Organ Projects: David E. Wallace & Company, LLC/Lathrop Tilton

Nick Wallace

David E. Wallace & Co., Pipe Organ Builders, LLC, Gorham, Maine

Canadian Reformed Church, Ancaster, Ontario, Canada

Early in 2011, members of the Canadian Reformed Church in Ancaster, Ontario, contacted David E. Wallace & Co. Pipe Organ Builders about providing an instrument ideally suited for their worship space. When the building was constructed the plan had been to acquire a pipe organ at some point in the future.

The “future” finally arrived when their temporary instrument had suffered one catastrophic malfunction after another. The church body decided the time had come for a permanent solution and determined that their musical needs could be best served by having a fully mechanical organ designed to fit on a relatively small footprint at the front of the room. After several years of discussion, planning, and development, the church signed a contract with David E. Wallace & Company early in 2016, and construction began a few months later.

Visually, structurally, and mechanically our Opus 78 draws inspiration from organs built in New England from the early- to mid-nineteenth century. We designed the new case to support the interior components of the organ as a single cohesive unit that renders the instrument as pleasing to view on the inside as on the outside. We constructed all interior and exterior elements in the classic manner, with traditional mortise-and-tenon and dovetailed joinery. The design of the wind system is historically inspired as well, with a main reservoir patterned after an 1893 George Hutchings example feeding wind through traditional wooden wind trunks. The key action design is centered on simplicity and uses techniques that have stood the test of time to provide the organ with a light and articulate touch.

At ten stops, the Great offers dynamics that range from colorful flutes that have their foundation in a 16′ Bourdon to a powerful principal chorus. The Great chorus is topped by a IV Cornet that can either stand out as a solo voice or blend well with the Great chorus.

The foundation of the Swell chorus is a generous scale 8′ Violin Diapason that gives the Swell division its own source of power and color while maintaining its ability to complement or contrast the Great. The Swell division also includes a Diapason Celeste, a stop that offers a robust sounding celeste with the swell box open and a subtle and warm celeste tone with the box closed.

The two unified ranks of the Pedal division stand on mechanical slider chests. Unification of these stops by means of a second pallet and channel divider assures that pipes speak consistently whether played from the 16′ or 8′ stop. The Pedal 16′ Double Open Diapason was scaled to provide a strong but articulate diapason sound, suitable to underpin both full organ and lighter registrations. The Pedal division delivers a combination of gravity and clarity necessary to support a church filled with inspired singers.

Installation of the organ was completed in August 2018, and the instrument was presented to an enthusiastic public during an open house at that time. We share the pleasure of the congregation in anticipating that this new organ will provide solid, enduring musical support for their worship services, and has already started to serve as an inviting base for long-term musical outreach to area organists, teachers, and music programs.

The project team for Opus 78 included Nick Wallace, Seth Doyle, Jake Hanin, Rebecca Schnell, Joe Lendway, Marissa Hall, Nicole Pelonzi, Alex Stewart, Blair Batty, Derek Verveer, and David Wallace. Additional information and photographs of this project appear on our Facebook page.

The Ancaster organ is our first installation of an instrument in Canada. We have previously placed an organ in Belgium, 1854 E. & G. G. Hook Opus 173, and relocated a large, modern two-manual tracker organ from Germany to a client church in New Jersey. International placement of our instruments continues to offer a unique and enjoyable set of challenges for our shop.

GREAT (Manual I, 58 notes)

16′ Bourdon

8′ Open Diapason

8′ Viola da Gamba

8′ Melodia

4′ Octave

4′ Flute d’Amour

2′ Fifteenth

2′ Mixture III

4′ Cornet IV

8′ Trumpet

SWELL (Manual II, 58 notes, enclosed)

8′ Violin Diapason

8′ Diapason Celeste (TC)

8′ Stopped Diapason

4′ Principal

4′ Flute Harmonique

2-2⁄3′ Nazard

2′ Flageolet

1-3⁄5′ Tierce

8′ Oboe

Tremulant

PEDAL (30 notes)

16′ Double Open Diapason

16′ Bourdon (Gt)

8′ Clarabella (ext 16′)

4′ Choral Bass

16′ Trombone

8′ Trumpet (ext 16′)

Couplers

Great to Pedal

Swell to Pedal

Swell to Great

 

Swell expression shoe

Wind (Blower switch)

 

Builder’s website:

www.wallacepipeorgans.com

Church website: https://ancasterchurch.on.ca

 

2 manuals

25 stops

27 ranks

1,358 pipes

Orgues Létourneau, St-Hyacinthe, Québec, Canada; Market Square Presbyterian Church, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania

From the builder

Market Square Presbyterian Church has long been a landmark in Pennsylvania’s capital city. The congregation was founded in 1794 and has occupied its current sanctuary since 1860. The church today is simultaneously traditional and modern, with worship services that balance thought-provoking sermons and inspiring music. Market Square Church also puts an emphasis on service, with ministries to support homeless and transient persons in downtown Harrisburg, as well as refugees and immigrants. The congregation is actively involved in a variety of social justice endeavors, supports environmental initiatives, provides hospitality to local groups, and offers a broad embrace to the LGBTQ+ community. It has been our experience that all are admirably welcome at Market Square Church.

Our first of many visits to Market Square Church was at the invitation of the church’s new minister of music, the tireless Tyler Canonico. Our broad mandate was to survey the church’s pipe organ and to present options on what could be done.

M. P. Möller’s Opus 11805 of three manuals and 83 ranks was completed in 1991, incorporating much of the church’s previous Aeolian-Skinner pipe organ from 1947 (Opus 1048). The Aeolian-Skinner had been hidden within chambers, but the Möller displayed zinc and spotted metal façade pipes in a case housing its Grand Orgue division across the back of the loft. A new Positif division was divided between two cases on the gallery rail. The organ additionally had two sizable and independently expressive Récit divisions in opposing chambers; both Récits played awkwardly from the upper manual at the console.

During that first visit, we concluded a top-to-bottom reconstruction of the organ was needed. In addition to desirable tonal improvements, the three-manual console was worn beyond redemption, and the instrument’s switching system was obsolete. The crude casework needed to be replaced with something more appropriate, but more pressing, the two organ chambers’ flimsy hardboard walls and ceilings required substantial improvement.

Our subsequent proposal recommended reusing the Möller and Aeolian-Skinner materials where possible as a measure of good stewardship. This included most of the pipework, the electro-pneumatic windchests, and some wind reservoirs. From a tonal perspective, we wanted to consolidate the instrument within the limits of what the windchests could accommodate. While a new Great and part of the Pedal would reside in a central organ case, the Möller’s Récit divisions could be brought together into a proper Swell in the east chamber. A tertiary Choir division would offer complementary colors in the west chamber, and through refashioning one of the Aeolian-Skinner windchests, a new ten-rank String division could reside under the Choir division. A small Positive division would reuse one of the chests previously on the gallery rail but would sit in front of the Choir behind the loft’s west ceiling grille.

The project we proposed was significant but at no time did we get the sense that our far-reaching ideas were unsettling to the organ study committee. The committee seemed ready for a challenge, as did the broader church in later meetings. Indeed, our discussions about renewing the pipe organ grew into a broader review of the church’s sanctuary and its acoustic, as well as the organ loft and the limitations it presented for the choir. Acoustician Dan Clayton soon joined the team, ensuring the acoustic would be improved for music without harming the spoken word. This global project at Market Square Church was spearheaded by David and Gwen Lehman over a two-year period. Their assiduous work resulted in new hardwood flooring for the sanctuary, comfortable new pews, a reconfigured choir loft, and refurbished organ chambers. Throughout the project, the organ study committee’s and the Lehmans’ efforts were supported time and time again by the church’s director of music emerita, Ellen Hunt, and the church’s senior pastor, the Reverend Tom Sweet.

The Möller pipe organ was removed and packed for shipment to our workshops in January 2020 by a team from Létourneau, along with John Carmichael of Patrick J. Murphy & Associates. Once in our workshop, our pipe makers took a complete inventory of the Möller and Aeolian-Skinner pipework, making repairs as necessary. Fellow organbuilder Randall Dyer had also helpfully provided valuable scaling information and related documentation on Opus 11805 from his M. P. Möller archive.

Several stops were rescaled as part of the project, including the Great 8′ Harmonic Flute, the Great five-rank Cornet, the Swell 8′ Viole de gambe, and the Swell 8′ Voix Celeste to better obtain these stops’ characteristic colors. Other ranks were repurposed: a Möller 8′ Flûte céleste rank now serves as the Pedal 51⁄3′ Quint while the 13⁄5′ Tierce from the Möller Positif is now the Pedal 2′ Open Flute with the addition of new bass pipes. Of the new organ’s 83 ranks, some 21 ranks came from Aeolian-Skinner’s Boston workshops and another 46 ranks were made in Hagerstown, with the final 16 ranks having been built in St-Hyacinthe.

The Aeolian-Skinner and Möller electro-pneumatic windchests were restored to like-new condition in our workshops, with new unit chests built as needed. Designed by Claude Demers, the new organ case was built by our cabinetmakers from solid maple with walnut accents. The façade displays tin pipework from the Great 8′ Open Diapason, the Pedal 8′ Principal, and most prominently, the 8′ Trompette en chamade. The pipe shades were designed in a greatly simplified Gothic style and were machined on our CNC machine.

One of the project’s surprises occurred while examining the bass of the Pedal 16′ Contrabass in our woodshop. These twelve pipes were built in pine by Aeolian-Skinner to a lean scale and voiced with large beards. Without an organ built around them, their full length was revealed to show the pipe bodies were not quite true. The pipes had been deliberately built with “bellies,” meaning the middle of the pipe body is fractionally larger than the ends. Seen more frequently in metal string pipes, the theory is the bellied construction encourages prompt speech. This discovery presented an opportunity to document these pipes and how they were constructed.

The new organ—Létourneau’s Opus 136—made its way to Harrisburg in the spring of 2021, with the installation by our team continuing into the summer. The onsite flue voicing was fully underway by September, and the work was painstakingly executed by Samantha Koch and Christopher Bono, with help at various points from Megan Farrell (of Patrick J. Murphy & Associates) and John Johnson. The final phase of the voicing, Opus 136’s twelve ranks of reeds were voiced by Michel Godbout. The voicing process was assisted by a remote keyboard placed in the center of the sanctuary’s third pew. Connected wirelessly to the Solid State Organ Systems’ switching network, the keyboard allowed us to carefully evaluate sounds from another reference point beyond the console, usefully confirming or correcting voicing decisions made from the loft.

Though completed in late October 2021, Opus 136’s first solo concert took place on February 25, 2022, with virtuoso Ken Cowan at the console. In response to works by Widor, Litaize, and Bach—as well as transcriptions of works by Saint-Saëns and Wagner—the capacity crowd’s responses were nothing short of ecstatic. Mr. Cowan also brilliantly introduced a work commissioned for the evening, the Michelangelo Fantasy by Dr. Scott H. Eggert.

— Orgues Létourneau

From the minister of music

Blessed by but not captive to a rich history, Market Square Presbyterian Church continues to serve its congregants and its community through worship and music. The major renovations of our pipe organ and sanctuary reaffirm our congregation’s commitment to the present and future of this church as a beacon of hope on the square.

When I interviewed for the post of minister of music, the Rev. Thomas Sweet told me of the church’s need to launch an organ project. After my arrival in July 2017, I soon found myself presenting to various committees the many failings of the church’s M. P. Möller organ. Co-chaired by Ellen Hunt (minister of music emerita) and me, our organ study committee interviewed several organbuilders, and we concluded that Létourneau was the best company for our project. After working with Létourneau to refine their proposal, the contract for the instrument was unanimously approved by the church’s board of trustees and session in January of 2018.

Létourneau Opus 136 reuses the best of the Aeolian-Skinner and Möller pipework to reorient the organ towards accompanying duties, leading hymn singing, and the performance of solo repertoire. Each stop was reworked and revoiced by Létourneau for remarkably cohesive choruses while assuring each stop’s musicality. On Létourneau’s recommendation, Market Square Church rebuilt the organ chambers with harder, denser surfaces to better reflect sound. Now, the full spectrum from the organ’s expressive divisions is projected into the sanctuary, especially in the bass and middle registers. With the old Positif cases removed from the loft rail, the rail itself was reconstructed to resemble the original from 1860, with minor differences to accommodate acoustical considerations and building codes.

The sanctuary renovation was occasioned by a desire to improve its acoustic for choral singing, hymnody, and the pipe organ while preserving the fine acoustic for the spoken word. This was achieved by installing a hardwood floor, with minimal carpeting in the aisles. The church took advantage of this opportunity to refresh the sanctuary with a new color scheme for the walls and ceiling, new pews with acoustically neutral cushions, and a new sound system.

Market Square Church has, from its earliest days, been located in the heart of Harrisburg, and it serves its members’ needs as well as those of the surrounding community. The church’s music ministry has been integral in this effort as a means of making God, beauty, and our shared humanity accessible to everyone, member or not. Generously underwritten by the Nedra J. Schilling Foundation, the organ project was conceived and approved under this principle as a gift to members and the community at large, now and for the future.

The members of Market Square Church as well as Harrisburg’s broader musical community have been delighted as we continue to explore the capabilities of our Létourneau pipe organ. I remain thankful to all who gave generously—especially during the pandemic—and I am grateful to the amazing team at Létourneau who delivered such an astonishing musical instrument!

—Tyler A. Canonico, Minister of Music

GREAT – Manual II – 95 mm pressure

16′ Violoncello 12 pipes extension of 8′ Violoncello

8′ Open Diapason 61 pipes new, 70% tin

8′ Harmonic Flute 61 pipes Möller and new pipework

8′ Violoncello 61 pipes Möller pipework

8′ Chimney Flute 61 pipes 1–12 Möller, 13–61 Aeolian-Skinner pipework

4′ Principal 61 pipes Möller pipework

4′ Open Flute 61 pipes Möller pipework

2′ Fifteenth 61 pipes Möller pipework

2′ Mixture V 305 pipes Möller and new pipework

1′ Sharp Mixture IV 244 pipes Möller and new pipework

8′ Grand Cornet V 220 pipes c13 through g56, rescaled Möller pipework

16′ Double Trumpet 61 pipes 1–12 Möller, 13–61 Aeolian-Skinner pipework

8′ Trumpet 61 pipes Möller pipework

4′ Clarion 61 pipes Möller pipework

Great 16′

Great Unison Off

Great 4′

8′ Trompette en chamade 66 pipes new, 70% tin (140 mm pressure)

Zimbelstern I 6 bells

Zimbelstern II 8 bells

Nachtigal

Chimes from Choir

SWELL (enclosed) – Manual III – 125 mm pressure

8′ Open Diapason 61 pipes Aeolian-Skinner pipework

8′ Flûte traversière 61 pipes Aeolian-Skinner pipework

8′ Viole de gambe 61 pipes rescaled Möller pipework

8′ Voix Celeste 61 pipes rescaled Möller pipework with new bass

8′ Lieblich Gedackt 61 pipes Möller pipework

4′ Principal 61 pipes Aeolian-Skinner pipework

4′ Flûte octaviante 61 pipes Möller pipework

2′ Octavin 61 pipes Möller pipework

2′ Mixture III–V 259 pipes Möller pipework with new

16′ Fagotto 61 pipes 1–24 Aeolian-Skinner, 25–61 Möller pipework

8′ Trumpet 66 pipes new, 56% tin

8′ Oboe 61 pipes Aeolian-Skinner pipework

8′ Vox Humana 61 pipes Aeolian-Skinner pipework

4′ Clarion 78 pipes new, 56% tin

Tremulant

Swell 16′

Swell Unison Off

Swell 4′

16′ Trompette en chamade (TC) from Great

8′ Trompette en chamade from Great

STRING (enclosed) – floating – 285 mm pressure

16′ Contre Viole 61 pipes new, zinc and 56% tin

8′ Viole d’orchestre 61 pipes new, zinc and 56% tin

8′ Viole Celeste 61 pipes new, zinc and 56% tin

8′ Dulciana 61 pipes Aeolian-Skinner pipework

8′ Unda maris 61 pipes Aeolian-Skinner pipework

4′ Viole octaviante 61 pipes new, zinc and 56% tin

4′ Dulcet 61 pipes new, zinc and 56% tin

31⁄5′ Chœur des violes III 183 pipes new, 56% tin

Tremulant

Echo Chimes from Positive

Harp from Choir

CHOIR (enclosed) – Manual I – 110 mm pressure

16′ Bourdon 12 pipes extension of 8′ Bourdon (Möller pipework)

8′ Geigen Diapason 61 pipes Möller pipework

8′ Bourdon 61 pipes Aeolian-Skinner pipework

4′ Gemshorn 61 pipes Möller pipework

2-2⁄3′ Nazard 61 pipes Möller pipework

2′ Flageolet 61 pipes Möller pipework

1-3⁄5′ Tierce 61 pipes Möller pipework

8′ Clarinet 61 pipes Möller pipework

Tremulant

8′ Tuba 61 pipes Möller pipework (350 mm pressure)

Choir 16′

Choir Unison Off

Choir 4′

8′ Trompette en chamade from Great

Chimes digital Walker Technical Co.

Harp digital Walker Technical Co.

Glockenspiel digital Walker Technical Co.

POSITIVE – Manual IV – 85 mm pressure

8′ Stopped Diapason 61 pipes Möller pipework

4′ Koppelflöte 61 pipes Möller pipework

2′ Fifteenth 61 pipes Möller pipework

1-1⁄3′ Larigot 61 pipes Möller pipework

1-1⁄3′ Tierce Mixture V 305 pipes Möller and new pipework

8′ Cremona 61 pipes new, 56% tin

Tremulant

Positive 16′

Positive Unison Off

Positive 4′

16′ Tuba (TC) from Choir

8′ Tuba from Choir

16′ Trompette en chamade (TC) from Great

8′ Trompette en chamade from Great

Echo Chimes digital Walker Technical Co.

Glockenspiel from Choir

PEDAL – 142 mm and 120 mm pressure

32′ Contra Geigen digital Walker Technical Co.

32′ Contra Bourdon digital Walker Technical Co.

16′ Contrabass 32 pipes 1–12 Aeolian-Skinner, 13–32 Möller pipework

16′ Violoncello from Great

16′ Subbass 32 pipes Aeolian-Skinner pipework

16′ Viole d’orchestre from String

16′ Bourdon from Choir

8′ Principal 32 pipes new, 70% tin

8′ Spitzflöte 32 pipes Aeolian-Skinner pipework

8′ Violoncello from Great

8′ Bourdon from Choir

5-1⁄3′ Quint 32 pipes Möller pipework

4′ Choral Bass 32 pipes rescaled Möller pipework

4′ Spitzflöte 12 pipes extension of 8′ Spitzflöte

2′ Open Flute 32 pipes rescaled Möller pipework

2-2⁄3′ Mixture IV 128 pipes Möller pipework

32′ Contra Bombarde digital Walker Technical Co.

32′ Contra Fagotto 12 pipes extension of Swell 16′ Fagotto

16′ Bombarde 32 pipes Aeolian-Skinner pipework (150 mm w.p.)

16′ Fagotto from Swell

8′ Bombarde 12 pipes extension of 16′ Bombarde

4′ Bombarde 12 pipes extension of 8′ Bombarde

8′ Tuba from Choir

8′ Trompette en chamade from Great

Chimes from Choir

Echo Chimes from Positive

Orage Walker Technical Co.

Intermanual Couplers

Great to Pedal Great 4′ to Pedal

Swell to Pedal Swell 4′ to Pedal

Choir to Pedal Choir 4′ to Pedal

Positive to Pedal Positive 4′ to Pedal

String to Pedal String 4′ to Pedal

Swell 16′ to Great Swell to Great Swell 4′ to Great

Choir 16′ to Great Choir to Great Choir 4′ to Great

Positive 16′ to Great Positive to Great Positive 4′ to Great

String 16′ to Great String to Great String 4′ to Great

Swell 16′ to Choir Swell to Choir Swell 4′ to Choir

Positive 16′ to Choir Positive to Choir Positive 4′ to Choir

String 16′ to Choir String to Choir String 4′ to Choir

String 16′ to Swell String to Swell String 4′ to Swell

Positive 16′ to Swell Positive to Swell Positive 4′ to Swell

Choir to Swell

Great to Positive

Swell to Positive

Choir to Positive

String to Positive

Mixture Compositions

Great Mixture V

c1 to b12 15 19 22 26 29

c13 to b24 12 15 19 22 26

c25 to b36 8 12 15 19 22

c37 to g44 1 8 12 15 19

g#44 to c61 1 5 8 12 15

Great Sharp Mixture IV

c1 to b12 22 26 29 33

c13 to a22 19 22 26 29

a#23 to g#33 15 19 22 26

a34 to f42 12 15 19 22

f#43 to d#52 8 12 15 19

e53 to c61 1 8 12 15

Swell Mixture III–IV

c1 to e17 15 19 22

f18 to e29 12 15 19 22

f30 to e41 8 12 15 19 22

f42 to c49 1 8 12 15 19

c#50 to c61 1 5 8 12 15

Positive Tierce Mixture V

c1 to c#14 19 22 24 26 29

d15 to e29 15 19 22 24 26

f30 to g44 12 15 17 19 22

g#44 to d51 8 12 15 17 19

d#52 to c61 1 8 10 12 15

String Choeur des violes III

c1 to c49 10 12 15

c#50 to f54 8 10 12

f#55 to g#57 5 8 10

a58 to c61 3 5 8

Pedal Mixture IV

c1 to g32 19 22 26 29

 

83 total stops, 83 ranks, 4,683 pipes

 

Builder’s website: www.letourneauorgans.com

 

Church’s website: www.marketsquarechurch.org

 

Photo credits:

Cover and page 22: Ollie Silver

Trompette-en-chamade and console: Don Giles

Remaining photos: Orgues Létourneau

Joyce Johnson Robinson

Joyce Johnson Robinson is a past editor of The Diapason.

The Diapason’s 20 under 30 winners represent leaders not only in performance (organ, harpsichord, carillon, and church music), but also those who build, restore, and maintain instruments. In our first interview with a young builder, we find out more about Nicholas Wallace, of The Diapason’s inaugural 20 under 30 Class in 2015.

Nicholas Wallace holds a bachelor’s degree in classical guitar performance, graduating with honors from the Osher School of Music at the University of Southern Maine, Portland. Though he grew up in the organ business, it was after graduating from college that Nick joined David E. Wallace & Co. full time. As the junior partner, Nick now runs many aspects of the business, but focuses on visual and mechanical design, shop production, and general project management.

Leading Wallace & Co. of Gorham, Maine, into a new generation, Nick has expanded the shop’s capability to build new mechanical-action organs alongside the detailed restorations of nineteenth-century tracker organs that Wallace & Co. has built a reputation for over the last four decades. Nick is a member of the Organ Historical Society and is a board member of the American Institute of Organbuilders.

Nick, you grew up within organbuilding. Did your father inspire you to work as an organbuilder? How did your father get you started?

My grandparents were musicians and my great-grandmother was a church organist her whole life. That had a considerable influence on my dad when he was growing up. Like many kids back then, he took piano lessons, which eventually turned into organ lessons. Dad and my uncle attended concerts with my grandfather on the famous Kotzschmar Organ in Portland City Hall in the 1960s. Having the opportunity to see this major instrument inside and out was a considerable inspiration for Dad. While he was in college, he apprenticed with a Boston-area organ shop and began to learn the details of organ restoration and new organ construction.

One story Dad likes to tell is that when he was eleven years old, my great-grandmother asked him to go with her to the New Gloucester, Maine, Congregational church to play a memorial service for a friend. At that time in 1961 the George Stevens organ was still hand-pumped, which became Dad’s task for the service. This Stevens organ has had a definite influence on me and the tonal direction for Wallace & Co. Its modest scaling and colorful voicing paired with its historic unequal temperament make for a very charming instrument. The restorative work in both 1999 and 2020 along with the documentation of this Stevens organ serve as inspiration to the physical and tonal design of our new organs, in particular our Opus 78 in Ancaster, Ontario. (See “New Organs,” November 2020, page 13.)

During the 2023 pre-Christmas tuning season I had the pleasure of tuning dozens of organs that I have known my entire life. As I was up in the organs tuning rank after rank I could remember back to times when I was young enough that Dad would have to reach over to the end of the chest to pull a slider because the stop knob was too high on the stop jamb for me to reach.

Your degree is in classical guitar performance. Tell us about that.

I grew up in the classical music and organ music worlds, but studying classical guitar in college helped refine my musicality. While in college I focused on the music of South American composers like Heitor Villa-Lobos, Agustín Barrios, and Astor Piazzolla, no doubt a rebellion against the European music I had always known! Like the other plucked string instruments, as soon as you strike a note on the guitar the sound starts to fade. To deal with this issue I spent many guitar lessons discussing articulation and dynamics to best shape phrases. Midway through college I began organ lessons as well. Once again, these same ideas were front and center. Studying the two instruments simultaneously was very beneficial in this respect even though the two instruments are otherwise very different.

An important lesson that I learned from the guitar is the power of playing softly. Because of the size of the guitar and the immediate decay of the notes, even at its loudest the guitar is a quiet instrument. I am quick to notice during any performance how quiet the audience becomes and how carefully they tend to listen. I always remember this influence when designing an organ. Louder and more colorful stops are indispensable for leading singing and playing repertoire, but the more delicately voiced stops are of great importance, particularly in smaller instruments.

Did your organ study with Harold Stover and Ray Cornils influence your work in organbuilding and restoration? In what way?

Absolutely. Reading through and practicing a little of the repertoire, some hymns, and discussing the basics of playing has come in handy on a near-daily basis. It’s always helpful to get more insight into what organists need and why.

E. & G. G. Hook & Hastings Opus 845, a single-manual, two-rank instrument from 1876, resided in your family’s home for some years. Did this spur your interest in pipe organ construction?

I see this organ every day in the shop. It is interesting in that it was built by E. & G. G. Hook & Hastings as a sort of “portable” organ as it disassembles into several large pieces. Subsequently, I have had the chance to move this organ into several locations. I believe this design helped to influence Dad when he built the educational “Kotzschmar Jr.” organ for the Friends of the Kotzschmar Organ. Kotzschmar Jr. comes apart into four major sections and can fit in a minivan.1 Also inspired by this “portable” construction is my design for Wallace & Co. Opus 73. This organ is the performance counterpart to Kotzschmar Jr. and has a little more variety than Hook Opus 845 with three-and-a-half stops.

You worked with C. B. Fisk, Inc., during your college years on the installation of their Opus 130 in Costa Mesa, California—a much larger instrument than Hook Opus 845! What did you learn from this experience?

Working with Fisk was a great experience, and there was much to learn. Fisk Opus 130 is a very large instrument, but even by that time, I had spent years with the Kotzschmar Organ in Merrill Auditorium. I spent three weeks out in California for that installation, and the very last thing that I did was install the Great and Positive keyboards. That installation was my first experience with carbon fiber trackers. To this day Wallace & Co. is still making our own wooden trackers, but with some larger projects on the horizon, perhaps we will join in all the fun soon. Someday I will have to go visit Fisk Opus 130 to see what it is like.

Do you have a library of books on organbuilding? Which ones do you consult?

In recent years I have done my best to add to the library in the organ shop. On most days if we are looking something up, given the nature of our work we will likely reach for Audsley or Dom Bédos. Years ago, we took over the contents of a colleague’s shop and ended up with piles of past publications from the International Society of Organbuilders. There is a wealth of informative articles about every aspect of organ building in these journals written by different organ builders from around the world.

In recent years I have made a point to document the old organs that Wallace & Co. has restored. This usually amounts to careful measurements of the pipework and notes about the key action and any other interesting information. The data from all this documentation work is also something that we regularly reference.  In 2021 Nami Hamada (now the tonal director at C. B. Fisk) and I began the ongoing documentation of E. & G. G. Hook Opus 288 at Saint John’s Catholic Church in Bangor, Maine.

You designed an organ for Saint Paul’s Anglican Church in Brockton, Massachusetts, at a rather young age. What was that experience like, and what did you learn from it?

I had to go back and check, but yes, twenty-four is young for that sort of responsibility these days. When we started Opus 66 in 2010, I had been working in the shop for ten years. Most aspects of this project were not new to me. For years I had been making and restoring wind systems, key and stop actions, and slider windchests. In 2009 I built my first case for Wallace & Co. Opus 62, for the Congregational Meetinghouse of Perry, Maine. Looking back, I can see that all the work prior to 2010 was a natural progression to the design and construction of my first complete instrument.

In the process of designing and building I was certainly not alone. Mechanically and structurally the organ bears a great resemblance to the smaller organs of Hook & Hastings. The two-division, single-grid slider chest, the simple backfall design of the key action, and the double-rise reservoir are all directly inspired by several small Hook & Hastings organs that I had worked on. Tonally the organ takes cues from the work of George Stevens in the 1850s with the scaling of the Great 8′ Chimney Flute and the 4′ and 2′ principals mirroring the 1857 George Stevens organ that I mentioned earlier. I also had my dad in the shop and other colleagues with whom to discuss certain design elements. Opus 66 has served well for the past thirteen years, and the organ has been a pleasure to visit for semi-annual tunings.

Wallace & Co. has done several international projects. What brought you to doing international projects, and did you find the experience rewarding?

Two of my favorite projects have been Wallace & Co. Opus 78 for the Ancaster Canadian Reformed Church in Ancaster, Ontario, and the restoration and relocation of E. & G. G. Hook Opus 173 for the Church of Our Lady and Saint Rochus in Boom, Belgium. These international experiences were rewarding and career broadening in ways that I’m still discovering to this day. My first international project was the restoration and installation of Hook Opus 173 in Boom, Belgium. The late Gerard Pels, a Belgian organbuilder, was working as a consultant for the church when he saw our listing of the Hook organ for sale. The 1854 date of the organ and its Gothic-style case matched the date and architecture of the church perfectly. Pels asked if we would be willing to restore and then install the organ in Boom. After a little research, we agreed to do the project. I worked all summer and then took a semester off from the university to join the crew for the installation. During the first week of installation the Pels crew assisted us with unloading the shipping container and the beginning of the installation. Even with our limited Dutch and their limited English, we all had a great first week sharing our organ stories over lunch or while assembling parts of the organ.

The other international venture was Wallace & Co. Opus 78 for the Canadian Reformed Church in Ancaster, Ontario, where the project involved building a new two-manual, twenty-seven-rank organ for the church. To date, this is the largest new organ designed and constructed by Wallace & Co. Just like our Opus 66 in Brockton, Massachusetts, so many of my previous projects led to the design of this unique organ. As has been typical, my design for this organ leaned towards the more traditional in its appearance, its actions, and its sound. All mechanical systems within the organ, the key action, stop action, and wind system draw inspiration from historical designs with some modern materials used. The project was very successful and has brought great support to the church’s worship services. We consider that the project was one of our most successful for the design and construction of a new organ.

Working with the church leaders, musicians, and organbuilding colleagues in different countries was a great experience, and I learned a lot. It is no surprise that any church that adds a pipe organ to their music program and worship experience is the same, no matter how many borders you cross. They want a top-quality instrument that meets or surpasses their musical needs now and well into the future.

Do you prefer to create new instruments or do restorations?

I enjoy both new and old instruments. I do not think that it is necessary for organbuilders to only do one or the other. In fact, I find it quite beneficial to do both. The attention to detail, knowledge of mechanics, and the organizational skills required to build new organs greatly improves a restoration. Likewise, the historical knowledge and respect for past building methods gives greater depth to the design of a new organ. The study of older organs can also serve as a wonderful source of inspiration in new organ designs.

What are your recent projects?

The last few projects have been a series of Hook & Hastings organs. In March of 2023 we finished the installation of Hook & Hastings Opus 1192 at Saint Alban’s Episcopal Church in Staten Island, New York. This was a top-to-bottom restoration where we carefully cleaned and restored all parts of the organ. The wind system received new feeder bellows and a new hand pump mechanism. The new hand pump system, which was designed based on the documentation of other period instruments, provides a smooth and quiet alternative to the blower, which can also be used.

At the end of May 2024 we completed  the restoration of Hook & Hastings Opus 1763 for Saint James Episcopal Church in Prouts Neck, Maine. This project required more re-creation than other projects as most of the original Hook pipework had been discarded in the 1970s. Based on the remaining original pipework we were able to scale new pipework to return the organ to its original voice.

How did the Saint James restoration turn out?

Opus 1763 is now done and in use for their summer 2024 season. It has been a real pleasure to return this organ to its original specification and scale. Saint James is a coastal summer chapel, with picturesque views of the Maine coast and is just across the road from the Winslow Homer Museum. Members at Saint James have begun planning a series of events featuring the organ.

And the latest project?

On June 3, we began our next major project, which is the complete restoration of Hook & Hastings Opus 1487 at Saint Joseph’s Catholic Church on Capitol Hill, Washington, D.C. Thanks to good stewardship and some great restorative work in the 1980s by George Bozeman, this Hook organ is in near original form. Like our other recent restorations, we will carefully restore each piece of the organ and bring it to like-new condition. This organ will also receive a renovated hand pumping system and a new 16′ Posaune in the Pedal modeled after period Hook pipework.

I am also excited to share the news that Wallace & Co. has signed a contract for our Opus 81 with Saint Stanislaus Catholic Church of Nashua, New Hampshire. The new mechanical-action organ will feature thirty-two stops over two manuals and pedal. We are looking forward to beginning work on Opus 81 in mid-2025.

What do you like best about the work you do?

I like that no two projects are alike. Of course, there are a lot of similar things; we do our fair share of Hook restorations. But even within that portion of the business, there is great variety. And then there is all kinds of fun in designing a new instrument. The freedom to take inspiration from past work and incorporate it into something new is always a thrill.

Thank you, Nicholas.

Notes

1. See thediapason.com/friends-kotzschmar-organ-launches-kotzschmar-kids. Accessed on February 9, 2024.

Orgues Létourneau, St-Hyacinthe, Québec, Canada; First United Methodist Church, Lubbock, Texas

Even when measured by expansive Texan standards, First United Methodist Church in Lubbock is extraordinary in scale. The church’s Gothic bell tower is visible from just about anywhere in downtown Lubbock. The church campus sprawls over two city blocks and includes spacious wings for music, Christian education, youth, and even physical fitness. Completed in 1955, the sanctuary seats over 1,800 people, and its spectacular rose window is reportedly among the eight largest in the world. Confronted with such a voluminous space, organ enthusiasts and builders alike would be forgiven if their thoughts gravitated towards grand schemes. Nonetheless, First Methodist’s sanctuary opened its doors in March of 1955 with M. P. Möller’s Opus 8530, a positively ascetic instrument of 38 ranks spread over seven divisions and located in all four corners of the sanctuary. The organ was played by a three-manual console. Having studied the original pipework and seen the original wind pressure markings as part of this project, the Forrest Memorial Organ was surely understated in its effect.

Möller added a new Great division to the instrument in 1980, introducing visible pipework set on cantilevered chests bracketing the rose window. The original Great was repurposed as a Positiv division, and the other divisions were revised in the fashion of the day, largely replacing foundation tone with new mixtures, cornets, and mutations. Towards the end of the same decade, Möller replaced the 1954 console with a new four-manual console, which allowed the addition of several digital voices by Walker Technical Company.

Möller’s Opus 8530 arrived at its final form a few years later when two new stops built by A. R. Schopp’s & Sons were added to the Swell division, a 4′ Blockflöte and an 8′ Tuba. Now at 54 ranks and supplemented by nearly a dozen digital voices, the instrument could fill the church with sound. The Möller pipework was nonetheless uniformly under-scaled for the space and sounded forced as it was inevitably “pushed” for maximum output. For such a large room, the Pedal division was also curiously limited to two dedicated ranks, a skinny wooden Contrabass and a generous Bourdon.

By the mid 2010s, parts of the instrument were failing. Some of the organ’s larger reed pipes were collapsing, wind reservoirs were audibly leaking, expression mechanisms were unreliable, and the instrument’s electro-pneumatic windchests were ciphering with regularity. The church’s organ committee, ably led by Mr. Danny Johnston, explored options to replace the obsolete Möller mechanisms while retaining as much of the pipework as was practical. The committee travelled to listen to various instruments in Texas, and four companies were invited to submit proposals. Two instruments convinced the committee that Létourneau was the right choice: our Opus 88 at Saint Andrew United Methodist Church in Plano (four manuals, 77 ranks) and our Opus 127 at Saint Mark’s School of Texas in Dallas (three manuals, 61 ranks).

After listening to the church’s aspirations for the project, studying the situation carefully, and surveying the Möller organ’s pipework, we developed a proposal for First United Methodist in several phases that retained nearly thirty ranks from the previous instrument. The project kicked off in the spring of 2019 with the replacement of the Antiphonal Great and Antiphonal Swell organs on either side of the gallery with new Antiphonal and Echo divisions totalling eleven ranks; the voicing was completed later that summer. Independently expressive, these two divisions served as a small but capable instrument for over a year, proving their ability to accompany the church’s adult choir of over seventy voices. With the completion of the chancel organ, these divisions draw sound from the chancel through the long nave, surrounding the congregation with sound without drawing attention to themselves.

As soon as the gallery organ and its two-manual console were ready for service, the dismantling of the chancel organ began. In all parts of the organ, pipes slated for reuse were repaired, cleaned, and in the case of the Möller pipework, liberally rescaled for the new instrument. For example, the scales of the Swell and Antiphonal 8′ Open Diapason stops were enlarged by three and four pipes, respectively. Two of the Möller’s narrow stopped basses were replaced with new wooden pipes for a fuller sound in the 8′ octave. After the addition of seven new pipes at various points in the tenor through soprano octaves, the Möller 8′ Harmonic Flute was completely transformed into the present Antiphonal 4′ Traverse Flute.

The first portion of the chancel organ arrived in Lubbock towards the end of 2019, and a second shipment arrived in early 2020. As the full extent of Covid-19 made itself known, how to continue the organ’s installation became a preoccupation as lockdowns and international travel restrictions sidelined our company’s Québec-based organ builders. After some logistical reshuffling, we engaged a crack team led by Samantha Koch and Daniel Hancock to continue the installation in Lubbock that included the talents of Ryan Boyle, Brian Seever, and Jon Lester. (Daniel and Samantha subsequently joined our team in Québec at the end of 2020.) This last phase of the installation included the Great division and the four 16′ tin façades with their oak casework around the church’s chancel area.

Our Opus 135 is playable from two new consoles. There is a large and traditional four-manual stopknob console in the chancel, and a two-manual console in the gallery with touchscreen controls. The gallery console offers the same stop controls as its larger brother at the other end of the sanctuary, giving organists complete control of the instrument in real time. Both consoles also share the same capture system, allowing the organist to move from one end of the building to the other without concern for registrations. The system boasts 999 levels of memory, as well as an independent sixteen levels of memory for the divisional pistons. Using Solid State Organ System’s powerful MultiSystem II platform, the switching system in all four organ chambers is linked by fiber optic cable for effortlessly rapid communication. Further, the organ has SSOS’s Organist Palette, an iPad interface allowing wireless record-playback throughout the sanctuary, a transposer, and a clock with stopwatch. The Organist Palette offers controls to adjust the General piston sequencer, the various Sostenuto functions, and the point of division for the Pedal Divide feature. Both consoles also use a programmable expression matrix, a concept we borrowed from Richard Houghten, which allows all five of the organ’s expressive divisions to be interchanged between any of the consoles’ three expression pedals.

The new organ’s tonal design took shape in a comfortably English mold, based on a large and noble Great division. Split between the two chancel façades, the Great offers colorful foundation stops, an elegant 16′ principal chorus topped with a six-rank mixture, and large-scale trumpets at 8′ and 4′ pitches. The 16′ Double Diapason is extended to play as the 8′ Open Diapason No. 2; the rank’s slotted pipes are voiced for a harmonically richer timbre to contrast with the larger, more foundational Open Diapason No. 1.

The Swell offers all the dynamic and tonal range one would expect for choral works or organ repertoire. Its specification is disciplined, containing the organ’s secondary principal chorus, a richly colored string and celeste, and a lighthearted chorus of flutes. The Swell foundations smooth the buildup between the Choir and Great divisions but equally reinforce the Great in orchestrally minded registrations. The Swell’s battery of trumpets with English shallots dominates the division without stretching above their station; they enrich the Great ensemble with nuance and color.

The Choir is the tertiary division, with a range of mezzo foundations, from its slotted principals to the open Concert Flute to the delicate Lieblich Gedackt rank. The organ’s softest stops, the Erzähler and Erzähler Celeste, possess more character than a typical Flute Celeste. When used in tandem with the Echo division, the effect is an ethereal shroud over the sanctuary, ideally proportioned to introduce solo colors from the Great, Swell, or Solo. With all the harmonic vibrancy and carrying power of a solo stop, the Choir’s cornet décomposé is still controlled in power such that its mutations can reinforce the principals for smaller contrapuntal works or in alternatim passages with other divisions. Möller’s 8′ English Horn from 1954 was thoroughly revoiced, and its hollow, peaky timbre contrasts beautifully with the Swell’s warm 8′ Oboe. The new Clarinet was fitted with teardrop shallots for a slightly bolder timbre than a prototypical English example without limiting its utility. Both reeds are balanced for use in dialogue with each other against the Swell, but they too can also be strengthened with elements from the cornet.

The Solo division stands out with a strong Doppelflöte and a pair of warm reverse-tapered gambas. The 8′ Tuba pipes by A. R. Schopp’s & Sons merit special mention for their resonators’ enormous scale, as well as their early jump to harmonic length at 4′ C. The Tuba rank was revoiced on nearly seventeen inches pressure with a round, fundamental tone that works beautifully as a solo voice—especially when employed in octaves—but can also buttress the whole ensemble. It will contrast magnificently as the darker foil to the future Trompette en chamade to be installed above the rear gallery. We also added a new 16′ octave to the Tuba using shallots and heavy zinc sheets supplied by Schopp’s for seamless cohesion. Intended to give the pedals the last word in extraordinary circumstances, the 16′ Ophicleide’s effect is especially astonishing from the chancel console!

The organ’s twelve-rank Pedal division features independent metal principals at 16′, 8′, and 4′. A five-rank mixture completes the Pedal chorus, with the mixture incorporating a soft tierce rank for a subtly distinctive timbre. The pedals are reinforced by a large 16′–8′ Open Wood rank and the restored Möller 16′–8′ Subbass, as well as a 16′ Trombone and 8′ Trumpet on nearly six inches pressure. The Pedal is also augmented by four digital 32′ stops provided by Walker, including a penetrating Contra Bass, a subtle Bourdon, a vibrant Contra Trombone, and a milder Contra Fagotto, with this last voice usefully enclosed within the Swell division.

As with any Létourneau instrument, a great deal of reflection went into how Opus 135 could best serve a host of musical needs, whether it is supporting a modern worship service, accompanying a grand choral anthem, or serving as the vehicle to present the organ’s repertoire. We believe the specification bears this out. With 75 ranks and five expressive divisions, there are endless possibilities for creative registration without having to turn the instrument on its head.  Each of the main divisions is based on foundations appropriate to the space, with incisive 16′ ranks that enhance their respective choruses without opacity. At the other end of the spectrum, great attention was paid to the role of upperwork with the happy result that the mixtures and higher pitches add presence and texture without overwhelming the balance of the chorus. The overall effect is one of grandeur, cohesion, and warmth.

We have thoroughly enjoyed working with so many fine people at First United Methodist Church during the course of this thrilling project, despite some unexpected twists and turns. Our work has been greatly helped at various points along the way by Danny Johnston, Dr. Seung-Won Cho, David Warren, Keith Bell, and the Reverend Todd Salzwedel. We are also grateful to Mrs. Mary Frances Baucum and the church’s Board of Trustees who were so supportive of the organ committee’s work and recommendations.

In the broader context of the Létourneau company, our Opus 135 for First United Methodist Church is the first instrument completed under the proprietorship of Dudley Oakes (Read about this here). This pipe organ is simultaneously the logical continuation of the artistic evolution that the company was already on and a first expression of our renewed pursuit of tonal excellence. Within the company, there is a growing sense of being in a strong position. The second generation of leadership has many lessons from the past to guide us into the future while still having the freedom to advance in new and exciting directions. With several exciting projects in the years ahead, we invite you to watch this space!

—Orgues Létourneau

Builder’s website

Church’s website

GREAT – Manual II – 95mm pressure

16′ Double Diapason, 12 pipes new, extension of Open Diapason No. 2

16′ Lieblich Gedackt — from Choir

8′ Open Diapason No. 1, 61 pipes new, 70% tin

8′ Open Diapason No. 2, 61 pipes new, 70% tin

8′ Harmonic Flute, 61 pipes new, 56% tin

8′ Salicional, 61 pipes new, zinc and 56% tin

8′ Chimney Flute, 61 pipes new, wood and 40% tin

4′ Principal, 61 pipes rescaled Möller pipes

4′ Open Flute, 61 pipes Schopp’s pipes

2-2⁄3′ Twelfth, 61 pipes new, 56% tin

2′ Fifteenth, 61 pipes new, 56% tin

1-1⁄3′ Mixture IV–VI, 306 pipes new, 56% tin

16′ Double Trumpet — from Swell

8′ Trompette, 66 pipes, new, 56% tin

4′ Clairon, 78 pipes, new, 56% tin

8′ Tuba — from Solo

Great Sub Octave

Great Unison Off

Great Octave

Chimes (from Solo)

Zimbelstern

ANTIPHONAL (enclosed) – Manual II – 115mm pressure

16′ Contra Geigen, 12 pipes new, extension of 8′ Geigen

8′ Open Diapason, 61 pipes rescaled Möller pipes

8′ Chimney Flute, 61 pipes Möller pipes with new wood bass

8′ Geigen, 61 pipes new, zinc and 56% tin

4′ Principal, 61 pipes rescaled Möller pipes

4′ Traverse Flute, 61 pipes rescaled Möller pipes

2′ Fifteenth, 61 pipes Möller pipes

Tremulant

Antiphonal Sub Octave

Antiphonal Unison Off

Antiphonal Octave

8′ Trompette en chamade — prepared for future addition

SWELL (enclosed) – Manual III –– 115mm pressure

16′ Contra Gamba, 12 pipes new, extension of 8′ Gamba

8′ Open Diapason, 61 pipes rescaled Möller pipes

8′ Gamba, 61 pipes Möller pipes

8′ Voix Celeste, 54 pipes from g8, Möller pipes with new zinc bass

8′ Bourdon, 61 pipes Möller pipes

4′ Principal, 61 pipes Möller pipes

4′ Harmonic Flute, 61 pipes new, 40% tin

2′ Piccolo, 61 pipes new, 40% tin

2′ Mixture III–V, 247 pipes new, 56% tin

16′ Double Trumpet, 61 pipes new, 56% tin, harmonic at c49

8′ Trumpet, 66 pipes new, 56% tin, harmonic at c37

8′ Oboe, 61 pipes new, 56% tin, capped resonators

8′ Vox Humana, 61 pipes new, 56% tin

4′ Clarion, 78 pipes new, 56% tin, harmonic at c25

Tremulant

Swell Sub Octave

Swell Unison Off

Swell Octave

ECHO (enclosed) – Manual III – 115mm pressure

16′ Bourdon, 12 pipes Möller pipes, extension of 8′ Bourdon

8′ Viole de gambe, 61 pipes Möller pipes

8′ Voix Celeste, 54 pipes from g8, Möller pipes with new zinc bass

8′ Bourdon, 61 pipes Möller pipes

4′ Violon, 61 pipes new, 56% tin

8′ Cor d’amour, 61 pipes Möller pipes, capped resonators

Tremulant

Echo Sub Octave

Echo Unison Off

Echo Octave

CHOIR (enclosed) – Manual I – 110mm pressure

16′ Lieblich Gedackt, 12 pipes new, extension of 8′ Lieblich Gedackt

8′ Geigen Diapason, 61 pipes Möller pipes

8′ Concert Flute, 61 pipes Casavant pipes with new treble

8′ Erzähler, 61 pipes Möller pipes

8′ Erzähler Celeste, 54 pipes from g8, new, zinc and 56% tin

8′ Lieblich Gedackt, 61 pipes Möller pipes with new wood bass

4′ Geigen Principal, 61 pipes new, 56% tin

4′ Koppelflöte, 61 pipes Möller pipes

2-2⁄3′ Nazard, 61 pipes rescaled Möller pipes

2′ Flageolet, 61 pipes rescaled Möller pipes

1-3⁄5′ Tierce, 61 pipes rescaled Möller pipes

1′ Fife, 61 pipes rescaled Möller pipes

8′ English Horn, 61 pipes Möller pipes

8′ Clarinet, 61 pipes new, 56% tin

Tremulant

Choir Sub Octave

Choir Unison Off

Choir Octave

8′ French Horn — from Solo

16′ Ophicleide — from Solo and Pedal

8′ Tuba — from Solo

4′ Tuba — from Solo

8′ Trompette en chamade — from Antiphonal

Harp — from Solo

SOLO (enclosed) – Manual IV – 255mm pressure

8′ Doppelflöte, 61 pipes new, wood and 40% tin

8′ Viola, 61 pipes new, zinc and 56% tin

8′ Viola Celeste, 54 pipes from g8, new, zinc and 56% tin

Tremulant

8′ French Horn, 49 pipes from c13, new, 56% tin, 425mm pressure

8′ Tuba, 85 pipes Schopp’s pipes, 425mm pressure

Solo Sub Octave

Solo Unison Off

Solo Octave

8′ Trompette en chamade — from Antiphonal

Chimes digital Walker Technical Co.

Harp digital Walker Technical Co.

Glockenspiel digital Walker Technical Co.

PEDAL – 105mm pressure

32′ Contra Bass, digital Walker Technical Co.

32′ Contra Bourdon, digital Walker Technical Co.

16′ Open Wood, 32 pipes new, wood

16′ Open Diapason No. 1, 32 pipes new, 70% tin

16′ Open Diapason No. 2 — from Great

16′ Subbass, 32 pipes Möller pipes

16′ Gamba — from Swell

16′ Lieblich Gedackt — from Choir

8′ Open Wood, 12 pipes new, extension of 16′ Open Wood

8′ Principal, 32 pipes new, 56% tin

8′ Subbass, 12 pipes Möller pipes, extension of 16′ Subbass

8′ Gamba — from Swell

8′ Lieblich Gedackt — from Choir

4′ Choral Bass, 32 pipes new, 56% tin

3-1⁄5′ Mixture V, 160 pipes new, 56% tin

32′ Contra Bombarde digital Walker Technical Co.

32′ Contra Fagotto digital enclosed with Swell, Walker Technical Co.

16′ Ophicleide 12 pipes new, zinc and 56% tin, ext. of Solo 8′ Tuba

16′ Trombone 32 pipes new, 145mm pressure

16′ Trumpet — from Swell

8′ Tuba — from Solo

8′ Trumpet 32 pipes new, 145mm pressure

4′ Tuba — from Solo

8′ Trompette en chamade — from Antiphonal

Chimes (from Solo)

ANTIPHONAL PEDAL

16′ Geigen — from Antiphonal

16′ Bourdon — from Echo

8′ Geigen — from Antiphonal

8′ Bourdon — from Echo

97 total stops; 75 ranks; 4,233 pipes

Great Mixture IV–VI

c1 to b12 19 22 26 29

c13 to b24 15 19 22 26

c25 to f#31 12 15 19 22 26

g32 to b36 8 12 15 19 22

c37 to f#43 1 8 12 15 19 22

g44 to e53 1 5 8 12 15 19

f54 to c61 1 5 8 8 12 15

Swell Mixture III–V

c1 to e17 15  19 22

f18 to b36 12 15 19 22

c37 to e41 8 12 15 19

f42 to b48 1 8 12 15 19

c49 to c61 1 8 8 12 15

Pedal Mixture V

c1 to g32 17 19 22 26 29

 

Read about Létourneau Opus 132 here.

Létourneau Pipe Organs, St-Hyacinthe, Québec, Canada; Gloria Dei Lutheran Church, St. Paul, Minnesota

Gloria Dei Lutheran Church is a large, welcoming ELCA congregation founded in 1908. Serving the Highland Park neighborhood of St. Paul, the church opened its present sanctuary in 1952 with subsequent additions to the church complex to accommodate the congregation’s growth and needs. An unusually active congregation, Gloria Dei undertakes its outreach and social justice ministries enthusiastically through various environmental, housing, hunger, and advocacy initiatives.

The pipe organ from Gloria Dei’s previous church building served the new sanctuary until it was replaced in 1962 by M. P. Möller’s Opus 9864. A three-manual instrument, the Möller employed significant unification throughout its modest specification, making the very most of its 36 ranks. The small and oddly shaped organ chamber dictated that the Möller had to be shoehorned in to a rarely seen degree. With chamber openings along one side of the chancel, most organ tone passed laterally across the chancel where it was then reflected off the opposite wall and dispersed out to the nave—but not before first passing through the deep chancel arch. As a result, the Möller was barely adequate for its many roles and was augmented in 1975 with the addition of an eight-rank Antiphonal division high on the back wall of the sanctuary, again by M. P. Möller.

After more than five decades of service, the Möller’s electro-pneumatic windchests were exhibiting typical signs of wear and leather failure, but the cramped organ chamber made chest repairs unreasonably difficult and costly. Cleverly, a unit chest was set up as an interim solution at the back of the Swell division to serve as a catchall for dead note actions as they came up. Pipes whose actions had failed were plucked from their original chests, reset on the unit chest at the back of the chamber, and the unit chest wired accordingly to the switching system.

The accelerating frequency of problems with the Möller was a serious issue, but the organ’s compromised location meant that a complete restoration—or even an all-new instrument in the same chamber—would not provide the improvement Gloria Dei was seeking. As part of their deliberations, the Gloria Dei organ committee looked carefully at all options as far as the organ’s placement and soon determined that the organ should go across the front wall of the chancel. Exceptionally, the organ committee’s discernment process blossomed into a larger sanctuary renewal campaign entitled “Rise, O Church.” In the words of Pastor Bradley Schmeling, “Rise, O Church is more than just buying a new organ or doing some remodeling. It’s about our dedication to be a growing, vibrant congregation ready to meet the needs of future generations and our neighboring community.”

In the meantime, Létourneau had been advertising a 1959 Casavant Frères pipe organ that the company had rescued from a closed church in Toronto, Ontario. The advertisement proposed completing the Casavant’s specification with several new stops, and this caught the attention of Gloria Dei’s organ consultant, Gregory Peterson, then of Luther College, and Tim Strand, Gloria Dei’s director of music.

The Casavant was an early instrument in Lawrence Phelps’s tenure as tonal director and displayed some of the first steps in the profound and rapid change of style Phelps oversaw in Casavant Frères organs. Vestiges from the era predating Phelps include the 16′ Flûte conique and the 8′ Aeoline stops in the Swell plus an augmented Pedal division. On the other hand, the Choir 4′ Koppelflöte, the organ’s narrow-scaled reed stops with parallel shallots, the generally thin-walled pipework, and the boldly scaled upperwork were examples of Phelps’s emerging aesthetic. As the Casavant featured no casework or façade pipes, our advertisement also offered new casework with façade pipes for the expanded instrument.

With the Casavant’s 34-rank specification as a starting point, we expanded the instrument with eighteen additional ranks to complete each of the instrument’s four divisions. To the Great division, we added a 16′ Contra Geigen stop and a soaring 8′ Flûte harmonique, as well as trumpet stops at 8′ and 4′ pitches. The Swell division was already largely complete; the only changes were the replacement of the 8′ Aeoline with a proper 4′ Principal stop and the addition of a new 16′ Bombarde stop with full-length resonators scaled to match the 8′ Trompette and 4′ Clairon.

Devised in an era when Positiv divisions were coming into fashion, the original Choir division was judged to be short on 8′ foundation tone. The addition of new 8′ Geigen Principal and 4′ Geigen Octave stops addressed this point, as well as the new undulating rank to go with the 8′ Spitzflöte. A new three-rank Sharp mixture completes the Choir’s principal chorus, offering more brilliance than its counterparts in the Swell. To augment the existing Swell 8′ Oboe and Choir 8′ Clarinet stops, we added a delicate 8′ Cor anglais as a third solo reed option.

The Pedal division was built on a rich-toned 16′ Contrabass stop in zinc, though it was originally extended to play at 8′ and 4′ pitches. The original 8′ extension of the 16′ Subbass rank was maintained, but new 8′ Principal and 4′ Choral Bass ranks plus a three-rank mixture were added to provide a true pedal chorus. Bold reed stops at 16′ and 8′ were also added to give the Pedal the necessary grandeur and color.

The Casavant electro-pneumatic windchests in solid mahogany were restored in our workshops, with new electro-pneumatic chests provided as needed. The original chests’ 68-note compass was retained and carried over into the new windchests as well. The organ’s painted casework was designed by Claude Demers and was constructed from maple; it features polished pipework in 70% tin from the Great 16′ Contra Geigen, the Great 8′ Principal, and the Pedal 8′ Principal ranks.

The eight-rank Antiphonal division and its 8′ Trompette en chamade with polished brass resonators were retained as part of the project for added support from the rear of the nave. The Möller electro-pneumatic windchests were restored, while the Antiphonal’s wind system was rebuilt to incorporate a new blower.

The instrument is played from a new three-manual console with the shell made from rift sawn red oak and the interior panels in walnut. Built to be as compact as possible for good sightlines, the console offers organists 999 levels of memory, twelve General pistons with sequencer, a sostenuto effect for each manual, a Great-Choir Manual Transfer feature, and a Pedal Divide coupler. Numeric displays showing the positions of the Swell and Choir’s expression shades are included, as is Solid State Organ System’s Organist Palette. An iPad-controlled suite of features, the palette includes a wireless record-playback interface, visual management of the General piston sequencer, a transposer, and control of the various sostenutos and the Pedal Divide coupler.

The organ was delivered to the church in late October of 2022 and was installed in collaboration with the Organ Clearing House. The voicing of the instrument commenced after Thanksgiving with the welcome participation of Jonathan Ortloff for several weeks, and the project was wrapped up in the New Year.

Létourneau’s Opus 137 was played by Tim Strand in its first solo concert on April 23, 2023. Seminal works by Cook, Bach, Duruflé, and Vierne were heard by a large and especially enthusiastic crowd, as were the world premieres of two new pieces. The first, Partita on “Rise O Church, like Christ Arisen” by David Cherwien, is based on the hymn of the same name, tune Surge Ecclesia (written by Mr. Strand), and featuring words written by Dr. Chewien’s late wife Susan. The second work was a rich new setting of the Swedish tune “The Earth Adorned in Verdant Robe” for saxophone and organ by Robert Buckley Farlee, with Kurt Claussen playing the soprano saxophone.

Many people played important roles—some visible, some less so—in helping us and Gloria Dei Lutheran Church realize this organ project. We would like to thank Tim Strand, Gregory Peterson, Pastor Bradley Schmeling, Mike Kruger (chair of Gloria Dei’s Sanctuary Renewal Task Force), Teresa Sterns (project manager for Gloria Dei), Todd Kraft and Sara Du of HGA Architects, the team at Langer Construction, the Organ Clearing House, and the Ortloff Organ Company.

—Létourneau Pipe Organs

Photo credit: Andrew Forrest

 

GREAT – Manual II

16′ Contra Geigen 68 pipes new, 70% tin

8′ Principal 68 pipes new, 70% tin

8′ Harmonic Flute 68 pipes new, 56% tin

8′ Gemshorn 68 pipes Casavant Frères pipework

8′ Bourdon 68 pipes Casavant Frères pipework

4′ Octave 68 pipes Casavant Frères pipework

4′ Rohrflöte 68 pipes Casavant Frères pipework

2-2⁄3′ Twelfth 61 pipes Casavant Frères pipework

2′ Fifteenth 61 pipes Casavant Frères pipework

1-1⁄3′ Mixture IV 244 pipes Casavant Frères pipework

8′ Trumpet 68 pipes new, 56% tin

4′ Clarion 68 pipes new, 56% tin

Great 16′ - Great Unison Off - Great 4′

8′ Trompette en chamade 61 pipes M. P. Möller pipework (with Antiphonal)

Zimbelstern

SWELL (enclosed) – Manual III

16′ Flûte conique 68 pipes Casavant Frères pipework

8′ Viole de gambe 68 pipes Casavant Frères pipework

8′ Voix Celeste 61 pipes from g8, Casavant Frères pipework

8′ Rohrflöte 68 pipes Casavant Frères pipework

4′ Principal 68 pipes new, 56% tin

4′ Nachthorn 68 pipes Casavant Frères pipework

2′ Piccolo 61 pipes Casavant Frères pipework

2′ Mixture III 183 pipes Casavant Frères pipework

16′ Bombarde 68 pipes new, 56% tin

8′ Trompette 68 pipes Casavant Frères pipework

8′ Oboe 68 pipes Casavant Frères pipework, new shallots

4′ Clairon 68 pipes Casavant Frères pipework

Tremulant

Swell 16′ - Swell Unison Off - Swell 4′

CHOIR (enclosed) – Manual I

8′ Geigen Diapason 68 pipes new, 56% tin

8′ Gedackt 68 pipes Casavant Frères pipework

8′ Spitzflöte 68 pipes Casavant Frères pipework

8′ Flute Celeste 61 pipes from g8, new, zinc and 56% tin

4′ Geigen Principal 68 pipes new, 56% tin

4′ Koppelflöte 68 pipes Casavant Frères pipework

2-2⁄3′ Nazard 61 pipes Casavant Frères pipework

2′ Flageolet 61 pipes Casavant Frères pipework

1-3⁄5′ Tierce 61 pipes Casavant Frères pipework

1′ Sharp Mixture III 183 pipes new, 56% tin

8′ Clarinet 68 pipes Casavant Frères pipework

8′ Cor anglais 68 pipes new, zinc and 56% tin

Tremulant

Choir 16′ - Choir Unison Off - Choir 4′

16′ Trompette en chamade (TC) from Great

8′ Trompette en chamade from Great

ANTIPHONAL – floating

8′ Spitz Principal 61 pipes M. P. Möller pipework

4′ Octave 61 pipes M. P. Möller pipework

4′ Gedackt 61 pipes M. P. Möller pipework

2′ Super Octave 61 pipes M. P. Möller pipework

1′ Mixture III 183 pipes M. P. Möller pipework

PEDAL

32′ Resultant derived

16′ Contrabass 32 pipes Casavant Frères pipework

16′ Geigen from Great

16′ Spitz Principal 12 pipes extension of Antiphonal 8′ Spitz Principal

16′ Subbass 32 pipes Casavant Frères pipework

16′ Flûte conique from Swell

8′ Principal 32 pipes new, 70% tin

8′ Bass Flute 12 pipes extension of 16′ Subbass

8′ Flûte conique from Swell

4′ Choral Bass 32 pipes new, 56% tin

2-2⁄3′ Mixture III 96 pipes new, 56% tin

16′ Trombone 32 pipes new, 56% tin

16′ Bombarde from Swell

8′ Trumpet 32 pipes new, 56% tin

8′ Trompette en chamade from Great

4′ Trompette en chamade from Great

Intermanual Couplers

Great to Pedal

Great 4′ to Pedal

Swell to Pedal

Swell 4′ to Pedal

Choir to Pedal

Choir 4′ to Pedal

Antiphonal to Pedal

Swell 16′ to Great

Swell to Great

Swell 4′ to Great

Choir 16′ to Great

Choir to Great

Choir 4′ to Great

Antiphonal to Great 

Swell 16′ to Choir

Swell to Choir

Swell 4′ to Choir

Great to Choir

Antiphonal to Choir

Choir to Swell

Antiphonal to Swell 

 

59 stops, 60 ranks, 3,591 pipes

 

Mixture Compositions

Great Mixture IV

c1 to b12 19 22 26 29

c13 to b24 15 19 22 26

c25 to f42 12 15 19 22

f#43 to b48 8 12 15 19

c49 to c61 1 8 12 15

Swell Mixture III

c1 to f18 15 19 22

f#19 to f30 12 15 19

f#31 to f54 8 12 15

f#55 to c61 1 8 12

Choir Sharp Mixture III

c1 to d#16 22 26 29

e17 to d27 19 22 26

d#28 to c#38 15 19 22

d39 to c49 12 15 19

c#50 to c61 8 12 15

Antiphonal Mixture III

c1 to f18 22 26 29

f#19 to c37 19 22 26

c#38 to c49 15 19 22

c#50 to e53 12 15 19

f54 to c61 8 12 15

Pedal Mixture III

c1 to g32 19 22 26

 

Builder website: www.letourneauorgans.com

Church website: www.gloriadeistpaul.org

Sebastian M. Glück, Opus 24, New York, New York; Setauket Presbyterian Church, Setauket, New York

Sebastian M. Glück

Vice, virtue, and flexibility

Among the linguistic tics bandied about the organbuilding craft for the better part of a century is “judicious unification,” apologetically implying that the practice is quantifiably evil depending upon the extent of its use and the judgment of the builder. If we dislike the builder, it is dismissed as cheap expediency; if we adore the builder, it is the methodology of a thoughtful and clever artist. Both assessments can be, and have been, accurate. Duplexing (the ability to play a stop from more than one keyboard) and unification (the ability to play a particular stop at more than one pitch) have been in use for more than three hundred years. A century after the cinema organ flourished, many are granting “unit orchestras” absolution as we try to preserve the few that we have yet to destroy, with the expectation that accompanying silent films in church will reinvigorate appreciation for the organ, even if it is not used to play organ music.

In some circles, the conservative traditionalist falls from grace when employing a rank of pipes for more than one musical purpose, although a “pass” is granted if the duplexing or extending is achieved solely with wires, rods, and levers. Regardless of action type, compromise is inevitable when space is rationed. For the staunch purist, the compromise must take the form of a smaller instrument in which each stop serves a single function, eagerly sacrificing variety, color, and scope. The establishment may believe that such a design process is additive, but in truth, pressure is applied to exclude stops from the project. The builder who designs, scales, voices, and finishes a partially unified organ must weigh and assume responsibility for the musical consequences of each compromise.

At Setauket Presbyterian Church, I set out to design an organ that could be played, despite the unification or duplexing of nine of its twenty-five ranks, as a traditionally disposed instrument while avoiding some of the perceived pitfalls of the extension principle: lack of character distinction between the manual sections, “missing note syndrome,” divisional imbalance, and an ineffective Pedal department.

The assignment

The congregation owned a pipe organ built in 1968, to which artificial orchestral voices had been added. The ailing instrument had served adequately for hymnody and life cycle events, but the tonal design did not extend consideration to the performance of the established organ literature. When developing the specifications with consultant David Enlow, we agreed that if the organ could be used to perform the noble repertoire of the past, it would be a fine church organ. No instrument can be loyal to the music of every culture and era, but we were adamant that in addition to the features common to all schools of organbuilding, specific tone colors should be placed in the correct divisions at the proper pitches to enable an organist to bring a stack of scores to the console and honor as closely as possible the composers’ intentions.

Following a period of discussion, the decision was taken to build an organ entirely under the control of expression shutters. While this firm had not, until now, built a fully enclosed instrument, this uncommon practice is experiencing a centennial revival and showed merit in this situation. The existing organ had been completely enclosed, yet its two-rank mixture and narrowly scaled, fractional-length reeds were perceived as painfully harsh by the choir members who sat in front of the organ.

The intimate sanctuary lacks any desirable reverberation. Fortunately, its proportions produce no perceptible echo, and the new organ enjoys an elevated position, speaking down the length of the room, its tone blended and preserved by the barrel vault. Made entirely of timber, the flexible building absorbs lower frequencies, so the organ would need to provide ample harmonically complex tone at 16′ and 8′ pitch without succumbing to the lingering recycled fad for the deprecation of mixtures.

The key ingredients we established for the manual divisions were a pair of contrasting principal choruses, an 8′ harmonic flute for the Great, a string and its undulant, the components of a cornet, and the three primary colors of reed tone: trumpet, clarinet, and oboe. The structural forms of the flute ranks include open cylindrical, open tapered, open harmonic (overblowing), stoppered wood, and capped metal with internal chimneys. The different flutes are voiced and finished within a bounded range of amplitude for the sake of blend, although the harmonic flute is given its characteristic treble ascendancy.

The primary function principle

When utilizing a rank at more than one pitch, it is best to establish its primary function, treat it accordingly, and then identify its potential auxiliary uses and what must be modified to accommodate them. The following are a few examples from the Setauket organ:

The Great 8′ Principal is extended to provide the 2′ Fifteenth. The independent 4′ Octave permits the designer to recalibrate the Principal’s scale progression over the course of two octaves as the unit rank approaches the treble of the 2′ extension. Is it ideal? No. Is it better than extending the 4′ rank or having no 2′ Fifteenth at all? Certainly. The chorus becomes fully independent if the 2′ is retired when the Mixture is added because a 2′ rank enters at the first break of the Mixture.

The Great Flûte Harmonique is called for at 8′ pitch in the literature, so that is its primary function. It takes its bass from the 8′ Principal to continue open tone all the way to the bottom. The 4′ Flûte Octaviante, by extension, can be used as an independent voice, played with the 8′ Holzgedeckt or the 8′ Principal. Crime averted.

The Swell 8′ Chimney Flute also is made available beyond its primary function, playable at 2′ (and 1′) pitch to create oft-debated “gap” registrations in addition to completing the solo Cornet. The 4′ Night Horn stands on its own to alleviate missing notes in the flute choir. The 2-2⁄3′ Nazard is scaled and voiced for its primary function, but is also made available at 1-1⁄3′ rather than foregoing such a stop entirely. The Nazard and Tierce must be independent ranks for the sake of tuning and balance.

The Swell 4′ Principal is the pivot point and tuning reference for that division, one of two 4′ stops that can be selected to change the vowel of the full Cornet. Keying it at 8′ pitch gives the division an 8′ Geigen Diapason where none would fit, a boon to literature, service playing, and choral accompaniment. The 8′ octave is synthesized by playing the bass octaves of the 8′ flute and 8′ string together. This is by no means a confirmation of the 1960s falsehood that “a flute plus a string equals a diapason,” but the effect is quite satisfactory in that lowest octave and the pitch does not suddenly drop out. It lends body to the full ensemble when the organ is played with orchestra.

The reeds

If one is restricted to a single trumpet rank in a unit design, its treatment is unavoidably difficult because it cannot serve two masters. If it is powerful enough to stand as the Great 8′ Trumpet, it can be too forceful for its expected roles in the Swell. Conversely, if it is designed as a normal Swell stop, it may prove insufficient when drawn with the Great chorus, unsuitable for some solo functions, and too weak for the Pedal, even if its descent into the 16′ octave grows dramatically as it would in a French organ. Without a second trumpet, I chose to favor the Great and Pedal with a round and warm English quasi-Tromba that made the transition down to a rolling 16′ Trombone that sits majestically under the full organ. After a lengthy search, I located a heritage M. P. Möller rank of unusual construction, built and voiced on the needed pressure, that fit the bill. The resonators were restored and masterfully remitred by Organ Supply Industries to stand comfortably beneath the low ceiling of the chamber.

The Swell 8′ Oboe features English shallots with caps and scrolls, and is under no burden to act as anything else. If the Trumpet is too loud for a particular registration, the tone of the Oboe can be modified by one or more of the division’s flue stops, including the mutations.

The cylindrical half-length reed posed a mixed conundrum: where should it reside, what should it be, and what should it do? Any version of the American Krummhorn of a half a century ago was dismissed from the outset. A warm, round Clarinet with a bit of a bright “edge” would address anything from Clarinet soli in English choral anthems to dialogues in French Baroque suites. The extension down to a 16′ Basset Horn provides a rich reed timbre with a fully developed fundamental, giving the desirable growl and harmonic complexity of the “full Swell.” The sticking point is that it plays at 8′ pitch from the Great and 16′ from the Swell. Were the Great unenclosed, the 8′ Clarinet under expression would have been a forthright bonus, but since the Setauket organ is entirely enclosed, the Clarinet is seemingly in the “wrong” enclosure. It is assigned to the Great to chat with the Jeu de Tierce in the Swell, and the rank plays at 16′ and 4′ pitch in the Pedal, as a secondary unison reed and as a cantus firmus stop for chorale settings.

The mixtures

Why provide two generous mixtures when a single small one had been deemed too shrill? The effectiveness of mixtures is contingent upon their position, harmonic composition, scaling, mouth proportions, voicing methods, and tonal finishing. From time to time, theorists have campaigned aggressively to extirpate mixtures from the art of organbuilding, yet they inevitably return to the craft because they are too essential to the organ’s origin and design. The compositions of the Setauket mixtures favor unisons over fifths and are not terribly acute in their pitch bases, with the Great IV–V including a second 8′ Principal to add warmth and body to the right hand. They are polite but by no means weak, and weld to the ensemble rather than standing apart from it.

The Pedal

The unit pipe organ was an essential response to the growing market for artificial instruments as American postwar prosperity fostered suburban communities that built new churches and synagogues. Architects were encouraged to forgo space for a pipe organ in their modern, low-slung structures as the allure of compact, inexpensive imitations took hold. This gave birth to the twelve-pipe Pedal division, the delusion that extending the stoppered flute rank down to 16′ would provide sufficient bass to support the entire organ.

The chamber plan for Opus 24 reveals the structural obstacles that had to be skirted while granting safe and facile access. I could not provide full independence, so I had to assure that the pedal line could be heard moving against the manual textures. The dedicated 16′ Sub Bass exhibits a characteristic of many 16′ stoppered wood ranks in small, acoustically dead rooms: if the listener steps in one direction or another, or turns their head, a note can switch from booming to absent. I therefore added a 16′ extension of the Viole de Gambe, with Haskell qualifying tubes. It provides clean pitch definition and consistent acoustical reinforcement anywhere in the room, and is far more interesting to the musical ear.

The other independent Pedal rank is the 4′ Choral Bass (the twentieth-century name given to a 4′ Octave), an arrangement that prevents note robbing from the middle of the manual textures. It also is used at 8′ pitch, with the lowest octave borrowed from the Great 8′ Principal, a practice not uncommon in smaller mechanical-action work. Because of this shared bottom octave, the Pedal 8′ and 4′ principal unit is in the Great expression enclosure, and the remainder of the Pedal within the Swell.

The organ case

Setauket’s 1812 landmarked meetinghouse was not conceived for a pipe organ, and the congregation, founded in 1660, did not install their first organ, an eleven-rank tubular-pneumatic affair set partially into the tower at balcony level, until 1919. The 1968 instrument of sixteen ranks expanded that footprint at the sides and into the gallery. Pipes and speaker cabinets packed the chamber, and the organ could not be maintained effectively. There were no organ pipes to be seen, the works concealed by a metal mesh screen that covered an enormous black void. The console was placed in front, creating poor sight lines, unsafe fire egress, and irreconcilable imbalances between the choir and the organ. Those issues were completely resolved by building a mobile, elegant, unobtrusive console for the new organ and moving the choir to a side gallery.

My duty was to create an architectural solution half as tall as its width, and I arrived at a small façade centered upon a visually neutral backdrop. Initial designs were based upon Georgian chamber organs, but as I spent more time in the building, I saw that the space demanded a more restrained treatment, a contemporary interpretation of organ cases built in New York during the second quarter of the nineteenth century. It is a restfully proportioned quintipartite mahogany façade, devoid of carvings, with burnished front pipes that extend to the cornice.

Paradoxically, this visual treatment is an entirely deceptive set piece, yet respectfully complements the historic interior. The wall of painted joinery uses acoustically transparent grille cloth in place of solid panels, and the façade pipes do not speak on account of the enclosure of the entire organ. Whereas once there was no visual indication that an organ existed, there is now a correlation between what the eye sees and the ear hears, despite the grand body of tone that seems to issue from a chamber organ.

An assiduous client

The dedication and perseverance of the congregational leadership was remarkable, particularly amidst a global medical crisis fraught with uncertainty. Throughout the project’s development, they educated themselves about pipe organ building, and as the concept for the instrument grew, they twice offered to expand the space allocated for the instrument. Church and synagogue musician, international concert organist, and Juilliard faculty member David Enlow served as an informed and patient consultant, steering the proceedings toward a service, concert, and teaching instrument for future generations.

—Sebastian M. Glück

President and Artistic & Tonal Director

Glück Pipe Organs

The Glück staff

Matthew Deming

Joseph DiSalle

Sebastian M. Glück

Roderick Gomez

John Kawa, Project Manager

Chad Kranak

Nathan Siler

Matthew Yohn

 

Suppliers

Organ Supply Industries, Inc.

Peterson Electro-Musical Products, Inc.

Aug. Laukhuff GmbH & Co.

 

www.gluckpipeorgans.com/

 

25 ranks, 39 stops, 1,392 pipes

Electropneumatic action, wind pressure 4 inches throughout

 

Cover photo by John Kawa

All other photos by Sebastian M. Glück, except as noted

 

GREAT (Manual I)

16′ Violone (a) 12 pipes

8′ Principal 58 pipes

8′ Flûte Harmonique (b) 47 pipes

8′ Holz Gedeckt 58 pipes

8′ Viole de Gambe (from Swell)

8′ Voix Céleste (from Swell)

4′ Octave 58 pipes

4′ Flûte Octaviante (ext 8′ Fl) 12 pipes

2′ Fifteenth (ext 8′ Princ) 24 pipes

Fourniture IV–V 256 pipes

8′ Trumpet (from Swell)

8′ Clarinet (ext Sw 16′ Basset) 12 pipes

Tremulant

Great Silent

Swell to Great 16

Swell to Great 8

Swell to Great 4

Chimes

 

SWELL (Manual II – enclosed)

8′ Principal (fr 4′ Principal; 1–12 from 8′ Chimney Flute and 8′ Viole)

8′ Chimney Flute 58 pipes

8′ Viole de Gambe 58 pipes

8′ Voix Céleste (TC) 46 pipes

4′ Principal 58 pipes

4′ Night Horn (4/5 taper) 58 pipes

2-2⁄3′ Nazard (2/3 taper) 58 pipes

2′ Recorder (ext 8′ Chim Fl) 24 pipes

1-3⁄5′ Tierce 58 pipes

1-1⁄3′ Larigot (c) (ext 2-2⁄3′ Naz) 8 pipes

1′ Fife (d) (from 8′ Chim Fl)

Mixture III–IV 179 pipes

16′ Basset Horn 58 pipes

8′ Trumpet 58 pipes

8′ Oboe 58 pipes

Tremulant

Swell to Great 16

Swell Silent

Swell to Great 4

PEDAL

16′ Violone (from Great)

16′ Sub Bass (wood) 32 pipes

8′ Principal (e)

8′ Viole de Gambe (from Swell)

8′ Gedeckt (from Gt Holz Gedeckt)

4′ Choral Bass 32 pipes

4′ Flute (from Gt Holz Gedeckt)

16′ Trombone (ext 8′ Trumpet) 12 pipes

16′ Basset Horn (from Swell)

8′ Trumpet (from Swell)

8′ Oboe (from Swell)

4′ Cantus Firmus (from Sw 16′ Basset)

Great to Pedal 8

Swell to Pedal 8

Swell to Pedal 4

Chimes

(a) with Haskell qualifying tubes; extension of Swell 8′ Viole de Gambe

(b) C1–A#11 from 8′ Principal

(c) F#55–A58 repeat

(d) top octave repeats

(e) 1–12 from Great 8′ Principal, 13–32 from 4′ Choral Bass

 

Great Fourniture IV–V

C1 19 22 26 29

C13 15 19 22 26

C25 08 12 15 19 22

C37 01 08 12 15 19

C49 01 08 12 15

 

Swell Mixture III–IV

C1 15 19 22

C37 12 15 22

G44 08 12 15

C#50 01 08 12 15

F#55 01 08 15