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Cover feature

Schoenstein & Co.,

Benicia, California

Fordham University Church,

New York City

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But Will It Fit?

The plan was to design an organ that would fit in approximately the space occupied by the original 1879 Roosevelt organ, the façade of which remained. Despite trying every layout trick we could think of, we couldn’t find room for a stop list large enough to satisfy the musical requirements of this major university program. (See The American Organist, May 2013.) Working with Robert Minotti (music director) and Richard Alexander (consultant), a stop list that would get the musical job done without any frills and that would fit the acoustic of this large church was agreed on with nothing but great expectations that we could figure some way to make it fit! When a builder is faced with this, he can either squeeze everything in and hope he is gone before the next generation of organ tuners and mechanics throw epithets at him, or figure out a way to expand the space. Having seen far too many organs that die prematurely because no one could reach things that needed fixing, we chose the latter. 

Here is how the layout design process worked. As seen in the photo of the Roosevelt façade and the old gallery layout, there was little space, if any, to expand the organ forward. Choir space was already constricted around the console and to the sides, with some extra space at the left for a few instrumentalists. Furthermore, there were clear glass windows on either side of the organ case. These were not original to the building, but were old and let in a fair amount of light. They were not to be disturbed. Hopeless, right? Well, not quite. Our first thoughts were to offset bass pipes at the sides of the case and at both side walls of the gallery and to bring the case forward a bit. We kept trying rearrangements and didn’t get very far. Then, we employed the most important of all engineering techniques—power from the top. Fortunately, this project was under the personal supervision of the President of the University, Fr. Joseph McShane and the Vice President for University Mission and Ministry, Msgr. Joseph Quinn. The project also had full support from the administrative offices under Vincent Burke. Our direct project manager, Aldo Di Vitto, who is a trained architect, lived with this project almost as a member of our team from beginning to end. After learning the specifics of the situation, they cleared the way for blocking the windows and using the space at either end of the balcony, provided we could retain enough space for a small choir and possibly some instrumentalists.

Our design director, Glen Brasel, in conjunction with plant superintendent Louis Patterson, developed a layout placing the Swell at the far left of the balcony, the Great on the far right with the Choir and Pedal in the center. All chorus work for flues and reeds is on the second level. Flutes, mutations, and most of the color reeds and strings are on the first level. The Vox Humana, which is in its own expression box, is also on the first level but on the right-hand side. 

When we outlined the planned structure of the organ in blue masking tape on the floor, it became terribly obvious that although enough room remained for choir and instrumentalists, it would be an unpleasant ordeal for them. Fr. McShane and Msgr. Quinn immediately recognized the problem and solved it by authorizing an enlargement of the gallery as shown in the final layout plan. One problem remained—the Roosevelt case. We needed a wider central case and the opportunity for more front pipes to help relieve the space constraints inside the instrument. It was finally agreed that if we could retain the spirit of the old case in a new one, then the old one would be sold. 

There were plenty of other technical issues. For example, the blower had to be located in the bell tower behind the gallery, which was somewhat open to the elements. This was cleverly solved with the architect’s suggestion of a pre-fabricated walk-in refrigerator box—one of the most perfect blower rooms we have ever seen. Another problem was re-routing vents from rooms below the gallery and removing other obstructions in order to provide a clear floor on which we could install the organ. A major concern was maintaining the stairway access on the right-hand side of the balcony. Our idea of having people walk through the organ was greeted with skepticism, but was accepted when we assured the lawyers that people wouldn’t have to climb over wind conductors or trip on cables!

The layout has a few interesting features to make it serviceable despite fairly tight quarters, such as spring-loaded walkboards that lift out of the way when climbing between levels, and an L-shaped Swell box that provides just enough extra room for the last Swell stop. The 32 reed in the Swell, by the way, is full length and is located at the back of the Swell box along the left-hand side wall.

Organs Are Vertical—Not Horizontal!

All the cleverness created a thoroughly horizontal instrument stretching from wall-to-wall, so our next challenge was to give it some sense of verticality and pay homage to the Roosevelt’s 19th-century style. The obvious answer was to feature the center portion of the organ and, even though it was a bit wider than normal, emphasize height by selecting narrower scale pipes and also making them over-length, thus appearing taller. The over-reach of center pipes in each flat, as well as the tall finials, adds to this impression.

The next problem was de-emphasizing the side sections. Our first thought was to use grille work only, but that just made the side sections of the instrument appear to be more massive. The small, narrow-scale pipes at the forward corners of each side were added to provide a bit of interest and an explanation as to why there were large boxes on either side of the organ!

As can be seen from the cover photo and from the plan of the enlarged balcony, there is now adequate room for a choir, and instrumentalists are not stuck back in the corner.

How Can We Dress It Up?

The process of case design usually starts with a simple pencil sketch just to get an idea of the general proportion and massing of elements, the number of front pipes, etc. Usually this is given to the church architect who makes comments and suggestions. Sometimes, many levels of approval are involved and the sketch becomes more-and-more elaborate until a full mechanical drawing is made. When this is accepted, we often have the specialist pipe organ renderers, Pipeshaders of Orem, Utah, do their magic to interpolate our mechanical drawing into a photograph of the church. The mechanical drawing and rendering are shown at right, for comparison with the final product shown on the cover.

This project involved a second completely separate but inter-connected organ in the sanctuary. The design process was much simpler with the exception that we had to develop a design within two arches set at a 90° angle with the face of the organ projecting diagonally across the church, so that the case would be attractive from many perspectives.

The organs were dedicated in a Mass of Dedication and Celebration on April 21, 2013. The inaugural recital with Ken Cowan playing the works of Bach, Reger, Willan, Vierne, Widor, Laurin, and Wagner was played to a very large and appreciative audience on September 8, 2013.

Related Content

Cover feature

John-Paul Buzard Pipe Organ Builders, Champaign, Illinois

Opus 42, St. Bridget Catholic Church, Richmond, Virginia

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From the builder

The new organ at St. Bridget Catholic Church in Richmond, Virginia, is the 42nd new organ to come from the workshop of John-Paul Buzard Pipe Organ Builders in Champaign, Illinois. It was completed on October 1, 2013, and inaugurated by Ken Cowan in concert on November 15.

The organ’s visual design was guided by the parish’s desire to reclaim a large stained glass window, which the former organ completely blocked. Pastor Monsignor William Carr, who began his clerical career at St. Bridget as the assistant pastor in the 1970s, remembered the beauty of the occluded window and began discussions with John-Paul Buzard in 2005 about the possibilities. The deteriorating mechanical condition and musical limitations of the previous instrument hastened the desire to proceed. The Great Recession delayed the start of the project until the parish raised all the funds to purchase the organ, as their bishop required. 

The gallery’s floor space is quite limited and the window is large. But, the church’s acoustical volume and musical needs required an instrument of a larger tonal size than that which would have been possible with a traditional design. This required some outside-the-box creative thinking, and resulted in our recommendation that the Great division be suspended over the gallery rail, and that the enclosed divisions be thought of as more a divided Swell than independent Swell and Choir divisions. Area organist Grant Hellmers was invited to consult, and enthusiastically agreed that the design met both musical and architectural requirements. The Great’s profile is kept low in order to keep this portion of the organ below the field of glass. The former heavy wood railing was replaced with a more transparent wrought-iron rail. The two enclosed divisions are located in matching cases on either side of the window. The cases’ designs utilize shapes and details found elsewhere in the Tudor-revival building. The result is that the organ cherishes the window, and the gallery and organ are architecturally integrated into the entire worship space rather than being set apart.

Executive Vice-President and Chief Engineer Charles Eames created an instrument whose physical essence truly flows from the building, therein creating room for a larger instrument than the space would have otherwise held. With the new organ in place, the gallery has an additional 100 square feet of usable floor space for the choir and other musicians, which it did not have previously.

This is indeed a three-manual organ. The three-division design evolved from the original two-manual divided Swell concept. The introduction of the 8 Claribel Flute into what became a somewhat untraditional Choir division allowed the instrument to take on its three-manual identity. The organ exhibits a far greater variety of tone colors and pitch ranges than is typical of many instruments of its size. And it has the uncanny ability to take on the appropriate tonal characteristics of various historical and national styles to fit the character of the musical composition. All of history informs and directs us in the evolution of our singular “Classically Symphonic” tonal style.

The engineering, mechanical systems, and pipe-making all support the artistic end result. The main manual windchests are all electrically operated slider and pallet chests. The chests for the unit stops have expansion chambers built into the very thick toe-boards, to replicate the winding characteristics of the slider chests. All of the pipes are made of high tin content pipe metal, even in the bass, rather than zinc. The large pipes play promptly without having to use beards. The result is fullness and warmth without any hardness or inelegance of tone quality, all the way to the bottom of the compass.

The church’s acoustics change drastically when the room is filled with people, and the church is nearly full every time the organ is used. Tonal Director Brian Davis ably met the challenges that this condition presents by scaling and voicing the instrument for optimal performance when the room is full. The result is that the organ is never too loud, but it fills the room with sound even when played softly. An entire congregation can be supported in its singing with a single 8Diapason; the strings are voluptuous and shimmering; the haunting Flute Cœlestis provides an air of mystery; the Choir reeds provide some of the most beautiful cantabile colors imaginable; the smooth and stately Tuba soars above full organ. Nearly every stop can be used with any other to create a new musical color.

Superior tonal design, sensitive voicing, and painstaking tonal finishing result in the exquisite blend and balance of the individual stops and their choruses, relating to both themselves and to the room. And, as Ken Cowan demonstrated to the delight of his audience, there are many ways that this instrument can render seamless dynamic changes. As is the case with all Buzard organs, symphonic color and romantic warmth never sacrifice sprightly clarity and transparency of tone for rendering polyphonic music. 

The church’s growing music program is under the direction of Allen Bean. The children’s program, which Bean instituted and includes both boy and girl choirs, has performed at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and Alice Tully Hall in New York City.

Thanks to the staff of Buzard Pipe Organ Builders whose professionalism shines forth in all the work we undertake!

John-Paul Buzard, Artistic Director

Brian K. Davis, Tonal Director

Charles Eames, Vice President and Chief Engineer

Keith Williams, Director, Service Department

Shane Rhoades, Foreman, Production Department and Cabinetmaker

David Brown, Foreman, Service Department

Christopher Goodnight, Master Cabinetmaker

John Jordan, Service Technician

Michael Meyer, Cabinetmaker

Dennis Northway, Chicago area representative and Service Technician

Jay Salmon, Office Manager

Stuart Weber, Senior Service Technician

John Wiegand, Service Technician

Ray Wiggs, Console and Windchest specialist

Jonathan Young, Tonal Department Associate

—John-Paul Buzard

As a first-time voicer on any project, let alone one of this size, the installation of the St. Bridget’s organ was an eye-opening experience for me. The tonal design of the instrument was set before I was brought onto the Buzard team, but I had the opportunity to voice several stops under the tutelage of Tonal Director Brian Davis. Because of the acoustical characteristics of the room, the organ had to have plenty of treble ascendancy while still maintaining warm foundations and good blend. Thus, the higher pitches “sang out” a bit in the voicing room, but the effect in the church is a lively sound, not at all top-heavy but not dark or muffled.

The organ proved an overwhelming success—clear choruses and the proximity of the Great case to the seating area mean contrapuntal music can be rendered quite effectively; the variety of reed colors available lend themselves to solo work as well as forming a striking Swell reed chorus; two contrasting strings in separate boxes add variety to the foundations; and the presence of two cornets, one in the Great, enables the organ to reproduce French Classical music particularly well. However, it is equally adept at handling more modern literature and orchestral transcriptions, as was demonstrated by Ken Cowan at the inaugural recital. 

Throughout the process of voicing and tonal finishing, I was struck by how each installed stop expanded the ability of the organ as a vehicle for improvisation and interpretation of literature. The body of music this instrument will render is indeed large, and with that in mind I went back to Richmond at the beginning of November to record enough music to demonstrate some of its capabilities, including pieces by Guilmant, Langlais, de Grigny, and several major Bach works. All came off admirably, a testament to the versatility of the instrument and the integration of colors not usually found on American organs, such as the large Pedal 4 open flute.

The St. Bridget’s organ represents a tremendous outlay of time, energy, and planning in pursuit of an instrument that will handle repertoire of any period with a clear but rich sound, and one which I hope the congregation will treasure for years to come.

—Jonathan Young, Tonal Associate

Buzard Pipe Organ Builders

From the director of music

St. Bridget Parish, a Roman Catholic parish of about 7,000 registered members, is among the largest in the Catholic Diocese of Richmond. Established in 1949, with the building completed and consecrated in 1950, the parish has thrived since its inception. 

The church building is Tudor style with Gothic elements. Seating only 500, the church provides five regular Masses every weekend to accommodate parishioners. Four Masses are led by organ and cantor, with assistance from choral ensembles. The Sunday evening Mass is led by piano, guitars, and a contemporary choir.

I became Music Minister at St. Bridget in October 2005. The primary accompanying instruments at that time were a transplanted E. M. Skinner organ, which was ¼-step flat and in need of restoration, and a mid-1920s Steinway M, also in poor condition. The Parish Adult Choir of about 20 singers sang for one Mass on Sunday morning, and the other Masses were led by volunteer cantors.

Since then, the music ministry has grown. The Parish Adult Choir has grown to 35 voices, and choirs for children (absent from the music ministry for more than 30 years) include a Boy Choir of 11 singers, and a Girl Choir of nearly 30 choristers. The Boy and Girl Choirs, using the RSCM Voice for Life Program, have established themselves as important and valued ensembles, and distinguished themselves in performances at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. and Alice Tully Hall in New York City.

As the parish’s music ministry has grown, so has the need for an organ that could accompany an ever increasingly diverse music ministry, in a church whose acoustics change dramatically depending on the number of worshippers in the church.

The installation of our new instrument evolved out of conversation between Monsignor Carr and me in August 2005. The 1920s E. M. Skinner organ that so nobly served this parish since the 1970s, brought here from the now deconsecrated Monumental Church in downtown Richmond, was in need of restoration. Conversation quickly turned to action. Within a few months we had explored restoring and enlarging the Skinner organ, with additions that would give it the flexibility required for our growing program. We also received from John-Paul Buzard a proposal for a new instrument, one that would be tonally designed for our acoustical space, give us the flexibility we need to support choirs, cantors, and congregation, and uncover a great west window that is an architectural feature of the church.

The original design proposed by Mr. Buzard underwent several modifications over the following months. The stoplist was refined, as the organ became slightly smaller in scope than we originally envisioned, yet considerably more flexible. Mechanical components were also addressed in this process (another nod to flexibility), including independent swell shades on two sides of each enclosed division. The design process of this instrument was a delight for me as parish musician. The parish is forever grateful for the work of our Organ Project Consultant, Grant Hellmers, whose wisdom and experience helped define the parish’s needs in an instrument, and brought clarity to the process as St. Bridget personnel and I worked with the Buzard shop in the design phase.

Once the design was finalized, the Buzard shop began to plan the physical design of the instrument, and, under the direction of Tonal Director Brian Davis, began to envision the tonal color of each and every stop in the instrument. Mr. Davis’s ability to take the numbers that represented the (ever-changing) acoustical properties of the church, and to determine scale and timbre of each of more than 2,000 pipes in 38 ranks, producing more than 48 stops, proved to be remarkable. Charles Eames also worked magic, engineering the organ that John-Paul and Brian envisioned to fit into a relatively small space.

Several weeks of voicing accomplished by John-Paul Buzard, Brian Davis, and Jonathan Young brought St. Bridget Parish’s organ to completion. The instrument’s design, its pipes, its mechanicals, the construction of the instrument’s beautiful casework, its installation, its voicing, the work of St. Bridget Church’s own organ project committee, building committee, and staff, altogether required more than 20,000 hours of labor. I believe that even when it was labor bought and paid for, it was a labor of love, and that the Buzard shop always acted with a sense of vocation.

St. Bridget parishioners gave freely of their time to make sure the church was ready to receive the instrument. John McCulla coordinated our efforts with the Buzard shop. Richard Lewis designed the mechanical and electrical components the church provided. Terrence Kerner arranged for the addition of HVAC for the organ gallery. Patrick Ross and the St. Bridget maintenance staff were always on hand to help subcontractors and the Buzard crew with whatever they needed. These parishioners have remained involved even after the organ’s completion to assure the project is truly complete and in keeping with the church’s beautiful architecture.

Several enabling gifts allowed this project to move forward. In all, some 265 parishioners, a relatively small number of our many parishioners, made this instrument a gift to the parish. Additionally, still more parishioners have contributed to the Friends of Music Fund at St. Bridget, to enable an inaugural concert series, so that we can make it a gift to the Richmond community.

Because this platform is here for me to do so, I want to express my special gratitude to our Pastor, Monsignor Carr, who began this conversation more than eight years ago. He envisioned a pipe organ for St. Bridget Parish. He let the donors to the project know of our need. He guided Parish Council, Parish Finance Council, and all who made decisions about the organ throughout the process. And, if there is anyone who delights more in this instrument than I do, it is Monsignor Carr.

—Allen Bean

Minister of Music, St. Bridget Parish

M.P. Rathke restores 1897 Möller Opus 188

Zion’s Lutheran Church, East Germantown, Indiana

Michael Rathke

A native of Indiana, Michael Rathke received his early organbuilding training with Goulding & Wood, Inc. He subsequently served a formal five-year apprenticeship plus a further two journeyman years with C.B. Fisk, Inc. In 2002 he traveled to England to work with Mander Organs, assisting with the refurbishment of the 1871 Willis organ in London’s Royal Albert Hall and the restoration of the 1766 George England organ at the Danson Mansion in Kent. Upon his return to the United States in 2004, Rathke established his own workshop, where his focus continues to be the building, restoration, and conservation of fine mechanical-action instruments.

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first visited Zion’s Lutheran Church in 1986, near the beginning of my organbuilding apprenticeship. I recall surprise in discovering that the venerable M.P. Möller, with whose plentiful local electro-pneumatic installations I was familiar, had once built mechanical-action instruments. If Zion’s organ were representative, Möller’s tracker output had clearly been more than respectable. Apart from a stiff key action, the organ was a pleasure to play, and its 16 stops made a grand sound in this relatively small church.

My next visit came 25 years later, shortly after setting up my own workshop nearby. On this occasion I was less struck by the Möller’s quality than by its evident deterioration. The organ looked fine, having recently received cosmetic repairs; its basic sound also remained fairly convincing, if not precisely as I remembered. But mechanically, the organ was a mess. The key action was heavy, sticky, and unpredictable; both manual windchests were suffering from obvious and severe sponsil damage; and the two reservoirs (supply-house units that had replaced the original double-rise) were living on borrowed time. Ciphers that could not be rectified abounded; other notes would barely play because their channels had been excessively bled to alleviate sponsil ciphers. The parishioners of Zion’s remained proud of their historic organ, admired its sound, and affirmed that it had served well since arriving in 1933 from a neighboring church. But it had also been an ongoing maintenance challenge. This vigorous but small congregation was understandably weary of spending money at regular intervals and being assured time and again that the organ was now “good as new,” only to find that each assurance had been optimistic, at best. 

When we were asked to take over the organ’s routine tuning and maintenance, we were also charged with making appropriate long-term recommendations. Our first was simply a year of watchful waiting, during which we proposed to carry out touch-up tuning and minor repairs but to do no major work, striving to keep near-term maintenance spending to an absolute minimum. We were thus able to observe the Möller through a full cycle of heating and cooling seasons, especially important given its location partly within an uninsulated organ chamber. This evaluation period also allowed the church a welcome respite from excessive cash outlays and to consider, for the first time, comprehensively restoring its fine but long-suffering pipe organ.

Several things soon became apparent. First, the 1933 relocation from St. Paul’s Lutheran in nearby Richmond—carried out by “two farmers and a mechanic,” according to local tradition—had begun the instrument’s woes. The movers had clearly been competent general craftsmen, but they appear not to have been trained organbuilders. Second, the masonry chamber within which some two-thirds of the organ resided was not well sealed, leaking cold air in winter and hot air in summer, along with the odd bit of blown snow and rain. Third, although the chamber tone opening was more than ample and allowed good tonal egress, the chamber itself was almost too small for the organ it enclosed. The pedal chests had been wedged in at contrary angles, with key action run cross-lots and cobbled together from an assortment of wood tracker stock and soft copper wire. Fourth, the movers had provided absolutely no tuning or maintenance access. To carry out such basic operations as adjusting key action nuts required removal of most of the pedal pipes; to tune the Oboe necessitated either the removal of façade pipes or a precarious climb high above the pedal division.

During this year-long interim, Zion’s organ committee wrestled with a number of options and contending opinions from parishioners, some of whom felt strongly that it was time to “stop pouring money down a black hole, discard the old Möller, and replace it with an ‘up-to-date’ electronic.” While congregational sentiment ran generally against this course, especially among clergy and musicians, many felt rebuilding the Möller or selling it outright would make the most sense. Others in this 190-year-old church advocated a comprehensive restoration, emphasizing the organ’s history, accumulated stewardship, and importance to the fine music program for which Zion’s was known. The church solicited bids for all options, each of which was studied and debated in detail.

Following a vote by the entire church membership, M.P. Rathke, Inc. was awarded the contract for a full and strict mechanical restoration of the Möller. The organ committee chair later explained that we had tendered the winning bid in large part because it was also the low bid, the cost of comprehensively restoring the Möller being significantly less even than a modest electronic to replace it. (The previous sentence is worth re-reading for anyone fortunate enough to possess a historic instrument from any builder.)

During the course of restoration the organ was dismantled in its entirety. Pipework, which upon initial inspection had appeared clean and in relatively good condition, was stored in the church fellowship hall; everything else was taken to our workshop for cleaning, refurbishment, and repair. While in-shop work was proceeding, parishioners were busy tuckpointing, insulating, sealing, caulking, and painting the organ chamber. They also removed carpet from the choir area in front of the organ, sanded and refinished the yellow pine floor below, and invested in a simple humidification unit, built into the existing forced-air HVAC system.

Physical repairs, reinforcement, and reconstruction 

The mechanical restoration was labor-intensive but relatively straightforward. We discovered that sponsil failure had been caused not only by the common condition of overheated, dry winter air, but also by sagging at midpoint of both manual windchests owing to glueline creep. Grid sponsils had thus opened on their undersides like the folds of an accordion in response to 115 years of gravity. After patching and regluing the sponsils, we provided reinforcement to the grid rails of both manual chests to prevent future deflection and to ensure that sponsil repairs would remain permanent. Keyboards were cleaned, flattened, polished, and rebushed; key tails were refelted and releathered. The Swell to Great coupler was comprehensively refurbished. Drawknobs were cleaned and relacquered, stop jambs were rebushed, and a purpose-made rotary blower switch (replacing a massive and unsightly industrial knife switch) was manufactured and applied to the old Bellows Signal stopknob. Kristen Farmer of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, was engaged to strip the many layers of flat black paint that had been applied to the nameboard and to carry out a painstaking restoration of the original silver-leaf stenciling (Photo 1). Five components required remanufacturing, either in full or in part:

1. Double-rise reservoir—It is clear that the organ’s original 5 x 8double-rise reservoir survived the 1933 move to Zion’s along with the rest of the instrument. But in the early 1960s the old reservoir was cut into pieces and replaced by a pair of small and inadequate supply house units, likely because of the difficulty of carrying out proper releathering within the extremely tight confines of the chamber. Most of the old reservoir was discarded at that time, but a few pieces were reused as walkboards, bracing, and a jury-rigged post shoring up one corner of the organ’s framework (ironically, replacing a structural post that had been hacked away to gain demolition access to the old reservoir).

Replicating the reservoir turned out to be less difficult than envisioned, for enough fragments remained that we were able to determine all dimensions and relevant construction details. After developing a working design, we entrusted the actual fabrication to
J. Zamberlan & Co. of Wintersville, Ohio (Photo 2). I first met Joe Zamberlan in 1989 during our respective apprenticeships with Fisk and Noack; our similar training and philosophies have since led to collaborations on a number of projects, Zion’s being but the most recent.

2. Pedal key action—When the Möller was built for St. Paul’s Lutheran in 1897, its internal layout was fairly typical: the Swell stood directly behind the Great at impost level, with pedal chests located near floor level, one on the CC side and the other on the ## side (Sketch A, p. 28). At Zion’s, however, this configuration was impossible owing to the absence of space on the ## side. The 1933 movers thus placed all pedal resources on the CC side, where an L-shaped chamber configuration afforded almost enough room.

However, the Zion’s chamber also required the Pedal chests to be located farther toward the back wall (away from the player) than at St. Paul’s. The original action had employed a unique rollerboard, with cranked arms below the pedalboard and rollers running straight back from the keydesk; trackers had then continued at right angles to the Pedal chests. With the chests forced rearward, the 1933 movers chose not the preferable solution of extending the rollerboard and maintaining the original geometry, but rather the Rube Goldberg solution of chiseling away part of the chamber wall and running trackers at a 45-degree angle (Sketch B, p. 28). This somewhat counter-intuitive approach did get the job done, more or less, but it also reduced tracker motion by nearly 50% and imposed undesirable friction and lateral stresses on the Pedal action. We constructed a new rollerboard—essentially a “stretched” replica of the original (Photo 3) utilizing every scrap of old material we could salvage—and installed it in a manner consistent with Möller’s 1897 design (Sketch C, p. 28.)

3. Pedal winding and stop action— The asymmetrical chamber at Zion’s prompted the 1933 movers to choose yet another unusual solution. Because the Bourdon 16 chest was slightly too long to fit the available space, it was jammed in askew; the slightly shorter Flute 8chest fit alongside with no difficulty. Both pedal chests were then served by the same key action run, but winding was less straightforward because each chest employed ventil rather than slider stop action. Thus two wind ducts were required, but only the 16 Bourdon chest could be winded easily. Undaunted, the movers ran a second galvanized duct straight through the Bourdon chest rollerboard (!), cut a rough hole in the 8 Flute chest bung board, inserted the duct, puttied it in place, and then located stop action ventils as best they could. Among other drawbacks, this clumsy arrangement made impossible the removal of the Flute chest bung board for maintenance. (Photo 4) The 2013 solution entailed attaching both stop-action ventils to the reservoir (their original location), constructing new poplar wind ducts to match remnants of the originals, and installing in a manner consistent with other Möllers of the period. (Photo 5)

4. Floor frame and building frame replication—During the 1960s, the Möller underwent a rough removal of portions of its floor and building frames to facilitate demolition of its original double-rise reservoir. Instead of reinstalling the load-bearing post, beam, and floor frame, workers simply nailed up scabs of material left over from the old reservoir, which at best provided crude and insufficient support. (Photo 6) We manufactured and installed replicas of the original floor frame and building frame, taking care to match wood species and copy joinery techniques from the rest of the instrument. 

5. Replica reservoir placement and Great wind duct re-routing—During its time at Zion’s, the Möller’s supreme drawback had been a lack of maintenance access. The general culprit was a narrow (82′′) chamber opening, compared with the width of the organ’s main internal structure (80′′), but specific obstacles included the location and orientation of both the original double-rise reservoir and the Great wind duct.

The 2013 solution was twofold. First, we turned the new reservoir 90 degrees from its original orientation, which allowed us to respect the essential layout of the original wind system while simultaneously opening a clear access path into the organ. (Sketch C) The end-on positioning of the new bellows will also make possible its easy removal for future releathering, as opposed to the crosswise orientation of the original, whose zero-clearance installation in 1933 surely contributed to its eventual demise.

The Great wind duct posed a more perplexing challenge. The original duct was intact in 2012; unfortunately, it completely blocked the only possible service access into the organ. The revised duct now exits the reservoir, crosses under the maintenance walkway, rises vertically, crosses back over the walkway, and finally makes a 90-degree turn forward to enter the Great pallet box. Although the new duct’s construction is somewhat complex, every effort was made to replicate winding characteristics of the original: routing was kept as direct as possible, and cross-sections were deliberately made slightly oversize to compensate both for increased duct length (an additional 19′′) and for necessary additional twists and turns.

Tonal restoration

Successful restorative voicing depends on a number of factors including sufficient intact material, the restorer’s familiarity with other instruments of the school and period, a cautious and deliberate approach, and especially an agenda-free willingness to allow pipes to tell the voicer what they want to do rather than vice versa. In the following paragraphs we will describe the Möller’s altered tonal state in 2012, outline its evaluation, and summarize how we undertook to reconstruct the 1897 sound.

In 1986, Möller Opus 188 still possessed many of the sonorities that inspired worshipers almost a century prior. By 2012, some beautiful sounds remained, although in greatly attenuated form. The exact cause and timing are difficult to pinpoint, in part because church records from the period are sketchy, but also because of the involvement of so many different technicians, some of whom attempted experimental voicing in a manner both curiously random and spectacularly unsuccessful. The physical evidence furnished by the pipes themselves in 2012 seems the most reliable record and will be related here.

All wood pipes were in essentially original condition, requiring little apart from minor regulation and physical repair. The organ’s sole reed stop—a sweet and assertive Oboe and Bassoon 8—was likewise in decent physical shape apart from some badly torn tuning scrolls. It had undergone tonal work in 1970 by a local technician who, incredibly, chose to sign each C resonator in block capital letters incised with an awl. Fortunately, his voicing efforts were limited to lightly kinking and roughly cross-filing numerous tongues, both of which steps were reversed in 2013. The entire organ had unfortunately been repitched in 2000 to A-440, predictably choking off many reeds; restoring the original pitch of A-435 helped greatly in recovering the Oboe’s stability, promptness, and robustness of tone.

The metal fluework was a mixed bag. On the plus side, almost all interior pipework was physically intact, if not tonally unaltered. Pipes that were slotted in 1897 happily remained so; pipes originally cone-tuned had been fitted with sleeves but fortunately left close to their natural speaking lengths, so the net tonal effect was negligible. Numerous feet had collapsed from years of heavy-handed cone tuning and the use of thin foot material in the first place; we repaired this damage as a matter of course.

On the minus side, many inside pipes had been randomly altered by a variety of bizarre procedures. About a dozen lower lips had been pinched tight against the languids to where only the original coarse nicking allowed wind through the flue; these pipes murmured more than spoke. (This curious method was limited primarily to the Quintadena bass of the 8 Aeoline.) A distressing number of windways had been aggressively filed open, removing significant material from both languid and lower lip. Upper lips of many mid-range principals had been torn and distorted; some appeared to have been gnawed by rats. Most front pipes, recipients in 2000 of a fresh coat of gold paint, barely spoke in 2012. While the paint job itself was competently executed from a cosmetic standpoint, obvious pre-existing damage had been simply painted over. Examples included out-of-round pipe bodies, dents, missing or broken tuning scrolls, collapsed lead toes, broken ears, and hooks held on by little more than a vestige of solder. Most front pipe windways had also received a generous infusion of paint (!), completely clogging the original nicking and materially reducing flueway cross-sections. Many dangled from their hooks, with wind leaking audibly at collapsed toes; this latter defect became evident only after the friction tape applied in 2000 as a band-aid repair dried out and began to unravel. Zinc conveyancing from the Great windchest was damaged or missing in many instances, causing weak or dead notes; a smooth dynamic transition between façade pipes and their interior continuations (Great Open Diapason, Dulciana, Octave) was nonexistent.

At this point we faced a critical dilemma. On one hand, we had been hired only to restore the Möller mechanically and to perform minor pipe repairs. Wholesale restorative voicing and major pipe repairs were neither contemplated nor included in the contract price. On the other hand, some pipe damage and tonal alterations became clear only after the restored action and wind system allowed pipes to be heard under full wind and precise control. We faced an uncomfortable choice between simply fulfilling the terms of our contract—delivering a perfectly functioning but poor sounding instrument—or moving ahead with necessary tonal work for which we could never be fully compensated. We ultimately chose the latter, not because it was a sound business decision—it was in fact a terrible business decision—but because of the virtual certainty that, if we didn’t, no one ever would. Then this fine and rare pipe organ, mechanically sound but tonally compromised, would likely be discarded eventually. (It is axiomatic that tonally ugly instruments are seldom preserved, no matter how well they function.) In the end, we simply couldn’t bear the thought. And so we prayed, put our noses to the grindstone, and forged ahead.

We tackled the façade first, essentially moving our pipe shop into the Zion’s sanctuary for a full month. Most of the 33 large speaking front pipes required rounding up on large mandrels, as well as removal of visible dents. Components such as ears whose proper reattachment would have involved soldering—impossible without scorching the gold lacquer —were repaired using clear epoxy. The most difficult operation was removing the enormous amount of paint that in 2000 had been sprayed down into the windways, filling in nicking and coating languids and lower lips with an unwelcome layer of crud. Our front pipe work was accompanied at all times by moderate sweat and considerable sotto voce profanity.

Inside pipes were in some ways easier because they were smaller, but there were also many more of them. A few had to be completely remade; a hundred or so more received careful corrective voicing to match their untouched neighbors; a few hundred more required little apart from cleaning, re-prepping, and normal regulation for tone, power, and speech. The final result is as much a testimony to Möller’s original pipemaking and voicing as to our care in resurrecting them.

Have the results repaid our efforts? On the one hand, it is not too much to say that Möller Opus 188 is once again mechanically reliable and tonally impressive, with a richness and versatility that compare favorably with the best of New England work from the period. As restorers, we are exceptionally proud of this magnificent pipe organ we have labored to bring back to life. On the other hand, ours is admittedly the pride of parents, or at least foster parents, and thus similarly subjective. The final assessment must rest with history, which will be informed by countless organists who have yet to experience this remarkable and historic instrument. We therefore encourage all interested readers to visit Zion’s Lutheran Church, to play and listen, and to decide for themselves. Especially we invite you to share with us your reactions and impressions. 

Restorers of the Organ

Joey Jarboe

Caleb Ringwald

Nicholas Ringwald

Paul Rathke

Michael Rathke

Special thanks to Fritz Noack, Christopher Sedlak, and Timothy McEwan.

Cover feature

Noack Organ Co., Inc.

Georgetown, Massachusetts

Hertz Hall, University of California,

Berkeley, California

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From the builder

On November 23, 2013, the Department of Music at the University of California, Berkeley (UCB) welcomed the Noack organ originally built for a cathedral in Delaware with a day including lectures, roundtables, and a recital by the French organist Michel Bouvard. The day was the first in a series of events that concluded with a triple concert by the young and dynamic UCB Symphony Orchestra and the University Organist, Davitt Moroney.

The celebrations were the culmination of a long history, which began some thirty years ago on the other side of the country.

At the end of 1977, the Cathedral Church of St. John in Wilmington, Delaware, began to consider options for the overhaul or replacement of their existing organ. Several months of investigation convinced the committee that a new instrument would better answer the cathedral’s needs and that Fritz Noack should be its builder. The first step of the design process was to understand the building, so that the final product would fit seamlessly into its home. 

The Cathedral Church of St. John was a beautifully crafted building, which combined wood vaulting and high Gothic carvings with the intimacy of a parish church. Its acoustic was not generous, but the atmosphere felt very welcoming. Details of the instrument for this lovely setting took shape slowly because there was no obvious location for an organ. Ultimately the committee chose to construct a purpose-built loft at the west end of the cathedral. The contract, signed in early 1980 for an organ of 30 stops, was finalized to 34 stops during the early stages of construction. The organ was a gift to the memory of Irene Sophie du Pont, who was a member of a long-standing family in the parish. The dedication of the instrument occurred on January 23, 1983 and included “The Enigma Syncopation,” a piece for organ, flute, percussion, and string bass, commissioned for the occasion by the builder and the church from composer William Albright.

By the 1980s, Fritz Noack had already established a personal tonal language: though the overall physical layout of this organ shows his northern European background (with its clearly visually defined divisions), the tonal architecture is resolutely modern. Like good fusion cuisine, the instrument successfully melds several traditions—in this case, some nineteenth-century Anglo-American influences with his continental European roots. Music of the Baroque era is obviously at home there, but the organ shows a flexibility that enables it to venture successfully into the modern repertoire.

Similarly, the solid white oak case adorned with intricate pipeshades and James Lohmann’s hand-carved cresting captures the spirit of time-honored organ design while remaining original in its execution. The whole instrument is mechanical with a suspended key action and a mechanical drawstop action (assisted by a simple mechanical combination action.) The lively voicing combined with the light and precise key action yields an instrument with a vivacious personality. 

For more than thirty years the organ faithfully served the demanding music program of the Episcopal Cathedral. Unfortunately, as time went by the parish fell victim to forces that have dogged so many city churches: suburban flight, the aging of mainline denominations, and a diaspora to newer Christian churches. In July 2012, the cathedral had to close its doors and the organ was in need of a new home.

In Delaware, Karen Flint, having been intimately involved in the building of the organ, was anxious to see a future for the Noack instrument. She teaches harpsichord at the University of Delaware and regularly invites guest artists to give concerts on her exquisite collection of antique harpsichords. Amongst them was Davitt Moroney, professor of music at UCB, who was quick to realize what a good fortune the orphan organ was for the University of California, Berkeley. Moroney is also the official University Organist and, as such, is responsible for administering a rare resource: the O’Neill fund. This fund is a unique financial source that was endowed in 1933 by Edmond O’Neill, a chemistry professor at UCB and a music lover. The fund is exclusively dedicated to the pipe organ at UCB, and in particular to the acquisition of fine organs. Because of the lack of an appropriate recital hall on campus at the time, it actually took many years before a concert hall was built on university ground and a first organ by Walter Holtkamp Sr. was purchased in 1958. Through careful management, the O’Neill fund continued to grow and enabled the acquisition of many more pipe organs around the campus. Berkeley’s collection of pipe organs now numbers seventeen; apart from the Noack, which is now the main recital instrument, there are three eighteenth-century antiques, one nineteenth-century American house organ, two small Holtkamp practice instruments, six small instruments by Jurgen Ahrend, three by Greg Harrold, and a continuo organ by Gerrit Klop.

The main concert organ in the recital hall was now seen as less appropriate for the music of Bach and the Baroque era, and the acquisition of the Noack organ from Wilmington presented a unique opportunity to address that issue. Relocating organs, however, is always a tricky operation. Spaces do not physically match, acoustics are different, and case designs do not always fit the architectural surroundings. One could also expect that moving an instrument clothed in Gothic garb for a high-Anglican environment into the secular world of the Berkeley campus might raise a few eyebrows. 

Hertz Hall is a classic 1950s building with a grand, airy foyer lighted by large stained-glass windows. The auditorium is a sober room with a capacity of 700 seats. The orchestra stage lies in front of a wide elevated organ loft, which can be closed with large wooden doors. The geometry and the wall treatment of the room yield a moderately live acoustic, which serves the orchestra well. On the other hand, the sound from the loft does not project as cohesively and does not produce a sufficient bass response. To address this issue, the addition of a solid open wood 16 was proposed on the Pedal. 

Most of the auditorium is clad with simple wood battens while the surrounding walls of the organ loft appear gilded. Many expressed concerns that the high Gothic organ would feel ill-at-ease in a post-war architecture. Prior to the organ’s arrival, the faded loft walls were completely refinished in “Dutch metal,” recapturing their past luster. The placement of the Noack oak case front and center of a gilded setting gives to the auditorium a focus point that it somehow lacked previously. The elaborate case found its natural place in the hall.

Physically, the instrument needed to be altered to fit its new space as the organ loft of Hertz Hall is only 12 6′′ deep, requiring narrowing the space between the main case and the Positive by three feet. The situation was made more complex by the impossibility of altering the concrete handrail of the loft. Large doors rolling on top of this hand-railing can be brought together to shutter the organ from the hall. The Positive therefore had to be placed above, and slightly recessed from, the railing. That meant that the whole key action, drawstop action, and winding had to be redrawn. In order to minimize the distortion of proportion between the main case and the newly placed Positive, the entire instrument is now standing on a new three-foot-high platform with stairs on either side of the console. The new 16 wooden Contrabass stop proved to be tricky to position. Various unsatisfactory locations for the thirty pipes were proposed, from the wings on either side of the loft to the side of the Pedal cases. Careful inspection of the original architectural drawings revealed that a few inches of recess could be gained behind the main case, enough to provide a snug fit for the generously scaled white oak Contrabass, which sympathetically disappeared in the background.

The original instrument was drawn well before computer and CAD were available. The Noack Organ Co. preserves those hand-made drawings with great care. Reading these documents is to travel through time, and one can only be impressed by the creativity of the designer and the neatness of the draftsman. This is particularly true for a 35-stop organ whose main case is only 3 8′′ deep! Trackers, drawstop trundles and runs, and windlines weave a rather dense web. Modifying (for the Positive) or adding (for the Contrabass) elements through this jungle of mechanical parts was a tricky operation as sometimes an overlooked obstacle appeared on the way . . .

Furthermore, the instrument’s new home is set on the famous Hayward fault, a major branch of the larger San Andreas fault system, which crosses the eastern side of campus. The 1982 instrument was not conceived to be in such an active earthquake area and some anti-seismic bracing had to be retro-fitted. This entailed some extra attachment for all the pipes longer than 4, and some serious anchoring through the concrete floor (see photo of the seismic anchor). 

The organ was dismantled from the cathedral in Wilmington in November 2012 and was transported to the Noack workshop in Georgetown, Massachusetts. It was thoroughly overhauled, modified, and rebuilt in our assembly room. The case was entirely cleaned and re-oiled. As we traditionally do, we hosted a shop recital just before shipping to site. Sigurd Øgaard, a Norwegian organist currently settled in Houston, gave a passionate and dynamic concert on June 22 that kept the audience sitting on the edges of their seats.

The installation on site had to happen during the university’s summer recess. The music department at UCB is very busy, and Hertz Hall is solidly booked from dawn to late night during the academic year. There was not much opportunity to check out the Pacific beaches for this group of New Englanders, but there was enough time to appreciate the regional beer and the well-known fine local fare.

The organ installation was achieved at the end of August with a careful tonal rebalancing completed by David Rooney and Mary Beth DiGenova. The organ, previously tuned on Vallotti, was adjusted at the suggestion of Davitt Moroney to Sorge 1744, a beautiful mid-eighteenth-century temperament well-suited to the baroque repertoire. It also brings a distinct advantage for this university instrument that is called to play with orchestra, chorus, and in particular with the very dedicated University Baroque Ensemble.

Eric Kenney, one of the longest standing members of the Noack team, had the rare opportunity to work for the second time on that instrument, having assisted in its installation in Delaware some thirty-one years earlier! The other crew members included Mary Beth DiGenova, Didier Grassin, Fritz Noack, David Rooney, Dean Smith and Aaron Tellers, helped by our summer intern, Brandon Burns. We also were very grateful for the wonderful help from many corners of the university, from administration to the architect’s office.

While nobody would have imagined that the Cathedral Church of St. John in Wilmington would ever close, it is some solace to realize that the move of that instrument not only will preserve the endeavor of a team of craftsmen, but also will help continue a musical tradition rooted in centuries of history, bringing it to new generations of students for many years to come.

—Didier Grassin

The Noack Organ Co

Cover Feature

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Goulding & Wood Organ Builders, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana

Opus 50

The Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd, Lexington, Kentucky

 

From the organbuilder

“Worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness” could well serve as the motto for the organ project at the Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd in Lexington, Kentucky. The Gothic revival building holds a wealth of architectural and design detail, culminating in an extravagance of carved furnishings in the chancel. Wainscot paneling in the sanctuary depicts scenes from the life of Christ, and the reredos displays a large tableau of the Last Supper. 

Liturgical worship in the parish matches the opulence of the setting, with an unusually well-developed choral program encompassing all ages. Over the past twelve years, organist and choirmaster John Linker has built a music department known throughout the area for excellence. The Good Shepherd choirs have held residencies in English cathedrals and this summer made their first concert tour of continental Europe.

Throughout this period of musical expansion, the congregation has been served by a 1970s neo-Baroque organ of modest resources. Although the instrument was a fine example of its aesthetic approach and served the parish well for forty years, the organ was inadequate for the scope of the music program as it has evolved. It contained only one manual reed and no celeste rank. In short, the organ struggled to keep up with the demands of accompanying Anglican chant psalmody and the choral music of Stanford and Howells. 

Conversation about replacing the organ began nearly a decade ago, yet while the need was never in dispute, external forces seemed to derail the discussion at every turn. Building on the foundation laid by Fr. Robert Sessum, interim rector Fr. Ron Pogue seized the opportunity during the time of transition in leadership to force the issue. The committee moved quickly under the focused leadership of chair Joseph Jones, and a contract was signed after a brief flurry of activity.

The organ is thus designed primarily as a handmaiden for musical liturgy in the Anglican tradition as it has been received by the American church. The instrument’s resources are uniquely tailored to the setting it serves in every regard. Recognizing the value of a wide tonal palette, the chancel instrument is double the size of the previous organ, gaining variety in tone rather than increase in volume. A new chamber was created by renovating a second-story storage room, allowing organ on both sides of the chancel for the first time. The existing chamber, formerly housing the Swell, now holds the Choir in intimate proximity to the voices it accompanies. The Swell resides within the new chamber, high in the chancel where its robust voice can speak freely into the room. The Great is divided in twin cantilevered cases facing each other, with the plenum stops on the cantoris side and color stops on the decani. Maximizing the versatility of this arrangement, the two halves of the Great can be silenced through individual Unison Off controls and coupled to the fourth manual separately. This allows, for instance, the Great principal cornet to dialogue with the Great Trumpet.

Early on, the committee determined that having a division in the back of the room would be a top priority. For all the storied choir-centric nature of the Anglican tradition, worship in America resoundingly seeks to involve the assembly in song. With the acoustically compromising arrangement of chancel chambers off the central axis of the room, an Antiphonal organ on the back wall would help unify music-making throughout the church. Whenever the issue of funding was raised, the Antiphonal division was widely recognized as the most palatable sacrifice, yet it remained a strong desire among the committee. Thanks to the efficacy of the fund-raising campaign and the generosity of the Miller and Wrigley families, the committee was able to avoid any limitations. Twin cases frame the majestic western lancet window, and the polished display pipes reflect the colorful light from the stained glass. The polished brass Festival Trumpet completes the visual effect with a regal touch.

Any student of organ design will recognize the predictable nature of stop lists from instrument to instrument across styles of organ building. The distinctive quality of tonal design lies in the careful specification of scales, mouth widths, and voicing techniques. All of these details are meticulously overseen by our head voicer, Brandon Woods, who works with each stop through design to final regulation in the room. In this he is ably assisted by David Sims, who contributes to each step of the process. This instrument features a weight in tone and variety in color consistent with the demands of accompanying voices in a sensitive, supportive manner. Each division includes an 8′ principal stop, each of varying volume and personality. The plenum choruses complement each other in combination as well as stand individually with integrity. As with many of our recent instruments, mouth widths below 1′ C on principal pipes are kept fairly narrow, allowing the upper lips of mouths to rise. This imparts a tone with generous fundamental development. With diapason chorus stops, this yields 8′ and 4′ stops with compelling and distinctive personalities. Higher-pitched stops and mixtures step back in scaling and broaden in mouth width to permit more upper partial development. Volume and speech are reserved in these stops, preventing them from dominating the texture. The result is a chorus with sheen but whose power comes from the fundamental.

The reed stops of the organ traverse a wide spectrum of musical effect. The Great Trumpet has lead resonators of generous scale and shallots with sharply tapered openings. These combine for a sound rich and heavy, blending into the principal chorus seamlessly. The Swell reed chorus features parallel openings on the shallots for a full-throated brilliance that pours from its chamber. The Choir’s Clarinet is gentle and voluptuous in the style of E. M. Skinner stops. The instrument is crowned by two solo reeds, the Choir Tuba and the Antiphonal Festival Trumpet. The Tuba is a typical high-pressure reed, in the style of Willis, with a broad, enveloping tone. The Festival Trumpet is commanding, speaking from its dramatic position, yet mild enough to use (sparingly) in chords.

Celeste ranks are of particular note in this organ. In addition to the ubiquitous strings in the Swell and Dulciana in the Choir, the Antiphonal contains a Diapason Celeste. Both unison and celeste ranks use slotted pipes to encourage the undulation, and the keen tone that derives from the slots makes for a distinctive sound. The timbre is unapologetically diapason in quality, and the vigorous sound of the two ranks together fills the room in a luxuriant wash of sound.

Windchests throughout the organ feature our unique electro-pneumatic slider and pallet design. The combination of tone channels running across stops and wholly pneumatic action enables the pipework to speak incisively yet without any harshness in attack. Further, the stops meld together as they draw wind from a common source. Arranging the mechanics and structure proved to be an extremely challenging task, particularly as the new Swell chamber’s dimensions continued to be a moving target throughout design and even construction of the organ. Staff design engineer Kurt Ryll and shop manager Mark Goulding nonetheless arrived at a layout that, if not commodious, certainly supports maintenance access to every component. Moving about the organ for routine tuning is remarkably simple, belying the complexity of the design necessary to achieve this.

The cabinetry of the organ and console was executed by Robert Duffy and Robert Heighway, culling elements from the room, such as the Tudor roses that adorn the rood screen and ornamental bosses featured in the reredos. The console uses marquetry to separate the divisions within the stop jambs and to frame the burled central panel of the music desk. Throughout the organ, both internal and visible details are finished with an attention to detail consistent with the quality of woodworking in the church.

The sum of all these disparate parts is an instrument that truly speaks forth, carrying the people’s song and supporting the choir in their leadership. While our intention was for it to be specifically suited to the worship of this congregation, we made no attempt to embody shallow or derivative notions of English organ building. This is an American instrument embracing the gamut of organ literature, hymnody, and choral music employed by the congregation. In realizing this goal we gratefully acknowledge the contributions of organist and choirmaster John Linker and committee chair Joseph Jones. We also recognize the steady leadership of the rector, Fr. Brian Cole, who inherited a project already underway and oversaw the completion with a dedication and enthusiasm as if it were his own. We look forward to sharing with the congregation in the upkeep of the organ, watching as it enlivens the worship at Church of the Good Shepherd and enriches the musical life of Lexington.

—Jason Overall

Goulding & Wood, Inc.

Indianapolis, Indiana

 

Robert Duffy, casework, cabinetry, and wood carvings

John Goulding, reed racking

Mark Goulding, shop foreman, general shop construction

Chris Gray, general shop construction

Robert Heighway, console cabinetry, casework cabinetry, and slider chests

Jerin Kelly, wind chests, general shop construction

Phil Lehman, office manager

Tyler MacDonald, wind chests

Jason Overall, office support and tonal design

Kurt Ryll, case design and engineering

David Sims, system wiring, tonal finishing

Michael Vores, structure, expression boxes, general shop construction

Brandon Woods, tonal design, voicing, and finishing.

 

From the organist & choirmaster

Goulding & Wood Opus 50 (named “The Miller and Wrigley Organ”) is the physical manifestation of many years of consideration, consultation, site visits, fundraising, and, of course, prayer. On my appointment to the Church of the Good Shepherd in 2001, it was immediately apparent that the previous neo-Baroque instrument had limited resources for accompanying the Anglican liturgy. As more and more electro-magnets and memory capture components failed, it was decided to replace the instrument with an organ more suitable to the fine Gothic architecture of Good Shepherd, and having a more diverse tonal palette, rather than to restore the previous instrument.

Upon his retirement in 2009, former rector Fr. Robert Sessum suggested to the congregation that the next project in the immediate future of Good Shepherd should be to replace the organ. The congregation heeded the advice of Fr. Sessum, and over the next two years an organ committee and organ capital campaign committee were formed under the guidance of the interim rector, Fr. Ron Pogue. Our new rector, Fr. Brian Cole, oversaw installation of the new instrument. It is a privilege to have worked with these three clergymen in seeing the dream of a new instrument for Good Shepherd come true.

In selecting a builder, the committee had their work cut out for them. My personal preference favors mechanical action, as I have found tracker instruments to be superior tools of artistic expression. Early on in the process, however, our committee had to dismiss this as an option due to Good Shepherd’s architecture and our desire to have symmetrically balanced cases on both sides of the chancel, as well as an Antiphonal division at the west end to better support hymn singing. After reviewing numerous designs, specifications, and participating in site visits, the committee unanimously chose Goulding & Wood.

Over many months we worked closely with Goulding & Wood president Jason Overall and head voicer Brandon Woods on a specification that would meet Good Shepherd’s liturgical needs and be unique. We agreed to reuse some of the finest pipework from the old instrument in the new organ. The former Great 8 Principal and 4 Octave were revoiced and now reside in the Choir as 8 Open Diapason and the 4 Principal. The former 16 Subbass (which was, in fact, from the parish’s Pilcher organ from the 1920s) was revoiced and at home again in Good Shepherd. The Pedal 4 Schalmey as well as the Zimbelstern were also worthy of recycling.  

As its primary function is to accompany the Anglican liturgy, a complete and powerful Swell division is a must. The new Swell boasts a complete principal chorus, luscious strings, and harmonic flutes at 4′ and 2′ pitches, as well as a full complement of 16′ through 4′ reeds. While the Swell, Choir, and Pedal divisions appear fairly standard in specification, it is the Great and Antiphonal divisions that have the most innovative design and function. The Great is divided on both sides of the quire, and as such, each side can be coupled separately to the fourth manual to solo out melodies of hymns or other innovative uses. In addition to having a complete principal chorus, the Antiphonal also boasts a “Diapason Celeste.” While a Voce Umana or a Fiffaro might be common in Italian organs, a stop such as this is rarely found on English-inspired American organs. Furthermore, this stop is indeed an open, full-bodied, English-style Diapason. Though its use in repertoire is extremely rare (it is likely not the sound Frescobaldi had in mind!), it is incredibly useful in improvisations. The sound of this celeste is rich and embodying. Indeed, the entire instrument draws a new level of musicality and creativity from those fortunate to play it, and it is the prayerful congregant who receives the greatest benefit.

The people of Good Shepherd take great pride in our choir program, which has attained a high degree of international recognition over the past decade. Attention to and participation in congregational hymn singing is now at an all-time high for this parish. Now that this glorious instrument is in place, matching the beauty of the choir, the architectural environment, and the mighty singing of the congregation, we eagerly anticipate reaching new heights in our spiritual and musical journeys, and discovering new ways in which we are all able to see glimpses of heaven right here on earth.

—John Linker

 

From the organ committee

The organ committee consisted of a cross-section of the congregation, Dr. Schuyler W. Robinson, professor of organ at the University of Kentucky, and our church organist/choirmaster. The committee’s charge was to determine the type, size, and placement of the future instrument, and to set the budget. Its most important task was to find the perfect fit between the church and the company selected to build the instrument. The committee hired a consultant to help it identify the best North American organ builders, and we invited five of them to Lexington to present preliminary designs and cost estimates for the project. The committee then sent our two organists to play instruments representative of each builder. 

After careful deliberation, we chose Goulding & Wood of Indianapolis. Their plan was exciting and seemed to fit our needs perfectly. When the instrument was ready for installation, Goulding & Wood issued an invitation to the congregation to come to their workshop in Indianapolis to hear the organ before their team dismantled it and began to transfer it to Lexington. A few weeks later, the first pipes arrived and were paraded into the nave of the church, led by our bagpiper, and were blessed during a short service. The new and exciting musical voice of the Church of the Good Shepherd is a dream come true.

—J. R. Jones

Organ Committee Chair

 

From the rector

One of the real gifts of the Episcopal/Anglican tradition is the ability to keep a healthy tension between tradition and change. At Good Shepherd, the arrival of Goulding & Wood Opus 50 (the “Miller and Wrigley Organ”) is a fine example of that gift. 

The builders from Goulding & Wood were very sensitive to the change that takes place when an instrument like this is placed in an historic space. Throughout the weeks of building on site, we welcomed parishioners and community members to visit our church during construction. Numerous photographs and videos, both formal and informal, were taken to record the work. Even though the builders were guests to our space, they served as good hosts, as long-time members and newcomers asked questions while the installation process unfolded. 

Now that it is in place, the organ appears to have always been in our liturgical space. The antiphonal division now frames the glorious Abbott Window in the rear of the church and accentuates the colors of the stained glass. The new organ has also already been a catalyst for more vigorous congregational singing. The old organ console has been refashioned to make a smaller altar for our Sunday evening Eucharist. 

We are all blessed to be a part of Good Shepherd’s story at this time. The Miller and Wrigley Organ, while new, affirms the great strengths of traditional Anglican worship. Because of its incredible versatility, this instrument will serve as an anchor as we expand the musical life of the parish in arts offerings to the Lexington community. 

—The Rev’d Brian Cole

Residence Organ

The Isle of Man

From Peter Jones, the Offshore Organbuilder
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This article is coming to you from the Isle of Man, an island some 30 miles long by about 14 miles wide, and sitting midway between Ireland and England. Its longest river--the Sulby--stretches for a full 10 miles or more, and Snaefell--the highest mountain--reaches a height of over 2,000 feet. Anyone with a world atlas and a magnifying glass to hand will have no trouble in locating the "Island," as those who live here often term it, off the west coast of England, facing Liverpool.

 

 

The Isle of Man may be little known in the wider world (or even on the "adjacent island" of England--we don't say "mainland," of course!) but like most places it does have its peculiar features which mark it out for those with special interests. It is an off-shore finance center, for example, with relatively low rates of tax. It is known for its motorcycle races (the "TT Races") which take place on the public roads--one of the largest (and arguably most dangerous) circuits of its kind in the world. For those who like unspoiled countryside to look at or walk over, and a quiet and relatively unhurried way of life, the Isle of Man is the place to be. It is an island of Fairies, one of the largest water-wheels you are ever likely to see, Celtic stone crosses and much more. Most important to me, and I hope of interest to readers, its small area is home to a surprising variety of some 50 or so pipe organs, and I am more than happy to have been the resident organ builder here for over 20 years.

For those of us with a fascination for the King of Instruments, there is much to be said about life here--too much for one article such as this--and rather than describe the organs as a whole in greater or lesser detail, I thought it might be better to describe some of the incidents which make the life of "the organ man" anything but tedious.

Looking back over the work undertaken in the recent past, I see one job which will be of interest to the great majority of organ players, from the professional recitalist to the home enthusiast who plays only for his own enjoyment. I refer to an ambition which attracts so many organists, and which eludes all but a few--the luxury of a real pipe organ in one's own home.

How many have investigated this possibility, only to find that the cost (and sometimes the space) involved ensures that the pipe dream remains just that? True, there is the electronic substitute--smaller and cheaper, with a great variety of Golden Tones of one kind or another--and then again the organ in church is usually available to the serious player--albeit not so attractive in the winter, nor so convenient for that odd 30 minutes practice at the end of the day. But for those badly infected by the organ bug, the unfortunates with an acute case of "organitis," there can never be any hope of a cure until they can see for themselves those gleaming ranks of metal and wooden pipes and the console with its several keyboards, waiting in the music room for their sole use!

So it was with The Reverend Alec Smith. His love of the organ had actually led him to start an apprenticeship in organ building as a young man, but he quickly saw the light, heard the call, and became an ordained priest in the Church of England. At that time, he assembled a worthy (if somewhat ungainly) collection of pipes, old keyboards, bits of mechanism, etc., into a Frankenstein creation which crouched in the corner of one of the large rooms of the vicarage in his country parish in England. This creation was a credit to its owner, but more than a little ponderous for anything other than a large house (preferably not your own) with plenty of spare rooms. When, in the fullness of time, Alec became an army chaplain, and he and his wife Jean were inevitably posted abroad, the organ was dispersed, almost all of it never to be seen again.

On retirement from the army, Alec settled in the Isle of Man and became Organ Advisor to the Diocese. It was now that the organ-building bug, which had lain dormant for so many years, was re-awakened, and the idea of a house organ was again proposed. There were, of course, several problems. The usual ones--centered around lack of space and finances--were, quite rightly, pointed out by Jean, and in any case there was a seemingly adequate 2-manual electronic, with its equally large speaker cabinet, already taking up far too much room in their small cottage in the Manx countryside. Jean correctly pointed out that it was more room they needed, not a pipe organ!

In a attempt to save some space, and acting on the advice of the local music shop, new and much smaller speakers were fitted to the electronic by an "expert" from Douglas, the Island's capital. After a day spent fitting the new speakers into the ceiling (with the novel use of a screwdriver to create some suitable holes in the plaster), the expert switched on, at which point there was an impressive bang followed by an ominous burning smell. It seemed, on later examination, that the amplifiers (intended to power two large speaker banks in a church setting) had seen the modern speakers as a virtual short circuit in electrical terms, with the inevitable result. The expert withdrew, promising to "work something out." I believe he left the Island, and, in any case, was never seen again. The electronic was no longer adequate. It was dead.

At this point, a further discussion took place on the subject of a new pipe organ, and Jean was persuaded, but only agreed on one seemingly-impossible condition: aside from the console, the new organ must not project into the room any further than the line of the first ceiling beam (some 14≤ from the end wall). Since there was no possibility of siting anything behind the walls (three of them being external, and the fourth taken up with the fireplace) the situation appeared hopeless, and it was at this point that Alec called me in.

Impossible situations regarding space are a challenge to the organ builder. More than one has succumbed to the temptation to push too-large an organ into too-small a space, with disastrous results, and I have seen the consequences of several of these unhappy situations. In one such case, an instrument was built in which the Great and Choir (mounted one above the other and in front of the Pedal pipework) "speak" into a solid masonry wall some 3 feet thick. Tuning/maintenance of such an organ is difficult if not impossible, and a warning to any organ designer. Alec's requirement was for the cheapest possible instrument, with a fair selection of stops over two manuals and pedals, all within a depth of 14≤. It had to fit into one small room of a cottage which has only three rooms on the ground floor (the other two being the kitchen and porch) and it must not be a monster from the tuning/maintenance standpoint.

There was space for only two or three sets of pipes, but Alec stated from the outset that, "I want more than three wheels on my car," so we were obviously looking to something other than mechanical action with two or three stops. This need to make the most of the available pipework suggested an "extension organ" of some sort. This, and the restrictions of the site, dictated electric action, and financial considerations suggested the simple mechanism as shown in the sketch. The question of electric versus mechanical action is one of those subjects likely to provoke strong opinions both for and against. In my view, each system has its merits and I am happy to work with either, but when a client requests more stops than the room or budget will allow, the obvious way forward is for a stoplist extended from a small number of ranks, and this means an electric mechanism. The design shown, if correctly made, is reliable, very quick (giving good repetition) and quiet. Incorrectly handled, it is none of these things, and has thereby acquired a poor reputation in some circles. With sufficient funds, and more space, an electro-pneumatic action would have been more sophisticated, but with enough care taken in its design and construction, direct electric action (as shown) is almost as good.

Some readers may be unfamiliar with the idea of an "extension" organ. This is an instrument in which a set, or "rank," of pipes is available to be played at more than one pitch. For example, a set of flute pipes could be played at 8' pitch (via a console stop labeled, say, Stopt Diapason 8') and the same set could also be available at 4' pitch (via a console stop labeled Flute 4') or at 16'  pitch (in which case the console stop might be labeled Bourdon 16') and so on. Clearly, the idea has its uses and abuses, as in the case of the 2-manual and pedal organ in which every console stop was actually taken from a single rank of Dulciana pipes!

The final stoplist is one which I have used successfully on various occasions. It is based on three ranks representing the three main tone-colors of the organ:  Diapason, Flute and String. Each of the three ranks consists of 73 pipes, and are listed below as:

Rank A/ Open Diapason, running from C13,

Rank B/ Stopt Diapason, running from C1, and

Rank C/ Salicional, running from C13.

In addition there are 12 stopped Quint pipes (shown below as "Q") running from G8 (at 8' pitch) for the pedal 16' stop (see later).

(Reed tone was not included, as it is difficult to have conventional reeds sufficiently quiet for such a small setting. In any case, there was no space available.)

Note that the Open Diapason is of small scale, and this made it much more suitable, for our purpose, than the more usual scaling of such a stop. When selecting second-hand pipes for a home extension organ, a Principal would be the first choice  to provide the Open Diapason--Principal--Fifteenth "stops," as they appear on the console, and I have even known a Gamba to make a very acceptable open metal extension rank, once it had been re-scaled and re-voiced. Ideally, where finances are not a limiting factor, new pipes should be made for all ranks, so that their scaling can be suited to the room and stoplist.

If an "extension" scheme is to work, musically, it is important to avoid the temptation of too many stops from too few pipes. I know of one organ with the stops simply repeated on each keyboard, and though this gives maximum flexibility, it is very confusing from the player's point of view, and the instrument as a whole is strangely bland and characterless. The three sets of pipes for Alec's organ were made available at different pitches, under the guise of different stop names, to make registration more straightforward from the player's point of view. In this way, some 15 speaking stops are available to the organist, instead of three which would result from the use of mechanical action.

The specification shown has only one stop (the Stopt Diapason) actually repeated on each manual. This is because it is so frequently used, and blends with the other two ranks at 8' pitch.  None of the other manual stops are repeats, and they have been arranged so as to discourage the use of the same rank at only one octave apart. (E.g.,  the Open Diapason 8' is intended to be used with the Salicet 4', or the Flute 4', not the Principal 4', as you might expect.) Using the stops of an extension organ in this way reduces or (more usually) eliminates the well-known "missing note" problem, which occurs when one strand of the music runs across another, and both need a pipe from the same rank, albeit from different extended "stops." If, for instance, the Stopt Diapason 8' and Flute 4' are drawn on the same manual and key C25 is held down, the pipes heard, as counted from the flute rank, will be C25 and C37. Now add manual key C13, which will sound pipes C13 and C25 (which is already playing from key C25). In this example a pipe at the pitch of C25 should appear twice, but actually appears only once. The missing note will be most obvious if either of the two manual keys is held down while the other is repeated.

One of the most important criticisms to be levelled at an extension scheme is this problem of missing notes, which can lead to a lack of clarity. For all practical purposes, this drawback can be completely overcome by a combination of the organ builder (in preparing a modest stoplist) and the player (in thoughtful use of the instrument, so that the smallest number of stops is drawn at any one time, preferably from different ranks, or at least from ranks separated by more than one octave). In actual practice, this kind of stop selection becomes automatic to the organist who realizes the limitations of the instrument.

Another important factor in the success of this type of organ is the regulation of volume and tone quality of the pipes within a stop, and also the regulation of the stops in relation to each other. Each stop is regulated with a very gradual crescendo from bass to treble. This requires subtle handling, but when correctly carried out results in a clear ensemble in which the treble parts can be heard above the tenor and bass.

The ranks themselves are regulated with much less distinction in power than would usually be the case, so that equivalent pipes of the Stopt Diapason are similar in volume to those of the Open Diapason, and the Salicional, while quieter, is not far behind. This results in much less contrast in power among the 8' stops and this is a compromise, of course, though you still have variety of tone. The blend between ranks played at different pitches is much better than if they are regulated in a conventional manner, with the Open Diapason much louder than the Stopt Diapason and Salicional distinctly quieter. In an instrument such as this, contrast in power is created more by contrasting combinations of stops than between the ranks themselves. Regulating the ranks as if they were separate stops (a mistake often found in both church and house extension organs) results in the Open Diapason and Principal obliterating everything else, while the Fifteenth screams. 

I have used the specification shown several times, including my own house organ, and find it to behave very much as a 'straight' instrument would. I seldom use the couplers, though there are occasions when they become necessary. While it requires thoughtful registration to get the best from an extension organ, a scheme such as this, with a small number of stops, arranged so as to discourage the use of the same rank in two stops separated by only one octave, is very successful.

To cut down costs, Alec agreed to the use of his old electronic as a console, and also to the use of any other second-hand parts which could be obtained. He was also interested and able to lend a hand in the actual construction, when his earlier experiences in organ building were a great asset. The need to keep within 14≤ maximum depth was easily dealt with, by taking up the entire width of the room, side-to-side.

Knowing the number and range of the ranks and the space available, the first step, in a job such as this, is to measure the pipework, in order to see how best to arrange the pipes, and, indeed, if they will fit in at all!

Metal pipes need to be measured in height and in diameter, wooden ones in height only (including any stoppers). In practice, nearly all metal pipes run to a standard scaling (i.e., the rate at which the diameters reduce from note C1 through to the top pipe). Wooden pipes vary considerably, both in scaling (the internal width and depth) and in the thickness of the wood used, which in turn decides the external width and depth. There is also the question of the foot, which, in second-hand wooden pipes (and some new ones) can be bored well off-center. For these reasons it is best to make a paper template of the bottom of each wooden pipe, as described later.

I already had a small scale (i.e., relatively small diameter) Open Diapason rank, and a Salicional, both running form C13 (so the longest pipe in both sets was about 4' speaking length) and Alec located, from a friendly organ builder on the mainland, the Stopped Diapason pipes (running from C1) and a bundle of miscellaneous stoppered wooden pipes for the pedal Quint.

The necessary measurements were taken and noted down in the form of a table. I find it convenient to have a sheet of paper with the 12 notes C through to B in a column down the left-hand edge, followed by vertical columns headed "1--12" then "13--24" then "25--36" and so on, up to "73--84," placed from left to right across the page. This forms a table which will cover an 84-note rank, the biggest usually needed. (Note C85 is only necessary in the case of a rank which runs from 8' pitch to 2' pitch, where the organ has a manual key compass of 61 notes. This C85 pipe needs an additional square to itself.) Every square represents a pipe, and in each one can be written the length and diameter (if metal), together with other details such as size of a rackboard hole, and toe hole etc., which are also measured at this time.

Notice that only the Stopped Diapason rank has its bottom octave (in organ building terms, a "Stopped Bass") the largest pipe of which is, like the other two ranks, something over four feet long. The Salicional and Open Diapason share this bottom octave, as does the 16' pedal stop (the "Harmonic Bass") which produces an acceptable 16' substitute, in the first 12 notes of the pedalboard, by playing the Stopped Bass pipes with the appropriate Quint pipe (from a separate and therefore very soft, 12-note rank of wooden pipes). The resultant note (actually a low hum) which is created from a combination of any stop of 8' pitch and its quint is at 16' pitch. Admittedly, this is much softer than the two pipes actually sounding. The pedals from C13 up play the Stopped Bass again, and then the rest of the Stopt Diapason, thereby sounding at true 16' pitch. These compromises are necessary to reduce the size of the organ, and, if carefully carried out, are soon accepted by the player and listener, especially in a small room.

While there is no substitue for the soft, heavy, warm tone of a full-length Bourdon bass, I have asked many players (including several professionals) their opinion on this "resultant" 16' pedal stop. So far, no one has realized what he was playing until it was pointed out. They all accepted it as a pedal 16'  stop, like any other. The least convincing notes in the bottom octave are, predictably, the smallest three or four. If there is room for full-length pipes down to, say, F#7, so much the better.

It is worth noting that a quinted 16'  effect which uses the pipes of the Stopt Diapason rank only is almost always a failure, because the quint will be too loud. If you have no room for the extra Quint pipes, it is better to use the 8' octave of the Stopt Bass on its own (from pedal keys C1 to B12) before completing the pedal compass by repeating the Stopt Bass followed by the rest of the Stopt Diapason. Another possibility worth considering is a 16' bottom octave in free reeds.

Full-size card or paper templates are needed to represent the metal pipes, as seen from above. It is not normally necessary to make these for every pipe, as different stops usually reduce in diameter, note for note, to a more or less standard pattern. If this pattern is known, the set of templates need cover only the range of diameters from the fattest metal pipe in the organ (in this case C13 of the Open Diapason) down to the minimum spacing dictated by the pipe-valve mechanism. (As direct electric action was being used and the smallest magnets were 3/4≤ wide, with pipes placed directly above the valves, minimum pipe spacing = 3/4≤ + 1/8≤ clearance [= 7/8≤] no matter how small the pipes.)

Like most organ builders, I have a set of these circular templates for general use, so templates for the metal pipes were already at hand, but the wooden pipes had to have paper templates individually made to show their exact shape and the center of the pipe feet. Such a template is made by taking an over-sized piece of paper, drawing on it a circle which equals the diameter of the pipe foot, cutting this out, and sliding the paper up under the pipe and creasing around the four sides. Once the paper is removed and trimmed to size, the original circle can be taped back into place, resulting in an accurate template.

Alec's wooden Stopt Diapason (reputedly by the well-known Victorian organ builder, William Hill) was over 100 years old, and may have been in more than one organ during its lifetime. Its mouths were rather high, which made the tone breathy, and some of the pipes had been mitred, or were cut too short, possibly where they had been in a crowded swell box. But it was basically sound and we went on the basis that it could be made acceptable by repairs, lowering the mouths and re-voicing. The Salicional and Open Diapason ranks were also Victorian, from a local Methodist church. Again, they were not perfectly scaled or voiced for a house  organ, but were basically well-made and capable of re-voicing. All the pipes were measured, and with the tables of measurements and templates to hand, and a given space into which to fit the pipes and action, the process of "setting out" could begin.

An instrument with direct electric action enables the builder to arrange pipework in almost any pattern, within the limits of the room and the physical space taken up by the pipes themselves (or, in the case of the tiny treble notes, the size of their magnets and valves). My preferred system of setting out is slightly unusual, in that I like to place the taller pipes behind the smaller pipes, regardless of their rank. Most other builders would plant pipes in rows, each row being made up from pipes of the same rank.

Secondly, and in common with many of my colleagues, I prefer to plant pipes in "sides," i.e., pipe C1 on the extreme left of the organ, and C#2 on the right, working down to the treble pipes in the middle. In this way, all the pipes of the "C side" (C, D, E, F#, G#, A#) will be on the left, and those of the "C# side" (C#, D#, F, G, A, B) will be on the right.

These two underlying principles result in a pipe set-out which is visually attractive, compact, and which offers the greatest accessibility for tuning and maintenance. Admittedly, it does lead to some complications in the cabling patterns between the console and the magnets, but this is not an insurmountable problem. (In fact, the many cables for this organ were made up, wire by wire, by my school-boy workshop assistant, with no errors at all.)

Alec and I set out our templates on strips of white paper, as wide as Jean would permit, (the 14≤ maximum) and as long as the space available (i.e., the width of the room: 157≤ or just over 13 feet). After a day or two of pushing the templates around, and, bearing in mind the many details such as how the pipes could be best faced away from each other, the space to be allowed for rack pillars, cable registers, assembly screws and many other essentials beyond the scope of this account, we decided upon the ideal arrangement, with the pipes set out on three chests. The chests were placed one above the console, for the treble pipes, and one on each side at a lower level, for the bass pipes. The central chest was just under 13≤ from front to back, and the two other chests were only 9≤ wide. The whole organ would stand in the maximum ceiling height of 91≤ (barely over 71/2 feet). The actual planting pattern was so tight that every possible space has been used, given the limited width and length available. Even so, no pipes are crowded, and all of them have been accommodated. The fronts of the three chests were made from oak-veneered ply salvaged from the old speaker cabinet and console back of the electronic. Consequently, they matched the finish of the console exactly.

Admittedly, there was no room for any casework or building frame, and we had yet to solve the problem of space for the blower, wind pressure regulator, wind trunks, low voltage current supply and one or two other essentials, but these are minor obstacles to the true organ fanatic!

The actual construction of the instrument started with the chests--comprising the pipe ranks, toe boards, or top boards (on which the pipes stand) "wells"  (the sides and ends) and bottom boards. Details of each chest varied with the numbers of rows of pipes, but the sketches showing the basic mechanism will give a good idea of a typical chest in cross-section.

Strips of mdf (a sheet material available in 3/4≤ thickness) were cut for the top boards for each of the three chests, and the pipes centers were punched directly onto them, using the paper setouts, taped down, as a template. Based on these centers, the magnets, valves, pipe racks and the many other details of the mechanism can be marked out and fitted. Unfortunately, a detailed description of this procedure is beyond the scope of a general article such as this. While the basis of the mechanism is shown clearly in the sketch, there are a great many practical details which must be finalized in design and observed in manufacture, if this deceptively simple idea (drilling a hole, screwing a magnet and valve under it, and planting a pipe on top of it) is to be carried through to create a reliable musical instrument. Such a mass of information has not, to my knowledge, ever been written down, as it is essentially based on practical experience over the years. If any readers are interested in further practical details, it may be possible to describe some of the problems involved, and how they are overcome, in a future article, but only a practicing organbuilder can have all the necessary skills and knowledge to cope with every situation, and this makes it impossible to give a general "recipe" for building an organ.

The wind supply is provided by a small electric blower of course, but this one is unusual, in that it was passed on to Alec by an organ-building friend from the days of his original house organ. Indeed, it turned out to be the very same blower, which had returned to him, after an absence of 30 or more years! It proved to be an excellent machine, and very quiet when housed in a new silencing cabinet.

It was necessary to regulate the wind pressure to a value suitable for the pipes and their setting, and, of course, we had no space for traditional bellows. In a case such as this, I used my own design of wind pressure regulator (basically a hinged plate of 1/2≤ sheet material, "floating" over a rubbercloth diaphragm, and supporting some suitably-tensioned springs). Movement of the plate controls a valve which allows wind from the blower through to the chests. As the pipework makes a demand on the supply, the valve opens just far enough to maintain pressure to within 1/8≤ or less at peak demand. This is an acceptable degree of control, and only a very critical ear will notice the slight fall-off in power. Every builder has his favorite design for such a regulator (sometimes called a 'schwimmer' or, in my case, a 'compensator') and they all bear a strong family resemblance. Not all are equally effective, however, and some are prone, under adverse conditions, to fluttering (creating an effect like a very rapid Tremulant). Again, only experience of such devices can provide a way out of trouble, though there are some basic rules in compensator design.

The steady, regulated wind from the compensator is fed to the chest by a rather broad, but shallow, wind-trunk (made in mdf, like the blower box and compensator). This is fixed to the back wall, out of sight, behind the console.

With all the basic elements designed, there still remained the question of the 14≤ limit on width. Obviously, the blower box and compensator were too wide to keep within the limit, so it was decided to camouflage them, together with the circuit boards, transformer/rectifier unit, and other large components.

In the final design, the three chests were screwed to plates of 3/4≤ ply, previously fixed, in a true vertical position, to the rather uneven stone wall. The console was placed centrally, with the two outer chests (holding the bass pipes) low down on each side. The third chest (containing all the treble pipes) was fixed centrally on the wall, just behind and above the console's music desk. Two bookcases were made to fill completely the gap between the sides of the console and the side walls of the house. They were set rather further forward than would be usual, with a broad top which ran back to the wall behind, effectively disappearing under the side chests.

On the left of the console, the bookcase is a real one, with its top extending over the circuit boards and transformer/rectifier unit hidden behind. To the right of the console the seemingly identical bookcase is, in fact, a dummy. Its shelves and books are only about 11/4≤ deep. (One of the more bizarre scenes in the workshop was that of pushing large quantities of scrap books through the circular saw, leaving their spines and an inch or so of paper and cover. These truncated volumes look convincing when glued, side-by-side, onto the foreshortened bookcase back.) The space under the dummy bookcase top contains the blower box and compensator. The bookcases, blower box, compensator, etc., all sit on 3/4≤ ply panels which have been leveled onto the floor.

Once Alec had installed his real books and ornaments, the organ (while visually dominating such a small room, as it must) blended into its domestic setting beautifully, with a spectacular visual touch being provided by a trumpet-blowing angel, carved in oak, which had been salvaged from a local church altarpiece,

What of the finished product? Naturally, the instrument is a compromise--but then this is true of all but the largest organs. It is a pity, for instance, that there was no room for a swell box, or another rank, but it is a wise builder or player who knows when he has gone as far as space and finances will allow. The wooden Stopt Diapason rank had its top lips lowered, and was re-voiced to produce a charming, rather quaint sound, with none of the original's unattractive, breathy tone. The Open Diapason had to be softened to just short of dullness, and now adds considerable fullness and warmth. The Salicional has made an excellent quiet voice, and is also very useful in its other pitches, where it adds brightness without shrillness. This is most important in a small room, and it is worth noting that, the larger the room (up to cathedral proportions) the brighter and more cutting the treble pipework can, and must, be. But the opposite is true for a small space, where top notes can easily become uncomfortably piercing--hence the lack of Mixtures on small house organs with no swell boxes. Many visiting organists, both professional and amateur, have played Alec's instrument since its completion, and all have been pleasantly surprised by its resources and the fact it is possible to produce satisfying performances of both classical and romantic works, albeit with some ingenuity on the part of the player.

True, it would have been possible to install a "large" electronic with three or four manuals, a wide range of stops and artificial reverberation, and I can see the attraction of such an idea, especially for the player whose interest lies in large-scale, romantic works. But, I cannot imagine anything less convincing than the sound of pedal and manual reeds, with Diapasons and mixtures, echoing with a five-second reverberation, across a room some 16 feet long and 8 feet high. The sound of a small organ in a small room, with no reverberation at all, is an authentic one and has a special charm. Whether it be two or three ranks of pipes offered with mechanical action as two or three stops, or whether, as in this case, the ranks are extended to several "stops," the small domestic instrument has a sound and fascination all its own, and is capable of giving much pleasure, both visually and musically, over many years.

 

Peter Jones will be pleased to receive comments, either on this article, or relating to readers' own experiences, at: The Bungalow, Kennaa, St. John's, Isle of Man, 1M4 3LW, Via United Kingdom

 

Manual I

                  8'            Open Diapason A

                  8'            Stopt Diapason B

                  4'            Salicet C

                  4'            Flute B

                  22/3'    Twelfth C

                  2'            Fifteenth A

                                    Man II/Man I

Manual II

                  8'            Stopt Diapason B

                  8'            Salicional C

                  2'            Salicetina C

                  11/3'    Nineteenth C

Pedal

                  16'         Harmonic Bass B & Q

                  8'            Bass Flute B

                  4'            Fifteenth A

                  2'            Salamine C

                                    Man I/Ped

                                    Man II/Ped

Summary

                  A              Open Diapason 73 pipes

                  B              Stopt Diapason 73 pipes

                  C              Salicional 73 pipes

                  D              Quint 12 pipes

Cover feature

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Quezon City, Philippines, is the largest and most populated city in metropolitan Manila, with a population of over 2.5 million; at one time it was the capital of the country. In this city is the Central Complex of the Iglesia Ni Cristo (Church of Christ), registered in the Philippines in 1914 by Felix Manalo, and at present administered by the Executive Minister Eduardo V. Manalo. The church has grown to millions of members with congregations in over 100 countries. 

The INC Central Complex includes the central office for the church administration, Tabernacle Hall, College of Evangelical Ministry for future ministers, New Era General Hospital, New Era University, and prominent and rising towards the sky is the largest Iglesia Ni Cristo Temple in the world. Designed by Filipino architect Carlos A. Santos-Viola based on the conception of the then Executive Minister of the church, Eraño G. Manalo, the Central Temple is famous for its Gothic-Moorish architecture, intricate interiors, and its 7,000-seat capacity.  

Under the leadership of Executive Minister Manalo, the church administration set forth in 2012 to study, build, and install a special pipe organ at the INC Central Temple to coincide with the church centennial. The purpose was to further raise the level of worship services, and to praise God with a higher form of hymn singing. This is the first custom pipe organ built for the Iglesia Ni Cristo. We recognized the importance of such a commission and the care and reverence it accorded.

A project of this magnitude required a tremendous amount of planning and coordination. We were pleased to have had the help and assistance of the United States offices of the Iglesia Ni Cristo, coupled with the church administration in Quezon City. Through the course of planning this installation, there were numerous trips, e-mails, faxes, and phone calls that involved the offices in California and Quezon City, Philippines. 

During my first visits, I was able to attend worship services at the Temple. With the members of the congregation and choir in full song, I was able to gauge the acoustics and begin designing a specification that would support their worship. The hymns and music of this church are exclusive to Iglesia Ni Cristo. This is a congregation that worships with full voice; experiencing their services is to be enveloped in worship and praise.

For many years, the organ used by the church was a Hammond electronic organ with its sole flute-biased generator. As opposed to how the organ is typically played in gospel churches, the typical organ registrations emphasized unison pitch and the organ played in a “classical” style with use of the Leslie speakers and mutation drawbars for variation rather than reliance. The organ was used to gently undergird the church music. 

The Central Temple is a massive worship space by any standard. Its architecture is, in a word, stunning. Rich carvings, tracery, and filigree abound in this edifice. Underneath richly brocaded chandeliers, the center core of the Temple seats several thousand; two side chapels alone seat over 1,000 each. Large doors can be drawn closed to divide the Central Temple into three separate spaces. During services, male members of the church are seated on the left, with the women on the right side. The choir loft in the center of the building seats 170. Each of the side chapels contains smaller choir lofts that are utilized for each service and seat 50 choristers each. The organ console sits in the middle of the choir loft with the organist facing outward, without a choir director, during the services. The choirs and musicians are disciplined and well trained to work from music cues honed from rehearsal.

The acoustics of the room are very good due to the hard surfaces, though these are not cathedral acoustics with a long reverb time, but those of a space that is favorable for music and the spoken word. The previous electronic organ was providing enough support for the choir and congregation with two Leslie speakers in this large space. 

When we started to lay out the tonal design of the very first pipe organ for the Central Temple of the Iglesia Ni Cristo, several key points would determine the success of the organ. We needed the traditional resources and chorus structure of a pipe organ for religious use; it would be important to support the flute-biased sounds and dynamics that the church had always known; and most of the organ resources should be under expression for full dynamic control of sound. The organ would also need to play common literature with a main support of resources used for choir and congregational singing. Our task was to supply them with enough variety using the different families of principals, strings, flutes, reeds, and solo voices, and then to fill this large worship space with leading sound.

When the Central Temple was built it did not include a location for a pipe organ. We knew that this required major construction alterations within its building and infrastructure. There was a physical limit to the space that was available for organ chambers without adversely impacting the building’s architectural design. During our visit to the Temple, we completed studies of the sightlines and probable chamber elevations as they related to the organ placement to develop a plan for the organ chambers and the façade that would cover the chamber openings. Working with the architect and other members of the church, we formed a plan for the placement of the organ in the building, so that it would look like it had always been there. This task would need to visually complement the grandeur of the current worship space. 

We knew that if we did not support the two choirs and over 1,000 members in each of the side chapels, the organ would be a failure. We also had a situation where the main choir and central console were around the corner from the chapels. The congregants and the choir in the chapels would need to hear the same dynamics that were heard around the corner at the main console. To solve this problem, we chose a unique solution to the organ division placement. We placed the left and right organ chambers between the main hall and the side chapels. We designed large sets of expression louvers that open to the chapels and the main hall. The organ has 56 swell shade frames that hold 290 individual expression shades operated by multiple motors. These motors were addressed through a programmable expression shade software interface, which allowed an acoustic linear progression with the movement of the expression shoes that was balanced between the main hall and the side chapels. This allows a seamless level of expression. In addition to providing dynamic control of the organ stops, we designed the expression shades to direct the sound to various angles of incidence in the building and through refraction uniformly cover the huge space with sound. (The expression shades were regulated so that the registrations for the organ divisions are acoustically balanced between the Main choir loft and the
side chapels.) 

The unique position of the organ chambers in the room opened the possibility of using the left and right stop resources to provide independent instruments for the side chapels. Through careful stop placement and our scaling choices, we were able to provide a duality of voice for the stop registers. The chapel specifications differ from the main console and are designed to support these spaces when the doors are drawn closed and the chapels become independent worship spaces. When the chapel organs are turned on, the division shades for the main core of the Temple close and only express to the chapel. Both chapel organs can be played at the same time. The left chapel is used for weddings. The specification for this instrument is drawn from the resources of the Swell and String organs. The right chapel is used for practice and rehearsal and draws its resources from the Great and Pedal divisions. 

To cover the large organ chamber openings, the choir loft is flanked with matching façade pipes from the 16 Principal and 16 Violone. The building is in a known earthquake area, and there was a concern to assure that the pipes would remain in the organ case. As a redundant safety measure, we designed decorative bands in the case design that retain the pipes in their vertical racks even if there were a failure of the retaining hardware. We built the façade pipes out of a polished metal. Their finish takes on the colors and hues of the lighting and architecture and has a softer look that would not have been possible with painted or poly-chromed pipes. The pipes were built with over-length bodies and toes to fill a 24 height and sit on a 7 ledge. The façade is fed with transmission tubes from action boxes located in the enclosed chambers. The construction crew completed all of the millwork and tracery. 

To scale an instrument, we generally bring pipe samples into the room to gauge the necessary scales, wind pressures, and pipe treatments that need to be employed. The planning for this instrument was no different. We took over several pipes that were voiced in the Temple, with several members of our staff gauging the carrying ability of these voices in the room. There was remarkably little acoustical fall-off of these voices, even into areas of the rear balcony. These pipes became the guide in our voicing room halfway around the world. This was an instance where your eyes did not want to believe what your ears would tell you about scaling due to the sheer size of the space. The sample pipes represented the reality of what we had to trust in our tonal design of the organ. Before our final week of voicing on site, 4,000 ministerial students and choir members were invited in so that we could get a crucial sound check. This enabled us to finalize voice strength and gauge the shade openings with a room full of people.

To accommodate the gender division in the Temple, the organ divisions are placed so that they provide the proper weight and color to support the men and women’s voices. The Great and Pedal are in the right chamber with the resources focused towards the men. The Swell and String organ in the left chamber focus their voices towards the women. The Choir/Solo chamber area is in the center behind the choir. The middle of this space contained a large LED screen, which is integral to worship here. The Choir/Solo division has three shade openings that open to the right, left, and above the screen. The expression shades in this division are horizontal, with the first points of reflection being the hard ceiling above the choir and organist. The ceiling acts as a diffuser so that sound envelops the choristers without subjecting them to the large dynamics of this division. This allows the organ and choir to uniformly blend their collective voices for support of worship.

We employed generous scales along with an 8-weighted specification. Wind pressures range from 6′′ to 16′′, with the highest wind pressures in the Solo division, where the large scales and increased wind pressures allow robust voicing for the flue solo stops, such as the Stentorphone, to sing out over the full organ resources and yet be fully contained with closure of the expression shades. We determined that the woodwind-class reeds would be very important to texture the ensemble. The 8 Clarinet and the 8 Oboe add color without being aggressive or too tonally forward. All the organ’s reeds use English shallots, which, with their darker, rounder voices, are more appropriate in this acoustic. 

There was a desire for a large solo reed in our tonal design. The organ is tonally capped with the high-pressure 8Tromba Heroique. This stop is placed so that it speaks out into the Temple through the center Choir/Solo expression shades. This stop is extended full-length down to the pedal for the supreme 16 cantus firmus voice.

To pay homage to the flute sounds that the church previously knew, we included a Wurlitzer-patterned Tibia in the Choir/Solo on 10′′ of wind pressure. The String organ has a Tibia Minor and the Great a Flauto Major. Ubiquitous to the sound of these large, stoppered flutes are the manners in which they are affected by tremolo. Unique to the instruments we have built previously, we provided the organ with dual speed tremolos that could independently be regulated for maximum effect with the flue and reed voices. Again, these stops’ style features their unification across multiple pitch registers, which we included in our specification design.

The String Organ was conceived as an extension of the Swell division that can separately be a floating division via couplers. Its multiple timbres range from the pungent Viole d’ Orchestra to the more neutral Violone with pitch registers from 16 to 4. Included in this division was an 8 Flute Celeste II built in the form of a Ludwigtone. It provides the softest ethereal voice in the organ. The multiplicity of strings in this (the String Organ) division not only are of a singular beauty when massed together and colored with the 8’ Vox Humana but importantly with their edge tones provide a harmonic bridge (without their celesting voices) between the flutes and principal stops. This allows a seamless buildup of the stop resources in this organ.

The organ windchests are a combination of pallet and slider windchests and unit electro-pneumatic windchests. There are a total of 45 windchests throughout the instrument, fed by 26 wind regulators. Dual-curtain ribbed and floating-lid reservoirs were used for the winding system. The wind is raised through four blowers that generate static wind pressure in excess of 22 water column inches.

The main four-manual organ console is mahogany with ebonized mahogany key cheeks and is in a fixed location in the choir loft. The two chapel consoles were built to be lower profile and are two-manual terrace drawknob consoles. These consoles include inbuilt casters and detachable plugs to allow the consoles to be moved and stored when their use is not required.

With an instrument that had three consoles, three separate specifications, differential expression shade control tables, two-speed tremolos, and a requirement for fiber optic data transmission, we turned to Dwight Jones and Integrated Organ Systems. They worked tirelessly to customize their Virtuoso control system to fulfill the specialized requirements of this instrument.

Preparing the organ for its safe transit required careful disassembly and packing. It was very important that the load centers of the packed shipping containers be carefully calculated. This required that every part of the organ be weighed and a packing plan developed for the shipping containers. There was a narrow window to pack each shipping container so that all of the organ materials would be in transit on the same ship. We built an outline of a shipping container in our factory and virtually “packed” each container within that footprint. This allowed us to rapidly pack each container as the four trucks showed up in order at our shipping dock. The “virtual” containers were purposely staged in the reverse order to facilitate quick loading of the four actual containers, which arrived in succession over a four-day period. The organ weighs 43,543 pounds and required almost 8,000 pounds of packing materials. In all there were 608 individual packages and crates ranging from 5 to 1,380 pounds. There are a total of 3,162 individual pipes in the instrument, which were packed into 87 trays and 39 crates. The organ was packed into four shipping containers to begin its route from the port of Savannah, Georgia, to Manila. Our staff, led by Art Schlueter, Jr., arrived just ahead of the shipment to receive it at the Temple. 

The first challenge to the installation was getting the organ parts into the Temple. The primary worship space is actually on the third story of the building. The stairwells and elevators were too constricted to allow the movement of large items such as the multiple consoles, the main chests, and the façade pipes. Early in our first visits it became clear that the only method for the movement of the mass of organ parts would be to open a large hole in the upper rampart of the building and bring in an overhead crane to hoist these materials. A large scaffold deck was built outside, to allow a landing area for the organ parts that were then manually placed in the building. 

As we arrived to install the organ, major portions of the building were still under renovation to be ready for the centennial celebration of the Iglesia Ni Cristo. Over 100 workers labored around the clock to complete all of the tasks at hand. The members of the Iglesia Ni Cristo administration worked with us to develop a plan where our work could be congruous with their work schedule and provided considerable assistance with the movement of materials from the containers to a marshaling area in the side chapels. Adding to the complexity of the work in the Temple, the scheduled services were ongoing, with only the side chapels taken out of service. We want to thank the Iglesia Ni Cristo for their considerable assistance to assure that we were able to complete our work with the ongoing construction and renovations in the edifice. Without coordination, communication, and support this project could not have been accomplished.

The work to install and voice the instrument was completed in multiple trips that spanned several months of time. The work was completed with two separate teams, with staff members in Georgia providing technical support. The members of the church construction crew assisted with the installation. This allowed us to teach how the organ was installed and how to adjust and regulate the organ parts and actions. Several members of this group showed a specific aptitude for the organ work and were further trained about the pipe organ and its systems. This team now serves in a support role for basic tuning and adjustments at the Temple. With each return tuning trip, our staff has worked to further their skills and abilities.

Members of our firm that traveled overseas to complete this project included Art Schlueter, Jr., Arthur Schlueter, III, Rob Black, John Tanner, Marc Conley, Pete Duys, Bud Taylor, Patrick Hodges, Jay Hodges, and Jeff Otwell. Considerable shop assistance to the completion of this project was provided by staff members Shan Dalton, Barbara Sedlacek, Bob Weaver, Ruth Lopez, Kelvin Cheatham, Mike DeSimone, Al Schroer, Dallas Wood, and Steve Bowen.

When we arrived onsite to begin the installation, members of the church told us that the administration had requested them to treat us like family. Nothing could have been truer. While we were away from family and friends, the Iglesia Ni Cristo worked tirelessly to support us as we worked to install the instrument in their Temple. 

Three weeks before the centennial of the Iglesia Ni Cristo, Executive Minister Eduardo V. Manalo officiated on Saturday, July 5, 2014, at a special worship service at the INC Central Temple In his homily the Executive Minister said, “The installation of the new pipe organ at the Central Temple is in line with the church’s desire to fulfill the biblical teaching that God should be praised and glorified.”

The organ was played by Dr. Genesis Rivera, who said it was a great blessing for him to be the first one to play the pipe organ in that special worship service. The church very generously hosted Art Schlueter, Jr., and Pete Duys to be in attendance. We would like to publicly thank the Iglesia Ni Cristo and its leadership for their beneficence. 

We are humbled to have been chosen for such a grand commission, to build a one of a kind instrument to the worship and praise of God, for the Central Temple of the Iglesia Ni Cristo. 

—Arthur E. Schlueter, III

 

Cover photo: Courtesy of Iglesia Ni Cristo 

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