community. That the instrument was built in
Boston, the fountainhead of American culture, was reassuring, and the name
Skinner in the logo denoted continuity with a firm of established reputation.
G. Donald Harrison had filled E. M. Skinner's shoes admirably and moved ahead
to carve out his own niche in the pantheon of great American builders.

Harrison's lasting imprint on American pipe organ heritage
began about 1932; for example, in Northrup Auditorium at the University of
Minnesota, and was well-established in 1935 with Groton School and Church of
the Advent in Boston instruments, which in the public mind were the
cornerstones of his era. These two trophy instruments were
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milestones in the emergence of the
American Classic tradition of which he was the leading exponent during his
time. As Ochse explains: "He coupled an appreciation for some of the
outstanding European styles with his thorough background in English organ
building."11 His goal was an eclectic instrument on which all schools and
styles of organ music could be played with clarity and with reasonable
authenticity.

In superstar products, endorsement is a key to status as is
the demonstration effect, which is the identification of purchasers with peer
groups and the desire to emulate them. With Aeolian-Skinner the demonstration
effect was most important and endorsement not as crucial. When prospective
clients were reminded of the Skinner legacy and shown the opus list: Symphony
Hall Boston, St. Thomas Episcopal, New York and Fourth Presbyterian, Chicago, to
name a few, they said "that's us" and signed up.
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With Holtkamp and Schlicker, on the
other hand, endorsement was paramount.

Aeolian

The Aeolian Duo Art pipe organ was the instrument of choice
among the business and social elite in the first three decades of this
century.  Their opulent life style
was anchored in castles, Italian villas and French chateaus featuring mirrored
ballrooms, manicured gardens and pipe organs and was augmented
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frequently by polo fields, yachts and
private railroad cars. The Aeolian reputation was initially distinguished by
its self-playing mechanism and superior roll library.  Then, the nameplate took over. The "Lords of
Creation" were only too glad to pay steep prices for the Aeolian
instrument in order to "keep up with the Joneses."
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Below is a sampling of familiar
names  among the captains of
industry who had Aeolian Duo Art residence organs.12

The Automotive Industry:

Dodge, Horace E., Detroit, Michigan

Dodge, John F., Detroit, Michigan

Firestone, H. S., Akron, Ohio

Ford, Edsel B., Detroit, Michigan

Kettering, C. F., Dayton, Ohio

Olds, R. E., Lansing, Michigan

Packard, W. D., Warren, Ohio

Seiberling, F. A., Akron, Ohio

Studebaker, J. M., Jr., South Bend, Indiana

Merchants and Manufacturers:

Armour, J. O., Lake Forest, Illinois

Cudahay, J. M., Lake Forest, Illinois

DuPont, Irenee, Wilmington, Delaware

DuPont, Pierre S., Wilmington, Delaware

Swift, G. F. Jr., Chicago, Illinois

Woolworth, F. W., New York, New York

Wrigley, Wm. Jr., Chicago, Illinois

Publishers:

Bok, Edward, Merion, Pennsylvania

Curtis, C.H.K., Wyncote, Pennsylvania

Pulitzer, Mrs. Joseph, New York, New York

Scripps, W. E., Detroit, Michigan

Railroads and Public Utilities:

Flagler, John H., Greenwich, Connecticut

Harriman, E. H., Arden, New York

Vanderbilt, W. K., New York, New York

Vanderbilt, W. K. Jr., Northport, Long Island, New York

Steel and Oil:

Carnegie, Andrew, New York, New York

Frick, H. C., Pride's Crossing, Massachusetts

Rockefeller, John D., Pocantico Hills, New York

Rockefeller, John D., Jr., New York, New York

Schwab, Charles M., New York, New York

Teagle, Walter C., Portchester, New York

Wurlitzer

The tidal wave of capital pouring into the construction of movie theaters after the turn of the century created an insatiable demand for the wondrous new musical medium, the theater pipe organ, pioneered in concept by
Robert Hope-Jones. Investors clamored to capture the fortunes awaiting them in
motion pictures, a spectacular new form of mass entertainment. No movie
theater, be it an ornate palace in a downtown metropolitan area or a small town
storefront cinema, was complete (or competitive) without a theater organ. The
demand spawned an entirely new industry--Barton, Link, Robert Morton, Marr
& Colton, Page and, of course, Wurlitzer which, bolstered by
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clever streetcar advertising, became
the generic term for the theater organ. What Kodak was to amateur photography
and Gillette was to shaving, Wurlitzer was  to the theater pipe organ.

The new industry emerged because the theater organ was a
radically different instrument; characterized by significantly higher wind
pressures, the horseshoe console, unification of the stoplist, and the tibia
and kinura, among others, as distinctive voices in the tonal pallet.
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Other builders produced theater organs,
chiefly during the years of peak demand, but they were primarily identified
with the church instrument and market. We award Wurlitzer the trophy accolade
because their output of over 2,000 instruments was more than twice the number
of their nearest competitor Robert Morton, who built slightly fewer than 900.13

Holtkamp

Walter Holtkamp was a true innovator in the Schumpeterian
sense, i.e., the concrete expression of ideas in marketable goods.
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He had the wisdom and good judgment to
recognize that the classical revival and the North German paradigm, which he
sought to emulate, required a radical departure from existing norms. It was not
a matter of substituting a stop here and there, of lowering wind pressure an
inch or two, or of dispensing with the ubiquitous strings and celestes of the
1920's. It would begin with the wholesale elimination of melodias, cornopeans,
flutes d'amour and numerous other stops, all arranged in a horizontal tonal
pallet dominated by the eight-foot pitch with an occasional four-foot stop. He
would introduce a vertical tonal pallet with a pitch range of 16' through
mixtures, and underscore the principal as the foundation of
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> 
an organ chorus. Capped or semi-capped
flutes would provide color and harmonic development and blend well. He would
use primarily chorus reeds of Germanic "free tone" style as opposed
to "dark tone" English reeds in his ensemble.

To his great credit, Holtkamp surrounded himself with
knowledgeable people, and these persons of influence found in him the
pathfinder who would lead them to the promised land of a baroque organ. He was
said to be a stubborn man but he was a good listener.  William H. Barnes remarked that he had the good fortune to
be located in Cleveland where he benefited enormously from the friendship and
support of three important people in the organ reform movement: Walter
Blodgett, Arthur Quimby and Melville Smith.14 As his biographer John Ferguson
noted: "The continuing association with organists and musicians
sympathetic to his ideas was of central importance to the development of his
work."15 His close collaboration with architects legitimatized bringing
the organ out of chambers and resulted in the distinctive "Holtkamp
look."  Widely copied by other
builders, it was a distinguishing feature of his instruments and era.

After World War II he built a group of loyal followers, many
of them academics, led by Arthur Poister of Oberlin and Syracuse, whose
students moved on to choice academic and church positions and spread the gospel
of Holtkamp.  Soon he enjoyed a
preferred if not a virtual monopoly position in the upscale college and
university market where these leaders of the organist profession flourished.

The Holtkamp organ was the marquee instrument for
academe.  To have a Holtkamp was to
make a statement.  Installations at
Yale University and the University of California at Berkeley as well as
Syracuse University and Oberlin College, quickly convinced many schools, including small colleges like Erskine in Due West, South Carolina, that an important milestone on the road to academic excellence and peer recognition was a Holtkamp organ. Invidious comparison and competitive emulation (Thorstein
Veblen) were--and are--alive and well in academe. Thus it is no mere
coincidence that each of the three prestigous women's colleges in
Virginia--Hollins, Sweetbriar and Randolph-Macon--has a three-manual Holtkamp
instrument. When Hollins got the first one, the other two schools could not
have done anything else. 

Other builders couldn't compete with him in this market. As
one industry veteran, who asked not to be identified, remarked: "If they
were interested in a Holtkamp or a Schlicker, we knew we might as well fold our
tent." This market had pre-judged other builders and in the clamor for
peer recognition; it was the name that counted. Even if other builders used the
same scales and voicing techniques, they could not build a Holtkamp organ.
Poister, a grand person who was widely acknowledged as one of the finest organ
teachers of his or any generation, exerted what can only be described as a
fantastic influence on the fortunes of this builder. His championing of the
Holtkamp organ was surely the equal of the endorsement for breakfast foods and
athletic footwear by professional athletes today.

Schlicker

The market for a neobaroque instrument embracing the
Orgelbewegung  movement was growing
and the established industry was caught with an image problem it could not yet
overcome, opening the door for yet another builder to rise to prominence and by
redefining  the instrument and
capturing a preferred position in a specific market, to achieve trophy status
under our definition. This was Herman Schlicker. His launching pad was the rebuild of the 1893 Johnson organ in the Grace Episcopal Church in Sandusky, Ohio in 1950 with the advice and encouragement of Robert Noehren.16
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> 
Schlicker would go on to etch his
definition of the pipe organ in bold relief: a comparatively severe instrument earmarked by a mild fundamental, a shift in the tonal balance with an emphasis on upperwork, and a reduction in the percentage of strings in the tonal resources as well as a preference for 18th-century strings of an almost soft principal timbre to the exclusion of romantic (pencil) strings.  Baroque style chorus and color reeds were featured in stoplists favoring early music, often suggesting the Praetorius mantra
(reflecting the influence of close friend and confidant Paul Bunjes).
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> 

To augment his tonal resources, Schlicker devised a
"Tonkanzell" electropneumatic windchest featuring a long channel with
the valve closing against a side rail as opposed to closing directly under the
toehole as in conventional pouch-action chests. This was designed to buffer aerodynamically the effect of the opening valve on the pipe foot and to approximate the wind characteristics of the slider chest.17 He was also an early advocate of the slider chest in nonmechanical construction and incorporated it in several instruments.

Schlicker's tonal philosophy and his instruments were
especially appealing to German Lutheran congregations eager to embrace their
historical roots and to academics who shared his definition of the pipe organ.
Robert Noehren, from his lofty perch as university organist and
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> 
professor at the University of
Michigan, enjoyed a wide following at one of the thriving centers for graduate
study in organ during this period. His recordings, recitals and convention
appearances earned for him a stellar reputation as a leading spokesman for the
organ reform movement and, thereby, directly and indirectly for the Schlicker
instrument.  E. Power Biggs also
was caught  up in the Schlicker
movement.18 The importance of endorsements by key spokesmen cannot be
overestimated in the fortunes of the Schlicker Company.

Fisk

By 1970 a phalanx of American organists had traveled to
Europe--on sabbaticals, tours and Fulbright Scholarships-- and been introduced
to many schools and streams of historical organbuilding. They became aware of
new possibilities in their own situations and responsive to a domestic builder
who articulated their ideas. This was Charles Fisk. His Harvard background was
convincing and his Boston location reassuring. In his writings and appearances
before professional groups, Fisk conveyed an in-depth knowledge of European
instruments, his own sympathy with continental ideas and his ability to execute
them.

The epic two-manual tracker organ Fisk built at Mt. Calvary
Church in Baltimore in 1961 was earmarked by the werkprinzip in case design,
suspended key action and, in this example, the tonal philosophy of Andreas
Silbermann.19  This instrument was
his springboard to an illustrious, though tragically short, career. He became
the first American tracker builder to challenge successfully the dominance of
such European builders as Flentrop, Rieger and von Beckerath, in the
construction of large instruments. In response to a loyal and enthusiastic
following, Fisk built a number of contemporary organs as well as period instruments patterned after specific historical antecedents. His rise to prominence is further evidence that each generation looks for--and finds--a new trophy builder, a shiny new nameplate that commands that elusive "box office appeal" and with it an unchallengeable (monopoly) position in a particular market. Over the years his instruments at Harvard and Stanford clinched his reputation much as Holtkamp's organs at Yale and Berkeley had done for him--a reputation still well-deserved  by the Fisk firm after the premature passing of Charles Fisk.

Summary and Conclusions

The trophy builder analysis based upon Rosen's superstar
phenomenon, offers a useful perspective on the all-important market dimension
of the economics of the pipe organ industry.  Its ingredients are: tonal and mechanical innovation,
location, the demonstration effect and endorsement, and each generation's
search for something new under the sun. Veblen's time honored psycho-social
phenomenon of invidious comparison and competitive emulation cannot be
ignored.  Who will be the next
trophy builder?

Perhaps this 
builder will reflect the swing of the pendulum back to the romantic
tradition and the emergence of an eclectic instrument embracing the
contemporary as well as an historical perspective in liturgical music. This
builder, and the entire industry, must be able to confirm the stature of the
pipe organ within the myriad of musical options such as synthesizers,
sequencers and auto-accompaniment being promoted today. The King of Instruments
must be recognized as the legitimate and time-honored vehicle for musical
expression in corporate worship. In retrospect, the history of the instrument
in the American experience is perhaps closely tied to the fortunes of the
mainline denominations and the middle class, both increasingly challenged by
the sweeping socio-economic changes now evident in our society. Ethnic and
language characteristics of migrant populations mitigate against identification
with traditional religious groups and the realities of a rapidly changing
global marketplace impact the wage profile and employment structure of our
economy.  As one industry veteran
explained, the danger as we move into the 21st century is that "the
reorganization of religious expression makes the sounds of the pipe organ less
vital to 'religiousness,' hence less important."20 Our challenge is to
reverse this mindset and to assert that the pipe organ is central to musical
expression in religion and these other developments are ancillary to it.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>         
n

Trophy Builders and their Instruments

A Chapter in the Economics of Pipe Organ Building

R. E. Coleberd

R. E. Coleberd is an economist and petroleum industry executive.

Default

 

In his seminal article "The Economics of Superstars," in The American Economic Review1, Sherwin Rosen, professor of economics at the University of Chicago and recently (1994) honored as vice president of the American Economic Association, analyzed what he termed "an increasingly important market phenomenon in our time" and developed the economic implications of it. This is the phenomenon of the superstar, the tendency of talented performers to be singled out as superior to all others and, thereby, to dominate the market in which they perform. He asserted that the paradigm is found virtually everywhere in contemporary economic life; in professional athletics, arts and letters and in show business. In economic parlance, the analytical framework is "a special type of assignment problem, the marriage of buyers to sellers, including the assignment of audiences to performers, of students to textbooks, patients to doctors, and so forth."2  Superstars all share what is termed "box office appeal" which is the ability to attract a large following (audience) and to generate a substantial volume of transactions. Rosen was quick to comment that there is no magic formula for becoming a superstar but it involves a combination of talent and charisma in uncertain proportions.
Professional athletes and rock singers are obvious examples of superstars today. However, Rosen gives one interesting example from the world of music which occurred nearly two hundred years ago and which was cited by the eminent nineteenth-century English economist Alfred Marshall.3 In 1801, a Mrs. Elizabeth Billington reportedly earned the then princely sum of between £10,000 and £15,000 singing Italian Opera in Covent Garden and Drury Lane.4 With her extraordinary voice she defined Italian opera and female vocal performance to the sophisticated urban gentry who flocked to her performances throughout her career and who discounted other singers of lesser ability.
Upon reflection, the author, an economist and longtime student of market phenomena and the economics of pipe organ building, believes the concept of superstars described by Rosen has a novel and intriguing application to the King of Instruments and its builders in the last 100 years. Perhaps it offers a partial explanation of the quixotic, always fascinating, and endlessly intriguing market for the pipe organ and for the fortunes of several builders. A glance at the history of the industry shows that certain builders enjoyed a large following or "box office appeal" during their era. What was the combination of "talent and charisma" that accounted for their success?
Our definition of superstar as it applies to the pipe organ hinges upon the ability of a builder to preempt substantially a particular market during his era through tonal or mechanical characteristics, perhaps working together, in his instruments. This builder virtually redefines the pipe organ with the result that previous instruments are now considered obsolete and the work of other builders noncompetitive. In economic analysis this concept rests upon "imperfect substitution" among sellers which, in the superstar market phenomenon, means that buyers invariably will single out a particular product or service as best meeting their (individual and group) needs. They do not consider other products and services to be an acceptable alternative. Parallel to Rosen's observation of a conspicuous concentration of output among sellers who have the most talent (as in rock singers) is the share of certain nameplates in particular well-defined markets for pipe organs. Although the pipe organ historically has had a large and diverse audience, we must look at specific categories of the general market:  movie theaters in the 1920s in which Wurlitzer fits the definition, the residential market of that period in which Aeolian gets the nod, and the college and university market in the immediate postwar period in which Holtkamp is the outstanding example, and Schlicker is perhaps a very good one.
A word of caution: definitions and concepts are always arbitrary and frequently narrow. Thus they will evoke different interpretations and diverging opinions among other observers. The author elects to make Rosen's word "superstar" synonymous with his own term "trophy builder." The readers, in their definition of trophy builders and instruments, may elect to focus on certain instruments (The Mormon Tabernacle), regions (New England), the work of tonal architects and voicers (Richard O. Whitelegg) or inventions and systems (John T. Austin). Or, they may wish to recognize, if not include in the definition, Robert Hope-Jones, whose pioneering work in the emerging instrument at the turn of the century, was to exert a pronounced influence on the industry. Well and good. The author merely hopes that his own interpretation in the following discussion will shed light on a unique aspect of the rich history of pipe organ building in America.

Roosevelt

Our first illustration of the superstar concept in American organbuilding is Hilborne L. Roosevelt. His instrument for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, and many that followed, were truly a watershed in the evolution of the pipe organ. As noted historian Orpha Ochse observed: "One may say that the Roosevelt organs actually marked the beginning of a new era in organ history."5 Through successful application of electricity in non-mechanical action and the introduction of several new stops, he, in effect, redefined the instrument. Now tracker action was increasingly considered out of style in the growing urban market characterized by the construction of large churches.  The new voices, embracing the European romantic tradition, made possible in part by the new action, suggested that the tonal pallet of the tracker was out of date as well.  His instruments embodied the hallmarks of the new era:  liberal use of enclosed divisions in divided chambers, echo divisions, a detached console,  adjustable combination action and the electric motor blower for wind supply.  The affluent urban customer got the message: there was something new in  pipe organs out there. They were quick to recognize it and they were interested.  Roosevelt's star rose swiftly and in the brief two decades he flourished he won what must have been a lion's share of the business in New York City, and important contracts elsewhere as well. News of the "new organ" traveled swiftly across the country. Thus we had Roosevelt instruments in Danville, Illinois and Kansas City, Missouri, among other  small cities, all of considerable distance from New York. The most widely publicized instrument of the Roosevelt era, if not in retrospect its crown jewel, was the four-manual for the Cathedral of the Incarnation in Garden City, Long Island.6
Ernest Skinner, who was to pick up the baton after Roosevelt's untimely death (and his brother's decision to liquidate the business), acknowledged Roosevelt's position in the evolution of the instrument and the industry when he wrote: "Many organs were built by Roosevelt according to the above plan (individual valve chest), which, together with his fine tone, earned for him the most distinguished name of any builder of his time."7

E. M. Skinner

The next trophy builder, who fits our definition eloquently, is the renowned Ernest M. Skinner. Roosevelt had opened the door to a new era; now Skinner would hoist his banner and march triumphantly through the city church landscape for the next three decades.  The Skinner name became a household word and defined the pipe organ among the knowledgeable urban gentry. What Tiffany was to glass Skinner was to the pipe organ among socially conscious city folks. "And we have a Skinner Organ" is one of the ways these people described their churches. This type of product identification, with perhaps no parallel in the pipe organ industry, is the dream of every advertising manager in business today. Skinner also enjoyed the same preferred position in the college and university market during his era that Holtkamp and Schlicker were to savor in the period after World War II.
Like Roosevelt's, Skinner's instruments were a combination of mechanical and tonal innovations. "The mechanical and tonal factors of the organ are dependent upon each other for a fulfillment of their purposes,"8 he wrote. A major contributor was the pitman windchest, light-years ahead of the Roosevelt ventil system, which would stand the test of time and be adopted by numerous builders in succeeding decades. The origins of the pitman action are found, no doubt, in the many experimenters in single-valve action during the turn of the century.  One of them, reportedly, was August Gern, Cavaillé-Coll's foreman, who later built organs in England under his own name. But it remained for Skinner to take it to Mount Olympus. When the lightning fast pitman key action (thirty-three milliseconds between key touch and pipe speech) and equally responsive (and quiet) stop action was coupled with exotic orchestral voices, the Skinner organ quickly became the "box office favorite."
William H. Barnes listed the stops, not always invented by Skinner, but developed and utilized in his trophy installations, which became hallmarks of his work and era. All stops are 8' unless otherwise noted.9
Erzähler-Christ Church, Hartford, Connecticut
Orchestral Oboe-Tompkins Avenue Congregational Church, Brooklyn, New York
English Horn (8' and 16')-City College, New York
French Horn-Williams College, Williamstown, Masssachusetts
Kleine Erzähler-Fourth Presbyterian, Chicago
Gross Gedeckt-Second Congregational, Holyoke, Massachusetts
Corno Di Bassetto-Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts
Tuba Mirabilis-Cathedral of St. John the Divine, New York
French Trumpet-Cathedral of St. John the Divine, New York
Orchestral Bassoon (16')-Skinner Studio, Boston
Gambe Celeste-Cathedral of St. John the Divine, New York
Bombarde (32')-Cathedral of St. John the Divine, New York
Violone (32')-Cathedral of St. John the Divine, New York
Sub Bass (32')-Cathedral of St. John the Divine, New York
Contra Bassoon (32')-Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey
Skinner's icon image was eloquent confirmation of the fact  that an organbuilding enterprise is the lengthened shadow of the key figure behind it.  As his biographer Dorothy Holden wrote:  "In all truth, it was this ability to infuse his instruments with all the vitality, warmth, and charm of his own personality that created the very essence of the Skinner organ."10

Aeolian Skinner and G. Donald Harrison

The Aeolian Skinner organ was the gold standard for affluent urbanites with champagne tastes, many of them Episcopalians, who viewed the church and its appointments as the logical extension of their commanding economic and social position in the community. That the instrument was built in Boston, the fountainhead of American culture, was reassuring, and the name Skinner in the logo denoted continuity with a firm of established reputation. G. Donald Harrison had filled E. M. Skinner's shoes admirably and moved ahead to carve out his own niche in the pantheon of great American builders.
Harrison's lasting imprint on American pipe organ heritage began about 1932; for example, in Northrup Auditorium at the University of Minnesota, and was well-established in 1935 with Groton School and Church of the Advent in Boston instruments, which in the public mind were the cornerstones of his era. These two trophy instruments were  milestones in the emergence of the American Classic tradition of which he was the leading exponent during his time. As Ochse explains: "He coupled an appreciation for some of the outstanding European styles with his thorough background in English organ building."11 His goal was an eclectic instrument on which all schools and styles of organ music could be played with clarity and with reasonable authenticity.
In superstar products, endorsement is a key to status as is the demonstration effect, which is the identification of purchasers with peer groups and the desire to emulate them. With Aeolian-Skinner the demonstration effect was most important and endorsement not as crucial. When prospective clients were reminded of the Skinner legacy and shown the opus list: Symphony Hall Boston, St. Thomas Episcopal, New York and Fourth Presbyterian, Chicago, to name a few, they said "that's us" and signed up.  With Holtkamp and Schlicker, on the other hand, endorsement was paramount.

Aeolian

The Aeolian Duo Art pipe organ was the instrument of choice among the business and social elite in the first three decades of this century.  Their opulent life style was anchored in castles, Italian villas and French chateaus featuring mirrored ballrooms, manicured gardens and pipe organs and was augmented  frequently by polo fields, yachts and private railroad cars. The Aeolian reputation was initially distinguished by its self-playing mechanism and superior roll library.  Then, the nameplate took over. The "Lords of Creation" were only too glad to pay steep prices for the Aeolian instrument in order to "keep up with the Joneses." Below is a sampling of familiar names  among the captains of industry who had Aeolian Duo Art residence organs.12

The Automotive Industry:

Dodge, Horace E., Detroit, Michigan
Dodge, John F., Detroit, Michigan
Firestone, H. S., Akron, Ohio
Ford, Edsel B., Detroit, Michigan
Kettering, C. F., Dayton, Ohio
Olds, R. E., Lansing, Michigan
Packard, W. D., Warren, Ohio
Seiberling, F. A., Akron, Ohio
Studebaker, J. M., Jr., South Bend, Indiana

Merchants and Manufacturers:

Armour, J. O., Lake Forest, Illinois
Cudahay, J. M., Lake Forest, Illinois
DuPont, Irenee, Wilmington, Delaware
DuPont, Pierre S., Wilmington, Delaware
Swift, G. F. Jr., Chicago, Illinois
Woolworth, F. W., New York, New York
Wrigley, Wm. Jr., Chicago, Illinois

Publishers:

Bok, Edward, Merion, Pennsylvania
Curtis, C.H.K., Wyncote, Pennsylvania
Pulitzer, Mrs. Joseph, New York, New York
Scripps, W. E., Detroit, Michigan

Railroads and Public Utilities:

Flagler, John H., Greenwich, Connecticut
Harriman, E. H., Arden, New York
Vanderbilt, W. K., New York, New York
Vanderbilt, W. K. Jr., Northport, Long Island, New York

Steel and Oil:

Carnegie, Andrew, New York, New York
Frick, H. C., Pride's Crossing, Massachusetts
Rockefeller, John D., Pocantico Hills, New York
Rockefeller, John D., Jr., New York, New York
Schwab, Charles M., New York, New York
Teagle, Walter C., Portchester, New York

Wurlitzer

The tidal wave of capital pouring into the construction of movie theaters after the turn of the century created an insatiable demand for the wondrous new musical medium, the theater pipe organ, pioneered in concept by Robert Hope-Jones. Investors clamored to capture the fortunes awaiting them in motion pictures, a spectacular new form of mass entertainment. No movie theater, be it an ornate palace in a downtown metropolitan area or a small town storefront cinema, was complete (or competitive) without a theater organ. The demand spawned an entirely new industry--Barton, Link, Robert Morton, Marr & Colton, Page and, of course, Wurlitzer which, bolstered by  clever streetcar advertising, became the generic term for the theater organ. What Kodak was to amateur photography and Gillette was to shaving, Wurlitzer was  to the theater pipe organ.
The new industry emerged because the theater organ was a radically different instrument; characterized by significantly higher wind pressures, the horseshoe console, unification of the stoplist, and the tibia and kinura, among others, as distinctive voices in the tonal pallet.  Other builders produced theater organs, chiefly during the years of peak demand, but they were primarily identified with the church instrument and market. We award Wurlitzer the trophy accolade because their output of over 2,000 instruments was more than twice the number of their nearest competitor Robert Morton, who built slightly fewer than 900.13

Holtkamp

Walter Holtkamp was a true innovator in the Schumpeterian sense, i.e., the concrete expression of ideas in marketable goods.  He had the wisdom and good judgment to recognize that the classical revival and the North German paradigm, which he sought to emulate, required a radical departure from existing norms. It was not a matter of substituting a stop here and there, of lowering wind pressure an inch or two, or of dispensing with the ubiquitous strings and celestes of the 1920's. It would begin with the wholesale elimination of melodias, cornopeans, flutes d'amour and numerous other stops, all arranged in a horizontal tonal pallet dominated by the eight-foot pitch with an occasional four-foot stop. He would introduce a vertical tonal pallet with a pitch range of 16' through mixtures, and underscore the principal as the foundation of  an organ chorus. Capped or semi-capped flutes would provide color and harmonic development and blend well. He would use primarily chorus reeds of Germanic "free tone" style as opposed to "dark tone" English reeds in his ensemble.
To his great credit, Holtkamp surrounded himself with knowledgeable people, and these persons of influence found in him the pathfinder who would lead them to the promised land of a baroque organ. He was said to be a stubborn man but he was a good listener.  William H. Barnes remarked that he had the good fortune to be located in Cleveland where he benefited enormously from the friendship and support of three important people in the organ reform movement: Walter Blodgett, Arthur Quimby and Melville Smith.14 As his biographer John Ferguson noted: "The continuing association with organists and musicians sympathetic to his ideas was of central importance to the development of his work."15 His close collaboration with architects legitimatized bringing the organ out of chambers and resulted in the distinctive "Holtkamp look."  Widely copied by other builders, it was a distinguishing feature of his instruments and era.
After World War II he built a group of loyal followers, many of them academics, led by Arthur Poister of Oberlin and Syracuse, whose students moved on to choice academic and church positions and spread the gospel of Holtkamp.  Soon he enjoyed a preferred if not a virtual monopoly position in the upscale college and university market where these leaders of the organist profession flourished.
The Holtkamp organ was the marquee instrument for academe.  To have a Holtkamp was to make a statement.  Installations at Yale University and the University of California at Berkeley as well as Syracuse University and Oberlin College, quickly convinced many schools, including small colleges like Erskine in Due West, South Carolina, that an important milestone on the road to academic excellence and peer recognition was a Holtkamp organ. Invidious comparison and competitive emulation (Thorstein Veblen) were--and are--alive and well in academe. Thus it is no mere coincidence that each of the three prestigous women's colleges in Virginia--Hollins, Sweetbriar and Randolph-Macon--has a three-manual Holtkamp instrument. When Hollins got the first one, the other two schools could not have done anything else. 
Other builders couldn't compete with him in this market. As one industry veteran, who asked not to be identified, remarked: "If they were interested in a Holtkamp or a Schlicker, we knew we might as well fold our tent." This market had pre-judged other builders and in the clamor for peer recognition; it was the name that counted. Even if other builders used the same scales and voicing techniques, they could not build a Holtkamp organ. Poister, a grand person who was widely acknowledged as one of the finest organ teachers of his or any generation, exerted what can only be described as a fantastic influence on the fortunes of this builder. His championing of the Holtkamp organ was surely the equal of the endorsement for breakfast foods and athletic footwear by professional athletes today.

Schlicker

The market for a neobaroque instrument embracing the Orgelbewegung movement was growing and the established industry was caught with an image problem it could not yet overcome, opening the door for yet another builder to rise to prominence and by redefining the instrument and capturing a preferred position in a specific market, to achieve trophy status under our definition. This was Herman Schlicker. His launching pad was the rebuild of the 1893 Johnson organ in the Grace Episcopal Church in Sandusky, Ohio in 1950 with the advice and encouragement of Robert Noehren.16 Schlicker would go on to etch his definition of the pipe organ in bold relief: a comparatively severe instrument earmarked by a mild fundamental, a shift in the tonal balance with an emphasis on upperwork, and a reduction in the percentage of strings in the tonal resources as well as a preference for 18th-century strings of an almost soft principal timbre to the exclusion of romantic (pencil) strings. Baroque style chorus and color reeds were featured in stoplists favoring early music, often suggesting the Praetorius mantra (reflecting the influence of close friend and confidant Paul Bunjes). 
To augment his tonal resources, Schlicker devised a "Tonkanzell" electropneumatic windchest featuring a long channel with the valve closing against a side rail as opposed to closing directly under the toehole as in conventional pouch-action chests. This was designed to buffer aerodynamically the effect of the opening valve on the pipe foot and to approximate the wind characteristics of the slider chest.17 He was also an early advocate of the slider chest in nonmechanical construction and incorporated it in several instruments.
Schlicker's tonal philosophy and his instruments were especially appealing to German Lutheran congregations eager to embrace their historical roots and to academics who shared his definition of the pipe organ. Robert Noehren, from his lofty perch as university organist and  professor at the University of Michigan, enjoyed a wide following at one of the thriving centers for graduate study in organ during this period. His recordings, recitals and convention appearances earned for him a stellar reputation as a leading spokesman for the organ reform movement and, thereby, directly and indirectly for the Schlicker instrument.  E. Power Biggs also was caught  up in the Schlicker movement.18 The importance of endorsements by key spokesmen cannot be overestimated in the fortunes of the Schlicker Company.

Fisk

By 1970 a phalanx of American organists had traveled to Europe--on sabbaticals, tours and Fulbright Scholarships-- and been introduced to many schools and streams of historical organbuilding. They became aware of new possibilities in their own situations and responsive to a domestic builder who articulated their ideas. This was Charles Fisk. His Harvard background was convincing and his Boston location reassuring. In his writings and appearances before professional groups, Fisk conveyed an in-depth knowledge of European instruments, his own sympathy with continental ideas and his ability to execute them.
The epic two-manual tracker organ Fisk built at Mt. Calvary Church in Baltimore in 1961 was earmarked by the werkprinzip in case design, suspended key action and, in this example, the tonal philosophy of Andreas Silbermann.19  This instrument was his springboard to an illustrious, though tragically short, career. He became the first American tracker builder to challenge successfully the dominance of such European builders as Flentrop, Rieger and von Beckerath, in the construction of large instruments. In response to a loyal and enthusiastic following, Fisk built a number of contemporary organs as well as period instruments patterned after specific historical antecedents. His rise to prominence is further evidence that each generation looks for--and finds--a new trophy builder, a shiny new nameplate that commands that elusive "box office appeal" and with it an unchallengeable (monopoly) position in a particular market. Over the years his instruments at Harvard and Stanford clinched his reputation much as Holtkamp's organs at Yale and Berkeley had done for him--a reputation still well-deserved  by the Fisk firm after the premature passing of Charles Fisk.

Summary and Conclusions

The trophy builder analysis based upon Rosen's superstar phenomenon, offers a useful perspective on the all-important market dimension of the economics of the pipe organ industry.  Its ingredients are: tonal and mechanical innovation, location, the demonstration effect and endorsement, and each generation's search for something new under the sun. Veblen's time honored psycho-social phenomenon of invidious comparison and competitive emulation cannot be ignored.  Who will be the next trophy builder?
Perhaps this  builder will reflect the swing of the pendulum back to the romantic tradition and the emergence of an eclectic instrument embracing the contemporary as well as an historical perspective in liturgical music. This builder, and the entire industry, must be able to confirm the stature of the pipe organ within the myriad of musical options such as synthesizers, sequencers and auto-accompaniment being promoted today. The King of Instruments must be recognized as the legitimate and time-honored vehicle for musical expression in corporate worship. In retrospect, the history of the instrument in the American experience is perhaps closely tied to the fortunes of the mainline denominations and the middle class, both increasingly challenged by the sweeping socio-economic changes now evident in our society. Ethnic and language characteristics of migrant populations mitigate against identification with traditional religious groups and the realities of a rapidly changing global marketplace impact the wage profile and employment structure of our economy.  As one industry veteran explained, the danger as we move into the 21st century is that "the reorganization of religious expression makes the sounds of the pipe organ less vital to 'religiousness,' hence less important."20 Our challenge is to reverse this mindset and to assert that the pipe organ is central to musical expression in religion and these other developments are ancillary to it.               
 
 

The Mortuary Pipe Organ

A Neglected Chapter in the History of Organbuilding in America

R. E. Coleberd

R. E. Coleberd is a contributing editor of The Diapason. An economist and retired petroleum industry executive, he is a director of The Reuter Organ Company.

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Pipe organ building in the United States spans over two centuries and totals tens of thousands of instruments. The scope and sweep of the King of Instruments in American culture far exceeds that of other nations and reached its zenith in the first three decades of the last century. Pipe organs were built for hospitals, hotels, yachts, lodge halls, municipal auditoriums, high schools, colleges and universities, churches, private residences, soldiers' homes, theaters, and mortuaries, a category that includes cemetery chapels and mausoleums. These venues can be interpreted as market segments, each with its own characteristics, demand determinants, and time period. The mortuary pipe organ has been totally neglected in the history of organbuilding in this country; none of the well-known studies even mentions it and it is doubtful whether the countless papers written in higher education do either. Perhaps this is not surprising. Conservatively estimated, approximately 600 instruments were built expressly for the funeral industry, accounting for less than two percent of the total output of American builders and even far less in voiced ranks produced.1 Yet a closer look at this product (which the author considers a special instrument), its market and its builders reveals a fascinating epoch which surely belongs in the rich and colorful history of organbuilding in America.

The mortuary pipe organ was a uniquely American product, an instrument whose mechanical features and tonal characteristics departed significantly from the conventional church organ even though its purpose was to provide "churchly" music in a quasi-liturgical setting.2 Its development underscores the entrepreneurship and innovations of American builders who responded to the requirements of the evolving funeral home industry. The heyday of the mortuary pipe organ was over a half century ago: most were built during the 1920s and 1930s; only a few were built after WWII. A surprising number are in use today, routinely serviced and restored as needed.

The Instrument

The mortuary pipe organ as a distinctive instrument was one example of the small, often self-contained instruments developed and marketed by the organbuilding industry in the first three decades of the last century. These instruments marked a milestone in the evolution of the instrument, in the spectrum of keyboard music and in the choice of music media in an institutional setting. The Austin Company, introducing the four-rank Chorophone--"The Ideal Small Pipe Organ"--in 1916, had correctly forecast that a low-cost pipe organ requiring little space would open a vast new market now being supplied by the reed organ or piano. "We have . . . long realized that there is a large demand for an instrument which can be sold for somewhat less than $2,000.00," to quote their sales brochure,3 adding that such an instrument "would be within the reach of a larger number of clients who need a serviceable organ, but are now restricted to the use of a reed organ or piano,"4 an observation which certainly describes a funeral home. The option of a player-attachment greatly enhanced the utility of the instrument and gave it a competitive advantage in the choice of a keyboard medium. Other builders soon followed with small instruments and, borrowing from the automobile industry, named each model (see Wicks box) to increase market awareness and, hopefully, influence buyer selection. Pilcher's was "The Cloister," Möller "The Artiste," Kilgen "The Petite Ensemble," and one of Aeolian-Skinner's numbered series "The Marie Antoinette." These models were ideally suited to the mortuary market.

The new generation of small instruments closely paralleled the mechanical design of the theatre organ in that both required an individual magnet and valve per pipe, based upon what organbuilders refer to as the unit principle. This is a radical departure from the much acclaimed Austin Universal Air Chest and the conventional slider, pitman and ventil windchests found in church organs. In the unit principle, each pipe can be accessed by any manual or pedal key as required, making unification possible. Conversely, in the straight chest system, the electrical impulse from the key contact must work through a matrix of stop and key actions before pipe speech. In addition to its close mechanical similarity, the mortuary instrument also paralleled tonally the emerging theatre organ of the early twentieth century. Each used as its first rank the stopped flute, and the Vox Humana was found early in the stoplists of both of these instruments.

The mortuary instrument was the quintessential unit pipe organ. As few as two ranks could be unified and duplexed into as many as eighteen speaking stops over two manuals and pedal (see Wicks Miniature). The two fundamental flue ranks, found in virtually every mortuary instrument, were the stopped flute, i.e., Bourdon, playable at 16, 8, 4, 22/3, and 2 foot pitches, and the Salicional, customarily playable at 8 and 4 foot pitches and sometimes at 16' TC. Together they provided the required "churchly" sound of the organ, reinforcing the religious nature of the funeral service and meeting the emotional needs of the bereaved. In addition, by combining these two ranks at different pitches, synthetic stops were produced, adding to the tonal palette. When the 22/3' Bourdon is added to the 8' Salicional, the result is an Oboe, a useful solo stop. Combining the 8' Bourdon with its 22/3' extension, the twelfth, produces a Quintadena sound. To give the illusion of greater tonal resources, builders renamed every pitch of a unit rank. This was customary with the stopped flute, but now the Salicional becomes a Contra Viol at 16' TC and a 4' Violina. The third rank in a mortuary organ, with the exception of Wicks, was quite often the Vox Humana. People were accustomed to hearing a quivering Vox Humana in church and theatre organs, and thus it augmented the ambience of a mortuary service. [The Vox Humana appeared to define the pipe organ of the 1920s far more even than the Zimbelstern and Positiv of the 1950s and 60s. In recent decades the horizontal trumpet has become a defining characteristic and almost a necessity.] A fourth rank in a mortuary organ would most likely be a Dulciana or Erzahler and a fifth rank, finally, a Diapason.

The mortuary instrument was, of necessity, a small one given the limited space available in a typical funeral home. Builders recognized the space limitations and developed a product to meet them. Möller, one of the few builders who actively solicited this market, wrote in its brochure describing a three-rank cabinet organ (Bourdon, Salicional, Diapason Conique): "M. P. Möller has developed an organ adequately meeting the requirements of a funeral service and so compact in size and reasonable in price that it finds a place in the equipment of every funeral director."5 The need for compactness is evident throughout the design and construction of the instrument and in the choice of pipe ranks and scales. Builders chose small strings, i.e., the Salicional, Viola and Aeoline, and used a smaller scale throughout the compass of the stopped flute to stay within cabinet dimensions. The most dramatic example of space economy was the use of free reeds in the 16' octave of the stopped flute, found in many cabinet instruments (see photo). These the industry reportedly obtained from Estey, the largest builder of reed organs and a logical supplier.

Perhaps two-thirds of all mortuary organs built were cabinet instruments, often with a player attachment, which could be placed almost anywhere and function effectively. At the James O'Donnell Funeral Home in Hannibal, Missouri, dating back five generations, the 1928 three-rank Wicks cabinet organ is located on a landing on the second floor with the music wafting down the stairway to the services room below.6 Many were installed in attics or wherever space was available. Typical was the 1924 three-rank Schoenstein placed in an alcove above the chapel floor at N. Gray Morticians in San Francisco.7

The Market

The demand for a pipe organ in the mortuary trade grew rapidly in the 1920s and reached its peak in the 1930s although there had been a few installations around the turn of the century. Hook and Hastings built a one-manual, nine-stop instrument, Opus 1246, for the Forest Hills Mortuary Chapel in Boston in 1885, and another one-manual, Opus 2243, for a mortuary in Canandaigua, New York in 1910.8 Hutchings built a two-manual, eight-stop duplexed organ for the West Parish Cemetery Chapel in Andover, Massachusetts in 1907.9

This emerging market coincided with a major shift in funeral services, from the home and church to the mortuary or cemetery chapel, well established by the 1920s.10 Morticians surmised their establishment must contain public rooms for casket selection, viewing and services, far more space than previously required for pre-service preparation. In metropolitan areas spacious facilities were built in popular architectural styles, typically with manicured and lighted lawns and off-street parking. In outlying neighborhoods and small towns, large former private dwellings were often converted into mortuaries. Soon a pipe organ became a competitive necessity, a matter of "keeping up with the Joneses" in a business sense. Möller recognized this in their brochure which read: "Music presents to the progressive mortician an opportunity to enhance his services. Only the dignified, artistic tones of a pipe organ can definitely fulfill the requirements necessary to make music the foremost advertising medium of the mortician."11 The J. P. Seeburg Corporation of Chicago was even more effusive. Advertising in Southern Funeral Director, a leading trade publication, they asked: "Has Your Funeral Home A Soul? What the Soul is to a human so is a Pipe Organ to the mortuary. Without the enthralling presence of its solemn music the service lacks that vital quality--sacred atmosphere."12

Funeral directors, who scarcely knew one organ stop from another, were indifferent to the origin of the instrument or its builder; they were acutely price conscious and were easily satisfied with anything that supplied the required churchly sound. A local market could often be supplied by builders' showrooms or agents. The 1928 Geneva organ in the prestigious Stine & McClure Mortuary in Kansas City, Missouri, restored in recent years by Jerry Dawson, began as a demonstrator on the balcony of the Jenkins Music Company downtown emporium.13 In the 1920s and 1930s a significant trade emerged in used instruments, from private residences and theaters, the latter often repossessed from failed movie houses. The two-manual, three-rank, 16-stop Estey installed in Resurrection Chapel at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Glendale, California, in 1930, had been built for the Estey Studio in Los Angeles and later installed in a local radio station.14 The Style D-Special Wurlitzer built for the American Theater in Walla Walla, Washington, in 1922 was installed in Elderding's Mortuary in Aberdeen, Washington, in 1935.15 Funeral homes became a promising place to unload a repossessed instrument and for the buyer no doubt a bargain. A survey of builder lists reveals that almost anything called a pipe organ could find new life (pun intended) in a mortuary. When Balcom & Vaughan of Seattle installed a three-rank instrument in 1941 in the Stoller Funeral Home in Camas, Washington, it comprised a Wurlitzer console, Morton windchest, Hinners swell shades, a Smith flute and a Kilgen Dulciana and Diapason.16

Builders

Builder response to and participation in the emerging mortuary market varied. The 1920s were a boom time for the industry, and with healthy order books and a substantial backlog, few appear to have directly solicited this business. Table 1 (p. 18) portrays the output of the five largest builders of funeral home organs: Estey, Reuter, Kilgen, Möller and Wicks, who together accounted for over 75 percent of industry production. Möller and Wicks, who booked sales nationwide, built slightly over half (57 percent) of the total. Among other well-known builders of this era, Austin, Casavant and Hinners each built fewer than twenty mortuary organs, like Kilgen mostly in their immediate and neighboring states and provinces, while Hall, Hillgreen-Lane, Kimball, Pilcher and Wangerin-Weickhart each built less than a dozen organs for funeral homes, again mostly nearby.

Eastern builders, notably Skinner and Hook & Hastings, were conspicuously absent from this market. Perhaps they viewed excessive unification, the cornerstone of the mortuary organ, as "low brow," beneath their dignity and carefully cultivated elitist image. More objectively, they were no doubt conscious of the intense price competition, the governing factor in this market, and, otherwise occupied, were not disposed to actively pursue this business, let alone develop a specific product to compete in this market. Austin sold only three organs to funeral homes in the 1920s.

The Great Depression of the 1930s was a time of turmoil in the pipe organ industry. Builders struggled to find work; some survived, others failed. The theater, hotel and private residence markets were gone and the church market severely curtailed. Conversely, the mortuary market "boomed" as evidenced by the number of instruments and percent of total built during this decade as shown in Table 1. All builders welcomed funeral home business including Aeolian-Skinner who, in 1936, built a two-manual instrument with Duo-Art Player, Opus 949, for the Hillcrest Mausoleum in Dallas, Texas.17 The next year they installed one of their Marie Antoinette models (see specification), the largest of several unit series, with a curious opus number 30038, in a mortuary chapel in Acton, Massachusetts.18 With seven ranks, fourteen stops and 427 pipes, this instrument is larger and far less unified than customarily found in mortuary organs.

Builders offered financial and other incentives to clinch a sale in this market (perhaps now driven by competitive emulation)--one which ran counter to the severely depressed national economy. When the Reuter Company signed a contract with the Eylar Funeral Home in Kansas City, Missouri, in August, 1938 for a three-rank organ (21 stops plus chimes) for $1,539, the down payment was only 20 percent, the buyer given a 30-day option to accept the organ and a year's free service19 (see also Wicks below). The importance of the funeral home market in this decade to one and perhaps other builders was underscored by John Sperling, recently retired tonal director of Wicks, who commented that during the 1930s mortuary sales accounted for 25 percent or more of Wicks' output.20

The mortuary pipe organ market essentially ended with World War II; only a few pipe instruments were built for this venue in the postwar era. By the end of the 1940s the electronic organ had gained enough acceptance that its lower cost and smaller space appealed to price-conscious funeral directors. Two recent exceptions are the four-rank unit instrument for the Simminger-Book Funeral Home in Cincinnati, Ohio, built by M. W. Lively & Company in 1988,21 and the 65-rank, four-manual organ built by the Quimby Company for the Skyrose Chapel at Rose Hills Memorial Park in Whittier, California in 1997.22

Wicks

The Wicks Company, founded in 1906 in Highland, Illinois, was the preeminent builder in the mortuary market when measured by the number of instruments produced and the geographical scope of their installations (see Table 1). It is a tribute to the enterprising spirit of this firm that they capitalized on their strengths in the highly competitive pipe organ business to design and build a series of instruments to meet the budget and space requirements of any venue. Actively soliciting this market, the Wicks brochure read: "A field in which Wicks organs serve with special effectiveness is that of the mortuary chapel and funeral home."23 Direct-Electric® action, championed and patented by Wicks, requires much less space than a pouch windchest, and thus is ideally suited for a cabinet instrument or cramped attic installation. Unification and duplexing, the heart of a mortuary instrument, are easily obtained in this individual valve chest. The Wicks business philosophy of being the low cost supplier was a major factor in the intense price competition in this market as were, no doubt, the liberal payment terms, particularly in the 1930s. They largely explain Wicks' notable success in coast to coast sales. For the Drummond instrument in 1937, a Sonatina model plus Vox Humana and chimes (see photo p. 17), priced at $1790.00 less $100 for the former organ, the terms were ten percent down, 30 percent upon installation, and the balance (60 percent) in fourteen equal monthly payments of $70.00 plus interest (not specified).24

Direct-Electric® was the mechanical foundation of the Wicks organ and was emphasized in their mortuary sales publicity. "The mood of mourners and their friends is met by taste in appearance and rich beauty of sound. Direct-Electric® action gives unvarying response to the organist's genius--a quality of dependability under all conditions of temperature and humidity. This exclusive Wicks feature provides a great saving in up-keep for an instrument in frequent daily use. There will be no embarrassing moment in a service by reason of a split leather or membrane, because the Wicks Direct-Electric® control makes no use of these obsolete materials. Swift electric application to every call of the performer brings magic response."25

The prospective Wicks buyer could choose from nine named models, graduated in size and price, with either attached or detached console and optional player attachment. The series began with the Miniature (see box p. 16), a two-manual instrument and the smallest one built, measuring five feet three inches wide, four feet eleven inches deep including console, and five feet six inches high. The 16' octave of the stopped flute was free reeds, and the bottom octave of the Salicional was borrowed from the flute. The Sonata, also a two-rank specification, had pipes in the pedal instead of free reeds and a full compass Salicional. Three-rank instruments included the Symphony, Concerto, Fuga and Fuga DeLuxe. The Rhapsody was a four rank model. The third and fourth ranks were the Open Diapason and Aeoline, the latter a small scale (almost pencil) string chosen, no doubt, for windchest space economy. Wicks' low cost profile explains the absence of the Vox Humana and other reeds in their standard mortuary stoplists, although the Vox Humana and Chimes would be supplied when requested. Reeds require significantly more man-hours to build and to voice not to mention required maintenance with their temperamental tuning and troublesome sensitivity to neglect.

Recognizing the importance of visual as well as tonal ambience in the quality of the funeral setting, Wicks wrote: "The installation of a Wicks in your chapel will be tailored to your individual situation in design, location, size and coloring."26 In addition to the choices among tonal resources and cabinet dimensions, the buyer could select from Gothic, Roman and General grills. Wicks developed a user friendly device called an Automatic Pedal Accompaniment wherein the bass note of a chord on a manual plays the 16' Bourdon pipe in the Pedal and thus "it is impossible to play the incorrect pedal note if the manuals are properly played,"27 no doubt an important feature for pianists turned organists. The development of standardized models for sale to mortuaries continued into the early 1940s when one-manual, three-rank organs were built in groups of five. Ten groups were built.28

Summary

The mortuary pipe organ occupies a small niche in the pantheon of the King of Instruments. In the history of organbuilding, its development is a further illustration of the fundamentals of market segments and the demand for keyboard music in a specific institutional setting in the twentieth century. It is another example of the broad sweep of the pipe organ and keyboard music in American culture and western civilization, and a testimony to the eloquence of organ music in the funeral service. The American organbuilding industry, long known for its mechanical and tonal innovation, produced an instrument that met the stringent tonal, space and cost requirements of funeral homes so successfully that it displaced the reed organ and piano, leading to the sale of several hundred instruments to funeral homes. Together with other small organs they contributed significantly to builder survival in the dark days of the Great Depression.

For research assistance and critical comments on earlier drafts of this paper the author gratefully acknowledges: Gordon Auchincloss, E. A. Boadway, Jerry Dawson, Barbara George, Brent Johnson, Richard Kichline, Allen Kinzey, Larry Leonard, David Lewis, Charles McManis, George Nelson, Albert Neutel, Michael Quimby, Dorothy Schaake, Elizabeth Schmitt, Jack Sievert, John Sperling, Georg Steinmeyer, Robert Vaughan, and R. E. Wagner.

Wicks Miniature

Analysis

8' Flute 85 pipes (1-85)

8' Salicional 61 pipes (13-73)

16' Sub Bass 12 reeds (1-12, free reeds)

Console attached, Tremolo, Crescendo Pedal, Swell Pedal

Organ Space:  5 feet 6 inches high, 5 feet 3 inches wide, 4 feet 11 inches deep including console

2 ranks, 18 speaking stops, 146 pipes

GREAT ORGAN

16' Bourdon T. C.

8' Flute

8' Salicional

4' Flute d'Amour

4' Violina

2' Piccolo

SWELL ORGAN

16' Bourdon T.C.

8' Stopped Flute

8' Viola

8' Quintadena (Syn)

4' Flute

4' Violina

22/3' Nazard

8' Oboe (syn)

PEDAL ORGAN

16' Sub Bass

8' Gedeckt

4' Flute

4' Violina

Wicks Rhapsody

Analysis

8' Open Diapason 61 pipes (1-61)

8' Flute 85 pipes (1-85)

8' Salicional 73 pipes (1-73)

8' Aeoline 61 pipes (1-61)

16' Bourdon 12 pipes (1-12)

Console attached or detached, Tremolo, Crescendo Pedal, Swell Pedal, Automatic Pedal Accompaniment. This model sometimes included a switch wired for 20 chimes starting at 4' A (note 22 on the keyboard).

Organ Space (detached console): 8 feet 10 inches high, 7 feet 4 inches wide, 4 feet 6 inches deep

4 ranks, 28 speaking stops, 292 pipes

GREAT ORGAN

16' Bourdon

16' Contra Viol T. C.

8' Open Diapason

8' Flute

8' Salicional

8' Aeoline

4' Flute d'Amour

4' Violina

22/3' Twelfth

2' Piccolo

Blank Tablet (for future addition of chimes)

SWELL ORGAN

16' Bourdon

16' Contra Viol T. C.

8' Open Diapason

8' Stopped Diapason

8' Viola

8' Aeoline

8' Quintadena (Syn)

4' Flute

4' Violina

22/3' Nazard

2' Piccolo

8' Oboe (syn)

Blank Tablet

PEDAL ORGAN

16' Bourdon

8' Open Diapason

8' Gedeckt

8' Cello

8' Aeoline

4' Flute

Stevens of Marietta: A Forgotten Builder in a Bygone Era

by R.E. Coleberd

R. E. Coleberd, an economist and retired petroleum industry executive, is a contributing editor of The Diapason.

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Introduction

The turn of the twentieth century was a watershed era in the rich and colorful history of pipe organ building in America. Enterprising and resourceful builders, armed with the new non-mechanical actions, rode the crest of a tidal wave of rapidly growing markets. New markets emerged and expanded at an exponential rate: mortuaries, fraternal lodge halls, theaters, and mansions of the wealthy. Tubular pneumatic and later electro-pneumatic windchests and detached consoles, with virtually unlimited configurations offering unprecedented mechanical and tonal versatility, redefined the King of Instruments and made it ideally suited to the space and location requirements of these new venues. In the church market, the cornerstone of the industry, demand reached a crescendo, both in the mushrooming urban industrial centers and in the rural and small-town hinterland, bolstered by record prosperity in industry and agriculture.

From today's perspective, it is perhaps surprising to learn that organbuilding was then considered to be in the mainstream of American business. The industry attracted entrepreneurial and mechanical talent as well as capital from local business development agencies and from wealthy individuals who purchased stock in an organ enterprise to add to their investments. New nameplates appeared and established firms expanded in response to the feverish demand. In addition to Aeolian, Austin, Kimball, Möller, Skinner and Wurlitzer, firms that rose to prominence in the ensuing decades, the industry comprised supply houses, notably pipemakers Gottfried and Pierce, whose voiced metal pipework made possible a plethora of small builders. Some firms prospered, weathering the storms of the inherently high risk business of organbuilding, while others flourished briefly and then disappeared, the victims of brutal competition, poor management, the ups and downs of the business cycle and natural disasters.

The Stevens Piano and Organ Company of Marietta, Ohio, a onetime music retailer and later reed organ manufacturer, built pipe organs for a brief period beginning in 1909 and probably ending in 1913. Today we know of only five Stevens church organs extant, all rebuilt, and one theater organ of record, long gone. Surely there were more. The historical importance of the Stevens firm lies not in the number of instruments they built, nor in any noteworthy mechanical and tonal innovations. Its significance rests, in the author's judgment, in the fact that it uniquely symbolized several of the salient characteristics of American organbuilding during this pivotal epoch.

Industry Markets and Trends

The early 1900s were an auspicious time to be in the business of building pipe organs. The decades before and after the turn of the century were a period of record prosperity throughout the economy and especially in agriculture. The wholesale price index for farm products in 1911 was 33 percent higher than in 1890 while the price of household furnishings, a measure of living costs, was up only six percent. In another comparison, real earnings of all employees (money wages factored by prices) rose 24 percent between 1900 and 1911, in contrast to a rise in the Consumer Price Index of only 13 percent during this period.1

Added to this were broad societal changes which translated into rising per capita real income and a sense of well-being. These included a decline in the birth rate and thus a reduction in the number of persons supported by a wage earner, a larger proportion of adults supporting themselves including, for example, wives and daughters freed from domestic chores by labor saving devices and seeking employment, and an increase in governmental services. Elsewhere, as Paul Douglas, an economist and former U.S. Senator from Illinois, noted in his epic work Real Wages in the United States, 1890-1926, "an extension of free education, of playgrounds and parks and of public health, all contribute to increase the real income of the working-class."2

Prosperity throughout the economy brought far-reaching changes in the market for keyboard instruments. Households "traded up" from the reed organ to the more expensive piano with its greater musical versatility. As Robert Gellerman notes in The American Reed Organ and the Harmonium: "The reed organ reached its peak of popularity about 1890. . . . After 1900 the piano, the player piano, and the phonograph began to replace reed organs as the musical instrument in the home."3

In the church market, farmers and small town folks, having satisfied their short-term standard of living, funneled streams of cash into their parishes, creating an enormous demand for a small, compact and functional pipe organ, often to replace a reed organ, what we now call the commodity segment of the market.4 This lush market was recognized early by Estey, Farrand & Votey, Hinners, Kimball, and Möller, manufacturers of reed organs, who were weary of the brutal competition in reed organs, a market that had peaked and leveled off while, conversely, the pipe organ market was growing like a tropical weed. John L. Hinners, the Henry Ford of the pipe organ, built an affordable instrument for the small church just as Ford manufactured an inexpensive motorcar for the masses.5 Other firms identified in the tracker segment of the commodity market were Barckhoff and Felgemaker, while in non-mechanical action Estey was initially prominent but soon virtually all builders were active. Coincidentally, these two actions overlapped; the Hinners peak year was 1911 but by then Estey was well established.

With the first public exhibition of non-mechanical action at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition in 1876, and especially after the advent of the Austin Universal Air Chest, even today a marvel of mechanical ingenuity, the days of the tracker were numbered.6 Builders became acutely aware that they must come up with a workable non-mechanical system or they could not compete and survive. They scrambled to find an answer. One solution was to solicit an individual experienced in non-mechanical action who was looking for an opportunity and who could be persuaded to join a firm and bring with him a time-tested system, thus avoiding the uncertainty and potentially high costs of untried and unsatisfactory mechanisms. Another was to preempt the scheme of a competitor with perhaps just enough minor changes to call it original so as not to provoke a patent infringement lawsuit. The emerging tubular pneumatic ventil windchests, broadly categorized as "lever" and "cone valve," were remarkably similar within each major type.

Reed organ manufacturers enjoyed virtually free entry into the pipe organ business. They already had an established brand name signifying product acceptance, catalog and music store distribution, and a labor force with woodworking skills. And now they had a steady supply of quality voiced metal pipework from eastern suppliers Gott-fried and Pierce. The importance of metal pipe suppliers to the fortunes of these soon-to-be pipe organ builders cannot be overestimated; without these sources, numerous nameplates would not have appeared. It was no coincidence that Hinners began building pipe organs in 1890, the year Gottfried began his pipemaking venture. From 1890 until the 1920s, Hinners bought all of its metal sets from Gottfried.

Collins Stevens

Collins R. Stevens (see photo) was born in Pittsfield, Vermont on October 29, 1848.8 His large family traced their ancestry to one Andrew Stevens, a soldier in the Revolutionary War who settled in Barnard, Vermont in 1777.9 Stevens was educated at the Royalton Academy where his musical training was under the direction of Professor C. L. Howe, a pupil of the legendary Eugene Thayer.10 In 1859 Stevens began an eighteen-year tenure with the Estey Organ Company in Brattleboro which would profoundly influence his future career.

In 1877, with his musical training and practical experience in the Estey factory, and perhaps mindful of the limited opportunities for an outsider in a family-owned business, Stevens elected to go into business for himself. He moved to Marietta, Ohio, an historic town at the confluence of the Ohio and Muskingum Rivers, founded in 1788 as the first settlement and headquarters of the Old Northwest Territory, where he opened a retail music store.11 Soon Stevens was well-known and respected in the community. He gave private music lessons, both vocal and instrumental, was active in several chapters of the Masonic Lodge, and was organist at the Congregational Church. His store featured sheet music and supplies along with such well-known makes of reed organs as Clough & Warren, Burdette, Wilcox & White, and New England. He also stocked Knabe, Lindeman & Sons, and James & Holstrom pianos.12

Stevens had, perhaps, considered the possibility of entering the reed organ manufacturing business. He was, most likely, kept informed of developments in the industry, in part by his acquaintance with Estey and also by traveling salesmen. He appears to have discussed this prospect with Orin C. Klock, a traveling representative of a New York piano house and described by the local press as "one of the best salesmen in the business."13 In 1892, local promoters, trustees of "The Bond Fund," offered $10,000 to the Lawrence & Son piano company of Boston to relocate to Marietta.14 This signaled to Stevens that money was available and he sprang into action. First, he--or quite possibly Klock--obtained an offer from Oswego, New York, to establish a reed organ factory there and then he successfully parlayed this into a matching offer from Marietta.15 Collins Stevens then journeyed to Chicago to call upon reed organ manufacturers there and apprise himself of the latest techniques which together with his Estey experience would enable him to begin production.16 The new enterprise, ostensibly a joint venture between Stevens and Klock, was initially reported to have been incorporated in West Virginia in 1892 as the Stevens & Klock Company with a capitalization of $36,000. The first instruments were built under the Stevens & Klock logo. Soon, however, the name was changed to the Stevens Organ Company, occasioned by "the retirement of the junior partner." Subsequently, the logo changed as the company was renamed (perhaps reorganized with new capitalization) the Stevens Organ and Piano Company.17 D. B. Torpy, whose extensive local business interests included glass, oil, flour milling and banking, was named president.18

The new venture was located in the former Exchange Hotel (see photo), a multi-story edifice built in 1831, and said to have been the first hotel built in the upper Ohio Valley.19 The site, on the banks of the Ohio River, afforded convenient water and rail transportation; however, it was vulnerable to river flooding which would prove to be a disaster in the years ahead.

The Stevens Reed Organ

As a measure of his shrewd entrepreneurial instincts, Collins Stevens wisely concluded that to enter the reed organ industry, already oversupplied and highly competitive, he would have to introduce a conspicuously new instrument to penetrate the market. Thus the Stevens Combination Reed-Pipe Organ, illustrated by Style F (see photo), an instrument radically different in appearance, alleged tonal character and mechanical features from conventional models, made its debut. The key features were a piano case, a 71/2-octave compass, and "pipe cells" (rectangular resonators) which combined with a "wide" reed were said to produce a pipe-like tone quality. Another feature was a Swell effect accomplished by rapid and reduced pedaling, instead of the customary knee levers, with pedals shaped exactly like a piano pedal. The Stevens catalog pointed to the "incomparable superiority over organs of the old style of construction."20 The Marietta Register lavishly praised the new organ, calling it "a truly meritorious instrument . . . the finest specimen of parlour furniture ever introduced" which "from a musical standpoint surpasses all organ effects and proves a very formidable rival to the piano."21

The business prospered, with production reportedly reaching over 600 instruments a year by the turn of the century.22 Nonetheless, the reed organ industry would shortly experience a persistent decline and spell the end for certain firms. The newfound household economic prosperity caused consumers to substitute the more costly piano, with its far greater musical capability, now that they could afford it.23 In retrospect, the innovative Stevens reed organ perhaps symbolized a bridge between the reed organ and the piano in the home and the reed organ and the pipe organ in the church.

A. G. Sparling

The career of Allan Gordon Sparling (see photo), was a leitmotif of the character and complexion of pipe organ building in the first half of the last century, illustrating many of the salient features of the industry of that period and the careers of individuals who worked in it. These included the emergence of new nameplates and the demise of others, the overriding importance of non-mechanical action in the fortunes of particular firms, and the mobility of labor, reflecting opportunities for skilled workers, particularly those experienced in the new windchest actions. Sparling was born on August 6, 1870 in Seaforth, Ontario, Canada.24 After a high school education, he began his long career in organbuilding, where he became known as an "action man," in 1892 as an apprentice with the Dougherty Organ Company (reed organs) in Clinton, Ontario. He reportedly worked ten hours a day for three dollars a week. In 1895, he moved to the Goderich Organ Company in Goderich, Ontario. In 1899, marking his entry into pipe organ building, he became shop superintendent of The Compensating Pipe Organ Company in Toronto.25

The Compensating Pipe Organ Company

The Stevens pipe organ venture, while not in a strict business sense a successor to The Compensating Pipe Organ Company, was directly linked to it in the person of Allan Sparling. In a quest for capital, The Compensating Company decided to relocate from Toronto to Battle Creek, Michigan in June, 1902, and in October floated a common stock offering of 7,500 shares, par value $10.00 per share, at an offer price of $3.33 per share.26 In January, 1903, a contract was awarded for a new factory building in the Merrill Park section of the city. In July that year, the legendary Ransom E. Olds of Oldsmobile motorcar fame, a large stockholder, was elected chairman of the board of of The Compensating Company.27 This firm advertised a combination reed and pipe instrument, the details of which are unknown, but in building conventional pipe organs the business initially prospered.28 Soon, however, it failed, and in early 1906 the firm declared bankruptcy.29 In May of that year, largely through the efforts of the Battle Creek Business Men's Association, the Lyon & Healy Company of Chicago purchased the Merrill Park facility, for a reported $35,000, and moved pipe organ production there, retaining Sparling as shop foreman. To celebrate their good fortune, the businessmen of Battle Creek held a banquet at the Post Tavern on November 1, 1906 in honor of Lyon & Healy officials.30

In 1907 Lyon & Healy delivered a two-manual ten-rank tubular-pneumatic pipe organ, Opus 1476, to the Marietta, Ohio, Unitarian Church (built in 1857), replacing a Jardine tracker instrument.31 In January, 1908, Lyon & Healy elected to discontinue pipe organ building in Battle Creek and sold the facility to the John F. Corl Piano Company which acquired it to combine production there from two plants, in Jackson and Grand Haven, Michigan.32 Following the completion of Lyon & Healy contracts in Battle Creek, reportedly in mid-February, 1908, Sparling remained there for several months to build a three-manual instrument, under the Lyon & Healy nameplate, for the new Independent Congregational Church, whose building was dedicated on October 11, 1908.33

During installation of the Lyon & Healy organ in the Unitarian Church in Marietta, Collins Stevens, ever alert to market opportunities, must have learned that Lyon & Healy was suspending pipe organ production and, most important, that Allan Sparling, a seasoned action man with a time-tested windchest, was available. This was the catalyst for Stevens' entry into the pipe organ business. Soon he and Sparling made a deal, for in January, 1909, a Battle Creek newspaper reported that Sparling was now with the Stevens Company in Marietta.34 He brought with him the Lyon & Healy tubular-pneumatic ventil windchest (see diagram p. 20), which became the Stevens chest and would also follow him to Cleveland when he joined the Votteler-Holtkamp-Hettche Company.

The Stevens Pipe Organ

On Friday evening, July 2, 1909, Professor Llewelyn L. Renwick played the dedicatory recital on the two-manual, eighteen-rank, Stevens pipe organ in the First Baptist Church of Marietta (see photos p. 20). Renwick was described in the local press as a teacher at the Detroit Conservatory of Music and the University of Michigan who had studied with Guilmant, Widor, Dubois and Wager Swayne.35 Assisted by local vocalists and instrumentalists, his recital (see program p. 21) featured several works well-known today as well as others seldom heard in recent times.36

As represented by the instruments in the First Baptist Church in Marietta and the First Methodist Church of Crooksville, Ohio (see stoplists), the Stevens pipe organs were typical of this period which was marked by higher wind pressures, the predominance of eight-foot pitch in the manual stops with nothing above 4' pitch, notably larger scales for diapasons, a 73-note Swell windchest reflecting the prominence of the 4' coupler in building an ensemble, and the ubiquitous Aeoline, an ultra-soft string stop on the Swell.

On the Marietta instrument, eighty percent of the manual stops are of 8' pitch. The scale 40 of the Open Diapason on the Great and the 42 scale Diapason on the Swell manual are, from today's perspective, enormous. They would afford power and fundamental but, most likely, not much harmonic development. As Robert Reich, former president of the Andover Organ Company comments, "In general, the presence of such a large scale Diapason on the Great signifies the intention that this stop alone would dominate the Great and other stops would be used alone or in combinations with each other but not to be expected to add much to the full organ."37 The rationale for the Gross Floete on the Great, which conceivably could have been a Doppel Floete, is perhaps explained by the large Diapason. As Audsley observes, "This valuable stop, when artistically voiced, may be introduced instead of a Second Open Diapason 8 ft., as it combines admirably with a large Open Diapason."38 As Charles McManis notes, this stop could be very useful, with more body than a Diapason and adding fullness to the treble.39

The influence of Estey and Lyon & Healy on Stevens and Sparling in the composition and voicing of this instrument is intriguing but virtually impossible to discern. Reich, a keen observer of Estey and other New England builders of this period, notes that the 4' Octave and Great Octave Coupler would offer something of a Chorus. However, he cautions that in some Estey organs the 4' Octave was a tepid Violina scale and thus was atypical of historic and contemporary definitions of this voice. Compounding the problem of tonal attribution is the fact that small builders of this era ordered metal pipework from suppliers; in Stevens' case information to date says Gottfried, most often without detailed instructions on voicing. Reich adds that the 4' Rohr Floete, if indeed it was a Chimney Flute as opposed to the widely used Harmonic Flute, suggests Estey, who used them on occasion. He observes that the augmented pedal division became common after the introduction of non-mechanical action, adding, "The Double Open Diapason, an expensive stop, provided a suitable foundation under the large scale Great Diapason, a luxury not always found on an organ of this size."40

Stevens' pipe organ venture prospered, and in the fall of 1911 The Diapason reported that he had sold his retail music store, described as "the largest music house in southeastern Ohio," to the Wainwright Music Company for $25,000 in order to devote his full attention to the pipe organ business "in which line his firm is having a very large trade."41 Two years later, however, the business apparently fell victim to the Ohio River flood of March, 1913, which devastated eastern Ohio and which also wiped out the legendary organbuilder Carl Barckhoff downstream in Pomeroy, Ohio. In Marietta, the river crested 23 feet above flood stage and 85 percent of the city was under water.42

The subsequent history of the Stevens business, apart from reportedly suspending operations after the flood, is largely unknown but evidently continued in some manner. Ever alert to developments in the market for musical products, Collins Stevens began manufacturing a phonograph called the "Alethetone." In 1919 the firm advertised as "Manufacturers of Pianos, Organs and Builders of Pipe Organs and Talking Machines," but the 1924 advertisement as "Phonograph Manufacturers" would appear to be more accurate.43 Collins Stevens died of heart disease on April 30, 1921 at the age of 72.44 The company went out of business in 1924 and the building was then occupied by the Sewah Sign Company. It was destroyed by fire in 1937.45

In 1911 Allan Sparling relocated to Cleveland, joining the Votteler-Holtkamp-Hettche Organ Company, perhaps in response to an offer or a more promising opportunity. His move was further indication of the mobility of pipe organ labor and especially the demand for workers with mechanical skills, the so-called "action men." He began building the tubular pneumatic ventil windchest he had used at Lyon & Healy and Stevens. The firm was renamed the Votteler-Holtkamp-Sparling Organ Company in 1914.46 Sparling continued until retiring to St. Petersburg, Florida in 1943.47 Charles McManis, who followed his five-year apprenticeship with Peter Nielsen in Kansas City with Holtkamp in the fall of 1941, remembered Sparling as a very quiet man of medium height and slender build who was then making consoles.48 Sparling subsequently returned to Cleveland where he died of kidney failure on April 27, 1950 at the age of 79.49

Specification

First Methodist Church, Crooksville, Ohio

Stevens Piano & Organ Company,

Marietta, Ohio

Manual Compass, CC to C4  61 notes

Pedal Compass, CCC to G 32 notes

Great Organ

                  8'             Open Diapason

                  8'             Melodia

                  8'             Dulciana

                  4'             Principal

Swell Organ

                  8'             Stopped Diapason

                  8'             Violin Diapason

                  8'             Aeoline

                  8'             Oboe Gamba

                  4'             Flauto Traverso

Pedal Organ

                  16'          Bourdon

                  16'          Lieblich Gedeckt (Polyphone)

Couplers

Swell to Swell 16'

Swell Unison

Swell to Swell 4'                              

Great to Great 4'

Great to Pedal 8'

Swell to Great 16'

Swell to Great 8'

Swell to Great 4'

                  Swell to Pedal 8'

Swell to Pedal 4'

Accessories

Expression Pedal                              

Crescendo          

Sforzando Reversible

Great to Pedal Reversible

Wind Indicator

Crescendo Indicator

Sforzando Indicator      

Specification

First Baptist Church, Marietta, Ohio

The Stevens Organ & Piano Co.,

Marietta, Ohio

Compass of Manuals, CC to C4, 61 notes

Compass of Pedals, CCC to G, 32 notes

 

Great Organ

                  8'             Open Diapason-Scale 40, metal

                  8'             Gross Floete, wood

                  8'             Dulciana, metal

                  8'             Melodia, wood

                  8'             Gamba, pure tin

                  4'             Octave, metal

Swell Organ (73-note chest)

                  16'          Bourdon, wood

                  8'             Open Diapason-Scale 42, metal

                  8'             Stopped Diapason, wood

                   8'            Salicional-70 per cent tin

                  8'             Aeoline, metal

                   4'            Rohr Floete, metal

                  8'             Orch. Oboe, reed

                  8'             Vox Humana, reed

Pedal Organ

                  16'          Open Diapason, wood

                  16'          Bourdon, wood

                  16'          Lieb. Gedeckt, wood (Sw)

                  8'             Flute, wood (ext)

                  8'             Gedeckt, wood (ext)

Couplers

Operated by tilting tablets over swell keyboard

Great to Pedal 8'

Great to Great 4'

Swell to Pedal 8'

Swell to Pedal 4'

Swell to Great 8'

Swell to Great 16'

Swell to Great 4'

Swell to Swell 16'

Swell to Swell 4'

Swell Unison Cancel

Pedal Movements

Balanced Swell Pedal

Balanced Crescendo

Sforzando Pedal--this pedal fills a long-desired requirement of the performer, as it   enables him to bring the Full Organ into instant use and as quickly back to its former combination.

Great to Pedal Reversible          

Adjustable Combinations

3 Pistons placed over draw stops making combinations of Swell Organ and Pedal

4 Pistons placed over Swell Manual operating combinations and releasing same

3 Pistons placed over draw stops of Great, making combinations for Great Organ and Pedal

4 Pistons placed under Great Manual, operating combinations and releasing same.

Accessories

Tremolo

Crescendo-Indicator

In the wind . . .

John Bishop

John Bishop is executive director of the Organ Clearing House

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Decisions, decisions
We are rebuilding an organ. It’s about 90 years old. It has electro-pneumatic action. The main manual windchests have ventil stop action. It has three manuals and 33 ranks. It was built as the “downstairs” organ in a large Roman Catholic church—a common layout for the quintessential huge Catholic parish that allows Masses to be celebrated concurrently. In our work at the Organ Clearing House we’ve been involved in the relocation of quite of few “downstairs” organs as parish leaders find it attractive and useful to redevelop those huge spaces into reception rooms, classrooms, offices, rehearsal space, and of course to create spaces that can generate rental income.
The organ has been purchased by a church that has a strong liturgical tradition and an elaborate music program, located in a big city. Over the course of a year or so, the church’s organist and I developed a plan that includes adding six ranks of pipes and a couple 16′ extensions to existing ranks. Originally the Great and Swell divisions each had two windchests, one for lower pressure, one for higher. The high-pressure Great chest will become the Solo division playable independently on Manuals I and II. Because we will be able to incorporate some good-quality 16′ ranks left from the church’s previous organ, our 39-rank specification will include eight 16′ ranks including three open ranks, two reeds, and three stopped wood ranks. There will be seven ranks of reeds, two on high pressure. The only reed not under expression will be the Pedal Bombarde.
In the last few weeks I have been designing the technical specifications of the project, working with suppliers and our client to make decisions about which materials and which equipment will make up this organ. We have faced quite a few complicated technical choices, and the nature of this project means that there are some philosophical questions to answer.

Restore, rebuild, renovate
It’s easy to say we’re restoring an organ—but I think the word restore is overused. I prefer to use that word literally. When we restore an organ to its original condition we don’t add or subtract any pipes. We don’t introduce modern materials. We don’t even change the color of the felt around the drawknobs. It’s impossible to restore an organ if you’re using a solid-state combination action (unless the organ originally had an identical system!). Using this definition, I’d say there are very few real pipe organ restorations completed in the world today. The argument can be taken so far as to say that a restoration cannot include new trackers (even if the old ones are hopelessly broken)—in other words, literally restoring an organ can result in an instrument that cannot be played.
The word rebuild when used to describe an organ project is much more general and not very limiting—a “rebuild” of a pipe organ is a philosophical free-for-all. We buy or make materials and parts that will “do the job.” We want the organ to perform well, that all the notes work correctly and the tuning is stable. We want the job to be both economical for the client and profitable for the organbuilder, a seemingly oxymoronic goal. But we are not necessarily making an artistic statement.
I prefer the word renovate. It comes from the Latin root “nova” which simply means new. My dictionary gives the word novation as a legal term describing the substitution of a new obligation for an old one—I’m no attorney, but I presume that describes a contract that has been renegotiated or an agreement that has been cancelled and replaced by a new one. In organbuilding, I use the word renovation to describe a project that focuses philosophically on the work and intentions of the original organ builder. It allows for the addition of ranks, especially if the original specification was obviously limited by constraints of space or budget. It allows us to modify an instrument to better suit a new home. And it forces us to make myriad decisions with the ethic of the original instrument in the forefront of our minds.
Our current project is a long way from a restoration. We have chosen to replace large and important components. We are adding several ranks. We are including a sophisticated combination action. We expect that the result will be an instrument with plenty of pizzazz, extensive expressive capabilities, and a wide range of tone color. There will certainly be plenty of bass and fundamental tone. We intend for the console to be welcoming to the player, expecting that the organ will be played by some of our most accomplished organists.
In this and other professional publications, we are accustomed to reading descriptions of completed projects. As I work through this long list of decisions, I thought it would be fun (and useful to my process) to discuss them in broad terms as the project begins.

Adding ranks
If this instrument was originally a “downstairs” organ, I think it’s fair to say that it was a secondary instrument. In fact, the church it came from has a magnificent and much larger organ in the main sanctuary. Our instrument was not decked out with some of the fancy stops that are appropriate, even required for the sort of use it will get in its new home. The voices we’re adding include French Horn, Tuba, and Harmonic Flute. We’re adding a second chorus mixture (there was only one). We’re adding a second Celeste (there was only one). We’re adding 16′ extensions to a soft string and an Oboe, as well as a couple new independent sixteen-footers. Most of these additions are being planned based on the scaling of the rest of the organ. And a couple of the fancier additions will be based on the work of a different organbuilder whose specialty stops are especially prized.
I believe that many additions are made to pipe organs based on nomenclature instead of tone color. If the last organ you played regularly had a Clarion in the Swell, the next one needs one too. I think it’s important to plan additions with your ears rather than your drawknob-pulling fingers. Some specialty stops stand out—an organ with a good French Horn can do some things that other organs can’t. But describing an organ by reciting its stoplist does not tell me what the organ sounds like. An organ without a Clarion 4′ can still be a wonderful organ.
The additions we’ve chosen come from many long conversations concerning what we hope the organ will be able to do. And these additions are intended to transform the instrument from its original secondary character to one suited for all phases of high liturgy and the performance of the organ repertory.

Windchests
Ventil stop action is one in which each rank is mounted over a discrete stop channel. When the stop is off, the organ’s air pressure is not present in the channel. The stop knob controls a large pneumatic valve that allows air pressure to rush in to fill the channel. This is one of the earliest types of pneumatic stop action, invented to allow for the transition away from the slider chests of the nineteenth century. Both electro-pneumatic and tubular-pneumatic organs were equipped with ventil windchests. When they are in perfect condition and perfectly adjusted, they operate quickly and efficiently, but there are some inherent problems.
The nature of the large valve (ventil is the word for a pneumatic valve) means that there’s a limit to how fast the air pressure can enter the stop channel when the stop is turned on, and a limit to how fast the air pressure can exhaust, or leave the channel when the stop is turned off. To put it simply, sometimes a ventil stop action is slow. It’s especially noticeable when you turn off a stop while holding a note or a chord—you can clearly hear the tone sag as the air leaves the channel. Pitman chests introduced the first electro-pneumatic stop action in which the stops are controlled at the scale of the individual note. Turn on a stop, air pressure enters a channel in the Pitman rail, the row of 61 Pitman valves move, and each note is turned on individually and instantly.
Another disadvantage of ventil stop action comes from the fact that electro-pneumatic actions work by exhausting. A note pouch at rest (not being played) has organ air pressure both inside and out. Play the note and the interior of the pouch is exposed to atmosphere. The air pressure surrounding the pouch collapses it, carrying the valve away from the toe hole. In a Pitman chest, a hole in a pouch means a dead note, annoying but not disruptive. In a ventil chest, a hole in a pouch means a cipher, annoying and disruptive. The cause of the cipher is air pressure exhausting from the interior of pouches of stops that are on into the stop channels of stops that are off—the exhausting happens through the holes in pouch leather of stops that are off. It’s easy to diagnose because the cipher will go away when you turn on the stop. In other words, a hole in a pouch in the Octave 4′ will allow the pouches of the other stops to exhaust through it into its empty stop channel. Turn on the Octave 4′ and the Principal 8′ can no longer exhaust that way so the cipher goes away—but the note in the Octave is dead!
With the revival of interest in Romantic music, cathedral-style accompanying, and symphonic organ playing, instant stop action is critical. We have decided to convert the stop action in our instrument from ventil to Pitman.

Console
The console is the place where we’ve faced the most choices. In the early twentieth century, the great heyday of organbuilding, each builder had specific and unique console designs. Each manufactured their own drawknob mechanisms, their own keyboards, their own piston buttons. Each had a particular way of laying out stopjambs. An experienced organist could be led blindfolded to a console and would be able to identify the organbuilder in a few seconds.
Most of those organs were built by companies with dozens or even hundreds of workers. A factory would house independent departments for consoles, windchests, wood pipes, metal pipes, casework, structures, and wind systems. Components were built all around the factory and brought together in an erecting room where the organ was assembled and tested before it was shipped. Today, most organ workshops employ only a few people. There are hundreds of shops with two or three workers, a small number of dozens of shops with between ten and twenty workers, and a very few with more than twenty.
When building small tracker-action organs, it’s not difficult to retain a philosophy of making everything in one workshop. Without distraction, two or three craftsmen can build a ten- or fifteen-stop organ in a year or so, making the keyboards, pipes, action, case—everything from “scratch” and by hand. When building large electro-pneumatic organs, that’s pretty much impossible. Too many of the components must be mass-produced using metal, too many expected functions of such an organ (like combination actions) are so complicated to build by hand, that it’s simply not economical to do it with a “build everything here” philosophy.
That means that a few organ-supply companies provide keyboards, drawknobs, combination actions, piston rails, and other console controls and appointments for the entire industry. It’s something of a homogenization of the trade—just like you buy the same books in a Barnes & Noble store in New York or in Topeka, and a McDonald’s hamburger tastes the same in Fairbanks as in Miami, so the drawknob action is identical in the consoles built by dozens of different firms.
The upside of this conundrum is that the companies that produce these specialized and rarified controls (you can’t go to Home Depot to buy a drawknob motor) have the time and ability to perfect their products. So while the drawknobs we will install in the console for this organ will be the same as those on many organs in that city, they are excellent units with a sturdy old-style toggle feel, beautifully engraved knob faces, and of course, compatibility with today’s sophisticated solid-state combination actions.
This week we placed the orders for new drawknobs identical to the original (we’re expanding from 33 to 60 knobs), drawknob motors and tilting tablets for couplers, new keyslips with many more pistons than the original layout, and engraved labels for indicator lights and the divisions of stops and pistons.

Combination action
It used to be “ka-chunk” or “ka-thump.” One of the factors of that blindfolded test would be pushing a piston. Compare in your mind’s ear the resulting sound in a Skinner console with that of an Austin. If you’re familiar with both builders you know exactly what I mean. The sounds are as distinctly different as are the diapasons of each builder. In many renovation projects, a solid-state combination action is installed to operate the original electro-pneumatic drawknobs—a nice way to preserve some of the original ethic of an organ. But when the specification of an organ is changed as part of a renovation project, it’s not easy to adapt the original knob mechanisms by adding knobs. In fact, it’s typical for there to be plenty of space in a chamber to add all kinds of new ranks, but no way to add the controls to the console without starting over. It’s no good to add a stop to the organ when you can’t include the knob in the combination action.
There are a half-dozen firms that produce excellent solid-state controls for pipe organs. They each have distinct methods, the equipment they produce is consistent, and each different brand or model combination action has myriad features unheard of a generation ago. Programmable crescendos, piston sequencers, manual transfers, expression couplers, melody couplers, pizzicato basses, the list seems endless. Multi-level systems have been with us for long enough that we’re no longer surprised by hundreds of levels of memory.
But when we’re renovating a console, we face the challenge of including lots of new controls for all those, dare I say, gimmicky functions. We build drawers under the keytables so the flashing and blinking lights and readouts are not part of our music-making, and the organists complain that they whack their knees when they get on the bench. We add “up and down” pistons to control memory levels and sequencers. We have bar-graph LED indicators for expression pedals. And we even install USB ports so software upgrades and MIDI sequencing can be accomplished easily. I suppose the next step will be to update a combination action by beaming from your iPhone. It’s easy to produce a console that looks like a science lab or an aerospace cockpit, and it’s just as easy to fall into thinking that the lights, buttons, and switches are more important than the sound of the organ.
It’s our choice to keep the “look” of the console as close as possible to its original design—it is a very handsome console. But keeping that in mind, you will want some modern gizmos close at hand.
There are lots more things to think about. Are we holding up bass pipes with soldered hooks or with twill-tape tied in knots? Are we making soldered galvanized windlines or using PVC pipe or flexible rubber hoses? It’s relatively easy to make a list of all the right choices for the renovation of a fine organ built by a great organbuilder. But the challenge is to retain the musical and artistic qualities of the organ, renovate an organ using the same level of craftsmanship as the original builder and produce an instrument that thrills all who make music and worship with it, while keeping in mind that the future of the pipe organ is ensured by the appropriate balance between artistry and expense. Thoughtful organbuilders face that question every time they pick up a tool.

In the wind . . .

John Bishop
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Home entertainment
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries the Aeolian Organ Company established itself as the leader in the extremely high-end market for residence pipe organs. Their list of clients reads like a “Who’s Who” of wealthy industrialists and financiers: John D. Rockefeller, Charles Schwab, Frank W. Woolworth, Henry Clay Frick, Horace and John Dodge, and Louis Comfort Tiffany, to name a few. Rollin Smith’s exhaustively researched and excellent book, The Aeolian Organ, provides a wealth of information about this extraordinary company. I found the appendices to be especially good reading. One is a list of patrons, another is the opus list. I took a walking tour of mid-town Manhattan one afternoon photographing the residences that housed these fantastic organs.
I have Aeolians on my mind because I’m in the midst of installing their Opus 1014, originally built for the residence of John Munroe Longyear in Brookline, Massachusetts. We got a call from the real estate developer, who was converting that grand and opulent residence into condominiums, offering the organ at no cost providing it could be removed within the week. It could, and a purchaser appeared in short order. I have renovated the instrument, releathered the roll-playing mechanism, and I write from a California hotel room at the end of the fourth day of installation.

This is an eight-rank organ (Photo 1, half-way done). There are seven on the manual duplex chest, allowing each to be playable from either keyboard, and there is a substantial pedal Bourdon 16′. There is an ornately decorated keydesk with Aeolian’s particular style of tilting-tablet stop controls mounted obliquely on either side of the keyboards. And above the music rack is the spectacular contraption known as the spool-box. Two rows of holes in a brass bar, known as the “tracker-bar,” represent two 58-note keyboards. The bar is mounted in an airtight box with a sliding glass door. Below the bar is “take-up reel,” above it the spindles that accept the paper roll. To play a roll, you place it in the spindles, draw the paper across the surface of the bar, connect it to the take-up reel, turn on the spool-box motor, close the sliding glass door and turn on the ventil that charges the spool-box with air pressure (Photo 2, spool-box).
The pressure inside the spool-box energizes a little brass pointer that causes wonder the first time you see it, but when the blank leader of the paper has passed a red center line appears. The pointer follows the red line allowing the operator to see that the paper is tracking properly. If it wanders to one side or the other, you correct it by turning a little key under the bottom manual that moves the take-up reel to the left or right.

The next thing you see as the roll passes the tracker-bar is a suggested registration printed on the paper. You select your stops, and when the holes in the paper start appearing they allow the air pressure to pass through the holes in the tracker-bar and notes start to play. As the music progresses registration changes are suggested, and a dotted line moves back and forth across the paper indicating the position of the expression pedal (Photo 3, tracker-bar).
Behind the tracker-bar is a system of tubing that carries the little puffs of air to the spool-box contact machines, where tiny leather pouches are inflated to activate a pneumatic action that operate the contacts (Photo 4, tracker-bar tubing). The spool-box contact machines perform exactly the same function as the keyboards—both are wired in parallel to the inputs of the relay, so it’s possible to play a duet with the machine.

There’s a little lever marked “Tempo Indicator” just above the keyboards (Photo 5, tempo indicator). This is in fact not an indicator but a throttle. It operates a sliding valve that controls the amount of air flowing into the motor that turns the spindles in the spool-box. Letting in more air is the equivalent of shoveling on more coal or stepping on the accelerator—the motor speeds up and the music goes faster. Our modern ears are geared to expect the pitch to change when a recording speeds up—but not in Aeolian land. It’s a funny sensation to hear the tempo changing with the pitch staying the same. But the tempo indicator has a very important function. Of course it allows the performer to select the speed, but also gives sensitive control to the tempo, allowing ritardando, accelerando, and rubato.
If the roll is playing a piece of a significant speed that calls for frequent registration changes, you find yourself with your hands full following the leads on the paper, changing the stops, operating the swell pedal, controlling the tempo with musical sensitivity, while all the time taking care that the paper is tracking properly. If you miss the little red line moving away from the pointer you hear the music scramble as the tracking is lost.
At the risk of overusing technical jargon, here’s what happens when the player plays a single note:

1. Air blows through the hole in the paper roll, through the spool-box tubing to the spool-box contact pouch.
2. The pouch inflates, opening a primary valve that exhausts a box pneumatic.
3. As the pneumatic exhausts, it pushes up a rod that in turn pushes on a brass contact.
4. When the contact is made, electricity travels through the relay to a magnet on the windchest.
5. The magnet is energized, lifting its armature to allow a primary pouch to exhaust.
6. As the pouch exhausts, it opens the primary valve that in turn exhausts the secondary pouch.
7. The secondary pouch draws open the secondary valve.
8. The secondary valve exhausts the key-channel in the windchest.
9. As the key-channel exhausts, the interior of all the pouches for that note (one for each stop) are exposed to the atmospheric pressure.
10. A stop that is turned on has pressure in the stop channel waiting to play notes.
11. When the key-channel is exhausted, the note pouches of any stop that’s on can exhaust.
12. The exhausting note pouch opens the pipe-valve.
13. Air blows into the pipe and the note sounds.

As much as I understand how these actions work, and as much as I know that they work very fast, I’m still amazed that all of those steps working in sequence can possibly work fast enough to make any kind of musical sense—let alone work so fast as to be able produce notes repeating at 20 or 30 times a second.
An organist playing “the old fashioned way” (pushing down keys to make notes play) is limited to three or four notes in each hand and two in the pedals. And think about it, it’s not all that often that you’re really playing ten notes at a time. Turn on couplers and you might be asking the organ to produce 20 or 30 notes at once. The Aeolian player has no such limitations—some of the rolls include complicated chords and passages that could not be played by two organists at once. Stop the roll at a busy moment and count the holes in the paper from left to right—I’ve found places where there are 30 notes playing at once . . .

I’ve tried to give an idea of how the organ’s action works, but I’ve not told you anything about how the paper rolls are driven (Photo 6, spool-box motor). You know about the throttle that controls the flow of air to the motor, but the motor itself is a marvel. It contains three two-part pneumatics connected by a camshaft. On the end of the camshaft there’s a gear that drives a chain that drives a transmission that turns the spool-box spindles (Photo 7, spool-box transmission). The transmission has a feature controlled by a stopknob labeled “Aeolian Re-roll”—a rewind function that rolls the paper back onto its original spool at the conclusion of a performance.
It’s time for me to make a confession. I have added a solid-state relay with MIDI to this organ. But while confessing, I want to make one thing perfectly clear. I am not using MIDI to add voices to the organ. “MIDI Out” from the organ’s relay feeds “MIDI In” of a sequencer. Play the organ either with the rolls or the keyboards and the sequencer captures the music as a data stream that can be played back. So the organ can now be played three ways. This allows the player/operator/performer/musician to rehearse a performance on a roll, master the registration changes, the subtleties of tempo and expressions, and play back the whole performance entirely automatically. And perhaps most important, it allows essentially unlimited repeat performances without exposing the fragile 100-year-old paper to wear and tear (and I do mean tear).
This organ, Aeolian’s Opus 1014, was built in 1906. In 1906 Theodore Roosevelt was president, Typhoid Mary was exposed in New York City, six of George Bernard Shaw’s (1856–1950) plays were on stage in New York, and 400 people were killed in the great earthquake in San Francisco (Enrico Caruso was in town for that event, and swore that he would never return to a city “where disorders like that are permitted”).1 Automobiles were barely established as a significant mode of transportation, and the railroads were in their heyday. In this context we see how revolutionary was the work of Wilbur and Orville Wright—their first flights at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina were accomplished in 1903.
This Aeolian organ spent last summer in the workshop attached to my house, and the summer-time guests were amazed and amused as I put the organ through its paces—each time causing a “rowdy hour” in the midst of a dinner party. Imagine how it must have astounded Mr. and Mrs. Longyear’s guests in 1906. Decades before radio and television, before stereo and compact discs, and most of a century before home movie theaters, this home-entertainment system represented the very apex of technology. Those fashionable dinner guests would have had nothing against which to compare the organ. I imagine that many were simply bewildered. Some, not all, of my friends were able to follow my explanation of how the thing works. Few of Mr. Longyear’s guests would have had technical backgrounds that would have allowed them even the dimmest comprehension.
But, boy, does it work! This was my first experience with an Aeolian player, and while I had it dismantled on my workbench, while I was cutting the tiny pouches for the spool-box contacts, while I was cleaning and assembling the spool-box tubing, I had the intellectual assurance that it would work, but it seemed improbable enough that I was purely delighted when I ran it for the first time (Photo 8, spool-box contact pouches before; Photo 9, spool-box contact pouches after). And I’ve been dwelling on the mechanical. This is above all a wonderful musical instrument. The voicing is imaginative, clear, and brilliant. The selection of voices is magical. The various combinations of stops are both thrilling and beguiling. What a fabulous appliance to add to the home that has everything.■

 

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