Hook Opus 553 to Berlin, Germany

Leonardo Ciampa is currently Director of Music at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Brookline, Massachusetts. During his twelve-year tenure in Jamaica Plain, he documented the now-destroyed Hook organ on two compact discs for AFKA Records, No Room at the Inn and No Room at the Inn, Vol. II. First Baptist Church vows to rebuild, and Mr. Ciampa is chairing their committee to find and restore another historic instrument.

"We Americans can make our most significant
contribution to the history of the organ if we just remember that, above all,
the organ is expected to be a musical instrument. If its sound can attract and
increase the interests of the general public as well as that of musicians and
composers, it will have fulfilled its purpose . . ."

--John Brombaugh1

Posthumous panegyrics--there's something
suspicious about them. I once attended a funeral of an aunt, whose grandson got
up to the pulpit and offered a eulogy brimming with praiseful ooze. In my pew I
overheard a relative whisper to another, "He didn't call her twice
in the last five years." It's easy to gush over what is gone.
It's harder to praise what is still here.

As I write this it is January 20, less than 48 hours after
that indelible, abhorrent moment--the moment when I heard the appalling
news out of Jamaica Plain. My emotions right now? Melancholy. Unfillable void.
Grief. I don't want to write from those emotions.

Instead, I offer you words I wrote before January 18, when
the organ resided tranquilly, as we thought it would forever.

Only twenty hours before the fire started, I wrote Brian
Jones that switching church jobs in 2001

was definitely an adjustment for me. I think in a sense I
was in "mourning." The Hook just had that silvery sound, every pipe
of it.2

In the 1994 program notes to Volume I of No Room at the Inn,
I wrote

In terms of the beauty of individual ranks, this organ is
without rival in Boston, the other Hooks included.

A strong statement, considering that within one square
kilometer of Jamaica Plain there are two other three-manual Hooks from the
1850s. One of them, at the Unitarian Church, Thomas Murray made famous by his
Mendelssohn recordings. Though that Hook is freestanding and boasts a Pedal
Trombone, Susan Armstrong shared my opinion. "Sure, everyone likes the
Unitarian Hook, because it's louder and has the Trombone. But your Hook
is a lady."3 Still, I thought Susan and I were alone in our preference
for Opus 253. But no less than William T. Van Pelt was quoted by the Boston
Globe as saying, "Though cherished in their own respects, the other Hook
organs in Jamaica Plain could not match the sound of the one at First
Baptist."4

There may have been a reason for this. Starting around 1881,
many of the area Hooks were entrusted to a Canadian immigrant named Erasme
Lahaise (1851-1949), who worked for the Hook firm and personally met one
or both of the Hook brothers. He, his children, and grandchildren cared for
Opus 253 until its demise. During the 1920s and '30s, Eddie
Lahaise--son of Erasme, brother of Henri, and uncle of Robert and Richard--lived
down the street from First Baptist.

[Then-organist] Merton Stoddard [also] lived very close to
the church. The two met nearly every Saturday, and what little fiddling that
was done to Opus 253 was carried out during that period. The pitch was lowered
from A-448 to A-440, the Swell Tremulant was slowed to its present, rather
luscious rate, and the Great-to-Pedal Reversible . . . and new Balanced Swell
Pedal were installed. The only other known alteration was the slight revoicing
of the 17 Stopped Bass pipes on the Great. The mouths were raised a bit so as
to match the Clarabella Treble in power.5

Some say the Clarabella was revoiced as well. No matter:
that was a flute that no one could stop talking about. Said Dick Lahaise,
"It's like pouring cream."6 

Could it be that those years of expert maintenance by Eddie
Lahaise--who, like the other Lahaises, had direct Hook knowledge--had
something to do with the smooth, silvery sound that Opus 253 emanated, that je
ne sais quoi that the other two Jamaica Plain Hooks lacked?

Six years passed before the release of Volume II of No Room
at the Inn. The passage of time in no way diminished my fascination with the
instrument.

December of 2000 [marked] my twelfth Christmas at First
Baptist. The organ still teaches, still inspires. . . . [Regarding the
console,] no one was thinking about comfort in 1859. . . . But for all the
discomfort, for all the crashing of the stopknobs and clicking of the keys, all
it takes is a few notes to remind me of why I'm still in Jamaica Plain.
The sound! I still say that, in terms of beauty of sound, this is the best
organ in Boston. I never play it without feeling transported.7

On 18 June 2003, I wrote an article for my website entitled
E. & G. G. Hook: "International" Organbuilders. I'd long
felt that (a) the Hooks were the greatest organbuilders of their time in the
world (not just in America); and (b) the Hooks achieved more eclecticism
without trying than the American builders 100 years later who actually tried to
build eclectic instruments. In the article I defend both arguments:

The Organ Revival in America came slightly later than the
analogous Orgelbewegung in Germany. The radio broadcasts and recordings of E.
Power Biggs had an incalculably strong influence on everyone--organists,
organ builders, organ audiences, and organ composers. Suddenly German Baroque
sounds (that is, what we thought were German Baroque sounds) were the only ones
anyone wanted to hear.

While the international respect for contemporary American
organbuilders and organists rose, the work of 19th-century builders like Hook,
Hutchings, Woodberry, Simmons, Johnson, Stevens, etc. plummeted into even
deeper oblivion. Countless Hooks were replaced or irrevocably changed during
this period. Subsequently, the Organ Historical Society was formed (again, with
Biggs as a prime instigator), and at least Americans started to realize the
value and incredible beauty of these instruments.

But what about the Europeans? Several of my [American]
colleagues [including Barbara Owen8] agreed with me that what Hook was building
in the 1850s was as good as, if not better than, what Walcker et al. were
building in the 1850s. Of course, that was impossible to prove: the two
builders' organs were an ocean apart.

Until now.

Woburn, Massachusetts, is a city twelve miles (less than 20
km) north of Boston. In 1991, the First Unitarian Church closed its doors.
Meanwhile a buyer was sought for its precious organ, E. & G. G.
Hook's Opus 553, built in 1870. Then the stunning news came: the buyer would
be a church in Berlin! It would be the very first American organ in
Germany.9 

The degree to which the Berliners have taken Hook Op. 553
into their hearts is a source of great joy and pride for us. But it is not a
surprise. Hooks were the best organs we ever built. And they were also the most
eclectic. We Americans spent the better part of the 20th century striving for
"the eclectic organ," an instrument that could play the
"whole repertoire." The results of this striving can today seem
embarrassing. Electro-pneumatic instruments from the 1930s to the 1950s could
"sort of play" the whole repertoire. Yet on them Franck sounds
inauthentic, Mendelssohn sounds inauthentic, and to today's ears, Baroque
music is unlistenable. The only thing that really sounds "right" on
a typical American Classic organ is--not surprisingly--20th-century
American music. Eclecticism among trackers built in the 1960s, '70s, and
'80s fared no better. It is appalling to revisit some of these organs
today. Builders thought nothing of combining strident plenums and chiff with
huge Romantic reeds and celestes--and then tuning the whole organ to
Kirnberger or Werckmeister! These issues were much on my mind when I was an
organ student during the 1980s. But in 1989 everything changed. I discovered E.
& G. G. Hook. Quickly I realized that beautiful eclectic organs, with
tracker action, slider chests, and low wind pressure, had been achieved long
before the Organ Revival.

[ . . . ]

[T]he home of [Hook's] Opus 253 (1859) [is] the First
Baptist Church [in Jamaica Plain], where I was the Music Director from 1989 to
2001. Of the three Jamaica Plain Hooks, Op. 253 is in some ways the least
altered. Though it lacks the freestanding gallery placement and Pedal Trombones
of the other two Jamaica Plain Hooks, the Baptist Hook has arguably the most
distinctive voicing of the three. Individually or ensemble, there is not a
pipe--flue or reed--that you could imagine could be more perfect or
beautiful. I had the honor of making the first commercial recordings on this
instrument, No Room at the Inn (1994) and No Room at the Inn, Vol. II (2000),
both for AFKA Records. I chose an extreme variety of repertoire, aiming to show
the widest possible spectrum of tone colors. I included soloists and guest
artists as well, to demonstrate the organ's amazing adaptability as an
accompanist.

No one will dispute that Mendelssohn sounds ideal on these
organs, with that perfect combination of Germanic and English flavorings. The
big surprise is how beautifully everything else sounds. The Great plenum seems
beyond reproach and gives perfect contrapuntal clarity for Bach (though the
Pedal can be insufficient) and other Baroque music (though the magnificent Open
Diapason is a bit too large-scale for, say, Frescobaldi). As for Franck, I
found the overall mid-19th-century color to be perfectly appropriate. Hook
reeds have that amazing quality of being perfect as solo reeds and chorus
reeds. And unlike on modern trackers, one can play Romantic music without
having to cringe, wondering what will happen when the Mixture comes on. The
Hook Mixture seems to do just what a Romantic mixture should do: crown the
ensemble. In many Hooks the Seventeenth (Terz) is actually a component of the
Mixture. It lends a reed color which blends perfectly, not at all unbecoming in
Romantic literature.

Perhaps the biggest surprise of all is how well contemporary
music (well, some contemporary music) sounds on the Hook. The Jamaica Plainers
often heard the music of Charles Callahan, which organists tend not to play on
instruments without celestes and octave couplers. But ultimately, the primary
requirement of this music is warmth. That is something the Hook possesses.

I myself began to compose during my tenure in Jamaica Plain.
The instrument was a constant and inexhaustible muse. Why? Because the sound is
beautiful. I once remarked to Lois Regestein (a former organist of the church)
how it had to be the furthest thing from the Hooks' minds how well Bach
or 20th-century music would sound on their instruments. As Lois so perfectly
responded, "They just built good organs." That simple statement is
so true. When you do nothing more than to build a beautiful instrument, in
which each pipe is beautiful--and without trying to "prove"
anything--there is no limit to the music that can be made.

The recent fire was not the first one in First
Baptist's history.

On 30 October 1975, First Baptist Church was arsoned by two
delinquent youths, who set four fires in the lower church. They kindled the
flames with Bibles, religious books from the Christian Library, and baptismal
robes. One of the four fires raced through the crawl space under the pulpit,
where in the 1800s a pump boy would hand pump the organ bellows. Another fire
raged in the choir loft, right in front of the organ. On the scene as quickly
as, if not before, the firemen were Bob and Dick Lahaise and a parishioner
named William C. Latham. Mr. Latham directed the firemen where to point and not
point their hoses. Meanwhile, the Lahaises narrowly prevented the firemen from
breaking a boarded-up window on the outside wall behind the organ chamber.
These three marvelous men saved this organ, for had the firemen succeeded in
their actions, the entire organ would have become one large torch and not a
pipe would have survived. Though a corner of the bellows and some other
mechanical parts were charred, not one pipe in the organ was harmed. Photos
reveal that the rest of the church was in ruins. Only the most hardened atheist
would fail to see the miracle in this. I am mindful of this miracle every time
I lay hands and feet upon E. & G. G. Hook's Opus 253.10

Both sanctuary and organ were painstakingly restored to
their previous splendor. But in 1976, as the Lahaises were immersed in their
work, the firemen sprayed a powdery chemical throughout the organ [as well as
the ceiling of the whole church] to eliminate the charred smell which,
especially in the summer, would have been prevalent in the sanctuary. This
caused Bob and Dick a great deal more work, and when I arrived on the scene 13
years later (1989), the Great and Swell reeds were still dirty from the powder,
which had even chemically reacted with the brass of the reeds. Thus, until my
two-year series of 25 organ-and-piano recitals (1989-1991) raised the
four-digit figure necessary to finance their repair, these three reeds were
very unstable and unpredictable.11

At the end of the Volume II program notes, I wrote:

Throughout 141 years of dramatic changes and challenges . .
. the organ has remained a constant, emitting the same remarkable sounds to
which our congregation joined voices in the days before Abe Lincoln and the
Civil War.

Then came a sentence that I reread painfully:

As each new generation lifts its praises to God, there is no
sign that the melodious tones of Opus 253 will be silenced any time
soon.12 

Sanctuary and organ were both dedicated on Thursday, 25
August 1859. The next day, the event was front-page news in the Boston Daily
Evening Traveller. Astute observations about the tone of the organ were made,
special praise being reserved for the "clarionet, that speaks as though
filled by the skilful [sic] breath of Thomas Ryan." The article concluded
with a sentence that would remain true for 146 years:

[W]e are confident that any impartial judge will agree with
us in saying that a finer organ of the same capacity cannot be named.

I want to keep to my promise and not eulogize out of my
present mourning. However, I cannot close without stating an indisputable fact.
My tenure at First Baptist Church was from 1989 to 2001. However, I was born in
1971. When I was hired, I was 18 and still in high school. When I left I was 30
and dating my present wife. My transition from student to professional, child
to adult, occurred at First Baptist. Into the fabric of who I am as a musician
and a person were woven the tones of that Hook organ! The Great Open Diapason
that on its own sounded like full organ. The aforementioned
"creamy" Clarabella. The perfectly scaled and voiced plenum. The
Great Trumpet whose sound, alone or with the plenum, was beyond the reproach of
the most persnickety critic. The Swell Gamba, located high above the Choir
Dulciana--together they were the perfect celeste. The Swell Hautboy with
the tremolo--or the Stopped Diapason with the same tremolo, in the high
register. The 4¢ Chimney Flute in the Choir, as beautiful as any chimney
flute I've ever heard on either side of the Atlantic. And saving the best
for last: that Clarionet! Because there was no room in the chamber for the
bells of a traditional clarinet stop, the Hooks put in a French Cremona
instead, without the bells. Forget Thomas Ryan; Stoltzman himself would have
been jealous of this Clarionet! 

These are the sounds--the otherworldly
sounds--that entered me during my most permeable years as a musician. The
fire burned not only the church and the organ but also a hole in my heart that
will never be refilled.

The 38th Historic Organ Tour, sponsored by the University of Michigan and led by Marilyn Mason, took place August 3-20, 1998, entitled "In the Steps of Bach."

For two weeks we journeyed from west to east across the "waistline" of Germany, visiting most of the places where Bach lived, plus Dresden, Gera, and Berlin. Among the organs played by the group were at least three (two Hildebrandts and a Trost) that Bach had proven, and one that Handel had played; 10 organs of Gottfried Silbermann, plus the copy which is in the Silbermann Museum.  In total, we visited 41 organs, playing 30 of them.

Day 1. We arrived in Frankfurt, a group of 35 which included 21 organists.  A long bus ride into what used to be called "East" Germany took the group to Eisenach, where we first visited the Georgenkirche. In a special moment, Marilyn Mason gathered us around the font where Bach was baptized--still in use today. We played the modern baroque-style 3/35 Schuke on the west wall, visited the Bachhaus, and then travelled to Weimar.

Day 2. Walking tour of Weimar and  visit to the city Church of Sts. Peter & Paul where J. G. Walther worked; dark Lucas Cranach altar paintings. Immense live sunflowers on the altar glow in sunlight streaming directly onto them.

Bus to Arnstadt. Lunch at Goldene Sonne with Herr Schockinger, our gracious chef. We played the 1964 2/15 Schuke organ at the Liebfraukirche and visited the Bach Museum. The "Bach Church" where Bach worked 1703-1707 is being renovated.

Short ride to tiny village of Dornheim:  small, lovely white interior of the church where Bach married his first wife, his cousin Maria Barbara Bach.  We played the Scheinfeld 2/16 organ.

Bach worked for the Duke of Weimar from 1708-1717. The palace and chapel where he played have not survived.  Friedemann and C.P.E. were born in a house, the site of which is now occupied by part of our Hotel Elephant.

Day 3. Bus to Muehlhausen, attend Lutheran worship at St. Blasius Church, where Bach worked 1707-8. After the service, pastor greeted us and eloquently explained history of the church in English. Later we played two organs in Gotha.

Day 4. Naumburg, to play at Wenzels-kirche (Church of St. Wenceslaus) the large Hildebrandt organ, originally 3 manuals/54 stops, 75 ranks, that was proved by Bach and Silbermann in 1746 and pronounced good.  Altnikol, Bach's son-in-law, worked there. Irene Greulich, who has played there since 1971, told us that in 1933 the action was electrified; now it is being restored to its original action.  The Rueckpositiv pipes (13 stops, 18 ranks) were the only ranks present;  we played them--what a wonderful sound. The other 3/4 of the remaining facade is empty. Herman Eule of Bautzen is doing the restoration.

Day 5. We visited tiny Rötha, south of Leipzig, and enjoyed the luxury of 11/2 hours each in two churches, each with a Silbermann organ placed, as usual, high on the west wall. Our first Silbermanns--and two of them! We met Maria Schödel, a long-time friend of Marilyn Mason, who for 30 years has been fortunate to have  these two Silbermanns at her disposal.

The Silbermann two-octave pedalboard is placed far to the right compared to American standards. We played pedal pieces at our own risk. Our learning on this trip came not simply from playing, but also from watching, occasionally pulling stops for others, walking around the church to hear the organ from different locations, or just sitting and reveling in the beauty of the sound and the interior of the church. The Marienkirche has a 1722 1/11/12 Silbermann; the St. Georgen-Kirche a 2/23/30 (2 manuals, 23 stops, 30 ranks) from 1721; the latter is the inspiration for the Marilyn Mason Organ at the University of Michigan which was built by Charles Fisk in 1985. As tour group members played, Dr. Mason pulled stops and gave us mini-lessons on site.

Leipzig. We visited the Thomaskirche, where Bach was music director from 1723 until his death in l750. (No organ that Bach played survives here.) We gathered at his grave, placed flowers and sang a hymn together. Bach was no longer simply a name on paper. The fact that he was a human being--who was born, baptized, married, buried one wife, buried some children and raised many others, worked hard and died--seemed new and vivid, the acoustical joys more real, the human griefs more sad, now that we had been in these places.

Days 6, 7. In Dresden to visit Silbermann's last and largest organ (3/47/70) in the Dresden Hofkirche; the next day we played his earliest extant instrument, the only other surviving three-manual, 3/45/68, in the very ornate Freiberg Cathedral. (Freiberg in Saxony, near Dresden.) Bach did not live in Dresden, but he could visit its opera and other wonders from Leipzig.

Day 8. We visited the tiny village of Grosshartsmannsdorf which has a superb 2/21/25+ Silbermann "scraping the ceiling,"  with soft flutes to die for. That evening five of us (Marguerite Thal, Margarete Thomsen, Steven Hoffman, Marian Archibald, Kurt Heyer) played the Kindermann Magnificat and four of us sang the chant in recital in the town of Klettbach. The village church has a lovely 1725 Schroeter 2/16/18+. Some of these tiny churches with lovely old organs are unable to find an organist. Life in the old "East" Germany is quite difficult.  I am tempted to offer to be an interim for a few months!

Day 9. To Altenburg to play the Trost organ that Marilyn Mason will play in recital this evening. The castle church is long and narrow, with the Trost, 2/36/53, filling one long side wall. The organ even includes a Glockenspiel.  Bach played the Trost organ at least twice, around 1739.  Before we tried the sounds, Dr. Felix Friedrich gave us a fine demonstration of the entire instrument. The 16' Quintadena and bowed-sounding Viola da Gamba on the Hauptwerk are amazing. In the afternoon we drove to the small town of Ponitz, where the Silbermann organ is in the front balcony. Silbermann lived in the town for six months in 1736-37 while installing the organ. At the Altenburg Schloss Marilyn Mason's exciting recital displayed the glories of the Trost organ in music by Dandrieu, Couperin, Bach, Calvin Taylor, and Guilmant.

Day 10. We  exchanged greetings at the Silbermann Museum in Frauenstein with the scholar, Werner Mueller, who founded the Museum and has written about Silbermann. We played the lovely 1/7 copy of an organ, the original of which is in Bremen.  Special items: useful model of how a tracker works; map of where Silbermanns are, were played, or were destroyed (several were destroyed in World War II; the masterpiece in the Dresden Hofkirche had been removed and was thus saved); copies and originals of contracts for organs.

Day 11. To  Halle, Wittenberg and Berlin.  In Halle we played both organs in the large church: a small, but powerful, 7-rank which Handel played on the east wall; a large 3/40 opposite it,more recent. We visited the house where Handel was born, now a museum,where there are three small organs. In Wittenberg, we visited the castle church, on which door Luther nailed the 95 theses in 1517.

Day 12. We toured Berlin.

Day 13. Visit to the Kirche zur Frohen Botschaft (Good News Church) in a Berlin suburb, Karlshorst. Organist Roland Muench spoke briefly and demonstrated the wonderful "Princess Amalie" organ, built in 1755 by Peter Migend and played by C.P.E. Bach. The organ has had many homes, but then found rest in this resonant 1905 building, which was used as a stable in the war. This was our last church. We had a fine tour of the Schuke organ shop in the southern suburbs of Berlin.

Day 14. We flew home with many wonderful memories.

Two tours take place in 1999:  U. of M. Historic Tour XXXIX: Italy: Music and Mosaics May 3-13. U. of M. Historic Tour XL: Northern Germany & Schnitger August 3-13. Information from Marilyn Mason 734/764-2500; e-mail  [email protected]

--Marian Archibald

Former glories

I love visiting church buildings. I love experiencing all the different forms these buildings can take, reading bulletin boards to try to understand what’s going on in the place, meeting with church officials, hearing organs, imagining what organ from our lengthy list of available instruments might best suit a given church. I love the vitality of an active church—gaily decorated classrooms, purposeful rooms for the rehearsing and production of music, busy offices chattering and clattering away. I love the sense that all that activity and dedication of treasure is focused on the public worship of a faith community. And I love meeting with the committees charged with the task of acquiring a new organ for their church, discussing the various forms of the pipe organ, and helping them focus on how to conceive a plan and present it to their superior committees.

Around 2000 when I had just joined the Organ Clearing House, I visited a church building and was greeted by the organist who recognized me and asked, half in jest, “What are you doing here?  We love our organ!” I guess my reputation preceded me. It was the first time I realized that I might be considered the Grim Reaper of the pipe organ. I like to think that what I do is bring beautiful vintage organs into church buildings, but I realize how likely it would be that I would be known for the reverse—taking organs out of buildings.

There’s a church in suburban Boston that I’ve known for more than 25 years. In the early 1990’s, my firm, the Bishop Organ Company, renovated the organ. We installed new pitman windchests replacing poorly designed and sluggish ventil chests, releathered fifteen reservoirs, and installed a solid-state combination action and relay. It’s a big organ, more than 60 ranks with nine 16′ voices. It’s a big church building—the sanctuary seats 1,200. But when we did this extensive project, there were only 75 pledging units—church-finance-speak for “families.” The job cost more than $250,000. Do the math.

Elsewhere in the building there is a dining hall that is served by a big commercial kitchen, all fitted out with the latest restaurant-style appliances from about 1952. Adjacent to the kitchen is a pantry lined with elegant oak-and-glass cabinets filled with what must be a thousand place settings of china, all monogrammed with the church’s initials. It must be 40 years since they had a really big dinner, but all the stuff is there and ready to go. This church is doing pretty well. There’s a relatively new pastor who is attracting new people, they have a good organist who is inspiring people to join the choir, and in general they are doing quite a bit better than holding their own.

There are many buildings like this around the country. Great big places originally built and furnished to serve huge congregations are now being operated by dwindling groups of faithful who struggle with fuel oil bills approaching $10,000 per month, and 80-year-old roofs that are starting to fail. It’s increasingly common for a congregation to worship in a chapel, parlor, or low-ceilinged fellowship hall during winter months to reduce the heating bill. And it’s common for these churches to close. 

§

We at the Organ Clearing House have had many experiences with people who are losing their church. We organize the sale of an instrument, and arrive at the building with scaffolding, crates, and packing supplies to start the dismantling of the organ, and an elderly church member comes to us with a photograph of her parents’ wedding taking place in front of that organ. Her parents were married and buried, she and her husband were married, her husband was buried, and her children were all baptized, confirmed, and married with that organ. 

It’s a regular and poignant reminder of how much the church means to people. There have been a number of occasions when people have wept as we start to dismantle an organ.

Last year I was invited to assess the pipe organ in a church building in New Jersey that had closed. It was a grand building with mahogany-fronted galleries surrounding the sanctuary, sweeping stairways, and an organ with more than 80 ranks. This place was unusual in that there had apparently been no planning for the closure. It was two years since the last worship service, and the place looked like a ghost town. It was as if the organist finished the postlude, the ushers turned off the lights, the sexton locked the doors, and no one came back. The last Sunday’s music was still on the console music rack. Stuffed choir folders complete with lozenges and Kleenex were piled on the choir room piano. Half finished glasses of water were on the pulpit, there was unopened mail on the secretary’s desk, and the usher’s station at the rear of the nave was still stocked with bulletins, attendance records, and the neat little packets of biblical drawings and crayons for little children. All it needed was tumbleweeds being buffeted down the center aisle.

Some churches form a “disbandment committee” that is charged with the task of emptying the building, divesting of furnishings, and archiving parish records. I contact the chair of that committee when I want to bring a client to see and hear the organ. There’s a myth that says that the nominating committee is the worst duty to draw in a church (or in any non-profit institution) because you get rejected so regularly, but I think the disbandment committee must be worse. Pageant costumes, Christmas decorations, hymnals, folding chairs, classroom supplies, communion sets, Styrofoam coffee cups, choir and acolyte robes, and all the other gear it takes to run a church are piled in corridors, destined for dumpsters. People leaf through it all thinking there must be uses for it, without registering that there are a hundred other churches in the state going through the same thing. You’d think you could sell a nave full of pews in a heartbeat, but more often, a nave full of pews is heartbreaking.

There’s a positive side to all this. Often we can save the organ, and when we do it moves to another parish representing a spark from its original home.

Woburn (WOO-burn), Massachusetts is a suburb of Boston with a population of a little under 40,000, located about ten miles north of the city. During the nineteenth century Woburn was a center for the tanning of leather—the high school football team is still called “The Tanners.” It’s the next town to the north from my hometown, Winchester, and when I was in high school I was assistant organist at the First Congregational Church of Woburn, home of E. & G. G. Hook’s Opus 283 built in 1860, with three manuals and 31 speaking stops. I think I had an idea at that young age of how fortunate I was to be playing on such an instrument. William H. Clarke was the organist of that church when the organ was installed, and ten years later he was organist of the First Unitarian Church, just across the town square, when the Hook brothers installed their Opus 553 in 1870. (Note that Hook covered 270 opus numbers in ten years!) A few years after that, William Clarke left the Boston area to establish an organbuilding shop in Indianapolis, taking with him Steven P. Kinsley, the head voicer from the Hook factory.

Opus 283 is still in its original home. It is still playable, though the parish is not strong enough these days to mount a proper restoration. But Opus 553 is now in Berlin, Germany—widely referred to as “Die Berliner Hook.” When the Woburn Unitarian Church closed in 1990, the organ was sold to the church in Berlin, and the proceeds from the sale were saved under the stewardship of former church member Charlie Smith with the intention that they would be used when an appropriate opportunity came along. (See “Hook Opus 553 to Berlin, Germany” by Lois and Quentin Regestein, The Diapason, October 2001.)

Stoneham, Massachusetts is the next town east of Woburn, with a population of about 21,000. In 1995 the Stoneham Unitarian Church was closed, and the building was converted into a nursery school. A crew of organ lovers managed to get E. & G. G. Hook’s Opus 466 (1866) out of the building and into storage before the balcony was boarded up, and the organ was offered through the Unitarian Universalist Association to a “neighboring church that could give it a good home.”  

Lexington, Massachusetts is the next town west of Woburn (it also adjoins Winchester). It has a population of 30,000 and is home to the Lexington Battle Green, where the first battles of the American Revolutionary War took place. Facing the Battle Green is the stately First Parish (UUA) Church, home to a marvelous three-manual Hutchings organ. On the east end of Lexington on Massachusetts Avenue (Paul Revere’s Ride) is the Follen Community Church (UUA), a unique octagonal structure built in 1840. In 1995, the organ at the Follen Church was a hodge-podge affair that had been assembled from parts by an enthusiastic member of the church. It had a 48-volt DC electrical system, unusually high voltage for pipe organ action, and as the organ deteriorated, the console emitted puffs of smoke that unnerved the parishioners.

When members of the Follen Church heard through the UUA that the Hook organ from Stoneham (#466) was available, they pounced on the opportunity. Organ committee chair Wendy Strothman spearheaded a campaign that raised the funds necessary for the restoration and installation of the organ. The organ was first played in its new home on Easter Sunday 1997.

As the restoration progressed, Charlie Smith of Woburn got wind of the story, and offered the Woburn organ fund to the Follen Church to support the care of the restored organ, and to support regular organ concerts there. So Hook Opus 553 wound up supporting Opus 466 in its new home—and Wendy and I are married!

§

As I write, the Organ Clearing House is participating in another project that allows a redundant organ a fresh start. Christ Church (Episcopal) in South Barre, Massachusetts closed its doors last year after a long period of declining membership and dwindling funds. Their organ was Hook & Hastings Opus 2344, built in 1914, a sweet little instrument with three stops on each of two manuals, and a pedal 16′ Bourdon. The impeccable craftsmanship of its builders and its mechanical simplicity combined to make the organ a remarkably reliable and durable instrument. The Episcopal Diocese of Western Massachusetts contacted us about the disposition of the organ as the building was being offered for sale, but a few weeks later called again with a fresh suggestion. 

St Francis Episcopal Church is in Holden, Massachusetts, about 15 miles east of South Barre. Several of the parishioners from Christ Church in South Barre had begun worshipping in Holden, and some people wondered if the Hook & Hastings organ in Christ Church would be appropriate for installation at St. Francis. We compared measurements in the two buildings, and sure enough the organ would fit beautifully. The vestry of St. Francis put that project together in record time, and we are in the midst of relocating that organ now. It’s especially meaningful for the members of the former Christ Church to be able to bring their organ with them as they suffer the loss of their church and work to get used to a new worshipping life. As we came to town to start dismantling the organ, one of those members told me that she had been a member at Christ Church for 65 years. She lives across the street from the building. It’s personal.

§

Sometimes the relocation of an organ is an artistic exercise, taking an instrument from a long-closed building and seeing it through installation with little or no contact with the people who were its original owners. This is rewarding work, as we know we are preserving the craftsmanship of our predecessors, reusing the earth’s resources by placing an organ in a building without having been a party to contemporary mining and smelting, and refreshing our ears with some of the best organ voicing from a previous age.

But when the relocation of an organ can involve the people who worshiped with it in its original home, and especially play a role in the blending of two parishes, the process is especially meaningful. It’s personal. 

A recent trip to Europe afforded my family and me an opportunity to hear, see, and in one instance, play organs ranging from the early Baroque to the present day. The first one we encountered was a one-manual Bazzani organ in the resort community of Cavallino, Italy, dating from 1891. Its builder, Giacomo Bazzani, was the youngest son of Pietro Bazzani, also an organ builder. Pietro learned organ building with the great Venetian organ builder Callido, who learned building organs from Nacchini, so the organ at the Church of Santa Maria Elisabetta represents a tradition dating back to the 17th century.

The specification is

Principale 8' Bassi (C - c#) 

Principale 8' Soprani (d - f3) 

Ottava 4' 

Decima Quinta 2' 

Decima Nona 11⁄3' 

Vigesima Seconda 1' 

Vigesima Sesta 2⁄3'

Vigesima Nona 1⁄2' 

Voce Umana 8' 

Viola 4' Soprani 

Flauta 4' Bassi 

Flauta 4' Soprani 

Ottavino 2'

The manual compass is C - f3. The pedal stops are

Tromboncini 4' 

Trombone 8' 

Contrabassi 16' con Ottave (8')

The compass of the pedals is 18 notes starting on low C. In the lower octave of both manual and pedal a short compass is used as follows: bottom white note sounds C; next white note plays F; first black note plays low D; next white note plays G; next black note plays E; next white note plays A; the next back note plays A#, and the next white note plays B. From there the sequence is normal. The pedal board is tilted upward from  front to back at an angle of about 25 degrees.

There are no mechanical aids except for the usual tiratutti, which brings on all the upper ripieno. This is done by means of a hitchdown pedal, so it is possible to draw on the 8' Principale treble and bass with perhaps the Flauta 4' treble and bass or Ottava 4' for a mezzo forte, and then bring on the whole ripieno quickly for a forte.

The church itself is not large, seating perhaps 200, but built with hard reflective surfaces so that the full ripieno with the pedal contrabassi 16' and 8' really fills the space admirably.

I had lots of time with this instrument since I was playing a recital, and of course the classic Italian literature suits it perfectly. The sections from Zipoli's Sonate d'intavolatura came off especially well on this instrument. The manual touch is very sensitive, much like that of a German Brustwerk.

The next organ was in the tiny Austrian village of Reutte, close to the German border, near King Ludwig the Second's castles of Schwangau, Neusch-wanstein and Linderhof. In our case we had planned a trip to Linderhof and then to the Monastery of Ettal just a few miles beyond. Renting a car from our hotel, the charming Hotel Maximillian, we set out for Linderhof, driving along the Plainsee, which was indeed awe-inspiring with its deep emerald color at the base of the German Alps.

We arrived just in time for the 11:00 English tour, which took only a half hour since Linderhof was Ludwig's smallest and most livable castle. In the first room we came to a gilded instrument that we assumed was a piano, but that we were told is a combination harmonium-piano which Ludwig commissioned in the hope that his hero Richard Wagner would visit him and perform his music on it. However, this never happened.

After the tour, those of us strong enough climbed a steep hill to reach the Venus Grotto, which is a representation of the Venusberg scene from Wagner's Tannhäuser. Appropriately, we were treated to a recording of the composer's "Hymn to the Evening Star" from Tannhäuser.

Driving on to the historic monastery of Ettal, we arrived just as a visiting organist was trying out the 1753 organ built by J.G. Hoerthrich with a beautiful  gilt casework by Simon Gartner dating from 1768. The sound of the instrument was indeed impressive as the organist pitted the divisions of the organ against each other with the full principal chorus in the pedal. As we left he or she was playing Mendelssohn's "O for the wings of a dove" on a particularly full and rich 8' flute.

When we returned to the hotel and went to the dining room, I noticed an organ console on the wall to the left of the dining room's front door. Set on top were six principal pipes of tin, with the mouths fairly deeply nicked. There were also several pictures of a man playing this console. After dinner I borrowed paper and pen to copy down the organ's specification. The hotel receptionist asked me if I was interested in organs, and I told her that I was an organist, whereupon she said her father had played this organ for fifty years and those were his pictures on the top of the console. She also said he would be happy to take me by their church. A day later that's exactly what we did.

About 9 pm we drove over to the Catholic Church of St. Peter and St. Paul, an imposing 500-year-old edifice that we had passed on the way to Linderhof. It is a Baroque church with excellent acoustics. Herr Koch  told me that since disposing of the 1817 organ, they had signed a contract for a new Vershuren instrument of 31 registers. He said, very proudly, that it was a 4-manual and that there would be six solo stops such as oboe, clarinet, etc. on one of the manuals.

They were using an electronic instrument in the meantime and he invited me to play it. After improvising briefly, I played a memorized piece and then invited him to play. He did so and I had a chance to listen to the ambience of the building. The touch of the Viscount instrument was very hard--so hard that it was difficult to play legato.

Readers may be interested in the specification of the old organ since it sheds light on early 19th-century instruments. The builder was Franz Reinisch of Steinach, Tirol, and it was his opus 158. The Hauptwerk includes

Bourdon 16' 

Prinzipal 8' 

Prinzipalino 8' 

Hohlflöte 8' 

Salizional 8' 

Oktav 4' 

Flöte 4' 

Quint 22⁄3' 

Superoktav 2' 

Mixtur 11⁄3' 

Trompete harmonic 8'

The Schwellwerk:

Geigen-Prinzipal 8' 

Gedeckt 8' 

Quintaton 8' 

Prästant 4' 

Rohrflöte 4' 

Waldflöte 2' 

Cornett 2' 

Zimbel 1'

There was a blank knob on the Schwell and I asked Herr Koch if there was an 8' Oboe on the division  but he said there wasn't. However, between his rudimentary English and my elementary German there was much room for misunderstanding, so we can only surmise what the blank represented. The pedal:

Violonbass 16'

Subbass 16'

Echobass 16'

Oktavbass 8'

Choralbass 4'

Posaune 16'

There are a number of mechanicals as well as a crescendo pedal and a Schwellwerk pedal.

Leaving the colorful Tyrol landscape behind, we boarded the train for historic Nuremberg. There we headed for Pachelbel's church, St. Sebald. Again we were in luck. A student was practicing the large organ, which was placed to one side of the choir facing the altar. In addition to the main organ, there is a one-manual organ on wheels. It can be used anywhere in the large church: as a separate instrument, or connected to the main instrument to act as a rückpositiv. There is also a four-manual console on a cable connected to the main organ. The organ builder is Willi Peter of Cologne.

The organist was practicing the six Schübler Chorales as we were studying the various treasures of this historic edifice, so we had a chance to listen to the solo voices of the instrument. Just as we were about to leave, the organist began a composition wherein a subsidiary division plays imitative counterpoint mf, only to be interrupted at regular intervals by the full ensemble including a 32' reed and a 32' Prinzipal. The effect was electrifying and we sat down until this composition ran its course.

Before we take our leave of this great church we should remember that it house the oldest organ in Germany, the "Traxdorffsche" organ that was placed in a loft at the back of the church until its destruction in the bombing of Nuremberg in 1945.

On this somber note, we walked down to the Old Market to admire the "Schöner Brunner" (beautiful fountain), a 14th-century Gothic fountain which is a symbol of Nuremberg. Close by is the lovely Frauenkirche, a small church erected during the reign of Emperor Karl IV, that served as a court chapel from 1352 until 1361.

Noting that there would be a recital that evening, we resolved to return to hear the 3-manual Klais instrument. Our efforts were well-rewarded. The recitalist was Waclaw Golonka of Prague, winner of a number of organ contests including the Wettbewerb in Pretoria (1998). His program consisted of works by Couperin, Pachelbel, Bach, Segar, and Duruflé. He is an unassuming player, but every challenge was conquered with ease, and the music reached us with no idiosyncrasies to block its beauty. One could only hope that he will play often in the United States.

Our hotel was in the St. Lorenz district, so one morning I wandered into the impressive St. Lorenz Church. Like St. Sebald, this building is a reconstruction following the bombing of World War II, but it is well done and to the casual eye it certainly looks like a Gothic masterpiece.

The organist was practicing Liszt's Prelude and Fugue on BACH while I wandered through the medieval treasures of St. Lorenz. However, in consideration of our ears, he played mf, so I cannot comment on the present organ, but it is undoubtedly significant that the church is in the midst of a drive to raise funds for a new instrument, which is to be built by Klais.

Reluctantly leaving this interesting city, we headed east to another reconstructed city, Dresden. The star of the Dresden organ world is the Silbermann instrument in the Catholic Hofkirche. The organ was unfinished in 1750 when Gottfried Silbermann fell from a scaffold in the church and died shortly thereafter. However, his son Johann Andreas Silbermann and his former journeyman Zacharias Hildebrandt completed it in 1755. During World War II the pipes were removed for safekeeping and after the war the instrument was reconstructed by Messrs. Jehmlich, a Dresden firm.

Today the interior of the church shows no evidence of the damage done by the war and a fine Anton Mengs "Ascension" hangs over the high altar, balancing the restored façade of the organ in the rear gallery.

We were fortunate to be in Dresden on a Saturday when there was an organ vesper service at 4 pm at the Hofkirche. As we entered the large church we were surprised at the large audience. Organ recitals are well attended in Europe!

The attendees at the service were well served. Opening with a toccata by George Muffat, the recitalist, Andreus Meisner of Altenburg, continued with music by Bruhns, Bach and Rheinberger. There was no admission charge but donations were accepted at the door as we left.

The impression which this instrument made was one of brilliance and warmth--plenty of bright mixtures, but also warm and full 8' tone. In studying the specification, we were struck by the  presence of a Schwebung (celeste) on the Hauptwerk. Probably because of the generous supply of 8' stops, the Rheinberger sonata came off remarkably well. The 8' flutes had quite a bit of "chiff."

As we walked back to our hotel, we came upon another important church in the life of Dresden, the Kreuzkirche. Restored after the bombings of the Second World War, the exterior looks fine. The interior, however, has been only roughly plastered over.

In the rear gallery there is a large mechanical action organ by Jehmlich, and there is a small encased organ in the front. The church is the home of the Kreutzchor, a fine men and boys choir, and there is a very busy musical schedule at this church. Some weeks there are two or three musical activities programmed.

Our next stop was another musically active city, Lübeck. One can only be impressed by the imposing Holstentor towers as one enters the old town. With Buxtehude's towering Marienkirche and the equally historic Jacobikirche, Lübeck is a paradise for organists.

We came first to the Jacobikirche. With its two historic organs it is one of Germany's most treasured sites. In the back gallery is a large Arp Schnitger, famous from the many recordings that have been made upon it. We were delighted that an organist was playing this instrument as we soaked up the atmosphere of this edifice. After several Bach works, the player switched to Reger, which worked well on the instrument.

We were sorry not to hear the Stellwagen organ on the side of the church, equally as famous as the rear gallery organ, but we were able to find a recording of Buxtehude's organ music played on both instruments by Armin  Schoof (Motette CD-10831).

The Marienkirche, Buxtehude's church, was almost completely destroyed by an air raid in 1942. Both organs were lost. Rebuilding was begun in 1947 and completed in 1980. The two new organs occupy the same spots in the church as they did in the original church, namely a large mechanical organ in the rear gallery and a smaller one, the "Danse Macabre" organ, on the side of the church above the "Danse Macabre" chapel. The rear gallery instrument is by Kemper & Sohn from Lübeck. The "Danse Macabre" organ is by Wilhelm Fuhrer of Wilhelmshaven and dates from 1986. The large organ in the rear gallery has five manuals with 101 sounding voices.

We did briefly hear the side organ after a noonday service, and purchased two CDs of the organs. Both are played by the organist of the church, Ernst-Erich Stender. The one on the Kemper instrument is "Max Reger, the organworks," Vol. I (Ornament 11447). The second, on the "Danse Macabre" instrument, is "Great Organ Works" by J.S. Bach (Ornament 11445). Herr Stender plays 30 to 40 recitals a year on these two instruments with different programs!

In the "Briefkapelle," the most im-portant of the side chapels, there is an organ which came from East Prussia. Built in 1723, it has been in Lübeck since 1933.

There is another church near the Marienkirche which was also destroyed in 1942 and which has been rebuilt. However, it is no longer used for worship, but for musical programs and art exhibits. At the St. Petrikirche one can climb its towers to get a panoramic view of this ancient free city. There is a small  encased organ in what used to be the sanctuary.

The other large church in downtown Lübeck is the Dom. While not as large as the Marienkirche, it is impressive in its own right. An enlargement of the chancel in the Gothic style in the 14th century transformed this Romanesque church.

A side placement of the large 3-manual Marcussen organ focuses the tone toward the congregation. While we were not able to hear the organ, we found an interesting CD of it played by Hartmut Rohmeyer, entitled "Johann Sebastian Bach--Orgelwerke I, Der Junge Bach" (ambitus amb 97 863).

There are other things to see in Lübeck besides organs and churches, of course, such as the interesting Dutch architecture and the "Buddenbrooks" house associated with Thomas and Heinrich Mann, and we heartily recommend Lübeck as a stop for the discerning tourist. Everything is within walking distance.

 Leaving this picturesque city, we headed for our last stop, Eisenach. Eisenach is, of course, the birthplace of J.S. Bach and we headed straight for the Bachhaus. After an individually guided tour of the house (they give you a sheet in your own language to help), we gathered in a small recital hall to hear some of Bach's music. A young man talked briefly of the significance of Bach's music and then played examples of it, on two small organs dating from Bach's era. The first was a Swiss instrument of three stops dating from 1750, in which the air was pumped by the foot of the performer. The second was a German instrument of four stops dating from 1722. In this instance he called upon a member of the audience to hand pump the bellows. He then played examples of Bach's clavier music upon a clavichord and a harpsichord from the 18th century. Interspersed with the keyboard works were taped examples of Bach's orchestral and choral works. After this, we walked down the street to the Lutherhaus where we listened to examples of Luther's chorales in 16th-century and modern settings, and saw where Luther studied Latin.

A block away we came upon the impressive parish church of St. George where Bach was baptized and where Luther preached in 1521, even though he had been banned from the Holy Roman Empire for his beliefs.

On the left wall a plaque traced the history of the Bach family members who had served as organists of this church. Even though they were not immediate members of Bach's family (they were cousins from the Erfurt branch of the Bach family), it served to remind us of the importance of the Bachs in the sacred and secular music of the 17th and 18th centuries in central Germany.

As we left Eisenach to head for Frankfurt and home, we felt that in this musical pilgrimage we had come a lot closer to the life and times of such giants as Johann Pachelbel, Dietrich Buxtehude and J.S. Bach.                 

Richard Peek is a graduate of Michigan State University and the School of Sacred Music at Union Theological Seminary. He served Covenant Presbyterian Church in Charlotte, North Carolina, as Minister of Music for 47 years and is now Minister of Music Emeritus. He has written articles for The Diapason, The American Organist, The Tracker, and Reformed Liturgy and Music, and has written numerous organ and choral works.

John Bishop is executive director of the Organ Clearing House.

Semantic antics and a few rhetorical questions

What does it mean to restore an organ?
If you start with a simple ordinary pipe organ in poor condition, releather windchests, add a few stops, revoice a few more, and install a fancy solid-state combination action, have you restored the organ? Many practitioners would say no. A strict literal interpretation of the word implies that you would use nothing that had not been part of the original organ. This interpretation implies that while you might be exactly faithful to the work of the original builder, you almost certainly leave behind an organ that cannot be played. You didn’t replace any worn leather, any broken trackers, or any missing ivories.
When a museum conservator prepares a newly acquired chair for exhibition, it’s possible and logical to use the literal approach. No one expects to be able to sit in a chair from Marie Antoinette’s boudoir so there’s no need for strengthening the frame or replacing the upholstery. It’s safely placed behind velvet ropes and as long as it can hold itself up, it’s fine. But, except in the rarest situations, when we restore an organ we certainly do intend to play it as if it were a new instrument.
It’s common therefore for organbuilders to take the word restore with a grain of salt. We restore the instrument to its original playable condition, replacing leather and other parts and materials. We make concessions so the bench won’t collapse and so we don’t have to hand-pump the organ every time it’s played. But again, we have a literal translation. If the original builder used sheepskin, we don’t use goatskin. We match the colors and composition of the felt, the hand-made metal hardware, the chemistry of the wood finish.
When you finish a true restoration, you’ve left nothing in the organ that came from a hardware store or a supply catalogue. Instead of paying thirty dollars for a gallon of stain, you’ve paid a chemist $250; instead of buying threaded wires from a catalogue for twenty dollars per hundred, you’ve paid a machine shop seventy-five plus a $200 set-up fee. And for each of those transactions you’ve spent fifteen hours researching who could do the work for you and making the necessary arrangements. You’re perilously close to the legends of military purchasing—the land of the $10,000 toilet seat. Or the cost of the fish you catch from a new boat—the first fish costs $10,000 or $20,000 a pound and it takes a long time and a lot of fish before it averages into anything reasonable! The cost of the authentic restoration is greater than the price of the comparable new organ.
Another loaded word in the conservator’s lexicon is preservation. In a project completed last year, Old Salem (the wonderful museum village at Winston-Salem, North Carolina) oversaw the restoration of a marvelous organ built by David Tannenberg in 1800. The organ had been dismantled a century earlier and stored in the attic of a church building. Taylor & Boody Organbuilders of Staunton, Virginia accomplished this exacting important work. The project was celebrated and discussed in great detail at a symposium held at Old Salem in March 2004. Historians, preservationists, and restorers gave papers discussing the theories of restoration from different points of view. One concept mentioned was that the purest way to handle the preservation of this important artifact of American heritage would be to catalogue the parts and preserve them intact—façade pipes left flat, keyboards missing, parts and pipes in a shambles.
That concept of preservation was compromised as Taylor & Boody, guided by officials at Old Salem (notably Paula Locklair), appropriately restored the organ to playable condition. They built new keyboards according to models from other surviving Tannenberg organs, they rounded out the façade pipes, they lengthened other pipes to make the pitch established by those façade pipes, and they used the tuning system described by Tannenberg. That description was in itself a masterpiece of preservation. Several years after the organ was built, the church asked Tannenberg to return to tune it. He refused, but instead sent a letter that described in careful detail how to set the temperament and tune the organ. The Moravian Archives at Old Salem has preserved the letter and it was on display during the symposium. What a treasure.
By restoring the organ to playable condition, Taylor & Boody and Old Salem have provided an unparalleled opportunity for us to understand the work of David Tannenberg. Without the handling and working of those precious organ parts, we would not know the sound, the essence of the instrument. In the interest of preservation, taking advantage of technology available to us, the artisans at Taylor & Boody documented everything by photograph and measurement.
Here’s a hypothetical twist: An organbuilder is engaged to restore an important organ. During the initial study of the instrument, the organbuilder comes across original parts of the organ that failed over time because they were not designed and built to take the mechanical strain they were subjected to. The restorer (in all humility) realizes the reason for the failure and can easily see how to redesign the offending part so it will not fail in the restored organ. But is that restoration? Technically no. It’s a modification to the intent and product of the original builder. In this case, you could say that a literal restoration would be a recipe for failure. Does that justify making the change, ensuring that the “restored” organ will last longer than the original?
And here’s another twist: Five years ago the Organ Clearing House “rescued” a beautiful organ built by William A. Johnson of Westfield, Massachusetts in 1883. It has two manuals and twenty-seven stops, a beautiful Victorian case, and its historic value is high because it had never been altered. It was in a church building in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York that was scheduled to be razed. With the financial assistance of many members of the Organ Historical Society, we dismantled and packed the organ, and shipped it to our warehouse in New Hampshire. There it sits.
Many potential purchasers have expressed interest in the organ, but each described plans to add an electric stop action and combination action to the organ. I’d hate to see that organ altered. After all, much of the reason we put so much effort into the organ was that it is such a rich, unaltered example of an important era of American organbuilding. But what’s the point of preserving an organ if it’s going to languish in storage? We can walk around it in the warehouse, admiring it in pieces, and patting ourselves on the back for what a wonderful job we did (and pay another month’s rent on the space). And, as I did recently, we can drive past the site in Brooklyn and see that the organ’s original home is gone. But we can’t hear the organ.
This raises a question much discussed among organbuilders who restore, renovate, refurbish, rebuild, or otherwise rehash pipe organs—a question that is relevant when discussing organs of some historic importance and especially when discussing relocating an instrument when there is need to adapt it to fit the space: Are “reversible” modifications appropriate? Maybe the original specification does not include a pedal reed, or maybe there is a lack of upperwork on the secondary manual. It’s technically possible to add a pedal reed to an organ in such a way that it could be removed later leaving little or no trace for the sake of historic purity. Would that compromise the integrity of the instrument? Is it presumptuous of us to imply that we know better than the original builder?
Returning to my example of the stored Johnson organ, suppose we found a way to add electric slider-motors to the organ, to replace the keyslips with new ones equipped with piston buttons (of course, preserving the originals with all their hardware), and to install a solid-state combination action, all in such a way that the whole thing could be reversed, returning the organ to its original condition. We would have necessarily made some screw holes, and there would surely be holes in the frame of the keyboards to accommodate the pistons. But if that meant that the organ was taken from storage and put back into use, are the changes so bad?
In 1870, E. & G. G. Hook built a large three-manual organ for the First Unitarian Church of Woburn, Massachusetts. When the parish disbanded, the organ was sold to a church in what had been East Berlin, Germany. The organbuilding firm of Hermann Eule in Bautzen, Germany was selected to “restore” the organ and install it in the Church of the Holy Cross (Kirche zum heiligen Kreuz) in Berlin. By the way, Bautzen is a lovely picturesque town, about two hours’ drive east of Dresden, near the border of Czechoslovakia. In Woburn, the organ was installed in a chamber behind a proscenium arch. The opening of the arch was much smaller than the organ so the organ’s sound was confined. In Berlin, the organ was installed free-standing in a spacious balcony—the case was expanded and the façade redesigned.
In one sense, this organ was restored. Its stoplist and tonal personality are unchanged. But the organ is fundamentally different. In Woburn, the organ was hidden, and the acoustics of the room were terrible. In Berlin, the organ is in the open, and the acoustics are spectacular. In that sense, it couldn’t be more different. I have seen and played the organ in both locations and I much prefer it in Berlin. Some colleagues grumbled about the way the façade had been altered, but what was so special about the original façade? Sitting in the church in Berlin listening to the organ, a colleague leaned over to me and said, “now they have one of our organs, it’s our turn to import some of their churches!”
If we’re doing a large-scale project on an instrument, how much can we change it and still call it a restoration?
Can we justify changes in the interest of making an instrument more useful?
How do we choose which instruments should be truly restored? Does an organ have to be beautiful to be considered for restoration? And who decides what’s beautiful?
Can we justify making changes to an instrument to correct what we perceive to be defects in the original? Who are we to decide what is defective?
Some historic instruments have short pedal compasses and secondary manuals with many “treble-only” stops. Many modern players will see these as constraints, limiting the usefulness of the instrument. Is it good stewardship for the owner of the instrument to commit to an expensive restoration?
These are questions for the restorers and the owners of the instruments alike. It’s common for the owner to feel that the instrument is worthy of special attention while the organbuilder thinks it has little merit. And of course, the opposite is true—it’s just as common for an organbuilder to work hard to convince the owner of an instrument to commit to an expensive restorative or preservative project when the owner finds the expense hard to justify or the explanation hard to understand.
I’ve had conversations like this with many organbuilders and curators. I’m not offering answers, just framing questions. I welcome your comments at . We’ll take this up again sometime.

Boston, Massachusetts

Wednesday, August 16

Imagine this. A church packed to the rafters with organists
from around the country, parishioners, and Boston organ lovers. An organ in a
stunning case fills the west gallery of the church. The chairs that fill the
nave have all been turned around so the audience can sit and gaze up into the
balcony. A priest steps forward to the railing and says simply, "Good
evening. I'm Fr. Thomas Carroll, rector of this church," followed by what
can only be described as tumultuous applause, shouting, and a standing ovation!
Do this on a regular basis, and seminaries will be overflowing with candidates
for the priesthood--but of course there is a special tale to tell about this
visceral reaction, and Fr. Tom Carroll, organist and OHS member, is the
deserving symbol of a happy ending to an almost sad story. It was in 1986 that
organists and OHS members learned from the organ journals, and later from
mainstream media, that this struggling parish was preparing to make serious
changes to its church. The interior of the building would be sufficiently
reduced in size (to make way for rentable office space) that its landmark
instrument would be rendered unusable. The nave would be vastly forshortened,
leaving a small "worship center." The great space would nevermore be
seen--the great organ would never sound into its intended space again. The OHS,
and later, architectural conservation and preservation groups in the city,
managed to convince the church to reverse its plans. Three ultimately removable
office structures were indeed built in the side aisles of the west end of the
nave, but the word is that plans are afoot to remove them soon. What is left is
by no means shabby. It's a glorious place. In other good news, this parish is
now growing and thriving, with many new members to enjoy the beautiful
architectural and musical treasures left to it by earlier generations.

In part, the OHS exists to honor, protect, and present great
instruments, so perhaps it is at the Church of the Im-maculate Conception that
we see this function at its best. It is therefore fitting that the convention
began and ended with concerts on E. & G.G. Hook Opus 322 (1863) / E. &
G.G. Hook & Hastings Opus 1959 (1902), played by two great musicians who
have supported the work of the Society and been heard in many conventions over
the years. Peter Sykes began the week, which ended with Thomas Murray.

When the pandemonium settled, Fr. Carroll offered a warm
welcome, after which Jonathan Ambrosino, president of the Society (and also
editor of this year's Organ Handbook and Convention Program), officially opened
the convention and introduced Scot Huntington, this year's convention chairman.
Peter Sykes then assumed the bench, accompanied by his registrants, Michael
Murray on the right and Stuart Forster on the left.

A lovely feature of OHS convention recitals/organ
demonstrations is the inclusion of a hymn in every program. It makes perfect
sense to hear instruments doing one of the jobs for which they were designed.
Sykes's chosen tune was Helmsley to the Advent text "Lo, He comes with
clouds descending"--what a fabulous big, rich, unison sound we made in a
splendid acoustic, to a rich, varied, and totally supportive accompaniment.

The first work on the program was Mendelssohn, Prelude and
Fugue in C Minor, op. 37, no. 1. The combination of Peter Sykes, Felix
Mendelssohn, the great Hook and Hook & Hastings, and the acoustic of
"The Immaculate," conspired for a most satisfying experience. From
Annés de Pélerinage of Liszt, we heard two Sykes transcriptions,
Ave Maria von Arcadelt (which demonstrated some of the lovely sounds of this
instrument), and Sposalizio (betrothal), based on a painting of Raphael. Next,
Six Fugues on B-A-C-H, by Robert Schumann. Played together, these works become
something of a satisfying larger sonata. After intermission, Grand
Prélude (from a set of eleven dedicated to Franck) by Charles-Valentin
Alkan, and Franck's Grande Pièce Symphonique (dedicated to Charles
Alkan). Peter Sykes played this spacious and wonderful work with both breadth
and fire.

Thursday, August 17

A marathon day

The day began with a lecture, "Time, Taste, and the
Organ Case," tailored here by Matthew Bellocchio to include some of the
famous Boston organs heard at the convention.

Then on to the bus at about 10:15 to thread our way through
New York-style traffic to Most Holy Redeemer Church, East Boston. Well worth
it! Occasionally at OHS conventions, the program book says "Program to be
announced." This is never the result of indecision, disorganization, or
laziness. It's a signal that at any given moment, up to and including the first
notes of the recital, there is doubt about what will and what will not play on
the organ! In pretty bad shape, this instrument is, nonetheless, worth the
pilgrimage. Not only is it the largest remaining instrument by William Simmons
(1823-1876), but it is also the "oldest extant two-manual organ with a
detached, reversed console," quoting from the Organ Handbook. Kevin Birch
teaches at the University of Maine School of Performing Arts in Orono, and is director
of music at St. John Roman Catholic Church in Bangor, where he has developed an
important musical program, including the preservation of the church's 1860 E.
& G.G. Hook organ. For the convention, he developed a completely satisfying
program which demonstrated the capabilities of the instrument in its present
condition. The instrument is so dusty and dirty that it has not been possible
to tune it completely for a long time, so avoidance of upperwork was the order
of the day. There was lots of foundation tone, and excellent stuff it is, too.
He began with a fine performance of the Bach Pastorale, the perfect piece for
the circumstances, showing a few small but distinguished combinations of
sounds. All of the combinations were announced before he began the work. Next,
three beautiful organ pieces by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Arietta, Elegy, and
Melody, all from 1898. Birch found the perfect solution to the problems of the
organ's state of health by calling on a 'cellist friend, Jonathan Cortolano, to
play the melody lines, requiring that the meager functioning voices of the
organ play only accompaniment for the most part. With a really beautiful 'cello
tone, this enterprise was a great success. 

Birch had promised to demonstrate some of the notes of the
Oboe that were working, and did so charmingly with a bit of Jesu Bambino by
Pietro Yon. After this, an early 18th-century tune (Sweet Sacrament) found in
Worship III to the text "Jesus, my Lord, my God, my All." We had a
great sing, and took full advantage of a very nice harmonization. This is the
organ upon which, in 1975, Thomas Murray recorded the Mendelssohn sonatas,
recently reissued on CD. It is only through many volunteer hours by Richard
Lahaise that we were able to hear any of this marvellous but sadly neglected
instrument.

Next, on to Most Precious Blood Roman Catholic Church in
Hyde Park, to hear Stephen Roberts on the 1892 Carlton Michell instrument, much
of which was probably built by Hunter in London, and which was originally in
St. Stephen's Church in the South End of Boston. Originally tubular pneumatic,
it was electrified by Richard Lahaise when moved to Precious Blood in 1956 and
fitted with a new console. Franz Schmidt, Toccata for Organ (1924); the hymn
Ave Verum Corpus to a 14th-century plainsong tune; Everett Titcomb, Communion
Meditation on "Ave Verum Corpus." It was helpful to have sung the
entire plainsong melody before hearing Titcomb's work based upon it. The
program ended with the brilliant and brilliantly-played Allegro Vivace from the
Widor 5th Symphony.

Then, on to Christ Church Unity (Sears Chapel) in Brookline
for a fine recital by Andrew Scanlon, winner of the 1999 Boston Chapter AGO
Competition for Young Organists, and a student of Ann Labounsky at Duquesne. He
also has studied with John Walker, John Skelton, and David Craighead. Currently
organist and choir director at Emmanuel Lutheran Church in Export,
Pennsylvania, he was one of the six young organists chosen to play at the New
York National in 1996. This Sears Chapel has a rather handsome exterior and a
somewhat disappointing interior. The organ is chambered in the west gallery,
with an attractive facade with stenciled pipes, but is a smallish gem (nineteen
stops) being asked to speak down a rather long carpeted nave filled with
thickly cushioned pews. It is all a bit distant, sadly, but the instrument, E.
& G.G. Hook from 1862, is intact and well cared for, and was presented on
this occasion with the handsome OHS plaque. Bach, Prelude and Fugue in C Major
(545); Mendelssohn, Second Sonata: Grave and Adagio; Trumpet Dialogue from the
Couperin Convent Mass; Allein Gott by Dudley Buck; a Rondeau and Deo Gracias by
Joseph Wilcox Jenkins (b. 1928), lovely, modal, spirited stuff, perhaps
somewhat in the Hindemith mode.

The afternoon ended with two rather amazing events. At the
United Parish in Brookline we were all impressed by Peter Krasinski and
Aeolian-Skinner opus 885 and much more. First, we were welcomed in a recording
by Ernest Skinner himself, apparently from a welcoming speech he made to an AGO
gathering at some point very late in his life. It was loud and clear, and a
stunning opening, with no warning whatsoever! But there was more. After singing
"O God our help" from the hymnal in the pews, there was a program of
two works--not your usual organ recital. First, Peter and the Wolf, transcribed
by Peter Krasinski, narrated by a woman from the church's Board of Deacons who
had earlier graciously received an OHS Plaque for the organ. This was clearly a
new translation from the Russian, beginning more-or-less thusly: "Peter
lifted the heavy rolltop, and threw the switch, activating the great Spencer
blower." And then we had Peter being hustled inside, to escape the evil
Clarinet. And then, with Peter, we cowered in the face of "Evil hunters,
seeking unaltered Skinner organs!" It was all so perfectly done--the
narration was really dramatically delivered, and Peter Krasinski--what to say?
The transcription, the performance, the organ--it was nothing less than
fabulous--requiring a chapter of its own in any history ever written about OHS
Conventions We Have Known. For a bit more icing on an already rich cake, Peter
Krasinski's own transcription of von Suppé's Poet and Peasant Overture.

At the end of the afternoon, the astonishing, amazing--whatever--computer-driven
Boston University Symphonic Organ, hosted by its creator, Nelson Barden. The
whole thing had its genesis in a small Skinner (opus 764) instrument in a
Rockefeller mansion in Greenwich, Connecticut. When the organ was disposed of,
it was to become one of the organic wonders of the world. Further donations of
house and other organs kept the thing growing to its present size, and it now
lives in its permanent home on a great balcony overlooking a large kind of
banqueting hall. On screen, one can see what the computer operator sees on his
monitor up in the balcony: the four keyboards plus a short one for the
pedalboard laid out, surrounded by lists of all the stops available--colored
lights indicate which keys and which stops are playing. We heard a performance,
electronically recorded, of Carlo Curley playing Fiddle Faddle, Edwin Lemare
playing the Bach "Jig" Fugue, and lots of other goodies. An exciting
aspect of this is the ability to reproduce here the many performances committed
to paper rolls in Germany in the 20s and 30s, at a time when sound recording
was not yet totally viable on location, and, of course, the immense resources
of this instrument make possible just about any registrational requirement.
After the great show, most of our large party took advantage of being able to
walk right through this marvel, to see, under glass, the whole thing operating.

After dinner, off to The Mission Church to hear Julian
Wachner on Hutchings Opus 410 of 1897, sounding out of its great west gallery
case into a superb acoustical space. Bach, Pièce d'Orgue; Mendelssohn,
Prelude and Fugue in C Minor; Cantabile from Widor 6th, played on a gorgeous
Oboe; Duruflé Prelude and Fugue on ALAIN. After intermission, we were
driven hastily back to our seats by a fabulous improvised fanfare, using the
splendid, if un-Englishy, Tuba; then the Boston premiere of Les Trés
Riches Heures (An Organ Book of Hours) by Marjorie Merryman--the six movements
are entitled 1. Procession, 2. Dialogues, 3. Cycle of the Year, 4. Rebellion,
5. De Profundis, and 6. Celebrations. The evening ended with "Holy Holy
Holy" to, of course, Nicaea. After the hymn Wachner went into a pretty
wild improvisation on Nicaea.

Friday, August 18

Promenade day

Friday began with a lecture by Barbara Owen on "The
Hook Years," not an overstatement when you realize what an enormous number
of instruments that workshop turned out each year in the mid-1800s. Then the
convention traveled to Hook Country, Jamaica Plain, and the lovely yellow home
of Elias Hook. We were split into three groups at this time, so that no church
was overly crowded--this meaning, of course, that each performer had to play
three times. My group began not with a Hook, but with Central Congregational
Church's Aeolian-Skinner opus 946 of 1936, a versatile and effective 14-stop
instrument. It can do anything asked of it and today, it met just the right
player to direct it. Possibly, this organ should not really function as it
does--after all, it is stuffed into a chamber on the north side of the
chancel--but the room is welcoming, and aided by 5≤ of wind pressure and
scaling and voicing to match, it reaches every corner of the room. This should
not suggest to anyone that it is loud--it simply projects very well in all directions.
The organ is entirely enclosed in one swell box. The program by Mark Dwyer: the
chorale Freu dich sehr; Pachelbel, Partitia on "Freu dich sehr";
Sowerby, Arioso; Bach, Trio on "Herr Jesu Christ, dich zu uns wend";
Darke, Fantasy, op. 39; Dupré, Placare Christe servulis. The splendid
playing of Mark Dwyer is no surprise to those who have heard him play. This
organ, on the other hand, was a total surprise: fourteen stops, and look at the
program it played, and all beautifully and essentially authentically!

We walked through pleasant streets with lovely Victorian
houses all around, to First Baptist Church, with its essentially unaltered 1859
Hook, for a concert by Lois Regestein: Hanff, Wär' Gott nicht mit uns
diese Zeit, using a registration which Hook had set as the plenum, just through
2' on the Great, without the mixture; Pinkham, Pastorale on "The Morning
Star"; three Haydn Musical Clock pieces, Minuet, March, and Andantino,
revealing the absolutely beautiful flutes on this organ; Respighi, Prelude on a
chorale of Bach; Ciampa, Agnus Dei (with singer Dianna Daly); Telemann, Trumpet
Tune in D; Brahms, Prelude in G Minor; and a rousing performance of the hymn
"Praise, my soul, the King of Heaven."

Another pleasant walk led to First Parish, Unitarian, for a
program by Gregory Crowell, director of music at Trinity UMC in Grand Rapids
and on the faculty at Grand Valley State University. The organ is E. & G.G.
Hook Opus 171 of 1854. In 1860 Hook added the Choir organ, which was apparently
prepared for in 1854. The program began with the hymn "Spirit of God,
descend upon my heart" to the tune Morecambe, and included the Mendelssohn
Fourth Sonata.

The last venue in Jamaica Plain was St. Thomas Aquinas
Church. Scot Huntington managed to give lots of his time to trying to get this
glorious 1854 Hook (moved to this church in 1898 and somewhat rebuilt by George
Hutchings) playing--it had not been heard in 20 years! This is a major part of
the OHS Convention History--the hours or weeks of time freely given by OHS member
builders to making ill instruments well enough to be heard at conventions. The
organ was permitted to remain there (west gallery) only because it looked so
nice. (It is indeed an unusually attractive case.) The new pastor welcomed the
OHS in a really fine speech that made it clear where his sympathies lie, and he
was roundly cheered. No doubt with his encouragement many parishioners were in
attendance, some of whom had ventured into the balcony for the first time to
see what the organ really looked like. Scot Huntington demonstrated the organ,
an-nouncing registrations as he went along, and even doing a creditable
performance of the "St. Anne Prelude." He then accompanied the hymn
"O worship the King" (Hanover), and many of the attending
parishioners were overwhelmed. The building is not without resonance, and to
hear 400+ musicians filling that room was impressive.

George Bozeman is always a major presence at OHS
conventions, this sometimes taking the form of an organ he has carefully
restored, but most often in the form of an interesting and somewhat unusual
recital. Here, he fulfilled both roles, playing on an 1860 E. & G.G. Hook
(Opus 283) of 32 stops (rebuilt in 1913), which in 1992 had "tonal
re-instatements and recreations; refurbishment and restoration" at the
hands of George Bozeman--at First Congregational Church in Woburn. The program:
Bach, Prelude & Fugue in G Minor (535); C.P.E. Bach, Sonata in A; the hymn,
"Eternal Spirit of the living Christ," to a strong, unnamed, tune by F.
William Voetberg; Franck, Choral in B Minor; four exquisitely registered and
played chorale preludes of Brahms: Herzlich tut mich erfreuen, Schmücke
dich, O wie selig, and Herzlich tut mich verlangen; three selections from the
Bartok Mikrokosmos; and finally Concert Sonata No. 5 in C by Eugene Thayer.

An OHS Boston Weekend

After a fairly energetic and busy Friday, the prospect of a
somewhat more relaxed convention weekend seemed a good one. Saturday began with
Jonathan Ambrosino's lecture entitled "Ernest M. Skinner & G. Donald
Harrison, Retrospective and Review." Ambrosino is president of the
Society, bringing a distinguished background in both communications and
organbuilding, and he is making his strengths very much felt throughout the
organization.

The first concert of the day was by Richard Hill at First
Parish in Arlington, one of the truly great recitals of the convention, on one
of its very best organs--an 1870 Hook (Opus 529) of fifteen stops, moved into
First Parish's fine modern building from a church in Philadelphia. The program
began with a hymn that rather set the tone for the rest of the program,
"Stand up, stand up for Jesus," to the tune Webb. The organ is tucked
in a corner in the front of the church, and has facades on two sides, and the
whole thing resonates like one big soundboard--it really is rich and full, and
beautiful besides. The Triumphal March of Dudley Buck is the kind of spirited
stuff that can really be effective in the hands of a strong and sure player
with spirit to match--really good fun. Then, by Amy Beach, a lovely work,
Prelude on an Old Folk Tune, very Irish sounding. The next piece was the kind
of thing that would keep a congregation around for the postlude, Toccatina by
George E. Whiting (1840-1923). The beginning was a bit reminiscent of the
Lemmens Fanfare. Next, David the King, based on a theme of William Billings, by
Gardner Read--a lament on the death of Absalom. Finally, the grand finale,
Allegro comodo, from Suite in D by Arthur Foote. This work might have suffered
from a lesser performance, but there was nothing lesser about what we heard--a
great ending, to much applause and a quick stand up!

On to Follen Community Church, the oldest church in
Lexington, boasting as one of its ministers Ralph Waldo Emerson. What a
beautiful place and beautiful instrument, both to see and to hear. E. &
G.G. Hook Opus 466 of 1869 was originally in a church in Stoneham, but was
given as a gift and moved to Follen Church in 1995. Erik Suter, with degrees
from both Oberlin and Yale, is now assistant organist and choirmaster at
Washington National Cathedral. The program: Pinkham, "Festive March"
from Music for a Quiet Sunday, which was commissioned by the church to
celebrate the instrument; Mendelssohn, Third Sonata: Sweelinck, Variations on Balletto
del granduca, for which organbuilder John Bishop operated the hand pump, which
really did make a noticeable difference--the wind was rather gentle and supple.
The program ended quietly with the Paul Manz Aria, which featured the Melodia
stop, living up to its name, and toward the end of the piece, an octave up,
where it was ravishing. The final hymn: "Come down, O Love Divine"
(Down Ampney). Suter launched into a quite cathedral-like improvisation on Down
Ampney which sent everyone out very cheerfully indeed.

Sometimes food claims a place on the list of OHS convention
memories. On this Saturday evening, we had an example of this, and what an
example! At 5:30 in the beautiful evening light we boarded a large and very
fast boat for Thompson Island, the history of which is complex and off topic
here, other than to say it is a quite large, hilly, and scenic place from
which, in the right spot, one neither sees nor senses the presence of the big
city so near. I have been to one clambake in my life, a small, private affair,
memorable for wonderful seafood and for good company. This was that experience
writ large; there was no end to the wonderful food. There were various salad
things, baked beans, a wonderful piece of steak, a large pile of steamed clams
and an enormous lobster on a separate plate. We were seated in a great tent,
with some outside places for those who enjoy mosquitos. At the end
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  we hiked down to the dock through the
cool darkness, and after a bit of a wait, our boat appeared to take us back to
the mainland, giving a gorgeous moonlit ride back to Boston Harbor.

On Sunday morning the Annual Meeting of the Society was
scheduled for 8:30. There were reports from all the committees carrying on the
work of the Society, including the Historic Organs Citation Committee, the
superb OHS Archives in a new home in Princeton, the Biggs Fellowship Committee,
the Convention Committee, the Publications Committee, and so much more. At this
convention about a half-dozen plaques were presented to churches that have
recognized the historic significance and musical importance of their
instruments and have continued to maintain them properly. This recognition,
plus the very presence of several hundred musicians in their church coming to
hear the instrument, sends a strong message of support and encouragement. The
Biggs Fellowship is a great program, and its ability to assist interested
people in attending a convention when they might not otherwise be able to do
so, has been greatly enhanced by a major gift from the estate of Peggy Biggs,
the wife of E. Power, who died recently. This year the convention was enriched
by the presence of four Biggs Fellows: Daniel W. Hopkins of Lockeport, Nova
Scotia; Ted Kiefer of Franklinville, New Jersey; Tony Kupina of
Montréal, Québec; and Daniel B. Sanez of Hollywood, California. A
visit to the OHS Archives in Princeton finds one in a place where one could
happily stay for days on end, exploring the amazing riches, holdings unequaled
by any other resource anywhere in the world. Many have studied there helped by
one of the research grants available through OHS. The Archives were bursting at
the seams in the old space in the Westminster Choir College Library, and
through gifts from business and arts organizations and individuals, the sum of
$85,000 was collected to make possible the move to new and spacious quarters.
Confident in the knowledge that OHS is important to all its members, important
enough that they are willing to help the organization financially over and
above the membership fees, a new fund has been established and announced at
this year's annual meeting. This endowment fund will help stabilize the
finances of the organization and enable it to expand its work in a number of
areas where money has been a bit tight. The goal is a half-million dollars, and
amazingly, a small group of officers and close friends of the Society has
already pledged the sum of $58,000. I hope anyone reading this who is not a
member of OHS will consider now joining. Try: . By
the way, next summer's convention will be in Winston-Salem, North Carolina,
June 21-28.

On this Sunday afternoon, there were some opportunities to
visit Cambridge organs and also the astonishing beauties of Mount Auburn
Cemetery, which for American organists and organbuilders, might be a rough
equivalent to an Englishman visiting Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey. Some
recitals were played in Cambridge, and some churches held special musical
events for conventioneers. I chose to stay close to the hotel before the great
evening event, a concert about which I almost fear to write, so controversial
was it. Catching all the buzz on the walk back to the hotel and in the exhibit
room later, there seemed to be no agreement whatsoever about the instrument,
the player, her registrations, the music she chose--even what she wore! That
Cherry Rhodes is the consummate concert artist cannot be in dispute. Nor can
one deny the historicity and significance of the enormous 1952 Aeolian-Sinner
organ, much upgraded and changed both mechanically and tonally over the years,
but still bearing the stamp of the makers, working under consultant Larry
Phelps. Beyond that, I heard those things that I thought I rather liked being
roundly condemned by some, and those things that I thought I did not like being
roundly praised by others. If nothing else, the organ is a great amusement.
There is much to gaze upon, with all manner of pipes mounted in all kinds of
arrangements. There is nothing to suggest the historic structure of The Pipe
Organ, perhaps even less so than in some of the exposed organs of Walter
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  Holtkamp, Sr. Looking at those, one
usually knew what was where. Not so here in the First Church of Christ,
Scientist, known familiarly as The Mother Church. The great heaps of pipework
are not identifiable without some sort of guidance. The exposed pipework speaks
into an enormous space, seating about eight thousand people, and amazingly, it
projects fairly well, coming to the listener's ear, I think, with the aid of
the various domed shapes in the building. It is capable of gentleness and also
of bombast, all sounding to my ears just a bit on the thin side, and looking at
the pipework, one does have the impression of thin. I am sure I will pay for
this in some way, but I have to say that at the end of the first piece, a large
plenum with tons of mixture ranks in play caused me to say that I thought it
all sounded incredibly electronic.

The program (12 pieces, only two of which I had ever heard)
began with a piece that made use of the spacious layout of the organ, a work by
Frank Ticheli (b. 1958) dedicated in its organ arrangement to Cherry Rhodes.
Pacific Fanfare (1999) began very softly and finally did build up to live up to
its name, exploring the many reeds of various volumes on this instrument. This
was followed by the Sweelinck Bergamasca, using what is called the Continuo
division of the organ; Deuxième Légende of Bonnet, a beautiful
work; from the Vierne Pièces de Fantaisie, "Impromptu";
Méditation by Gabriel Dupont (1878-1914, an organ student of Widor);
Sportive Fauns, by the Yugoslav composer, Deszö d'Antalffy-Zsiross
(1885-1945), who studied with, among others, Max Reger. After intermission, the
obligatory hymn, "I love thy way of freedom, Lord" to a Hubert Parry
tune, Heavenward. The accompaniment was unusual, being almost a gentle wash of
sound much in the manner of some English Psalm accompaniments, very much in the
background. Then Four Pieces for the Mass by José Lidón; Clarence
Mader's "The Afternoon of a Toad"; and Variations on "Victimae
Paschali," by Jiri Ropek (b. 1922 in Prague).

Whatever misgivings people might have had about the concert,
at the end of the Ropek there was a spontaneous and essentially unanimous
standing ovation, and it kept going long enough that it was clear an encore was
needed, the lovely and quiet Salve Festa Dies by Marius Walter. Hailing the
festival day was a very gentle affair, but beautiful. And thus ended Sunday and
the weekend.

Monday, August 21

The recitals this day were part of an elective involving visits
to instruments in the Newton area. The alternative was the Mount Auburn
Cemetery, also available the previous day. A third choice was to do nothing and
ride a bus later to a concert at The Korean Church in Cambridge.

First stop: Church of the Redeemer, Chestnut Hill, Newton,
something of a cookie-cutter Anglican pretend Gothic building, of which there
must be thousands around the country. It boasted pretend Gothic acoustics as
well. Heard from the third row on the south side, the Noack organ was overpowering.
I suspect that this chancel installation caused the builder to push the
instrument so it could lead those in the back row of the church. Gretchen
Longwell gave a program that one might play on a North German-oriented
mechanical-action organ in a good room in an academic environment. The audience
was made up almost completely of organists, but the recital missed one of the
features of OHS programming--showing a variety of things the organ can do. Many
thought that we could have heard some Vierne, Mendelssohn, or anything else
that might show the Romantic possibilities which probably exist in this
instrument. The program: Buxtehude, Praeludium in G Minor; Boehm, Wer nur den
lieben Gott lasst walten; the hymn 
"If thou but trust in God to guide you"; two Schübler
chorales: Meine Seele and Ach bleib bei uns, both really well played; and the
Ernst/Bach, Concerto in G.

The next recital featured a new instrument built by George
Bozeman at Eliot Church (Congregational) in Newton Corner, Newton. The instrument
has rather active or flexible wind, a bit more so than wanted, as there was
clearly no room for the main reservoir right with the instrument--it is in the
next room--and even fitted with concussion bellows, things occasionally get a
bit bouncy. But the overall effect is very good. There is an amazing wooden 16'
Pedal Trombone, tremendously round and full in sound, not loud, and perhaps a
bit slow of speech, but really fun when it opens out. The recitalist was
Kimberly Ann Hess, director of chapel music and college organist at Stonehill
College in Easton, Massachusetts. The program: de Grigny, Veni Creator, played
with glorious ornamentation and clarity on a very sympathetic organ in
Kirnberger I; Schumann, Four Sketches from Opus 58; Bach, Toccata in F (BWV
540), including the most expressive playing of that long Pedal solo I have ever
heard; and the hymn "We are your people" to Sine Nomine.

Brian Jones has been featured at OHS conventions seemingly
forever. To be sure, his playing is always wonderful, but he gives more,
steeped as he is in the history of the instrument, the OHS, and New England
itself. Léfebure-Wély, Boléro de Concert; Concerto in D by
Charles Avison (1817-1953); Jongen, Scherzetto, op. 108, no. 1. The next and
final work on the program was dedicated to Alan Laufman, director of the Organ
Clearing House, who, as a young man, first turned pages for Jones for the same
piece quite a few years back at an OHS Convention on The Cape. Jones gave a
spirited reading of the Bach Prelude and Fugue in A Minor (BWV 543); and
finally the hymn, "How shall I sing that majesty which angels do
admire," to the tune Coe Fen.

Next on the schedule was Nancy Granert at The Korean Church
(formerly Pilgrim U.C.C.) in Cambridgeport, Cambridge. The 22-stop Hutchings instrument
of 1886 was not very telling in a fully carpeted room, unfortunately, and the
program began with three early works that just did not make sense on the
instrument and in the non-intimate environment: Spanieler Tanz of Johannes Weck
(early 16th century), Mit ganzem Willen wünsch ich ihr of Paumann, and
Kochersperger Spanieler of Hans Kotter; then two Bach settings of Liebster
Jesu, the first on the really warm Open Diapason, and the second using the
Dolce Cornet for the cantus, quiet but pungent. We then sang the chorale, with
a chance to sing harmony in the middle stanza. Then George Chadwick,
Canzonetta; Frank Donahoe, Impromptu. We finally heard the (rather
underwhelming) full organ in the Arthur Foote Prelude in C. Nancy Granert is
now organist at Emmanuel Church (Boston) and Temple Sinai (Brookline), and is
on the faculty at the Boston University School for the Arts. The audience stood
all around the walls, around the altar, and in extra seats in each of the
aisles. The organ did not have a chance, but Granert put in a valiant effort,
and it was clear that she is an excellent player.

We had heard four recitals already, and it was getting on
for 5 pm, but most did not accept the proffered escape bus to the hotel,
instead opting to hear Rosalind Mohnsen at the beautiful St. Catherine of Genoa
Church in Somerville, with its fine 1894 Jardine, and decent acoustic. Mohnsen
shared her program with a wonderful, expressive soprano, Maura Lynch, who added
a great deal of interest to the program. First, three Antiphons from the
Fifteen Pieces of Dupré, "His left hand is under my head,"
"Lo, the Winter is Past," and "How Fair and Pleasant art
Thou"; the hymn "Come Holy Ghost, Creator Blest" sung to a
pleasant minor-key tune from the Pius X Hymnal--written by Theodore Marier;
then Schumann, two of the Fugues on the Name of Bach. Ms. Lynch stepped forward
to the balcony rail and sang "The Flag of Prospect Hill" by J.W.
Bailey. We then sang an interesting cantor and response sort of hymn "Now
Help Us, Lord," with Ms. Lynch serving as cantor. Next, for soprano and
organ, Der Schmetterling ist in die Rose verliebt, op. 14, no. 2 of Henry
Hadley (1871-1937). Last on the program was Henry Dunham's (1853-1929) Fantasia
and Fugue in d, op. 19. Rosalind Mohnsen is director of music at Immaculate
Conception Church in Malden, and this was her 15th OHS convention recital.

Dinner on this evening was a barbeque at the Charlestown
Navy Yard. The food really was delicious, and we were only a short walk from
St. Mary Roman Catholic Church, Charlestown, where Dana Robinson played a
stunning recital. This church was one of a number of very old, large, Catholic
churches that have been recently re-stored. This was a great evening of great
organ music suited to the grand old Woodberry and Harris Organ of 1892 in a
fine acoustic. Parker, Introduction and Fugue in E Minor; a duet version of six
Schumann Studies for Pedal Piano (Opus 56) with Paul Tegels assisting; Franck,
E-Major Chorale; the hymn "Immaculate Mary" to the Lourdes Hymn; Widor,
the complete Symphonie Gothique. Dr. Robinson teaches at the School of Music of
the University of Illinois.

Tuesday, August 22

Tuesday the 22nd began with a lecture by Pamela Fox
concerning the Hook & Hastings factory in Weston, which involves more of
interest than might meet the eye. This was an attempt at a complete
"community of labor," with workers' cottages, a company-built
recreation hall, and other facilities. The move to Weston took place in 1880.

This was it--my first chance to hear the legendary
instrument at Old West Church, and its legendary organist, Yuko Hayashi.
Perhaps the experience of the organ was a bit underwhelming (to me) because we
have all heard so many wonderful instruments in a similar style that have been
built since this pioneer Fisk organ appeared in 1971. Many of these, I think,
surpass Old West in terms of color and clarity, an excellent example of which
we heard at our next stop. The program: Buxtehude, Toccata in D Minor; Bach,
Wenn wir in höchsten Nöthen sein; Clérambault, Suite on the
Second Tone. The Basse de Cromorne was something else, given the monster
Cromorne on this instrument, full of color and character. The Récit de
nasard revealed another monster, the Nasard itself--quite big and colorful in
combination. We did sing a hymn, "Now thank we all our God," in the
strange unison version found at number 396 in the 1982 Hymnal. Had anyone
turned one more page, they would have come to the harmonization
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  by Monk, following Mendelssohn's
symphony version, which would have been infinitely more fun.

Next First Lutheran Church, where Richards, Fowkes &
Company Opus 10 was in the final stages of installation, sufficiently far along
to allow William Porter to improvise his way through many combinations of
sounds. This organ, in its hideous Piero Belluschi building, should be a
fabulous addition to the Boston organ scene.

For the next program, Frederick Jodry V gave a really
interesting performance on a 1938 Wicks instrument in a fine acoustical
environment, Most Holy Name Parish, West Roxbury, the instrument designed and
voiced by Henry Vincent Willis. Wow! Broad foundation tone! Reading through the
very detailed stoplist provided, some features stand out. The Great has no
mixture, going only to the 2' Principal. There are, however, two Open Diapasons
at 8'. The flues are on 95mm of wind, but the Great Trumpet is on 145mm. The
Choir (enclosed--73 note chest) has a French Horn with its own tremolo. It is
on 140mm of wind, while the rest of the division is on 95mm. The Swell has flues
on 100mm, a Vox Humana which automatically engages its own Tremolo, on 105mm,
with the four other reeds on 140mm. The Pedal has a 16' Open Diapason and a 16'
Bourdon. All else is either borrowed or extended from somewhere. There is a
small sanctuary organ, but it is not working, and was not made available for
inspection. The program: Woodman, Little Partita for Easter; Chadwick,
Pastorale, demonstrating a truly wonderful Harmonic Flute;
Léfebure-Wély, March; the hymn "The Strife is O'er" at
an incredibly fast clip. The program finished with a really interesting
Postlude on a Theme of Palestrina by Dudley Buck.

One of the happy-making experiences of this convention has
been seeing quite a few ornate, very old, Roman Catholic churches that have
been newly loved and spruced up with great care and taste. Saint Patrick Church
in Roxbury is not one of these, possibly lacking the enormous amount of money
required for a major fix-up. It does have rather nice stations, set in small
tabernacles, perhaps two or three feet high, and lighted indirectly from above.
The room is disfigured by ugly loudspeakers stuck all over the place. The organ
is an E. & G.G. Hook & Hastings from 1880, rebuilt by Hutchings in
1893, adding a Barker lever to the Great and its couplers. The pipework and
chests are original Hook & Hastings, but the Choir organ was added by
Hutchings. It is visually reminiscent of the Covington Holtkamp that has been
discussed on Piporg-l, with exposed pipework in a pleasing pattern--rather
remarkable for its time.

In this church, Kristin Farmer played one of those
"Program will be announced" events, again of necessity, given the
precarious condition of the organ. Kristin and her organbuilder husband John
Farmer have donated countless hours to getting this organ up and playing for
the convention. After the organ received an OHS Plaque, we heard the following
program: Langlais, Hommage; three Dupré Antiphons; Meditation from
Thaïs; and a Gigue by John Bull. The Langlais really worked on the instrument,
which is quite beautiful doing mystic bits, and also capable of some richness
as the volume rises. There is a strong and independent 16' Open on the Great.
In the Dupré "I am black but comely," the Flute had a
wonderful open sound. The John Bull Gigue was played rather full out, and the
upperwork was irritatingly out of tune, sounding for all the world like a
supercoupler forcing into play pipes that have not been noticed (or tuned) in
years--but there is no supercoupler. At the end, we sang "Glory, love, and
praise," to the pleasant tune "Benifold," by Francis Westbrook
(1903-1975).

It was getting on for tea time, and at First Parish
(Unitarian) in Roxbury the convention split into two groups: one group going to
the recital and the other to what was billed in the book as a
"reception." This meant not high tea, but various cool drinks and
cookies out under the trees in back of the church. The recital of one hour and
ten minutes (surely the longest daytime event of the convention) took place on
a rather anemic instrument in a totally dead acoustic in a quite large
building. (The building is quite beautiful, if greatly run down, but a grant
has apparently been secured and further funds are being sought for its
restoration.) Robert Barney gave another performance of the Brahms Prelude and
Fugue in G Minor, which was effective in the space, followed by another good
choice, the Hindemith Second Sonata. But nothing could overcome the effect of
the hour, the hopelessly dull acoustic and the instrument. There was a certain
amount of merriment when folks realized the hymn to come was "Sleepers
Wake! A voice astounds us." But wait, there was yet more to come. The
Reger Fantasy on Wachet Auf really did not belong in this building, on this
organ, and for that trivial matter, at this time of day. Two people were sound
asleep in my pew. We ran, not walked, to the waiting buses.

The evening venue was Holy Cross Cathedral. Anyone, in New
England at least, who receives mail at all, has probably had a mailing from Leo
Abbott concerning his ongoing effort to restore this most wonderful instrument
in a glorious space. The instrument, Hook & Hastings from 1875, is simply
enormous, with all mod cons of the period, including Barker lever to the Great
and its couplers, pneumatic stop action, eight mixtures, and imported French
reeds from Zimmerman, some with Cavaillé-Coll shallots. It was
electrified around 1929 by Laws. Henri Lahaise and Sons have been working
steadily to keep it going, while doing restoration work as time and funds permit.
Along with lots of AGO members and other members of the Boston musical
community, in addition to lots of parishioners, we were a huge audience to hear
four well-known organists in a program that became even more remarkable than we
were led to expect.

George Bozeman led off with some charming Pepping Chorale
Preludes, ones from the Kleines Orgelbüch. Julian Wachner, who had given a
full evening recital earlier in the week, offered the Bach Dorian Toccata and
Fugue. The Toccata was a bit thick for the registration and building, but the
Fugue was magical, with a hardly noticeable but very real build-up that left
one breathless at the final cadence. Next came Wachner's transcription of El
Salon Mexico of Copland. I guess there are cannon shots in the score, and Leo Abbott
was ready in the balcony with an enormous bass drum, which he struck with
immense authority. At the first blow, the whole audience rose quite visibly
just a bit off its seats. Peter Sykes began the second half with a stunning
performance of the Reger Fantasy and Fugue on BACH. This was our first chance
to hear the organ full out in a major piece of organ literature. It was totally
tremendous, and the audience response was enormous. Leo Abbott assumed his
familiar bench at his familiar reversed horseshoe theater organ console (long
story, but the thing works!), and led the hymn "The Royal Banners Forward
Go" (Agincourt Hymn), with lots of wonderful fanfares and interludes. He
then gave a magnificent improvisation on Salve Regina, which, among other things,
was a great tour through the instrument. After the last chord had died away,
there were whoops and cheers, and an audience completely on its feet. What a
night!

The final great day

Wednesday, August 23

On this last day, it was hard to
refrain from commenting on the weather. With the exception of one evening of
some rain, the days were cool, sunny, and dry. One's impressions of a
convention are somewhat tempered, I think, by whether one has or has not sat in
broiling hot churches with perspiration pouring down. We had essentially none
of that.

This day began with a lecture on
"Organ Pedagogy in Boston 1850-1900," and included a discussion of
the personalities, the publications, and institutions of the period. To attend
a Friday noon recital at Trinity, Copley Square, is to learn that this organ
culture remains very much alive today. It will be you and about 299 others in
attendance! The AGO chapter is one of the largest and most active in the
country.

For the first two concerts of
the day we were split into two groups, so today's performers each played twice.
Our group began at First Baptist Church in Framingham at 11:30 with a totally
satisfying event. The church is the oldest in the area, clearly well-loved and
well kept. Victoria Wagner gave a program of organ works and songs in which she
accompanied soprano Nancy Armstrong. The organ is gentle, the room not resonant
but small and clear. The idea of this combination organ concert and song
recital was just right. The instrument, William Simmons of 1853, 17 stops, is
lovely, but not perhaps compelling enough to carry a full program on its own.
Like the church, it has been well cared for, and was presented with an OHS
plaque before the music began. The program: Handel, Voluntary XI; two Purcell
songs, "We Sing to Him" (Harmonia Sacra) and "Tecum principium
in die virtutis" from Dixit Dominus; the hymn "Rock of Ages" to
"Toplady"; James Woodman's song, Rock of Ages. Next, the premiere of
Peter Sykes's "Arise my love" for organ and soprano, a truly lovely
addition to the repertoire for voice and organ. The perfect finish to this
lovely event was Festival March, by Christian Teilman. Victoria Wagner is
director of music at Trinitarian Congregational Church in Concord, organ
instructor at Regis College in Weston, and on the piano faculty at the Noble
& Greenough School in Dedham.

It was lunch time. If you were
in Group A, you ate at St. Andrew's Church, Wellesley, but Group B, of which I
was a member, ate at Village Congregational, also in Wellesley. There were no
concerts scheduled for these churches--only the use of their facilities for the
meal. Then onward to the Chapel at Wellesley College. The complications of the
keyboard require quite a bit of time and understanding. There are split sharps
and a "short octave," and nothing quite feels like what one is used
to at home. But the whole thing represents the kind of creative adventure,
unique, I think, to the questing and curious mind of Charles Brenton Fisk. I
need to quote a bit of history from the ever-helpful Organ Handbook: "In
1972, Wellesley College signed a contract with C. B. Fisk for a two-manual
organ based on Dutch models, c. 1620. Inaugurated in 1981, this organ and its
design underwent considerable evolution in the decade leading to its fruition.
From the beginning, it was intended that a specialized instrument, built
‘in the spirit of uncompromising authenticity' would allow students a
European experience in America." The Pedal Posaune was added in 1983, as
were carved pipeshades. Additional Pedal stops were added in 1987, and the case
was oiled and gilded in 1992. At the other (east) end is an Aeolian-Skinner
instrument which is, in fact, used for accompanying the choir and congregation
up front.

On the above-described Fisk
instrument, Margaret Irwin-Brandon gave a most elegant recital: Scheidemann,
Fantasia in C; Weckmann, Canzon in G Major; a choral prelude by Franz Tunder,
Jesus Christus, unser Heiland, der von uns, served in alternation to our
singing of the chorale in or with various harmonizations. Next, the Buxtehude G
Minor. While there is an electric blower for practice, in normal public
playing, the organ is human-pumped. One person can do it all, although there is
room for two at the pumping apparatus. One must carefully go backwards up a
short staircase, step out over a beam connected to one of the feeder bellows,
and glide down, propelled by one's own weight, on that beam until the bellows
hits bottom. At this point, one goes back up the stairs, and vigilance is
wanted to wait for the last-pumped bellows to rise almost to the top, at which
point one rides down on the other one. It's an exercise that adds a most
graceful visual component to the playing of this instrument. As you look at the
case, to the left, you see the pumper backing up the stairs, and then
ever-so-gracefully riding down quite slowly on the bellows, after which the
work is repeated. A couple of our Biggs Fellows had the honor of raising the
wind.

For various reasons I missed a
recital at St. Mary R.C. Church, Waltham, by Libor Dudas, music director and
organist at the famous Old North Church. The program included the Brahms A
Minor Prelude & Fugue, the Elgar Vesper Voluntaries, and the Franck Finale,
on an 1874 Hook & Hastings instrument, restored by Henri Lahaise and Son
during the 1990s.

The last concert of the
convention took us back to Immaculate Conception where, before an enormous
audience of conventioneers, AGO members, and Boston music lovers, Thomas Murray
gave one final fabulous musical memory. The whole program was a procession of
delights, all played in the elegant Murray manner and wonderfully registered
with great care: Guilmant, Sonata IV in D Minor; Reger, Benedictus; Schumann,
Three Studies for Pedal-Piano; Bonnet, Matin Provençale (No. 2 from Poèmes
d'Automne, 1908); Franck, Fantasy in A Major. We sang a rousing hymn,
"Praise the Lord, ye heavens adore him," to a grand Victorian tune
called "Faben," composed by the first organist of Immaculate
Conception Parish, who served until his death in 1875, John Henry Wilcox. Next,
three more of the Schumann Studies; finally, the Mulet Carillon-Sortie. And
sortie we did, back to the exhibit hall cum bar, for a last social time with
friends from far and near.

What a wonderful convention! I
hope this report might help some readers to consider making plans now to attend
next summer in North Carolina, from June 21st to the 28th.

--Malcolm Wechsler

Mander Organs, USA

The author thanks Mark Nelson,
William Van Pelt, Judy Ollikkala, and Anonymous for corrections and additions
to this article after its original Internet appearance.