Copenhagen’s Orgelsamling: A Treasury of Danish Organ Building

Sankt Andreas Kirke in Copenhagen is home to a collection of nine small church organs built in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, all of which were collected from throughout Denmark and which represent various Danish builders

Benjamin A. Kolodziej

At the north end of Copenhagen’s city center, nestled peacefully near the botanical gardens on Gothersgade, lies the Sankt Andreas Kirke. Its exterior, unassuming by European standards, belies the musical treasures harbored within its cavernous interior, namely a collection of nine small church organs built in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, all of which were collected from throughout Denmark and which represent various Danish builders. These small pipe organs, ranging in size from one to four ranks, comprise Orgelsamlingen i Sct Andreas Kirke, or “The Organ Collection of St. Andreas Church,” a cooperative collaboration between the church and the collection’s curator, Dr. André Palsgård, a Copenhagen physician. Although the first organ was renovated and installed in the gallery in May 1998, the collection was not inaugurated until February 2000, at the time comprising only four organs.¹ The Orgelsamling’s growth and development during the last decade, attributable to the passion and effort of Dr. Palsgård, not only allows scholars and church musicians a glimpse into Danish organbuilding practices, but also serves as an educational, interactive museum by which the pipe organ and its music are promoted.²  

 

Historical background

Interested in music since a child, André Palsgård began acquiring and restoring modest pipe organs during the 1970s, even building a larger home to accommodate his growing collection of musical instruments, including a harmonium and a pneumatic organ that had been stored in a hen house! As Dr. Palsgård cultivated his knowledge of organ restoration, his colleagues would approach him regarding organs that had become redundant. His first such relocation project occurred in 1989 when he discovered that the I/6 organ built by Immanuel Starup (1862–1944) for the village church in Smørum was to be replaced with a new organ. Through his initiative, it was brought to Copenhagen to install in the chapel of the Sundholm, a social welfare institution. Although this idea never came to fruition, it was eventually installed as the choir organ of the Helligåndskirken, the Church of the Holy Spirit, in the medieval center of Copenhagen, undergoing a restoration by Svend Nielsen in 1998, which included the addition of significant casework and gilding.³ The redundant organs that would become available were not always the simple discards of a thoughtless church committee. That none of them have pedals and that all of them have unpretentious tonal schemes, negating the ability to play much organ literature, prompted some of their organists to campaign for their replacement with more complete, modern instruments.  

Recognizing the need for a permanent location for several historic instruments that might otherwise face destruction, Dr. Palsgård approached the pastor of the Sct Andreas Kirke, Mads-Bjørn Jørgensen, a former flight museum administrator and a proponent of organ music, with the idea of establishing a permanent home in the church’s wrap-around balcony. Having found a favorable reception, the Orgelsamling has been housed in the spacious side balcony since 1998 and has grown to seven instruments upstairs, one beneath the balcony, and one in the chancel, and all within view of the imposing Frobenius organ, the primary instrument for the church’s liturgy, in the west gallery.  

These organs must be considered in their proper historic context within the greater purview of the Northern European organbuilding tradition, Denmark being thoroughly Scandinavian, yet heavily influenced by its southern neighbor, Germany. Since its founding in 1806, Marcussen & Søn, established by Jürgen Marcussen and, at least by 1820, assisted by Andreas Reuter, has dominated the Danish organ landscape, with instruments attractive to buyers as much for their reliability as for their aesthetic ideals. Marcussen, based since 1830 in Åbenrå, found itself annexed to Prussia (and subsequently Germany) from 1864 until 1920 with all of Northern Schleswig, allowing its remaining Danish competitors room to develop, if not to flourish. And it is these competitors, some of whom specialized in the market for small church organs, or whose pipe organ building encompassed only a small portion of an output otherwise dedicated to pianos or harmoniums, whose work is represented in the organs of the Orgelsamling. In this essay, each organ shall be referred to by its place of origin.

The collection includes:

Badskær Kirke organ, 1890

Krummerup Kirke organ, 1898

Venø Kirke organ, 1900

Indslev Kirke organ, 1900

Øster Hjermitslev Kirke organ, 1902

Børglum Kirke organ, 1903

Alling Kirke organ, 1906

Øland Kirke organ, 1906

“Dr. Felter’s House Organ,” 1943.

 

Nineteenth-century organs

Frederik Nielsen (1844–1903), who had established himself as a piano manufacturer in Copenhagen before adding organbuilding to his marketable skills, established an organ fabrik in Åarhus, where he published a catalogue with nine different organ models from which to choose. The Badskær Kirke organ in the collection, built in 1890, is the first and cheapest of his nine specifications; an 1887 catalogue listed the price as 950 to 1000 kroner. Although the specification of this instrument is Principal 8′, Gedact 8′, and Fløite 4′, Nielsen’s catalogue promoted other instruments with a Bordun 16′, a practical advantage for any instrument lacking a pedal division. The keydesk is located on the side of this rather squat, square instrument, with its multiple Doric columns lending an air of neo-classicism. A number of these instruments have keydesks located on the side, a practical necessity for a small village church with minimal space and possibly no choir loft. In this case, the organ’s original location had been in the back corner on the ground floor, providing sufficient tonal egress as well as allowing the organist to see the chancel.  

The Krummerup Kirke organ dates from 1898, when it was built by Christian Anton Schuster (1850–1911) for the Johan P. Andresen & Company. Johan Andresen (1854–1926), an amateur musician, opened a furniture factory in Ringkjøbing in 1882 in which he also repaired harmoniums, giving impetus to his interest in building the musical instruments that he called “Orgel-Harmoniums.” Although his firm would build 15,000 harmoniums from 1891, Andresen apparently employed Schuster in his pipe organ division, a fact that might not have been known except for Schuster’s signature within the organ. Schuster’s exact role in the building of this instrument is not known, but the questions raised elucidate some of the common business practices in which organ firms engaged. 

Born in Denmark, Schuster apprenticed with organbuilders in Copenhagen before settling in Sweden, where his instruments are known. However, between 1896 and 1901 he seems to have built no instruments, although his address in 1898 was in Ringkjøbing, suggesting a connection with Andresen. Both Schuster and Andresen had been to Germany in 1896 to study contemporary building methods, and it is possible they entered into an agreement for Schuster to work at the Andresen factory. It is also likely that, rather than building new organs for Andresen, Schuster merely assembled them as they were shipped to Denmark from a continental builder, a fact suggested by the windchest of at least one Schuster organ, which bears a stock number, implying a larger factory than Andresen’s, ostensibly either Laukhuff or Rieger. Indeed, Rieger-Kloss factory records indicate that 19 organs were delivered to Denmark between 1900 and 1905, including one in 1902 to Ringkjøbing.⁴ Schuster’s role, then, seems to have been as an assembler and voicer of Rieger organs that would then bear the Andresen name.

The Krummerup organ, restored in 1995–96 by Dr. Palsgård, was the first in the Orgelsamling and contains a Violinprincipal 8′, Gedacht 8′, and Fugara 4′, to which a Gemshorn 2′ was added in 1956, in addition to an original bass and treble coupler that is activated via a pedal. As with all the organs in the collection, a modern blower has been added, even though all the original hand-pumping apparatus remains.  

 

Turn-of-the-century organs

These chronological distinctions being rather arbitrary, the Venø Kirke organ dates from 1900, only two years later, again from the Johan Andresen firm through the craftsmanship of Christian Schuster. This little organ, bearing the appellation “the smallest organ in Denmark,” contains only a Geigenprincipal 8′, supplemented with a bass and treble coupler of the same mechanism as employed by contemporary harmoniums.  

The late nineteenth century was epochs removed from the outset of the century during which traditional methods of organbuilding continued much as they had for centuries prior. By the turn of the century, industrialization had been incorporated into organbuilding methods, with factories encouraging an economy of scale unimaginable to the provincial builder only decades before. Such industrialization could result in standardization of organs that could be built cheaply, efficiently, and be delivered to their ultimate destination through the clockwork reliability of the European railroad system. Social interaction, fostered by increasingly reliable forms of transportation and communication, encouraged a free interchange in which organbuilders could learn and employ new ideas. Andresen, for example, toured southern Germany during the summers of 1896 and 1897, visiting significant installations by notable builders in order “to study the new and improved design of church organs.”⁵ The Venø Kirke organ, having been placed in two successive churches, a museum, and finally an abbey church before coming into Dr. Palsgård’s possession in 2003, evidences in its compact simplicity the potential Andresen might have seen in the small church market. Requiring no more space than a harmonium, here was an instrument that could be constructed, shipped, and installed with economical ease.  

Technological innovation was a logical consequence of this progressive Zeitgeist, evident in the Indslev Kirke organ, built in 1900 at Roerslev Margaards Pianoforte-og Orgelfabrik at Nørre Aaby. Hans Jørgen Hansen, apparently a largely self-taught builder, studied books on pianos and organs and visited organ factories in Odense and Germany before founding the firm in 1892, building about 6,000 pianos and 70 organs before the company’s closure in the late 1920s. This organ possesses a Bordun 16′ in addition to a Principal 8′, Gedakt 8′, and Fløite 4′ on a slider windchest, boasting also an “adjustable collectiv,” a type of mechanical system reminiscent of the freikombination assists on pneumatic instruments. Each stop knob is paired with a smaller knob situated below. These small knobs may be drawn in order to prepare a new stop combination that is only engaged with the pull of a lever on the organist’s left side. The strength required to engage the adjustable collectiv, as well as its location, suggests that this would have been the task of an assistant in addition to the calcant (bellows pumper) located on the other side of the case, resulting in a four-rank organ requiring no fewer than three people to play! Dr. Palsgård posits that this rather unwieldy arrangement might have been an attempt to imitate the characteristics of pneumatic action without actually having to incorporate the new technology, which only by the turn of the century had reached southern Denmark. Unable to escape technological progress, the Indslev Kirke organ is marred by a 1929 modernization project, which installed swell shutters over the façade pipes; although the swell mechanism has been removed, a superfluous swell pedal remains.

 

Later organs

The Øster Hjermitslev Kirke organ, built in 1902 but acquired by the Orgelsamling in 2007, sits beneath the balcony. Having a Geigenprincipal 8′, Gedackt 8′, and Gemshorn 4′, a pull-down pedalboard had been added but was removed with the restoration. Although its exact provenance is uncertain, with its conspicuous tripartite façade it bears a similarity to the organ at the Garder Church in Norway, an instrument built in 1900 by Rieger. So, too, would Rieger have built this instrument under the auspices of Andresen.
Dr. Palsgård observes that this instrument utilizes slider chests, placed in an organ case typical of Rieger’s, which normally employed cone chests (Kegellade). Interestingly and perhaps surprisingly for organs of such limited tonal resources, none of the instruments has a divided keyboard, as their American contemporary equivalents certainly would have had. A conclusion is dangerous to posit, especially given Denmark’s rather isolated and parochial organ culture, but one can surmise that, if the primary goal of these instruments was to lead the congregation in the chorales, there would be as little use for a divided keyboard as there would be for colorful solo stops.  

Gebrüder Rieger likewise built the Børglum Kirke organ as Opus 837, but the instrument was delivered and installed by the Andresen firm in the Bangsbostrand Kirke in Frederikshavn in 1903, where it remained until it was moved to Børglum in 1945. This mechanical cone chest instrument has a Rorfloite 8′, Principal 8′, and Octave 4′, with a Bordun 16′ extended from the Rorfloite. The Rorfloite is curiously double-labiated, with the mouths oriented on opposite sides of the pipe to form the equivalent of a Doppelfløte but with the ror (chimney.) The only registrational aid is a tutti pedal. The organ was restored by Dr. Palsgård in 2000 and entered the collection the following year. 

The Børglum organ demonstrates one hitherto unexplored characteristic of Dr. Palsgård’s restoration technique, namely the color scheme. Painted pink with light blue trim and green cornices, complete with faux marble on the Doric columns of the façade, the organ certainly appears more vibrant than its original oaken hues. The Venø organ is light blue, the Badskær organ is the same color with red and white trim, and the Krummerup organ is pastel pink and blue, with only the Indslev organ retaining its original varnished wood. The controversial color scheme broadly reflects some of the church’s own colors, with the pews trimmed in green and red. Additionally, the brighter colors, some of which are more reminiscent of carnival or theatre instruments than those in service to the church, lend an aura of visual excitement to the many student groups who visit the collection.  

The Alling Kirke organ, also from Roerslev Margaard Pianoforte- og Orgelfabrik in 1906, has a mechanical cone chest with an Aeoline 8′, Gedackt 8′ (the lower octave of which is shared with the Aeoline), and a Flöte 4′. Again reflecting neo-classical casework, the organ stands only 208 cm and its flat top was flush with the flat ceiling of the choir loft in the Alling Kirke, where its façade pipes spoke only a few centimeters above the railing. Additionally, the case’s ornamental woodwork mirrors the symmetry and patterns of the original decorative patterns of the church and choir loft, suggesting an organ uniquely tailored for its location even by a “factory” builder. This distinctive character is only enhanced with a silver plaque on the keydesk, which notes that the organ was a gift in memory of Søren Lauersen and his wife Johanne Kathrine Westergaard.

In his restorations, Dr. Palsgård has retained each rank’s original voicing, revealing principals of clear but mellow character, and flutes of restrained, pure tone. Each of these organs exhibits a comparable specification based on the Principal 8′ (with the occasional addition or substitution of a weighty string for a principal), their stoplists dictated by the ubiquitous practicalities of liturgical performance and hymn singing rather than by any sort of Danish national musical stylistic consciousness. Instead, the Danish musical aesthetic is present in the voicing and character of each stop, Dr. Palsgård equating these sounds with the bowing of a stringed instrument, producing a lively “singing” tone whose affinity to the human voice promotes hymn singing. Ole Oleson, researcher at the Danish National Museum, characterizes Danish organbuilding during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as producing “. . . dignified, mellow instruments with no brashness, special effects or spicy sounds, and devoid of the intense, almost indecent obtrusiveness which is also a part of the Romantic-symphonic organ’s personality.”⁶ None of these instruments is of sufficient size to bear a tonal palette beyond the most fundamental, yet they all exhibit that particular Danish melodious lyricism whose primary task is to support the human voice.  

The Øland Kirke organ, built by AC Zachariasen Orgelfabrikken in 1906 and an early acquisition of the collection, exemplifies the belated adoption of pneumatic technology in Denmark. Although pneumatic action had been developing for almost two decades in the German lands, Denmark had been reticent in espousing the new technology. However, a number of practical reasons had begun to mitigate the predominant use of the slider chest. The gradual installation of furnaces in church buildings, often engaged shortly before a service, resulted in abrupt changes in temperature and humidity to which slider chests were not acclimated, pneumatic action being less susceptible to leaks. Furthermore, the homophonic and colorful textures of Romantic repertoire necessitated playing aids such as octave couplers, freikombinationen, and the Walze or crescendo pedal, all of which could be easily and cheaply achieved with pneumatic action. Smaller instruments, such as those by Zachariasen, were primarily designed for liturgical, not concert use, and pneumatic action was more of a hindrance in terms of increased maintenance and a sluggish key response; in the Øland organ, Dr. Palsgård modified the keyboard slightly to generate a more responsive action.  

The Zachariasen firm traced its lineage to P. U. F. Demant (1802–1868), an Odense builder whose son J. A. Demant (1830–1878) profited from organ work in Jutland when Åbenrå, where the Marcussen firm was located, was reappropriated into German territory. After the younger Demant’s death, Frederik Nielsen took over the company, which went bankrupt in 1906 after Nielsen’s own son was unable to maintain profits. As a consequence of the bankruptcy, organbuilder A. C. Zachariasen (1877–1954) bought Nielsen’s tools and machines, eventually establishing his own organ factory in which the illustrious organbuilder Theodore Frobenius (1885–1972) was hired in 1907. A. C. Zachariasen had observed and possibly apprenticed with German builders prior to establishing his own firm. His 330 pipe organs include many in Copenhagen and even a large installation in Iceland, Zachariasen himself voicing each instrument. The Øland organ, which was electrified in 1943, has an Italianate disposition of Bordune 16′, Principale 8′, Salicionale 8′, and Flauto 4′.  

The final organ, referred to as “Dr. Felter’s House Organ,” differs greatly from the remainder of the instruments in the collection. Built by Danish builder Wilhelm Hemmersam (1909–1994) as his Opus 1 in 1943, this organ reflects the ideals of the Orgelbewegung both in terms of its façade and disposition. Its lack of non-functional casework contrasts with the neo-classical or semi-Victorian casework of the instruments dating from only four decades prior. The stoplist of Gedakt 8′, Principal 4′, Qvintatøn 2′, and Quint 11⁄3′ utilizes slider chests.  

Wilhelm Hemmersam trained with Marcussen and would build 25 organs, mostly in Sweden. This organ was built for the Jægersborg Kirke in 1944 but went through a succession of owners before it was purchased by Dr. Ralph Felter, a specialist in diagnostic radiology, as his home organ around 1971. In 2003 Dr. Palsgård, with the help of Pastor Mads-Bjørn Jørgensen, negotiated to purchase this organ for the collection from Dr. Felter’s children, Pastor Thomas Felter and Charlotte From. The organ is placed in the chancel, where it is able to serve the church as a choir instrument.

 

A living legacy

The Orgelsamling’s nine organs are supplemented by seven more instruments, including a four-rank organ built by Jens Johan Peter Schierf in 1843, which are undergoing renovation and have yet to be displayed. All stand as a testimony to those builders and musicians who supplied music to small churches over a century ago. Yet, their legacy is not merely liturgically academic or scholarly; rather, these instruments still contribute to the musical life of Copenhagen. Dr. Palsgård hospitably welcomes and demonstrates the organs to an array of visitors, including foreign performers and interested American scholars and organists. His presentation “How Do Organs Speak to Themselves and Each Other?” is aimed toward Danish schoolchildren who are captivated by the organs’ bright colors and gentle sounds. The Orgelsamling presents a busy concert schedule, featuring performances of Danish music as well as transcriptions and even jazz arrangements for these small instruments. The collection even inspired English musician Peter Lea-Cox to compose his Pièce pour cinq orgues, which was first performed on the instruments in September 2003.  

The rather esoteric focus of this collection—small organs from fin de siècle Denmark—might seem too abstruse to have much appeal in an era characterized by a fascination for that which is increasingly bigger, faster, and louder. Long ago bypassed by popular music as well as by the organbuilding world, these instruments are a tribute to a difficult but not exceedingly different time. Most are the products of an industry struggling to make a profit while attempting to integrate new technologies reflecting increased industrialization. These builders must have striven to maintain their artistic integrity while concurrently attempting to ensure their survival by advertising through new media such as printed catalogues. They reflect a conservative cultural and national identity that was being challenged by foreign interactions, which, over the next several decades, would plunge all of Europe into war. Reflecting the simplicity of the Danish Church, these instruments perhaps represent a time of ecclesiastical hegemony that the twentieth century would soon subvert. These concerns are as applicable to the present day as they were over a century ago and, for organists, it is a pleasant lesson when it can be learned from the singing tone of a well-crafted organ pipe. 

 

Notes

1. The majority of the information contained in this article was taken from an interview by the author with Dr. André Palsgård at Sct Andreas Kirke, June 10, 2010.

2. Scandinavian languages use the postpositive definite article, meaning the definite article (en or et) is placed at the end of the word. Therefore, orgelsamlingen means “the organ collection” while orgelsamling means an unspecified organ collection. Although Danish does not capitalize all nouns, this essay will consider Orgelsamling a proper noun, thus capitalizing it.

3. Ole Olesen, “Organs in Denmark.” http://orgel.natmus.dk/oversigt_oid_rammex.htm.

4. André Palsgård, Kirkeorgelafdelingen på harmoniumsfabrikken Joh. P. Andresen & Co., Ringkjøbing, 1897–1908 (Søborg, DK: Eget Forlag, 1997), p. 8.

5. Ibid, 8ff.

6. Ole Olesen, “Musical Fragrance in a Romantic Fantasy,” The Nordic-Baltic Organ Book, ed. Anna Frisk, Sverker Jullander, and Andrew McCrea (Göteborg: Göteborg Organ Art Center, 2003), 212–213.

 

 

Artis Wodehouse

Pianist and harmoniumist Artis Wodehouse has a BM from the Manhattan School of Music, an MM from Yale, and a DMA from Stanford. A National Endowment for the Humanities grant led to her producing CDs and publishing transcriptions of recorded performances and piano rolls made by George Gershwin, Jelly Roll Morton, and Zez Confrey. In 2000, Wodehouse began performing on antique reed organs and harmoniums that she had painstakingly restored and brought to concert condition. She founded the chamber group MELODEON in 2010 to present little-known but valuable music from 19th- and early 20th-century America, using her antique instrument collection as the basis for repertoire choice. 

During its prime in the nineteenth-century, the reed organ was the preferred instrument in American homes and also deemed a fit substitute for the more expensive pipe organ. Large reed organs became common in civic gathering halls and smaller churches. Despite the popularity of reed organs in America,¹ music for them consisted primarily of simplified arrangements of European art music, easy-to-play popular and sentimental ditties, polkas, marches, and waltzes, or hymns and other service music associated with worship or civic gatherings.

Toward the end of the nineteenth century it became apparent that design variation from company to company and from organ to organ, even within a given company’s fleet of models, was preventing composers from writing idiomatic original music for the American reed organ. The limited market for music crafted for one or another of the competing designs was too small to sustain widespread printing and marketing of scores.²

Without its own literature, such as had been created during the nineteenth century for its European counterpart, the harmonium, the American reed organ had an uncertain future. It would continue to be regarded at best as “a sort of weak substitute for the church organ.”³ Then, in the mid-1890s, at essentially the beginning of the end of the reed organ era, Mason & Hamlin⁴ began to address the problem by introducing an action design⁵ whose capabilities would “insure the greatest advantages to the composers, at the same time enable the manufacturer to place his instruments on the market at as low a price as possible.” The new action design was called the “Normal-Harmonium.” This was the action design for which the American composer Arthur Bird (1856–1923) wrote his compelling body of reed organ music. Figure 1 shows the Mason & Hamlin American reed organ, with Normal-Harmonium action design. Two knee levers are above the foot pedals. The right lever controls the internal swell shades; the left lever activates the Grand Jeu.

Mason & Hamlin’s Normal-Harmonium action design and Arthur Bird’s creation of a substantial, idiomatic music for the American reed organ came too late. Piano sales that had roared ahead after the Civil War rapidly displaced the reed organ. In the 1880s, reed organ sales slipped below that of pianos. By World War I, the glory days of the reed organ were over.⁶

 

Two competing
19th-century instruments: 

The American reed organ
and the European harmonium 

In the 1840s, United States inventors and businessmen founded companies that offered distinctive fleets of reed organ models. Reed organs were built in a bewildering variety of brands, sizes, and stoplist configurations. They ranged from diminutive four-octave home models that traveled to the West in covered wagons, to large, expensive instruments with powerful tone, full pedalboards, and many stops. 

The American reed organ used one or more sets of brass “free reeds” in order to generate tone. The performer’s foot pumping activated suction bellows that generated a stream of moving air, much like a vacuum cleaner. When the performer depressed a key, this moving air passed through a small chamber in which the reed was affixed at one end, but free to vibrate on the other end (hence the designation, “free reed”). The reeds varied in length, and the longer the reed, the lower the tone. Air rushing through the chamber caused the reed to vibrate, and tone to be produced. When a reed organ had more than one set of reeds, a set could be brought into play or silenced by allowing or blocking the moving air via stop pulls. As with the pipe organ, a set of shutters or swell shades located within the action facilitated dynamic contrasts. The performer opened or shut them on a gradient via a knee paddle. 

The largest and most prominent reed organ companies were Mason & Hamlin in Boston and Estey in Brattleboro, Vermont, but scores of others proved successful. As the nineteenth century progressed, American reed organs became increasingly complex. Inventors developed voicing techniques that produced a broad range of distinctive and contrasting timbres, named using terms derived from pipe organ nomenclature.⁷ Instruments built with multiple sets of differently voiced reeds featured multiple stops and a divided keyboard⁸ so that the player could choose contrasting timbres in the treble and bass of a single keyboard. Large reed organs were sometimes built with multiple keyboards, like pipe organs. The more reeds in an instrument, the more expensive it would be. 

Another keyboard instrument employing differently voiced sets of free reeds in airtight chambers arose in Europe during the nineteenth century. A Frenchman, Alexandre Debain, patented this instrument in 1842, naming it a “harmonium.” (See Figure 2.) 

Like the American reed organ, the European harmonium came to offer a broad range of distinctive and contrasting timbres controlled by stop pulls, and a divided keyboard that enabled the choice of different timbres in the treble and bass. (See Figure 3.)

Despite some similarity in design to the American reed organ, the European harmonium did not employ the American-style bellows system (suction) that pulled moving air in and through the reed chamber. Instead, in the European system, air was pushed through and out via pressure, producing sound like a trumpet or an oboe. The different airflow systems require different technical skills of the performer and produce distinctly different tonal characteristics. (See Figure 4.)

Foot pumping on the harmonium manages two important functions because of the way harmonium bellows were designed to work: the performer maintains constant airflow while simultaneously adjusting the relative airflow speed responsible for dynamic contrasts.⁹ Manipulating airflow velocity to effect dynamic changes was called “expression,” and this function had its own specially assigned stop pull. An additional European innovation for facilitating dynamic contrast was the invention of the so-called “double expression.” It was installed in the more costly European harmoniums. Double expression, a capability arising no doubt from a desire to mimic the piano’s ability to balance melody and accompaniment, allowed the performer to control not only the overall loudness but also the relative volume of the treble and bass on a gradient. Double expression is controlled by two knee levers installed under the keyboard and above the two foot-pump pedals. The skill required to play smoothly and expressively on the harmonium demands much practice.  

Late-speaking reeds, i.e., those with a time lag between the act of depressing a key and the sounding of its corresponding tone, hampered performers on both the American reed organ and the European harmonium.¹⁰ Although quick airflow delivery to the reeds was a design priority for both reed organ and harmonium builders, the Americans felt that beyond a certain point, slight lags were an acceptable characteristic of the instrument for which the performer was expected to make appropriate adjustments. The Europeans, however, took a different approach. To mitigate the problem of late speech (and to provide an additional tonal effect) they positioned small felt-covered hammers next to each of the reeds of the set most frequently used in performance. These little hammers were controlled by a stop pull, referred to as “percussion.” When the percussion stop is pulled and a key is depressed, the little hammers simultaneously strike the sounding reed, causing it to speak more quickly and incisively, like a crisp piano attack. The harmonium’s percussion makes performance of rapid passagework more predictable when compared to the American reed organ.

The most far-reaching advantage the harmonium held over the American reed organ was the standardization of stops generally agreed upon by the European companies. Standardization had two benefits: it made it possible to print in music scores commonly understood registration that could be used across instruments built by different companies. Secondly, performers could move from one harmonium to another with a minimum of adjustment.¹¹

It should be noted that the terms “harmonium” and “reed organ” were and continue to be used interchangeably. Lack of a clear and consistent terminology must be laid at the door of the overlapping and competing terms originally used. In their heyday, American reed organs were most frequently referred to as simply “organs,” but other names were used as well. These included Organ-Harmonium and Cabinet Organ, two different terms used by the same company, Mason & Hamlin. There were also fanciful names such as Phonorium, used by Estey.¹²

 

Harmonium and American reed organ repertoire

The capabilities of the European harmonium and the move towards standardization¹³ attracted several important nineteenth-century European composers. Elgar, Strauss, Schoenberg, Webern, Mahler, Liszt, Tchaikovsky, and Rossini made good use of the harmonium in some of their orchestral and/or choral works. Berlioz, Franck, Saint-Saëns, Guilmant, Widor, and many others wrote high quality solo and chamber music for it. Finally, the German composer Sigfrid Karg-Elert (1877–1933) made it his mission to develop a body of repertoire that would exploit the unique sonic and expressive capabilities of the Art Harmonium. During the early twentieth century Karg-Elert wrote what has proved to be the single most significant body of solo and chamber music for the instrument. The popularity of the European harmonium peaked about 1900, slightly later than the American reed organ’s peak of popularity.

Relatively few harmoniums made it across the Atlantic during the nineteenth century. On the other hand, American reed organs were exported and sold in fair numbers throughout Europe, particularly those built by Mason & Hamlin.¹⁴ Also, several European manufacturers such as Lindholm, Mannborg, and Shiedmayer adopted the American suction bellows system for their instruments.¹⁵ Nevertheless, despite significant cross-Atlantic distribution of the American reed organ and the availability of native European instruments with some shared characteristics, the American reed organ never established an artistic foothold through a representative body of high-quality music comparable to that written for the harmonium. This cannot be fully explained by the technical differences between the two as outlined above. Although the American instrument may have lacked the harmonium’s more refined control of dynamics and its useful percussion stop, the best American instruments, such as the Mason & Hamlin Liszt Organ, have a distinctive tonal beauty and a multiplicity of sounds equal to those of their European counterparts. 

The promotional prominence and enlarged, relatively standardized capabilities of Mason & Hamlin’s flagship Liszt Organ may therefore have been the impetus behind Boston-based American publisher Arthur Schmidt to print a few works for it during the 1890s. Schmidt’s publications for the Liszt Organ included both original compositions as well as arrangements of famous European works for organ solo, duets with piano, and chamber pieces. But apart from Eugene Gigout’s excellent Romanza for the Liszt Organ, unfortunately none of the rest rose to a similarly high quality.

 

Arthur Bird, American expatriate composer (1856–1923) 

Around 1896, Mason & Hamlin likely encouraged and may have actually commissioned the American composer Arthur Bird to write idiomatic art music for the standardized action they introduced during the 1890s, called the Normal-Harmonium. 

No documentation has yet surfaced indicating payment to Bird for his work by the firm. Nevertheless, key musical and personal circumstances link Arthur Bird to the most significant people associated with the Mason & Hamlin Company. Central to the connection between Arthur Bird and Mason & Hamlin was Franz Liszt. A canny seer, Liszt bet correctly on the ability of eager young American pianists and composers to hold high the torch of pianism and to carry forward the music of the future. Liszt welcomed them, offering his inspired pedagogy and worldly professional connections free of charge. Liszt’s generosity forged a well-documented bond among his pupils. Liszt’s first American student was the pianist William Mason (1829–1908). Mason studied with Liszt beginning in 1849, and brought back to the United States Liszt’s pedagogic principles through an extensive career of teaching, performing, and publishing. William Mason also happened to be the brother of Henry Mason, who in 1854 co-founded the Mason & Hamlin Company. Henry and William Mason were in turn sons of Lowell Mason, an important American hymn composer and musical educator during the first half of the nineteenth century. 

Liszt owned and wrote music for numerous keyboard instruments provided for him by both European and American companies.¹⁶ Among such instruments in his sizable collection was a Mason & Hamlin cabinet organ that he acquired in the 1870s. Later, Mason & Hamlin’s flagship high-end model came to be named the “Liszt Organ,” a likely outcome of the close connection between Liszt, his pupil William Mason, and the Mason & Hamlin Company.¹⁷ The Mason & Hamlin Liszt Organ was introduced about 1880. Complex, colorful, powerful, and versatile, the Liszt Organ was designed to compete with the best European harmoniums. While the Liszt Organ shared many tonal and functional features with the Normal-Harmonium design, it had a different tessitura (five octaves, C to C, versus the Normal-Harmonium’s F to F) and a different split point (E–F versus B–C for the Normal-Harmonium).

Arthur Bird was also one of Liszt’s American pupils, coming to him during Liszt’s later years.¹⁸ Bird’s musical and personal background strikingly resembled that of William Mason. Born in Belmont, Massachusetts in 1856, Bird’s early musical training came from his father and uncle, who were born-and-bred American church musicians. Arthur’s father, Horace Bird, and his uncle, Joseph Bird, were active in the New England of the 1840s and 1850s as voice teachers, composers of hymns and songs, and editors of singing books written to develop score-reading literacy. Upon the advice of William Mason’s father, Lowell Mason, young Arthur Bird was sent in 1875 to study in Germany at the Berlin Hochschule für Musik. Returning to North America two years later, he took a church music position in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where he began to compose. He returned to Berlin in 1881 to study composition and orchestration. It was during this time that Bird came into the Liszt orbit.  

By his early 30s (in the mid-1880s), Bird had become well established as an organist and pianist. His compositions were published and performed widely in Europe. Bird spent most of his life abroad, mainly in Berlin, where he married a wealthy German widow and apparently lived lavishly. In 1897 Bird returned for some time to the United States in what proved to be a failed attempt to have his comic operetta, Daphne, performed in America. Reading between the lines of William Loring’s biographical work on Arthur Bird, is it possible that Bird wished to forge a closer connection to his native country? Certainly a major production of an opera by a United States-born composer within the United States would be an excellent vehicle for that scenario. During the late 1890s, when the quest for “genuine” American composers was in full swing, Bird may have sensed an opportunity. In any event, in that same year (1897), the first of Bird’s pieces for the Mason & Hamlin “American Harmonium” (op. 37) were published by Breitkopf and Härtel, an important German firm still operating that publishes high-art European music.¹⁹

 

Characteristics of Arthur Bird’s “American Harmonium”

The historic trajectory mating Arthur Bird with the Normal-Harmonium came just at the point when the piano had overtaken reed organ sales. Mason & Hamlin realized that in order to survive in the long term, the reed organ needed some good original music. The publication of Arthur Bird’s music for the “American Harmonium” came at a historic crossroad for the American reed organ, largely due to the rise of the American piano. From the 1850s, pianos, and particularly American pianos, started to benefit from standardization and mechanical manufacturing methods of the industrial revolution. Prior to this time, pianos were mainly handcrafted items. Likewise around 1850, the design of the piano, particularly the American piano, moved rapidly toward increased durability and a greater dynamic and pitch range. Piano types coalesced into three categories: square, grand, and finally, upright. Each of these types served a clear purpose. As a result, consumers began to turn to the piano as a viable keyboard alternative to the reed organ, particularly in the home market, where the reed organ had ruled uncontested.²⁰ Sales of pianos grew steadily through the nineteenth century.

In contrast to the piano industry, American reed organ manufacturers from the 1850s to the 1900s offered consumers instruments of a wide variety of sizes, competing capabilities, nomenclature, and above all, case styles.²¹ After the Civil War, American manufacturers also developed complex instruments of considerable beauty, sophistication, and expense. These large instruments with enhanced performance capabilities were aimed at a smaller “niche” market, for placement in the homes of the wealthy, civic or religious meeting halls, and small churches. But after a sustained growth period lasting about 40 years, sales of the American reed organ began to decline in the 1880s.

The Normal-Harmonium action design of the 1890s for which Bird wrote was conceived to meet these market challenges. Mason & Hamlin worked with and adopted the Normal-Harmonium design in collaboration with two entities associated with the company: their German representative Paul Koeppen and the Bender firm in Leiden, Holland.²² Mason & Hamlin’s goal was to provide a standardized instrument that could compete with the piano and its plentiful repertoire. Their instrument had to be sophisticated enough to attract composers to write good music for it and be of a reasonable cost. 

Mason & Hamlin met both of its goals. First, the cost of an instrument with Normal-Harmonium specifications was indeed lower by half or more than that of the top of the Mason & Hamlin line, the Liszt Organ. The price of the Liszt came in at $700, but instruments with Normal-Harmonium capabilities could be had between $260 and $300.²³ Second, the Normal-Harmonium action provided attractive and useful performance capabilities. These included a pitch range of five octaves from F to F and multiple sets of reeds offering an elaborate stoplist. American reed organs with the Normal-Harmonium action design began to be manufactured in the 1890s and continued to be built until the company ceased reed organ production in the early 1920s.

As mentioned previously, inconsistent nomenclature and lack of a simple explanation for actual performance capability plagued the field. Although Mason & Hamlin offered a standardized action design in the Normal-Harmonium, Bird’s music itself was identified on the score as being intended for the “American Harmonium” and/or the “Normal-Harmonium.” Nomenclature had still not jelled. Therefore it must be stressed that the terms “American Harmonium” and Mason & Hamlin “Normal-Harmonium” do not refer to any one specific instrument, but rather to an action design embodying certain specific capabilities. 

Figure 5 shows the overhead view of interior of the Mason & Hamlin American organ with Normal-Harmonium specs. To the upper right is the paddle that is activated to rotate by the Vox Humana stop. The upper left box houses the very large Sub Bass reeds. The specific capabilities of the Normal-Harmonium are as follows. 

 

Stoplist:

Diapason Dolce 8′—the Diapason, mechanically softened. 

Sub Bass 16′—consists of 13 notes, the chromatic octave upward from low C. This stop uses the largest, longest reeds, producing a deep, rich, and powerful sound.

Eolian Harp 2′—two detuned sets of reeds producing a shimmering, ethereal vibrato.

Diapason 8′—pure, organ-like tone. 

Viola 4′—resembles the sound of the orchestral instrument for which it is named.

Viola Dolce 4′—the Viola, mechanically softened.

Vox Humana—adds a vibrato or tremolo. Can be used in combination with any of the other drawn stops in the treble. Activated by the turning of a windmill-like paddle located inside the action.

Seraphone 8′—differs from the Diapason in timbre. Focused and slightly nasal.

Flute 4′—resembles the sound of the orchestral instrument for which it is named.

Melodia 8′—continuation in the treble of the Diapason reeds.

Vox Celeste 8′—another stop combining two sets of detuned reeds that creates a vibrato effect. 

Octave Coupler—when pulled, mechanically connects a note to that of one an octave higher.

Melodia Dolce 8′—mechanically softened Melodia. 

 

The split point on the keyboard is between B and middle C. Stops from Seraphone 8′ up activate the treble, the stops from Viola Dolce, down, the bass.

 

Mechanical devices:

Grand Jeu—activated by a knee paddle located under the keys above the left foot pump pedal. The Grand Jeu causes all the reeds to sound at once, producing the instrument’s fullest and loudest sound.

Swell—activated by a knee paddle located under the keys above the right foot pump pedal. This device controls the internal shutters responsible for dynamic contrasts. (See Figure 6.)

 

Arthur Bird as composer

During his lifetime, Arthur Bird was recognized as an active, widely published, and well-received composer of some stature, particularly in Europe. Incidentally, his successful European career was launched in no small part because of the positive public and private endorsements Bird received from the influential Franz Liszt. 

Bird’s oeuvre is extensive, including opera and theatre works, orchestral music, songs, piano materials, chamber works (particularly those for wind instruments, for which he is best-remembered today), organ, and many other forms. Bird wrote a sizeable number of short solo piano pieces in well-established standard dance forms and topical styles—march, waltz, minuet, gavotte, lullaby, and mazurka. His extensive experience composing in this genre prepared Bird well to write for the American reed organ. Bird’s music is available in score at the Library of Congress through the generous donation of his widow and has been amply documented through the International Music Score Library Project.²⁴

Relatively little of Bird’s music has been recorded.²⁵ What is available tends to confirm the critical reception his work received during his lifetime. Reviewing a performance of [Bird’s] Serenade for Wind Instruments, op. 40, the Berliner Borsen Courier said: “It is distinguished for the freshness and spontaneity of its invention, as well as the clever craftsmanship and the clear and compact disposition of its different parts . . .” Another critic comments: “Characteristically his music is pleasing and melodious in composition. It is coherent and well developed in form. It lies easily within the range of the instruments, and displays no little knowledge of their resources.” Of him, [Arthur] Farwell wrote: “Arthur Bird is known as the possessor of a fertile and truly musical imagination and a thorough technique . . .
Bird is a musician of German training and French sympathies and calls himself a conditional modernist.” Mentioning that Bird composed in almost all forms, [Louis] Elson says of him: “He is an excellent contrapuntist, yet uses his skill in this direction as a means rather than as an end, seldom making a display of his knowledge. It is a pleasure to find an American composer who is not anxious to out-Wagner and who goes along the peaceful tenor of recognized and classical ways.”26 Bird was even described as “the most promising American composer of the middle and late Eighties” by no less than the important conductor,
Arthur Nikisch.²⁷ 

The amount and dating of Bird’s production seem to confirm Loring’s supposition²⁸ that after 1900, Bird’s work dwindled, though his reed organ works of 1905 (op. 45) maintain his previously held high standard. On the other hand, his simplified arrangements, American Melodies Specially Adapted and Arranged for Normal-Harmonium of 1907, appear to have been written simply for profit and lack the artistic value of his earlier work for the American Harmonium.

 

Arthur Bird’s music for the American Harmonium

Those who either possessed or might  have considered purchasing an instrument with the Normal-Harmonium action design would likely be individuals of some performance ability and/or a level of musical sophistication high enough to appreciate the artistic features of the instrument. They would also likely appreciate piano music of the better salon variety, up to and including Schumann’s, Chopin’s, or Grieg’s short works for solo piano. Finally, they would most likely be of the social class that would appreciate hearing this music, most likely in the home setting. 

Bird’s conservatism—informed by fine craftsmanship, deft handling of instrumental color, and fluency in miniature forms—may not have been enough to place him into the compositional pantheon of his trailblazing European contemporaries (Mahler, Debussy, etc.), but his abilities ideally suited him for writing salon-oriented character pieces of the type popularized by Mason & Hamlin’s Normal-Harmonium. An already accomplished American composer, Bird’s impeccable, media-worthy credentials and network of connections to Mason & Hamlin were a further plus. Bird was a perfect fit.

Bird published six opus numbers for the Normal-Harmonium.²⁹ All contain interesting and beautiful music, but the best of these was his first, the ten pieces of op. 37.³⁰ In the first printing, the op. 37 pieces were identified directly on the score’s front pages as being intended for the “American Harmonium”³¹ or for the Mason & Hamlin “Normal-Harmonium.” A page is devoted to an explanation of the stops required and their manner of notation in the score. Bird used circled letters derived from the stop name. For instance, Diapason is D; Viola, V; Voix Celeste, VC; and so forth. Later print runs of op. 37 contain the same explanatory page, but also indicate standard stop numbers, i.e., 1 for Diapason, 3 for Viola, 5 for Eolian Harp, etc., that would correspond to numbers appearing on European suction instruments of equivalent capability.³²

While no piece in the op. 37 set lasts more than three minutes, each exhibits a mastery of craft: beautifully spun-out melodies, masterful counterpoint, subtly personalized inflections of nineteenth-century harmonic practice, and traditional formal structures handled with deft assurance. Bird’s forms are not unusual (ABA, sonata, rondo). But because the Normal-Harmonium’s unique instrumental colors are an integral component of Bird’s structural designs, the listener experiences an additional dimension of thematic transformation. In his music for Normal-Harmonium, Bird’s assimilation of instrumental color as a component of structural rhetoric relates his music to that of the nascent French impressionists at the turn-of-the-century. The following briefly describes salient features of each of the pieces in Bird’s op. 37:

1. Meditation—a sarabande. In this mini-Wagnerian contrapuntal ramble, Bird employs kaleidoscopic stop changes that underscore the evolving melodic twists and turns.

2. Preludium—brooding and dramatic four-part writing in an ABA structure. Registration is simple, but Bird uses the octave coupler at the recapitulation, reinforcing and underscoring the harmonic excursions introduced as the piece moves toward an impassioned final cadence.

3. Adagio—elegiac four-part mini-sonata. Development section comprises a series of recitative-like meandering arpeggios over sustained chords. Recapitulation re-registers the opening material over low pedal points. With more recitative-like arpeggios at the coda, the piece concludes with a simple fadeout on the ethereal Eolian Harp stop.

4. Reverie—features a long-breathed, haunting, and tentative treble melody on the flute stop set against slithering countermelodies registered on the atmospheric Eolian Harp stop. In ABA form, the melody’s return is entirely recast in a fuller texture with the foundation 8′ and 4′ stops. In partnership with a walking bass line, the melody’s tentative first appearance is thereby transformed into an affirmative point of arrival. The coda brings the listener back to the ethereal Eeolian Harp, rounding the piece off as it began.³³

5. Postlude—hearkens back to Bird’s American past, a spirited march that suggests a full wind band.³⁴ Bird’s registration indicates that the piece must be played in its entirety using only one setting, the circled G indicating “Grand Jeu.” Because Grand Jeu causes all the stops to sound at once, finger strength and vigorous foot pumping are required throughout. 

6. Improvisato—a fierce, somewhat virtuosic piece. Registration involving the basic 8′ and 4′ stops is augmented at the recapitulation by use of the Grand Jeu. Rapid, conjunct passagework in the wild coda comes off surprisingly well, despite the lack of a percussion stop. Bird was a hands-on composer and knew what the Mason & Hamlin organ could do.³⁵ 

7. Offertoire—This piece would be suitable for use in a church setting. It is an atmospheric sweet/sour composition with change of mode. 

8. Scherzo—This is the most technically demanding of the set, an extended rondo. Rapid sixteenth notes scattered throughout the piece when the octave-coupler is drawn or the Grand Jeu is activated require finger strength and precise articulation. Not only the performer’s skill is tested: Bird takes the instrument itself to the edge of its mechanical ability to sound quick notes on the fly. Registration is extraordinarily full and rich, suggesting an orchestra. 

9. Auf dem Lande—a melancholy, minor “folksong” melody is transformed to a grand, affirmative conclusion in major mode.

10. Pastoral—perhaps the most inventive and idiomatic of the entire set. Bird’s motivic ideas have a symbiotic relationship with the instrumental colors he brings to bear. Set above continuously sustained low pedal points, a flowing conjunct melody in the treble twines about an ostinato pattern in the mid range. In order to keep the pedal points depressed while so much action is occurring that requires two hands, lead weights must be used to hold down the pedal-point notes.

 

The American reed organ, Arthur Bird, and the future

The composition of high-quality, original repertoire for the European harmonium during the nineteenth century has proved to have far-reaching consequences. Once thought lost to history, beginning in the 1980s the harmonium has been going through a steady revival, centering in the Netherlands. It seems likely the harmonium will continue to reestablish the place it once held in the classical repertoire. While there continues to be a small but passionate interest in the American reed organ,³⁶ a revival similar in scope and momentum has not yet begun.

As the rise and fall of the American reed organ demonstrates, the key to an instrument’s survival is not its mechanical capabilities, but rather the repertoire written for it. Not just any music will do. What is needed is music that will continue to offer listeners an aesthetic experience independent from the era in which it was created.

In the case of the European harmonium, the point where form and function met occurred when distribution was growing and the instrument’s capability achieved sufficient standardization. This favorable environment attracted a fair number of composers to write significant music for it. Unfortunately for the American reed organ, standardization arrived at the very point when distribution was falling. 

Nevertheless, we are grateful that one composer, Arthur Bird, stepped in during a brief moment of opportunity in the history of the American reed organ. With his ideal combination of skills, commitment, and inspiration, he provided us with music that stands poised to move into the future. ν

 

Special thanks to Carson Cooman and Whitney Slaten

 

Notes

1. American publishers also churned out a deluge of reed organ method books intended for the large market of rank amateurs in the United States. 

2. Paul Hassenstein, “The Normal Harmonium And Its Literature,” The Music Trade Review 41:3, July 1905, 87. 

3. Ibid., 87.

4. Mason & Hamlin began as a reed organ manufacturer, but in 1883 started making pianos as well. About 1920 the company ceased making reed organs, but continued their piano line. 

5. “Action design” refers to a specific set of performance capabilities contained within the mechanism of an instrument. Action design was independent of case style. The same action could be enclosed in a variety of cases.

6. Robert F. Gellerman, The American Reed Organ (Vestal, New York: Vestal Press, 1973), 18.

7. Ibid., 97–99. Gellerman’s list of stop names gives some indication of the diversity and lack of standardization among the American reed organ manufacturers.

8. The point of division between bass and treble was called the “split point.”

9. The harmonium did not employ the swell shade of the American system for dynamic contrast because the pressure system made possible quick changes in air speed. Quick control of air speed permits the execution of sharper accents and faster dynamic changes than is typically possible on the American instrument. Simply put, the American instrument is easier to learn how to play, but lacks the degree of potential interpretive refinement offered by the harmonium.

10. The phenomenon is due to inertia. Lowest reeds speak quite slowly: they are the largest reeds, sometimes several inches in length.

11. Gellerman, American Reed Organ, 107.

12. I have consistently used “American Reed Organ” or simply “reed organ” to refer to the suction bellows action design, and “harmonium” to describe the European pressure instrument.

13. Standardized pitch range, split point, sets of stop pulls, shared nomenclature. Nevertheless, as the 19th century progressed, European harmonium manufacturers (like their American counterparts) succumbed to the lure of increased capability that culminated with the celebrated “Art Harmonium.” The Art Harmonium offered a whole new range of attractive colors and capabilities. Music written for the Art Harmonium could not be played on more basic harmonium models.

14. Casey Pratt, e-mail to the author, July 30, 2013. Casey Pratt is a United States reed organ restorer who specializes in the Mason & Hamlin. Exact numbers are not known to date.

15. Ibid. 

16. For instance, Liszt owned a piano-harmonium specially designed for him by Erard and Alexandre and a Chickering grand that was used in his piano master classes. He also collected then “antique” pianos that belonged to Mozart and Beethoven.

17. The Liszt Organ has a set of uniquely voiced, so-called “Liszt” reeds of great tonal beauty. 

18. The main biographical information to date regarding Arthur Bird was amassed by Dr. William Cushing Loring (1914–2002). Loring was a Harvard graduate and an urban sociologist. After retirement, he focused on American art and music, working with Scarecrow Press to develop a series of more than twenty books on various North American composers. 

19. Available at the International Music Score Library Project website: http://imslp.org.

20. Another likely reason piano sales surged ahead of the reed organ resulted from the installment purchase plans offered by piano companies. Once a luxury item of the upper classes, the piano then became affordable to the burgeoning middle class.

21. The flamboyant case styles of American reed organs clearly indicate a function beyond that of simply a musical instrument. In addition to ornate carvings, some reed organ cases featured a façade of non-functional organ “pipes,” mirrors, candle holders, and the like.

22. This information was communicated by Frans Vandergrijn, a Netherlands-based authority on reed organs and harmoniums in a posting on Yahoo’s Reed Organ Restoration newsgroup, August 9, 2013. 

23. Pratt, e-mail to the author, August 10, 2013. To put these prices in perspective, average United States yearly income in 1900 was $438.

24. http://imslp.org/wiki/10_Pieces_for_Harmonium,_Op.37_(Bird,_Arthur_H.)

25. Modern recordings include music for piano 4-hands, op. 23, Vladimir and Nadia Zaitsev, pianists; Introduction and Fugue, op. 16, Tony and Mary Ann Lenti, pianists; Serenade for Wind Instruments, op. 40, Suite for Double Wind Quintet, op. 29 (Naxos), and Carnival Scenes for Orchestra, op. 5 (Albany).

26. William C. Loring, Jr., “Arthur Bird, American,” The Musical Quarterly 29:1, January 1943, 87. 

27. Ibid., 88.

28. Ibid., 86.

29. Op. 37, 1897; op. 38, 1901; op. 39, 1903; op. 41, 1906; op. 42, 1905; op. 44, 1903; op. 45, 1905. All are available at the Library of Congress.

30. Not all of the op. 37 pieces scanned and available in IMSLP come from the original 1897 printing, several being from later editions. The only difference is that additional equivalent registration intended for European suction instruments was added. 

31. My supposition is that Breitkopf titled them for the “American Harmonium” in order to alert purchasers that the intended instrument would be one of American design. European suction instruments could have been more or less acceptable alternatives, but only the Mason & Hamlin Normal-Harmonium would have had the subtle specificity of timbres and tonal balances characteristic of the Mason & Hamlin sound.

32. On IMSLP: http://javanese.imslp.info/files/imglnks/usimg/2/2d/IMSLP65232-PMLP1327…

33. See performance at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIC9EwIjmks

34. And Percy Grainger’s later work for the reed organ.

35. See performance at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fi6yjMzjKe.

36. The American Reed Organ Society has been in existence since 1981.

 

References

Archival Sources

Music Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D. C. Music of Arthur Bird. Includes all his published music for reed organ, plus some manuscript scores.

 

Books and Articles

Brown, Andrea Elizabeth. “A Descriptive Analysis of Arthur Bird’s Suite in D.” DMA diss., University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 2010.

Elson, Louis C. American Music. New York, NY: MacMillan Co., 1904.

Gellerman, Robert F. The American Reed Organ. Vestal, NY: The Vestal Press, 1973.

———. The American Reed Organ and the Harmonium. Vestal, NY: The Vestal Press, 1996.

Good, Edwin M. Giraffes, Black Dragons, and Other Pianos. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001.

Hendron, Michael, ed. Manufacturers Music Album Reed Organ Society Anthology Series. Palmer, Massachusetts: The Reed Organ Society Publications Office, 2001.

Hiles, John. A Catechism for the Harmonium. London: Brewer and Company, 1877.

Loring, William C., Jr. “Arthur Bird, American.” Musical Quarterly 29, no. 1 (1943): 78–91.

———. Arthur Bird: His Life and Music. Newton Centre, MA: n.p., 1941.

———. The Music of Arthur Bird: An Explanation of American Composers of the Eighties and Nineties for Bicentenial Americana Programming. Atlanta: n.p., 1974.

Milne, H. F. The Reed Organ: Its Design and Construction. Chancery Lane, England: Office of Musical Opinion, 1930.

 

Recordings

Bird, Arthur. Suite in D. On Bird Songs: Romantic Chamber Music of Arthur Bird, North Texas Chamber Players. Eugene Corporon, conductor. CD (digital disc). Klavier, KCD-11071, 1995.

———. Suite in D. On Collage: A Celebration of the 150th Anniversary of the Peabody Institute, 1857–2007. Peabody Conservatory Wind Ensemble. Harlan Parker, conductor. CD (digital disc). Naxos, 8.570403, 2008.

———. Suite in D. University of Cincinnati Chamber Players. Rodney Winther, conductor. CD (digital disc). Mark Records, 7212, 2007.

———. Amerikanische Weisen, op. 23, Three Characteristic Marches, op. 11,  American Souvenirs Piano Music for Four Hands, Nadia and Vladimir Zaitsev, pianists, CD (digital disc), Gleur De Son-Qualiton/The Orchard, 57928, 2004.

Bird, Arthur; Dussek, Jan Ladislav; Liszt, Franz; Grieg, Edvard; and Onslow, George; Forgotten Piano Duets, Vol. 2, Tony and Mary Ann Lenti, pianists, CD (digital  disc), ACA Digital Recording, B004QEZC2, 2011.

John Brombaugh

John Brombaugh was a student of Fritz Noack, Charles Fisk, and Rudolf von Beckerath between 1964–68. He worked as an organbuilder in Germantown, Ohio, from 1968–77, and in Eugene, Oregon, from 1977–2005. 

Cor (Cornelius Herman) Edskes, noted organologist, left this world on September 7, 2015, from his hometown, Groningen, in the northeastern corner of the Netherlands, where he was born on August 1, 1925. He is survived by two younger brothers, Herman and Bernardt, the latter who has been building organs in Switzerland for many years. Another younger brother, Bram (Hilbrand Albert), who was an optometrist and organized many organ concerts and excursions for over 60 years, passed away in March 2013.

Cor Edskes was a leader in organ building from its Romantic twilight through the Organ Reform/neo-Baroque movement of the 1920s through 1960s into the compelling search for historic authenticity in building new organs and restoring historic instruments much as his friend, Gustav Leonhardt, and others such as Nikolaus Harnoncourt and Christopher Hogwood led musicians into the historically informed performance of the music of earlier times.

Edskes received his first organ lessons from Johan van Meurs, the organist at Der Aa-kerk in Groningen who had taught many others, such as the Haarlem Bavokerk organist, Klaas Bolt. Edskes later studied with many others including Helmut Walcha. Around 1940 he became church organist on the 1700 Schnitger organ in Uithuizen, Province Groningen and moved ca. 1942 to the Mennonite church in Groningen, where he served until very late in his life, and where he had a new Marcussen organ installed in 1961. He was appointed to the Organ Commission of the Netherlands Reformed Church in 1957 and in 1963, moved on to assist Hendrik Oussoren, the organ consultant for the Netherlands national Monumental Heritage. In 1954, he began working with Het Orgel (the Dutch equivalent of The Diapason), and became that monthly journal’s chief editor from 1957 to 1963.

Living in the region surrounding the Dollart bay where the Ems flows into the North Sea put Edskes next to the largest collection of extant historic organs of any style in the world. (See https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orgellandschaft_Ostfriesland.) Because the area had lost much of its source of wealth as a medieval shipping center during the Hanseatic ascendancy, funds needed for constant upgrading as organ styles changed had not been available for centuries, so these instruments tended to be left in remarkably unaltered condition. As Germany recovered from World War II, it was ready to spend funds making necessary repairs to poorly maintained historic organs. As part of such work, the organ advisor for the Reformed churches in the Emden, Ostfriesland area asked the Jürgen Ahrend & Gerd Brunzema organ shop—newly founded in nearby Leer in 1954—to restore a late Renaissance organ in Larrelt as their first job. Living not far from Leer, Cor Edskes was to discover their seldom-found skills. This developed a productive friendship between Edskes and A&B that instigated the re-introduction of meantone and restoration of the short-octave keyboards for the first time in our modern era when they restored the 1642 Jost Sieburg organ in Westerhusen in 1955. The team continued restoring other nearby historic organs such as Rysum (1457, which was to be found the world’s oldest known organ that was in virtually original condition) and Uttum, ca. 1660. Edskes was consequently able to advance important ideas working with the small, young firm that was not hindered by resistance to change so typical of the established large, production-oriented firms. (See https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jürgen_Ahrend_Orgelbau.)

Cor Edskes and Gustav Leonhardt also became good friends early on. This influenced Leonhardt to encourage his many American Fulbright students to visit the historic organs in the Groningen/Ostfriesland region. Being able to see, hear, and play such a wealth of historic organs unlike those anywhere else had an enormous effect on their musical ideas. Edskes also worked with young organists—e.g., Harald Vogel—who were interested not only in learning to play in the historic manner, but in the construction of the historic organs. 

This prompted Vogel to encourage builders to adapt their work to the ideas found in the extant organs so prevalent in Groningen/Ostfriesland. Certainly that happened when this writer—by fate—was urged by Vogel to make his first visit to the Groningen/Ostfriesland region in May 1968. Vogel introduced me to Edskes as we went to visit the 1702 Schnitger organ in Der Aa-kerk in Groningen. Needless to say, hearing that organ with Edskes sitting at my side changed my life. But I am not unique; the same has happened with many younger builders after learning of my fate with Vogel and Edskes. Such was particularly the case when my former partners, George Taylor and John Boody, had their first visit with Edskes in Fall 1977. Realizing their skills, Edskes quickly summoned them to dismantle the Schnitger organ in Der Aa-kerk’s high brick Gothic building, which was approaching a structural collapse that could also ruin the exceptional organ in its nave. T&B moved all parts to the nearby Martinikerk. By 1990, Der Aa-kerk was completely restored and its organ could be put back to use with almost no alterations. After my first visit to Der Aa-kerk, Vogel, Edskes, and I walked across town to the Martinikerk to hear the mid-15th-century organ of Groningen origin that Schnitger revised in 1690 as his first project in the Netherlands. This muach-recorded organ is the only Schnitger that has its original pedal façade Præstant 32′ pipes (which, however, begin with the 24′ F with no lower bass pipes).

Cor Edskes continued working to understand the great historic organs in Northern Europe to the end of his life. As a result, he was to become the leading consultant for many significant restorations in this vast region. That included advising the Flentrop firm’s 1965 restoration of the 1671 Pieter Backer organ in Medemblik. As part of that work, Edskes required the Werckmeister’s III Well-Temperament to be reintroduced for the first time in our modern time. Upon hearing a recording soon after that work was done, this writer concluded in 1970 that this better way to hear and play organs must be used in his new work in America; that totally ended (except for his changeable-pitch continuo Positives) his use of equal temperament after finishing only one project in ET done while an apprentice in 1966. 

With Edskes’ connections with Leonhardt, he became advisor for A&B’s 1965 restoration of the 1680 Langlez/1734 Christian Müller organ in the Amsterdam Waalse Kerk where Leonhardt was organist. In 1981, Edskes supervised Marcussen’s restoration of the 1655 Schonat organ in the Amsterdam Nieuwe Kerk where Leonhardt had moved to become organist. In 1984 Edskes worked with Jürgen Ahrend on the major renewal/restoration of the Groningen Martinikerk Schnitger organ that had almost been destroyed in 1939 by conversion to electric action and unfortunate attempts at neo-baroquizing the voicing in an attempt to bring it ‘up to date’. Fortunately, with Ahrend’s skills and with Edskes’ knowledge and his good working relationship with Ahrend, this very tenuous project turned into a grand success, as the many recordings on this organ show. 

From these significant improvements to the instruments he cared for, Edskes was being recognized elsewhere, and in 1991 he worked as adviser along with support of the cathedral’s organist, Kristian Olesen, when Marcussen restored the oldest extant organ in Denmark—at the Danish National Cathedral in Roskilde where all the Danish kings and queens back to the 1100s are buried—which was built in 1555 by Netherlander Hermann Raphael Rodensteen. In the 1990s, Edskes supervised restorations on organs in the Kongsberg Kirke and Røros Kirke in Norway and others in Scandinavia. Perhaps the most significant of all historic restoration work in northern Europe occurred when Edskes worked with Jürgen Ahrend to restore the largest of all remaining Schnitger organs, the 60-stop instrument in the Hamburg Jacobikirche that Bach played in 1720. This organ was re-inaugurated on Easter 1993 to an audience coming from all over the world to celebrate its 300th anniversary. The many recordings made since demonstrate Edskes’ knowledge as an advisor, achieving the finest restoration work found on any historic organ today. 

Among those describing Cor Edskes, Dutch builder Henk van Eeken states: 

 

His manner of working in which the organ builder had a central rôle, was striking. In his still phenomenal ‘Report on the organ in the Groningen Martinikerk’ prepared in 1972, he chose to re-create the state of the Martini organ as it was in 1740 (soon after Schnitger’s son, Frans-Casper, had brought his father’s work to its present state).

 

Van Eeken adds:

 

The possibility of restoring the organ in this way, it is vitally connected with the capability of the person chosen for the restoration, who shall have to satisfy the very highest requirements. If it is not possible to choose a restorer with these qualifications, then the execution of the restoration plan will be completely illusory.

A Groningen documentation film described 

 

. . . Cor Edskes, a sprightly 85 year old whose career was devoted to the restoration of the historic organs of Northern Europe. His vast knowledge and experience makes him probably the greatest living authority on the subject, and his sparkling personality makes this subject enthralling and entertaining.

Dutch organist Sietze de Vries writes in his “In memoriam Cornelius Herman Edskes (1925–2015)”: 

 

His ‘experience’ may be understood in a most literal sense: no organ consultant has left such pioneering and guidance work as he . . . Edskes was one of the most influential art and antiques experts of his time. When he came as an advisor to the reconstruction of the choir organ in the Nieuwe Kerk in Amsterdam, an antiques fair was taking place. All fake glasses disappeared under the table.

Edskes often worked with Harald Vogel and others to publish important historic documentation, such as Arp Schnitger und sein Werk (Hauschild, Bremen 2009, ISBN 978-3-89757-326-0). Much more information (such as many projects not listed here that Edskes was associated with) can be found (in German) at https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornelius_H._Edskes.

Although some think Edskes tended to keep most of his important information to himself—as almost no one was permitted into ‘his’ organ world—he was never secretive when sharing so much of his knowledge with this writer. In recognizing that knowledge, the University of Göteborg, Sweden, under the guidance of Hans Davidsson, crowned Cor Edskes’ achievements with the Doctor Honoris Causa on October 19, 1996. It was also a great privilege for us Americans that he shared his knowledge with us at the Westfield Center conference in Eugene, Oregon, in April 2010, Heer Edskes’ only visit to North America. His funeral took place on September 15, 2015, in his beloved Martinikerk in Groningen with his longtime friend, Wim van Beek, playing the great Schnitger organ that Edskes helped return to greatness and took so many of us to see whenever we could visit Groningen.

 

David Rumsey

David Rumsey⁴⁴ was born and educated in Sydney, Australia. He studied with Anton Heiller and Marie-Claire Alain in Europe 1963–66, then returned to a position at the University of Adelaide. Moving back to Sydney in 1969 he established a Department of Organ and Church Music, which survives the recent Australian educational and research funding cuts. For over 25 years, until 1998, he was the regular organist with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and as such frequently presided over the Grand Organs of Sydney Opera House and Sydney Town Hall. Associations with multimedia events have included performances of the Saint-Saëns “Organ Symphony” to 100,000 people with the orchestra in the Sydney Domain, the organ via microwave link from Sydney Town Hall. In 1998, he wrote, produced, acted, and performed in a highly successful 14-hour musical and dramatic spectacle on the life of J.S. Bach, with actors in period costume from the National Institute of Dramatic Art (AUS), and musicians playing period instruments. He resigned his post in Sydney in 1998 and moved to Basel, Switzerland, where he continues working as an organist and consultant, and as a Senior Researcher at the University of Bern. Since 2007 he has been responsible for the editing and CD-production of historic organ recordings released under the OehmsClassics label using the historic Welte organ and its player-rolls at Seewen (SO-CH) and is regarded as an authority on aspects of medieval organ culture. He is organist at Herz Jesu Kirche in Laufen (BL-CH) and in-house consultant and organist to the Museum der Musikautomaten, Seewen (SO-CH).

On Friday and Saturday, June 9 and 10, 2012, a concert and workshop focusing on the medieval organ were held at the Basel (Switzerland) Peterskirche. They dealt with concepts, designs, repertoire and the medieval organ used in ensemble.¹ Another symposium and series of concerts was later organized in and around East Friesland (Rhede), commencing Monday, September 3, 2012, running until Sunday, September 9, dealing with much the same topics.² Some instruments and participants were common to both events. Elsewhere Kimberly Marshall played and held courses in Sion (Switzerland) during October 2012. Other events in Europe during the summer of 2012 dedicated to the medieval organ included one arranged by Jos van der Giessen in the Netherlands.

Kimberly Marshall’s 1989 book, Iconographical Evidence for the Late-Medieval Organ in French, Flemish and English Manuscripts,³ was of seminal influence to much of this blossoming culture. It was the most oft-quoted work at the Basel and Rhede conferences. A colloquium in 1995 at Royaumont (France), two years after an 11th-century Theophilus organ had been reconstructed there by Antoine Massoni, was a most important sequel.⁴ Marcel Pérès, responsible for the Royaumont Theophilus organ, also played in Basel during August 2011. The 2012 events were significant vantage points in an ongoing search for the Holy Grail of understanding medieval organs and performance practices. They continued to push back through the 15th, 14th, 13th centuries, even to the 3rd in Rhede.

 

The Phenomenon

The observant phenomenologist might well note something in the air: research into and performance of early music has now spread both forwards and backwards in time—from a “Bach-fulcrum” that began with Mendelssohn,
S.S. Wesley, et al. in the early 19th century. By the late 20th century it had reached fortepiano, early Steinway, the “real” Wagner orchestra, and even Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du printemps, where authenticity of instruments used was a measure of performance excellence. Concurrently, moving back to ever earlier eras, the music of Buxtehude, Frescobaldi, Couperin, Correa de Arauxo, and Sweelinck—among many others—has been vigorously regenerated through performance on historic organs, careful emulation of their temperaments, key proportions, wind quality, specifications, tonal and mechanical attributes, all of which illuminate performance practices.

Other 19th- and 20th-century contributions to this historical consciousness included the continuum of English choral music, the rediscovery of Palestrina, and parallel developments in Gregorian chant. In the educational arena it seeped into musical institutions such as Eugène Gigout’s 19th-century Organ School in Paris or the early 20th-century Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, not to forget the work of Solesmes and similar centers. High-profile specialist performers such as Gustav Leonhardt then came on the scene, increasingly promoting serious research, publications, recordings, and concerts. Discrete organ cultures began to be brought back to life by dedicated builders, researchers, performers, and luminaries. A veritable explosion of knowledge and activity erupted around the turn of the 21st century.

The phenomenon is now neither confined to the organ nor the 16th–19th centuries, but takes in viola da gamba, cornetto, medieval fiddle, lute, harpsichord, hurdy-gurdy, harp, bells, whole families of antique instruments, and virtually all music of any period. The ongoing challenge in the medieval arena for instrumentalists is that of surviving originals. Certainly extant and truly original 16th-century organs are scarce. Precious little material dating from before the 15th century is known—and then essentially only fragments. Iconography, contemporary descriptions, the few comprehensible early organbuilding tracts, and much circumstantial evidence taken from extant contemporary repertoire are about all that there is to go on. At the Rhede conference, Winold van der Putten, who was responsible for building many of the instruments present, added another significant factor: the experience of specialist organbuilders who have now regularly interpreted these old sources and learned how to put theories or confusing historic descriptions into practice. This is a cutting edge where artistic fringe-dwellers live dangerously by constantly expanding boundaries. It is a little like “walking the plank,” just that the board gets narrower as it seemingly extends back forever, engaging the enquirer in an ever more precarious balancing act. But the rewards are tangible, and in the past few years fully successful medieval constant-scaled ranks have been constructed and voiced. They were commonplace enough for much of medieval instrument-building history and essential to its performance.

Walter Chinaglia, from Como (Italy)⁵ was another of those present in both Basel and Rhede with several of his own positives and portatives built from extending what is “seen through a glass darkly” into convincing practical realities, another fruit from the experiences of these increasingly skilled specialist builders. There are others—Marcus Stahl of Dresden⁶ and Stefan Keppler of Kötz,⁷ to name but two from Germany.

 

2012—European Medieval 

Organ Summer

On Saturday afternoon, September 8, 2012, the Rhede symposium was nearing its conclusion and running rather late, since so many people had had so much to offer. The interest was exceptionally keen; most sessions had extended well beyond their scheduled times. About 15 different organs had been assembled in a kind of “grand general meeting of gothic organs.” They emulated everything from a hydraulis to 13th, 14th, and 15th-century portatives and positives. There were also some renaissance instruments, including an original 16th-century Italian organ, the most modern of the assembly, a permanent fixture in the Old Church at Rhede, nodal point of this symposium. Other venues around this East-Friesland region included Weener and Rysum. Attendees came from Germany, Netherlands, Scotland, Switzerland, Australia, Czech Republic, USA, and Scandinavia. 

At the outset Harald Vogel made the poignant observation that this unusual gathering of medieval organs was an exceptionally important event in the history of the instrument, a hitherto virtually unthinkable assembly. It was organized by the Weener Organeum, Winfried Dahlke in charge, supported by a squadron of organists, organbuilders, and others whose burning curiosity clearly motivated them strongly. 

Dr. Vogel inaugurated the “Rims” instrument, made for a German organist by Orgelmakerij van der Putten after mid-14th-century practices: constant-scaling, two 8′s in parallel (effectively 8′ II-ranks, always playing, no stop control) and a 6′ (on a separate register, slider above the windchest). The resemblance to an organ described in the 10–12th-century Sélestat Manuscript gives its 8′+8′+6′ specification full credibility.⁸

The prototypical culture that inspired the Rims instrument used lead as pipe material, constant scaling after the 11th-century Berne Anonymous MS,⁹ and keys as described by Praetorius for Halberstadt.¹⁰ Its Gamba-Quintadena-like bass tones with Principally-Flutey trebles were an experience all of their own. They came into good use during the symposium in Gregorian alternatims, borduns supporting chanters, and works such as medieval Redeuntes with long-held bass notes under more agile trebles. This instrument presented a left-hand cantus firmus of an early Felix namque¹¹ with remarkable ease and complete conviction; its scaling allowing the “slow-note cantus firmus” to stand out against right-hand elaborations as if two manuals were being used. Yet no normal two-manual organ could ever achieve the effect so convincingly. An understanding of the 13th-century Notre Dame school of Léonin and Pérotin—also tried out at the conference—was clarified through performance on this instrument. All present knew instinctively that they were in the presence of a special musical integrity and masterly instrument building.¹²

Another organ, of an altogether different, rather later style, was the largest of several provided by Walter Chinaglia. This remarkable organo di legno brought to mind a passage in Benvenuto Cellini’s autobiography: 

 

My father began teaching me to play upon the flute and sing by note; but notwithstanding I was of that tender age when little children like to take pastime in whistles and such toys, I had an inexpressible dislike for it, and played and sang only to obey him. At this time my father fashioned wonderful organs with pipes made of wood, spinets the fairest and most excellent which could then be seen, viols and lutes and harps of the most beautiful and perfect construction.¹³

What could be called Chinaglia’s Cellini Principals are exceptionally fine ranks, made from a beautiful red-yellow cypress, which even contributes scent to the total experience of this organ. They run through the entire range of its keyboard at both 8′ and 4′ pitches. The third register, an exquisite Krummhorn-Regal with a beautifully full and rich quality in spite of its pencil-thin resonators, adds a strong and spicy finish to the tonal resources.¹⁴ He also brought along several positives and portatives, one very fine positive emulating that in the van der Goes painting in Scotland.¹⁵

Of particular interest to everybody at the symposium was a new interpretation of the ancient Roman organ finds from Aquincum (Hungary). It was built by
A. Schuke Potsdam-Orgelbau GmbH (Germany) for the Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum Mainz (Germany); research, design, and concept were by Susanne Rühling M.A. and Michael Zierenberg.¹⁶ Extra time had to be allocated, taken from later sessions, allowing a second round of discussion about this amazing but potent little replica. It stood there, like a proud Roman sentinel, on its brown hexagonal pedestal, a living and working monument, mostly in copper or bronze, to the organ belonging to Aquincum’s 3rd-century fire brigade. Its prototype ironically survived a fire by falling into the cellar. Were they all out that night? Perhaps the seemingly unanswerable question—“Was it a hydraulis or a bellows organ?”—might be given a nudge towards hydraulis, since its survival could have been the result of having water poured over it as it fell? It is doubtful that burning floors falling into cellars with highly flammable organ bellows would do anything more than increase the conflagration. Such speculations aside, this instrument looked more like something from the age of steam and polished brass. Indeed, its amazing sounds were quite reminiscent of steam whistles. Justus Willberg also tours Europe with a hydraulis,¹⁷ complete with air-pumps, water cistern, pnigeus, and Greek repertoire, but following the older, Walcker-Mayer interpretation. He was in Basel not so long before the June event, another manifestation of this fascinating phenomenon. The sounds of these Roman organs seem not unrelated to the new Rims organ when first heard from a modern perspective, although they are in reality tonally, musically, and mechanically universes apart.

Another star of both events was the two-stop, one-manual and pedal positive made for the author in 2010 by van der Putten. This instrument was also partly influenced by the van der Goes painting. The organ and I had been invited to make the trip from Basel specifically to talk, play, and be played at this conference. Much of the woodwork is Lebanese cedar, again contributing scent to the total experience. It was used in every concert and demonstration and featured twice on the cover of the flyer. (Rysum was the third.) The two Rhede flyer photos were taken at the Basel event by Jos van der Giessen where the Peterskirche appropriately provided a neatly framed, truly “Gothic” background.¹⁸ The positive was moved from Laufen (Switzerland, near Basel) to Rhede (Germany), then Huizinge (Netherlands), Rysum (Germany), Rhede (Germany), Groningen (Netherlands), Finsterwolde (Netherlands), and back to Laufen (Switzerland) during this northern sojourn—about 12 days.

The rest of the Rhede Symposium consisted of demonstrations, concerts, lectures, a church service, socializing, and networking. The invitees included Harald Vogel, Winold van der Putten, Koos van de Linde, Cor Edskes (paper read in absentia), Susanne Rühling, Winfried Dahlke, Jankees Braaksma, Tomas Flegr, and myself. Themes ranged around gothic pipe-making, wind pressures, voicing, repertoire, performance practice, the problems and advantages in the anachronous use of tuning slides in modern copies of early organs, the towering figure of Arnaut de Zwolle, medieval organ design (cases, windchests, specifications, keys), the Blockwerk, surviving literature, touch sensitivity on portatives, the use of bells with medieval organs, Pythagorean tempering, and much more.

Time simply ran out. The richness of thematic material, available expertise, the many discussion by-products, and the ravenous cultural, intellectual, and musical hunger of all gathered together for this event turned out to be quite overwhelming for the organizers. Some speakers and players had to seriously curtail their offerings. Frustrating though this was, it should be no enduring problem as long as the need for more is acknowledged.

Thus it was that, on Saturday afternoon, September 8, 2012, momentarily lacking a program, I turned to Jos van der Giessen and asked, “When does this finish?” Even the fascinating unscheduled double session by Koos van de Linde (Netherlands/Germany) ranging from Arnaut de Zwolle to the much-discussed Utrecht Nicolaïkerk organ restoration¹⁹ was not fully done. Three more speakers were impossibly scheduled in the 30 minutes before the close at 4:30 pm. My question was intended to be “When does this (session) finish”—but the response fittingly, amusingly, and intentionally misinterpreted it, summing up the spirit which had been engendered by all the 2012 events: “Never, I hope!”

For the phenomenologists, at least four medieval organ events in around four months—Basel, Netherlands, Rhede, Sion—must be something of a landmark for 2012.

•

Immediately following the Rhede Symposium, on Sunday, September 9, after the closing church service in Rysum, a further concert was held in Groningen’s De Oosterpoort Concert Hall. Arrangements had been made that my instrument would remain in the Netherlands for a few days before being returned to Switzerland. Jankees Braaksma (Netherlands) and Tomas Flegr (Czech Republic) played it with the group Vox Resonans, the ensemble adding that sparkle and transformed sound that has been frequently noted with this organ: those who had attended both events were still commenting on Tobie Miller’s hurdy-gurdy playing in Basel and the amazing soundscapes created when organistrum and organum are played in ensemble. The dance group, RenaiDanse,²⁰ led by Veronique Daniels (Switzerland), and instrumentalists also featured in two of the Rhede Symposium concerts as well as this Groningen event. They all earned a double standing ovation in Groningen—one after the concert, another after the encore. The calcant (the organ’s builder), physically exhausted and suffering from a serious workshop injury incurred just before the symposium, was fittingly included with the performers in these accolades.

 

Quo vadis?

The many themes raised by these conferences can only be dealt with through an enduring continuum of instrument building, research, discussion, publication, and many more such events. This arena is a collection of musical swords that still need much more rattling in their scabbards. Basel and Rhede together were able to pose important questions, and even answer some, at least in the short term. But long-term answers are needed, since both the practice and the research is relatively recent, tends to be revelatory, and is ongoing—very much an essential part of the phenomenon.

There were questions posed about the nicknaming of the Rutland Psalter copy as a “Theophilus” organ. Of course, with hindsight we can now view this as two ends of a historical progression and clearly distinguish between them as organ types. Simple, well-intended glossing can grow into habits that become less correct as time progresses. Such expressions tend to stick, even when more recent knowledge overtakes them. Another habit of this kind began to be formed at these conferences when—rightly enough as a new venture in recreating pipe-making history—the so-called “pigeon’s egg” registers (three on the Rims organ, one on the Rumsey organ) were referred to just so: “pigeon’s egg ranks.” The term comes from the 11th-century Codex Bern (see endnote 9), where the measure of pipe diameters is explained as “the width of a pigeon’s egg.” Yet the eggs chosen were different and correctly discriminated between the eras the two instruments represented. Thus the ranks were not scaled to the same widths. The terminology really should have been “constant-scaled.” After that we might talk ancient treatises and ornithology.²¹ Likewise, in discussing the “wolf” in Pythagorean tempering, the interval really should have been referred to as “b to g♭” rather than “b to f♯”. And what were referred to as “pure thirds” are in fact just ever so slightly impure acoustically, since they are really Pythagorean diminished fourths, e.g., d–g♭, which are 384.36 cents, whereas a truly pure major third is 386.31 cents. True, normal human perception cannot distinguish between them.²² Again, strictly speaking, the hydraulis presented was closer to a bellows organ. 

These matters need little further comment here; the intention is clear in every case once the context is clarified and human nature to gloss, nickname, and abbreviate is acknowledged. Exact terminology usually sorts itself out eventually as needs arise and awareness increases—although a general tendency to slow progress is lamentable.

What needs probing now includes the following:

Medieval Tuning and Tempering: A frequent modern assumption that earlier Pythagorean temperaments mostly had the “wolf” at G♯–E♭²³ seems only rarely to be hinted at in ancient sources. It has sometimes been recommended or assumed by exponents of this culture, including Mark Lindley, although often with serious reservations or caveats.²⁴ Others, such as Adam B. Rahbee, are known to be investigating this.²⁵ Further results are eagerly awaited from him and others. However, the most likely outcome, endemic to this medieval discipline it would seem, is that there was no single standard. One particularly fascinating development of this was how, in the half-century or so before Schlick (the work of Arnaut de Zwolle, Pietro Aaron, et al), the pure thirds/diminished fourths were shifted and came into line with four of what became mean-tone temperament’s normal eight.²⁶

Fingering: The use only of 2nd, 3rd, and 4th fingers when playing medieval keyboard music was strongly promoted in the Rhede masterclasses. There was a claim that it was impossible to use thumb and 5th finger anyway, especially when playing portatives. Yet this was proven wrong by at least one participant, who repeatedly and comfortably used all fingers. When an octave span is required in, e.g., a 3-part Buxheim²⁷ piece, and it can only be played by one hand because the other is too far removed to help out, then how can the thumb not be used, especially if the keys are substantially wider than modern keys and there is no pedal? (Horror of horrors: was the rule of exclusively 2nd, 3rd, and 4th fingers partly formulated by people playing relatively narrow modern keyboards?) Aside from Tobie Miller’s hurdy-gurdy playing in Basel, the finely fingered performances by Brett Leighton—who takes Buchner’s Fundamentum organisandi of c. 1520 and his Quem terra pontus as a point of departure—also linger very well in collective memory.²⁸

Music and its structures: Much of the medieval repertoire could have been intended for constant-scaled ranks. The music of Robertsbridge²⁹ and Faenza³⁰ seem often to rely on the development of tension through tessitura variation and the relation of this to changing tonal qualities induced by scaling practices. Redeuntes, for example, sound wonderful on constant-scaled ranks as the figuration rises and falls. This music thrives on “intensity climaxes” that higher-pitched, fuller and flutier constant-scaled ranks produce. No modern scaling can possibly achieve this. The first Estampie from Robertsbridge has one “punctus” after another, each getting successively higher than the preceding, until the final one just blooms with the highest and most intensely flutey notes of all. It is not just constant-scaled ranks but also other scaling practices from this era—e.g., Arnaut’s “halving on the octave with addition constant”—that can produce this effect. Essentially all early scaling practices do to varying degrees, but the more scaling practice approaches modern schemes, such as Töpfer’s norms,³¹ the less marked this effect becomes, and the music ends up sounding relatively flat and lifeless.

Metallurgy—copper, lead, tin, and alloys—plays a most critical role. The use of wood for pipes is another question, particularly the issue of its first clearly recorded use—Italy, late 15th century?³² The Sion (Switzerland) Valeria organ has a “Copel” made from wood, now dendrochronologically dated from around early 15th century.³³ Of course, wood was introduced at some stage between the hydraulis and Arnaut de Zwolle as a material replacing the earlier copper/bronze variants used in making windchests.³⁴ Similarly, early conical metal pipe-forms and the potential confusion they cause in the iconography with wood needs investigation.³⁵ The relics at Hamar, Norway, may eventually provide a key.

The apparently sudden change from copper/bronze to lead at the turn of the 13th century is an interesting phenomenon: that lead was far more malleable than copper may have been a driving motivation clinching change. But the tonal effect was so strikingly softer and sweeter that this was expressly noted in many contemporary tracts.³⁶ It must have come as a profoundly exciting development, part of the Ars Nova/Ars Antiqua watershed. Notated organ music first consistently appeared just after the change—some of it might suit the sound of tin or copper but most of it plays remarkably well on lead pipework. Did the notion of accompanied voices rather than alternatim also receive some kind of stimulus here? And the desire to separate a single 8′ out from a Blockwerk: was this also part of the switch to lead? Later register names, such as Doof, hint at this, for the softer tones of lead must have seemed “deaf” compared either to copper pipes or the presence of upperwork of any kind. It was mainly in the centuries after this change that the typical, relatively small, medieval organ began to share the stage with some increasingly multi-ranked Blockwerks. The facility of the larger Blockwerks to be reduced to a single, sweet foundation rank must have been very alluring, whether for accompaniment or contrast.

Blockwerk registrations were sometimes recommended for pieces played by participants in Rhede—but how many organs pre-15th century had more than about one, two, or three ranks? Two of these ranks were often enough simply a doubled unison. The most spectacular Blockwerks were reported by Wulstan at Winchester in the 10th century or Praetorius at Halberstadt in the 14th or 15th century. Were some of these chroniclers, like us, more impressed with size—or hooked on hyperbole—than with making sober inventories of what was really there? Certainly, the three-rank Rims organ was closer to many Blockwerks of that era than the concept of a “Lokaz of at least 50 ranks,” to cite Schlick at the end of the era around 1511. And the Winchester organ: did this have copper pipes? Presumably. Was that—apart from its apparently anachronistically large mixture—another reason why it was reported as being so loud? Prima facie, sources and iconography prior to the 15th century indicate the existence of relatively few large Blockwerks compared to the many Positives and Portatives.

As with scaling, pitch, keyboard design, metallurgy, and everything else about medieval organs, there were no DIN specifications. Any investigative path is flawed if standards like this are sought. A variety of options needs to be tried within known tolerances, then optimums and limits found. Assessments can then follow, which might be region-, collection- or even specific work-oriented. It would be wonderful if some day money could be found to build an entire series of constant-scaled ranks from very thin to quite wide scaling, note the true ranges available, and try out repertoire on them, for instance that spanning the era between the Robertsbridge Codex and Buxheimer Orgelbuch. If further funding were available, then some copper pipes might also be tried, not for keyboard repertoire before this, since it virtually does not exist, but for ensembles (especially those commonly iconographically represented) and alternatim.

Did some or all the music in Faenza assume copper pipes, lead pipes, tin pipes, alloys? Constant or variable scaling? Pitches equivalent to A440, A466, A520 or something else? And where to place the “wolf”? A520, lead pipes, early Pythagorean tempering, and constant scaling certainly seem to work very well. But are our criteria correct? The experience of beautifully pure major thirds from Renaissance mean-tone tempering, or major thirds ranging from pure to mistuned in the circular temperings of the Baroque era, is very enticing to impressionable musicians travelling back from an accustomed equal tempering. Yet the sober reality is that pure thirds were sometimes expressly avoided, e.g., by Bach using remote keys with dissonant thirds to represent crucifixion, or even just sheer doggedness as with Thomas Roseingrave’s self-proclaimed love of F–G♯ rather than F–A♭ in his deliberate choice of a “nasty” F-minor tonality. Was the Pythagorean “wolf” sought out in like manner, or studiously avoided by these earlier musicians? Probably it was avoided if the evidence of modal transpositions is taken at face value—but even here there are questions that need working through.³⁷ In any case, there is no significant evidence in medieval music for an Affektenlehre and Figurenlehre: that was the culture of Bach, Handel, and Roseingrave.

To a degree, medieval voicing seems somewhat weather-prone: what barely works one day, might work well or not at all in the next cold snap or heat wave. And the organs of those days were only marginally protected from weather change compared to ours in air-conditioned buildings today. Thus: were their tolerances of pitch and tuning, including in ensemble, and with bells, more flexible than ours are today? Within limits, slight differences actually make these organs more interesting, as do historical voicing techniques—particularly the lack of total control with wide-open footholes. The lowest generally workable pitch from 27mm constant-scaled lead pipes is about modern (A440) tenor E♭. With 33mm it extends down to B♭, a fourth lower. Thus, pitches of organs produce differing manual compasses, or a few low pipes with ears needed to make them speak. As Winold van der Putten pointed out in Basel, “Medieval organ builders were no fools: it only takes cupping a hand around a pipe mouth to make it speak.” Iconography showing ears is, however, extremely elusive—jury out, experimentation and investigation still in. If, as seems likely, constant scaling was perpetuated well after the 11th century, whence these “pigeon’s egg” figures derive, then diameters could well have increased in time, allowing lower bass ranges and even more blooming trebles. The iconography, inter alia, suggests that this tendency could have persisted until early 15th century as diameters apparently became wider.³⁸ A targeted study of this is overdue.

If we retain all the parameters noted above, then reduce the size of the pigeon’s egg taken to 27mm, as with the Rims organ, little of Robertsbridge and Faenza at its notated pitch can be played satisfactorily unless the instrument is higher than A440. The very low notes cannot be voiced reliably using known medieval tools and techniques. Yet Léonin, Pérotin, or the Felix Namque of the Oxford MS sound totally convincing here with their more agile trebles—everything just bringing this music to a radiant vitality. The same applies for other parameters with Buxheimer, Ileborgh,³⁹ or various regional- or even specifically single-work instances.

Even so, did Léonin and Pérotin ever know lead pipes?

Research and experimentation not possible hitherto has now shown that constant scaling with pigeons’ egg dimensions around 33mm, and a pitch of at least A465 makes the first Estampie from Robertsbridge sound simply magnificent when transposed up a tone. That equates to A520—which should make some players of medieval instruments happy, since many project that pitch for some of their repertoire. All this, or an even higher pitch, brings “43” from Faenza truly to life in 33mm constant scaling. Lower that pitch and the bass notes of the Estampie are poor or missing, while the overall effect of “43” is relatively dull from trebles that simply do not bloom so well.

Of necessity, these assessments will always have a component of subjectivity in them. But not entirely: low pitches and constant scaling yield bass notes that do not repeat promptly, and others that will not speak properly, if at all—indicators that either pitch is too low, scaling too narrow, or later scaling practices could be appropriate. The physical limits of medieval organ compasses and pitch now need probing and defining. Any temptation to a general conformity of anything—pitch, scaling, metal alloy, tempering, fingering—must be addressed as a range or tolerance, given a specific set of parameters. This expressly includes repertoire and ensemble playing.

Standardization was a new concept that had to wait for Arnolt Schlick and later centuries. Interestingly, Schlick, relatively modern by comparison to the main thrust of these conferences, barely made it into the discussions.

 

A sequel? 

Thus, there was a consensus that intellectual and musical exchange should not simply vanish after this flush of medieval organ symposia during the European summer of 2012. Several events are already known to be foreshadowed. Of considerable interest will be a major symposium planned for the Amsterdam Orgelpark, June 6–8, 2013.⁴⁰ Wherever future events are held, it would be most welcome if they were not primarily talk-fests, but also included strong performance components. One small criticism of the Rhede Symposium was its predominance of talk over music. A four-way balance will always be needed with medieval organ cultures: talk, solo organ, alternatim, and in ensemble. In a way, these instruments were born to work in alternation with speech, chanting, silence, and possibly bells. It is particularly in ensemble that the iconography, literature, and extant music seems to be signposting the way ahead. Both Basel and Rhede showed that all four are needed for a completely balanced presentation of this highly fascinating culture. Basel strongly promoted alternatim and ensemble, and so did Rhede, the latter chiefly in concerts where dance was also represented. Would the miracle or mystery plays of the era be a good suggestion for some future events?

The Mainzer Hoftag of 1184 is usually reckoned as the greatest medieval festival in history. It was here that Friedrich Barbarossa knighted his sons, Heinrich VI and Friedrich V. A contemporary description of it included these lines:⁴¹

 

Dâ was spil end gesanc

End behurt ende dranc,

Pîpen ende singen

Vedelen ende springen,

Orgeln ende seitspelen,

Meneger slachten frouden vele.

 

There was playing and song,

And pushing and shoving,

Piping and singing,

Fiddles and dancing,

Organs and strings playing,

Many joyful things mingling.

 

Epilogue

The standing ovations in Groningen mentioned above had something of a cathartic feel to them, reflecting the exegesis in medieval organbuilding and musical performance that has taken place over the past several decades, especially in the events described above. Winold van der Putten’s organs were not at all alone in this, but he and his work were at the center of two of these conferences.⁴² His 1999 realization of the copy of the Rutland Psalter organ was an important trailblazer. This instrument was featured at the Rhede conference, along with some portatives for Jankees Braaksma and his group, Super Librum.⁴³ These were prototypes for most of what has followed as van der Putten and others investigated, experimented, and cracked the codes of medieval organbuilding and voicing. His recent constant-scaled ranks for myself and the Rims instrument were essayed only after much investigation and experimentation. In their own way, they alone deserved their rightful share of those standing ovations. Medieval organ scaling of this kind now seems set to be one of the next “revelations” in the performance of this music—not least in portatives where, oddly enough, it remains relatively untried.

 

David Rumsey⁴⁴ was born and educated in Sydney, Australia. He studied with Anton Heiller and Marie-Claire Alain in Europe 1963–66, then returned to a position at the University of Adelaide. Moving back to Sydney in 1969 he established a Department of Organ and Church Music, which survives the recent Australian educational and research funding cuts. For over 25 years, until 1998, he was the regular organist with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and as such frequently presided over the Grand Organs of Sydney Opera House and Sydney Town Hall. Associations with multimedia events have included performances of the Saint-Saëns “Organ Symphony” to 100,000 people with the orchestra in the Sydney Domain, the organ via microwave link from Sydney Town Hall. In 1998, he wrote, produced, acted, and performed in a highly successful 14-hour musical and dramatic spectacle on the life of J.S. Bach, with actors in period costume from the National Institute of Dramatic Art (AUS), and musicians playing period instruments. He resigned his post in Sydney in 1998 and moved to Basel, Switzerland, where he continues working as an organist and consultant, and as a Senior Researcher at the University of Bern. Since 2007 he has been responsible for the editing and CD-production of historic organ recordings released under the OehmsClassics label using the historic Welte organ and its player-rolls at Seewen (SO-CH) and is regarded as an authority on aspects of medieval organ culture. He is organist at Herz Jesu Kirche in Laufen (BL-CH) and in-house consultant and organist to the Museum der Musikautomaten, Seewen (SO-CH).⁴⁵

 

Acknowledgements

(*) Seemingly the only images currently available, taken here from Stein Johannes Kolnes, Norsk orgelkultur—Instrument og miljø frå mellomalderen til I dag, Det Norske Samlaget, Oslo, 1987.

Thanks to John Liddy, Jos van der Giessen, Marc Lewon, and Elizabeth Rumsey for their help with this article, and to all who contributed photos and good advice. My apologies to Walter Chinaglia for not writing more about his organo di legno—space allocation just became too acute and this instrument really belongs to a slightly later epoch than the one mainly under discussion here. A fuller report on it can be seen at http://www.davidrumsey.ch/Chinaglia.htm.

 

Notes

1. Some details are available at www.david rumsey.ch/Medieval.php.

2. www.ostfriesischelandschaft.de/1097.html

3. Kimberly Marshall, Iconographical Evidence for the Late-Medieval Organ in French, Flemish, and English Manuscripts (New York: Garland Publishing, 1989), ISBN 0-8240-2047-2.

4. A description of the background to this, including mention of an earlier instrument by Yves Cabourdin, is available in Marcel Pérès, editor, Les orgues gothiques: Actes du Colloque de Royaument, 1995 (Paris, Editions Créaphis, 2000).

5. www.organa.it

6. www.marcus-stahl-orgelbauer.com

7. Wolkenstayn Orgelbau—also represented at the Basel event—www.wolkenstayn.de. He is arranging a course March 8–10, 2013, the “13. Etappe zur Frühen Musik,” dealing with Organetto/Portative playing, to be held at Burg Fuersteneck. Details on his website.

8. www.davidrumsey.ch/Bibliography.htm (see under 11th century)

9. Anonymous of Bern(e) or Codex Bern, Anonymus Bernensis etc., excerpt De fistulis organis/De organis.

10. In Michael Praetorius, Syntagma Musicum, Volume II, Wolfenbüttel 1618 (1619/20), section V, and Volume III 1619, section 7: “Das I. und II. Diskant-klavier.”

11. Oxford Douce MS 381

12. An alternatim (Veni creator spiritus) from an ad hoc Rhede performance can be heard at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgtszdCw91o&feature=youtu.be.

13. John Addington Symonds (1840–1893), trans., The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini, Chapter V. It is now available online as part of the “Gutenberg” project (see www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4028).

14. Further details at: www.organa.it/page1/page14/page41/page41.html.

15. Hugo van der Goes, Ange jouant de l’orgue (Angel playing the organ), Flemish ca. 1480, Sir Edward Bonkil, Holyrood Castle, Edinburgh collection. For a sample (second from left) see https://d30dcznuokq8w8.cloudfront.net/works/r/bal/6/8/0/399086_full_102….

16. www.schuke.com/pages/de/projects#reconstructions

17. www.hydraulis.de

18. Remains of a hydraulis were excavated in Dion, Greece, in August 1992. A reconstruction has since been toured. See Peter Williams and Jean-Paul Montagnier, eds., The Organ Yearbook #33 (Laaber: Laaber-Verlag, 2004), p. 163; Michael Markovits, Die Orgel in Altertum (Leiden: Brill, 2003); and websites: www.culture.gr/2/23/232/epked/en/00_standard_menu/00a_ydraulis/00a.htm and www.mlahanas.de/Greece/Cities/Dion.html.

19. See Peter Williams, ed., The Organ Yearbook #41 (Laaber: Laaber-Verlag, 2012), pp. 7–35. Program at www.david rumsey.ch/index.pdf, images at www.david rumsey.ch/2012/album/index.html.

20. www.renaidanse.org/page/de/act.html

21. The sizes of pigeons’ eggs are discussed in a footnote to Part II, Section 1, of Christhard Mahrenholz, Die Berechnung der Orgelpfeifenmensuren vom Mittelalter bis zur Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts (Bärenreiter, 1968); also in English translation (Oxford: Positif Press, 1975). 

22. See also www.davidrumsey.ch/
tempering.pdf.

23. Really not a quint at all, but a diminished sixth, which has to function as a quint on the vast majority of keyboards where no split keys provide any better-tuned alternatives. This also applies to diminished fourths, which, in the Pythagorean temperings under discussion here, more accommodatingly or even fortuitously provide a near-pure major third.

24. An important essay on this subject by Mark Lindley can be found online at http://independent.academia.edu/MarkLindley/Papers/242254/Pythagorean_i…. See particularly Table 2, page 27, and the general discussion involving Odington, Spechtshart, et al. Certainly he presents much evidence for the B–G♭ wolf having more than a century’s demonstrable currency from 1413 to 1513 and correctly reminds us that the organ’s tuning cultures were often at variance with those of other instruments. The only significant assertion he makes for a G♯–E♭ wolf is for Robertsbridge (p. 33). Another essay, by Margo Schulter, can be viewed at www.medieval.org/emfaq/harmony/pyth4.html#1. See especially around “4.5 Pythagorean tuning modified: a transition around 1400,” where she assumes a G♯–E♭ wolf. In the final analysis, these do not argue very convincingly for a wolf at G♯–E♭ on purely statistical grounds. Of course, this only became a pressing issue when keyboards came to be divided into 12 or more discrete notes.

25. E.g., in a series of e-mail exchanges between Rahbee and the author dating June 28 to July 22, 2012. He is particularly interested in 15th- and 16th-century tempering practices and takes such relatively new material as the Cambrai MS into account (see Patrizio Barbieri, “An Unknown 15th-century French Manuscript on Organ Building and Tuning,” in Peter Williams, ed., The Organ Yearbook #20 [Laaber: Laaber-Verlag, 1989]). Rahbee is also exploring a hypothesis that meantone tempering may have come into widespread use somewhat later than is commonly believed. The apparently dual-tempered instruments of late 15th century, e.g., the Lorenzo da Pavia style of organ, may yet have much to offer on this topic. See http://www.david rumsey.ch/Iconography.pdf, pp. 7 and 8, and Marco Tiella, “The Positive Organ of Lorenzo da Pavia (1494),” in Peter Williams, ed., The Organ Yearbook #7 (Laaber: Laaber-Verlag 1976), pp. 4–15.

26. With a B–G♭ wolf giving near-pure major thirds (really diminished fourths) on A, D, E and B as opposed to the four (from a G♯–E♭ wolf tuning) quasi-pure major thirds on B, G♯, F♯, C♯ (see also endnote 22). This awakens interest in the potential adaptation of Pythagorean/B–G♭ tempering—seen as part of a transition to meantone—bearing, e.g., on the E-major/e-minor tuning dilemma in some Bruhns and early Bach organ works.

27. Das Buxheimer Orgelbuch, MS 3725, Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek, München.

28. Leighton’s point of departure is that Buch-ner was a Hofhaimer pupil, barely outlived his master, and most likely merely codified what he had been taught. The “good” fingers are 2 and 4, with scales played on lower keys executed, r.h. ascending and l.h. descending, as 2-3-2-3 (starting on strong beats), r.h. descending and l.h. ascending as 4-3-2-3-2-3, turn figures r.h. high-middle-low-middle and l.h. low-middle-high-middle as 4-3-2-3. The hand can be turned in the direction of travel when using paired fingerings (turning the hand in the direction of movement and keeping the fingers parallel to the keys were techniques used in the outgoing 16th century, their relative employment before that is a matter of speculation; Santa Maria and Diruta were in disagreement about this). Thumbs and fifth fingers are used in both hands (especially the left) when larger intervals require them. The iconography indicates use of left thumb when that hand played longer note values in three parts. Impractical passages sometimes need rule-breaking exceptions. Prohibition of using the same finger twice in succession is not endorsed in Quem terra pontus (which seems to have been fingered by a scribe rather than Buchner) and in polyphony, finger repetition is often the best musical and technical solution. (E-mail correspondence of 12.11.2012-3.12.2012).

29. Robertsbridge Codex/Robertsbridge fragment, London, British Library Add.
MS 28850. 

30. Faenza Codex, Faenza, Biblioteca Comunale, ms. 117.

31. See J.G. Töpfer, Lehrbuch der Orgelbaukunst, in 4 volumes (Weimar, 1855, and Mainz: Rheingold-Verlag, 1955–60).

32. See www.davidrumsey.ch/Technology.htm.

33. See Friedrich Jakob et al. in Die Valeria-Orgel. Ein gotisches Werk in der Burgkirche zu Sitten/Sion (Zurich, Verlag der Fachvereine, 1991), ISBN 3-7281-1666-1 and the updates in La Tribune de L’orgue, ed. Guy Bovet (Geneva), in numbers 56/3 and 61/2. A subsidiary issue here is that many of the older metal pipes at Sion appear not to have been hammered, but retain a thick, rough—even slightly porous?—post-casting appearance.

34. As noted, e.g., by Markovits in Die Orgel in Altertum. See, e.g., pp. 342, 418, and especially p. 444, where metal scarcities in the middle ages are said to have driven the change to wood, etc. (cf. pp. 198). Note also the tin- or copper/bronze-veneered wooden plates of windchests. This book is also available for viewing online at http://books.google.ca/books?id=p7amFlH7Bg0C&pg=PA401&source=gbs_toc_r&….

35. A need to be cautious here is underscored by an illusion in some representations, such as that of the Dame à la Licorne tapestry (http://www.davidrumsey.ch/Iconography.pdf, p. 5), where the pipe tops appear cylindrical, but lower down, under the bar, seem square.

36. E.g., see www.davidrumsey.ch/index.pdf—the Jerome de Moravia quote. In that connection a question (cf. Markovits endnote 33 above) that needs raising may well be: If metal was scarce, then what drove the change to lead so strongly (and e.g., not to wood)?

37. Lindley (op. cit., p .5) for example claims that most of Buxheim seems “. . . in certain cases at least, to require some form of meantone temperament for its proper effect” but gives no clear criteria. My own experience is contrary to this, having tried both, and I am mostly very comfortable with a Pythagorean/B–G♭ wolf for Buxheim. Criteria of this kind are difficult to formulate, save to note that resting points in the music, apart from open fifths and octaves, seem often enough to occur with the near-pure thirds of e.g., an A-major or D-major triad (a feature also noted by Lindley, pp. 42–43). We have to face the fact that medieval musicians themselves applied no consistent criteria here—a proposition that Lindley gives credence to with his quotation (p. 4) of the Spataro/Gaffurio and many other bitter contemporary conflicts around such issues. By virtue of its three additional pipes per octave, the medieval organ built by Winold van der Putten for me in 2010 is capable of playing in a variety of early Pythagorean temperings. With options of pipes to play either D♭ or C♯, G♭ or F♯, and A♭ or G♯, this currently allows any of the following tempering configurations:

Wolf G♯–E♭: E♭ B♭ F C G D A E B F♯ C♯ G♯

Wolf C♯–A♭: A♭ E♭ B♭ F  C G D A E B F♯ C♯

Wolf F♯–D♭: D♭ A♭ E♭ B♭ F C G D A E B F♯

Wolf B–G♭: G♭ D♭ A♭ E♭B♭ F C G D A E B

E♭/D♯ and B♭/A♯ choices (not yet built 2012) would further increase these options with:

Wolf D♯–B♭: B♭ F C G D A E B F♯ C♯ G♯ D♯

Wolf A♯–F: F C G D A E B F♯ C♯ G♯ D♯ A♯

So far a lack of available time has allowed only limited exploration of these variants.

38. www.davidrumsey.ch/Iconography.pdf

39. Incipiunt praeludia diversarium notarum secundum modernum modum subitliter et diligentor collecta cum mensuris diversis hic infra annexis by Adam Ileborgh of Stendal, 1448 (Ileborgh: Paris, private collection [‘Ileborgh Tablature’]).

40. www.orgelpark.nl/pages/home

41. Quoted in Jean Perrot, The Organ, from Its Invention in the Hellenistic Period to the End of the Thirteenth Century (London: Oxford University Press, 1971, ISBN 0 19 318418 4), trans. Norma Dean, p. 268. Perrot is sourcing this from Th. Gérold, La Musique au Moyen Age (Paris: Champion, 1932), p. 419.

42. www.orgelmakerij.nl

43. www.superlibrum.nl

44. www.davidrumsey.ch/index.php

45. www.bundesmuseen.ch/musikautomat en/index.html?lang=en

Notes on pipe organs in Canada's youngest province of the Confederation, Newfoundland and Labrador

Lester Goulding and William (Bill) Vineer

Lester Goulding was born in Grand Falls, Newfoundland. He has been an independent businessman, a music specialist (wind band) in the provincial school system, and a sessional instrumental instructor at the Department of Music at Memorial University of Newfoundland. A Licentiate and Fellow of Trinity College of Music, London, England, Goulding apprenticed and worked at Casavant Frères, St. Hyacinthe, Quebec in 1954 and 1955. In 1956 he was appointed by the builder to be their sales and service representative in Newfoundland and Labrador. With few exceptions, he has serviced all of the organs in this province. He lives in St. John’s, Newfoundland with his wife Elsie. He has four children and nine grandchildren.

William (Bill) Vineer is an Ottawa Valley boy from Renfrew who got “hooked on the pipe organ” at age five when he attended Renfrew Presbyterian Church with his family. While he has had a lifelong love for the pipe organ, his focus since 1967 has been on the Vineer Organ Library & Archives, now celebrating its 46th anniversary; the library and archives are located in Vineer’s west-end Ottawa home. Its website: www.vineerorganlibrary.com. Moving to Ottawa in 1965, Vineer began a 30-year career with the Department of Retro Virology in the Department of Agriculture’s Animal Disease Research Institute, during which time he contributed to over 150 published scientific papers, and two patents. In addition to his research work, he taught for 26 years in the Department of Hospitality at Algonquin College.

Contact the authors at the Vineer Organ Library & Archives by telephone at 613/224-1553 or by e-mail at 

[email protected].

For those of us in Canada who have a passionate love for the pipe organ and its history, there is no need to look further than our own backyard: a gold mine of glorious history is sitting right here in the youngest province of the Confederation, Newfoundland and Labrador, which became Canada’s tenth province in 1949. Prior to joining Canada, Newfoundland and Labrador was a Crown colony and in fact the oldest colony of the British Empire in North America. Thus, as we uncover the history of pipe organs past and present, it is not surprising to find in this eastern province a loyalty to the old country, Britain. A profound respect and affection for British standards of quality can be readily observed and it was quite common for the principal churches in the colony to turn to Britain rather than to America for their organs.

 

Pre-Confederation (1853–1949)

The earliest pipe organ found in our research that could be factually dated was constructed in 1853 by the British builder Thomas J. Robson for St. John the Baptist Roman Catholic Cathedral, in St. John’s. Taking this date as a starting point, we have a period of 96 years, ending when Newfoundland and Labrador joined the Canadian Confederation in 1949. During this period, a total of 52 pipe organs were installed in the British colony: 36 were of British make, eleven were from Canada, and two from the United States of America. We did not find any information regarding the origin and manufacturer of the other three instruments. The date of installation could not be determined for eight of the 52 organs.

 

1949–present

After Newfoundland and Labrador joined the Canadian Confederation in 1949 and up to the present day, a total of eighteen organs were installed in the province, all manufactured in Canada and all still currently in use. The instrument built by Létourneau Organs as well as sixteen of the instruments built by Casavant Frères remain in the province, their conditions ranging from good to excellent. Another of the organs built by Casavant Frères and originally installed in Newfoundland is now located in Ontario and is in excellent condition.

 

Pipe organs of Labrador

We believe that there were at least five pipe organs installed in Labrador, the mainland part of the province. Four of these were smaller instruments and were installed in communities along the coastal shore, the first having arrived in 1824. The only organ among these four still in existence today is located in the Moravian Church, Hopedale: a one-manual with four stops, built in Saxony, Germany. We continue to search for information on the other three pipe organs we believe were located along the coastal shore of Labrador. It is highly likely that these too came from Saxony, Germany.

The fifth pipe organ located in Labrador is a Casavant, a unit organ of one manual, nine stops, three ranks. It was relocated in 1981 to Our Lady of Perpetual Help Roman Catholic Basilica, Labrador City. The organ is in good condition, is played on a regular basis, and is actively maintained.

 

Inventory of Newfoundland
and Labrador pipe organs

The table below, a chronological listing of the instruments of the past and present installed in Newfoundland and Labrador, is current as of January 2013. Each instrument is identified by opus number, year of installation, city or town, location, builder, number of manuals, stops, and ranks, type of action, and present condition. Abbreviations were used to describe the action of the instruments: “M” Mechanical (Tracker), “P” Pneumatic, “MP” Mechanical-Pneumatic, “EP” Electro-Pneumatic, “DE” Direct Electric (all unit organs), and “ES” Electric Slider. In the Opus and Year columns, “N/A” indicates data was not available at the time of publication. 

We would greatly appreciate being made aware of any errors or omissions and would welcome readers’ corrections and comments. Any information that can be added to these files or data to help fill in the table would certainly be welcomed. All information on the organs of Newfoundland and Labrador has been submitted from the files of Lester Goulding.

 

Some historical facts of interest

The 1853 Thomas J. Robson organ, installed in St. John the Baptist Roman Catholic Basilica, St. John’s, had three manuals and 46 stops: 16 on the Great, 11 on the Choir, 13 on the Swell, and six for the pedals, plus four couplers;¹ “[…] it was handsomely equipped with mixtures on all three manuals, and fell short of the full present-day gospel by failing to have a 4ft. choral bass on the pedals.”² We have found no trace of this pipe organ. 

Today, St. John the Baptist Roman Catholic Basilica houses two Casavant organs, both installed in 1955. Opus 2269 is a four-manual, 51-stop instrument located in the gallery, and opus 2270 a two-manual, 15-stop instrument located in the chancel.

A very rare and historic instrument is to be found in the Masonic Temple, St. John’s. Built in 1883 (opus number unknown) by August Gern, who previously worked as a foreman in the late 19th century for the renowned French organbuilder Cavaillé-Coll, the instrument is fitted with two manuals, 10 stops, and mechanical/pneumatic action. It has glass-paneled doors, all part of the console, which are set into the beautiful case. This pipe organ was originally built for the home of John B. Ayre (1850–1915), a merchant, political figure, organist, and director of the music section of the now defunct Ayre and Sons department store.

The importance of this instrument is that it is the only Gern pipe organ in Canada and in fact the only one in North America. Our understanding is that only a very few August Gern pipe organs remain intact in England where the builder lived. Unfortunately this pipe organ is in poor condition and in need of a total restoration. We firmly believe that this pipe organ should be restored to the full working condition of its glory days and sit in its rightful place as part of the glorious history of Newfoundland and Labrador.

The Bevington & Sons organ of 1884, a one-manual, nine-stop instrument with mechanical action, was built for Alexander Street Methodist Church. It was moved in 1911 to Trinity United Church, Winterton. This instrument is in good condition today.

The British organ builders, Forster & Andrews (1843–1956), of Hull, England, built a total of eight instruments that were exported to Newfoundland. Seven of these were smaller instruments of similar design (one manual, six stops), the other one being a larger organ of three manuals, 38 stops. The last of the smaller instruments was built in 1928 for Botwood United Church, Botwood. In 1990, the organ was relocated to the Corpus Christi Roman Catholic Church, St. John’s. The organ is in poor condition and is in need of a total restoration. It should be pointed out that Forster & Andrews were exporting their instruments to Newfoundland while it was still a British colony and did not export any of their instruments to Canada.³

Casavant opus 2586, built in 1960 for All Saints’ Anglican Church, Foxtrap, is a two-manual, 20-stop, three-rank direct electric action instrument. It was moved in 1999 to St. Leonard’s Roman Catholic Church in Manotick, Ontario. This pipe organ is in excellent condition.⁴

The only two pipe organs that we know to have been imported from the United States are Estey opus 1701 (1919), located in Central United Church, Bay Roberts (two manuals, seven stops) and Möller opus 7751 (1948), located in St. Anthony United Church, St. Anthony (two manuals, 17 stops, three ranks). Both are still in good playing condition.

Of the eleven pipe organs built in Canada and exported before 1949, nine were by Casavant, one by Woodstock, and one by Lye. Of these instruments, eight are still playable and rate from good to excellent, two were destroyed, and one lost its console (destroyed), although the case remains in the church.

Of the three instruments installed by unknown builders, one has been destroyed and two are still in use, one rated poor and one good.

Casavant opus 1386, located in Gower Street United Church, St. John’s, was installed in 1930: three manuals, 29 stops. This instrument was rebuilt and enlarged in 2007 to 36 stops.

It is amazing that, even after 160 years (1853–2013), fourteen of the 36 instruments manufactured in England remain in playable condition, their status ranging from poor to good, and that the two that are silent remain intact in their original location. We would very much like to see all of these remaining instruments that came from Britain and are still in playable condition be classified as heritage instruments, and rebuilt to their original condition before this very important part of Canadian history is lost forever.

 

Gower Street United Church,
St. John’s, Newfoundland

In the photograph, we see the Peter Conacher organ built in 1896 for Gower Street United Church, St. John’s, Newfoundland. In 1930, the organ was moved to the Memorial United Church, Grand Falls, Newfoundland. This photo was taken in 1953, prior to the organ being dismantled. The casework shown here now houses Casavant opus 2182. The towers and rosettes are hand-carved. Beautiful!

 

Historical note

The United Church of Canada came into existence in 1925, bringing together the Congregational, Methodist, and some of the Presbyterian churches of Canada.

 

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to express their most sincere thanks and appreciation to the following: Carl Goulding, who spent countless hours correcting the chronological listing for this article; Kathy Roberts, who spent hours making changes and corrections in order for this article to be published; Paul Cheatley, who designed the database used in this article and provided helpful input to this article. 

 

Notes

1. E. J. Hopkins and E. F. Rimbault, The Organ: Its History and Construction (London: Robert Cocks & Co., 1877), pp. 453–454.

2. C. I. G. Stobie, “The Organ in St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, St. John’s, Newfoundland,” The Organ, 52, 1972, p. 58.

3. Laurence Elvin, Forster and Andrews: Organ Builders, 1843–1956 (Lincoln: Laurence Elvin, 1968), p. 77.

4. “Pipe Organ Database,” Organ Historical Society, 15 February 2013, database.organsociety.org.

 

 

Allison Alcorn

Allison A. Alcorn received her PhD from the University of North Texas, Denton, in 1997 and is now professor of musicology at Illinois State University, where she is active in the Honors Program, Study Abroad, and Faculty Development and mentoring. Alcorn served as editor of the Journal of the American Musical Instrument Society from 2012–2017 and joined the AMIS Board of Governors in 2017. She has previously served as councilor for research for the Organ Historical Society and on the governing board of the American Organ Archives. Publications include articles for the Grove Dictionary of American Music and the Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments as well as articles in a variety of national and international journals.

A unique figure in the story of the American organ is John Leonard Hinners (1846–1906), who perhaps epitomizes the late nineteenth-century entrepreneurial spirit in the face of the closing frontier (Figure 1). He is something of a musical amalgam of Henry Ford and Montgomery Ward: Ford brought the passenger car to the common man and Hinners brought the pipe organ, and just as Montgomery Ward successfully reached the isolated Midwestern farm house with its mail order merchandise, Hinners reached out to the isolated Midwestern country church with his mail order pipe organ business. Although Hinners was not the only company to use the mail order idea, he seems to have been at least among the most successful with it. In fact, the Hinners Organ Company never extensively employed outside salesmen. All preliminary business was conducted by catalog and letter, the organ was crated up and shipped by rail, and the first time the buyer had any real contact with the company was when an employee, whose expenses were included in the contract, arrived to direct the parishioners in installing the new instrument. John Leonard’s entrepreneurial ambition was clearly shaped by the experiences of his entire life, combining to formulate his ideas about meeting the musical, religious, and social needs of rural churches.

 

Family background

John Leonard Hinners was the son of German immigrants who set out from Hanover, Germany, with a group of Pietists seeking religious freedom. In 1849, Peter Hinners (1824–1887), John Leonard’s father, was accepted as a missionary of the German Methodist Episcopal Church. Peter and his family left Wheeling, West Virginia, to work a circuit in the Midwest, locating variously in Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Indiana for the next number of years. Unlike the English-speaking Methodist circuit riders, the German missionaries tended to use river transportation, traversing north on the Mississippi to visit German settlements scattered across the Midwest, particularly along the line of St. Louis-Chicago-Milwaukee, each of which was home to more than 10,000 Germans in 1860. Peter’s particular skill was constructing churches, and many of his assignments involved mission sites in which he erected a church before moving to the next site. With Pekin located as a major port on the Illinois River, the decision to move the John L. Hinners family to Pekin in 1879 may have been related to the work of the Methodist missionaries, among several other factors. 

John Leonard, therefore, spent his childhood in any number of small, rural congregations throughout the Midwest, shaping his future in profound ways. As a musician deeply involved with these churches, he certainly would have felt the limitations of the typical church reed organ from both a musical and an aesthetic/cultural point of view. Moreover, he would have been intimately familiar with the frustration of these rural congregations who struggled to pay their ministers, much less find additional cash for a pipe organ. Peter, known for his skills as a church builder, must have provided John Leonard’s basic woodworking skills, since one might reasonably expect that Peter’s sons would have assisted him with his building projects. Music occupied a central position in the Peter Hinners household as well and so, as Peter’s son, John Leonard was reared with his hands on a hammer and his feet on the pedals, learning skills of building and music that he would later combine into a business that produced nearly 3,000 pipe organs and approximately 20,000 reed organs in its five and a half decades of existence.¹

 

Marketing and sales models

John Leonard accepted a position with Mason & Hamlin in Chicago in the 1870s, a time when reed organs were rapidly gaining popularity throughout America. Music was seen as a worthy pastime, one that was integral to a happy home. Further, owning a reed organ signified a measure of prestige that was second only to the piano, the latter more of a “citified” instrument and the former more of a status symbol in rural areas. Reed organs were such a desirable commodity that in the mid-1880s, a small reed organ was offered by the Ladies’ Home Journal as a premium for submitting 350 one-year subscriptions at .50 each (Figure 2).

The sales techniques of reed organ companies are particularly important, because it appears that John L. Hinners modeled his pipe organ enterprise, both target audience and sales approach, directly on that of the reed organ business. Advertisements in periodical literature were ubiquitous. Everything from popular magazines and newspapers to church journals ran the advertisements of dealers or manufacturers hawking their particular brand of organ. Some ads were a full page, but many were no larger than an inch square, squeezed in among advertisements for women’s shirtwaists and Calumet Baking Powder.

A common technique of these ads was to include an “inquiry address” to which one could write for a free catalog. Often these catalogs—such as the Hinners catalog from 1895 in Figure 3—were not much more than testimonials from satisfied customers, and occasionally the accounts were somewhat improved in the editing process, and some were probably entirely fabricated. Catalog houses such as Montgomery Ward and Sears carried entire lines of musical instruments, including reed organs. The catalog houses’ sales philosophies were followed almost to the letter by John L. Hinners in his pipe organ business.

 

The move to Pekin

Why John Leonard chose to move his family to Pekin, Illinois, in 1879 is a subject for speculation. Pekin is located on the banks of the Illinois River about 50 miles due north of present-day Springfield and was organized under a city charter dated August 20, 1849. It is said that the town was named after Peking, China, when Ann Eliza Cromwell, wife of one of the original town title-holders, pushed a hat pin through “Townsite” on a globe and it came out on the opposite side at Peking, China.² Because of the town’s prime location on the river and its status as a terminal railroad station, numerous industries developed in Pekin. More than that, however, if one conjectures that John Leonard had the rural church market in mind right from the start, a Midwestern location was desirable as an effort to gain the trust of an Eastern-wary rural Midwestern clientele. Because the first settlers in Pekin were primarily native-born Americans, the earliest churches in each denomination were English-speaking, but when the Germans began to arrive in large numbers in the 1850s (attracted initially by the T. & H. Smith Wagon Company), German-speaking congregations were established. The first German congregation in Pekin was the Methodist Episcopal, building a small frame structure in 1850 and becoming a leading congregation in the St. Louis Methodist Conference.

Undoubtedly, the Hinners family had contact with that congregation through their strong involvement with the national German Methodist Episcopal denomination. After his years as a circuit rider, Peter Hinners, John Leonard’s father, functioned as a financial agent for the denomination and traveled frequently to the regional German Methodist Episcopal churches, surely visiting Pekin on a regular basis. Pekin’s congregation even hosted the 1875 Conference of the German Methodist Episcopals, which John Leonard may well have attended, probably then meeting Fred Schaefer, for whom he initially manufactured his reed organs. Schaefer was a member of the church, and as a musical instrument dealer, he certainly would have spoken with an employee of Mason & Hamlin who happened to be visiting his church. In the course of conversations, it would have been quite natural for John Leonard to voice his frustrations with hopes of advancing within the Mason & Hamlin operation as well as his desire to build his own organs. The scope of Schaefer’s businesses shows him to be nothing if not enterprising (Figure 4), and it is easy to picture the wheels turning in his mind at the idea of enticing a young organbuilder to manufacture reed organs for him right there in Pekin. The city did offer a small amount of competition for the Hinners organs. In an 1878 Pekin newspaper, Geiger & Thompson’s Sewing Machine Exchange also advertised “the Matchless Burdett Organ” (Figure 5).

After Chicago, however, the competition in Pekin offered little intimidation or resistance for the ambitions of John Leonard, though some even continued to offer Mason & Hamlin organs, like the local musical merchandise dealer in this advertisement in Figure 6. Another competitor, however, succumbed to the offer of employment by the Hinners firm, as is documented in the 25th anniversary booklet listing Gilbert Skaggs as a 14-year employee. Skaggs is cited in the 1905 Pekin City Directory as an independent organbuilder and may have been one of the men recruited to help get the pipe organ enterprise underway, as his tenure coincides with the beginning of pipe organ production.

Regardless of the impetus, John L. Hinners’s Perfection Organ Manufactory in Pekin began a new era of industry for the region. He set up shop in a back room of Schaefer’s new building on Court Street, across from the courthouse and spent the next ten years building reed organs, perfecting the skills and techniques he would then apply to the manufacture of pipe organs. Specifically, in addition to the marketing and sales acumen modeled on the reed organ trade, John Leonard brought to his pipe organs an understanding of compactness, mechanical reliability, and superb carpentry that he had learned in reed organ construction.³ Perhaps the most important entrepreneurial application, later seen as a defining characteristic of the pipe organs, was his standardization of the reed organ. In an 1895 Hinners Reed Organ catalog (in English and German) he lays out just five action types and ten cabinet styles. By strictly controlling variations, he was able to produce them literally by the dozens. When he turned this idea to pipe organs, such standardization permitted him to offer quality instruments at significantly lower prices.

 

Hinners & Albertsen

Schaefer sold his instrument manufactory and musical merchandise business in early 1881. John Leonard took the opportunity to cash in on the reputation he had built for himself in the previous year and recruited a group of local investors to back the Perfection Organ Works as a private reed organ factory. Ubbo J. Albertsen (Figure 7) purchased the interest of the original investors in 1885, and the company became Hinners & Albertsen.⁴ With the infusion of Albertsen’s capital, the firm expanded once again and reed organ sales soared. The turn to pipe organ production was announced in a special catalog that was written in German and English—with a sketch of the Boston Music Hall organ on the cover. These Hinners & Albertsen organs had one manual and pedals, available in three ranks for $375, four ranks for $485, five ranks for $575, and six ranks for the bargain price of $635. The 1890 catalog introduced “Our New No. 5 Pipe Organ” for $485 with economical specifications:

 

8′ Open Diapason (metal, 61 pipes)

8′ Melodia (wood 61 pipes, enclosed)

8′ Gamba (metal, 61 pipes, enclosed)

4′ Principal (metal, 61 pipes)

 

16′ Pedal Bourdon (wood, 15 pipes)

 

Super Coupler

Manual to Pedal Coupler

Swell Pedal

The three-rank organ included two 8′ ranks and one 4′ rank; for the five-rank instrument, they added a 2′ rank to the No. 5 specifications, and the six-rank organ added two 2′ ranks to the No. 5 specifications. Churches close to Pekin could reduce the cost by sending members of its congregation to the factory with their own wagons, handling drayage and set-up themselves. In this case, the organ would cost only $75 a rank, which amounts to a significant savings for budget-minded congregations.

If shipped, the swell box served as the shipping crate, and many of these still have the shipping labels nailed to what is now the inside of the box (Figure 8, nailed on the far back side). In the early years, all of the non-local organs were shipped via the railway. The pipes and components, all numbered, were placed in numbered crates and loaded into the boxcars. When the organ arrived at its destination, church members retrieved the crates from the depot along with the company representative who directed the organ’s installation. The numbering system (cf. Figure 9) made installation quick and easy, usually requiring only one company man to oversee the operation, though larger organs sometimes required teams of two or, rarely, three. The Hinners representative’s signature and the installation date is often found penciled somewhere inside the instrument, frequently somewhere on or in the swell box. Trucks eventually replaced the horse-drawn wagons, and organs within an eleven-state radius of Illinois were delivered by truck, which drove at a top speed of 25 miles per hour. The Hinners firm managed to keep even the switch to motorized drayage within the family—or at least within the extended organ family—when Philip Kriegsman, a 13-year tuner for Hinners, purchased the drayage company that had been handling organ shipping and became the contractor who moved the organ business from horse-drawn wagons to motorized vehicles.

The 1898 Hinners & Albertsen organ built for the St. Peter Norwegian Evangelical Lutheran Church in Red Wing, Minnesota, exemplifies the typical smaller two-manual organ (Figure 10). Like the reed organs, the one-manual pipe organs had a keyboard divided at middle C, each half controlled by a treble and bass knob. Most often, the Hinners & Albertsen pedal ranks encompassed only the lower octave, and the second octave was supplied as a pull-down. The catalogs claimed that the notes above the lower octave were only very rarely used for church services, and so they were omitted “as a needless expenditure.”

 

To be continued.

 

Notes

1. Cf. Allison Alcorn, “A History of the Hinners Organ Company of Pekin, Illinois,” The Tracker, vol. 44, no. 3 (2000): 13–25. The Tracker article provides a more detailed account of the complete company history, though much in the present article’s overview is indebted to that work. This article provides a simple company overview up to the date of the Red Wing organ and then a focus on the story of that Red Wing, Minnesota, instrument.

2. Louella Dirksen, The Honorable Mr. Marigold (New York: Doubleday, 1972), 1. Mrs. Cromwell must have had a rather crooked pin, actually, because the direct antipode of Pekin is in the Indian Ocean off the far southwestern tip of Australia.

3. Unfortunately, the only Hinners organ remaining in Pekin is at St. John Lutheran Church. In 2014 it was rebuilt by the Buzard Organ Company of Champaign, Illinois. The original console was gone, so they used a 1927 console from the Hinners built for Hope Reformed Church in Chicago plus a number of other console materials from the Hinners that had been built for the Pekin Elks Club Lodge (the last Hinners pipe organ built before the company closed). Some odds and ends were used in the interior from the 1913 organ built for the Hinners’ family church, which assumed the non-Germanic name of Grace Methodist Episcopal Church when it rebuilt in 1914 after a devastating 1911 fire. That organ is now completely dismantled, with only the façade pipes remaining as visual display to house an Allen electronic organ. 

4. An unfortunate typographical error in the 2000 Tracker article (op. cit., 15) cites “Uddo” J. Albertsen as John Leonard’s partner. Some confusion had already existed about Albertsen, as early sources sometimes incorrectly reference Urban J. Albertsen as the partner in the organ business. Urban, however, was not born until 1887, and it was his father, Ubbo J. Abertsen (1845–1926), who bought into the Hinners organ enterprise.