Pioneers in American Music, 1860−1920, The New England Classicists: A book by Barbara Owen

David Herman

It was the only paying job I’d ever had.

So said Ralph Vaughan Williams, speaking on the biographical DVD, O Thou Transcendent, as he talked about his first—and only—church organist position.

Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872–1958), arguably the most imaginative, prolific, and engaging British composer of the first half of the twentieth century, wrote so relatively few works for solo organ.¹ Why was this? Other twentieth-century British composers (such as Matthias, Leighton, Wills, Jackson, and, especially, Howells) contributed to the organ’s literature in major ways. Some say Vaughan Williams did not like the organ. It is more accurate, I believe, to suggest he did not enjoy playing the organ. It might have been difficult for him; he was, after all, a large man and had (as noted by relatives speaking on the DVD) long fingers and “enormous” feet! Others suggest his personal brand of Christian agnosticism got in the way of composing solo organ music.² But there are, of course, British organs in not only churches and cathedrals but also in many town halls and other non-religious concert venues. There was even an organ set up in his childhood home in Surrey so that he could practice.

Perhaps Vaughan Williams could not quite sort out how to translate some musical thoughts into organistic musical thoughts. In one of his many profoundly important observations on playing the organ, the late Erik Routley once wrote, “The organist must translate the [hymn] score into organ language [author’s emphasis] when he or she plays.”³

It is true that while many places in Vaughan Williams’s organ works have the ingredients for great musical expression, they are not entirely easy to bring off at the organ, due to matters of fingering, pedaling, and especially of texture. The same could be said of organ music by some other composers (Jehan Alain comes to mind), for which the player’s creative imagination must be called upon to combine with the composer’s notes.

It is the goal of this short work to consider Vaughan Williams’s views about and experiences with the organ and to examine the organ works that he left us. In so doing we will note some of the important influences on his compositional life, including his friendship with Gustav Holst, and especially his long and admiring relationship with the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. And, we will see that the organ had an important role in Vaughan Williams’s life from his early teens through his funeral in Westminster Abbey in August 1958.

A final theory offered by some in explaining Vaughan Williams’s relatively small output for the organ is that he simply couldn’t play the organ well.

I cannot tell that I think he is justified in going in for an organist’s career which is his pet idea. He seems to me so hopelessly ‘unhandy’ . . . . I can never trust him to play a simple service for me without some dread at what he may do.

So wrote Alan Gray, Vaughan Williams’s organ teacher at Trinity College.⁴ Vaughan Williams himself, likely with a degree of false modesty, was critical of his own playing. We should take care, however, in believing that he was not a competent organist, as many factors suggest otherwise. To begin with a significant milestone, he studied for and passed (in 1898) the demanding Fellowship exams for the Royal College of Organists (only to resign his membership a few years later). John Francis, Vaughan Williams scholar, author, and vice president/treasurer of the Ralph Vaughan Williams Society, suggests that the situation above that Alan Gray complained of was due to the fact that Vaughan Williams was “unpredictable rather than technically incompetent.”⁵ Francis continues:

Self-deprecatory remarks by Vaughan Williams in later years have perhaps been taken too often at face value. We have no account of his [organ] playing by anybody who heard him play.

Further, Gray himself followed his lament by adding,

And this he combines with considerable knowledge & taste on organ and musical matters generally.⁶

This essay is not a biography of Ralph Vaughan Williams; fortunately, there are many excellent volumes available, some issued quite recently. Nevertheless, many events in his childhood, youth, and university days are intertwined with a study of his organ music. The reader will note at the end a list of some twenty-four sources consulted. Also particularly useful is the Timeline found on the website of the Ralph Vaughan Williams Society: www.rvwsociety.com.

Vaughan Williams’s father was the vicar of Down Ampney (which Vaughan Williams pronounced “Amney”)⁷ in Gloucestershire. He died when his son was only two years old. His mother came from families of means: she was the daughter of Josiah Wedgwood (of pottery fame) and the niece of Charles Darwin.⁸ Let Vaughan Williams’s own words summarize the next few years, as spoken in Tony Palmer’s video, O Thou Transcendent:⁹

At age 11 [1883] I was sent to a horrid school at Rottingdean. Three years later I arrived at Charterhouse [1887]. They still sing my hymns there to this day. From Charterhouse I was sent off to the RCM [1890], and there I met a fellow pupil called Gustav Holst.

In his youth Holst had also secured a church position involving considerable responsibility. Vaughan Williams’s niece, recalling these early days with Vaughan Williams, remarked,

We used to laugh about Uncle Ralph but he wasn’t very good at the organ, and yet he was always playing for funerals or weddings or things.¹⁰

While at Charterhouse he was once greatly impressed by a schoolmate’s playing of Bach’s “St. Anne” fugue—a work that would remain a favorite throughout his life and which he himself designated as the postlude for his memorial service in Westminster Abbey.¹¹

During school holidays he practiced diligently, and the family even arranged for an organ to be installed at Leith Hill Place near Dorking, the seventeenth-century house in Surrey, wherein lived Wedgwoods and Darwins and which had become Vaughan Williams’s childhood home. (He later remarked that Dorking was “my home for nearly 40 years.”¹²) He inherited the house from his brother in 1944, whereupon he gave it to Britain’s National Trust.¹³ Breakfast at Leith Hill was at 7:30, and “Mr. Ralph” normally practiced beforehand. “The trouble about the early morning was finding a blower for the organ.”¹⁴ The butler, housemaids, groom, and gardener all avoided him!¹⁵ On Sundays he would practice long after the rest of the household had started to walk the two miles to church, usually arriving just as the service was starting. While a student at Charterhouse he was allowed to practice on the chapel organ. (One wonders what pieces he was working on!) In any case, from an early age Vaughan Williams seemed committed to the organ.

Throughout his childhood Vaughan Williams was steadfast in declaring his desire to be a professional musician. His family agreed, with the provision that he became an organist. (Thoughts were different in the late nineteenth century!) He later wrote:

I believe I should have made quite a decent fiddler but the authorities [!] decided that if I was to take up music at all the violin was too ‘doubtful’ a career and I must seek the safety of the organ stool, a trade for which I was entirely unsuited.¹⁶

It should be noted that when he subsequently left his only church position after only four or so years, it would seem that, although he disliked being an organist, there is no evidence that he disliked the organ.

The Royal College of Music

Vaughan Williams entered the Royal College of Music in 1890, just prior to his eighteenth birthday, and there became a pupil of Charles Hubert Hastings Parry. His family wanted him to commute, which he usually did by rail but occasionally on foot! (Really? London to Leith Hill in Surrey—some thirty miles! Far from the 200 miles Bach supposedly walked from Arnstadt to Lübeck, but . . . ). He often announced his arrival at Leith Hill Place by first having a go at the organ.¹⁷

While studying at the Royal College of Music he also entered Trinity College, Cambridge (1892), and there experienced a “spiritual awakening.”

As my mother insisted that I had a ‘proper’ education, I was sent to Cambridge . . .
what an awakening that was! You might almost say a spiritual awakening. The sense that even if you didn’t believe in God, there was something beyond. Something mysterious.¹⁸

Vaughan Williams would have heard many organ recitals and services at Cambridge and in nearby Ely Cathedral (whose organist then was T. Tertius Nobel, later to become organist at Saint Thomas Church, Fifth Avenue, New York City). Undergraduates at Trinity College were obliged to attend chapel services, and Vaughan Williams sometimes avoided this duty by retreating to the organ loft. At Cambridge he studied the organ with Alan Gray¹⁹ (organist of Trinity College) and left the university with a B.Mus degree in 1894, returning to the Royal College of Music in 1895. There Vaughan Williams began composition study with Charles Villiers Stanford, with whom he had a famously difficult relationship; Stanford’s comment on Vaughan Williams’s music often consisted only of “All rot, me boy.” Vaughan Williams, however, was in later years to speak warmly of him.

The Church of Saint Barnabas, South Lambeth

Vaughan Williams was appointed organist here in 1895. Since this was to be his first and only church position it seems appropriate to include here some details of the place and his duties. It seems that he held this post until 1899. Vaughan Williams describes his work there, again with some false modesty:

I was appointed to my first and last organ post, at St. Barnabas, South Lambeth. As I already said, I never could play the organ, but this appointment gave me an insight into good and bad church music which stood me in good stead later on. I also had to train the choir and give organ recitals and accompany the services, which gave me some knowledge of music from the performer’s point of view.²¹

This was a large church (originally seating 1,500 people) on Guildford Road in South Lambeth. The parish, as confirmed by the Diocese of Southwark office, exists no more.

The building, however, is still there, having been gutted and refitted as a series of “council flats” (low-income housing). Interestingly, when I visited there, the building manager was astonished to learn that a very famous composer had once served as organist of the church! Vaughan Williams presided over a largish instrument built by Hill and rebuilt by Bishop.²² At the time of his tenure the church supported an ambitious music program with a sizeable budget. The duties, for which Vaughan Williams was paid a salary of £50 per year, were demanding and time consuming.²³ His wife Adeline reported that he worked very hard and practiced on the organ up to five hours per day. For Vaughan Williams the salary was probably incidental to the experience.

He did not need to earn a living, having a healthy but not excessive private income. His work as an organist was for his continuing education, not to keep body and soul together.²⁴

His time at Saint Barnabas was not easy. He told his friend Holst that his choristers were “louts” and the vicar “quite mad.” The vicar insisted on the organist’s taking communion; Vaughan Williams felt that he, as a principled atheist, could not. So he resigned, without any apparent regret.²⁵ First, however, resolving to go abroad to study (with Max Bruch), he requested from the church, and was granted, a leave of absence. It is here that his friend Gustav Holst enters the picture.

Vaughan Williams and Holst

Vaughan Williams met Holst (1874–1934) at the Royal College of Music in 1895, and they remained fast friends for forty years until Holst’s death, going for extended hikes in the countryside and critiquing each other’s compositions. These “field days,” when they played and dissected their respective works were to prove invaluable to them both. Although in his youth Holst also had various tries at being a church organist, he was instead to become a professional trombonist (recommended as a treatment for his asthma).

He [Holst] left the College of Music to abandon the eminently respectable career of an organist . . . and to get at music from the inside as a trombonist in an orchestra. The very worst that a trombonist has to put up with is as nothing compared to what a church organist has to endure.²⁶

In taking leave of the organ bench at Saint Barnabas it was natural for Vaughan Williams to think of his friend Holst. There are somewhat differing accounts of the manner in which he broached the subject with Holst. Heirs and Rebels,²⁷ the collection of letters exchanged between the two composers, establishes some clarity. First, in a letter from Vaughan Williams to Holst, probably July 1897:

I am leaving this damned place [Saint Barnabas] in October and going abroad.

And then, contrary to some accounts in which he offered Holst the job, he in fact inquired about the latter’s interest:

Suppose you were offered it would you consider the matter? The screw [sic!] is £50 [per annum] and the minimum duties . . .

And here he lays out what sounds like a demanding list of tasks, working on Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays, as well as running the choral society and giving occasional organ recitals. Vaughan Williams later states:

Mind I AM NOT OFFERING IT YOU [VW’s caps] only [sic] if you would like it I will do my best to Back you.

He concludes by asking Holst to deputize for him while he is gone and provides many specific instructions on getting through the service (pitches, cues, etc.). He suggests beginning the morning service with a “short and easy voluntary” and concluding with a “long and difficult voluntary.” He notes about the choir:

Those louts of men will slope in about 8.45 and make you mad—the only ones who can sing will be away.

As a postscript VW adds, “The vicar is quite mad.” (Does any of this sound familiar to us today?) In any event, the position was not taken by Holst but probably by William H. Harris (later a faculty member at the Royal College of Music and organist at Saint George’s Chapel, Windsor).²⁸

Vaughan Williams and Bach

Vaughan Williams showed nearly life-long fondness and admiration for the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, whom he placed above all musicians. He regarded the Saint Matthew Passion, a work that he would conduct many times, to be Bach’s greatest achievement. Vaughan Williams had clear and strongly held thoughts on performing Bach’s music. First, he insisted that, for his audiences, the choral works, including the Matthew Passion, be sung in English (a preference shared by the late David Willcocks when he was director of the Bach Choir). He did not have patience with so-called “authentic performance practices” of early music.

Bach, though superficially he may speak the eighteenth-century language, belongs to no school or period.²⁹

Vaughan Williams had a clear and oft-stated aversion to the harpsichord! He used the grand piano as the continuo instrument in his many Bach performances.

The harpsichord, however it may sound in a small room—and to my mind it never [author’s emphasis] has a pleasant sound—in a large concert room sounds just like the ticking of a sewing machine.³⁰

He had similar thoughts about the so-called Baroque organ, which in the 1950s put him distinctly at odds with those planning the new organ for London’s Royal Festival Hall.

By the way, I see there is a movement afoot to substitute the bubble-and-squeak type of instrument for the noble diapason and soft mixtures of our cathedral organs.³¹

It is interesting to note that the opening recital on the Royal Festival Hall organ included Vaughan Williams’s Three Preludes Founded on Welsh Hymn Tunes.

These views on instruments and performing practices may now be considered old-fashioned and out-of-date. They are, nonetheless, the beliefs of a great musician whose musical thoughts and ideas, planted in the mid-Victorian era, grew through more than a half-century of music making. “Vaughan Williams paid tribute to Bach practically, in his non-authentic but deeply moving performances of the major choral works at Dorking.”³² [For the Leith Hill Festivals, founded in 1905, which he conducted from 1905 to 1953.]

The Great War

The effect of war on musicians has been a topic of lengthy and interesting studies. In addition to the English composers who did not return from the First World War, the Second World War took the lives of many composers, including Jehan Alain and Hugo Distler, and affected the lives of countless others. Although space does not permit an excursion on this topic, it seems relative to touch on Vaughan Williams’s army service, which relates to his work as organist and church musician.

Vaughan Williams volunteered for military service in the Royal Army Medical Corps (in 1914, at age 42!) and from May 1915 was stationed at Saffron Walden where he spent considerable time at the organ of the parish church,³³ finding refuge from the horrors of war through playing Bach. At the outbreak of war he was for a time stationed with his unit in Dorking. When there was a death in the company and no organist could be found for the service at Saint Martin’s Church, Vaughan Williams offered to play, providing he could have some volunteers to form a choir. In the same year he was posted to a field ambulance brigade. The following year he was sent to France (at the rank of lieutenant) and was involved in the Battle of the Somme.

Vaughan Williams’s patriotic spirit was evident during the Second World War through his composing of film music to aid the war effort and in many types of volunteer work. For example, he regularly gathered scrap metal. His Thanksgiving for Victory was written and performed in 1945 in celebration of the war’s end.

Vaughan Williams and church music

We have seen that, with the one exception of four or so years at the end of the nineteenth century, Vaughan Williams never functioned as a parish musician. Nonetheless, his many choral works, large (Hodie) and small (O Taste and See), enrich the repertory of all manner of choral organizations, ranging from parish singers to concert choirs. His choral music was written not so much for places (as with Howells’s many settings of the services for various cathedrals and collegiate chapels) but for occasions (coronations, victories, and more).

One of Vaughan Williams’s most monumentally important works in the field of church music was as editor of The English Hymnal. In 1904 a committee headed by the Reverend Percy Dearmer³⁴ set about creating a new hymnbook, in succession to the venerable Hymns Ancient and Modern.³⁵ Vaughan Williams was invited to be the musical editor and, by his own testimony, in the process learned a great deal about music—the good and the bad. He introduced several new tunes of his own creation as well as folk melodies, making it a thoroughly “English” book. He succeeded in purging the new hymnal of many poor Victorian hymn tunes (while retaining the better ones), and those which he was forced to keep he banned to the back of the book in a section he called “The Chamber of Horrors.”

Songs of Praise followed in 1925, once more with Dearmer as general editor and Vaughan Williams, assisted by Martin Shaw, the musical editor. It is said that Vaughan Williams was thrilled by the sound of an enthusiastic congregation singing a great hymn. The same trio of Dearmer, Vaughan Williams, and Martin Shaw worked together again to produce The Oxford Book of Carols in 1928.

Organist friends of Vaughan Williams

Vaughan Williams loved the typical cathedral organs of the first half of the twentieth century and liked hearing them played. In return, many cathedral organists enjoyed playing for him—often at night when the building was closed, often playing works of Bach. Such special playings took place often—by Walter Alcock at Salisbury; Herbert Sumsion in Gloucester; William McKie in Westminster Abbey, as they worked together preparing for the 1953 coronation. After Vaughan Williams’s death in 1958, it was decided to place his ashes next to those of Stanford and Purcell in the Abbey.

Other prominent organists who were friends and colleagues, and from whom he no doubt learned much about the instrument: Thomas Armstrong, Ivor Atkins, Harold Darke, Walford Davies, John Dykes Bower, Alan Gray, Herbert Howells, John Ireland, Henry Ley, Christopher Morris, Boris Ord, Cyril Rootham, Martin Shaw, R. R. Terry, and George Thalban-Ball.³⁶

In considering Vaughan Williams and the organ, Relf Clark suggests an interesting comparison with Elgar:³⁷

Early in their careers, both were briefly the organist of a parish church. Neither of them appears to have enjoyed the experience very much. Both wrote for the instrument a handful of not entirely characteristic works. Both made notable use of the organ in a few orchestral scores. And both enjoyed the friendship and support of professional organists.

In a famous letter to The Daily Telegraph, January 14, 1951, Vaughan Williams makes some views clear, beginning with his thoughts on the “bubble and squeak” tones of continental organs.

Is it really proposed that we should abandon in favour of this unpleasant sound the noble diapasons and rich soft ‘mixtures’ of our best church organs?

He particularly admired the organ at Saint Michael’s Church, Cornhill (Hill; Rushworth & Dreaper), presided over by his friend Harold Darke, and believed it possessed the ideal English organ tone.

The works for organ

This essay offers not so much analyses but comments on Vaughan Williams’s music. For structural and thematic analyses of the organ works see the excellent articles by Hugh Benham [See “Sources and further reading,” B/2] and Relf Clark [See “Sources and further reading,” C]. It would seem that Vaughan Williams’s major organ works were conceived or written at Saint Mary’s Church, Saffron Walden, where he spent a great deal of time practicing while stationed there in 1915. The late Michael Kennedy, the chief authority on the works of Ralph Vaughan Williams, cites the following as “The Organ Works:”

• Three Preludes Founded On Welsh Hymn Tunes, published in 1920 by Stainer & Bell. The second prelude of the set, Rhosymedre, was played at Vaughan Williams’s funeral in 1958. Clark observes that the registrations in the score likely reflected the organ at Trinity College. He further suggests that Vaughan Williams first encountered these tunes when editing The English Hymnal (1906). The preludes are likely among the first works completed after his leaving the army in 1919.³⁸

Bryn Calfaria is at once the most interesting musically and, although fun to play, nonetheless the most challenging to bring off at the organ. It is dramatic and improvisatory; fragments of the tune are given out through a thick and tangled texture. Like many other fine organ works (some of Alain’s come to mind) the piece involves the player as interpreter: adding musical imagination to the text.

Rhosymedre is the most well liked and often played of the three. Simple, quiet, and gently dance-like, it states the tune twice, in a straightforward manner.

Hyfrydol makes a bit of an odd conclusion to the set: a very thick-textured setting of the tune (difficult to play, especially for those with small hands) above a constantly moving pedal part that romps over two octaves (get out your Gleason book to help your feet prepare).

• Prelude and Fugue in C Minor, composed in 1921 for orchestra and first performed in that year at the Three Choirs Festival in Hereford. The orchestral version was performed first (conducted by the composer). The piece was then arranged for organ between 1921 and 1930 (completed in 1921, revised in 1923, published in 1930). Vaughan Williams told the dedicatee Henry Ley that the work was modeled on Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in C Minor, BWV 546.³⁹ Ley (pronounced “Lee”), then organist at Christ Church, Oxford, commented on the piece’s difficulty. According to Ley, Vaughan Williams said that the work was written in 1915 while he was stationed at Saffron Walden using the organ at Saint Mary’s Church.⁴⁰ The prelude and fugue together occupy some ten minutes.

The Prelude is very well written for the organ. Vaughan Williams was attentive to details of registration (including frequent use of manual 16′s) and manual divisions. The piece has quite a lot of bitonal dissonance. Ley was right: it is not easy play, due to the constantly changing chord colors, large amount of chromaticism, and fast contrapuntal passages. Vaughan Williams employed chords in parallel sweeping lines, often in contrary motion. Thick homophonic passages alternate with longer sections of thinner, busy counterpoint, generating an ABABA design. The quick B sections are terrifically fast at the specified tempo of quarter = 120 beats per minute. Thinking I could not play it that fast, I initially suspected a case of “composer tempo overreach.” David Briggs, however, manages these brilliantly on the two-CD set of the complete organ music (original and transcriptions) of Vaughan Williams, Bursts of Acclamation. (Albion ALBCD021/2, available from the Ralph Vaughan Williams Society, https://
rvwsociety.com).

The prelude is somewhat impressionistic in sound, using parallelism, tonal vagueness (often resulting from mixed modes), the use of ninth and major-seventh chords, as well as tetra- and pentatonic scales. The result: the prelude clearly sounds like Vaughan Williams. It ends suddenly in C major, a somewhat astonishing tonality not really heard before in the piece.

For someone who was a master at contrapuntal writing and an ardent admirer of Bach, Vaughan Williams seems not to have written very many fugues. This fugue is a good one, a double fugue in fact, whose two subjects are first treated separately and then combined at the climax. It begins not so much in C minor but C Aeolian. The omnipresent triplets against duplets, which get a bit wearing (to this player, at least), is an element in both fugue subjects. Parallel chords in contrary motion, drawn from the prelude, occasionally interrupt the rather dissonant fugal entries.

• Two Organ Preludes, founded on Welsh Folk Songs, published in 1956. These are Romanza (“The White Rock”) and Toccata (“St. David’s Day”). These works are generally regarded as being less than indicative of the composer’s skill and imagination and not very “organistic.”

• In 1964 Oxford University Press published A Vaughan Williams Organ Album (still in print) consisting of transcriptions as well as the two organ preludes of 1956. Various composers, including Henry Ley, have made organ transcriptions of several of Vaughan Williams’s orchestral works.⁴¹

• Kennedy mentions an Organ Overture, from 1890 (the manuscript of which is in the British Library).⁴²

• A Wedding Tune for Anne, 1943 (contained in A Vaughan Williams Organ Album).

• Various incomplete sketches left at the time of his death.

Returning to the opening question

There are two Vaughan Williams organ works of relatively major stature, dating from during and just after the time of the First World War: the preludes on Welsh hymns and the Prelude and Fugue in C Minor. A generation later would come Benjamin Britten’s comparable opus, Prelude and Fugue on a Theme of Vittoria (1946). They have not much in common, save being one of few examples of their masters’ contributions to the canon of organ music. Both composers wrote for situations or performances: Vaughan Williams for the Three Choirs Festival in Hereford, for example; Britten’s was a commission from Saint Matthew’s, Northampton (for which he had earlier written the cantata Rejoice in the Lamb, containing some of the most original and dramatic writing for organ in any choral work). These preludes and fugues, valued for their singular stature, are nonetheless not entirely representative of their composers’ genius, language, invention, and musical imaginations.

Douglas Fairhurst suggests that Vaughan Williams, as a great artist, was more at ease and naturally expressive having a larger canvass for his music. Former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams commented that, while it was unorthodox to consider canonization for a non-believer, the Christian church owed a great deal to him for his contributions.⁴³ In any case, after his death in 1958 Vaughan Williams’s ashes were buried in Westminster Abbey, appropriately near those of Stanford and Purcell. Of special note: his was the first funeral service held in the Abbey for a commoner since that of Purcell, nearly 300 years earlier.⁴⁴

Supplement I: some other works in which the organ is prominent

The organ has played a central role in many centuries of choral music. Vaughan Williams realized the expressive and dramatic powers of the organ and used them to good effect in some of his orchestral works as well.

• Job, A Masque for Dancing. In Scene VI (the Dance of Job’s Comforters) we see/hear a vivid representation of Satan and his retinue in Hell. Included is a part for “Full Organ with Solo Reeds Coupled,” supplementing the full orchestra.

• A Vision of Aeroplanes⁴⁵ is a substantial late work (1956) for chorus and organ, setting familiar words from the first chapter of the Book of Ezekiel. It opens with a dramatic, dissonant organ solo that, as with subsequent organ interludes, reminds one of the organ’s use in Howells’s A Sequence for St. Michael, to be written some five years later.

• A Sea Symphony includes passages for organ, more for support, as a member of the orchestra, than for effect.

• However, the dramatic blast of chords occurring about 3/4th through the “Landscape” (Lento) movement in Sinfonia Antarctica, shows the organ as hair-raising, important, and soloistic.

Supplement II: selected choral works in which the organ has a prominent role

[These lists extracted from Neil Butterworth: Ralph Vaughan Williams: A Guide To Research. New York and London: Garland Publishing, 1990.]

Vexilla Regis (for the Cambridge B.Mus), 1894

Mass (for the Cambridge D.Mus), 1899

Toward the Unknown Region, 1907

Fantasia on Christmas Carols, 1912

Sancta Civitas, 1923–1925

Three Choral Hymns, 1929

Flourish for a Coronation, 1937

Six Choral Songs: To be sung in time of war, 1940

England, My England, 1941

Thanksgiving for Victory (later A Song of Thanksgiving), 1945

Folk Songs of the Four Seasons, 1949

Fantasia (Quasi Variazione) on the “Old 104th Psalm Tune,” 1949

Hodie, 1953–1954

Supplement III: some choral music for the church

O Clap Your Hands, 1920

Lord, Thou Hast Been Our Refuge, 1921

Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis (The Village Service), 1925

The Pilgrim Pavement, 1934

O How Amiable, 1934

Festival Te Deum in F, 1937

All Hail the Power (Miles Lane), 1938

Services in D Minor, 1939

Hymn for St. Margaret, 1948

The Old Hundredth Psalm, 1953

Te Deum and Benedictus, 1954

A Vision of Aeroplanes, 1956

Notes

1. In this he does not stand alone, of course. The same could be said of RVW’s best friend, Gustav Holst (who around 1930 started what he hoped would be an organ concerto). We wish Alain and Distler could have had longer lives in which to continue their composing for organ. And, although the organ parts in many of Benjamin Britten’s choral works are tour de forces of rhythm, texture, and organ color, Britten, too, left us a regrettably small number of organ works (which reveal relatively little of his musical genius).

2. Many have pondered this seeming contradiction between belief and the creative settings of sacred texts. One factor: he had, of course, a life-long love affair with Elizabethan English.

3. Church Music and the Christian Faith, by Erik Routley. Carol Stream, Illinois: Agape, 1978, p. 105.

4. Quoted in Aldritt, p. 55.

5. Francis/2. [The booklet pages are not numbered.]

6. RVW/3, p. 42.

7. Palmer.

8. Reference to the famous remark about Darwin is irresistible. As a child, VW asked his mother what was all the fuss about Great-Uncle Charles? She replied that the Bible says the earth was created in six days; Great-Uncle Charles believes it took somewhat longer.

9. Palmer.

10. Ibid.

11. Aldritt, p.30.

12. Palmer.

13. VW/3, p.258.

14. Ibid., p. 28.

15. As stated by J. Ellis Cook, son of the gardener at Leith Hill Place; quoted in Tributes, p. 25.

16. VW1, p. 134.

17. Aldritt, p. 37.

18. Palmer.

19. “Our friendship survived his despair at my playing and I became quite expert at managing the stops at his voluntaries and organ recitals.” And then wrote Alan Gray: “I cannot tell him that I think he is justified in going in for an organist’s career which is his pet idea. He seems to me so hopelessly ‘unhandy.’ I can never trust him to play a simple service for me without some dread as to what he may do.” Aldritt, p. 55. VW clearly achieved significant improvement by 1898, when he passed the F.R.C.O. exams!

20. The British title “organist” usually implies “organist and choirmaster.”

21. VW/1, p. 146.

22. Clark, p. 9.

23. In addition to services, these included four choral rehearsals each week as well as giving occasional organ recitals. Kennedy, p. 41.

24. Heffer, p. 18.

25. Ibid., p. 19.

26. VW/1, p. 71.

27. VW/4, pp. 5–6.

28. F/5, p. 9.

29. VW/1, p. 122.

30. Ibid., p. 123.

31. Ibid.

32. Mellers, p. 158.

33. F/2 (pages unnumbered).

34. Vicar of Saint Mary’s, Primrose Hill, where his organist was Martin Shaw.

35. Hymns Ancient & Modern, first published in 1861, continues to be found, in subsequent editions, in some British church pews today, often next to The English Hymnal.

36. All listed in B/3, Personalia, pp. 315–345.

37. Clark, p. 7.

38. Ibid., p. 10.

39. F/4, p. 8.

40. F/3. p. 16.

41. For details of these, see Randy L. Neighbarger’s, “Organ Music of Ralph Vaughan Williams: A Descriptive List of Original Works and Transcriptions,” The Diapason, October 1991, p. 10.

42. K/2, p. 3.

43. Palmer.

44. Ibid.

33. Written for RVW’s good friend Harold Drake, organist at the Church of Saint Michael’s, Cornhill, the work sets the dramatic account of the whirlwind, cloud, and fire from the book of Ezekiel.

Sources and further reading

A: Aldritt, Keith. Vaughan Williams: Composer, Radical, Patriot—A Biography. Ramsbury, Wiltshire: Robert Hale Books, 2015.

B/1: Barber, Robin. “Vaughan Williams in Hamburg, 1938: A Brush with Nazi Germany.” Ralph Vaughan Williams Society Journal, Issue 66, June 2016.

B/2: Benham, Hugh. “Music for Solo Organ by Ralph Vaughan Williams.” Ralph Vaughan Williams Society Journal, Issue 55, October 2012, 3–8.

B/3: Butterworth, Neil. Ralph Vaughan Williams: A Guide to Research. New York and London: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1990.

C: Clark, Relf. “Vaughan Williams and the Organ: An Anniversary Review.” Organists’ Review, August 2008, 7-15.

F/1: Francis, John. Vice-Chairman of the Ralph Vaughan Williams Society (UK) in correspondence with the author.

F/2: Francis, John. Notes in the booklet accompanying Bursts of Acclamation, two CD recordings of organ works by RVW published by Albion Records.

F/3: Francis, John. “Composers of the Great War Revisited.” Ralph Vaughan Williams Society Journal, Issue 65, February 2016, 15–16.

F/4: Francis, John. “Ralph Vaughan Williams and the Organ.” Ralph Vaughan Williams Society Journal, Issue 63, June 2015, 3–11.

F/5: Francis, John. “A Question of Chronology.” Ralph Vaughan Williams Society Journal, Issue No. 74, February 2019, 9.

H/1: Heffer, Simon. Vaughan Williams. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2000.

H/2: Holmes, Paul. Holst; Illustrated Lives of the Great Composers. London: Omnibus Press, 1997.

K/1: Kennedy, Michael. The Works of Ralph Vaughan Williams. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1964; 2nd edition,1996.

K/2: Kennedy, Michael. A Catalogue of the Works of Ralph Vaughan Williams. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996.

M/3: Manning, David, ed. Vaughan Williams on Music. Oxford University Press, 2008.

M: Marshall, Em. Music in the Landscape. London: Robert Hale, 2011.

M/2: Mellers, Wilfrid. Vaughan Williams and the Vision of Albion. London: Barrie & Jenkins, 1989.

N: Neighbarger, Randy L. “Organ Music of Ralph Vaughan Williams: A Descriptive List of Original Works and Transcriptions,” The Diapason, October 1991, 10–11.

T: Tributes to Vaughan Williams: 50 Years On. A reprint of The RCM Magazine, Vol. LV, No. 1, Easter Term 1959.

P: Palmer, Tony. O Thou Transcendent (a video commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of Vaughan Williams’s death). Isolde Films, 2007.

VW/1: Some Thoughts on Beethoven’s Choral Symphony, With Writings on Other Musical Subjects. London: Oxford University Press, 1953.

VW/2: National Music and Other Essays. London: Oxford University Press, 1987.

VW/3: Vaughan Williams, Ursula. R. V. W.: A Biography of Ralph Vaughan Williams. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1964.

VW/4: Heirs and Rebels: Letters written to each other and occasional writings on music by Ralph Vaughan Williams and Gustav Holst. Edited by Ursula Vaughan Williams and Imogen Holst. London: Oxford University Press, 1959.

Photograph of Ralph Vaughan Williams by Frank Chappelow (used with permission)

Neal Campbell

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

Editor's Note: Part 2 is found in the March 2022 issue.

Introduction

During their seventy-plus-year history it was customary for organs built by the Skinner Organ Company and the Aeolian-Skinner Organ Company to contain an ivory nameplate bearing the firm’s name on the console, usually on the keyslip, although there was a brief period in the early 1960s when the company name was stenciled in gold letters in a way similar to that on pianos. Astute aficionados can sometimes even determine the era in which the organ was built by carefully examining the subtle differences in type styles that were used over the years.

After World War II some jobs featured an additional ivory nameplate bearing the signature of G. Donald Harrison, Aeolian-Skinner’s president and tonal director, which also gave the opus number and date. There is no definitive information to suggest why some organs received this signature plate, what criteria were used in selecting them, or what purpose it served. Much conjecture and oral tradition among enthusiasts has been promulgated to the point where there is a resultant mystique surrounding these “signature organs.”

The only thing approaching documentation on the subject that I have found is in the form of three letters, the first two written approximately twenty years before the latter. Barbara Owen writes in her history of the organ in the Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake City, Utah, Aeolian-Skinner’s Opus 1075:¹

Shortly before the organ was completed, [Alexander] Schreiner wrote to Harrison, “I have long thought it would be a matter of pride to us, to have your name appear on the console name plate. Perhaps also the year, 1948. If that is possible, we should be very pleased.”² Harrison complied by providing a signature plate on the right of the nameboard [keyslip], complementing the company plate on the left. Thus originated a practice that later became customary with Aeolian-Skinner. But it is perhaps nowhere more appropriate than on the Tabernacle instrument, which Harrison himself in later years felt to have been his finest work.

Harrison replied to Schreiner:

I note what you have to say about the nameplate, and I will provide one, but I fear it will not be ready to go [be shipped] with the console. I would like to have my name in the form of my signature if I can get this engraved in Boston.³

Then in 1968 Philip Steinhaus, executive vice-president of Aeolian-Skinner, wrote to William Self, organist and master of the choristers of St. Thomas Church, New York City:

The officers of the Company would be greatly pleased if you would be good enough to help us continue to honor the work of the late G. Donald Harrison by removing his personal nametag [sic] from the console at St. Thomas Church. As you know, Mr. Harrison only agreed to using these tags [signed nameplates] on the jobs with whose finishing he was deeply and personally involved. We are in no way commenting on the present tonal characteristics of the St. Thomas organ, except in all honesty to say that its character is not recognizable as the work of Mr. Harrison, or the Aeolian-Skinner Company for that matter.⁴

From these letters we learn that: a) it was Schreiner who first brought up the idea in the form of a request; b) Harrison replied with the idea of using a facsimile of his signature for that purpose; and c) twenty years later Steinhaus summarizes that these signature plates were put on organs that were finished by GDH and with which he was personally involved. However, upon examining and analyzing existing signature organs and the documented commentary about them, certain patterns do emerge and logical conclusions can be drawn, some of which are tonal and technical, and some purely personal.

It would be a fairly straightforward enterprise to simply list the known signature organs from Opus 1075 in 1948 onward until Harrison’s death in 1956, and I have done just that later in this article. Beyond that, however, I want to set the scene and cite some examples that show the trajectory of Harrison’s tonal ideas leading up to Opus 1075, together with information about the Harrison signature organs.

Historical context

A bit of history sets the stage for the emergence of G. Donald Harrison in the Skinner organization and helps explain why Harrison’s personal involvement came to be sought after and highly prized. The complete story is best told in the letters of the principal players as contained in Charles Callahan’s first book.⁵ But the main thing to take away, as it relates to the topic of the signature organs, is that customers and the leading organists of the era began to prefer instruments that contained the classic elements Harrison gradually came to espouse, and increasingly customers specifically said so. Many of these younger organists had themselves traveled to and studied in Europe and knew some of these historic organs for themselves. They were drawn to Harrison’s concepts of classic design for the simple reason that much of the organ repertoire, especially contrapuntal music, sounded better on these instruments, as opposed to the older style of symphonic and Romantic organs. The era of the large symphonic organs, characterized by a preponderance of eight-foot tone, high wind pressures, and contrasting imitative stops, gradually morphed into organs that were eclectic and modern, which were inspired by historical precedence designed first and foremost to play repertoire written for the organ.

G. Donald Harrison came to America to work for Skinner in 1927, largely through the friendly exchanges between Ernest Skinner and Henry Willis III. Harrison worked for Willis, and it was Willis who sent GDH to Skinner, with the initial idea of his being an emissary to incorporate Willis tonal principles into the Skinner organ. It is hard to discern a precise point at which GDH’s influence began to be felt.

Among the earliest Skinner organs GDH worked on was Opus 656 for Princeton University Chapel, Princeton, New Jersey. Marcel Dupré played it while on tour in America, and he praised the organ. After the fact, Skinner wrote to Harrison:

Dear Don:

I felt some embarrassment when Marcel [Dupré] handed me that testimonial so personal to myself regarding the Princeton organ, and I can imagine you may not have been without some feeling of being left out of it, so I want to say right here that I hold your contribution to the quality of that great instrument to be such that my opinion of you as an artist, publicly and privately expressed, is more than justified.

Cordially, and with great admiration,

Ernest M. Skinner⁶

Other early organs showing Harrison’s influence include Opus 851 for Trinity College Chapel in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1931, where Clarence Watters, the college organist, was a leading disciple of Marcel Dupré in America. By the time of Opus 909 at All Saints Episcopal Church in Worcester, Massachusetts, and Opus 910 for Grace Episcopal Cathedral in San Francisco, California, each from 1933, Harrison’s influence was clearly present, even though each of these organs, in their initial scheme, showed no radical departure from the prevailing Skinner stoplist. It was during this time that Ernest Skinner left the company to set up a competing shop in Methuen, Massachusetts. Also, the firm acquired the organ division of the Aeolian Company to become the Aeolian-Skinner Organ Company in 1932.⁷

By 1935 it is clear that GDH was forging a tonal path different from Skinner, and different from Willis, for that matter! Henry Willis in England writes to Emerson Richards:

Now quite privately to you, Don is not doing what he went to Skinners for, and that was to give Skinner Organs a Willis ensemble. Don is striking out on what might be termed an individual line, obviously influenced by you in the strongest possible way [original emphasis]. You will know that Don’s Continental European experience is limited to a few French organs—he has not to my knowledge been in any other European country and most certainly has not heard the various types of German organs Baroque or otherwise. On the other hand he can visualize them perfectly well, especially after hearing Steinmeyer’s Altoona job. [The Catholic Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament in Altoona, Pennsylvania.]

Now you know that I appreciate your personal standpoint and ideals, even if I can’t go all the way with you sometimes. I consider that you, far more than any other man, have rescued American organ building from the romantic morass it was in when I first visited America in 1924. I consider that my own influence has not been inconsiderable for I did get Skinner interested in a decent ensemble and “sold” him mixtures, although he could not learn how to use them properly. Also if it had not been for me, Don would not have gone to Skinners, for the purpose and object I named above.⁸

As Harrison’s star continued to rise, so Ernest Skinner’s waned. In Skinner’s exit scenario from the company, there was a period of five years when Skinner continued to draw a salary, but his personal involvement in the company was limited solely to activities where the customer had specifically requested his services. He was not allowed to call on customers, solicit new business, or incur any expense to the company, and was to come to the factory only if requested for business purposes.

Attributes and examples of the emerging American Classic style

Aeolian-Skinner produced some very interesting organs during this period, and they varied enough in style and specification so as to appear to be completely different products. It is relatively easy to ascertain which organs reflected GDH’s emerging classic principles and which did not. For example, consider Opus 985 from 1938 for St. Paul’s Chapel, Columbia University, New York City, and Opus 964 from 1937 at Plymouth Church of the Pilgrims in Brooklyn, New York: with a very slight nod to progressive design, such as two mixtures in the Great, Plymouth could be mistaken for a typical four-manual Skinner scheme by comparison. Whereas the Columbia University organ featured two unenclosed divisions in addition to the Great—Positiv and Brustwerk—and a fully developed independent Pedal organ, and was heralded as a new voice for a new day, installed on the campus of a major university in the country’s largest city. It was a significant achievement that attracted considerable notice. E. Power Biggs played and recorded extensively on the organ.

The theories that Harrison worked toward in these early years of the Great Depression may have been inspired by historic principles to some extent. He was gradually developing a new eclectic type of organ comprising existing mechanical components that were excellent, together with tonal properties that blended Romantic and Classical concepts, put together into a new, entirely American product on which early, Romantic, and contemporary music could be played with artistic conviction.

Technical attributes of these new organs included low to moderate wind pressures, gentle but clear articulation, chorus structure with an emphasis on the four-foot line, carefully worked out customized mixture compositions that were attentively finished as the ascending scale approached the breaks, and customized scaling and halving ratios in different parts of the compass—generally narrower scales in the bass and gradually broader in the treble to effect a subtle gradual singing quality in the treble register, and a focused line in the bass. Where it was practical, unenclosed divisions were placed in an open location within lines of sight to the audience.

Consoles in general were of the same style and design as Skinner had developed them, with a few customized touches to suit the customer as needed, such as smaller drawknob heads, dropped sills to effect a lower profile, occasional narrow swell shoes, varying degrees of console gadget assists, and, later, tracker-touch keyboards. Harrison was in favor of simplifying console controls, and he and Schreiner tended to agree on that as their discussions for the Tabernacle organ progressed. One need only compare the consoles for the Tabernacle with The Riverside Church, New York City, each of which contained five manuals and were in the factory at about the same time. Upon seeing pictures that GDH had sent to him, Henry Willis expressed his displeasure:

The new console at Riverside for Virgil Fox is, in my opinion, the ugliest, and unhandiest, large drawstop console to which my attention has been drawn.

I say nothing of the stop grouping in threes or two as fancy—it seems to be liked in the U.S.A.—nor of the apparent lack of added vertical space between departments. Nor the row of tablets over the fifth manual . . . . But as for the arrangement of the toe pistons—help!

The swell pedals look ridiculous to me—the wide space in between reminding me of the old console at Wanamaker’s, Philadelphia.

Of course, this is Virgil Fox’s design—not yours—and I suppose you took the line that he could have what he wanted.

But I think that no organist should be allowed to impose his own pet idiosyncrasies on an instrument over which he, temporarily, presides.⁹

Harrison replied a couple weeks later:

Your criticism of the Riverside console is well taken but you might modify some of your views if you actually examined it. When you are dealing entirely with detached consoles, if you use the English two rows per department arrangement you would have to build a skyscraper. I see no point to it . . . . The number of couplers is essential when you are dealing with Chancel and West End organs plus a 15-stop Echo all in one instrument. I have no use for the double organ idea.

Regarding the width of the Swell pedals with gaps. We have built one more extreme job than Riverside in this regard, Grace Church New York [Opus 707]. With narrow shoes plus clearance you can get five in where four would normally go with equal safety in clearance.

The Riverside console is normal in most respects, the added controls can be ignored by a visiting or future organist. You should hear the results that Virgil Fox can produce with this set up.¹⁰

Beginning in the early 1930s these new classic attributes increasingly appeared in prominent organs where Harrison was able to advance his theories. Keeping in mind that there were about 100 persons employed by the company, it is clear that GDH was continually aware of the need to secure contracts to provide for his workers. He may not have been able to be so creative on each job, but all organs that passed through the factory in one way or another began to manifest these tonal properties in varying ways and degrees. But there are some jobs that obviously stand out as icons of this new style, which came to be known via Emerson Richards as the “American Classic Organ.”

One thing is certain that as soon as the war is over and materials become available, there is going to be a big demand for either rebuilds or entirely new organs, and I am hoping that we will be able to push the Classic Organ. As you may have noted in the articles on the St. Mary’s job [Op. 819-A, St. Mary the Virgin, New York, 1942], I am endeavoring to give this the name of American Classic, although it is going to be awfully hard to dislodge the word Baroque. I did tag the name Romantic on the old ones, and that has stuck, even in England, but 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.¹¹

In addition to the aforementioned organs for Columbia University and St. Mary the Virgin in New York, a sampling of these organs includes Opus 940 for Church of the Advent in Boston, Massachusetts; Opus 945 for Calvary Church, New York City; Opus 948 at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and Opus 951, the famous Busch-Reisinger Museum for Germanic Culture at Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, which company records simply refer to as “Germanic” or “Experimental.” This organ was entirely unenclosed and was on loan to the museum yet remained the property of the company.
E. Power Biggs made extensive use of it for demonstrations, recitals, and his famous regular Sunday morning radio broadcasts, and it did a lot to promulgate Harrison’s new classic concept.

As the decade progressed others included Opus 981 at Westminster Choir College, Princeton, New Jersey, for Carl Weinrich, his so-called “Praetorius” organ—a near twin to the Busch-Reisinger, which happily still exists in excellent condition, having been recently restored by Stephen Emery, a WCC alumnus; Opus 1007 for Christ Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which GDH used for musical examples in 1942 in an LP album titled Studies in Tone wherein he narrates some of his developing ideas on tonal design, complete with appropriate musical examples; another organ for Westminster Choir College, and a large five-manual organ for the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, Opus 1022. Also, a significant summary of Harrison’s thinking during the development of the American Classic organ may be found in the article “Organ” in the 1944 edition of Harvard Dictionary of Music, an essay authored by Harrison. The article even contains a suggested stoplist for a three-manual organ that is easily recognizable as similar to some of these very organs.

However, among this pantheon the organs built in the 1930s and early 1940s leading up to his design for the Salt Lake Tabernacle, the organ in St. John’s Chapel of the Groton School, Groton, Massachusetts, Opus 936, stands out as a significant point of departure in the development of the American Classic Organ. Harrison often mentioned this organ in his correspondence in the ensuing years, particularly as he contemplated the design of the Tabernacle organ and in his reflections on it once it was finished. Writing to Alexander Schreiner, shortly after signing the contract for Opus 1075, he says:

With the location of the organ, and the magnificent acoustics of the Tabernacle I feel there is a real chance to build the most beautiful organ in the world to date, at least that is what I am going to try to do. I say this not in a boastful spirit, but rather in one of humility. I don’t suppose you have ever heard the organ built for Groton School in 1936. The next time you come East I think we will make a little pilgrimage to hear this organ. I have always felt it is perhaps the most successful organ we have built to date, and indeed it is praised alike by those who are for and aggressively against that type of a tonal scheme. This morning I was thinking about it, and it suddenly struck me that unconsciously I developed the scheme for Salt Lake as a kind of a big brother to the Groton organ. In other words, it seems to carry that tonal structure to its logical conclusion.¹²

Writing to Ralph Downes, the consultant for the new organ in Royal Festival Hall in London, in which Downes was contemplating elements of classical design, Harrison describes his experience:

In 1936 I visited Germany complete with drawing equipment. I soon gave up taking measurements and decided it was better to absorb the musical result and then reproduce them in a modern way and in a manner that would be acceptable to modern ears and in our buildings. Providing you obtain clarity in polyphonic music, what more can you ask, providing you add and blend in romantic and modern material.¹³

And, later, GDH writes to Willis, his old boss in England who had begun to question some of his ideals and goals:

I am not attempting in any way to imitate the Silbermann organ or any Baroque organ for that matter, but am merely reintroducing some of the features of the older organ which have been lost in the modern organs, and using, to some extent, the principles utilized by the older builders in the general chorus; the sole object, of course, being to make the instrument a more nearly ideal one for the playing of the best literature written for this particular medium.¹⁴

And Richards, who could always be counted on for his unvarnished opinion, says:

I agree that the Harrison work is merely based on the theories of the older organ work. Remember that Don has no first-hand acquaintance with German work whatsoever, unless we can consider the Steinmeyer at Altoona as such, and Henry [Willis] says that his knowledge of French organs is really not extensive, so that, in reality, he has been working on his own with only a hint from the older work. This is all for the best, since it results in creation, not imitation. [Emphasis mine]

In making the point that Groton is an American achievement I am not trying to overstate the facts as I see them. America has profoundly changed Harrison’s mental and artistic makeup. To some extent even Don realizes this. He knows that he now chooses to deliberately do things that he would not have dreamed of doing when he left England ten years ago. He has caught the mobility and restless drive that seems to be characteristic of America. Can’t you see this in the Groton organ? Its all-around flexibility, its readiness to take any part in the scheme of things from Scheidt to Ravel, its break with tradition, its vivacity, and its sense of driving power. Of course, it is saved from the less commendable American traits by Don’s sense of artistic restraint. It is not a Daily Mirror, but a New York Times.¹⁵

Plans emerge for a new organ for the Salt Lake Tabernacle

Beginning in the 1930s customers began to request that Harrison design and finish their organs. Even though Skinner was long out of the picture by the time GDH and Alexander Schreiner began discussions in 1945, the contract drawn up by the Tabernacle authorities still reiterated their desire that Harrison design the organ:

It is specifically agreed that a substantial and material part of the consideration for this agreement is the skill, knowledge, experience, and reputation of G. Donald Harrison in the design, construction, finishing, installation, and tuning of pipe organs; that the builder, therefore, enters into this agreement with the distinct and definite understanding that the Purchaser shall receive, without additional cost to it, the personal supervision and service of the said G. Donald Harrison in the performance of this contract and in particular in the designing, finishing, installing and tuning of said organ.¹⁶

Alexander Schreiner, chief organist of the Tabernacle, was born in Germany and had studied in France, and was one of the serious organists to emerge on the scene in the post-World War II era. He was an organist’s organist and was one of the most visible in America at the time, owing to his concert tours and weekly broadcasts of the Tabernacle choir and organ. He was the driving force in plans to rebuild the old Austin organ, even though he shared playing duties with Frank Asper, his elder colleague, who was himself a respected and popular organist in his own right. It does appear that Schreiner was the point person in all negotiations pertaining to details of the new organ and in the campaign for it, a campaign that began almost accidentally: Schreiner wrote Harrison asking his opinion about some minor improvements and additions. The idea of a completely new organ did not appear to be on either of their horizons at the outset.

Given the speculative nature of Schreiner’s request and the great distance involved, Harrison asked for a fee to visit and submit a report, not something he typically did for serious prospects. When the authorities granted his request, he had no choice but to make the trip, so he went and gave his candid opinion, which was that unless they decided to build a completely new organ, the company was not interested in undertaking makeshift alterations to the organ, which he felt was mediocre to begin with and which had already seen its share of rebuilds and additions to that point.

Schreiner’s desire for a new organ ultimately prevailed, apparently with little overt opposition. Once the contract was signed, he was effusive in his praise of Harrison as the chosen one to design the organ. In several instances he wrote for attribution that he felt that unless one person (that is, Harrison) was given the freedom to design the organ he would rather soldier on with the old organ, even with its faults. After the job was announced and as work progressed, inquiries for testimonial solicitations and advice began to arrive at Schreiner’s desk. Typical of his response is this reply to my predecessor at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Richmond, Virginia, where Aeolian-Skinner ultimately installed its Opus 1110 in 1951:

The reason the Aeolian-Skinner Organ Company was chosen for the new work in the Salt Lake Tabernacle was merely because this company does by all odds the finest work. That we have not been disappointed in the results achieved is clearly shown in the letter which I wrote to the company recently, signed by myself and fellow organists, and published in the recent Diapason.

I wish you well in your efforts to have your contract awarded to this company. In our case we did not even consider any competing bids. Also we did not ask for any reduction in the prices which were quoted. I would always prefer an Aeolian-Skinner organ to any other, even of twice the size.¹⁷

In the early stages of designing the Tabernacle organ there flows a great deal of correspondence between Harrison and Schreiner, and every detail was considered carefully. It was agreed that Schreiner would be the spokesperson in corresponding with GDH, although there is considerable documented input from Frank Asper, often on seemingly inconsequential matters such as “Will the strings be soft enough?,” what to do about harp and chimes, and whether to retain the old Vox Humana or build a new one. In the end they did both!

Through the correspondence it is clear that Schreiner had an above-average understanding of the principles of organbuilding, just as did Harrison of organ playing. Their discourse is thorough and often detail laden, but always courteous and respectful—and helpful in coordinating the many logistical details of the complex job, one of the most vexing of which was that part of the organ was to remain operational at all times for the weekly choir rehearsals and Sunday broadcasts. Phone calls appear to have been rare, and written correspondence was the main medium of communication.

During World War II organ companies were severely limited in their ability to undertake new construction, and basically no new organs came from the Aeolian-Skinner factory during this time. In addition to rebuild and service work, Harrison spent the war years developing new sounds inspired by classic antecedents, and stops such as the Rohr Schalmei, Cromorne, and Buccine were born. Some of these began to be incorporated into schemes for new organs once production resumed after the war, including for the Tabernacle. Harrison proposes one such:

One other thing that has worried me a little bit is the absence of any reed on the Positiv, and I remember being considerably intrigued by the 16′ Rankett as made by Steinmeyer during my visit to Germany. I have never made one to date, and as it is good in an organ of this size to have some novelties, I have taken the liberty of adding a 16′ Rankett to the Positiv.¹⁸

Once the contract was signed, Harrison began to share the news with his friends and colleagues, in each case describing the unique circumstances of Aeolian-Skinner’s selection being without competition and commenting on the remarkable acoustical properties of the Tabernacle. His report to Henry Willis is the most complete account:

In my last letter to you I hinted that I was on the track of a very interesting and important deal. It has now been signed, and is for a completely new organ for the Salt Lake City Tabernacle. The present organ is a typical Austin which has been gingered up from time to time, the last work being carried out in 1940 when Jamison put in some Chorus Mixtures, which by the way are exceedingly poor.

Last spring I was invited to go out there and look over the situation to see what could be done to further improve the organ, but being skeptical about the whole thing I demanded [an] $800.00 fee, which I thought would probably close the matter as far as we were concerned. To my great surprise they accepted the proposition, so I had to make the trip. I gave a written report which, to put it shortly, condemned the present instrument, and told the authorities that we would not touch the job unless a completely new organ was built, with the exception that we were willing to include three original wood stops which were placed in the Tabernacle when it was built. These pipes were made on the spot by Bridges, who was an English organ builder who had been out to Australia, and had become converted to the Mormon faith, and finally wound up in Utah. I think he was trained with the Hill outfit. These pipes are the lower 12 notes of the 32′ Wood Open, which by the way, has an inverted mouth, and the famous wood front pipes which look exactly like a 32′ Metal Open. They are built up in strips triangular in cross section all glued together, and they appear to be as good as the day they were installed. Even the foot is built up in this way, and the tone is surprisingly good. The other stop we are incorporating is a wooden Gedeckt, which is also excellent. What happened to the original metal pipes in the organ is a mystery. Nobody seems to be able to account for the fact that there are none of them in the present instrument. All of the metal stops that are there now are Kimball 1900 vintage and Austin 1915–1940 . . . .  With these magnificent acoustics and the super location of the organ in the open it gives a real chance that one rarely gets. I was given a free hand with the specification after being told of the requirements that the organ must meet, so that I was able to work out something which more or less carries the ideas on which I have been working to their logical conclusion.¹⁹

Giving Harrison this degree of independence was really an extraordinary gesture on Schreiner’s part, especially when compared to the very intense, hands-on requirements that clients and their consultants place on organbuilders today. I can think of several instances where the builder was so obligated to accommodate that the builder’s own identity is hardly discernible in the finished product. Here was Schreiner, one of the finest, best-known organists of the day who was not only comfortable with but insisted upon totally giving over to Harrison the design of this highly visible organ, and in the end acknowledging Harrison’s work by asking him to sign the organ.

In this case the results are as unique as the circumstances surrounding its inception, but it was by no means unique for clients to place this sort of complete trust in Harrison. Writing to Brock Downward for his dissertation about Harrison and the American Classic Organ, Alexander McCurdy said:

At the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia [Opus 1022 in 1941], when the rebuilding processes were going on (we had three of them during the tenure of Mr. Harrison with Aeolian-Skinner) I spent much time with him. I made it a point to discuss with Mr. Harrison the particular needs of the organ department at the Curtis Institute of Music, then went off to California and let him BUILD the organ—I did not devil him! During the year in the period when the instrument was built, I spent a little time checking a few details in the factory in Boston, but for the most part I let him alone. During some of the discussions he loved to talk about some of the organs we both liked such as the Father Willis organ in Salisbury Cathedral—he seemed sure that another one couldn’t be built quite as fine as that one but he certainly did indeed try in Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. He always made much of the fact that his ideal in building an organ was to have it so that MUSIC could be played on it, not just one period but the complete organ literature.²⁰

The completed Tabernacle organ

In Opus 1075 for the Salt Lake Tabernacle we have then an example of a very complete, large organ in a prominent and famous location that was completely Harrison’s design without a lot of outside interference. It certainly has stood the test of time. We know from several letters that he felt this was his greatest work, and it is worth taking the time to consider his own descriptions and reflections on his work once it was complete:

The enclosed photographs are of the console of the new Tabernacle organ at Salt Lake City. I have just returned after spending a couple of weeks on the job and I am returning after Christmas to see the finish. It is by far the finest organ in the United States. It has the advantage of a perfect location and ideal acoustics.

You will be interested to note that there are no coupler tablets. The fact that there are comparatively few couplers for so large an organ and that the intramanual couplers are with their own departments, it was decided to use drawknobs for all of them. The pedal couplers form the inner group on the left jamb and the intermanual occupy a similar position in the right jamb. There are 20 general pistons. The fifth manual plays the Antiphonal organ only.

The console case is of solid walnut and was designed and built in our shop. The motifs follow those found in the organ case. It is unnecessarily large [as] the couplers and combinations are remote. They wanted an imposing appearance, hence the size and fifth manual! Believe it or not, but a million visitors pass through the Tabernacle each year and must be suitably impressed. The organ contains Great, Swell, Choir, Positiv, Bombarde, Solo and Pedal divisions, plus a small Antiphonal. The Great, Positiv, Bombarde and Pedal are all unenclosed. There are about 190 independent ranks counting a four-rank mixture as four.²¹

Another to the workers back in the factory:

It has proved my theory that the complex sound composed of many elements, all mild but different, build up to a sound of indescribable grandeur . . . .

The strings are good but not so soul stirring as I had hoped for; a trick of the acoustics, I feel, because all are modified.

Please tell the voicers of the great success of their efforts. There is not one regret in the job.

I don’t believe anyone will say the job is too loud. It excites the nervous system without permanent injury.²²

A summary to Henry Willis:

A descriptive folder is being prepared and I will forward a copy shortly. It carries my tonal ideas which started in 1935 in the Groton School instrument, to their logical conclusions. I was given my own way in everything and had to contend solely with two sympathetic organists. The organ does really sound superb, and I have never heard anything quite like it. Of course, it is of its own particular type. Although the full organ is tremendous, it is very easy on the ears, and you can play it for long periods of time without fatigue. This is due, I think, to the fact that there are no very loud stops, the effect being obtained by the 188 ranks, all of which add one to another. The large-scale Mixtures give quite a powerful resultant effect, which in the resonant hall gives quite a lot of body to the tone, but it is a kind of transparent body, as you can well imagine. No, I wouldn’t say that the organ sounds anything like a Cavaillé-Coll. It is less reedy than a French ensemble as the balance between full flues and reeds is entirely different.²³

A similar summary to Ralph Downes in London, who was working on his own project for Royal Festival Hall, which was to reflect some classic elements in its design, stated:

Nice to hear from you, interested to hear of your project. I am in Salt Lake putting the finishing touches to the “giant,” see specification enclosed. It is somewhat larger than yours but along the same lines.

Musically speaking it is the most beautiful organ I have ever heard partly due to be sure to the superb location and acoustics. What you are proposing to do I have been experimenting with since 1936 at Groton School. That is a modern organ in which the old (classical) and new are so modified so as to blend into one whole so that any worthwhile organ music can be played properly. Salt Lake Tabernacle represents the fruit of all my labors rolled into one organ. I can assure you it does something to the nervous system!

Salt Lake has proved to me a theory I have had for a long time, namely that the finished ensemble is produced by many ranks none of which are loud in themselves. Final result by these means is terrific and yet does not hurt the sensitive ear.²⁴

And, finally, an account by Alexander Schreiner himself after having played the Tabernacle organ for almost a decade stated:

No one stop, though it be of dominating quality, is allowed to blot out the whole sections of weaker voices, so that when the last Tuba is added, the sound is still that of a large organ and not that of one stop accompanied by all the rest. Naturally, there are delicate flue and reed stops which cannot be heard in the full ensemble, but the foundation stops, mixtures, and reeds, which are the backbone of the organ, are so well balanced that each contributes to a “democratic” ensemble of sound.²⁵

With this in mind, I think the Tabernacle organ is a good benchmark to consider in understanding what Jack Bethards means when he says that the Tabernacle organ has a “signature sound,”²⁶ the sounds Donald Harrison had in mind for this, the closest thing to his ideal organ, and of the organs to which he similarly affixed his signature plate.

Organs containing G. Donald Harrison’s signature plates

Opus 1075: The Mormon Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, Utah, 1948.

Opus 1082: Christ Episcopal Church, Bronxville, New York, 1949.

Shortly after this organ was built it was featured prominently in the company’s new King of Instruments series of recordings, appearing on Volume II in selections played by Robert Owen, the organist of the church for over forty years and a well-known recitalist at the time. It was again featured in a full program on Volume III, again played by Robert Owen. Owen also made recordings on the organ for the RCA label. The instrument was later altered by Aeolian-Skinner and again by Gress-Miles. It was replaced entirely in 2009 by a new Casavant organ. At that time the history of the church’s organs was memorialized in a plaque placed near the console, which includes Robert Owen’s own signature facsimile.

Opus 1100: St. Joseph’s Catholic Church, Newport, Rhode Island, 1950.

This is a three-manual design in a large, reverberant church, with obvious French inspirations in nomenclature and voicing that is very bold. The Great manual is placed on the bottom of three.

Opus 1103: Methuen Memorial Music Hall, Methuen, Massachusetts, 1947.

Much has been written about this unique organ, the design of which was entirely driven by the desire to keep the original slider chests that were built by James Treat to accommodate the organ when it was moved from the old Boston Music Hall and installed in this new hall in Methuen, designed by Henry Vaughan in 1899 specifically to house the organ. After almost a half century it was rebuilt by Aeolian-Skinner. It was nearing completion when work commenced on the Tabernacle organ, and GDH makes reference to it in his correspondence with Schreiner, almost to the point where it was used as a laboratory to experiment with possibilities for the Tabernacle.

Harrison makes this interesting comment about the Methuen organ:

Finally I would like to tell you that I greatly enjoyed doing this job as I was able to renew my acquaintanceship in a big way with slide [sic] chests. They have one advantage in regard to the initial speech for it is possible to voice with a higher position of the languid when a slide chest is used . . . . On the other hand, there are so many disadvantages with this type of chest that I have felt no temptation to return to the sliders. There is no doubt in my mind that the modern chest we use gives an attack and cutoff which enables much finer degrees of phrasing to be accurately performed . . . so that the result in the long run is more musical, which after all is the real test.²⁷

Opus 1134: Symphony Hall, Boston, Massachusetts, 1950.

Essentially a new organ but using some existing Hutchings pipework, it was built on a very tight budget. For example, the combination action was via a setter board in the back of the console. Albert Schweitzer signed the console frame of this organ when he visited the factory in 1949 on a trip organized by Édouard Nies-Berger.²⁸

The organ was used for examples to complement GDH’s narration in Volume I of King of Instruments and for pieces played by Thomas Dunn in Volume II, though he was identified only as the “staff organist,” and for a recital on Volume XII played by Pierre Cochereau. Virgil Fox also recorded a series of LPs on it for the Command label in the 1960s, and Berj Zamkochian played it in a memorable recording of the Saint-Saëns’ “Organ” Symphony with the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Charles Munch.

Opus 1136: Chapel of Westminster Presbyterian Church, Buffalo, New York, 1951.

This is a two-manual organ with the Positiv division on the back wall. A photograph of it was used prominently in Aeolian-Skinner brochures, even following Harrison’s death. The organist of the church at the time was Hans Vigeland, and Harrison’s business correspondence corroborates his respect for him and his playing.

To be continued.

Notes

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

2. Alexander Schreiner to G. Donald Harrison, August 29, 1948. Owen, 43.

3. G. Donald Harrison to Alexander Schreiner, September 1, 1948. Jack Bethards, “The Tabernacle Letters, Part 3,” The Diapason, 81, 8 (August 1990), 10.

4. Philip Steinhaus to William Self, March 21, 1968. Charles Callahan, Aeolian-Skinner Remembered: A History in Letters (Minneapolis: Randall Egan, 1996), 355.

5. Charles Callahan, The American Classic Organ: A History in Letters (Richmond, Virginia: The Organ Historical Society, 1990).

6. Ernest Skinner to GDH, November 23, 1929. Callahan, The American Classic Organ, 44.

7. In an email message to me dated April 14, 2012, Allen Kinzey tells the exact transaction:

On January 2, 1932, the Aeolian Company and the Skinner Organ Company formed a new, third company called the Aeolian-Skinner Organ Company. Aeolian owned 40% of the stock in Aeolian-Skinner, and the Skinner Organ Company owned 60%.

Aeolian closed its operations in Garwood, New Jersey, and sent uncompleted contracts, the glue press, some material, and one employee (Frances Brown, who was a young lady then, and she worked for A-S to the end, or almost the end) to Aeolian-Skinner. The Skinner Organ Company deeded its property and turned over contracts, employees, materials, machinery, etc., to Aeolian-Skinner.

8. Henry Willis III to Emerson Richards, July 8, 1938. Callahan, The American Classic Organ, 132.

9. Henry Willis III to GDH, December 31, 1948. Callahan, The American Classic Organ, 269.

10. GDH to Henry Willis III, January 16, 1949. Callahan, The American Classic Organ, 278.

11. Emerson Richards to Wm. King Covell, November 29, 1943. Callahan, The American Classic Organ, 194.

12. GDH to Alexander Schreiner, December 10, 1945. Bethards, “The Tabernacle Letters, Part 1,” The Diapason, 81, 6 (June 1990), 16.

13. GDH to Ralph Downes, January 14, 1949. Callahan, The American Classic Organ, 277.

14. GDH to Henry Willis III, August 21, 1935. Callahan, The American Classic Organ, 144.

15. Emerson Richards to Wm. King Covell, November 26, 1935. Callahan, The American Classic Organ, 151.

16. Contract in church archives. Owen, p. 38.

17. Alexander Schreiner to Granville Munson, April 26, 1949. Callahan, The American Classic Organ, 299.

18. GDH to Schreiner, November 29, 1945. Bethards, “The Tabernacle Letters, Part I,” The Diapason, 81, 6 (June 1990), 16.

19. GDH to Henry Willis III, December 19, 1945. Callahan, The American Classic Organ, 222.

20. Alexander McCurdy to Brock W. Downward, September 18, 1974. Brock W. Downward, “G. Donald Harrison and the American Classic Organ,” D.M.A. diss., Eastman School of Music, Rochester, NY, 1976, 97.

21. GDH to Henry Willis III, December 21, 1948. Callahan, The American Classic Organ, 167.

22. GDH to Joseph S. Whiteford, December 1948. Owen, 43.

23. GDH to Henry Willis III, March 18, 1949. Bethards, “The Tabernacle Letters, Part 3,” The Diapason, 81, 8 (August 1990), 11.

24. GDH to Ralph Downes, January 14, 1949. Callahan, The American Classic Organ, 276–277.

25. Alexander Schreiner, “The Tabernacle Organ in Salt Lake City,” Organ Institute Quarterly, vol. 7, no. 1 (1957). Owen, 43.

26. Owen, 47.

27. GDH to Wm. King Covell, June 25, 1947. Callahan, The American Classic Organ, 253–254.

28. Nies-Berger, Schweitzer As I Knew Him (Hillsdale, New York, Pendragon Press, 2003), 10.

Joyce Johnson Robinson

Joyce Johnson Robinson is a past editor of The Diapason.

Photo caption: Paul Jacobs stands between George Rau and Susan Woodard, his high school organ and piano teachers, respectively. The ceremony was for the honorary doctorate given to Jacobs by Washington & Jefferson College in 2017.

 

Paul Jacobs’s name first appeared in the November 1998 issue of The Diapason, which noted that he won first prize in the Young Professional Division of the Albert Schweitzer Organ Competition in its inaugural year. His marathon performance in Chicago of the organ works of Olivier Messiaen was described in detail by Frank Ferko (“An Extraordinary Musical Odyssey: Paul Jacobs’ Messiaen Marathon,” The Diapason, April 2002, Vol. 93, No. 4, pages 14–15). Over a decade ago, The Diapason presented an interview with Jacobs, which focused on his development as a musician and his views of music within American culture (“Challenging the Culture: A Conversation with Paul Jacobs,” The Diapason, February 2006, Vol. 97, No. 2, pages. 22–25).

Jacobs has become a vocal champion of the organ and of art music, as evidenced by interviews and articles in such publications as The New Yorker, Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times. He is the only organ soloist to have won a Grammy Award, and is recognized as a musician of unique stature through his performances in each of the fifty United States and around the world, as well as his performances with major orchestras, including Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, National Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, and San Francisco Symphony, to name just a few. Jacobs also serves as chair of the organ department at the Juilliard School in Manhattan. Last season Jacobs toured in Belgium, Luxembourg, and Germany with the Philadelphia Orchestra.

We were able to discuss his work and thoughts during a visit of his with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in May of 2018, and present an edited version of his comments here.

The Grammy

Joyce Johnson Robinson: Your awards include a Grammy award—the first and only organ soloist to receive a Grammy award.¹

Paul Jacobs: The Grammy was entirely unexpected. I was shocked by the nomination and utterly convinced that it would never materialize.

You didn’t even go to the ceremony.

It would have been difficult to attend, because I was performing with an orchestra the same weekend and didn’t want to cancel; besides, I wouldn’t receive it [the award] anyway. Well, I was wrong about that! This honor was something good not only for me, but for the entire organ profession, for organ playing to be recognized by such a mainstream institution.

Do you think it’s led to additional opportunities, or brought more attention?

On some level, perhaps. But I don’t believe that any one accolade or accomplishment is a silver bullet, which is what I tell my students. Young musicians, understandably, want to be successful and recognized immediately for their work, but there isn’t just one ingredient that’s going to make this happen—one has to commit for the long haul and be patient. Intense dedication to the art form—pursuing it for the right reasons—is crucial, because this isn’t always an easy or lucrative path. But if you genuinely love music, it will sustain you through difficult, even discouraging, times. If you tenaciously persist in the journey, your vocation to music will eventually bear fruit.

People have approached me over the years—many who have stable work and a healthy paycheck—and expressed some degree of envy that I can make a living doing what I actually love to do. It’s a reminder that shouldn’t be taken lightly: making beautiful music for others is a rare joy and a privilege. Be grateful for the music that has been bequeathed to us, that is under our care to pass to future generations. We’re the custodians of timeless works of art and must be fully dedicated to studying and sharing them with the world in any way that we can, large and small.

Collaborations

How did this all get going with orchestras?²

Oh, I’ve always had a strong desire to collaborate with other musicians. The organ can be—but need not be—a lonely instrument. There’s an abundance of fine repertoire for organ and various combinations of instruments. As a student, I played a good deal of chamber music, so much so that, as an undergraduate, I was inspired to double-major in both organ and harpsichord, primarily for the opportunity to play continuo. This cultivated relationships with many musicians who weren’t organists, which has always been important to me. As time progressed, I was increasingly invited by important orchestras to perform with them, something that has brought tremendous satisfaction.

You’ve worked with such important conductors as Pierre Boulez, Charles Dutoit, Yannick Nezet-Seguin, Michael Tilson Thomas, and Franz Welser-Most. Many conductors haven’t worked very closely with organ soloists. Is this correct?

That’s right. Let me consider how to best phrase this—my desire is for organists to be taken as seriously as other musicians. But we must earn respect; it doesn’t come automatically. And we have to deliver at the highest artistic level—consistently, every time—while always remaining flexible to the fluid circumstances of live performance. We also have to be easy to work with, personally speaking.

Several conductors have indicated to me that they’ve had less than flattering experiences with organists in the past. Sometimes organists do not help themselves or the art form, which is marginalized enough already. I think it’s crucial that organists become more self-aware of the quality of their playing and how they relate (or not) to other people, particularly those not in their own field.

What do you think about the growth of your work with orchestras, and these new concertos and pieces that are being written for organ and orchestra? Do you see this starting to spread, with other organists doing this? Right now it seems to be just you.

I know, it’s true; but this is also something that I’ve worked very hard to achieve. None of this has occurred without extraordinary effort, not to mention occasional frustrations. To begin with, it takes a bold willingness to want to understand the world of orchestras—entirely different from the organ community—its structure and needs, and what its audiences expect. And usually these audiences do not comprise the same people who attend organ recitals.

Additionally, organists must be capable of overcoming any idiosyncrasies of a given instrument, quickly overriding any problems, which are bound to arise given the non-standardized nature of our instrument and everything that this entails. Frankly, the conductor and hundred or so musicians on stage don’t give a hoot about the very legitimate problems organists face; an organist must simply be able to deliver with the same ease and confidence as they do, no questions asked.

Some of the new works that you’ve premiered, such as Wayne Oquin’s Resilience, were written for you or with you in mind.³

Some of them were, yes. I’m always looking for composers who are eager to write effectively for the organ and encourage my students to do the same. To survive, an art form must evolve and each generation must contribute to it; therefore, it’s important to encourage living composers—composers of our time—to consider the instrument and its unique expressive potential. Maybe not every piece of new music is going to stand the test of time, but a few will. And sometimes contemporary music connects with certain listeners in a way that the old warhorses do not.

And what about future recordings?

Recently released on the Hyperion label is a recording made with the Utah Symphony of Saint-Saëns’ ever-popular “Organ” Symphony. Also to be released later next season on the Harmonia Mundi label is Samuel Barber’s Toccata Festiva, performed in Switzerland with the Lucerne Symphony. And I’m excited by another recording project with Giancarlo Guerrero and the Nashville Symphony, one which will include Hindemith’s rarely heard Organ Concerto, Horatio Parker’s Organ Concerto, and Wayne Oquin’s Resilience.

International Touring

Having performed on five continents, including his recent European tour, Jacobs traveled to China to perform and to serve as president of the jury for the country’s first-ever international organ festival and competition, held at the Oriental Arts Centre in Shanghai.

What are your impressions of the organ world in China?

There is an exciting and increasing curiosity about the organ among Chinese musicians and audiences alike. Something that I experienced in Shanghai was that the audiences comprise primarily young people—to identify gray hairs is actually tricky! Children and their parents and young adults routinely fill the concert halls in China.

Can you explain that?

Not entirely, but it’s inspiring to witness the emergence of an organ culture in the world’s most populous country. Just as we’ve seen in other Asian countries in recent decades, now we observe something similar in China. Where it will lead, however, we do not know. But there is definitely some very genuine interest in the organ; the Shanghai Conservatory just instituted its first classical organ major degree. Of course, a problem is that there are few churches to employ trained organists. Nonetheless, it was encouraging to witness what is happening on the other side of the world, and to experience firsthand Chinese culture, which has retained some traditions and values that we’ve lost or forgotten in the West—civility, a profound respect for one’s elders and teachers, common courtesy and decorum.

Surprisingly, I actually returned to New York after a sixteen-hour flight feeling somewhat relaxed, and this sense of calm remained with me for a few days. Shanghai’s population is a staggering twenty-three million people, and New York, by contrast, is a mere eight million. Yet, in many ways, Shanghai felt calmer than New York, or many other large American cities, for that matter. Despite the tremendous activity of Shanghai, one isn’t bombarded by honking horns or aggressive pedestrians or motorists. Rather, a Confucian attitude seems to pervade daily life. The Chinese just find their place in society and work into it. Overall, it strikes me as a quieter, more serene culture, despite such a large population.

You’ve done a good deal of international touring, including in Europe. In your experience, how do the American and European organ cultures relate to one another?

Of course, I love Europe. How could one not? Its culture has given the world Dante, Rembrandt, and Wagner. And there’s an undeniable indebtedness that American organists, in particular, acknowledge toward Europe—the spectacular historic instruments and the impressive traditions and performers that have emerged over generations. However, I think we have reached a point in time when American organists need not feel subservient toward the Europeans; rather, we should view ourselves as friendly colleagues and peers. Yes, we can learn from them, but they can also learn from us.

Some American buildings in which organs are situated might be more modest in scale than the imposing, reverberant cathedrals of Europe. This could be just one reason that reflexively prompts some organists to esteem what occurs on the other side of the Atlantic more favorably. It’s true, some American churches or halls might possess a different acoustic or aesthetic character, but this doesn’t mean that the organs within them are any less valuable or effective, if they’re used properly. A Cavaillé-Coll and a Skinner can be equally magnificent, but the organist must be willing and able to play them quite differently. Today in the world, some of the finest organists—and organbuilders—are Americans. And America continues, rightly, to recognize extraordinary European talent; now, we’d appreciate a similar open-mindedness.

Teaching

Paul Jacobs remains the chair of the organ department at the Juilliard School, a position he assumed at age 26, one of the youngest faculty appointments in the school’s history. Former students of his now occupy notable positions. In academia, Isabelle Demers, noted concert organist, serves as organ professor at Baylor University; Christopher Houlihan, also an active concert organist, holds the Distinguished Chair of Chapel Music at Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut; David Crean serves as professor of organ at Wright State University and is also a radio host.

Students of Jacobs also hold positions at prominent churches: in New York City, Michael Hey is associate organist at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Benjamin Sheen is associate organist at Saint Thomas Church, Fifth Avenue, Ryan Jackson is director of music at Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, and Raymond Nagem serves as associate organist of the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine; in Orange County, California, David Ball is associate organist at Christ Cathedral (formerly Crystal Cathedral). Other Jacobs students include Greg Zelek, the recently appointed principal organist of the Madison Symphony and curator of the Overture Concert Series in Madison, Wisconsin, noted performing and recording artist Cameron Carpenter, and Chelsea Chen, a successful concert organist and composer.⁴ In addition to Juilliard, for the past six years Jacobs has also directed the Organ Institute of the Oregon Bach Festival.

In your teaching, have you noticed any changes in students over the years, either in the way they’re prepared, or outlooks?

Yes. The students with whom I work tend to be less naive, perhaps, than when I was their age. Part of this, perhaps, comes from their experience of living in New York City. And I wonder, too, if technology has had something to do with this—social media and interconnectedness, everything out in the open, no secrets kept. Many young organists are savvy, perceptive, and hard-working. But I’ve also found it necessary to stimulate discussion about the problems young organists face, some of which they themselves could help resolve. For example, it’s my belief is that there’s an unfortunate separation between the organ world and the broader world of classical music, which is something that I’ve attempted to rectify through my own work, and strongly support my students to do the same. Many of them are already making a positive impact. Another imposing hurdle organists face beyond “organ versus classical music” is the larger cultural problem (at least as I see it) of the enveloping secularization of our society, which I believe will continue to increase the already formidable challenges to the arts, and certainly to classical musicians—not only to organists whose primary employer happens to be religious institutions. This, of course, is an all-encompassing topic, one that can elicit impassioned points of view; nevertheless, it needs to be discussed openly and honestly, especially by dedicated young musicians.

Beyond the decline of traditional church music, what do you think are some of the challenges facing young organists?

I am concerned by the inward-looking attitude that some organists have adopted. There is a sense of parochialism that often suffuses the profession, and it’s time to break out of that mold. In some quarters of teaching, the primary concern is that the students learn the “correct” way to play and interpret music from a panel of “experts.” How stifling! Many young organists spend their entire careers seeking their approval, at the same time showing disregard and even disdain for other dedicated musicians who might choose to do things a bit differently. The world of organists seems, at times, to be made up of fiefdoms, each guarding its own camp. There’s often a lack of unity, which contributes to a certain amount of unnecessary infighting. All this makes it difficult to reel in new lovers for organ music.

The insularity of our profession is a problem. This needs to be said. Too many organists are stuck exclusively in the organ world. To my mind organists need to step out of the organ loft. We should regularly visit museums, attend the opera, the symphony, and chamber music concerts, befriending other musicians who are not organists. Read literature, explore architecture, painting, and philosophy. I feel the need for the organ world academy to open its churchly doors onto a broader landscape that includes all of these things.

I recall hearing my high school organ teacher, George Rau, who studied at Fontainebleau one summer with Nadia Boulanger, say that, in the past, it was almost expected for serious organists to go and study with a European master, and that would “validate” them. But this is not the case anymore. Of course, I would never discourage a student from spending time in Europe—this would be very valuable. It’s simply no longer obligatory, however, in the formation of a fine musician.

We now have our own master teachers.

Yes, and master builders. America has its own impressive, rich tradition, so there’s no reason to possess an inferiority complex, subconsciously or otherwise. We now boast of some of the most versatile organists and organbuilders in the world, pursuing different styles, doing different things, but many with the highest degree of artistic integrity.

Further thoughts

What’s next on your agenda?

I anticipate another exciting season of music-making, of course, always continuing to expand my repertoire. In addition to the recording projects previously mentioned, I anticipate offering a special series of French recitals in New York, then joining several American orchestras as well as ones in Germany and Poland. I’m also looking forward to playing the organ at Maison de la Radio in Paris and dedicating the Hazel Wright organ at the new Christ Cathedral in California, among other adventures.

Do you get any break during the summer?

Yes. There are pockets during the summer that are a bit lighter, thankfully, particularly in August—but much of this period is spent preparing repertoire for the upcoming season. At least these days are not so rigorously structured; the hours can be taken more leisurely. But I long for uninterrupted time to read, reflect, and think about life. (Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov has been on my reading list for some time!) It’s tempting, when the gerbil wheel is spinning faster and faster, to neglect one’s spiritual growth. But I believe that a true creative artist must take special care of his or her soul, which is different from a person’s physical and mental health.

How do you recharge? Do you go home to Pennsylvania?

Yes, I definitely spend some time there, and it will be refreshing to be with family, both immediate and extended, as well as old friends. I remain deeply fond of the outdoors, taking long walks in the woods, which purifies the spirit and provides time for thought, reflection, and inspiration. I don’t think it’s our job to “change the world”—whatever that means, anyway; it’s impossible, in fact. But I do believe it’s our duty to live in such a way that sets an edifying example to those whom we encounter each day, bestowing in our personal interactions an increased love for music and sensitivity to beauty in life. This we must do.

Thomas Murray, John Weaver, Lionel Party, as well as going back to my high school teachers, George Rau and Susan Woodard—they’ve each set a sterling example, not only regarding excellence in musicianship, but also in how to treat people with sincerity and empathy, never losing sight of the larger picture. Our ultimate goal shouldn’t be mere professional success. I remain exceedingly grateful to have been influenced by these generous and caring individuals, and hopefully I succeed at passing along similar wisdom to my own students.

I remember saying to John Weaver at some point, “You know, John, I’ll never be able to repay you for all that you’ve done for me.” And he said, “Well, you can’t, so don’t try. But do it for somebody else.” That’s the way to look at it. We’ll never be able to adequately repay our mentors, but they don’t care. They just hope we will pass it on.

Notes

1. In 2011 Paul Jacobs received a Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Soloist Performance (without orchestra) for his recording of Messiaen’s Livre du Saint-Sacrement (Naxos), the first time that a solo recording of classical organ music has been recognized by the Recording Academy. Other awards include the Arthur W. Foote Award of the Harvard Musical Association in 2003, and an honorary Doctor of Music degree from Washington and Jefferson College, Washington, Pennsylvania, in 2017.

2. Jacobs has also collaborated with dramatic soprano Christine Brewer; touring together, they also recorded Divine Redeemer (Naxos 8.573524).

3. Jacobs’s work with new music includes premieres of works by Christopher Rouse, Samuel Adler, Mason Bates, Michael Daugherty, Wayne Oquin, Stephen Paulus, Christopher Theofanidis, and John Harbison, among others.

In October 2017, Jacobs, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and Nézet-Séguin presented the East Coast premiere of Wayne Oquin’s Resilience for organ and orchestra. Commissioned by the Pacific Symphony as part of their American Music Festival, Resilience received its world premiere on February 4, 2016, at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts, Costa Mesa, California. The work is a 13-minute call and response between organ and orchestra and is dedicated to Paul Jacobs and conductor Carl St. Clair.

4. On November 22, 2014, Jacobs and his current and former students from Juilliard presented the complete organ works of J. S. Bach in an 18-hour marathon concert at St. Peter’s Lutheran Church in Manhattan, presented by the country’s largest classical radio station, WQXR. Many of the time slots in the six-hour event sold out.

David Baskeyfield

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

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

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

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

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

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

Marcel Dupré: L’Orgue aux Etats-Unis¹

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The organ in the American education system

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

American and French organbuilding differences

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Blended styles and large instruments

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Translation © David Baskeyfield, 2019

Notes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

10. The builder’s Christian name is Claver.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

16. A bad demonstration by an enthusiastic incumbent?

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

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

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

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

Stephen L. Pinel

Stephen L. Pinel holds two degrees from Westminster Choir College, Princeton, New Jersey, and did graduate study in historical musicology at New York University. A church musician for forty-five years, he retired from full-time work in the fall of 2017, but immediately accepted another appointment as organist and choirmaster at All Saints Church, Bay Head, New Jersey. He held a Langley Fellowship at New York University, is a member of Pi Kappa Lambda Music Honor Society, an honorary member of the Organ Historical Society, and a past chair of the St. Wilfrid Club of New York City. He is the author of several books and regularly contributes articles on organ history both here and abroad.

In 1984, William T. Van Pelt, then the executive director of the Organ Historical Society, wrote in The Tracker: Concomitant to the popularity of photography at the end of the nineteenth century was the blossoming of picture postcards that fortuitously embraced organs and church interiors among a wide range of subjects. Cards provide the examples we need to study architectonics and the visual evolution of organs, as well as traits of contemporary builders and their instruments. In some cases, a card represents the only remaining record of an organ’s existence.²

An accomplished photographer, Van Pelt had an uncanny awareness of the pipe organ as an entity of visual art. Like fine furniture, painting, sculpture, or any other form of high art, organ cases designed by organbuilders are distinctive and have identifiable characteristics. Cognizant of their usefulness for study, Van Pelt challenged the members of the OHS to search local antique and book stores for postcards showing vintage pipe organs. By the time his article was prepared for publication, ten society members had submitted more than a hundred cards. Sixteen were chosen to illustrate the article.³ In the thirty-five years since his article appeared, hundreds of organ postcards have surfaced, showing a wide variety of instruments by dozens of American organbuilders.

For context, some fundamentals of postcards may be informative. Cards are usually printed on thick paper or thin cardboard and measure approximately 3½ by 5½ inches. An image appears on the front, while the back is bifurcated—a message is written on the left with the address on the right. When mailed, postcards usually have a lesser rate than first-class postage, so they are slightly less expensive to send. Cards are often used to convey short messages, share memories of distinctive locations, or advertise events. Postcards differ from postal cards—the latter refers to those “special” cards issued by the postal service with the “stamp” already in place. Only the post office can issue postal cards. During the first four decades of the twentieth century, postcards cost a penny to mail, and were often called “penny postcards.”

While a few postcards were issued during the nineteenth century, it was not until the United States Congress passed the Private Mailing Card Act of May 19, 1898, that private individuals, companies, vacation destinations, and ecclesiastical organizations were permitted to print and distribute postcards. Previously, the United States Post Office held the monopoly. The heyday of the postcard was between 1900 and 1945, and one has only to type “postcard” into eBay.com to locate tens of thousands of cards, covering every imaginable topic the world over. Postcards are inexpensive, highly collectable, and an entire subculture has evolved around them at “swap meets” and shows of ephemera. The research value of old cards is that the subject matter may have changed or disappeared,⁴ and the images they display are often not found elsewhere. Stated directly, postcards are primary source documents.

There were several types of postcards. The earliest, published during the period 1900 to 1910, had a small black and white image on the front, surrounded by a white border. The address was written on the back, and if a message was included, it had to be written on the front of the card beside the image. In March 1907, the “divided back” was unveiled. This allowed for the message and the address to be written on the back, but freed the entire front of the card for the image. By 1910, postcards began to be published in color and were immediately mass-produced in huge quantities. About 1930, “linen” post cards first appeared. Those were printed on card stock with high-rag content, but the pressing of a machine gave the impression that the image was printed on linen. The most desirable cards dating from the first decades of the twentieth century were actual photographs, published on photographic paper. Those cards frequently carry high-quality images in keen focus and are eagerly sought by collectors. The final type, called the “chrome” postcard, came into circulation about 1950. They are published from a color photograph and have a shiny, glossy finish. Chrome cards are the type most often found today in souvenir shops.⁵

There are many ways to identify and date postcards. Some images are fully identified on the card itself. Other clues may be deduced from the postmark, since a card was often mailed from its place of origin and a date usually accompanies the postmark. Obviously, the card must pre-date the postmark. Moreover, the image may offer clues to identify the card. Many of the pipe organs pictured on postcards during the first decades of the twentieth century were new when the cards were issued. Organs were expensive, and some organ cards were produced immediately after a new instrument was installed. A few cards actually declare: “Our new pipe organ!” Finally, the style of the stamp may help to narrow the date if the postmark is either faint or incomplete. The post office redesigned stamps every few years. The older cards usually have a one-cent “Franklin,” while by the second decade of the twentieth century it was a one-cent “Washington.”

American organbuilders soon realized the reward of using postcards for promotion. The Estey Organ Co. in Brattleboro, Vermont, the Votteler-Hettche Organ Co. in Cleveland, Ohio, and the Wicks Organ Co. in Highland, Illinois (among others), distributed organ postcards. They were an inexpensive way to advertise recent installations and simultaneously impressed prospective customers. Estey was especially prolific with this method of marketing: several dozen organ cards issued by the firm have been gathered over the years. Sometimes those cards represent an important historical record because the organs they illustrate are now lost to history.

Some postcard organs are well known. This card (Illustration 1) was mailed from New York City to West Stockbridge, Massachusetts, on April 20, 1929, and shows the interior of the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine at 110th Street in New York City. The organ, Ernest M. Skinner Company Opus 150, completed in 1910, is a huge, four-manual instrument of some 150 ranks⁶ and was dedicated by Clarence Dickinson (1873–1969) in April 1911. Since the card was issued, the organ has been renovated several times, notably under the direction of Ernest M. Skinner & Son in 1939, and by G. Donald Harrison (1889–1956) in 1953.⁷ The organ was restored in 2008 by Quimby Pipe Organs, Inc., of Warrensburg, Missouri.⁸ This spectacular vista, photographed from high in the cathedral, looks down at the chancel and choir. It shows the Skinner organ located on opposite sides of the chancel at the triforium level and provides a vivid impression of the enormity of the space.

Another famous postcard organ (Illustration 2) is the Newberry Memorial Organ in Woolsey Hall at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. A large, four-manual instrument built by the Hutchings-Votey Organ Co. of Boston, the organ was opened on June 20, 1903, by a triumvirate of prominent organists: Henry Benjamin Jepson, Yale University; Wallace Goodrich, Trinity Episcopal Church, Boston; and Gaston M. Dethier, St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church, New York City.⁹ The organ had an early type of electro-pneumatic action designed by Hutchings employee Harry F. Van Wart. The success of the instrument earned its maker, Geo. S. Hutchings (1835–1913), an honorary Master of Arts degree from the university. The card was mailed from New Haven to Springfield Gardens, Long Island, New York, on September 10, 1910, only seven years after the organ was built. In 1915, the organ was greatly enlarged and renovated by the J. W. Steere & Son Organ Co. of Springfield, Massachusetts,¹⁰ and again in 1928 by the Skinner Organ Company.¹¹ This circa 1908 postcard shows the original organ case before it was reworked in 1928.¹²

A few postcard organs (Illustration 3) had grandiose cases! This elegant example was mailed from Richmond, Virginia, to Lena, Indiana, on November 7, 1909, and shows a major, three-manual organ in the Catholic Cathedral of the Sacred Heart. It was built by John Brown (1851–1912) of Wilmington, Delaware, who opened his organ shop in 1887.¹³ Brown, an Englishman by birth, was in business for some twenty-five years and built many organs for congregations in the middle-Atlantic and southern United States. Located in the cathedral’s gallery with an opulent fan of radiating trumpet pipes, the case is reminiscent of the 1869 Geo. Jardine & Son organ at St. George’s Episcopal Church, Stuyvesant Square, New York City. Completed in August 1906, the Brown organ is described in detail in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, but its tubular-pneumatic playing action proved problematic.¹⁴ Only six years later, the organ was rebuilt by M. P. Möller as their Opus 1334, 1912, and the action was converted to electro-pneumatic. Later still, the organ was rebuilt again by the Tellers Organ Co. of Erie, Pennsylvania, and today, almost nothing of the original 1906 organ remains except for the front pipes. Noted historian Donald R. Traser wrote in 2002 that the organ was considered by Mr. Brown to be his masterpiece!¹⁵ 

Some postcards show organs installed decades before. This card (Illustration 4), sent from South Hadley to Charlemont, both in Massachusetts, was mailed on October 6, 1910. It shows the interior of the Old South Church in Boston. Visible in the gallery is an 1822, two-manual organ by Thomas Elliot (1759?–1832), built in London. Henry Corrie (1786–1858), an English organbuilder, accompanied the instrument “across the pond” to superintend its installation.¹⁶ Following its opening on November 22, 1822, Corrie remained in Boston. After working briefly for Thomas Appleton (1785–1872), he settled in Philadelphia and became the leading maker of organs in that city between 1826 and 1850.¹⁷ The Old South organ was rebuilt by E. & G. G. Hook as their Opus 246, 1859, and the projecting keydesk, shown in the card, is the product of their renovation.¹⁸ An organ from the 1820s would have had a recessed keydesk with stopknobs arranged in vertical columns at the sides. The “new” Old South Church on Boylston Street had a three-manual organ by Hutchings, Plaisted & Co., Opus 58, 1875, and later still, a four-manual organ by Ernest M. Skinner Company, Opus 231, 1915. In 1876, the 1822 Elliot organ was moved second-hand to St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Milford, Massachusetts, where it survived until it was broken up for parts about 1955.¹⁹

A circa 1910 card shows a handsome 1872 instrument (Illustration 5) in the front of the Washington Street Methodist Episcopal Church in Petersburg, Virginia.²⁰ The maker of the organ is unconfirmed, yet it appears to be the work of Geo. Stevens (1803–1894) of East Cambridge, Massachusetts. The case bears astonishing resemblance to the 1871 Stevens organ in the First Congregational Church, Rindge, New Hampshire.²¹ Stevens had worked for William Goodrich (1777–1833) and following the latter’s death, set up shop in partnership with William Gayetty (d. 1839). Stevens’s organs were characterized by fine workmanship and stately cases. Stevens built another organ for a Virginia client in 1861: a two-manual instrument for the Broad Street Methodist Episcopal Church in Richmond, installed just as the Civil War began.²² The Petersburg organ remained until it was replaced with a two-manual organ by the Estey Organ Co., Opus 1205, 1913, of Brattleboro, Vermont.

Yet another card shows the sumptuous interior of Trinity Church, Episcopal, in Watertown, New York, with its elaborate Gothic tracery. The organ (Illustration 6) is Johnson & Son Opus 856, 1898, a three-manual organ with thirty registers built in Westfield, Massachusetts.²³ Visible in the image is a reversed console with the organ installed in a right-hand chamber beside the chancel. The installation was completed on March 29 and the organ was first used on Easter Day, 1898. It was later replaced by Skinner Organ Company Opus 457, 1924, and was moved second-hand to the Adirondack Community Church in Lake Placid, New York, where it was installed by Buhl & Blashfield, a Utica, New York, firm.²⁴ Johnson & Son organs were of superb quality and were among the finer organs built in nineteenth-century America.

Three postcard organs were promotional materials issued by well-known American firms. The first (Illustration 7) was built by the Wicks Organ Co., Opus 8, 1909, for the German Ev. St. Petri Church, Okawville, Illinois. The second (Illustration 8) was the work of Votteler-Hettche of Cleveland, Ohio, and was installed in the First Methodist Episcopal Church, Petoskey, Michigan. The third instrument (Illustration 9) was built by the Estey Organ Co., Opus 505, 1907, a two-manual organ for the First Congregational Church, Chelsea, Massachusetts.

University organs are also occasionally represented. This card shows the interior of the auditorium at Valparaiso University in Valparaiso, Indiana. The organ (Illustration 10), built in 1907 by W. W. Kimball of Chicago, Illinois, was a gift of the alumni and was a large two-manual instrument with tubular-pneumatic action. The card was mailed from Valparaiso to Bridgeport, Connecticut, on October 5, 1911, and the message reads in part: “We attend chapel exercises in this place at 8:30 every morning. I have only missed two mornings as yet. We are nicely settled and like it very much.” The large piano on the stage looks like the work of Steinway & Sons! The Kimball organ was rebuilt by Hillgreen-Lane & Co. of Alliance, Ohio, in 1947 and was unfortunately destroyed with the building by fire on November 27, 1956.²⁵

Occasionally, a postcard showing an organ was distributed for parochial purposes. This handsome card (Illustration 11) from the First Reformed Church in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, reminded recipients that a “Sunday School Rally Service” was to be held on Sunday, October 7, 1906, at 2 p.m. The organ in the image was dedicated by the noted blind organist, David D. Wood of Philadelphia, on Thursday evening, October 22, 1891.²⁶ It was built by John W. Otto (1846–1892) of Baltimore, had two manuals and pedals, and cost $1,600.27. Otto was the brother of Louise Pomplitz (1836–1924), and at one time worked for the better-known firm, the Pomplitz Church Organ Co.

A postcard mailed from Port Huron, Michigan, to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, on October 2, 1913, is a fine example of a photographic card. The organ (Illustration 12), built by Hillgreen, Lane & Co., Opus 24, 1901, is an early instrument from the firm. The company was the partnership of Alfred Hillgreen (1859–1923), a Swedish immigrant, and Charles Alva Lane (1854–1933). Ultimately, three generations of the Hillgreen family built organs in Alliance, Ohio, between 1898 and 1973. The case shown here is unusually elegant and looks splendid in this turn-of-the century edifice. Note, in addition to the Methodist communion rail, that the choir has seating for almost fifty singers. That is a luxury not many of us enjoy today. The organ had two manuals with “pneumatic couplers”²⁸ and was opened in recital by a Mr. N. Crawthorne and other artists on Friday evening, July 26, 1901.²⁹

Another photographic card shows an organ (Illustration 13) in the Presbyterian Church of Pawnee City, Nebraska. Built in 1908 by the Hinners Organ Co. of Pekin, Illinois, the Hinners list states that the organ had nine registers. The Hinners Co. was known for its catalog organs. A congregation could order an organ through the mail, and the purchase included a set of directions so a member of the congregation could set up the organ! Many Hinners organs were located in rural locations in the Northern Plains, particularly in Nebraska and the Dakotas.³⁰ 

A third photographic postcard mailed from King Ferry, New York, on November 24, 1916, shows an organ (Illustration 14) in the Presbyterian Church built by Clarence E. Morey (1872–1935) of Utica, New York. The small, two-manual organ, his Opus 247, 1907, is recessed into an alcove at the front of the room, behind a raised pulpit platform. Visible in the cleanly focused image are only six stopknobs. Morey worked in Utica until his death in 1935³¹ and built several hundred small organs for the rural churches of Upstate New York. His organs were well built, durable, and many still serve their congregations today after a century of use.³²

Plenty of postcard organs are unidentified. Three interesting cards (Illustrations 15, 16, and 17) were never mailed and have no postmark or stamp. There is no indentifying information. If any reader of The Diapason recognizes any of those organs, the editor would be pleased to receive a letter with the details. Currently the largest collection of organ postcards is held by the Library and Archives of the Organ Historical Society at Stoneleigh in Villanova, Pennsylvania. The archivist there, Dr. Bynum Petty, would be pleased to receive donations of new cards.

Modern scholars and historians have had a tendency to dismiss postcards as trivial, but they remain a significant—and largely untapped—source of information for the study of early twentieth-century American pipe organs. For the evolution of case designs, they are essential. It is only by placing these images side by side that perceptive historians can note the common traits and the progression of style. The next time you pass a shoebox of old postcards in an antique or book store, take a moment to thumb through them. You might find the unique image of an old American pipe organ that is long gone.

Notes

1. Deltiology is the formal word for the collecting and study of postcards. Its etymology is two Greek words: deltion, a small writing tablet, and logy, to hew or to study. The word was first recognized by Merriam-Webster about 1965.

2. William T. Van Pelt, “Post Card Organs,” The Tracker, vol. 28, no. 3 (1984): 21–26.

3. Ibid. 

4. Maurice Rickards, The Encyclopedia of Ephemera: A Guide to the Fragmentary Documents of Everyday Life for the Collector, Curator, and Historian, s.v. “Postcards” (New York: Routledge, [c. 2001]): 249–50.

5. Ibid.

6. “Notes About Town. The new organ of the cathedral . . .,” The New York Age, vol. 24, no. 15 (January 12, 1911): 4.

7. The Great Organ at The Cathedral of St. John the Divine—Description, History, Condition—A Plan for Restoration ([New York, New York:], Cathedral of St. John the Divine, [1992]). 

8. Michael Quimby, John L. Speller, Douglass Hunt, and Eric Johnson, “Cover Feature. Resurgence of a Landmark Instrument. The Restoration of the Great Organ in the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, New York City,” The American Organist, vol. 43, no. 11 (November 2009): 40–43.

9. Edward W. Flint, The Newberry Memorial Organ at Yale University: A Study in the History of American Organ Building (New Haven: Yale University Press; and London: Oxford University Press, 1930), 19; hereafter, Flint; and Joseph F. Dzeda, “Cover Feature. Newberry Organ Restoration Nears Completion,” The Diapason, vol. 107, no. 11 (November 2016): 26–28.

10. “Firm Rebuilding Big Yale Organ,” The Springfield (Massachusetts) Union, vol. 52, no. 307 (November 6, 1915): 3.

11. “Skinner Organ for Woolsey Hall, Yale University, New Haven, Conn.,” Stop, Open and Reed, vol. 5, no. 1 (September 1929): 18–19.

12. Flint, frontispiece.

13. “A Busy Organ-Tuner,” Wilmington (Delaware) Daily Republican, vol. 18, no. 95 (April 9, 1887): 1.

14. “Organ Specially Designed,” The (Richmond, Virginia) Times-Dispatch, No. 17,361 (October 28, 1906): 6; and “View in New Cathedral Showing Great Organ,” TD, No. 17,545 (April 29, 1907): 8.

15. Donald R. Traser, The Organ in Richmond: A History of the Organs, Organists, and Organ Music in Richmond, Virginia, from 1816 to 2001 (Richmond, Virginia: Richmond Chapter, American Guild of Organists. 2001): 92–94.

16. Hamilton Andrews Hill, History of the Old South Church (Third Church) Boston, 1669–1884 (Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1890): 446–81.

17. Stephen L. Pinel, “Late from London: Henry Corrie, Organbuilder, and His Family,” The Tracker, vol. 40, no. 4 (1996): 11–23.

18. “Old South Church Organ,” Boston (Massachusetts) Evening Transcript, vol. 30, no. 8,839 (March 26, 1859): 1; and “New Organ at the Old South Church,” (Boston) Daily Evening Traveller [sic], vol. 3, no. 180 (May 2, 1859): 2.

19. “Letters to the Editor,” The Tracker, vol. 14, no. 2 (Winter 1970): 17. 

20. “New Organ Arrived,” The Petersburg (Virginia) Index, vol. 14, no. 31 (October 8, 1872): 5.

21. Organ Historical Society, Organ Handbook (1974): 44–45.

22. “Broad Street M. E. Church,” (Richmond, Virginia) Daily Dispatch, vol. 19, no. 57 (March 19, 1861): 2.

23. John Van Varick Elsworth, The Johnson Organs: The Story of One of Our Famous American Organ Builders (Harrisville, New Hampshire: The Boston Organ Club Chapter of the Organ Historical Society, 1984): 151.

24. Scot L. Huntington, Barbara Owen, Stephen L. Pinel, and Martin R. Walsh, Johnson Organs 1844–1898: A Documentary Issued on the 200th Anniversary of his Birth (Cranbury, New Jersey: The Princeton Academy of the Arts, Culture, and Society, 2015): 150.

25. Organ Historical Society, Organ Handbook (2002): 101.

26. “Organ Recital,” Carlisle (Pennsylvania) Daily Herald, vol. 6, no. 29 (October 23, 1891): 1.

27. “The Organ Accepted,” Carlisle (Pennsylvania) Weekly Herald, vol. 91, no. 42 (October 15, 1891): 3. 

28. “The McCormick Memorial: Fine New Organ First Heard in a Recital Friday Evening,” Port Huron (Michigan) Daily Times, vol. 30 (July 27, 1901): 5.

29. “First Recital on the Organ: Affair at the Methodist Church Last Night was a Great Success,” The (Port Huron, Michigan) Daily Herald, No. 305 (July 27, 1901): 3.

30. Allison Alcorn-Oppedahl, “A History of the Hinners Organ Company of Pekin, Illinois,” The Tracker, vol. 44, no. 3 (2000): 13–25. 

31. “Death Claims C. E. Morey, 63, Organbuilder,” Utica (New York) Observer Dispatch, vol. 14, no. 51 (June 21, 1935): 23; and “C. E. Morey, 63, Succumbs Here,” Utica Daily Press, vol. 54, no. 87 (June 21, 1935): 4.

32. T. L. Finch, “Organ Building in Upstate New York in the Nineteenth Century,” The Bicentennial Tracker (1976): 68–69.

 

Photo: Illustration 1: the interior of the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, New York City, and Ernest M. Skinner Company Opus 150, completed in 1910 (All cards that accompany this article are from the author’s collection)