Like Father, Like Son: A Conversation with Lee and Scott Dettra

Andrew Peters studied with Wilma Jensen while serving a church outside of Nashville, Tennessee. He holds degrees from St. Olaf College and the Cleveland Institute of Music and is Pastoral Musician at Second Presbyterian Church in St. Louis. He plays recitals and released a recording in 2008 on the Schoenstein organ in Franklin, Tennessee. For more information, go to www.andrewjpeters.com.

Wilma Jensen is heralded as an outstanding recitalist, church musician, and teacher. Her extensive concert career has taken her throughout the United States. She has played on countless well-known instruments, including those at First Congregational Church in Los Angeles, the Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake City, the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C., Riverside Church in New York City, St. Paul’s Cathedral in St. Paul, St. Philip’s Cathedral in Atlanta, and the West Point United States Military Academy. Having played for several regional conventions and three national conventions of the American Guild of Organists, she is in demand as a recitalist, lecturer, and clinician for choral workshops, church music workshops, and organ masterclasses. Numerous European tours have taken her to Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, France, Poland, the Netherlands, and England. In addition, she has made a recording for West German Broadcasting, Sender Freis Berlin.

Dr. Jensen earned her Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, where she was a student of Catharine Crozier and Harold Gleason. During that time she received the Performer’s Certificate in organ. She received an honorary doctorate from Piedmont College in May 2004. Recognized as a successful teacher, Wilma Jensen has served on the faculties of Oklahoma City University, the Blair School of Music of Vanderbilt University, Scarritt Graduate School, and Indiana University, where she was a tenured professor.

In addition to two professional solo recordings—Mors et Resurrectio (Arkay label) and Sketches and Improvisations (Pro Organo label)—Wilma Jensen also made two recordings conducting the St. George’s Choir on the Pro Organo label. She has given numerous masterclasses around the country at sites including the Juilliard School, Curtis Institute of Music, Westminster Choir College, Eastman School of Music, and many others. She has a full upcoming schedule of recitals and masterclasses and will present a pre-convention recital for the 2012 AGO National Convention in Nashville. Additionally, she will teach two workshop masterclasses. For more information, go to www.wilmajensen.com.

Andrew Peters: You’ve had a lengthy career in the organ world. What first interested you in the organ?

Wilma Jensen: My father was a Methodist minister in south central Illinois. By the age of ten, I wanted very much to try the organ, having started piano lessons at age five. Of course I was in church every Sunday and could play many hymns on the piano at a very young age, as well as do some playing “by ear.”

AP: You’ve had experiences in three aspects of the organ world: church music, teaching, and performance.  Can you talk a bit about your experience with service music and hymn playing?

WJ: When I was twelve, I had a regular job on a two-manual pipe organ in my father’s church, since there seemed to be no one else to play. I have no memory of what I might have used for voluntaries. They were probably poor, but I did enjoy working out the hymns with pedal, although at this point I was self-taught. I was extremely proud of my salary of $1 per week! A well-known organist, Dr. Frank Collins, gave a recital in my hometown, and my parents asked him to hear me play. He suggested I should study with a good teacher and recommended Ruth Melville Bellatti at MacMurray College in Jacksonville, Illinois. She was a graduate of the Eastman School of Music, having studied with Harold Gleason, and was a classmate of Catharine Crozier. She insisted I play every note of the first edition of the Gleason Method. Also, she was instrumental in my attending Eastman for undergraduate and graduate study.

AP: You had a long tenure at St. George’s Episcopal Church in Nashville. Did you have a choral background before serving there? 

WJ: Unfortunately, no. I conducted only one other church choir for a short time before coming to St. George’s. I realized I was in no way ready for the position, so I sought out excellent teachers to help me with conducting, diction, and repertoire. (This happened over a number of years.) Lois Fyfe and her staff at Lois Fyfe Music in Nashville provided invaluable assistance for the selection of choral music. An associate priest at St. George’s spent hours helping me each week in the study of the church year and planning appropriate music for the specific Sunday lessons from the Lectionary. Also, I listened to and studied numerous recordings of choirs from all over Europe and the U.S.

AP: Did studying choral skills in your mid-life give you a unique perspective on choral music and the voice?

WJ: Yes, it certainly did. Conducting makes one so conscious of the “time and dynamics between the beats,” the shaping of the musical line, and the timing of consonants for perfecting ensemble. Unifying proper vowels contributed more to the beauty of the sound than I ever previously could have imagined.  

During my tenure at St. George’s, the choir made two recordings and was chosen from an audition tape to sing for the national convention of the American Choral Directors Association in 1989. By that time, I had been choirmaster/organist for seven years and had been studying and growing as a musician. That summer, the choir made an extended tour of Europe, singing in England, Austria, and France. Our tour concluded at the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris, where we sang a pre-service a cappella program prior to singing the Vierne Messe Solennelle at Sunday morning Mass. (I also played the afternoon organ recital.)

AP: You’ve played recitals on organs of various historic periods throughout the United States and Europe. Out of the hundreds of recitals you’ve played, do any stand out in your mind? 

WJ: I am very grateful for the experience of playing so many diverse instruments, both electro-pneumatic and tracker. Some have been in large cathedrals with much reverberation and some have been small historic instruments. I appreciated being able to play the first Cavaillé-Coll of 1850 in Paris at the Cathedral of St. Denis, as well as later instruments of the same builder. At St. Denis, because the pedal pipes are so far from the console and there is no Barker lever for the pedal, I had to stand on final long notes with all the weight I could manage in order for all the pipes to sound! I enjoyed playing an Åkerman instrument in Uppsala, Sweden (Åkerman was a pupil of Cavaillé-Coll), a Schnitger organ in Germany, St. Paul’s in London, and many small tracker instruments in the Netherlands. I must admit I love a reverberant cathedral sound. This wide variety of experiences helps in my understanding of the overall repertoire and my ability to communicate appropriate registration to students. I do enjoy spending time planning the registration.

AP: You’re continuing to learn new repertoire. Do you have a particular style, period, or composer in which you specialize? 

WJ: I especially enjoy learning, performing, and registering the Romantic and contemporary literature. Additionally, I keep exploring repertoire for voluntaries for services, both for myself and students, and occasionally substitute for services at St. George’s and other churches. I have been given some out-of-print repertoire, which I later performed and recorded. As a result, several of these compositions now appear as archival editions. I am so looking forward to playing soon the newly renovated 1932 Aeolian organ at Duke Chapel. I have just learned all three of Eric Delamarter’s Nocturnes and will use the Chimes, Harp, Celesta and many solo stops as indicated in the score.

AP: You have current and former students across the country. Are there students with whom you are still in touch?

WJ: There are too many to name! Some are high-profile professionals. I am equally proud of many other students who are making invaluable contributions in their current positions. I stay in touch with many former students and enjoy hearing about their teaching, church positions, and performing. You might say talking on my cell phone to former students is my hobby!

AP: Do you still teach a monthly masterclass in Nashville? 

WJ: Yes, I did teach a monthly masterclass for many years for anyone who wanted to attend. This season, however, I am so busy with recitals, classes, and other commitments that, at least for the moment, I am taking a break.

AP: You recently released an extensive teaching video and booklet, “Organizing Notes in Space.” Why did you start this project?

WJ: This project was important to me to help communicate some of my teaching concepts as part of my legacy. After considerable study of the physical aspects of keyboard technique, I have developed an approach to help students overcome problems and develop a facile technique. And, of course, one arrives at a satisfactory musical result only through a controlled technique. As a result, I wanted to demonstrate these ideas by teaching former students in a video.

 AP: Is it true that you once played in a masterclass for Bonnet?

WJ: Yes, I played in a masterclass for Joseph Bonnet when I was twelve. I thought it was a recital, not a class. Since I was the first to play, I was humiliated that he stopped me for his suggestions.  At the conclusion of my playing, I went to a corner in the back of the room and shed many tears.

AP: Besides being a past dean of the Nashville AGO chapter, have you served in other AGO positions?

WJ: In addition to being Dean-elect and Dean for the two-year period, I have served on many program, executive and education committees through the years. Also, I have judged competitions, taught at Pipe Organ Encounters—both beginner and advanced—and taught masterclasses throughout the U.S. I am on the workshop committee for the Nashville 2012 AGO national convention. 

AP: What are your thoughts on the need for piano study before studying organ?

WJ: I think piano study is essential at a young age for developing a natural, flexible, facile technique. In mid-life, I had developed some wrist tension, too heavy thumbs, and resulting weak fourth and fifth fingers. I sought the coaching of Ernestine Scott, an incredible piano teacher in Oklahoma City. This study and extensive readings she recommended have changed my approach to technique and resulting musicianship. My new teaching video is dedicated to her. Sometimes when we are young we have a natural, facile technique that may change with lack of continued piano practice. Finding those skills again is a truly valuable gift at any age.

AP: Would you like to tell us a bit about your family? 

WJ: I have two children, seven grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren. I frequently visit my daughter and her family near Chicago. The oldest two of three girls attend Indiana University School of Business, and I was able to visit them in Bloomington while attending conferences last year. My son lives in Orlando. His three girls and one boy are rather scattered geographically, but we all manage to meet in Orlando. 

My daughter played the piano well and was fortunate to study with my teacher, Ernestine Scott. When she was in junior high, she was the registrant for my first European tour in Holland. She thought it was not as glamorous as she had expected! All seven grandchildren stomped their feet and said, “We are not taking any more piano lessons!”

AP: What changes in organ design have you seen during your career?

WJ: I recall experiencing the Orgelbewegung; then later Romantic organs including trackers, which became larger and larger; again more small historic trackers into the mix; and back and forth we go. I love it all!

AP: What do you perceive are the challenges of music in the contemporary church?

WJ: Just as we cannot seem to make up our minds about what kind of organ is best for each church, we seem to be having issues in choosing a traditional service with classical music or a contemporary service thought to be more appealing to young people. This issue has just come to the forefront at St. George’s in Nashville. The first modern liturgical service was just held a few weeks ago in a secondary worship space, which has been created with an altar, screens, microphones, etc. I attended the first service, and it was very successful and well done. I am pleased it was held in a place other than the main worship space. I believe it is essential to make the traditional service as beautiful, moving, and exciting as possible. The music of this new service was sensitive, set in a liturgical context, and still within the form of this modern style of worship. If that happens, there will be a place for both services to exist peacefully “in harmony.”

As for positions for church musicians, I believe if you can develop a really fine program that has meaning musically and spiritually, as well as make yourself invaluable to the program, there will be a good job for you.

AP: Thank you so much, Wilma!

Oswald G. Ragatz served as professor of organ and chairman of the organ department at the School of Music at Indiana University from 1942–1983. Sadly, Mrs. Ragatz passed away after a long illness in 1998. When the Positive division was added to the organ at First Christian Church, where Mary so lovingly played for so many years, the Reuter organ was dedicated in her memory. Dr. Ragatz can be reached by contacting him at Meadowood Retirement Center in Bloomington, Indiana. David K. Lamb is currently the organist/choir director at First United Methodist Church in Columbus, Indiana. Graduating from IU in 1983, the year Ragatz retired, he completed the Doctor of Music degree at Indiana University in 2000. Dr. Lamb was recently appointed the District Convener for the State of Indiana by the American Guild of Organists.

Introduction by David K. Lamb

For more than 40 years, Oswald Gleason Ragatz served as chairman of the Organ Department of the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University. On October 30, 2007, “Ozzie” celebrated his 90th birthday. Witnessing many changes through those years at Indiana University, Dr. Ragatz has also seen many changes in the organ world and in church music practices in the years since his retirement from IU in 1983.

I recently enjoyed the chance to visit with Dr. Ragatz in his home at Meadowood in Bloomington. Full of stories and anecdotes, as always, he was ready to recount his years at IU in full detail. What a joy it was listening to those reflections as Dr. Ragatz revisited the events in his early life that led him to his 40-year teaching position at Indiana University. 

“Guardian Angel” is a wonderful exposé by Dr. Ragatz, detailing the sequence of events that made up the path leading him to Indiana University in 1942. In the words of Oswald Ragatz, please prepare to travel with him on this journey to Indiana University.

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During my 25-year employment as organist-choirmaster in Presbyterian churches, I never heard the term predestination mentioned from the pulpit. But I understand that belief in predestination is one of the tenets of the Presbyterian faith. My Unitarian and agnostic friends shake their heads in patronizing dismay, when, instead of attributing some event to predestination or to sheer luck, I refer to my “Guardian Angel.” Probably influenced by all those charming angels in Renaissance paintings and those lovely little winged cherubs in the rococo churches in Europe, I personally would rather attribute the chain of events that greatly determined my life to an angel than to luck or to predestination. Luck never did me any good in those very brief encounters with the slots in the casinos in Las Vegas, and of course no serious angel would look after anyone foolish enough to wager hard-earned cash on those automated bandits. And I’m not a Presbyterian. But let me recount those events that directed my life, and the reader or listener can decide, Guardian Angel, Lady Luck, predestination, or whatever.

I guess I must start way back in the midst of the Great Depression and the Democratic landslide of 1932 that brought Franklin Roosevelt into the presidency, and that cleaned out all of the Republican county office holders in Logan County, Colorado, including my dad. The ensuing years found the Ragatz family trying to make a meager living from a small, 40-acre farm at the edge of my hometown, Sterling, Colorado. Farm labor, dust storms, locust plagues, and fundamentalist, straight-laced parents contributed nothing to the wished-for joie de vivre of high school student Oswald Ragatz. It must have been about then that Guardian Angel was assigned to look out for this puny kid, whose interests were music and architecture, thus contributing to the general scorn of his macho classmates.

High school days

The angel first appeared in the guise of a high school math teacher, Miss Smith. It was she who set me on the path that would lead to my escape from the dead-end existence of life on the dreary eastern plains of Colorado. It was Miss Smith who asked me to stay after algebra class so that she could talk to me, as she had some very exciting information to impart. My grade average was one-half point above that of one Verda Guenzi, and Verda and I had the highest grade average of our class. I probably should at this point give credit to the newly hired empathetic gym teacher, who had taken me in hand and had introduced me to gymnastics. This had had a marvelous effect on me. I was no longer the class wimp with C and D grades in gym. I now got an A in gym, which got me that one-half grade point above Verda Guenzi. (Was possibly Mr. Durfee the gym instructor an assistant Guardian Angel? Whatever.)

At any rate, Miss Smith pointed out that the University of Denver gave a four-year, full-tuition scholarship to the graduating senior valedictorian in the six largest high schools in the state. If I maintained a straight A average for the remaining years in Sterling High School, I would be able to go to college at the prestigious university in Denver, a city where there could also be numerous musical opportunities. That put on hold my interest in architecture; the nearest school offering architecture was Kansas U., which of course was out of the question. And anyway, no one was employing architects during the Depression.

My parents were elated by this news, and my mother, who was your basic taskmistress, went into a full cry. For the next two and half years, I became no longer the class wimp but now the class grind, the resident ant being held in some awe by the grasshoppers, my classmates. Verda Guenzi didn’t have a chance, poor girl.

Off to the University of Denver

Now things were getting under way in this chain of events. My dad’s brother lived in Denver and was married to a professional musician, a singer of some note in the city. They suggested that I live with them while attending the University of Denver. Their four sons were grown and out of college. I could pay for my room by accompanying students in my aunt’s studio and eventually accompanying her on singing engagements. There would be other duties—in-house chore boy, chauffeur for Aunt Ruth on occasions, etc.

Sterling, a town of less than 8,000, had a remarkable music program in the schools; the high school band and orchestra perennially won first place in the state competitions. I had begun playing oboe when just out of the sixth grade, and in six years had become quite proficient. In 1938 a symphony orchestra was formed in Sterling to accommodate the sizable number of graduates of the school’s music program who still lived in town and who wanted an outlet for their talent. Though still in high school, I was playing oboe in this symphony that had been organized during my senior year. 

Guest conductors were brought in for the three concerts that we played. The most important of these guests was Horace Tureman, director of the Denver Symphony. I don’t remember what we played, but there must have been an important oboe part. At any rate, when I enrolled in music theory the first semester at the university, who should be the teacher but Horace Tureman! And wonder of wonders, he recognized me. After class, he asked to talk to me, saying that he remembered me from the orchestra concert he had conducted in Sterling, and would I like to fill the opening in the Denver Civic Symphony for the second chair oboe? The pay was not great, but it enabled me to pay my uncle for my board. Did my Guardian Angel arrange for all this? But I continue.

I had played piano since I was six years old, my mother being a piano teacher. And I had my first organ lessons the summer after the eighth grade, and became the organist at the Methodist church that fall. During my last year in high school, my parents managed to scrape up enough cash to enable me to drive the 140 miles up to Denver once a month for oboe lessons and organ lessons with the organist-choirmaster of St. John’s Episcopal Cathedral. Now, living in Denver, I hoped to be able to continue organ lessons, although payment for same would be a problem. But not to worry, said my teacher. There was an opening for an organist at Broadway Baptist Church. He told me to try out for the job; I did and got the job. Those four years of playing for First Methodist in Sterling for little more than a Christmas remuneration had prepared me for the paying job in Denver.

So now I had enough monthly income to pay for organ lessons, textbooks, and music. I had been pretty burned out by the tension of making straight A’s during high school, so now I had decided to slack off a bit in college. However, shortly after the first semester had begun, I received a nice letter from the University Chancellor congratulating me on having won the scholarship and indicating that academic excellence would be expected of me. Furthermore, he indicated that since scholarship students were expected to give some services to the university, and in view of my experience as an organist, I would be expected to play the organ for university functions as needed—before lecture in the chapel, for example. 

This was OK by me. It gave me unlimited access to the chapel organ for practice and resulted in my being asked by the Dean of Women to furnish background music on the Hammond electric organ in the posh Renaissance room in the library where teas were the style in those days. For each of these events I was paid $3 and engendered a high profile among the female elite of the student body who were wanting to go to the teas—the girls of the Pan Hellenic Society, the Associated Women’s Students, etc.

So my fingers (on the ivories) were doing the walking—well, the earning, and my parents did not have to fork over that first dollar for my undergraduate training, just an occasional dressed chicken sent by my mother to Aunt Ruth, but that was it. I felt that I was independent, I was living in a sophisticated environment at my uncle’s, and I no longer felt inhibited by my strict parents’ restrictions—and I had a ball! I was pretty naïve and thoughtless though; things had worked out so well for me, so why worry about the future? Incidentally, I did graduate eighth from the top in my class, due to the chancellor’s veiled admonitions four years earlier. But I must continue.

Clarence who?

I am not quite finished with undergraduate years. The next vignette may seem inconsequential, but keep in mind, it turned out to be very significant. The setting: a picnic in the mountains. Who was there? I don’t remember, just a bunch of college students. What? I was sitting on a big rock eating a hot dog when a blonde girl I didn’t know joined me and initiated conversation. She was quite hep, and shortly had me telling her about my interest in organ playing. At that point, she became very excited and said that I must meet her uncle from New York, Clarence Dickinson, who would be in Denver in a couple of weeks. Her enthusiasm caused me to think that Uncle must be a man of some importance. And indeed the name was familiar to me: Dickinson was the author of the organ method text given to me by my cousin, my first organ teacher, that summer after my eighth grade. 

I was only mildly impressed, however, but I did mention this information to my organ teacher at my next lesson. Well, his reaction let me know that Clarence Dickinson was indeed a person of importance, being the head of the School of Sacred Music at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. So, a week later, I was playing two of my biggest pieces at St. John’s Cathedral for Dr. Dickinson, my teacher having somehow made contact with him in Denver. Tall, dignified, with white hair and mustache, Dr. Dickinson was cordial, and, I thought, politely complimentary. But I was still only mildly interested; I was probably preoccupied thinking about the impending fall Pan Hellenic formal. By the way, I never encountered the blonde niece on campus again. Was she my Guardian Angel in disguise? If so, she must have been pretty bored by my lackadaisical lack of enthusiasm. But guardian angels must be patient, and fortunately Guardian Angel didn’t forsake me, as will soon become evident. She just became a bit more devious. So I continue.

Aunt Ruth: gateway to Eastman

I have mentioned my Aunt Ruth previously. There is no doubt that she was my mentor if indeed not my Guardian Angel. She introduced me to the facets of the professional musical world, and she and Uncle Arthur took considerable pains to civilize their shy and unhep nephew from Sterling. By my senior year, Aunt Ruth had sensed my lack of a clear picture of what I was going to do the next year after graduation. My Bachelor’s degree in Social Sciences had presumably prepared me for getting a job in some small-town high school teaching history or social studies. But it was obvious that my interest and talents lay elsewhere—in music, of course. 

Aunt Ruth had a former voice student who had gone to the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, and had high praise for the school. It sort of became understood during my senior year that I should go to graduate school the year after graduation from Denver. So I applied to Eastman and was accepted. However, I don’t remember now that I was particularly concerned about the financial requirements this expensive school would entail. I guess that I naïvely assumed that it would work out some way. It always had, hadn’t it? Of course, if there were sounds of fluttering angel wings, I didn’t notice.

I taught some organ students during the summer and played oboe in the Sterling summer band. So I had a little money in my pocket when I started out for New York with my two friends in the model A Ford. We traveled economy class, camping out, cooking our own food, and cheating on entrance fees at places like Mount Vernon. After two weeks of travel and visiting the 1939 World’s Fair in New York, we arrived in Rochester. The semester had not yet started, but I went into the Eastman office to see what a student did about housing. There was no men’s dormitory, but I was given a sizeable list of rooming houses near the school that catered to Eastman students. The person I talked to about this looked at a register of entering students (probably to see if I were indeed a legitimate entrant), and seeing that I was to be an organ student she immediately told me that an organ job was open and would I like to try out for it? 

And OK, yes, a lady had called for an organ student to come to her home and play her pipe organ during tea that she was hosting. It was intimidating that in view of the address this would undoubtedly be in one of the mansions out on East Avenue where the old elite of Rochester held forth. Well, I had brought with me my “tea time” music, thanks to those $3 gigs I’d played for at the University of Denver—I’d “been there, done that.” This gig was indeed in a mansion on East Avenue and was on an Aeolian pipe organ, the instrument of choice in those days for those who could afford such a pipe organ in their home. And needless to say, the pay was considerably more than $3. And, when I had my audition at Emanuel Lutheran Church, I got that job. So I had money to pay for my room and board—board by eating on $1 a day at a cafeteria across the street from the school.

Did Guardian Angel arrange it that I got to Eastman several days before the other students arrived, so I had no competition for these jobs and the opportunities to make some money?

By this time things had improved for my parents. Sterling was having a modest oil boom, and new houses were being built. Three blocks of our farm abutted on a subdivision, and it became possible to sell some of our property for city lots. I felt able to ask for tuition money, since I’d cost my parents nothing for my undergraduate education.

Life at Eastman

I found life at Eastman a far cry from my Denver experience. As an undergraduate in Denver, I had played an organ concerto with the Denver Junior Symphony, the Grieg piano concerto with the University Orchestra, and the organ part to the Saint-Saëns Organ Symphony with the Denver Civic Symphony. Big deals!!! Big toad in what I now found out had been a fairly little puddle. My uncle, who was somewhat of a VIP in some circles in the city, reported stiffly one evening at dinner that when he had that day been introduced to someone, he was asked, “By any chance are you related to Oswald Ragatz that young organist?” May I say, that that “made my day.” Country nephew, indeed!

But things now were different in Rochester. I was just a new student in one of the top professional music schools in the country. And believe me, there is no place more competitive than a big music school. Nearly all of my fellow graduate students had undergraduate degrees in music, many from Eastman itself. During my time at Eastman I learned discipline, humility, and respect for what the music profession really was like.

My Guardian Angel was no doubt cheering a bit seeing her/his protégé getting his comeuppance. But I was not being crossed off the list that year. Oh no! So I must continue this saga.

About the Lutheran church: it had an organ the likes of which I had not encountered. At that point, the organ world in the United States was just beginning to become aware of a renaissance in organ tonal design that had begun in the middle of the 20th century. The new instruments that were being built by many European builders and by a few avant garde builders in the United States were referred to as Baroque organs because the builders were attempting to design their organs on the tonal principles of the great old European organs of the 17th and 18th centuries. The organ at my church was a newly built instrument by the Walter Holtkamp Company, one of the first of these avant garde American builders. After a year with this organ at Emanuel Lutheran, I understood how to use it. This experience became very valuable for me, as will be noted later on.

The choir director at church was a talented young man who was the choral person in one of the big Rochester high schools, and his church choir was made up almost entirely of high-school age singers. I was getting some very good experience in choral techniques by observing how Ernie Ahern worked with the choir. I had had no training in choral work up to this point. The second year in Rochester, I actually did some private coaching with Mr. Ahern, and what I learned became the basis of my career as choirmaster through all my life.

One other facet of the Rochester experience must now be mentioned to make clear how the chain of events developed. If one link in the chain had not been there, there would have been no chain. When I obtained the list of rooming houses suitable for an Eastman student, my choice was purely arbitrary (or was Guardian Angel getting into the act again?). The first place I investigated was a big, old, three-story Victorian home, housing a dozen or so men, half of whom were students, the others single professional men. The maiden lady that ran the establishment had a nice vacant room (due, I presume, to the fact that I had gotten there before other students had arrived in the city). It was a congenial bunch of fellows, who all seemed to be on a tight budget, so we frequently ate supper en masse (I could hardly honor the meal as dinner) at the aforementioned cafeteria. 

Wilson College

One of the students, a fine violinist, and I became very good friends. It turned out that John’s father was the head of the music department of Wilson College, an undergraduate woman’s college in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. When John came back from Christmas holidays, he told me that the organ teacher at Wilson College was going on sabbatical the second semester the next year, and his father, Prof. Golz, thought I might want the job as substitute for a semester. Of course I was most interested, and as a matter of fact I went down to Chambersburg with John during spring break to be interviewed. I played for Prof. Golz, and he seemed pleased and offered me the job. A real teaching job with a salary—$850 for the semester as I remember it! But that was 1940, and remember, I was eating on a dollar a day, so that seemed like a gold mine. I was just beginning to cope with the competitive stress of Eastman and the demanding teaching of Harold Gleason, my organ professor, so I was very glad to stay on at Eastman for the summer and fall semesters, which enabled me to get a second major, namely in music theory. Then in January of 1941, I arrived at Wilson College, with its faculty comprising chiefly elderly ladies. Now that was an interesting experience for a 23-year-old kid hardly dry behind the ears. It could furnish material for another different document, but that would have no relevance in this tale, except for two non-Wilson people with whom I made friends.

There was a young lawyer in Chambersburg who was very interested in music, and since there were not many opportunities for social contacts with people in their twenties, he immediately contacted me, and we became lifelong friends. He lived with his mother in Chambersburg, and they were frequently visited by his sister Selma, a music teacher in Baltimore and a graduate of N.Y.U. Selma was about my age, and we became good friends also—we dated in fact.

The semester at Wilson College was all too short, and I was having to face a very uncertain future. World War II was in full cry, and I had registered for the draft while in Rochester. So that dark cloud was hovering over my head. But I had had no word from Uncle Sam, so in the meantime I had to hunt for a job. I registered membership with a teacher’s placement agency in Chicago—Clark Brewer. And in May I went to New York to interview with a couple of agencies there. But they wouldn’t even take my registration. Colleges were retrenching because of the war and were hiring no new faculty. 

That was a very low moment in my life. For the first time I was faced with having no idea what to do next. I was suddenly out in the big world. I started walking aimlessly up town on Fifth Avenue, my mind swirling. I may even have contemplated how near the Hudson River was and how long would it take one to drown oneself. But maybe I wasn’t that far down or that stupid. At any rate, by the time I’d walked from the ’40s where the agencies’ offices were and reached 59th Street and the beginning of Central Park, my befuddled mind began to remember that Selma, who of course had lived in New York City while attending N.Y.U., had at some point asked me why didn’t I look into Union Theological Seminary. That had seemed like a dumb statement. A seminary? I didn’t want to be a preacher! Far from it!

Oh, that Clarence

But now my tiny memory began to function, and by the time I got up to the Metropolitan Museum, I thought of the blonde at that picnic in the mountains years ago, and her uncle, Clarence Dickinson, who was the head of the School of Sacred Music at—yes—Union Seminary in New York City. With a quick visit to a phone booth, where wonder of wonders there was a phone directory, I determined that Union Seminary was at 120th Street and Broadway. The next 50 or so blocks were covered with considerable resolution, and crossing over west to Broadway, past the Cathedral of St. John the Divine and Columbia University, I found the Gothic towers of Union Seminary and its quadrangle, which occupied two city blocks. 

Hot, tired, still dispirited and thinking that this was totally mad, I entered the main entrance and located the offices of the Music School. When I made it known to the secretary that I might be interested in becoming a student there, things began to move very rapidly. I was ushered into Dr. Dickinson’s office, where I was warmly greeted by Dr. Dickinson and then was introduced to Mrs. Dickinson, who, it developed, actually seemed to manage the business end of the school. The introductions were barely over when Dr. Dickinson said he remembered my playing for him in Denver, and that I had played very well. Where had I been since then? Eastman? Teaching at Wilson College? Interesting. Well, of course they would be delighted to accept me as a student working on the two-year curriculum leading to the Master of Sacred Music degree.

I had no money? No problem! The dormitory had two-room suites for students at $10 a month, and I could work a shift in the refectory for all my meals. And all of their students were placed in churches in Manhattan and in communities around New York City—on Long Island, in Westchester County, in Connecticut or over in New Jersey. Auditions for a job would be set up for me during the next month.

I could hardly believe all this. An hour earlier I was plodding the streets of New York wondering if I should be heading for the Hudson River. And had I listened, I might have heard Guardian Angel wildly flapping wings and snarling, “Oh ye of little faith, you silly twit. Why do you think I had that blonde girl join you on that rock that afternoon in the Rocky Mountains? And all of that other stuff we went through to get you this far!” Of course I wasn’t listening, but I do hope that I had the good grace to think that too many good coincidences were beginning to occur. My parents once had told me that the German name Oswald meant “Chosen of God.” What’s in a name? Maybe I should have paused to think. But of course, pausing and thinking were two things I’d not yet learned to do.

So I was set for two more years, Uncle Sam willing. I went back to Rochester for the summer to finish my master’s thesis. I had enough money saved up from that great salary at Wilson College to pay for a room at the Y, eat at the cheap cafeteria, and pay train fare to New York City twice for auditions.

The second audition was at Hitchcock Memorial Presbyterian Church in Scarsdale, a posh suburb in Westchester County. As it turned out, this was one of the prime jobs the Union students had. I would be replacing Robert Baker, a doctoral candidate at Union, who had just been hired at First Presbyterian in Brooklyn, a real, full-time professional position. I felt the audition went well, but nothing definite was said at the conclusion of my playing and answering questions. I would have a junior choir, a choir of twelve high school girls, and a professional quartet—VERY professional. The soprano had just sung a solo recital at Town Hall and the contralto was singing at the Metropolitan Opera a couple of years later, and several years later I read a rave review of her Carmen sung in Vienna. 

This would not be the first time I was faced with a task for which I was not really prepared. But I will say, without professing any modesty, that I never ducked. I learned how to conduct from the console by doing it—not that that quartet needed as much conducting as I thought I should be doing. At the end of the interview the chairwoman, an elegant middle-aged lady, said she would like to take me to dinner at the Scarsdale Country Club. That didn’t scare me: my aunt and uncle had seen to it that I knew how to behave at dinner, hold the chair for the lady, use the flatware from the outside in, etc. I seemed to pass muster with my hostess, since she informed me at the conclusion of the evening that I was hired. Eureka! Not only was the salary quite sufficient to pay for the organ lessons (which were outrageously high even for those times), tuition, and incidental living expenses, but even for a concert and opera now and then and a few heady evenings taking a date dancing to big name bands on the Astor roof.

Life in New York City

Guardian Angel now left me for a time as I devoured the life in New York. Our church jobs only required our presence at Sunday morning services, so a number of very compatible friends from Union would rush back to Manhattan by 3 o’clock, meeting at one of the big churches that had afternoon vesper services, oratorios, etc. A typical Sunday afternoon would be St. Bartholomew’s on Park Avenue at 3, where the 60-voice choir sang an oratorio every Sunday with a stunning organist on an enormous triple organ—chancel, rear gallery, and dome, playable from a single console in the chancel. Then over to St. Thomas on Fifth Avenue to hear a fine boy’s choir sing the 5 o’clock vesper Evensong. Then after a quick snack at our favorite bar, Tops, it was to St. Mary the Virgin Church on 46th Street, where the young avant garde organist, Ernest White, presided over a high-church late Evensong service. When I heard Mr. White play, I knew that I would have to study with him someday—which I did one summer after I had been at I.U. for a couple of years. These experiences taught me more than all the courses at the School of Sacred Music about what music could be in an enlightened church—with money. I HAD A BALL, needless to say.

It was the summer after the first year in New York, and I had had a very lucrative June playing for eight or more fashionable Scarsdale weddings. I was set indefinitely at the Scarsdale church and at Union, and after the M.S.M. degree I could continue working on a doctoral degree at Union, as had my friend, Robert Baker. I had dreams of eventually also moving on to some big Manhattan church. But this had to wait for a few decades for one of my students, who now is at the First Presbyterian Church in New York and is a big name there. Guardian Angel had other plans.

Hoosier holiday

Mail time was always a time of anxiety. Several of my friends had been drafted, but there was no message from the government for me. BUT, there was a letter from Clark Brewer Teachers’ Agency in Chicago telling me that there was an opening for an organ teacher at Indiana University. INDIANA? That was just a state to quickly get through when one was en route from Colorado to New York (with the exception of that adventure at Spring Mill Park in 1939). But I could get my expenses paid to Bloomington, and—always on the lookout for a deal—I figured I’d go to Indiana and then on to Colorado to visit my parents. I hadn’t been home for two years. I would go by train and stop off in Rochester to take my orals on my master’s thesis. Sneaky. Smart. I wasn’t even remotely interested in a job in Indiana.

So that is what I did, and after a night sitting up on a train from Rochester to Indianapolis, and then a bus to this village in the wilderness, I was even less inclined to take it seriously. After a night in a hot room in the Graham Hotel, I wandered out to the campus, past yellow clay around the old business school and the auditorium, both of which had just been completed. With the help of a kind lady who thought I was a new student (my ears were slow to dry), I found the new music building. First I was interviewed by Dean Sanders, a smooth, formidable, sophisticated young man, and then by the chairman of the theory department. Then I was taken up to a small practice room where the only organ on the campus existed. And guess what? The instrument was a Holtkamp almost identical to the one I’d had in Emanuel Lutheran in Rochester. And of course I knew how to handle it. (Did Guardian Angel snicker smugly?) 

So I played a couple of big pieces, and because I didn’t give a tinker’s cuss about the job, I was cool, probably to the point of being arrogant. Consequently, I greatly impressed the interviewers. It was explained to me that there was one organ major who would be a senior. Her organ teacher, who was also a pianist and taught theory, had been drafted. The organ “department” had been set up two years before when one Mary Christena had come over from the main campus wanting to major in organ. An organ curriculum was hastily fabricated, the Holtkamp was promptly purchased, and now they needed a regular organ teacher to get Miss Christena through her senior recital. 

I would teach any other organ students that might show up when it was learned that there was an organ teacher (there were nine of them), I would teach two sections of freshman music theory (after observing the chairman of the department teach another section of the same class each day), a music appreciation class for the general student body (there were about 70 enrolled, it turned out), and I would conduct the Choral Union, the only choral group on campus. This would result in my conducting in the auditorium a performance of Messiah, with orchestra, just before Christmas. I had never conducted an orchestra, to say nothing of an orchestra with a big chorus of 90 or so singers. But as I said earlier, I was not one to duck. I was new at academia and didn’t know that this teaching load was brutal and now would be considered illegal. It was a job, and I intended to be a success at any cost.

But I wasn’t offered the job on the spot, which was of no concern to me. I wanted to go back to New York. As a matter of fact, I called my parents and suggested that they come east instead of my going on to Colorado. They would meet me in Chambersburg, where I would go to visit Rudy and Selma Wertime. Did I tell Dean Sanders about this? NO, of course not. (Guardian Angel almost gave up on me at this point.) Three days later, my family and I were at the Wertimes in Chambersburg, when I got this irate call from Dean Sanders wanting to hire me. I don’t know how he found me. He probably contacted someone at Union who knew I had a girlfriend in Chambersburg and knew the name. I never asked. Maybe Guardian Angel slipped him a note.

So I was being offered a real job, a permanent job, albeit in the hills of Indiana. Well, I stalled a bit. My parents pushed, Guardian Angel was pushing, I am sure. I thought that surely that draft would get me any day, and a job at Indiana University would look good on my résumé some day, so I gave the dean a reluctant “yes.” The Dickinsons called me a day later suggesting that I postpone the appointment for a year, so I could finish the degree, but that was out of the question since Miss Christena would be awaiting her new teacher in September. So after a week in the city with my parents, I was off to Bloomington, Indiana, for an entirely new life, and as it turned out, a wife.

Mary Christena turned out to be a fine organist, and again I was faced with a situation I wasn’t quite ready for. But I didn’t duck, and she got a performer’s certificate with distinction for her senior recital. It was not until after Mary’s graduation that the student-teacher relationship segued into a more personal one. After a summer of dating, Mary went to New York to Union Seminary on my recommendation. I wanted her to experience the school, and especially the milieu of New York City and the great church music. However, she spent only one semester at Union, terminated by my going to New York to propose at Christmas. And that event can be subject for another paper—shorter than this one, I assure the reader. We were married June 4, 1944. (I never had trouble remembering that date. The assault on Normandy was to take place that week.)

There is one loose end that must be taken care of in closing: THE DRAFT. During my first Christmas vacation at I.U., I had three recitals scheduled in the East—for the American Guild of Organists Chapter of Baltimore, before the New Year’s midnight service at First Baptist Church in Washington, D.C., and in Chambersburg. Of course I had as yet not learned how to cope with the stress of this sort of behavior, and I took sick on the B. & O. train returning from Washington to Indiana. A few days later, my landlords called a doctor, and I was promptly swished off to the hospital in an ambulance with a severe case of pneumonia. (Guardian Angel was taking severe measures!) 

I was very ill, and had not the sulfa drugs just come on the market, I might have died. But after three weeks, I was released, only to go back to my room to find THE letter from Uncle Sam telling me to report for induction in Indianapolis. Why had it taken them so long to find me? I had registered in Rochester, giving my address as Sterling, Colorado, but I found out later that my registration had been sent to Sterling, Pennsylvania, wherever that is.  And when they finally found me, it was discovered that I had registered as a conscious objector—and that is another story—so interviews had to be made with all sorts of people in Colorado to see what sort of a jerk I was. (Was Guardian Angel back of all this? Surely not . . . ) But now I was going through induction in Indianapolis, then, pale, and suspect. The late January quota for draftees was unusually low that month, and after the examining doctors took a good look at me and they took a look at my 1-A-O classification, I was told that I probably wouldn’t do much good for the U.S. Army and to go back to I.U. “and teach them how to sing the Star-Spangled Banner.”  

So that’s how I met my wife. Do I believe in a Guardian Angel? Sometimes I almost think that I do. Maybe everyone has a similar chain of events that direct them through life. They just don’t spill the whole tale in a writer’s club. I leave it up to you, with apologies for being too forthcoming. n

What a pleasure it has been to prepare this essay for publication in The Diapason to honor and celebrate the 90th birthday of Dr. Oswald G. Ragatz. This inspirational tale provides a glimpse of the organ and church music scene in New York in the early forties, as well as the documentation of the beginning of the I.U. Organ Department at that same time. When Dr. Ragatz retired in 1983, that organ department that he found in Bloomington in 1942 with the Holtkamp organ in the practice room had grown to a department with a notable historic concert organ in the I.U. Auditorium, two respectable studio organs, and eleven pipe organs in practice rooms for student use. Ragatz built the department to a level where it could take its place along with the other large university organ departments in the United States. Currently, the organ department of the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University is one of the largest institutions offering degrees in organ in the United States.  

With approximately 400 living IU alumni organists, the former students of Oswald Ragatz can be found all over the U.S. and in several foreign countries. Teaching and playing in both churches and universities, these Indiana University organists carry the Ragatz legacy with them in all of their endeavors. We salute you, Dr. Ragatz. Happy birthday and many happy returns.

—David K. Lamb

Joseph E. Robinson received his B.A. from California State University at Long Beach and his M.A. from Occidental College in Los Angeles. He studied piano with Charles Shepherd, and organ with Clarence Mader, Paul Stroud, and Robert Prichard. He studied choral conducting with Frank Pooler and Howard Swan. During 1970–71 he was an organbuilding apprentice with the Schlicker Organ Co. under the direction of Herman Schlicker. He was organist at the University United Methodist Church in Buffalo, New York, and later St. James’ United Methodist Church in Pasadena, California. Now a retired business systems analyst, he is currently organist for the Mission Lake Ward, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. His interest in pipe organs and their music was sparked years ago when, as a sixth grade student, his class was taken on a field trip to a recital on the Mormon Tabernacle Organ. He has been married 35 years to his wife Pat, who has given her support for the large pipe organ in their home. One day during construction Pat said, “You need help, and I have found just the help you need—G. Donald Harrison.” She had found a golden retriever named Harrison on a rescue site. Harrison is now a happy member of the family.

I meet Herman Schlicker  

After completing a master’s degree, I talked over options with my teacher, Robert Prichard. Since I was very interested in all things related to pipe organs, a career in organbuilding looked promising. Mr. Prichard was well acquainted with Herman Schlicker, and broached the subject of my joining his firm as an apprentice. Schlicker was not interested. He said that the best apprentices come right out of high school and he had bad luck with those who had master’s degrees.   

Herr Schlicker flew to Southern California on business, and so it was arranged that while he was here I would be his chauffeur. One stop that I remember was at what is now the Crystal Cathedral. Their first building contained a small Wicks organ, which was to be replaced with a substantial instrument. Schlicker was among the contenders. At another stop, I was disgusted with the way they treated Mr. Schlicker—didn’t they realize they were talking with a great man?

After our final stop, Schlicker said to come on to Buffalo, and I would be their newest apprentice. I drove my red Corvair across the country and rented a room from Mrs. Herbst, who had rented to many a Schlicker apprentice. She asked us to keep our stereo playing of organ music down—it reminded her of her husband’s funeral. 

The factory

The factory is described in sales literature from the late 1960s:

From a modest beginning, the company has expanded to include 65 persons at the Buffalo factory-office, as well as sales and service representatives throughout the United States. The construction of the present modern factory was begun in 1947, and since that time six additions have been made to the building, giving a total working area of over 36,000 square feet, and including a spacious erecting room. 

That there was no master plan for this expansion from the beginning was obvious. For example, there was a large room devoted to lumber, that in most respects functioned well. However, there was no loading dock, or even a door to the outside. When a lumber truck came, Herr Friedrich (foreman) would announce “LUMBER!” and we would all drop what we were doing and rush to the truck to unload the lumber piece by piece and feed them through a window in the lumber room. On a cold winter day, that was a very unpleasant task.

Factory tours

Occasionally music committees or groups of organists would tour the factory. I was among those selected to conduct the tours. At first I would meet visitors at the door and then physically take them through the building, saying this is where we do this, and this is where we do that. Then I witnessed a tour led by Manuel Rosales, who was then at Schlicker Organ Co. He started at the melting pot in the pipe shop, went step by step in the construction of an organ, ending in the erecting room. Even though there was some crisscrossing in that method, it explained the organbuilding process better, and I changed my approach accordingly.  

Organization chart

When Schlicker described the apprentice position to me, he said that I would work in all aspects of organbuilding and eventually be able to do any task. In fact, his factory was full of workers that could do any task. He was proud of that. So, organization was simple: Herman Schlicker, President; Ken List, Vice President; Herr Friedrich, Foreman; organ builders, and apprentice, with a few exceptions such as the accountant. In practice, however, people would tend to gravitate to that which they did best. Take Don Bohall, for example. In many organizations, he would be referred to as Service Manager. He could quickly diagnose and fix problems, clearly the best man to call if an organ under the ten-year warranty experienced an unexpected malfunction. I asked Don how he managed to be exempt from the lumber calls. He told me that after I had been there a few years and made myself valuable in a particular operation I could announce that I was no longer going to do lumber. But I would have to be sure I was valuable enough. Some who tried that too soon were no longer doing lumber or anything else at the firm.  

Apprentice duties

The apprentice program at Schlicker’s was more typical of the German apprentice system than what we are used to in the USA. The view at the Schlicker Organ Company was: we pay you for this time and so you do whatever we ask of you, be it sweeping, cleaning messes, painting walls, or shoveling snow! So this, I thought, is why people who have worked so hard for a master’s degree don’t like it here. I was told a story of one such, who after driving from California worked one day, got in his car and drove back home. One unhappy apprentice had given the place a nickname “Stalag 15-30” [the address was 1530 Military Road]. Stories of this nature were a kind of unofficial initiation exam. 

Information on a need-to-know basis

At graduate school, you are filled with information and encouraged to ask questions and find answers. There were many things I wanted to know. For example, on most three-manual Schlicker organs, the pedal contains a unit 16–8 principal rank, but the 16 and 8-foot stopped flutes are always separate ranks. How come? I learned that awhile before my arrival, some former employees had stolen plans, records, scalings, and materials—everything they needed to make copies of Schlicker organs. So Mr. Schlicker was now cautious in sharing information, and an apprentice is at the bottom of the totem pole in need-to-know. 

I got my lecture in Schlicker organ design in a most unexpected way. One holiday season, there was in the factory a 32′ Bombarde, which was to be placed in an organ previously finished with that stop prepared for. Schlicker had placed a small two-rank unit organ in a Buffalo bank for publicity purposes. Since I could play, I was assigned to play Christmas music on the little organ while the bank was open. One day after the bank closed, I returned to the factory, where I was greeted by Ken List. Ken said, “So how is Merry Christmas on the Gedeckt?” I responded, “Well, it’s OK, but that little organ really lacks a proper foundation. Too bad we could not have hooked up that 32′ Bombarde with it.”  

Schlicker overheard the conversation, and while I thought anyone would recognize that I was being outlandishly facetious, Schlicker thought I was serious that the third rank in an organ should be a 32′ Bombarde. “You are there representing the Schlicker Organ Company,” he said. “You know nothing. A lot has to happen in an organ before you include a 32′ Bombarde.” So I heard all about small to medium to large organs in a very informative lecture, though I could have done without the frequent “You know nothing” comments.  

A wiring error

An electro-pneumatic organ was being set up for testing. There was a testing wiring harness used for such purposes. I said, “I have never done this before; there are surely a lot of wires here.” I was told, “There is nothing to it, just start here at the end, and take each wire in sequence.” So I did, but it was the wrong end. Final result was that low C sounded from the highest note on the keyboard and vice versa. I started to play a hymn. “What on earth are you doing?” “I thought I might never again have the opportunity to hear music inverted and wanted to see what it sounds like.” “You idiot, why don’t you just broadcast to the world what a fool you are!” So I stopped abruptly. Fortunately this was the testing wiring harness and not the organ’s permanent wiring.

A bright and dim bulb

Sometimes my education was of use. When something unusual came along, such as “What the heck is an 8/9 None?,” I would know the answer. There was a fine older gentleman, whose name I unfortunately no longer remember, who was in charge of Schlicker consoles. He would review with me console layouts, controls, order of stops, etc. He said, “You know much more than those guys. You should be recognized for your knowledge and taken off the lumber run.” Obviously I liked him. On the other hand, as the wiring example shows, in construction matters I was a rookie. One day I was assigned to a task and heard rumblings, “I don’t know why they assigned HIM this task. HE doesn’t even know how to use a HAM-MER.” The speaker usually got this task. Since in this case it was an overtime task, I was robbing him of time-and-a-half pay. Welcome to the world of office politics. I did not like it, and was a rookie there as well. Fortunately for future employment I learned 1) never be cruel to someone and 2) never be the company scapegoat. 

Organ pipes

Most flue pipes were manufactured in the pipe shop. Reed pipes built to Schlicker specifications were imported from Europe. For flue pipes it was considered that for the vast majority of cases, such things as tuning scrolls, pipe slotting, and tuning collars were detrimental. Take tuning collars, for example. A tuning collar means that at the top of the pipe there is a sudden increase in scale. On bass pipes that were nearly cut to length, the effect is minimal. But on treble pipes, the distortion of pipe shape is considerable. Thus Schlicker organs had pipes cut to length and were cone tuned. This practice was one reason why Schlicker mixtures had outstanding cohesion with the principal chorus.  

The Schlicker sound

Open-toe voicing, low wind pressure, low cutups, etc. are only part of the story. It is well known that some Aeolian-Skinner contracts, such as the Mormon Tabernacle and Grace Cathedral, specified that G. Donald Harrison do the final voicing. It is the artist who does the finishing that gives an organ its distinctive sound; thus organs of the same manufacturer may sound different depending upon who does the finishing. At the Schlicker Company, we had two superb voicers who finished at least the more important instruments. Wally Guzowski voiced with a bold, fresh, exciting sound. I decided that someday I would like him to voice my residence organ when I could afford such. Louis Rothenberger Jr. had a more elegant, refined sound. [We always specified the Jr. because LR senior had also been a voicer.] 

They were aware that their styles were different, and Wally told me that they worked together to try and make a uniform result. There should be a specific sound quality associated with the brand. These men produced some instruments of distinction. As voicers, they would physically adjust pipes. As finishers in the final location, they would sit at the console, playing through a rank of pipes, pick a note and shout a command to someone like me in the pipes: “Lower the languid,” “Pull the upper lip forward,” “Narrow the windway,” “Increase the cutup,” and so forth.

Deterioration of the Schlicker sound 

As years have passed, I have noticed that some of my favorite instruments no longer have the magic they possessed when they were new. More is involved than just my ears getting older; recordings of the original instruments captured the magic. Here is what I think may have happened. Schlicker instruments were cone tuned and were very stable in tuning within themselves, but the whole instrument goes flat in winter and sharp in summer.

Take a fictitious organ service man Sam Cifodelance, for example. Sam gets a customer who has a Schlicker organ. He orders some tuning cones from a supply house. In winter, when the organ goes flat, he pounds the pipes with the pointed end of the tuning cones to bring the pitch up to A440. In summer, he pounds the pipes with the other end to bring the pipes down to A440. Over time this attention alters pipe mouth dimensions slightly, and what was an outstanding sound becomes an ordinary sound. 

This theory is an educated guess, but I do know that who does the servicing makes a huge difference, is a concern of organbuilders, and improper servicing deteriorates an organ’s sound. It saddens me that some of my favorite instruments have deteriorated. 

Schlicker’s bias

Bad for Aeolian-Skinner, but providential for Herman Schlicker was the rise in popularity of the Orgelbewegung. With his strong German accent and experience in German organbuilding, he was in an ideal place to be the foremost American builder in that style. I discussed with Schlicker a trip to Europe I was going to take. We went through the German instruments I was going to see. “Yah, you must see that,” he would say. For Holland, “There are some good things there.” For France, “A waste of time.”  

The good consultants

One of the first things you do as an apprentice is to rack pipes on a windchest. Here were some pipes that looked like a double row of little milk cans with their lids soldered on top. This experimental rank had been specified by Paul Manz. Louie Rothenberger Jr. was having a very difficult time getting the pipes to speak at all. I made the comment, “I don’t see why we need organ consultants at all. A church should just choose a builder and let their expertise do the job.” Louie responded, “You are new here. You will eventually have the opportunity to visit many organs. When you do, compare those that were built under consultants such as Paul Manz, your teacher Clarence Mader, Paul Bunjes, E. Power Biggs and so forth, with those that had no consultant. I think you will find that our best organs had consultants such as these.” He was right!

When I was at Occidental College, I played among other things French Romantic organ music that I liked. I commented to my teacher Clarence Mader how well the Schlicker played that music. He replied, “Yes, you need French reeds to play that music and I requested that Schlicker include them in the Swell One division.” I bring this up because on his own, Herman Schlicker would not have given the Swell One division a French flavor. Somehow they managed to do that and yet have it integrate beautifully with the rest of the instrument, resulting in far greater versatility. The very best instruments somehow achieved a result of being more than the sum of their parts, a joy to play and to hear. 

The not-so-good consultants

These are the ones who think they know more about organbuilding than the organbuilder, specifying scales, wind pressures, mouth widths, voicing techniques and so forth. One such organ had so many conditions that the final result did not have the distinctive Schlicker sound. Herman Schlicker summed it up thus: “It might as well have been built by ———.” [I don’t know if ——— would want to claim it either.]

In finishing an organ, Wally Guzowski explained to me, “You have to be very diplomatic with the organists. When they tell you what they want, smile and nod your head like you agree with them.  When they are gone, disregard everything they said. Organists know nothing about organ finishing.” A quite common occurrence in finishing an organ would be the arrival of the organist with some last requests for what was going to be his instrument. At that time, it is too late. A successful finishing process brings out the maximum beauty a pipe was designed to give. An organist’s request to now make a German Principal more like a French Montre, for example, robs the instrument of its potential. That decision should have been made long before.¹

Insubordination

I was given two rules, which probably came about due to prior difficulties with employees who were also organists: 1) When you are on an assignment do not play the organ, even during a break or after you are done. Customers are charged by the hour and we don’t want them to think they are paying for you to play the organ. 2) Because you may be called at any time to travel, do not accept a church organist position. It is not fair to the company, the church, or yourself. Rule 1 was difficult to manage; we worked on some beautiful instruments. But I did manage this rule in spite of working on some instruments I longed to play. 

 After arriving in Buffalo, each Sunday I visited various churches to see and hear organs and get a feeling of that particular church. One Sunday, I visited the University United Methodist Church. While certainly not the finest organ in town, the people were very friendly and when they discovered that I was from California and knew no one in town, they invited me to meals and made me feel at home and said, “You have friends here.” Shortly thereafter their organist moved away. “Do you play, Joe? Would you mind substituting for a while till we find a permanent organist?” A few Sundays later, “We want you to be our organist.” “Impossible—I can be called out of town at any time without notice.” “We can have someone fill in on the piano when that happens. Please be our organist.” It seemed like this would work; they knew I would leave without notice when Schlicker called. I would fulfill my obligation to him, and what he did not know would not hurt anyone. This happy arrangement continued for many months. 

I have a couple theories of how Ken List found out about this arrangement. “Joe, you have to tell Schlicker.” I dreaded that conversation, but I was caught, so I set up a time to meet with him. Schlicker told me he understood after all the time I had put into learning to play the organ that I would not want to just let the talent die. So he instructed me to resign and he would arrange for me to have practice time at his church, which had a very nice organ. As a naive young person, I thought as long as I can do my job, he has no business telling me what I can and can’t do on my own time. And there were many around me who encouraged that thinking. Perhaps more than the mundane tasks, this kind of thing is the reason Schlicker had trouble with master’s degree organists. In subsequent employment ‘my own time’ would be redefined by being on call 24/7 with aids such as beepers and later, cell phones. One boss would even follow me into a restroom stall. So now I see that Schlicker was at least trying to meet me half way. 

Money

Perhaps because organs are very expensive instruments, money is a problem in organbuilding. Herman Schlicker was a master of finance. We did not look forward to his daily rounds at the factory. “Robinson, why don’t you gold-plate it while you are at it?” That comment translates to the work is very good, but your progress is too slow and we can’t afford it. So I would speed up. Then, “Robinson, what is this? It will never do! The Schlicker organ is a quality instrument.” While making us employees stressed out during his rounds, he did achieve the right balance, getting us to do good work with enough production speed to be cost effective and keep the firm in business. After he died, that balance was lost and the firm eventually went bankrupt, as have far too many organbuilding firms.²

As an apprentice I made very little. One day I got an unexpected raise. Congress had just passed an increase in the minimum wage, and the salary I was making was below the new minimum. Schlicker added an extra five cents an hour because he did not want to be seen as paying minimum wage. As an apprentice, I rented a room. Most full-fledged organbuilders lived in apartments. I wanted to live in a house in the suburbs and I did not see that happening at any time in the future if I stayed on my current path. Many things I loved about organbuilding—your part in making a thing of beauty. But there were other important things to me that were either denied or out of reach. So my house in the suburbs was financed by leaving organbuilding and becoming a business systems analyst. And I am quite happy with my self-built 22-rank residence organ. Unfortunately, lack of space in my residence made it impossible for the third rank to be a 32′ Bombarde.

The author wishes to thank Justin Matters for permission to use the photographs of Schlicker organs.

Michael Alan Fox is a retired bookseller and publisher who reviewed organ records for The Absolute Sound for 15 years. Growing up in San Francisco, he fell in love with Aeolian-Skinners while listening to Richard Purvis at Grace Cathedral; and as a disciple of Maurice John Forshaw—Jean Langlais’ first American pupil—he has an unshakable faith in seamless legato. He is organist of All Saints Episcopal Church in Hillsboro, Oregon.

The East Texas Pipe Organ Festival took place November 14–17 in and around Kilgore, Texas, and was one of the best organ-related gatherings I have ever attended. This was largely because of two men: Roy Perry, the former organist-choirmaster of the First Presbyterian Church of Kilgore, and Texas representative for Aeolian-Skinner; and Lorenz Maycher, the current Kilgore incumbent, and devoted historian of Aeolian-Skinner, who decided that Perry’s achievements deserved wider recognition.

Harrison & Perry

Admirers of the company know that
G. Donald Harrison held Perry’s work—and zany humor—in high esteem, and the Texas instruments that were installed by the Williams family of New Orleans and finished by Perry have a special place in the hierarchy of Aeolian-Skinner organs. (See “The Williams Family of New Orleans: Installing and Maintaining Aeolian-Skinner Organs,” by Lorenz Maycher, The Diapason, May 2006.) Perry’s own organ in Kilgore was featured prominently in the King of Instruments recordings that the company released to promote its organs, and the slightly larger sister organ in Longview was used by Catharine Crozier to make two important recordings of American organ music. If for no other reason, the Kilgore organ would have its place in history as the organ that introduced the chamade trumpet to America, perhaps a cause for sorrowful head-shaking to many.

Fashions changed in the following decades, and many regarded the American Classic ideal as unsatisfactory eclecticism, and it must be said that even before Harrison’s death that approach seemed to be narrowing its scope even as it was narrowing its scales, and some notable instruments came to be deprecated or ignored—or, worse, rebuilt.

Through these decades, some organists continued to maintain that the Roy Perry organs were very special. He figured prominently in Charles Callahan’s histories of Aeolian-Skinner, with letters to and from G. Donald Harrison. Inevitably, tastes changed yet again, and some of the Romantic aspects of Perry’s designs once again could be seen as reflections of a good musical sense rather than deviations from classical ideals. But the piney woods of east Texas are a long way from big musical centers, and mostly the instruments sat ignored by the larger world. One of them had even fallen on hard times, and due to changing worship styles was sitting unused.

I was enough of a dedicated admirer of G. Donald Harrison organs that I had occasional retirement fantasies about jumping in the car and heading on a long diagonal trek from the Douglas firs of the Northwest to the loblolly pines of Texas and actually hearing those two organs. For one reason or another, the fantasy trek never happened; and so when I read the announcement of this East Texas Pipe Organ Festival I signed up immediately. It ran from a Monday evening opening concert through Thursday evening, three non-stop days and nights.

The festival was essentially on the scale of an unusually good AGO regional, but it really was the work of one man with whatever support he may have asked for and received from others; those are details of which I know nothing. But however Lorenz Maycher made it happen, the organization was impressive. There were 50 or 60 attendees, a comfortable and convenient headquarters hotel, a
giant bus, catered meals that were never less than good and in the case of a gumbo dinner, just terrific, organs that had been freshly tuned (and because of some odd swings in the weather, even retuned), hospitable churches, and first-rate recitalists. For arranging this tribute to Roy Perry, Lorenz Maycher undoubtedly earned himself a place in the ongoing Aeolian-Skinner saga.

Opening concert

The opening concert was at First Presbyterian in Kilgore, and the program repeated the content of Roy Perry’s original recording, “Music of the Church,” Volume Ten in the King of Instruments series. A choir of some 30 voices was conducted by Frances Anderson, who as an Austin College student had sung on the original record. After the appropriate opening hymn (Engelberg), the choir, accompanied by Robert Brewer, sang Parry’s I Was Glad, Ireland’s Greater Love Hath No Man, and Vaughan Williams’s setting of Old Hundredth. Practical considerations led to the substitution of Elgar’s The Spirit of the Lord Is upon Me for David McK. Williams’s In the Year That King Uzziah Died, and following the congregational singing of St. Clement, Lorenz Maycher played Bruce Simonds’s Iam sol recedit igneus, the only organ solo on the original record. 

The concert set the tone for the festival perfectly. First Presbyterian is not a huge church—I’d guess that it seats around 300—and even though seat cushions had been removed, it is not a particularly live room. It is not a hostile building: music is clear and well balanced there, but it gets very little enhancement, so the organ’s glory is of its own making. It didn’t take long for that glory to be evident, as Robert Brewer accompanied the choir superbly. The Parry was tremendously exciting, even without the “Vivats”, and that first Trompette-en-chamade is still one of the very best examples, a well-nigh perfect balance of brilliance and body, just loud enough to dominate.

As I heard throughout that concert, and in the succeeding events in that church, Roy Perry’s own organ, Aeolian-Skinner opus 1173, embodies that kind of musical balance in any number of voices. Uniquely, I think, among instruments carrying the G. Donald Harrison signature plate, it is only “rebuilt” by Harrison, since it started life as a Möller, and much of the structure and even pipework (including the notable French Horn) remains from its origin. This perhaps makes Roy Perry’s achievement as a tonal finisher even more notable, because this instrument of 69 ranks is versatile and elegant beyond description. Other Harrisons that I have heard and loved—Grace Cathedral, Church of the Advent, St. John the Divine, etc.—owe something of their effect to their glorious buildings. Kilgore does it all on its own, and I left the concert convinced that I had just heard one of the world’s truly great organs.

Tuesday, November 15

The following day offered more opportunities to hear just how versatile the Kilgore organ is, as Maycher, former organist Jimmy Culp (who two days later was honored by the grateful church as its Organist Emeritus), and Casey Cantwell played organ works particularly associated with Opus 1173: Dreams, by Hugh McAmis; Christos Patterakis, by Roy Perry; A Solemn Melody, by Walford Davies; Nun komm der Heiden Heiland, by Bach; Introduction, Passacaglia and Fugue, by Healey Willan; Alleluia, by Charles Callahan; Songs of Faith and Penitence, and Requiescat in Pace, by Leo Sowerby; and The Way to Emmaus, by Jaromir Weinberger.

There were also reminiscences of Roy Perry, as there were later in the week; by my reckoning he would have emerged as the undisputed champion in an all-time contest of Readers’ Digest Most Unforgettable Characters. Attendees learned that his lovely Christos Patterakis was named not for some obscure Orthodox melody, but for an obscure name he saw on a local election campaign poster in California; his irreverence and impishness were as fully developed as his ear for proper pipe speech. For me the highlight among all this music-making was the performance of Weinberger’s solo cantata The Way to Emmaus for soprano and organ. Anneliese von Goerken did a lovely job on the demanding vocal part (it concludes on a pianissimo high A after 22 pages of very chromatic writing); Maycher showed off opus 1173 as no less spectacular an accompanying instrument. 

The Weinberger cantata for years was a tradition on Easter afternoon at Riverside Church, and I have retained a vivid memory of hearing Louise Natale and Fred Swann perform it in the late 1970s. The Kilgore organ was easily the equal of the Riverside giant in providing all of the color required. (I missed only the few Chimes strikes that Swann added; Maycher was faithful to Weinberger’s score.) Part of the magic and the versatility comes from the enclosure of most of the Great, which is both a Great (a splendid Principal chorus, with three mixtures including one that caps full organ in much the same way as the famous
Terzzymbel at Washington Cathedral) and a Solo, with an English Horn and a French Horn to go with an eloquent Flute Harmonique. With some very imaginative thinking, Roy Perry transcended the limits of the usual three-manual instrument and enabled it to be a giant in flexibility.

Later in the afternoon, Casey Cantwell demonstrated another approach Roy Perry took: at St. Luke’s United Methodist Church in Kilgore, opus 1175, he designed a very substantial instrument in a smallish room, but laid it out on two very complete manuals rather than the expected three. The Great, again partially enclosed, is almost enormous at 18 ranks; and the Swell has a chamade Trompette in addition to the usual reed chorus. In a dead room it seems like a recipe for disaster, but Casey Cantwell, moving on from having played the Willan Introduction, Passacaglia and Fugue on Opus 1173 in the morning, demonstrated that Perry knew what he was doing. It played the Bach Prelude and Fugue in E-flat well enough for these ears, and did a thrilling job with the John Cook Fanfare. The program also included Harold Darke’s Meditation on “Brother James’s Air,” Two Meditations on “Herzliebster Jesu” by Mark Jones, and Bach’s Adagio Cantabile arranged by Roy Perry. Cantwell improvised on some hymns, giving the attendees a chance to sing along as the themes were presented, and it was a model church organ in supporting congregational singing. And my fears at seeing those trumpets aimed at us were unfounded; they, and the organ, were just right. In an ideal world you might hope for a livelier room, but working in the real world Perry delivered a very satisfying and completely musical organ.

In the evening, Brett Valliant demonstrated further capabilities of Opus 1173 by using it to accompany a Harold Lloyd film, but I can’t comment on whether that worked or not, since I decided to save my energy for the late night cash bar, where more Roy Perry stories abounded. There sure are some great storytellers in Texas.

Wednesday, November 16

The following day the giant bus made the 70-mile trip east to Shreveport, where the group enjoyed the hospitality of the historic Shreveport Scottish Rite Temple, having lunch and dinner in a distinguished dining room. Upstairs in the 500-seat auditorium we heard Charles Callahan demonstrate the sounds of the 1917–1921 four-manual Pilcher, some voices of which weren’t available. Like all such fraternal orders, it faces an aging and declining membership; the preservation of their remarkable buildings, which are usually among the notable structures in every city where they are found, should be yet another cause to which organists might rally.

The major attraction in Shreveport was St. Mark’s Cathedral, Roy Perry’s largest installation. It was designed by G. Donald Harrison in conjunction with Perry and William Teague, then fresh out of the Curtis Institute and embarking on a long career at the cathedral, but it was not built until the Whiteford years. The festival’s visit to the cathedral was preceded by a session of further reminiscences of Perry at St. Mark’s former building, now the Church of the Holy Cross, where a 1920 E. M. Skinner was rebuilt by Aeolian-Skinner in 1949. William Teague—“Uncle Billy” to Roy Perry, and I suppose now about 90 (see “William Teague awarded Doctor of Fine Arts degree by Centenary College,” The Diapason, October 2011, p. 10)—was the star of the show, with a flood of stories that illustrated both Perry’s care for music, as when he sent pipes from the Kilgore strings back to Boston so that the scales could be duplicated for Teague’s organ then in the shop, and his wild sense of humor.

The St. Mark’s organ sounded particularly lovely in Charles Callahan’s prelude to the Evensong service, an atmospheric improvisation that hung in the air like wisps of incense. Following Evensong, Robert McCormick played a recital that started with a particularly colorful performance of the Elgar Sonata, and included three improvisations by Pierre Cochereau, reconstructed by Jeanne Joulain; McNeil Robinson’s Prelude on Llanfair, and Larry King’s Fanfares to the Tongues of Fire; the program ended with an improvisation on submitted themes. The cathedral has a generous acoustic, and the organ sounds like a vintage Perry right up to the point that the big reeds come on. I may be in a minority, but the Solo Major Trumpet unit was the first less-than-beautiful reed I had heard, and the Trompette-en-chamade in the Gallery ranks with that thing at the back of Riverside Church as the ugliest specimen I’ve experienced, and although I wasn’t carrying an SPL meter to be exact about it, I think it was brighter and nastier. I’ll bet Roy Perry would have agreed with me. But the unpleasantness was washed away later back at the hotel by an excellent martini—“Mother’s Milk” in Perry-speak. 

Thursday, November 17

The third day started with a little jewel, the 22-rank opus 1153A in the First Baptist Church of Nacogdoches. Roy Perry priorities are made clear by the presence of two celestes in a small two-manual, and again the organ fits the church like a dream. The church itself was an odd amalgam: distinctive stained glass windows and this vintage American Classic organ on the one hand, a full drum kit opposite the console and a light bridge that would be adequate for a good regional theatre on the other. In any case, Joseph Causby did a great job with a varied program from Bach to Locklair—that last being a substitution that allowed us to hear some very nice Chimes, again a voice found in most Perry organs. No snob, he . . . The program: Bach, Pièce d’Orgue, BWV 572, O Mensch bewein dein Sünde gross; Hindemith, Sonata I; Thalben-Ball, Tune in E; Duruflé, Scherzo, op. 2; Howells, Psalm Prelude, set 1, no. 3; and Guilmant, Final (Symphony No. 1 in D Minor). 

And the day continued in glory. I had gotten Catharine Crozier’s recordings from Longview in my teen years, but I wasn’t prepared for the size and magnificence of the building. It is like no other church I have seen, Gothic stripped down to the essential pointed arch and built in yellow brick on a grand scale. The window at the east end of the church is 66′ high by 16′ wide, and that reflects the sheer verticality of the design. The organ, Opus 1174, sits in chambers on either side of that lofty chancel, and Charles Callahan demonstrated its 85 ranks in a fascinating recital, mostly of unfamiliar pieces that I’m sure were chosen to show off every aspect of the organ: Wallace Sabin, Bourée in the olden style; Bach, Fantasie con Imitazione, All glory be to God on high, Lord God, now open wide Thy heavens, We all believe in one God; Cimarosa, Sonata IX; Handel, Andante; Paradies, Sicilienne; Gounod, Marche Nuptiale; Salomé, Villanelle; Jongen, Pastorale; Foote, Night–A Meditation, op. 61; Callahan, Three Gospel Preludes, Three Spirituals from Spiritual Suite, Fanfares and Riffs. It sounded wonderful in that huge room, a more sympathetic acoustic than Kilgore, and Opus 1174, wide open, filled it perfectly, the 8′ and 4′ Trompettes and Cornet of the Bombarde division being ideal climax reeds—but its quiet Romantic voices were just as effective. It is sad to think that the organ had fallen into disuse for some years and then was severely damaged by catastrophic leaks, but it is a cause for rejoicing that the church repaired and restored one of the real monuments of American Classic organbuilding.

The final event was a recital back at Kilgore by Richard Elliott, one of the masters of the Mormon Tabernacle Organ: Handel, La Rejouissance (Music for the Royal Fireworks); Bach, In dir ist Freude, BWV 615, Passacaglia in C Minor, BWV 582; Daquin, The Cuckoo; Widor, Andante sostenuto (Symphonie gothique, op. 70); Gawthrop, Sketchbook I; Elliot, Sing praise to God who reigns above, Be Thou my vision, Swing low, sweet chariot; Wagner, arr. Lemare, The Ride of the Valkyries. I’m sure the church elders were gratified to hear someone who daily plays an organ almost three times the size speak of how thrilled he was to be playing the Kilgore organ for the first time! In turn he managed to thrill the large audience, first with a superb performance of the Bach Passacaglia in the grand manner (every line of counterpoint there to be heard, but also every ounce of drama and passion—not the sort of effect you can get from a start-to-finish forte plenum), and finally with an all-out Ride of the Valkyries, with that miraculous Trompette-en-chamade spurring the riders on. Very exciting stuff—an over-the-top ending to an exciting week.

I am boundlessly grateful to Lorenz Maycher for organizing this heartfelt tribute to Roy Perry and his instruments. I can’t imagine how many hours’ work must have gone into planning all of the necessary arrangements and making everything work so smoothly. The music came first, but it was accompanied by good food and comfortable accommodations, and lots and lots of late-night stories. If the festival is repeated, I’ll sign up the day it’s announced, and you should, too.

Amidst the glorious music and the fun, there was an occasion for solemn reflection when the bus en route to Shreveport stopped to visit Roy Perry’s grave. His last years were difficult, and his death was tragic. His final resting place is in the family cemetery of the Crims, the local eminences who had built the church, donated the organ, and supported Perry’s musical education. His gravestone reads, “Music, once admitted to a soul, becomes a spirit and never dies.” Amen! 

Jay Zoller is organist at South Parish Congregational Church in Augusta, Maine, where he plays the church’s historic 1866 E. & G.G. Hook organ. He holds degrees from the University of New Hampshire and the School of Theology at Boston University. A retired designer for the Andover Organ Company, he currently designs for the Organ Clearing House and for David E. Wallace & Co. Pipe Organ Builders of Gorham, Maine. Zoller resides in Newcastle, Maine, with his wife Rachel. In addition to writing several articles about Heinz Wunderlich for The American Organist, Choir and Organ, and The Diapason, he has played in all-Wunderlich recitals in Hamburg, Germany in 1999, 2004, and 2009. His article, “Heinz Wunderlich at 90,” appeared in the April 2009 issue of The Diapason.

I  had never given much thought to organs or the organ culture in South Korea. My interests, along with, I suppose, those of many organists, lay in the direction of European composers. However, a recent trip to South Korea to visit family got me thinking about this subject, about which I knew nothing. The questions swirled around my head: What was the organ culture like in South Korea? Was it anything like our own? What kinds of organs were there in Korea? What did the organists play? Was there a South Korean style of organ composition? Do they play the same repertoire as we do? In this age of instant communication, I imagined that they must play Bach and Mendelssohn, just as we do, but how was I to know for sure?

Our visit was primarily centered in and around Daejeon, a city of about two million people. With my lack of knowledge of the Korean language, I would have gotten nowhere in my quest without the help of Rosalie Bowker, who is Board Chair at the Daejeon Christian International School, an organist herself, and a missionary to South Korea for over forty years. Her help in taking me to see organs, introducing me to Korean organists, and finding resources for me, was invaluable.

I make no claim that this report is complete, since my discoveries center around Daejeon. I hope that someone more knowledgeable will write about the nation as a whole.

A brief history of Korea

Korea is the only nation in the world where Christianity first took root without priests or missionaries, but solely as a result of the written word. Bibles, which had been translated into Chinese by Jesuits, were brought back by a Korean scholar on a diplomatic trip to Beijing in 1621. Korea has had a long friendship with China, which has lasted for centuries. As a big brother to Korea, China has had a profound influence on Koreans. However, Koreans transformed those influences into their own distinctive advances in fields such as literature, art, ceramics, printing, philosophy, astronomy, medicine, and astrology. As an example, Koreans invented metal moveable type in 1230, 200 years before Gutenberg. 

Geography has played an important role in Korean history. This small mountainous country sits in a strategic area surrounded by the larger and more powerful countries of China, Japan, and Russia. During its two thousand years of recorded history, Korea has suffered nine hundred invasions and five periods of foreign occupation. Its relationship with China has seen Korean kings embracing Chinese culture and receiving some protection in return for tribute to the Chinese Emperor.

When Japan was unified in the 16th century, its leader Hideyoshi Toyotomi attacked Korea as a first phase of an invasion of the Chinese mainland. This war, which left the country devastated, resulted in keeping relations acrimonious. Korea attempted to stay isolated until western influences in opening the country to trade during the 19th century left Korea vulnerable. In 1875 Japan forced exclusive trade with Korea and then flooded Japanese advisers and military personnel into the country. 

In 1905, America and Britain felt that Japanese control over Korea would prevent Russian expansion, and so Theodore Roosevelt traded Korea’s independence for U.S. control over the Philippines. The Treaty of Portsmouth, which ended the Russo-Japanese War, made Korea a Japanese protectorate. The Japanese then forced, despite protests and student uprisings, a Protectorate Treaty, which was followed in 1910 by a forced Treaty of Annexation, which made Korea a Japanese colony. The Koreans were treated brutally until the Japanese surrender after World War II.

The end of World War II brought about the arbitrary division of the country, by the West, at the 38th parallel. This unfortunate afterthought by the major powers in the post-war period has proven to be the one blunder that has caused inordinate trouble for the North and the South as they have grappled for advantage and supremacy over each other. 

A Korean guerrilla commander, Kim Il Sung, chosen by the Soviet Union to head its regime in the North, chose, with Soviet and Chinese backing, to invade the South and unite the country under communist rule. This conflict, in a fear of communist menace, drew in U.N. and U.S. troops and savage fighting. The Korean War claimed a huge number of casualties and devastated both halves of a country that had only just begun to recover from four decades of Japanese occupation. When the fighting finally stopped in July 1953, the front line was virtually at the 38th parallel, close to where it had all begun. A demilitarized zone was created, which has remained in place to this day. The North became a dictatorship under the thumb of Kim Il Sung and later his son, Kim Jong Il, and the country closed off from the rest of the world.

In the South, anti-communist dictatorships gradually gave way to democratic reform and growing trade with the world. Under President Park Chung Hee, conglomerates were formed, which made South Korea a major economic power. It is in this period of economic growth and democratic reform that our organ story begins.

Organ culture

As one might imagine after the widespread destruction during the Korean War, organs were not a priority and as a result were slow in coming. Gradually, however, South Koreans who had an interest in music began coming to the United States and to Europe for training. Those interested in studying the organ concentrated primarily on the United States and Germany, countries that offered organ curricula and good instruments to play. 

As time went on, students who returned to South Korea wanted similar instruments to play at home and often were able to have their church buy an organ from a builder that they had become acquainted with during their studies. Since there were no Korean organbuilders, they imported organs from the United States and Germany. Seoul, South Korea’s largest city, has the greatest number of pipe organs in the country. Wicks began the Seoul imports, followed by such builders as Brombaugh, Flentrop, Schuke, Rieger-Kloss, Ruffatti, Beckerath, Karl Wilhelm, Jäger & Brommer, Bosch, Pels & Van Leeuwen, Klais, and many others. The large six-manual Klais in the concert hall is a jewel in the collection, with its case designed after the traditional Korean plucked musical instrument, the “Komungo,” giving the effect of several instruments hanging from the wall. It boasts as well 40 French bells and 32 Korean bells in addition to 270 Spanish trumpets. The organ looks very impressive, although I have only seen it in pictures. We mustn’t forget the new Fisk organ installed in 2010 at Incheon, about twenty miles west of Seoul. 

There is an interesting story about the Klais in the concert hall. When it was new, apparently the organist at the time had the mistaken impression that it didn’t need regular attention for maintenance and tuning. The organ became almost unplayable before a new professor took over and had some much-needed maintenance done on it. There are a few German-trained organ technicians in the country who take care of the pipe organs, one of whom is the husband of an organist I will mention later.

Organs in Daejeon

Although churches seem to be located everywhere, Daejeon contains only five pipe organs. Many churches have electronic imitations and most have praise bands to accompany worship. Even churches with pipe organs often have a band as well. The organs include Rieger-Kloss, Oberlinger, Flentrop, Speith, and  Paul Fritts. 

We met Eunyoung Kim at the Baptist Church where she is organist. The church contains an organ built by Speith-Orgelbau of Reitberg, Germany. Although a fine tracker instrument, it is situated in an acoustically dry room. Dr. Kim played the last movement of the first Mendelssohn Sonata for me—it was exquisitely played, but the sound was almost sucked into the walls. This led us to a discussion of acoustics in South Korean churches. This is a subject too large to go into here, but suffice it to say that with carpeting all over and acoustical tile even in the rear of the organ there is no resonance at all. Her comment was that the Korean idea of acoustics is figuring out how many speakers a room needs. It is a situation that organists are trying to correct.

After a delicious lunch at a Korean restaurant recommended by Dr. Kim, she took us to see the organs at Southern Baptist University, where she is the organ professor. Unfortunately, a class was meeting in the auditorium, so we were unable to see that organ, but in a smaller, happily much more resonant room is an organ built by Paul Fritts. The lower manual contained a Hohlflöte 8′, Principal 4′, Quint/Cornet, and Octav 2′. The upper manual had Quintadena 8′, Spielflöte 4′, Gemshorn 2′, and Dulcian 8′. A Subbass 16′ and Gedackt 8′ rounded out the pedal division. Couplers were I/Pedal, II/Pedal, and II/I, and there was also a tremulant. I played the first movement of the Mendelssohn A-major Sonata and it had a nice effect. It is a delightful practice organ and often does double duty for concerts.

Eunyoung Kim’s husband is one of South Korea’s German-trained organ technicians, and I was sorry that I did not get to meet him as well. Surprisingly, Eunyoung Kim was working on a recital entitled “The Organ Music of America since 1950,” which she played after our trip was over. It consisted of music of David Arcus (b. 1958), Memorial Festival Overture and Ancient Wonders; John Behnke (b. 1953), Three Global Songs; Derek Bermel (b. 1967), Two Songs from Nandom; and David Conte (b. 1955), Pastorale and Toccata. 

On another day, Rosalie Bowker took my wife Rachel and me to Hyechon University to meet Mrs. Min Jin O, who is the university organist and who, when we met her, was preparing four students for a required recital. I asked if they would mind playing their prepared music for us and they gave us a remarkable program all played from memory. One girl played the Langlais Epilogue for Pedal Solo. A young man, who was autistic, had none of his usual symptoms when he was playing. We were impressed by every one of them. Their playing had confidence and vigor even without music in front of them.

The organ was built by Oberlinger and was located in a large room that looked as though it served for concerts as well as for worship. The acoustics here were much better than what we had heard previously. 

Organ miscellanies

Several universities in South Korea offer doctoral degrees in organ, so that an organ student need not travel to a different country to study. However, many do decide to work on degrees beyond their own borders. I got the impression that the two favorite places were Germany and the United States, although not limited to those. Dr. Kim remarked that you could often tell where they studied by the kind of repertoire they played. Of those students who choose to return to South Korea, there is a desire to have the kinds of organs they were exposed to where they studied and a desire for improved acoustics. As more organs are imported, it is a great opportunity to spread the gospel of better acoustics. The Koreans want the best of what the world has to offer and I don’t believe it will be long before churches begin to hear the difference that good acoustics can make.

There is a Korean Association of Organists that is active in South Korea. It sponsors seminars, festivals, and masterclasses as well as hosting visiting organists from other countries, much like the AGO does in the U.S. Their journal, which contains the usual news about organs and meetings, also publishes new music written by Korean composers. I was able to discover several new pieces, many centered around hymn tunes, but one composer in particular, Ju-Hwan Yu, had written a Prelude and Fugue on B-A-C-H in 2005, which I found fascinating and which I played in two recitals earlier this year. As in any other country these days, Korean organ recitalists play music of many countries and different time periods.

Postscript

I very much enjoyed my visit to South Korea and only wish that it could have been much longer. I am attempting this small article in hopes that someone with much more knowledge of Korea and its organ music might take up where I have left off and fill in many more details. It is an organ culture that is growing and trying hard to catch up with the West. 

I want to thank Dr. Rosalie Bowker, organist, musician, missionary, and Board Chair of the Daejeon Christian International School, without whose help none of this would have been possible. I also want to thank Dr. Eunyoung Kim and Mrs. Min Jin O, who provided information and visits to notable Daejeon organs. n

Bibliography

Breen, Michael. The Koreans—Who They Are, What They Want, Where Their Future Lies. Orion Business Books, 1998. 

Oberdorfer, Don. The Two Koreas, A Contemporary History. Basic Books, a member of the Perseus Books Group, 2001. 

Becker, Jasper. Rogue Regime—Kim Jong Il and the Looming Threat of North Korea. Oxford University Press, 2005. 

Halberstam, David. The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War. Hyperion Books, 2007.

Ingenious design

After spending hundreds of nights in New York hotels over the years, and having had the opportunity to borrow a friend’s place in Greenwich Village for several months, Wendy and I decided last winter that we should have a place in the city, and we started shopping. We had fallen in love with the neighborhood of that borrowed apartment, and sure enough, we found a terrific place in the building next door. It’s on the corner of Broadway and East Ninth Street, halfway between the Hudson and East Rivers. We’re on the southwest corner of the building with lots of windows facing in two directions. We can look west down Ninth Street, over the top of the West Village, and across the Hudson to see the sun set over New Jersey—how romantic.

The previous owner had done a thoughtful job decorating the place, blending several tones of blue and gray paint in the kitchen and living room. But the ceiling of the bedroom was metallic silver, the sliding doors of the hall closet were bright purple, and the inside of the front door was neon orange. What was she thinking? We got out our paint brushes, set everything right, and moved in in mid-February.  

I know that the choice of decorations is a personal thing, and I suppose the previous owner really liked the color scheme, but we thought it was revolting, as did the few select friends who saw the place before we painted.

Organ facade design

I’ve been thinking a lot about design because over the last month I’ve been working with a client on the layout and façade design for the relocation and installation of a large organ in a building currently under construction. I’ve conferred with the architect of the building, and now an organ architect is at work creating a concept. I have the building drawings spread out on the worktable in my study, and bundles of information about pipe scales, chest layout, and specifications. It’s thrilling and more than a little daunting because we’re working with a very large organ, and I’m well aware that the appearance and musical impact of the organ will dominate the worship of this church for generations. Later this summer we will present the design to the church. I imagine there will be some discussion and probably some revisions before the design is approved and we can get to work building the organ.

The New York architecture of 

Stanford White

Our apartment in New York is near Washington Square Park, a vibrant gathering place in the midst of the campus of New York University. On a summer evening, there are street performers and musical jam sessions. One night, there was a group of students who had wheeled a piano out into the square. There are stone tables with permanent chessboards where our son Andy loves to go pick up games with the crowd of regulars. And the architecture of Stanford White is all around you. Stanford White (1853–1906) apprenticed with the architect Henry Hobson Richardson (1838–1886), who is best known for his design of Trinity Church, Copley Square, Boston. For much of his career, White was a partner in the extraordinarily prolific and revered firm of McKim, Mead & White.  

White designed an impressive catalogue of buildings in New York and around the country. One of his grandest was the original Madison Square Garden, located at Madison Square on Madison Avenue between Twenty-Sixth and Twenty-Seventh Streets. Ironically, that was the site of White’s death. He had an apartment in the building, where he apparently entertained a gorgeous young actress named Evelyn Nesbit. Evelyn’s jealous husband Harry Thaw shot White point-blank during a theatrical performance. (Funny that today’s Madison Square Garden is an architectural nightmare at Eighth Avenue and Thirty-First Street, more than a half mile from Madison Square.)  

In 1889, New York City celebrated the centennial of the inauguration of George Washington as the first president of the United States. Stanford White was commissioned to design a temporary arch across Fifth Avenue about 150 feet north of Washington Square. It was a spindly thing made of wood and plaster, and White capped it with a cheap statue of Washington that he found in a New York junk shop—it looked a little like the tacky plastic bride-and-groom figures on a wedding cake.  

A year later, the cornerstone was laid for a permanent monumental stone arch on the north edge of Washington Square, which is the beginning of Fifth Avenue—an apartment building there is called “One Fifth Avenue”—isn’t that a classy address? The 70-foot marble arch, reminiscent of L’arc de Triomphe on the Champs Élysées in Paris, was dedicated in 1895. It’s fun to note that the faces of the angels in the spandrels on either side of the arch are those of Mrs. William Rhinelander Stewart, wife of the treasurer of the arch project, and of White’s wife, Bessie!¹

Standing in the middle of the square, looking north up Fifth Avenue is one of New York’s great views showing the Empire State Building framed in the arch—especially dramatic at night as the buildings are well lit.

On the southern edge of the park is Judson Memorial Church, another of White’s buildings, which features a ten-story campanile modeled after the tower of the twelfth-century church of San Giorgio in Velabro, Italy.² To complete the sumptuous design of this magnificent building, the windows are by John La Farge. The Judson Church is home to a 28-rank Roosevelt organ built in 1892—now available through the Organ Clearing House.

The Church of the Ascension (Episcopal) is five blocks up Fifth Avenue, home to a terrific new organ built in 2010 by Pascal Quoirin of St. Didier, Provence, France. Visit <http://nycago.org/Organs/NYC/html/AscensionEpis.html&gt; for a description of this marvelous and unusual instrument. (See also The Diapason, November 2011, pp. 1, 30–32.) Above the altar is a spectacular mural by John La Farge, depicting, you guessed it, the Ascension of Christ with an ostentatious gold faux (painted) proscenium arch designed by Stanford White.

In 1882, the famous jeweler Charles L. Tiffany commissioned White to design a family residence on the northwest corner of Madison Avenue and Seventy-Second Street. The mammoth building included separate “apartments” for Mr. Tiffany and two of his children, one of whom was the great artist and designer Louis Comfort Tiffany. That made White a “designer’s designer” and he and Louis Tiffany had a long collaborative relationship.³ 

It’s amusing to note that while Stanford White was able to satisfy and please Louis Tiffany, the publisher Joseph Pulitzer was among the fussiest of White’s clients. White designed renovations of a house owned by Pulitzer, which later burned, and was subsequently engaged to plan Pulitzer’s new house on East Seventy-Third Street. Pulitzer rejected several plans presented by White.  

Both Tiffany’s home on Seventy-Second Street and Pulitzer’s on Seventy-Third included large Aeolian pipe organs equipped with the famous automatic roll players.

Organ case architecture

One of the compelling features of a fine pipe organ is its architectural appearance. We are all familiar with the great classical organ cases, the best known of which is the organ completed by Christian Müller at St. Bavo in Haarlem, Holland in 1738. It is 274 years old, and played regularly for worship, concerts, festivals, and recordings. It has all the architectural features of the organs of its day—towers and fields of façade pipes, lots of moldings and carvings, brilliant colors, and gold leaf. But when you stop and think, you can see that many of these features are driven by the internal design of the organ.

Most classical organ cases are symmetrical. Symmetry is pleasing to the eye, but there are practical reasons for it. The symmetry of an organ case reflects the symmetry of the organ’s interior. When the interior of the organ is symmetrical, the weight is balanced, and it’s easier and more economical to build a symmetrical structure than one that is out of balance. Tell that to Frank Gehry, designer of the wild façade of the Glätter-Gotz/Rosales organ in Walt Disney Hall in Los Angeles. It must have cost a fortune to make those curved wooden Violone pipes.

Classical organ cases have architectural towers that contain the larger façade pipes. These are typically either pointed (triangular in plan) or rounded. Round towers are sometimes modified half-octagons. Obviously, the towers are integral to the architectural appearance of the organ, but there’s a practical reason as well. Placing the largest pipes of the organ in towers that are effectively outside the organ case saves a significant amount of space inside the case. Stop to think how much larger the Haarlem case would have to be if the 77 large pipes in the seventeen towers were all crammed inside.

The case of the Haarlem organ is a wonderful example of what came to be called Werkprinzip in the revival of classic organbuilding during the twentieth century.  Simply put, Werkprinzip means that the appearance of the organ reflects its basic tonal structure. In the classic Bauhaus-style organ (the stereotypical Holtkamp organ, for example) we see the separate divisions clearly, enough that it’s possible to guess much of the stoplist by what you see from the pews. The Haarlem organ’s case doesn’t tell us whether the pedal Bourdon is wood or metal (while the Holtkamp often does!), but it does clearly show us the three manual divisions (Rugpositief, Bovenwerk, and Hoofdwerk) and the Pedaal division.

There are many photos of the Haarlem organ available on the Internet.  Here’s the best one I find today: <http://twomusic.home.xs4all.nl/christine/bavo/source/01bavo_haarlem.htm…;. Take a good look. There’s a lot going on there! At first look, you might think it’s a big rollicking rococo lollipop. But in fact, notwithstanding a lot of trumpeting and strumming angels, gold, and a couple huge lions, a lot of the design is “form follows function”—well settled in the eighteenth century—and it took until the twentieth century for Mies van der Rohe, Walter Gropius, and Le Corbusier to define it!

Architecture in Columbus, Indiana

The first internal combustion rotary engines were built in the late nineteenth century, using the highly refined petroleum distillate, gasoline, as fuel. The fuel is ignited by an electric spark in a cylinder, which pushes a piston away from the explosion. The linear motion of the piston is converted to rotary motion by the action of the piston shaft. In 1895, Rudolph Diesel invented the alternative internal combustion engine that still bears his name. The basic difference is that the fuel is ignited solely by heat generated by the compression of the fuel inside the cylinder. The total internal capacity of the cylinders is the “displacement,” which is a measure of an engine’s size. We refer to a 300-cubic-inch engine, or a 1,500-“CC” (cubic centimeters) engine—the cubic measurement being the displacement.

Diesel engines are heavier “per cubic inch” than gasoline engines, but in vehicles large enough that a little weight doesn’t matter, diesel engines are more efficient, and therefore more powerful “per cubic inch.”  

The Cummins Engine Company was founded in 1919 in Columbus, Indiana by Clessie Lyle Cummins. For the first ten years sales were pretty slow, but in 1929, Clessie Cummins executed the marketing idea of a lifetime by installing a diesel engine in a used Packard limousine and taking Columbus banker and investor
W. G. Irwin for a Christmas Day ride. Irwin injected tremendous capital into the firm, catapulting it toward becoming one of the major suppliers of engines to the American trucking industry.

J. Irwin Miller was W. G. Irwin’s nephew and second CEO of the Cummins Engine Company. Miller was a brilliant businessman who was devoted to modernist architecture. He instituted a program in Columbus, Indiana, through which the company would pay the architect’s fees for public buildings designed by architects selected from a list developed by Mr. Miller, a program that was later continued by the Cummins Engine Foundation. As a result of this unique and remarkable program, that town with 44,000 residents boasts a panoply of buildings designed by such modernist luminaries as Eero Saarinen, Eliel Saarinen, I.M. Pei, Robert Venturi, Cesar Pelli, and Harry Weese, among others. In one extraordinary neighborhood, there is a monumental bronze arch by British sculptor Henry Moore on the plaza in front of the I.M. Pei-designed public library, across the street from Eliel Saarinen’s First Christian Church.  

Throughout history, there are many examples of successful and innovative business leaders whose philanthropy through the arts created a lasting impact. We think of the Medici, Esterházy, and Mellon families as great patrons of the arts and builders of public buildings. The Rockefeller family has given us many important architectural masterpieces. But it seems improbable that a small town in rural Indiana could become an absolute museum of the best of modernist architecture.

Columbus is located about 35 miles south of Indianapolis, an easy drive from Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago, St. Louis, Nashville, and many other cities. The Visitor’s Center, which features large glassworks by Dale Chihuly, provides tours both guided and self guided (a map gives phone numbers one can call to hear descriptions of the various buildings). Several public schools, City Hall, medical clinics, fire stations, banks, newspaper offices, even the jail are all fantastic modernist buildings. Altogether there are more than 60 modernist buildings in town, six of which (built between 1942 and 1965) have been designated National Historic Monuments.

Take a look at the website <http://www.columbus.in.us/&gt; to get a quick idea of what the place is like, and take my word that it’s worth a trip to visit.  

Design inspiration

Leaf through the pages of Vanity Fair or The New Yorker magazine, and you’ll see dozens of advertisements for “designer wear.” It might be a dress by Versace that looks like a combination of a corn stalk and a chicken ($1,700) or a handbag covered with el-vees ($2,800), or a pair of shoes rejected by Lady Gaga (priceless!), but if it has a designer name it must be good. You see an advertisement for an “architect” house and assume it has no closets and the roof leaks (so that’s why they call it “Falling Water”). It seems we’re willing to pay a premium if there’s a fancy name attached to a product.

But good design is important to us. Louis Tiffany wrote, “God has given us our talents, not to copy the talents of others, but rather to use our brains and our imagination in order to obtain the revelation of True Beauty.”⁴ Tiffany’s eye for design gave us those gorgeous lampshades, magical dragonflies, stained glass daisies, and a broad range of spectacular liturgical windows.  

Stanford White inherited the magic of the late nineteenth-century version of the Romanesque arch from his mentor H. H. Richardson. It’s remarkable to compare the façades of White’s Tiffany house in New York to the H. H. Richardson rectory of Trinity Church, Boston (Clarendon and Newbury Streets). The big stone arch of the main entry is common to both houses. White traveled throughout Europe collecting architectural images so his buildings reflect a cross section of many centuries of style.

The fortune made by manufacturing diesel engines was converted into dozens of stylish and practical modernist buildings in a small midwestern town surrounded by farmlands. You have to see it to believe. Don’t miss it!

Classical pipe organs have combined ebullient decorative architecture with the dictates of the musical contents of the instrument.

Where in your life are you inspired by the unique imagination of a great designer?

Notes

1. David Garrard Lowe, Stanford White’s New York, Doubleday, 1992, p. 189.

2. Ibid., p. 127.

3. Ibid., p. 86.

4. Ibid., pp. 86–87.