Canadian Organbuilding, Part 1

Grant Smalley Pipe Organs, Victoria, British Columbia (1984)

Born in Sidney, near Victoria B.C., Grant Smalley has worked as an organbuilder since 1966. He was associated with Gabriel Kney from 1968 to 1979, primarily building tracker-action organs and installing them throughout Canada and the U.S.A. During the last eight of those years he assumed Kney's tuning and maintenance business in addition to his organbuilding duties. He returned to Victoria in 1980 and established his own business four years later, buying out the organ maintenance service of Hugo Spilker, who had done restorations in the area. His associate, Douglas Adams, received formal training in instrumentation and systems technology, and manufacturing engineering technology; in addition to assisting in the construction of the new shop, he is responsible for electrical design, construction, and mechanical work. Beverly Smalley, the wife of Grant Smalley, handles the business and financial operations. All three are active participants in community choral groups.

Grant Smalley has built several small organs: a four-stop positiv organ, mechanical action (1985); a four-stop, portable, continuo organ with 56-note transposing keyboard, mechanical action (1989); and two continuo organs of 31/2 and 41/2 ranks, both with mechanical action (1995, 1997). The major activity, however, is organ restoration, along with regular tuning and routine maintenance work: about 50 organs throughout Vancouver Island and Greater Vancouver. A number of heritage organs in Victoria, including several instruments built by Casavant Frères in the early 1900s, and others by English and American makers, have received extensive overhauls in recent years.

Wooden pipes, most windchests, consoles, and casework are built in the shop; metal pipes are ordered to specifications and voiced there. Other components acquired from suppliers include keyboards, drawknobs, switching systems, and blowers.

Blair Batty & Associates, Simcoe, Ontario (1985)

Blair Batty was born in Simcoe, and as a teenage organ player he acquired an interest in the mechanical workings of organs. His organbuilding career began with the Keates Organ Company, Acton, Ontario, where he learned windchest construction, wiring, tuning, and installation procedures. In 1976 he moved to Europe, where he learned the craft of metal pipemaking with Jacques Stin-

kens, Zeist, Holland, and the art of reed manufacturing with Carl Giesecke & Sohn, Göttingen, West Germany. During that period he travelled extensively throughout Europe to study examples of French, German, and Dutch organbuilding. In 1977 he went to Gloucester, Massachusetts, to join C. B. Fisk as a pipemaker and draftsman, then in 1979 he was invited to head the pipe shop of the Noack Organ Company, Georgetown, Massachusetts. In 1981 he returned to Canada to work for Brunzema Organs, Fergus, Ontario, then returned to Simcoe in 1985 to establish his own firm. Since then he has visited England on several occasions to study the instruments of Willis and Hill.

The company has built three new organs. One is a two-manual, 27-stop instrument of eclectic design incorporating Schnitger-inspired choruses, a French-character trumpet, and Dutch/French-style Swell mutations, with console-equipped MIDI (1991). Another is a two-manual, 19-stop instrument of British-inspired design in which the basic choruses follow William Hill, but includes a Schnitger-style trumpet, a cornet and mutations of classical French design, and string stops scaled and voiced on Cavaillé-Coll principles (1993). A four-rank box organ was built for a private customer.

The company specializes in restoring and rebuilding older organs, employing the techniques and materials of the original builder as far as possible, and provides tuning and maintenance service to about 100 churches annually throughout southwestern Ontario. Most of the components of organs are produced in the factory: Pitman and slider windchests, bellows, rollerboards, tremulants, keyboards and pedalboards, and consoles. Pipes, both wooden and metal (including reeds), are generally made on the premises; the metal pipeshop and foundry section has a 12-foot, polished granite casting table, one of the few in Canada. Blowers and electrical combination and switching actions are acquired from external suppliers. The firm also provides services, parts, and pipes to other builders and tuners. A large reference library of historical and current organ design data, including pipe scalings of hundreds of historic organs, is maintained. A computer-assisted design (CAD) system is used. The firm had three full-time employees and several part-time helpers in 1998.

Gober Organs, Toronto, Ontario (1985)

Halbert Gober was born in Austin, Texas, and began his organbuilding career with Otto Hofmann (1969-1972), an organbuilder in Austin known as an early proponent of the tracker revival. Following university studies in liberal arts and architecture, he lived in Germany from 1972 to 1980. During the first four years he studied music, architecture, and organbuilding; in the remaining years he was employed with various organbuilders, including Rensch in Lauffen-am-Neckar (1972); Jann (1977-1980), where he completed his formal apprenticeship in 1979; and Felsberg in Chur, Switzerland. Following his move to Canada in 1981 he was employed as a voicer with Karl Wilhelm until 1985, before opening his own shop in the Montréal area in that year. From there he served as a freelance voicer and pipemaker for several organbuilders in North America and Europe.

He established his own shop in Toronto in 1991, where he commenced building tracker-action organs. Output to date amounts to six two-manual instruments of medium or small size; the most recent of these is a five-stop studio organ for the University of Notre Dame, South Bend, Indiana. Rebuilds and tonal revision projects are also undertaken. His philosophy is to draw on the full heritage of historical organbuilding in the construction of cohesive and logical instruments, with equal priority to dependability and musicality.

Wooden pipes, along with metal pipes made of cast and hammered lead, are manufactured on the premises. Reed pipes, including shallots, are also made in the shop. Action parts are from Germany. There were three employees in 1998. 

Pole & Kingham, Chatham, Ontario (1985)

 Donald Pole and Ron Kingham founded their company in 1979 and then incorporated in 1985, when the construction of complete new organs commenced. Earlier, between 1966 and 1968, Ron Kingham had been an employee of John Bright, a co-founder with Gabriel Kney of the Kney & Bright Organ Company in 1955; he built a house organ under John Bright's supervision. In the first five years of their association, the partners' work was limited to tuning, repairs, cleaning, and general maintenance.

Since 1985 they have built and installed seven new electrical-action instruments (two incorporating some older parts), mostly of medium-size, all in Ontario churches; two other instruments were provided to churches in Michigan, U.S.A. While their instruments are designed to meet both liturgical and performance needs, recent organs have a Romantic bias, and the Symphonic era is recalled in a new, three-manual, 36-stop instrument (the largest to date), with its six-rank String Organ division, installed in Holy Trinity Anglican Church, in Chatham, Ontario, in 1997. Other services include restoration of both tracker- and pneumatic-action organs, rebuilding with solid-state switching, enlargement, and tonal additions, along with general maintenance and tuning.

Wooden pipes (Bourdon, Chimney Flute, Gedeckt, and Doppelflute--the latter scaled after a fine Karn stop), windchests and reservoirs, and consoles are made in the shop; metal pipes are obtained from suppliers in Canada, U.S.A., Germany, and Holland. Five employees worked with the partners in 1998.

Juget-Sinclair, Montréal, Québec (1994)

Denis Juget, a native of the Savoy region of France, received his diploma in fine cabinetmaking in Annency, Haute-Savoy, France, in 1979, then worked as an apprentice with leading organbuilders on both sides of the Atlantic, with whom he acquired skills in all phases of organbuilding: Lucien Simon, Lyon, France (1979-1983); Robert Chauvin, Dax, France (1983-

1985); Wolff & Associés, Laval, Québec, upon his arrival in Canada (1985-1991); Orgelbau Goll, Lucerne, Switzerland (1990-1991); Orgelbau Rohlf, Seitzental, Germany (1992-1994); and Karl Wilhelm, Mont Saint-Hilaire, Québec (1992-1994). Special assignments be-tween 1988 and 1990 involved the restoration, renovation, and voicing of several organs in Austria, Italy, and Spain. His organbuilding enterprise began in 1994 in Saint-Basile-le-Grand, Québec, in a backyard, two-story, former chicken coop, which was converted into a workshop. In the following year he completed a two-manual, 3-stop house organ for a private client.

Following studies in science at McGill University in Montréal, Stephen Sinclair worked first as an apprentice cabinetmaker, then as an apprentice organbuilder with Wolff & Associés (1989-1991). He received practical working experience in general organbuilding and reed-stop restoration with Manufacture d'orgues Franc-comptoise, Courtefontaine, France (1995, 1997); pipemaking with Georges Blaison, France (1996) and N. P. Mander, London, England (1997); and general organbuilding, design, voicing, maintenance, and tuning with Wolff & Associés (1992-1998). He joined Denis Juget as an equal associate in 1998.

The company divides its time between the restoration of historic instruments and the construction of small mechanical-action organs. Since 1995 five two-manual, 3-stop, house organs and one continuo organ have been manufactured; three of the house organs for clients in the United States. Works in progress include two similar house organs for destinations in Québec and Germany, and a two-manual, 10-stop practice organ for the University of Cincinnati, ready in 1999. The house organs incorporate a design by Denis Juget that enables them to be moved relatively easily without breaking down the action.

All parts are made in-house, including wooden and metal pipes, wind chests, bellows, rollerboards, keyboards and pedalboards, drawknobs, and casework (hand-planed in solid wood, using mortise-and-tenon construction). Blowers are purchased from Laukhuff, Germany. Several part-time workers assist in various stages of production and installation. Following relocation in late 1998 to an industrial space with 30-foot cathedral ceilings in Montréal, the associates intend to make the leap from building practice instruments to full-fledged church organs in the near future.

D. Leslie Smith, Fergus, Ontario (1996)

Leslie Smith grew up in southern Alberta, and acquired his interest in music at an early age through involvement in church choirs and piano lessons. He developed an early fascination with organ building and enrolled in organ performance studies at the University of Calgary after completing high school. Using practical skills acquired from his father, who was a carpenter and mechanic, he completed several kits for harpsichords and clavichords, and established an association with a local organ serviceman who introduced him to the techniques of maintaining and tuning electro-pneumatic instruments. In 1973 he moved to London, Ontario, to continue his organ studies at the University of Western Ontario. While in that city, he became acquainted with Gabriel Kney, in whose organbuilding shop he worked on a part-time basis for several years. In 1982 he joined Brunzema Organs in Fergus, Ontario, where he remained for 10 years as a journeyman organbuilder. After the death of Gerhard Brunzema in 1992 and the closing of his organbuilding operation, Leslie Smith worked as an independent contractor in pipemaking and voicing on a number of projects in Canada and the United States. His first organ, a two-manual, 11-stop studio organ was undertaken in 1982 as a part-time project while working with Gerhard Brunzema; it was completed in 1992.

In 1996 he established his new workshop on part of the former Brunzema premises. In the same year he produced his first commission, a one-manual, 6-stop, mechanical-action organ, for a cemetery chapel in Montréal. A similar organ, but without pedals, was supplied to a church in Kansas City, Missouri. Although eclectic and innovative in terms of tonal and visual design, Leslie Smith's approach is inspired by the work of mid-19th-century Canadian and American firms such as S. R. Warren of Montréal and Hook & Hastings of Boston, favoring generous scaling and higher pressures.

Wooden pipes for these two instruments were made in-house, but metal pipes were supplied by F. J. Rogers, Leeds, England. Blowers came from Laukhuff, Germany. Keyboards, and key and stop action were fabricated in the shop. Stops are divided into bass and treble, using a special form of drawstop mechanism developed by the builder. Cases are made from common hardwoods, using traditional construction techniques.

Maintenance work to organs of all makes and construction in Ontario and Québec comprises a significant part of his activity; in 1996 he was appointed curator of the largest pipe organ in Montréal, a four-manual, 86-stop Casavant instrument (installed in 1932, rebuilt in 1992 by another firm) at the Church of St. Andrew and St. Paul, and will soon undertake complete rebuilding projects, as well.

The Future of Organbuilding

The status of organbuilding in the 21st century is not easy to predict, given the variety of factors involved. Generalizations about the number of future organ installations are risky; nevertheless, it is interesting to note that, within roughly the last three decades, while the annual production of instruments of all sizes peaked several times in the 1980s, the low periods of the 1970s were again matched in the years since 1994. Whether this recession will continue in the coming years is uncertain, but some recent trends provide clues to a possible future.13

The fact that few new organs have been installed in Canadian locations in recent years is not surprising, for the distinguishing characteristics of the "golden age" of the organ in the early years of the twentieth century--in terms of the erection of new church buildings, the proliferation of organbuilding firms that supplied both churches and motion picture theaters with instruments, and public enthusiasm for organ recitals played by local and touring recitalists--are not likely to be repeated, considering shifting cultural values along with the various musical and other forms of entertainment now available.

Although most organbuilders have confined their operations to meeting only local and regional needs, several Canadian firms have cultivated the international market with apparent success. The services of the Canadian Commercial Corporation, a crown corporation of the Government of Canada that assumes the role of prime contractor and subcontracts all of the contract back to the Canadian firm, are available for companies seeking worldwide clients.

As for the tonal design of new instruments, the uneasy hybrid designs of earlier years largely have been abandoned in preference to the rediscovered qualities of universally admired older instruments of the 17th and 18th centuries, without blindly copying them. Although instruments of neoclassical design, with their historically "authentic" stoplists, are not entirely suitable for the performance of all schools of organ music, they are probably more versatile than the earlier generation of organs for general liturgical and performance purposes. On the other hand, some organbuilders prefer an eclectic approach, a matter that is subject to ongoing debate.14 The recent strong demand for mechanical-action instruments may eventually stabilize, for reasons relating to architecture, economics, changing musical tastes, and a return to the Romantic idiom in repertoire. Purchasers may prefer some of the advantages of nonmechanical instruments, such as the consistent keyboard touch and flexible console location provided by electric action.15

Much of the earlier activity of new organ construction has been redirected to rebuilding and restoring older instruments, some of historical significance. Most Canadian organbuilders engage in this growing activity, which can provide churches with a cost-effective alternative to the purchase of a comparable new instrument. Routine maintenance work is also part of the service provided by many firms, large and small.

Pipe organs have always been expensive, so electronic instruments utilizing highly developed digital technology now provide an economic alternative for church congregations lacking the will or the means to acquire and maintain a pipe organ. The respective merits of pipe organs and electronic instruments have been debated since the latter were first introduced. Nevertheless, there is an obvious answer, based on musical criteria, to the question, Which is preferable: a poorly designed, badly maintained pipe organ, or a high quality electronic instrument? Electronic instruments have a place in locations where pipe organs are out of the question, whether for space or budgetary considerations. They have proved adequate for the liturgical requirements of many small or medium-size churches with limited budgets, and these instruments have provided competition for more costly pipe organs. The increasing acceptance of electronic instruments further diminishes the probability of a significant number of new pipe organ installations in the coming years. On the other hand, educational institutions (those that are not financially beleaguered, if any) and affluent congregations of some churches (not necessarily the largest) undoubtedly will continue to prefer pipe organs for musical, historical, or social reasons, and such instruments can be supplied only by the larger, well-established, organbuilding companies.

The role of the organist is of considerable importance in ensuring a future for organbuilding. If a church considering the purchase of a new organ already has a fully trained organist, this person, working with a musically educated and supportive committee, can influence the decision in favor of a pipe organ in preference to an electronic instrument, providing that a realistic fund-raising objective can be achieved. A church with an adequate pipe organ will seek a highly trained individual to play it, and such organists ordinarily prefer appointments to churches with pipe organs; once hired, their presence encourages the continuation of the pipe organ tradition.

Changes in the liturgical practices of some religious denominations may have a subtle, long-term effect on the future of organbuilding. The emergence in some congregations of youth-segregated services, with their unique liturgical practices that employ guitars or other instruments associated with folk music or religious rock groups, may produce a generation of worshippers unfamiliar with the organ, its musical heritage, and its literature. A broader associated issue is the question of the future of institutionalized religion and its possible decline due to the growth of science, education, and secularization, or its theological transformation into various manifestations of individualistic spiritual development. These possibilities undoubtedly will take many years, perhaps centuries, to resolve.      

Shifts in population characteristics introduce another factor into the question of the future of organbuilding. Some suburban churches located in stable neighborhoods now have congregations comprised largely of aging members living on limited incomes, not offset by significant numbers of younger, fully employed members. If the present job of organ maintenance is difficult for such congregations, even with skilled volunteer labor working under the supervision of a trained organ technician, the acquisition of a new instrument is beyond consideration; in fact, the amalgamation or dispersal of these congregations is the more likely scenario. The inevitable result would be the closing of some church buildings, along with the possible removal or relocation of existing pipe organs. The more affluent churches with a wider spread of ages among their members, and which encourage the full participation of younger members in their musical programs, are the only ones that will escape this fate, thus leaving open the possibility of the purchase of a new organ in the distant future. A related consideration, which provides a cause for optimism, is grounded in the speculation that recent declines in per capita real income may stimulate group activities at the expense of individual life styles, and that churches may again become a center of social as well as spiritual activities. In such contexts the pipe organ, as a cultural, religious, and artistic centerpiece, may serve as a source of pride and inspiration, and as a vehicle for the renewal of congregations.16

Over the longer term, increased public awareness, combined with both formal and informal educational opportunities, may contribute to the sustained vitality of the organ culture generally, including organbuilding. Radio broadcasts of organ recordings, instructive television programs, increased concert programming for organ and other instruments, and the development of audiences for subscription series of organ recitals, would increase knowledge of the organ among the general public. In the educational system, in-service sessions on the organ for school music teachers, the preparation of classroom learning materials for use in regular music instruction courses, and the participation of students in on-site inspection trips and demonstrations would provide practical contexts for raising awareness of the organ at a level that students can understand and enjoy.17 As for organists, competitions or commissions for hymn arrangements, sacred songs, or new compositions for the organ could be fostered on both the regional and national levels by the Royal Canadian College of Organists. These informational and educational programs would contribute to the development and maintenance of an appreciative audience for the organ throughout the coming decades. Such forms of revitalization would ensure the future of the King of Instruments well into the 21st century.

REFERENCES

                        13.              Some of the following material is adapted from the chapter, "The Future of the Organ," in Hartman, The Organ in Manitoba (note 5 above).

                        14.              See Quentin Regestein and Lois Regestein, "The 'Right' Organ," The Diapason, August 1998, 13-16; September 1998, 17-18. Radically opposing points of view debate the legitimacy of a "universal" hybrid organ, one that is perfect for everything.

                        15.              R. E. Colberd, "Pipe Organ Building: the Nineties and Beyond," The Diapason, July 1994, 12.

                        16.              Ibid., 14.

                        17.              For a description of a recent educational event for school children, see Valerie L. Hall, "Meet the King of Instruments: A Successful Workshop Model for Kids," Organ Canada, July 1998, 9.

James B. Hartman is Associate Professor, Continuing Education Division, The University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada, where he is Senior Academic Editor for publications of the Distance Education Program. He is a frequent contributor of book reviews and articles to The Diapason.

Organ enthusiasts who wish to learn about organs far outside their immediate vicinity have at their disposal a number of search engines to survey the Internet, such as Alta Vista, Google, InfoSeek, Lycos, WebCrawler, and Yahoo; however, these are neither easy nor efficient for this purpose. A particularly effective source is offered by the Dutch magazine, het ORGEL (the ORGAN), a publication of Koninklijke Nederlandse Organistenvereniging (KNOV, i.e., Royal Dutch Organists Association); this is Europe’s oldest magazine on organ art: <www.hetorgel.nl&gt;.

The organ links of het ORGEL are in three categories: Countries, Related Instruments (Carillons, Barrel Organs, Harmoniums, Theater Organs, Harpsichords), and General Information (General, Composers, Liturgies, Music Software, Organists Societies, Organ Music).

There are links to organ sites in 65 countries throughout the world: Algeria, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Barbados, Belgium, Bolivia, Bosnia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Ecuador, England, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Hungary, Iceland, Indonesia, Ireland, Isle of Man, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Korea, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Malta, Mexico, Moldavia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Scotland, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Tanzania, Ukraine, Uruguay, U.S.A., and Zambia.

The relevant information in each country is classified under six headings: General, Organ Builders, Persons, Churches and Concert Rooms, Conservatories/Music Schools/Universities, and CDs/Books. The form of the entries in the different countries remains largely the same throughout but with local content appropriate to the particular country. Many sites include photographs of organ pipe façades and consoles.

An overview of the Web sites of several selected countries follows (some locations have more than one Web site).

U.S.A. The General category, with 147 entries, includes the Web sites of the chapters of the American Guild of Organists, along with a listing of other miscellaneous organizations, societies, topics, and publishers (including The Diapason). It also contains a Web site devoted to the largest pipe organs in the world, but this matter is not easily resolved due to some debatable technical distinctions.1

In the Organ Builders category there are 175 Web sites, including those of such well-known manufacturers as Aeolian-Skinner, Fisk, Holtkamp, Keates-Geisler, Möller, Reuter, Schlicker, and Wicks.

Under Persons the 187 Web sites include familiar names of many organists and concert artists: E. Power Biggs (1906-1977)2, Virgil Fox (1912-1980)3, Edwin H. Lemare (1865-1934)4, Rosalyn Tureck (1914-2003)5, and others. A typical site in this category includes a biography, a résumé, church appointments, compositions, repertoire, concerts, tours, recordings, a discography, testimonials, reviews, writings, links to related sources, and sometimes audio clips.

The Churches and Concert Rooms category consists of an alphabetical list of 614 locations throughout the country. New York City has 23 sites, including Alice Tully Hall in Lincoln Center, as well as Riverside, St. John the Divine, and St. Thomas churches, among many others.

There are 94 Universities and Music Schools, including Indiana University School of Music, New England Conservatory of Music, Oberlin Conservatory of Music, Peabody Conservatory, and schools at many state universities.

In the CDs and Notes category there are 98 Web sites of music publishers, bookstores, catalogs, record companies, and music societies.

A small category, Music Programs, consists of nine sites, including a software distributor and other sources.

Canada. The General category, with 33 entries, consists of the Web sites of 13 local chapters of the Royal Canadian College of Organists, two branches of the Royal School of Church Music, and the sites of other organizations, societies, publishers, festivals, and miscellaneous topics. A particularly ambitious Web site, Organs of the United States and Canada Database, is intended to provide a single, consistent, accessible, historical source of the organs constructed or installed in the United States and Canada since the arrival of the first imported instrument in the colonies; this listing of about 90,000 instruments and 1,800 builders is accessible only by inquiry to the site originator in Seattle, Washington.

In the Organ Builders category there are 26 sites, including Canada’s leading builder, Casavant (three sites), along with other prominent firms like Guilbault-Thérien, Keates-Geissler, Létourneau, Wilhelm, and Wolff.

Under Persons 29 organists have Web sites; there is a historic entry for the Lynnwood Farnam (1885-1930) Society. A separate listing of Organists in Québec is also provided.

The Churches and Music Rooms category includes information on 70 locations in major cities across the country. A relatively new organ is the Davis Concert Organ, four manuals, 96 stops, in the Francis Winspear Music Centre in Edmonton, Alberta, installed in 2002 by Orgues Létourneau, Saint-Hyacinthe, Québec.

In the category of Universities/Music Schools six are identified, all in eastern provinces.

Under CDs and Books there are seven publishers or distributors.

England. The General category, with 58 entries, includes the Web sites of organizations such as the Guild of Church Musicians, Royal College of Organists, Royal Society of British Organists, along with associations and societies in various cities, and other specialized organizations. Several magazines or other publications devoted to the organ or organists are also listed here.

In the Organ Builders category there are 39 names, including the Incorporated Society of Organ Builders, Harrison & Harrison, N. P. Mander, and Henry Willis & Sons.

Under Persons 68 organists are listed, including such notable players as David Briggs, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, Christopher Herrick, John Stainer (1840-1901), Gillian Weir, Carol Williams, and Arthur Wills.

The Churches and Concert Rooms category consists of 290 locations in major centers throughout the country, some in universities such as Cambridge, and others in cathedrals such as Coventry, Durham, Exeter, Gloucester, Leicester, and Liverpool. Royal Festival Hall, St. George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle, and Westminster Abbey are also found here.

In the category of Music Schools there are 12 sites, including the Royal Academy of Music, Royal College of Music, Royal School of Church Music, and similar academies connected with educational institutions.

Under CDs and Books there are 43 Web sites of music publishers, bookstores, catalogs, record companies, and music societies.

France. The General category, with 79 entries, includes the Web sites of associations and societies--”Les Amis de l’Orgue”--in various cities, reports of organ festivals and seminars, and miscellaneous topics, such as French Organ Music and pages devoted to organ magazines.

In the Organ Builders category there are 49 sites, a few with historical significance: Jean-André [Johann-Andreas] Silbermann (1678-1734), Aristide Cavaillé-Coll (1811-99), and Dom Bédos de Celles, L’Art du Facteur d’Orgues, in addition to present-day firms and the comprehensive Groupement Professionnel des Facteurs d’Orgues.

Under Persons 48 names are listed, including such familiar figures as Pierre Cochereau (1924-1984), Jean Guillou, Naji Hakim, Jean Langlais (1907-1991), André Marchal, Daniel Roth, and René Saorgin; there is a separate site for Parisian Organists that lists the organists who served at churches in Paris from the 13th to the 21st centuries.

The Churches category covers 414 establishments in the major cities. Paris includes Notre Dame, Sacré-Coeur, St. Eustache, St. Sulpice, St. Clotilde, St. Gervais, and Madeleine, all familiar on account of their associations with famous organists of the past; there is a separate site for organs of Paris. In the category of Schools, there are only three, led by the Conservatoire de Paris.

Under CDs, Books, and Sheet Music, there are 25 Web sites of music publishers, suppliers of music publications, and record companies.

Germany. In the Organ Builders category there are 234 names, some of which may be familiar to North Americans: von Beckerath, Gabler (1700-1771), Glatter-Götz, Klais, Laukhuff, Schnitger, Silbermann, and Walcker. Here, as in some other countries, there is a comprehensive Web site devoted to organ building; a number of entries are related to historic builders of the 18th and 19th centuries.

Entries in other categories--General, Persons, Churches, Conservatories, CDs and Books--are appropriate to Germany.

Australia. The General category has 10 Web sites that include several societies, including a branch of the Royal School of Church Music, England.

There are only two Organ Builders in the country; both are small firms that construct small organs and provide restoration and maintenance services.

In the Churches/Concert Halls category there are 51 Web sites. These reveal that several town halls have organs: Adelaide, Melbourne, Perth, and Sydney. The activity of external makers is evident in the case of Melbourne, where the five-manual Hill, Norman & Beard instrument, acquired in 1929, was rebuilt by Schantz, U.S.A., commencing in 1999. A special Web site, Second Wind, reports that elegant furniture was made from timbers taken from the Melbourne Town Hall organ when it was renovated in 2001. A monastery library in Arcadia also has an English organ by T. Atterton: two manuals, 11 stops, 1893, later restored in Melbourne.

In the Schools category there are six sites, one for the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, the others connected with the music faculties of the major universities.

South Africa. The General category has five Web sites, including one of the Johannesburg Organ Society, which promotes all aspects of the organ, including recitals, workshops, concerts, and visits to significant instruments.

There are only two firms listed in the Organ Builders category, specializing chiefly in the restoration, rebuilding, and maintenance of existing instruments.

In the Churches category there are eight entries. One of these, St. George’s Cathedral in Cape Town, has an organ that originally was in St. Margaret’s Church in London, England (next to Westminster Abbey). In 1909 a later four-manual, 61-stop organ was donated to St. George’s by a London businessman who had connections in South Africa. The largest organ in the country is in Feather Market Hall, Port Elizabeth, with 5,508 pipes.

The two Universities/Music Schools are University of South Africa, and University of Cape Town where the Baxter Concert Hall has a three-manual, 49-stop von Beckerath instrument, inaugurated in September 1977 (von Beckerath died on 20 November 1976 before the installation was completed).

This survey will conclude with a few miscellaneous items concerning organs in several selected countries.

In Denmark the Frobenius firm has completed slightly more than 1,000 organs since it was founded in 1909; of these, five are in England, two in U.S.A., and five in Japan.

Hong Kong, a special administrative region of China, has one organ in the Hong Kong Cultural Center.

In Ireland the Pipe Organ Site, in addition to providing information on organists, organ specifications, organ builders, and recordings, contains a section on organ jokes.6  

The Isle of Man Organists Association held an Organ Festival in 2002 that included recitals by Gillian Weir and others, workshops, and a gala dinner (£12 including wine!).

The independent state of Malta, consisting of three islands south of Sicily in the Mediterranean Sea, has seven organ builders and restorers; a recent project was the restoration of the ‘Platania’ organ, originally built in Sicily in 1726.

In The Netherlands two famous organ builders are found among the 42 firms listed: Schnitger (1648-1719) and Flentrop (since 1903). Stinkens, organ pipe makers (since 1914), is also active there.

The Philippines has two old organs, two organ builders, and two churches; it recently held its 29th International Bamboo Organ Festival.

In Zambia, an independent country (formerly called Northern Rhodesia) in east central Africa, the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Lusaka has a two-manual, 25-stop organ (builder not identified). In addition to containing information on the organ, the church’s Web page contains sermons, anniversaries, church news, prayer requests, and other information of interest to the parishioners.

The immense amount of organ information contained in the worldwide Web sites defies even a summary description. Given the diversity of languages among the different countries, not all of this information is easily available to English-only readers for that reason, although some sites provide an English version in addition to the language of the country of origin. On the other hand, it is possible to recognize the stop names of organs in most cases on account of their widespread similarity throughout the world. The curious reader can only speculate on the vast number of organs in these countries that do not have Web sites! Visiting the various Web sites, with their colorful and attractive home pages, also provides aesthetic experiences of diverse organ designs. The reader will discover that some Web sites are unavailable or have moved; many are church pages, where the organ is included but is secondary in importance.

KNOV’s assembly of Web sites provides a valuable cultural resource that will be useful for a variety of purposes: recreational exploration of the world of the organ on the Internet, comparative research on organ specifications and the historical backgrounds of the instruments, and perhaps for planning future journeys to the countries where existing organs can be found, inspected, and perhaps played.              

Fair Organist--"I am sorry you had to give off blowing for us, Giles."

Giles--"Yes, Miss; the organ don't sound what it did, do it? Jim, the new blower, be a very good chap, but 'e ain't got no music in 'im. Now, we did used to give 'em summat worth 'earin', didn't we, Miss?"

(Winnipeg Town Topics, 28 August 1909.)

The history of organs in Manitoba, Canada, is a neglected aspect of the musical, cultural, and church history of the province. A 45-year period around the turn of the century was the "Golden Age" of the organ in Manitoba. More than one-third of all the known pipe organ installations in the province up to the present occurred in this period, many of them in newly constructed churches. Both the instruments and the recitals played on them were matters of intense public interest. The installation of a new church orgn was not only a matter of pride and celebration on the part of the congregation, but it was also a significant event in the musical life of the community. This article presents a brief chronicle of the organ--the instruments, the builders, and the players--during this period of slightly more than four decades.

Religious Denominations and Historic Churches

Within fifty years after the displaced tenant farmers from the north of Scotland had arrived in Manitoba's Red River district between 1812 and 1814, many of the major religious denominations, now well established, had built their first churches. The first Roman Catholic churches were constructed in 1819 and 1822, followed by a series of cathedrals completed in 1833, 1862, and 1908. The Anglicans, whose religion was brought to the country by missionaries and employees of the Hudson's Bay Company, built their first Church Mission House in 1822, followed by several other churches along the rivers, including St. Andrew's on the west bank of the Red River in 1849 and St. James on the north bank of the Assiniboine River in 1853. Holy Trinity, Fort Garry's first Anglican church, was opened in 1868. The Presbyterians erected Kildonan Presbyterian Church on the northern outskirts of the settlement in 1851; the first Knox Church was established at a more central location in 1868, succeeded by larger buildings on other urban sites in 1884 and 1917. Other Presbyterian congregations constructed places of worship in various sections of the city: St. Andrew's in 1882, Augustine in 1887 and 1904, and Westminster in 1912. The Methodists founded their first mission at Red River in 1868; their first Grace Church was dedicated in 1871, enlarged in 1877, followed by a new building in 1883; the Wesley congregation established their first church buildings in 1883 and 1898. The Congregationalists arrived in 1879 and erected their first church building in Winnipeg in the early 1880s, followed by a second in 1890.1

Music in the Churches

The place of music in religious worship varied according to the denomination. Music was not readily accepted throughout the country by the Presbyterians, for they did not allow organs or hymns; the only singing was metrical psalms, later supported by a bass viol or flute. This situation continued until 1872, when their General Assembly decided to permit the use of organs.2 In Manitoba some members of the Kildonan Presbyterian Church congregation objected to the introduction of a choir and to the idea of having an organ. In a debate on these issues, one parishioner announced that if an organ were put in the church he would bring around Old Bob, his horse, "and take the 'kist o' whustles' out of the house of the Lord and dump it by the roadside." When the organ eventually was put in, another dissenting member transferred to St. Andrew's mission church, unaware that a small melodeon was used in services there, too. Nevertheless, soon after his daughter was appointed to play the instrument in Kildonan Church he returned there. This repentant parishioner was John "Scotchman" Sutherland, later an elected member of the first Legislative Assembly of Manitoba.3

In Winnipeg, where other religious denominations considered the organ an appropriate aspect of Christian praise, things went more smoothly. Grace Methodist acquired a small reed organ in 1873, and two years later a prominent mill owner presented the Baptist Chapel with a similar instrument.4 Other city churches, as well as those in outlying areas, also purchased reed organs, and they served these congregations for many years.

Reed Organs

The reed organ today exists only as a reminder of a bygone era, but it played an important part in the musical life of the community around the turn of the century. In addition to supporting congregational singing in the churches, reed organs were the focus of religious devotions and entertainment in family parlours throughout North America.

It is likely that the first reed organ in Manitoba was not imported but was built here. According to the recollections of an early pioneer, the first organ in St. Boniface Cathedral (the 1833 building destroyed by fire in 1860) was a melodeon made by Dr. Duncan, a medical officer with the regular army. He was "devoted to music and a very ingenious man."5 This may have been the same organ acquired by the Grey Nuns sometime after their arrival at the St. Boniface mission in 1844; later they gave the instrument to the parishioners of the Cathedral. One of the nuns, Sister Lagrave, played Dr. Duncan's organ in the Cathedral, but it was lost in the fire that destroyed the fourth Cathedral in 1968.6

An early imported reed organ, built around 1800 by Trayser & Cie, Stuttgart, Germany, was brought from England through York Factory in the mid-1800s, intended for use in a northern diocese of the Anglican church. During the journey the York boat overturned on the Nelson River, but the organ was recovered and brought south to St. Andrew's, where it was left with a local Sunday school teacher who was also the church choir leader. The organ was designed to be carried by four men using poles looped through metal rings, two on either side of the case; this allowed the organ to be moved to and from nearby St. Thomas Church. This instrument, now nearly 200 years old, is in the museum at St. Andrew's-on-the-Red Anglican Church, near Lockport.

Although nineteenth-century reed organs went under different names, all of them used wind-blown metal reeds to produce the sound. The smaller varieties, called melodeons or cottage organs, were compact, table-sized, semi-portable instruments. The larger versions were called harmoniums, cabinet organs, parlour organs, or pump organs, and their wind supply was produced by dual foot treadles that powered the bellows. Their fancy cases, decorated with ornate mouldings and carvings, made them desirable pieces of furniture in Victorian parlours in both city homes and farm dwellings. Larger church models had as many as 20 drawstops and sometimes pedal keyboards; these required an assistant to pump the bellows handle at one side of the case. Often they were mistaken by the public for pipe organs, since some of them had imitation pipes mounted on top of the case.7

Most of the reed organs in Manitoba churches and homes were built in southern Ontario by a few of the larger companies founded in the 1870s and supplied through their agents or retail outlets in Winnipeg. Before rail connections were established with Eastern Canada, organs were transported across the northern United States to St. Paul, Minnesota, and then north to Winnipeg by river boat. One of the largest manufacturers was the Bell Organ and Piano Company (or the Bell Piano and Organ Company, depending on its priorities); one of their large two-manual, 16-stop reed organs, with "mouse-proof" pedals, was installed in St. Alban's Anglican Church, Oak Lake, around 1890, and it is still in use. Other prominent Ontario makers included the Dominion Organ and Piano Company, the W. Doherty Piano and Organ Company, and the Thomas Organ Company. A large two-manual, 20-stop, Doherty instrument, built around 1904, originally in St. Alban's Anglican Church, Snowflake, is still in regular use in St. Andrew's-on-the-Red Anglican Church.

The T. Eaton Company, Winnipeg's largest retail store, sold several models of cabinet reed organs, made by the Goderich Organ Company, through its mail order catalogues around 1900. The basic "Queen" model, with 5 octaves, 10 stops, and 3 sets of reeds, was $29.50; the top-priced "Empress piano-cased" model, with 6 octaves, 12 stops, and 5 sets of reeds, was $75.00 (the lowest priced piano was $150.00). In 1902 J.J.H. McLean's music store invited the public to informal recitals on an automatic self-playing organ, "The Bellolian."

There was competition from American sources, however. In the mid-1870s Winnipeg newspapers carried advertisements by a dealer in St. Paul, Minnesota, offering pianos and organs to Manitoba residents, free of duty. The Manitoba Music Store in Winnipeg offered instruments by both American and Canadian makers, as well as tuning, repairs, and instruction. Several reed organs from the Estey Company, Brattleboro, Vermont, were supplied to Manitoba churches through a Winnipeg agent in the 1880s; a one-manual, 19-stop instrument, with ornamental pipes, now electrified, is still in use in St. Andrew's-on-the-Red Anglican Church.   

A pioneer in Deloraine recalled a large imposing instrument installed in the Presbyterian Church there in 1897. The organ had two manuals and pedals, with ornamental pipes, and was powered by the strong arms of older boys or young men who pumped a heavy handle to inflate the two bellows. She remembered that pumpers earned the reputation of "good pumper" or otherwise. Too much enthusiasm on the part of the pumper made it difficult for the organist to adjust the volume, whereas a "good pumper" had more appreciation for the mood of the music and waited for the signals. One time, during an organ recital, a belt connecting the two bellows broke. The pumper was frantically working the handle, hoping to add more power to the remaining bellows, while the organist was giving signals for more volume, more volume! When the ordeal was over, the pumper was exhausted and drenched with perspiration. That pumper still remembered that occasion vividly at the age of 85.8

A later development of the reed organ was the vocalion, patented in 1872 and first exhibited in 1885, which had a smoother, organ-like tone. It was the instrument of choice for a few churches, but its relatively high cost made it uncompetitive with that of small pipe organs. One organist-critic called vocalions "atrocities." In 1890 McIntosh's Music House in Winnipeg advertised "The Vocalion Organ for Churches, etc; Parlour and Church Organs of every description."

Another variation was a hybrid instrument employing both reeds and pipes to approximate true pipe organ sounds in a less costly instrument. The Compensating Pipe Organ Company, which was in business in Toronto in the early 1900s, offered these instruments to Manitoba purchasers through a Winnipeg dealer, the Grundy Music Company. The company's agent installed a two-manual, 14-stop instrument, with full pedal keyboard, in St. John's Cathedral in 1902, replacing a less powerful model by the same maker:

The St. John's Cathedral is to be congratulated on the installation of its new organ, not only on account of the quality of the instrument, but also on its having been built for the Cathedral in time for the ordination of the new dean.

It is to be conceded that it is a very good thing indeed for churches, large or small, Sunday Schools, concert halls, etc., that it is now brought within their means to obtain a high grade organ, producing genuine pipe organ music, one that takes up less than half the space of any other instrument producing a similar musical result, (thus saving expensive alterations), and one that, as has before been said, can produce such beautiful effects with reeds and pipes, played together, (they can be tuned to each other at any temperament) and one which can be bought for half the price that has hitherto prevailed for instruments of similar volume. Similar musical results have never been produced before.9

Nevertheless, the musical qualities of the organ were not highly regarded by one professional organist: "Compensating organs, of which the less said the better, and which the hearer should be very generously compensated for listening to."10

Although many thousands of reed organs were sold during the peak period of their popularity between 1870 and 1910, their decline in popularity accompanied other innovations in musical entertainment, such as the player piano, the gramophone, and the radio, all of which transferred music appreciation in the home from a participatory activity into a passive one. Few reed organ manufacturers remained in business after 1930, and apart from those few instruments still being played in several rural Manitoba churches, the remaining survivors are collector's items in private homes and museums.

Pipe Organs

The history of pipe organs in Manitoba is largely a chronicle of events in Winnipeg. An expanding urban population, increasing wealth, the growth of the various religious denominations, and the flowering of musical culture all resulted in the construction of a large number of churches within a relatively short span of time. In the French-Canadian community of St. Boniface, three Roman Catholic Cathedrals had been erected in succession (1822, 1833, 1862) before other denominations began to construct their houses of worship in Winnipeg, on the opposite side of the Red River. The first major boom in church building construction began in the 1880s and extended to about 1915. Many of Winnipeg's largest and finest churches were built in these early years. Since many of the business, political, and community leaders, predominantly Anglo-Saxon in origin, were prominent members of the larger city congregations, they undoubtedly exercised considerable influence on decisions regarding the construction of church buildings, as well as on the installation of organs.

The pattern of organ installations in Winnipeg reflected, but did not exactly parallel, the major periods of construction of church buildings. The greatest number of organ installations in the city occurred between 1900 and 1930. In rural centres most of the early churches did not acquire pipe organs immediately, but used reed organs until they could afford pipe organs at a later date. The frequency of known organ installations during the period under consideration is evident in this summary:

                City        Rural     Total

1875-79                2                                2

1880-89                9               1               10

1890-99                6               1               7

1900-09                15            8               23

1910-19                20            3               23

Winnipeg newspapers published reports of the arrival of new organs, along with descriptions of their appearance and mechanical construction, often with complete stoplists. One such account, written by a city organist, assumed a broad educational function by including a lengthy discourse on the place of the organ in church worship, recent mechanical improvements in organ design, and the characteristics of the sound.11

In the 1880s Winnipeg had two or perhaps three organ builders, and it is likely that they were related to one another. The two partners H. W. Bolton and A. B. Handscomb were listed as organ builders in the city in 1883. It was this H. W. Bolton, formerly in Montréal, who submitted an unsuccessful tender in 1884 for the installation of a new organ in All Saints' Anglican Church. There was also Fred W. Bolton, another builder who worked in the city in 1885 and 1886, and Wm. Henry Bolton who was listed as an organ builder only in 1887. In the same year a one-manual, five-stop, pipe organ was installed in the Presbyterian Church, Birtle, Manitoba, by "Messrs. Bolton and Baldwin of Winnipeg." Which of the Boltons was involved in this venture is uncertain. As for the colleague Baldwin, he might have been one of a number of mechanics, fitters, or carpenters working in the city at that time who may have assisted Bolton on a part-time basis. A Bolton pipe organ installed in the Baptist Church, Winnipeg, in 1883 received a brief compliment in the press:

The chief characteristic of the organ is its sweetness of tone. The range of effects is necessarily limited on account of the smallness of the organ, but the delightful mellowness of tone is a great relief from the screaming effects of large and more pretentious instruments.12

Another Bolton organ was installed in Christ Church Anglican, Winnipeg, around 1886, but if any other Bolton organs were installed in Manitoba churches none of them survive, and there is no remaining evidence of the builders' activities in the area. The following sections provide brief accounts of some of the major organ installations in Manitoba in the early years.

St. Boniface Cathedral

The first pipe organ in Manitoba was installed in St. Boniface Cathedral in 1875 by Louis Mitchell, the Montréal builder who accompanied his new instrument across the continent and down the Red River from Moorhead, North Dakota, on the steamboat International. The unloading of the cargo on the St. Boniface side of the river was accomplished with the permission of the customs tax collector at the port of Winnipeg on 14 June 1875; more than fifty men were needed to complete the task.13

A large church organ arrived last Monday on the International for the Cathedral of St. Boniface. It was made in Montréal by Mr. Mitchell, the celebrated organ builder. It is the first church organ imported into the North-West, it is 19 ft high, 12 ft 6 in wide, and 11 ft deep. The case, which is already put up, is in the Grecian style, which is well adapted to the architecture of the Cathedral. The Organ weighs 12,000 pounds and costs over $3,200.

We hear that this new organ will be inaugurated on the 24th inst, upon the occasion of the celebration of St Jean Baptist day, and that there will be in the evening a grand concert at the Cathedral, the proceeds of which will go towards the fund for the completion of the church. All the musicians and artists of the Province will be present on the occasion.14

The organ was the gift of a group of friends of Monseigneur Alexandre Taché in recognition of the thirtieth anniversary of the date of his departure from Québec for the mission at Red River, and of the twenty-fifth anniversary of his appointment as Archbishop of the diocese. At the time of the installation of the organ, about $1,100 had been raised by pupils and associates from the seminary in St. Hyacinthe, Québec. Although the specifications of the organ were not given, the dimensions of the instrument suggest that it may have had about twelve ranks of pipes.

The ultimate destiny of the organ was the first instance of organ recycling. In 1921, when the Cathedral purchased a larger instrument from the First Lutheran Church, Winnipeg, the Mitchell organ was removed and divided into two smaller instruments; one went to a school in St. Boniface, and the other to a mission in Lebret, Saskatchewan, both operated by the Oblate Fathers.15

Holy Trinity Anglican Church

Holy Trinity Anglican Church acquired its first pipe organ in 1878; it was installed by Samuel Warren & Son, a prominent company in the history of Canadian organ building. Warren, a descendant of one of the passengers on the 1620 voyage of The Mayflower, acquired his technical skills in Boston before emigrating to Montréal in 1836, where he built and repaired organs. The family firm moved to Toronto in 1878 and produced more than 350 pipe organs, along with pianos and other musical instruments, until it was sold to another organ company 1896. The newspaper report of the installation described the instrument in some detail:

The organ is from the establishment of Messrs. S. R. Warren & Son of Montréal and Toronto, and does great credit to that well-known firm. Its price is $3,000, and it is a powerful instrument, containing two rows of keys and full pedale, and twenty-four draw stops. Some of these are of exquisite sweetness, particularly the Claribel Flute, the Viol di gamba, and the Oboe in the swell, and the Dulciana and the Harmonic Flute in the great organ.

The case is of chestnut wood with black walnut facings, and the front pipes are beautifully decorated with fleur de lis, and other ecclesiastical designs, in blue, gold and chocolate color. The top is surmounted with carved pinnacles. The body of the organ is contained in a chamber, built specially for the purpose; the front projecting about two feet into the church on the south side of the reading desk, giving a good view to the congregation of the case and ornamented pipes. Mr. Warren having lately visited the principal organ factories in England, France and Germany, now applies to his instruments all the modern improvements, of which we may specially mention the voicing and tuning of the pipes. The present instrument has been carefully constructed in this respect and its builder has succeeded in giving to its notes a softness and sweetness not always heard even in larger and more expensive organs.16

When Holy Trinity Church moved to a new location in 1884, the Warren organ was relocated and enlarged by the builder. It was claimed that the renovated instrument was the largest west of Toronto. The organ was further enlarged eight years later. In 1912 it was replaced by a large four-manual, 50-stop instrument, manufactured by the Canadian Pipe Organ Company, founded two years previously in St. Hyacinthe, Québec, by some staff of Casavant Frères who had decided to go into business on their own. The new organ was again described as the finest in the Canadian West.

St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church

The inauguration of a new organ sometimes was marked not just by the performance of a single recitalist, but by a concert involving the church choir and several soloists. One such concert took place on 20 April 1883, on the occasion of the opening of the new organ at St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church. The event was unusual in one respect; the organ builder, Samuel Mitchell of Montréal, was also the featured recitalist. Probably he was related to Louis Mitchell, who had installed the first organ in St. Boniface Cathedral in 1875. The newspaper report covered both the design of the organ and Mitchell's recital:

St. Mary's Church was well filled last night upon the occasion of the inauguration of the new organ by Mr. Samuel Mitchell of Montreal, one of the builders. The organ stands in the gallery just over the main entrance, and presents a very handsome appearance. The case is Moresque in design, and is richly decorated, the arrangement of colors ornamenting the front pipes being most effective.

The chief characteristic of the organ is its powerful tone, the reeds are voiced to a high pressure, and perhaps a little too coarse to suit the sensitive ear, but upon the whole it is well suited to the purpose for which it is intended.

The medley of National airs played by Mr. Mitchell which came after a short intermission, fully demonstrated the capabilities of the instrument. The imitation of the bagpipes greatly amused the audience, and the last expiring croak at the conclusion of "The Campbells are Comin'" elicited the laughter of all. Mr. Mitchell is a very clever manipulator, and the imitation of the fife and drum band was excellent.17 

Thirty-five years later, the Mitchell organ was replaced by a new two-manual, 18-stop Casavant instrument. This organ, installed in 1918 at a cost of $3,692, would serve the church for a further forty years before being rebuilt by the same company.

Victoria Hall

Winnipeg's Victoria Hall, built in 1883 and later renamed the Winnipeg Theatre and Opera House, was the site for many concerts, musical events, and other entertainments in the early years. Some church congregations held services in the Hall before their own buildings were completed. One of the ventures of the Winnipeg Oratorio Society, which performed there, was to provide an organ for this building. The newspaper account of the forthcoming installation in 1884 pointed out that the 11-stop instrument, whose builder was not identified, was intended to be used instead of a string band and would equal an orchestra of about thirty performers.18 The list of stops included many ranks imitative of orchestral instruments: viol di gamba, horn, concert flute, clarionet, flute, piccolo, violin, and bass.

Grace Methodist Church

The first pipe organ in Grace Methodist Church was installed by S. R. Warren & Son in 1885, but a few years later it had deteriorated to the point of receiving an ultimate insult: "The organ at Grace church has arrived at that state of perfection when it is difficult to tell it from a circus calliope."19 When a new three-manual, 34-stop organ was installed by R. S. Williams & Son, Oshawa, in 1894, the decrepit instrument was transferred to Westminster Presbyterian Church.

The newspaper account of the new installation consisted entirely of a long discourse on the organ's technical innovations, which were thought to be resistant to Winnipeg's severe climatic changes. Even so, more than half of the report of the opening recital by a Minneapolis organist consisted of a series of observations on the theme that the organ needed "a good shaking down," for an intermittently-sounding pedal note marred the opening selection,  and some of the valves were sticking. The instrument tended to go out of tune before the end of the program, perhaps due to a drop in the temperature of the church on the cold December evening. Nevertheless, the voicing was rated as excellent, as were the English-style diapasons and the reeds, some of them imported from France.20

An even more magnificent organ was acquired by the church in 1907: a four-manual, 46-stop instrument built by Casavant Frères, the largest organ in the history of the company to that date. The Casavant brothers, Joseph-Claver and Samuel-Marie, had established their factory in St. Hyacinthe, Québec, in 1879, following several years touring Europe, inspecting organs, and visiting workshops. In the following years their fame spread steadily beyond the towns and cities of Québec. The first Casavant organ in Manitoba was installed in the Parish Church, St. Norbert, just south of Winnipeg, in 1899. During the period under consideration, the company installed eighteen complete instruments in Winnipeg and five in rural towns.

The installation of the new Grace Church organ was celebrated in the evening of New Year's Day 1908 by a concert that included the choir, soloists, and a recital. The newspaper coverage of the event reported that the audience of nearly eight hundred people was delighted with the new "chest of whistles" and with the performance by the organist George Bowles (composer of the operetta, "The Manhaters of Manhattan," a Christmas cantata, and other works, when he was not otherwise occupied as the manager of the Winnipeg's Union Bank), although it was doubted that the ranks of reed pipes would remain in tune due to the severe temperature variations in a church heated by hot air.21

The eventual fate of the Grace Church organ is a unique story in the history of organs in Manitoba. Around 1942 Stuart Kolbinson, then a young man 24 years old, was working with C. Franklin Legge, the Toronto organ manufacturer, servicing a small Winnipeg organ built by a local company, probably Bolton. Legge introduced his assistant to the Grace Church organ, saying,"This will be for sale someday." Legge's prediction proved correct. Although Grace Church was regarded as the mother church of Methodism in the west, the wealthy congregation of the downtown church drifted away into the new city suburbs over the years, and the church building was demolished in 1955 to make way for a parking lot. Kolbinson bought the Casavant instrument for $2,000 and transported it to his prairie farm in the Kindersley district in Saskatchewan, where it was stored for several years. By 1963 Kolbinson had constructed a special building to house the organ, and it was ready to play. As stories of the heritage instrument spread, organists from as far away as Oregon came to try it out. Kolbinson left the farm in 1971 to enter the hotel business in Vancouver, then moved to Victoria, leaving his organ behind at the farm. After selling the farm in 1976, he returned there in 1979 to pack up his organ for the trip to Victoria. Although the organ had remained in an unheated building for several years, it played well except for being a little out of tune. Kolbinson, now retired, built a large extension to his Victoria home, including a bell tower, to accommodate the large instrument. In later years he reflected on his experience:

I have had many difficulties, but it is worth it, and I am sure that after I am gone the organ will still be the pleasure of those who will in the future have care of it. There is no reason why it won't be singing a century from today. . . .

Occasionally I have a visit from someone who knew old Grace Church in its glory days, but as time passes these get fewer as the passing years take their toll. All the clever hands that built [the organ] so well have long since laid down their tools for the last time. All honor to them, who took leather, wood, lead, tin and zinc and fashioned an instrument whose voice shall always sing their praise.22

Presbyterian Church, Birtle

The earliest known installation of a pipe organ in rural Manitoba was in a small town in western Manitoba; it was made by Bolton, the Winnipeg builder active in the 1880s. This chronicle of events appeared in a report of the state of music in the town at the time:

On his arrival here in 1882 your correspondent found only one miserable little melodeon and two pianos in the whole place. . . . Early in the spring of 1887 the Presbyterians, who had been holding their services in the Town Hall, decided to build a church of their own and succeeded in erecting and opening a very comfortable building by the 19th of June, but not satisfied with this they went a step further and substituted a small but good pipe organ" for the reed organ they had hitherto used. They now claim [incorrectly] to have the only pipe organ in the country west of Winnipeg. It was built by Messrs. Bolton and Baldwin of Winnipeg and is valued at $1000. At present it has only one manual with four stops, viz:--open diapason, stopped diapason, dulciana and principal and a Burdon [sic] set of pedal pipes, it also has a tremolo and swell box. This is just a start, I have no hesitation in saying that in another year or two there will be an addition to it in the way of a "swell organ" which will give them an A 1 instrument for a small church. On the evening of October 29th we opened the organ with a concert and organ recital. . . .

In conclusion I think you will agree with me that this is quite a go-ahead little town. This last year we have built two churches worth $5000, placed a $1000 pipe organ in one of them and subscribed over $200 to a band, all this is a town of less than 3000 inhabitants.23

All Saints' Anglican Church

In 1883 a new site was selected for All Saints' Anglican Church, and within a year services were conducted in the unfinished building. One of the ideals of the founders of this parish was that worship services should place more emphasis on the musical and ritualistic aspects of worship than was customary in Anglican churches in Winnipeg at the time. Accordingly, the nucleus of a substantial organ fund was established by the Ladies' Aid Society in 1884; even the Girls' Guild obtained some money from their activities that they wished to save for the organ. One aspect of the fund- raising activities of the Ladies' Aid Society received strong criticism in this anonymous letter:

Ch. of All Sts. has just been formally opened by the Bishop of Ruperts Land. 2 things in connection with the church and its opening are public property, and neither is creditable to those concerned. . . . [One] matter is the illegal, immoral lottery which the church is sanctioning for the benefit of the organ fund. A bed quilt or something of the sort is to be gambled for, the proceeds of the swindle to go to the church. All Saints Church is improperly named, it should be called All Sinners. To expect true Christianity in a fashionable church seems as absurd as to expect to find decency in a monkey house.24

Three builders submitted tenders for the proposed organ: H. W. Bolton, S.R. Warren & Son, and Casavant Frères. The successful applicant was Warren, who berated Bolton in several letters to church officials, referring to another organ that Warren had been asked to rebuild:

We are aware that there is a builder in Winnipeg but we should think that your congregation would hardly care to take the risk of entrusting the work to a man who has made so many disgraceful failures as the Queen's Hall organ in Montréal and in fact everything he has attempted.25

The decision on the organ was deferred until the debt on the church building was paid off. Finally, the new instrument was installed in 1891 and duly reported in the press:

Mr. Shaw of Messrs. Warren & Son, Toronto, is in the city placing the new organ in All Saints' Church, built by his firm, in position. The instrument has been carefully planned and the stops chosen for balance of power and variety of tone. It has two manuals with five stops on each and provision for two more on the swell and one on the great. Artistically, it will be a great improvement to the church, the front bracketed out into the chancel, projecting about two feet,. and the pipes are tastefully decorated.26

During the war years 1914-17 it was decided that a new pipe organ would provide a fitting war memorial, and a committee was formed:

The result of this committee's work was the placing of an order with Messrs. Casavant Frères of Québec, the well-known manufacturers, for a new pipe organ at a price of $8,344 to be delivered in July 1917 . . . and it is pleasant to relate that the Ladies' Aid Society again came to the front and very generously offered to meet each installment of $500 with interest as the same matured. The organ was duly installed as a memorial to the men of All Saints' who fell in the war and was dedicated on Sunday the 16th September 1917, the Church being crowded. The old organ was at the desire of the Ladies' Aid Society presented to the Congregation of St. Alban's Church in the City of Winnipeg.27

This article will be continued.

Herbert L. Huestis, Ph.D., is a graduate of the Eastman School of Music, where he studied with David Craighead. He is a pipe organ technician in British Columbia and Washington State, where he specializes in restoring and renovating vintage reed stops.

A common story of many an American organ builder's career is that they apprenticed in America and subsequently traveled to Europe where they experienced the work of the old masters in Groningen, Arlesheim, Upsala, or some small village in Friesland. Having embraced these historic ideals, they returned to America to establish themselves as builders of modern tracker organs.

Martin Pasi's pursuit of the art of organ building is a similar adventure in reverse. He was born the fifth of six children on December 21, 1953 in Bregenz, Austria, on Lake Constance. Martin trained at Rieger Orgelbau in Schwarzach, just six miles from his home, then discovered the fervor and passion of historic organ building in America. Ultimately he fulfilled his dream of becoming an organ builder near Tacoma, Washington, where he builds organs that are very much in the spirit of the old masters.

After completing a business course in high school, Martin worked in a local office long enough to discover that the world of commerce was not for him. His father, Kassian Pasi, had been a wood worker and to Martin, working with his hands made more sense than filling out forms. Rieger Orgelbau was near his home and he applied for an apprenticeship. (See sidebar on European training for organ builders.) His first year at Rieger was spent in the woodworking department building organ cases. At the end of that time, he completed a case on his own. In his second year, he was assigned to the console division, then in general assembly. As an apprentice in that department, Martin began to travel with pipe voicers to do field installations of new organs.

It was his good fortune to assist a voicer who was impressed with his skill and his ear. This led to an assignment in the voicing department for the remainder of his apprenticeship. Work in voicing took him to Australia, Africa, the U.S., and many places in Europe. On one occasion he was sent to voice an organ in Liberia--the organ blower was not installed correctly, and had burned out! To complete the voicing, the organ had to be pumped by hand.

On a trip to Cleveland, Ohio, Martin visited Charles Ruggles' organ shop to borrow some tools. By chance he met Charles' sister Barbara and the rest is an organbuilder's fairy tale. They were married and traveled coast to coast voicing for Rieger. With his fate sealed by marriage, he joined the Karl Wilhelm shop and moved to St. Hilaire, Quebec.

In his new home, Martin discovered vastly different aspects of North American and European organ building. Acoustics (or a lack thereof) were apparent; however, one of the real benefits that Martin discovered in his new homeland was that churches are heated. A winter installation or rebuilding project in a frosty European cathedral can be a real trial and it was a relief to work in comfortable surroundings during the winter! The reader can imagine how quickly pipes heat to the voicer's touch when they are far below room temperature--and how many times they have to be cut before the pitch stabilizes.

Martin's initial curiosity about historic organs began when he met Susan Tattershall, who was working in Rieger's restoration department. In 1986, while working on the west coast, he met David Dahl and Paul Fritts at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington. There, he discovered the energy and commitment to the historic style of organ building that is the hallmark of David Dahl, Paul Fritts, and Ralph Richards. He joined the firm of Fritts & Richards as a pipe maker and participated in the construction of several major pipe organs in Washington, including Gethsemany Lutheran Church in Seattle, the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, and the University of Washington in Seattle.

By 1990, Martin was able to open his own shop with fellow organ builder Halbert Gober, whom he had met some years previously at Karl Wilhelm's shop in Quebec. They were joined by Markus Morscher, a master woodworker that Martin had known in Austria. They had the good fortune to buy a surplus elementary school, complete with classrooms, offices and gymnasium. The school had been closed, so Martin went directly to the school board with a proposal to put an organ shop there. This small school building became an organ shop with all the "extras," including a complete pipe making facility, capable of turning out hammered lead pipes. Eventually, Halbert Gober returned to Canada to open a shop of his own in Toronto, Ontario, where, like Martin, he makes hand crafted organs.

Throughout his organ building career, Martin Pasi has encouraged young organ builders to come to his shop for additional experience in the "journey" phase of their European training. A number of aspiring organ builders have spent a year as a journeyman in Martin's shop before returning to Europe for their "Master's" study.

It is especially notable that Martin looks at pipe making as the most integral and to some extent, mystical element of the organ building process. Since the success of pipe making springs from the pouring of the metal, much care has to be taken from the very beginning. Even the choice of a casting day is somewhat folkloric. Some say the stars have to be in order and certain astrological signs should agree. Martin finds no fault with these considerations.

His drawings show strong respect for the pipes as the foundation of the organ. The facade usually comprises many pipes, including the principal rank which is the heart of the organ. He feels that every aspect of pipe making affects the ultimate beauty of the organ and that personality of the organ is formed from the casting day onwards. He says that he builds organs the only way he knows how--from the pipes outward.

He makes his pipes the same way they were made in the fifteenth century. This process starts with the first sweep of molten metal down the length of the casting bench. He describes the process with a characteristic understatement:

     "Casting to thickness is not that hard, really. You have to have a steady hand as you guide the liquid metal down the canvas. It's a matter of how fast or slow you go."

Martin points out that most organ factories plane pipe metal to thickness. But control of the casting process allows him to pour the metal directly to thickness and hammer it for stiffness and its best tonal qualities. The metal that is destined for the top of each pipe is scraped so that the upper rim of the pipe will be thin for cone tuning. Relatively few organ builders master the art of casting metal to exact thicknesses required for a full range of organ pipes, without resorting to a planer.

Martin's pipes are made of metal that is mostly lead, with a very small percentage of antimony and other metals. This gives the lead a stiffness that it would not have if it were absolutely pure. In his shop, scales and patterns are calibrated in traditional ways, but he is no stranger to the computer. He keeps careful records of historic organ scales that will be applicable to his organs. This is evident in the wide variety of reed stops which he has made. But there is also a strong sense of uniformity in his organs. There is a sound that is present in every one which must surely come from his homeland. It is a pure and deep fundamental tone like the baryton horn that Martin played during his school years near the shores of Lake Constance.

Opus List

Opus 1    Table Regal 8' (Residence, Dr. Craig Cramer)

Opus 2    2 manuals and pedal. 18 stops, Coral Isles Church, Tavernier, Florida. (Completed Summer of 1992)

Opus 3    2 manuals and pedal, 9 stops, Jannine Cansler residence, Portland Oregon. (Completed June of 1993)

Opus 4    2 manuals and pedal, 29 stops, Trinity Lutheran Church, Lynnwood, Washington. (Completed February 1995)

Opus 5    2 manuals and pedal, 24 stops, Lola Wolf residence, Kirkland, Washington. (Completed July of 1996)

Opus 6    1 manual, Sitka, Alaska. (Restoration of Kessler organ from Estonia, 1844)

Opus 7    2 manuals and pedal, 27 stops, First Church of Christ Scientist, La Mesa, California. (Completed February of 1997)

Opus 8    3 stop continuo organ, St. Mark's Cathedral, Seattle, Washington. (Completed 1996)

Opus 9    2 manuals and pedal, 7 stops,  St. Augustine's in the Woods Freeland, Washington. (Completed November of 1997)

Opus 10   2 manuals and pedal, 30 stops, West Vancouver United Church Vancouver, British Columbia. (Completed Spring of 1998)

In Progress

Opus 11   2 manuals and pedal, 32 stops with 32' in pedal for St. Augustine Catholic Church, Spokane, Washington. (Completion in May, 1999)

Opus 12   2 manuals and pedal 12 stops, residence organ for Mr. Richard Kirkland in Pasadena, California. (Completion in Fall of 1999)

Opus 13   2 manuals and pedal, 29 stops, Bedford Presbyterian Church, Bedford, New York. (Completion in Fall of 2000)

Opus 14   3 manuals and pedal, 54 stops (dual temperament), St. Cecilia RC Cathedral, Omaha, Nebraska. (Completion in Fall of 2002)

A Thumbnail Sketch of European Training in Organ Building

Briefly, here are the steps involved in a European training program in Organ Building:

Sign up a 4 year "apprentice" contract with a major organ building firm.

Enroll in the "Instrumentenmacherschule" in Ludwigsburg, Germany (or its equivalent). Attend a three month period of instruction each year.

Pass exam for "journeyman papers" (Gesellenbrief) for organ building.

Spend 3 "traveling" years as journeyman organ builder. The organ builder is on his own, participating in recognized organ builder's shops.

Attend Instrumentenmacherschule for one additional year. The applicant is expected to build an organ entirely on his own and complete course work that includes "business theory."

A Remembrance

Herbert L. Huestis is a graduate of the Eastman School of Music, where he studied organ with David Craighead 40 years ago. After a stint as a full-time church organist, he studied psychology and education at the University of Idaho, obtaining his Ph.D. in 1971. He spent time as a school psychologist, and was subsequently lured back into the organ world and took up pipe organ maintenance with his wife Marianne and son Warren. Now retired, he spends time tuning pianos and reconditioning harpsichords.

News of organbuilder Hellmuth Wolff’s passing on November 20, 2013, was not unexpected, but still came as a surprise and shock. He was 76 years old. Hellmuth had sent a message to let us know that he was afflicted with an asbestos-related lung condition. Twenty years ago, on one of his visits to Vancouver, I had noted that he was not much of a hiker. His respiratory difficulties had been evident for years, but it was a shock to hear that his condition was asbestos-related. Blower boxes? That seemed to be the only source in an organ. However, he may have been installing organs in auditoriums and churches where asbestos would have been disturbed in the bad old days. One can only speculate.

Nevertheless, when the news came, it hit hard. Hellmuth had been a friend for a long time and since the days when I had made a reputation as “The Reed Doctor,” he mentored me on the intricacies of voicing of tongue and shallot, much to my benefit. He was indeed a master of voicing, and to the best of my knowledge, his reputation as one of the finest organbuilders rested entirely on the elegance of the organ pipes, cases, and playing actions in all 50 organs of his making.

Hellmuth Wolff, born in Zurich, Switzerland, September 3, 1937, brought to Canada a strong sensibility of the historical traditions of organ building. While his instruments have modern attributes, they reflect exacting organ building according to authentic principles and practices. He was one of the key players in the revival movement of organ building in North America. He played the piano and received organ lessons from Bernard Lagacé in Montréal.  

He apprenticed with Metzler Orgelbau in Switzerland, then worked for Rieger Orgelbau of Schwarzach, Vorarlberg, Austria, Charles Fisk of Gloucester, Massachusetts, and Otto Hofmann in Austin, Texas, before emigrating to Canada in 1963 to be a designer in the new mechanical action department of Casavant Frères of St-Hyacinthe, Québec. 

He worked briefly with Karl Wilhelm before establishing his own firm in 1968 in Laval, Québec. By 1997, he had built 40 organs, ranging in size from one stop to 50 stops. Wolff’s largest organ is of 61 stops, 85 ranks, which he installed in Christ Church Cathedral, Victoria, British Columbia, in 2005. 

Our professional relationship was that of teacher and student, and our personal relationship was a long-distance friendship. He never gave up trying to teach me French, and though I had written my Ph.D. language exams in French on economic history, one does not learn a language by barely passing an exam, even though the reader can imagine my elation at passing on the first try. Hellmuth sent me Québéçois jokes from the newspaper, which I would figure out after several readings. He never gave up.

Hellmuth was involved in a proposal for a Vancouver church, which brought him to the left coast many times, and to our home. Our daughter Amy-Claire finished her baccalaureate degree at Concordia and found employment when needed, with Hellmuth and Guy Thérien. As an ‘organ helper’ she learned how to lie to the nuns if she had to play hooky and managed to holler in French to her technician supervisor that she had spilled glue on a reservoir. Necessity is the mother of invention; Hellmuth had her make paintings for the door panels of his house organ. She worked on and off at the shop, on everything from high-art painting of organ panels to leathering bellows. One time when I called her, she was sorting trackers.

It was always a pleasure to see Hellmuth and his wife Claudette. They had a lovely old Steinway grand piano that had seen better days. On one visit I tuned it so Bach inventions would sound right, and learned later that he had had it rebuilt. 

I inspired him once and he inspired me many, many times.

Hellmuth always had a sparkle in his eye. It seemed to inspire his organ building team, and it certainly impressed me when I would visit his shop to assist in the voicing of reeds. It was usually summer time, and he would put me out in front, by the large door to his shop, open to the street, first in line when the postman and other callers came looking for him. I tried to learn a new word in French every day. They were not enough, but they helped!

That Vancouver client had contacted a number of organ builders, and the kink in the project was a single donor, who really did not want to see a change in the old organ, at least in appearance. Any organ builder knows that story, and the project eventually devolved into a ‘rebuild’ project by my staff, when it had been earnestly hoped that a Wolff organ would be the result. Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, we all made the best of it, leaving the Wolff shop preciously short of work, right then.

You might say this resulted in an experiment, carried out with the blessings of organist, technicians, and organ builder. We enclosed two divisions of the electro-pneumatic organ in organ cases from Hellmuth’s shop, and put to rest, at least in our minds, the notion that thick cases make for more expressive pipe divisions. Thin, resonant panels, tracker-organ style, made an extremely expressive result. The organ has tremendous expressive volume from low to high dynamic. Partner James Louder assisted us with planning for construction and installation, and the result was nothing short of fantastic. 

And a lull in work at the Wolff shop was avoided. It takes much humility and resilience to go for that kind of solution to an economic slump—and a long-term friendship between fellow organ builders.

Working on reed tongues with Hellmuth was tremendously inspiring. He would hold each tongue up to the light, check for flat spots, and meticulously curve for the smoothest upturn. He would work with me side by side, then leave me on my own, when I had a sense of what I was doing. Opus 47, the largest organ he made, for Christ Church Cathedral in Victoria, had a wide variety of national reed styles, and offered me the chance to work with a master of reed voicing for which I have always been enormously grateful. He worked side by side with all his employees, which I observed to be the most productive management style possible. My daughter Amy was once again involved in the project—this time, participating in the production of the maquette (scale model), which was an integral part of his organ-building process. 

We would get together for conferences and fell into the habit of chumming with Martin Pasi, always a pleasant experience. 

My visits to the shop came right at the end of Hellmuth’s partnership with James Louder. I liked James very much and was sad to see him depart after 26 years. This happened at the time of my retirement and to my delight James bought my reed-voicing jack, which Martin Pasi had made for me years before. I was always in love with that little one-stop organ, and it had seen many successful jobs come and go. Somehow, I always thought of that voicing jack as a peace offering between two long-term partners in organ building. James wrote a very touching tribute to Hellmuth, which I have quoted, and which appears at the end of this remembrance. 

Hellmuth’s friendship had a domestic quality that I loved very much. He would tell me stories of how he met Claudette Begin at a concert, where she was handing out programs. It was a real romance and made a great story. He and Claudette were very inclusive and treated me like a member of the family, when I visited Laval, and my wife Marianne and I included them in our family when they were in Vancouver. We shall miss Hellmuth very much, and remember him with great fondness, and wish Claudette, Martin, Maya, and his extended family the best possible future in his absence. 

I can only echo the kind tribute from James Louder, who said:

Hellmuth was dearly loved and deeply respected by innumerable lovers of the organ . . . who will mourn his death but will long celebrate his art. Hellmuth’s true monument will be his work, fifty of the finest organs built in our time . . . Thank you for everything, my dear Hellmuth, and farewell.

The Odyssey of an Organbuilder

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

Introduction

The careers of numerous American organbuilders in the late 19th and early 20th centuries are the story of a journey—from Europe to the United States or from shop to shop. From Germany came George Kilgen and Philipp Wirsching; from England John T. Austin, Octavius Marshall, and Henry Pilcher. In the U.S., Adolph Reuter’s sojourn took him from Barckhoff to Pilcher, Verney, Casavant (South Haven), and Wicks before he founded his own firm first in Trenton, Illinois, and then Lawrence, Kansas. A. G. Sparling moved from Lyon & Healy to Stevens to Holtkamp. These individuals and their firms are typical of the rich and colorful history of pipe organ building in America. Yet perhaps none of them comes close to the odyssey of Stanley Wyatt Williams 1881–1971 (see photo). Williams’ lifetime spans the arc of his era—from Robert Hope-Jones to G. Donald Harrison (Aeolian-Skinner) with stops at Electrolian, Wirsching, Murray Harris, Robert-Morton, Kimball, and E. M. Skinner. His talents as a voicer and tonal finisher played a pivotal role in the succession of nameplates in the U.S. West Coast pipe organ industry, and his stellar reputation led to important sales by recognized national builders.

Early Life

Stanley Wyatt Williams was born in London on October 29, 1881, the youngest of four sons and two daughters of George Edward Williams, who described himself as a “gentleman,” having made a comfortable living in the brewing industry. His family was musical; his mother sang a solo for Queen Victoria, and each of the sons was taught a musical instrument.1 As he recalled many years later: “I was always a little bit crazy about organs, not that I knew anything about them.”2 After attending the Mostyn House School in Cheshire and the Whitgift Grammar School at Croydon, Surrey, he enrolled in Dulwich College (southeast of London), founded in 1619.3 G. Donald Harrison graduated from there some years later. Suffering a health setback, Williams withdrew from school on the advice of a London physician.4 In the ensuing soul-searching, a well-known London organist, Charles Lawrence, took him to see an organbuilder and the instrument in the builder’s home. “That interested me more than ever,” he later commented, and he determined to become an organbuilder.5 His daughter, Mary Cowell, recalled that the family apparently was none too pleased with his choice of vocation, considering organbuilding a “trade” and thus beneath the dignity of their aristocratic image.6 Nonetheless his father paid the two or three hundred pounds required to enroll him as an apprentice to the legendary organbuilder, Robert Hope-Jones.7

An electrical engineer by profession who held an important position with the National Telephone Company in Liverpool, Hope-Jones was organist and choirmaster of St. John’s Church in Birkenhead, across the Mersey River from Liverpool. With local financial backing he organized the Hope-Jones Organ Company in Birkenhead, building instruments first in the factory of Norman & Beard in Norwich, and then in the Ingram, Hope-Jones shop in Hereford.8 Williams joined him in 1899 at age 18 (see photo, page 25). He couldn’t have found a better teacher or a more prophetic environment in which to acquire organbuilding skills and prepare for what would become a most interesting career. “As an apprentice . . . I was assigned to work at every phase of organ building. I voiced, I carpentered, I electrified—everything about organbuilding had to be learned. It was something I was later very grateful for.”9 “Not only a genius, but a great teacher,” said Williams of Hope-Jones: “He taught all of us to think for ourselves.”10

The controversial and enigmatic Hope-Jones would exert a profound and far-reaching influence on the King of Instruments through his revolutionary tonal and mechanical innovations. He pioneered what would emerge as the symphonic-orchestral voicing paradigm that swept the American industry in the 1920s. This type of instrument was marked by an ensemble of different tonal groups all at the same pitch, in contrast to the time-honored chorus of different pitches within the same tonal family. Mixtures and mutations were discarded and replaced with unison voices of comparatively wide or narrow scale pipes on higher wind pressures. The entire instrument was enclosed.11 Hope-Jones’s mechanical inventions included double-touch, a key characteristic of theatre organs, and high resistance electro-magnets requiring very little current.12

After completing shop routines, Williams joined the road crew and worked on the organ in the Hereford cathedral. There he met and fell in love with Isabel Robbins, whom he would marry in January 1908. When Hope-Jones immigrated to the United States in the spring of 1903, Stanley elected to remain with the former partner, Eustace Ingram, finishing instruments then under construction. A fellow worker asked whether he had ever considered moving to the States, and told him that an American firm, the Electrolian Company of Hoboken, New Jersey, was looking for a voicer. He interviewed, accepted an offer, and bidding farewell to his sweetheart in Hereford crossed the Atlantic in 1906.13 Williams was to be among several former Hope-Jones apprentices who came to America.14

The Land of Opportunity

Voicers are the cornerstone of any organbuilding enterprise. Stanley Williams was called to voice and finish instruments built by the Los Angeles Art Organ Company, now relocated to Hoboken and renamed the Electrolian Organ Company.15 He installed and finished the Electrolian-built 19-rank, two-manual and pedal instrument in the Wolcott School in Denver, Colorado (among whose pupils was Mamie Dowd, the future wife of President Dwight Eisenhower), and finished an instrument built for a Presbyterian church in Philadelphia. His reputation as a gifted voicer and finisher soon became well-known, for, as he later recounted, when he returned from Philadelphia to Hoboken, seven job offers awaited him.16 The Electrolian assets were next acquired by the legendary Philipp Wirsching of Salem, Ohio, whom Stanley met when he finished the instrument Wirsching built in 1907 for Our Lady of Grace Roman Catholic Church in Hoboken.17 Wirsching moved the business to Ohio, and Stanley joined him there.

Among the Electrolian assets Wirsching acquired was a contract for a two-manual and pedal organ with player attachment for the new palace of the Maharaja of Mysore, India. In January 1908, Williams returned to England, married his sweetheart Isabel, and in July the couple set sail for India to install the organ, traveling through the Mediterranean and the Suez Canal.18 This was to be the “Great Adventure,” surely one of the most fantastic episodes (see photo, page 25) in the history of organbuilding the world over, and long a familiar topic of conversation in the rich folklore of the industry (see James Stark and Charles Wirsching Jr., The Great Adventure, forthcoming). Stanley and Isabel returned to England in January 1910, and in March sailed for America where Stanley resumed work with Wirsching.

While finishing an instrument in Terre Haute, Indiana, Williams received a telegram from the Murray M. Harris Organ Company in Los Angeles asking him to come to the West Coast to finish voicing the instrument they were building for St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Los Angeles19 (see stoplist). Charles McQuigg, the Harris head voicer, had left the company, no doubt mindful of its precarious financial condition.20 Williams responded, completed the assignment, and returned to Ohio. Then the Harris people, having recognized his skills and eager to maintain their reputation for fine instruments, offered him the head voicer position in the newly reorganized firm. Williams accepted and moved to Los Angeles in 1911 where he would remain for the balance of his career. As David Lennox Smith, Harris scholar, observed: “the most notable addition to the staff of the Murray M. Harris Company in its final years was Stanley Wyatt Williams.”21

Los Angeles Organbuilders

At the turn of the century the market for the King of Instruments on the West Coast was vibrant and growing rapidly, built upon the tidal wave of immigration and the rapid pace of church construction in the emerging metropolitan landscapes. Moreover, the spirit of enterprise was everywhere, marked by numerous “self-made” men eager to apply their talents and fortunes to railroad building, telegraph, mercantile trade, real estate development—and organbuilding. Local businessmen and their funding initially played a pivotal role in the succession of organbuilder nameplates in Los Angeles, as they did in establishing the industry elsewhere, for example, in Erie, Pennsylvania.22 But these “outsiders” invested with virtually no inkling of the inherently high-risk business of building pipe organs. Cost estimating, pricing, competition, and, especially, critical problems of cash flow vexed most builders and overwhelmed others.23 As Stanley explained: “You had to watch your pennies very closely to have a couple left when you finished an organ.”24 For a while the euphoric atmosphere of large buildings, talented employees, and fine, heavily publicized instruments masked these fundamental concerns. But before long financial realities took over.

Murray M. Harris

Organbuilding in Los Angeles began in 1895 when Fletcher & Harris built a two-manual instrument for the Church of the Ascension, Episcopal, in Sierra Madre.25 Murray M. Harris (1866–1922), a skilled voicer who had apprenticed with Hutchings in Boston, continued on his own. In 1900 he recruited a cadre of skilled artisans led by William Boone Fleming (1849–1940) who became superintendent. Harris acquired a spacious factory building and prospered by building instruments for the local market.26 In July 1900, the firm was incorporated as the Murray M. Harris Organ Company and capitalized at $100,000.27 In 1903 Harris contracted to build a 140-stop Audsley-designed instrument for the St. Louis Exposition. It was to be voiced, at Audsley’s request, by John W. Whitely, a well-known English voicer, described as “one of the pioneer spirits in the Birkenhead shops of Mr. Hope-Jones.”28 The St. Louis organ was something of a watershed in American organbuilding history. As David Lennox Smith commented: “The influence of the St. Louis organ could soon be seen in the String Organ divisions, multiple enclosures, and other new features that were included with growing frequency in specifications for large new organs.”29

Soon financial problems began that would continue to plague Harris. Working capital proved inadequate to finish the mammoth St. Louis instrument. In August 1903, the Los Angeles Times reported that shareholders, including Harris, his wife Helen, and others, were delinquent in court-ordered assessments of $10 per share on their stock. The problem resulted when only 352 shares, par value $100 per share, were actually subscribed, and thus of the authorized capitalization of $100,000, only $35,200 was paid-in and perhaps even less. The court stipulated that the additional stock be auctioned off at the company offices to acquire the funds necessary to keep operating.30

Enter Eben Smith, an archetypical entrepreneur who was described in the press as a “mining man” and “Colorado banker.” He had made a fortune in Colorado silver mines and was president of the Pacific Wireless Telephone Company.31 Smith purchased 500 shares of Harris stock, thereby acquiring a controlling interest in the business. He renamed it the Los Angeles Art Organ Company.32 In 1905 a patent infringement lawsuit threatened the company with liquidation, whereupon key employees, led by Fleming, moved east for a brief sojourn in Hoboken, New Jersey, under the name of Electrolian Organ Company.33 By September 1907, the employees, minus Fleming (who moved to Philadelphia where he was subsequently employed to superintend the installation of the St. Louis Exposition organ in the Wanamaker store), were back in Los Angeles, having joined the reorganized Murray M. Harris Organ Company.34 The head voicer was now Charles W. McQuigg, a protegé of John W. Whitely, who had remained in Los Angeles and served briefly as the Pacific Coast representative of the Barckhoff Church Organ Company of Pomeroy, Ohio.35

St. Paul’s Episcopal Church and First Church of Christ, Scientist

The 1911 instrument Stanley Williams was called to voice and finish reflected the manifold changes in stoplist design and voicing taking place in the industry. With Harris’s training at Hutchings and acquaintance with other work in the east, it was not surprising that his early stoplists closely paralleled the work of these builders.36 The 1901 Murray Harris at Stanford University is a good example. As described by Manuel Rosales, who restored this instrument in 1986, the Stanford Harris was a typical 19th-century instrument featuring a well-developed principal chorus on the Great, a secondary chorus on the Swell, and a small Choir organ with not a full chorus but other colors. The voicing, on three to four inches wind pressure, was gentle and clear. Flutes were not exaggerated, i.e., no tibia tone, strings were precise and clear, and pedal stops were well balanced with the manuals. In contrast, the St. Paul’s specification (see stoplist, page 24) was confined to an ensemble of unison and octave voices at 16¢, 8¢, and 4¢ pitches, with emphasis on the 8¢ voice, representing the trend of the day. Diapason scales were much larger, and string scales much smaller than in earlier instruments.37 This characteristic most likely reflected the influence of John Whitely, the voicer who was closely associated with Audsley and who joined Harris in 1903, as well as Charles McQuigg, said to have “absorbed much of Whitely’s technic and ideal.”38

The first organ where Stanley’s design influence is found is the 1912 instrument for the First Church of Christ, Scientist, Los Angeles (see stoplist). Having also felt the impress of Whitely in England, he substituted a Tibia Clausa, a Hope-Jones stop, for the customary Gross Flute on the Great.39 But as Rosales points out, the absence of a tremolo on this division indicates this voice was viewed as filling out the ensemble, in contrast to a solo voice as found in a theatre organ. This organ contained a Dolce Cornet on the Swell and a 22?3' and 2' on the Great in what might be termed a vestigial chorus, but in no way could it be considered a well-developed Great chorus, which by this time had largely disappeared from American stoplists. What emerges is an accompanimental instrument in which the high-pressure Tuba, dominating the ensemble or playing solo against it, is symbolic of the trend.40

Tonal Philosophy, 1913

Williams’ expertise in voicing and finishing was soon recognized. In February 1913, he was the featured speaker at a meeting of the Los Angeles Chapter of the American Guild of Organists.41 His comments reflected his knowledge of English organbuilding, his background with Hope-Jones, and focused on the character and content of foundation tone. True diapason tone must predominate, he asserted. Subject to broad limits, it is bounded by string tone at one end of the spectrum and flute tone at the other. Old diapasons were “mellow and sweet,” a cantabile sound suited to today’s Choir organ. He faulted “Old Masters” for failing to preserve the character and power of voicing throughout the entire compass, which he attributed to imperfect scaling. The prevalence of upperwork and the introduction of “harsh” reeds, in the middle of the 19th century, overbalanced diapason tone, Williams said, leading cynics to refer to the “sausage frying” sound of a full Swell. To remedy this result, diapasons were increased in scale and number. Hard, stringy and nasal, they were brilliant in a way that favored upper partials, sacrificing fundamental tone and thereby blending well with mutations and reeds. Then the pendulum swung back to the other extreme and high-cut mouths produced a flabby tone devoid of the necessary partials and bordering on the fluty.'
He outlined the foundations of a three-manual organ, reflecting the Hope-Jones influence and the tastes of the time. On the Great manual the first diapason should be large scale and with a leathered lip; the second diapason, of medium scale, not leathered, but not in any way stringy. The third should be a “mild and sweet” voice, and quite soft, much like the work of Father Bernard Smith. On the Swell, a Hope-Jones phonon-type should be the first diapason, large scale and leather-lipped, necessary to balance the Swell reeds. The second should be a violin or horn diapason. For the choir organ, a mild geigen or gemshorn was the preferred voice. He cautioned that every stop in a well-voiced organ must have its “individuality,” and lamented builder fads, which he found detrimental to the advancement of the instrument. He challenged organists and organbuilders to work together to uphold the dignity of the instrument and its music to insure its high place in the church service. Williams’ comments offer an interesting contrast to today’s perspective and were superseded in his own thinking as reflected in his work with Kimball and Skinner.

Murray M. Harris, continued

In 1912, a year after Williams joined the Harris firm, financial problems reappeared. Murray Harris sold his interest to a retired mining man from Mexico named Heuer, who soon became disillusioned with the meager (if any) profits in organbuilding, and sold out.42 In August 1913, control of the company passed to E. S. Johnston, former manager of the Eilers Music Company in Los Angeles, who in November that year advertised the Johnston Organ and Piano Manufacturing Company as successor to the Murray M. Harris Co.43 Johnston and real estate developer Suburban Homes then agreed to build a 75,000 square foot factory in Van Nuys, which opened in November 1913. Soon, however, working capital was again exhausted. Johnston and his partner Bell journeyed east in search of funds but apparently returned empty-handed.44 Then Suburban Homes of Van Nuys, having turned down Johnston’s plea for financial backing, were the new owners by default. They renamed the business California Organ Company and promptly palmed it off to the Title Insurance and Trust Company of Los Angeles, holders of the mortgage on the factory building.45

Robert-Morton Organ Company

At this time a sea change was taking place in the whole concept of pipe organs and in the industry that built them. The theatre market, with its radically different instrument, was growing rapidly, having displaced the higher-cost pit orchestra. Equipped with tibias, kinuras and other voices as well as traps and toy counters, these instruments were ideally suited for accompanying silent movies. The Rudolph Wurlitzer Company, whose name would soon become the generic term for the theatre pipe organ, was already enjoying a nationwide business. Within less than ten years, organbuilding in America would be virtually divided into two separate industries, with Wurlitzer, Robert-Morton, Barton, Link, Marr & Colton, Page, and Geneva identified almost exclusively with the theatre paradigm. Other builders, although they built theatre organs, were primarily identified with the church instrument and market.
The California Organ Company was at a crossroads. Would they continue in the church organ industry, now well established nationwide and well represented on the West Coast? Or would they recognize and capitalize on the growing theatre organ market? The resources were in place in Van Nuys: a well-appointed modern factory, skilled artisans, and a talented, experienced senior management, which together had guaranteed the succession of nameplates. As the late Tom B’hend, whose research chronicles much of the history of this era, observed: “The Wurlitzer Hope-Jones instruments were gaining popularity; the unit principle was being accepted without reserve by up and coming theatre organists . . . If the California Organ Company were to enter the theatre field, it would be necessary to produce a unit instrument of comparable quality.”46 With his rich background as an apprentice of Hope-Jones, who could be better qualified to design and build such an instrument than Stanley Williams? As Williams later reflected: “I was the one man on the West Coast who could put this sort of instrument into production.”47

Enter the American Photo Player Company of Berkeley, California. In 1912 this firm produced a small tubular-pneumatic pit instrument combining a few ranks of flue pipes and perhaps a reed stop with a piano. Booming sales and nationwide distribution alerted them to the tremendous potential for a unit theatre organ.48 Negotiations beginning in the spring of 1916 led to the merger of the California Organ and American Photo Player companies and on May 2, 1917, the Robert-Morton Organ Company was duly incorporated.49 As the late David Junchen, noted theatre organ biographer, commented: “Werner (Harry J. Werner, Photo Player promoter) had found just the ticket for expanding his theatre sales, and the owners of the California Organ Co. had found a buyer for the albatross they didn’t want anyway.”50 Stanley Williams was named plant superintendent and the following year vice president. Opus 1, a two-manual organ designed by Williams, was built for the California Theatre in Santa Barbara.51 As B’hend noted: “The men and women who built pipe organs in Southern California never left their work benches to take up fabrication of the Robert-Morton pipe organ.”52

The new company increasingly focused on the theatre instrument, but initially it continued to service a spectrum of the local market, including churches. In 1917 Morton built a $10,000 instrument for the A. Hamburger and Sons Department Store in Los Angeles. The Los Angeles Times noted that it was the first organ of its kind on the Pacific Coast, and was acquired “for the purpose of giving the people a musical education and making shopping more pleasant.”53 In 1920 Williams sold and most likely designed a 72-rank, six-division, four-manual organ for Bovard Auditorium at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.54 Edward Hopkins lauded Williams’ “English training, practical experience at the voicing machine, and open-minded progressiveness,” saying the Bovard organ “stands pre-eminent.”55 This instrument featured Morton’s horseshoe console (Morton didn’t build drawknob consoles) and concrete swell boxes enclosing the entire instrument.

W. W. Kimball Company

Williams, a realist in business matters, recognized that Morton made the right choice in electing to build theatre pipe organs. Yet his heart was with the classic church organ, and the Bovard instrument no doubt reinforced his convictions. As his daughter reflected: “He didn’t like traps and toy counters.”56 He resigned from Morton in early 1922, and was feted by employees at a Saturday afternoon gathering at the shop in recognition of his eleven years service to Morton and its predecessors.57 Momentarily, he elected to go out on his own. He and his wife Isabel, together with Carl B. Sartwell, his colleague at Morton, formed Stanley W. Williams, Incorporated and built perhaps one or two instruments, his daughter believes; the details are unknown.58 But the odds were against them. By this time what local capital had been available was already committed to the theatre organ business, and nationally known church organ builders were well represented on the West Coast. Stanley soon wisely recognized that with his interests, his next opportunity lay with an established (i.e., well-capitalized) church organ builder.

Williams then began a five-year sojourn with the W. W. Kimball Company of Chicago as their West Coast representative.59 His decision was no doubt influenced by his former colleague in Van Nuys, Robert P. Elliot, with whom he shared many details in a common philosophy of organbuilding. The much-traveled Elliot, who joined California Organ as vice president and general manager in October 1916, left in May 1918 to become head of the organ department at Kimball in Chicago.60 A dynamic and aggressive firm, Kimball was ever alert to market opportunities, and recognized that their name, well-established in pianos and reed organs, carried over into the market for pipe organs. A large newspaper advertisement by the Eilers Music House in Los Angeles, in April 1912, promoting the Kimball Player Piano, mentioned Kimball as “America’s Greatest Pipe Organ Builders.”61

During this period the Kimball company was making far-reaching changes in the mechanical and tonal character of their instrument, attributed primarily to the influence of Elliot and George Michel, the latter widely acclaimed for his superb reed and string voicing. As Junchen noted: “If George Michel was the voice of the Kimball organ, R. P. Elliot was its soul.”62 Improvements in Kimball engineering and action design, coupled with elegant workmanship, were marked by abandonment of two-pressure bellows and two-pressure ventil windchests with hinged pouches in favor of a pitman-action windchest with springs under the pouches. Tonally, Kimball moved away from the liturgical motif in church organ design toward a pronounced symphonic and orchestral paradigm, a new direction for American organbuilders.63

In Los Angeles

Stanley Williams opened his Kimball office in the downtown emporium of the Sherman-Clay Music Company. “For half a century, Sherman, Clay & Co. has been the philosopher and friend of good music on the Pacific Coast,” they advertised.64 When churches went looking for a pipe organ, they logically began with a music retailer. The connection between music retailers and organ sales was a salient but long-overlooked feature of marketing the instrument during this time. As early as 1902, Harris was represented by Kohler & Chase in San Francisco and then independently by Robert Fletcher Tilton, a well-known musician with an office in the Kohler & Chase building.65 In Los Angeles, the Aeolian Company was represented by the George J. Birkel Music Company, and Welte-Mignon by the Barker Brothers department store. Showrooms soon appeared. By 1926 Wurlitzer, Robert-Morton, and Link all maintained showrooms in Los Angeles.66

Williams’ work with Kimball began immediately, as did the maintenance business he established. He installed, finished, and perhaps sold the 23-rank, three-manual Kimball organ in the world-famous Angelus Temple in Los Angeles, an early megachurch seating 5,300 (see stoplist, page 27). This church, dedicated on New Year’s Day 1923, was built by the flamboyant evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson, founder of the International Church of the Four Square Gospel.67 It is a colorful instrument now undergoing restoration in what was once a wonderful acoustic, ideally suited to the worship style and tastes of the founder and the congregation. In what must have been the pinnacle of unification and duplexing, 23 ranks of pipes were spread over 61 speaking stops. Each rank was playable at three or more pitches and duplexed to two or more manuals. Synthetic stops included a saxophone and orchestral oboe. Couplers greatly increased the power and versatility of the instrument. The Orchestral division is in the same chamber as the Great, sharing voices and thereby giving the illusion of a larger organ as does the number of stop tabs on the console.68

Other Kimball sales by Williams in Los Angeles churches included organs in Hollywood Presbyterian, St. James Episcopal, Precious Blood Roman Catholic, and Rosewood Methodist churches.69 He also supervised the re-installation of the 1911 Murray Harris instrument in St. Paul’s Episcopal Cathedral in the new edifice in 1924, replacing the original console with one built by Kimball.70 The largest Kimball organ he sold, in 1926, was a 56-rank, 65-stop, four-manual for the First Baptist Church of Los Angeles (see stoplist).71 The West Coast correspondent of The Diapason, Roland Diggle, described it as having “lovely solo voices and a stunning ensemble.”72

Skinner and Aeolian-Skinner

In 1927 Stanley Williams made his last move, the capstone of his illustrious career, joining Ernest M. Skinner of Boston as Pacific Coast representative.73 He welcomed the opportunity to affiliate with America’s foremost builder of this era, and Skinner in turn was pleased that a man of such knowledge and reputation would now add luster to his prestigious firm. This association was celebrated with a dinner for the local organ fraternity at a fashionable downtown restaurant.74 In July 1928, Williams installed a two-manual, ten-rank, duplexed and unified Skinner instrument, Opus 690, in his home. An enclosed instrument representative of small residence organs built by the Boston patriarch, it comprised a diapason, unit flute, flute and celeste, string and celeste, and four reeds: vox humana, clarinet, French horn, and an English horn—the latter two Skinner favorites.75 Sales of two-, three-, and four-manual instruments began immediately: a four-manual for Immanuel Presbyterian Church, Los Angeles, in 1927, Opus 676, and in 1930 a 78-rank, four-manual organ for the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Opus 818, designed by Harold Gleason in consultation with Lynwood Farnam and G. Donald Harrison (see photo above).76 The same year another four-manual organ was built for Temple Methodist Church in San Francisco, Opus 819.77 Sales in 1931 included a four-manual organ for First Congregational Church, Los Angeles, Opus 856, and the following year a four-manual for the residence of prominent Pasadena pediatrician Dr. Raymond B. Mixsell, Opus 893. Organizer of the Bach Festival in Pasadena, Dr. Mixsell engaged Marcel Dupré to play the inaugural recital on his instrument.78 Williams’ extensive service business, established when he began working for Kimball in 1922, carried him through World War II, when organ companies could no longer build new instruments. After the war, heavy sales resumed.

Tonal Philosophy, 1959

In 1959 Stanley was asked to appraise and recommend updates for the 1926 Kimball organ at the First Baptist Church in Los Angeles, an instrument he had sold and installed.79 The document he prepared sheds light on the evolution of Williams’ tonal philosophy and offers key insights into the prevailing orthodoxy of the 1920s, especially the practices of the Kimball Company, a long-neglected major builder. He asserted that during the 1920s, the entire organbuilding industry in the United States was “to some degree” influenced by the theatre pipe organ. Williams lamented this trend, which saw higher wind pressures and voicing of flutes, diapasons, strings, and reeds that tended to isolate and magnify their differences. He acknowledged the positive contribution of the theatre epoch in “better engineering practice and the speed and reliability of action.”

Williams called for major tonal revisions to make the instrument more suitable for worship services, choir accompaniment, and interpretation of the instrument’s great literature. These revisions included replacing all flue pipes in the Great division except the Gemshorn and the Melodia, substituting a Quintadena for the 16¢ Double Open Diapason, and eliminating the Tromba (see stoplists, pages 27 and above). On the Swell manual the many new ranks recommended included a “small scale bright tone trumpet” in place of the Cornopean, and on the Choir new mutations and a Krummhorn. He recommended revoicing the Gamba and Celeste on the Solo division for a “broader and softer” sound. In 1965 this instrument was enla