“Organ Renewal” in the Southwest

R. E. Coleberd, an economist and retired petroleum industry executive, is a contributing editor of The Diapason. He is a director of The Reuter Organ Company.

Introduction

In the following narrative, the interaction of an organist and an organbuilder in the design of a new instrument and selection of a builder is described in some detail by each of them. The organist, Jerome Meachen, an Oberlin and Union graduate, was organist/choirmaster of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Waterbury, Connecticut. In 1957 St. John’s, upon the recommendation of Meachen, acquired a 70-rank, three-manual McManis organ. It was followed, when he changed positions, by a 67-rank, three-manual at Redeemer Episcopal Church in Sarasota, Florida (completed in 1966), and in 1973, by a 49-rank, three-manual for Manatee Community College, Bradenton, Florida. The builder, Charles McManis, a trained organist who had apprenticed briefly with Walter Holtkamp before World War II, operated a small shop in Kansas City, Kansas. His skill in flue voicing would become widely recognized and acclaimed in a sixty-year career, which counted more than 125 new instruments and rebuilds.

The discussion highlights the steps in the evolution of their tonal philosophy. It was a process of listening, comparing and choosing sounds and stops in the quest for authenticity in the revolutionary epoch that characterized American organbuilding in the decades following World War II. Before their first meeting, Meachen had acquired a preference for non-legato playing while McManis had been taught the legato style. Despite this difference, the two men found common ground in their admiration and profound respect for the tonal work of William A. Johnson, a legendary nineteenth-century New England tracker builder, and his successors.

Background

The choice of a relatively unknown independent builder in 1956 was decidedly the exception for this era. In the 1950s, pipe organ building in America was the province of the integrated major builders who had controlled the market for new instruments since the turn of the century. M. P. Möller of Hagerstown, Maryland, the “General Motors” of the industry, with a force of more than 400 workers, delivered 365 instruments in 1928 and in the decade 1950-60, with perhaps 200 employees, built 125 organs per year.1 Other builders, those who had survived the drastic shakeout during the Great Depression of the 1930s, were likewise busy, with comparatively large work forces and lengthy backlogs.

In retrospect we might safely say the 1950s, though a vibrant decade, marked the beginning of the end of what could be termed the “commercial” era of organbuilding in America that extended back to the 1920s and perhaps even earlier. Builders, including such highly successful businessmen as Mathias Peter Möller, concentrated almost exclusively on production to meet the enormous market demand in all venues. Company executives, sons of the founder, not musicians, were largely unfamiliar with the great literature for the organ. Sadly, they scarcely comprehended the interface between Bach, Buxtehude and other composers and the subtleties and nuances of fine voicing and finishing in building the King of Instruments. Their instruments were often quite successful in the context of a “production organ,” with uniform and consistent voicing, thanks to the skills of talented shop voicers, but, in retrospect, they were perhaps lacking in artistic statement, which can come only from meticulous tonal finishing. On small organs there was virtually no concept of tonal finishing once the instrument was installed and tuned. Only with the large “signature” instruments was time scheduled for tonal finishing, for example by John Schleigh of Möller and Herb Pratt of Aeolian-Skinner.2

Yet the organ reform movement was underway and gaining momentum, beginning with the pathfinding efforts in the 1930s of E. Power Biggs, Melville Smith, King Covell and others. The major themes are well known: lower wind pressures, smaller scales and higher pitches in flue work and the introduction of chorus in place of solo reeds. A “vertical” tonal palette emerged, featuring a full range of pitches in place of the former “horizontal” palette, dominated by stops of 8-foot pitch. These elements combined in the cohesive blending of individual voices, and the emphasis on ensemble in the building of primary and secondary choruses as reflected in the work of Walter Holtkamp and G. Donald Harrison in the North German and American Classic paradigms.

Leaders in the organist profession, highly educated, widely traveled and well-read, people like Robert Noehren and Parvin Titus, were captivated by the new sounds and ensembles which awakened them to the instrument’s rich music from antiquity. They began paying close attention to European instruments, through travel and recordings, as well as 19th-century work of notable American builders (Hook, Erben, Johnson and others). They wisely looked beyond the stoplist and listened carefully to the sound. The reintroduction of the tracker instrument, first by European builders, followed by an emerging U.S. industry of small shops, reinforced the historic and intrinsic artistic value of the King of Instruments. Steady improvement in the tone quality of the electronic instruments soon spelled the end of the commodity segment of the pipe organ market rooted in the image of an organ as a utilitarian device in support of corporate worship.3

By the end of the century it was recognized that the heart and soul of a pipe organ, a work of art, is the tonal edifice, which begins with a vision and continues through design, voicing and tonal finishing of the instrument. These requirements were most often found in the combined talents of the tonal architect and skilled, dedicated artisans in his shop, seldom in one individual. Harrison, Holtkamp and Fisk, for example, were superb designers but were not voicers. Schopp, Pearson and Zajic were supremely talented reed voicers. But once in a while one individual comprised them all. George Michel of Kimball perhaps came close and, in the author’s judgment, Charles McManis fits this image.

In any revolutionary epoch, change in an established industry comes slowly and sometimes from the outside. American organbuilders, badly shaken by the lean years of the Great Depression and World War II, were to some degree insular, isolated and ingrown. On balance they were reluctant to abandon existing practices and slow to adopt new and untried techniques with unknown consequences. Voicers, trained in-house on high-pressure, wide-scale stops of 8-foot pitch, scarcely comprehended the new generation of flues and reeds. They and their superiors had been disinterested in historic instruments, American and European, which they viewed as antiquated and obsolete. But they could not ignore the revolutionary changes around them, and some firms wisely brought in outsiders--men like Richard Piper at Austin and Franklin Mitchell at Reuter--who were listening and eager to apply their ideas to new stoplists.

At the close of World War II, the demand for organ work far exceeded the supply of qualified people. Factories enjoyed lengthy backlogs and were hard pressed to meet production schedules. Service firms comprised primarily older men, former employees of firms who had failed in the Great Depression--for example, Syl Kohler in Louisville (Pilcher) and Ben Sperbeck and Milton Stannke in Rock Island (Bennett). Honest and hard working, they can best be described as mechanics; few had either voicing experience or any concept of a modern chorus or ensemble. This afforded an opportunity for a newcomer, a young man who had listened carefully, had a firm conviction of what pipe sound should be, and had acquired the voicing skills to bring the sound of a pipe to the tone quality he desired.

Jerome Meachen writes:

A native of Oklahoma City, I studied organ with Dana Lewis Griffin, a student of David McK. Williams at St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church on Park Avenue in New York City, and then enrolled at Oberlin College where my teachers were Leo Holden and Grigg Fountain. Holden was a 19th-century organ teacher--Rheinberger, romantic, and very happy with the E. M. Skinner organ in the chapel. His whole approach to organ playing was: “write down the fingering I give you and the registration I want you to use.” It was a very dry--and I felt antiquated--approach. In contrast, Fountain said: “select your own registration from what you hear, we will discuss it and you defend it.” This was essential to broadening my understanding of organ music and what I wanted to develop in my own touch on the instrument. While at Oberlin I practiced on the Johnson organ at Christ Episcopal Church in Oberlin courtesy of Arnold Blackburn, also on the Oberlin organ faculty. This awakened me to the beautiful voicing of this builder. Of course northeast Ohio was Holtkamp country. When I began studying with Fountain, my last two years, he had just obtained a Holtkamp at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Cleveland. While I was fascinated with the sounds of this instrument, I found it ear-shattering. I well remember one Saturday afternoon when I was practicing at St. Paul’s. Walter Holtkamp came in, climbed up on the Swell box and said play full organ. He just reveled in the volume, but I found that sort of sound excruciating.

A milestone in my career was a recital at Oberlin by Ernest White. I was fascinated by his approach, non-legato, in contrast to legato, which was the basic style at Oberlin. Legato evolved because of the acoustics organists had to deal with in American churches. Nothing happened after you took your finger off the note so you had to pull everything together.

After graduating from Oberlin I enrolled in the School of Sacred Music at Union Theological Seminary in New York City, where I arranged to study with Ernest White, then an adjunct faculty member. We shared a common interest in repertoire and liturgy. White had me listen to orchestral recordings of Mozart and commented: remember, “Bach was a violinist as well as an organist.” Bob Clark, another graduate student, and I found White way ahead of his time in non-legato sound, which broadens your understanding of the organ. This is the sound one finds in Europe and what we were striving for in America. Working with White was working with the literature and developing the capacity to do his particular style of non-legato in terms of liturgy, the Anglican approach and plainsong. This was very enlightening to me. I was fascinated by White’s approach to playing the studio organ at St. Mary the Virgin, the second studio instrument, this one by Möller. His technique was a detached sound, like the ringing of bells. Unfortunately, the voicing was so loud it was difficult to listen to. This alerted me to the distinction between intensity and decibels, a key distinction in my thinking. I was also intrigued by the design of the organ, which had a 32’ Cornet using individual stops and two Swell boxes providing two ensembles. This inspired the use of separate swell boxes and couplers for flues and reeds at St. John’s. My admiration for Johnson continued when I practiced on their instrument at the Mott Haven Dutch Reformed Church in the Bronx while at Union.4

Charles McManis writes:

As a pre-teenager in Kansas City in the 1920s, with my parents I often rode the streetcar to Independence Boulevard Christian Church to hear Sunday afternoon recitals by the legendary Hans Feil on the four-manual, 1910 Austin organ. In the 1930s while I was a student at the University of Kansas, I spent summers and holidays working with Peter E. Nielsen, a local serviceman, tuning and rebuilding pipe organs. Two of these instruments were Johnson trackers from the 1880s.5 They were especially impressive and were to influence fundamentally my concept of voicing.

Enrolling as a liberal arts major at the University of Kansas in Lawrence I became a student of University Organist Laurel Everette Anderson, an Oberlin master’s graduate who then studied for three years in Paris with Joseph Bonnet. He taught the legato method, and emphasized proper turning of phrases and making real music out of notes. He greatly expanded my knowledge of the pipe organ and emphasized nuances of color and singing quality in organ voices. Following graduation with an A.B. degree in 1936 and having already set my sights on becoming an organbuilder, I obtained a Mus.B. at KU in 1937, which required my playing an hour-long recital from memory. The thought occurred to me that I might be the first organbuilder who could play more than “Yankee Doodle” on what he had built.

I began my organbuilding career with a shop in the basement of my parents’ home. I rebuilt three organs and built one new instrument. My Opus 2, 1939--electrifying and adding nine ranks to a 1910 tubular-pneumatic Kilgen--is still playing in the Central Christian Church in Kansas City, Kansas. Then, having learned of his growing prominence in the organ reform movement, I apprenticed with Walter Holtkamp in Cleveland for a few months, eager to learn from him. I assisted with the installation of a three-manual Holtkamp organ at Olivet College in Michigan. It had Great and Positiv slider chests, but the Swell had ventil stop-action for want of sufficient space for a slider chest. When I compared the sounds of slider chest pipes and those on the ventil chest I was surprised to find that I could hear no difference. Walter’s instruments were visually well designed and beautiful to look at but, frankly, I was disappointed with his ensemble sound and tone quality. The voicing lacked a certain richness of tone. In checking Holtkamp pipes I noticed that he nicked only on the languids and not on the lower lips. As a result, pipes occasionally tended to emit an abnormal squeaking sound. He was not interested in building a truly classic organ as much as building a distinctive Holtkamp organ. In retrospect I find that I employed very few of Holtkamp’s ideas in my later work. Based on my background in music, I wasn’t hearing in his organs the sounds I wished to hear in my own instruments.

Following the attack on Pearl Harbor and the U.S. entry in World War II, I enlisted in the Army. Prior to shipment overseas my outfit was stationed at Camp Kilmer, New Jersey, for a few days. I went on pass to New York City to hear G. Donald Harrison’s new Aeolian-Skinner in the main sanctuary of St. Mary the Virgin Episcopal Church. This was my first acquaintance with mixtures and upperwork, which Laurel Anderson had talked about at KU, but which were conspicuously absent in the Austin organ in Hoch Auditorium there. Then, as a chaplain’s assistant, I was stationed in Europe where I took every opportunity to play and inspect European instruments. I remember, in particular, the famous Cavaillé-Coll instrument in the church of St. Ouen at Rouen, which inspired Guilmant’s Eighth Organ Symphony. This was the first time I had seen a five-rank mounted cornet and reeds with sunken blocks in the boots.6 After the war I returned to Kansas City, Kansas and set up shop again. On one occasion, being in New York City, I attended a recital given by Ernest White on his new Möller studio organ at the Church of St. Mary the Virgin. I left at intermission because the organ was painfully loud. In my voicing I try to make a rank of pipes only as loud as needed to ping the tone off the walls, blowing only hard enough to fill the room at the desired volume.7

Jerome: Following graduation from Union, I was appointed organist/choirmaster at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Waterbury, Connecticut. When we went looking for a new instrument to replace the 1869 Hook & Hastings, I wasn’t enamored with the sounds of Holtkamp, Möller, Schlicker and Austin, and mentioned my dilemma to my good friend Bob Clark, whose judgment I valued. He was organist at the Peddie Memorial Baptist Church in Newark, New Jersey, where my wife was soloist, having the best-paying solo position in the area, while I was at Union. He said, “Why don’t you check with Charles McManis, who builds organs that sing and don’t shout.” When I learned he was in Danbury, Connecticut, I went down to get acquainted, and we hit it off immediately.

Charles: In the early 1950s I became acquainted with Robert Noehren through our writings in The Diapason and The American Organist magazines. I worked for him on the Hill Auditorium Skinner in Ann Arbor, and built a new organ for Frankenmuth, Michigan, where he was the consultant. When he was named consultant on the Johnson at Emmanuel Lutheran Church in Danbury, Connecticut, whose organist had been his student at Michigan, I was called in. My strong feelings concerning Johnson flue pipe voicing began during my apprenticeship days in Kansas City. I discovered that diapason pipes mouth-blown very gently, then increased to full volume, had scarcely any change in pitch. Volume was regulated at the toe hole, not by opening the flue. In contrast, classical open toe voicing regulated volume at the mouth, which I found totally inadequate. I revoiced the 8-foot Principal, increasing its richness of tone, primarily by opening the toes and, to a lesser degree adjusting the mouths. Jerry and I connected as musicians, no doubt in part because I too had a degree in organ. We both agreed on what we didn’t like. I obtained the contract for the St. John’s, Waterbury, organ (see photo and stoplist) in part because Parvin Titus was the consultant. The St. John’s rector, Rev. John Youngblood, had been a curate in Cincinnati, knew Mr. Titus and trusted his judgment. Also, I had built the new instrument for the Second Church of Christ, Scientist in Dayton, where Titus also had been the consultant.

Jerome: The Johnson sound was already in my head, not only from Oberlin, but from the fine Johnson in Mott Haven Dutch Reformed Church in the Bronx, where I first practiced when I went to New York. I explained that we were looking for intensity not decibels in organ sound, colors and ensembles that sing. Charles showed me what he was doing. It was soon obvious this was just the ticket for us. These initial impressions were confirmed when my wife and I visited St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Kansas City, Kansas, and heard for the first time a complete McManis instrument. All the voices were exquisite; the 8-foot principal was a well-supported, big baritone sound. Having worked in training choirs at an early age, striving to blend individual voices, I found in the lovely individual voices of this organ an exquisite ensemble and chorus.

Charles: When Jerry came to Kansas City, the mixtures and ensemble sounds on the Great and Swell at St. Paul’s were what really got to him. The voices together on each manual resulted in contrasting sounds but very much related. We talked at length about voicing and drew up a specification for a three-manual instrument for St. John’s. (See specification.) I also discussed what I had done in reworking old pipes and changing pitch. This was very important because in the 1869 Hook & Hastings at St. John’s a number of old ranks were reworked.

I first saw Waterbury after Meachen returned from Kansas City, and was dismayed to find dry acoustics and such terribly large scales in the Hook & Hastings. The only principal stop I could use was the 16-foot on the Great, which would work well in the Pedal division. We were able to cut down and revoice a number of 8-foot stops; for example, the 4-foot principal on the Swell had been an 8-foot violin diapason. If the scale and mouth treatment were correct, the desired sound would follow.

Let me quote from my forthcoming autobiography to explain the tonal philosophy of this instrument: “The classic Werkprinzip theory of terraced manual pitches had not yet hit the AGO cocktail hour conversation when Jerry and I drew up the design for Opus 35 (St. John’s Church Waterbury, CT) on that Sunday afternoon. Submitted to organ consultant Parvin Titus, he heartily approved of the design, but suggested inclusion of the rather outstanding Oboe from the 1869 H&H. But back to the Werkprinzip! While numerous other stops are needed in each division, the backbone is the Principal chorus, as shown below:

I:              Great     8’ Principal       11/3’      Mixture

II:            Swell    4’ Principal        2/3’       Scharf

III:          Brustwerk           2’ Principal        1/3’       Cymbel

Pedal     8’ Principal       11/3’     Mixture

For purposes of contrapuntal clarity, the Pedal chorus should be the same pitch as the Great, plus suitable 16’ underpinning. Polyphony does better without the growl of a sub-octave mixture cluster.”

After the tornado hit downtown Waterbury in July, 1989, heavily damaging the St. John’s organ, I replaced 35 ranks of pipes including replacement of the Brustwerk Singend Regal with a brass Krummhorn and substitution of a Swell 4’ Clarion for the earlier 4’ Krummhorn. Also, the 32’ extension of the Pedal reed was linked to the Posaune instead of the Contrafagotto.

Jerome: Another factor which impressed me about the McManis was its compatibility with what I call a theatre sound by which I mean, it had to dance. In the theatre organ you had a detached pedal and a strong emphasis on the melodic line when you are thinking bass line and melody. This is why I was very comfortable doing figured bases. It was non-legato; it was instrumental. When you were featuring the posthorn, you were quite willing to detach it. My father loved theatre organ, so from the time I started playing, I developed something of a theatre style. Searle Wright, the well-known organist at St. Paul’s Chapel, Columbia University, also did a great theatre style.

Charles inspired my definition of intensity because he viewed the entire instrument as a whole. In a three-manual you could draw the principal and mixture on each division, couple them together and you had a basic ensemble evoking a very intense, rich but not very loud sound because you didn’t have to fill in and thus did not have an awful lot of stops working. Thus the concept of full organ was very discriminating; the full organ piston didn’t bring on everything. You are dealing with colors and when you put everything on you end up with brown or gray. And with a tremolo on each division if you wanted to cantus firmus you could do it anywhere in the instrument.

This instrument fulfills my belief in the theological aspect of an organ. With my developing interest in liturgy I was very much aware of the person in the pew. I hold that the organ must be people-friendly, in support of congregational singing whether it be chant or hymnody. Surrounding rather than hitting the congregation with sound--making a joyful noise, not just a noise. Charles spoke of attending a recital on the Möller practice organ at St. Mary the Virgin in New York and finding it so loud he left after the first half of the program. I agree. White offered me a chance to practice on that organ but I told him I would be using only one or two stops so I might as well practice on the chapel organ. The sound was so high in decibels I couldn’t hear it.

Redeemer and Manatee

This paper has focused on the St. John’s organ. Those at Redeemer Episcopal Church and Manatee Community College continued the fundamental practices in the philosophy of McManis and Meachen. They also reflected modifications and forward thinking in their approach, as did the rebuilding and restoration of St. John’s in 1989.

At Redeemer in Florida, the former ten-rank Möller, with its subsequent addition of nineteen Aeolian-Skinner ranks, was skillfully integrated into the 67-rank new instrument. In place of the 16’ Quintaton on the Great, they chose a 16’ Gemshorn mounted on the chancel wall, extended to an 8’ Gemshorn and a 4’ tapered flute in a seamless tonal progression. The Great and Positiv exposed chests were equipped with toeboard expansion chambers to increase richness of tone.

The 49-rank Manatee Community College organ was installed in Neel Auditorium at the point of a pie-shaped building on a 35-foot shelf at the back of the stage. In an obviously “werkprinzip” layout (see photo, page 20), in a variety of shapes, it was enclosed in a mahogany case. The 16’ Pedal Principal exposed at the center hid the movement of Swell shutters behind. To its left were the lower notes of the 16’ Subbass and 16’ Posaune; to the right, the pipes of the Hooded Trumpet and more Subbass metal pipes. To the far left in the left façade was the Great 8’ Principal, and to the far right the 4’ Positiv Principal in the façade. Roofs of the façades differed but all were related to the focal point mentioned above.

The Manatee Great included a 16’ Gemshorn, all the usual 8’ and 4’ stops, plus a normal 11/3’ Mixture, a 2/3’ Acuta, and an 8’ Trumpet. The Swell mixture was a 1’ Scharf and the Positiv had a 1/3’ Cymbel. The thoroughly adequate Pedal division included a 32’ Dulzian and the usual 8’ and 4’ ranks. As would be expected, the Pedal mixture lowest pitch was 11/3’, but pipe scales were larger than those of the Great Mixture.

Summary

The above dialogue illustrates the way in which the concept of organ sound in the mind of an organist and soon-to-be builder begins with formal study of the instrument and is heavily influenced by the instructor and his experience. With this background, they are then prepared to compare and contrast a wide variety of sound in determining their own definition of it: for Meachen and McManis, a singing sound. It also argues that the ultimate test of the voicer’s art, be it Johnson or McManis, is the 8’ Diapason found on the Great, a belief shared by organists and builders for many years.

In an article in The Diapason, based upon his lecture to the AIO Convention in Pittsburgh in 1977, McManis explains the details of flue voicing and the practices of Tannenberg, Gratian, Kilgen, Hook & Hastings, Johnson, Wurlitzer, Estey (William E. Haskell), Cavaillé-Coll, and Kimball.8 This paper, now considered a classic, together with the recognition of his peers in his selection as instructor in flue voicing at a seminar of the American Institute of Organbuilders, established him, in the author’s judgment, as one of the finest flue voicers of the twentieth century.9

Charles passed away, at age 91, on December 3, 2004 in South Burlington, Vermont. Providentially, he and his wife Judith had just completed his autobiography. It contains vivid recollections of personalities and detailed descriptions of his instruments in a sixty-year career that spanned the arc of the postwar history of organbuilding in America. This priceless volume is scheduled to be published by the Organ Historical Society in 2005. It will find a prominent place on the shelf of every organist, organbuilder and organ enthusiast.

For research assistance and critical comments on drafts of this paper, the author gratefully acknowledges: Gene Bedient, Jerry Dawson, Charles Eames, Donald Gillette, Albert Neutel, Barbara Owen, Michael Quimby, Elizabeth Schmidt, Jack Sievert and R. E. Wagner.

Ann Labounsky, Ph.D., is Professor and Chair of Organ and Sacred Music at the Mary Pappert School of Music, Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Author of Jean Langlais: The Man and His Music, she studied with André Marchal and Jean Langlais in Paris from 1962–1964.

Performance artists are most often remembered after their deaths through the compositions that they leave behind. Organ students learn to play works written by J. S. Bach or Franz Liszt, César Franck or Marcel Dupré, Olivier Messiaen or Jean Langlais; and thus their names and their works live on from one generation to another. For the rest, great performers are remembered during the lives of audiences who heard their memorable performances—great teachers, through the lives of their students.
David Craighead, legendary organ performer and now retired professor at the Eastman School of Music, has often lamented about the fleeting nature of fame. Some, like Arthur Poister, are remembered principally through competitions named for them, as in the Poister competition sponsored annually by Syracuse University where he taught; but even now, a few short generations after his death, there is included in the competition application a biographical sketch telling of his life and work.
For very many, there is no immortality of memory. In the words of the hymn: “Time, like an ever-rolling stream, soon bears its sons away. They fly, forgotten, as a dream dies at the opening day.” It is a sad dictum that those who do not compose most often decompose without leaving a mark on succeeding generations.
There are exceptions, of course. One thinks, for example, of opera singer Enrico Caruso or conductor Arturo Toscanini, great artists whose names continue to resound with their successor performers and audiences beyond specialists in music history. In those cases, they were people who transcended the limitations of the performance practices of their day, and thus left the arts they served transformed forever. For organists, the name André Marchal, the thirtieth anniversary of whose death is commemorated in 2010, must be added.

Marchal’s legacy
There are reasons for which André Marchal will be remembered as a transformational figure in the history of organ building and organ performance. He had an important impact on the organ reform movement in France, and subsequently in America—an influence that is only now beginning to be understood.
In particular, he influenced the Neo-classical style of organ building and aesthetics, through his association with the French organs of Victor Gonzalez. These instruments, in turn, influenced the aesthetics and registration practices of later twentieth-century French organ composers such as Langlais, Duruflé, Alain, and Messiaen. At the same time, Marchal was a forerunner in the formation of the performance practice now common today, especially in the interpretation of earlier organ works.

Life
André Marchal entered the world at the end of the French Romantic era and lived until 1980. He was born without sight to middle-class parents in Paris, February 6, 1894. Both his father and grandfather noticed his musical talent at a very early age and encouraged his study of the piano.1 At the age of nine he enrolled at the Institute for the Young Blind (Institut National des Jeunes Aveugles–INJA) in Paris, where he studied organ with Adolphe Marty, and harmony with Albert Mahaut, both students of César Franck.
At the age of seventeen he entered Gigout’s organ class at the Paris Conservatory, obtaining first prize in organ and improvisation two years later. In 1915 he succeeded Augustin Barié as organist at Saint-Germain-des-Près. In 1917 he received the Prix d’excellence in counterpoint and fugue at the Conservatory, in the class of George Caussade. Four years later he was hired as an organ teacher at INJA, where he continued to teach from 1919 until 1959. He succeeded Joseph Bonnet as organist at the Church of Saint-Eustache in 1945, where he remained until 1963.

Recital career
His long and distinguished career as an organ virtuoso began in 1923, when he gave the premiere performance of Vierne’s Fourth Symphony, with the composer present, at the Paris Conservatory. Two years later, he followed with his second public performance at the Salle Gaveau in Paris. In 1927 he toured in Belgium, Switzerland, and Germany. Again, in 1928, he gave the premiere of a work by Vierne, this time the third suite of his Pièces de fantaisie.
In 1930, he made his first tour of the United States, having no assistance from a guide and without any knowledge of English. (It was through Arthur Quimby—a student of Nadia Boulanger, and Curator of Musical Arts at the Cleveland Art Museum, who had heard Marchal perform in Paris—that the first tour was arranged.) At the Cleveland Art Museum, he played ten recitals of the music of
J. S. Bach. Seth Bingham, who taught at Columbia University, welcomed him in New York City, where he performed an improvised symphony in four movements at the Wanamaker Auditorium in New York City.2 This was followed with recitals in Chicago and in Canada. In 1938 he gave 30 concerts in the United States and Canada.
After World War II he performed in London at the Royal Festival Hall in the presence of Queen Elizabeth. On that occasion he met the English journalist Felix Aprahamian, who became a close friend and accompanied him on the tour to Australia in 1953.
His concert career spanned half a century; between 1930 and 1975 he made 19 trips to the United States to perform and teach.3 His importance as a teacher drew students from many parts of the world to study with him in his home or at INJA. It should be noted that his first American student, Lee Erwin, who made a career as a theatre organist, came to study with him just prior to his tour in 1930 and was responsible for the first recording on his house organ. His recordings, which also spanned over four decades, likewise have had a continuing impact on organists throughout the world.

André Marchal and the Organ
Reform movement
The Organ Reform movement (or Neo-classical movement as it is called in France) began in the 1920s in Germany and France, spreading to the United States in the 1930s. Albert Schweitzer was a pivotal originator. In France, it was realized primarily through the work of three men in tandem: the performer and teacher, André Marchal; the noted historian and musicologist, Norbert Dufourcq (1904–1990); and the organbuilder, Victor Gonzalez (1877–1956).

Victor Gonzalez
Victor Gonzalez, who was originally from the Castile region of Spain, began his career with the firm of Aristide Cavaillé-Coll, where he became their chief voicer. He then worked for the firms of Gutschenritter and Merklin. In 1929, after declining to assume leadership of the Cavaillé-Coll firm, he established his own firm with the help, encouragement, and financing assistance of Béranger de Miramon Fitz-James, founder of Association des Amis de l’Orgue, together with a group of de Miramon’s friends. Gonzalez’s first organ was built in 1926 for the home of Béranger de Miramon, followed the same year by an organ for the parish church in Ligugé. By 1937 there were 50 employees at the firm who worked to rebuild the Cavaillé-Coll organ at the Palais de Chaillot, and in the following year to renovate the organs at the Versailles chapel and the Cathedral of Rheims.
From 1929 until 1936, Rudolf von Beckerath worked for Gonzalez on restoration projects for organs in Saint-Eustache, Saint-Nicolas-des-Champs, Solesmes, Bailleul, the Goüin residence, and the world’s fair in Brussels in 1935, prior to founding his own firm. Though the Gonzalez name is no longer in use, he was succeeded in the business by his son, Fernand Gonzalez, and then by his son-in-law, George Danion. Fernand Gonzalez, who was killed in World War II, was responsible for the design of the Palais de Chaillot. After his death, Bernard Dargassies was charged with the maintenance of most of the Gonzalez organs.4
In 1931 Victor Gonzalez built an organ for the Condé estate of Joseph Bonnet.5 Gonzalez built this instrument very much in the Cavaillé-Coll style of that time, with two enclosed divisions, the usual plan for his house organs. He departed, however, from Cavaillé-Coll by adding a three-rank mixture on the Swell and a series of mutations. The romantic Merklin organ at Saint-Eustache, which was rebuilt by Gonzalez, and the Gonzalez organ from 1934 in the home of Henry Goüin are landmark examples of the wedding of early music to the recreated sounds of early instruments.6 These instruments included many mutation stops and mixtures, which allowed authentic performances of early music. Under the influence of Marchal and Dufourcq, Gonzalez became the leading builder in France for half a century.

Collaboration with Norbert
Dufourcq
Norbert Dufourcq’s collaboration with Marchal began in 1920, when he became Marchal’s organ student after studying for three years with Gustave Noël at the Cathedral in Orleans. Two years after beginning his organ study with Marchal, Dufourcq became principal organist of Saint-Merry in Paris, a post that he retained until his death in 1990. Dufourcq earned a degree in history from the Sorbonne (1923). In 1927 he was one of the founding members and secretary of Association des Amis de l’Orgue. Between 1932 and 1983 he was a member of the organ division of Commission of Historical Monuments. From 1941–1975 he served as professor of music history at the Paris Conservatory. (He also taught at the Collège Stanislas, Paris, from 1935 to 1946.)
During the years 1941 to 1975 Marchal performed many concerts in which Dufourcq provided the commentary. A gifted musicologist and persuasive public speaker, Dufourcq was able to give a poetic overview of the pieces performed, so that the uninitiated listener could follow. His mellifluous voice and the frequent use of the imperfect subjunctive case were noteworthy. Included in the commentaries was a series of eight concerts, entitled The Great Forms of Organ Music, with genres including prelude and fugue, toccata, chaconne, canzona, passacaglia, the chorale, partita, and fantasia. These recitals continued and included symphonic music and program music.
By 1933, Marchal and Dufourcq had become the leaders of the French national committee for the oversight of historic organs throughout France: the Commission des Monuments Historiques under the minister des Beaux Arts. Many of the nineteenth-century Cavaillé-Coll instruments, and earlier instruments by Clicquot, which were under the control of this commission, had fallen into disrepair and required renovations. This circumstance gave the commission the opportunity to rebuild those organs using the ideals of the Neo-classic design that Marchal, Dufourcq, and Gonzalez favored. Their work could be seen in the restorations at La Flèche, Saint-Gervais, Saint-Merry (where Dufourcq was organist), Les Invalides, the cathedrals of Auch, Soissons, and Rheims, the Palais de Chaillot, and the new concert organ in the French National Radio Studio 103, among many others. Many of the foundation stops were replaced with higher-pitched ranks and the reeds re-voiced. Marchal recorded on many of these instruments in the 1960s.
Influence on the Holtkamp Organ Company
This three-part collaboration among André Marchal, Norbert Dufourcq, and Victor Gonzalez, which affected the Neo-classical organ movement in France, subsequently came to the United States through the work of both Walter Holtkamp, Sr. and his son Walter Holtkamp, Jr., who wrote:

André Marchal came to the microcosm that is the Holtkamp Organ Company soon after World War II. While he had been in this country prior to the war, it was not until after that he brought his many talents to us with such marvelous results…. Both my father and I traveled to many cities of our country to sit with André Marchal at the console to evaluate our instruments. He would play and discourse upon the merits and demerits of that particular organ. From every encounter we came away with a new perspective of our work and our ideas.7
A transcript of one of these conversations with Marchal and the two Walter Holtkamps, Senior and Junior, which was recorded following a Marchal recital on the Holtkamp organ at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Cleveland, on May 10, 1957, gives an example of how the Holtkamps relied on Marchal’s advice regarding voicing:
WH (Walter Holtkamp, Sr.): André, we heard last night no 16′ Principal or 8′ Pedal Octave. My son and I would like to go to St. Paul’s and have a lesson on the use of the 16′ and what is lacking in this one.
AM (André Marchal): Your 16′ Principal is too large. There is too much gap in dynamic between the 16′ Subbass and the 16′ Principal. It is too big to be used without the reeds, and when the reeds are on the Subbass does just as well as the 16′ Principal.
WH: Perhaps this is a result of the 16′ Principal being placed against a stone wall rather than in the buffet as in the French organs.
AM: No, I noticed this same character at Baltimore, where the 16′ stands in the open. This is true on all your organs. The 8′ Pedal Octave is also too loud at St. Paul’s, Oberlin, Berkeley, Baltimore.
C (Walter Holtkamp, Jr.): I would like to know Mr. Marchal’s idea of the relationship as to loudness and quality between the Great 8′ Principal and Pedal 8′ Octave.
AM: In theory, the Pedal 8′ should be larger in scale than the Great 8′, but in use I really like the Pedal 8′ to be a little milder than the Great 8′. It could be a little more flutey.8

It is possible that Walter Holtkamp, Sr. heard Marchal’s series of ten recitals of the music of J. S. Bach at the Cleveland Museum of Art in March of 1930. In August of 1956, Walter Holtkamp, Sr. and Walter Blodgett, Curator of Musical Arts at the Cleveland Art Museum, drove to Methuen to hear Marchal play during the Summer Organ Institute, organized by Arthur Howes, and again the following year to hear him perform and record on the Holtkamp organ at MIT. Along with Fenner Douglas, in the early 1960s Walter Holtkamp and Walter Blodgett traveled to France to study the historic instruments there, including many by Gonzalez. In later years Marchal performed and taught frequently on Holtkamp organs at Syracuse University and Oberlin College. (Despite his love of Holtkamp organs, he often spoke of the similarity between the American builder G. Donald Harrison’s reeds and the French reeds that he loved.)

Giuseppe Englert
The composer Giuseppe Englert, another of Marchal’s students, who in 1954 married Marchal’s daughter Jacqueline, served as translator for the Holtkamps and Marchal during Marchal’s tours to the United States and the Holtkamps’ trips to France. The Englerts’ apartment in Paris, across the street from Les Invalides, was home to a Gonzalez organ, with a similar design to one in Marchal’s home. Maurice Duruflé admired this instrument and was inspired by it for the specification for the Gonzalez instrument in his own apartment. (The organ in Marchal’s home was originally a Gutschenritter, which was enlarged by Gonzalez.)

Marchal and performance practice
In the early 1920s Marchal continued to play in the style he had been taught by Gigout, a uniformly legato touch and a non-interpretive approach to the music of Bach and the Romantic composers. Gigout followed the tradition of the Lemmens school, learned from Widor and Guilmant. During his study of the music of the early masters, in preparation for a series of recitals of early music in 1923, Marchal rethought his approach to technique and interpretation. He was the first, in 1929, to play the two complete Masses of François Couperin. In an interview with Pierre Lucet for a series of recitals on the French National Radio in 1979, Marchal explained the process by which he changed his approach to early music and the organs upon which it could be performed:

Pierre Lucet: Maître, permit me to inquire first of all about your approach to the music of Johann Sebastian Bach:
Marchal: It [his approach] was made at two times. I was admitted to the Conservatory and at that time I listened to what was told to me, I learned technique; I was greatly in need of it. And it was from that point of view that I studied Bach. Ten years later [1921], in establishing my repertoire, I began to concertize, and relearned Bach in a completely different manner. This time I studied each piece in depth, trying to understand it in the best way possible; and having assimilated it, I tried to bring out the beauty of each piece by certain ways of playing; for example, the phrasing, the breaths, the registration. Obviously, at that time, there were few organs on which one could register well the music of Bach; we were still in the full Romantic period. But one could still look for lighter stops, clear in any case, which would permit the beauty of Bach’s counterpoint to emerge.
After having obtained my prize in organ [1913], while continuing to play the organ I worked a great deal on piano. Paul Braud, a student of Franck, took an interest in me. I became then more oriented toward the piano, which permitted me to know more music and to play more chamber music. I worked relentlessly . . . I purchased a small mechanical organ to practice my repertoire. It was at that time [1921] that I really tried to express Bach. My colleagues said: “Marchal? He plays the harpsichord”—and that was almost true, since my interpretations that were closest to what I hoped them to be were like the marvelous ones of Wanda Landowska on her harpsichord.9

This process of searching for the appropriate style for early music and the instruments that would bring it to life continued for him through the early 1930s, when he gave a series of recitals of early music on Neo-classical instruments built by Gonzalez. After 1930, Marchal played very differently from his teacher, Gigout, and the other blind teachers from INJA. It was as if he grasped the essence of the music from within himself. His style was powerful, lyrical, and always convincing. His personality was also very strong. There was a radiance about him and a “joie de vivre” that came through in every piece that he played.
His touch was a radical departure from the 19th-century seamless legato that was carried on by Marcel Dupré and his predecessors. He had an infinite variety of touches. By the 1940s Marchal had become one of the most popular performers in France. The public related easily to the musicality of Marchal’s playing and to his vibrant personality. It is not surprising that such a different style—full of authentic poetry and lyricism—would win the hearts of the French public as well as those from other countries. It must also be said that with him and all the other blind organists, there was also something captivating at seeing a blind person being led onto the stage and then left alone to play the instrument, no matter how large, completely independently. When one contemplates the style of playing during the 1920s through the 1950s, which was completely dominated by the legato Romantic style, what is utterly amazing is this new, radically different sound and interpretation. Begun by Marchal, it was later adopted by Marie-Claire Alain and others.
Guilmant and Pirro, in the monumental Archives des Maîtres de l’Orgue, 1897–1910 (volumes 1–10 available online), made available for the first time, at the end of the 19th century, the music of Couperin, de Grigny, Clérambault, and many others. Although Guilmant and Pirro recommended the use of the Cornet registration, their grounding in the 19th-century style of playing and registration prevented them from recommending for this early music a complementary early style and registration. Likewise, the six volumes of Joseph Bonnet’s Historical Organ Recitals series, published between 1917 and 1940, continued the same style of playing and registrations. Bonnet’s role in the movement, however, should not be ignored. He was intensely interested in early music but played it in the manner that he had been taught by Guilmant.
Although he had substituted for his teacher, Eugène Gigout, as organ teacher at the Paris Conservatory, Marchal was never connected to any school in France except at INJA and the summer school of Nadia Boulanger in Fontainebleau. Nonetheless, so many students requested Fulbright grants to study with him, that by the 1950s he agreed to be referred to as a school himself. In America, many other organists fell under his influence through the many masterclasses he gave at Oberlin College, Syracuse University, Union Theological Seminary, Northwestern University, the universities of Illinois and Indiana, the Eastman School of Music, and the Organ Institute in Methuen.

Marchal’s recordings
In the release on CD (Arbiter, 2003) of his first recordings, originally recorded between 1936 and 1948 at Saint-Eustache and the Goüin residence, one can easily understand Marchal’s interest in early music and in the type of instrument that would be well suited to the music of earlier periods. The lyricism, so unlike the usual style of playing during the 1940s, was notably displayed in his performance of the Bach chorale prelude O Mensch bewein dein Sünde gross. His use of free trills, so unlike the measured trills found in the playing of his contemporaries, was quite a departure from the traditional style of playing.
The subtle rubato in all the playing is striking. In the Bach Passacaglia and Fugue, the phrasing of each variation gives life to the great work. The articulation of the pedal line and the variety in the registrations gives much interest to the form of the piece. What is compelling in all of his playing is the strength of the rhythm, especially noticeable in the fugue of this work. While listening to his performances, one senses that it should not be performed otherwise, that it is right.
What we understand today of the stylus fantasticus can already be heard in Marchal’s opening performance from 1948 of Buxtehude’s Prelude and Fugue in F-sharp Minor. There is considerable contrast between the free sections and the fugal sections. His personality comes alive in his commentary for demonstrating each stop, with brief improvisations that give fine examples of this style of organbuilding. The Blow Toccata in D Minor brings out the bass in the reed registers with great clarity. Listening to these improvisations on the individual sonorities of the Gonzalez house organ in the Goüin house gives a clear picture of this aesthetic: a Neo-classical organ that, in America, we would call an eclectic organ.
Other recordings include:
Chefs d’œuvres pour orgue de J.S. Bach “10 de répertoire” en 1989. Zurich, Grossmünster 1964. MUSIDISC 203412 AD 650.
Orgues et organistes français du XXè siècle (1900–1950) by EMI Classics (2002) as well as Jeux et registrations de l’orgue, Improvisations, Toccata de Gigout, Final de la 4ème Symphonie de Vierne, Apparition de l’Eglise éternelle de Messiaen, Choral dorien de J. Alain, Saint-Merry, 1958 et 1976. EMI Classics, 1 CD, 71716 2 (1997), Saint-Merry et Saint-Eustache.
The Organ Historical Society website lists the two recordings available through Arbiter (135 and 111) with these annotations:
The works by Buxtehude, Bach, Blow, Purcell, Sweelinck and Vierne were recorded by André Marchal (1894–1980) in April 1948, on the organ at St. Eustache in Paris, then a Merklin which had been rebuilt by Victor Gonzalez in 1927–32. In 1936, the Pathé firm released a 12-disc set entitled Three Centuries of Organ Music from which Marchal’s performances of Cabezon, Santa Maria, Landino, and Palestrina are taken. These first recordings of these early works are performed on an organ designed especially for early music and completed in 1934 by Victor Gonzalez at the home of Henry Goüin in Paris. Marchal also demonstrates the organ stop-by-stop, and narrates his demonstration. Available on Arbiter-135.
Arbiter 111 is described:

This unique CD reissues the 1956 stereo recordings made by André Marchal on his 3/28 house organ built by Gonzalez. The fidelity of the recording is unusually fine, capturing Marchal’s way with 12 of the Bach Orgelbüchlein, BWV 603–612, 614–615, and Toccata, Adagio & Fugue in C, BWV 564. There are no revelations here for most of us, and the organ is located in an anechoic environment. The CD is a must for Marchal fans, who will revel in his spoken description and demonstration of the organ.
Although more difficult to locate, it is possible to find in libraries the Lumen recordings of Franck and early French music (Grand Prix du disque 1952); the Bach large fantasies and fugues by Ducretet Thomson; the Clérambault recordings at Auch Cathedral, by LDE 3231; many of these recordings contain the commentaries by Norbert Dufourcq. The Unicorn recordings from MIT (UNLP 1046–1048) of Bach and early French music on the large Holtkamp organ there from the 1950s are excellent.
Marchal’s Complete Organ Works of César Franck, originally released by Erato, has been reissued by Solstice ([email protected]). This recording was awarded the coveted Diapason d’Or. There are many unpublished recordings (some from Syracuse from 1960s, and two recordings from his last American tour in 1974 at the Church of the Assumption in Bellevue, Pennsylvania and in Rochester, New York) as well as many given on the French National Radio.

His teaching and legacy
His system of teaching usually began with having the student play a chorale prelude from Bach’s Orgelbüchlein. He usually heard a piece only one time giving all his ideas in the one lesson. For the early French music he did not use “notes inégales” during the 1960s, but by the 1970s he realized that this was, in practice, the style of this music, and adopted its use. His mind was always engaged and he heard every phrasing and nuance. His use of agogic accents to bring out the shape of a phrase was notable. Above all, he made each part sing independently of the other voices regardless of the period in which it was written. He was demanding especially with his more gifted pupils, desirous that each one achieve his/her highest potential.
His influence is continued not only in the legacy of performance practice and organbuilding. A number of publications and prizes have appeared since 1980: a thesis by Lynn Trapp at the University of Kansas (Lawrence, 1982), “The Legacy of André Marchal;” “Tribute to André Marchal” reprint of the L’Orgue Dossier I in 1997, with the addition of tributes by many American students who did not have the opportunity to be included in the original document; and prizes at the biennial Marchal competition in Biarritz.
The Académie André Marchal was founded in Biarritz, France in 1982 by Denise Limonaire to perpetuate the memory of this musical giant, his innovative style of performance, his neo-classical influence on organbuilding, and his rediscovery of early music. Susan Landale serves as president of the Académie, with Jacqueline Englert-Marchal as honorary president. Among other projects, the Académie has partnered with the town of Biarritz to sponsor the “Prix André Marchal,” an international organ competition with prizes in interpretation and improvisation. The competition is held every two years and has grown in quality and size. The ninth competition, held in 2009, accepted eighteen candidates of twelve nationalities. Americans desirous of supporting this valid and significant mission are strongly invited to become members; dues of $80 for two years may be mailed to Ralph Tilden at P.O. Box 2254, Banner Elk, NC 28604. André Marchal awards are given at Duquesne University, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, for excellence in organ performance.
His impact as a teacher was important. His blind students who obtained the first prize in organ at the Paris Conservatory included: André Stiegler, 1925; Jean Langlais and Jean Laporte, 1930; Gaston Litaize, 1931; Antoine Reboulot, 1936; Xavier Dufresse, 1952; Georges Robert, 1953; Louis Thiry, 1958; Jean Wallet, 1963; Jean-Pierre Leguay, 1966 (who had studied with both Litaize and Marchal). Two other pupils who obtained the first prize who were sighted were Noëlie Pierront, 1925, and Anne Marie Barat, 1976.
His other pupils included Corliss Arnold, Linda Clark, Craig Cramer, Philip Crozier, Alan Dominicci, Norbert Dufourcq, Giuseppe Englert, Lee Erwin (the first American pupil before 1930), Robert Eshenour, John Fenstermaker, Philip Gehring, Emily Gibson, Lester Groom, Jerald Hamilton, Ruth Harris, William Hays, Allan Hobbs, Howard Jewell, Elna Johnson, Margaret Kemper, Ralph Kneeream, Suzanne Kornprobst, Marilou Kratzenstein, Charles Krigbaum, Ann Labounsky, Susan Landale, David Liddle, Denise Limonaire, Robert Lodine, Alan Long, Robert Sutherland Lord, Chamin Walker Meadows, Kathryn Moen, Earline Moulder, Margaret Mueller, Arsène Muzerelle, Lois Pardue, Garth Peacock, Stephen Rumpf, Daniel and David Simpson, Robert Sirota, Rev. Victoria Sirota, Carl Staplin, Roger Stiegler, Edith Strom, Haskell Thompson, Ralph Tilden, Parvin Titus, Robert Judith Truitt, Marie-Antoinette Vernières, Gail Walton, Nicole Wild, and Mary Alice Wotring.

Influence on subsequent
composers
His influence on subsequent composers such as Langlais, Duruflé, Alain, and Messiaen in their approaches to organ registration is likewise important to this reflection of André Marchal upon the 30th anniversary of his death. Jean Langlais studied organ with Marchal at INJA and at his home and was influenced by the work of Gonzalez in these two venues, as well as the organ at the Palais de Chaillot, where he performed his first symphony in 1943. His choice of the Schwenkedel organs of Neo-classical design, which he installed in his home and at the Institute Valentin Haüy, next door to INJA, shows this influence. The stops that he added to the organ at Sainte-Clotilde in 1962 included a Larigot 11⁄3′ on the Positif, a Prestant 4′ and Clairon 2′ on the Récit, and a Prestant 4′ and Doublette 2′ on the Pédale.10
The many Neo-classical registrations in his pieces likewise show this influence. For example, even the titles of a number of his pieces refer to these types of registrations: Dialogue sur les mixtures (Suite brève, 1947) and all the movements of Suite française (1948), which are based on titles found in classical French organ music such as Prélude sur les grands jeux and Contrepoint sur les jeux d’anches, and Suite baroque (1973).
As I have already mentioned, Maurice Duruflé often visited the home of Giuseppe Englert to study the specifications and dimensions of the Gonzalez organ, which inspired him for his house organ, also built by Gonzalez. Englert’s house organ was based on the specifications of Marchal’s house organ.11 In Duruflé’s organ works, even starting with the Scherzo from 1926, his registrations depart from the normal 19th-century models.
Marchal and Jehan Alain’s father, Albert Alain—an amateur organbuilder—were close friends and worked together on ideas for the specifications for their house organs. Similarities can be seen in the specifications of each.12 When Marchal had built his organ with a rather classic Positif, Albert Alain wanted to do the same thing.13 Jehan Alain’s first experiences of organ music in his home were influenced by the aesthetics of Marchal and Gonzalez. Jehan Alain and Marchal enjoyed playing and improvising together in Alain’s home. A very early work, Variations sur un thème de Clément Jannequin, demonstrates registrations that call for Neo-classical stops as well as the recall of early music in the title of the piece. Another work of Jehan Alain, Le Jardin suspendu, calls for a typically classical French stop, the Gros Nasard 51⁄3′ on the Positif. Marchal was among the first organists to perform Alain’s music, including Litanies, Variations sur un theme de Clément Jannequin, and Danses à Agni Yavishta, and had them transcribed into Braille notation.
Olivier Messiaen was also influenced by the Neo-classical trends in France. He changed the Cavaillé-Coll organ at La Trinité, where he was organist from 1930 until 1991, to include many mutation stops that were not part of the original specification. Even his earliest organ work, Le banquet céleste (1928), is a departure from the normal registration practices of the period, including Flûte 4′, Nasard 22⁄3′, Doublette 2′, and Piccolo 1′ for the pedal line. As he continued to compose, his works called more frequently for higher-pitched sonorities, often to imitate birds. One could say that it was a far cry from D’Aquin’s imitative harpsichord piece mimicking the cuckoo, but these sounds were all part of an interest in both the future and the past.

Conclusion
It is time to re-evaluate André Marchal’s contributions to the organ reform movement in France; his impact on organbuilding in the United States, particularly in his relationships to Walter Holtkamp and Walter Blodgett as well as Fenner Douglas; and his influence on the leading organ composers of the 20th century: Langlais, Alain, Duruflé, and Messiaen. In light of the development of early organ techniques and the number of publications that have been published and used in the thirty years since his death, it is time to listen again to Marchal’s recordings with a discerning mind and ask where his place is in the development of performance practice.
One certainly hears a wide variety of touches in all his playing. What was his “ordinary” touch? What were the main differences between his style and that of Joseph Bonnet, Alexandre Guilmant, and Marie-Claire Alain? Robert Noehren admired the sensitivity of his touch both on tracker and electric actions. It is also time to re-evaluate his influence on organ building; for example, in the composition of the Plein jeu mixture, which reserved the breaks until after middle C to enhance the clarity of the polyphonic line, and his use of different mixtures for each polyphonic composition that he performed.
Consider, too, the changes in the organ registrations in the music of Duruflé, Alain, Messiaen, and Langlais as compared to many other composers of the 20th century. The required foundations plus reeds on each manual, as a given for organ registration, changed as a result of Marchal’s impact on the Neo-classical organ in France. There is, indeed, much to ponder.
Perhaps Norbert Dufourcq, who was the most eloquent of his collaborators, best expressed the essence of his artistry:

André Marchal seemed to have found by himself the sources to which he probed the depths of his rich and attractive personality: the discovery of the works of the French organists of the 17th and 18th centuries, that of the complete works of Bach (he played almost all of it), of Cabezón, Frescobaldi, Buxtehude . . . It was for André Marchal to penetrate the secrets of a page of music, to discover the tempo, in searching the phrases, in marking the strong pulses, the weak pulses, without ever breaking the melodic line nor the polyphonic structure, without ever losing a rhythm which gave a work its forward motion, its line. One has praised the sensitivity of the Maître. It is better perhaps to speak of his sense of poetry.
To this static but mysterious and majestic instrument, he knew how to assure a poetic and lyric “aura” that he insisted on creating in a convincing phrasing with thousands of details in a style made more subtle by the use of minimal retards; of suspensions slightly brought out or by the imperious accents thrown into the center of the discourse. Goodbye to the inexpressive and neutral legato, André Marchal sought to impose on his instrument a suppleness with the use of imperceptible tensions—jolts of the soul—which did not stop. It is in this that he transformed the lens of the entire school of the organ, in France as in America . . . Under his fingers the organ no longer preached in an impersonal manner; under his fingers, the melodies rushed into the nave to touch the heart of each person. But it was never he who descended upon us. It was us, whom he seized with love, and attracted us to him.14 ■

Some 250 lovers of pipe organs and pipe organ music gathered in Michigan in early August for the 40th Annual National OHS Convention. They came from across the entire United States, Canada, and such faraway places as Finland and Australia. The elegantly comfortable Campus Inn in the heart of the University of Michigan served as headquarters for a busy week of recitals on 37 old and new organs, four lectures, a carillon recital, and the customary camaraderie and fun that always accompany OHS events.

Sunday

The events of the opening day took place only a short walk from our beautiful headquarters. It has become a tradition to include one vintage theater organ in the lineup of each OHS convention, if possible. Kicking things off this year was an enjoyable program by Scott Smith on the brash and sassy 1927 Grand Barton Theater Organ, located in the restored opulence of the Michigan Theater. To those expecting the sumptuous, booming warmth of a Wurlitzer of the same period, this keen, edgy instrument without booming bass was a surprise. Nonetheless, it is a fascinating and versatile organ, full of intriguing effects. Beginning with The Victors, "the most well-known song associated with the University of Michigan," according to the program notes, and ending ever so cleverly with the encore Another Opening, Another Show from Kiss Me, Kate, Mr. Smith's leisurely program and relaxed style nicely demonstrated the numerous resources of the restored instrument.

The fine carpenter Gothic-style interior and sympathetic acoustics of the First Congregational Church several blocks away provide an agreeable setting for a 1985 three-manual Karl Wilhelm organ, one of two Wilhelm organs featured during the week. Recitalist Larry Visser played a program of works by Bach, de Grigny, Pepping, and his own compositions with ample facility and energy. His own Four Chorale Preludes on "Lobe den Herren," imitating specific well-known organ chorales of Bach, was a hit with the audience and served to demonstrate this mild and pleasant eclectic tracker instrument. OHS conventions are noted for the exceptionally robust, bass-dominated congregational singing of a hymn with every organ. It was unexpected that the light tonal palette of this large, perfectly placed but polite instrument was all but obscured by the forceful rendering of "All Creatures of Our God and King." Having released this initial burst of pent-up energy, the group later evidenced some degree of sensitivity to just how each organ and player "invited" them to sing.

Following the short stroll back to the Campus Inn, the group enjoyed air conditioned relief from the heat and humidity while listening to a fascinating lecture by Professor James O. Wilkes. A colorful Renaissance man, Wilkes is a professor of chemical engineering at the University, an organist and Associate of the Trinity College of Music in London, and the author of the notable book Pipe Organs of Ann Arbor. In much too short a time, he regaled us by zipping through a wide variety of information on pipe construction and sound production, including along the way several imaginative visual demonstrations of the movement of the air in pipes. Utilizing pipe, cardboard, and candle, Professor Wilkes showed us that air does not come out of the top of an open pipe and that initial speech involves air being sucked into the mouth momentarily, before being blown out.

The First United Methodist Church directly across the street from the tall, glass-fronted lobby of the Campus Inn was the site of our next recital, where we found a large 1958 Reuter organ which incorporates ranks of pipes and other parts from the church's 1940 Kimball. Mary McCall Stubbins, organist of the church for 53 years (!), put this congenial instrument through its paces with a program of Couperin and Bach transcriptions and original organ pieces by Sowerby, Titcomb, Doane-Whitworth, and the comic Pantomime by Harry Benjamin Jepson. For the hymn Ms. McCall Stubbins selected words by T. Herbert O'Driscoll, set in 1971 to the great old marching tune Ebenezer (Ton-y-Botel). It was a curious occurrence indeed when this assembly of highly "traditional" church music enthusiasts and practitioners blithely belted out, "Let my people seek their freedom in the wilderness awhile, from the aging shrines and structures, from the cloister and the aisle." Would this not include seeking "freedom" from traditional churches and their pipe organs? Good heavens!

After dinner we purposely sought no freedom from the evening recital, gathering resolutely in the pews, not the aisle, of the First Baptist Church for what turned out to be an electrifying performance by the "aging shrine's" organist Janice Beck. At the outset we experienced a slight mishap with the hymn: Ms. Beck was only one of several performers during the week whose version of the hymn did not match the one printed in the conventioneers' "Hymnlets." (Future convention committees, please take note.) Nevertheless, this gifted and experienced artist continued unfazed and opened her recital program with a secure and compelling performance of the Bach E-flat major Fugue. For this reviewer the most riveting and memorable moments came in Night Song and Ostinato Dances by Pamela Decker, a long and involved work ending in a frenzied Stravinskyesque dance demanding the utmost in energy, precision, and virtuosity, qualities Ms. Beck possesses in abundance. Three of Rayner Brown's airy Papillons, depicting specific butterflies, contrasted nicely with the Decker, as well as with William Bolcom's sweet Just As I Am and the closing three works by Vierne. Ms. Beck is to be congratulated on programming one of the more interesting and appealing of the convention's 37 recitals. The organ for this recital is a large 1966 Robert Noehren instrument with precisely 26 ranks of mixtures and a bass "foundation" consisting of one light 16' Subbass. Yet it still makes sense and works well in many contexts.

Monday

At the annual business meeting of the Society, Executive Director Bill Van Pelt announced that the Allen Company had recently given all the historical records of the M. P. Moeller Organ Company to the OHS for its American Organ Archives. This enormous acquisition contains information about one-tenth of all the organs built in the Western Hemisphere! An appeal was made for special funds to help deal with storing these materials properly and safely. Convention Coordinator Alan Laufman called our attention to the 1996 Convention in Philadelphia and the 1997 Convention in Portland, Oregon, and then announced the 1998 Convention in Denver.

Following the meeting, organ historian Michael Friesen began turning our thoughts to the past with his admirably articulate lecture on Michigan organbuilders of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Utilizing a good variety of slides, he covered much ground in the short time allowed and displayed his diligent research on the subject.

Then we boarded our fleet of four comfortable, modern coaches for the hour-long trip into Detroit and the first of what OHS conventions are principally about: recitals on antique instruments. At our first stop, the Martyrs of Uganda Roman Catholic Church (formerly St. Agnes), Susan T. Goodson played a solid program of standard repertoire by Zipoli, Franck, Vierne, and Mendelssohn on the intelligible and civilized Casavant of 1924. The large, handsome, Gothic-style building, with its magnificent, jewel-toned windows and generous acoustics, proved to be only one of many such churches we would see in Detroit: what a delightful surprise for those of us from more "mundane church" areas of the country! And it was good to see the areas around this and other churches coming back to better health following the riots of 1968 and the subsequent decline. These grand and venerable architectural treasures are being preserved, in some instances are being gorgeously restored, and especially are being used. The lunch prepared by our hosts at the church, featuring "African-Detroit" cuisine, was a veritable banquet, resoundingly applauded.

Not far away we entered Sweetest Heart of Mary Roman Catholic Church with gasps of awe. This splendid building, with its rows of grandiose marble columns marching into the horizon while supporting an ever-blue "heaven" above, is breathtaking. The first order of business was the first of the week's presentations of Historic Organ Plaques. The OHS presents these plaques in recognition of an organ's exceptional historic merit. The plaque is intended to be held by the organ's owner in trust for the OHS as long as the owner preserves the organ in a manner compatible with the guidelines of the Society. Through the years this program has encouraged the proper preservation of hundreds of worthy historic organs. In Sweetest Heart of Mary Church the instrument is an 1894 Clough & Warren which has the distinction of being the second organ (indeed, the first extant organ) to employ Mr. John T. Austin's invention, the Austin Universal Wind Chest System. Recitalist Kathleen Scheide presented careful, sensitive readings of less familiar repertoire by Liszt, Sowerby, and Paine, and included her own Partita on "Old Hundredth." The forceful instrument, with its "big room of air" under the pipes, served these pieces well.

Following a brief ride over to St. John-St. Luke Evangelical Church, the group came upon yet another fantastic sight: an "illuminated light-bulb church." The fanciful carpenter Gothic-style interior of 1874, together with the front-and-center G. F. Votteler organ of the same date, was wired for electricity "in a state-of-the-art fashion" in 1916 under the direction of a parishioner who was an executive with Detroit Edison. Hundreds of light bulbs outline balconies, arches, pulpit, and even the pipe flats and pinnacles on the elaborate Gothic-style organ facade. This carnival atmosphere was heightened by the momentary dimming of the whole shebang every so often, as well as by one bulb on the organ facade that kept blinking in apparent response to vibrations within the case! The instrument has a surprising steely and thin sound for the period, but organist Stephen Schnurr, a last minute substitute for another recitalist, made us forget this fact with his amazing prowess: within two weeks' time he learned the previously scheduled organist's entire program, including Dudley Buck's formidable Concert Variations on "The Star-Spangled Banner." None of these pieces had he ever played before, yet he learned and performed them for us with aplomb. This feat did not go unrecognized by the appreciative crowd.

From this "enlightened," yet cold sounding instrument, we were taken to what was one of the more lovely, cohesive organs of the week: the 1867 Andreas Moeller (no relation to M. P. Moeller) in Most Holy Trinity Roman Catholic Church, another beautifully restored Gothic-style edifice with kindly acoustics. The organ has undergone much rearrangement and restoration throughout its history and is undeniably lovely in its present form. Recitalist Dudley Oakes began his engaging program with a charming duet (with organist and conductor Joanne Vollendorf) by the obscure 19th-century composer Josef Labor. Following the premiere of the gentle Reflections by our Australian/ Canadian/Floridian OHS colleague Gordon Atkinson, who shared the week with us and performed for us on our Saturday tour, Ms. Vollendorf conducted a quite competent string quartet for a performance of Handel's Organ Concerto, Op. 4, No. 4. Mr. Oakes found suitable and delightful sounds to balance the four strings for a festive, uplifting conclusion.

From here we bused to Ste. Anne's Roman Catholic Church for dinner and our evening recital. Just when we thought we could not possibly see another church larger and more breathtaking, we entered into this huge, "High Victorian Gothic" nave, dazzlingly decorated with much gold gilt, the enormous stained glass windows splashing their late afternoon rainbows over myriads of white and gold pinnacles and carvings. After dinner, organist Barry Turley presented the 25-stop 1887 Granville Wood & Son/1940 Casavant rebuild organ, an instrument of coolly aristocratic, even suave nature, in a varied program of Bach, Pinkham, the lovely Dubois Offertoire, Stanley Weiner, and Reger. Turley's secure, expressive, well-paced playing, together with the dignified instrument speaking optimally into such wonderfully reverberant acoustics from the rear gallery, combined to create a most moving performance of Reger's profound Fantasie on "Wachet auf." The traditional afterglow in the Campus Inn back in Ann Arbor gave the energetic a convivial time to chat about the wondrous sights and sounds of the day, as well as to browse through the astonishing selection of CDs for sale from the OHS shop.

Tuesday

Westward, ho! Our coach convoy through this green and pleasant land soon arrived in attractive Battle Creek, where the group headed for the Art Moderne W. K. Kellogg Auditorium with thoughts of breakfast cereal uppermost on many minds. However, after another Historic Organ Plaque presentation, organist Larry Schou very soon got our attention with his program on Ernest M. Skinner's 1933 "last showcase instrument built at Aeolian-Skinner." Unfortunately Mr. Schou chose to play a straight program very straight, using basic prescription registrations for various French and American 19th-century romantic pieces, rather than using the huge and wonderful organ in its intended, highly colorful orchestral manner to present appropriate repertoire. It was only in Edwin H. Lemare's transcriptions of two popular songs, albeit rather mundane works in Lemare's enormous output, that the true magic of the organ began to shine through. The unique performance practice associated with the fantastic orchestral organs of 60-75 years ago has been largely ignored and forgotten in most organ teaching departments. It takes the likes of such modern orchestral organ poets as Tom Murray, Fred Hohman, Lorenz Maycher, or Tom Hazelton to remind us of what we're missing. Generally, knowledge of and appreciation for such organs and the enchanting style of performance that they facilitate are now waxing, which is good news. But it is a style still very rarely taught and mastered. This style requires of the player an imagination at once soaring and tasteful. It also demands courage to deviate from historic registration prescriptions and well-known rules. These are not classic instruments, and they rebel at being treated as such, keeping their unique magic a secret to be unlocked only by those whose vision encompasses that uncommon territory.

Next we headed out to the town of Hastings for a visit with the 1867 J. H. & C. S. Odell in Emmanuel Episcopal Church. The instrument, once located in and voiced for another church where it stood nobly free in a rear gallery, is now severely impacted in a chancel chamber behind a heavy, three-foot-thick arch; consequently it sounds imprisoned and remote. This aural effect works strongly against the listener's involvement in all but the dreamiest of music. Here it served to detach many of us from William Lee Elliott's apparently stylish performance of Bach's Partita on "O Gott, du frommer Gott" and Dubois' Toccata. What to do with such an installation? Aside from soft nocturnes and meditations, chamber music collaborations with other instrumentalists or singers could have been a path to success.

Lovely Ionia was the site for the next three recitals. The spacious, resonant Saints Peter and Paul Roman Catholic Church is a perfect home for the mellow yet clear and balanced Lyon & Healy organ of 1900. This little organ makes a big sound, and it served Marijim Thoene's program based on medieval chant extremely well. It was enthralling to hear the chants sung by a good ensemble of women's voices before the Codex Faenza and Tournemire organ selections. After these and the beautiful Prélude au Kyrie from Hommage à Frescobaldi by Langlais, it came as a jolt that our hymn was Dan Schutte's ever so pop and ubiquitous "You Are Near" before Ms. Thoene continued the recital with eloquent works by Petr Eben and Persichetti--sort of a Tootsie Roll between the Duck à l'Orange and the Baked Alaska!

Moving to the First Christian Church, surely our most colorful venue thus far with its yellow and green windows, teal carpet, red choir loft curtain and upholstery, white-gold-back facade pipes, and a very blue ceiling over all, we heard the chipper playing of Dennis Janzer. Here the hearty 1893 J. W. Steere & Sons organ, generous in scale and full-bodied in tone, is most successful in the dead acoustic. Although this Steere seemed to buck the player a bit in some of the quicker movements, the premiere of Janzer's Suite No. 1: Celebrations and Reflections for Organ (Op. 9) was quite impressive. The last two movements: Exultant Dance--"Heaven be Praised!" and Soliloquy are standouts.

At the First Baptist Church we encountered one of the more elegant and patrician of the convention's organs--Hook & Hastings Op. 1538 of 1892. Hearing this little instrument reminded us of the preeminence of this great Boston organbuilding company. Matching the organ in style was young Justin Berg, a sophomore at Aquinas College in Grand Rapids where he studies with William Elliot. Mr. Berg played a varied program of eight short and appropriate pieces beautifully, including Thomas P. Ryder's amusing The Thunder Storm amongst works by Zeuner, Bach, Bristow, Brahms, Zundel, Ritter, and Thayer. Hearing such budding talent demonstrate so very well such a fine old organ was one of the more encouraging events of this, or any, convention.

For the evening recital we traveled to University Lutheran Church in East Lansing, where organbuilder and convention chairperson Dana Hull has installed a most successful version of an S. S. Hamill organ of 1866. Greatly rebuilt and enlarged, it still tonally evokes its heritage. And it looks spectacular! Here we were treated to the finished, international concert-quality playing of Deborah L. Friauff. Using largely standard repertoire, she wove appropriate musical magic in works by Pachelbel, Franck, Mendelssohn, Alain, and Bach, displaying her ample virtuosity and mature control of rhythm, phrasing, and musical style. Her performance of Jiri Ropek's Variations on "Victimae Paschali Laudes" was a highlight of the convention, as was her gripping Bach G minor Fantasy and Fugue. This last was only slightly marred by a dominant-note cipher during the last 10 or so measures--a most lucky note indeed, if it had to happen, for the final measures of a long and great work and performance!

Wednesday

This was our North/Northeast day. After riding through the idyllic countryside north of Ann Arbor, we came to Lapeer, where we were warmly welcomed to the Church of the Immaculate Conception and heard local public school and church Music Man Joseph Dobos demonstrate the 1905 Hinners organ. This little ten-stop instrument, with its truly liquid, lovely flutes, its crisp, bold principals, and its smooth string (no reeds) is a paradigm of successful organ design for a small village church at the turn of the century (and still today). Mr. Dobos' energetic playing was quite convincing in Ballet des Matelotz by Praetorius and later in collaboration with the very gifted student trumpeter Brock Blazo.

After more rural touring, we found in the Cass City Presbyterian Church a gentle, silvery, absolutely elegant little one manual and pedal organ assumed to have been made by Henry Erben in 1865. Fortunately for us the greatly talented organist and pianist Thomas Brown was selected to play this gem, and he provided us with a memorized recital containing some of the more masterful playing of the convention. His Haydn clock pieces and his Arne Introduction and Fugue from the First Concerto reflected the 18th-century lineage of this organ exactly, while delighting us with his profuse musical inventiveness and brilliant technical acrobatics.

Another gem of a later and different sort charmed us in St. John's Episcopal Church in Sandusky. For those familiar with the work of M. P. Moeller only during the last 40 years or so, this little 1898 M. P. Moeller tracker of 4 manual stops and one pedal stop was a surprise. The instrument is at once hefty and gentle: it fills the room with clear, warm, supportive, embracing sound that never tires the ear. Throughout the diverse, engaging program by organist Anita Hanawalt and flutist Karen Cahill, parishioner and "organ curator" Alex Paladi calmly and silently watched the wind indicator on the side of the  case and gently raised the bellows as needed, providing ample, living wind. Thanks again go to Dana Hull for the loving and lovely restoration.

Following a long trip to Marine City and dinner at Holy Cross Roman Catholic Church, we gathered with great expectation in the church to hear the evening recital on the opulent and grandiose 1861 E. & G. G. Hook Op. 300, as devotedly and carefully renovated and enlarged by George Bozeman in 1976. Organist Timothy Huth, having not the best of nights, succeeded in showing off the exceptionally transparent yet cohesive plenum for counterpoint in Bach's B minor Prelude and Fugue. The gorgeous, unsurpassed Hook flutes, the august, classic rosiny diapasons, the exquisite, piquant Oboe, the full-bodied yet radiant chorus reeds, and the awesome Pedal Open Diapason 16' that imparts incomparable grandeur to the whole, did not fail to thrill those who have come to love the work of the Hook brothers. What we all suspected is unquestionably true: the Marine City Hook is a great organ.

Thursday

As a welcome relief from bus travel, James Hammann opened Thursday with an incisive and entertaining lecture on the "Development of the Orchestral Organ." Terming the orchestral organ "a homophonic cul-de-sac on a long polyphonic highway," Dr. Hammann set his listeners straight on the nature and importance of this much misunderstood and maligned type of organ. This heightened our anticipation for hearing another E. M. Skinner masterpiece on Friday at the Jefferson Avenue Presbyterian Church in Detroit, where Dr. Hammann was once the organist.

In the vicinity of Ann Arbor we soon arrived in the village of Dexter to hear Mary Ann Crugher Balduf perform on the truly exquisite little 1857 Henry Erben at St. James' Episcopal Church. This multi-talented lady matched the elegant nature of the organ with a well chosen and arranged program of miniatures impeccably suited to the instrument and lovingly and expertly dispatched. Then with a gentle word and the clever ploy of asking the treble voices to lead off, she also succeeded in getting these normally overly-energetic hymn singers to tone themselves down to match the dulcet tones of this five-stop instrument: consequently the tiny instrument and gifted player could guide and support us wonderfully throughout "Watchman, Tell Us of the Night" sung to Aberystwyth.

From this precious, delicate experience, we were whisked off to the University of Michigan School of Music for an expert performance by John Brock on the celebrated Fisk 1985 "copy" of the 1718-1721 Silbermann/Hildebrandt organ in St. George's Church, Rötha, Germany. As one prominent conventioneer put it, "At first I thought that it really wasn't too loud after all, but then he turned on the mixtures!" Overly aggressive mixtures and chiffing, clicking principals or not, Mr. Brock very ably and stylishly displayed a great variety of sounds in Baroque works by Muffat, Böhm, and Bach. Having played the original Silbermann (Can we possibly be certain that it sounds "original" today, especially following the 1833 repairs, the 1935 repairs, the war damage, and the 1947 restoration by Eule?) in the rather intimate, carpeted, pew-padded, non-reverberant Rötha church a few years ago, this reviewer distinctly remembers his surprise and delight at the absence of chiff in the principal and flute ranks: subtle tonguing attack, yes; chiffing and chonking, no. Thankfully today we're again seeing a trend amongst leading organbuilders towards more refined pipe speech than was the practice during the 1960's, 70's and 80's.

The afternoon was given over to hilarity as the inimitable Jane Edge and her Victorian Nonet Songsters donned costumes for a program of Victorian Gems. The Victorian interior of St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Ypsilanti, with its 1949 Holtkamp incorporating parts of an 1875 E. & G. G. Hook and Hastings, was ideal for this event. Shall we ever forget the above-mentioned Madame Crugher Balduf, in enormous antique hat and flounces, leading off in Harry Rowe Shelley's heart rending anthem Hark, Hark, My Soul? There was scarcely a dry eye as later the histrionic Madame, in deep throated contralto, over enunciated the telling, yet poignant words "o-f    s-i-n" in Mrs. M. S. B. Dana's pathetic Flee as a Bird. As expected Mrs. Edge provided witty and perfect organ accompaniments.

From this we emerged to hear Vance Harper Jones on the bold Barckhoff organ of 1905 in the First Congregational Church several blocks away. Though housed in a chamber, the modest instrument sounds full and big, smooth and clear in the intimate, dry room. The bluesy Balm in Gilead by Joe Utterback was only one of six utterly unknown works played, the last involving a little routine with a comic Uncle Sam hat. Whether the frivolity of these programs was the result of careful calculation or happenstance, it was the perfect tonic for the traditional Thursday-afternoon-slump that invariably occurs in OHS convention weeks.

After the delicious evening banquet at the beautiful Michigan League on campus, we and everyone else on campus were treated to a carillon recital by Margo Halsted and Donald Traser on the great carillon in the university's Burton Tower. A quick trip up the elevator brought many of us into direct contact with this enormous instrument as it was being played. And we organists think our instruments are big and powerful!

Then followed what was for many the highlight of the convention: Professor Robert Glasgow's masterful performance on the famous Aeolian-Skinner behemoth in Hill Auditorium. Recently refurbished and provided with a new combination system, reliable key action, and a piston sequencer (liberally used throughout the recital), this organ can certainly astonish and satisfy those in love with the biggest. The program of four works, Marche Funèbre et Chant Séraphique by Guilmant, Arioso and Pageant of Autumn by Sowerby, and Fantasia and Fugue on The Chorale "Ad nos, ad salutarem undam" by Liszt showed the best of everything: a superlative, mature, world-class performer on an enormous and superior instrument he thoroughly understands, performing fine, appropriate literature with consummate insight and virtuosity, poetry and passion. Although excessive heat and humidity in the un-airconditioned hall may have taken a minor toll on note accuracy in some of Liszt's more treacherous passages, the audience was effusive in its resounding praise. Thankfully personal preferences of taste and style, as well as petty comparisons and fault-finding, largely disappear at such a grand event; the eminent artist communicated the music in an extraordinary way, and the audience realized it was the fortunate recipient of something quite special.

Friday

By this time in the week the troops began to shake down to the intrepid and ardent, but the Friday and Saturday crowds were gratifyingly large this year. Agnes Armstrong, an authority on Félix-Alexandre Guilmant, gave an interesting lecture on this great concert artist, composer, and teacher, leading nicely into her mid-morning recital of Guilmant works at Cass Community United Methodist Church in Detroit. In this much-stressed structure exists the largest unaltered nineteenth-century organ in Michigan, a three-manual Johnson & Son instrument of 1892. Although barely playable, Ms. Armstrong succeeded in showing its present "dark brilliance" in a program including three works played by Guilmant himself on this very organ in 1898. OHS members in the Detroit area, including organbuilders Dana Hull and David Wigton, announced that they have "adopted" this great instrument for further care and love. It is a treasure, and it was exciting to see the OHS at work once more making a struggling congregation aware of the worth their neglected organ.

From here we were taken to the immense and imposing Old St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church to see builder Wigton's magnum opus. David Hufford's expressive and virtuosic playing was a more than able match for this massive and most impressive French-style instrument. The inclusion of a small chamber choir singing the entire Fauré Requiem with organ accompaniment as the major portion of the program resulted in a small disappointment in this particular venue, for it meant that Mr. Hufford had time for only two short organ works, the Hymne d'Action de grâce, "Te Deum" by Langlais, and the opening movement of Widor's Sixth Symphony, to show off what must be a myriad of riches in this organ. Regardless of the pleasant choir and the splendid playing of Mr. Hufford, one was left with a sense of frustration at not hearing much more of this impressive, unusual organ.

We then bused out to Grosse Pointe Farms, only a few miles distant but in reality a world away, to hear an elegant Klais organ of 1989 at The Grosse Pointe Memorial Church (Presbyterian). David Wagner, one of seventeen of the week's recitalists who studied at the University of Michigan's organ department, managed to give us a good sampling of the colors in this large, first-rate German tracker, unfortunately set in a dry and unflattering acoustic. Immediately after this we moved down the road where Mr. Wagner gave us a too short demonstration on the 1986 Wilhelm organ at St. Paul's Roman Catholic Church, an organ more satisfying than the Klais to many, probably due to the fine, lively acoustics. Here great excitement ensued when one of our coaches got stuck halfway into the church driveway and half out into a busy, four-lane roadway. There being no immediate remedy for this predicament, despite some amusing antics involving a Jeep and a chain, we consolidated and went on our way with one-third of the group standing in the aisles of the remaining buses.

The imposing Jefferson Avenue Presbyterian Church welcomed us for a delightful dinner and a concert on the famed 1925 E. M. Skinner masterpiece in the soaring Gothic-style church. After a miscue to the audience as to when to begin singing the opening hymn, organist JanEl B. Gortmaker proceeded to play the entire Vierne Third Symphony without an audible wrong note. Such perfection is so unusual that it is satisfying in itself, but when it is coupled with an intelligent, rhythmically controlled, beautifully phrased, polished projection of the musical ideas behind the notes, it becomes really memorable. The only negative aspect here was the intense disappointment felt by some that the anxiously awaited organ demonstration did not fully materialize: that the magical orchestral effects inherent in this celebrated organ went largely unheard. By-the-book registration of standard European organ literature did not begin to explore this wonderful organ thoroughly. Even worse, it led to some abuse of the high pressure/high decibel reeds, with concomitant abuse of the audience's ears. Whether an organ comes off as beautiful, magical, poetic, mighty, and grand, or whether it is perceived as overbearing, opaque, crass, or vulgar is perhaps more dependent on the organist's refined sense of sound and registration with such an orchestral organ than with possibly any other kind of organ. One of the week's lessons, that orchestral organs demand a special and non-traditional approach, was now thrice taught.

An hour later we were back in Ann Arbor for James Kibbie's recital on the brand new 1995 Orgues Létourneau tracker at St. Francis of Assisi Roman Catholic Church. This large, modern "worship center" has recently been redone to feature an admirable acoustic for worship and music which compliments this rather bright, pleasing, essentially neo-Baroque organ nicely. Even the chiffy flutes are convincing in such an environment. Dr. Kibbie, the organ consultant for this project, must have liked it, for he played to the large crowd, including many parishioners and other townspeople, in the stifling heat from memory with confidence, fine style, and, in the main, musical success. His program of great standards was spiced by the inclusion of the beautiful Nigerian Prayer: "Oba a ba ke" by Fela Sowande, an African musician who lived and worked in this country for many years before his death in 1987.

Saturday

Nearly a week after the start of the convention, three busloads of us were still going and going. This year's convention was atypical in its inclusion of so many modern organs, and this day we were treated to four more. Our first stop was St. John Neumann Roman Catholic Church in Canton, another modern "worship center" that unfortunately is not a pleasant home for the David Wigton 1993 "rebuild and enlargement" of an 1885 Carl Barckhoff organ. Enough of this instrument has been altered so as to make the original not readily recognizable. Nonetheless, it is an affable organ with a contemporary sound and visual appearance. Organist Brian DuSell's program of Bruhns, Bach, Gigout, Albright, and Vaughan Williams exercised the instrument completely, especially the pedals in Albright's ever popular Jig for the Feet.

Our next stop at Zion Lutheran Church in Detroit, home church of our convention chairman Dana Hull, served up a host of delights. Many of us were amazed at the rich English Gothic-style interior and the scent of incense of this "High Lutheran" parish. Sitting in a transept was a current Hull project: the ongoing restoration of a mid-nineteenth century Robjohn chamber-size organ in an absolutely exquisite rosewood case. Finally, from the rear gallery, it was a great treat to hear the crystalline and surprisingly refined 1932 Vottler-Holtkamp-Sparling organ, including its mysterious Ludwig Tone 8', a uniquely beautiful flute celeste. Gordon Atkinson played an unusual program, including Little Suite for Organ by English composer Martin Ball, which was commissioned for this recital.

At St. James' Episcopal Church in Grosse Ile we were graciously hosted by a large group of parishioners to a lovely picnic on the grounds, with the refreshing river views and park-like setting reviving our flagging spirits. Inside the old chapel building organist Edward M. Schramm played an unexpected program on the 1987 Charles Ruggles tracker, a little organ with a big, big sound. The successful realization of Reger's Introduction and Passacaglia on this 13-stop instrument caused no small degree of astonishment.

It was fitting that the two final scheduled events of the convention featured two venerable and "grand" instruments from the past. At Pilgrim Church back in Detroit Elgin Clingaman offered a well-played recital on an 1889 Granville Wood & Son organ, a very grand sound indeed in a very dead acoustical environment. Bless them, they didn't let dead acoustics deter the creation of true grandeur way back then in the olden days! Just start with a huge 16' Double Open Diapason of wood in the pedal, and the rest would follow naturally. Fascinating parts of this recital were the three works of the Belgian nineteenth- century composer Joseph Callaerts. The increasingly wearied, even jaded, group appreciated particularly his winsome Scherzo, Op. 31.

The opulent, mellow, smooth, rich tonal magnificence of the 1892 George Jardine and Son organ down the street in Trinity Episcopal Church then beckoned, and ignoring tired ears, off we trotted. This wonderful organ, installed far from optimally in a chancel chamber with a small facade and the key desk in the transept, gives the lie to the mandate that rather low-pressure trackers must be free-standing to be successful. Again, those good old guys really did know how to fill a room with sound, whatever the challenge! Here Joanne Vollendorf appeared for the second time and gave an engaging program of music by women composers, from Fanny Hensel-Mendelssohn to Frances McCollin. Ms. Vollendorf's musical playing brought a fitting conclusion to a truly outstanding week for many of the participants.

But not to let the evening "go to waste," an extra post-convention tour had been organized only a week or two previously, and an amazing two bus loads of dauntless enthusiasts plowed forward. Were we ever hugely rewarded! Two glorious churches, two scintillating organs, and a superb recitalist awaited us.

At Fort Street Presbyterian Church, a superb Gothic-style building with a true wonder of a hammer-beam truss ceiling, the organ is plastered across the entire front of the building in an exuberant fantasy of black walnut pinnacles and white, gold, pink, and taupe painted pipes. Here we were met by recitalist Thomas M. Kuras, a formidable organ artist. His program, prepared rather last-minute, included virtuoso works by Bossi, Dubois, and his own Postlude on "Vigiles et Sanctae" on the impressive Odell

/Wangerin-Weickhardt/Möller/McMan-us/Price/Robertson/Helderop composite organ.

However, greater delights awaited. After dinner we rode over to what is certainly one of the most wondrous and awe-inspiring Gothic-style interiors in the country. St. Joseph's Roman Catholic Church is an absolutely glorious, highly colored, many statued, German-built edifice with equally fabulous acoustics. It is reminiscent of the marvelous Cathedral in Freiberg, Germany, where a great Gottfried Silbermann organ resides. It is the only Detroit church listed on the National Register of Historic Places, primarily for its extraordinary German stained glass windows. Here Mr. Kuras has played the organ and led performances of weekly choral Latin Masses and regular orchestral Masses for several decades. And this night, play he did. Masterfully! The program included his own extensive Partita for Organ on "Austria" and an utterly charming Berceuse on "O Sanctissima." A thrilling improvisation on not one but three submitted themes brought down the house. The organ here is a 1973 two-manual tracker, modest in size when compared to the building, but generous in tone. Built by local builder William Worden, it incorporates some once-butchered but now restored pipework from the original 1873 Odell organ, including the handsome stencilled facade, as well as some other old pipes. In essence, however, it is a versatile, eclectic instrument of impressive musical value whose stoplist and sounds closely resemble those of organs being built by leading American tracker builders right now rather than those being built 22 years ago. We went out into the night on a genuine high.

This convention was at once extremely well-organized and relaxed, with a beautifully-planned pace, easy flow, and relatively few snafus. Chairman Dana Hull and her committee, as well as Convention Coordinator Alan Laufman and the OHS staff in Richmond, deserve high praise and deep appreciation for an excellent week. The huge variety of beautiful instruments and churches, the discovery of some exciting, unfamiliar players, the opportunity to hear some old favorite players, the unusual yet appealing programs, the luxurious accommodations, the sumptuous meals and frequent refreshments throughout each day, the comfortable, clean transportation, the customarily reasonable OHS prices, and the genuinely friendly and open crowd all combined to make one terrific week.

The focus of these yearly gatherings has gradually (and gratefully) expanded from an interest solely in eighteenth and nineteenth century trackers to include serious interest in and appreciation for significant electric action organs from the past and a refreshing look at top-notch, artistic modern organs. Naturally, this has served to attract a larger and more diverse crowd with a wider view of things. The conventions have expanded to a very full six and a half days which increasing numbers of people enjoy without missing one single event. Based as these conclaves are on a sincere interest in experiencing as many fine organs, fine players, and fine recitals of organ literature as possible in a given week, they are unique in our country and, perhaps, in the world. (For a serious concert organist with awareness enough to notice and process what is going on, just the chance to hear 37 different recitals by 37 different players on 37 different organs in one week, played to the same audience, is an incredibly valuable lesson in what works and what doesn't in terms of planning and playing recitals. For a serious, artistic organbuilder, the chance to hear and compare the degree of success of that many organs in that many American churches in one week is unparalleled.) How fortunate we are to have the OHS producing such events for our edification and enjoyment as a part of its mission. The Society deserves accolades as it continues to support the cause of genuine pipe organs at this time in America of mounting threat to the use and even existence of such marvelous and noble instruments, whether they are old or new.

Next year the OHS conventioneers will gather in Philadelphia for what will certainly be an exhilarating week, Sunday, June 30 through Saturday, July 6. On the Fourth of July we'll be enjoying a dinner cruise on the river, watching the fireworks over the city where our nation was born. From 18th-century Tannenberg and Dieffenbach trackers to the world-famous monumental organs in the Wanamaker store and Longwood Gardens, we'll hear them all. Plan to join us for a week that is unlike anything happening elsewhere.

Harbinger of 21st Century Directions

Marcia Van Oyen earned master's and doctoral degrees in organ and church music at the University of Michigan, where she studied organ with Robert Glasgow. She is the Director of Music at Glenview Community Church (UCC) in Glenview, Illinois and is past Dean of the North Shore AGO. She also writes reviews for The Diapason.

At "The Organ in the New Millennium" conference held in April 1999 at Pacific Lutheran University, it was reported that, "The Pacific Northwest builders are in the process of creating a new organ type that will not merely incorporate, but will fuse the previous organ styles that feed into it, and thus will transcend all of them."1   The new Fritts organ at Pacific Lutheran University, which was featured prominently at the conference, is undoubtedly a noble example of flexibility, faithfulness to historical precedent, and innate beauty. That instrument and the work of other Northwest builders may indeed be heading toward the creation of a new type of organ, but this phenomenon isn't confined to the Pacific Northwest. An examination of the "new instruments" columns in pipe organ journals reveals that many organ-builders claim to be striving towards and reaching new stylistic territory with their recent work. Two noteworthy instruments whose attributes point to the coalescence of a new style of pipe organ are the Fisk-Rosales at Rice University and the Fisk at the Myerson Symphony Center. Large instruments such as these give builders artistic latitude to explore eclecticism and amalgamation of various elements. Smaller instruments display qualities that transcend established practices as well, beautifully exemplified by organs such as the Taylor & Boody at St. Thomas Church in New York City.

The post-modern trends of the late 20th century are being fused with the eclecticism that has dominated American organ-building for decades. These elements, combined with a desire to create instruments that serve the whole spectrum of organ literature, have motivated the creation of instruments of great flexibility. Remaining true to the organ's nature as an ensemble instrument, espousing proportion and balance, and emphasizing tonal color, organ-builders are reconciling opposing stylistic elements by blending them with one another. They are melding high-level craftsmanship founded on classical principles with tonal diversity and ingenuity, guided by an over-arching goal of musicality and beauty. These efforts have led to the creation of a new style of organ that I have dubbed the post-modern fusion style.

That the new style is a goal of many organ-builders today is proved by their own statements. Consider F. Christian Holtkamp's view of the matter: "While not being period or nationality specific, [the Holtkamp organ at the Peabody Institute] possesses a range of timbre and an internal balance that enables it to deal effectively with the full range of the literature. Because it is not eclectic, not a pastiche or collage of sounds drawn from unrelated sources, it is an artistically unified whole, an instrument of coherent integrity and sound."2 Dan Jaeckel espouses the idea as well. In commenting on the new Jaeckel organ at Trinity Lutheran Church in Duluth, Minnesota, Director of Music Greg Vick observed, "Although the concepts come from various styles, it is possible to blend them into one organ without the loss of integrity if the builder understands where the concepts overlap. Having designed and built highly stylized organs of various historic ideals, [Jaeckel] believes that the resulting amalgamation in this organ achieves integrity without compromise. Instead of being simply an 'eclectic' organ, this organ has the ability to play a great variety of music without compromising the stylist tonality, but, at the same time and because of its inherent integrity, can make wonderful music of other styles as well, even though the tonal design does not specifically take these into account."3 Despite such claims, however, the new style is in process. Few instruments built to date have reached the goal. The desire to build instruments which fuse disparate elements and the actual attempts to do so have not yet led to a mature aesthetic. Based on that, some would argue against the declaration of the arrival of a new style. 

In an extensive article for The Tracker, Jonathan Ambrosino has commented that the end of the twentieth century finds the organ-building world in the United States highly pluralistic, defying definition: "The organ world has become as complex as modern life. Like our televisions, it has gained numerous channels in place of a former few. We have almost ceased to try to define our culture because it has grown beyond the tidy definitions we used to enjoy. Without any recognizable consensus on style, the organ of today is amorphous, difficult to codify."4 To his credit, Ambrosino does later add that "if we . . . look at where things seem to be headed, [ . . . ] the eclecticism that is currently driving us forward [may become] an identifiable style that may be in place by the year 2010."5

The organ-building world at present does indeed defy "tidy" definitions; however, it does not defy definition of any sort. Identification of a style according to a common set of principles evident in a spectrum of work is not only possible, but is also a productive way of making sense of the current situation. Furthermore, it is impossible to ignore a trend that is recognizable in the work of the most respected organbuilders in the United States. Pluralism is dominant; it is this very atmosphere of diversity that has allowed and promoted the birth of a new style, providing fertile soil for its development. The post-modern fusion style, still in its infancy, encompasses a variety of manifestations, but it is fair to say that the style has taken up residence in American organ-building.

Additional evidence that suggests the arrival of an identifiable new style is the export of American pipe organs. This exportation points toward the international recognition of the high quality workmanship of pipe organs produced in the United States. The ambassadors of the American organbuilding industry are firms that are building classically-inspired instruments which represent an amalgamation of styles. Shortly before his death in 1983, Charles Fisk had been in discussion with the leadership of St. Giles Cathedral of Edinburgh, Scotland about the possibility of his firm building a new organ there.6 Nearly twenty years later, Austin, Brombaugh, Fisk, Noack, and Taylor & Boody have installations and/or contracts in Asia. On the European front, John Brombaugh's two-manual instrument for Göteborg, Sweden, was a breakthrough. Equally significant are the two organs Fritz Noack is building for Reykjavik, Iceland.7 Still more compelling, though, is the selection of Fisk to build an instrument of 141 ranks for the Cathedral of Lausanne, Switzerland. Guy Bovet eloquently stated the significance of this organ in a report for La Tribune de L'Orgue: "By choosing Fisk as its builder, Lausanne will have an instrument which is different from anything which has been seen in Europe until now, and which will without a doubt define an epoch. As not long ago, grape vines which had been transplanted to the New World, and thereby escaped the disease which destroyed French viniculture, were then re-imported to reconstruct the noble viniculture ancestry, so the organ for Lausanne re-institutes for us a true tradition of organ building, which comes back 'home' enriched by the experience of a long journey of fruitful education."8 The best of American organ-builders are poised to become the world leaders in the 21st century, and it is these leaders whose work represents a new American style.

Six principles comprise the framework of the post-modern fusion style.

1. Emphasis on Historical Tonal Archetypes

The "historically-inspired" organ-building trend which reached its zenith in the 1980s, represented by instruments such as the French Classic Bedient at St. Mark's Episcopal in Grand Rapids, has received much attention and has been well-documented.9 Emulation of historic European organs based on painstaking study has provided a spectrum of facsimiles of the sounds heard in the instruments of Clicquot, Silbermann, Schnitger, and Cavaillé-Coll, among others. The use of ornate casework modeled on historic examples, including luxurious materials such as gold leaf and exotic species of hardwood (e.g. Honduras mahogany), can be construed as a post-modern reaction to the utilitarian arrangements of exposed pipework and lackluster facades of years past. Although it can be described as an unprecedented looking backward in American organ-building history, the "historically inspired" movement has nevertheless left a deep imprint on the organ-building milieu. It has motivated builders in their quest for artistic integrity, based in part on the realization that facsimiles of historical voices aren't necessarily successful in American acoustical environments.

2. Cultural Conditions Germane to the United States

Far from being a tradition-bound society on the whole, the atmosphere in the United States, home of democratic capitalism, gives free reign to creativity and free enterprise, especially if it proves viable in the marketplace. The concept of freedom of speech is extended to every corner of American life, and at its best this freedom unleashes experimentation and ingenuity. Embracing pastiche is part of our culture. The current trend toward worship which blends a variety of styles, reflected in recently published hymnals, is but one example. American organ-builders have followed suit, creating instruments that are "melting pots" for a variety of historical, technological, and home-grown characteristics. As Steve Dieck has said, "It is a fun game to mix and match different styles into one American style. Americans want everything."10

3. Pre-eminence of Musicality

The tonal personalities of the best organs built today are characterized by profundity and lyricism, coupled with a legibility of tone, to borrow a phrase from the late Charles Fisk. These organs speak with passionate, emotional voices and they speak clearly. They are delicately forthright, articulate yet powerful, and possess ensembles characterized by vitality and color. Harsh edginess and mushy unintelligibility are avoided. Here again we can thank the influence of historical models. European craftsmen of past centuries were building organs primarily to be musical, to fill a room with beautiful sounds, inspiring the composition of music for their instruments. Organ-builders have returned to this touchstone, realizing that the pursuit of authenticity or flexibility at the expense of tonal quality results in instruments that are idiosyncratic or uninteresting.

4. Repertoire-Driven Designs

Organs built today are subject to the crucible of being able to adequately, if not authentically, play the entire range of organ literature. Compromise is inherent in such a task; however, builders are discovering that pursuing the goal of versatility need not result in either pastiche or blandness. They are also learning where the boundaries of the "all-purpose" organ--a myth in the minds of some--need to be set. In a report on recitals heard on the Fritts organ at Pacific Lutheran University, Herbert Huestis commented, "This organ speaks to our own time with the same authority as the age of J.S. Bach. Historically-inspired organs can attain tremendous flexibility for the performance of the repertoire. The Fritts organ was not at all restrictive. It is capable of playing a very big slice of organ literature very well."11 Successful instruments are those which can render a significant portion of the literature musically rather than authentically. The best organbuilders display a circumspect artistic sense regarding service to organ literature, resisting the urge to sacrifice integrity to the whims of performers, even if the resident organist voices a desire to play the Grigny Tierce en taille and the Franck E major Choral with precisely the correct sounds. "Sometimes the specific commission the artist is working on will challenge the rules, and it is how well he can honor his convictions, but also meet the need of the commission, which will determine the creative prowess of the artist."12 Artistic maturity is crucial.

5. Pre-eminence of Artisan Builders

The leaders in American organbuilding today are small firms, led by highly-educated individuals who have found organ building a cause as much as a job.13 Generally founded by an individual with a vision and a passion for organbuilding, these shops emphasize craftsmanship and artistry. A social platform now undergirds quality organ building. It has evolved out of renewed interests in formal design, craftsmanship, education, and personal participation. These "artisan builders," spurred on by fervent convictions, preach their gospels through the organs they build. In their minds, pipe organs are works of art, not merely functional entities. A post-modern rejection of the utilitarian in favor of beauty and a shift away from mass production in favor of consummate workmanship by individuals is the modus operandi of the artisan builders. According to Lynn Dobson, "We must recognize the art in our profession in order to give purpose to the craft and science of organ-building. In all of life it is the human spirit which sparks the inquiring mind. The art of our work is what sends our minds and souls soaring when we experience the sight of a beautiful organ, or hear subtle sound, or even feel the vibrations of its power. It surely is our art which gives us the cause to master the technology."14

6. Fusion of Disparate Styles into a Blended Whole

The melding of disparate stylistic characteristics represents a return to balance and integrity, progress beyond a polyglot approach. Screaming mixtures, hyper-chiffy flues and other idiosyncratic qualities that draw attention to themselves have been cast aside in favor of a sophisticated eloquence, a matured eclecticism. Historical European voices are both emulated and manipulated, designed not only to be contiguous with their American neighbors, but also to dovetail with them. John-Paul Buzard has articulated the importance of process in creating an instrument that blends several styles: "A balanced eclecticism must be embraced. It is through the refiner's fire of a single artistic vision that such eclecticism can be cohesive and have integrity as the organ-builder's individual style."15 In order to produce instruments that are beautiful, functional, and unique, organ-builders must have the artistic capability to make wise stylistic decisions, or as Frank Lloyd Wright put it, "Style is a by-product of the process and comes of the man or the mind in the process." Success in the post-modern fusion style is achieved when history begets benchmark, syncretism gives way to synthesis, pastiche becomes poetry, and genuine artistic expression emerges.

The path that organ-building in the United States has taken has been a productive and instructive continuum. The growth and the growing pains experienced along this sometimes convoluted path (populated by the likes of E.M. Skinner, G. Donald Harrison, Hope-Jones, M.P. Möller, the Orgelbewegung, et. al.) has yielded answers about what isn't desirable as much as it has illuminated worthy goals. It has truly been, as Bovet observed, "a long journey of fruitful education." The most astute American organbuilders have heeded the lessons well. These organ-builders are maintaining their personal convictions, building upon the integrity of historic antecedents, and harnessing the energy of eclecticism in order to craft organs that have stylistic endurance. "A fine builder does not merely 'abide by the rules,' but injects such qualities as mystery, playfulness, majesty, or warmth. This character comes about in an ineffable rather than 'scientific' way, although it involves great care in choice of materials, the overall concept of the instrument, its winding, and voicing, and scaling of the pipes. The best instruments might be said to have a quality of flesh and blood, or to breathe, and have lives of their own."16 Such instruments will stand the test of time.

Steve Dieck, describing the Fisk organ recently built for St. James's Episcopal Church in Richmond, Virginia, made a comment which succinctly summarizes the post-modern fusion style: "While rooted firmly in historical principles, the organ's tonal profile is fresh and innovative, a modern-day fusion of diverse elements, offering a singular and resolute musical statement."17 Historically grounded and inventive, serving the repertoire and delighting the ear, post-modern fusion organs offer an intricately woven tapestry of sound created by skilled artisans. Manifestations of one or more of the characteristics in my definition can certainly be found in the work of many an organ-builder; my six-pronged framework is intentionally broad. I do not consider an instrument to be representative of the post-modern fusion style, however, unless it contains all of the six elements to some degree.

Let's examine the Fritts organ at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington for features of the post-modern fusion style. It is an instrument with strong North German roots as interpreted through the personal artistic convictions of Paul Fritts. David Dahl comments that the resulting sounds are "not so much 'historically specific' as they are credible within various musical contexts." I have already cited Herbert  Huestis's comments regarding its flexibility in rendering a large array of literature. To offer performers more choices, Fritts has provided two pedal boards--flat and BDO--and an on/off control for the wind stabilizer. Also note these pertinent features: 250 square feet of hand-carved pipe shades on a case whose design is inspired by the 1658 Stellwagen organ of the Marienkirche in Stralsund, Germany. Regarding musicality, Huestis reports, "The listener was introduced to a kind of feminine nobility that few organs possess. Beyond power, this organ has profundity and lyricism."18 This instrument clearly fits the post-modern fusion profile. (For a more complete description of the instrument, refer to the June 1999 issue of The Diapason, p. 19).

Another fine example of the style is the Edythe Bates Old Grand Organ at Rice University, built by Fisk and Rosales. Its tonal personality is based primarily on French organs of the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, which its designers felt would offer the greatest flexibility in performing a large selection of literature. The vertical towers of the organ's case were inspired by French Classical examples. Despite its traditional appearance, however, this case doesn't have a roof, a back, or sides, in an innovative effort to direct its powerful sounds towards the ceiling to achieve an appropriate effect in the recital hall. The organ has tracker action that is assisted by a servo-pneumatic machine on the lowest manual, developed by Stephen Kowalyshn of Fisk, that reduces resistance when full organ with couplers is engaged. Like the Fritts at Pacific Lutheran, the Fisk Rosales organ at Rice has an on/off control for its wind stabilizer. In addition, the performer may also select one of three methods for controlling the pistons: mode Americain--the usual way; mode Français I--toe studs function as ventils; or mode Français II--ventil pistons unaffected by combination action.

While honoring the artistic visions of both Fisk and Rosales, this organ combines tone colors from French, German, Spanish, and American organs with new sounds that move beyond the stylistic parameters of each firm. Jonathan Ambrosino has provided a detailed description of the instrument's tonal features in "A History of the Organ" on the Rice University web site (http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~organ/history.html). Not only has the combined expertise and experience of each firm been fully exploited, but together they have forged exciting new paths.19 Their achievements with this instrument pervasively traverse the territory of the post-modern fusion style, representing its superlative manifestation.

Eclecticism and the American Classic style are both important precursors of the post-modern fusion organ. One might in fact say that eclecticism has matured and developed to become a second-generation American Classic organ, albeit more sophisticated and eloquent. Again, builders are claiming to have accomplished that, for example, "While on paper the stoplist might seem to point toward yet another large American Classic organ, in practice this instrument is no mere echo of its predecessor or of any other instrument. The organ's tonal principles reflect a more eclectic nature, renewing rather than merely reviewing the tenets of that style."20 But let's be cautious with the term, "American Classic." It has been bandied about and used in both pejorative and positive sense to refer to various expressions of organbuilding, and upon occasion to organ performance.

For the purposes of my study, the term shall refer to the work of the Aeolian-Skinner firm under G. Donald Harrison, roughly over the years 1935-1955. It was Emerson Richards who actually coined the term in 1943: "I am endeavoring to give [this] the name of American Classic, although it is going to be awfully hard to dislodge the word Baroque. An expressive word for the new organ which is only quasi-Baroque in principle with some French, English and American practice makes a new word imperative but difficult to find."21 It is also important to be aware, however, that Richards had earlier clarified his understanding of the use of the word "classic" in a letter to William King Covell written in 1935: "When I speak of a 'forward step in the Renaissance of the classic organ in America' I am talking about the new birth of the classic organ in the U.S.A. I don't mean to imply that it ever existed here before, but that it is as much a creation of Art based upon classic lines as the work of Michelangelo or Raphael. [Their work] was nationalistically Italian not Greek, so in this case I think the thing will develop as nationalistically American."22

No doubt some readers have noticed by this point that I have avoided discussing issues of mechanism, resisting the temptation to jump into the electric-action vs. tracker action fray. I do so with intent. Although these issues will be touched upon in passing, my investigation deals primarily with tonal concerns. It is true that most of the instruments typifying the post-modern fusion style have tracker action. That is not to say, however, that an organ built with electric action could not be a post-modern fusion organ. Tracker and electric actions are becoming less and less tied to a particular tonal style and, therefore, I find the issue of action to be largely irrelevant to this discussion.

In order to shed more light on the roots and manifestations of the post-modern fusion style as I have defined it, I spoke with seven organ-builders about their work. I asked them to share with me how it relates to the American Classic style, how it compares and contrasts with the work of their peers, and where it fits in the organ-building scene in the United States. In the interest of presenting a balanced picture, I selected two distinct groups of builders, ostensibly identifying them with the terms "classic" and "romantic," although the picture is considerably more complex than those terms would imply. For my purposes, "classic" will indicate adherence to organ-building principles established in Europe during the 15th-19th centuries. This group includes Gene Bedient, John Brombaugh, Steve Dieck, Manuel Rosales, and George Taylor--the five lecturers at the 1998 University of Nebraska-Lincoln Conference on historically informed organ-building. "Romantic" indicates an emphasis on 19th-century French and English elements, expressive capacity and a symphonic or orchestral tonal profile. I spoke with Jack Bethards, president of the high-profile Schoenstein and Co., and John-Paul Buzard, who has been identified as a leader among electric-action builders.23 Buzard's unabashedly English cathedral style meshes with my definition of the term "romantic," while Bethards himself uses the term "American Romantic" to refer to his work.24

By including two "romantic" builders in my study, both known for electric-slider and electro-pneumatic actions, I hope to present a balanced picture. The fact remains, however, that tracker builders have led the historical style revival, a key component of the post-modern fusion style, and by and large they receive the lion's share of attention and respect. Comments such as "The electric-action people surely realize that among them there isn't a single name that is taken as seriously as the leading lights of the tracker world,"25 underline that fact. To dismiss or ignore the high quality work of electric-action builders because of such remarks or fashionable opinion is irresponsible. Their work merits serious consideration. Furthermore, at the risk of being accused of having an entirely convoluted view of organ-building, I will venture to say that each of the builders included in my articles is pursuing a common goal, albeit reaching that goal with vastly different methods. I am striving solely to identify areas of common ground, all of which I believe represent the post-modern fusion style, in order to encourage the development of a fresh, and perhaps more productive, perspective.

Consider well an admonishment from Stephen Bicknell: "Though there are countless areas in which the builder can strive to make the instrument better (more musical and artistic, more truly worthy of its role in worship or concert), it is ultimately the rest of us--listeners, players and purchasers--who need to be most alert to questions of good and bad. There is a task to be performed in trying to decide amongst ourselves what is truly excellent and worth encouraging, and what may be ignored. That task may not be easy, but the endless variety to be found in our instrument should make it enjoyable and informative. Gradually, by comparing instruments, analysing what we hear, and discussing our opinions, we can help mold the path of organ-building and thus of organ music and playing."26

The author wishes to thank Brian K. Davis for advice and consultation in the development of this article.

December 16, 1910-August 4, 2002

J. Bunker Clark is editor of Harmonie Park Press. He taught organ and theory at Stephens College (1957-59), was organist and choirmaster at Christ Church Cranbrook (1959-61), taught music history and harpsichord at the University of California, Santa Barbara (1964-65), and music history at the University of Kansas from 1965 until retiring in 1993.

William Osborne holds three degrees from the University of Michigan. He serves Denison University in Granville, Ohio as Distinguished Professor of Fine Arts, University Organist, and Director of Choral Organizations.

Haig Mardirosian is Associate Dean of Academic Affairs and Professor of Music at American University. He is also Organist and Choirmaster at the Church of the Ascension and Saint Agnes, Washington, DC, and a recitalist, recording artist, writer, and consultant on organ building.

Ronald E. Dean is on the faculty of Centenary College, Shreveport, Louisiana.

Robert Noehren died on August 4 in San Diego, California, at the age of 91. (See "Nunc Dimittis," The Diapason, September 2002, p. 8.) International recitalist, recording artist, author, scholar, professor and university organist at the University of Michigan, and organbuilder, Noehren enjoyed a long and remarkable career, and was clearly one of the major figures of our profession in the 20th century.

His many recordings and recitals evidenced a special kind of organ playing: the highest standards of musicianship, devoid of superficial excesses, quiet and controlled console manner; indeed, his technique seemed to become quieter and easier the more difficult and virtuosic the music became. He continued to practice the organ daily and record up until his death, carried on extensive correspondence, had plans for another commercial recording on his organ in Buffalo, was preparing a talk for the AIO convention this month, was working on a cookbook of his favorite recipes, and continued to enjoy music, art, fine wine, good food, and friends from all over the world.

Below follow tributes in Noehren's honor, by William Osborne, Bunker Clark, and Haig Mardirosian, and a review by Ronald Dean of Noehren's Bach CD which was released last year, in addition to a listing of his articles and news releases as featured in The Diapason. Requiescat in pace.

--Jerome Butera

Robert Noehren: A Remembrance

When Jerry Butera, Ron Dean and I shared a meal during the Organ Historical Society gathering in Chicago on the final day of June, we regaled ourselves with tales about and from the man who had had such a seminal influence on us and a host of others, assuming that he would endure virtually forever, little anticipating the shocking news of his sudden death only weeks later. He had suffered the loss of his devoted wife only months earlier, but on the evidence of telephone conversations had seemed quickly to reconcile himself to this new phase of his incredibly rich life, determined to get on with his latest passions, energetically practicing daily at age ninety-one on his electronic [sic!] house organ, wrestling with what he could possibly say to a conclave of pipe organ builders in Los Angeles during an upcoming invited lecture, listening intently to CDs drawn from his immense collection, having been recently attracted particularly to the playing of pianist Ivo ogorelich.

A consummate man of the organ, he was nonetheless not preoccupied with the instrument, always fascinated by a wide range of human understanding.  For example, when the Noehrens made the decision to relocate to suburban San Diego after a particularly harsh Ann Arbor winter, the significant tragedy of their transfer was a wayward moving van stranded in the desert heat of the Southwest, a delay that turned the man's substantial and valuable wine collection to vinegar. I suspect that in retrospect he might have preferred to express himself through a medium other than the organ, since he was constantly dissatisfied with so many examples of the instrument, especially his inability to make music on them to his satisfaction. In fact, he suggested that his students could learn more about elegant music-making by observing a fine singer, violinist or pianist, and, when time permitted, he practiced Chopin or Debussy at the piano, although never in public.

It seems a bit incredible that he retired from studio teaching at the University of Michigan more than four decades ago, and that at least a few of his students have preceded him in death. I, for one, found him a rather reluctant pedagogue. When provoked, he could be enormously enthusiastic and insightful, but one had to work to attract his attention. He loved to tell a story that he attributed to George Faxon, but which I suspect was meant to mirror his own predicament. Supposedly Faxon had in his Boston studio a very comfortable upholstered chair where he ensconced himself as he directed a student to play straight through a big Bach prelude and fugue. As the piece proceeded, he would brush the lint off his jacket, adjust his shoelaces, settle back, and gradually fall completely asleep. The student, having finished his performance, would turn expectantly, at which point Faxon would suddenly rouse himself and blurt out: "Bravo! Play it again!"

Robert Noehren also frustrated and even infuriated many in a profession rife with calcified credos by remaining in a constant condition of quest. I joked that it was impossible to ride a Noehren bandwagon because, as his would-be disciples were clambering on one side, he had already jumped off the other and moved on to some new position. Recall the man's seminal role in the organ Renaissance in this country. He was one of the first to study the classic European instruments to the extent that he was able to understand and explain what made the instruments of Schnitger and Cavaillé-Coll tick. Those of us privileged to experience his organ design course can vouch for that wisdom. It was also Robert Noehren who was crucial in bringing to this country in 1957 that groundbreaking von Beckerath instrument in Cleveland's Trinity Lutheran Church. I can remember driving from Ann Arbor to Cleveland in a snowstorm to experience the incredible revelations that it offered. So, how did a man devoted to the principles the Beckerath manifested become a builder of instruments based on direct electric action and incredible amounts of borrowing and duplexing? Hard to say, except to acknowledge that he later pretty much disavowed that facet of his career, although expressing annoyance over those attempts to redress some of the mechanical problems he bequeathed the instruments' owners. He did assert that his foray into organ building resulted from his failure to find an established builder who was willing put his ideals into practice. Recall also that the best of his instruments were and are ones of distinction, and that he was a pioneer in considering the possibility of computer-driven combination systems, even though the clunky, punchcard system that he and a Michigan Engineering colleague devised seems hopelessly antiquated now.

Even though he has left us physically, his legacy will surely survive in the form of his immense discography and the many provocative, sometimes quixotic writings published in this journal and elsewhere.

What will survive as well for those of us privileged to know him is the memory of a man with a generous sense of humor (I will never forget the look on his face when asked in a studio class by a pompous doctoral student how one properly mounts the bench); an immense, eclectic repertory (e. g., as I recall, virtually nobody on this side of the Atlantic was aware of Tournemire when Noehren began to champion the man); an intense musicality at his chosen instrument that nonetheless refused curtailment by any of the various performance "isms" by which the profession lives (Furthermore, I, as one who was privileged to assist him often, for example in the series of sixteen all-Bach programs he played in Hill Auditorium before such marathons became fashionable, was always amazed that, while he advocated marking scores extensively, he always seemed to play from pages untouched by a pencil.); an incredible range of experiences (e. g., as a young church organist in Buffalo being asked to play the two existing Hindemith sonatas for their composer, thereby indirectly provoking the writing of the last of the trilogy); a man of immense principle who retired from active teaching prematurely when confronted with a Michigan dean who asked him to create the country's largest organ department (he seems to have been prescient enough to have anticipated the future state of the profession and thus suggested as an alternative the country's finest, albeit compact organ program); and, last, but hardly least, the sense that organists are all too often insular in their perspective, encouraging all with whom he was associated to seek out and embrace the full  range of human experience.

RN, we will miss you.

--William Osborne

From his editor

"Gee, it's hard to play the organ, isn't it?"--cliché by Robert Noehren after hearing a student trying to play a difficult piece.

"Gee, it's hard to produce a book about the organ"--my cry in the process of working with Bob on An Organist's Reader.

Bob had been talking about doing a book for some years, but I'm proud of persuading him to begin in earnest in 1995. He sent a box two years later, and after two more years of phone calls and letters concerning the details, the box was sent to Harmonie Park Press in February 1997, and the result appeared in November 1999.

I'd known Bob since going to Ann Arbor in 1950, but after my piano days unfortunately never took organ with him. Nonetheless, I was lucky to audit several of his classes on the history of the organ--which, in retrospect, helped considerably in checking details of historic instruments. Even then, it was embarrassing to both of us to have a good friend point out the omission of thirteen pedal stops from the 1576 organ of  the Georgenkirche, Eisenach. (Harmonie Park Press has an errata slip, or get it at .) But this omission had not been discovered when that article had previously been published in the Riemenschneider Bach Institute's Bach no fewer than three times, 1975, 1985, and 1995! It's only logical that an organ associated with Bach would have more than two pedal registers, no?

He correctly defended Grobgedackt, against my proposal of Großgedackt. As for another detail, does one use the modern German "K" for Katharinenkirche, or the original spelling Catharinenkirche, Hamburg? (we used the latter). Lüdingworth has an umlaut; otherwise it would seem to be a village in England. So does the composer Jean-Jacques Grünenwald, even though he was French. The foregoing represents a survey of some 54 pages of letters on my computer, which also has comments on a trip to Italy; Eloise's new hip, fall 1997; and his bout with cancer, early 2000.

I had attended many of his Ann Arbor recitals, and have seen the two-story end of the Noehren living room in Ann Arbor which housed his Hausorgel. But Lyn and I really got to know Bob much better when he taught at the University of Kansas, fall 1975; we had Thanksgiving and several other similar occasions together. What a wonderful human being! I already miss our more recent phone chats, in which he described his interest in a proper diet (indeed, published as an article in these pages last year), in our mutual enjoyment of a pre-dinner drink, his interest in audio equipment and recent recordings (usually not of organ music), and in a joke. And I miss his Christmas cards (the design of one is on the cover of his book).

Bob Noehren was very modest--but a hard worker when preparing a recital. He was not vain, but I'm certain he was very proud of the discography and recitals (a representation of programs appears in his book). Above all, in spite of and perhaps due to, his quiet and unassuming manner, his playing never highlighted the performer, but always the music, as if to say "I've studied this piece hard, and here is what I found out."

--J. Bunker Clark

Letters from Noehren

I never met Robert Noehren, yet I am humbled to be able to call him a friend. In the last three years of his life, Noehren and I had corresponded regularly through a series of letters, a thread of correspondence initiated somewhat coincidently.

In my academic administrative capacity, I was at work during 1997 with a project team charged with drafting a self-study report to my university's regional accrediting agency. Our member from the university's publications office, Trudi Rishikoff, saw to the style and editing of the finished document. At some stage of the process, Trudi mentioned that she had learned that I was an organist. Did I know her Uncle Bob?

Uncle Bob, it turned out, was Robert Noehren. With what must have been obvious mirth at this serendipitous news, I told Trudi of my high esteem for Noehren, the thrill of having played a recital on one of his instruments, the honor of having reviewed several of his recordings for both The American Organist and Fanfare, but even more, of the inspiration that I had derived from listening to him perform, both on disc and live, early in my career. I asked Trudi to convey those sentiments and my kindest respects to her uncle.

About the same time, my editors forwarded for review a CD comprising reissues of various Lyrichord recordings by Robert Noehren. These amounted to seminal performances on several of his instruments (as well as others) and an assortment of repertoire attesting to the performer's all-embracing musical interests. The disc merited its title, "A Robert Noehren Retrospective."

Months later, a long letter arrived from Robert Noehren, the first of many in which we discussed issues of mutual interest--musicians, repertoire, organs. Noehren's beautifully composed and printed texts (for openers, I marveled at the deliberate care in writing these and his obvious fluency at computing, something quite remarkable for a man about to turn 90). The composition and printing mirrored what one heard in his meticulous musicianship and performance. His critical but calculated opinions about music matched his gifted and insightful interpretation of music. His thoughts about the music and musicians of his early years in particular bespoke his own deference to tradition, origins, and lineage in composition, organ building, and pedagogy. In sum, these letters represented valedictory notes to a new friend, but they were frank, surprisingly modest, and very generous in tone and spirit. Noehren, it turned out, had wanted to contact me for some time and he had done his research too. He had gone out and found recordings by his correspondent and he had closely read any number of reviews of books and recordings. He was sizing me up!

I had just released a recording of the Suite for Organ, by Paul de Maleingreau. I had not known that Noehren regularly played the toccata from it back in the 1930s. He clearly missed the piece adding that " . . . since it is no longer in my head I am glad to be able to hear it again . . ." Of our mutual interest in Maleingreau, he observed that "it [the toccata] is such a fine work and no one else seems to be interested in Maleingreau." A second little coincidence had sealed a friendship. With that our correspondence grew more personal as well with talk about his wife Eloise, and illness, and aging. He was very sympathetic and supportive at my family's story of senior care, and the intellectual and physical changes brought on with age.

A major part of our conversations concerned organs. For two years, Noehren and I exchanged many words on organ design, organ building, and organ builders. I had made the analytical (but not malicious!) observation in my review of his Lyrichord recording that certain of the organs he built were idiosyncratic. My observation was based on experience. I had played a recital at St. John's Cathedral in Milwaukee where, in preparation, I had spent hours punching out registrations manually on the IBM data cards that comprised the combination action's memory. I had also remarked on the various subunison registers that played only to tenor C. Noehren graciously observed that "It was right for you to comment on the design of my organ in Milwaukee." He continued with a treatise on the economics of organ building, tight budgets, and resource maximization. It may have been a musician/instrument builder speaking, but it was also the voice of someone who had taught at a university and worked for the church!

Noehren tempered economic exigency with art. "I designed the organ [at St. John's Cathedral] always thinking how it was to be used musically." Saving the cost of the bottom twelve pipes of the Great 16¢ Principal on that 1965 organ allowed Noehren to add a string and some mutations to the specification. "If . . . you look at the music of Vierne, you will often see that the Gambe on the Great Organ is required in many pieces. . . . Look at most American organs. There is rarely a string on either the Great or Positiv (or Choir) organs. Indeed, there is usually an Unda Maris set. To be sure, a beautiful sound, but not very useful in much serious organ music." He questioned both his own tonal choices and those advocated by others. Robert Noehren had taken this critic earnestly, drew no offense from the opinions in print, and used the opportunity to engage in a dialog on the merits of respective tonal choices.

I later asked Noehren about Paul Hindemith, adding that my own conception of the organ sonatas was formed mainly through Noehren's recording of them. That prompted a meticulous response concerning Noehren's association with the composer. He outlined meeting Hindemith in Buffalo, where the composer lived after arriving in the United States before going to teach at Yale University, and where the organist played at a small Episcopal parish. Because Hindemith would sometimes visit the church, Noehren eventually got to know the composer well. They spent many hours together discussing interpretation and registration of the then only two sonatas, for Hindemith had just begun composing the third.

I had commented about the respective merits of romantic, colorist and dryer, abstract interpretations of the sonatas. In fact, I told Noehren that I had rebelled against my own teacher's insistence on an orchestral approach to these scores. That rebellion led to my  willful imitation of Noehren's old LP recording. He replied, "Like your teacher, I had been playing them in a rather romantic way, and I have to thank Hindemith for helping me with my musicianship during those early days. I still remember how dissatisfied he was with my performance of the last movement of the first sonata."

Noehren also voiced curiosity about instruments on which I had recorded and consulted. I had asked him about a couple of stoplists on which I was working and received immediate, candid, and helpful responses. At the time, the new organ at my own parish, the Church of the Ascension and Saint Agnes in Washington, was under construction by Orgues Létourneau. I had confided in Noehren that our hope was for an instrument reflecting English tonal heritage and had sent him specs and scalings. In the end, when I sent him a recording of one of the opening concerts, his approval overjoyed me.

What was most remarkable about Robert Noehren in his last few years was the zeal with which he still played the organ on a daily basis. He had been hard at work revisiting the Orgelbüchlein, a book he felt "appropriate at my stage of life." He had just been diagnosed with serious illness and seemed to find particular comfort in the brief movements. But, he acknowledged their musical difficulties. "I might feel a bit safer in the great G-minor fugue than in the prelude on 'Heut triumphieret Gottes Sohn' with that wicked pedal passage at the end!"

While he missed access to a good pipe organ near his home in San Diego, he did own a custom electronic organ, and his curiosity and aptitude with technology had led him to electronically revoice that instrument and add several MIDI sound modules to it. This fulfilled both his need to play on a daily basis and his ongoing instinct to build "better" organs. He was carefully apologetic, but not defensive about this instrument. "I fear that you might be one who believes we have been poisoned by the advent of the electronic organ!" But, he added, that this instrument "assuages some of my frustrations." As proof--extraordinary proof--he enclosed a cassette recording of some Bach, Karg-Elert, and the Roger-Ducasse Pastorale as recorded on his house organ. Of the dazzling and poetic performance of the latter piece, made when Noehren was in his late 80s, he commented, "it is perhaps the most difficult work I have ever encountered, and it has been a constant challenge. It is technically difficult and choosing and executing the registration is no easy task." Of the thousands of organ recordings in my collection, this one, performed by an octogenarian on an electronic organ in his living room and recorded on his little cassette machine, is the most prized.

Robert Noehren had also published a book of memoirs that I had reviewed, and some of the letters to me may have well been an elaboration or gloss on the book. At one point, Noehren sent a long list of all his teachers--piano, organ, theory, composition. This early 20th century Who's Who of our profession contained several names that interested me greatly.

One of these was Charles Courboin for, as a boy, I would sit in the choir loft at St. Patrick's Cathedral and watch Dr. Courboin play for the 11:30 "organ mass." In those pre-Vatican II years, the Cathedral maintained the tradition of a low mass (rendered mostly silently by the priest at the east end) accompanied by organ music (rendered not at all silently by the virtuoso at the west end). I would, on my own, take the bus and the subway and travel down to 5th Avenue on Sunday mornings in order to hear the Solemn Mass at 10 o'clock. I would always remain for Courboin's organ mass at 11:30. It was a splendid dessert to the sung mass. Courboin would graciously welcome me to the gallery and even ask me what I would like to hear. Courboin's phenomenal memory was legendary and I don't ever recall naming a piece of repertoire that he could not simply rattle off.

One of the reasons that Courboin fascinated us both was his atypical profile for an organist. He loved fast cars and boats. He was dashing and, in Noehren's terms, "could have been mistaken for a government ambassador." While a student at the Curtis Institute during the early 1930s, Noehren had coached with Courboin. One morning, Noehren and his friend Bob Cato, Lynnwood Farnam's favorite student, were walking downtown. They ran into Courboin. "He behaved at once as if we were his best friends and suggested we all have lunch at Wanamaker's. It was then about 11:00 o'clock, and he invited us to meet him at noon at the front of the store. When we finally entered the dining room it became apparent that the luncheon had turned into a big party in a private room with at least 15 people. All I can remember of the food is that for dessert there was a great flourish as the party was presented with a huge baked Alaska prepared for the occasion."

Robert Noehren also recalled his meetings with Fernando Germani (with whom he became friends and who introduced him to Italian food and garlic), André Marchal (who influenced him musically but was "distracted by the ladies," such that, in a meeting along with Marilyn Mason, Marchal paid no attention to Noehren), Gaston Dethier (who had the most formidable technique of anyone and whose pedaling was "really phenomenal" although he eventually no longer took the organ seriously), and Lynnwood Farnam (whose playing "simply put everyone I had ever heard in the shade"). These reflections were all the more vivid as several of these legendary performers were still active in my own youth. As Noehren put it about our swapped recollections, "what a difference a generation makes!"

How does one summarize the enormous range and analytical insights of Robert Noehren? It is difficult task to be certain. His musical life spanned East Coast and West, with a long stop in between. He could be, at once, a Classicist and a Romantic. He studied old music and old organs, built modern instruments capable of playing the old, and championed scores by composers of his own day. He was the recitalist who built instruments to overcome the defects he perceived in the instruments upon which he had to play. He studied with the legends of his youth and passed that tradition on to generations of fortunate students in one of the country's most important universities. He agglomerated seemingly far-flung and inconsistent concepts, all the while making sense of their synthesis. His world was expansive and never shrank, for his all-embracing curiosity disclosed an adroit mind that slowed little even in its ninth decade. Robert Noehren zealously coveted the truth--truth as discovered, revealed, debated, or developed in theory and creativity. He grappled with and reconciled art and technology decades before such would become commonplace. He generously communicated his remarkable journey to a large audience in his writing and teaching, and even to a grateful correspondent late in his days.

Can all of this, then, amount to anything less than the absolute and comprehensive definition of professional and personal intellect, art, and, above all, integrity? I would argue not. Integrity, furthermore, takes courage, the courage to pursue truth and to assert the convictions to which one's work leads. As such, Robert Noehren was nothing less than a genuine hero. I thank God for having had a moment to know him. Requiescat in pace.

--Haig Mardirosian

Robert Noehren bibliography in The Diapason

Robert Noehren is organist and choirmaster of St. John's Church, Buffalo. November 1940, p. 22.

Robert Noehren takes up new work in Grand Rapids. September 1942, p. 3.

"Organ Building an Art Not to be Limited by Definite Styles." February 1944, p. 12.

Robert Noehren leaves Grand Rapids for war duty. March 1944, p. 23.

Famed Dutch Organ Used in Broadcast by Robert Noehren. November 1948, p. 2.

"Poitiers Cathedral Has Famous Cliquot Organ Built in 1791." June 1949, pp. 28-29.

Noehren appointed to post in Ann Arbor. September 1949, p. 4.

"Historic Schnitger Organs Are Visited; 1949 Summer Study." December 1949, p. 10; January 1950, p. 10.

Bach recitals by Noehren in Ann Arbor and Buffalo. June 1950, p. 40.

"Famous Old Organs in Holland Disprove Popular Fallacies." March 1951, pp. 8-9.

"Organ Cases Objects of Beauty in Past and Return Is Advocated." June 1951, pp. 14-15.

Michigan "U" course reorganized to make all-around organist. November 1951, p. 38.

"Schnitger Organs That Still Survive Teach New Lessons." December 1951, p. 24.

Robert Noehren on fourth tour of recitals in Europe. September 1953, p. 17.

Robert Noehren is winner of prize for his recording. November 1953, p. 1.

Robert Noehren to play in Duesseldorf. June 1954, p. 1.

"Commends Opinions of Dr. Schweitzer to Organ Designers." February 1954, p. 22.

Robert Noehren is awarded doctorate. June 1957, p. 1.

"How do you rate? Test yourself on this final exam." July 1959, p. 16.

"Music Dictates Good 2-Manual Organ Design." September 1960, pp. 12-13.

Robert Noehren . . . Northwest regional convention. April 1961, p. 16.

Noehren to act as judge at Haarlem Competition. December 1962, p. 3

"The Relation of Organ Design to Organ Playing." December 1962, pp. 8, 42-43; January 1963, pp. 8, 36-37.

Robert Noehren to give dedicatory recital on the Schlicker organ at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. March 1963, p. 24.

"The Organ and Acoustics." March 1964, pp. 26-27.

"Architectural Acoustics as related to Church Music." November 1964, pp. 40-41.

"Taste, Technique and Tone." April 1965, p. 49.

"Schnitger, Cliquot and Cavaillé-Coll: Three Great Traditions and their Meaning to Contemporary Organ Playing." November 1966, pp. 40-41; December 1966, p. 28; January 1967, pp. 48-49; February 1967, pp. 44-45.

Robert Noehren appointed Rose Morgan Professor of Organ for the fall semester of 1975 at The University of of Kansas. September 1975, p. 18.

Robert Noehren, professor of organ at the University of Michigan, retired in January 1976. June 1976, p. 2.

Robert Noehren named professor emeritus. January 1977, p. 5.

Robert Noehren elected Performer of the Year by New York City AGO. May 1978, p. 19.

"Squire Haskin--a tribute." February 1986, p. 2.

"The discography repertoire of Robert Noehren." March 1990, pp. 12-13.

"Robert Noehren at 80: A Tribute." December 1990, pp. 12-14.

"Organ Design Based on Registration." December 1991, pp. 10-11.

"A Reply to the Tale of Mr. Willis." January 1997, p. 2.

Robert Noehren celebrates his 90th birthday. December 2000, p. 3.

"Enjoying Life at 90." September 2001, pp. 15-17.

"Reflections on Life as an Organist." December 2001, pp. 17-20.

Johann Sebastian Bach: Organ Works. Robert Noehren, Organist. Previous unreleased recordings from 1980 issued in celebration of Robert Noehren's ninetieth birthday. Noehren organs of The Cathedral of Saint John the Evangelist, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and The First Presbyterian Church, Buffalo, New York. Fleur de Lis FL 0101-2. Available from The Organ Historical Society, P.O. Box 26811, Richmond, VA 23261; 804/353-9226; $14.98 plus shipping;

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Program: Fantasia and Fugue in G Minor, BWV 542; Wenn wir in höchsten Nöthen sein, BWV 668; Wo soll ich fliehen hin, BWV 646; Partita: O Gott, du frommer Gott, BWV 767; Partita: Sei gegrüsset, Jesu gütig, BWV 768; Fugue in G Major ("Gigue"), BWV 577; Prelude and Fugue in D Minor ("Violin"), BWV 539; Prelude and Fugue in A Minor, BWV 543.

This new issue, like the previous Robert Noehren Retrospective produced by Lyrichord (see this journal, December, 1999, p. 11), is the result of expert remastering by Hal Chaney of analog recordings done on tape many years ago. As in the CD mentioned above, this issue features organs designed and built by Robert Noehren.

For those who are familiar with Noehren's tasteful and flexible organ playing, this issue should come as a welcome addition to his already considerable discography. Noehren was never one to endorse or follow "trendy" or merely currently fashionable playing ideas; instead, he always makes the music come alive through thoughtful application of scholarship and study of the scores to determine both just the right tempos and appropriate registrations for convincing musical communication. These features are in abundance on this new issue.

Another important facet contributing to the pleasure of this CD is the fact that the same person is both the artist and the organ builder. His clearly articulated philosophy of organ tone (see An Organist's Reader, reviewed in this journal, September, 2000, p. 10) is demonstrated here all the way from gutsy and brilliant (but never strident) principal and reed choruses to subtle smaller ensembles and solo combinations appropriate to the musical requirements. One can imagine that Noehren was able to bring forth the very sounds that were in his "mind's ear" by performing on these two rather large instruments of his own design.

All the pieces except for the two chorale partitas are performed on the 1966 organ in the Cathedral of Saint John the Evangelist in Milwaukee, while the partitas show off the varied smaller ensembles and solo combinations of the instrument in The First Presbyterian Church, Buffalo, built in 1970. Both instruments are of similar size, with the Buffalo instrument (somewhat larger) notable by its frequently pictured hanging Positiv division.

Seasoned players and students alike will be inspired by the apparently effortless execution of the more demanding works and should take note of the way Noehren uses subtle rubato to point up the structure of the various forms. His elegant approach to trills and other ornaments reveal that the artist regards these items as integral parts of musical expression and not simply as whimsical and mechanical additions to the musical line.

Blessed with both an astounding playing technique and impeccable musical taste, Robert Noehren's playing as revealed on this CD should bring feelings of recognition to those who have head him in past years and should also serve as a revelation to the younger generation. Highly recommended.

--Ronald E. Dean

Centenary College

Shreveport, Louisiana

Alsace Week, July 10-14, 2001

Kay McAfee is professor of organ and music history at Henderson State University in Arkadelphia, Arkansas, where she also serves as organist for First United Methodist Church.

For four days, the group would travel the length and breadth of this beautiful region rich in agriculture and vineyards, nestled in the Rhine valley between the French Vosges mountains and the Rhine river. Its villages and towns, between Mulhouse in the south, Strasbourg in the north, and Colmar at the center, boast over one thousand organs in its many lovely churches.

Predigerkirche, Basel

Upon arrival in Mulhouse, Marie Louise Langlais and Sylvie Mallet directed everyone across the border into Basel, Switzerland to visit two churches. We arrived at the Predigerkirche (Catholic) where Mme. Langlais introduced Emmanuel Le Divellec and Brigitte Salvisberg, young husband and wife who are both former students of Mme. Langlais. Divellec is organist of the French church in Bern and teaches at the Bern Conservatory. He told of the church, which originally housed a 13th-century Dominican monastery on the site. The organ was built by Johann Andreas Silbermann in 1766. It had one manual and 14 or 16 stops. Silbermann built a Rückpositiv in 1768, bringing the total to 28 stops.

In 1875 the instrument was enlarged, but it became difficult to play and was neglected until 1974. The firm of Metzler reconstructed the original organ in 1978, adding a flute 4' and larigot to the Positiv and prestant and fourniture to the Pedal. Tuning is Werckmeister, and the disposition is French "with a German accent." Divellec played several parts of the Guilain 2nd Suite: Plein jeu, Tierce en taille, Cromorne en taille, Basse de trompette, Cromorne and Flûtes; and Caprice sur les Grand Jeu from the Clérambault 2nd Suite. Participants were given playing time.

Then Brigitte Salvisberg discussed the choir organ which is mounted above the choir on the north side. At the time of the restoration of the church in 1975, an imprint of the original organ was found on the wall. The contract from a Johannes Tugy and a description of this organ from 1487-1493 were also found. In 1985, the Netherlands builder Bernhard Edskes reconstructed the instrument of two manuals with short compass. Manual I has principal, gedeckt, octave 4' and 2' and a hornle, which is a sesquialtera-type stop. The second manual contains a regal and a 4' and 2'. Salvisberg played O dulcis Maria by Hofhaimer, three Renaissance dances by Hans Neusiedler, and the "Fortuna" variations by Scheidt.

For participants, the change from the large cathedral churches of Paris, Caen, and Chartres during the previous week of the seminar was striking and refreshing. Most of the churches we visited here seat from 200 to 800 people.

St. Josephkirche

Next we were transported to St. Josephkirche to hear an exquisite 1904 instrument built by the firm of Kuhn. Organist Willy Kenz ushered us into the 1902 neo-Baroque church, where the membership has been multicultural. Near the end of the 19th century, Catholic immigrants from Germany and Italy moved to Basel to work, and this was their church. The organ is of 43 stops of three manuals and is a historic treasure. Manual I has a 16' bourdon, four 8' stops including gemshorn, a cornet, flûte harmonique 4', octav 4' and 2', quint, mixture, and trompete. Manual II has a 16' nachthorn, geigen, flute, viola, dolce, quintaton, gemshorn, transverse flute 4', waldflöte 2', sesquialtera, zimbel, and English horn. The Swell contains gedeckt 16' and 8', two strings and a voix celeste, flute and string 4', plein jeu, flute 2', oboe, and schalmei. The Pedal has four 16' stops, two 8', and posaune 16'. In 1934 four stops were added, and in 1992 the Kuhn firm rebuilt the instrument. The tuning is low: A=435.

In this resonant room, the music is stunning. The Swell box is very effective, and the organ is perfect for German Romantic music. Kenz played a Kodály Introit, "Andante" from Mendelssohn's 6th sonata, Karg-Elert's Nun danket alle Gott, and Brahms' Schmücke dich. Participants eagerly climbed to the rear gallery to play. Afterwards, the church staff prepared a fine meal for all.

Elisabethkirche

The evening brought a concert at the Elisabethkirche, a Protestant church. The organ is from 1861 by the Belgian firm of Merklin, which was a rival of Cavaillé-Coll. Originally of two manuals (with a third of only one stop) and 29 stops, the present case is the original one of 1864. The primary manual had 16' and 8' principals, salicional, octav and flöte 4', 22/3', and cornett 8'. The second manual had only an 8' gedeckt. Manual III featured flute 16' and two 8' flutes, flute 4', cymbel 1', and oboe. The Pedal had three 16' and two 8' stops. The firm of Zimmermann added four new stops in 1899 and rebuilt the organ in 1913. Theodor Kuhn replaced the Merklin reeds in 1937. It is definitely a French instrument.

Two of Mme. Langlais's former students, Emmanuel Le Divellec and Suzanne Kern, demonstrated the organ. Kern, who studied with Scheidegger, Bovet, and Marie-Louise and Jean Langlais, is the current organist of the church. She played the 4th Sonata of Mendelssohn, Chant de Fleur from Prière to the Virgin by Florentz, and Tournemire improvisation on "Victimae paschali laudes." Divellec played the Franck Cantabile, Alain Le jardin suspenu (with lovely strings and very effective pp-ppp dynamics), and Pièce solennelle by Jacques Ibert.

Saint-Jean, Mulhouse

The next day the group traveled to Mulhouse to the Protestant Saint-Jean Temple. This is a special place for Marie-Louise Langlais as it was her first professional appointment. The organ is an Alfred Kern (1972) reconstruction of a 1766 Johann-Andreas Silbermann organ of three manuals. The beautiful case is from the 18th-century instrument. The church is small, seating perhaps 150 people. The Rückpositiv is very close to the pew aisles which face the pulpit and are perpendicular to the organ. There are 26 stops, with mutations on each manual--Grand Orgue, Echo, and Positiv de dos.

Sylvie Mallet demonstrated the solo stops of the organ by playing a Tierce en taille, the beautiful positiv cromorne, an 8' and 22/3' (there is a nasard on each manual), the plein jeu, and the reeds and cornet, with an 8' and 1' echo. She demonstrated the tremolo by playing the Grand Orgue vox humana, montre 8', and Positiv 8' and 1'. When the organ was dedicated in 1972, Jean Langlais wrote and played his Suite Baroque for the occasion. The organ plays both French and German music well. Participants played Langlais, Bach, and Soler.

Saint-Étienne

The Gothic-style Catholic church of Saint-Étienne was a short walk away. The organ is a late-period Cavaillé-Coll with a neo-Baroque Positiv by Roeth-inger. The reeds of the Swell are as powerful as at Saint-Ouen and Saint-Étienne in Caen. Several participants played pieces which demonstrated the various colors of the organ.

Organ building in Alsace

Daniel Roth, a native of Mulhouse in Alsace, assumed leadership as our guide into the small towns and villages of Alsace. He was accompanied by Pierre Chevreau, organist at Saint-Martin in Masevaux. Within the 170 km of the wine route are nestled 100 towns. All of the instruments the group was privileged to hear and play represent the combination of German and French influence in organbuilding. Rheinberger, Buxtehude, and Bach sound well as does the music of the 18th-century French Classical composers.

The first stop was the little village of Oltingue and the Church of Saint Martin. M. Roth gave a historical background of the region and the import of its history upon the development of organ building in Alsace. Occupied by the Romans in 58 B.C., Alsace eventually came under the rule of the Allemandes (407 A.D.) and the Holy Roman Empire (870 A.D.). At that time the Vosges mountains formed the French border with Germany and Switzerland. The French desired to stretch the border to the Rhine, and finally took the land in 1648. In 1870 Alsace again came under German rule. After WWI, France again ruled. In 1939 the Nazis captured Alsace, and after WWII it again became part of France. In Strasbourg, the organ builder Edmund Roethinger (1866- 1953) saw Alsace change nationalities four times. Alsatian culture has taken the best from the culture of France and Germany. It is true also with organ building. Alsatians demonstrate a great love of music and of the organ.

In 1792 Alsace listed 300 organs. In 1844, the number had doubled to 600, and after 1980, 1004 instruments, many of them historically significant, were to be found in this small region. In the 1870s, when Alsace was under German rule, there were many active German organ builders, but Alsatians resisted the German tonal ideal--a hard sound, loud mixtures, and high wind pressures. At the end of the 19th and in the early 20th century, there was an Alsatian organ reform, with the desire being to rediscover the organs of Silbermann. The Alsatian Albert Schweitzer was important in this movement. Schweitzer loved French organs, and this was revealed especially in his trips to Paris to study the instruments of Cavaillé-Coll.

This movement was not the Orgelbewegung, which came later and was even more radical. Many Romantic organs were destroyed in the zeal to build organs with little fundamental tone, high-pitched mixtures, and absence of gambas. The French manifestation of this revolution occurred partially in the Neo-Classical movement of the 1930s.

In the 1950s, there was a Baroque-reform movement in Alsace, which reacted against the Neo-Classical movement in other parts of France. Alfred Kern's 1963 instrument at Saint-Séverin in Paris is an example of a tonal design from this reform movement. Kern's family were builders from Strasbourg in Alsace. The participants in this movement sought a better understanding of the old instruments and to make possible the playing of Bach and other German music as well as Classical French music. The 1970s then saw the revival of interest in the Romantic organs.

Saint-Martin, Oltingue

The Oltingue church of Saint Martin is of neo-Baroque style. The organ was built in 1843 by Joseph (1795-1857) and Claude (1803-1874) Callinet, sons of François Callinet (1754-1820) who began the family business. The organ was cleaned in 1941, and in 1978 Gaston Kern of Strasbourg rebuilt the façade pipes and restored the blending of the French and German influences of Callinet. It features a bourdon 16', montre 8', and sifflet 1', with fourniture, a beautiful cornet, and trompette 8' and clairon 4' in the Grand Orgue. The Positiv has bourdon 8', flûte 8', a flûte 4' which plays at 8' in the lower range, and a basson-hautbois which is a free reed. There is also a gamba (Roth noted that Silbermann did not build gambas). The ophicleide in the pedal is also a free reed, which Roth said makes "an odd noise." Roth improvised for us and then participants were able to play.

Église de Masevaux

We traveled east to Masevaux to visit the church of our co-host, Pierre Chevreau. Église de Masevaux (St. Martin) is a modern building, as the previous building with its Callinet organ burned in 1966. Alfred Kern built the gallery organ in 1975. It has 40 stops distributed over four manuals and a dramatic case which spreads completely across the wide gallery. The disposition is Grand Orgue with 16', 8' montre, flûte 4', prestant, gemshorn 2', cornet, fourniture, cymbale, trompette, and clarion. The Oberwerk has flûtes 8', 4', 2', larigot, cymbale and chalumeau. The Echo (42 notes) has flûtes 8' and 4', cornet and voix humaine (the only stop that is enclosed). The Positif de dos has viole and bourdon, flûte 4', prestant, 22/3', 13/5', 2', 1', fourniture, cromorne, and voix humaine. The Pedal includes flûtes 16', 8', prestant, cor de nuit 2', fourniture, posaune 16', trompette, and cornet 2'. There is also a two-manual choir organ by Curt Schwenkedel (1972) which of the German Baroque style. It features brilliant mixtures which are loud and harsh.

Pierre Chevreau is artistic director for an international organ festival here. 2001 was the 25th year for the event, with recitals during July, August, and September.

Ebersmünster

We traveled north to Ebersmünster, a town that is east of the north-south motorway and still in the valley. On the way we saw high in the hills to the West Koenigsburg Castle and Chateau de Kentsheim, two imposing structures that can be seen from great distances and which complement the picturesque scenery. Across from the church, we caught sight of one of the many man-made stork nests (occupied with parents and chicks) for which Alsace is famous. The towers of this Baroque church crown a beautifully-proportioned building. Once a Benedictine abbey, the choir was completed in the 17th century. In 1709 the towers were added. Nave and transepts were finished 1725-27, and in 1730-73, Andreas Silbermann placed the organ in the west gallery; the organ case is spectacularly beautiful. Silbermann (1678-1734) established the Strasbourg firm and after studying his craft with Thierry in Paris, settled in Alsace. His sons Gott-fried (1683-1753) and Johann Andreas (1717-1766) carried on, but Gottfried moved back to Saxony.

The specification is almost French Classical. Only the bombarde 16' in the Pedal is different. This was added to French instruments in the late 18th century and only to those which were the largest. The Pedal originally had flûtes 8' and 4' with trompette and clarion. The clarion was added in 1732, as was the Swell trompette. Today the organ is of 29 stops, three manuals with Echo (25 notes), Positif de dos, and Grand Orgue (each with 49 notes). In 1782, Johann Hosias Silbermann added a new pedalboard and bellows. In 1857, Martin Wetzel, a Strasbourg builder, added the bombarde. A cleaning was done in 1921, and in 1939 Roethinger added another new pedalboard, altered the voicing, and changed the bombarde and trompette. In 1998-2000, a complete restoration was undertaken in an attempt to restore the Silbermann voicing.

Protestant Temple, Barr

We journeyed next across the valley and into the foothills of the Vosges mountains to one of the wine villages, Barr, where we arrived at the Protestant Temple, which is Lutheran--unusual because most of the Protestant churches here are Calvinist. There is no nave and no transepts. The pulpit is the focal point of the church with pews arranged in front and on the sides. The church was built in 1852, but the tower is from the 12th century and was restored and made higher in the 15th century.

The first organ here was placed by the Silbermann family in 1739. The present organ, from 1852, is exceptionally large for the building. It was built by Stierh, a family of organists first headed by the father and then by his three sons: Joseph (1792-1867), Ferdinand (1803-1872), and Savier (1806- 1873). The firm added an associate--Mockers--and together they placed this instrument. There are four manuals: Positif de dos, Grand orgue, Echo expressif, and Grand Orgue (suite)--trompette and clairon only. There are three 16' stops and three 4' stops in the G.O. The fugara 4' is a German gamba. The Pedal features a wooden 16' basson and violincello 8'. The Positif has a cor des alpes 8' which is a conical reed. The voix celeste 4' is not a celeste but only a narrow-scaled string stop. The Echo, under expression, was very unusual for that time. It contains a basson-hautbois and voix humaine. There were restorations in 1895, 1924, and 1948. In 1977, Gaston Kern undertook the last restoration. M. Roth demonstrated the gambas 16', 8', and 4' of the G.O., the montre 8', and the plenum and reeds, and then  played a passacaglia by Rheinberger (Sonata #8). Then participants were allowed to try the organ.

Saint Martin, Erstein

We traveled back into the valley, across the motorway, and arrived at Erstein and the Romanesque-style church of Saint Martin. Welcoming us was an official of the regional council as well as a representative of the mayor's office. The organ is a historic monument. In 1905, there was creation of a separation of church and state in France. All of the organs now belong to the towns. This one, recently restored, is under the auspices of a regional council.

The organ of 1914 was built by Edmond-Alexandre Roethinger of Strasbourg. As with other instruments, its specification represents a combination of French and German traditions. The flûte of the Grand Orgue, the geigen principal of the Positiv, the principal 8' of the Swell, and the posaune of the Pedal are all under high wind pressure, which was typical of German organ building at the end of the 19th century. The stops are designated by the word "Starkton-" indicating their higher wind pressure. The bombarde and trompette of the swell are of French voicing. The harmonia aetherea of the swell is a 3-rank mixture of string pipes, and there is an unda maris on the Positif. The Récit and Positif are both under expression. This organ's 64 stops make it the largest instrument heard thus far in Alsace. There are seven 8' stops on the Grand orgue and Positif and eight 8' stops on the Récit.

M. Roth improvised and then demonstrated individual stops. The clarinet on the Positif is especially beautiful. He conducted a masterclass with Barbara Reid, Jill Hunt, and Angela Kraft Cross performing Franck, Pièce Héroïque; Dupré, B-major Prelude; and Widor, Allegro from Symphonie VI.

Saint-Thomas, Strasbourg

We traveled to Strasbourg for the last day, arriving first at Saint-Thomas Protestant cathedral, dating from 1740-41. The organ, over the entrance door, is by Johann-Andreas Silbermann. Its beautiful oak case is of wonderful proportions. The rounded central tower of the Grand Orgue is of unusual design. There is a matching rounded tower in the Positif de dos. The organ comprises three manuals and 31 stops and is tuned at low pitch, but in equal temperament. In 1790 a trumpet was added to the Echo manual, and in the 19th century Wetzel added some Romantic stops, including a salicional. More changes occurred in 1860. In 1979, Alfred Kern, a specialist in the aesthetic of Silbermann, restored the original, but he left the romantic stops in the Echo division. Albert Schweitzer established a tradition of playing an all-Bach recital each July 28, the anniversary of Bach's death. The tradition carries on today.

The Positif plenum, jeu de tierce, and cromorne are original Silbermann pipes as are those of the entire Grand Orgue and Pedal. The Echo division recalls the Romantic period. The only 16' flue in the Pedal is a soubasse. The montre of the Grand Orgue is especially beautiful and singing. French Classical music sounds well here, but so does Bach, Buxtehude, and the other German Baroque composers. M. Roth first improvised. Participants played such works as Buxtehude, Prelude, Fugue and Chaconne; Bach, G-minor Fantasie, D-minor Toccata, and chorale preludes Nun komm der Heiden Heiland and O mensch bewein. The tremolo is especially beautiful.

Notre-Dame Cathedral, Strasbourg

We proceeded to the great Notre-Dame Cathedral of Strasbourg. The church, begun in 1015, has a Romanesque choir from the 11th and 12th centuries. The Gothic nave is from 1275. The spire of the west façade was finished in 1439. The organ hangs high on the triforium gallery near the west entrance, about two bays away. Christoph Mantoux, Professor of organ at the Strasbourg Conservatory, played a French Classical suite. The vox humana is especially beautiful.

The opportunities afforded by the biennial British and French Organ Music Seminars are evident in both the number of people who return to them and to the growing diversity of participants. Not only do these events attract professional organists who desire to play the great instruments of England and France, but there are those who are self-taught aficionados of the organ and those of other professions who love the organ and its music. Investment brokers, art historians, physicians, and computer programmers are part of these groups. Organ historians among the participants provide excellent outlines ahead of the seminars chronicling the timelines of British and French organists, composers, builders, and British influence on American organ building. Organists of all levels of experience--beginners to professionals--are allowed equal access to the instruments and to gifts of the faculty.