The Future of the Organ in America

When Albert Neutel asked me to address the topic of the
?future of the organ,? I was somewhat dumbfounded.
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  At this point in my life I have
experienced a lot of past, but I have minimal experience with the future.
?Change is inevitable; growth is optional,? as our minister William
Jackson described in a recent sermon. Indeed, there has been phenomenal change
in the organ from the hydraulos to the large medieval Winchester organ, the split
keyboards of Italy and Spain in the 17th century, the German Baroque organ, the
French Baroque organ, the English Cabinet organ, the double pedalboards of
19th- century Germany, the innovations of Cavaillé-Coll, Ernest Skinner,
the ?Praetorius organ? and its descendants, the theater organ, and
digital sampling, to name just a few metamorphoses of the organ. We have
experienced change. And I anticipate confidently that we shall encounter more
change in the future.

Happily the organ has demonstrated astonishing flexibility
and adaptability to accommodate great changes. Instruments which have not been
flexible in this manner have become artifacts of history, museum
curiosities—the aulos, the shawm, the Bible regal, the serpent, the viol
da braccia, the pedal piano. We thank our ancestors that they preferred change
over death. Now in our time we will face the same challenge. Certainly some
innovations will not prove themselves ultimately to be worthy; but we must make
that determination from experience, not from fearful resistance to the new.
?Change is inevitable; growth is optional.?

Throughout history the fate of the organ has depended
heavily upon its integral connection with religion. When religious culture has
been strong (i.e., Germany c. 1700) the organ has thrived. When religion has
been threatened (i.e.,  France c.
1800) the organ has suffered. Indeed, had Pepin the Short not donated his
acquisition of an organ to a religious order in the 8th century, thereby initiating
the relationship between the church and the organ, we might possibly not have
the organ today and we would not have had this wonderful dinner!
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  Variations in style of worship have
been appropriately reflected in varied organ design (i.e., 17th-century German
Lutheran, vs. 17th-century French Catholic, vs. 20th-century American
Protestant worship styles and the organs germane to each epoch and country).
When the organ has adapted to and accommodated the requirements of changing
religious ritual, the happy marriage between the church and the organ has
continued.

Now we find ourselves immersed in a sea-change of worship
practices in America. For better or for worse, new musical repertoire has
emerged in churches throughout America and abroad. Because organs, and
organists, have been perceived as incapable of handling and unwilling to
address this repertoire and shift in worship pattern, one guru has even
predicted the quick demise of our cherished instrument. I believe that we face
a challenge similar to that of organ builders and organists in France in 1800,
when traditional religious practice was abolished. Those clever organists who
learned to play patriotic tunes saved many organs in France from almost certain
destruction. The challenge for the church musician, and the builder of church
organs, has never been greater than it is today. The way in which we respond to
that challenge remains to be documented. But I believe that simple logic would
indicate that an organ designed in Germany in 1700, no matter how wonderful
that instrument may be, and a comparable strict diet of German Baroque music,
would not serve effectively the requirements of today?s American
church.  We must summon our
greatest artistry and creativity to respond to the liturgical challenge of our
generation, to build instruments with the flexibility to respond to the demands
of the best current repertoire as well as traditional sacred music literature.
By analogy to French organists 200 years ago, perhaps we all need to learn how
to play patriotic marches until this present cultural storm blows over. We must
build instruments capable of performing our entire organ solo repertoire,
accompanying the widest range of choral and solo vocal literature, supporting
and encouraging congregational singing, and moving and exalting the human
spirit. A very tall order!

We frequently lament that during our generation we have lost
the audience for the organ. Could it be that this tragic decline of interest in
our instrument has been occasioned in part by our creation of some instruments
which are just ?plain ugly? and our insistence upon playing
Titelouze when the people want to hear ?What a Friend We Have in
Jesus?? I recall from more than 30 years ago the lecture of a composer
who said that modern composers had retreated into the universities, where it
did not matter to them if their compositions ever reached a large audience. In
some ways, we organists and builders of organs have sought that same shelter
from the demanding reality of public taste and the dynamic opportunity to
engage that large public. We have entertained ourselves with magnificent
duplications of historic organs and academically sanctioned performance styles.
We have sought to replicate the past in an effort to find the future. And the
American musical public has lost interest in our pursuit of historicity, while
we frequently have neglected the dictates of musical aesthetics and
functionality. Now to survive and to thrive we must respond to the needs of the
church, the worshipper, the participant, the listening public. We must relocate
that dynamic which drew thousands of Americans to frequent organ recitals early
in the last century. In short, we must imagine the future rather than copy the
past; we must pursue aesthetic beauty, not confusing it with historic
authenticity; we must energetically seek new beauty rather than to repeat the
beauty of another time and place. In the words of James Russell Lowell,
?Time makes ancient good uncouth.?

In San Francisco, Michael Tilson Thomas has undertaken a
bold and daring venture to create a new audience for the San Francisco Symphony
Orchestra. He has actively courted those young persons who normally would not
be seen at a concert of classical music. He has implemented innovative
programming, including his own piano improvisation with the surviving members
of the Grateful Dead. He has featured many works which challenge the
traditional envelope of symphonic repertoire. Now he finds that packed houses
grace his concerts, drawn by the creative vitality of his adventuresome
programming and repertoire. He then takes the golden opportunity to introduce
this new audience on the same program to the wonders of Beethoven!
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  And it is succeeding brilliantly! Last February
I had the privilege to perform the world premier of Stephen Mackey?s
?Pedal Tones? with this orchestra. The composer, whose own
performing instrument is the electric guitar, infused this score for orchestra
and organ with the idiom of the rock band. It was 30 minutes of sheer sonic
extravaganza. Countless young persons from three capacity audiences commented
?Wow! I?ve never heard a real pipe organ before! It was
awesome!? These people were attracted by the visceral power of the organ,
by its multitude of colors, by its capacity to respond on an equal basis to a
huge orchestra, by its flexibility, the fascination of its console and its
façade.  They were not
concerned with its historic authenticity but purely its sonic splendor.
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  I challenge organ builders to focus
upon that sonic and visual splendor, seeking to invent even more beautiful and
diverse timbres and to expand the palette of available sonorities while
retaining the best tonal designs of our heritage; I also challenge performers
and composers to ?push the envelope? of repertoire to reach and to
create a new audience.

In this post-modern era, in which the secular world often
appears to engulf the sacred arena, those who would preserve and promote the
organ must look beyond the traditional church for a new audience. Although I
believe firmly that the ultimate fate and design of the organ are inextricably
tied to the church and its worship practices, I also believe that we must
engage the entire populace with our instrument. A growing number of major
concert halls now house pipe organs, and an expanding number of Americans is
initiated to the instrument in secular concerts, thereby discovering the
majesty and mystery which first attracted each of us to the organ. Could we
devise an agreement whereby every organ builder would resolve to sponsor one
concert hall instrument somewhere in America (with enthusiastic cooperation
from the local concert administrators!) and assist with underwriting the cost
to present and publicize concerts and recitals on that instrument? Just imagine
what that could do to introduce, educate, and motivate a new audience (who in
turn will purchase new organs!). This pattern would be
?out-of-the-box,? but ?Change is inevitable; growth is
optional.?

Of all performers, we organists are the only ones who
regularly play instruments of varying dimensions and measurements. We deal with
flat pedalboards, radiating pedalboards, flat manuals, tilted manuals,
French-style consoles, American-style consoles, tilt-tabs and stops, and a wide
range of spatial arrangements. Would any pianist or violinist be willing to
cope with such challenges to muscle memory? And it is now well documented that
organists as a group tend to suffer specific long-term physical maladies from
the constant encounter with their beloved console. Some years ago, my doctoral
student, Catherine Burrell, now also a doctor of medicine, based her
dissertation upon the design of an ergonomically structured organ console.
Basing her research upon findings from computer workstations, Catherine
envisioned a console which wrapped around the player, enabling the performed to
access every control with complete ease and facility.  My own physician suggests that we organists need lumbar
support at the console, such as those used by secretaries and computer
operators at their desks. He envisions a flexible lumbar support invention, one
which would respond to movement of the torso while maintaining therapeutic
support to the lower spinal column. He also suggests a circular manual and
pedal configuration patterned after the newer computer keyboards which encircle
the operator. Another challenge, which organists constantly encounter, deals
with the distance between the surface of the bench and the pedalboard.
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  Since organists are created in varying
sizes, there is no ?one-size-fits-all? solution to this ideal
distance. Therefore, we have invented hymnals to place under the bench and,
more lately, adjustable benches, some of them even motorized! But a high bench,
necessary for those with longer legs, places the arms at a disadvantaged angle
to the keyboards, thereby creating additional problems of its own. Also a high
bench frequently places the performer?s knees in undesirable proximity to
the lower frame of the manuals, potentially even trapping the performer! If the
question involves distance from seat to pedalboard, the obvious solution would
appear to be an adjustable pedalboard, such as the one created for the organ at
the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. Why has this concept not been
generally applied elsewhere? I would suggest sincere study of these concepts,
which could eliminate the skeletal problems which many performers encounter.
Could some clever and insightful engineer design such an ergonomically sensible
console? Could such an ergonomically designed console ever become the industry
standard?

More than 20 years ago Jean Guillou published his
fascinating and challenging book L?Orgue: Souvenir et Avenir, in which he
details the history and his vision of the future of the organ. He describes in
detail his idea for an ?Organ of Variable Structure,? an instrument
which would be constructed in several separate mobile chambers, which could be
transported with ease to performance locations where no permanent organ would
be feasible. Such an instrument would go far to extend the impact of the organ
to a vast and expanded culture. Who will build such an instrument and make it
available? ?Change is inevitable; growth is optional.?

Much has been written and said about the last
century?s innovation of digital technology, and frequently there has been
more heat than light generated by this conversation. While the larger musical
world has accepted the legitimacy of ?electronic music? for almost
100 years, with composers of the stature of Messiaen and many others writing serious
compositions in this medium, we organists have been loathe to accept this
expansion to the resources of the pipe organ. I would suggest that the secret
of the organ?s longevity has been the ability and willingness of builders
and performers throughout history to accept and to adopt the best of every
innovation throughout 2250 years of history.  Now the former National President of AGO, Dr. Philip Hahn,
has written: ?I have opened my ears to the latest technology. My soul has
been stirred.? (The American Organist, February 2001) I believe that the
time has arrived for us to catch up to our musical colleagues and to think
openly and creatively about the fascinating opportunities which are available
to expand our tonal resources and to bring a vital new era to the noble history
of the organ. Might we please evaluate the aesthetic worth of this new sonic
resource from experience rather than from obstinate fear? Might we postpone
writing the review until the performance has concluded?

So, what will be the future of the organ?
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  To be sure, the future will not be the
past, although it must be informed by the spirit of the past. It has been said
that ?If we fail to evaluate ourselves historically, we shall be
condemned to evaluate ourselves hysterically!? And what is that spirit of
the past? I believe that it has always been a readiness to adapt to innovation,
to serve changing liturgical and cultural needs, and to emulate the finest
aesthetic concepts of every era. By this means our ancestors have given to us
an instrument which encompasses stylistic innovations and changes from the
original genius of Ktesibios in 250 B.C. through the onset of the 21st century.
Let us summon the courage to continue the noble pattern of our forebears to
accept, adopt, adapt, modify, and utilize every creative opportunity. We have
been given an instrument which universally encompasses the history of our
musical heritage. May we continue the open-minded creativity which has
characterized the greatest names among our forebears! May we create yet a new
and even grander era for the organ, so that ever more people may be inspired by
this instrument, and so that in the 22nd century our descendants may know that
we saved, expanded, and delivered this noble heritage to them!
style='mso-tab-count:1'>  

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

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

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

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

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

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

Roosevelt

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

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

E. M. Skinner

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

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

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

Erzähler-Christ Church, Hartford, Connecticut

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

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

French Horn-Williams College, Williamstown, Masssachusetts

Kleine Erzähler-Fourth Presbyterian, Chicago

Gross Gedeckt-Second Congregational, Holyoke, Massachusetts

Corno Di Bassetto-Williams College, Williamstown,
Massachusetts

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

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

Orchestral Bassoon (16')-Skinner Studio, Boston

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

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

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

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

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

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

Aeolian Skinner and G. Donald Harrison

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

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

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

Aeolian

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

The Automotive Industry:

Dodge, Horace E., Detroit, Michigan

Dodge, John F., Detroit, Michigan

Firestone, H. S., Akron, Ohio

Ford, Edsel B., Detroit, Michigan

Kettering, C. F., Dayton, Ohio

Olds, R. E., Lansing, Michigan

Packard, W. D., Warren, Ohio

Seiberling, F. A., Akron, Ohio

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

Merchants and Manufacturers:

Armour, J. O., Lake Forest, Illinois

Cudahay, J. M., Lake Forest, Illinois

DuPont, Irenee, Wilmington, Delaware

DuPont, Pierre S., Wilmington, Delaware

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

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

Wrigley, Wm. Jr., Chicago, Illinois

Publishers:

Bok, Edward, Merion, Pennsylvania

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

Pulitzer, Mrs. Joseph, New York, New York

Scripps, W. E., Detroit, Michigan

Railroads and Public Utilities:

Flagler, John H., Greenwich, Connecticut

Harriman, E. H., Arden, New York

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

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

Steel and Oil:

Carnegie, Andrew, New York, New York

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

Rockefeller, John D., Pocantico Hills, New York

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

Schwab, Charles M., New York, New York

Teagle, Walter C., Portchester, New York

Wurlitzer

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

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

Holtkamp

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

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

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

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

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

Schlicker

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

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

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

Fisk

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

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

Summary and Conclusions

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

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

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

In the March, 1997, edition of this journal we published
"Is The Pipe Organ A Stepchild In Academe?" The purpose was to call
attention to the perilous status of the King of Instruments in many
institutions of higher learning and to suggest concrete ways to shore up its
uncertain future. We closed the article with a call to action, a plea for
concerned friends of the organ--faculty, students, alumni and laymen--to take
determined action. We cited two examples of what is required: "Friends of
the Northrop Organ" at the University of Minnesota and alumni tours of
Woolsey Hall at Yale University, and we mentioned a followup article spotlighting promising developments.

The purpose of this article is to review the nature of the
problem in the context of the current complexion of higher education and to
discuss several auspicious programs in some detail.  The wholesale neglect, abandonment, and sell-off of organs
in colleges and universities which, sadly, threatens to continue, is perceived
as a nationwide phenomenon. This situation is attributed to the emergence of a
pervasive market-driven mentality in academe. Ill-advised budget officers and state legislatures are today preoccupied with student numbers and credit hours as the overriding criteria for funding. Policy and operating decisions by
administrators are based upon a frantic search for "hot buttons"
(computer science and genetic engineering, for example) to bolster enrollment
amid intense competition for students who are increasingly vocationally
oriented in their choice of school and curriculum. This short-sighted pragmatic
approach threatens the distinguishing features of a campus setting and its
time-honored mission as the repository of our culture, and the harbinger of our
future as a cultivated society.

In preparing this article the author has talked with a score
of music professors in all types of schools, public and private, large and
small, coast to coast. He has discovered some remarkable programs, which are
attracting institutional and community support leading to increased student
enrollment and funding. If the bold and imaginative initiatives taken by many
schools are adopted by others, the pipe organ has a bright future in academe.

Invaluable Goods

We repeat our premise that a pipe organ is not merely an
appliance or teaching device, but is a campus jewel along with the telescope,
the book collection and the art gallery. So recognized, these treasures should
be impervious to cost-cutting, down-sizing and departmental budget allocations
based upon enrollment. They should be classified as "invaluable
goods," a concept eloquently articulated by Professor Kenneth Arrow of
Stanford University, an internationally renowned economist awarded the Nobel
Prize in economics in 1972.  The
occasion for his commentary is his review of Margaret Jane Radin's seminal work
Contested Commodities in which her fear is that "actions which are
essential to personal identity fall under the sway of the market and are
measured by its criteria." Arrow's concept of invaluable goods rests upon
the belief that certain aspects of human life are so essential to whole
personhood that their existence and ultimate value cannot be measured in
dollars and cents. They are not--and should not be--bartered in the marketplace
and their value should not be judged by a monetary payoff. He acknowledges that
this concept is symptomatic of  a
failure of economics (and of the market mentality): "One of the oldest
critiques of economic thinking has been its perceived disregard of the deeper
and more sacred aspects of life" he writes.1 In short, when we begin, or
insist on, valuing the fundamentals of human life in terms of money, putting a
price on them and, without hesitation, buying and selling them based on this
criterion, we are asking for trouble. One example Arrow gives of invaluable
goods is children. No matter how poor or desperate a family might be, the idea
of selling the children is utterly unthinkable. Is it time that we invoke the
spirit of invaluable goods in our colleges and universities and declare the
pipe organ and other jewels of the campus as integral to the deeper and more
sacred aspects of the higher learning, and thereby untouchable?

We continue with the admonition that the trancendent
three-dimensional sound of a majestic pipe organ, as heard in an auditorium
convocation or chapel service, can evoke emotions which contribute immeasurably
to a vital sense of identity and community in the collegiate experience. One
striking, if novel, example of the lasting imprint of this experience is in
Robert L. Duffus's delightful little book The Innocents at Cedro. It
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  recounts the year 1907-08 when Duffus
and his brother William kept house for Thorstein Veblen in their sophmore year
at Stanford University. The publisher described the book as "an
unforgettable evocation of American college life in the early 1900s."
Written in 1944 near the close of a distinguished career in journalism as a
member of the editorial board of the New York Times, Duffus recalled what,
nearly four decades earlier, were his most cherished memories of college life,
the experiences that meant the most to him. Among them was joining fellow
students for a sack lunch on the quadrangle and listening to Professor Blodgett
practicing on the chapel organ. "The music would rumble along, formless in
the distance, but pleasant and tranquil" he wrote. 2

Auditorium Organs

We noted in the previous paper that the auditorium and its
majestic pipe organ have all but disappeared as a centerpiece of campus
activity. Too small for many functions or pre-empted by the drama department,
the auditorium often stands anonymously as a symbol of the vast increase in
enrollment and of specialized curricula, which together with other forces, have
compartmentalized student life into various "schools,"
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  i.e., engineering, business, nursing,
agriculture and others. We are happy to have discovered two exceptions.

Mansfield University

Mansfield University in Pennsylvania is one of fourteen
former state teachers colleges which now comprise the "University
System."  Its two organs are a
25-stop three-manual Austin, Opus 297, 1917, in Strawn Auditorium and a 27-stop
three-manual Moller, Opus 10652, 1970, in the Stedman Theater wing of the
Butler Music Building.

  These
instruments are the pride and joy of President Rod C. Kelchner, a graduate of
the school, who says: "You would have to drag me across the campus kicking
and screaming to get rid of our organs." He calls them significant symbols
in the ambience and character of the school and its history. He laments that
with the many changes in academe in recent years, history fades and is
forgotten; hence the need for reminders and recognition. Just as furniture
makes a house livable, hospitable to visitors and complements the personalities
of the occupants, so too do the treasures of a campus give it definition and
persona and bridge the generations, he asserts.

President Kelchner's office, not the music department, has
contracted for five maintenance visits per year for these instruments. This is
particularly significant because it illustrates the role the top administration
must play in the recognition and preservation of campus instruments. His
loyalty and devotion are especially noteworthy because Mansfield has not been
immune to organ enrollment trends. When the organ professor retired two years
ago he was not replaced, there are currently no organ majors on campus, and he
has had to go off-campus to find people to play the organ for commencement.

In another gratifying endorsement of music and its place in
the history of Mansfield, which will gladden the hearts of musicians
everywhere, President Kelchner chose Carl Ruck, a graduate of the school, as
commencement speaker two years ago. A well-known keyboard performer in the
Washington, D.C. area, Mr. Ruck also performs frequently on campus and is a
member of the alumni board. Kelchner toyed recently with the idea of a "non-traditional"
commencement, calling for the speaker, a musician, to be seated at the organ
console in Strawn Auditorium, playing and narrating classical music and its
place in time-honored liberal education, providing an alternative to the customary remarks to graduates.   

Boston University

The John R. Silber Symphonic Organ in the George Sherman
Union at Boston University is an eloquent example of the role of a pipe organ
as a distinctive jewel in a campus setting This instrument originated from gifts
of two residence organs to the school by prominent trustees who recognized the
lasting value of them in America's musical heritage and whose resources and
devotion to the school found expression in creating this one-of-a-kind campus
jewel.  The first organ was a small
Skinner in the home of Percy Rockefeller in Greenwich, Connecticut. The second
was a larger Aeolian from the Winchester mansion of William E. Schrafft, the
Boston candy-maker. Meticulously restored and greatly enlarged by organbuilder
Nelson Barden, this spectacular instrument resides in Metcalf Hall in the
Sherman Union, and was dedicated in October, 1994, in honor of Silber, the
Chancellor of Boston University.

This majestic instrument not only replicates the prominence
of an auditorium organ at the turn of the century, it goes a step further in
defining the institution and making a lasting impression on the students. With
102 ranks and 6,815 pipes, displayed prominently with the entire mechanism, the
latter behind plate glass windows, it becomes a commanding presence in the
ambience of student life. As Jonathan 
Ambrosino remarks: "From the start, the instrument was designed to
be a living display of art and technology, restored to perfection and open to
the public.  Whether playing or silent, the organ makes a statement on many artistic levels."3 As students pass through the building daily to and from classes, and as alumni gather for
special occasions,  the visual
presence and glorious sounds of this organ, linking past to present and transcending the cares of life, will evoke a lasting memory.

Promoting the Pipe Organ

In the economic realities of higher education, the market
mentality of administrators and state legislators who view a school today as a
business is here to stay, like it or not. In the final analysis, the best
guarantee of preserving faculty positions, maintaining instruments, and
budgeting scarce resources for tuning and periodic restoration and updating is,
first, never to miss a chance to call attention to the instrument. Second, is
to "shake the bushes" and aggressively recruit students from
traditional sources on campus and non-traditional sources within the community.
The type of missionary zeal required is found in Prof. William Kuhlman of
Luther College in Decorah, Iowa, who says proudly: "I have done everything
but stand on my head to bring about organ awareness and appreciation."
Indeed he has:  organ crawls after
church, summer organ camps for local grade school children, demonstrations for
faculty and board of regents spouses, family camps, church heritage workshops,
Halloween "monster concerts" and presentations to the local Rotary
Club.

In research for this paper the author has surveyed all types
of schools across the nation. He has come upon some enterprising and
imaginative faculty who are "pulling out all the stops" to promote
their departments, programs and instruments with gratifying results.
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  For purposes of analysis and
discussion, it is useful perhaps to divide the landscape of higher education
into three categories: small liberal arts colleges, state colleges including
urban branches of state universities, and major music schools and universities,
particularly those noted for professional and graduate study.

Liberal Arts Colleges

The liberal arts colleges were historically church
affiliated and many retain strong church ties today. The Lutheran schools, in
particular, enjoy a rich legacy of liturgical music in the heritage of their
denomination, and churches of all denominations traditionally reflect the
prominence of music in the experience of corporate worship. Thus, the church
connection augurs well for maintaining pipe organs as integral to campus
resources and central to the music program. These schools benefit from an
articulate and active alumni and the corresponding sensitivity of the
administration and trustees to alumni concerns in budgeting decisions. The
choice of liberal arts as an initial course of study is perhaps indicative of a
lesser concern with the vocational job-market payoff in selecting a school and
a curriculum. The church-going life style of students enrolled in these
schools, particularly those students having a musical background and interest,
may cause them to contemplate making a musical contribution to parish life and
to prepare for organ and choral opportunities. Therefore, although these
schools are not totally immune to the market-orientation mind-set, and have
adjusted curriculum to broader trends, they have never suffered such a loss of
organ enrollment as to justify ending the curriculum and liquidating the
instruments. The challenge of these schools is to continue to insure the
rightful place of music in the philosophical and operational image of the
liberal arts and to affirm organ study in music programs, resources and curriculum.

Marylhurst College

Practical Outreach

One of the most imaginative and innovative programs in a
four-year undergraduate curriculum is the one developed by Nancy LeRoi Nichol
at Marylhurst College, a Catholic women's school in Portland, Oregon. Acutely
aware of the precarious position of organ studies in her school and elsewhere,
where faculty are constantly admonished to "double our enrollment"
and to be "accountable" in matching revenue with cost, she has taken
giant steps to expand the student base far beyond the traditional BM and BA
degree programs in organ performance and sacred music. Her efforts benefitted
from a rich tradition in sacred music in the order which founded and operates
the school, and from the George Bozeman rebuild of a vintage Hutchings-Votey
tracker instrument installed in the auditorium in 1995.

Cornerstones of the new format at Marylhurst are two new
classes, a one-semester "Meet the Organ" and a one-year "Basic
Training in Organ." The first class is a semi-private group of three to
four students who, in recent enrollment, have ranged in age from 24 to 74. They
are seeking primarily a general introduction to the instrument. The class may
include non-organ music majors, non-music students from other departments and
music aficionados from the community. It sets its own course of study such as
service playing knowledge and skills, a specific repertory area, or perhaps,
depending on the students, preparation for an AGO exam. The goal of this course
is to foster a love of the instrument and its music, to recognize its singular
historic prominence in the spectrum of music and to promote the contemporary
role of the organ on campus and in the community.

The "Basic Training in Organ" class meets
two-hours a week in three ten-week terms, for a total of 60 hours of
instruction. Enrollment is limited to eight participants who are solicited
through a letter to local clergy of all faiths. It reminds them of the chronic
local, as well as national, shortage of organists and points out that this
economical and efficient program will fulfill their needs. Churches also are
encouraged to subsidize all or part of the students' $1242 per year tuition as
a wise and minimal investment that will pay rich dividends for many years in
the worship life of the congregation. Results have been most encouraging, with
interest coming particularly from piano teachers who welcome the opportunity to
broaden their keyboard experience and to increase their income potential by
becoming part-time church organists. In the class they learn fundamentals of
technique, registration, practical repertoire, and begin each class playing
church hymns.

The new programs more than meet the cost-revenue guidelines
mandated by the administration at Marylhurst. The semi-private group
instruction has been particularly successful in increasing productivity of
faculty resources without any decrease in quality. In Professor Nichol's
experience, the group format, with its collegial and supportive atmosphere for
learning, is far more advantageous to students at this juncture in their
careers than are individual studio lessons. In addition, the group format makes
lessons financially attractive for many students. At the end of the
introductory year the students can choose private lessons or continue in
semi-private instruction in groups of three. The school also has established a
Certificate in Sacred Music option, a two-year program in which one-half of the
curricula is in theology and the other half in music. The success of the
Marylhurst programs can be explained, in part, by the fact that it is primarily
a commuter school in an urban setting. Community outreach and the role of
continuing education is an established factor in its educational philosophy.
Thus, it has long been accustomed to probing the surrounding area for special
educational needs and the corresponding potential for enrollment.

Dordt College

Church Music Training

Dordt College in Sioux Center, (northwestern) Iowa,
illustrates the importance of a strong denominational and cultural tradition in
providing a prominent instrument on campus, and in keeping vibrancy in its
organ curriculum. A comparatively new school, founded in 1955, Dordt is
affiliated with the Christian Reformed Church of Dutch heritage.
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  Most students are from Christian high
schools where music programs are strong. Many students, including 150 from
Canada, are first or second generation immigrants from Holland where the organ
is a centerpiece of their culture. When these families visit the campus they
ask about the pipe organ. The large Casavant tracker instrument in the
auditorium makes a statement (see photo). Thus, music and the organ program,
established in 1967 by Dr. Joan Ringerwole, are a priority in the mission of
the school. The auditorium platform and instrument are reserved for organ
students from 6:00 am to 3:00 pm, after which it is available for choir, band,
orchestra, and other ensembles. As in many other church-affiliated colleges, a
number of non-music majors take organ lessons, seeking to become good hymn
players and build a repertoire of church music, perhaps in anticipation of
strong church ties as adults and an active role as a musician in the local
parish.

The place of organ in the achievements and image of the
school were recognized in an alumni magazine article, "Playing the organ
is their occupation," featuring four graduates from the 1980s who have
gone on to graduate study and to choice positions in the profession. These
include Dr. Christian Teeuwsen, professor of music at Redeemer College in
Ancaster, Ontario; Dr. Laura Vander Windt, organist and choirmaster at All
Soul's Church in Oklahoma City;  
Dr. Pamela Ruiter-Feenstra, university organist and music professor at
Eastern Michigan University; and Dr. Martin Tel, chapel organist and lecturer
in church music at Princeton Theological Seminary. "They're a passionate
group. Each of them speaks with warmth and intensity about the organ, its
repertoire and the joy of playing it," the alumni magazine columnist
wrote. Another organ graduate of Dordt, Brent Assink, president of the St. Paul
Chamber Orchestra, was named outstanding alumnus two years ago. A current
student, Bonnie Runia, a senior from Melvin, Iowa, won first place in her
junior year in the National Federation of Music Clubs competition. These people
speak with glowing praise for their teacher, Dr. Ringerwole, who inspired them.
"She was a gentle spirit, always pushing us to pursue excellence but never
hard on us. At the same time she expected a lot from us," said Vander
Windt.4

University of Evansville

Musical Anchor for Liberal
Arts

The University of Evansville, in Evansville, Indiana,
affiliated with the United Methodist Church, enjoys a rich tradition in organ
which dates back to 1919. The relocation of the school from Moores Hill,
Indiana to Evansville that year coincided with the installation, in the
Soldier's and Sailor's Memorial Colliseum, of a large Moller concert organ.
James Gillette, the first chairman of the music department at the school, was
also the municipal organist. He was succeeded as organ teacher on campus by
Ralph Waterman, who served many years. The program made giant strides in the
1960s under the leadership of Carl Staplin, the nationally-known keyboard
artist now at Drake University, who guided the selection of Holtkamp
instruments for the concert hall and the chapel. Staplin was succeeded by
Robert Luther, who moved to Carleton College in 1975 and he was followed by the
present incumbent, Douglas Reed.

The program also enjoys active support
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  by the administration.
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  The president, Dr. James Vinson, a
physicist by training who has a special affinity for organ music, says:
"The presence of the organ at significant ceremonies greatly enhances the
event." The two visiting artists in the annual recital series, in addition
to Reed's faculty recital, are funded by the administration. The college
chaplain, Dr. John Brittain, also an organist, is equally enthusiastic for the
organ program and its place in the school, as are the comparatively large
number of musicians in other departments.

A distinguishing feature of the Evansville liberal arts
philosophy and of the place of music in it, is the three-semester World
Cultures Curriculum. Here Reed presents a lecture on baroque keyboard music and
plays the harpsichord and the two Holtkamp organs. The organ is used
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  during noontime chapel recitals and was
part of a successful "Music at Midnight" event. Another popular event
in recent years was a "Handel with Care" program endowed by an
alumnus. On tours of the campus for visitors and prospective students, student
guides are instructed to call attention to the instruments.

Other attractions at Evansville for prospective organ
students are the Neu Chapel Organ Scholarship, awarded to a freshman, selected
by audition, each year. Also, the community's unusually rich organ resources
represented by Fisk, Jaekel, and Taylor & Boody tracker instruments.
Students are welcomed at performances and in master classes at the First
Presbyterian Church (C. B. Fisk, Opus 98, 1991) funded by the church's Sacred
Arts Series.

Organ Study and Other Curricula

If liberal arts students also are sensitive, ultimately, to
the employment outlook (i.e. the absence of well-paying positions in church
music), a majority of organ students are likely to be part-time while wisely
acquiring marketable skills in other departments. Nonetheless, part-time
non-music degree students are quite enough to support a program and to justify
the security of organ faculty and resources. This is the experience of Dr. John
Behnke of Concordia College in Mequon, Wisconsin. The majority of his students
are in accounting, business, physical therapy and other majors. They welcome
the opportunity to pursue a personal if not a primary career interest. His
appeal to them is based on his fervent belief that the future of the organ and
its role in a liturgical setting 
(where it is the most effective musical vehicle for leading group
singing) is in training grassroots organists. "Playing hymns well, playing
exciting uplifting hymn preludes are of equal importance to the organ
masterworks," he says, adding "I believe training an organist
exclusively for a career as a concert performer is unrealistic." The
importance of a church focus is echoed by Professor John Ferguson at St. Olaf
College who asks: "Why should a church invest in a college or university
trained organist if that person leads congregational singing no more creatively
than an amateur?" His experience suggests that students are interested in
developing skills as church organists as well as performers of the literature.
"They know that most of the professional opportunities are in
churches." The dual focus upon literature and church music at St. Olaf
perhaps explains why the organ department remains strong with 12 Bachelor of Music performance or church music organ majors out of a total of 26 organ students this year.

Much recruiting of high school students for future organ
study is indirect, as Davis Folkerts of Central College in Iowa explains. That
is, it begins with  the admissions
office soliciting applicants in the entire spectrum of music: band, orchestra,
vocal and keyboard. John Hamersma of Calvin College in Michigan finds music
students often are persuaded that organ study wisely complements their basic
program; such as in fulfilling the keyboard requirement in music education, or
as part of a combined degree, perhaps in music and religion. He observes
that  the organ holds a fascination
for students, once on campus, because of its size, visual appearence, range of
pitch, volume and color. Karen Larsen of Wartburg College in Iowa notes that
the flexibility of combined degrees, and of a broad curriculum in music, is
especially appealing to students due to uncertainties of the job market. And as
W. N. Earnest of  The Old Presbyterian Meeting House in Alexandria, Virginia notes: "Schools of all sizes and the AGO should recognize that churches aren't looking just for organists anymore; they're looking for ministers of music."

In the church affiliated liberal arts colleges, organ
teachers are accustomed to teaching courses as well as studio lessons and, in
fact, they welcome this broad approach to music as integral to their
philosophical approach to education. Professor Rudolf Zuiderveld of Illinois
College considers himself a professor of music, not just
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  of organ. He views himself as an
advocate of the liberal arts and its cosmopolitan approach to learning, a
curriculum he much prefers over a conservatory education at the undergraduate
level.

Drake University

At Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, a regional
privately-supported school, promoting the pipe organ is, in large measure,
maintaining the momentum of its sterling reputation. Drake is an eloquent
example of a thriving private school in a large metropolis (Washington
University in St. Louis is another) which is a focal point of the artistic and
cultural life of the community. It enjoys high visibility and widespread
community financial support. This in turn fosters administrative resource
priorities in support of its image.

Drake is well-known and highly regarded in the organist
profession,  particularly for its
excellent preparation for graduate study. This mirrors its emphasis on
performance. The bachelor's degree curriculum in church music requires the same
number of performance hours as a performance degree. The school's reputation is
also based upon its faculty and resources. The former began with the venerable
Frank Jordan in the 1940s , continued with the legendary Russell Saunders, and
is represented today by the well-known Carl Staplin. The resource attraction is
anchored in the 1972 Fine Arts Complex featuring a 50-rank three-manual
Holtkamp recital  instrument, a
three-manual Reuter studio organ and two modern practice organs. Mechanical
action instruments by Phelps and Dobson in nearby churches are also used for
teaching and recitals. Total organ enrollment of 39 students in 1997-98 attests
to the vibrancy and competitive position of  the school. Drake has recently launched a certification in
church music program encompassing seven courses in church music and eight hours
of studio instruction scheduled in weekend classes and to be completed over two
years.

State Colleges

In our second category of schools are former state colleges,
many of them now universities, which began as teachers colleges, located
regionally throughout the states, and new schools. Grand Valley State
University in Michigan is 
representative of large public institutions which emerged in response to
population growth and voter demand for higher education. It also reflects the
crucial role of private funding in adding essential resources to the base of
public support. Founded only thirty years ago, it enrolls thirty thousand
students, and aggressively recruits from the region with an ever-expanding
array of courses and programs. The Cook-DeWitt ecumenical center and concert
hall, the gift of two families, houses a 27-rank, two-manual Reuter organ. This
instrument permits organ instruction as the initial step in the future development of an organ curriculum.

In this classification we also include branches of state
university systems located in metropolitan areas, schools that are
predominantly vocational in orientation, offering myriad programs for part-time
and full-time day and evening students of all ages. These schools are the
quintessential examples of mass higher education focusing on transmitting
knowledge and skills and on training students for opportunities in the world of
work.

With their emphasis on career preparation in certificate and
degree programs, these publicly-supported schools are expected to bear the
brunt of the projected tidal wave increase in enrollment in the next several
years (400,000 in the next eight years in California alone), placing a premium
on facilities and bringing enormous pressure to increase faculty-student
ratios. The urban campus perhaps will end up resembling Grand Central Station,
with legions of students funneling in and out, moving anonymously through their
huge classes with scarcely any attachment to the school. Adding to this
prospect is the anticipated revolutionary impact of the Internet which in the
long run may diminish seriously the role of the campus in the educational
process. 

Yet sheer numbers and the clamor for low-cost education
should augur well for a minimum number of students in organ. Although campus
facilities may be crowded, the proximity of church instruments nearby, many of
them large and up-to-date, should fill the needs.  These schools will be able to capitalize on nearby
off-campus resources because churches, desperate for revenue, will be only too
glad to rent their faciliies. 

Central Missouri State

Central Missouri State University in Warrensburg, Missouri,
is symbolic of the transition of a school from having an auditorium organ as a
campus centerpiece to a much larger campus with specialized department
facilities. In 1923 the school installed a three-manual Austin organ in the
auditorium as a memorial to alumni casualties of World War I. Its prominence in
the image of the school was indicated 
by the photograph of the console in the college viewbooks of this era.
Heavily used until after World War II, the organ and the auditorium were
largely abandoned as a music facility when instruction and performance relocated
to a new music building with a McManis organ (see photo) which now services
department needs.

CMSU reflects some developments in state funding which in
their experience have worked to the detriment of organ enrollment. Formerly,
students paid a flat tuition fee per term which covered every type of
instruction, including studio organ lessons at no extra charge. This encouraged
students, many with strong church ties, to study organ as an academic interest
apart from their major field of study. Beginning in 1985, however, the school
moved to a fee schedule based upon number of credit hours. With the rising cost
of higher education, coupled with the premium placed on graduates with
marketable skills, the result of this "pay by the drink" mentality
has been to force students to concentrate on their major and degree
requirements, and to forego organ lessons because of the additional cost. In
Professor William McCandless's judgment, this has caused a noticable reduction
in organ enrollment, omitting those who had looked forward to beginning or
continuing an interest in organ with the resources on campus.

In another far-reaching development in Missouri, perhaps to
occur sooner or later in other states, the legislature has stipulated that each
of the five regional state colleges specialize in a particular curriculum,
ostensibly tied to vocational preparation; one in technology, another in public
service, another in teacher training, etc. The purpose is to foster economies
of scale in educational resources and to stem the tide of rising costs to the
taxpayer. The implications of this development are ominous for the fine arts in
general and music in particular. The legislature has mandated that all future
capital expenditures be channeled into these narrow specialties, and if capital
funds fall short of need, existing resources be converted, without hesitation,
to the newly-concentrated programs. This, in effect, seriously diminishes the
American tradition of liberal higher education and moves these hapless
institutions one step closer to becoming trade schools.

Promotion of the organ by interested people outside the
music department and the school is illustrated by the University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign.  When Michael
Ferris, the organ teacher, resigned to accept a position at the Eastman School
of Music, the chairman of the music department dragged his feet in appointing a
successor. Clergy at campus churches and thoughout the two cities called and
wrote to the dean pleading with him to replace Ferris, which he did in the
person of Michael Keeley. Steve Shoemaker, pastor of the McKinley Foundation
and Presbyterian Church, observes that In the March, 1997, edition of this
journal we published "Is The Pipe Organ A Stepchild In Academe?" The
purpose was to call attention to the perilous status of the King of Instruments
in many institutions of higher learning and to suggest concrete ways to shore
up its uncertain future. We closed the article with a call to action, a plea
for concerned friends of the organ--faculty, students, alumni and laymen--to
take determined action. We cited two examples of what is required:
"Friends of the Northrop Organ" at the University of Minnesota and
alumni tours of Woolsey Hall at Yale University, and we mentioned a followup article spotlighting promising developments.

The purpose of this article is to review the nature of the
problem in the context of the current complexion of higher education and to
discuss several auspicious programs in some detail.  The wholesale neglect, abandonment, and sell-off of organs
in colleges and universities which, sadly, threatens to continue, is perceived
as a nationwide phenomenon. This situation is attributed to the emergence of a
pervasive market-driven mentality in academe. Ill-advised budget officers and
state legislatures are today preoccupied with student numbers and credit hours
as the overriding criteria for funding. Policy and operating decisions by
administrators are based upon a frantic search for "hot buttons"
(computer science and genetic engineering, for example) to bolster enrollment
amid intense competition for students who are increasingly vocationally
oriented in their choice of school and curriculum. This short-sighted pragmatic
approach threatens the distinguishing features of a campus setting and its
time-honored mission as the repository of our culture, and the harbinger of our
future as a cultivated society.

In preparing this article the author has talked with a score
of music professors in all types of schools, public and private, large and
small, coast to coast. He has discovered some remarkable programs, which are
attracting institutional and community support leading to increased student
enrollment and funding. If the bold and imaginative initiatives taken by many
schools are adopted by others, the pipe organ has a bright future in academe.

Promoting the Pipe Organ

In the economic realities of higher education, the market
mentality of administrators and state legislators who view a school today as a
business is here to stay, like it or not. In the final analysis, the best
guarantee of preserving faculty positions, maintaining instruments, and
budgeting scarce resources for tuning and periodic restoration and updating is,
first, never to miss a chance to call attention to the instrument. Second, is
to "shake the bushes" and aggressively recruit students from
traditional sources on campus and non-traditional sources within the community.
The type of missionary zeal required is found in Prof. William Kuhlman of
Luther College in Decorah, Iowa, who says proudly: "I have done everything
but stand on my head to bring about organ awareness and appreciation."
Indeed he has:  organ crawls after
church, summer organ camps for local grade school children, demonstrations for
faculty and board of regents spouses, family camps, church heritage workshops,
Halloween "monster concerts" and presentations to the local Rotary
Club.

In research for this paper the author has surveyed all types
of schools across the nation. He has come upon some enterprising and
imaginative faculty who are "pulling out all the stops" to promote
their departments, programs and instruments with gratifying results.
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  For purposes of analysis and
discussion, it is useful perhaps to divide the landscape of higher education
into three categories: small liberal arts colleges, state colleges including
urban branches of state universities, and major music schools and universities,
particularly those noted for professional and graduate study.

Liberal Arts Colleges

The liberal arts colleges were historically church
affiliated and many retain strong church ties today. The Lutheran schools, in
particular, enjoy a rich legacy of liturgical music in the heritage of their
denomination, and churches of all denominations traditionally reflect the prominence of music in the experience of corporate worship. Thus, the church connection augurs well for maintaining pipe organs as integral to campus resources and central to the music program. These schools benefit from an articulate and active alumni and the corresponding sensitivity of the administration and trustees to alumni concerns in budgeting decisions. The choice of liberal arts as an initial course of study is perhaps indicative of a lesser concern with the vocational job-market payoff in selecting a school and a curriculum. The church-going life style of students enrolled in these schools, particularly those students having a musical background and interest, may cause them to contemplate making a musical contribution to parish life and to prepare for organ and choral opportunities. Therefore, although these schools are not totally immune to the market-orientation mind-set, and have adjusted curriculum to broader trends, they have never suffered such a loss of organ enrollment as to justify ending the curriculum and liquidating the instruments. The challenge of these schools is to continue to insure the rightful place of music in the philosophical and operational image of the liberal arts and to affirm organ study in music programs, resources and curriculum.

Conservatories and Universities

Our third category of schools comprises the nationally known
professional schools and universities including:  Eastman, Oberlin, New England Conservatory, Westminster
Choir College, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, North Texas and Yale. We are also happy
to note that, contrary to the report in the previous article, Syracuse
University, long a member of the elite group, is again prospering and
attracting students under the dynamic leadership of Katharine Pardee. The
curriculum of these schools is centered on career preparation as a performer or
teacher and, with the exception of Oberlin, focuses primarily on advanced
degrees. 

These prestigous schools enjoy a level of recognition and
support not found elsewhere among private and public institutions. The organ
faculty, with advanced degrees from top-drawer schools, are well-known and
highly esteemed in the profession, by virtue of their recital appearences
before American Guild of Organists gatherings as well as from their
well-publicised recital tours in this country and abroad. Their accomplishments
and high visibility contribute to the luster of the programs, are a key factor
in attracting highly qualified students, and, most important, guarantee vital
institutional support. Status-conscious administrators acknowledge that recital
performances and offices in professional organizations are, in terms of
institutional recognition, almost the equivalent of a Nobel Prize.

In addition, these institutions frequently are beneficiaries
of substantial private funding by wealthy individuals and families who identify
with the school as alumni or as benefactors in the arts. A striking example is
the $50 million 1973 endowment of the School of Sacred Music at Yale University
by Clementine Miller Tangeman, based on the Cummins Engine Company fortune
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  A more recent illustration is the $18
million Simon Music and Library building at Indiana University, now awaiting a
52-stop Rosales tracker organ. This building was funded exclusively by private
subscriptions to the University Foundation, not an appropriation by the
legislature of state tax dollars. 
The University of Iowa music department has also been privately endowed.
The prominence of these schools, in recent times, has hinged significantly on
private funding and their continued prosperity will depend on these sources.

These schools represent what Martin Trow defines as elite
higher education which centers around high ambition and the resources required
to nuture it. This paradigm reflects a close and prolonged relationship between
student and teacher, and the social and physical setting in which this kind of
relationship can exist, i.e., low faculty-student ratios, excellent physical
plant and other resources. It makes high demands on students in the severity of
the curriculum and because of these demands it does not encourage or admit
older or part-time students. It is most likely to be residential, highly
selective and richly staffed. Clearly these schools are in a class by
themselves. As Trow notes: " . . 
. elite higher education is too costly; . . .  only a fraction of students and teachers have the interests,
motivations and ability to profit from the intense and demanding personal and
intellectual relationships that mark it."5

Oberlin College

No discussion of the pipe organ in academe would be complete
without reference to Oberlin College which stands preeminent in the history of
music in colleges and universities in America. The nation's first conservatory,
founded in 1865, Oberlin is internationally recognized for its faculty and
facilities offering world-class musical training. With its rich tradition,
legions of distinguished artists and performers among its graduates,
unparalleled facilities, and uncompromising ideals in the higher learning, it
is clearly the exception to other schools. A leitmotif for excellence in
American higher education, the school has been blessed with the resources
required to maintain its gold-plated image. The luster and status of organ
study at Oberlin is confirmed by the spectrum of instruments beginning with the
1974 Flentrop in Warner Concert Hall embracing the 18th-century North German
style. It continued with the Brombaugh organ in Fairchild Chapel as an exquisite
example of the late Renaissance period. To complete the rainbow the school has
contracted for a $1.2 million Fisk organ, scheduled for installation in Finney
Chapel in 2001. A symphonic organ, made possible by the initial bequest of Kay
Africa, it will be well-suited for music of the 19th and 20th century. Styled
in the paradigm of Aristide Cavaillé-Coll, this Tiffany instrument will
reinforce Oberlin's image as progressive and up-to-date in the world of organ
pedagogy. In  the Fisk Opus List it
joins the company of Harvard, Stanford, Michigan, Rice and Wellesley, among
others, in the gallery of this prestigous trophy builder.
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  North Texas University has also
selected Fisk to build the recital organ for its new concert hall, as yet
awaiting funding.

Yet despite its lofty status, and the preferred position of
its graduates in the music marketplace, Oberlin has addressed the legitimate
aspirations of students who seek flexibility and potential employment options
outside music performance. The answer is a double degree program; a fifth year
program established thirty years ago for conservatory students who then receive
a Bachelor of Arts degree. This "Double Degree" program now includes
one-third of the 550 students enrolled in the conservatory. Officially described
as a program to produce a more broadly educated person, it undoubtedly reflects
a recognition by the school, and by the students, of the need to explore many
possibilities at this juncture in their budding careers. Oberlin's challenge is  to continue to command the financial resources needed to attract top talent, which means the generous scholarships required to bid them away from  competing schools.

Westminster Choir College

The staggering financial requirements of private higher
education today were dramatically illustrated in the recent history of
Westminster Choir College whose phalanx of prominent graduates have made it a
household word in American church music. According to Professor Eugene Roan,
the merger with Rider College (now University) three years ago was a godsend in
the fortunes of a school that, despite its sterling reputation, could not have
survived as a stand-alone institution 
For Rider, a college little-known outside New Jersey, the Westminster
acquisition gives them an instant nationwide visibility and prestige that no
amount of money could buy. As for Westminster, it gained the necessary
resources in scholarships and bricks and mortar to continue its storied
tradition. The organ program counted a total enrollment of 51 in the Fall of
1997 including 22 graduate students. The standards of admission and levels of
performance are the highest on record, according to Roan. An excellent
placement program features a subscription-only job newsletter circulated every
two weeks. With a preferred position in an uncertain nationwide job market for
church musicians, Westminster should continue to attract students who can
reasonably expect to find employment in their chosen profession upon
graduation.

The so-called elite institutions under discussion are
indicative of the fact that nationwide there is a core of highly qualified and
professionally ambitious students who actively pursue quality education in
high-profile schools, but who are increasingly selective in their choice of
school and are actively shopping for the best financial package. Therefore, the
financial challenge is one of obtaining scholarship money in ever increasing
amounts to attract the top talent and to compete successfully with other
schools which are seeking the same students. This is the economic price one
must pay for being an elite institution.

Summary

We have argued that the pipe organ is a jewel of a campus
setting, imparting definition and meaning to the collegiate experience.
Unfortunately, this fact has not been adequately acknowledged by the majority
of decision-makers. We have shown that if the organ is not to continue to fall
victim to enrollment criteria as the basis for funding, it must be aggressively
promoted on campus: to trustees, alumni, visitors, townspeople, in special
programs and to today's generation of students.  It should be featured in campus publicity, on tours, in the
alumni magazine, and in the recognition of organists among prominent alumni.
Marylhurst, with its enterprising community outreach, Dordt capitalizing on
church ties, and Evansville emphasizing the core of the liberal arts, are
showing the way. The innovative approaches of these schools, others we have
noted, and, no doubt, many more, can be adopted and applied successfully by
schools everywhere. The costs are minimal and the potential rewards are great.
Undeniably, the potential is there--in group study, combined curricula, and
untapped student sources within the community.

Organ professors in academe are a very close-knit
professional group who communicate with each other frequently and who are eager
to find ways to bolster the immediate prospects of their school and the
fortunes of their colleagues elsewhere as well. They should be encouraged to
exchange ideas in regional and national gatherings of organists and music
educators and on the Internet. The professional media should be admonished to
publicise program details and achievements. Perhaps the AGO should contemplate
establishing awards to individuals and programs that demonstrate innovation and
leadership in advancing the profession and the instrument.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>      

For critical comments on earlier drafts of this paper the
author gratefully acknowledges: 
Byron Arneson, Nelson Barden, Jack Bethards, Charles McManis, Albert
Neutel, Jack Sievert and Haskel Thomson.

For research input the author thanks:
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  John Behnke, Margaret Cries, George
Damp, Delbert Disselhorst, W. N. Earnest, John Ferguson, Davis Folkerts, Lee
Garrett, John Hamersma, Rod Kelchner, William Kuhlman, Karen Larsen, William
McCandless, Thomas Murray, Nancy LeRoi Nichol, Dale Peters, Douglas Reed, Joan
Ringerwole, Eugene Roan, Larry Smith, Carl Staplin, Herman Taylor, James
Vinson, Chris Young, and Rudolf Zuiderveld.

Notes

                        1.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>                  Arrow,
Kenneth J., "Invaluable Goods," Journal of Economic Literature, Vol.
XXV (June 1997), pp. 757-765.

                        2.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>                  Duffus,
R. L., The Innocents at Cedro, New York: 
Macmillan, 1944, p. 25. 
Reprint Augustus M. Kelley.

                        3.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>                  Ambrosino,
Jonathan, "The John R. Silber Symphonic Organ at Boston University",
The New England Organist,Vol. 7, No. 3, May & June, 1997, pp. 8-11.

                        4.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>                  Jongsma,
Sally, "Playing the organ is their occupation," The Voice,
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  Dordt College, Vol. 42, No. 4, May,
1997, pp. 12-13.

                        5.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>                  Martin
Trow, "Aspects of Diversity in Higher Education" in Gans, Glazer, Gusfield
and Jenks, eds, On The Making of 
Americans:  Essays in Honor
of David Riesman, Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, 1997, pp. 171-270.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>        

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

Pipe organs advertised for sale by colleges and universities raise serious questions about the vitality of the King of Instruments in institutions of higher learning.  Organs that are abandoned or replaced are routinely advertised in the classified columns of The Diapason and The American Organist, an economical and efficient way of reaching potential buyers. However, until now, solicitations by schools have clearly been the exception.

In discussions with active and retired organ faculty and
music department personnel across the country, the author has discovered what
he finds to be a disturbing nationwide phenomenon symptomatic of a paradoxical
trend in higher education.  The
advertised sales seem to be the tip of an iceberg. Many organs, having too
often been systematically neglected and abandoned, are now being sold off at an
increasing rate. The experiences of the schools cited below, together with
comments by faculty who, all too often, have watched the sad spectacle of the
pipe organ fading into the sunset, demonstrate that we are witnessing a crisis
with profound implications for cultural life in America.

The purpose of this paper is to create awareness of the
gravity of the situation. We will analyze causes of the phenomenon and give
examples to illustrate the scope of the problem in both auditorium, concert
hall, practice and studio instruments. The reader will, no doubt, be aware of
similar examples elsewhere. Each one differs but there are common threads
through all of them.  We will offer
recommendations on how persons who are deeply distressed by these ominous
developments--because their lives are so closely connected to the instrument:  faculty, students, alumni and concerned laymen--can protect and promote the pipe organ in an academic setting. In retrospect, we believe the S.O.S. should have been tapped out thirty years ago.

Background

We begin with the premise that a pipe organ on a college
campus is an integral part of the intellectual, cultural, artistic and musical
resources of the school, standing alongside the telescope in the observatory,
the paintings and sculpture in the art gallery and the book collections in the
library. These time-honored treasures of a campus setting constitute the raison
d'être of institutions of higher learning, traditionally the trustees of
our culture and the guardians of our future in science and the arts. They make
possible its mission and accomplishments, and define its status and recognition
among its peers.

We continue with the admonition that a pipe organ is
symbolic of the achievements of western civilization and the legacy of our
European origins. It embodies the collective experience of generations in its
recognized prominence in the creativity and expression of music as well as in
architecture, technical developments and craftsmanship. Without the King of
Instruments, the great music it made possible would not have been written, and
without this rich tradition the instrument would not have enjoyed its glorious
position in history. The pipe organ embraced the finest craftsmanship in
Europe, just as precision workmanship survives in organbuilding today, symbolic
of the artistry of hand-crafted objects. In technical strides, the instrument
was the equal of any developments in the 19th and early 20th centuries. At the
turn of this century, the pipe organ was perhaps the most complex mechanism
ever developed. The combination action and other features of the console,
particularly the unrivaled Austin combination action, were an example of binary
algebra and an immediate predecessor of the computer. The Skinner player
mechanism on residence organs employed a pneumatic/mechanical computer to
decipher the rolls; in retrospect a further development of Charles Babbage's
difference engine dating back to the 1820s.1

Therefore, a pipe organ is not merely an appliance or
teaching device. Its value and contribution, along with other cornerstones of a
campus setting, are in the perpetuation of an atmosphere of excellence in
learning and human aspirations in culture and the arts. Sadly, these timeless
elements have gone largely unnoticed today by college administrators and state
legislatures who fail to recognize the stature of the instrument in their
budgetary deliberations and who base their decisions on square feet of space
required, number of credit hours generated and dollars of support necessary.

The fate of the instrument and the crux of the problem is,
in many ways, a manifestation of the unique characteristics of the pipe organ
which set it apart from other campus resources. The pipe organ in an
institutional setting suffers from a spatial, temporal and what some might call
an existential problem. In comparison with other musical instruments it is
quite large, requires considerable space, is fixed in location and, therefore,
its musical delivery is confined to the proximity of the instrument. In
contrast, violinists and pianists perform in a variety of venues the world over
thereby fostering a close symbiotic relationship between themselves, their
music and the instrument. Moreover, as Will Headlee points out, because of the
nuances and complexities of the pipe organ, requiring a close interaction with
the performer, music making on the organ is akin to chamber music which
necessitates a chamber music mentality versus a soloist mentality.2
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  The linkage between organists and the
instrument is not so close in part because they play many different
instruments. The problem is exacerbated when the music-going public think of
themselves as deciding first to go to hear an organ, and second, to hear a
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  particular organist.
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  Sadly, they don't go very often.
Furthermore, those interested in organ music per se have available compact
discs of the world's great instruments, and in the course of listening to them
they become less interested--and less supportive--of instruments of lower
quality and reputation.

The pipe organ is no longer a priority item with music
school deans and department chair persons, who must compete for students and
who struggle to maintain their share of a diminishing campus budget in an
atmosphere of financially strapped institutions. Tragically, pipe organs are
too often considered expendable. As Western Washington's Albert Smith explains:  in contrast to other musical instruments, a pipe organ is a "terribly expensive musical medium to purchase and maintain."3 In physical and dollar terms it is rather like
comparing an ocean liner to a rowboat. 
A violin may require a new string or two, an oboe a reed.
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  But Smith doesn't have funds in his
budget for a routine service call.

The instrument is also the victim of the pronounced secular
trend in policy decisions in the upper echelons of university administration.
In all but the few remaining traditional church-related liberal arts colleges
which enjoy a very close and continuing denominational affiliation, religious
beliefs are intellectually suspect in the quest for "truth" and
perhaps nothing is more "politically incorrect" on campus today than
organized religion. Religious faith and corporate worship are sometimes viewed
as a sign of personal weakness and dependency. Perhaps because the pipe organ
is so closely tied to the church in the layman's mind, it is perceived as an
antique or museum piece and is, therefore, irrelevant to the pursuit of
knowledge in our time, particularly in the frantic search for "hot
buttons" such as computer science and genetic engineering to generate
publicity and garner public and private financial support.

The declining fortunes of the pipe organ in academe are
also, without doubt, a reflection of the waning interest in high culture in the
baby boom generation. The prior generation, the war babies, were deeply
involved in cultural pursuits, as measured by attendance and financial support.
But their offspring, as surveys show, are two-career families who are often
pre-occupied with television, movies and pop culture, and who frequently spend
their limited time working out at the health club or surfing on the Internet.
Baby boomers' education levels, though higher than their parents, differed
significantly:  fewer chose liberal
arts degrees with the corresponding affinity for the arts; more chose business
and engineering. Judith Balfe, author of a forthcoming study comments:
"For their parents' generation, those who had higher education and higher
income, the arts were far more important to their understanding of themselves
and their civic responsibility." Today, audiences are segmented and
targeted by advertisers, and "the sense of a culture--at least a popular
culture--which transcended generations" is gone.4

In the economic and political exigencies of state
legislatures and often their private school counterparts as well, cost-benefit
analysis has emerged, in this era, as the overriding criterion for the
allocation of funds in higher education. Under these mandates, the pipe organ
is acutely vulnerable to changing patterns of student enrollment and facilities
use. One conspicuous development in this trend is the designation of professional schools as "stand alone" enterprises (the law school at the University of Virginia and the business school at Duke University are examples) with sole responsibility for their financial well-being. Presumably they can be funded adequately by tuition, alumni giving, endowments and continuing education fees, all a manifestation of the economic fortunes of these
professions in our society. In contrast, these sources of support are decidedly
limited for the arts.  It is
difficult to imagine that the income of a church musician would ever endow a
pipe organ let alone a music department or school.

We must emphasize that there are decided limits to the
market-driven mentality which so pervades our colleges today. An institution of
higher learning is not a consumer products business, like detergents or
toothpaste, in which products (curriculum) are changed to suit every whim of a
fickle public. It is not a middle eastern bazaar in which the travelers
(students) shop in passing for rugs and brass (courses). If a college or
university "sells out" to the marketplace and surrenders every
vestige of intellectual rigor and vitality, it risks becoming a trade school.
Over time, the application of cost-benefit analysis in the funding of state
supported schools erodes the distinction of an institution of higher learning
from any other state agency (prison, mental hospital, orphanage, etc.). The
resulting minimum level of funding substantially diminishes its unique and
time-honored function.  Can an
academic institution, let alone a pipe organ, survive in such an atmosphere?
The well-known social critic Thorstein Veblen  in his polemic The Higher Learning in America: A
Memorandum on the Conduct of Universities by Business Men
style='font-style:normal'>, identified what we now term the market mentality;
the prevailing emphasis on "practical or useful" curricula as
measured by the payoff in the job market. If Veblen's acid critique was
premature in 1918, it couldn't have been more prophetic of the sad situation today.5

Auditoriums and Concert Halls

In the earlier decades of this century, the college
auditorium was customarily a focal point of the campus landscape, and often an
architectural masterpiece.  As a
convocation center it symbolized the collegial atmosphere of the institution.
No auditorium was complete without a large pipe organ, often a superb
instrument by a renowned builder such as George Hutchings or E. M. Skinner.
This was also a period in which the university organist enjoyed high visibility
and a prominent position in the faculty hierarchy beyond his appointment in the
music department, in part because, frequently, he had studied in Europe, a mark
of distinction and status in the professoriate of that era. Presiding at the
auditorium console, his heroic and inspiring music welcomed student and faculty
gatherings for convocations, and he accompanied the singing of the national
anthem and the alma mater. He played the processional and recessional for
commencement, and accompanied the glee club. The auditorium and the pipe organ
thus served as a unifying force in the undergraduate experience, contributing
to that vital sense of community, identity and the search for meaning so
tragically lacking in many schools today. No more! In our time campus speakers
are specialized and appeal only to certain disciplines and departments. Schools
have become too large for campus-wide convocations, and commencement has been
moved to the football field to accommodate the crowd. Moreover, in the
politicized atmosphere of a college campus today, there is too often no common
culture or purpose, no collective embrace of the universal values of an
institution of higher learning. Instead, each self-serving school or department
has become "privatized," looking out for its own interests and
grasping aggressively for its share of the diminishing public and private
funding. Whereas in earlier times the pipe organ was an integral part of the
auditorium and its function, now the instrument is too often underutilized and
dismissed as redundant. In the current use of the building it is merely in the
way, something to be ignored or cast aside.

The rebirth of the tracker organ in the 1950s, first with
widely-publicized European imports, and then with instruments by small domestic
builders, polarized the academic community and called into question the
efficacy of the American classic organ and its romantic and orchestral
ancestors. Music departments philosophically and functionally moved toward
earlier instruments, including the harpsichord. Large auditorium organs were
suddenly deemed out of date and expendable. This was also a time when budgets
allowed for obsolescence and replacement. But not today! Gone are the times
when instruments could be changed every generation in compliance with
nationwide fads and fashions, or to suit the demands of the teaching profession
who argued that a tracker instrument was necessary to attract students and who
were most likely expressing their desire to emulate their peers. Not that
obtaining a tracker was any assurance of protecting the status of the organ in
the school. True, they are smaller and require less space. But because of the
fundamental connection of the organ with church music, there is still the risk
of its being alienated by the deeply entrenched secular outlook on campus.

James Madison University

James Madison University, named for our fourth president, is
a school of 12,500 students in Harrisonburg, Virginia, southwest of Washington,
D.C. In 1937, the then Madison College, one of three teachers' colleges or
"normal schools" in the state, installed a landmark four-manual
fifty-two rank Möller pipe organ in Wilson Hall, scaled and voiced by the
legendary Richard O. Whitelegg. 
According to the late John Hose, Möller tonal director, this
instrument was one of the first four-manual Whitelegg Mollers.6 The dedicatory
recital was played by the nationally known keyboard artist Charlotte
Lockwood.  In a Möller
advertisement in the January, 1937 edition of The American Organist, the
builder stated that the instrument ". . . has already been adjudged as
definitely outstanding among the best organs in the East."7 This
pronouncement was validated by Senator Emerson Richards, who, reviewing the
instrument in the September edition of the same journal added: "Organ history has begun a new chapter and M. P. Möller Inc. is to be congratulated upon having written one of the first verses."8 Apart from its place in the resources of the university,  this instrument is an important milestone in the organ reform movement, and in the history of the Möller Company, for decades one of the premier companies in the American organ industry and now defunct. It is a signature instrument in the career of Whitelegg, an important figure in the twentieth-century legacy of the pipe organ in America. Yet tragically, these factors were overlooked when Wilson Hall was renovated in 1986. The stage was extended to accommodate a variety of venues, but no thought was given to the future of the organ. During remodeling the console was disconnected and stored in an unheated construction trailer which turned out to be its death sentence. As is well-known among organbuilders, a console stored under such conditions will deteriorate; in this case, it disintegrated. A local newspaper story soliciting community support to restore or replace the console of the now-forgotten organ fell on deaf ears. The university administration has made it known that campus investments in the arts will, at the present time, most likely depend upon private funding. In locked chambers today,  this majestic instrument stands mute, perhaps never to speak again.

The events at James Madison illustrate another common
problem in the academic fortunes of the pipe organ:  the conflict between the music and drama departments in
multi-purpose facilities. In 1968, the university built a fine arts center and
installed a three-manual Möller organ, a welcome sign that the
administration recognized music and the place of the organ in its concept of
the arts. However, as a result of poor space planning and failure to anticipate
overlap in facilities use, the music department soon tangled with the drama
department for use of the performance area. In due course, the music department
lost the turf battle and the Möller organ was taken out and sold to a
church in Ohio. A large four-story building to house the music department was
built in 1989, but budget limitations prevented the inclusion of a recital
hall, which precluded the addition of a pipe organ as an integral and visible
part of the resources of the facility. The only hint of a pipe organ on campus
today is the two practice instruments in the music building. The faculty uses
five instruments in town churches for teaching and student performances.

New England Conservatory

The sad situation in Jordan Hall at the New England
Conservatory of Music in Boston, is the result of discontinuities, conflicts
and budget priorities, beginning in many cases several decades ago, which are
seemingly endemic to the fate of concert hall instruments today. Built in 1902,
Jordan Hall featured a three-manual Hutchings organ which was a notable
addition to the cultural and musical resources of the city. It symbolized, no
doubt,  the importance of organ
study in the musical philosophy and mission of the Conservatory, as well as the
significance of a recital and instructional instrument in a concert hall.

Rebuilt and enlarged by Ernest M. Skinner in 1920, this
renowned instrument was widely used and well maintained, with a new console in
1928 and further work by Aeolian-Skinner in 1947. As tastes changed in the
1950s, the organ fell out of fashion and other demands for the hall took
precedence. In 1957, its status was seriously diminished when George Faxon, an
icon figure in the New England organ fraternity, left the Conservatory. His
successor, Donald Willing, ordered two European trackers (Metzler and Rieger)
to define the "new look" in pipe organs for the school. By the
mid-1960s, the Jordan Hall organ was passé and neglected; ten years
later it was was unplayable. In 1995, in an all too familiar policy decision,
the instrument was omitted from a $12 million renovation of Jordan Hall on the
grounds of expense and limited use--the busy hall schedule allows no time for
organ students.  One wonders if it
is only a matter of time until the instrument is sold. When an organ is both
unplayable and inaccessible, the chances of its survival are slim indeed.

University of South Dakota

At the University of South Dakota in Vermillion, the
twenty-eight rank, four-manual E. M. Skinner organ of 1928 was put in the dock
two years ago, a victim of deteriorating leather and wind leaks. The school
administration, under pressure to conform to enrollment and credit hours as the
overriding criteria for budgeting, and answering the call of the state
legislature to cut expenses, is uninterested in restoring the instrument. This
experience, common in publicly supported institutions, illustrates the fact
that there are seemingly no appropriations for maintenance, a situation which
is especially devastating for the pipe organ which requires scheduled routine
maintenance, as well as major expenses in the periodic renewal of chest
leather, and today in an electrical upgrade of the console. Today the "Why
do we need it?" reasoning asserts itself as well as the "Look what we
can do with the $100,000 (or more) required when only a few students play it
and hardly anybody listens to it."!

Western Washington University

The 1200-seat auditorium at Western Washington University in
Bellingham, houses a 1951 three-manual Möller organ, which fell into
disrepair and has been unplayable for twenty years. Campus politics have
dictated that the auditorium be used primarily for drama productions. Albert
Shaw, former music department chairman, estimates it would require $100,000 to
restore the instrument to its original condition, an outsized figure as
maintenance budgets go and a sum virtually impossible to justify given the
primary use of the building.

In 1978 Western Washington constructed a 700-seat concert
hall and installed a two- manual tracker instrument to complement three
practice organs. Then, in a familiar story, the theory professor who taught the
handful of organ students retired and was not replaced. Organ instruction was
then terminated only to be resumed after three years and then discontinued
again. Because a service call from Canada, two days at a minimum of $350-$500,
is prohibitive under current department budgets, neither the concert hall
tracker nor the three practice organs are maintained on a regular basis.

The University of Indianapolis

The University of Indianapolis, formerly Indiana Central
College, a United Methodist affiliated school, is yet another example of how
changing priorities and the economics of space use impact the fortunes of an
auditorium organ. It also illustrates the decision to consign the organs on
campus arbitrarily to a music facility and view them primarily as a teaching
and performance vehicle in a specialized and exclusive curriculum.

The recently-sold three-manual Möller organ was
installed in 1963 when the auditorium was used for convocations and chapel
services, campus-wide functions that were discontinued years ago. With the
auditorium now assigned to the drama department, the instrument was deemed
redundant and expendable.  The
possibility of enlarging and relocating the Möller was briefly considered
some years ago, but  the idea ended
when a new Fine Arts Center was built with a 500-seat recital hall to house a
new tracker instrument yet to be installed.

The evidence to date at James Madison University, the
University of South Dakota, the New England Conservatory, Western Washington
University, The University of Indianapolis and perhaps countless others,
strongly suggests that unless determined action is taken, auditorium pipe
organs may be doomed, especially if the building is the only performance
facility on campus.

The provision of a separate "Jewel Box" recital
hall for the pipe organ, as for example at the universities of Arizona and
Iowa, is viewed by some observers as a mixed blessing. On one hand, it would
appear to guarantee a permanent position for the instrument, insulating it from
the competition for space elsewhere in the building. On the other hand,
removing the organ from the mainstream of the music department, as well as the
rest of the campus, threatens to isolate it and erode the much-needed support
of the university community.

The greater use of off-campus organ resources by music
departments is an emerging trend that is viewed positively in certain quarters
of the teaching profession. At the University of Washington, Carole Terry
considers contractual arrangements with Seattle churches to be one of the
strengths of her program. These instruments, of various periods and tonal
design, complement the Paul Fritz tracker on campus, and afford the students a
much broader orientation to the pipe organ and to the spectrum and
interpretation of its literature. They also offer attractive teaching and
performance opportunities. 

This is the position of Frostburg State University in
Maryland which recently sold a 1970 Tellers organ, an instrument that had
suffered from a poor location and whose installation had never been
satisfactorily completed due to budget limitations. The faculty have long used
two excellent and recently updated Möller organs in Cumberland, within
walking distance of the campus, for teaching and performances. That this is
viewed as a permanent solution to the organ resource needs of the school is
reflected in the fact that the recital hall in the recently completed
multi-million dollar fine arts center omitted any space provision for a pipe
organ. A small, five-rank portable organ, to be used largely for accompaniment,
will be the only hint of a pipe organ on campus.

Arrangements between schools and local churches bodes well
for the pipe organ by reinforcing the linkage between the instrument and its
music in a liturgical setting. Yet it also suggests a lack of commitment to the
organ program in resource and curricular decisions of the school and a tragic
neglect of organ music as a foundation for a high quality education in music.
In the tenor of this paper, it ignores the place of a pipe organ in the broader
cultural dimensions of an institution of higher learning. A small portable
instrument to accompany other music offerings is indicative of a very minor and
largely supportive role for the instrument.  The absence of a recital instrument in a prominent campus
gathering place ignores the time-honored place of the pipe organ in the visible
(and in this case articulate) jewels of a college or university.

Practice and Studio Instruments

The sale of practice and studio organs by Concordia
(Nebraska), Cornell University, Frostburg State (Maryland), Kent State (Ohio),
Stevens Point (Wisconsin), Syracuse, and UCLA among others, with more to come
no doubt, is the final phase in the lockstep sequence of events that marks the
diminishing fortunes of the pipe organ in academe. Step one, declining
enrollment, began with economic forces impacting the organist profession in the
1970s. Wolfgang Rübsam of Northwestern University explains:
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  "When it became generally known
that the poorly paid church organist market would no longer justify parental
tuition investment in an organ education, organ enrollment collapsed."9
This was especially true if the degree was to be financed by loans which could
never be repaid on a church organist's salary. Graduate degrees, frequently at
comparatively costly yet highly visible and quality private schools or conservatories, were likewise unattractive because the academic market had dried up.

Step two was idle instruments, and the emerging
"opportunity costs" of the space which clamored for other use.
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  Step three was to sell the instruments.
To appease penurious state legislatures, campus budget officers liquidated the
under utilized resources and converted the space to a current "hot
button" at the school, perhaps a computer lab.  With budget officials breathing down their necks, the music
department meekly acceded to the cuts, hoping to save what they could in a
campus-wide scramble for funds. Step four is to not replace the organ professor
when he retires (Corliss Arnold at Michigan State and Will Headlee at Syracuse
are examples). The final step in this sad progression is the
"outsourcing" of organ instruction; i.e, to contract with a local
organist to teach the few students on a per diem basis with no benefits.

Concordia College

Concordia College in Seward, Nebraska is one of numerous
Concordia schools in the Lutheran denomination, whose traditional purpose was
to train teachers for their parochial schools. The school master or his
associates were also expected to be the parish musician, a tradition dating
back to colonial times; for example, with Gottlieb Mittelberger in the 1750s in
Pennsylvania.10 The teaching-and-parish-musician position reflected, no doubt,
the influence of Henry Melchior Muhlenberg, founder of Lutheranism in America
and an ardent champion of the pipe organ.11 Every student at Concordia was
automatically enrolled in organ lessons, which necessitated fifteen
instruments, most of them practice organs, to service a student body of 600. In
recent years, the number of students preparing for church vocations has fallen
to 40 percent of the enrollment, resulting in "excess capacity" in
pipe organ resources. The decision to sell five instruments was prompted in
part by the desire to convert one practice room into a piano studio and another
into a computer lab. This example is perhaps exceptional in view of the high
percentage of the student body using the instruments. Nevertheless, it
underscores the close relationship between enrollment and resource needs, and
how swiftly an adjustment occurs when need declines.

Kent State University

Kent State University, a public institution in northeast
Ohio, with 22,000 students, including 300 enrolled in the music department, dropped organ instruction in the spring of 1981. The number of students in the combined degree program in sacred music and applied organ performance had dropped to six, far below the number needed to justify a tenured faculty position and to continue practice room space begging for other uses.  Ironically, the school had formerly counted as its organ instructors two of the most promising young keyboard artists and teachers in the country in John Ferguson, now at St. Olaf College, and Larry Smith, now at Indiana University. The enrollment collapse was the direct result of the dismal outlook for organ graduates in the marketplace. This was confirmed in an informal survey by Dr. Walter Watson, then head of the music department, which revealed that the number of full-time organ positions in the greater New York City area, had fallen from 600 in the 1950s to between 150 and 200 in the 1980s, a situation thought to prevail throughout the country.12

The absence of supporting curricula at Kent State in
philosophy and theology to augment the sacred music degree added to the
rationale for discontinuing the program. Two small practice organs were sold to
churches and some thought has been given to selling the 20-rank studio organ
and using the proceeds to update the auditorium instrument, now in need of
restoration. In recent years the financial fortunes of the school were severely
impacted by the statewide budget crunch, which forced the music department to
cancel the marching band temporarily, to remove telephones from faculty offices
and require faculty to pay for photocopying materials for their classes. A
small foundation stipend carried them over until budgets were restored but the
organ instruction situation has not changed. This may be an extreme example of
the financial indigence of music departments, but it is certainly not an
isolated one.

University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point

The University of Wisconsin at Stevens Point is a striking
illustration of the predicament of public institutions which are acutely
sensitive to enrollment shifts and budget constraints.
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  When organ enrollment collapsed and the
organist retired, the faculty position was eliminated and the decision made to
sell the four pipe organs and channel the diminishing resources elsewhere. The
plan now is to also sell the Ronald Wahl tracker instrument and use the
proceeds to rebuild the Steinway concert grand piano. Organ programs in the majority of schools in the state university system, not including the University at Madison, are reported to be severely curtailed or defunct.

Syracuse University

In view of its stellar position in postwar graduate organ
study, the experience of Syracuse University is revealing and particularly
significant.  The Syracuse program
rose to prominence under the leadership of Arthur Poister, a much-admired
teacher and an eloquent spokesman for the organist profession, together with
his colleagues and successors Will Headlee and Donald Sutherland.
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  With the University of Michigan and the
Eastman School of Music, Syracuse shared the distinction of being three premier
graduate schools for organ study in the country. In the 1950s, the programs
benefited enormously from "degree inflation," as Headlee calls it,
which was then capturing the profession: the DMA supplanted the MMus as the
terminal degree in organ performance and became the "union card" for
an academic appointment.

The halcyon days at Syracuse were a manifestation of
promising academic job opportunities for organists, the attraction of the
trophy Holtkamp instruments in Crouse Auditorium and Hendricks Chapel, the
magnetism of Poister and his staff, and the all-important pipeline from Oberlin
to Syracuse where Poister had earlier taught. But Poister knew it couldn't
last. He often said to Headlee, "When will the bubble burst?"13 When
it did, in the late 1970s, the university moved swiftly to drastically curtail
the organ program.  Four of the six
Holtkamp "Martini" practice organs were sold.  When student credit hours plummeted to near zero, the administration elected not to replace Headlee upon his retirement and to outsource organ instruction with a part-time teacher, Katherine Pardee. She was the director of music at Hendricks Chapel whose funding is totally separate from the instructional budget of the school. The experience at Syracuse is an all-to-frequent example of how rapidly a once proud program that educated a generation of prominent teachers and performers can decline and virtually disappear.

The linkage between the initial investment and now
disinvestment decisions in pipe organs as a function of student enrollment
(demand) is an expression of the "imputation" theory of value
(zürechnung) propounded by the eminent Austrian economist Carl Menger
(1840-1921) wherein the demand (bedarf) for and value of an economic good
echoes backward into its resource base. In a market analogy, if the demand for
cigarettes falls, the demand and price for leaf tobacco declines and then the
need for and rent on tobacco growing land recedes.14

Within the music department curriculum and faculty, the
organ teacher is often odd man out. 
This sad situation is attributable to more than the decline in students
and credit hours. It is primarily a reflection of what Arthur Birkby of the
University of Wyoming calls the "softening" or "dumbing
down" of the pedagogical approach to music education.15 The contemporary
emphasis upon country, gospel, jazz and rock-based music means students have
decided that it is no longer necessary to be well-grounded in classical
precepts. Thus the core curriculum in theory, counterpoint, analysis and
composition, where the pipe organ and its music would be recognized, has been cast aside.16 Given this mindset, is it any wonder the organ is viewed today as a "fuddy duddy" instrument, as Birkby laments?  Rübsam adds that with organs and pianos being pushed into the corner in churches in favor of of electronic keyboards and all manner of audio-mixing devices, a career in church music is no longer attractive to the serious musician.

A Call to Action

In the foregoing analysis we have demonstrated how
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  economic and political realities in
higher education together with the indifference of campus leaders and state
legislatures, with their slide-rule mentality (and without shame), have
resulted in a tragic loss of recognition of the pipe organ's time-honored place
in academe. These examples of the liquidation of pipe organs are perhaps logical
and defensible in view of the vice-grip economics overshadowing our
institutions of higher learning today. Yet the impression lingers that the
decisions are based primarily on expediency and without proper recognition of
the place of the instrument among the "untouchables" which would
certainly be true of other campus jewels. One cannot imagine, for example, that
if enrollment in astronomy courses declined, the school would sell-off the
telescope and turn the observatory into a laboratory for genetic engineering.

The following are suggestions that can and must be
implemented to stem the tide of indifference, neglect and abandonment, and to
protect and promote the King of Instruments in institutional settings.

The first step is an awareness of the urgency of the problem
and the need to take determined action. Pipe organ aficionados--professors,
alumni, organists and concerned laymen--must be ready to "lie down in
front of the bulldozer" (so to speak) to stop the carnage. This begins
with periodic inquiries on the status of the organs on campus and expressions
of ongoing interest in their well-being. The "Friends of the Northrop
Organ" at the University of Minnesota, described by Charles Hendrickson in
an article in the March, 1996 edition of The Diapason, is a fine example of the
type of organization that should be established at every school.17

The organ professor must be visible, articulate, and
proactive in promoting the instrument. 
In short, he or she must become an evangelist with fire in the belly, or
as one observer said:  "The
organist has got to come out of his hole, and fight!" They must interact
more frequently with the faculty and campus at large, and use every opportunity
to make sure the organ and its music are included in applicable courses. For
example, to advance the organ as an intellectual and cultural resource to the
larger campus community the organist, in cooperation with professional
organizations, could develop a slide lecture for presentation to classes in
history (western civilization), philosophy (aesthetics), architecture,
engineering and others.

The organist should solicit a firm commitment from the
university administration to recognize and maintain the instruments on campus.
To protect the fine Holtkamp organs at Syracuse, Will Headlee orchestrated a
celebration of the Centennial of Crouse Auditorium. The Organ Historical
Society citation for "an instrument of historic merit worthy of
preservation" was read to the gathering which included the chancellor on
the platform. In responding the chancellor gave assurances that the organ was
recognized and would continue to be honored. Headlee cautions that every time
there is a changing of the guard one has to go in and sell the situation all
over again.

Yale University, under the inspired leadership of Thomas
Murray, university organist, and Nicholas Thompson-Allen and Joseph Dzeda, the
two associate organ curators, has reached out to various constituents on
campus. In a well-conceived effort to promote high visibility and awareness of the pipe organs at Yale, these men have encouraged music students, technology
classes, and other university organizations to schedule tours and
demonstrations of the instruments. Undergraduates expressing an interest in the
pipe organs and occasionally using them as a topic for a class term paper are
welcomed and given full co-operation.

During Alumni Reunion Weekend each Spring, Friday morning
and afternoon tours are conducted of the trophy Hutchings-Steere-Skinner organ
in Woolsey Hall for alumni and their families. Murray demonstrates and plays
the instrument and then the curators guide the visitors on a brief walk through
the chambers. This creates in the alumni a sense of "pride of
ownership" in the instrument and they recognize it and the other fine pipe
organs on campus as an integral part of the heart and soul of Yale University.
This effort was rewarded two years ago when an alumnus, who had joined the
group, was moved to finance the restoration of a rank of pipes which had been
taken out of the organ more than sixty years ago. 

The music department should work closely with other
departments to establish maintenance funding in the budgetary process and
encourage the administration to persuade the state legislature of the
legitimacy and necessity of maintenance allocations. At the University of
Washington, the organ professor, Carole Terry, can submit a requisition for
tuning or repairs but bureaucratic guidelines have thus far ruled out a service
contract. In an effort to confront the realities of the budgetary process and
yet find a way to work within the system, Larry Schou, at the University of
South Dakota, is attempting to consign the Skinner auditorium organ to the
music instruments museum budget to promote its restoration.

Pipe organs should be given maximum coverage in campus
publicity. This includes descriptions and photos in promotional material and
catalogs, post cards for sale in the bookstore (now at University of Wyoming),
and descriptions and comments in campus tours for visitors and prospective
students. The campus radio station could be requested to play classical organ
music every week.

The instruments can be promoted to non-music students
throughout the campus, encouraging them to sign up for lessons, perhaps by
student teachers, and practice 
time. This might include "open console," periods when
students, under the supervision of the faculty, can reserve time to play at
their leisure. Who knows, perhaps some engineering student who elects to relax
at the organ a couple of hours a week, will come back in twenty years, having
made a fortune in computers or genetics, and endow the whole department!

Given the realities of diminished funding, organ teachers
may well have to perform routine maintenance, primarily tuning but perhaps also
minor repairs. In their devotion to the instrument, they must do everything
possible to keep it playing.  When
a pipe organ is no longer playable, it is half way out the door.

As a last resort, schools may come to rely on volunteers to
keep organs playing. This has worked successfully at the University of
Minnesota where the devoted service of Gordon Schultz is well recognized.
Professional organ technicians throw up their hands at this prospect, but it
may be the only re-course. The American Theater Organ Society has been notably
successful in harnessing the skills and energies of enthusiasts. Many of their
members play a major role in the restoration and preservation of these period
instruments.

Workers and community leaders now speak of themselves as
"stakeholders" in the fortunes of the businesses and community where
they work and live, with a vested interest that transcends the exigencies of
competition and profit. Perhaps this concept should be applied in a college
setting with professors, students and alumni viewed as stakeholders in the
cultural jewels of the campus.

In a followup article the author will explore promising
developments in the academic fortunes of the pipe organ.
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  Research for this paper has disclosed
several situations where institutional recognition is encouraging, endowments
are forthcoming and student enrollment is growing. Readers who know of such
illustrations are encouraged to reply to the author on his e-mail:
[email protected]                

For research input and critical comments on earlier drafts
of this paper, the author gratefully acknowledges: Corliss Arnold, Nelson
Barden, Jack Bethards, Dean Billmeyer, Arthur Birkby, Joan DeVee Dixon, Joanne
Domb, Joseph Dzeda, John Ferguson, Laura Gayle Green, Yuko Hayashi, Will
Headlee, Herbert Huestis, Dale Jensen, the late Stephen Long, Richard
McPherson, Charles McManis, John Near, Albert Neutel, Charles Orr, Katherine
Pardee, Robert Rosen, Wolfgang Rübsam, Larry Schou, Steve Shoemaker, Albert
Smith, Larry Smith, John Chappell Stowe, Carole Terry, and Walter Watson.

Notes

                  1.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>              Campbell-Kelly, Martin ed., Charles Babbage: Passages from the Life of a Philosopher, New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1994, Introduction and Chapter V and VII.

                  2.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>              Telephone interview with Will Headlee, July 9, 1996.

                  3.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>              Telephone interview with Albert C. Shaw, October 1, 1996.

                  4.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>              Proffitt, Steve, Interview with Judith Balfe,  "Is Support for the Arts Literally Dying Off?", Los Angeles Times, February 23, 1996, p. M-3.

                  5.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>              Veblen,
Thorstein, The Higher Learning in America:  A Memorandum on the Conduct of Universities by Business
Men,  New York:
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  B. W. Huebsch, 1918.
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  See also Joseph Dorfman, Thorstein
Veblen and His America, Seventh Edition, Clifton, N.J.: Augustus M. Kelley,
1972, pp. 234, 395-410.

                  6.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>              Interview
with John Hose and Adolph Zajic, 1964. Another was the four-manual sixty-rank
instrument for Wilson College in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania with a stoplist
designed by Virgil Fox. The famous Whitelegg diapason chorus on the erecting
room floor in Hagerstown was purchased by Trinity Methodist Church in
Youngstown, Ohio in 1942, and later incorporated in the great division of the
four-manual eighty-nine rank instrument completed in 1947. Whitelegg died in
1944. See The Diapason, August, 1937, p. 1, June, 1943, p. 22, August, 1947, p.
1.

First Congregational Church, Los Angeles, January 12-16, 2001

"Despite the nay-sayers, the organ is very much alive and we're going to keep it that way." With that hopeful remark, Fred Swann opened the third annual Organ Alive! conference at First Congregational Church of Los Angeles. Swann started this conference when he assumed the position of organist at the church three years ago, in response to a request from the church leaders for more prominence for the organ. The previous year's conference in January 2000 had been a retrospective of the organ in the 20th century. This year focused on the future of the organ and young emerging talents who will help keep the organ profession vital, hence the subtitle, "The Organ in the 21st century--Quo vadis?"

First Congregational Church of Los Angeles, founded in 1867, is the oldest Protestant church in continuous service in Los Angeles. It is built in gothic style of reinforced concrete, with a square tower rising to a height of 157 feet. The church is a large multi-storied facility--157,000 square feet--with fellowship

/dining hall, chapel, meeting rooms, parlors, and lovely courtyards, providing a very pleasant atmosphere and ample space for the conference events. Thanks to Swann's planning and music administrator Kathie Freeman's organizational wizardry, the conference was well-planned and organized. An army of volunteers from the church gave up their weekend to serve as ushers, set tables, provide refreshments, drive the shuttle bus, give directions, and see that visitors were comfortable. 175 people from 21 states and three  foreign countries were registered for the conference (the original registration limit was 120, they increased it to 175 and still had to turn 63 people away).

After formally opening the conference, Fred Swann asked everyone to stand and launched into a "name that tune" game. He played very brief excerpts from organ literature, starting with the opening of the Bach D-minor Toccata and getting progressively more difficult. When you couldn't identify one, you had to sit down. There were prizes for the winners--great fun for all. The organ in Shatto chapel--34 stops, including seven digital voices installed by Robert Walker--proved able to suggest the characteristic sounds to help us identify the pieces from hearing only a few notes.

The Great Organs

"Like Zephyrus, Eurus, Boreas and Notus, the four winds of classical antiquity, the quartet of organs at historic First Congregational Church are awesome to contemplate, even when calm in the stillness of their vaulted home. From the gossamer evanescence of their lightest stops to the redwood-strength and majesty of their full fury unleashed, they are positively mind-altering in power and heart-stopping in passion." (--Peter Rutenberg, in the program notes for Double Organ and Chorus concert)

While some readers might be put off by the poetic effusion of Rutenberg's description, the great organs at First Congregational are magnificent indeed. Few places in the world can boast of the musical resources available in these organs. The color, contrast, and spatial distribution of the pipes make the sanctuary a very exciting place to hear organ music.

The original 58-rank organ was built in 1932 by Ernest M. Skinner, with William H. Barnes serving as consultant. The organ was greatly enlarged in 1969, but the Skinner hallmark sounds--rich diapasons, lush strings--were unaltered. A large new instrument was built in the rear gallery by the Schlicker Organ Company in 1969, adding great versatility to the church's musical resources with its 17th-century North German character. Schlicker also constructed an Italian-style continuo organ located above the south choir.  In 1984, a state trumpet was added to the chancel organ. In 1990, the church began a renovation and renewal project with three phases: replacement of the consoles with two new consoles built by Möller, new windchests and mechanical repairs for the chancel organ, and, thanks to a substantial gift, the installation of 100 additional ranks to the organs. The two new consoles are the largest drawknob consoles ever built in North America (the movable chancel console was completed shortly before the Möller company closed). All of the organs can be played from either or both of the twin five-manual consoles, one in the chancel, the other in the rear gallery. Richard F. Muench, longtime curator of the organs at First Church, undertook the second and third parts of the work until his death in 1992. William Zeiller, present organ curator, continued the project. The present renovations to the Great Organs will make them collectively one of the largest musical instruments ever built, and one of the largest and most complete organs in any church in the world. When the restoration work in progress is completed, the Great Organs will consist of more than 346 ranks, 265 stops, 233 voices, and 20,000 pipes.

Sunday morning worship

I was eager to attend the Sunday service at 11:00 am, looking forward to observing a master service player in action. I tend to dislike services put together solely to demonstrate repertoire, etc., for conference attendees (though enjoyable, they always have an ersatz feel), so I was glad to be attending a regular Sunday service at First Congregational. Upon entering the narthex, I was greeted by ushers in morning coats, and took my place to listen to Swann's extended prelude--Chorale from Symphony II, Vierne;  Choralfantasy "How Brightly Shines the Morning Star", Buxtehude; Came Three Holy Kings, Glière; and The Children of God, Messiaen. People listened in silence. Attendance was sparse, but those there exhibited enthusiasm. I looked and listened with admiration as Swann played the hymns from memory and skillfully accompanied the conference choir and the First Congregational choir.

Concerts and recitals

Sunday afternoon featured a concert given by the Los Angeles Master Chorale. The program included Kodály's Missa Brevis, Laudes Organi, and Vierne's Messe Solennelle, with organists Fred Swann and Philip Allen Smith. As concert time approached, the sanctuary was filled to capacity--people were standing in the aisles. The 60-voice Los Angeles Master Chorale, under the direction of Paul Salamunovich, is marvelous. Their sound is a seamless and rich straight tone, the altos and basses particularly strong, never outshone by the tenors and sopranos. Fred Swann knew when to keep the organ just behind the choir, and when to let it be at least equal, skillfully using the Skinner organ sounds to blend wonderfully with the voices. Kodály's festive "Laudes Organi" was premiered by Swann at the national AGO convention in Atlanta in 1966.

The Vierne "Messe Solennelle" was handled skillfully by Philip Allen Smith at the gallery organ and Swann at the chancel console. It was a treat to hear this work in an environment that shares important characteristics with the one for which it was conceived. Parry's "I Was Glad" was a thrilling close to an outstanding concert, rewarded with thunderous, extended applause.

The evening before the conference officially began, participants were invited to attend a keyboard tribute to Fred Bock at the First Presbyterian Church of Bel Air. The concert featured organists and pianists playing repertoire from two collections--"Encore, Encore" and "Bock's Best Friends," both published by Fred Bock Music Company--honoring the memory of Fred Bock, composer, music publisher, and former organist of First Presbyterian of Hollywood.

The organ at First Presbyterian of Bel Air was built by Robert Tall & Associates, blending 60 ranks of pipes salvaged from the previous Casavant organ (destroyed in the Northridge earthquake in 1994) with Rodgers digital voices to create an instrument with 151 ranks and 118 speaking stops. Although the organ's range of sounds is impressive, tuning and blend problems were evident. John West, artist in residence at First Presbyterian of Bel Air, demonstrated his expertise in effectively and tastefully handling the instrument's non-organ sound MIDI voices, while Fred Swann handled the instrument's traditional sounds with elegance in absentia (performing via MIDI playback, having been called to a rehearsal), in his own arrangement of "Great Is Thy Faithfulness." A fabulous Steinway concert grand was given equal time on the program, as pianists Jan Sanborn, Dwight Elrich, Mark Hayes, William Phemister, Michele Murray and Dick Bolks performed some lovely hymn-tune settings, several of which were arranged by the performers. These works are published in the collection "Bock's Best Friends" (Fred Bock Music, catalog number BG0967).

In keeping with the conference theme, two young artists were featured in recitals--Felix Hell and Svetlana Fiakhretdinova. The programs were well attended, the audience nearly filling the main floor of the 1000-seat sanctuary.

Felix Hell, 15-year-old organ prodigy, exudes a natural musicality and a palpable eagerness to perform. Dwarfed by the monster five-manual console, from the first notes of his performance he took command. His Bach, Buxtehude and Mendelssohn were elegantly expressive: he lingered over cadential harmonies and exuberantly freed the fantasy sections. His Bach D-major Prelude and Fugue was heroic. The fiendish Schlafes Brüder, his signature piece, sizzled, Felix negotiating its fistfuls of notes with aplomb. Felix hasn't quite grown into the expansive legato style of the Franck B-minor Choral, which also suffered from ineffective registration (though limited practice time while on tour might have been a factor). The Adagio from Widor's fifth sounded hurried, but he romped through the famous Toccata with ease. His encore was the Final from Vierne's Symphony I, and the second encore a repeat of "Schlafes Bruder."

Svetlana Fiakhretdinova, native of Moscow, Russia, was a regional winner in the AGO Young Artists Competition and is a student of John Weaver at the Curtis Institute. She played her program from memory, opening with Guillou's Toccata, demonstrating a very quiet technique. Her Vierne Adagio showed a good sense of the long lines in French music, and the stops of the Skinner organ sang warmly. Her Bach Trio Sonata, though rhythmically supple, was hindered by memory lapses, but she hit her stride with the Duruflé Suite. The Prelude flowed well and rumbled satisfyingly, the Sicilienne bubbled along gracefully at an impressive tempo, and the Toccata was electrifying yet solidly under control.

Noon organ concerts were offered on Saturday, Monday, and Tuesday by Robert Plimpton, Melody Steed, and Sean O'Neal, performers from the Los Angeles area.

Conference workshops

The conference workshops focused on two main topics--performance and organbuilding. Sessions on improvisation, repertoire, MIDI, the role of the accompanist, and organ maintenance made up the performance-related offerings of the conference.

The Los Angeles AGO Chapter, a sponsor of the Saturday events of the conference, had requested that the conference include workshops on improvisation. Two such workshops were held on Saturday afternoon: "Improvisation for the Advanced" led by Bruce Neswick, and "Improvisation for the Challenged" led by Fred Swann. Since I had heard Bruce Neswick speak before, I attended Fred Swann's session. He distributed a handout--"Basic Improvisation Suggestions for the Doodling/Noodling Challenged," which was full of great advice and guidelines, all demonstrated by Swann. The talk was interspersed with anecdotes from his experiences at Riverside Church and the Crystal Cathedral. Mark Thallender, associate organist at the Crystal Cathedral, was coaxed to the bench to demonstrate as well. These workshops were followed by an improvisation recital by Bruce Neswick.

Craig Phillips

If you haven't played anything written by Craig Phillips, call your music supplier. His works have a modern sound with somewhat modal harmony, are rhythmically interesting, and are very appealing to the listener. His oeuvre consists of organ solo and choral works as well as a smattering of works for organ with instruments and various instrumental ensembles. Craig Phillips serves as music associate at All Saints' Episcopal Church in Beverly Hills. He's a fine organist and demonstrated several works based on hymn tunes, including Torah Song, a well-crafted piece based on a tune from the Hymnal 1982. His yet unpublished Pastorale for Bassoon and Organ was lovely, and beautifully played by a bassoonist from his church. He commented that organ repertoire is inextricably linked to the development of the instrument, tied to the church, and for utilitarian purposes, with many works associated with specific instruments and churches. His influences are Buxtehude, Mendelssohn, Franck, Widor and Messiaen, and he views his work as part of a well-established continuum.

Thomas Somerville

Thomas Somerville, director of music at First Congregational, gave a workshop titled "What a Choral Director Expects of an Organist." Far from being a dry, didactic "how-to" session, Somerville's workshop was inspiring and well-planned. His affable nature and obvious respect for his colleagues communicated as much as his outline and remarks. He stressed the importance of communication--about the music and about working together. He distributed a sample of the detailed music schedule he prepares, relating how he discusses accompaniments and plans with Fred Swann and other staff members.

Somerville defines our purpose as church musicians as follows: "to point to, and glorify God as the author of goodness, the creator of beauty, the giver of artistic sensibility and talent, and focus of adoration and praise." He shared five points towards achieving our purpose as musicians in the church: choose music that embodies our purpose, prepare to perform the music to the best of our ability, commit to a musical partnership with all who will rehearse and perform the music with us, maintain an attitude of respect for all who will hear the music, do this with joy insofar as possible. Fred Swann concurrently gave a workshop on designing recital programs. A lively discussion had arisen at the end of Somerville's lecture, and Swann, having finished his workshop, poked his head in the door to tease Somerville about going a few minutes over time.

Robert Noehren

Having been an avid reader of his work and played his instruments, I was thrilled to have the opportunity to hear Robert Noehren speak after dinner on Saturday evening. This elder statesman of the organ world offered a new perspective on listening to music, noting that when you're ninety years old, you definitely live one day at a time. He asked himself two questions: "Do I listen to music simply for the pleasure of it?" "Have I missed that in my profession?" He realized he had been guilty of not truly listening to music. He believes you can't truly listen to music and do anything else, so now he sets aside time each day just to listen--behaving like an amateur, listening with curiosity. This practice has brought music to him in a refreshing new way and has virtually changed his outlook on music. Each morning he looks forward to his listening time.

He detailed some of the repertoire he listens to, and some of his experiences as performer and organbuilder, and made a parallel with food. He wants to make eating an art, to take great pleasure in it. In closing, he recommended choosing only music that you like, playing everything beautifully, and taking pleasure in doing things as well as you can. Live your life with a sense of artistic purpose. Sound advice for a world of people rushing around, often too busy to savor the substance of life. (See the text of Noehren's lecture in this issue, pages 15-16.)

Organbuilding workshops

Organbuilding workshops featured presentations by several prominent personalities from the organ world. John Wilson, organ curator at the Crystal Cathedral, gave a workshop on organ maintenance, offering advice on how the organist can help organ technicians, and what the organist should not do. He shared some anecdotes about the challenges of keeping the Crystal Cathedral organ in tune. Meanwhile, Robert Tall of Robert Tall & Associates, Inc.--a company that builds pipe and digital organs--gave a workshop, "The Magic of MIDI," demonstrating with equipment brought in for the workshop.

Manuel Rosales

Anticipation was in the air as Manuel Rosales took the podium on Monday afternoon, the audience eager to hear what this outspoken organbuilder had to say. Rosales feels it unwise to try to predict the organ's future, but prefers to look back and synthesize the ideas of the past to create something new. He seeks an organ design that allows a vast range of music to be played, not necessarily authentically, but convincingly, allowing performers to bring out the best in their own playing. In the 20th century, much of what the 19th century developed was discarded; the 21st century is now reversing that. He calls this idea the "universal" organ, citing examples from his opus list, pointing out the "restoration of the 8¢ principal in each division," something not common in tracker organs built in the second half of the 20th century.

Two of his latest projects are of particular interest--the organs for Disney Hall and the Catholic Cathedral, both in Los Angeles. The Cathedral organ will be housed in a new building, with a sanctuary seating 3500. The instrument will be built by Lynn Dobson (with electric action and a movable console), with Rosales as the consultant, overseeing the voicing of the instrument. He described the Disney Hall organ as a further development of his "universal organ" ideas. (See the article, "A Brief History of the Walt Disney Concert Hall Organ Project," by Manuel Rosales, in the July issue, pp. 12-13.) For this project, he will be collaborating with Glatter-Götz Orgelbau, a firm he has worked successfully with on two other organs. G-G is building the pipes and other components, while Rosales is overseeing the voicing. The organ's tonal design (4M, 72 stops, 107 ranks) is a traditional three-manual concept, but very grand. He described the organ's 4th manual division, the Llamarada, as "Spanish on steroids," including the Llamada (Spanish for bugle call) and Trompeta de Los Angeles, stops that are "spicy as a chili pepper." The organ will be mainly tracker action, but the big bass pipes and the Llamarada division will be on electric action, a necessity, Rosales says, in large tracker instruments. In fact, the entire organ will have redundant electric action, and a second, movable console will be provided to help the organist hear and be seen. The organ's façade was greatly influenced by the architect Frank Gehry (designer of the concert hall complex), and has been the subject of much discussion. About the design, Rosales commented, "It's something you'll never forget and people will have an opinion about it. However, its unusual design will incite people's curiosity and they'll want to hear it!"

Jeff Dexter

Jeff Dexter is tonal director of Schantz Organ Company, probably the youngest person in such a position in American organbuilding, and an organist himself. Dexter's lecture, "A Look Beyond the Stoplist," dealt with unraveling the intricacies of creating a stoplist and what goes into making it a reality. Dexter excels at presenting technical information in easily digestible form, with a personable style. His purpose was to illuminate what the stoplist reveals: the musical intent of the builder, particular musical goals, desires of the client, and a link to the past. He outlined the building blocks of tonal design: scaling (historical practice and empirical knowledge) and pipe construction (materials appropriate for desired sound), and reliable mechanism so the vision can succeed. He described tonal finishing as the ultimate realization of the tonal design, molding the sound and polishing it.

Panel discussion

Given the framework questions and the organbuilders involved, the panel discussion promised to be interesting. The discussion questions included: Is the pipe organ doomed? What are the trends? What can we do to keep it alive? What "style" will dominate? Fred Swann opened the session by saying, "There's an audience for every type of organ. The main criterion is can you make music on it?" He had invited four organbuilders representing four schools of thought to be on the panel: Gene Bedient--tracker; Jack Bethards--Romantic/symphonic, electro-pneumatic; Jeff Dexter of Schantz--tried and true middle of the road; Robert Walker--digital sounds. Each builder was invited to make an opening statement about his own work and point of view. Excerpts follow.

Gene Bedient: We at Bedient believe first and foremost in creating beautiful, acoustical sounds made by organ pipes. I'm constantly struck these days by the amount of knowledge there is in the organbuilding world--knowledge of types of sounds, of different national styles. My interest is in how we combine those exceptional sounds--and that does not mean only sounds from 16th-century Italy, but everything I've learned abroad and in this country from the early history of the organ through the present. American culture is diverse and has many facets, but the pipe organ is not inherent in our culture like it is in some cultures. It's important that we as organists, organbuilders and organ-lovers engender enthusiasm in the pipe organ among the rest of society.

Jack Bethards, Schoenstein: Our tonal philosophy is based on the romantic or symphonic tradition and it's our goal to try to carry forward this tradition into the modern age by increasing the musical expressiveness of the pipe organ through two main means--increasing its dynamic range and the range of tonal colors. This type of instrument has a solid place in the church because it is so suited to the role of accompaniment and playing a wide variety of repertoire--things that all churches want and need. It is a very musically flexible style.

I see an extremely bright future for the pipe organ in terms of quality and variety. I give a lot of credit for this to sources that may seem surprising. First,  the electronic organ. The electronic organ has now progressed to the point where pipe organ builders do not have to try to satisfy every need, every budget. It leaves pipe organ builders free to concentrate on highly specialized work for discriminating clients who really love the pipe organ. In a way, that is a real blessing. Second is the tracker organ revival. The organ reform movements have been a great boon to the whole organbuilding world in two ways. One, bringing back the idea of thorough research into organbuilding, developing knowledge of what went on before. Another, the interest in fine hand-craftsmanship. Now what we are seeing is a variety of organbuilders working in all sorts of fields, but most of them working for high quality in both mechanical and musical matters.

What about the quantity of organs being built? This is another story, and I'm very concerned about it. The real problem is the music that's being played on the organ. I would classify the music by type and quality. There is music that is organistic and music that is not organistic. What I see creeping into the church is music that is primarily based on rhythm with vanilla harmonic structure. This is a serious problem for those of us who love the great choral and organ tradition. We're being inundated with cheaply-constructed, terrible pop music. I'm concerned that we're not doing enough both as builders and players and as educators to fight this trend of cheapness. We must not back down on standards. We're not in a relativistic world. There are good things and bad things and we need to stand up and fight for the good.

Jeff Dexter, tonal director, Schantz: It was said of our firm by a very distinguished colleague of mine that the Schantz organ company has the distinct quality of building ordinary church organs. While I'm not sure that this colleague meant that as a compliment, we take that as a very, very high compliment. We unapologetically build church organs; 95% of our business is associated with building church organs. I would wholeheartedly echo the sentiments of Mr. Bethards about the quality of church music and how important that is, and how important it is that organbuilders, organists, choirmasters, and leaders of church music make sure that the quality of the music is the absolute best. We need to get young people involved in this art form. We have to be tireless in our advocacy of getting young students involved and interested in what we do and what we build.

One of the things that we're going to see in the early part of the 21st century is something that really has been evolving over the past several decades--an actual American organbuilding school, much like we think of Germanic or French or Spanish schools. I think we're going to see more and more coalescing of that which is "American," just as Willis sounds English or Cavaillé-Coll sounds French.

As organbuilders, whatever discipline we find ourselves in, I believe there is room for everybody at this table in terms of American organbuilding. There are some basic tenets that we could all agree to. First, we have to have organs that are accessible in a variety of ways. They have to be easy to play in the sense that they must be approachable. They must not put off people. They must be flexible in their ability to perform a wide variety of literature, and above all, they must be musical. If they're not musical, we've failed on a very basic level.

Robert Walker, Walker Technical Company: I look at things abstractly because I'm centered in the pipe organ business but I'm not really in it. I love the sound of a pipe organ more than anything--nothing is like it. What we're doing is imitation. It's very good and getting better, but not the same. What makes the pipe organ live for hundreds of years? The pipe organ appeals to the senses more than any other instrument. You feel it, you can feel the 32¢ sounds. The overall grandeur of the organ is going to last. You can create various moods with an organ.

One of the worst aspects of reproducing pipe sounds by digital means is that speakers project in a conical fashion, which is fine for reeds but is terrible for flues. A flue pipe is a spherical radiator. One of the reasons electronic reproduction has not been successful is its speaking system. The one thing we really love at our company is to have an enclosure because we can aim speakers in different directions at different surfaces to get all reflective sound; 80-90% of pipe organ sound is reflective energy. And it's the reflective energy that fills the building as opposed to being directed at it. The pipe organ moves the building whereas speakers move the air. So in order for us to reproduce what a pipe is doing, we need a chamber to really be able to move the chamber in addition to the air.

Walker's last comment sparked some questions regarding organs with cases or unencased and straight vs. concave radiating pedal boards. Further discussion dealt with what the aspects of an American sound are and the fight against pop-style church music. The most interesting exchanges dealt with the marriage of digital voices and pipes. The builders were asked to give their thoughts on the matter.

Walker: Digital sounds can be effective if a quality perspective is taken. All aspects must be considered--how do the sound families match? How will they be tuned? How will maintenance be undertaken and synchronized with pipe maintenance? It requires a great deal of custom work.

Bedient:  "This is one situation where divorce is justified." (great laughter from the audience)

Dexter: Schantz uses digital voices for 32¢ pedal stops and percussion sounds, but no manual stops are digital. Schantz was a founding member of the Associated Pipe Organ Builders of America, which has strict guidelines. Schantz never uses a digital sound to substitute for a real rank of pipes. Their philosophy is if it won't fit, don't do it in digital.

Bethards: Schoenstein uses digital percussion sounds and no others. "We are PIPE ORGAN builders." His concerns about the marriage were related to service and maintenance, and the need to find qualified people who can do both. Also, digital sounds tempt people to make additions to organs that shouldn't have additions. Instruments that have unity and balance can be thrown off by being able to add anything. It's a slippery slope.

At this point, Fred Swann quickly raised his hand and said, "Guilty as charged! I've had digital stops added here." But Swann knows how those sounds should be integrated with the instrument, and how to use them effectively, key concepts to grasp when traversing the "slippery slope" of the world of digital sounds.

Thank you, Fred Swann

The future of the Organ Alive! conference is uncertain due to Swann's retirement in May. In fact, the entire First Congregational music staff--Swann, Thomas Somerville and music administrator Kathie Freeman--retired at the same time. Martin Neary will assume the position of director of music at First Congregational. It is hoped that  he will be able to continue to share the great organs and ample facilities of the church as Fred Swann has with the Organ Alive! conferences.

During the conference, many peopled shared anecdotes about Fred Swann, and reminiscences of performances and of his kindnesses. I was amused by the way he often pipes in with a quip of some sort. My favorite was: "More souls have been saved by two notes on the chimes than by all the mixtures in captivity." He often uses humor to get a point across and is self-effacing. He has served the field of church music for sixty years with his excellent musicianship and inviting manner.

Expressing his appreciation for the presence of the many conference attendees, Fred Swann graciously said, "I can't thank you enough if I thank you every time I see you." No Fred, WE can't thank YOU enough if we thank you every time we see you.

Part 1 was published in the May 1996 issue of THE DIAPASON, pp. 10-13.

The Introduction of Organ Voluntaries: The Organist as Solo Performer

Despite the emphasis on the organist as an accompanist in
the first half of the nineteenth century, the playing of voluntaries did not
suddenly commence in 1850.  The use
of voluntaries became common in some churches after about 1810, although in
other churches (particularly those in rural locations) voluntaries were not
played until much later in the century. In 1835, Musical Magazine in New York
City published an article complaining about abuses in voluntary playing, which
contained the following comments on the problem of inappropriateness:

Every real proficient on the organ, knows that voluntaries
upon that noble instrument, ought to consist of broken passages, scattered
chords, etc., etc., which will not seize upon the attention of the listener but
rather soothe his mind, into calm collected meditation. Any thing like a
regular air would here be out of place. Even the learned harmonies of the
Germans, impressive and beautiful as they are, prove for the most part too
spirit-stirring, in their influence, for American voluntaries. Some of our
organists, however, have but little invention, and others but little taste. So
when they should either be silent or be endeavoring merely to soothe the
worshipers into devout meditation, they rouse them by a march, an overture, a
sonata, or a thundering chorus. . . . Such abuses, if tolerated, will bring
voluntaries into disrepute; if not lead to the expulsion of the organ from our
churches.57

Orpha Ochse adds wryly that if the situation was so bad in
the cultural and intellectual climate of New York City, one could only imagine
what sorts of things the untutored village organists were playing for
voluntaries.58

The common complaint of too much showmanship, which had been
levelled at the performance of interludes, was also carried over to
voluntaries. For example, Jane Rasmussen notes that Episcopal churches were
often the first in an area to get an organ, and whenever possible they would then hire a competent organist from Europe, New York, or Philadelphia. The organists often played virtuosic voluntaries as a form of advertising in order to attract students to supplement their church salaries.59 Whether justified or not, this virtuosity was generally considered distracting to the tone of the
service.  In non-Episcopal (or less
wealthy) churches, this problem would probably have occurred somewhat later in
the century due to the later technical development of native players, but it
became a problem nonetheless.

Charles Zeuner

Prior to the publication of Zeuner's collections of organ
voluntaries, most organists who played voluntaries improvised them.
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  Zeuner presented an alternative for
those who did not yet possess this skill. Zeuner's Voluntaries for the Organ, published in 1830, was the first collection of organ music published in the United States, and consists of six voluntaries.60 Although the use of the term "voluntary" and his designation of the pieces as "Before Service" or "After Service" suggests that he intended the pieces for church use, Zeuner indicated on the score that the pieces were "composed and dedicated to the Handel and Haydn Society, Boston,"61 a secular musical society. However, his second organ publication, Organ Voluntaries, published in 1840, is clearly a volume for the church organist. This is a longer and more comprehensive work than his first collection, and consists of two parts. The first part involves 165 interludes and short preludes in a variety of keys (to be used with hymns). Part II contains "Practical Voluntaries to be used before and after services in churches," with intended uses specified for each piece.62
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  These voluntaries have no pedal parts,
and contain dynamic markings but only minimal registration indications. This
collection forms a sort of bridge between the earlier "methods" and
the forthcoming collections of music with instructive introductions: it is the
first comprehensive printed collection for church use of interludes and (more
importantly) voluntaries, which were becoming the new focus of most organists,
but it does not yet include any of the descriptions and admonishments for
performing them that the later collections include.

The opposite situation occurs in an article from The
American Journal of Music, published in Boston on February 25, 1845, and
entitled "On the Use of the Stops of the Organ."63 The anonymous
author explains that although the organ is the instrument best suited for
extemporizing (voluntaries in church), he has never seen any "practical
treatises" on this subject. Therefore, he provides stylistic and
registration suggestions for voluntary playing. In contrast to Zeuner, this
instructional treatise is all text and no music.

Thomas Loud

Thomas Loud's organ method with its extraordinarily lengthy
title, discussed briefly in the first of this series of articles, was also
published in 1845.64   As the
title suggests, The Organ Study: Being an Introduction to the Practice of the Organ; together with a collection of Voluntaries, Preludes, and Interludes, original and selected; a Model of a Church Service; Explanations of the Stops and their Combinations; Studies for the Instrument; and Examples of Modulation intended to aid the Extempore Student; accompanied by an Engraving and description of the Mechanical construction of the Organ begins with explanations of organ basics important to Loud. These include descriptions of the basic organ mechanisms and stops, as well as practical matters such as beginning and releasing chords (Loud recommends rolling the notes individually from the bottom until all notes are sounding) and playing shakes. Significantly, he uses this material to lead into pointers on accompanying, illustrated in his model service for the Episcopal Church, before turning his attention to playing voluntaries. He does include two sample voluntaries in his "model service":  an introductory voluntary (shown in Example 1) and a voluntary for before the second psalm or hymn (in other words, an offertory). These voluntaries are musically straightforward, with basic registrations provided. Both include trills (shakes), an ornament that Loud seemed to feel was absolutely essential to the church organist's success. While the first voluntary is manualiter, the second indicates that the organist is to play certain bass clef notes with the pedals. Loud, however, provides small notes at these spots for those organists whose instruments do not have pedalboards.

Loud follows his model service with many pages of hymn
preludes and interludes in a variety of major and minor keys before furnishing
15 pages of voluntaries for church use, composed by himself and a variety of
other composers (Rinck, Cross, Russell, etc.). He does include several
voluntaries which are transcriptions, principally of religious works by Haydn.
He avoids the popular music pitfalls decried earlier in this article; although
he does include one "Religious March" by Gluck, it is quite austere
in character. At the end of this section, Loud adds a page illustrating the
"fine effect" of embellishing the end of a voluntary with a simple
suspension, emphasizing again the modest nature of this music.

At the end of his method, Loud provides some interesting
directions showing how to produce registrations of increasing power on instruments varying in size from four stops to modest three- manual stoplists, as well as ways to achieve particular registrations "effects." This leads into his closing and quite notable conclusions on voluntary playing, with which he ends his method. His concern is that voluntaries be consistently used, but not abused:

The style of performing (voluntaries) on this instrument
should always be in accordance with the use made of it, as forming a part of
the service of the Sanctuary; nothing therefore, opposed to the sacredness of
the place, can with propriety be introduced: whatever may be the character of
the Stops made use of, the music should be chaste and solemn, and all the
variety of the instrument, should (in the hands of the efficient performer) be
made conducive to the same subject. . . . Voluntaries should as much as
possible be suited to the subject of the discourse or character of the service
. . . 65

Loud continues by explaining how specific divisions or stops
can help to achieve these lofty goals. He concludes by explaining how to play
"fancy voluntaries," which his text implies are improvised and
probably not for use in church. 
His final admonishment is still applicable for improvisers today: "
. . . above all, remember to stop in time--a common fault with performers is,
that they never know when they have done enough."66

Cutler & Johnson

Before returning to Johnson's important American Church
Organ Voluntaries (mentioned in the first
article), we will make a brief digression to examine another of Johnson's
publications. Johnson originally published the Voluntaries in 1852 under his
name.  When it was republished in
1856, H. S. Cutler's name was included as well (see Example 2 - portraits of
Johnson and Cutler). A discussion of Cutler and the reasons for his addition in
the second edition is beyond the scope of this article, but apparently his
contribution was minimal (it is thought that perhaps he penned the
"Remarks"). Whatever the case, Johnson had originally intended to
write a second book, apparently planned in conjunction with American
Church Organ Voluntaries, called Instructions in the Art of Playing Voluntaries and Interludes and of Composing Simple Music. This book was conceived as a combination of an organ method and harmony book. It is thought that it existed in draft form and that Johnson was using it to teach his organ students. Unfortunately for the history of organ pedagogy, it was never published.67

Instead, Johnson published in 1854 his Practical
Instructions in Harmony, upon the Pestalozzian or Inductive System; Teaching
Musical Composition, and the Art of Extemporizing Interludes and Voluntaries. This book was unique in organ "methods" published to this point in that it was directed at the more sophisticated music student.68 Basically, it is a book of music theory with practical keyboard exercises. It was probably intended as a successor to Johnson's popular Instructions in Thorough Base which had undergone at least six reprints by this time, testifying not only to the need for these types of materials but also to the growing technical sophistication of the organist.

Johnson's Practical Instructions, however, contains no
discussion concerning church voluntaries, but approaches them from a completely
technical standpoint. This is not the case in American Church Organ
Voluntaries. The volume opens with
"Remarks," wherein the editors comment that one should speak of an
"opening voluntary" rather than a "voluntary before the
service" (as Zeuner does), since this voluntary is a part of the service
and should arouse the proper feelings in the listener for the worship which
will follow. They waste no time in criticizing the commonplace habit of playing
popular music, including bits of opera, as voluntaries. They warn the organist
not to give in to popular opinion which supports this sort of music, even if
they are getting pressure from a wealthy person in the congregation who has
money but no taste, ending by saying that in such cases it is better to
"vacate your office and retain the good opinion of all whose good opinion
is worth having" rather than to give in to "depraved taste."69
In regard to voluntaries after the service, Cutler and Johnson admit that there
are differing opinions on the value of playing music while people are leaving. They justify this practice by saying that there is already unavoidable noise at the end of the service as people prepare to leave, and therefore playing
appropriate music while this is happening will remind people for as long as
possible that they are still in the House of God. "What more appropriate
monitor than the solemn Diapasons judiciously managed?"70 The
"Remarks" answer many of the contemporary complaints mentioned
earlier.

The complete pre-publication title of this anthology, Organ Voluntaries, a Complete Collection, adapted to American Church Service, and designed for the use of Inexperienced Organists who have not Progressed far Enough in Their Studies to be able to Play Extemporaneous Voluntaries (i.e., improvised), indicates Johnson's purpose in compiling this collection--providing music for amateur organists. The voluntaries are all manualiter. Numbers 1-35 are opening voluntaries, while numbers 36-41 are opening voluntaries for use on festival occasions. Twelve closing voluntaries are included. Many of the voluntaries are by either Johnson or Cutler, but works by Haydn, Muller, Rinck, and Mendelssohn are included, as well as works by lesser-known composers of that period. The pieces contain some tempo, dynamic, and keyboard indications. The tempi vary, although in both the opening and closing voluntaries the majority of tempi designations provided are moderate. The voluntaries are one to two pages in length and generally homophonic in style. There are only isolated indications of sections with solo stops, marked in tiny print "solo . . . solo ends" (see Example 3 for the first half of an opening voluntary with these frugal registration markings). Thus there is nothing about these pieces which would relate them to popular music. Pinel suggests in the Foreword to the edition that although these pieces seem very plain to our contemporary ears, they would have been harmonically innovative, even "exhilarating," to mid-19th century rural listeners.71 (The harmony, while hardly daring, is more chromatic than that of the average hymns and service music.) One reason for the lack of excess in these pieces (and those in Loud's method) may have been the fact that Protestants were still strongly affected by the recent appearance of organs and conservative views of the appropriateness of instrumental music in
general.72 

The several printings of American Church Organ
Voluntaries testify to its popularity.
Gould comments that in his travels he did visit some congregations where the
voluntaries were appropriate and therefore useful (although he had many
negative experiences as well). Thus, Johnson and Cutler's music or at least the
approach to service-playing which it and Loud exemplified was represented in
practice and was not just a theoretical goal.

Southard & Whiting

Although organ methods from the Continent, American
materials for playing the harmonium or cabinet organ, and other unannotated
volumes of voluntaries appeared after Johnson's anthology, the next significant
collection was that of L. H. Southard and G. E. Whiting, entitled The Organist (1868). This volume is also an anthology of music for service use, with an introduction discussing registration and other useful information for the church organist. However, as will soon become evident, there are many
differences between this collection and that of Cutler and Johnson, despite the
similarity of their subjects and their separation in publication by only 16
years.

In the second half of the 19th century, one can observe the
rise of concert organs and concert organists. Large organs were built at
Tremont Temple in Boston (1853) and the Boston Music Hall (1863). The
increasing popularity and professionalism of orchestras fueled the popularity
of orchestral transcriptions for organ. 
Organists adopted some of the Romantic excesses of European organists,
such as the fascination in trying to recreate "storms" on the organ.
It is noteworthy that the first piece performed on the new Walcker organ in
Boston's Music Hall was the "Overture to William Tell" by Rossini.73
At the same time, the technical improvements and expanded size of organs made
it more practical to perform legitimate organ literature of greater magnitude
than the voluntaries.  The
dedication recitals of organs in churches now were devoted exclusively to organ
solos, whereas previously these events consisted of vocal solos accompanied by
organ with perhaps a few organ voluntaries.74 Several sources mention that Bach
organ works were performed in America for the first time in this period (about
the mid 1860s). Most of the concert organists, however, were English or
European.

In examining The Organist, these changes in organ literature in the second half of the 19th century are reflected.  The subtitle of the volume indicates that it is "a collection of voluntaries, studies, and transcriptions of moderate difficulty," and includes information on registration (which will be explored shortly).  The editors explain in the introduction that "melodious and piquant Voluntaries" are part of the church organist's responsibilities, and that therefore the aim of this volume is to supply opening and closing voluntaries which meet these requirements, complete with registrations.75 Like the Cutler and Johnson volume, this collection was apparently intended primarily for less experienced players who were not yet adept enough to improvise appropriate service music.  It is interesting that, unlike Johnson who taught improvisation based on models of Bach, Southard and Whiting refer the aspiring church improviser to the piano sonatas of Mozart and Haydn as a basis of study, pointing already to a sharp difference in outlook.

The music supplied for opening and closing voluntaries by
Southard and Whiting differs markedly from that of Cutler and Johnson. Even the
titles underscore this difference: although the term "voluntary" is
used in the introduction, the pieces are entitled "Prelude" and
"Postlude" (or "Postludium"--see Example 4). This implies a
slightly different function than the term "opening voluntary" which
Johnson carefully chooses (probably something closer  "voluntary before the service"). In addition,
several of the pieces have titles like "Reverie" or
"Romanza," reflecting a strong Romantic secular influence. The pieces
are much longer than those in American Church Organ Voluntaries
style='font-style:normal'>, and all include pedal parts on separate staves.
Three of the pieces are identified as transcriptions of Haydn, Mendelssohn, and
Mozart. The pieces are very pianistic technically, and include a multitude of
interpretive marks, including articulation, phrasing, and many dynamic
markings. Big chords alternate with solo passages, with all sorts of pianistic
accompaniment figures; one prelude even has a cadenza (#4), and piece #5, a
"Pastorale," contains running scale passages in 32nd notes. The
Postludes are all loud pieces, but the style of the Preludes varies widely, and
one is not always sure which category the pieces with other titles fall
into.  There is even a
"March," one of the styles specifically attacked by church music
critics of the previous generation.

It is interesting that the final piece in The Organist is Bach's "Celebrated Prelude and Fugue in e minor" (BWV 533), as edited by Mendelssohn. This seems to be a direct reflection of the apparently successful introduction of Bach into the concert organ repertoire at this time. It also suggests that organists were no longer expected to be able to distinguish sacred music from secular or concert repertoire, since both were equally acceptable in church. Apparently the responsibility of the organist to musically interpret the text and mood of the hymns and scriptures which had been emphasized earlier in the century was no longer a principal focus.

One of the most conspicuous differences between the two
organ anthologies, however, is in the treatment of organ registration. Here a
brief digression is necessary to survey the changes which had taken place in
organ construction between the writing of these two volumes. Although Americans
had begun building their own instruments instead of importing them from England
in the first half of the 19th century, the English influence remained very
strong.  By 1850, although loud
organs (by early standards) were increasing in popularity, the basic sound was
light and bright, emphasizing the diapasons and flutes, with some reeds and
strings included.  The manuals and
pedalboards were not standardized--both the Pedal and Swell divisions tended to
have incomplete ranges.76 The first large American organ was the Hook and
Hastings instrument installed in the Tremont Temple, Boston in 1853, with four
manuals and 70 stops.77 Thus, from about 1860 on, the enthusiasm for
increasingly louder organs continued, with a bolder, brighter sound appearing.
Console controls and nuances of the expression pedals became more important.
Organs now tended to be placed in the front of the church rather than hidden in
the balconies, and cases were often eliminated.78

These changes say a lot about the change in the role of the
organ in the church service. Around 1841, one writer complained that the organs
were sometimes unsuited for leading congregational singing, one of the possible
problems being that they were too small to really lead the singers and keep
them on pitch.79 However, by about 1850, Gould writes that performances were
gradually getting louder, complaining that in some churches the choir and
congregation combined could not sing above the organ, satisfying only those
"who are more pleased with noise than with sense."80 Johnson and
Cutler warn the organist about playing too loudly while accompanying in their
opening remarks, explaining that the organ should be subordinate to the
singers.81 However, it is interesting that in The Organist
style='font-style:normal'>, although the organs by this time must certainly
have been louder, this warning is never mentioned.

To return now to the topic of registration, both volumes
include information on registration in their introductions, as well as sample
specifications. (See Example 5 for the basic specification list from the Cutler
& Johnson collection.) As might be expected from the changes in organ
building, a much wider variety of stops is mentioned in the later volume. Both
collections describe stops, but Johnson and Cutler add information on the
purpose of some of these stops in worship.  For example, they recommend the diapason as "well
suited to church purposes in general," but guard against using the flute,
which "is a fancy stop, and generally much abused . . . when used as a
solo stop . . . the effect is suggestive of the theatre, or ball-room, rather
than the church."82 Within the pieces themselves, Johnson and Cutler
suggest only one specific stop in the entire volume, sometimes designating
where a solo stop should be used but not suggesting a particular stop. Southard
and Whiting, on the other hand, provide detailed registration suggestions at
the beginning and throughout every piece, as well as directions to use the
couplers, expression pedals, and tremulant. They also suggest in the
introduction that one of the responsibilities of the organist is to create
"striking and delicious effects of the organ," which they advise
requires the use of varied registrations and separate manuals.83

This emphasis on registration, coupled with the changes in
organs observed above, suggest that the role of the organist was changing by
about 1870. Although Johnson and Cutler provide basic material on registration
for the stops generally appearing on a "modern" organ, they are not
as concerned with how the organist applies or combines these stops as they are
with the spiritual effects that various stops induce.  Southard and Whiting, however, comment from the start that
"the chaotic droning and ridiculous combinations of stops which were
satisfying until within a few years, will no longer be endured by Congregations
of average musical culture."84 This implies a concern that the organist
have a greater technical knowledge of registration than was previously
considered satisfactory. But this comment also suggests that the organist is
now expected to start with the registration concepts of "musical
culture" of the society at large and apply them to the service of the
church, reflecting the increasing importance of musical culture in society in
general. This differs from the earlier outlook on registration which assumes
that the organist chooses stops based on their contribution to solemn worship
without regard for (or deliberately in contrast to) the types of sounds
associated with secular culture.

A final point of contention regarding registration is
illustrated in the closing comment of the introduction to The Organ
style='font-style:normal'>ist,
where the editors comment that they hope that their collection will "tend
to improve the taste and ability of players, and thereby create a general
demand for more complete and effective organs than are often found outside of
two or three of our largest cities."85 This is in marked contrast to
Cutler and Johnson, who, although they would agree with the goal of improving
the taste and ability of players, are trying to "improve" it in the
opposite direction from the goals of Southard and Whiting. It is noteworthy
that Gould writes in 1853 that organists should be careful that their playing
serves no other purpose than to recommend the organ and organ-builder86--what
Southard and Whiting seem to be suggesting as a positive goal.

It is interesting to note that in looking at the two
above-mentioned church music anthologies, there is scarcely any mention of
accompanying hymns and psalms. This may reflect the new rise of the use of
voluntaries and corresponding lack of suitable literature (thus the focus on
this aspect), or it may be considered a commentary on the relative lack of
importance of hymn-playing to these editors.  Southard and Whiting, for example, ignore the subject
altogether.

In studying the voluntaries in The Organ
style='font-style:normal'>ist, it
becomes apparent that some of the registration changes must have required
pistons, which as stated were becoming more popular. This makes the fact that
this volume excludes a discussion of registering hymns even more interesting,
since changes between verses of hymns to illustrate the meaning of the text
would now have been much easier and smoother. Perhaps due to the emphasis in
earlier years on accompanying, the editors were interested in looking ahead to new directions in church music.