The Oaxaca Congress 2001: "The Restoration of Organs in Latin America

Over one hundred people from six foreign countries and six different states of Mexico gathered in Oaxaca during February to revel in the tenth organ celebration of the Instituto de Órganos Históricos de Oaxaca (IOHIO). The festival activities extended over six and a half days and included concerts on eight restored Oaxacan organs; visits to twelve unrestored organs with explanations of their churches’ art and history; guided tours of the archaeological sites of San Martin Huamelulpan and Santa María Atzompa; the presentation of a series of postage stamps depicting Oaxacan organs; “Oaxacan Organs and their Builders,” an exhibit of manuscripts from local archives; the opportunity for organists to play several Oaxacan organs; a Mass and concert to bless and inaugurate the recently restored organ in Santa María de la Asunción Tlacolula; delicious local cuisine, band music, and dancing in several communities.

Fortunately, the theme of historic pipe organs is increasingly familiar in those towns that still have instruments, and slowly but surely the idea of an organ, its sound, and its conservation has begun to penetrate public awareness. We were consistently received by the authorities with respect and often ceremony, the choir lofts and churches had been cleaned beforehand, and the local people were most appreciative of our attention to this previously unknown part of their cultural heritage.

Thursday, February 20  

The festival’s inauguration began in the Oaxaca Philatelic Museum (MUFI). Cicely Winter, director of the IOHIO, spoke about the activities and goals of the festival and was followed by María Isabel Grañen Porrúa, president of the Fundación Alfredo Harp Helú Oaxaca, Sergio Bautista Orzuna, director of the Oaxaca Regional Center of the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (INAH), and Emilio de Leo, in representation of the Secretaría de Cultura y las Artes of the Oaxaca state government. They offered words of congratulations and the support of their respective institutions.

The IOHIO office has always been housed in the MUFI, and, during this festival, our two institutions were able to present a tangible product of our 14-year collaboration: a series of postage stamps depicting six Oaxacan organs and a special postal cancellation in honor of the tenth festival.

After a welcoming reception, everyone proceeded to the Oaxaca Cathedral for the first concert of the festival, offered by renowned Spanish organist Roberto Fresco, titular organist of the Almudena Cathedral in Madrid. A long line wound out into the atrium to purchase tickets and attendance surpassed 350 people. Fresco’s elegant performance transfixed the audience and it was certainly one of the most beautiful concerts ever heard on this organ.

Because of the position of the organ in the choir loft, the organist’s back is to the audience, so this and all succeeding concerts were projected onto a screen in the church. In this way the audience could appreciate the changing of registers and watch Roberto’s hands as he played.

This monumental 8′ organ was built in 1712 and retains its opulently carved and gilded upper case, but its lower case has been rebuilt several times and there is no evidence of its original appearance. However, one can assume that it was once one of the most lavishly decorated organs in Oaxaca, based on the contract for its construction.

Friday, February 21

The day started with “The Historic Organs of Oaxaca and the Work of the IOHIO,” a bilingual presentation by Cicely Winter in the Francisco de Burgoa Library within the Santo Domingo Cultural Center. Although the title of the talk has not changed over the years, the content always does, and the images of the organs and the various IOHIO projects—protection, conservation, restoration, presentation of concerts, discoveries related to the organs, recordings, and publications—spoke for themselves.

This was followed by an exhibit of documents, “Los Órganos Oaxaqueños y sus Artífices” (“The Oaxacan Organs and Their Builders”), inaugurated by María Isabel Grañen Porrúa, director of the library, and explained by the curator, former IOHIO collaborator Ricardo Rodys, as well as the presentation of a book with the same title edited by Rodys and Lérida Moya Marcos. The theme was chosen to honor the recent restoration of the Tlacolula organ and featured organ contracts and references to builders from local archives.

We then climbed into the vans that would become so familiar to us during the days ahead for the field trip to visit three unrestored organs in the Tlacolula Valley. The first stop was in San Matías Jalatlaco, located on the edge of the historic center of Oaxaca City. We ascended the first of the many winding stone staircases we would face during the days ahead to admire the elegantly proportioned blue 8′ organ, built in 1866 by the distinguished Oaxacan organbuilder Pedro Nibra.

The choir loft looked neat and clean, but once we removed the keyboard cover, lo and behold, mice had invaded and left their droppings all over the keyboard! This did allow participants to see the ongoing challenge of organ conservation, since only a year had passed since our last visit to this church.

Though missing around 30% of its pipes, the Jalatlaco organ is still an excellent candidate for a future restoration. When the vans were ready to leave, three participants were missing and it turned out they had been locked in the choir loft, shouting for help, after the sacristan thought everyone had already come down!

We made a quick stop at the famous Tule tree and a local guide pointed out the images evoked by the gnarls of the trunk and branches. Around 1,500 years old, this Montezuma cypress (sabino or ahuehuete) has the stoutest trunk in the world.

Our next destination was San Miguel Tlalixtac, included for the first time in our festival tour. One of the later and larger organs of the Oaxacan school (built ca. 1860), it must have had an impressive look and a huge sound. Many components are missing and a complete reconstruction, though theoretically possible, would make little sense at this point. But for the time being the IOHIO assures its conservation and it was heartening to see our labels still in place from the previous visit some years back. The challenge posed to participants was to imagine how the organ might have looked, based on what remains.

We were received in San Andrés Huayapam, located on the outskirts of Oaxaca City, with a drink of tejate, traditionally served in colorful painted half gourds. A local specialty of pre-Hispanic origin, this delicious foamy drink is made with ground cacao, corn meal, the seed of the mamey fruit and the flower of a tree (rosita de cacao) that grows only in and near Huayapam.

This lovely village church has one of the most beautiful altarpieces in Oaxaca, whose intricately carved columns are referred to as “gilded lace.” Also famous is the collection of antique exvotos, petitions (usually to the Virgin Mary) that are painted on small tin plaques. This and succeeding visits were enhanced by commentaries about the church art by specialists Richard Perry (http://colonialmexico.blogspot.com) and Montserrat Galí.

The 4′ table organ (1772), simply carved and originally painted bright red but now a dark maroon color, is nearly intact and like Jalatlaco, an excellent candidate for a future restoration.

In Huayapam we savored the first of many exquisite meals prepared by the local women. We had mole amarillo served in the atrium of the church. 

That night organist Cicely Winter and percussionist Valentín Hernández presented the festival’s second concert, in the Basílica de la Soledad, featuring well-known regional folk music. Joel Vásquez and Andrea Castellanos were indispensible in pulling the stops, since the music required many changes of registration. The church was once again packed with more than 350 people and the audience had a chance to sing along to several pieces from the texts provided in the programs. The magnificent decorated case of this monumental 8′ organ bears the earliest date of any Oaxacan organ: 1686. The interior components were rebuilt during the 18th century, and the organ was restored in 2000.

Saturday, February 22

The all-day field trip to the Mixteca Alta began with the third concert of the festival in Santa María de la Natividad Tamazulapan and featured professional Mexican and foreign organists, who were delighted to have a chance to play the Oaxacan organs. The contrasting pieces selected by Warren Steel, Margarita Ricardez, Víctor Manuel Rodriguez, and Mary Jane Ballou showcased this little 2′ organ to best advantage.

The portative organ dating from approximately 1720–1730 is situated in a high side balcony overlooking the huge nave of the church and is exquisitely decorated with images of saints and angel musicians. The case and bellows are original but the pipes, keyboard, and interior components were reconstructed in 1996.

As in years past, we have featured music on other instruments to alternate with this small organ and enjoyed the contrast of its sound with baroque and contemporary marimba pieces played by Oaxacan percussionist Gabriela Edith Pérez Díaz and the three guitarists of the ensemble “Terceto Cuicacalli” (Mexico City): Diego Arias Ángel, Miguel Ángel Vences Guerrero, and Eduardo Rodríguez de la Torre. The church has one of the most magnificent baroque altarpieces in all Mexico and includes paintings by the renowned 16th-century Spanish painter Andrés de Concha.

The second organ in this church, an 8′ instrument built in Oaxaca in 1840, faces the small organ from the left balcony. Once a magnificent instrument, it has unfortunately been the victim of vandalism over the years and is missing most of its pipes. Its neo-classic, undecorated aspect contrasts with the baroque opulence of the portative organ.

Our next stop was in the neighboring town of Santiago Teotongo, in which the baroque altarpieces and organ all appear to date from the 18th century, offering a pleasing consistency of artistic style. The profile of the 8′ organ closely resembles that of San Mateo Yucucuí (1743), thus giving us a clue as to its more specific date of construction. Even though it lost all its pipes and keyboard during the Mexican Revolution, the magnificent gilded and painted case still exists.  

The fourth concert took place in Santo Domingo Yanhuitlán, the 16th-century Dominican base in the Mixteca Alta. With its soaring stone vault supported on the sides by flying buttresses and its magnificent altarpieces, it is one of Mexico’s most dazzling complexes of baroque art.

Organist Jesús López Moreno (titular organist of the Mexico City Cathedral), and trumpet player Juan Luis González offered a thrilling program that reverberated throughout the immense atrium. Located on a decorated lateral balcony, the 8′ organ was built around 1690–1700 and reconstructed in France in 1998. Its case is one of the most elaborately decorated in all of Oaxaca, with fantastic swirling imagery as well as Dominican symbols on the case and fierce faces painted on the façade pipes.

Thanks to the ongoing support of the Federal Road and Bridge Commission, a special entrance was opened from the super highway, allowing us direct access to San Andrés Zautla and saving us over an hour of travel time. The folk fiesta and friendly concert in Zautla, contrasting with the majesty of the preceding visit to Yanhuitlán, are always a highlight of the festival.

We were received in the atrium of the church by the elderly women of the town, dressed in their traditional skirts and blouses, and the local band, with fireworks, plenty of mezcal, necklaces of bugambilia, and dancing—and after all of this, a delicious meal of estofado de pollo (chicken stewed in almond sauce) served in the patio behind the church.

After dinner, we crowded into the lovely little church to hear the fifth concert of the festival, presented by organists Mary Jane Ballou, David Furniss, Lee Lovallo, and Tonatiuh González, in alternation with Gabriela Edith Pérez Díaz, percussion, and the guitarists of the Terceto Cuicacalli. Once again the organists presented wonderfully contrasting pieces, even without knowing how they would fit in with the rest of the program. There was a nice improvisatory feel to this concert, which was pleasant at the end of such a packed and exciting day.

It ended with a stirring rendition for vibraphone and guitars of the famous “Huapango” of José Pablo Moncayo.

The case of this 4′ table organ (1726) is exquisitely gilded and painted with images of Sts. Peter and Andrew and four archangels. The Zautla and Tamazulapan bellows are still hand pumped and the register sliders are on the sides, and the projection on the screen allowed people to appreciate the teamwork involved.

Sunday, February 23 

This year we arranged time for interested artists and students to play the organs in Tlacochahuaya and Tlaxiaco and 20 organists, about half foreign and half Mexican, took advantage of the opportunity. There was a delightful atmosphere of camaraderie and we all got to hear many new pieces on yet another organ.

The rest of the group joined us before the sixth concert of the festival in San Jerónimo Tlacochahuaya, played by Roberto Fresco. His expert touch lured rarely heard subtleties of sound out of the organ.

This church is one of the loveliest in Mexico with its exuberant interior floral decoration and exquisite baroque altarpieces, all recently restored. The organ was built sometime before 1735 and restored in 1991. The case and pipes are beautifully decorated with floral motifs, and the organ harmonizes perfectly, both visually and acoustically, with the architecture of the church.

We savored a variety of Oaxacan specialties in the “Donají” restaurant in Mitla before proceeding to Tlacolula, where we would spend the rest of the day.

The atrium and church were already bustling with people when we arrived in anticipation of the Mass and inaugural concert of the 8′ organ, built in Oaxaca in 1792 by Manuel Neri y Carmona for the community of Santa María de la Asunción Tlacolula.

Interested participants could climb up to the choir loft to see the newly restored organ up close, hear about its restoration (the case by Oaxacan restorer Eric González Castellanos and the musical and mechanical aspects by the Gerhard Grenzing Taller, El Papiol, Spain) and admire its gorgeous red, gold, and black case decoration. This organ also has very elaborately painted façade pipes.

Afterward, organ aficionados could see the unrestored positive organ, built around 1700 and the smallest in Oaxaca with just two ranks. It was built specifically for the recently restored baroque side chapel of the Señor de Tlacolula. Those who needed a break from organs were able to enjoy one of the most famous indigenous markets in Oaxaca and admire the women’s costumes and the stalls piled high with local produce.

At last the long-awaited moment arrived for the blessing of the organ in a special Mass celebrated by Monseñor José Luis Chávez Botello, Archbishop of Antequera Oaxaca. The Mass was enhanced with participation of the Oaxaca City Chorus, Lourdes Ambriz, soprano, and Rafael Cárdenas and Cicely Winter, organ.

Approximately 1,000 people attended: 500 people were in the church and another 500 were outside in the atrium, listening to the Mass and the music over a loudspeaker. We have been told that this is not a typical turnout for an organ concert in most countries! It was thrilling to hear the organ brought back to life, after so many years of silence and months of careful preparation. One expert characterized its sound as “vocal” and was amazed how perfectly it blended with Lourdes’s pure soprano voice. Rafael led the enthusiastic singing of the Mass with the organ and Lourdes sang several solos.

This was followed by the exciting inaugural concert, the seventh concert of the festival (Lourdes Ambriz, Rafael Cárdenas, and Roberto Fresco), which highlighted all the registrations of the organ. The organ looked stunning, and the community was quite proud of this previously unrecognized aspect of their local culture.

Monday, February 24

For the third time we included a visit to the Tlaxiaco organ and points in between. This trip is not scheduled regularly, because its three-hour distance from Oaxaca City requires an overnight stay.
This year for the first time we visited the Mixtec community of Santiago Ixtaltepec, which is farther away than any others we have included in past festivals, but the dirt road was in good condition and the scenery spectacular.

We included this village to celebrate the inauguration of its museum of musical instruments and colonial art in a small room next to the sacristy. An early 19th-century fortepiano sits on a table and was presumably used as a practice instrument.

There is also a variety of 19th-century band instruments on display. The community hopes that more people will come to visit their museum, and the IOHIO will promote it for anyone willing to make the trip.

The 2′ table organ is the only one of its category in Oaxaca that still has its pipes, although not all of them appear to be original. The keyboard is in excellent condition and the table and bellows are decorated to match the organ. Interestingly enough, the figures depicted on the sides and doors of the organ appear to be Jesuit rather than Dominican, and the church itself has a Franciscan look. We wonder if the organ could have been purchased from another community, since we are discovering that organs were moved around more often than previously imagined.

The community of San Mateo Yucucuí sits on a promontory overlooking the Yanhuitlán Valley. The organ (1743) was never painted or gilded, which would have been typical of the period, probably because the parish ran out of money. But it is richly carved and still has its original keyboard. As mentioned above, its case closely resembles the sumptuously decorated yet empty organ case in Teotongo. It’s too bad that these two organs couldn’t somehow be combined into one! It is said that when this 8′ organ was played, it could be heard for miles around. The floor of the high balcony on which the organ sits is much deteriorated, but the custodian had laid down some planks so that the more daring participants could get a closer look.

Our next stop was at the 16th-century Dominican architectural complex—church, former convent, and the famous open chapel—of San Pedro y San Pablo Teposcolula. The 8′ organ has a similar profile to that of Yanhuitlan but was painted a cream color rather than polychromed, probably because of lack of funds at the time of the construction. We refer to this organ as the “King Midas“ organ, because in 2010 a well-connected architect took the liberty of gilding (at great cost) all the carved pipeshades and moldings, even though they had only been minimally gilded historically; in fact the organ’s manufacture is not of the highest quality. Unfortunately one of the loveliest features of this organ—its delicate carving, which before looked almost like lace—now has a hard look and the shine of the gold obscures the fine work of the carving. So, besides accumulated filth from negligence, the intrusion of animals, and the ongoing risks of earthquakes or fires, we now must be on guard against the whimsical decisions of misguided “experts.”

After lunch in Teposcolula, we drove up into the pine forest to Santa María Tlaxiaco for the eighth concert of the festival. José Francisco Álvarez, organ, and Vladislav Badiarov, baroque violin, concluded the musical aspect of the festival with an elegant program featuring both solo and ensemble pieces.

This monumental 8′ organ, dating from around 1800, offers a broad palette of sonorous possibilities that were enhanced by the excellent acoustics in the church. All the altarpieces and the organ are stylistically matched in neo-classic design and painted white, gold, and red, creating an unusual visual coherence. The imposing, outwardly austere church, one of Oaxaca’s oldest, was the Dominican outpost for this strategic area of the high sierra in the 16th century.

From there we went to the nearby village of San Pedro Mártir Yucuxaco. The table organ here (1740) is complete and in excellent condition, even though its bellows no longer exist. It closely resembles the organ in Zautla, though without the painted decoration, the carved pipeshades include faces in profile, and the keyboard is exquisite.

Tuesday, February 25

Our Mixtec tour continued with a visit to the church and organ of Santiago Tejupan. The lovely polychromed organ case (1776) is the last extant Oaxacan instrument to exhibit religious imagery. The name of the donor, cost of the organ, and date of construction appear inscribed on decorative medallions on the façade. A complete reconstruction of this organ would not make sense, however, since the population has been drastically reduced over the past years, but we hope that the authorities agree to have the case cleaned and restored in order to appreciate the unique portraits.

The splendid altarpieces span from the 17th to the 19th century and highlight the stylistic changes over time.

Our final church and organ visit was in Santa María Tiltepec, for some the crowning visual experience of the field trips. Located in the Dominican sphere of Yanhuitlan and built atop a pre-Hispanic temple, this 16th-century church has long been appreciated by art historians for its richly carved, asymmetrical façade and carved stone interior arches. The unrestored organ, situated on a side balcony, is one of Oaxaca’s oldest (1703) and is unique in its technical design, whimsical decoration, and finely carved keyboard.

We then walked down the hill and across the river to the home of the Cruz García family for our farewell dinner. We feasted on barbacoa de borrego, lamb barbecued Oaxacan style, cooked in the ground over hot rocks and covered with maguey leaves.

Mezcal from San Bartolo Yautepec flowed freely, and everyone had one last chance to enjoy the festival company and dance to music from a local guitar ensemble before returning to Oaxaca.

Wednesday, February 26

Even after the closing ceremony in Tiltepec, this festival just would not stop! About 40 people chose to make the trek up to the recently opened late classic (500–800 AD) archeological site of Santa María Atzompa, part of greater Monte Alban, guided by Dr. Marcus Winter (INAH).

Our festivals create an atmosphere of joy and celebration around the organs and have proved to be the best way to promote and, as a consequence, preserve the organs. We are continually amazed when people ask when the next concert or festival will take place, as we look back on all those years when hardly anyone knew or cared about the organs. And the support and enthusiasm from this year’s wonderful group of participants still energize us as we face many challenges.

Richard Perry’s blogspot (http://colonialmexico.blogspot.com) provides  detailed information and excellent photos of the churches visited during the festival.

The IOHIO is grateful for the support of the following institutions: CONACULTA INAH; Arquidiócesis de Antequera Oaxaca; Universidad de Valladolid, España; Biblioteca Francisco de Burgoa; Museo de Filatelia de Oaxaca (MUFI); and Caminos y Puentes Federales (CAPUFE). We are also grateful for the support of the following Oaxacan businesses: Hostal de la Noría, Hotel Parador San Agustín, Hotel de la Parra, Color Digital. 

Cicely Winter grew up in the state of Michigan, but has lived in Oaxaca since 1972. She studied piano and harpsichord at Smith College and the University of Michigan, where she obtained a B.A. in music and an M.A. in European history. She later studied piano performance at the post-graduate level in the School of Music at Indiana University. She presents organ, piano, and harpsichord concerts regularly, many of which benefit community service projects. In the year 2000 she co-founded el Instituto de Órganos Históricos de Oaxaca A.C. (IOHIO) and since then has served as its director. The IOHIO focuses on the protection and promotion of the sixty-nine historic pipe organs known to date in the state of Oaxaca.

The eighth International Organ and Early Music Festival took place October 21–27, 2010 in Oaxaca, Mexico, with the theme, “Celebrating the Bicentennial of the National Independence and the Centennial of the Mexican Revolution.” To honor the two most significant events in Mexican political history, the IOHIO (Institute of Historic Organs) presented its grandest festival yet. For the first time, music lovers were able to hear concerts on all seven restored organs, a unique opportunity to appreciate the richness and diversity of Oaxaca’s collection of Baroque instruments.
In addition, there were three all-day field trips to visit 12 unrestored instruments in village churches, most of which are usually inaccessible to the public; two masterclasses with Swiss organist and musicologist Guy Bovet; two choral concerts, one of which presented choral works that have not been heard for centuries from the early 18th-century notebook of Domingo Flores from San Bartolo Yautepec; the opportunity for organists to play the organ in the Basílica de la Soledad; guided tours of two archeological sites; an exhibit of historical material related to the organs from various Oaxacan archives; a talk about the organs and the work of the IOHIO; a view of Oaxaca’s splendid and varied scenery during field trips to the Tlacolula Valley and the Mixteca Alta; and a chance to sample the local cuisine and revel in the fiesta traditions in the villages.

October 21, Thursday
The festival began with the first of two masterclasses in San Jerónimo Tlacochahuaya given by Guy Bovet. Thirteen Mexican organists and organ students from Oaxaca, Mexico City, Puebla, Queretaro, Morelia, and Toluca, as well as one from the U.S., played for Bovet and a group of some 20 auditors from Mexico and abroad. Participants benefited immensely from Bovet’s explanation of the fine points of Spanish repertoire and performance practice. He carried out an important survey of Mexican organs in the 1980s and 90s sponsored by UNESCO and Pro Helvetia.
That evening, Mexican artists José Francisco Álvarez (organ) and Juan Carlos Murillo (trombone) offered the first concert of the festival in the Basílica de la Soledad. This is the first time the trombone has been featured in a IOHIO festival, and the sound blended brilliantly with the organ in a varied program based on arrangements by José Francisco. The magnificent polychromed case of the organ has the date 1686 inscribed on the side of the case, making it the oldest extant organ in Oaxaca.

October 22, Friday
The second organ masterclass by Guy Bovet in Tlacochahuaya once again focused on the Iberian repertoire of the 16th and 17th centuries. Participants presented works by Correa de Arauxo, Cabanilles, Bruna, Aguilera de Heredia, Cabezón, and Durón.
That afternoon, everyone gathered in the elegant space of the Francisco de Burgoa Library in the former convent of Santo Domingo de Guzman for the inauguration of the eighth festival.
IOHIO director Cicely Winter introduced Ricardo Fuentes and Beatriz Domínguez from the Coordinación Nacional de la Conservación del Patrimonio Cultural (CNCPN) who spoke about the goals of their institution and future collaborations with the IOHIO. Next, Alberto Compiani and Josefina Benavides from the “Radio Monterrey” station spoke about the weekly radio show “His Majesty the Organ,” which Compiani initiated as a result of his ongoing collaboration with the IOHIO. It is hoped that starting next year these programs may be broadcast in Oaxaca. Cicely Winter then offered a presentation about “The Historic Organs of Oaxaca and the Work of the IOHIO.” Her talk was prefaced by special recognition of the initiative of Don Alfredo Harp Helú in support of the restoration and maintenance of the organs.
This was followed by an exhibit of documents related to organs from various Oaxacan archives, “Ad maiorem Dei gloriam, el órgano oaxaqueño al servicio del altar,” which afforded an excellent overview of Oaxacan organ history. The exhibit was curated and presented by Polish researcher and IOHIO collaborator Ricardo Rodys.
The second concert of the festival took place in the Capilla del Rosario (ex-convento de San Pablo) and featured the Capilla Virreinal de la Nueva España directed by Aurelio Tello in the presentation of “Music from the Domingo Flores Book (18th century) of San Bartolo Yautepec.” This notebook was part of a treasure of manuscripts discovered by the IOHIO in Yautepec in 2001.

October 23, Saturday
The all-day field trip to the Mixteca Alta began with the third concert of the festival in Santa María de la Natividad. Barbara Owen opened the program with Baroque dance pieces. Later Guy Bovet improvised a sonata on a Mexican patriotic tune in the style of Sor María Clara and played a Fandango with guitarist Vladimir Ibarra. Gabriela Edith Pérez Díaz enchanted the audience with several pieces by J. S. Bach on the marimba. The Ibarra/Díaz duo then closed their program with a piece for marimba and guitar. At the end of the concert, each of the two IOHIO organ scholarship students from the community played a piece. We did not know that the Pan American Races would take place that day and that the highway was blocked. We were waved through by a police car but did not find out until the end of the day that the friends who drove their own cars to the concert were not allowed to pass.
The fourth concert of the festival in Santo Domingo Yanhuitlán was especially important because this organ has not been played for years due to ongoing restoration work in the church. The audience was transported by the combination of the program “The Splendor of the Cathedrals of Mexico in the 17th century,” presented by the Capilla Virreinal de la Nueva España directed by Aurelio Tello, the setting in one of Mexico’s most magnificent 16th-century Baroque churches, and the acoustics in the vaulted stone space. The renowned Uruguayan organist Cristina García Banegas accompanied the choir and enhanced the program with several magnificent 17th-century solo works.
Thanks to the ongoing support of the Federal Road and Bridge Commission, a special entrance was opened from the super highway, allowing us direct access to San Andrés Zautla and saving us over an hour of travel time. The fiesta and concert in Zautla are always a highlight of the festival. We were received in the atrium of the church by the local band with noisy fireworks, mezcal, and dancing, with the elderly women of the town dressed in their traditional skirts and blouses. We enjoyed a delicious stew with squash seed sauce, a special local recipe, served in the patio behind the church. After dinner, we filed into the church to hear the fifth concert of the festival, presented by organist Cristina García Banegas in alternation with Gabriela Edith Pérez Díaz, percussion, and Vladimir Ibarra, guitar. Banegas’s program combined light 18th-century dances with more modern works, including one of her own compositions, while Díaz and Ibarra offered modern works for guitar and complete percussion ensemble. The case decoration of this 4′ table organ (1726) is among the most elaborate in all of Mexico.

October 24, Sunday
This day was dedicated to visiting unrestored organs in the Tlacolula Valley. Our first stop was in San Matías Jalatlaco, located just on the edge of the historic center of Oaxaca City. This lovely 8′ organ, painted blue, was built in 1866 by Pedro Nibra and though missing some pipes, is quite restorable.
We continued on to San Andrés Huayapam and its lovely country church with a splendid gilded altarpiece. The 4′ table organ (1772) is in nearly perfect condition and would require little to make it playable. We were refreshed by a drink of tejate, a specialty of this community.
We made a brief stop at the famous tree in Santa María del Tule before proceeding to Santa María Tlacolula. It was market day and a local saint was also being celebrated, so the streets were packed and it was difficult to get one’s bearings because of the tall tents and rides. First we viewed the little 2′ 18th-century processional organ, the smallest in Oaxaca, which was built for a small chapel. Then we climbed up to the choir loft to see the 8′ organ in the choir loft. Dating presumably from the mid-18th century, this stately organ is nearly complete and has the most elaborately painted façade pipes in all of Mexico.
We were all set to proceed to Mitla for lunch, but a police car was blocking our vans and it took at least a half hour to track down the driver and convince him to move. As a result we had to rush through the rest of the day. After our midday meal in Mitla, we zoomed to San Dionisio Ocotepec to view one of Oaxaca’s earliest and most important organs (1721). This 4′ stationary instrument, though missing its pipes and keyboard, is the closest relative to the Tlacochahuaya organ. Its doors, which were removed from the organ, framed, and hung in the sacristy, were brought to the choir loft for viewing. One of them depicts King David playing his harp and the other, Santa Cecilia playing the Ocotepec organ, showing the bellows behind and the original façade decoration.
We arrived in San Jerónimo Tlacochahuaya just in time for the sixth concert of the festival. Guy Bovet offered an elegant program combining serious works of the Spanish repertoire with lighter pieces such as verses from the Sor María Clara notebook. His program ended with an improvisation on the Oaxacan tune “Amor Juvenil,” with Antonio de Jesús Hernández, the 15-year-old son of the sacristan on the trombone. This organ (ca. 1735) is the jewel in the Oaxacan crown. Its gorgeously decorated case and façade pipes make it a work of art in its own right and it synchronizes perfectly with the acoustics and exuberantly painted decoration of the church.

October 25, Monday
Participants had the choice of playing the organ in La Soledad or going on a guided tour of archeological site of Monte Albán with Marcus Winter of the INAH (Instituto Nacional de Antropologia e Historia). There was free time for the rest of the day until the seventh concert of the festival presented that evening in the Oaxaca Cathedral by Cristina García Banegas. Her concert was varied and exciting, and included pieces from the Jesuit mission in Chiquitos, Bolivia. There was an excellent turnout for this concert.

October 26, Tuesday
We departed early in the morning for our two-day journey through the Mixteca Alta. This was only the second time that a concert had been programmed on the organ in Santa María Tlaxiaco, because its three-hour distance from Oaxaca City requires an overnight stay.
Our first stop was in Santa María Tinú. This small stone church houses an organ (1828) that is disproportionately large for the interior space. The organ, completely intact and played just a generation ago, still grunts and wheezes when the bellows located in the loft above are pumped. It is possible that it could be made to play again with just an overall cleaning and patching of the winding system.
We proceeded to San Mateo Yucucuí. The organ (1743) was never painted but is richly carved. The floor of the high side balcony on which the organ sits is much deteriorated, but the custodian had laid down some planks so that participants could get a closer look at the organ. The situation has been evaluated by the INAH and a repair project is under consideration.
Santa María Tiltepec is one of several extant organs located near Yanhuitlan. Appreciated by art historians for its richly carved façade, this 17th-century church houses one of Oaxaca’s oldest organs (1703), unique in both its construction technique and whimsical carved and painted decoration.
After lunch in Teposcolula, we ascended up through the pine forest to Santa María Tlaxiaco. Guy Bovet’s presentation of the eighth and final concert of the festival included some of the most stirring pieces of the 17th-century repertoire and ended with an improvisation on the “Canción Mixteca.” This beautiful 8′ organ, the only 19th-century restored instrument in Oaxaca, offers a broad palette of sound possibilities, which resounded throughout the beautiful church.

October 27, Wednesday
After breakfast, we departed for the late pre-classic and classic Mixtec archeological site of San Martín Huamelulpan for a guided tour by Marcus Winter of the INAH and a visit to the community museum.
From there we went to the nearby village of San Pedro Mártir Yucuxaco. The table organ here (1740) is complete and in excellent condition, even though its bellows no longer exist. It closely resembles the organ in Zautla, though without the painted decoration, the carved pipeshades include faces in profile, and the keyboard is one of Oaxaca’s most exquisite.
The open chapel, church, and ex-convent in San Pedro y San Pablo Teposcolula comprise one of the most amazing 16th-century Dominican complexes in Mexico. A project is nearing conclusion to gild the carved decoration of the 18th-century monumental organ in areas where there was no evidence of former gilding. The IOHIO was not notified of this project and it is being investigated. The organ has a similar profile to that of Yanhuitlan but was painted a cream color rather than polychromed, probably because of lack of funds at the time of the construction.
After lunch, we continued on to Santiago Teotongo, where we could admire the organ as part of one of the most splendid Baroque churches in Mexico. The organ seems to date from the mid-18th century because of the resemblance of its profile to the organ in San Mateo Yucucuí (1743). Even though it lost all its pipes and keyboard during the Mexican Revolution, the magnificent gilded and polychromed case still exists.
Our Mixtec tour culminated with a visit to the church and organ of Santiago Tejupan. This lovely polychromed organ (1776) is the last extant Oaxacan instrument to exhibit religious imagery on the case. Even though it no longer has its pipes or keyboard, the community is most interested in having it reconstructed some day. The name of the donor, cost of the organ, and date of construction appear inscribed on decorative medallions on the façade. Just before getting in to the vans to return to Oaxaca City, Cicely Winter announced that she had a surprise for everyone . . . a visit to one more organ! (just kidding!)

Everyone agreed that the Eighth Festival was spectacular. All the planning and organizational work beforehand really paid off and there were no major glitches, at least within our control. For the first time, we set up a screen and projected the concerts in the church below so that the audience could see the organist and the rest of the activity in the choir loft—this proved to be enormously successful. Three of the organ concerts included pieces from the notebook of the Oaxacan nun Sor María Clara del Santísimo Sacramento. The group of participants could not have been more congenial and included organists, organbuilders, organ students, anthropologists, academics, musicians, teachers, restorers, cultural promoters, and other professionals. It will be a pleasure to maintain contact with these wonderful new members of our growing IOHIO community. During the coming year we look forward to presenting more concerts, producing more CDs, continuing our documentation and conservation project, and writing a book about the Oaxaca organs. So when we organize our Ninth Festival sometime in 2012 we will have a lot to celebrate! 

A graduate of Yale University, Edward Pepe holds master’s degrees in organ performance (New England Conservatory of Music) and photography (University of Massachusetts). He spent two years studying historic performance practice with Harald Vogel at the Norddeutsche Orgelakademie. He is co-founder of both the Westfield Center for Early Keyboard Studies in the United States of North America and the Instituto de Órganos Históricos de Oaxaca in Mexico.<br>
An organist and independent scholar living, working, and performing in Oaxaca, Mexico since 1999, he has presented talks on restoration issues in various parts of that country, and led tours to historic instruments in the States of Tlaxcala, Queretaro and Guanajuato, as well as in Mexico City for both Minnesota Public Radio and the Yale Institute of Sacred Music. He is the author of numerous articles on historic organs and viceregal music in Mexico, and is preparing a book on the subject.
<br><br>
James Wyly is an artist and independent scholar of the organ. A graduate of Amherst College, he holds doctoral degrees in music (University of Missouri) and in clinical psychology (Illinois School of Professional Psychology). He has published a number of studies of Spanish organ building practices, which include his doctoral dissertation in music. As a musicologist, organist and harpsichordist, he taught music at the college level from 1964 to 1976 (Elmhurst College and Grinnell College), and subsequently practiced psychotherapy in Chicago until 2003. He currently lives in Oaxaca, Mexico.

1. Introduction

Recent years have seen a notable increase in interest among organists and scholars in old Mexican organs. Each year congresses, tours, and study trips of various kinds bring organists, organ historians, organ builders, and general enthusiasts to Mexico from Europe as well as North and South America. As we learn more about the old Iberian and Ibero-American organ repertory, the numerous1 old Mexican instruments surviving from the eighteenth, nineteenth, and perhaps even the seventeenth centuries, built as they are in styles closely related to Iberian organs, become ever more important to our understanding. Yet for the vast majority of organists, a study trip to Mexican organs remains impractical, especially as the number of old organs in Mexico that are actually in playing condition remains small, and of these, not a few are in relatively inaccessible locations. Therefore organists interested in this area must depend heavily on recordings.

The organist who buys a compact disc in hopes of learning something about the Iberian tradition of organ music must proceed with caution, however. The history of Mexico’s organs has been just as complex as her politics, and just because an old Mexican organ is today in a state of repair sufficient for the making of a recording does not necessarily mean that the recorded sounds will have a great deal to do with either the way the organ was originally conceived or how its sound may have evolved over time. Therefore, it seems useful to describe in some detail what is presently known about one of the old Mexican organs of which some recent recordings are available.2 As will be seen, this, the organ in the village church of San Jerónimo in San Jerónimo Tlacochahuaya (also known as Tlacochahuaya de Morelos) in the state of Oaxaca, presents us with a history and a set of questions which, while they are of course specific to this particular instrument, can also be considered as generally characteristic of the kinds of issues one faces when one starts to think about how an old Mexican organ might have originally sounded and been played. As we formulate our questions we shall try to describe in some detail what is known about the history and present-day state of this instrument, which is currently one of the better-known old organs of Mexico; and this, in turn, will enable us to make a few comments about the larger picture regarding old organs in Mexico.

2. The Church Building

As is common in Mexico, we possess only fragmentary documentation concerning the Tlacochahuaya church and its organ(s). As their history is intertwined let us review what is known. Tlacochahuaya lies about 12 miles east of Oaxaca de Juárez, the capital of the state. We know that the church was originally built in the 1550s and ’60s as part of an extensive network of Dominican complexes intended to promote evange-lization in Oaxaca. The present structure conforms to the original dimensions of 11 by 45 meters. (The ratio of 1:4 is reflected in the interior, the roughly square crossing at the front, to which a shallow sanctuary is attached, and the equivalent baptistry/gallery area at the back being separated by a nave of roughly double their length.) The church’s cruciform shape is original. The present church walls are also almost certainly original3 but at least up to the 1660s they were spanned by wooden beams and a wooden roof. There are no external buttresses, which might be expected had vaulting originally been contemplated. Nevertheless, sometime between ca. 1660 and 1803 San Jerónimo was given its present brick vaults. Over apse, crossing and choir, they are domical, constructed of diminishing rings: the barrel vault of the nave is made with bricks placed on edge, set on the axis of the nave.4 It could well be that the vaults date from a major renovation during the 1730s, since in the west façade, which is not original to the church, the weather-damaged legend, se [ac]abo de renobar esta [por?]tada primero de agosto de 1737aos can still be made out above the main door. The two west towers, each of which contains stairs to the gallery (one is currently blocked off), would then seem to date from that time, as probably would the elaborate decorative painting of the interior.

This implies that the gallery at the west end of the original wooden-roofed church must have had a ceiling that was a good deal lower than the present one, especially since the walls of the choir area were raised at the time the vaulting was added (accounting for the unusual proportions of the church’s façade). The floor of the loft, likely of wood, was also lower, as is confirmed by the original bell-tower, which still stands on the south side of the nave. Halfway up its stair is a blocked-off doorway, apparently the original way to the old gallery, which would have entered the church at a level lower than the present gallery floor. Not only would this gallery have been lower, it would have been darker, for it would have lacked the present large west window. This space, by the way, must have served, until Tlacochahuaya was secularized in the eighteenth century, as a coro from which the friars sang their offices, for to this day it contains a large, four-sided lectern of the type used to hold large choir books. Perhaps it also included choir stalls, and perhaps, as in nearby Yanhuitlán, there was an indigenous choir that sang polyphony.5

It must also be noted that Oaxaca suffered a major earthquake in 1714. Perhaps there was damage to the Tlacochahuaya church that needed repair. A nearly simultaneous major rebuilding project, completed in 1733, was carried out at the largely destroyed Oaxaca cathedral6 and might have acted as an impetus towards renovations in Tlacochahuaya.

The overall layout of the Dominican complex in Tlacochahuaya is also worth mentioning here, since it tells us much about the friars’ daily routine, including musical practices. In a departure from the usual custom of placing the convent on either the south or north side of the church, the convent in Tlacochahuaya is for unknown reasons located to the east, behind the apse. As a result, it was not possible to have the usual entrance leading directly from the second floor of the convent into the choir loft,7 which gave the friars easy access to the choir area for the performance of the monastic hours. Instead, the early bell tower in Tlacochahuaya seems to have served this purpose. The two stairwells in Tlacochahuaya’s west towers,8 leading up from the main floor to the choir, can then be seen as an indication of a stronger indigenous participation in music making in the later years of Dominican control.9

3. The Organ: History

Now we may turn to what we know of the changes this organ has undergone; and while we may not possess a full record of them, it is already clear that, as with so many old organs, it may be misleading to speak of the Tlacochahuaya instrument in terms of a single date or a style that relates exclusively to one period or another. And if we are to make real use of what we know about its present state we need to know as much as we can about which parts of that state date from when, and what has happened to them over time.

We might remind ourselves that as far as the present state of the organ is concerned, we are not dealing with a “restoration” in the conservation world’s currently accepted use of the term. In fact, there is presently no organ in Mexico that can be considered to be “restored,” if restoration means that after a thorough and thoroughly documented historical study a conscious plan has been carried out to return a given organ either to its original state or to a designated moment in its history, conserving all old material, replacing irrecoverably damaged or missing old work with the best possible working reproductions of it, taking care to make all changes as close to reversible as is mechanically feasible, making available full documentation regarding the intervention, and so on.10 Rather, we are dealing with an old, working organ that has been altered many times in the process of repeatedly repairing and updating it—which is of course the way almost all work on extant organs has been carried out for hundreds of years, with the exception of a relatively few interventions in historically important organs during our own time.

Let us begin with the existing disposition of the organ. The stops are divided, those in the left column extending from C (short octave) to c1 and those in the right column from c#1 to c3 (21 and 24 notes, respectively). The names here assigned to the stops appear on paper labels from the 1990 renovation; we do not know what they were originally called. Additional information supplied by the authors appears in brackets. (See Stoplist 1 on page 25.)

The disposition exhibits a Mexican penchant for keeping pitches low. In the left hand, pitches do not rise above the twenty-second (here a 1/2'), and even that register breaks back an octave in the tenor. In the right hand, there are no pitches above the twelfth (here a 11⁄3'), and, once again, the register breaks back an octave. The absence of higher pitches may be due to the fact that the chest, and hence the phonic conception, was originally that of a 4' organ. The doublings of the Flautado and Octava in the right hand conform with a Spanish practice (as, for instance, described by Pablo Nassarre11) of strengthening pitches depending upon the acoustics of the church building. The lack of compound stops has been discussed elsewhere.12

The largest pipe of the Bardón is marked with the date 1735. This is practically the only concrete piece of evidence we have about the organ’s chronology; but even so, we cannot really be sure of what it tells us. It is often assumed that the Tlacochahuaya organ predates 1735, and that the 8' Bardón and the reed stops constitute a 1735 modification to an earlier, more compact version of the organ that perhaps sat on a table. If we start from this assumption, we will immediately note that the pipe of the Bardón rank standing on tenor c is marked with a crusader’s cross—with which Mexican builders often signified the first pipe of a rank—and we will say that the register was originally a 4' rank and that 1735 marks a moment of major change in the organ’s nature, in which its fundamental pitch dropped by an octave. It would follow that the grooved toeboard upon which the bass octave of Bardón pipes now rests, which extends out beyond the edge of the windchest, was made new at the time of the renovation. It is usually assumed that the reed stops were added at the same time, and while this certainly makes sense, there exists no external evidence in support of this idea; nor need we assume that both reeds were installed at the same time. We can say, however, that at the time(s) the Bajoncillo and Clarín were added, the present stop action was not in place and the stops were still worked by extensions of the sliders at the sides of the case, for there are slots for all the present sliders, including the reeds, plus one on the left, presumably for a now-removed Tambor (Drum), and one on the right which still holds the slider that controls the Pájaros (Birdsong). The Bajoncillo stands at the front of the chest, in the place the façade Flautado basses would have occupied had they been side by side with their treble equivalents.13

The surviving old pipework (which constitutes about half the number of flue pipes in the organ) is homogenous, and, since it coincides with the chest’s toehole spacing, there is no real reason to assume that it is anything but original, or at least contemporary with the wind-chest. The disposition previous to the hypothesized c. 1735 intervention, then, would be assumed to have been as shown in Stoplist 2.
Minus the Tapadillo, this coincides exactly with the dispositions of the table organs at San Andrés Zautla (1726) and San Pedro Mártir Yucuxaco (1740), both in the state of Oaxaca. In addition, the disposition of the organ in San Pedro Quiatoni (1729) is identical to that of Tlacochahuaya, except for the reeds.14 Indeed, Quiatoni’s Tapado also started out at 4¢ pitch and was changed at some unknown time to 8' pitch. We shall return to the implications of these and other similarities among these organs.
Nonetheless, the notion that the 1735 date marks a modification to a pre-existing table organ, rather than the date of the organ’s original conception, raises some difficult questions. As we have noted, there are miters on the sides of the case, which indicate that extensions of the sliders once passed through them and served as the stop action. While old table organs were often so arranged, this neither demonstrates that the original construction was much before 1735 (the organ in San Dionisio Ocotepec, Oaxaca, of 1721 was built with such extensions) nor that at one time it sat on a table (the Ocotepec organ’s case extends to the floor). An examination of the Tlacochahuaya case also shows that the configuration of miters constitutes an adaptation of the case, since they are cut not into the case itself, but into boards that were themselves inserted into the case. When this was done is also unclear.
The type of key action in the Tlacochahuaya organ is also relevant to our thinking both about the date and the type of the hypothesized original organ—that is, whether it was built as a table organ or as a freestanding positive. We are dealing with two possible actions here: on the one hand, the actual key action, which is a suspended action without a rollerboard (no table organ with a rollerboard is currently catalogued in Mexico); and on the other hand, a pin action.15 Essentially, a pin action allows the keyboard to be placed above the pallets, more or less at the level of the sliders, so it can be seen as a height-saving measure. Table organs with pin actions would seem to be particularly suitable to Oaxaca, then, in two regards: first because frequent earthquakes required that churches be built relatively low to the ground; and second, because in Oaxaca’s villages resources were limited, so churches and their organs were often small.

What are the odds, then, of the Tlacochahuaya organ’s originally having had a pin action? Among the eleven existing table organs in the state of Tlaxcala, six have rollerboard-less, suspended actions like Tlacochahuaya’s, and five have pin actions.16 In Oaxaca, however, the pin action definitely dominates: only one (Santa María Peñoles) of the fourteen known table organs certainly had an action like Tlacochahuaya’s. On the other hand, there are no known floor-standing organs with pin actions in Oaxaca, or anywhere else in Mexico (supporting the idea that pin actions were meant to save height). Given that the conversion of a pin action to a suspended action would have required an extensive and complicated reworking of the fundamental structure of the organ, it would seem likely that the Tlacochahuaya organ today contains the type of key action with which it was first built, and that the odds therefore do not favor its having been first built as a table organ. Here, the floor of the original choir loft being lower means that, in spite of there having been a lower choir ceiling before the 1730s renovation, a floor organ could still have fit in the space.

If we turn to the two reed stops, the notion that they were added to the organ also implies some serious work to the windchest. Indeed, an ingenious construction in Tlacochahuaya does allow the grooveboard for the Clarín to pass in front of and under that of the Flautado. But this means that if the organ had a previous incarnation without the Clarín, accommodating the new stop meant not only making a new toeboard and slider, and drilling out the table, but the grooveboard of the façade Flautado also would have had to be rebuilt. Accommodating the Bajoncillo would have been a little easier since there could easily have been empty space beside the treble pipes of the Flautado, but the table still would have had to be drilled and a slider made.

From the point of view of organ construction, then, to achieve the present version of the Tlacochahuaya organ from the hypothetical earlier one, whether table- or floor-standing, would have required some very elaborate rebuilding. But other factors also speak against an earlier version of the organ. The similarities among the Oaxacan instruments we have mentioned extend to the design of their upper cases, suggesting that they were all built in the same shop, or at least belonged to a “school” of organbuilding practices. It is quite possible that the organs are all variations on a basic “model” that was produced in quantity: indeed, various parts of the Quiatoni organ are labeled “San Pedro,” which could suggest that the builder was constructing several similar instruments at one time. Thus, even if the Tlacochahuaya organ had an earlier version, it would seem to have been originally built only a few years before its rebuilding in 1735. This is possible, though such a thoroughgoing revision of a nearly new instrument would have required unusual circumstances.

But there are other possibilities. Perhaps the Tlacochahuaya organ was rethought as it was being built, employing roughed-out components that were semi-mass-produced and kept ready to finish in the shop. Or, maybe the organ was ordered “like that in San Pedro Quiatoni, but with a Clarín in the façade and a Bajoncillo.” In either case, we could suppose that the builder made some clever adaptations using a stock model of a 4' windchest already on hand, and the organ was delivered as a new organ that already had its 8' foundation and reeds. And perhaps the organbuilder fitted the new organ into an already framed-up case that had to be raised to accommodate the façade Clarín, which might account for the inserted boards that have the slider miters, as well as for the double row of ornamental cartouches above the keyboard (unusual for an organ this size). In the end, all we can say is that there are several plausible scenarios here, and at present we lack sufficient evidence to make a firm choice among them.

It is worth pointing out that the Tlacochahuaya organ is the only one of the above-mentioned group of organs to have a basic but complete Iberian-style reed ensemble. The placement of a Bajoncillo inside the case is likewise unusual (the more common interior reed in Oaxaca—either just in the bass, or in both bass and treble—is a Trompeta Real, invariably at 8¢ pitch). We do not know enough about Mexican organ music from the period to say whether this was due to budgetary or esthetic considerations. The first documented occurrence of façade trumpets in Mexico seems to be the Jorge de Sesma organ that was built in 1689 in Madrid for the cathedral of Mexico City. Façade trumpets, then of relatively recent invention, might have taken some time to reach a place like Tlacochahuaya, in which case the right-hand reed stop would date at the earliest from shortly before 1735; but, if we assume the organ was reconstructed from a complete, reedless original, either or both reeds could have been added at any point between 1735 and the installation of the existing stop action, as well. Whenever they were installed (in an adaptation of an existing almost-new organ, as original to an organ built in 1735, or as a modification to the organ after 1735), the reeds would have marked a dramatic change in the sound of the music, and the impulse that caused them to be included represents a change in the local musical esthetic—the dating of which carries large implications for our understanding of the history of this organ and the way music of a given period was played on it.

As we have mentioned, the slots in the sides of the case suggest that the present stop action postdates the reed stops; and we have demonstrated that there existed in Oaxaca freestanding organs with a lower case that used extensions of the sliders protruding through the case as the register action. In fact, if, as is often assumed, the organ case was painted at the time the church was vaulted, then we have additional evidence that the stop action came later, for the scribe marks for the stop action’s miters are still visible—on top of the case painting.

Having been fitted into a pre-existing case, the stop action occupies insufficient space and its parts are too small to develop leverage enough to move the sliders easily. To compound the problem, the connections between the traces and the (too short) levers on the rollers are secured simply by loose-fitting nails. All of this results in so much resistance and slack in the system that changing the position of a stopknob in no way guarantees that the corresponding slider will have budged. Everything about the stop action suggests improvised workmanship, which is inconsistent with the rest of the organ, as well as with surviving eighteenth- and nineteenth-century stop actions in other Oaxacan organs.17 It would seem reasonable to assume that the stop action is a relatively recent, cosmetic addition and that it may well represent the last major alteration the organ endured before the Mexican Revolution of 1910. The nails, which are inclined to fall out at inopportune moments, could be later still.

With Mexico’s war for independence from Spain (1810–1821), political events began to exercise significant influence on the history of the organ in Mexico. Since independence, Mexican politics have been characterized by frequent periods of instability punctuated by civil wars, not to mention political and military incursions from Europe and the United States. Such an environment was hardly conducive to the culture of the organ, for which the most important single political event of the period is probably the suppression of religious orders and the nationalization of ecclesiastical property that began in 1859. For the organ in general, this meant less funding for new building as the relationship between church and state as well as the ownership of church properties remained unresolved through the third quarter of the nineteenth century as chaotic governments quickly succeeded one another. While organs of first-rate workmanship were sometimes built and older instruments were repaired after 1859, an irreversible slide had begun, fueled by political and ecclesiastical conflicts, lack of funds, shifts in spending priorities towards more secular projects, and social instability; and the coup de grâce was delivered in the form of the 1910–1920 revolution, during which many organs, reportedly including that of Tlacochahuaya, having become increasingly decrepit from lack of maintenance, were rendered unplayable by occupying armies and subsequent vandalism.18 Changes in liturgical practice since Vatican II (1962–65) have established tastes unsympathetic to the revival of older forms of ecclesiastical music, and today in the overwhelming majority of Mexican churches the organs, whether functional or not, are regarded as mere curiosities—where they are recognized as organs at all.

4. The Organ: Renovation

Such was the state of the Tlacochahuaya organ until 1990–91, when the organ was disassembled, cleaned, and thoroughly rebuilt. The project was under the direction of the North American organ builder, Susan Tattershall. The Mexican builders José Luís Falcón and Joaquín Wesslowski collaborated. We need only focus on two aspects of this work as Tattershall has published a fuller account of it.19 We need to think, however, about what happened to the pipework and the bellows.

Luckily, about half of the pipework in Tlacochahuaya is old (in the Tapado, for instance, 20 of the 45 pipes are new, and all but one of these is in the treble). The extant pipes were repaired and the ranks were completed with new work by Joaquín Wesslowski.20 The new pipework in Tlacochahuaya was finely made to replicate the old, which has not always been the case with modern-day interventions in Oaxaca’s organs. The Oaxacan habit of numbering all pipes from 1 to 45 facilitated the relocation of pipes that had been moved. Notwithstanding that pipes are sometimes reused (and lengthened or shortened) and can carry several numbers, and that the presence of breaking registers can complicate the reconstruction of an organ’s disposition, similar organs in the area confirm Tattershall’s conclusions in this regard.

Naturally the question arises as to what alterations the pipework may have endured over the years. The organs at San Andrés Zautla and San Pedro Quiatoni provide a useful comparison, for both organs are practically complete (the Quiatoni organ is unplayable), including almost all their pipework, and the Quiatoni organ gives every evidence of being largely in its original (1729) state.21 As we have noted, both are in many ways similar to the Tlacochahuaya instrument. In all three organs all the principal ranks are of almost the same scale and have mouths 1/4 of their circumference. Cutups vary and some in the Tlacochahuaya organ show signs of adjustment, but it is safe to say the originals averaged around 1/4 in the bass, increasing to 2/5 in the treble. The similarities are apparent in the following table, which compares the diameters of the 4¢ façade ranks at Tlacochahuaya, Quiatoni, and Zautla, to which, for interest’s sake, we have added the Yucuxaco organ’s 4¢ façade rank.22 The Yucuxaco organ is about two pipes narrower than the other three, though its scales follow a similar pattern; again, we wonder if all of these organs could be by the same builder.23 (See Scale chart 1.)

There is every indication that at least in terms of its grosser measurements, the Tlacochahuaya pipework reflects early practice and that pipes were not substituted after “classical” (i.e., derived from Iberian baroque practice) organ building ceased to be practiced in Oaxaca around 1900. Furthermore, the principal chorus stands substantially as it was designed, and the proportional strength among its ranks probably does not deviate far from the classic-period organbuilders’ intentions.

Not enough study of Oaxacan reed stops has yet been made to determine whether the present duckbill shallots and tongues (in both stops) reflect local 18th-century practice. Their similarity to Spanish and Mexican reeds of the time, however, suggests that they do. Admittedly, neither of the reed stops at Tlacochahuaya works very well; the quality is uneven and the pipes speak far more slowly than do 18th-century Spanish and Portuguese examples. Indeed, they speak so slowly and irregularly that playing the kind of fast passages and repeated notes called for in Iberian Tientos de clarínes, Tientos de batalla, etc., is virtually impossible.

As we have noted, the stopped 8' rank was rebuilt from a 4' one; both of the two lowest octaves are numbered as if they were the first octave, so presumably the lowest octave was added to a pre-existing stop—which just possibly could have come from another organ, or from an existing supply of pipes in the builder’s shop. (An extension was built on the topboard to hold the lowest eight pipes.) It conforms in mouth shape, scale, etc., with other similar eighteenth-century Mexican stops. The diameters of the C-pipes are compared with those of the similar stop at San Pedro Quiatoni in the following table. (See Scale chart 2.)

Tattershall describes making what was essentially a newly built bellows to replace the pre-1990 winding system, which, unless something happened after Fesperman and Kelemen photographed the organ, must have been intact, although not functional, at the time of her work; and she suggests that this older winding system had in turn replaced one that had been behind the organ. This of course assumes an altogether different earlier location for the organ, the bellows of which then would have been rebuilt when the organ was given its present location at the side of the gallery. She bases the theory that the bellows was once behind the organ on the claim that the old right-hand stops, which protruded through the side of the case, could not be reached had the bellows been at the side; but this is not true, for experimentation demonstrates that the miters on the right of the case are perfectly accessible to anyone standing at the organist’s right (the Pájaro stop is still worked this way). There is really no evidence to suggest that the bellows was ever behind the organ. Most importantly, Tattershall believes the pre-1990 bellows to have been of 19th-century construction and she did not preserve it. She describes it as “a set of internal frames, onto which an enormous hand-sewn bag of cowskin had been tacked with upholstery nails. . . . When open, it looked like an enormous smithy’s bellows, though rectangular . . . A tell-tale strip of white fuzz and old glue around the rim of the bellows covers made it clear that the cowhide arrangement was a later creation . . .”24 But later than when? For, as nobody knew in 1990, this is neither a smithy bellows nor a 19th-century type of organ bellows, but a kind of organ bellows that was in use at least from the early 16th century (a Spanish example of which was recently documented by Gerard A. C. de Graaf in a little organ from the 1520s in Salamanca Cathedral’s Capilla Dorada).25 It is not impossible that the old Tlacochahuaya bellows was revised in the 19th century, but nevertheless it represented a type of Iberian bellows with a long history and it could have been made at any time during the organ’s existence—or earlier, given that it could have been brought from another location during a revision in the Tlacochahuaya organ. As only its weights are preserved, we are unlikely ever to resolve the questions about the old bellows’ date and provenance, which are raised by de Graaf’s description of the Capilla Dorada organ. Bellows of the Capilla Dorada type survive in other locations in Oaxaca,26 however, and study of them could help to clarify the issue.

This in turn opens the question of the organ’s earlier windpressure(s). Today the organ speaks on 84mm, achieved by two 1990 wedge bellows weighted by the old but undatable weights.27 Some people have suggested this may be too high, and the organ at San Andrés Zautla, whose principal pipes are virtually identical to those at Tlacochahuaya, and which was rebuilt by Tattershall in 1998 with newly made wedge bellows, speaks on only 73mm.28 But the matter of Tlacochahuaya’s wind pressure remains speculative, for if it were lower than 84mm the reed pipes would behave even less satisfactorily than at present; so all we can say about the pre-1990 winding system is that it was of the Capilla Dorada type, its provenance is undeterminable, and it may have endured several revisions over at least the past 280 years.

Another factor influencing the organ’s sound is that the case presently has no back, and in 1990–91 the organ was voiced on the assumption that this was the way it had always been. However, most old organ cases in Oaxaca have backs, and a pre-restoration photograph of the organ by John Fesperman’s Smithsonian Institution team29 shows a panel, unfastened at the top, leaning against the wall behind the organ. At least one performer has experimented with installing temporary backs, and whether the back of the case is open or closed makes a discernible difference in the organ’s sound. The age of the panel in the Fesperman photograph is of course indeterminable.

The organ’s keyboard is evidently not original. The keys are stamped with numbers in the manner of a pre-fabricated keyboard of the 19th century. That it was not built specifically for Tlacochahuaya is made completely clear by its numbering: the lowest key begins with the number 5. The keys for C, C-sharp, D and E-flat were discarded in adapting it to the short-octave chest. Accordingly, the highest key is numbered 49. The octave span, 165mm, is characteristic of late 19th-century pianos and harmoniums.30

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The Instituto de Órganos Históricos de Oaxaca (IOHIO) offered a unique celebration of Oaxacan culture based on the historic pipe organs

Cicely Winter grew up in the state of Michigan, but has lived in Oaxaca since 1972. She studied piano and harpsichord at Smith College and the University of Michigan, where she obtained a B.A. in music and an M.A. in European history. She later studied piano performance at the post-graduate level in the School of Music at Indiana University. She presents organ, piano, and harpsichord concerts regularly, many of which benefit community service projects. In the year 2000 she co-founded the Instituto de Órganos Históricos de Oaxaca A.C. (IOHIO) and since then has served as its director. The IOHIO focuses on the protection and promotion of the sixty-nine historic pipe organs known to date in the state of Oaxaca.

The ninth festival had barely finished before people were clamoring to know when the next one would be! Once again, the Instituto de Órganos Históricos de Oaxaca (IOHIO) offered a unique celebration of Oaxacan culture based on the historic pipe organs. Over the course of five and a half days, participants could enjoy concerts on six Oaxacan organs; two choral concerts in splendid colonial venues; one harpsichord and flute concert in a village church; visits to eleven unrestored organs with guided tours of their churches, many of which are usually inaccessible to the public; a guided tour of the archeological site of Monte Albán; a guided tour of the colonial churches of Oaxaca City; the opportunity for organists to play some of the organs; a presentation about the Oaxacan organs; an exhibit of manuscripts related to the organs from local archives; and a chance to savor the famous Oaxacan cuisine in three villages.

The festival attracted more than 100 experts, students, and aficionados in fields related to organs, music, colonial art, and Oaxacan culture in general. The concerts were packed, and there were more local people in the audience than ever. Attendance was approximately 260 people in the cathedral, 150 in Huayapam, 380 in La Soledad, 230 in San Pablo, 150 in Tamazulapan, 150 in Yanhuitlán, 180 in Zautla, and 150 in Tlacochahuaya. The star performer was the internationally acclaimed Brazilian organist Elisa Freixo, who played the inaugural and final concerts. Twenty-five Mexican musicians were invited to participate as well: four organists, 14 singers, three guitarists, two percussionists (both Oaxacan), a flutist, and a harpsichordist, as well as a chorus of 14 singers. Also in attendance were 11 young Mexican organists and organ students from Guanajuato, Morelia, Mexico City, and Oaxaca. In addition to the musicians, we were honored to have with us Richard Perry, author of several books on Mexican colonial art, who guided the church tours.

Wednesday, February 15

The events began with the inauguration of the festival and reception in the Oaxaca Philatelic Museum (MUFI). María Isabel Grañen Porrúa, president of the Fundación Alfredo Harp Helú Oaxaca, and Eloy Pérez Sibaja, director of the Oaxaca Regional Center of the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (INAH), offered words of congratulations and the support of their respective institutions, after which Cicely Winter, director of the IOHIO, spoke about the goals of the festival.

The first concert of the festival took place in the Oaxaca Cathedral. Elisa Freixo offered a program of 16th–
18th-century repertoire by composers of diverse nationalities, and her characteristically elegant style set the high tone for the musical events to follow. Because of the position of the organ in the choir loft, the organist’s back is to the audience, so the concert was projected onto a screen in the church. In this way it was possible to see how the registers were changed and watch Elisa’s hands as she played. The monumental organ (1712) retains its opulently carved and gilded upper case, but its lower case has been rebuilt several times and there is no evidence of its original appearance. However, one can assume that it was once as richly decorated as the upper case.

Thursday, February 16

The first full day of activities began with a visit to the church of San Matías Jalatlaco, located on the edge of the historic center of Oaxaca City. We ascended the first of the many winding stone staircases we would encounter in the days ahead, in order to view the organ from the front in the choir loft. This elegantly proportioned blue 8′ organ was built in 1866 by the distinguished Mexican (Oaxacan?) organbuilder Pedro Nibra and was recently evaluated by organbuilder Gerhard Grenzing (Barcelona) for a possible future restoration.

It is always interesting see how the group splits up when we enter a church, with the organbuilders scurrying up to the choir loft, the lovers of colonial art gravitating to the altarpieces (retablos), those with anthropological inclinations talking to the local people, and others just wandering around enjoying the overall experience.

Our next stop was in San Juan Teitipac, where Richard Perry and art historian Janet Esser offered an explanation of the famous 16th-century Dominican mural at the entrance of the former convent. Inside the baroque-style church, we viewed the empty 18th-century organ case, which was painted light blue and converted into a confessional in the 1970s. It was later abandoned in a storeroom, where the IOHIO found it some years ago and moved it back into the church.

We proceeded to the church of San Jerónimo Tlacochahuaya, considered to be one of the loveliest in Mexico, with its exuberant interior floral decoration and exquisite baroque altarpieces, all recently restored. The focus of the visit was the church art rather than the organ, since there wouldn’t be time to view it calmly after the upcoming concert on Sunday.

Mexico City artists Santiago Alvarez (harpsichord) and Jazmín Rincón (baroque flute) presented the second concert of the festival, entitled “A musical voyage through 18th-century Europe,” in San Andrés Huayapam on the outskirts of Oaxaca City. Their delightful program was enhanced by the main altarpiece behind them, one of the most beautiful in Oaxaca, whose intricate carving is referred to as “gilded lace.”

The 4′ table organ (1772), originally painted bright red, has been evaluated for a restoration, since it is nearly intact. We were refreshed by a drink of tejate, of pre-Hispanic origin and a specialty of this community, followed by a delicious meal of mole amarillo in the atrium of the church.

That night Cicely Winter presented the third concert of the festival in the Basílica de la Soledad, accompanied by Oaxacan percussionist Valentín Hernández. Joel Vásquez and Andrea Castellanos were indispensible in pulling the stops, since this music required many changes of registration. The huge church was packed and the crowd most enthusiastic, even singing along and swaying in time to a program of well-known Oaxacan folk music, played on a Oaxacan historical treasure. The case of this monumental 8′ organ is elaborately decorated and bears the earliest date of any Oaxacan organ: 1686. The interior components were rebuilt during the 18th century, and the organ was restored in 2000.

Friday, February 17

Participants could choose one of three options for the Friday morning activity: a visit to the archeological site of Monte Alban with Marcus Winter (INAH), the opportunity to play the organs in the Basilica of La Soledad and the Cathedral, or a guided tour by Richard Perry of the most beautiful colonial churches in Oaxaca City.

That afternoon, Cicely Winter presented a talk in the Francisco de Burgoa Library about “The Historic Organs of Oaxaca and the Work of the IOHIO.” Although the title of the talk does not change from year to year, the content does, and the images of the organs and of the various IOHIO projects spoke for themselves. The talk was followed by a spirited discussion among the organists and organbuilders about conservation and restoration issues.

This was followed by an exhibit of documents related to music from various Oaxacan archives. Entitled “Musicógrafos y Melómanos,” the exhibit included 16th–20th-century printed documents and manuscripts from Europe, Mexico, and Oaxaca.

The fourth concert of the festival took place in the newly restored Centro Académico y Cultural San Pablo. The baroque ensemble Melos Gloriae, directed by Juan Manuel Lara, offered a captivating program of “Polyphonic Music—Francisco López Capillas (1614–1674),” the most prolific Mexican composer of baroque Masses. The acoustics were splendid as the choir sang from the second story of the former convent.

Saturday, February 18

Our caravan of seven vehicles journeyed through the mountainous Mixteca Alta region to Santa María de la Natividad Tamazulapan for the fifth concert of the festival. Organists Laura Carrasco and Elisa Freixo played charming pieces appropriate for this 2′ processional organ, situated in a high side balcony overlooking the huge nave of the church. They were joined by IOHIO organist Joel Vásquez and his young student Isaí Guzmán.

As in years past, we have featured music on other instruments to alternate with this small organ. Oaxacan percussionist Gabriela Edith Pérez Díaz and the Terceto Cuicacalli guitar ensemble from Mexico City (Diego Arias Ángel, Miguel Ángel Vences Guerrero, and Eduardo Rodríguez de la Torre) added variety to the program with pieces by J. S. Bach transcribed for marimba, and by Vivaldi and more modern composers for guitars. Afterward, we admired one of the most splendid altarpieces in Oaxaca, which includes paintings by the renowned 16th-century Spanish painter Andrés de la Concha.

No matter how carefully we try to plan the schedule, there are always “surprises” beyond our control. This time it was the highway construction that detained us for an hour en route to Santo Domingo Yanhuitlan.

Luckily, the sixth concert of the festival by the choral ensemble Melos Gloriae had just started when we finally arrived, and we were able to savor the program of “Sacred Music from the Museo Nacional del Virreinato” in the vaulted stone space of one of the most imposing 16th-century buildings in the Americas. Organist Abraham Alvarado played a selection of French pieces to demonstrate the sound of the organ. Built around 1700 and restored in 1997, this magnificent 8′ instrument is decorated in a style closely resembling that of La Soledad.

As in years past, the Federal Road and Bridge Commission (CAPUFE) opened an entrance from the superhighway, allowing us direct access to San Andrés Zautla and saving us over an hour of travel time. The fiesta and concert in Zautla are always a highlight of the festival. We were received in the atrium of the church by the local band with mezcal, necklaces of bugambilia, and dancing. We then followed the band to the patio behind the church for a sumptuous meal featuring estofado de pollo, a delicious Oaxacan stew.

The seventh concert of the festival, presented by various Mexican musicians, took place in Zautla’s lovely baroque church. Organist Laura Carrasco played works from archive manuscripts in Morelia and Puebla, as well as a set of verses from the Notebook of Psalm Tones of Sor María Clara del Santísimo Sacramento (the 19th-century Oaxacan nun who compiled the pieces in the notebook) from the Oaxaca Cathedral.

As in Tamazulapan, the organ alternated with the marimba (Gabriela Edith Pérez Díaz) and the guitar ensemble Terceto Cuicacalli. The concert was projected on a screen, which allowed the public to watch the action in the choir loft: the bellows pumped by hand and the registers controlled by lateral slider tabs.

After the concert, interested local folks and visitors climbed up to the choir loft to hear an explanation of the organ’s history and construction and admire it up close. The case of this 4′ table organ (1726) is exquisitely painted with images of Saints Peter and Andrew and four archangels.

Sunday, February 19

The first stop in our second Tlacolula Valley tour was Santa María de la Asunción Tlacolula. Once again we experienced the exciting moment of reaching the top of the winding stone staircase to see yet another unique instrument face to face in the choir loft. Dating presumably from the 18th century, this stately 8′ organ is nearly complete and has the most elaborately painted façade pipes in all Mexico. A proposal for its restoration by Gerhard Grenzing is being evaluated by the INAH in Mexico City. We also viewed the little 2′ 18th-century processional organ, the smallest in Oaxaca, which was built for the baroque chapel of the Señor de Tlacolula, currently undergoing restoration.

This year for the first time, we programmed a visit to the church of San Miguel del Valle, whose bell towers are decorated with glazed pottery dishes imbedded in the stucco. The 4′ table organ appears to date from around 1800 and has neo-classic design features. Even though the pipes and keyboard no longer exist, the organ still retains its windchest and original bellows.

We then traveled to San Dionisio Ocotepec to view one of Oaxaca’s earliest and most important organs (the date 1721 appears on a label in the inside of the case). The lower case of this tall 4′ stationary instrument is narrower than the upper, an unusual design in earthquake-prone Oaxaca. The organ came close to being destroyed just around the time the IOHIO made its first visit in 2001. Its decorated doors had fallen off and were luckily retrieved, framed, and hung in the sacristy. The sacristans brought the former doors to the choir loft so that participants could see on one of them, King David playing his harp, and the other, Santa Cecilia playing the Ocotepec organ, with the bellows behind and the original façade decoration.

Elisa Freixo presented the eighth concert of the festival in San Jerónimo Tlacochahuaya, which culminated the musical aspect of the festival. Her varied program highlighted the musical possibilities of the organ and projected rich sounds and tone colors rarely heard on this instrument. Built sometime before 1735 and restored in 1991, this is the most famous of the Oaxacan organs. The case and pipes are exquisitely decorated with floral motifs, and the organ harmonizes beautifully, both visually and acoustically, with the architecture of the church. As in some of the other churches, the concert was projected on a screen. In this way people could see how the registers were changed and watch the organist’s hands as she played.

We were delighted to have with us at several of our festival concerts Don Alfredo Harp Helú and his wife, María Isabel Grañen Porrúa, president of the
Alfredo Harp Helú Foundation in Oaxaca (FAHHO). The IOHIO is honored to be included among the many cultural projects of the Foundation and especially appreciates Don Alfredo’s interest in supporting organ restoration projects over the past years. These include five of the seven restorations in Oaxaca (though Fomento Social and Fomento Cultural Banamex) and the restorations of the two monumental organs in the Mexico City Cathedral (the second of which is in process) in collaboration with the organbuilder Gerhard Grenzing.

Monday, February 20

Our second all-day trip to the Mixteca Alta began with a visit to the unrestored organ in Santa María Tinú. The little stone church houses two baroque altarpieces and a disproportionately large organ (1828). Perhaps the organ was originally commissioned for a bigger church or perhaps the community simply wanted something grand. The organ, completely intact and played just a generation ago, still grunts and wheezes when the bellows located in the loft above are pumped.

Some years had passed since we last included a visit to the organ in San Andrés Sinaxtla in our festival tour, so it was of particular interest to our regular participants to see it this time. This instrument is neo-classic in design, richly carved but unpainted. Most unusual is the inscription across the façade of the organ including the date of construction (1791), the cost, and the name of the donor (a personal statement unthinkable a half century before).

Just up the road from Sinaxtla, the community of San Mateo Yucucui sits on a promontory overlooking the Yanhuitlán Valley. It is said that when this 8′ organ was played, it could be heard for miles around. The organ (1743) was never painted or gilded, probably because the parish ran out of money, but is richly carved and still has its original keyboard. The floor of the high balcony on which the organ sits is much deteriorated, but the custodian had laid down some planks so that participants could get a closer look at the organ.

Because of the delay on Saturday due to highway construction, we decided to change our plan so as not to venture beyond Yanhuitlán and unfortunately had to eliminate the visits to Tejupan and Teotongo. Instead we returned to the church of Yanhuitlán, since there hadn’t been adequate time to appreciate the church art and architecture after Saturday’s choral concert. Although the church was closed that day, our friend the custodian opened it for us specially. This church is one of the jewels of 16th-century architecture in all the Americas, and it was amazing to have this space all to ourselves.

Our final church and organ visit was in Santa María Tiltepec—for some, the crowning visual experience of the field trips. Built in the 16th century as an open chapel atop a pre-Hispanic temple, the 17th-century church has long been appreciated by art historians for its richly carved, asymmetrical façade. The organ is one of Oaxaca’s oldest (1703) and is unique in its technical design and colorful, whimsical carved (not painted) decoration.

We then walked down the hill and across the river to the home of the Cruz Martínez family for our farewell dinner. We feasted on barbacoa de borrego, lamb barbecued Oaxacan style, cooked in the ground over hot rocks and covered with maguey leaves. Mezcal from San Bartolo Yautepec flowed freely, and everyone had one last chance to relax and enjoy the festival company before returning to Oaxaca. 

Participants in the ninth festival were enthralled by their Oaxaca experience, and the village authorities, who always received us with ceremony and respect, were equally pleased by our attention to the organs in their communities. It is clear that the promotion of the organs during our festivals is one more step toward guaranteeing their preservation.

The IOHIO has many pending projects between now and the tenth festival (tentatively planned for February 2014), including organ concerts in city and village churches, more CDs of festival concerts, a book about the Oaxacan organs, continuing documentation and conservation work, and at least one organ restoration. By the time we meet again, there will be a lot to celebrate! n

Restoration of the organ in San Matías Jalatlaco, February 18–24, 2016

Cicely Winter grew up in Michigan and studied piano and harpsichord at Smith College and the University of Michigan, where she obtained a B.A. in music and an M.A. in European history; she later studied piano performance at Indiana University. Her principal teachers were Fritz Steinegger and Leonard Hokanson (piano), and Lory Wallfisch and Elisabeth Wright (harpsichord). Winter has lived in Oaxaca since 1972 and has presented numerous piano, harpsichord, and organ concerts over the years, many of which have benefitted community service projects in Oaxaca. In 2000, with the support of philanthropist Alfredo Harp Helú, she and organist Edward Pepe co-founded the Instituto de Órganos Históricos de Oaxaca A.C. (IOHIO), for which she serves as its director. Her professional performances have increasingly focused on historic organs, presenting a broad repertoire of classical, sacred, and folkloric music.

Each festival of the Instituto de Órganos Históricos de Oaxaca (IOHIO) builds on the success of its predecessors, making this one of the best ever! Nearly 100 people from seven countries and six Mexican states participated in all or part of the scheduled activities. Twenty-eight had participated in at least one previous festival and apparently couldn’t resist returning. Twenty Oaxacan, Mexican, and foreign musicians collaborated in eight concerts on seven restored organs over the course of five days. Six Mexican organ students were offered scholarships to come to the festival, and our own nine local organists and students, three of whom played in collective concerts, were delighted to be their guides. Hundreds of people went to the concerts and heard the Oaxacan organs in all their glory.

In just a few days, we fulfilled all our stated goals: 

• Promotion of the restored organs through the festival concerts;

• Conservation of the unrestored organs through visits to organs in the regions of the Zapotec Central Valleys and the Mixteca Alta;

• Musical and technical training through the participation of local organists in festival concerts and of an Oaxacan in the Jalatlaco restoration project;

• Archival research through the exhibit of documents;

• Organ restoration through the work in process in San Matías Jalatlaco. 

High spirits and a sense of camaraderie prevailed, new friendships, professional collaborations, and even a romance (!) were forged, and this time the festival group began to feel more than ever like a family.

Thursday, February 18

The festival began with the inauguration in the Oaxaca Philatelic Museum (MUFI). Cicely Winter, director of IOHIO, spoke about the activities and goals of the festival. María Isabel Grañen Porrúa, president of the Fundación Alfredo Harp Helú Oaxaca (FAHHO), and Padre Salvador Cruz Sánchez from Santa María Tlacolula, offered congratulations from their respective institutions. Winter expressed special appreciation to Alfredo Harp Helú for his indispensable support of seven organ restoration projects in Oaxaca over the past twenty years, as well as the restoration of the two monumental organs in the Mexico City Cathedral. There is no parallel anywhere in the world of a philanthropist who has demonstrated such a particular interest in the historic organs, and none of the IOHIO activities since 2000, including the inauguration of this festival, would have been possible without Don Alfredo’s support. 

After a welcoming reception, everyone proceeded to the Oaxaca Cathedral for the first concert of the festival, offered by Liuwe Tamminga (Netherlands), organ, and Bruce Dickey (USA), cornetto (http://iohio.org.mx/eng/cathedralconcertXIfest.htm). Both are residents in Bologna and had been encouraged to participate in the festival by our mutual friend Luigi Ferdinando Tagliavini. A long line wound out into the atrium to purchase tickets (this was the only concert with an admission fee), and attendance surpassed 350 people. It was thrilling to hear the cornetto, an instrument popular in the Renaissance that had fallen into disuse until its revival in recent decades, largely due to Bruce Dickey’s promotion and teaching. Its haunting resonance intertwined with the organ to sound like one instrument, and Liuwe Tamminga’s solos were brilliant. 

This and all succeeding concerts were projected onto a screen in the church so that the audience could have a better view of the artists and understand the relation of pulling the stops and the changing in the organ’s sound. This monumental 8′ instrument was built in 1712 and retains its opulently carved and gilded upper case, although its lower case has been rebuilt several times. Unfortunately no evidence remains of its original appearance. However, we know from the contract for its construction that it was once one of the most lavishly decorated organs in Oaxaca.

Friday, February 19

The day started with a bilingual presentation by Cicely Winter in the Francisco de Burgoa Library within the Santo Domingo Cultural Center on “The Historic Organs of Oaxaca and the Work of the IOHIO.” Although the title of the talk has not changed over the years, the content always does, and the images of the organs and the various IOHIO projects—protection, conservation, restoration, concerts, archive discoveries, recordings, and publications—spoke for themselves.

Our festivals are enriched by an exhibit of documents from local archives. This year the theme was “Pedro Nibra and Oaxacan Organbuilding in the Mid-nineteenth Century” to highlight the restoration in process of the organ in San Matías Jalatlaco. María Isabel Grañen Porrúa, director of the Burgoa Library, is passionately interested in the preservation of historic documents and created the project ADABI (“Apoyo al Desarrollo de Archivos y Bibliotecas de México”) to refurbish archives and catalog documents. After she inaugurated the event, curator Ricardo Rodys described the material, including payments to Nibra and records of later interventions in the Jalatlaco organ, as well as construction contracts for other Oaxacan organs (which are like gold for us).

We proceeded to San Matías Jalatlaco, located on the edge of the historic center of Oaxaca City. We have always scheduled a visit to this organ during our festivals and discussed our hopes for its restoration, but this time it was actually happening! This elegantly proportioned 8′ organ was built in 1866 by the Oaxacan organbuilder Pedro Nibra, then modified and painted its distinguishing blue color around 1880. First we all assembled in the parish conference room for a presentation by restorers Eric González and Alberto Compiani about the recently finished restoration of the organ case, phase I of the project. We then divided the group in half, which alternated between the choir loft to view the case up close and a temporary shop space to observe the windchest, keyboard, and pipes (see http://iohio.org.mx/eng/restjalatlaco.htm).

We proceeded to San Andrés Huayapam located on the outskirts of Oaxaca City, where we were received with a drink of tejate, traditionally served in colorful painted half gourds. A local specialty of prehispanic origin, this delicious foamy drink is made with ground cacao, corn meal, the seed of the mamey fruit, and the flower of a tree (rosita de cacao) that grows only in and near Huayapam. 

This charming church has one of the most beautiful altarpieces in Oaxaca, whose intricately carved columns are referred to as “gilded lace.” Also famous is the collection of antique exvotos, petitions usually to the Virgin Mary that are painted on small tin plaques. This and succeeding visits were enhanced by commentaries about the church art by restorer Alberto Compiani. 

The 4′ organ (1772), large for a table organ, is nearly intact with its original keyboard and pipes. It is simply carved, a style we refer to as a “country organ,” and was once painted bright red, but overpainted a more sober maroon color in the 20th century. In Huayapam we savored the first of many local meals, this time mole amarillo, in the atrium of the church.

During the free time between the Huayapam comida and the evening concert, visiting organists had a chance to play in the Oaxaca Cathedral. This and succeeding opportunities to play the organs were organized by Joel Vasquez, our coordinator of musical activities and liaison with the churches. 

Soon afterward, organist Cicely Winter and percussionist Valentín Hernández presented the second concert of the festival, featuring well-known regional folk songs and dances (see http://iohio.org.mx/eng/soledadconcertXIfest.htm). Originally programmed in the Basilica de la Soledad, which would have added an eighth organ to the roster, the concert was cancelled just days before the festival, creating a moment of panic, but fortunately it was rescheduled in the cathedral. Such are the inevitable curveballs we face every year, and no matter how much we try to anticipate every eventuality in our planning, there are always surprises. The church was once again packed, people sang along lustily, and we consider this program a success only if the audience is screaming at the end!

Saturday, February 20 

Our excursion to the Mixteca Alta began with the third concert of the festival in Santa María de la Natividad Tamazulapan and featured Oaxacan organists Tonatiuh González and Jesús González and three doctoral level organ students of Robert Bates (University of Houston, Texas): Jeffrey Cooper, Michael Ging, and Christopher Holman. This was the first of three collective concerts, an experiment a few festivals back that has proved to be one of our most successful innovations. It gives foreign organists the chance to play and always guarantees a varied and interesting program (http://iohio.org.mx/eng/tamaconcertXIFest.htm). The 2′ table organ dating from approximately 1720–30 is situated in a high balcony overlooking the huge nave of the church and is exquisitely decorated with images of saints and angel musicians. The case and bellows are original, but the pipes, keyboard, and interior components were reconstructed in 1996. The church has one of the most magnificent baroque altarpieces in all Mexico and includes paintings by the renowned 16th-century Spanish painter Andrés de Concha.

The second organ in this church, an imposing 8′ instrument, faces the small organ from the left balcony. Built in Oaxaca in 1840 by a member of the renowned Martinez Bonavides organbuilding family, it was once a magnificent instrument and is largely intact except that only the five largest façade pipes remain. The Tamazulapan church is one of only three in Oaxaca with two organs and the only one where two very different organs may be seen at the same time.

After the visit to Tamazulapan and before arriving in Yanhuitlán, both grandiose Dominican centers, we visited the church in Santiago Teotongo of more modest dimensions but equally rich in 18th-century baroque art. The magnificent case of this 8′ organ, though empty, stands as a work of art in its own right, and statues of angels once stood atop its towers, singing through their O-shaped mouths via pipes which passed through their bodies. The organ was stripped of its pipes, keyboard, and more during the Mexican Revolution. Its date is unknown, but the organ’s profile closely resembles that of San Mateo Yucucuí (1743).

The fourth concert of the festival took place in Santo Domingo Yanhuitlán, the 16th-century Dominican stronghold in the Mixteca Alta region. With its soaring stone vault supported by lateral flying buttresses and its magnificent altarpieces, it is one of Mexico’s most majestic complexes of baroque art. Organist Víctor Contreras and trumpeter Juan Luis González, both from near Mexico City, thrilled the audience with a program that reverberated throughout the immense nave (see http://iohio.org.mx/eng/YanhuitlanconcertXIfestival.htm). This magnificent organ, located on a side balcony, was built around 1690–1700 and restored in France in 1998. Its case is one of the most elaborately decorated in all of Mexico with fantastic swirling imagery and Dominican symbols painted on the case and fierce faces on the façade pipes.

We continued on to San Andrés Zautla and were received in the atrium of the church by the elderly women of the town, dressed in their traditional skirts and blouses, the local children’s band, fireworks, plenty of mezcal, necklaces of bugambilia, dancing, and finally, a delicious meal of estofado de pollo (chicken stewed in almond sauce) served on the patio behind the church. 

After dinner, we crowded into the lovely church where many local people were already waiting for the fifth concert of the festival to begin. Organists Margarita Ricárdez (Oaxaca), Víctor Contreras and Víctor Manuel Morales (Mexico City), and Robert Bates (United States) once again played wonderfully contrasting pieces, and there was a pleasant improvisatory tone to this presentation at the end of such a busy day (see http://iohio.org.mx/eng/zautlaconcertXIfestival.htm). 

Alberto Revilla (Mexico City/Oaxaca) presented Renaissance music for theorbo and flamenco guitar music in alternation with the organ, leaving the audience stunned by his artistry. The case of this 4′ table organ (1726) is exquisitely gilded and painted with images of saints and archangels. Like the organ in Tamazulapan, the bellows here are still hand pumped and the register sliders located on the sides of the case, so a concert may involve up to six people: the organist and page turner, someone on either side to control the registers, and one or two people pumping the bellows. Thanks to the ongoing support of the Federal Road and Bridge Commission (CAPUFE), a special entrance was opened from the super highway, allowing us direct access back to Oaxaca. 

Sunday, February 21

American organist Craig Cramer presented the sixth concert of the festival in San Jerónimo Tlacochahuaya. Organbuilders Joaquín Lois and Hal Gober helped tune and condition the organ, and it had never sounded so good. The church is one of the loveliest in Mexico with its exuberant interior, floral decoration, and gorgeous baroque altarpieces, all recently restored. The 4′ organ was built sometime before 1735 and restored in 1991. The case and pipes are decorated with floral motifs, and the organ harmonizes beautifully, both visually and acoustically, with the architecture of the church.

We savored a variety of Oaxacan specialties in the “Donají” Restaurant in Mitla, then proceeded to the nearby town of Santiago Matatlán. We always try to include a “new” organ in our tours and the Matatlán organ was irresistible because it is such an oddity: a large 4′ stationary organ with its windchest under the keyboard as in a smaller table organ, register pulls on the façade rather than on the sides, and a disproportionately large case with five towers, now empty, for a simple mechanism. The 18th-century church includes Baroque altarpieces, and its interior, like many in Oaxaca, was stenciled a vivid blue in the 19th century. 

Our friends from “Chocolate Mayordomo” received us with bread and chocolate upon arrival in Santa María de la Asunción Tlacolula. Those who needed a break from churches could roam around one of the most famous indigenous markets in Oaxaca and admire the women’s costumes and the stalls piled high with local produce. 

We were once again privileged to hear the rare and arresting combination of cornetto and organ in the seventh concert of the festival presented by Liuwe Tamminga and Bruce Dickey (see http://iohio.org.mx/eng/TlacolulaconcertXIfest.htm). This time the cornetto accompanied an organ with a gentler and more vocal character than the more extroverted Cathedral instrument. The 8′ organ was built in Oaxaca in 1792 by Manuel Neri y Carmona, restored by Gerhard Grenzing, and inaugurated during the Tenth IOHIO Festival in 2014. This organ also has the most elaborately painted façade pipes in all of Mexico, restored by Oaxacan Eric González. After the concert, visiting organists scurried up to the choir loft to have a go at the organ before the Mass and our departure for Oaxaca. 

Monday, February 22 

Our second all-day excursion to the Mixteca Alta was directed toward Tlaxiaco, three hours distant from Oaxaca City, with visits to organs along the way. Our first stop was at the little stone church in Santa María Tinú, which houses a disproportionately large organ. The date of construction 1828 and name of organbuilder are written inside the case—such luck! Perhaps the organ was originally commissioned for a larger church, then sold to Tinú, or the community simply wanted something grand. The organ, completely intact and played just a generation ago, still grunts and wheezes when one of the bellows located in the loft above is pumped. Some organs inspire affection, and this is definitely one of them. Unfortunately, there are only 136 people left in the town so a restoration would not be practical. It should be noted that Mexican law protecting the national heritage prohibits the removal of sacred art objects from their churches of origin. 

Some years had passed since we last visited San Andrés Sinaxtla in our festival tour, so it was of particular interest to many regular participants to see it for the first time. This instrument is neo-classic in design, with a richly carved unpainted case. Of particular interest is the inscription across the façade including the name of the donor, the date of construction (1791), and the cost, but typically omitting the name of the organbuilder. It presents an interesting contrast to the Tlacolula organ, built in the same year in Baroque style, the late 18th century representing the transition from the Baroque to the neo-classic aesthetic. 

Just down the road from Sinaxtla sitting on a promontory overlooking the Yanhuitlán Valley is the church of San Mateo Yucucuí (population 130). This organ built in 1743 is the least altered of all the 8′ 18th-century Oaxacan organs, and when last played (1930s?), it is said that its sound could be heard for miles around. The organ was never painted or gilded like its counterpart in Teotongo, probably not by choice during that opulent Baroque era, but rather because of the cost. It is richly carved and largely intact, and one only wishes that the pipes and mechanism of the Yucucuí organ could be inserted into the stunning Teotongo case to make one amazing organ! The floor of the high balcony on which the organ sits is much deteriorated, and access to the façade is dangerous, so our efforts to clean and document the organ have been restricted.

Our next stop was at the Dominican architectural complex of San Pedro y San Pablo Teposcolula with its famous 16th-century open chapel and 18th-century church. The 8′ organ (ca. 1730–40) has a similar profile to that of Yanhuitlán. Its original finish was natural wood, then it was later painted white with green touches, a lovely look. Now we refer to it as the King Midas organ, because in 2010 a well-connected architect took the liberty of gilding at great cost all the decorative carvings and moldings, even though it had only been minimally gilded historically and, in fact, the organ’s overall manufacture is not of the highest quality. Our main conservation challenges over the years have been related to negligence of the organs (accumulated filth, vandalism, the intrusion of animals) or the consequences of natural disasters or construction projects. We never imagined that the whimsical decisions of misguided “experts” would pose an equal risk.

After lunch in Teposcolula, we drove up through the pine forest to Santa María Tlaxiaco. For the final, eighth concert of the festival (see http://iohio.org.mx/eng/TlaxiacoconcertXIfest.htm), William Autry, David Furniss, Marilou Kratzenstein, Craig Cramer, and Liuwe Tamminga offered an eclectic program with some American and French pieces added to the more standard Spanish and Italian repertoire. This monumental 8′ instrument, built around 1800 and restored in 2000, is the “youngest” of all the restored Oaxacan instruments. The imposing, outwardly austere church was the Dominican outpost for this strategic area of the high sierra in the 16th century. All the altarpieces in the church and the organ are synchronized in neo-classic design and painted white, gold, and red, creating a pleasing visual coherence, although we know that there was a Baroque predecessor organ and altarpieces in the 17th century. We spent the night in the Hotel del Portal right on the main plaza.

Tuesday, February 23

After a luscious buffet breakfast, participants divided into two groups. Many chose to visit the late pre-classic and classic (400 BC–800 AD) Mixtec archeological site and the community museum of San Martín Huamelulpan with Marcus Winter of the Instituto Nacional de Antropolgia e Historia (INAH). The others, including most of the students, opted to stay behind to play the Tlaxiaco organ and had great fun trying out their pieces, laughing, commenting, and helping each other with the registers. 

Both groups met up in the village of San Pedro Mártir Yucuxaco. The organ here (1740) is complete and in excellent condition, missing only its bellows. It is the least altered of the Oaxacan 4′ table organs, parallel to Yucucui for the 8′ stationary group and closely resembles the organ in Zautla, though without the painted decoration. The carved pipeshades include two faces in profile, a unique decorative detail, and the keyboard is exquisite. 

Our Mixtec tour continued with a visit to the church and organ of Santiago Tejupan. The luxuriously painted organ case (1776) is the last in Oaxaca with religious imagery. Portraits of the donor and his wife being blessed by his patron saint are depicted on one side and Santiago on horseback on the other, both unfortunately obscured by layers of grime. Another special feature is the information painted on two decorative medallions on the façade, which include the name of the donor, the cost of the organ, and the date of construction, although as in Sinaxtla, omitting the name of the organ builder. Here we find yet another church that could stand as a museum of colonial religious art in this culturally rich area of the Mixteca Alta.

Our final church and organ visit was in Santa María Tiltepec, for some the crowning visual experience of the field trips. Located in the Dominican sphere of Yanhuitlan and built atop a prehispanic temple, this 16th-century church has long been appreciated by art historians for its richly carved asymmetrical façade and stone interior arches. The unrestored 4′ organ, situated on a side balcony, is one of Oaxaca’s oldest (1703) and often elicits a gasp of astonishment when seen for the first time. Unfortunately nothing is known about its history that would explain its idiosyncrasies of construction and decoration, and if it didn’t have hips, we might wonder if it were imported.

We then walked down the hill and across the river to the home of the Cruz García family for our farewell dinner. We feasted on barbacoa de borrego, lamb barbecued Oaxacan style, cooked in the ground over hot rocks and covered with maguey leaves. Mezcal from San Bartolo Yautepec flowed freely, and everyone had one last chance to celebrate with old and new friends before returning to Oaxaca.

Wednesday, February 24 

Even after the closing event in Tiltepec, this festival just would not stop, and the following day 25 people made the trek up to the archeological site of Monte Albán with Marcus Winter (INAH).

Conclusion

Several participants have mentioned that our festivals have been life-changing experiences, and we know what they mean. The organs have opened up undreamed-of opportunities for us in the IOHIO as well, and led us to new places, people, and insights. We cannot forget the thrill of hearing the first chord of a restored organ in concert or climbing up a winding stone staircase to the choir loft and confronting an organ for the first time. These large, heavy instruments are rooted in their churches and were once—and in some cases are now—vital parts of the musical life and culture of their communities. Each organ has a story to tell, and we try to listen carefully, because ultimately, it is these stories that structure our festivals and make them unique.

A graduate of Yale University, Edward Pepe holds master’s degrees in organ performance (New England Conservatory of Music) and photography (University of Massachusetts). He spent two years studying historic performance practice with Harald Vogel at the Norddeutsche Orgelakademie. He is co-founder of both the Westfield Center for Early Keyboard Studies in the United States of North America and the Instituto de Órganos Históricos de Oaxaca in Mexico.<br>
An organist and independent scholar living, working, and performing in Oaxaca, Mexico since 1999, he has presented talks on restoration issues in various parts of that country, and led tours to historic instruments in the States of Tlaxcala, Queretaro and Guanajuato, as well as in Mexico City for both Minnesota Public Radio and the Yale Institute of Sacred Music. He is the author of numerous articles on historic organs and viceregal music in Mexico, and is preparing a book on the subject.
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James Wyly is an artist and independent scholar of the organ. A graduate of Amherst College, he holds doctoral degrees in music (University of Missouri) and in clinical psychology (Illinois School of Professional Psychology). He has published a number of studies of Spanish organ building practices, which include his doctoral dissertation in music. As a musicologist, organist and harpsichordist, he taught music at the college level from 1964 to 1976 (Elmhurst College and Grinnell College), and subsequently practiced psychotherapy in Chicago until 2003. He currently lives in Oaxaca, Mexico.

The present sound of the organ’s principal chorus is generally admired as being rich, dramatic, and full of character; it is as exciting to listen to as to play. At the same time it is undeniably on the aggressive side—quite unlike the principal choruses of any other old Mexican or Iberian organ known to the authors; and given its history, it cannot be said with any certainty whether it now resembles the sound it had either at its construction, in 1735, or at any date between 1735 and the time it fell silent in the 20th century. It may, of course; but then again, it may not. The tonal esthetic certainly appears to have little to do with the character of the Lleno of the de Sesma organ built for the Cathedral of Mexico City in 1695, which contemporary descriptions call “delicate,” or with old descriptions of the sounds of the Nassarre organ built there in 1734–36. But Tlacochahuaya is not Mexico City. In the absence of any historic description of organ sounds in Oaxaca, we simply have no way to form an opinion here.

The dates 1867 and 1890 are to be found in the organ and seem to refer to repairs or changes. It would be logical to suppose that the stop action was added at one of these times, but we have no idea what else might have been done—for example, in a century of fast-changing tastes and social upheavals, attempts to make the organ louder or softer by manipulating the pipes or the bellows weights could easily have altered its character significantly. The poorly functioning reed stops fall under particular suspicion here. And lastly, we have one bit of anecdotal evidence about the organ’s sound: among the local people the organ has a longstanding reputation for being audible a long way from the church. Whether this implies a loud organ or quiet rural surroundings is anyone’s guess.

5. Summary and Conclusions

At this point it will be helpful to condense the facts we have discussed into a chronological table:



1550s: Dominican convent established and church built with gallery, in which there almost certainly stood an organ

Between 1660–1803 (1730s?): brick vaults added

1714: major earthquake

1720s and ’30s: several organs similar to Tlacochahuaya’s built for nearby churches

1735 or before: organ perhaps built as 4' instrument with no reeds?

1735: either an existing organ was rebuilt, or a new organ was constructed, adapting an existing chest to accommodate two façade reeds; 4' stopped converted to 8' stopped; case presumably painted

1735 or later: reed stops possibly added, perhaps at different dates

1737: church renovation completed, which included the west façade, new towers, and new access to the raised and expanded gallery

Probably after 1800: drawstops added

After 1850: keyboard replaced

After 1859: conflicts between church and state render many church properties derelict

1867: work of unknown scope done on organ

1890: work of unknown scope done on organ

Between 1890–1990: organ becomes unplayable, about 50% of pipework disappears

1990–91: Tattershall intervention: organ dismantled, cleaned and repaired, new bellows made, blower added, missing pipes replaced in conformity with surviving old work

So what we find is hardly surprising, yet easily lost sight of: that while there are enormous gaps in our information about the Tlacochahuaya organ, we can be certain that there have been changes made over its long history. Furthermore, some of the changes we know about significantly altered the organ’s overall sound. Whether or not it was carried through to completion, the chest was apparently first designed for a reedless 4' organ with a stopped unison rank that could have been considered part of the plenum. Its suppression in favor of the existing 8' stopped register and the provision of reeds obviously made large differences, both in the way the organ sounded and in the way it had to be played. (The impetus for providing an 8¢ foundation might have had to do with a decline in the use of traditional counterpoint and the introduction of the new-for-Oaxaca Italian basso continuo style.) In addition, we know the wind system was altered in 1990, though we cannot judge its effect; and we doubt that the reeds always sounded the way they do today. We have no way of knowing when and how the pipes’ footholes may have been adjusted; we have some evidence of altered cutups; and we have no idea what was thought to be the right wind pressure for the organ at any point previous to 1990. In short, we must admit that while the organ’s sound is generally beautiful, integrated, authoritative, and convincing (the reed stops excepted), it is a sound determined by the esthetic of our own times and our acceptance of it is a result of our own esthetic standards,31 not those of 1735 or any other point in the organ’s past; for this is all that is possible given the fragmentary state of the evidence about the organ’s past that we have.

And so it is with all of the playable old organs in Mexico—as well, we might add, as with a great many of the playable old organs in the world. When we look closely at the history of these instruments we most often find a long and imperfectly documented history of interventions and alterations, whose exact natures tend to become less clear the more carefully we examine them, and all we can finally say with certainty is that when most of these interventions were newly finished the organs probably conformed, for the moment, to the esthetic standards and musical needs of their day. But, these things being in constant flux and organs being complicated machines that often require more maintenance than they get, the “ideal” or “original” state of an organ becomes a shifting and amorphous thing about which we pontificate at our peril. This means that the reconstruction or restoration of an old organ is not to be undertaken lightly, for if it is to do more than add another layer of changes to an already much-altered instrument, both the research and the funding for the project will have to be extensive.
If there is a moral to this story, it probably has to do with the irresoluble conflict between, on the one hand, our fully understandable and respectable desire to have playing instruments and beautiful music in the sublime settings places like Mexican baroque churches afford, and, on the other hand, our sense of historical responsibility to our musical past, which demands of us the utmost in scholarship and restraint before we think of altering irreplaceable surviving artifacts—the nature of which we may well understand less perfectly than we believe. The decision of whether to rebuild, restore, repair, alter, replace, copy, throw out, or simply leave intact under a hopefully protective coat of dust (which may not prove impermeable to the ravages of weather, wood-boring insects, nesting animals, and curious tourists) is one that requires the most careful thought, from as many viewpoints and with input from as many knowledgeable people as possible. This becomes of especial concern as we continue to document the many still-little-known old organs of Central and South America, for one thing about which we can be reasonably certain is that among them we shall find instruments of great rarity, exceptional age, and extraordinary potential beauty. The temptation to hear what they might sound like can be overwhelming, and an incompletely researched, inadequately-funded “restoration” fueled more by enthusiasm than knowledge can easily result. Yet once a project has been carried out on an organ, the instrument is changed, it is not likely to be changed again any time soon, and eventually undoing the change, should further reflection find it desirable, will probably be more difficult than was changing it in the first place. Surely these kinds of considerations, which are implicit in every organ project in any part of the world, deserve our utmost conscious attention.