Memories of Charles Hendrickson

Raymond James Brunner, 71, organbuilder and organ historian, died November 17, 2020, in East Petersburg, Pennsylvania. Born June 19, 1949, in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, he was the author of a comprehensive study of 18th- and 19th-century Pennsylvania German organbuilders and their instruments, That Ingenious Business, published in 1990 by the Pennsylvania German Society. He was a member of the Organ Historical Society and the American Institute of Organbuilders.

In February 1981, Mr. Brunner founded the organbuilding firm Brunner & Heller in Marietta, Pennsylvania, with Alan E. Heller (1952–2008), becoming sole proprietor of R. J. Brunner & Co. of Silver Spring, Pennsylvania, in October 1984. Both had worked as organbuilders at James R. McFarland & Co., Millersville, Pennsylvania. The Brunner firm reorganized in 2016 as Brunner & Associates, LLC, with partners Hans Herr and Thomas Becker.

Organ restorations performed by Brunner and his firm include the organ built in 1770 by David Tannenberg at Zion Moselem Lutheran Church, Kutztown, Pennsylvania, and partial restoration of the 1804 Tannenberg at the York County Historical Society, York, Pennsylvania. Other restorations and restorative repairs include 18th- and 19th-century organs built by Krauss, Doll, Jardine, Felgemaker, E. W. Lane, Bohler, Pilcher, M. P. Möller, Hook & Hastings, Hall & Labagh, and others. As well, the firm has restored and rebuilt organs of later periods and actions and built new organs of mechanical and electro-pneumatic actions.

A 1971 graduate of Lehigh University, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, with a degree in civil engineering, Brunner worked eight years with the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation in the Research and Development Department, becoming licensed as a professional engineer. He then switched careers to pursue organbuilding and his lifelong interests in precision woodworking and cabinetmaking, antiques, and Pennsylvania German history and culture. He was largely influenced by his grandmother, the late Hattie Klapp Brunner (1889–1982), who was a well-known researcher and dealer in Pennsylvania German antiques, becoming a celebrated folk-art painter at age 67 with her grandson’s encouragement.

Brunner attended Holy Spirit Lutheran Church for 35 years. He enjoyed classic cars, trains, and was a member of the Studebaker Drivers Club of America and the Studebaker Drivers Club-Keystone Region. Other pastimes included reading, especially early American history and genealogy, as well as world travel with his wife, Martha, and boating, camping, and swimming with his family on his family’s island in the Susquehanna River.

Raymond Brunner is survived by his wife, Martha Sweigart Brunner, and by his children with his first wife, organbuilder Ruth E. Rissmiller Brunner (1958–2003): Owen J. Brunner (Jaimie) of Bel Air, Maryland; Amy E. Moore (Jeffrey) of Columbia, Pennsylvania; and Amelia R. Brunner (fiancée of Nicholas), Rochester, New York. A public memorial service will be planned for a later date.

 

Charles George Hendrickson, 85, died in St. Peter, Minnesota, December 17, 2020. Born June 10, 1935, in Willmar, Minnesota, he graduated from Willmar High School in 1953, Gustavus Adolphus College, St. Peter, Minnesota, in 1957, and University of Arkansas-Fayetteville in 1963 with a master’s degree in physics after building his own furnace from salvage parts based on his calculations to grow a single crystal of aluminum. He had started his graduate studies at the University of Minnesota, but then taught physics at the University of Wisconsin-Superior. While there, his interest in astronomy led him to restore the telescope tracking in their observatory to operating condition. He also built his own six-inch reflecting telescope, grinding and silvering the mirrors himself. After graduate school at the University of Arkansas, he also taught at Union University, Jackson, Tennessee, and Northeast State University, Tahlequah, Oklahoma.

After meeting his future wife Birgitta Gillberg, he taught physics at Mankato State College, now Mankato State University, Mankato, Minnesota. They were married in Sweden in 1964. That same year he was approached by family friend Rev. Lambert Engwall to build a pipe organ for First Lutheran Church, Winthrop, Minnesota. Having been his passion since helping with the installation of the organ at his home church during high school, this was the start of the business he would lead until his retirement. Hendrickson Organ Co. began in the Hendrickson garage in St. Peter and soon moved to a new building on the north end of town. His sons, Eric and Andreas, eventually succeeded him in the business.

Charles’s wife, Birgitta, died in 2018. Charles George Hendrickson is survived by his sons Eric and Andreas (Eva) Hendrickson, along with grandchildren Roy and Vivian.

See the article, “Charles Hendrickson: Profile of a Minnesota Organbuilder,” by David Fienen, in the June 2017 issue of The Diapason (pages 20–22).

 

Michael Jarvis of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, 62, died December 25, 2020. A harpsichordist, chamber organist, and fortepianist, he also served as a soloist, arranger, and choir director. Born in Quebec, he worked in Nova Scotia and Ontario, focusing on rarely heard early chamber music repertoire.

Jarvis taught at University of British Columbia, University of Toronto, and Wilfred Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario, among other institutions, before moving to Victoria five years ago with his wife, Carolyn Sinclair. He continued to perform in ensembles and choirs in recent years around British Columbia, Alberta, Washington State, and Oregon.

Jarvis was a regular performer at Victoria’s Pacific Baroque Festival and often arranged concerts on his own with Paul Luchkow, his most frequent collaborator, at Christ Church Cathedral. Jarvis was also artistic director of Bach on the Rock Music Society, the umbrella organization for Salt Spring Chamber Choir and Salt Spring Chamber Orchestra, and music director for St. Barnabas Anglican Church, Victoria.

Luchkow and Jarvis performed together as a duo and with British viola da gambist Sam Stadlen in LSJ Trio, which released its debut CD last year. Only three of the five albums Luchkow and Jarvis recorded together have been released thus far.

Youthful fantasies

Saint John’s Episcopal Church in Westwood, Massachusetts, was founded as a mission in September 1953, and services were first held in the Deerfield Elementary School at the end of Deerfield Avenue. A new church building was dedicated next to the school in March 1955, and my father was appointed the first full-time rector in October 1956. I was seven months old. We lived in a rented house nearby while the rectory was built adjacent to the church. I know from personal memory and family lore that we were ensconced in the new rectory before I was two years old. My earliest memories of those days included the bulldozers that were grading the lawn and building the driveway. My wife and sons would quickly agree that must have been the genesis of my fascination with heavy equipment, admittedly alive and well today as my sixty-eighth 
birthday approaches.

The Convention of the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts established Saint John’s as a parish in 1959, and that year the church acquired C. B. Fisk Opus 31 (then the Andover Organ Company), a one-manual, six-stop, mechanical-action organ mounted on a platform with a detached, reversed console. I learned later (!) that the organ was planned as the Rückpositiv of a larger two-manual instrument that could be completed if the new parish succeeded. At three years old, I did not yet know about detached consoles, but my child’s eyes remember where it was placed in the simple new A-frame building, itself designed to accept future enhancement.

Ten years after its founding, the parish mounted a campaign to build a parish hall and complete the church interior with formal decorations and furniture. Two towers and a rear gallery were added. A full-height stained-glass wall was installed behind the altar, a chancel with steps and altar rail was added, and hardwood pews were installed replacing the metal folding chairs.

Having spent a lifetime moving pipe organs, I am amused by the memory of my first organ relocation—that tiny Fisk organ hanging from a crane, pipes and all, being lifted from the front of the original sanctuary to its permanent home in the new rear gallery before the roof was closed. If I saw that happening today, I would run toward the crane operator, arms waving like a semaphore, shouting “Stop!,” but there it was, an organ hanging from a hook on a sunny day. I was seven. That same year, when my parents were not at home, I thought it would be fun to climb the scaffolding surrounding the seventy-foot tower under construction. It was a lovely view from the top, showing my parents’ car turning on to Deerfield Avenue, heading home. I got back down before they reached the driveway, but the guilt on my face was enough to spill the story.

Saint John’s organist’s name was Donald McFeely. He had the parish on the cusp of the tracker revolution, buying an organ from Charles Fisk and the Andover Organ Company before the founding of C. B. Fisk, Inc., in 1961. The Andover Organ Company completed the twenty-three-rank instrument in 1991, including the original six-stop organ as the Rückpositiv as planned by Charlie Fisk.

I remember several of the families of Saint John’s as friends of my parents, and as I write I realize what a heady time that was for them. It must have been thrilling to start with meetings to incorporate a mission, transforming it to a parish, and taking on two building programs in ten years. Through their commitment, effort, and money, they created a church that continues to thrive over seventy years later. My father was a young priest in his second appointment, and it must have been mind-boggling and life-altering for him to be at the helm of that rocket ship. Dad has been gone almost ten years, so I will never get to chat about that with him, but the notion adds to my admiration. By the way, I attended the Deerfield School, next door to our house, from first through third grades.

§

Since my first organ was a quasi-experimental dip into the early years of the Organ Reform Movement, it is ironic that the second organ in my life was built in 1905 by the Ernest M. Skinner Company at a time when Robert Hope-Jones (who grew into the genius behind theatre organs built by Wurlitzer) was working with Skinner. Dad was called as rector of the Parish of the Epiphany in Winchester, Massachusetts, in 1966, when I was ten years old. I was instantly pressed into the Junior Choir led by harpsichord builder Carl Fudge, the parish’s organist and choirmaster. As I think about it, the further irony is that Mr. Fudge as an early practitioner in the esoteric world of harpsichord building in the 1960s was saddled with an aging, wheezing, cadaver of an organ in such poor condition that my friends and I as ten-year-old choristers where well aware of its precarious state.

There was the Sunday when I heard my first cipher in the middle of a service. Mr. Fudge left the bench, crossed the chancel, reverenced the altar, returned with a ladder, reverenced the altar again, set the ladder against the impost, climbed up and pulled a pipe. He repeated the process to return the ladder, reverencing the altar twice more, wearing a black cassock through the entire sequence. I expect that his pious performance as the service progressed was calculated to draw attention to the organ’s failings, and it was only five or six years later that my father was involved in purchasing another organ from Charles Fisk, Opus 65, which was completed in 1973.

When I was twelve, I had my first organ lessons on the gleaming ten-year-old, three-manual Holtkamp organ in Saint John’s Chapel of the Episcopal Theological School (ETS) in Harvard Square, later the Episcopal Divinity School (EDS), now defunct. Though it has electro-pneumatic action, that organ was in the vanguard of experimental design with low wind pressures, classical choruses, and a Rückpositiv division (on a pitman chest) along the gallery rail. But my first experiences playing the organ during worship were on that home Skinner when Mr. Fudge allowed me to “noodle” a bit while he left the bench to receive communion, and later to play an occasional prelude or postlude.

It was not long before I went out on my own, taking a six-week gig playing on a three-manual Estey (long gone) at the Baptist church in Winchester, and then after Vatican II at St. Eulalia Catholic Church in Winchester on a Conn Artist. (You can’t make these things up.) My last high-school church organist position was at the First Congregational Church of neighboring Woburn, Massachusetts, where I played a three-manual, thirty-three-stop E. & G. G. Hook organ built in 1860, a very grand organ with real large-organ stops like 16′ Double Open Wood and 16′ Trombone with wood resonators.

Nostalgia

I am wallowing in childhood memories today because Wendy and I recently moved from Greenwich Village to Stockbridge, Massachusetts, where my grandfather had been rector of Saint Paul’s Episcopal Church, just at the time when my family moved from Westwood to Winchester and I started to take organ lessons. It has been both fun and eerie to merge into life in Stockbridge, walking past the rectory on Main Street where my grandparents lived, counting the windows, and remembering the rooms that were so familiar when I was a teenager.

Saint Paul’s first building was a wood Gothic structure designed by Richard Upjohn and consecrated in 1844. The present stone building was designed by Charles McKim and consecrated in 1884. The organ was Hilborne Roosevelt’s Opus 127, also built in 1884, but it was drastically altered in the early-1960s, a project that included the addition of mixtures and mutations, the replacement of the original principal stops with ranks of tapered pipes, the addition of a pedal division and a couple unified reeds including a Krummhorn with electric action. I wonder if Hilborne Roosevelt ever heard a Krummhorn? Today I call it a scandalous treatment of a lovely venerable instrument, but when I was twelve and thirteen years old and allowed to practice on the organ, loud and shrill as it was, I thought it was the bees’ knees. I do not remember if I ever played a service there, but I know I played a recital or two—I’m sure my grandparents were very proud.

When I was a kid, we had family holidays in Stockbridge. Thanksgiving dinner in the rectory was a great treat, and my grandparents nurtured my nascent love of music by treating me to weekends at Tanglewood, just a few miles away. Those were my first solo trips away from home—my parents put me on buses and trains in Boston and grandparents picked me up in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, quite an adventure for a thirteen-year-old.

Since I retired as a church organist when I joined the Organ Clearing House in 2000, we have not attended church regularly, but when we first moved to Stockbridge, we were quick to show up at Saint Paul’s. We went to the early service at 8:00 a.m. and were part of a congregation of five or six people. It was fun to meet a woman whose wedding had been performed by my grandfather and who had wonderful memories of him, but it was a pretty quiet affair. Shortly after, we learned that the rector had just received a call to move elsewhere, and after our first visit we went dormant.

A new rector was installed at Saint Paul’s eight weeks ago, and Wendy and I went to church there last Sunday, attending the 10:00 a.m. service along with more than forty others. It was great to hear the organ being played, though it is in terrible condition, and we were pleased with the good vibes, the singing of the hymns, and the fact that there were some people present who were younger than us. Maybe we will go back this time.

Altered states

I imagine we are all familiar with organs that have been altered, receiving new identities for better or for worse. Some are great successes. There are many organs built by the Skinner Organ Company and later modified by Aeolian-Skinner under G. Donald Harrison’s direction. Ernest Skinner hated that, but Harrison was able in many cases to retain the gravitas of the original organ while adding well-balanced choruses and mutations.

I had a long relationship with a 1906 Hutchings-Votey organ rebuilt by Kinzey-Angerstein in 1973 at Saint Mary’s Catholic Church in Holliston, Massachusetts. I joined the reorganized workshop of Angerstein & Associates in 1984, and the organ at Saint Mary’s was one of the first I tuned after taking that job. The occasion was a recital by Daniel Roth, then titulaire of Saint-Sulpice in Paris, celebrating the appointment of Saint Mary’s longtime organist, Leo Abbott, as director of music for the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Boston and the end of his tenure at Saint Mary’s. The organ retained its original 8′ and 4′ principals, wood flutes, manual reeds, and pedal stops. Daniel Angerstein had added upperwork to the Great and Swell creating two fine choruses and a smashing 16′ Pedal Trombone. It is a grand organ with lots of pizzazz, and the new tonal scheme added wonderfully to the original foundation of the organ.

The Holliston organ was so successful because the new stops were scaled and voiced to complete choruses based on the original foundations. The added pipes were purposefully constructed to exacting specifications based on the scales of the original stops, so all voices blend as if the entire instrument had been built at once. Too often, organ technicians of lesser skill add voices to an organ based on the notion of an ideal stoplist without considering the scales, construction, or even wind pressures of the new pipes.

Earlier this year I visited an organ in Texas that has small-scale Baroque choruses added in the 1960s to a nineteenth-century organ with broad scales and heavy fundamental tone. The differences in harmonic structure between old and newer pipes is striking. The tonal effect is jarring, confusing, and difficult to sing with. The firm that added the high-pitched stops must not have made any effort to create a blend between old and new. The stoplist looks fine, but the organ sounds terrible.

When the revival of classic organbuilding was getting traction in the early 1960s, many of the new organs were focused on high-pitched voices as were the “Baroque-izations” of older organs. It is ironic because the great classical instruments of Europe on which our revival was based are typically not shrill instruments. Their stoplists show fully developed choruses crowned with multiple mixtures, but their foundation stops are rich and full with thrilling harmonic development to support all that upperwork. When twentieth-century organbuilders began building new mechanical-action organs with low wind pressure and open-toe voicing, the challenge they faced, whether they knew it or not, was to figure out to deliver lots of air, not pressure but volume, to the largest pipes in the organ, and to voice those pipes so they could really sing.

§

It is fun to think about the first organs I knew, how my youthful impressions compared to my current thinking after playing, working on, and listening to hundreds of organs. As a thirteen-year-old, I was enthralled by the idea that I could play music on those keyboards and fill a church building with sound. I have been around organs with serious intent for about fifty-six years, and the evolution of my understanding of organ tone is still in process. I have learned slowly how scale (diameter) and wind pressure affect what an organ pipe can do. I have learned how the shape of a pipe’s resonator (the long part) affects the harmonic structure of its tone, so it stands to reason that two stops that emphasize the same harmonics will blend well together—that is a simple glimpse of the complex structure of a Cornet, especially when a reed stop is added to it. (Think d’Aquin noëls.)

I sat in a pew at Saint Paul’s last Sunday, delighted that the organ was being played, but critical of its collection of unrelated stops, however much I enjoyed playing it fifty-six years ago. (Oof!) The church has had some hard times over all those years, but it is fun to think that we might breathe some new life into it. Wendy and I live a fifteen-minute walk from Saint Paul’s. Maybe I could help?

There have been many organs in my life that were altered from their original state and transformed into something different. Some are marvelous successes, some are unmitigated disasters, and some (perhaps most) are the transformation of a fine instrument into one that is mediocre and uninteresting. A well-intentioned local organ technician may have terrific skills, but may not have the knowledge, wisdom, and experience to “out-Skinner Skinner.” If the organ you play most regularly does not have a trumpet, you probably could add one, but it should be as close as possible to the trumpet the original builder would have included if the organ was to be one stop larger. The added stop must be heard as part of the original organ and not as irrelevant braying. It is not the stoplist that makes an organ, it is the tonal structure.

I was at dinner recently with two beloved and admired colleagues who are collaborating on an important new organ. I asked them what they hoped to achieve with that organ. One replied, “I want to make an organ that sounds beautiful so lots of people will be happy to hear it.”

Neal Campbell

Neal Campbell is the organist of Trinity Episcopal Church in Vero Beach, Florida. He previously held full-time positions in Connecticut, Virginia (including ten years on the adjunct faculty of the University of Richmond), and New Jersey. He holds graduate and undergraduate degrees from the Manhattan School of Music, including the Doctor of Musical Arts degree, for which he wrote his dissertation on the life and work of New York organist-composer Harold Friedell. He has studied, played, and recorded on many of the organs discussed in this article.

Editor’s note: the first part of this series appeared in the February 2022 issue of The Diapason, pages 12–17.

Introduction

Based on correspondence in Barbara Owen’s and Charles Callahan’s books, we learned in the previous issue that it was Alexander Schreiner who, as the Tabernacle organ was nearing completion, asked G. Donald Harrison to have his name appear on the console in addition to the standard company nameplate. Harrison obliged by providing an ivory plate with a facsimile of his signature along with the opus number and date. In the ensuing years until his death in 1956 Harrison continued the practice of signing some organs built by Aeolian-Skinner with which he was personally involved.

Before identifying and commenting on those signature organs, a list which continues this month, I showed the progression of Harrison’s tonal ideas in the years leading up to the Tabernacle organ, based on his own words in letters to various of his associates and friends contained in Callahan’s books. In particular, GDH related that the organ for the Groton School was a turning point in the development of his tonal theories, and he considered it the smaller companion to the Tabernacle design. Also cited are several examples of both Harrison’s and Schreiner’s assessments of the Tabernacle organ in the years immediately following its completion.

Following the list of signature organs in this issue, I also comment on some organs built prior to the Tabernacle organ containing GDH’s signature plate and, assuming the Tabernacle organ to be the first organ GDH signed, I offer details as to their relative importance in the company trajectory. There follows commentary about significant Aeolian-Skinner organs of the era that do not contain Harrison’s signature, and then some brief commentary on the organs built in the era of Joseph S. Whiteford and the company’s final years.

In enumerating and commenting on the signature organs, the list and details are complete and accurate so far as I know. I have played many of the organs, but not all. I imagine there are signature organs of which I am unaware. For example, since beginning work on this article I learned via a Facebook page devoted to G. Donald Harrison and the American Classic Organ that the organ in the Worcester Art Museum bears a GDH signature plate. There likely are others, and I would be glad to hear from those with knowledge of them, preferably with documentation, and from those with additional commentary to what I provide here. Communications may be sent through the editor. Who knows, there may be an addenda or part 3 in the future!

Opus 1149: New York Avenue Presbyterian Church, Washington, D.C., 1948.

The first organ for this congregation was built by Hutchings, Plaisted, & Co. in 1873 for the original church. This was later rebuilt by John Brown and later still by Ernest M. Skinner & Son of Methuen. In 1948, the church signed a contract with Aeolian-Skinner for additions to the existing instrument, and in 1951 another contract was signed as Opus 1149-A for a rebuilding and re-installation in the present church.²⁹

This organ, now gone, was a very beautiful example of Aeolian-Skinner’s sound, even though it was of modest content and pedigree. My teacher, William Watkins, was the organist of the church at the time each contract was completed, and he and Joseph S. Whiteford did the work together on a very modest budget. Whiteford was a native Washingtonian, and he and Watkins were good friends; this was at about the time Whiteford became Harrison’s assistant at Aeolian-Skinner.

At the time, the church was famous for the preaching ministry of the Reverend Dr. Peter Marshall, who was also the chaplain of the United States Senate. Watkins at that time was a prominent concert organist, and he provided a serious program of organ music at services. The church maintained a choir of 100 singers directed by Charles Dana Beaschler. Watkins told me that he simply asked Harrison to sign the organ when they moved into the new church. At the time Watkins was probably the best-known organist in the country aside from Virgil Fox, his teacher. The organ as it turned out was entirely worthy of the Aeolian-Skinner legacy, but GDH had nothing to do with it personally. He complied with the request solely on the strength of his associations with Whiteford and Watkins. So, if it happened here, it likely happened in other places—an important clue when considering criteria that may have influenced Harrison’s decision to sign an organ.

By the time I knew the organ as a substitute in the early 1970s the signature plate had disappeared, though the screw holes where it had been were clearly visible. When the church eventually obtained a new console and made some additions during the tenure of Wesley Parrott, a replacement signature plate was made and affixed to the new console.

Opus 1150: Annie Merner Chapel of MacMurray College, Jacksonville, Illinois, 1952.

Robert Glasgow taught here before he went to the University of Michigan, and the organ was installed early in his tenure. He praised the organ in his address to the American Classic Organ Symposium in 1988. The college closed in May 2020, and the fate of the organ is still being determined.

Opus 1173: First Presbyterian Church, Kilgore, Texas, 1949.

This organ was a rebuild of a 1935 M. P. Möller, and it retained much of the pipework and structure, as well as three complete stops from the previous Henry Pilcher’s Sons organ. Nevertheless, it became one of the company’s most successful and best-known organs.

It was used for examples supporting GDH’s narration in Volume I of King of Instruments, and in Volume II played by Roy Perry, the organist of the church for forty years and one of Aeolian-Skinner’s most successful representatives and finishers. Two tracks were also played by William Watkins on Volume II, although he was identified ignominiously as the “staff organist,” owing to union regulations at the time. Volume X featured Opus 1173 in a complete issue entitled “Music for the Church,” featuring works for choir and organ. The only organ piece on the album was Bruce Simonds’s Prelude on Iam sol recedit igneus played by Roy Perry, who also played all of the choral accompaniments.

The cover photo of the new Trompette-en-Chamade for Opus 1173 was used for the first time on Volume X and continued to be featured in company brochures and other volumes of the King of Instruments series, becoming something of an Aeolian-Skinner icon. The company claimed that the stop was the first such built in America.

Opus 1174: First Baptist Church, Longview, Texas, 1951.

This organ provides an interesting contrast to its slightly older sister organ in Kilgore in that it was a completely new organ designed by Harrison for the new church, has not been altered or added to, and was placed in a strikingly modern, large edifice designed with the organ’s success in mind at the outset. The nave of the church is 92 feet high at the peak of the ceiling, and it seats 1,700 persons. The church’s pastor, the Reverend Dr. W. Morris Ford, was the driving force in both the building of the new church and the organ, and for many years thereafter musical events of significant proportions were included in the church’s program. The leading organists of the day, including Virgil Fox and Catharine Crozier, played there. An article about this organ appeared in the June 1954 issue of The American Organist stating:

Catharine Crozier made tape-recordings during the 1952 Christmas holidays for two L.P. discs [on the Kendall label]; Harold Gleason says Longview beats anything he has heard in Europe.

Opus 150-A: Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, New York City, 1953.

This organ is justly famous and needs little introduction, except to note that it used significant portions of the original instrument, one of Ernest Skinner’s early successes, especially structural components and orchestral stops. The organ has many unique attributes, and its success draws in large part from Harrison’s experience prior to his coming to the United States, when he worked closely with Willis on the organ in Liverpool Cathedral, a building approaching the size of St. John the Divine. For example, letters by GDH tell that in some stops the pipes for the individual notes are doubled, even tripled in the treble ranks, and that for the first time in many years Aeolian-Skinner built and voiced completely new Tuba stops for the organ.

An amusing story from the canon of oral tradition tells of Norman Coke-Jephcott, organist of the cathedral during the planning stages, and GDH visiting after dinner at Coke-Jephcott’s club in the presence of others, when Harrison asked “Cokie” if he had given any thought to what they might name the newly designed special trumpet stop at the west end of the cathedral. Cokie said that he really had not, so Harrison asked him how he planned to use it. Cokie said, “Well . . ., I suppose for state occasions.”

That is how this famous stop, voiced by Oscar Pearson on fifty inches of wind pressure, came to be called the State Trumpet. It was a major departure from the two previous horizontal reeds Aeolian-Skinner built for Opus 1173 and Opus 1208, which were essentially standard Trompette Harmonique designs voiced on moderate pressure, but mounted horizontally.

The cathedral organ is featured on Volume I of the King of Instruments in examples played by Joseph Whiteford to accompany Harrison’s narration. The instrument is again featured on Volume VI in a program played by Alec Wyton, who had recently been appointed organist of the cathedral, and on Volume VIII, played by his predecessor, Norman Coke-Jephcott.

Opus 825-A: St. Paul’s School, Concord, New Hampshire, 1953.

Opus 1196: Covenant Presbyterian Church, Charlotte, North Carolina, 1949.

This was a completely new four-manual organ for the new church building of this flagship congregation of the denomination. Richard Peek was the organist at the time, and he and his wife, Betty, directed the music here for over forty years.

Opus 1200: New England Conservatory, Boston, Massachusetts, 1949.

Originally displayed at the 1950 American Guild of Organists convention in Boston, this experimental organ saw many years of use in a studio at the conservatory. The console has three plates on it, and students recall that in addition to the company nameplate and the GDH signature plate, there was a plate identifying its use at the convention. The organ is now owned privately.

Opus 1201: St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, Mount Kisco, New York, 1952.

A new three-manual organ of classic design was installed in casework designed by Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue, architect of the church, which contained the former instrument. The organ featured a divided Swell division, such as was first used in one of Ernest White’s studio organs at St. Mary the Virgin in New York City, and later at Christ Church, Bronxville, New York, Opus 1082. The Positiv division is suspended from the ceiling at the entrance to the side chapel, across the chancel from the main organ. Edgar Hilliar, organist of the church from 1948 until 1984, directed much of the design, and he recorded a complete program for Volume IV of the King of Instruments series.

Opus 1208: St. Philip’s Episcopal Church, New York City, 1951.

At the time the organ was installed, St. Philip’s was one of the largest Episcopal churches in the country and was a significant religious and political presence among the many churches in Harlem. The organ was a rebuild of the former 1943 Hillgreen-Lane organ of three manuals, reusing the console. It featured the company’s second Trompette-en-Chamade, which is similar in appearance to the one for Opus 1173 in Kilgore, Texas, except St. Philip’s is at the west end of the church.

Opus 1216: First Methodist Church, Tacoma, Washington, 1953.

Since relocated to First Baptist Church, Seattle, Washington.

Opus 1235: St. John Lutheran Church, Forest Park, Illinois, 1954. 

Photographs of the stopjambs of this organ were used as the cover of company brochures in the 1960s. The Positiv was prepared for at the time and later added by Berghaus Organ Company to a design somewhat different than the original.

Opus 968-B: Bruton Parish Church, Williamsburg, Virginia, 1955.

This was a large, four-manual organ of over 100 ranks with obvious Harrison attributes. The instrument also included an English organ from 1785 built by Samuel Green that had been donated to the church, made playable as a division of the organ. The unenclosed divisions were placed in a shallow gallery surrounding the Green organ over the altar, while the enclosed divisions were in attic chambers, including an Antiphonal division in the tower. The organ was an anachronism in the Colonial-era church, but it was very effective and saw much varied use in recitals several times a week for the many tourists who flocked to Williamsburg. The organ was replaced in 2019 by Dobson Pipe Organ Builders Opus 96.

Opus 1257: Winthrop College, Rock Hill, South Carolina, 1955.

Opus 1265: The Temple, Atlanta, Georgia, 1954.

Emilie Spivey, the organist of The Temple, commissioned Harrison to rebuild the 1931 Henry Pilcher’s Sons organ that had been installed in the new edifice. The new organ retained twenty-two ranks from the Pilcher. Virgil Fox was the consultant.

Opus 1275: Cathedral Church of All Saints, Albany, New York, 1953.

This is a rebuild of a 1904 Austin Organ Company instrument, retaining the console and some of the chests and pipework. There is a signature plate indicating that Harrison was responsible for the Great and Positiv divisions, and another indicating that Whiteford finished the Swell and Choir.

Opus 724-A: St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1956.

Significant structural portions and the three-manual console were retained from the previous organ, but little of the previous pipework was used in this rebuild, which was in the factory simultaneous with Opus 205-A for St. Thomas Church in New York City. Inasmuch as Harrison died while finishing the organ in St. Thomas, this organ may justly be identified as the last organ personally finished by G. Donald Harrison. Designed and installed during the tenure of Thomas Dunn, certain aspects of the unusual design and stop nomenclature have been attributed to him. The original Aeolian-Skinner nameplate and GDH signature plate were stolen, and the present console contains replacements.

Over the years, during the long tenure of Richard Alexander, additions to the organ included a new four-manual console built by Austin and several vintage Skinner stops, which were placed in the large ceiling chamber toward the front of the nave where most of the original Skinner organ had been located. A new Grand Choeur division built by Schoenstein was also added.

Opus 205-A: St. Thomas Church, New York, New York, 1956.

Much has been written about this famous organ, and it has become the fodder of legend, beginning with the fact that G. Donald Harrison died on the evening of June 14, 1956, after spending a day of tonal finishing on the organ as it neared completion, working against the clock to have it ready for the American Guild of Organists national convention a few weeks later. There was a subway strike in New York at the time, and GDH could not get a taxi, so he walked several blocks in extreme heat to the apartment he and his wife maintained on Third Avenue. Upon arriving home he felt poorly, but after dinner he relaxed and felt better. As he was watching Victor Borge on the television, he threw his head back roaring in laughter—and died of a sudden heart attack.

Many alterations were made to the organ over the years beginning in the late 1960s when the organ was barely a decade old. Toward the end of Gerre Hancock’s tenure he retrofitted nameplates on the right stop jamb documenting the provenance of the organ: The Ernest M. Skinner Co., Boston; Aeolian-Skinner; and Gilbert Adams. He also placed a GDH signature plate under the bottom manual near the General Cancel button.

Marcel Dupré made two stereo recordings for the Mercury Living Presence series of LPs in 1958, which assured the organ of a place in the annals of Aeolian-Skinner history. Private recordings of rehearsals and concerts by Marie-Madeleine Duruflé, Alexander Boggs Ryan, and Garnell Copeland made on the organ before the long series of alterations have recently been remastered and made available as CDs, the latter two of which are found on the Aeolian-Skinner Legacy series of recordings obtainable through the East Texas Pipe Organ Festival.

Signature organs prior to Opus 1075

Several organs built prior to the Salt Lake Tabernacle Opus 1075 also have a Harrison signature plate affixed to the console. Assuming that the Tabernacle organ was the first that Harrison signed as Barbara Owen states (see endnote #1), the exact circumstances of the placements of signatures on these pre-existing organs are subjects of further conjecture and add another layer of mystique to a subject that is inherently somewhat esoteric and imprecise.

The trajectory of Harrison’s organs culminating in the Tabernacle organ design has already been traced. That some of these organs were later given Harrison’s signature is entirely logical, as they contain many design precedents found in the Tabernacle organ that led Alexander Schreiner to ask Harrison to sign it in the first place. In that Harrison and Aeolian-Skinner later made alterations to some of these organs, it is likely that GDH himself directed his signature plate to be affixed at that time. In others the provenance is less obvious, and the exact logistics regarding their placement may be details consigned to the ages. I have attempted only to document what I know to have been in place at the time of this writing or at some point in the past. It is not difficult to fabricate these signature plates, and in several instances where the original nameplates have been stolen or broken, replacement replicas have been made available with relative ease.

Nora Williams told the story of someone in the console engraving department who would routinely make keychain fobs out of Harrison signature plates to hand out to workers and friends! So, the mystique continues.

Opus 909-A: All Saints Episcopal Church, Worcester, Massachusetts, 1933, 1940–1949.

The organ was recorded for Volume XI of the King of Instruments series played by Henry Hokans, the organist of the church at the time.

Opus 910-A: Grace Episcopal Cathedral, San Francisco, California, 1933, 1952.

Richard Purvis played a program of his compositions for Volume V of King of Instruments, although he was identified simply as “staff organist.”

Opus 927: Trinity Church on the Green, New Haven, Connecticut, 1935, 1949.

Opus 932-A: Calvary Episcopal Church, Memphis, Tennessee, 1935, 1952.

Harrison’s professional correspondence mentions his traveling to Memphis to work on the organ. Adolf Steuterman was the long-time organist of Calvary Church, a respected musician in that city, and was friendly with GDH.

Opus 936: St. John’s Chapel, Groton School, Groton, Massachusetts, 1935, 1945–1962.

The organ was featured for Volume VII of King of Instruments, played by Marilyn Mason.

Opus 940: Episcopal Church of the Advent, Boston, Massachusetts, 1935, 1964.

Opus 1024: University of Texas at Austin, Recital Hall, Austin, Texas, 1941.

This was a large, four-manual organ for the recital hall in the new music building, containing the usual four manual divisions, plus a Positiv, Bombarde, and floating String organ. A new console was provided in 1965 as Opus 1024-A, which does not contain a Harrison signature plate. The organ has since been installed in a new church building for St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Amarillo, Texas, which has been widely documented on video, and a signature plate is not on it.

However, in a letter to Brock Downward for his dissertation about Harrison, E. William Doty, professor emeritus and long-time organ teacher at the university, wrote that:

After the College of Fine Arts had been in existence for two years, the Board of Regents authorized the construction of a music building plus an organ to go in the recital hall . . . . Its acoustics were designed by C. C. Potwin of Electrical Research Corporation. He was recommended by Paul Boner, UT Professor of Physics, who was one of several consultants on the building and the organ. Ned Gammons of Christ Church, Houston, now at Groton School was another consultant whose ideas on design were incorporated . . . . In my judgement [sic] G. Donald Harrison was the greatest artist tonal designer of the first half of this century and we are very proud that he signed the University of Texas organ because in his judgement it was one of his best.³⁰

So, the mystique continues, but there is no doubt that this organ in its new home is a success and probably far exceeds its effectiveness in its original location according to those who knew it then, including Gerre Hancock who studied on it with Doty when he was a student at the university.

Opus 1036: Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, Massachusetts, 1942.

Conclusions

Beginning with the Groton organ in 1935, which Harrison himself identified as a turning point in his design of the Classic organ, it is a fairly straightforward task to identify further similar designs throughout the 1930s and 1940s leading up to the Tabernacle organ in 1945—and from thence to others in a similar trajectory, which GDH himself then signed, up until his death in 1956. Even so, if one were listening to a variety of the company’s instruments during this period, whether signed or not, there is no foolproof, obvious, definite distinction. Similarly, from a technical standpoint there are no absolute defining attributes or “smoking gun” signals that separate an organ that GDH signed from one he did not. They each bear a family resemblance in sight and sound, and some may be said to be more effective than others for any number of tangible and intangible reasons. It is, however, a given assumption that these signature organs are considered to be the best of the best that the company built.

In addition to tonal and technical attributes, however, there is another intangible aspect to the signature question that, from a purely scientific standpoint, is difficult to precisely define. Given the uniform tonal success of each of the signature organs along GDH’s developing Classic designs, I feel certain that, when all is said and done, Harrison’s reason for signing an organ also represented some very personal, quiet tribute of his own bestowing—some personal affinity GDH had for the way a particular job turned out, occasioned by its design and outcome together with perhaps some pleasant personal association with the incumbent, such as clearly was the case with Opus 1149 in Washington. Or perhaps there was the sense of a successful achievement that involved working with a collaborator on the job that reminded Harrison of his association with Schreiner and the outcome of the Tabernacle organ. There may have been some personal affinity that prompted Harrison to pronounce his own benediction on the job. And Philip Steinhaus’s letter to William Self at the outset of part 1 of this article confirms that the signature organs represent jobs with which Harrison was “deeply and personally involved.”

There certainly are wide varieties of styles to the signature organs, located in places humble and impressive, sizes small and large. Most of them are complete organs of GDH’s sole design that echo his aspirations for the Tabernacle organ, although there are obvious exceptions that contain significant portions of other builders’ work. Some signature organs are rather straightforward manifestations placed in ideal locations, and some are very unusual schemes or are the result of challenging layouts and unusual engineering solutions, such as Opus 1201 in Mount Kisco.

Some scholars and historians have posited that signature organs contain only pipework designed and finished by G. Donald Harrison. However, there are several examples that clearly suggest otherwise, such as the Washington and Kilgore organs cited previously, but also Opus 1265 at the Temple in Atlanta, Opus 1275 for the Cathedral in Albany, Opus 1208 in Harlem, Opus 1134 for Symphony Hall in Boston, and the various rebuilds of original Skinner organs that are indicated by the suffix letter “A” following the original opus number.

It is also very interesting to consider some important Aeolian-Skinner organs that were not signed by Harrison, including two of the company’s most famous: The Mother Church in Boston (Opus 1203 in 1949, the largest single organ produced by the company) and The Riverside Church in New York (Opus 1118, 1947–1955). Each is a very large, beautiful organ, in a prominent church in a major city, containing many singular attributes associated with Harrison and the American Classic Organ movement. Each possesses a sound that is unmistakable as being from Aeolian-Skinner of the era. However, each of these landmark organs was designed under the significant influence of others—in this case Lawrence Phelps and Virgil Fox, respectively. That is, their design inception was just the opposite of Opus 1075 for the Salt Lake Tabernacle where GDH was given a free hand and charged at the outset to build the organ as he saw fit. So it seems likely that GDH may not have been moved to sign organs so closely associated with others, even though they were still built by Aeolian-Skinner.

In neither case, though, can it be said that Harrison or the company in any way denigrated these organs or regarded them with less favor than the signature organs. The organ in The Mother Church was featured twice in the King of Instruments series of recordings (Volumes IX and XIII) and in reissues. GDH was quick to praise the sounds that Virgil Fox got from the Riverside organ when writing to Willis about it. When Harrison died suddenly in 1956, Virgil Fox immediately offered to play for his funeral—though in the end the small service at St. Mary’s Church in Hampton Bays, Long Island, had no music whatsoever.

The large organ formerly in the Cathedral Church of St. Paul in Boston, Massachusetts, was not signed by Harrison, for the presumed same reason, that it was the result of the collaborative design of Ned Gammons of the Groton School and George Faxon, the organist of the church. Yet, the organ contains all of the hallmarks of the American Classic movement—lavishly so in fact, and it was featured in the first two volumes of King of Instruments. There appears to be no obvious hints of pettiness or retribution in Harrison’s decisions regarding jobs that he did not sign.

St. Mark’s Church in Philadelphia is yet another example of a large, prominent organ in a notable urban parish church with the same Harrison tonal attributes as contained in its contemporary sister organs in Advent in Boston and Groton, yet it was not signed by Harrison. We know that Harrison and/or Aeolian-Skinner later made significant alterations at both Advent and Groton, and it is easy to readily assume that GDH, or someone else, added the signature plates at that time. If that be the case, it is ironic that St. Mark’s, which has received no substantive alterations, does not bear Harrison’s signature, while the other two that have been altered do!

Harder to document are instances where there exists a beautiful example of Harrison’s work without the signature, and where it is known that GDH had difficult dealings in some aspect of the job with representatives of the church and/or the incumbent organist. I personally know of a couple of likely candidates for that scenario—but it is hard to substantiate, there is little to be gained by “outing” a church in this way, and in the end it is of little consequence, except that in the process these places are permanently deprived of the intangible benefit of Harrison’s privately bestowed, yet very obvious public stamp of approval for all to see as the years pass by.

For the researcher, and especially for the player, the presence of the Harrison signature plate on the console suggests an invitation to simply consider the organ on another level, to check the organ’s provenance and files, to try to see who was behind a given project, and attempt to discover the lines of continuity between Harrison and the project, further appreciating the music the organ produces in that light. In providing commentary on the signature organs, I have been able to dig deeper in some cases than others, and in no way do I present this monograph as the end of the story on this topic.

Aeolian-Skinner after Harrison

In the years after Harrison’s death, Joseph Whiteford continued the practice of placing his nameplate on many organs, but to my knowledge it was never in the form of his signature. Although I have not researched it carefully, it also appears that a larger percentage of the company’s total output during Whiteford’s tenure as tonal director received his nameplate. Of course, the total number of organs the company built continued to decrease as the 1960s led inexorably to the company’s sad denouement in 1972.

Much has been written, and even more spoken, about Aeolian-Skinner’s demise. Twenty-five years after the company closed, Michael Gariepy, who had been on the company’s technical staff, wrote:

There were four “coffin nails” which sealed the fate of Aeolian-Skinner—

1. The death of G. Donald Harrison;

2. The Southeast Expressway, which split the operation in two;

3. The departure of Joseph Whiteford from the company;

4. The move to Randolph; such were the disruptions caused by relocating the company that it took six months to return to “normal” operational efficiency.³¹

There is no doubt that Harrison’s prestige brought credit and contracts to the company, and his death is generally thought to have been the beginning of its end—and that may be so. But there is every indication, including Dun & Bradstreet reports, that Aeolian-Skinner was never in a favorable financial position following World War II and its attendant inflation. Joseph Whiteford clearly was not the typical career “organ man” that Harrison had been. There is no doubt that many of the old-timers in the company did not resonate to his patrician ways and may have lacked confidence in his leadership. But in the post-Harrison years Joseph Whiteford designed some impressive organs, including those for the symphony orchestras in New York, Philadelphia, Detroit, Milwaukee, and the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City. And under his successor Donald Gillett’s direction, Aeolian-Skinner built the organ in the new Kennedy Center Concert Hall in Washington.

Many “Hail Mary” attempts were made to keep the company afloat in its closing days, and there were valiant attempts to adapt to the changing times and tastes, such as moving to a more economical and efficient factory outside of Boston and introducing tracker-action organs. Roy Perry told me that Martin Wick seriously pursued the idea of purchasing Aeolian-Skinner and moving it to Texas, with Roy as tonal director. Martin said he had no trouble building Chevrolets in one factory and Cadillacs in another! But his board did not go along with the idea. In the end it was all too little, too late.

Having played many organs designed by G. Donald Harrison, Joseph Whiteford, and Donald Gillett over my entire professional career, I feel that many of Aeolian-Skinner’s organs built since 1956 are very beautiful indeed and are landmarks easily on a par with some of those the company built under Harrison. It is prescient to read what Emerson Richards said about Joseph Whiteford when he wrote to Henry Willis shortly after Harrison’s death:

I think that he [Whiteford] has more ability than he is given credit for but he is impatient and for some reason does not inspire confidence—just why I cannot say.³²

In considering Aeolian-Skinner after Harrison’s death, Charles Callahan’s sage advice in the introductory material to his second book is still worthy of consideration:

The pendulum of taste and opinion is constantly in motion. Caught up in the enthusiasms of a particular moment in time, it is all too easy for anyone to belittle others’ achievements. Perhaps Joseph
Whiteford and his work are overdue for a fair assessment.³³

The author gratefully acknowledges the assistance of Charles Callahan, William Czelusniak, Allen Harris, Douglass Hunt, Allen Kinzey, and Larry Trupiano in the preparation of this article.

Notes

1. Barbara Owen, The Mormon Tabernacle Organ: An American Classic (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1990), 43.

29. Allen Kinsey and Sand Lawn, comp., E. M. Skinner/Aeolian-Skinner Opus List (Richmond, Virginia: Organ Historical Society, 1997), 152.

30. E. William Doty to Brock W. Downward, December 14, 1974. Downward diss., 97.

31. Michael Gariepy to Charles Callahan, February 9, 1996, Callahan, Aeolian-Skinner Remembered, 372.

32. Emerson Richards to Henry Willis III, July 12, 1956. Callahan, The American Classic Organ, 433.

33. Callahan, Aeolian-Skinner Remembered, xvi.

Bibliography

Alexander, Richard. “A Survey of the Pipe Organs Designed by G. Donald Harrison.” Master’s thesis, Yale University, School of Music, 1970.

Barnes, William Harrison. The Contemporary American Organ. 8th ed. Glen Rock, NJ: J. Fisher & Bro., 1964.

Berry, Ray, Seth Bingham, Charles M. Courboin, Everett Titcomb, Ernest White, William Self, Alec Wyton, George Faxon, Robert Baker. “G. Donald Harrison, 1889–1956: A Tribute to a Great Man.” The American Organist, vol. 39, no. 7 (July 1956): 230–231.

Bethards, Jack. “The Tabernacle Letters: The Story of the Salt Lake Organ in the Words of G. Donald Harrison and Alexander Schreiner.” The Diapason, vol. 81, nos. 6–8 (June 1990: 14–17; July 1990: 8–9; August 1990: 10–11).

______ . “The 1988 Renovation—A Builder’s Perspective.” The American Organist, vol. 22, no. 12 (Dec. 1988): 71–78. [re: the renovation of the Salt Lake Tabernacle organ].

Blanton, Joseph Edwin. The Organ in Church Design. Albany, TX: Venture Press, 1957.

Buhrman, T. Scott. “Arthur Hudson Marks.” The American Organist, vol. 22 (June 1939).

Callahan, Charles. The American Classic Organ: A History in Letters. Richmond, VA: The Organ Historical Society, 1990.

______ . Aeolian-Skinner Remembered: A History in Letters. Minneapolis: Randall Egan, 1996.

Cundick, Robert. “The 1988 Renovation—An Organist’s Perspective.” The American Organist, vol. 22, no. 12 (Dec. 1988): 79–80.

Downward, Brock W. “G. Donald Harrison and the American Classic Organ.” D.M.A. diss., Eastman School of Music, Rochester, NY, 1976.

Fesperman, John. Two Essays on Organ Design. Raleigh, NC: The Sunbury Press, 1975.

Harrison, G. Donald. “Organ,” in Harvard Dictionary of Music. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1944.

______ . “Slider Chests?” The Organ Institute Quarterly, 3 (Summer 1953).

______ , and Emerson L. Richards. “Chorus Reeds, French, English, and American.” The American Organist, vol. 24, nos. 4–7 (April 1941: 107–108; May 1941: 141–143; June 1941: 172–174; July 1941: 203–204).

Kehl, Roy. “The American Classic Symposium in Salt Lake City.” The Diapason, vol. 80, no. 5 (May 1989): 10–11.

King, John Hansen. “The King of Instruments.” The Diapason, vol. 94, no. 5, April 2003.

Kinsey, Allen, and Sand Lawn, comp. E. M. Skinner/Aeolian-Skinner Opus List. Richmond, VA: The Organ Historical Society, 1992, 1997.

Langord, Alan C. “Aeolian-Skinner: A Study in Artistic Leadership.” Bachelor’s thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1959.

Nies-Berger, Édouard. Albert Schweitzer As I Knew Him. Hillsdale, NY: Pendragon Press, 2003.

Owen, Barbara. The Mormon Tabernacle Organ: An American Classic. Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1990.

Richards, Emerson L. “Advent Organ in Boston.” The American Organist, vol. 19, no. 9 (September 1936): 304–307.

_______ . “An American Classic Organ Arrives.” The American Organist, vol. 26, no. 5 (May 1943): 104–108.

_______ . “Boston Symphony Hall’s Third Organ.” The American Organist, vol. 33, no. 1 (January 1950): 17–22.

_______ . “Curtis Institute’s New Organ.” The American Organist, vol. 25, no. 1 (January 1942): 10–14.

Schreiner, Alexander. “The Tabernacle Organ in Salt Lake City.” Organ Institute Quarterly, vol. 7, no. 1 (1957).

_______ . “100 Years of Organs in the Mormon Tabernacle.” The Diapason, vol. 58, no. 11 (November 1967): 19.

Zeuch, William E. “An Appreciation of the Work of G. Donald Harrison.” The American Organist, vol. 16, no. 9 (September 1933): 438–439.

About The American Organist magazine entries: for most of the twentieth century the official journal of the American Guild of Organists was The Diapason, independently owned, edited, and published in Chicago. Simultaneous with The Diapason was an organists’ journal titled The American Organist, published by T. Scott Buhrman in New York City. These two journals coexisted until 1967 when the AGO established its independent journal, initially titled MUSIC: The AGO/RCCO Magazine reflecting that it was the official journal of the American Guild of Organists and the Royal Canadian College of Organists. After Buhrman died in the 1960s his journal continued briefly, but it soon ceased operations. The AGO soon adopted the title The American Organist for their official magazine, but it is not in any way related to Buhrman’s magazine. In this bibliography the two 1988 entries referring to The American Organist refer to the magazine’s later iteration as the journal of the AGO.

Lewtak Pipe Organ Builders, Inc., Mocksville, North Carolina; Seven Oaks Presbyterian Church, Columbia, South Carolina

Music director’s perspective

The story began with our church’s celebration of its fiftieth anniversary. Like so many congregations, those years were filled with wonderful accomplishments as well as challenges and changes. As the people of Seven Oaks stepped forward in faith to envision what our next fifty years would look like, there was prayerful thought and deliberation given to the nature and forms of our worship. Worship is a defining feature of our congregation and serves as a touchstone around which we organize and prepare ourselves for lives of discipleship. The music ministry is a highly valued component of our worship and has a long tradition of excellence. As part of our visioning, a commitment was made to continue using the organ as the central instrument for accompanying, supporting, and enhancing our worship.

When the sanctuary was built, an eleven-rank W. Zimmer & Sons organ was installed. After more than thirty years of service, electronic and mechanical systems were failing. That, combined with the excessive unification of the pipework and lack of color and distinctiveness in the voicing, made it extremely difficult for the instrument to continue fully supporting our congregation’s worship.

Around the same time, Tom Lewtak, founder of Lewtak Pipe Organ Builders, was in the midst of installing a large new tracker instrument in a nearby church. He generously agreed to meet with us, look over our instrument, and make suggestions for how we might proceed. From our first meeting, it was clear that his philosophy was grounded in historical organ building practices and informed by a thorough understanding of twenty-first-century advances. More importantly, his advice revealed his attention to detail, passion for excellence, and heart for serving the needs of congregations. Then, after experiencing the exquisite craftsmanship and stellar tonal work done exhibited by some of his instruments, we were confident his firm was the ideal choice for our renovation project.

Within the constraints of our financial resources, Tom began crafting an instrument that would visually enhance our worship space and significantly expand the organ’s tonal resources. As he and the skilled craftsmen at Lewtak Pipe Organ Builders got to work, members of our congregation stepped up to renovate the pipe chamber space. Our own skilled volunteers labored for several months expanding the space, which allowed for doubling the number of ranks and significantly improved tonal egress.

As the project proceeded, there were a variety of challenges and changes that came along. The vast majority of the organ’s systems were found to be simply inadequate and needed to be replaced. As an example, the original console and keyboards could not be rebuilt, necessitating the construction of a brand new console. Still, every step of the way Tom found workable solutions that enhanced the sound, the visual beauty, and functional integrity of the instrument. In the end, what began as a renovation idea ended up as truly much more than a rebuilt instrument. We had a new organ.

Our new twenty-four-rank instrument has over 1,300 pipes. The original pipework, after proper revoicing, was used primarily to create the Great division. New pipework and chests make up an enclosed Swell division and significantly expanded the Pedal division. All pipework was voiced with extraordinary care and skill to maximize the quality and clarity of each rank and to create a satisfying ensemble sound that takes full advantage of the building’s acoustics. The new two-manual, stoptab console includes beautifully inlaid wood. It has two excellently crafted tracker-touch keyboards, all digital combination and control systems, and an adjustable speed tremulant that adapts well to music from many different periods. The organ is tuned to Neidhardt 1724 “Grosse Stadt,” a temperament that is more consistent with classical temperaments, enhancing the overall quality of the sound and adding a touch of historical authenticity to the music. The project was capped off with the installation of Tom Lewtak’s handsomely designed and crafted organ façade, which notably enriched the aesthetic quality of our worship space.

All in all, this project has reformed our church’s music and worship by creating for us an instrument having independent divisions, each splendidly colorful and powerful in ensemble. Once completed we had just a few months before the pandemic hit and worship was moved online. Now, a year later our congregation has regathered and is once again enjoying the transformation of our organ and the rich musical experience with which it enhances our worship.

We have been deeply blessed by our partnership with Tom Lewtak and Lewtak Pipe Organ Builders. Their commitment to excellence, fastidiousness, and generous spirit has made them valued partners. We now look forward to decades of music ministering and inspiring all who hear our organ to join us in giving praise to God!

—Lloyd R. Pilkington, Ph.D.

Director of Music Ministry

Technical remarks

Because right from the beginning it was obvious that this would not be a mechanical-action organ, we approached the Seven Oaks project with a dose of nervousness. Throughout our twenty years in business, we have performed many renovations of non-tracker instruments, but we had never built one thus far! In the process, we have certainly learned many things that are specific to electric-action organs—and by that we mean both the good and the bad. In general, it confirmed our long-standing conviction that, if at all possible, the choice of mechanical action is overall a better one. However, not to sound negative, we are rushing to admit that there are circumstances that make it impossible to build mechanical, and then the choice of an electric action is necessary and it can be executed in a quite satisfactory manner.

At Seven Oaks Presbyterian Church, for the new Swell division main windchest, we selected a particular chest construction, one that we felt would deliver the most satisfying musical results and be reliable for a very long time. The windchest is of a slider-and-pallet type, with pallets being fitted with balanced valves and pulled down by electromagnets. This was to avoid the effect of sudden wind rush and abrupt pipe speech caused by the magnet moving too quickly. It is not a new idea, of course, but every builder puts his/her own twist on it, and so did we, naturally. Working through the trial and error process, we arrived at a “sweet spot” ratio of the pneumatic-to-pallet area, which ended up giving us the desired effect of natural pipe speech behavior. We tried, and I think that we succeeded, to avoid having an organ that behaves too much like a machine and not enough like an instrument. The responsiveness and natural performance of the Swell chest turned out to be most pleasing both for the player and the listener.

For several other ranks, in particular in the Pedal division, we had to build many more windchests with other kinds of action. In total, because of the space limitations, there are thirteen new windchests in this organ, some as small as twelve notes and as big as 64, with a variety of action types. This entire array of components is controlled by an electronic system, integrated with the console interface.

As for the division placement, once again we had to face the limitations of available real estate. The organ chamber offered generous height, but little square footage area. With the new, greatly enlarged front opening for the façade, we decided to keep things as centered and as symmetrical as possible. The Great division was therefore placed centrally behind the front pipes, with the largest Pedal pipes occupying the space directly behind it against the back wall. The Swell, however, would not fit above it, and our solution was to split it into C and C-sharp sides and place it on two opposing ends of the organ chamber. Therefore, in reality, there are two expression boxes, with two sets of louvers operated synchronously, and with the wind supply interconnected to assure that the windchests behave like one, not two separate entities. An interesting challenge came with the tremolo, which stubbornly affected one side more than the other! It took several attempts and serious tricks to get it under control.

In all of our organs, the wind supply is purposely left a bit unstable. Not to push the needle of good taste to either extreme, we simply do not like the wind to be a “flatline,” or to be as unsteady as to become an annoyance. A middle-ground solution seems to be pleasing to most people. The organ at Seven Oaks has only one but fairly large set of bellows with double rise, inverted ribs. It guarantees generous storage capacity and steady wind pressure even at times of the highest demand. The windchests do not have schwimmer plates or “floating” regulators. Instead, there are small concussion bellows attached to individual chests, allowing for much finer regulation of wind behavior. The result is the sound that breathes with the music, naturally and discreetly.

The console layout follows a minimalistic, yet very functional design. It offers utilitarian simplicity and friendliness even at the very first contact. There is everything one might need for both service playing as well as for the most arduous literature performance. The design of the console shell is an extension of the façade motif and was made from the same species of wood. Our intention was to create a strong visual link between the two.

Lastly, I want to offer not a technical remark but something that is truly important in the overall project of this scope—the human aspect of it. At Seven Oaks Presbyterian Church, we have encountered so much kindness, understanding, respect, trust, and goodwill that we would be remiss not to give it a special mention. This was perhaps not the most high-value contract an organ building establishment would ask for, but in terms of personal satisfaction, it was a remarkable experience for our entire team. We are sincerely grateful for the friendship and support of good folks in this graceful worship community.

—Tom Lewtak, MM, MA

President

Lewtak Pipe Organ Builders, Inc.

The dedicatory recital will take place in October. The program, “Pipes of Praise,” will include music from across the centuries from Bach to Bock. Dr. Lloyd Pilkington, Director of Music Ministries, will present the recital.

GREAT (Manual I)

8′ Principal (existing)

8′ Gedackt (1–24 existing, 25–61 new)

4′ Octave (new)

4′ Gemshorn (existing)

2-2⁄3′ Nasard (1–12 new, 13–61 existing, from old Sesquialter II)

2′ Superoctave (new)

Mixture III (existing)

8′ Trompete (1–12 new, 13–61 existing)

Great to Great 4

Swell to Great 16

Swell to Great 8

Swell to Great 4

SWELL (Manual II, enclosed)

8′ Hohlflöte (new, wood)

8′ Gamba (new)

8′ Celeste TC (existing)

4′ Prestant (new)

4′ Koppelflöte (1–12 new, 13–61 existing)

2′ Flageolet (new)

1-3⁄5′ Tierce (1–12 new, 13–61 existing, from old Sesquilater II)

1-1⁄3′ Larigot (new)

8′ Oboe (new)

Tremolo

Swell to Swell 16

Swell to Swell 4

PEDAL

16′ Violon (new)

16′ Subbass (1–12 existing, 13–32 new)

8′ Octave (new)

8′ Bourdon (from Great Gedackt 8′)

4′ Choralbass (new)

16′ Fagott (1–24 existing, 25–32 new)

8′ Trumpet (1–20 shared with 16′ Fagott, 21–32 new )

Great to Pedal 8

Great to Pedal 4

Swell to Pedal 8

Swell to Pedal 4

 

24 stops

24 ranks

1,331 pipes (622 existing, 709 new)

Manual compass c1–c61

Pedal compass c1–g32

Electric key and stop action

Tracker-touch keyboards

Electronics by Peterson Electro-Musical Products

Tuning temperament: Neidhardt 1724 “Grosse Stadt”