The mystique of the G. Donald Harrison signature organs, Part 1

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

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

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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.

John Bishop

Giants among favorites

I am often asked if I have a favorite organ, a single instrument that stands out among the multitude as the best, the most expressive, the most impressive, among the hundreds I have visited, played on, or worked on. I am never able to answer clearly by citing a single instrument. There are organs that have been important in my life, but great life experiences do not necessarily focus on superb organs. I am very proud of some of the projects I have done on simple organs that I was able to expand and improve so the congregations that own them were thrilled with the result.

I have heard some of our finest musicians play thrilling programs on magnificent instruments and come away from those experiences with gratitude for a life surrounded by great musicians and great organs. I have been moved by beautiful playing on exquisite smaller instruments and amazed by the relationships of beautiful organs with the acoustics and architecture of their buildings.

I have fond memories of the organs I knew when I was a teenager first learning to play, some of which I still see regularly, and memories of rich evenings with beloved colleagues—sitting with an organ, listening to its tones, experimenting with its mechanics, marveling at its design, historical importance, heritage—and then retiring to a restaurant for a great meal. I have visited many organs nearing completion in colleagues’ workshops and then heard them as finished instruments in their “forever homes.” And as director of the Organ Clearing House, I have learned that what seemed like a forever home for an organ can vanish, leaving the organ homeless. I am especially proud of some of those when we were able to find new homes for them and see them restored for a second century of use.

There are dozens, hundreds of organs I can think of that I love and respect as great technical, musical, artistic achievements, but there is not one that I can point to as the best or as my favorite. I will cite a few standouts.

Warner Concert Hall

I was an eighteen-year-old incoming freshman at Oberlin in November 1974, my third month as a grown-up organ major, when the grand Flentrop organ was dedicated in Warner Concert Hall. I was fortunate to have grown up in Boston where I heard many wonderful new mechanical-action organs, but the Flentrop dazzled me. Painted red and blue and wearing gold negligee, it looks fantastic in the mostly whitish room. I did the hard work of practice, lessons, studio classes, and required performances including my senior recital on that organ. After a long absence I had a chance to visit it again last summer, and as you read this, I will have attended the fiftieth anniversary celebration of that organ over the weekend of November 15, reuniting with dozens of friends, classmates, and colleagues.

Basilica of Saint Martin

I visited Stefan Stürzer at Glatter-Götz Orgelbau in Pfullendorf, Germany, in September of 2019. Manuel Rosales was there working on the earliest stages of the monumental organ they are building together for Trinity Church, Wall Street, in New York City. Stefan, Manuel, Glatter-Götz’s then-new employee Felix Müller, and I had a chance to visit the Josef Gabler organ (completed in 1750) in the Basilica of Saint Martin in Weingarten, Germany. The only time we could schedule our visit was during a Mass on a Friday afternoon, but since the organ gallery is very high in the rear of the building, we were able to walk around chatting. In between leading hymns, psalms, and incidental music, the organist opened panels to show us inner workings, and he made a point of demonstrating some of the unique sounds of that remarkable organ, especially the haunting Vox Humana in the Brüstungspositiv (Rückpositiv).

There is a fascinating legend regarding that Vox Humana that had Gabler struggling to recreate the human voice exactly, and one attempt after many others fell short. The devil offered a deal: consign your soul to the devil, meet in a prescribed lonely place in the forest, and you will receive the secret for the perfect human voice, which turned out to be a piece of metal to be used to build the rank. It is not clear how Gabler got out of that pickle, but the organ was successful enough that the abbot presented him with enough wine to fill the organ’s largest pipe. (If the pipe was twenty-four inches in diameter and thirty-two feet long, that would be around seven-hundred-fifty gallons.) The name of the city and abbey gives away the source of such a plentiful supply. I remember that as a remarkable encounter with a spectacular organ in the company of admired colleagues, pretty heady stuff. That night, Felix took the photo of me that shows every month at the top of the right-hand page of this column.

Saint-Sulpice

The Cavaillé-Coll organ at Saint-Sulpice in Paris, France, is widely regarded as one of the most important and influential organs in the world. Charles-Marie Widor and Marcel Dupré filled that organ bench for a hundred years as they taught generations of students. Imagine hearing Widor’s “Toccata” from the Fifth Symphony in that church for the first time. “Oh Maître, I hope you’ll play it again.” I attended a recital there played by Gillian Weir and could do nothing but weep. Putting my fingers on the keys played by Widor and Dupré for thousands of Masses and countless hours of practice was both humbling and thrilling.

Saint James

When I was working for John Leek in Oberlin, Ohio, around 1980, we renovated a large Wicks organ in Saint James Catholic Church in Lakewood, Ohio, with three manuals and twenty-eight ranks. It was located in an ample and high loft at the rear of the church with a small two-division sanctuary organ burrowed into the reredos, an unremarkable organ except that it was in a huge, resonant church and was a product of the period when Vincent Willis III of the great eponymous British firm was working at Wicks influencing their tonal schemes.

There was a lot of unification in the organ, so there was a lot of wiring to do, much of which I did alone in a Zen state, sorting and soldering row after row of wires while listening to a gaggle of women with an occasional added man reciting the Rosary for an hour after the end of the 8:00 a.m. Mass. By the time the project was finished, that sequence of prayers was forever etched in my brain, and when I hear it today, I can smell the soldering iron.

I mention this organ because it opened my twenty-something, tracker-action, early music eyes and ears to a new understanding of Romantic music. One afternoon I was playing the ubiquitous Widor “Toccata” (he sure did play it again, and so has almost every organist since), reveling in the effect of the piece in that vast rolling acoustic. I was used to playing it on smallish tracker organs that made it sound like pelting marbles on a metal roof. So that’s what it’s supposed to sound like. Maybe there is something to this music.

“The Busch”

E. Power Biggs lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he was neighbor to great thinkers like Arthur Schlesinger, John Kenneth Galbraith, and Julia Child. After working with G. Donald Harrison of Aeolian-Skinner to create an “experimental organ” in Harvard University’s Busch-Reisinger Museum (now known as Busch Hall), Biggs commissioned a three-manual, mechanical-action organ by Flentrop Orgelbouw of Zaandam, the Netherlands, which was installed in the gallery of the resonant hall in 1957. That instrument quickly became world-famous as Biggs recorded there his brilliant and influential series of LPs, E. Power Biggs: Bach Great Organ Favorites. I was deeply influenced by those recordings, and I have met countless other organists “of a certain age” whose life paths were set by those recordings. As a teenager I heard Biggs play several recitals there, memories that have stayed with me for over fifty years, and I have visited the organ several times since. It is impossible to overstate the impact of the Flentrop organ on American organ building at that time, as the renaissance that was the revival of the classic craft was gaining traction.

Trinity on Copley

I worked at Angerstein & Associates in Stoughton, Massachusetts, between 1984 and 1987 until Daniel Angerstein closed the workshop to become tonal director for M. P. Möller in Hagerstown, Maryland. Dan and I worked out that I would assume the many service clients that led to the founding of the Bishop Organ Company. Jason McKown was a legendary old organ technician in the Boston area who had worked directly and personally with Ernest Skinner and told endless stories about Mr. Skinner and many famous organists and organbuilders. He was over eighty years old and eager to retire as curator of the marvelous double organ at Trinity Church on Copley Square in Boston, where there is a four-manual instrument by the Skinner Organ Company in the rear gallery and a three-manual Aeolian-Skinner in a chancel chamber. Jason had been caring for the organ for over fifty years. The building is a heavy, dense, grand place with interior decoration by John La Farge, and the organs sound spectacular there. Brian Jones, the organist there and an old friend, introduced me to Jason, and I became curator of the organs.

Trinity Church has long been famous for noontime recitals every Friday, and I was there early every Friday morning for two hours of tuning. It was my habit to listen to Red Barber and Bob Edwards after the 7:30 a.m. headlines on National Public Radio in my car with a cup of coffee before going inside to tune.

Those Friday noon recitals meant I heard different organists play the organ every week. Some players were swallowed up by the complexity and sophistication of the big double organ with myriad controls and combinations. Others managed to tame the beast, and it sometimes seemed that the organ somehow knew when the person who slid onto the bench was going to give it a great ride. Over a period of about ten years, I heard more than 200 recitals there. Of course, there were many repeats, but hearing so many different approaches to a single organ was an important part of my learning.

A couple doozies

Once I was established at Trinity, Jason walked me the half mile up Huntington Avenue to The First Church of Christ, Scientist, known familiarly as the Mother Church, home to Aeolian-Skinner Opus 1203, built in 1952. He had been caring for the organ since it was installed, and what an organ it is with over 150 stops and 237 ranks. Jason recommended me to the church as his successor, and I had a rollicking ten years learning the mysteries of taking care of a truly massive organ.

Many of the world’s largest organs, say those with more than 200 ranks, were originally built as more modest instruments and evolved into their present glory under a string of opus numbers. One of the many remarkable things about Opus 1203 is that it was built all at once under one giant contract. Also remarkable is that it was built under the tonal direction of Lawrence Phelps, who was only thirty years old at the time. I know I thought I was quite something when I was thirty, but I am sure I could not have produced such a massive organ with such a sophisticated tonal scheme.

This amazing organ was at the center of my professional life for around ten years, and I had many important experiences and lessons there. I have written about it in these pages many times because pretty much any time I start writing about organs, it is there lurking—no, looming in the background.

I had a conversation the other day with Bryan Ashley, who has been the organist there since 2009. He revels in the organ’s majesty and subtlety and told me that it is the honor of his life to play it each week. The church has supported the organ with meticulous care since it was installed. Foley-Baker, Inc., of Tolland, Connecticut, has been working there since I left nearly thirty years ago, doing usual tuning and service calls as well as a comprehensive renovation under the direction of Phelps in the 1990s. The brilliant concert organist Stephen Tharp played a landmark recital on the Mother Church organ on June 28, 2014, the closing recital for the national convention of the American Guild of Organists. He premiered his transcription of Igor Stravinsky’s world-changing Rite of Spring in a riveting performance that I thought changed the world of organ recitals forever. His fierce rhythmic drive and dynamic, fiery registrations had the huge audience spellbound. In testament to the quality and condition of that massive organ built in 1952, Stephen told me that he practiced energetically for dozens of hours in preparation for his recital and never had to call on the technicians to correct anything.

The Mother Church organ came to mind, as it does frequently, when I was in Salt Lake City this past August for the convention of the American Institute of Organbuilders, where the famous Aeolian-Skinner organ in the Mormon Tabernacle was featured in several programs. The Tabernacle organ (Opus 1075) was built in 1945, just seven years and 128 opus numbers earlier than the Mother Church organ. It originally had 187 ranks and has been gradually expanded to today’s 206 ranks by Schoenstein & Company. It was built under the directorship of G. Donald Harrison who considered it his masterpiece, and rightly so. A quick look at the encyclopedic stoplist shows its vast variety of tone colors and combinations.

There is a fundamental difference between these two extraordinary organs. While both can be considered “American Classic” instruments, the Mother Church organ has lower wind pressures. The Positiv division is on less than two inches of wind; it is amazing that the eleven-stop pitman windchest can function on such low pressure. Along with lower wind pressures, the organ has what could be considered Baroque choruses with German nomenclature. Along with the Great, Swell, and Choir you would expect to find the Hauptwerk and Positiv with distinctly lighter tone.

Both organs are rich with multiple pairs of “celesting” stops, mutations at every pitch imaginable, and many mixtures of varying character. It is important to note that both organs are scrupulously maintained in terrific condition, reflecting the dedication of those two institutions.

Look it up.

I have been rattling from one organ to another, and I imagine some readers would be interested to see the stoplists. You are in luck. The Organ Historical Society has a broad and valuable database of organs across the United States. Visit pipeorgandatabase.com, click on “Instruments” in the upper left corner, then click on “View/Search Instruments.” That will open a form with blanks to fill in: Location (Church, Institution, etc.), City, State, Builder, Opus Number, etc. You usually only need to fill in a few blanks before the organ you are looking for pops up.

The database is a fantastic resource with photos and information about thousands of organs. The website is open on my browser whenever I am sitting at my desk, and I routinely search for information about dozens of organs. A little hint: if an organ has been rebuilt, it is likely you will find it under that company rather than the original builder. For example, you will find the Mother Church organ under Foley-Baker, not Aeolian-Skinner. Three cheers to the OHS for conceiving and continuing with that valuable project, essential to those who work with and research organs, and fascinating to all of us who are just plain interested.

If you visit the database and do not see an organ you play regularly or just know and love, go back to the original menu, click “Instruments,” and then click “Submit New Instrument Entry.” Your submission will be reviewed, someone may ask you a question or two, and then you will have contributed to a unique and valuable resource.

Next time we meet, ask me what’s my favorite organ. I’m thinking about that all the time; you may get a sassy answer.

Joyce Johnson Robinson

Joyce Johnson Robinson is a past editor of The Diapason.

More than a century and a half after his birth, Ernest Martin Skinner (born January 15, 1866; died November 27, 1960) is still acknowledged to be one of the most innovative of American organbuilders. Skinner created instruments that emphasized orchestral-imitative stops (such as the French Horn and English Horn), with consoles that were models of practical design. He created exquisite and colorful soft stops, including the Erzähler, the Orchestral Oboe, and the English Horn. His innovations also include the pitman windchest, and he perfected the electro-pneumatic motor for swell shutters.¹

Skinner began his career in 1886, working for George H. Ryder in Reading, Massachusetts, north of Boston. Skinner worked there for four years, and in 1890 after being fired by a new foreman, was subsequently hired by George S. Hutchings, for whom he worked for eleven years.

Skinner founded Ernest M. Skinner & Co.—the firm changed names several times before becoming known as the Skinner Organ Company in 1919—and his career lasted a good four decades, with 1910 to the early 1920s being its heyday. The Great Depression greatly reduced the market for Skinner’s instruments. Furthermore, staff changes in the company resulted in Skinner losing control of his own firm, and through a merger, a new entity emerged, the Aeolian-Skinner Organ Company, in 1932. The factory that Skinner opened in 1936 (when he was 70!) with his son Richmond, when the company was known as Ernest M. Skinner & Son Organ Company, was destroyed by fire on June 17, 1943. Changes in musical tastes also eventually led to a diminished market for Skinner’s instruments. By the time of Skinner’s death in 1960, his style of organbuilding had gone out of fashion, with orchestral color and tone being de-emphasized in favor of clarity and brightness.

From 1911 to 1961, news of the life and work of Ernest M. Skinner was reported in The Diapason. The announcements, advertisements, letters, and features that appeared in The Diapason illuminated the great scope of Skinner’s work and personality, along with the waxing and waning of his company and career, and the occasional glimpse into his personal life. Over the course of fifty years there were dozens of announcements and articles that documented the instruments in the Skinner opus list and traced the arrival of G. Donald Harrison in 1927, the 1932 merger with the pipe organ division of the Aeolian Company, Skinner’s establishment of his own factory and company in 1936, and his joining the staff of the Schantz Organ Company of Orrville, Ohio, in 1947.

This article offers a brief summary of Skinner’s life and history as revealed in the pages of The Diapason. By no means will it present every reference that can be found in the journal; it is intended to give a flavor of the life, times, and work of this important organbuilder.

Skinner instruments

We first read of Skinner in January 1911, when The Diapason reported on the near-completion of the new, “monster” Skinner organ at New York City’s Cathedral of St. John the Divine. The next month, the journal published a letter from Skinner in which he complains about inaccurate reporting in a letter discussing that organ; Skinner’s letter also touches on the question, “what makes an organ modern?”

To the Editor of The Diapason. Dear Sir:—One of the reasons why I usually decline to give information to newspaper reporters is the fact that they are not satisfied to take the facts as submitted, but have to enlarge upon them and indulge in flights of imagination, which makes a farce of most accounts of church organs.

I note an article in the January number relating to the organ being installed in the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, in which it is stated: “The thirty-two foot pipe at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine gives the same tone because it has a sixty-four foot stop.” I do not know where the reporter got this information, nor am I able to comprehend its meaning. There is certainly no stop in this instrument of sixty-four foot pitch, nor have I heard of a stopped sixty-four in any other. The reporter is pleased to call this tone a “gusty rumble.” He vaults from this to the “shrill singing of a tea kettle just beginning to whisper to itself about boiling,” which makes a paragraph rich in metaphor, and is about as rational as the average article of this description.

I note a letter from James E. Dale, in which he says the organ for the Cathedral of St. John the Divine will not be the largest and most modern ever built. I was particular to state in such information as I gave the reporter that the organ was not the largest ever built. I wish Mr. Dale would inform me upon what he bases his conclusion that the Sydney organ, built twenty-one years ago, is more modern than the organ going into the Cathedral of St. John the Divine.

What makes an organ modern? Is it the character of its resources or the number of stops? Also, allow me to say that the Sydney organ is not the largest in the world. The organ built by Murray M. Harris of California for the St. Louis Exposition, and being installed in Wannamaker’s store in New York city [sic], has that distinction to the best of my knowledge and belief.

The organ in the Cathedral of St. John the Divine has three thirty-two foot pedal stops, an open, violone and reed, all of which are the full thirty-two feet in length at low C and are open pipes. The organ is guiltless of a sixty-four foot stop of any description.

Yours very truly,

ERNEST M. SKINNER

The June 1911 issue reported on Clarence Dickinson’s opening recital at the cathedral.

Other 1911 announcements mentioned new Skinner instruments and contracts: Asylum Hill Congregational Church, Hartford, Connecticut; Sts. Peter and Paul’s Cathedral (the National Cathedral), Washington, D.C.; and Church of the Holy Communion, New York City (April 1911); and the completion of a large four-manual organ in the Grand Avenue Methodist Church, Kansas City, Missouri (September 1911).

The October 1912 issue noted the contract and stoplist of a four-manual organ for Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts, along with the dedication of a three-manual instrument in the First Methodist Church of Muscatine, Iowa—played by Mrs. Wilhelm Middelschulte.²

In October 1917, it was noted that Gordon Balch Nevin (probably best known to us as the composer of Will o’ the Wisp) had joined the company (having left his position as organist of Second Presbyterian Church of Cleveland), to arrange musical scores for the “Orchestrator”—a player organ using rolls (“which Mr. Skinner has invented and perfected after twenty years’ work”). The Diapason reported that:

The new instrument contains many of Mr. Skinner’s inventions whereby the tones of the orchestral instruments are faithfully reproduced. In addition the instrument contains a full size concert grand piano, and it is possible to reproduce a concerto for piano with complete orchestral accompaniments.

The Ernest M. Skinner company is erecting a special laboratory building for this branch of the work, containing rooms for cutting work, a studio for the head of the department, and a fine concert hall—equipped with a large “Orchestrator.”

By the way, a player mechanism using perforated rolls was also to be part of the Skinner Organ Company’s organ for the auditorium in St. Paul, Minnesota, mentioned in the April 1920 issue (“City raises fund of $61,000”). This four-manual, 105-stop instrument (stoplist given in the article) would also include a concert grand piano that could be played from the organ keyboard, “as it is in the case of the Skinner organ in Carnegie Hall, Pittsburgh,” along with a new feature, a 16′ Heckelphone in the Solo division (“which will resemble an English horn, but six or seven times as powerful”), and a six-rank string division.

The Diapason’s office was located at that time in Chicago, Illinois; naturally, local instruments would certainly be noted. It was reported in March 1921 that St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in nearby Evanston would have a great organ, designed by Herbert Hyde and Joseph Bonnet:

The Chicago district is to have another notable organ—one which probably will be the largest in any church of the city or suburbs. The Skinner Organ Company has been awarded the contract for a four-manual instrument for St. Luke’s Episcopal Church of Evanston. It will have a total of 78 speaking stops. The instrument is to be completed early in 1922 and will be the crowning feature of the new edifice under construction. The present chapel organ is to be used as an echo division for the new organ. The specification is the work of Herbert E. Hyde, organist and choirmaster of St. Luke’s, in consultation with Joseph Bonnet.

The front page of the October 1921 issue of The Diapason was virtually dominated by Skinner. There was a notice of the dedication of St. Paul’s new municipal organ, with recitals by H. Chandler Goldthwaite, the city organist, who declared the Skinner instrument to be “the best in the country, bar none,” and that “visiting organists are going to discover that compositions may be played here that will be almost impossible” on other organs. The center of the page shows Skinner at the organ console, and Arthur Marks standing by the organ built for Marks’s country place in Westchester County. And the right-hand column provided details on the two “wonder organs” for the Eastman School—one an Austin, and the other a 4-manual Skinner, every division of which was enclosed, including the entire pedal, which possessed a 32′ Bombarde. This organ also featured a full Dulciana chorus (16′, 8′, 4′, 2′, and a Dulciana Cornet), and on the Great, a complete harmonic series, including a Septieme.

The Skinner Organ Company’s New York office, located at 677 Fifth Avenue in New York City, also had an organ studio. The December 1925 issue of The Diapason lists the 36 “noted men” who would play a series of “great artists” Friday evening recitals at the studio, to be broadcast on radio station WAHG. The list is worthy of a Who’s Who: Lynnwood Farnam, T. Tertius Noble, Albert William Snow, Hugh Porter, Edwin Arthur Kraft, Palmer Christian, Charles Heinroth, Harold Gleason, W. A. Goldsworthy, Maurice Garabrant, Marshall Bidwell, Louis Potter, Gordon Balch Nevin, Guy C. Filkins, Rollo Maitland, John Priest, Chandler Goldthwaite, Alexander McCurdy, George Rogers Pratt, Alfred Greenfield, Arnold Dann, Walter Hartley, Warren D. Allen, Allan Bacon, Walter P. Zimmerman, Herbert E. Hyde, G. H. Federlein, William E. Zeuch, Henry F. Seibert, Edward Rechlin, and Clarence Dickinson. A photo of six of the recitalists gathered around a Skinner console graces the top of the issue’s front page.

The lead news article on page 1 of the April 1931 issue of The Diapason was the signing of a contract by the First Congregational Church of Los Angeles for “a large four-manual Skinner organ.” William H. Barnes, the consultant, and Stanley W. Williams, Skinner’s Pacific coast representative, prepared the stoplist for the sixty-rank (plus Harp/Celesta and Chimes) instrument.

The April 1931 issue also mentions the dedication recital of the four-manual, eighty-nine-stop Skinner organ at Severance Hall in Cleveland, played by Palmer Christian, noting that, “In spite of the fact that the event was held on Friday—a rehearsal night for church choirs—many organists and other church musicians were present. It is presumed that a number of choir rehearsals in town were curtailed to enable interested members to attend.” The organ’s console had three terminals for the cable—one so that it could be in the center of the stage, a second so that it could be at the side, and a third so that it could be in the sunken pit. “The tone is characterized by great beauty of individual solo registers. The ensemble is of the English type, with great prominence of chorus reeds and brilliant mixtures. These features were sufficiently outstanding to cause comment from the musical critics, one calling it a present-day ‘fashion’ in organ design.” (The stoplist was published in the February 1930 issue.)

The front page of the January 1932 issue featured a large portrait of Arthur Hudson Marks, “head of new organ company,” which is to say the new Aeolian-Skinner Organ Company, Inc., the combining of Skinner with the pipe organ division of the Aeolian Company. Marks was president, with W. H. Alfring, Aeolian president, and Ernest Skinner as vice-presidents, along with George Catlin of Skinner and Frank Taft of Aeolian. It was noted that 85% of Skinner’s business had been for churches, colleges, and institutions, and 15% for residences, while Aeolian’s was almost the reverse—80% residential and 20% institutional.

One early deal that resulted for Aeolian-Skinner was the 1933 order for a four-manual organ for the W. K. Kellogg Auditorium in Battle Creek, Michigan. The instrument and the auditorium were to be a gift to the Battle Creek public schools from Mr. Kellogg, “the breakfast food manufacturer whose products are known throughout the world.” The February 1933 issue’s front page gave the announcement and listed the specification, of sixty-five ranks plus Harp/Celesta and Chimes; an Echo organ was playable from the Solo manual. The specification included a 16′ Ophicleide (Great), 8′ Flugel Horn (Swell), 8′ Corno di Bassetto (Choir), and in the Solo division, 8′ Orchestral Oboe, French and English horns, and a heavy-pressure Tuba Mirabilis.

In February 1936 we read Skinner’s announcement that he established, with his son Richmond, his own organbuilding plant at Methuen, Massachusetts, under the name of Ernest M. Skinner & Son Company. The announcement is brief; Skinner “will engage in the designing and construction of instruments that are to embody his principles of tone and that are to be like the large organs in America on which his reputation is based.”

From this point on the number of new Aeolian-Skinner instruments far exceeded those of Skinner’s company. New organs were few and far between: First Church of Northampton, Massachusetts (three manuals, November 1936); First Baptist, Jackson, Mississippi (four manuals, 1940); St. John’s Lutheran, Allentown, Pennsylvania (April 1940); the reconstructed/enlarged organs at Brick Presbyterian (June 1940) and First Presbyterian, Englewood, New Jersey (three manuals, October 1946).

Skinner’s writings

Skinner’s own writings appeared throughout the years in The Diapason, from letters to the editor to feature articles. In 1919 Skinner was elected president of the Organ Builder’s Association of America. The September 1919 issue noted: “Ernest M. Skinner of Boston was elected president of the association, as the successor to John T. Austin, the first president. W. E. Pilcher of Louisville was made vice president; Farny R. Wurlitzer was re-elected treasurer and Adolph Wangerin was chosen again to be secretary.” At the organization’s first annual meeting, a motion for the association to declare itself in favor of the eight-hour day was voted down. In 1920, along with his report, Skinner gave an address on the importance of such an organization, noting how it could build respect and collegiality, in “a field that offers no one an easy road to success either artistically or financially.” The year 1920 looked rosy indeed. Note Skinner’s optimism (and mourn the passing of this era):

It looks to me as though from now on the organ builder were to become a decidedly necessary citizen. The organ is becoming immensely popular. The church no longer appears to have an exclusive ownership of the instrument. The auditorium, residence, motion picture theater and even the great municipal art museums are finding it worth while to give the king of instruments a place of honor in their activities. Let us make the most of our association for whatever it may do to insure the future for us.

At this meeting, the association drafted a uniform contract for purchase of new pipe organs, with a payment schedule set at 10% down, 55% at shipment, and the balance upon completion.

Also in 1920, in October, The Diapason printed Skinner’s lecture, “The Organ in the Home,” delivered before the National Association of Organists in New York. It offers an entertaining look at Skinner through his whimsical writing:

When the handle is turned on to let on the water for the morning tub, what is more fitting than Handel’s water music played on the unda maris? A little later we are led to the breakfast table and hear sweet discourse on a stop voiced smooth and round, to picturize a grapefruit, or a bald head.

But the essay focused on player organs:

. . . The present popularity of the residence pipe organ was brought about by the application of the perforated roll mechanism . . . . It satisfies an inherent craving for self-expression common to every living music lover.

Skinner was addressing organists, and he was discussing the organist who would be employed to play an organ in a wealthy home, noting that sometimes the performer would not be listened to:

The client and one or two friends carried on an animated conversion and paid no more attention to the organist than they would have paid to a yellow pup—in fact, I think the pup might have had the best of it. An artist will in this case be hammered into a mere mercenary . . . . The client knows there is, apart from the sound heard, more class to an actual organist than to a machine, and the organist undoubtedly wears this halo, whatever it amounts to.

The organ in the home necessarily has a much smaller public than elsewhere, but it certainly presents, particularly with the perforated roll adjunct, wonderful opportunities for an intimate acquaintance with whatever kind of music one is interested in . . . . The future for the organist looks wonderful to me . . . . But you can do more than anybody else to better the conditions of public music. A given plane is raised from a higher one, never from below.

The early 1920s were prosperous for the Skinner company. The April 1921 issue of The Diapason reports that the Skinner Organ Company would combine with the Steere Organ Company, to handle a large amount of new work. The Steere plant would operate as a unit of the Skinner organ company:

The two factories have been consolidated, but the plant of the Steere Company at Westfield, Mass., will be operated and the entire staff of that concern will be retained. The addition of the Steere forces to the facilities of the Boston plant of the Skinner Company will make it possible to take care of the large amount of new work, orders for which have been received by the Skinner Company. The deal therefore does not actually remove any factor from the organ business, but serves to make for better results through a combination of interests.

The announcement includes Skinner’s letter to the editor, detailing the consolidation, noting that George Kingsbury, Steere’s president, and Harry Van Wart, superintendent (who had previously worked for Skinner), supported “high standards of excellence.” Skinner had written that:

There has been a tremendous demand for Skinner products during the past year, which can be satisfied only by an organization expert in organ building and familiar with the technique and rigid inspection requirements of the Skinner Company. The Steere plant will operate at capacity as a unit of the Skinner Organ Company making standard Skinner parts under our standard specifications and inspection.

Skinner commented on whiffle-tree swell shade action in The Diapason Forum of the February 1922 issue. He explains his preference for it: “The whiffle-tree engine will move the shades about twice as fast as in the old mechanical action without slamming.” Skinner was responding to a previous letter that had criticized the whiffle-tree, and did not spare feelings in doing so: “Except for the fact that M. E. Hardy has overlooked everything of importance relating to the whiffle-tree swell shutter action, his article on the subject is very well expressed.”³

In a letter in May 1945, Skinner explained why organ pipes go sharp when temperature rises, what a temperament is, and what a “wolf” is. The first: As temperature rises, pipes contain less air than formerly, as some has left, due to expansion. Thus less air is excited by the same amount of force. The second: The wolf is the dissonance remaining in one interval of a perfectly tuned or untempered octave. Setting a temperament consists in tuning an octave so that the wolf is distributed equally throughout its twelve intervals.

Later that year, Skinner defined a “classical” organ: “Generally I have regarded it as the type represented by the French organs in Notre Dame and San [sic] Sulpice, and perhaps by the Roosevelt, Johnson and Hutchings organs in America . . . .” He felt that the “so-called romantic organ is the type developed here in the United States” and that its characteristics were “strings of warmth and prompt speech, the new orchestral voices, and unfortunately the Philomela, heavy claribel flutes and fat diapason.” He concluded by saying that since Webster defines classical as “a work of the highest class, of acknowledged excellence,” then the organs of Washington National Cathedral, Girard College, or Bruton Parish Church should be considered so.

In July 1949, Skinner complained about William H. Barnes’s Contemporary American Organ. Barnes claimed, based on letters he had received, that Skinner was not the inventor of certain stops. Skinner’s letter to the editor disputes this, demanding some proof: “Will Mr. Barnes please give in these columns a single instance where any one of these stops was placed by another organ builder, of a character authentic to an equal degree with those designed by the undersigned, and where they were placed, previous to the dates named?” The battle of letters continued, with Mr. Maclean of Toronto and Edwin D. Northrup joining in (September 1949). Skinner clarified that his contribution was the stop’s tone, not merely a stop name.

Please tell Mr. Maclean of Toronto that I did not refer to engraving the name English horn or cor anglais on a stopknob. I have seen many such, but the authentic English horn tone was not heard when the stop was drawn. I have been in England, France, Belgium, Holland and Germany several times, but never once heard the tone of an orchestral English horn, regardless of the name. Also in my sixty-five years as an organ builder I have seen organs of all makes in every state in the Union, but never once heard an authentic English horn, except my own.

. . . I invited Willis to America and gave him my French horn, personally, likewise men from Cavaille-Coll of Paris. I also gave many builders my pitman windchest and whiffletree swell engine; so now I suppose the logical thing to do is to try to do me out of their invention. I invented a contre bombarde and other stops. That doesn’t prevent others from designing other forms of the same name, does it?  . . . Cancel “inventions” to please Mr. Maclean, substitute “developments.” Moral: To avoid criticism, do nothing.

In 1951, when the organbuilder turned 85, the journal published “Ernest M. Skinner recalls the past” in the March issue. Later that year, Skinner’s wife Mabel died, and the grieving Skinner stayed with his daughter Eugenia in Reading, Massachusetts. In this article, Skinner summarized his life, beginning with a description of his limited education—“high school for a while”—and his on-the-job training, beginning with George H. Ryder, for whom Skinner swept the shop and wound trackers. He taught himself tuning (both piano and organ). He worked at George S. Hutchings in Boston, moving up to foreman, and then struck out on his own.

Skinner cited his organs at City College in New York, the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, the Washington National Cathedral, Rockefeller Memorial Chapel, Girard College Chapel, and Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. He described operatic and symphonic inspiration for his French Horn (Strauss, Salome), Bassoon (Zarathustra), and Orchestral Oboe and English Horn (Wagner, Parsifal), noting that “every improvement I ever made in the organ was opposed by somebody.” He concluded noting that Hutchings turned down a half-interest in Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone—for $50.

In July 1952, Skinner’s “Principles of Tonal Design” was a feature article. Skinner began by explaining that the electrically driven fan made subsidiary wind pressures possible. He suggests five-inch pressure “satisfactory for general purposes, except on large organs.” The article presented the characteristics of different stop pipes, where to locate their ranks in the organ, and tuning.

Skinner advertisements

The Skinner company was a regular advertiser in The Diapason. Skinner’s advertisements provide a view of the progress of Skinner’s business, and also his philosophies. Those from the 1930s after his separation from the company that he founded decades earlier are particularly telling.

One of the earliest advertisements appeared in August 1917, simply stating that “It isn’t what you Pay; it what you Get for what you pay. Buy by the tone, not by the ton.” The advertiser is the Ernest M. Skinner Company, Church Organs, Boston, Massachusetts.

An advertisement in February 1936 announces that “Ernest M. Skinner is established at Methuen, Mass., where organ building, as exemplified by the instruments at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, St. Thomas’ and St. Bartholomew’s churches, New York City, and similar examples elsewhere, will be continued. The traditional ensemble, enhanced by Mr. Skinner’s orchestral and tonal inventions . . . will ensure the character of these instruments. Their beautiful tone and uncompromising fidelity to quality are acknowledged by American and foreign artists alike.” This advertisement emphasizes what Skinner would be forever remembered for: orchestral and tonal inventions in the ensemble, with beautiful sound quality in a well-made instrument.

An April 1936 advertisement with the title “A Personal Word from Ernest M. Skinner” emphasizes that “Tone production, of distinction, is as individual and personal as handwriting, and even more difficult to copy. It is the product of personal musical experience, taste, research, technical skill and sense of hearing” and that Skinner’s company is the only one from which one can purchase instruments having “tonal characteristics of breadth and splendor.”

In another 1936 advertisement, this from May, Skinner writes that an organbuilder must have a musical imagination, so that the tone he creates would have “an artistic character, of poetic implication. . .”
and that “tonal charm is a fundamental requisite of every musical instrument.” In July, Skinner’s advertisement reaffirms that his work in Methuen, with his son Richmond, produces “beautiful orchestral voices, original and eloquent colors of the Erzahler type, the Trumpets, Diapasons and Mutations . . . all . . .
in just proportion.” Skinner explained in October the workings of his electro-pneumatic key action.

It consisted of a high resistance magnet, operating at a low voltage and controlling an armature of fixed movement. This armature commanded a pneumatic key action having a double motor—a primary and secondary—which operated at great speed, making it the most responsive and reliable of all organ mechanisms, which it remains to this day.

In December Skinner touted his ability to improve an existing instrument through “a few judicious touches:” “Skinner experience will find and eliminate the weak spots and for some of the present indifferent stops, the old organ may be improved to an unbelievable degree.”

In his 1937 advertisements, Skinner took to including testimonials. An ad that appeared in April and July quoted Louis Vierne, from a letter to an unidentified third party:

When you shall see Mr. Skinner tell him that I should be delighted if my opinion of his organs could be of any use to him. It is already ten years since my American tour, and . . . I still have, in my ears, the memory of those magnificent timbres and in my fingers that of the marvelous touch of the instruments of this very great builder. I have retained an unforgettable joy in them, and he can proclaim this publicly in reproducing this passage of my letter.

Vierne also was quoted remarking after hearing a Skinner organ, “If I had had an organ like that when I was a young man, it would have changed the whole character of my compositions.”

In September of that year, The Diapason published an advertisement that contained a letter from Virgil Fox to Skinner. The letter was dated July 21, and one wonders whether Skinner actively solicited the letter:

Dear Ernest, How proud you must feel about your organ we played Monday—the one just completed at Northhampton! Your action will take any tempo, however fast, and any phrasing. And, you’ve built pipes that sing! The ensemble is clarity personified.

Though only a three-manual organ, the real 32-ft tone in the pedal makes it a distinguished one.

Your new 4-ft Swell Flute deserves to stand with your other contributions to the pipe organ. Don’t ever doubt that the world is grateful to you for the beauty you have given thru your invention of the Flute Celeste, French Horn and those other well-known voices.

Congratulations on Northampton! Congratulations because you are even more interested in music than you are interested in organ.

Yours in all sincerity,

Virgil Fox

Letters in 1938 include an announcement that the temporary organ in the choir of Washington National Cathedral was for sale at “about half its cost.” The instrument was of nineteen ranks and included a 32′ Fagotto (optional). Other advertisements announced work booked, in progress, and on hand; others reprinted more letters, from satisfied customers or those who had just approved a contract. One charming advertisement from the August 1938 issue beckons travelers, in those pre-Disney World days, to consider Skinner’s workplace as a vacation destination.

The completion of the organ in Washington National Cathedral was a landmark in Skinner’s career, and he continually trumpeted it, calling it a “masterpiece” that “will stand as a supreme example of the art of organ building for the next century.” He quotes Robert Barrow, organist and choirmaster of the cathedral, who calls the new organ “the greatest instrument as yet produced in this country, and one of the really great organs of the world . . . an organ designed by a musician, for musicians.”

Another advertisement quotes the Washington Herald’s article reporting on the dedication recital. Three thousand attendees “heard one of the greatest instruments in the world today in so far as its capacities, ordinary and unusual, could be demonstrated in a program of less than an hour’s duration . . . .”

In January 1939 Skinner’s advertising quoted T. Tertius Noble, the organist of St. Thomas in New York City, who praises the “superb instrument” there and to the new Washington instrument, with its full and rich Diapasons, which “may be compared with the finest to be found in the great English cathedral organs,” the reeds—“rich in tone, brilliant where needed, and full of character,” and above all the voicing of the mixtures, “so full of sparkle and clarity, without the horrible harshness which seems to be so much the fashion today.” In the following year Skinner printed testimonials from Clarence Dickinson regarding the organ in the Brick Presbyterian Church.

Other advertisements in 1930 and 1940 mentioned new instruments that were being built, and what Skinner could do for an old organ—that is, a slider chest tracker organ, a Johnson, Hutchings, or Hook & Hastings: electrification, curing sticking slides, guaranteeing steady wind and pitch integrity, a silent and instantaneous stop action, a silent high speed key and pedal action. And “by substituting a few stops we can give a substantial factor of modern tonal beauty. All the above under control of a modern Skinner console, at something less than half the cost of a new organ.” (June 1939)

Some of Skinner’s advertisements were pithy, such as May 1940: “Faith without works is dead. A like condition attends theory without ears.” Or March 1940: “Stradivarius, Steinway, Skinner obviously have something in common. In all three, beauty of tone is the first objective.”

While some of the letters quoted in The Diapason give one a sense that they were actively solicited, a letter from Thomas H. Webber, Jr., writing from Idlewild Presbyterian Church in Memphis (January 1941), has a personal and friendly tone:

I am very sorry the rush of the Christmas time has kept me from writing you before this in regards to the beautiful organ you recently finished in the First Baptist Church of Jackson Mississippi. It was a joy and privilege to play the dedicatory recital on this magnificent instrument . . . .”

[The writer goes on to praise the responsive action, diapason chorus, and especially the 32′ Fagotto.]

I am delighted that there is another fine Ernest Skinner organ here in this section of the South. The Idlewild organ is a constant joy to me in every respect. . . . More than ever, I am convinced that people want beauty in tone as well as beauty in other things and you surely create that beauty in these fine organs.

It was very nice to see you and Richmond again. I think he did an excellent piece of work in the Jackson organ.

In March 1941 Skinner’s advertisement was headlined “The Original Skinner Quality Still in Demand!” as though he felt the need to convince the reader of such. The advertisement listed “recent installations and work in process”—16 instruments, of which one was a rebuild, a second received a new console and electrification, and a third new pipes. All were on the Eastern seaboard, except for one in Mississippi and one in Ohio.

The entry of the United States into World War II at the end of 1941 did not immediately affect organbuilding, but it was inevitable that the industry would see changes. The July 1942 issue of The Diapason reported on the order from the War Production Board, which required that the entire organbuilding industry be converted to defense work after July 31. This order forbade the manufacture of musical instruments containing more than ten percent by weight of “critical materials”—metals, cork, plastic, and rubber. The report explained that “the part assigned to the organ manufacturers is to produce blowers for link trainers used in ground training of pilots.”

In July 1943, The Diapason reported that the Skinner factory in Methuen, Massachusetts, was destroyed by fire on June 17.

The origin of the spectacular blaze has not been established. The three-story wooden structure was razed, only the frame front remaining. Serlo Hall, adjacent to the factory and nationally famous because it houses the great organ that originally stood in the Boston Music Hall, being later acquired by Ernest M. Skinner, was saved from the flames by a fire wall . . . . The factory was operated by Mr. Skinner and his son until organ manufacture was suspended and the property was under the control of a bank.

Following this event, Skinner was largely absent from mention in the pages of The Diapason.

About Skinner’s life

Skinner was of sufficient importance that he and his family were worthy of note. The September 1914 issue quotes an article that appeared in the Boston Post in August, of how eighteen-year-old Eugenia R. Skinner saved her “chum” from drowning, “nearly a mile” (!) off shore at the beach. The journal also reported on Skinner’s own health. A February 1915 announcement mentions that Skinner broke a rib in a collision of his automobile with a tree in Cambridge.

In March 1951, The Diapason published a piece in which Skinner reminisced, by the editor’s request; this was on the occasion of his 85th birthday. Skinner tells the story of his life, how as a twelve-year-old he attempted to build an organ of wooden pipes—they did not speak—and how he began working for George H. Ryder, sweeping the shop and winding trackers. He designed a machine that could wind the trackers better and faster than by hand. He next taught himself tuning and moved on to work with George S. Hutchings. Skinner eventually went out on his own. He mentions his landmark instruments, and cites operatic and symphonic works as the inspiration for his French Horn, Orchestral Oboe, and Contra Bassoon.

The May 1951 issue reported on page 1 of the death of Mrs. Ernest M. Skinner (nee Mabel Hastings) in her sleep on April 14. The Skinners had been married for 58 years. “Mrs. Skinner had not been ill and she enjoyed a chess game with her husband the evening before her death. She is survived by her husband, two daughters and a son.”

In January 1956, The Diapason reported that Skinner, “who still enjoys good health and takes a lively interest in musical matters,” would turn 90 on January 15. It also reported his home address, presumably so greetings could be sent. (How times have changed!) It noted that Skinner was “a household word in the organ world,” that Skinner “built many of the notable organs in this country,” and that “he is credited with inventions which have become standard equipment on modern instruments.” This notice was followed by a reprint of Skinner’s autobiography, first presented five years earlier.

Skinner fell in the spring of 1957, as reported in the June 1957 issue, tripping over a small podium in a church aisle, resulting in a broken right shoulder. He spent ten days in the hospital and then was moved to a nursing home, “where he will be staying for at least the next month.” On the front page of its January 1961 issue, The Diapason reported the death of Ernest M. Skinner, “America’s most widely known builder of pipe organs,” age 94, on November 27, 1960, in Duxbury, Massachusetts. The headlines called him a “renowned organ builder” and the “most influential designer of American instruments in first half of the century.” The journal reprinted Skinner’s reminiscence article of ten years prior, noting that “Though most of his best known organs have been rebuilt and greatly changed in the last two decades, many of them retain some of the stops which he originated and perfected and which were most characteristic of the great Skinner organs of a generation ago.”

Notes

1. For a fine summary of Skinner’s career, see Craig R. Whitney, All the Stops (New York: Public Affairs, 2003). For more on Skinner instruments, see Dorothy J. Holden, “The Tonal Evolution of the E. M. Skinner Organ,” The Diapason, July 1977, February 1978, June 1978, March 1979, January 1980.

2. Wilhelm Middelschulte married Annette Musser on June 29, 1896. Prior to their marriage she was a prominent organist, pianist, and teacher in Memphis, Tennessee. In Chicago, Illinois, where they resided, she served as organist at St. Paul’s Universalist Church. See www.wilhelm-middelschulte.de/biographie.htm (accessed August 22, 2017).

3. For a brief definition of the whiffle-tree and a photograph, see John Bishop, “In the wind . . .” in The Diapason, June 2008, page 14.

Quimby Pipe Organs, Inc., Warrensburg, Missouri; Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas

Introduction

Austin Organs, Inc., Opus 2352 (1961), housed in All Faiths Chapel on the Kansas State University campus, was one of the earliest American Classic performance organs to appear at an academic institution in the region and certainly the first that was larger than thirty ranks. This organ, designed by James B. Jamison, tonal architect at Austin Organs, Inc., from 1933 to his death in 1957, reflects the builder’s tonal ideals of the 1950s, which differed in some ways from those of the American Classic movement. Jamison’s contributions to the profession have been largely overlooked. His dedication to his ideals and Kansas State University’s organ project have left a lasting impression that was a labor of love. The story that unfolds contains details about Jamison’s life that appear in print for the first time and lend credence to the thought that Opus 2352 may very well be his last will and testament to the organ world.

History of All Faiths Chapel

In early 1947 plans were announced to build All Faiths Chapel with an accompanying chime tower as a memorial to the 5,000 Kansas State University students and alumni who had served in World War II. The new chapel design was to feature two wings, the smaller of which would contain about 68 seats and be used as a meditation chapel. Funds for the construction of this space were provided by the Danforth Foundation of St. Louis, Missouri. Groundbreaking services for the meditation chapel were held in October 1947, and the chapel was dedicated two years later on October 9, 1949, and named Danforth Chapel.

The initial seating arrangements for All Faiths Chapel were for 545 people, 465 of which would be seated on the main floor and 80 in a balcony. Fundraising efforts for All Faiths Chapel progressed at a slow rate: $118,813 was raised by December 1949, and by late 1952 $157,000 was available for the chapel. It was decided that a more contemporary architectural design would replace the original design, which, according to chairman Arthur Peine, had “priced itself out of the market.” The All Faiths Chapel addition was designed by Charles W. Shaver, a church architect and trustee of the Kansas State University Foundation, and Theodore Chadwick, professor of architecture at Kansas State University.

Early history of the All Faiths Chapel organ

A pipe organ for the new chapel was included in the early plans and must have surely been a dream for the new assistant professor of music Robert Hays who was hired as the organ faculty member at Kansas State University in 1946. Hays was insistent from the beginning that Austin should build the new organ in All Faiths Chapel. Furthermore, he insisted that James Jamison design the organ and that Richard Piper, newly appointed tonal director at Austin, voice the organ. The first known letter between Kansas State University and James Jamison is dated September 19, 1952, from music department chair Luther Leavengood extending an invitation for Jamison to view the plans for All Faiths Chapel and to submit a design.¹ Leavengood also revealed that the proposed expenditure for the organ was $28,000–30,000.²

After about seven months of correspondence between Kansas State University and Jamison, Dean Roy Seaton wrote to Jamison to tell him that only $31,000 was available for the organ, $7,000 less than he had proposed to the university during the previous seven-month interim.³ While the $7,000 in and of itself wasn’t an insurmountable sum, construction bids had not yet been awarded for All Faiths Chapel, and therefore Dean Seaton warned that “an excessive cost plus the $7,000 might force a revision of our plans—a lesser organ, cheaper seats, etc., or postponement until more money could be raised. We do want you to understand, however, that you are our chosen builder. . . . We should also like to send to you the completed plans for scrutiny before they are let out for bids.”⁴

Jamison first visited Kansas State University about a year later in late 1953 or early 1954, and in a letter dated January 28, 1954, he presented Hays with the first stoplist proposal for the All Faiths Chapel organ, which was influenced by Austin’s recent, successful installation at Zion Reformed Church in Lodi, California.⁵ This stoplist was modeled after Jamison’s “Minimum All-Purpose American Organ,” defined by Jamison as “the smallest organ that will adequately play any classic organ literature properly, accompany a dignified church service, congregational singing, mixed or boy choirs, [and] facilitate transcription and improvisation.”⁶ Jamison also made the following comments about the stoplist:

Do not worry about the apparent light Pedal. It is not, really, at all. The 16′ Spitzprincipal is a Violone in its low octave and is a true independent pedal register except in full organ . .  . The Clarinet on the Pedal is a surprise—most useful. The 16′ Dolce plus 16′ Gedeckt approximate a Bourdon—and are far more musical—because the Dolce yields definition.

I have long championed the augmented Pedal Diapason which we scale very expertly . . . It ‘tells’ in fine fashion and is 97½% as effective as three straight ranks. You will just have to believe me—for it is so. It saves more than enough for the two-rank Pedal mixture!

I ask that you and the school authorities give this proposition careful and deliberate thought. Perhaps it may prove possible to raise the $38,086 it costs, delivered and installed.⁷

Robert Baker, well-known American church musician (then of First Presbyterian Church in Brooklyn) and organ recitalist, wrote to Hays, “I’m delighted about the news of your getting a new organ—and you will be delighted with what Jamison and Austin do—the Lodi instrument is all he says, and more! One of the best I’ve ever touched. I’ve written a glowing letter to your Mr. Peine and meant every word. Jamison is the smartest man in the field, and I’m trying to get him to write a book.”⁸ Thank heavens Baker did this since Jamison was able to crystallize his final ideas on organ design in the book Organ Design and Appraisal, which was published shortly after his death.

Groundbreaking for All Faiths Chapel occurred a few months later in the spring of 1954. Jamison visited the Kansas State University campus a second time in November 1955 and prefaced his visit with these words, “I am delighted to learn that the chapel project is on the move and the organ will follow . . . this time I hope we can cinch it. In a way, the delay has not hurt the quality the college will get for we have not stood still but have emphatically improved our work.”⁹

However, just a few months later (March 22, 1956), Jamison wrote a letter to Basil Austin with shocking news:

I have some bad news. X-ray pictures show I have the dread disease and shall be operated on in about three weeks. The doc says I have an 80% or better chance—as things have been caught fairly early . . . he told me just an hour ago. I suspected it and was mentally as prepared as one can be. I intend to go through with it as courageously as I can and hope he is right in saying I may again be as well as ever. However, I have had my full share and have no complaint. I am glad I have lived to see the firm do so well and on the way to supremacy—as it most certainly is.¹⁰

Five days later, Jamison wrote Basil Austin again commenting about some of Austin’s most recent work in California:

The first violence of the shock is wearing off a bit and I feel OK and want to work—and keep from thinking about my trouble. . . . I had word this week from Gray Company that my book is now being put in print—which means—I hope—that it may be out this year. All these [organ] design principles will be clearly stated in it. Let me assure you they will each bear thought. Good stops are not enough—they have to be properly arranged. Then you can bring off effects unheard of in clumsier schemes.  Well—it is 6:45 AM. I had breakfast half an hour ago—and already have written a lot. I have so much to say.¹¹

A little less than three weeks later, All Faiths Chapel was dedicated on April 15, 1956. Still, no significant progress had been made in raising the extra money needed for the organ. Jamison wrote to Basil Austin in January 1957, “I asked Robert Hays to phone Piper while [he is] at Topeka and see if he could run over (50 miles) to Manhattan and size up the [chapel], etc. The college deal burns hot and cold and right now seems to be warm.”¹² About three weeks later, Jamison received the news that he would not survive the cancer that had overtaken his body. He wrote Basil Austin, “. . . my check at the hospital yesterday was unfavorable and they have discontinued medicine and told me to [sit] still and fold my hands. I have lost a great deal of weight and am terribly weak.”¹³ He also mentioned the All Faiths Chapel organ project:

I have a recent letter from the Kansas State University Foundation asking for a complete scheme and price and terms . . . am writing it out this afternoon. At least this prospect is not dead. I never seem to hit the hot ones with real money. Do see to it that Piper goes there when the contract is signed and gets a complete and accurate idea of what to do in scaling, etc. as well as a physical disposition of chests. It’s a great opportunity and ought not to be muffed. They have $19,000 in cash now.¹⁴

Unfortunately, Jamison would not live to see the All Faiths Chapel organ completed, and the scheme that he wrote out that afternoon supposedly did not survive. I feel, however, that a statement from Robert Hays in a letter to James McCain indicates otherwise: “Mr. Jamison devotes a large portion of his book to a discussion of what he calls a minimum, all-purpose American organ. He gives three specifications for this organ, one of which is the identical organ he designed for our chapel.”¹⁵ The May 1, 1960, issue of The Diapason also sports this almost identical stoplist when the official announcement of Austin’s building of the All Faiths Chapel organ was announced to the public.¹⁶

A month after his letter to Basil Austin, Jamison received a letter from Kenneth Heywood, director of endowment and development at Kansas State University, indicating that a new organ for All Faiths Chapel could not be procured until necessary funds were raised.¹⁷ A little less than three months later, on May 29, 1957, James Jamison passed away. He was seventy-four years old.

Project resurgence

Nothing is known about what happened regarding the All Faiths Chapel organ project for the next eighteen months or so until the next wave of correspondence reveals that Kansas State University President James McCain had become aware of the fact that European mechanical-action organs were cheaper than American electro-pneumatic-action organs. In a letter to McCain, Hays reiterated his respect for Austin and Jamison’s vision:

I have always had the greatest respect for Jamison’s knowledge and ability, as I have had the greatest faith in his integrity. . . . Installing an organ in our chapel was a thing Jamison very much wanted to accomplish . . . I think, with respect to future generations of students and teachers as well as the entire community, that the benefits of Jamison’s plans in our behalf should not be abandoned without serious consideration.¹⁸

However, it appears that the discussion was not moving quickly enough for McCain, who wrote the following to Luther Leavengood and Kenneth Heywood four months later:

I continue to come across references to the purchase of German organs for chapels similar to ours . . . Unless I am furnished evidence to the contrary, I shall assume that with the money now available we could purchase an organ for our chapel which would be as satisfactory as the $45,000 or $50,000 chapel organ that we originally planned to install in the chapel.¹⁹

Six days later, Luther Leavengood began writing universities and churches that had mechanical organs built by Kuhn, Beckerath, and Flentrop. In a letter to an organist that played at a church with a mechanical-action organ, Hays mused, “There are many reasons that I am convinced a foreign organ is not for us and I am prepared to argue for my viewpoint, but the comparison in cost is the point on which I have no information and for which we ask your help.”²⁰

Shortly thereafter, Austin President Frederic Austin delivered bad news to Kenneth Heywood that manufacturing costs had risen 25% since 1957, making it even more difficult for Hays to convince university officials who were not organists that Austin should be selected as the builder of the All Faiths Chapel organ. Hays summarized the results of his study of mechanical-action organs versus American electro-pneumatic-action organs shortly thereafter, with the argument that Jamison and the All Faiths Chapel architects had worked together to design an organ that would be appropriate for the chapel itself and that “no organ can be purchased and then ‘moved in’ as one might buy a piano.”²¹ However, President McCain remained undeterred, “I am by no means yet convinced that with the money now available we cannot purchase a foreign make organ with as good results as we would get from one American organ to which we appear to be rather arbitrarily committed. If this is the case, it would certainly be tragic to defer action on securing an organ for perhaps 15, 20, or even more years.”²²

It truly appeared that the dream Hays and Jamison had formed over five years previously would be doomed to failure. However, the vision for an organ in All Faiths Chapel was kept alive by Marion Pelton, one of Hays’s colleagues in the keyboard area who was herself an organist. Pelton had taught at Kansas State University since 1928 and had an interest in early music fueled by a two-year residency at Columbia Teacher’s College in New York City (1955–1957) where she was exposed to much early music. In May 1959 she began sponsoring Pro Musica Antiqua concerts that featured early music. Pelton relates:

. . . the very first one of these programs, they didn’t have the organ [in All Faiths Chapel] . . . I wanted an organ so badly. . . .
The paper gave me a lot of publicity and I had pictures of the early organs that I had visited over in Europe on these huge white cardboard things. We also had a tea. The idea then was I was trying to raise money for an organ for the chapel. Well, I think I raised about $400 . . . It was just terribly disappointing.”²³

However, Mrs. Gabe Sellers, a resident of Manhattan, had a brother, Ernest Nicolay, a Kansas State University graduate who was vice-president and director of the Frito Company in Detroit, Michigan. The very next day, Sellers and her brother Ernest went to visit their mother in Michigan, and Ernest remarked, “Do you know of someplace to give some money to Kansas State University? I have to pay so much tax on so much money and I would be very glad to make them a big gift.”²⁴ His sister, Mrs. Sellers, remarked that she had just been at a concert the day before where they were trying to raise money for an organ.²⁵ Nicolay’s gift was substantial enough that Kenneth Heywood wrote Frederic Austin indicating, “A very substantial contribution has been promised by one of our alumni which, when received, will bring the figure to the point where we can feel justified in obligating ourselves.”²⁶ Hays also wrote to McCain:

Since [Jamison] was willing to include this design [for the All Faiths Chapel organ] in this book as an example of his mature thought, it is my opinion that every effort should be made to place in our chapel the organ he designed for it and which Austin will build to his specifications.

Just as we would get top quality design from Jamison, we would also get top quality construction and long-lasting dependability from the Austin Company. We have had expert opinion on this point, and the longevity and mechanical dependability of the present Austin in the University Auditorium bears out that opinion.²⁷

Finally, in November of 1959, the All Faiths Chapel organ contract between Austin Organs and Kansas State University was finalized. Hays wrote Frederic Austin, “Years ago, when I was impatient and despairing of the outcome of our negotiations with your company, JBJ said to me, ‘These things take a long time; I’ve been through it hundreds of times; do not be impatient and don’t worry, it will come out all right.’ How I wish that he could be here to know that it has ‘come out all right!’”²⁸ Due to what was a slightly reduced budget, the final stoplist had to be altered slightly, much to Hays’s chagrin. Thankfully, the revisions to the stoplist were minor (the Great II Rauschquint was divided into separate 22⁄3′ and 2′ Principal stops), the 8′ Geigen was deleted from the Positiv, and the Pedal Trompette 4′ Pedal Extension (labeled Clarion) and the Swell Trompette borrow were deleted and replaced with a 4′ Krummhorn borrow from the Positiv).

Installation and dedication

The All Faiths Chapel organ was installed by Austin staff member Zoltan Zsitvay, who arrived in Manhattan on August 16, 1961.³⁰ David Broome arrived on August 21 to begin the tonal finishing.³¹ The first public use of the organ was only five days after Broome’s arrival on August 26 for the wedding of Sara Umberger, granddaughter of Harry Umberger, long-time dean of the Kansas State University School of Architecture. David Broome relates:

We talked with her briefly after the wedding rehearsal the day before. She told us she had set the wedding date late in August, hoping that the organ would be finished by then. She seemed so disappointed that the organ wasn’t ready; so we decided to voice the rest of the flue pipes so it could be used. Broome and his associate worked late that night and began early the next morning with their ‘wedding gift from the Austin Organ Company.’ By 3:00 they’d finished it and could show the organist for the wedding, Mrs. Beth Rodgers, what parts of the instrument she could use.³³

Robert Hays played the first formal recital on the instrument Sunday, October 8, 1961. Organist Robert Baker, director of the School of Sacred Music at Union Theological Seminary in New York City, a close friend of Jamison’s and classmate of Robert Hays, played the dedicatory recital Sunday, November 19, 1961. The Manhattan Mercury reported, “an overflow crowd of approximately 1,000 people heard Robert Baker, noted organ recitalist, demonstrate K-State’s new $50,000 pipe organ.” Baker declared that the organ was, “beautifully designed; beautifully placed; beautifully executed.” Baker further commented, “I have played a great many organs, but seldom can I remember an organ of its size as beautifully designed, as beautifully placed, and as beautifully executed.”³⁴ He summed the instrument up as “satisfactory and thrilling.”³⁵ Despite the pageantry and celebration associated with the completion of the All Faiths Chapel organ, Austin personnel at the time must certainly have felt a pang in their hearts for Jamison and his vision for this organ. Perhaps Richard Piper summarizes it best, “For obvious reasons the builder regards the tonal work somewhat as a memorial to Mr. Jamison whom they hold in such high esteem. They sincerely believe the instrument successfully fulfills his great expectations and that were he here today, he would give his unqualified approval to the tonal interpretation.”³⁶

Austin Opus 2352 today

When I arrived at Kansas State University twelve years ago, the switching system of Austin Opus 2352 had recently undergone conversion to Solid State Logic but sounded tonally fatigued. Quimby Pipe Organs of Warrensburg, Missouri, became curators for the organ in the fall of 2010. I was encouraged that Eric Johnson, head voicer for Quimby, felt as I did, that some wonderful results would occur under the right hands and ears if this organ was restored.

After nearly fifty years of regular and sometimes heavy use, the organ was on the verge of needing significant maintenance: note and stop action releathering, pipe cleaning, stenciling, and tonal regulation, new tuning slides (particularly for exposed pipework), wind reservoir repair, and reed cleaning. Funding for the entire project was a significant hurdle to overcome. To help initiate some momentum with the university administration regarding the organ and to provide external validation about the value of this organ to the community, region, and nation, I applied for a Historic Organ Citation from the Organ Historical Society, an award that was granted November 4, 2011, at a fiftieth-anniversary concert featuring the premiere of Daniel E. Gawthrop’s Symphony No. 2: “The Austin.” The plan worked. University administration awarded funds to cover the releathering and reed cleaning aspects of the project that were completed by Quimby in 2014. The remaining aspects of the project were completed by Quimby in 2022, thanks to the support of the Kansas State University Foundation that helped elicit the support of donors who funded the remainder of this project.

Jamison’s thoughts about the disposition and voicing of Austin organs were truly cosmopolitan, perhaps more so than his contemporaries. Even though the All Faiths Chapel organ is only forty ranks, no tonal effect is duplicated. Looking at the Great division, Jamison received inspiration from English organs for the principal chorus. The 8′ Diapason is the largest scale of all members of the chorus, a departure from what others were doing at the time. The 8′ Spitzflöte is a beautiful stop alone or creates a subtle addition to the 8′ Bourdon, perfect for mezzo-piano passages. The 4′ Quintadena, enthusiastically endorsed by Jamison, has now fallen out of favor in some circles but is nevertheless another contrasting color. This division is, in the true sense of American Classicism, reedless.

The basis for the Swell division chorus is an 8′ Hohlflöte, a lovely stop of wood and an unusual inclusion for the time, yet offers a beautiful contrast to the other flute stops. The Nasard and Tierce ranks only go to tenor C, reinforcing Jamison’s idea that they “are justified by their lesser cost and by the fact that rarely are such mutations used below Tenor C.”³⁷ The Swell 8′ Trompette is “of medium scale and blown to optimum timbre . . . darker than that of the [Positiv] Bombarde.”³⁸ The Clarinet is, in Jamison’s words, “not too suave. At 16′ serving as the Trumpet chorus double, it must be very rich harmonically to be right.”³⁹ The 16′ Bass Clarinet is also available as a borrow in the Pedal and serves as a wonderful Pedal reed for Baroque literature.

The enclosed Positiv division follows, in Jamison’s words, “the sensible trend to convert the customary Choir section into a Choir-Positiv.”⁴⁰ The 8′ Bombarde, the major manual reed, is in this division and was a design element far ahead of its time. Jamison notes the following about this stop’s characteristics:

What color shall it be, and what power? Is it possible to have it right in both qualities if we extend it upward from a balanced Pedal reed? Yes, it is, and the great money saving will not be unwelcome. The requirement is that it be of the same general timbre as the rest of the full organ up to that point. What we seek in employing it as a super chorus reed, as well as the rarely provided solo antiphonal voice, is a final splash of brilliance and power that will extend forte to fortissimo without changing the general color except by brightening it.

This double dictates less power than a genuine English Tuba would have. The ratio sought is one that will add something like 25% to what has gone before; that last final surge of crescendo that marks the true climax. . . .

If this extension of the pedal register has this fortunate manual effect, how does the voice fit into the Pedal field and function? The answer is—in the best possible way. For the correct register is the French Bombarde, playable at 16′, 8′, and 4′ on Pedal and at 8′ on Choir. Thus it is in, but not of, that section. There is nothing so dramatically and forcefully effective as this type of tone for forte-fortissimo Pedal.

In an organ such as we plan, which will prove to need 33 to 35 registers, it should always be enclosed, making it much more useful and applicable to various demands. The Bombarde is so superior to the more fundamental Trombone that there can be no hesitation in choosing between them. Added to the Pedal fluework, it imparts a drama and a decisive edge that a weightier reed cannot equal, again demonstrating the ‘rich bass’ principle. Played solo against full manual flues it realizes an effect the English organ cannot manage—a magnificence of intensity rather than substance.⁴¹

Jamison’s aforementioned effects of this stop are completely realized on the All Faiths Chapel organ. Its enclosure truly lends an amazing degree of flexibility that greatly enhances its use in an organ of moderate size such as this, in addition to its ability to be unison, sub- and super-coupled to the Great and unison and super-coupled to the Pedal.

The Pedal division’s flexibility belies its size. Jamison discusses the design of the 16′-8′-4′ Diapason chorus:

The 56 pipe unit set . . . can all be regulated to approximate fairly closely the octave-by-octave power balances of three normal independent sets. The general character is crisp, rather than full, consistent with the bright-bass full-tip (pedal-manual) timbre progression. The power is similar to that of the Great [8′ Open Diapason], which is the really important item, but the quality is firmer. When both Great and Pedal flue choruses are drawn, we have on the Great an impressive aggregation of various unisons and fifths, moving here and there; and below, on the Pedal, is our unit stop at 16′-8′-4′ plus Mixture (another group of unisons and off-unisons) moving contrariwise to or in conjunction with the manual work; we are supposed to be able to tell, in this grand, forte mêlée, if the Pedal is unified, independent, or half and half—or if the 4′ is a scale larger and louder than the 8′—though which 8′ and which 4′ is not certain—or if the extended Pedal 8′ is two scales smaller than the Pedal 16′!⁴²

Jamison also utilized this same idea for the 16′-8′-4′ Pedal stopped flute rank, and its effects are equally effective. The 16′-8′ Spitzflöte unit borrowed from the Great fills in the mezzo-forte gap in the Pedal beautifully. The bottom octave of the 16′ Spitzflöte is a string that provides the additional harmonic foundation to the bass line that is missing in the 16′ Lieblich Gedeckt. When one factors in the division’s other stops (two-rank Pedal mixture and reeds), it has more than enough to stand on its own!

In summary, my twelve-year working relationship with this organ encompassing both teaching and performance has reinforced my beliefs that Jamison’s “Minimum All-Purpose American Organ” is exactly what it claims to be. Quimby Pipe Organs and its staff are convinced of this organ’s design and role in the organ world and have done all they can to retain its integrity and quality. Their work has been top-notch. When the organ was new, Richard Piper mused, “It is truly said that time is the only yardstick by which beauty can be measured. Austin believes this organ will endure.”43 It has endured nobly for over sixty years and given the care and further use it will receive, I have full confidence that its music and legacy will endure for many years yet to come.

—David C. Pickering, DMA, AAGO

Professor of Music, Kansas State University

Notes

1. Letter from Luther Leavengood to James Jamison, September 19, 1952.

2. Ibid.

3. Letter from Roy Seaton to James Jamison, May 8, 1953.

4. Ibid.

5. Letter from James Jamison to Robert Hays, January 28, 1954.

6. James B. Jamison, Organ Design and Appraisal (New York: H.W. Gray, 1959), 93.

7. Letter from James Jamison to Robert Hays, January 28, 1954.

8. Letter from Robert Baker to Robert Hays, July 19, 1953

9. Letter from James Jamison to Robert Hays, July 29, 1955.

10. Letter from James Jamison to Basil Austin, March 22, 1956.

11. Ibid., March 27, 1956.

12. Letter from James Jamison to Basil Austin, January 18, 1957.

13. Ibid., February 9, 1957.

14. Ibid.

15. Letter from Robert Hays to James McCain, October 13, 1959.

16. “College in Kansas Orders New Austin,” The Diapason, May 1, 1960, p. 7.

17. Letter from Kenneth Heywood to James Jamison, March 9, 1957.

18. Letter from Robert Hays to James McCain, January 14, 1959.

19. Letter from James McCain to Luther Leavengood and Kenneth Heywood, April 2, 1959.

20. Letter from Robert Hays to Betty Louise Lumby, April 15, 1959.

21. Letter from Robert Hays to James McCain, May 26, 1959.

22. Letter from James McCain to Robert Hays, May 29, 1959.

23. Byron Jensen, College Music on the Konza Prairie: A History of Kansas State’s Department of Music from 1863 to 1990 (Ed.D. diss., Kansas State University, 1990), 409.

24. Ibid., 409–410.

25. Ibid, 410.

26. Letter from Kenneth Heywood to Frederic Austin, June 5, 1959.

27. Letter from Robert Hays to James McCain, October 13, 1959.

28. Letter from Robert Hays to Frederic Austin, November 30, 1959.

29. Zsitvay was a distinguished member of the Hungarian National Track and Field Team, winning the University World Championships in the Pole Vault in Paris in 1946.

30. Letter from Donald Austin to Robert Hays, August 3, 1961.

31. Ibid.

32. “Memorial Organ,” K-Stater, October 1961, 7.

33. Ibid.

34. “Expert Praises K-State Organ,” Manhattan Mercury, November 20, 1961.

35. Ibid.

36. Richard Piper, “Stoplists,” The American Organist (May 1962), 23.

37. Jamison, 134

38. Ibid., 115.

39. Ibid.

40. Ibid., 151.

41. Ibid., 105–106.

42. Ibid., 121.

43. Richard Piper, “Stoplists,” The American Organist (May 1962), 23.

 

Quimby website: quimbypipeorgans.com

University website: www.k-state.edu/mtd/music

Photo credit: Tom Theis

 

GREAT

16′ Contraspitzflöte (ext 8′) 12 pipes

8′ Diapason 61 pipes

8′ Bourdon 61 pipes

8′ Spitzflöte 61 pipes

4′ Octave 61 pipes

4′ Quintadena 61 pipes

2-2⁄3′ Octave Quint 61 pipes

2′ Super Octave 61 pipes

1-1⁄3′ Fourniture IV 244 pipes

SWELL

8′ Hohlflöte 68 pipes

8′ Viola 68 pipes

8′ Voix Celeste (TC) 56 pipes

4′ Prestant 68 pipes

4′ Rohrflöte 68 pipes

2-2⁄3′ Nasard  (TC) 49 pipes

2′ Flageolet 61 pipes

1-3⁄5′ Tierce (TC) 49 pipes

2′ Mixture III 183 pipes

16′ Bass Clarinet (ext 8′) 12 pipes

8′ Trompette 68 pipes

8′ Clarinet 68 pipes

4′ Hautbois 68 pipes

Tremulant

POSITIV

8′ Nason Flute 68 pipes

8′ Dolce 68 pipes

8′ Dolce Celeste (TC) 56 pipes

4′ Nachthorn 68 pipes

2′ Oktave 61 pipes

1-1⁄3′ Larigot 61 pipes

1′ Zimbel III 183 pipes

8′ Krummhorn 68 pipes

Tremulant

8′ Bombarde (Pedal)

PEDAL

16′ Diapason 56 pipes

16′ Spitzflöte (Gt)

16′ Lieblich Gedeckt 56 pipes

8′ Octave (ext 16′)

8′ Spitzflöte (Gt)

8′ Lieblich Flöte (ext 16′)

4′ Fifteenth (ext 16′)

4′ Flöte (ext 16′)

2-2⁄3′ Mixture II 64 pipes

16′ Bombarde 80 pipes

16′ Bass Clarinet (Sw)

8′ Trompette (ext 16′)

4′ Krummhorn (Pos)

Normal assortment of couplers

32 voices, 40 ranks, 2,458 pipes

John Bishop

Walter Holtkamp and the American Classic

At the Organ Clearing House, we have been working on a Holtkamp organ these days, which has spurred me to remember the fleet of Holtkamps I have known and worked with. I spent my formative years working with John Leek in Oberlin, Ohio, starting when I was a student and John was the school’s organ and harpsichord technician, and continuing after my graduation and after John left the school to form his own company. We built several harpsichords and one complete organ together, and we worked through countless service calls, releathering projects, major repairs, and organ relocations. John had apprenticed and started his career in Holland and immigrated to the United States to work with Walter Holtkamp, Sr. (1895–1962). While working on Holtkamp organs at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, he learned that the school was looking for a full-time technician and felt that was the job for him.

John had an active organ maintenance business, and given the proximity to Cleveland, the home of the Holtkamp Organ Company, we worked on dozens of their instruments. Oberlin professor Garth Peacock was organist at the Unitarian Universalist Church in Rocky River, Ohio, a 1950s brick building known affectionately (or otherwise) as “The Blue Whale,” where after several unheated service calls for the three-manual Holtkamp, we arrived for a tuning to find the sexton chortling, “I’ve got it good and hot in there for you this time!” Jack Russell was the organ teacher at Wooster College, where the big Holtkamp in the chapel was housed in a cinderblock corral. And David Dunkel, who graduated from Oberlin a few years before me, was organist at Saint Philomena’s Church in East Cleveland where Holtkamp had built an organ with an exposed Rückpositiv in 1936, touted as one of the first Rückpositivs in the United States.

I have written often and recently about the three-manual Holtkamp (1956) in Saint John’s Chapel of the Episcopal Divinity School, formerly the Episcopal Theological School (now defunct) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where my father taught homiletics, and where I had my first organ lessons in 1968. Melville Smith, director of the Longy School of Music in Cambridge, was organist of the seminary and a strong advocate of Holtkamp organs. Charles Fisk was an apprentice in the Holtkamp shop, E. Power Biggs was a neighbor of the seminary, and the innovative design of that organ must have attracted a lot of attention.

Recently, the Organ Clearing House was involved in the sale of the fifty-four rank Holtkamp at Christ Church Cathedral in Cincinnati, Ohio, my father’s home church, where Gerre Hancock began his illustrious career. My father had two LPs of Boar’s Head festivals at Christ Church as led by “Uncle Gerre,” which included some of the earliest great organ playing and improvisation I ever heard. (Dad also had a Musical Heritage Society recording of vespers at Saint Mary the Virgin in New York City with McNeil Robinson improvising on the marvelous Aeolian-Skinner organ.)

I pulled out my well-worn copy of Orpha Osche’s seminal book, The History of the Organ in the United States, to review her piece about Walter Holtkamp, and found some great insights into his work in his own words and those of his competitors. Walter Holtkamp believed in simple console design, so the ubiquitous Holtkamp console has a table on which the keyboards sit with a simple box above them to house the stop-rail and music rack. Anyone familiar with Holtkamp organs will recognize that little row of six coupler tablets in the center of the stop rail, the basic unison couplers for a three-manual organ. Holtkamp wrote,

There now seems to be a genuine desire on the part of serious musicians to reduce the number of console appliances and spend this money on the inside of the organ. This matter of simplifying consoles directly concerns the couplers. We have far too many couplers. If fewer couplers were used the present confusion in coupler arrangements would never have arisen.¹

Was he implying that musicians who use couplers are not serious? Of course, there are differing points of view. The style of playing developed and advocated by such geniuses as Lynwood Farnam depended heavily on super- and sub-coupling. But Farnam was no showcasing fool. The spectacular console he designed for the 1917 Casavant organ at Boston’s Emmanuel Church included such beauties as “Swell Octave Couplers to Cut Off Swell 2′ Stops.”

Look at the stoplist of most any Holtkamp organ, and you will see lots of fractions and Roman numerals—those voices that speak at intervals and have particularly high pitches. Tasteful use of those stops precludes the use of super couplers. Any organ tuner will tell you to avoid coupling mixtures up and down octaves and to couple mixtures between keyboards only with care. If the Positiv and Great are not in tune with each other, you have nothing to gain and everything to lose by coupling the two together.

Thirty years ago, I knew a tuner who had worked for Aeolian-Skinner who regularly changed the pistons on organs he tuned, taking super-couplers, tremulants, and redundant mixtures out of the combinations, muttering to himself. And several Möller organs I have known had electro-pneumatic cutout switches that would not allow a Celeste and a Mixture to play together, or a Mixture and a super-coupler. Another trick was that a Mixture would not play unless you drew an 8′ Principal.

Upstairs and downstairs, and in my lady’s chamber

Holtkamp believed that a listener/viewer should be able to discern the content of an organ by looking at it, and most of his organs left all of the unenclosed pipes out in the open. With just a little knowledge about the construction of organ pipes, one can construct a stoplist without seeing the console. And with only a few exceptions, Holtkamp organs had only one enclosed division. Holtkamp wrote, “The Swell is the only division under the influence of the shutters. The shutters are plainly visible, and the onlooker is not in doubt as to the function of the apparatus.”²

This visibility of interior components reflects the Bauhaus School of Architecture as practiced by Walter Gropius, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and Le Corbusier, where “form follows function.” It reflects Holtkamp’s thought that an organ should be “honest.” The highly regarded Holtkamp organ in Crouse Hall at the University of Syracuse is a stunning example of this philosophy. What you see is what you get.

Kulas Hall at the Cleveland Institute of Music houses a modest three-manual Holtkamp organ built in 1972, the work of Walter’s son, “Chick” Holtkamp. A colleague asked me to listen for balance at a rehearsal where she was playing the organ in a large piece for chorus and orchestra. My first suggestion was to stop beating time with the Swell pedal. The shutters were up there flapping “in front of God and everyone.”

The focus on exposed pipes was a factor of sound as well as appearance. Holtkamp was rebelling against the practice common in early and mid-twentieth-century organs of placing pipes in remote chambers. He wrote, “With the present conditions of organ placement, the organist is in the unfortunate position of the man who must woo his lady by correspondence.”³

In my long experience tuning organs, I know a significant disadvantage of organs with many exposed pipes—they are dirty. An organ case or chamber limits the number of airborne particles, protecting the pipes from accumulating excessive dust. I maintain a Delaware organ with many exposed pipes, located in a church on a busy street corner in Manhattan. There is so much dirt and debris in the pipes that Mixtures and other upperwork cannot be tuned.

Anything you can do, I can do better.

Walter Holtkamp and G. Donald Harrison of Aeolian-Skinner were contemporaries, and both were interested in exploring the sounds of classic organs, together contributing to the development of what we now call the “American Classic” tradition. However, Harrison believed in the complex consoles that Holtkamp denounced and regularly installed organs in chambers, a practice that Holtkamp abhorred.

Harrison’s organs reflected his English heritage. The Swell division typically contained a Principal chorus and multiple reed stops, equipping the instruments for extraordinary expressive capabilities, especially valued for choral accompanying. The Swell divisions in Holtkamp organs were less important and less developed than the Great or Positiv divisions and usually included only small reeds such as Schalmei, Bassoon, or the fractional-length Dulzian.

Harrison’s organs used Ernest Skinner’s pitman windchests exclusively. Holtkamp’s extremist philosophy married him to slider chests, the traditional form developed in Europe in the earliest centuries of organ building. We are familiar with the mantra that the classic slider chest with key channels creates superior blend of choruses of voices because all the pipes of a single note from each stop in a division are arranged over a common key channel. In other words, middle C of every stop on the Great is above the middle C key channel. The stops that are speaking are those whose sliders are open, and the air from the open pallet is common to all those middle C pipes.

Walter Holtkamp cheated. While most of his organs have slider stop action, at least on the Great, those chests do not have key channels, but are large open vessels with internal key action similar to that of an Austin organ, with a single round valve under every pipe. That valve action is complex and tricky enough to adjust that it is hard to tell why Holtkamp used them, especially when he was sacrificing the advantages of key channels.

Walter Holtkamp, Sr., was a transitional figure in the history of the twentieth century American pipe organ. His company was founded by George Votteler in Cleveland in 1855. Hermann Holtkamp of Saint Marys, Ohio, joined Votteler in 1903, and the firm was later known as Votteler-Holtkamp-Sparling. Hermann’s son Walter took control of the company in 1931.

By following the evolution of stoplists year by year, it is easy to see how the organs of G. Donald Harrison and Walter Holtkamp developed on different paths. Into the 1950s, while Harrison was producing stately masterpieces such as found at Saint Mary the Virgin and Saint Thomas in New York, Holtkamp’s instruments were more edgy and experimental. Like Charles Fisk a decade later, Holtkamp had a large following of admirers, devotees, and advocates. His organs were installed in many prestigious schools of music, including Oberlin, University of California at Berkeley, Trinity College, Yale University, and General Theological Seminary in New York.

Another set of recordings in my father’s collection featured Princeton University organist Carl Weinrich playing Bach on the Holtkamp at General Theological Seminary, a statement from the 1950s version of progressive musicians. This was exactly concurrent with E. Power Biggs’s introduction of the Flentrop organ in Harvard’s Busch-Reisinger Museum and his wildly popular series of recordings, E. Power Biggs Plays Bach Organ Favorites.

Ironically, an example of Holtkamp’s popularity as a progressive organbuilder resulted in the commissioning of a Schantz organ. In the 1950s, Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio, was planning for a new organ for the Bryan Recital Hall in the Moore Music Center. They hoped to have an organ by Holtkamp, but the state required that they solicit three bids and take the lowest. The result was a Schantz organ designed by Walter Holtkamp. You can read about that organ at https://pipeorgandatabase.org/OrganDetails.php?OrganID=19242.4.

In 1979, John Leek was engaged to move all the organs owned by Bowling Green State University into their new music building. I had graduated from Oberlin in 1978 and was working with John full time. To spruce up the Schantz organ with its thousands of exposed pipes, we took all the pipes over five feet tall to the workshop where we sprayed them with fresh coats of nickel-gray paint. We loaded the pipes into a U-Haul truck, packing them with appropriate care, and took our usual ten-in-the-morning coffee break. I started off to Bowling Green in the truck, leaving John to make a few phone calls. He would follow me ten minutes later.

As he told it, he drove around a corner on Route 20 heading toward Wakefield, Ohio, and saw a U-Haul truck off the road on its side. A pickup truck had run a stop sign and crossed the highway in front of me. The truck was lying on its left side, with a utility pole where the windshield had been. I was lying in the grass when I came to. It was raining. I still have no idea how I got up and out of the cab through the passenger side door. EMTs were working on me. I had a nasty wound on my scalp. This was six weeks before my wedding. I was put on a stretcher. The woman at my head tugged on the stretcher and said, “Jesus Christ, is he heavy.”

John Leek gave the tow-truck driver a fist-full of money and had him deliver the righted truck to the workshop, where he found that our packing was good enough that there was almost no damage to the organ pipes. Months later, happily married, but still badly bothered by my wound, I was doing a service call on a Möller organ in Sandusky, Ohio. I had removed the pedalboard and was fixing something “down there.” I stood up, cracked my head on the corner of the keyboard table, and a piece of windshield glass came out. I still have a lump there.

Some damn fool . . .

In 1922, Ernest Skinner built a landmark organ in the auditorium of the Cleveland Museum of Art. In 1933, Walter Holtkamp added a nine-rank Rückpositiv division to it. I imagine the addition must have stood out from the lush strains of the Skinner, but it was considered revolutionary. Sadly, by that time, Ernest Skinner’s philosophies had run out of fashion, and he was no longer sought after to speak at organists’ conventions. In a letter dated February 20, 1976, Robert Baker, the founding director of the Yale Institute of Sacred Music wrote,

. . . at the Boston Convention in the 1930s, Mr. Skinner found himself standing alone and both hurt and bewildered in the lobby of the Copley Plaza. Walter Holtkamp, who told me this story, saw him standing there, and said to himself, ‘Now this is a perfect shame!! There stands one of the greatest figures in the art of organ-building, and all those sissies are afraid to go up to speak to him, for fear they might lose face amongst their peers!’ So Walter sauntered over, saying ‘Mr. Skinner, I am Walter Holtkamp from Cleveland, and I just want to thank you for all you have meant and done for the art of organ-building through your splendid career.’ Mr. Skinner, by that time a bit hard of hearing, and a bit slower on the uptake by then, got only one thing out of this, and that was the word ‘Cleveland.’ So he responded, ‘Cleveland! Say, you know, I have one of my best organs out there in the Art Museum, and some damn fool has come along and just ruined it.’ ⁵

Notes

1. Orpha Ochse, The History of the Organ in the United States, Indiana University Press, 1975, page 386.

2. Ochse, page 388.

3. Ochse, page 388.

4. For those who are not aware, most of the organs I mention in this column­—in fact most of the organs in the United States—are documented in the Pipe Organ Database of the Organ Historical Society. If you would like to know more, open https://pipeorgandatabase.org/Organs.SearchForm-Quick.php in your browser, and fill in the form.

5. Dorothy Holden, The Life and Work of Ernest Skinner, Organ Historical Society, 1987, page 179.

David Baskeyfield

David Baskeyfield studied at Oxford University and the Eastman School of Music (studio of David Higgs). The recipient of several first prizes at national and international organ competitions (all with audience prize), and one of few organists based in North America to improvise regularly in recital, he enjoys an international performance career. His latest CD, on the Acis label, Dupré: The American Experience, was recorded on the French-influenced 1932 Aeolian-Skinner organ at Saint Mary the Virgin, Times Square, New York City, and includes the United States premier recording of an unpublished orchestral transcription by Dupré of Dukas’ The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. He is represented in North America by Karen McFarlane Artists, Inc. Connect on Facebook (David Baskeyfield, organist), www.youtube/c/dbaskeyfield, or www.davidbaskeyfield.com.

The Sibley Music Library of the Eastman School of Music, Rochester, New York, houses the collected papers of Rolande Falcinelli, professor of organ at the Paris Conservatoire from 1955 to 1986. A finding aid is available through Sibley’s website (www.esm.rochester.edu/sibley/files/Rolande-Falcinelli-Archive.pdf). Alongside manuscripts, correspondence, and writings by Falcinelli, the collection includes a number of writings by Marcel Dupré, whose association with Falcinelli as mentor and subsequently colleague is well known.

The article below, in Dupré’s predictably meticulous handwriting, is apparently unpublished. It is undated, though from its content can be placed in the late 1950s: Ernest M. Skinner was still alive (he died in 1960), and Dupré appears to make reference to the American innovation of the Doctor of Musical Arts degree, launched in 1953. Further, the American Classic approach to organ reform was sufficiently advanced for Dupré to comment unfavorably on its extremes. Dupré’s first American tour was in 1921, and his observations thus span almost forty years.

The content would admittedly be of less interest if it were not written by a figure such as Dupré. There is very little groundbreaking information here, it is not all entirely accurate—some of his assessments are suspect to the point of spurious—and interest lies principally in these idiosyncratic impressions coming from Dupré himself. Some assertions hint at an agenda: admiration for aspects of American instruments, in particular their action, while unable to refrain from some nationalistic bias in his narrative, and taking a swipe at (likely) Ernest White and possibly even his old friend G. Donald Harrison; and perhaps a grudging desire for France’s pedagogical system and professional organ scene to learn from that of the Americans. At the same time he is sufficiently gushing to be sure to keep his American impresarios happy, presumably the likelihood of further lucrative touring not an insignificant consideration. Overall, he plays two contrasting roles, both of seasoned touring virtuoso and wide-eyed newcomer to a land of plenty. I have annotated many of his claims where it seemed helpful; as to various other assertions, the reader will have no trouble drawing her or his own conclusions. Dupré’s prose is rather dry, and I have attempted to convey this in my translation.

I am grateful to Jonathan Ambrosino for advice and clarification during the preparation of my annotations, and to David Peter Coppen, head of Sibley Special Collections, for his kind assistance with access to the archive.

Editor’s note: subheads have been added to Dupré’s text.

Marcel Dupré: L’Orgue aux Etats-Unis¹

North America presents the organist with a treasure trove of experiences and opportunity. There is much to be learned there about different kinds of organ installation, the instrument’s evolution, and trends in its construction; and through these, the very place of the organ within this society.

The visitor is immediately struck by the number of churches scattered about the land. In New York City alone, I count some 1,030 parishes. On arriving in any town, large or small, the visitor is greeted by a main street replete with a prodigious number of towers and steeples. This is down to private endowment, in the form of memorials: when a member of a wealthy family dies, his parents will wish to perpetuate his memory through a public gift—a hospital, library, school, university building or church. In each of these, you will find the finest materials, care, and good taste in the furnishings and, regularly, a beautiful organ.

These churches have capacities varying between five hundred and a thousand seats and, most often, their acoustic is excellent. [sic!]

A number of cities have cathedrals of large dimensions. Their style is usually English Gothic. In Catholic cathedrals the organ is in a rear gallery, as in France. In the Protestant churches, it is situated close to the choir, as in England. These instruments can have as many as a hundred or a hundred and fifty stops.

But it is not only in the churches that fine instruments may be found. There is not one city without numerous concert halls, of various sizes according to location, and always with an organ.

Orchestral concerts are given in halls rarely exceeding eighteen hundred seats. I suppose that this number is the limit if the audience is to hear a concerto soloist properly, or to hear the orchestra with any kind of clarity. Of course, these halls are not just for orchestras—they are generally excellent for chamber music and solo recitals.

The municipal auditorium in each large town is much bigger: four to five thousand seats. These are geared toward oratorios and special concerts by touring virtuosos. As they generally house an enormous organ, they invite famous organists to perform there.

Finally, the “Convention Hall” reaches gigantic proportions, twelve- to eighteen-thousand seats. They are really only used for political rallies or large social events. The acoustic is, as you might expect, terrible, and completely unsuitable for music. Nevertheless, they all have giant organs, which are often excellent.²

The organ in the American education system

But what is perhaps most striking is what we find in universities and colleges: concert halls everywhere, in proportion to the size of the student body. Size is also what determines nomenclature: a college has fewer than three thousand students; a university has more than three thousand and may reach ten thousand. There is nothing more extraordinary than to see these huge rooms filled entirely by young men and young women. They make the most enthusiastic and spirited audiences and also the most attentive. Seven or eight minutes before the concert, these immense halls begin to fill. After the last encore, they empty even faster.

Over the course of their four years of higher education, from age eighteen to twenty-two, these students have the opportunity to hear—and not just once—all the pianists, violinists, singers, chamber musicians, organists, conductors, orchestras, choirs touring the United States. These concerts are paid for out of their tuition fees. They are a part of the education that they receive. It can be seen that this is building a truly elite audience for the future.

High schools (fourteen to eighteen years) also have concert halls and organs. This young audience, likewise attentive and effusive, is quite capable of listening to a serious concert. These are generally given at one o’clock in the afternoon. The concerts are never more than an hour in length.

Finally, numerous private homes have luxurious music rooms whose organs sometimes reach a hundred stops. Their rich owners engage touring artists and invite their friends to come listen to them.³

In a nutshell, there is no place in America that is not equipped to offer a performer a location and instrument with an audience of all ages, always interested and gracious.

And something we can only dream of is the accomplishments and the influence of the “Guild of Organists,” a national union of American organists of more than 6,000 members.⁴ To become a member requires sitting a two-part examination.⁵ Each year a convention takes place in one town or another, bringing together the thousands of members. This gives young organists a platform and allows them to make contacts. And within the regional chapters, the members, rather than bitterly defending their own professional interests, discuss questions of organ construction, and recently published organ and choral music, devoting their efforts to developing local interest in the organ. They are very successful in this endeavor.

Young organists get a great deal of help. I could mention one college that has thirty-five [sic]⁶ little practice organs.

This state of affairs did not happen overnight. It is due to two factors:

1. The existence of a “Music Doctorate,” something unknown in France. In the USA, quite apart from the “Doctor Honoris Causa,” a composer can receive a doctorate for an opera, an oratorio or even a symphony.⁷ As I see it, we [French] are a long way from this kind of accreditation for music and the arts.

2. More than eighty years of enterprise and progress in organbuilding. France actually plays a part in this story, as I will explain:

American and French organbuilding differences

The electro-magnet, which made possible electric key action, was invented in 1860⁸ by Albert Peschard, organist of the Abbaye aux Hommes in Caen, and a physicist. He built a small house organ to test this (Bouches du Rhône), which was unfortunately destroyed. Two French builders, Debierre and Merklin, built electric action organs. Meanwhile, the invention made it over the Atlantic and, over some forty years, American builders struggled with failed attempts and every possible mishap. Little by little electric action was made reliable. Not ceasing to experiment, these builders improved key and stop action, developed their specifications for flexibility, and made their instruments more and more comfortable.

It was the builders Huntching [sic], Steere, Ernest Skinner (who is still alive today), Kimball, and Austin who worked hardest at this early stage.⁹

In Canada, the two brothers Clavers [sic]¹⁰ and Samuel Casavant, French Canadians from Montreal and personal friends of Aristide Cavaillé-Coll, worked ceaselessly over almost half a century, with magnificent results.

We are forced to admit that the electric organ, though having been invented in Caen in 1860, but developed and established across the Atlantic, and copied slavishly elsewhere, only eventually returned to France, its birthplace, in 1924.¹¹

American builders did not limit themselves to addressing mechanical problems. They strove to create stops of new timbres. No firm was short of the necessary workshops, laboratories, and teams of specialist engineers.¹²

Naturally, time would tell which of these ideas would be viable and useful, and which would be rejected. Though it cannot quite be said that organbuilding over there is completely standardized, however logical that conclusion would be, a great deal of standardization is nevertheless applied. In spite of this, it is clear that competition between progressive builders sometimes led to extremes, and certain tendencies grew into real infatuations, which can be summarized below.

I would not mention here the so-called “theatre organ,” which can be considered to have disappeared completely with the development of cinema with recorded sound, in 1929, except that we too often forget that this type of instrument actually came about more than 15 years prior to the invention of moving pictures. In effect it was conceived by the English organbuilder Hope-Jones for the University of Edinburgh, around 1885.¹³ It was Wurlitzer, of Cincinnati,¹⁴ that picked up the idea and used it unaltered in the first movie theatres.

The first influence was that of high-pressure stops, from England. There, they built Tubas and Diapasons on up to a meter of wind,¹⁵ whereas many of Cavaillé-Coll’s cathedral organs do not go beyond 10 centimeters of pressure. English organists use these stops for a specific purpose: they are made only to solo out the melody of a hymn sung by the whole assembly. They can support and guide thousands of voices, but an experienced organist would never play chords on the stop; the reverberation would be explosive, blinding.¹⁶

One curious endeavor was that by Haskell, of the Estey firm,¹⁷ who managed to imitate the sound of reed stops with flue pipes. He wished to avoid frequent reed tuning. Up close, the illusion is perfect, though disappears in large rooms at a greater distance from the instrument.

Then came the fads. This was, first of all, string stops, mostly in instruments in private homes. They were, naturally, accompanied by celesting ranks (imitating vibrato). They displaced almost all the other families of tone color. Builders even tried to make mixtures out of very narrow pipes. The sound of those things was particularly acidic. There was also the profusion of various reed stops (oboes, clarinets, etc.), which took the place of foundation stops, making all but special effects impossible.

Finally, after the proper reintroduction of classical mixture stops, which happened around 1923,¹⁸ the trend shifted little by little to the almost complete exclusion of foundation stops. I can cite almost unbelievable examples of instruments of more than 90 stops with only six 8′ foundation stops.¹⁹ You can judge the aggressiveness of these organs yourself. I find them like drinking bowlfuls of vinegar, and you may quote me on that.

Blended styles and large instruments

But this country is so big, the opportunities so great, and the different schools of thought so numerous that everything ends up circulating in an unlimited expansion of ideas. There is room for these different instruments to coexist and last peacefully, for the most part.

Most organbuilders are still guided by common sense. And they build countless instruments of rich and beautiful palettes of sound, perfectly adapted to their location. A list of names, even abridged, is impossible here. I shall simply mention:

1. The cities richest in fine organs: New York, Philadelphia, Washington, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Denver, Salt Lake City, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Columbus.

2. The best endowed universities: Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Harvard, Chicago, Minneapolis, Los Angeles.

I would also mention, in Canada: Montreal, Quebec, Toronto, Winnipeg, Vancouver.

The giant organs in America intrigue French organists. The questions are often the same: “Are all these stops really necessary?” “Can they all really be different?” My answer is that the massed effect and depth of sound produced by these instruments is astonishing. Then, on playing them, you realize that every stop does have its own characteristic effect. Each family of stops on each keyboard presents a gradation of intensity and volume, which allows an almost infinite subtlety in combining stops. Think of a great box of pastels, where each color contributes its own shade and hue to the whole spectrum.

Among these immense instruments, the strangest, and also the biggest in the world, is the Wanamaker of Philadelphia. It has 451 stops, around 32,000 pipes.²⁰ There is no borrowing or duplexing, even on the pedals. It has six manuals, but actually consists of eleven enclosed divisions that can be assigned by stopkeys to whichever manual you wish. It has 48 general pistons, adjustable at will; having registered a whole recital in advance, the touch of a thumb on one of the buttons under the manuals will bring on or take off stops instantly to give the prepared combination.

It seems that the era of the building of these giants is over. They remain, nevertheless, as witnesses to a period where material possibilities seemed limitless. Today we can confess that, though interesting, they are, happily, not necessary to art.

America is a land of surprises, and you will walk from discovery to discovery, all of them reflecting the diversity of thought and opinion. The European stands astonished before this rampant and incessant activity, this prodigious amount of production, which at first glance just seems effortless. Whoever goes there and has the fortune to be initiated into the organ world in its various forms, can only long for such potential, such will, and such drive in his own country.

Translation © David Baskeyfield, 2019

Notes

1. Roland Falcinelli Archive, Sibley Music Library, Eastman School of Music, Rochester, New York, Box 33/1.

2. Data on original seating capacity are hard to come by and modern building and fire codes render current occupancy irrelevant to making a judgment on Dupré’s figures. For example, Boardwalk Hall now lists a maximum seating capacity of 14,770, a substantially smaller number than its original 41,000.

3. Currently living in Rochester, I am duty bound to note George Eastman’s Aeolian
organ of 132 ranks at its completion; the Eastman House’s collection of rolls includes a number recorded by Dupré at the Aeolian Hall studios, New York City, and from correspondence archived at the Eastman House we can see that Dupré played for George Eastman at least twice, in December 1923 and 1924.

4. The Story of the American Guild of Organists, by Guild founder Samuel A. Baldwin, published in 1946—the AGO’s 50th anniversary year—describes membership as “well above 6,000.” That figure in itself, though, does not really help much in pinning down a precise date of Dupré’s article.

5. This is not accurate; examination has only ever been required for certification [Baldwin, 1946].

6. In mentioning such an obviously inflated number, Dupré may have hoped to put pressure on the Paris Conservatoire or the American Conservatory at Fontainebleau. His interest in the distinctly American concept of the practice organ (unknown to European schools at that time) is neatly illustrated by a pencil sketch of the plan of the Eastman School organ practice rooms with a note of each room’s instrument, also in the Falcinelli Archive.

7. This seems likely to be a reference specifically to the DMA, the academic study of music at degree-conferring institutions being long established in Europe. Such figures as Mendelssohn, Liszt, and Brahms had been named honorary Doctors of Music, the title “Dr. Brahms” being frequently used pejoratively by his contemporaries to belittle him as a stolid, academic composer. The DMA was developed principally by Howard Hanson (dean of the Eastman School of Music and himself the recipient of an honorary doctorate in 1925). The accreditation body, the National Association of Schools of Music, approved the degree in 1952, it was offered in 1953, and the first degree was conferred in 1954.

8. At the Paris Exposition of 1855, Stein and Son, manufacturers of reed organs, exhibited an organ operated by electromagnets applied directly to the pallets. Sufficient current could not be generated to operate the larger pallets reliably. In 1861 Peschard worked with Charles Barker on applying electromagnets to Barker’s pneumatic motors; Peschard’s electro-pneumatic system was patented in 1864. It was famously used in the organ for St. Augustin, completed 1866, but proved unreliable, principally owing to the strong current required for magnets operating on the motors directly. This tended to magnetize the electromagnets permanently, causing ciphers. The large wet-pile batteries required to generate such strong current were costly and required frequent replacement, and there was a danger of splashing mercury from the contacts during staccato playing. In 1898 Cavaillé-Coll rebuilt the instrument with Barker machines [Fenner Douglass, Cavaillé-Coll and the French Romantic Tradition, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1999].

9. Dupré’s characterization is misleading. It was Skinner, working at the time for Hutchings, who produced the first electric action (1893) bearing that company’s name, prior to founding his own company [Ambrosino, A History of the Skinner Company]. Dupré also omits the contribution of Robert Hope-Jones, who was associated in America with Austin (1903–1904) and Skinner (1905–1906). Skinner had first met Hope-Jones in England in 1898. Later in life professing dislike of Hope-Jones’s instruments, he nevertheless must have been impressed by their action: “I believe you were the first to recognize the importance of a low voltage of electric action, and that the world owes you its thanks for the round wire contact and inverted magnet.”

10. The builder’s Christian name is Claver.

11. Dupré is being coy. No instrument of milestone status was completed or dedicated in 1924; 1924 was the date of the infamous installation of the electric blower at Notre Dame, but “electric organ” clearly refers to key action. The year is almost certainly a reference to two events.

In 1924, Auguste Convers assumed directorship of what had been the Cavaillé-Coll company, though the firm had yet to produce a new organ. The same year, E. M. Skinner visited Paris for the second time (the first was in 1898 when Dupré would have been twelve years old) and Dupré might just be taking the rare liberty of a rhetorical twist to conflate electric playing action with the person of Skinner. Dupré spoke extremely highly of Skinner’s instruments; his admiration of their action and playing aids is well documented. Arthur Poister, the legendary pedagogue and one of Dupré’s first American students, recalled that “had it not been for [Dupré’s] experience with American organs with their easier manual and pedal actions, he could not have written some of the music he wrote. His entire concept of tempos and playability was changed by his first American experience.” In Dupré’s own words, “mechanical improvements on American organs are far in advance of European . . . I believe that American inventiveness and ingenuity will within the next few years bring about advances as yet unheard of.” Mentioning specifically the year of Skinner’s personal visit might suggest a hint of proprietorial pride: Michael Murray [Marcel Dupré, The Work of a Master Organist. Boston: Northeastern Music Press, 1985, p. 132] writes that Dupré had gone so far as to convey to him in a personal conversation that, during the mid 1920s, he had “helped Skinner introduce electricity” to organs in Paris. This is an extraordinary claim and not without smugness. Skinner recounted his 1924 trip in Stop, Open and Reed, his company’s house publication, volume 2 (1924). Of Dupré, he writes, “M. Marcel Dupré is a vitally alive musical personality. His interest in the ancient organs is great but he is equally interested in the modern organ. He does not glorify the past to the disparagement of the present. Our American Orchestral Color has received the entire approval and indorsement [sic] of M. Marcel Dupré. He leaves no room for doubt in his admiration for it. His use of it will make a further contribution to organ literature unless I am very much mistaken.”

Skinner found the Cavaillé-Coll factory “absolutely destitute” of modern machinery. “Everything done by hand. No electric or tubular actions . . . There is much prejudice in France against doing anything new.” Elsewhere, “The French Organ is a work of art and a great one, tho [sic] according to our present day standards very crude mechanically . . . The inconvenience of the French console is inconceivable.”

At the time of Skinner’s trip, Convers was new in his position, having only recently succeeded Charles Mutin. Skinner liked Convers and considered him a good man to bring the company out of the dark ages. In the event, the electric action instruments produced by Manufacture d’orgues Cavaillé-Coll, Mutin, A. Convers et Cie. proved unreliable and the company was bankrupt by 1928. In noting the year 1924, Dupré is probably simply taking credit for introducing Skinner to Convers at the factory, Skinner presumably being encouraging of Convers’s novel path. In any case, Skinner himself takes no credit for any substantive involvement with electric action in French instruments. Given the tone of Stop, Open and Reed, had this been so, he certainly would have.

12. This translation may be drier than Dupré intended to convey. His term here is ingénieurs spécialisés. The noun ingénieur translates directly as engineer, but the association of the root with the quality of inventiveness might be borne in mind: the verb ingénier means to strive; the noun ingéniosité means ingenenuity.

13. This is misleading. Hope-Jones’s earliest work was the 1887 rebuilding, with electric
action, of the organ at the church of Saint John, Birkenhead, where he was organist and choirmaster. In 1897 he completed a total rebuild of the 1875 Hill organ in McEwan Hall at the University of Edinburgh: though unquestionably a glimpse of things to come and indeed decked out with such novelties as Tibia Clausa, Diapason Phonon, Kinura, and Diaphone—high pressure, unblending stops of extreme scale that would later find their proper place in the Hope-Jones Unit Orchestra—it could no more properly be characterized as a theatre organ than the Worcester Cathedral rebuild of the previous year.

14. The Rudolph Wurlitzer Company started in Cincinnati in 1853 but relocated to North Tonawanda, New York, in 1908.

15. Dupré’s characterization is not quite right and more than a little hyperbolic. Although Hill got the ball rolling as early as 1840 at Birmingham Town Hall with his celebrated Grand Ophicleide on 15′′, high-pressure reed voicing was developed by American builders considerably beyond that of the English. A metre is 39′′ in Imperial units; Harrison and Harrison tubas were typically voiced on 12′′ to 15′′. At Salisbury (1877), Father Willis’s Tuba was on 18′′; a generation later, Harrison and Harrison’s at Ely (1908) were still on [only] 20′′. Liverpool Cathedral (1912–1926) and Westminster Cathedral (1920–1932), both by Willis III, with whom Dupré and Skinner were associated, do have Tubas on 30′′ (and Liverpool has a Tuba Magna on 50′′), but they are the exception, and by that point Willis III and Skinner were long acquaintances. We can be grateful that Hope-Jones’s proposal at Worcester to mount a Tuba over the Canons’ stalls on 100′′ was not carried out.

16. A bad demonstration by an enthusiastic incumbent?

17. Both William Haskell and his father Charles worked for the Roosevelt firm. When his father established his own firm, C. S. Haskell, William left Roosevelt to work with his father; he subsequently established William E. Haskell Co. of Philadelphia in 1901. That firm was acquired by Estey, whereupon William became superintendent of the Estey pipe division.

18. This may be a reference to Skinner’s second visit to England in 1924, where he met Henry Willis III. The trip is considered a turning point in Skinner’s tonal philosophy, whereupon he reevaluated the place of quint mixtures in the ensemble and began drastically expanding his chorus work.

19. An extreme example might be Ernest White’s essay at St. George’s Episcopal Church, New York City (Möller, 1958): of 96 ranks, two are unison principal stops.

20. Dupré exaggerates only slightly. Expanded 1911–1917 and 1924–1930, the Wanamaker organ now has 464 ranks, 401 stops, and 28,750 pipes.