Remembering Yuko Hayashi (1929–2018)

Jan-Piet Knijff

This interview was first published in Dutch in Het Orgel 96 (2000), no. 5. Leonhardt had been made an honorary member (Lid van Verdienste) of the Royal Dutch Society of Organists in the previous year. Apart from small adaptations in the first few paragraphs, an occasional correction, and explanations, no attempt has been made to update the content of the article for this translation. The interview on which the article was based took place during the 2000 Leipzig Bach Festival. Leonhardt read the article before it went to the editor and was very pleased with it. I am grateful to the Royal Dutch Society of Organists and the editor of Het Orgel, Jan Smelik, for permission for its republication.*    

 

Gustav Leonhardt (1928–2012) was perhaps after Wanda Landowska—the most influential harpsichordist of the twentieth century. As Professor of Harpsichord at the Amsterdam Conservatory he introduced countless young musicians from all over the world to the interpretation of early music, especially the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. From his work with the Leonhardt Consort—with his wife Marie as first violinist—grew a limited but no less significant career as a conductor: Leonhardt’s contribution to the complete recording of Bach cantatas for Telefunken and his renditions of operas by Monteverdi and Rameau are milestones in the history of recorded music.

As an organist, Leonhardt has not become nearly as famous—perhaps because organists in general don’t tend to become famous in the way other musicians do, perhaps also because he limited himself to early music. Even among Dutch organists, Leonhardt remained an outsider. Therefore, his being made an honorary member of the Royal Dutch Society of organists in 1999 was an important recognition of a man who has helped define the way we have listened to and performed early music for more than half a century.

I spoke with Leonhardt in the summer of 2000 in Leipzig. He was chairman of the jury of the prestigious Bach competition for harpsichord; ironically, Leonhardt’s former student Ton Koopman held the same position at that year’s organ competition. I met the master after one of the competition rounds and we walked together to our hotels. Leonhardt is often said to have been formal; it is well known how he used to address his Dutch students with the formal pronoun u (pronounced [ü]; the equivalent of the German Sie); this must have come across as utterly prehistoric in the 1970s. But in fact, Leonhardt was extremely friendly; he conversed easily and openly about a host of topics. As we passed by the Thomaskirche, Leonhardt volunteered his opinion of the new Bach organ by Gerhard Woehl.¹ The conversation quickly moved from Woehl to Silbermann, and Leonhardt mentioned the organ at Großhartmannsdorf, which he played in the film The Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach: “You know, that Posaune 16 . . . ” His face and gestures spoke louder than a thousand words. I asked why no organbuilder today seemed to be able to make such a Posaune. “Look,” he said dryly yet firmly, “first of all, you have to want it.”

In 2000, at 72, Leonhardt was very much alive and well, still playing some 100 concerts a year. For a concert in Göteborg that year, he didn’t even have a hotel: he arrived in the morning, played a concert in the afternoon, and flew on to Portugal in the evening for a concert the next day. I asked whether he enjoyed traveling; he shrugged: “I mean, it’s simply part of it.” Leonhardt was happy to have the interview on his ‘free’ Friday, when there were no competition rounds. “But if you don’t mind, could we do it early?” What is early, 9 am? “Well, earlier would be fine too.” 8:30, 8 am? “Just fine.” It sounded as if 6:30 would have been OK too.

 

Jan-Piet Knijff: How did you become interested in organ and harpsichord?

Gustav Leonhardt: Through my parents, I think. They weren’t professional musicians—my father was a businessman—but they were enthusiastic amateurs. What was rather unusual was that, even before the Second World War, we had a harpsichord at home, a Neupert, a small one.² My parents played Beethoven and Brahms for pleasure, but from time to time also Bach and Telemann. Apparently they thought they had to buy a harpsichord for that. I had to learn how to play the piano as a boy; I mean, had to, it was simply a part of life. I don’t remember liking it very much. When the harpsichord came, they let me play written-out figured-bass parts. I didn’t care much for it, but of course, it must have shaped my musicality. During the last few years of the war there was no school, no water, no electricity. Marvelous, of course—especially that there was no school! Moreover, I turned sixteen that year, so I more or less had to hide from the Germans. My brother and I took turns being on the lookout. It was all very exciting. During that time, I was so attracted to the harpsichord. And since there was little else to do, I simply played all the time. And of course, there was the enormous love of Bach. Dad was on the Board of the [Dutch] Bach Society, where Anthon van der Horst conducted.³ At fifteen, I started studying music theory privately with van der Horst. Yes, that I enjoyed very much. I often pulled stops for him at concerts. That’s really where my love of organs comes from.

 

J-PK: You went to study in Basel. Would it not have been logical to study in Amsterdam with van
der Horst?

GL: Maybe, but harpsichord was high on my wish list too. And the Schola Cantorum in Basel was at the time the only place in the world where one could study early music in all its facets, including chamber music and theory. It pulled like a magnet: I had to go there.

That was in 1947, only a few years after the war, and Holland was really still a poor country at the time. There was very little foreign currency, so studying in Switzerland was not all that easy. Thankfully, my father had business contacts, so from time to time, I went on bicycle from Basel to Schaffhausen to pick up an envelope with Swiss francs . . .⁴ I studied both organ and harpsichord with Eduard Müller, for whom I still have the greatest admiration and respect.

 

J-PK: Can you tell me more about him?

GL: He was first and foremost an excellent organist, who in addition was asked to teach harpsichord, I think. He was the organist at a terrible organ, but whenever a new tracker was built—Kuhn or Metzler in those days—we went to try it out, right away, you know.

The way people played Bach on the organ was still pretty dreadful at the time, with many registration changes, swell box, that kind of thing. But even then, Müller played completely differently. For example, he would tell you that it was common to change manuals in this-or-that bar, but that that was simply impossible, because you would break the tenor line in two! So I learned from him to analyze very ‘cleanly’ and to use that as the basis for my performance.

Harpsichord playing was still very primitive in those days. The instruments I played on in Basel were simply awful. It wasn’t until later that I came to know historic instruments. The idea that you used different types of harpsichords—French, Italian—didn’t play a role at all. I did collect pictures of historic instruments, but really without wondering what they might sound like.

Strangely enough, Müller was not at all interested in historic instruments as far as harpsichords went. On the other hand, he was very precise with articulation. You had to play exactly the way Bach wrote. Bach was the order of the day. A little piece by Froberger or Couperin every now and then, but mostly Bach, really. August Wenzinger,⁵ with whom I studied chamber music, was much broader in that regard. He played the whole repertoire: French, Italian, and the seventeenth century as well. We also had to sing in the choir, Senfl and Josquin, but also monody. That was a revelation. We had Ina Lohr,⁶ who was the first to use the old solmisation system again as the basis of her theory classes. Everything was incredibly interesting.

Look, things were kind of black-and-white at the time. On the one hand there was Romanticism, and that was horrible, so you wanted something different. The Neue Sachlichkeit played an important role. I think I actually played very dryly in those days.

 

J-PK: Many people would argue that you still played dryly many years later.

GL: Everyone is free to think whatever they want, but I personally think I have allowed much more emotion in my performances over the years.

 

J-PK: Were there still others who influenced you as a young musician?

GL: [Immediately] Hans Brandts Buys.⁷ We lived in Laren, near Hilversum [between Amsterdam and Utrecht—JPK]. I played cello as well, and I sometimes played the cello in cantata performances he directed. I never studied with him, but he had an enormous library, most of all about Bach. In one word: a dream. I used to spend hours there, browsing, making notes. Brandts Buys also had a two-manual harpsichord, something quite unusual at the time. He had an enormous respect for what the composer had written. I learned that from him.

After my studies I got to know Alfred Deller, the famous countertenor.⁸ I had heard a tiny gramophone record of his and was incredibly impressed. It showed that singing could be more than a dead tone with tons of vibrato. Diction: that was what it was all about. The tone helps the diction. Deller was a master in this regard. That is incredibly important to me. We organists and harpsichordists have to think dynamically too. We have to shape the tone.

 

J-PK: After your studies you became Professor of Harpsichord in Vienna.

GL: Well, I mean, I taught there and yes, it was called ‘Professor.’ I actually went to Vienna to study conducting, even though it did not interest me very much. I don’t even remember now why I did it. It may have been at the urging of my parents. Organ and harpsichord, how was one ever going to make a living that way? With conducting one could at least pay the bills, that kind of thing.

But the most important thing in Vienna was the library. I’d sit there all day, from opening till close, copying music—by hand of course—and making notes from treatises. I still use that material today. Much has been published since, but not nearly everything.

 

J-PK: What kind of things did
you copy?

GL: Oh, everything. Froberger, Kuhnau, Fischer . . . Tablature too, I could read that easily back then—I’m completely out of practice now. I also copied lute tablatures, just out of interest.

In Vienna I got to know Harnoncourt.⁹ We were just about the only people interested in early music and played an awful lot together, viol consort also. That was relatively easy for me because of my cello background.

 

But after three years Leonhardt had had enough of the Austrian capital and returned to the Netherlands, where he was appointed Professor of Harpsichord at the Amsterdam Conservatory. At the end of the 1950s he became organist of the Christiaan Müller organ of the Eglise Wallonne, the French Protestant Church of Amsterdam.

 

GL: My wife is francophone and we both belong to the Reformed Church, so we went to the French church as a matter of course. I knew the organ already, but it was in very poor condition at the time. The action was terrible and it played very heavily. So when the position became vacant, I said that I was willing to do it on the condition that the organ would be restored properly. That was fine. I knew Ahrend already, so he restored the organ, with Cor Edskes as consultant.¹⁰ 

 

J-PK: How did you meet Ahrend?

GL: I don’t remember exactly. In any case, I had seen an organ they had built in Veldhausen.¹¹ That was a revelation back then, but I have recently played the organ again and it was still a revelation. That doesn’t happen very often, that one thinks the same way about an organ so many years later.

 

J-PK: What made Ahrend & Brunzema so special?

GL: I don’t know. They just understood organs somehow. They had ears and just knew how to get the sound they wanted.

 

J-PK: Ahrend has often been criticized for imposing too much of his own personality on an instrument when restoring it, for example
in Groningen.

GL: Well, I mean, he does have a strong personality, and in the Martini [the Martinikerk at Groningen—JPK], a great deal had to be reconstructed. In such a situation one can hardly blame anybody for putting his mark on a restoration.

 

J-PK: Was that also the case in Amsterdam?

GL: No. A lot of Müller pipes had survived in excellent condition and the new pipes Ahrend provided matched the old pipes very well indeed. Yes, the Waalse [Eglise Wallonne—JPK] is definitely the best-preserved Müller in my opinion—not that there is a lot of choice, unfortunately.¹² 

 

J-PK: You made a whole series of recordings on the organ, including composers such as Froberger, Couperin, and de Grigny . . . 

GL: . . . who really don’t belong there at all. You are totally right about that and I really don’t remember why we did it. Perhaps Telefunken wanted some diversity in the repertoire. On the other hand [he continues almost triumphantly], what should I have played on the Amsterdam Müller instead?

 

J-PK: The Genevan psalter, I suppose.

GL: [He laughs, covering his mouth with his hand.] Precisely—or Quirinus van Blankenburg.¹³

 

J-PK: As a harpsichord teacher, you have had a tremendous influence on a whole generation of harpsichordists from all over the world.

GL: Oh, come on . . . For a long time, I was simply the only one.

 

J-PK: Have you never wanted to teach organ?

GL: I’ve never really thought about that. But even for harpsichord I never had more than five students at the same time. That was more than enough. The rest of the time I was so busy with concerts and recordings.

[The conversation moves in a different direction; Leonhardt clearly wants to discuss something else.]

I don’t know if it’s on your list, but the difference between organ and harpsichord, I wouldn’t mind saying something about that. Look, the harpsichord has in a way stopped at some point in time. The organ went on, but changed completely. In my view, organ and harpsichord are intimately connected. To a large extent, the instruments shared the same literature and performers played both instruments. That stops at the end of the eighteenth century and in my mind it’s only because of its function in church that the organ has continued to exist. In other words, without the church, the organ would have died out as well. Interest in the organ at the beginning of the nineteenth century was practically zero, really.

All right, so the organ continued to exist. But over time, it changed so much that, really, it became a different instrument, at least in my view. That is a problem for the present-day organist that really does not exist for harpsichordists. How can a man serve so many masters? I don’t believe that is possible; at least, I can’t.

The problem is, we aren’t theorists. Musicologists can study different styles—that’s not a problem. But we musicians have to take the work of art in our hands . . . [an expressive gesture] . . .
and present it. That is something completely different; it demands much more ability to empathize. I have to say, when all is said and done, the colleagues whom I admire the most tend to be those who specialize at least to some extent.

[I mention an early-music specialist who at the same time is a jack-of-all-trades. Yes, Leonhardt agrees: a great musician.] But even so, you can hear that he plays so much other music as well.¹⁴ It’s a problem, of course. Take the flute: How much literature is there from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries? Three Bach sonatas! We harpsichordists can bathe in a wealth of early music. One can easily spend a lifetime with it.

 

J-PK: Don’t you think the old composers are so far away from us that it is more difficult to empathize with them?

GL: No, I don’t. If you really study the time and the art of the period in all its facets—painting, architecture, and so forth—a composer like Froberger can come just as close as, say, Widor. And look, Widor has become early music too by now. One has to study that just as well. It’s no longer our own time; it’s not self-evident.

 

J-PK: You had to practically put yourself in Bach’s shoes when you played the lead role in Jean-Marie Straub’s film, The Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach.

GL: It wasn’t acting, you know. Performing in costume, that’s all. Just because I happened to do the same things as Bach did: playing organ and harpsichord, and conducting. Well, except for composing, of course. [A gesture of profound awe.] I found it a very respectful film, it was made with a lot of integrity, and I enjoyed contributing to it, also because Bach has determined my whole career.

 

J-PK: I think Frans Brüggen once said in an interview, ‘Leonhardt is Bach.’¹⁵ 

GL: [A gesture makes clear that he couldn’t disagree more.] I consider Bach the greatest composer who ever lived. But I also see him as a composer in his time, not just as some remarkable phenomenon. In that sense, I’m not a Bach man.

 

J-PK: Your career has mostly focused on harpsichord playing and conducting.

GL: Well, no, not conducting, that has always been a side path; I don’t do it more often than once or twice a year. The Bach cantata project, too, was really only one or two weeks a year. Conducting to me is in a way the same as playing chamber music, except I happen not to be playing.

J-PK: My point is that as an organist you have been relatively free to do whatever you wanted.

GL: That is true. The harpsichord is my livelihood; the organ is in a sense a luxury. It’s also a different kind of instrument. [Enthusiastically:] One can be crazy about an organ, I think. Harpsichords don’t really have that. That is because an organ usually has a much stronger personality than a harpsichord; that is part of what makes it such a fantastic instrument. On harpsichord, one has to work much harder to get a beautiful sound. A good organ does half the job for you if not more. A good organ dictates—in the best sense of the word—much more than a harpsichord.

 

J-PK: With all your interest in past centuries it seems that there is one aspect of our time that interests you in particular.

GL: I think I know what you mean.

 

J-PK: Fast cars?

GL: [Big smile—for a moment he looks almost boyish.] As the Germans say, Wenn schon, denn schon.¹⁶ If one needs a car at all, surely a beautiful one is better than an ugly one. I just got a new Alfa 166, three liters, and it really is a great pleasure. It’s a rather fiery one, you know, the kind that just wants to go out for a ride. In the city, he has to stay on the leash, but out of town . . . Yes, a real pleasure. ν

 

* I am also grateful to Hans Fidom, the former editor of Het Orgel who suggested that I interview Leonhardt. Finally, I thank my wife Brigitte Pohl-Knijff and the following colleagues, students, and friends for their comments on earlier drafts of this translation: Margaret Barger, Robert Brown, Jim Nicholls, Jodie Ostenfeld, and Paul Thwaites. For any dutchisms that remain I take sole responsibility.  

1. Gerhard Woehl built the new Bach organ (IV/61) for the Thomaskirche in the Bach year 2000.

2. The founder of the firm, Johann Christoph Neupert (who was apprenticed to Johann Baptist Streicher in Vienna) and his descendants were avid collectors of historic keyboard instruments. Still in business today, the firm built its first harpsichord in 1906.

3. Dutch organist, conductor, and composer Anthon van der Horst (1899–1965) was conductor of the Dutch Bach Society from 1931. He taught organ at the Amsterdam Conservatory, where his students included Albert de Klerk, Piet Kee, Bernard Bartelink, Wim van Beek, and Charles de Wolff. 

4. Schaffhausen, on the Swiss-German border, is some 60 miles from Basel.

5. August Wenzinger (1905–1996) was a cellist, viol player, conductor, and a pioneer of historically informed performance practice. He taught both cello and viol at the Schola Cantorum from 1933, where his most famous student (apart from Leonhardt) was no doubt viol player Jordi Savall, who succeeded him in 1974.    

6. Ina Lohr (1903–1983) studied violin in Amsterdam and theory and composition in Basel. One of the founders of the Schola Cantorum, she taught theory there on the basis of solmisation. She was also assistant conductor to Paul Sacher with the Basel Chamber Choir.

7. Johann Sebastian (Hans) Brandts Buys (1905–1959) came from a large Dutch family of musicians, which included some fine composers. A pioneer of harpsichord playing in the Netherlands, Brandts Buys was also active as a conductor. As a performer and musicologist he specialized in the music of his namesake, J.S. Bach. Brandts Buys had an unusually strong interest in historically informed performance and was the first in the Netherlands to conduct the St. Matthew Passion with a small choir and orchestra (1947). Leonhardt presumably took part in performances with the Hilversumse Cantate Vereniging (Hilversum Cantata Society), which Brandts Buys led during the war years 1943–1945.

8. The countertenor Alfred Deller (1912–1979) was central in reviving and popularizing the countertenor in the twentieth century. He founded the Deller Consort in 1948. Benjamin Britten famously wrote the role of Oberon in A Midsummer Night’s Dream for Deller (1960), who recorded it with the composer conducting.  

9. Nikolaus Harnoncourt (b. 1929), cellist, later conductor, founder of the period-instrument ensemble Concentus Musicus Wien (1953, first public performance 1957). Harnoncourt’s Concentus and the Leonhardt Consort collaborated for a recording of Bach’s St. John Passion (1965) and shared the complete recording of Bach’s sacred cantatas for Telefunken’s Das alte Werk. 

10. Jürgen Ahrend (b. 1930), German organ builder, active 1954–2005. In the 1950s and ’60s Ahrend and his then-associate Gerhard Brunzema (1927–1992) were perhaps the most serious, consistent, and successful in reviving the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century North-German organ style.  

11. In Bentheim county, Germany, near the Dutch border. The organ was built by Ahrend & Brunzema in 1957, and enlarged with a Rückpositiv by the Dutch firm Mense Ruiter in 1997.

12. Other surviving Müller organs include those in Haarlem, Leeuwarden, Beverwijk, and the Kapelkerk at Alkmaar. 

13. Apart from more imaginative works such as the cantata L’Apologie des femmes (The Women’s Apology, 1715), Quirinus van Blankenburg (1654–1739) published a Harpsichord and Organ Book of Reformed Psalms and Church Hymns (The Hague 1732).

14. Fortunately, I no longer recall whom I mentioned to Leonhardt.

15. The Dutch recorder player, flautist, and conductor Frans Brüggen (b. 1934) performed extensively with Leonhardt in such groups as Quadro Amsterdam and the trio with cellist Anner Bijlsma.

16. ‘In for a penny, in for a pound.’

Larry Palmer

A glimpse into actual eighteenth-century performance practices

Early in April I received a copy of Beverly Jerold’s fascinating article on performance standards in Handel’s London. The American musicologist, a longtime friend and consultant, brought to mind the cogent remark from Gustav Leonhardt: “we would almost certainly be surprised by a truly Baroque performance!”

In mid-May, having just returned from a 2,000-mile roundtrip automobile journey to perform in the Aliénor Retrospective that was the final event for Historical Keyboard Society of North America’s 2018 meeting at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, I arrived home on May 14­—one day before the mid-month deadline for submitting a July column. A late-night email to Ms. Jerold resulted in her giving permission to reprint this article, originally published in Handel News, #71 (January 2018), the newsletter of the Friends of the London Handel Festival.

Should Jerold’s article lead to a desire for more Handelian essays, an annual subscription to the newsletter is available for £20 (£15 for retired folk). Payment should be made payable to Friends of the London Handel Festival and sent to the society’s treasurer: Leslie Porter, 25 Park View Road, Southall, Middlesex UBI 3HJ, United Kingdom. Our thanks to newsletter editor Tony Watts and to the author for allowing this reprint of her thought-provoking essay.

 

Reichardt’s Review of Handel Concerts in London

by Beverly Jerold

 

If we could travel back to the age of Bach and Handel to hear how music was performed, we would often be disappointed. Technology is unnecessary for music composition, but it can greatly enhance performance. For example, early sources reveal that many musicians are not born with the ability to sing or play pleasingly in tune. In contrast, the music we hear every day provides automatic ear training and many other benefits. Since we cannot imagine a world that had never experienced our concepts of refined tone quality, consistently good intonation, and rhythmic accuracy, our reading of early sources may be colored by modern assumptions. Some of these are called into question by the Berlin court Kapellmeister Johann Friedrich Reichardt’s report of two Handel concerts he heard in London in 1785.¹

The first was Samson at the Drury Lane Theater, whose entrance was in a dirty alley and down some steps, as in a beer hall. In the foremost loge, almost on the stage of this small, plain theater, were King George III and the Queen. Some disorderly young chaps settled themselves very close to the king’s loge, making an unruly disturbance during the performance—mostly mockery of the singers—such as Reichardt had never heard at the worst German theater. One of them took loud delight in the stiff enunciation of the singers, who made a point of thrusting out each syllable extremely firmly and distinctly. Particularly in the recitatives, Mr. Reinhold attacked the difficult words with such pedantic preparation, executing each single consonant so elaborately that one would often have had time to look up the word in a dictionary.

“But what I wouldn’t have given for a better musical performance,” declares Reichardt.
“The singing was often downright poor. In comparison, the instrumental music was much better, at least the string instruments. The blown instruments were often intolerably out of tune.” As first violinist, Mr. Richards led the orchestra just passably. Because of the many participants, the choruses made more effect than they usually do in Germany, but were nevertheless disappointing: “Often the choral singing was filled with screaming from the most wretched voices. Miss George and Miss Philips, the principal female soloists, were very mediocre indeed, frequently singing heartily out of tune, while Messrs. Quest, Norris, and Reinhold were deplorable, and often bellowed like lions.” Reichardt’s observations are confirmed by Charles Burney’s letter of 1771 to Montagu North in which he complains that English “singing must be so barbarous as to ruin the best Compositions of our own or of any Country on the Globe” until they have music schools and better salaries.²

After the first part of Samson, a little girl played a modish concerto on the fortepiano. Reichardt’s footnote quoting The Morning Post for March 12 suggests that the composer often took the blame for a wretched performance:  

 

At the Oratorio yesterday evening Miss Parke . . . performed a concerto on the Piano Forte. . . . her execution was such that a veteran in the profession might not be ashamed to imitate. This . . . was a sufficient compensation for three tedious Acts of Handel’s worst Composition. 

Standards varied dramatically between this program for the general public, even though it included royalty, and one exclusively for the upper class. On March 12, Reichardt heard the Concert of Ancient Music, limited to music more than twenty-five years old, and sponsored by a society of 300 subscribers from the court and highest nobility. Since even the most respected musician could not be admitted, the famed German soprano Gertrud Elisabeth Mara had to use all her influence to enable Reichardt to hear some of Handel’s music that was completely to his liking.

This concert’s hall, an oblong of more pleasing form and appropriate height than the Drury Lane Theater, was just large enough to accommodate an orchestra of very considerable size and the subscribers. Seating on the floor began in the middle of the hall, leaving a substantial space between the first row and the orchestra, leading the frequent-traveler Reichardt to comment about conventional orchestral volume level:

 

I very much like having the instruments at a distance, for when they are close, particularly the string instruments whose every separate, strong stroke is always a powerful shock, it makes an extremely adverse, and often painful, long-lasting impression on my nerves.³

Mad. Mara and Samuel Harrison were the principal soloists; Wilhelm Cramer, the concertmaster; and Mr. Bath, the organist. The orchestra was large and the chorus adequately strong. In the chorus from Handel’s Saul, “How excellent thy Name, O Lord!,” Reichardt found more good voices than in the program the day before, particularly since several Royal Chapel choirboys, some with very beautiful voices, participated. But for the most part, the lower voices were the same, and again just as harsh and screaming.

Reichardt was pleased that Handel’s second Concerto Grosso, which is so different from their present instrumental music, was performed well and strongly with its own character. In his youth, this work’s simple, harmonically compact music had made a strong impression. Today, he therefore expected nothing more than what it really is, so he readily found it pleasurable. But it will be a disappointment to those who think that the title “Concerto” promises a display of the principal player’s skill with difficult passages. The principal parts do not have as many difficult passages to execute as each part in the easiest new Haydn symphony: “We can regard them as a document showing the character of instrumental music at that time. From this we can judge the great progress instrumental music has made in the last thirty years.” Yet this type of instrumental music presents its own very great difficulty for execution:

 

something that . . . should be the foundation of everything else. Good intonation and larger tone. Music affects the listener only when it is completely in tune and strong. When performed with correct intonation and large tone from all the instruments, this concerto’s melodic clarity and rich harmony has to make a far stronger effect on the listener than the greatest technical difficulties. . . . Whoever knows the enormous difficulty of achieving this will not be surprised that I found both of these qualities today only with Mr. Cramer, who played the principal part. Yet no single measure offered him the opportunity to show his superior skills that are so admired in Germany.⁴

Since Reichardt’s 1776 manual for professional ripienists (Ueber die Pflichten . . .)
prescribes exercises that are mastered today by young children, string technique, even at that time, was extremely low by our standards.

Hearing Mad. Mara (for the first time since she left Berlin) in a scene from Giulio Cesare, Reichardt found that grandeur and fullness of tone had been added to her qualities of strength, clarity, intonation, and flexibility. “How she sang the great, noble scene from Handel! It was evident that Handel’s heroic style had influenced the spirit and even the voice of this exemplary artist.” And in Handel’s “Affani del pensier un sol momento” from Ottone, he was profoundly moved, for she conveyed the text as from the soul. After intermission, Mr. Harrison sang “Parmi che giunta in porto” from Radamisto:

 

With a tenor voice that is not strong but nevertheless very pleasing, he sang this Cantabile completely in accord with the old style in which it is composed: that is, without any additions of his own, thereby giving the audience and me great pleasure. Mr. Harrison performed even the very simple figures . . . exactly as they appear in Handel’s work, and sought to give the piece its due only through fine tone quality and precise, clear execution. And that is very praiseworthy. Melodies and finished compositions like Handel’s arias tolerate no alterations anywhere. His melodies have such a finely chosen meaningful, expressive succession of notes that almost anything put between them is certainly unsuitable or at least weakening for the word being sung. The construction of his basses and harmonic accompaniment is such that no singer can easily change three notes without creating a harmonic error. All of Handel’s melodies . . . can produce the desired effect on the present listener only when we want their effect to be the one heard. All new trimmings remove from the listener the impression that the venerable old style gives him and in which alone he can enjoy such music.⁵

 

Then Reichardt describes the contrasting style of composition heard in Mara’s performance of Johann Adolf Hasse’s “Padre perdona oh pene!:”

 

Hasse’s style presumes an inventive singer, and whole sections, intentionally sketched out only in outline, are expected to be embellished by the singer. At that time in Italy, the new, more opulent singing style arose hand in hand with the luxuriant dramatic style in composition. Hasse availed himself of this all the more since his wife, Signora Faustina Bordoni, was one of the principal female singers in the new lavish style. Just as the old bachelor Handel worked only for his art and himself, so did Hasse work for his wife and similar singers.

Nevertheless, Hasse did not approve of extravagant additions, as seen in his letter to Giammaria Ortes⁶ (a sample of Faustina’s own embellishment is modest). While most major composers followed Handel’s practice of leaving little, if anything, to the singer’s discretion, secondary, mostly Italian composers catered to Italian singers’ desire for a skeletal melodic line to decorate.

To close the concert, Mara sang a recitative and aria from Handel’s Ode for St. Cecilia’s Day, followed by a full chorus from the same. According to Reichardt’s text, this concert’s success was owed to the soloists Mara and Harrison, a much better physical space, and Cramer’s orchestral leadership. Cramer was clearly exceptional—with no metronome training available, many leaders were afflicted with the same rhythmic instability as their players.

§

How did Handel view singers’ additions? Consider John Hawkins: “In his comparison of the merits of a composer and those of a singer, he estimated the latter at a very low rate.”⁷ Handel would not have tolerated the harmonic errors that characterized most singers’ own embellishment. But where did they add the embellishment that Burney mentions in his General History of Music? The answer lies in his account of Handel’s “Rival ti sono” from Faramondo, written for the castrato Caffarelli: “In the course of the song, he is left ad libitum several times, a compliment which Handel never paid to an ordinary singer.” Here, and in other Burney citations, Handel did not permit routine alteration, but restricted it to places left bare for this purpose, such as very brief Adagios or the close of a section. Perhaps this kept peace with Italian singers while protecting his work. Compare any of his conventional arias with a truly skeletal Larghetto he wrote for Caffarelli in Faramondo. According to Burney, “Si tornerò” is “a fine out-line for a great singer.”⁸ Here, the singer is expected to add notes, but nearly all of Handel’s other arias are fully embellished, except for occasional measures. Our belief that a da capo should have additional embellishment derives solely from Pier Francesco Tosi, a castrato who wrote when skeletal composition was fashionable in Italy. There is no reason to apply his advice to arias that the composer embellished adequately.

In sum, Reichardt’s account reveals standards and aesthetic values different from our own. If we had never known such things as recording technology, the metronome, period instruments that play up to modern standards, and high-level conservatory/general education, there would be no musicians with today’s advanced technique. From Reichardt’s text and his definition of Handel’s style as “heroic,” it is apparent that tempi and embellishment were restrained, and that full-bodied tone was desirable.

Notes

1. [Johann Friedrich Reichardt], “Briefe aus London,” Studien für Tonkünstler und Musikfreunde, ed. F. A. Kunzen and J. F. Reichardt (Berlin, 1792/93), Musikalisches Wochenblatt (MW) portion, 130ff., 137ff., 147f., 171f. According to Walter Salmen, Johann Friedrich Reichardt (Freiburg and Zürich: Atlantis, 1963), 57ff., Reichardt attended these London concerts in 1785.

2. The Letters of Dr. Charles Burney, ed. Alvaro Ribeiro (Oxford: Clarendon, 1991), 1:96.

3. Reichardt, MW, 137: “Diese Entfernung der Instrumente that für mich eine sehr angenehme Wirkung: denn ihre Nähe, besonders die der Saiteninstrumente, deren jeder einzelner starker Strich immer eine gewaltsame Erschütterung ist, macht auf meine Nerven einen höchst widrigen oft schmerzhaften und lange fortdauernden Eindruck.”

4. Reichardt, MW, 138f.

5. Reichardt, MW, 171: “Solche Melodieen und ganze Zusammensetzungen, wie Händels Arien sind, vertragen durchaus keine Änderungen.”

6. See Beverly Jerold, “How Composers Viewed Performers’ Additions,” Early Music 36/1 (Feb. 2008): 95-109.

7. John Hawkins, A general history of the science and practice of music, (London, 1853; rpt. New York [1963]), 870.

8. Charles Burney, A General History of Music, from the Earliest Ages to the Present Period (1789), ed. Frank Mercer (New York: Harcourt, Brace, [1935]), 2:819-20.

Stephen L. Pinel

Stephen L. Pinel holds two degrees from Westminster Choir College in Princeton, New Jersey, and did further graduate work in historical musicology at New York University. A church musician for 45 years, he retired from full-time work during the fall of 2017. 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 also the author of several books and regularly contributes articles pertaining to American organ history both here and abroad.

After attending Morning Prayer at Christ Church during the summer of 1873, a visitor wrote:

 

The church bells ring at half past nine, and speak in suggestive and pleasant tones to those who are accustomed to answer their call. The bells are rung again at a quarter past ten, and soon after the streets present a scene to delight the heart of any Christian. The multitude of those who go forth, embraces people of all ages, from the prattling child to hoary and tottering old age, and including all conditions, from the affluent to the humble poor. . . .

We are favorably impressed as we approach the edifice [of Christ Church] by its massive and substantial front. We are met at the door by attentive ushers, and feel at once that though strangers we are welcome. An appropriate voluntary upon the organ is in progress, and as the worshippers come in one after another and proceed quietly to their places all about us and engage, as is the beautiful custom of the denomination, in silent prayer, we feel the truth of the sentiment which spans the arch above the chancel. “The Lord is in His Holy Temple. . . .” 

The musical part of the service—aside from the metrical hymns—is sometimes in anthem and sometimes in chant form, and is at present under the direction of the organist, Mr. Horace H. Scribner. One will hear many fine adaptations here by Warren, Thomas, Buck and others. Among the worshippers are Hon. Timothy P. Redfield, Hon. B. F. Fifield, Dr. J. Y. Dewey, Hon. Charles Dewey, Hiram Atkins, T. C. Phinney, Fred E. Smith, and J. W. Ellis. . . .¹

 

Christ Church was the fashionable parish in the capital city. It was the place where people of affluence, culture, education, prominence, and social stature went to church. The Hon. Timothy P. Redfield (1812–1888), an 1836 graduate of Dartmouth College, was a justice on the Vermont Supreme Court.² The Hon. Benjamin F. Fifield (1832–1918), a staunch Republican and an 1855 graduate of UVM,³ was the primary legal counsel for the Vermont Central Railroad.⁴ Dr. Julius Y. Dewey (1799–1866) was a notable Vermont physician who, after the state issued an 1848 charter for the National Life Insurance Company, became its chief medical officer.⁵ Of his sons, Charles Dewey (1826–1905) served as president of the same company between 1877 and 1901.⁶ Another son, the Admiral George Dewey (1837–1917), surpassed both of them in national fame when he became an American naval hero during the Spanish-American War. In May 1898, his squadron decimated the Spanish flotilla near the Philippines without the loss of a single American life.⁷ Hiram Atkins (1831–1892), a prominent Vermont Democrat, was the editor and publisher of the Argus and Patriot, a Montpelier weekly.⁸ Truman C. Phinney (1827–1901) served 25 years as the sergeant-at-arms for the Vermont State Legislature.⁹ Fred E. Smith (1836–1907), who later figured prominently in the narrative of Christ Church and its organs, was the president of the Vermont Life Insurance Company.¹⁰ And J. W. Ellis was an illustrious Montpelier banker. Christ Church was the society church in central Vermont.

In addition to its influential parishioners, Christ Church was also known for its fashionable music. The parish has owned six different pipe organs during its 178-year history, more than any other congregation in the state. The first was a small instrument probably made by organbuilder William Nutting, Jr. (1815–1869), who had a shop in nearby Randolph. In 1854, it gave way to a larger, two-manual organ built by Stevens & Jewett of Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 1902, accepting the recommendation of a former organist, Samuel B. Whitney (1842–1914), the parish bought a two-manual Hutchings-Votey organ. In a freakish twist of fate, that instrument was lost in a fire less than a year later, so the Vestry turned again to the firm for a replacement. In November 1927, their second Hutchings-Votey organ was wrecked in the Great Vermont Flood, so the following year, the parish ordered a new instrument built by the Estey Organ Company in Brattleboro. The Estey remained until 1972, when the current elegant instrument—the “Abiel M. Smith Organ”—was built for the parish by Karl Wilhelm of St.-Hyacinthe, Québec, Canada. Christ Church has the bizarre “distinction” of losing two of its pipe organs to natural disasters!

Christ Church has also had its share of fine organists. The prominent Mr. Whitney served between 1862 and 1866,¹¹ followed by George W. Wilder (1825–1901), the proprietor of a Montpelier music store.¹² Horace H. Scribner (1849–1895) was the parish’s organist for twenty-five years and is memorialized by a stained-glass window in the church.¹³ Cecil George Egg, a native of Ontario, Canada, served Christ Church from 1908 to 1916. He was an 1899 graduate of Dominion College in Montréal and had played between 1900 and 1908 at Trinity Church in Shelburne, Vermont.¹⁴ Abiel M. Smith (1897–1967), who became organist in 1941, served twenty-five years and was held in high esteem;¹⁵ the 1972 Wilhelm was posthumously named in his honor. Jack Russell followed Smith; he was the consultant for the Wilhelm organ and played the dedicatory recital on June 4, 1972.¹⁶ Dr. Brian P. Webb (1948–2014), a native of New Zealand, was the organist until his tragic death on August 23, 2014, in a boating accident on Lake Champlain.¹⁷ He was a distinguished graduate of both the University of Auckland and Indiana University, the music director and conductor of the Vermont Philharmonic, and served as associate dean, Master of Arts, at Union Institute and University in Montpelier. Carl Schwartz served seasonally as associate organist between 1998 and 2015, and twice as interim organist/choirmaster, first in 2013 and then between December 2014 and June 2015. Since the summer of 2015, the parish has been ably served by Lynnette Combs, a distinguished graduate of Swarthmore College and one of Vermont’s better-known organists.¹⁸

 

The origins of Christ Church

The organizational framework for the parish was laid when the Rt. Rev. John Henry Hopkins (1792–1868), the first bishop of the Diocese of Vermont, visited the capital in 1839 and officiated at confirmation. Almost a year later, he reported the event to the diocesan convention:

On Tuesday, the 15th of October [1839], I visited Montpelier, at the request of some friends of the Church. . . . The desire was expressed by many that a parish might be organized in this important place, but no immediate action was resolved upon.¹⁹

Montpelier residents were said to be rowdy, unchurched, and uncatechised. Cryptically, one mid-nineteenth-century author opined that “Puritanism was then rampant here, and it is said very many were so ignorant of the fasts and festivals of the church as to suppose Christmas a day appointed by the Governor!”²⁰

The bishop reported again in September 1842:

 

I commenced my visitation on Friday, January 7th, of the present year [1842], at Montpelier; where I preached, morning and afternoon, at the Methodist Chapel, which was kindly offered for that purpose, on the following Sunday, being the first
after the Epiphany. There was considerable conversation held with our friends upon the building of a Church, but nothing concluded. My second visit was on Friday, the 15th July, on which occasion I was rejoiced to find a subscription actually begun, and now a handsome and appropriate edifice is so far advanced that it is expected to be ready for consecration by November.²¹

 

Christ Church had been organized in 1840 by Deacon George B. Manzer (1803–1862), then a candidate for Holy Orders who, after his ordination, became the founding rector of the parish. Manzer was a New Haven, Connecticut, native, who graduated from Dartmouth, Class of 1825, Middlebury College, and later received his Doctor of Divinity degree from Norwich University in 1853. After leaving Montpelier in 1849, he became the rector of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Bennington, Vermont,²² where he served until his death.²³

The Christ Church Vestry was elected on Easter Monday, 1841, and the first representatives of the parish attended the diocesan convention in September 1842.²⁴ A modest frame building with a small bell tower in front was begun in the fall of 1842. When it was finished, the consecration ceremony was announced in the local newspaper:

 

The Episcopal Church, erected in this village the past season, will, by favor of Divine Providence, be consecrated to the public worship of God, on Thursday the 19th inst. Services to commence at half past ten o’clock, forenoon.

Montpelier, 14th Dec. 1842.²⁵

 

Recalling the event, the bishop wrote:

 

On Thursday, December 29th, 1842, I was called to perform the most acceptable duty of consecrating, to the service of Almighty God, the building in which we are now assembled, the Rev. Messrs. Clap, Hicks, Sabine, John T. Sabine, Hoit, Sprague, Bostwick, and Manser, assisting.²⁶

 

Little is actually known of the architecture, cost, furnishings, interior arrangements, or seating capacity of the building, but a circa 1865 stereograph of the exterior shows a modest, clapboard structure.

 

An organ by an unknown maker, before 1850

To date, only one reference has surfaced to the first organ in Christ Church. The 1850 parochial report to the diocesan convention reads:

 

Among other measures of improvement in externals, may be mentioned the renovation of the organ, the purchase of a fine-toned Bell from the excellent establishment of A. Meneely, Troy, N. Y., who kindly contributed $12.00 to the sum elsewhere specified.²⁷

Use of the word “renovated” suggests that the organ had been in service awhile, perhaps since the consecration of the building, but it was surely a small organ. The geographical proximity of Montpelier to Randolph supposes that it was possibly the work of William Nutting, Jr., but there is no evidence to confirm or deny that presumption. Nor is it known what happened to the organ when it was replaced.

 

An organ by Stevens & Jewett, 1854

Much more is known about the second organ at Christ Church. It was built in Cambridge, Massachusetts, by Stevens & Jewett, a partnership of William Stevens (1808–1896) and James Jewett (1810–1890). William was the younger brother of George Stevens (1803–1894), and Jewett was a carpenter turned organ builder. The partnership lasted only a few years during the 1850s, although Jewett returned to work for William Stevens during the 1860s, after the firm had moved to Boston. In December 1862, Stevens & Jewett built another large organ for a Vermont congregation—First Congregational Church in St. Albans.²⁸

The instrument was completed in December 1854, and a notice in the Patriot provided some details:

 

New Church Organ.

We take especial pleasure in being able to state that the new Church Organ, contracted for some two months since by the Episcopal Society in this village, has been completed, and now stands in its place in the Church, ready for use. It is, to both eye and ear, a beautiful and perfect instrument. In the variety of its stops, and the number of its pipes, it is perhaps seldom equaled, except in the cities. It is built with extended Keyboard and has two banks of Keys, twenty-eight registers and about one thousand pipes. Its compass is from c c to G in alt., exclusive of a pedal bass which runs down to c c c—a sixteen feet pipe.

A few individuals were invited to the Church, last Wednesday evening [i.e., December 20], to hear it played. The exhibition was eminently satisfactory. All were delighted who heard it. We have never heard better or purer tones from any organ. It was manufactured at the Establishment of Messrs. Stevens & Jewett, Boston [sic, Cambridge], and cost about $2000. It reflects great credit to the builders, as well as on the enterprise of the Society and individuals by whose very liberal subscriptions it has been purchased. Long may they live to enjoy it.²⁹

 

A similar notice appeared in the Montpelier Watchman.³⁰ Indeed, a manual compass of 56 notes, CC to g³ was “extended” when compared to CC to f³, 54 notes, then the current standard. Bishop Hopkins noticed the organ when he reported to the 1855 diocesan convention: “Here I was gratified to find a splendid new organ, the most costly in the Diocese. . . .”³¹ For its time and place, the Stevens & Jewett organ must have been a remarkable acquisition.

In 1868, following the completion of the new building, the organ was installed in a right-hand chamber beside the chancel and presumably lost its original case. An 1885 notice of the instrument remarked:

 

The organs of Bethany [Congregational, Wm. A. Johnson, Op. 264 (1868), 3m] and Christ churches have been tuned during the past week by Mr. [Henry J.] Poole of Boston, assisted by Mr. [Wm. A.] Briggs. . . .
Mr. Poole expressed much satisfaction with the working of the Perry & Canning [water] motor at Christ church.³²

 

The removal of the Stevens & Jewett occurred in February 1902, just before the congregation acquired a new organ from Hutchings-Votey: “The new organ for Christ Church has arrived from Boston and the old organ will be placed in the boxes in which the new organ came, so that it can be readily shipped wherever a sale is made.”³³ What happened to it next is undocumented, but Edgar A. Boadway (1936–2016), Vermont’s foremost organ historian, asserted that it was moved second-hand to Montpelier’s First Baptist Church. It remained there until replaced by another second-hand organ about 1920.³⁴

 

The new church, 1868

In March 1866, the wooden edifice of Christ Church was in such dilapidated condition that the Vestry proceeded with plans to erect a new building. Nine days later, land was acquired on the south side of State Street near the Vermont State House, and a subscription list was opened to raise funds for the project.³⁵ The Vestry appointed a committee, and by May 4, 1866, the design for a new building was in hand: “The plan for the new Episcopal Church by J. J. Randall, of Rutland, is a very neat one, in the Gothic style. We learn that the intention is to build of granite.”³⁶ By November, the foundation had been laid, and the cornerstone ceremony was reported in the local newspaper:

 

The cornerstone of Christ Church will be laid with appropriate ceremonies, according to the ritual of the church, at eleven A.M. of Thursday the 8th inst., Providence permitting. If the day prove stormy the ceremony will be delayed until the same hour on Friday. There will be Divine service in the old church, on Thursday evening, at half-past seven o’clock.³⁷

In September 1867 the interior was nearing completion. The tower was finished during the summer of 1868, and the pews were sold in May 1868.³⁸

Abby Maria Hemenway (1828–1890), Vermont’s audacious lady historian, described the interior:

 

The ground plan includes nave and aisles, chancel, organ chamber and sacristy, the tower being engaged in the northern end of the east aisle. Exterior, 108 by 55 feet; tower and spire, 100 feet; interior—nave, 22 feet wide, separated by two colonnades from two aisles, each 11 feet wide; chancel, 17 feet wide by 23 deep; whole exterior, except roof and clerestory, 

light-colored Barre and Berlin granite; aisle walls without buttresses; clerestory, timber slated outside. The north front is the most imposing part of the exterior. . . .³⁹

 

Hemenway also mentioned the placement for the organ: “The organ chamber, on the west, opens by a narrow arch in the church, and by a broader one into the nave; the organ is a powerful instrument.”⁴⁰

A newspaper mentioned the music at the consecration, which occurred on June 2, 1868:

 

The singing on the occasion, under the direction of Mr. A. J. Phillips, the excellent tenor, whose effort was handsomely sustained by the fine soprano of Mrs. C. J. Gleason, the alto of Miss Laura T. Field, and the bass of Mr. L. T. Gleason, and the organ-playing by Mr. George W. Wilder, were remarkably good, and added much interest and solemnity to the occasion.⁴¹

By the late 1890s, there was increasing dissatisfaction with the Stevens & Jewett organ. A report in the archives of Christ Church dated November 30, 1898, outlined some of the issues. The unsigned document was typed on stationery from the Vermont Mutual Fire Insurance Company, and was surely written by Fred E. Smith, the same Mr. Smith noticed by our 1873 visitor to Christ Church at the start of this essay. He wrote:

 

On account of the continued trouble with the mechanical attachments to our organ, the repeated breakings of the trackage [sic, trackers], and failure of the valves and slides, we must recognize that some important change must be made at no distant day or we shall be obliged to give up our organ entirely and face the question of procuring a new one. From the best advices [sic] I can obtain I am satisfied that we cannot install a new organ of proper size and quality for a cost less than $2500, to $3,000.00. From equally good sources of information I am led to believe that by the expenditure of from $500, to $800, our own organ can be put in just as good condition for practical service with a prospect of finer tone than we could get from a new one. . . .⁴²

 

Smith then asserted that the old pipework could be placed on new wind chests with tubular-pneumatic playing action.

An unsolicited letter from organbuilder Geo. S. Hutchings (1835–1913) arrived a few months later:

 

Boston, Apr. 28, 1899

Mr. Frederick E. Smith

Montpelier, Vt.

 

Dear Sir:—

Mr. Almar Green, who is familiar with my work, has suggested that I address you regarding an organ for your church to cost between $3,500 and $4,000. I have therefore taken the liberty of handing you under separate wrapper my catalog, together with other printed matter which may interest you.

Before I can make a definite proposition I need to know what space in height, width and depth can be given to the organ, because the cost of building depends materially upon this. I would also like to know about when the organ would be needed. If you will inform me on these points, I shall take pleasure in making a definite proposal for your consideration.

I desire very much to build the organ for you and shall await your reply with interest.

Trusting you will command me freely for any information in my line.

Yours truly, Geo. S. Hutchings⁴³

Enclosed was a proposal for a small, mechanical-action organ of twelve registers distributed over two manuals and pedals.

On February 1, 1899, organbuilder Emmons Howard (1845–1931) visited Montpelier to inspect the organ. Again, it was Smith who issued the report, stating:

 

. . . after examining the Church and organ with Mr. Hutchinson [not Geo. Hutchings] and myself, he quite positively gave his opinion that we would not be warranted in going to such expense on our organ as we had contemplated. He found the value of the organ much less than we had supposed, and was quite positive that it would cost $1500, to $2000, to make the changes we had talked about, with the new additions which would be necessary—such as tubular pneumatic action, new bellows, air-chest, etc.—saying that our organ would still be an old one and imperfect in many features. . . .⁴⁴

 

With the prospect of repairing the organ increasingly unfeasible, an organ committee was formed in September 1901 for “the purchase of a new organ.”⁴⁵ Within a week, financial canvassers were at work,⁴⁶ and a “final” reference to the Stevens & Jewett appeared in the local newspaper during February 1902, when: “The organ builders are at work in Christ Church, taking down the old organ. . . .” ⁴⁷

 

Hutchings-Votey Organ Co., Opus 1538, 1902

In November 1901, former organist Samuel B. Whitney was consulted. Writing to Smith on October 29, 1901, Joseph A. De Boer, another committee member communicated the substance of a meeting he had had with Whitney in Boston. Whitney recommended Hutchings-Votey. Two letters from John H. Waterhouse, the treasurer at Hutchings, to Smith indicated that acquiring an organ was underway:

 

Boston, Nov. 7, 1901

Col. Fred E. Smith

Montpelier, Vt.

Dear Sir:—

 

We received your letter of Oct. 31st and have been considering what we should be able to do. After Mr. De Boer left the other day, Mr. Whitney seemed very anxious to have us put in 49 notes of the Vox Celestis. When upon receipt of your letter we went over our figures very carefully, but do not feel that we can really afford to make any difference in the price. We will, however, deduct $100 to assist you in the purchase of this organ. Will say, however, that this is very largely because we know that Mr. Whitney is very desirous that you should purchase one of our organs, and as his good opinion is valuable to us, we are ready to do the very best we can in a case in which he is especially interested. In looking over the scheme we do not feel that there is any stop which could be very well left out. The scheme is well balanced, and would make a very fine instrument.

We think the plan you sent us showing the key-desk and openings in the arches as you propose is very good, and that in this way the sound would come out into the church very well.

It would seem too bad in purchasing an organ which will last for several generations, to allow a few hundred dollars to stand in the way of a desirable instrument. Regarding the cost of our organ, we believe without question that it would be cheaper for you in the long run to purchase one of our make than it would to buy a cheaper grade, outside of the advantage you would have in the way of tone and voicing. We desire very much to build the organ, and trust you will see your way clear to meet us in this matter. I suppose we shall have to know before very long in order to begin this with the other instrument which we mentioned. We should be willing to allow the difference between the $3,900 and the sum which you have to stand for six months or a year without interest if it will help you out.

Yours truly, Hutchings-Votey Organ Co.⁴⁸

 

•

 

Boston, Nov. 8, 1901

Col. Fred E. Smith

Montpelier, Vt.

Dear Sir:—

 

Regarding the position of the console, we could place the console in practically any position you may wish, and this would have no bearing on the building of the rest of the organ; so that if we should start to build the organ we would not necessarily have to know the position of the console for a couple of weeks. Mr. Whitney suggests that it be placed where we have drawn it in pencil, his reason being that from this position the organist could see the altar, which is quite necessary, and it would be possible to get into the space where the quartet would sing on the other side or on the front, we presume. This would make the quartet, if you had one, at the side of and back of the organist, but as they would be very close, it would not be very hard and perhaps considering all things, this position would be the most advantageous.

Yours truly, Hutchings-Votey Organ Co.⁴⁹

 

The contract for the organ has not survived, but it was apparently signed around November 10, 1901, for on November 29, Waterhouse wrote Smith asking, “Have you decided the matter of decorating the front pipes for the organ?”⁵⁰ 

The completed organ was shipped on March 1, 1902, and a notice in the Argus related:

 

S. B. Whitney, formerly organist of Christ church in this city, but now occupying a similar position with the Church of the Advent in Boston, has had the oversight of the new organ which has been built for Christ Church, that instrument having been finished. Mr. Whitney says of it that he is sure that it will delight everyone who hears it. It is now being taken down to be shipped, having been tested twice by Mr. Whitney. . . .”⁵¹

 

The installation took the better part of a month, and on March 24 the Evening Argus stated: “The new organ has been installed in Christ Church and will be ready for the rehearsal Thursday and Friday and for Easter Sunday.”⁵²

The organ was described in detail on the front page of the Argus on March 26:

 

The new organ for Christ church is fast reaching a state of completion and will be ready to peal forth its inspiring sounds to the worshippers Easter morning.

Everything is in readiness now with the exception of three sets of pipes which will be in position at the close of this week.

The new organ is one of the best in the State and combines all of the latest improvements of stops, copulas [sic], pistons and action, making it as easy of action, even with the great [and] swells on, as a piano.

Charles Bowen, of Boston, has had charge of setting up the instrument. It is so adjusted that the very lightest touch will produce strains of harmony.

A little over four weeks ago Mr. Bowen, who is assisted by W. H. Colbath, commenced installing the organ, which was made especially for Christ Church by the Hutchings-Votey Organ company, of Boston. The old one had to be taken out and this was also done by them. The work has been done in a very short time, considering the amount of it.

The organ occupies the same position as the old one, at the right of the chancel, but the key desk has been moved so that it sets at the left across the chancel. The lower part of the organ is of antique oak, with a dark finish, and above this is a row of speaking pipes, gilded.

The key desk is a model of convenience and is equipped with all the modern improvements. The stops are set in such a way as to face the player and be of the easiest possible access.

The organ has 1,098 pipes. Lead tubing runs underneath the floor from the key desk to these pipes and nearly a mile and a half of it was used for this purpose. Through these tubes the air passes and the quickness of the response to the touch of the player is remarkable. The desk has two manuals of 61 notes each. The combination pistons are placed under each manual, four of them operating the swell stops and three the great stops.

An indicator is placed a little to the right of the center of the front of the desk, which shows which piston is being used. At the right of the desk is the pedal and great stops, while at the left are the swell stops. All told there are 18 speaking stops. Seven cupolas [sic] are placed just over the upper manual in the center of the desk.

A full set of pedals, 30 in all, occupy their place, and in connection with these there are two pedals, a crescendo, which brings on the stops one at a time and closes them in a similar manner: also the balanced swell pedal, operating two sets of shades. To the left of these pedals there are three smaller ones, the reversible great to pedal, full organ and Tremulant.

The whole action is tubular pneumatic, compressed air being produced by a hydraulic water motor. This motor was adjusted by Allen D. Moore and is controlled by a wire running from the bellows to the shut off. The water motor can be controlled by the organist, as there is a valve at the left of the organ desk.

All who have seen and heard the organ say it is one of the finest that they have ever listened to.

Mr. Whitney, of Boston, will give a recital. . . .⁵³

 

The organ was a cause of jubilation when it was first heard on Easter Day 1902: “Prof. A. J. Phillips with Miss Laura A. Rugg as organist, and Christ church vested choir of about forty mixed voices outdid, if possible, previous efforts in preparing an Easter musical program. His efforts were augmented to a large extent by the magnificent new pipe organ which was recently placed in the church. . . .”⁵⁴ On April 2, the two installers, Bowen and Colbath, returned to Boston.⁵⁵

Whitney opened the organ on May 20, and the program was billed as “the finest musical feature of the season.”⁵⁶ The program opened with Miss Rugg at the console, followed by the church choir processing to “The Day Is Gently Sinking to a Close.” Whitney played selections of Guilmant, Handel, Lemaigre, Rinck, and Wagner, but it was Master John B. Findlay, a solo boy treble from the choir of the Church of the Advent in Boston, who stole the show with his rendition of “With Verdure Clad” from Haydn’s Creation. A newspaper reported that “The recital and concert was a thorough success musically. . . .”⁵⁷
The project had taken years of planning, and everyone at Christ Church was delighted by the outcome.

 

The 1903 Fire

Taken in context, imagine the congregation’s distress when only seven months later the chancel end of the church was gutted by fire. The headline in the Daily Journal said it all: “FIRE! Discovered 3:30. This afternoon in Christ Church. Organ Will Be Ruined.” An unnamed author in the Inter-State Journal put the disaster into larger perspective:

 

For a season when coal was unobtainable at any price and wood had to be used in coal furnaces, as during the past winter, it is not surprising that many destructive fires have occurred and that many incipient blazes were discovered just in time to save the property. Among the cheifest [sic] conflagrations in central Vermont was that of the partial destruction of Christ’s (Episcopal) Church, at Montpelier, on Jan. 24.⁵⁸

 

Although the interior and roof were badly damaged, the building was not destroyed. The organ, however, was a total loss.⁵⁹

Months passed before the congregation could rebuild, and then a number of construction problems caused further delays. An August 1903 announcement in the Argus and Patriot noted that the stained-glass was late, the black walnut wainscoting around the altar was being installed, and painters had finally completed their work on the interior.⁶⁰

 

Hutchings-Votey Organ Company, 1904

A second contract with the Hutchings-Votey Organ Co. was signed on June 29, 1903, for a replica of the previous instrument, but the organ did not arrive until January 1904. An announcement in the Daily Journal remarked:

 

The work of installing the new organ at Christ church is progressing rapidly, but is not sufficiently advanced to permit the holding of services in the church next Sunday.⁶¹

 

Two weeks later, this notice appeared:

 

Will Be Opened Sunday.

Mr. Mendal of Boston is at work today tuning the new organ in Christ church, which has been in the process of installation for several days. Services have been held in the church for a few weeks only since the burning of the church a year ago this month. They had to be suspended on account of work of putting in the new organ. The organ is one of the finest Hutchings & Votey makes and the melodious sound of the instrument will be a welcome part of the services, long dispensed with. It is planned now to have the church in readiness for services on Sunday if nothing unforeseen obstructs the plans of those in charge of the work. The rehearsal for the Sunday music will be held in the church on Saturday evening instead of Friday.⁶²

A final report stated:

 

A very large congregation attended the morning service at Christ church Sunday at which time the instrumental music was furnished by the organ, for the first time since the fire last January.

The instrument had been placed in position and although there is still three or four days’ work to be done upon it, it was possible to use it at the services, and the result was wholly satisfactory. The musical part of the service was especially fine and those who participated were highly commended. . . .⁶³

 

The tubular-pneumatic action organ cost $4,000.⁶⁴ It remained in the church until it was water-damaged on November 3, 1927.

 

The 1927 Flood

Following a particularly wet autumn, there were torrential rains in the days leading up to November 2–4, 1927. Montpelier is located at the confluence of the North Branch and the Winooski River, and late on November 1, 1927, the rivers began to rise. By November 3, the water on State Street in downtown Montpelier was 12 feet high, up to the top of the first story on most of the buildings. For church buildings at ground level, the flooding caused considerable damage, including the loss of two church organs: the 1868 Wm. A. Johnson at Bethany Congregational Church and the 1904 Hutchings-Votey at Christ Church. The 1927 Flood is universally considered the worst natural disaster in Vermont’s modern history. It resulted in 84 deaths, crippled communications and transportation networks throughout the state, and the property losses were reported to be some $21,000,000,⁶⁵ a staggering amount for the time. Montpelier was particularly hard hit.

 

Estey Organ Company, Opus 2730, 1928

After the waters receded, it was obvious that Christ Church needed a new organ. The Vestry looked south to Brattleboro and ordered an instrument from the Estey Organ Company. Estey reused the case front of the old organ so the new instrument did not look any different, but the mechanism was entirely new. The Estey organ was actually smaller than the 1904 Hutchings-Votey had been, with 4 ranks on the Great, 7 in the Swell, and 2 in the Pedal. The shop order specified a luminous console (which soon malfunctioned and was replaced!), and many of the ranks were extended to either 73 or 85 pipes to speak at multiple pitches. The finished organ was due for delivery on June 15, 1928, but it was not completed until early in the following year.

A February 9, 1929, notice in the Evening Argus related: “The new organ at Christ church will be dedicated Sunday evening at 8 p.m. by Ruth Bampton, member of the American Guild of Organists and instructor at [the] Montpelier Seminary.”⁶⁶ She was a sister of the famed Metropolitan Opera soprano, Rose Bampton. Two days later, another report stated:

 

The new organ is a 21-stop Estey organ, modern in every way, of a fine quality of tone well adapted for the Christ church, and Miss Bampton, who commenced playing the organ as soon as it was set up by representatives of the Estey company, handles it easily, for she is much at home with pipe organs, being not only an organist but composer as well. By some it was said that last evening the recital was the equal of any given in Montpelier in a long time. Miss Bampton played the program that she announced in Saturday’s edition, which included a variety that brought the best tones out of the organ, showed its soft sweet low tones as well as the volume that can be produced.⁶⁷

 

The program included works by Bach,  Borowski, Chadwick, Karg-Elert, Tchaikovsky, and Widor, and was well received.⁶⁸  

By the 1960s, the Estey was showing signs of age. Cracks and splits had developed in the windchests, and after studying the situation, a parish committee recommended buying a new organ.⁶⁹ The Estey remained until it was replaced in April 1972.

 

Karl Wilhelm, Opus 27, 1972

The desire for a new organ actually came earlier than April 1969, when it was announced to the annual diocesan convention that Christ Church was embarking on a capital improvement program involving an expenditure of some $50,000. The parish had just celebrated the centennial of the building, and work on the narthex was necessary. The project was expanded to include painting, reorganization of the choir space, a new organ, and the building of a chapel where the former Estey organ had stood. The new organ was dedicated in memory of Abiel M. Smith, who for twenty-five years had been the organist of Christ Church.⁷⁰ The project was the visionary effort of Jack Russell, then the organist, and the rector, the Rev. David Brown.

The contract went to Karl Wilhelm of St.-Hyacinthe, Québec, Canada. Following an energetic discussion regarding the placement of the organ in the building, the two-manual, mechanical-action instrument was installed in the spring of 1972. Christophe Linde designed the instrument, and Jacques L’Italien did the tonal finishing. Boadway described the installation in the Boston Organ Club Newsletter:

 

The new organ stands free in the right side aisle, the front of the case facing the opposite side wall of the nave, and the choir is thus seated with the congregation. The tall and shallow case of white oak displays five flats of Prinzipal pipes, the tall central group being a tower above the Brustwerk doors. The pipe shades and doors are carved, and the appearance of the case is indeed very handsome. . . . The attached key desk has manuals with black naturals and ivory-capped sharps; the Pedal sharps are capped with rosewood; the plain, large, flat drawknobs are arranged in double columns at each side with, unfortunately, machine-engraved labels that are not of ivory; the hitch-down brass coupler pedals are labeled as indicated in the stoplist above; there is no combination action; the stop and key action is mechanical but the Tremolo is electric; the very silent blower is within the case; the bass 12 pipes of the Subbass are exposed at the rear of the case with the access doors above; the lowest 12 pipes of the 8′ Rohrflöte are of stopped wood; and the Fagott is of half-length cylindrical spotted metal pipes.⁷¹

 

The noted Canadian organist Bernard Lagacé played a program for the Vermont Chapter of the American Guild of Organists on May 7, 1972, including works of Alain, Bach, Buxtehude, Reger, and Sweelinck.⁷² The organ was described in The Diapason⁷³ and remains in the church today. A. David Moore is the current caretaker of the instrument.

Despite the loss of two instruments to natural disasters, Christ Church remains at the forefront of Montpelier’s musical, religious, and social culture today. The choir, led by Lynnette Combs, is one of the finer church choirs in central Vermont. The parish’s six pipe organs have mirrored the progression of style and taste in American organ design, and the church’s fine musical program has been a beacon of culture in central Vermont for 178 years. ν

 

Sidebar I: Stoplists

 

Stevens & Jewett, 1854

Great, CC–g3, 56 notes

16′ Tenoroon, TC, 44 pipes

  8′ Open Diapason, 56 pipes

8′ Dulciana, 56 pipes

  8′ Keraulophon, TG, 37 pipes

  8′ Melodia Treble, TG, 37 pipes

  8′ St. Diapason Bass, 19 pipes

  4′ Principal, 56 pipes

  4′ Flute, TC, 44 pipes

  22⁄3′ Twelfth, 56 pipes

  2′ Fifteenth, 56 pipes

  8′ Trumpet, TC, 44 pipes

Swell, CC–g3, 56 notes,
enclosed

16′ Bourdon Treble, TC, 44 pipes

16′ Bourdon Bass, 12 pipes

  8′ Open Diapason, TC, 44 pipes

  8′ Viol de Gamba, TC, 44 pipes

  8′ St. Diap. Treble, TC, 44 pipes

  8′ St. Diap. Bass, 12 pipes

  4′ Principal Treble, TC, 44 pipes

  4′ Principal Bass, 12 pipes

  2′ Fifteenth, TC, 44 pipes

  II Cornet, TC, 88 pipes, 12th and 17th

  8′ Hautboy, TC, 44 pipes

Pedal, CCC–FF, 18 notes

16′ Sub Bass, 18 pipes, an Open Diapason

 

Couplers and Mechanicals

Swell to Great

Pedal to Great

Pedal to Swell

Pedal Check (see notes below)

Tremolo

No combination pedals

 

The Pedals are coupled to the Swell when the Pedal Check is drawn (no ‘Pedal to Swell’ stop), except when Pedal to Great is drawn out. Pedals cannot be coupled to both manuals at the same time, nor can they be uncoupled from both of them.

 

Source: Reconstructed from notes made in 1898–1901 by Almar Green, when the organ was to be rebuilt, sold, or replaced; and “A correspondent from Montpelier is loud in his praises. . . .,” (Boston) Daily Evening Traveller [sic] 10, no. 257 (Feb. 2, 1855): 1.

•

Estey Organ Company, Opus 2730, 1928

Great Organ, CC–c4, 61 notes

8′ Open Diapason (Leathered Inside 

    Bass), 73 pipes

8′ Dulciana, 73 pipes

8′ Melodia, 73 pipes

4′ Flute Harmonic, 73 pipes

Swell Organ, CC–c4, 61 notes

16′ Bourdon, 97 pipes

8′ Stopped Diapason, 73 notes

4′ Flute d’Amour, 73 notes

2′ Flautino, 61 notes

22⁄3′ Nasard, 61 notes

13⁄5′ Tierce, 61 notes

8′ Open Diapason, 73 pipes

8′ Salicional, 73 pipes

8′ Aeoline, 73 pipes

8′ Vox Celeste, TC, 61 pipes

4′ Violina (use top board wide enough 

    for Cornopean), 73 pipes

8′ Oboe, 73 pipes

Pedal Organ, CCC–G, 32 notes

16′ Open Diapason, 44 pipes

8′ Octave (Fm. Ped. Open), 32 notes

16′ Bourdon, 44 pipes

8′ Flute (Fm. Ped. Bdn.), 32 notes

16′ Lieb. Ged. (Fm. Sw. Bdn.), 32 notes

 

Tremolo

 

Couplers

Gt. to Gt. 4

Sw. to Gt. 16–8–4

Sw. to Sw. 16–4

Sw. to Ped. 8–4

Gt to Ped.

Gt. Uni. Sep.

Sw. Uni Sep.

 

Source: Estey Shop Order

•

Karl Wilhelm, Opus 27, 1972

Hauptwerk, CC–g3, 56 notes

8′ Prinzipal, 56 pipes

8′ Rohrfloete, 56 pipes

4′ Octav, 56 pipes

4′ Koppelfloete, 56 pipes

22⁄3′ Nazard, 56 pipes

2′ Waldfloete, 56 pipes

11⁄3′ Mixture IV, 224 pipes

8′ Trompete, 56 pipes

Brustwerk, CC–g3, 56 notes

8′ Holzgedackt, 56 pipes

4′ Rohrfloete, 56 pipes

2′ Prinzipal, 56 pipes

11⁄3′ Quinte, 56 pipes

Sesquialtera II, 78 pipes

2⁄3′ Zimbel II–III, 150 pipes

8′ Regal, 56 pipes

Tremulant

Pedal, CCC–F, 30 notes

16′ Subbass, 30 pipes

8′ Offenfloete, 30 pipes

4′ Choral Bass, 30 pipes

16′ Fagott, 30 pipes

 

Couplers

HW/PED

BW/PED

BW/HW

 

Mechanical key and stop action

 

Source: Dedication program

 

Sidebar II: Mr. Whitney’s Recommendations

October 29, 1901

Hon. F. E. Smith

Chairman, Organ Committee

Christ Church,

Montpelier, Vt.

Dear Mr. Smith:— 

Conformably to your wishes, I met Mr. Whitney, the former organist at Christ Church, on the 24th. inst. in Boston. He was extremely kind and courteous and exhibited the greatest possible interest in our affairs of a new church organ, having evidently given the subject, as the result of your correspondence with him, close and critical attention. All told, we spent two and one-quarter hours together, at my rooms in review of the various specifications, at his church in concrete illustration of the organ there, and at the shops of Hutchings & Votey, where I met the elder Mr. Hutchings and also your correspondent, Mr. Waterhouse, as I recall the name.

Mr. Whitney’s advices, summarized, may be expressed as follows:

(1) He is a strong advocate of Hutchings & Votey of Boston as the proper manufacturers of the proposed organ upon the grounds that their work is absolutely of the highest grade, sure of giving the church the best possible quality and finish, and is beyond all doubt of chicanery or misdirection.

(2) He believes that a good two manual organ is the thing to buy and declares that such an instrument, particularly with all the special connections set forth in the Hutchings & Votey specifications, will afford a wide range of both volume and harmony and prove eminently satisfactory in our church.

(3) He strongly advises the use of what he calls the tubular pneumatic action, particularly this action as supplied by the aforenamed firm, claiming that it does not get out of order, that it is strong in character and that it vastly contributes to the ease of playing, apart from the consideration that it enables you to locate the keyboard anywhere you wish.

(4) He emphasizes particularly the positive value and high importance of “putting the organ out”, meaning by its removal out of the present box and placing the pipes clear out, flaring with the music stand of the choir loft, that is, directly filling the arch facing the church. He also urges the making of an arch above the wainscoting in the chancel, the same to be filled with pipes, in order that volume and quality of tone may be conserved. The organist “should sit in the chancel” he claims, able to see and direct, if necessary, the choristers and in a position which will enable him to hear the organ and the singers. This is his advice upon this point, although in conversation he was ready to admit that want of space might force us to modify his wish in this respect, but on the whole he thought that we could so arrange it and, if we could, it certainly ought to be done.

(5) He was of the impression that we could satisfactorily arrange for the organist in the chancel, especially if there was a possibility of using a small choir for the purposes of the church. He thought in respect to this point that the object should be to get and hold a small, effective choir, effectiveness being the great point rather than numbers, and to keep reserves in hand out of which to supplement and recruit the regulars. I did not discuss this particularly but make it a part of this report as his suggestion in connection with our discussion of space limitations.

Permit me further to state the following items as bearing on the subject. Mr. Whitney had had this talk with Hutchings & Votey on the supposition that the church had $4,000 to spend for the purpose of an organ. That firm made its specifications to you in view of its now having a second organ to build, thus making a saving on both. They stated that possibly something might be saved on pipes and particularly on the case, a suggestion growing out of my statement that we had command of only $3500.00, but if there is to be a saving on the pipes and case it will depend upon where the organ is placed.

The matter was therefore left in this way: Mr. Whitney was to write you in substance all that he had said to me and return your papers. We are to send Hutchings & Votey full, exact and detailed measurements of all spaces affected, in order to enable them to refigure the price and to make any suggestions which their experiences may determine. I would suggest that this matter of making measurements be placed in charge of Mr. Phillips of the committee and that all measures be independently checked before being forwarded to Boston.

It is right to add that Mr. Whitney showed intense interest in this matter, often referring to his early work here and to old memories, and repeatedly expressed his wish to have Christ Church possess an organ of unquestioned merit, “and when it is installed”, said he, “I will come up and give an organ recital, bringing one of my best boy soloists”, adding with a smile, “without cost to you except for transportation of the boy”.

Trusting that all this may be found satisfactory by the Committee, I remain,

Yours very truly, Joseph A. De Boer

 

Sidebar III: Hutchings-Votey Organ Co., Contract, 1903

Boston, Mass., June 29, 1903.

MEMORANDUM OF AGREEMENT made this day by and between Hutchings-Votey Organ Co., Organ Builders of Boston, Mass., party of the first part, and Christ
P. E. Church of Montpelier, Vt., party of the second part.

To wit:—

The party of the first part shall build an Organ according to the annexed specifications, of the best materials and in the most thorough manner, and set it up in the above church in good working order, ready for use, warranted perfect in every respect on or about October 1st, 1903, barring any detention from labor troubles.

The party of the second part shall prepare the place for the Organ, and allow suitable convenience and opportunity in the church for the work of setting up and tuning it; shall fully insure it in the name of the party of the first part as soon as it or its parts shall have been deposited in the Church; shall keep said insurance in force until title to the organ shall be transferred to the party of the second part; and in full consideration for the finishing and delivery of the Organ as above, shall pay to the party of the first part, the sum of three thousand, four hundred and seventy-one dollars and sixty cents ($3,471.60), payable as follows—at least $1771.60 to be paid on completion of the organ in the church and the balance in two installments of $850 each in six and twelve months without interest, in Boston or New York funds.

It is agreed that the title to the organ shall be vested in the party of the first part until all payments and obligations, cash and deferred, have been paid in full, whereupon the title shall be given to the party of the second part.

John H. Waterhouse, Tres.

Hutchings-Votey Organ Co.

Fred E. Smith, Jr. Warden

Christ Church, Montpelier

 

SPECIFICATION OF AN ORGAN

prepared by

Hutchings-Votey Organ Co., Organ Builders, of Boston, Mass.

for 

Christ P. E. Church, Montpelier, Vt.

 

Two manuals, Compass from C to c 4, 61 notes

Compass of Pedals from C to f1, 30 notes

 

–GREAT ORGAN–

1. 8 ft. Open Diapason metal 61 pipes

2. 8 ft. Dolcissimo " 61 "

3. 8 ft. Melodia " 61 "

4. 4 ft. Octave " 61 "

5. 2 ft. Super Octave " 61 "

6. 8 ft. Trumpet " 61 "

 

–SWELL ORGAN–

7. 16 ft. Bourdon Treble wood 61 pipes

8. 16 ft. Bourdon Bass

9. 8 ft. Open Diapason

wood and metal 61 "

10. 8 ft. Salicional " 61 "

11. 8 ft. Stopped Diapason wood 61 "

12. 8 ft. Vox Celestis metal 61 "

13. 4 ft. Flute Harmonique " 61 "

14. 4 ft. Violina " 61 "

15. 2 ft. Flautino " 61 "

16. II Rks. Dolce Cornet " 122 "

17. 8 ft. Oboe " 61 "

 

–PEDAL ORGAN–

18. 16 ft. Open Diapason wood 30 pipes

19. 16 ft. Bourdon " 30 "

 

–COUPLERS–

20. Swell to Great

21. Swell to Swell 4 ft.

22. Swell to Swell 16 ft.

23. Great to Swell

24. Great to Pedal

25. Great to Great 16 ft.

26. Swell to Pedal

 

–COMBINATIONS–

1) Operating on Great and Pedal

2)

3)

0)

 

1) Operating on Swell and Pedal

2)

3)

4)

0)

 

General Release

Pedal Release

 

–PEDALS–

1. Reversible Great and Pedal

2. Balanced Swell

3. Tremolo

4. Sforzando (Full Organ)

5. Balanced Crescendo

 

Tubular pneumatic action

Extended keydesk

 

The builders are to have the privilege of using such parts of the old organ as can be used without detriment to the new instrument.

 

Notes

1. “The Sabbath at the State Capital,” The Rutland (Vt.) Daily Globe 1, no. 92 (Aug. 16, 1873): 1.

2. Jacob G. Ullery, Men of Vermont: An Illustrated Biographical History of Vermonters and Sons of Vermont (Brattleboro, Vt.: Transcript Publishing Company, 1894), 160.

3. Universitas Viridis Montis; or, The University of Vermont. 

4. “Hon. Benjamin Franklin Fifield,” Genealogical and Family History of the State of Vermont: A Record of Achievements of Her People in the Making of a Commonwealth and the Founding of a Nation (New York and Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Company, 1903), 1–4; and “Hon. Benjamin F. Fifield,” The Vermonter 4, no. 7 (Feb. 1899): 112.

5. The Vermont Encyclopedia s.v. “Dewey, Julius Y.”

6. “In Memoriam—Charles Dewey,” (Oak Park, Ill.) Life Insurance Courant 11, no. 2 (Sept. 7, 1905): 47–48.

7. The Vermont Encyclopedia s.v. “Dewey, George.” 

8. Norwich University, 1819–1911, Her History, Her Graduates, Her Roll of Honor (Montpelier, Vt.: The Capital City Press, 1911), 1.

9. “Phinney, Truman C.,” Men of Vermont: An Illustrated Biographical History of Vermonters and Sons of Vermont (Brattleboro, Vt.: Transcript Publishing Company, 1894), 312–13.

10. “Col. Fred E. Smith Dead,” (Montpelier, Vt.) Argus and Patriot 57, no. 17 (Feb. 27, 1907): 3; hereafter AP.

11. The Bicentennial of the Pipe Organ in Vermont, 1814–2014. Richmond, Virginia: OHS Press [2013], 70–79. 

12. “Old Business Man Gone,” AP 51, no. 23 (Apr. 17, 1901): 3.

13. George A. McIntyre, The History of Christ Episcopal Church (Montpelier, Vermont: Christ Church, 1982), 35; hereafter McIntyre.

14. Encyclopedia [of] Vermont Biography: A Series of Authentic Biographical Sketches of the Representative Men of Vermont and Sons of Vermont in other States (Burlington, Vermont: Ullery Publishing Company, 1912), 180.

15. “Rites for Mr. Smith,” The (Montpelier) Times Argus 71, no. 75 (June 12, 1967): 2. 

16. “New Wilhelm Tracker to Montpelier, Vermont,” The Diapason 63, no. 11 (Oct. 1972): 10.

17. Amy Ash Nixon, “Body of Local Orchestra Conductor Found,” (Montpelier) Times-Argus (Aug. 28, 2014); and “Brian P. Webb, Obituary On-Line,” Guare & Sons, Barbar & Lanier, Funeral Service, 30 School St., Montpelier, Vt.

18. Organ Handbook (2013): 66.

19. John Henry Hopkins, “Address,” Journal of the Proceedings of the Fiftieth Annual Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the Diocese of Vermont; Being the Eighth Annual Convention Since the Full Organization of the Diocese; Held in St. James’ Church, Woodstock on the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Days of September (Burlington: Chauncey Goodrich, 1840), 5; hereafter Vermont Convention Proceedings. 

20. “Historical Sketch of Christ Church, Montpelier,” AP 18, no. 25 (June 11, 1868): 3.

21. Hopkins, “Address,” Vermont Convention Proceedings (1842), 6.

22. The New England Historical and Genealogical Register, Issued Quarterly, Under the Direction of the New England Historical Genealogical Society for the Year 1863 17 (Albany: J. Munsell, 1863), 177.

23. John Spargo, The Consecrated Century: An Outline History of St. Peter’s Protestant Episcopal Church, Bennington, Vermont (Bennington: Vestry of St. Peter’s Church, 1934), 16–17.

24. McIntyre, 25–26.

25. “Consecration,” (Montpelier) Vermont Watchman & State Journal 38, no. 16 (Dec. 23, 1842): 3; hereafter VWSJ.

26. Hopkins, “Address,” Vermont Convention Proceedings (1843), 7.

27. Vermont Convention Proceedings (1850), 29. 

28. “New Organ at the Congregationalist Church,” The St. Albans (Vt.) Messenger 26, no. 7 (Dec. 25, 1862): 3; hereafter SAM.

29. “New Church Organ,” (Montpelier) Vermont Patriot & State Gazette 30, no. 1 (Dec. 22, 1854): 3.

30. “Church Organ,” VWSJ 49, no. 6 (Jan. 5, 1855): 3. 

31. Hopkins, “Address,” Vermont Convention Proceedings (1855), 9.

32. “The organs of . . .,” The (Montpelier) Vermont Watchman 80, no. 29 (July 1, 1885): 1; hereafter VW.

33. “Montpelier Mere Mention,” AP 52, no. 16 (Feb. 26, 1902): 3.

34. E. A. Boadway, “An Annotated Catalog of Known Pipe Organs in Vermont,” The Bicentennial of the Pipe Organ in Vermont, 1814–2014 (Richmond, Virginia: OHS Press, [2013]), 200. 

35. McIntyre, 27.

36. “The plan for the . . .,” VWSJ 61, no. 27 (May 4, 1866): 2.

37. “The cornerstone of . . .,” VWSJ 62, no. 2 (Nov. 9, 1866): 2.

38. “State Items,” (St. Albans) Vermont Daily Transcript 1, no. 2 (May 14, 1868): 3.

39. Abby Maria Hemenway, The History of the Town of Montpelier, Including that of the Town of East Montpelier, for the First One Hundred and Two Years (Montpelier, Vt.: Published by Miss A. M. Hemenway, 1882), 412.

40. Ibid.

41. “Historical Sketch,” AP 18, no. 25 (June 11, 1868): 3.

42. MS, Church records, Report from an Organ Committee, November 30, 1898. Christ Church, Episcopal, Montpelier, Vermont [photocopied during the 1970s by E. A. Boadway; cited with permission]. 

43. Ibid.

44. Ibid., undated Organ Committee Report, likely Feb., 1899.

45. “Organ For Christ Church,” AP 51, no. 43 (Sept. 4, 1901): 3.

46. “Christ Church Organ,” AP 51, no. 44 (Sept. 11, 1901): 4.

47. “The organ builders. . .,” Montpelier (Vt.) Daily Journal 53, no. 70 (Feb. 24, 1902): 3; hereafter MDJ.

48. MS, Church records.

49. Ibid.

50. Ibid.

51. “New Organ For Christ Church,” AP 52, no. 16 (Feb. 26, 1902): 3.

52. “The new organ . . .,” The (Montpelier, Vt.) Evening Argus 5, no. 122 (Mar. 24, 1902): 4; hereafter EA.

53. “New Organ Placed in Christ Church,” EA 5, no. 124 (Mar. 26, 1902): 1; a similar article appeared as “New Church Organ,” MDJ 53, no. 100 (Mar. 31, 1902): 2.

54. “Glad Easter,” MDJ 53, no. 100 (Mar. 31, 1902): 1.

55. “Montpelier and Vicinity,” MDJ 53, no 102 (Apr. 2, 1902): 4.

56. “Organ Recital,” AP 52, no. 26 (May 2, 1902): 3.

57. “Whitney Organ Recital,” AP 52, no. 29 (May 28, 1902): 3.

58. “A Recent Fire at Montpelier, Vt., and its Probable Origin,” Inter-State Journal: An Illustrated Monthly of the Connecticut Valley 5, nos. 10–11 (Jan.–Feb., 1903): n.p.

59. “Christ Church Badly Damaged by Fire and Water,” MDJ 54 (Jan. 26, 1903): 1.

60. “Work on Church Delayed,” AP 53, no. 42 (Aug. 26, 1903): 4.

61. “Montpelier Locals,” MDJ 54 (Jan. 7, 1904): 4.

62. “Will Be Opened Sunday,” MDJ 54 (Jan. 21, 1904): 4.

63. “Services at Christ Church,” EA 7, no. 73 (Jan. 25, 1904): 4.

64. Vermont Convention Proceedings (1904), 122.

65. The Vermont Encyclopedia s.v. “Flood of 1927.”

66. “Christ Church,” (Montpelier, Vt.) Evening Argus 32, no. 87 (Feb. 9, 1929): 4; hereafter EA. 

67. “Dedication Services Occurred Sunday Including an Organ Recital,” EA 32, no. 88 (Feb. 11, 1929): 8.

68. “Christ Church,” EA 32, no. 87 (Feb. 9, 1929): 4.

69. MS, Vestry minutes. Christ Church, Montpelier, Vt. [custody of the church; cited with permission].

70. “Annual Episcopal Convention,” SAM 109, no. 85 (Apr. 30, 1969): 10. 

71. E. A. Boadway, “Christ Episcopal Church, Montpelier, Vermont.” The Boston Organ Club Newsletter 8, no. 4 (April, 1972): 6–7.

72. “Capital Organ Concert Sunday,” The (Montpelier-Barre, Vt.) Times-Argus 76, no. 43 (May 4, 1972): 24.

73. “New Wilhelm Tracker to Montpelier, Vermont,” The Diapason 63, no. 11 (Oct. 1972): 10.

Carolyn Shuster Fournier

A French-American organist and musicologist, Carolyn Shuster was organist at the American Cathedral in Paris. In 1989, she was appointed titular of the Cavaillé-Coll choir organ at the Trinité Church and founded their weekly concert series. She has performed over 500 concerts in Europe and in the United States. She has also contributed articles to Revue de musicologie, La Flûte Harmonique, L’Orgue, Orgues Nouvelles, The American Organist, and The Diapason. Her recordings have been published by EMA, Ligia Digital, Schott, and Fugue State Films. In 2007, the French Cultural Minister awarded her the distinction of Knight in the Order of Arts and Letters.

On November 12, 2017, the liturgical and international concert organist Michel Chapuis died. Also an eminent professor, historian, and organ reformer impassioned by architecture, acoustics, and organbuilding, he immensely contributed to the renaissance, conservation, and restoration of early French organs. He delighted in supporting artistic beauty: his noble, graceful, and poetic interpretations vibrated with rhythmic pulsation, a natural flowing expression, and a spiritual elevation that was filled with mystery and joy.

 

His inspiration to become an
organist and initial training

Michel Chapuis was born January 15, 1930, in Dole, situated in the Burgundy-Franche-Comté region in eastern France. His father was a primary school teacher, and his mother worked as a telephone operator at the post office. In 1938, when his grandmother brought him to a Mass celebrating First Communion in Notre-Dame Collegiate Church,¹ he was overwhelmed by its historic organ by Karl Joseph Riepp (1754)/François Callinet (1788)/Joseph Stiehr (1830, 1855, 1858).² Its grandiose sonorities, which resonate beautifully in such marvelous acoustics, inspired him to become an organist. The organ possesses one of the finest examples of the French Grand Plein-Jeu. This characteristic combination of the Fourniture and Cymbale mixtures with the foundation stops is a full, brilliant, and noble sound that contains all its various inherent harmonics—with up to fifteen pipes that sound on a single note. For Michel Chapuis, this sonority symbolized God, eternity, and the entire color spectrum.

Noting their son was extremely talented, his parents purchased a piano for him at the music shop of Jacques Gardien, an ardent defender of the Dole organ.³ Michel Chapuis acquired a firm and supple piano technique with Miss Palluy, a disciple of Alfred Cortot. For six months, he took lessons with Father Barreau on the harmonium in the Collegiate Church and helped him accompany Masses there. He then began to study organ with Odette Vinard,⁴ who played at the Protestant Church in Dole, and continued with her professor, Émile Poillot,⁵ organist at the Dijon Cathedral.

In 1940, his family left Dole during the German occupation and went to Brive-Charensac, a village in the Haute-Loire, where he accompanied church services on the harmonium.⁶ When he returned to Dole in 1943, he accompanied vespers in the Dole Collegiate Church, even improvising verses between psalms. Delighted to discover a collection of Alexandre Guilmant’s Archives of Organ Masters in the personal library of the Marquis Bernard de Froissard⁷ in Azans, near Dole, he began to play the early French organ repertory, using registrations mentioned in these scores. His grandfather and the church janitor pumped the organ bellows for him! In 1945, he began to study organ with Jeanne Marguillard, organist at Saint-Louis Church in Monrapont, Besançon, where he accompanied two church services each Sunday for two years on a Jacquot-Lavergne organ.⁸

 

Musical training in Paris

After the Second World War, in 1946, Jeanne Marguillard came to Paris with Michel Chapuis, to introduce him to Édouard Souberbielle.⁹ At the age of sixteen, Chapuis began to study organ and improvisation with him at the César Franck School. This “true aristocrat of the organ” possessed a vast culture and an eminent spirituality that deeply influenced all his students. He encouraged them to expand their musical knowledge by listening to great classical works, and Chapuis appreciated his methodical spirit. This master enabled him to maintain a solid yet supple hand position and taught how to “touch” the organ by varying articulations, how to improvise fugues and trio sonatas, and used Marcel Dupré’s improvisation method books to prepare him to study at the Paris Conservatory. Michel Chapuis completed his solid musical formation there by taking piano lessons with Paule Piédelièvre,¹⁰ courses in harmony and counterpoint with Yves Margat,¹¹ and fugue with René Malherbe.¹² His fellow students there included Simone Michaud¹³ and her future husband, Jean-Albert Villard,¹⁴ Father Joseph Gelineau,¹⁵ and Denise Rouquette, who married Michel Chapuis in 1951.¹⁶ They lived on Clotaire Street, near the Panthéon.

To launch a career as an organist in France, it was indispensable to obtain a first prize organ in Marcel Dupré’s class at the Paris Conservatory. After auditioning with Dupré in 1950, playing J. S. Bach’s Sixth Trio Sonata and Louis Vierne’s Impromptu, thanks to his solid technique, Michel Chapuis enrolled in the Paris Conservatory the next October. Nine months later, in June 1951, he obtained his first prizes in organ and improvisation, as well as the Albert
Périlhou and Alexandre Guilmant prizes, awarded to the best student in the class.¹⁷ Gifted with mechanical ingenuity, he followed Gaston Litaize’s advice and apprenticed with the organbuilder Erwin Muller from 1952 to 1953, in Croisy, just west of Paris.¹⁸

 

First three church positions in Paris

From his youth, Michel Chapuis loved the ritual aspects of liturgical music. During his studies in Paris, he substituted for many organists. Highly respected for his fine accompaniments of congregational singing, his vast liturgical knowledge, and his repertory, he was appointed titular organist in several Parisian churches. From 1951 to 1953, he accompanied the liturgy on the Gutschenritter choir organ at Saint-Germain-des-Prés. From 1953 to 1954, he played the 1771 Clicquot/1864 Merklin organ at Saint-Germain l’Auxerrois Church, following in the footsteps of Alexandre Boëly.

In 1954, he succeeded Line Zilgien¹⁹  as titular of the 1777 Clicquot/1839 Daublaine & Callinet/1842 Ducroquet/1927 Gonzalez organ at Saint-Nicolas-des-Champs and kept his title there until 1970. Nicolas Gigault played there from 1652 to 1707 and Louis Braille, the inventor of the language for the blind, served at the church from 1834 to 1839. This church, located near Arts and Métiers, was reconstructed in a flamboyant Gothic style in the twelfth century and attained its present form in the seventeenth century. Its historic Clicquot organ was the key that opened the doors to Michel Chapuis’ comprehension of the early French organ. He also learned a great deal there from two organbuilders, Claude Hermelin²⁰ and Gabriel d’Alençon.²¹

In 1954, Michel Chapuis succeeded Jean Dattas as titular of the two-manual, seventeen-stop Merklin choir organ in Notre-Dame Cathedral, in the heart of Paris. There, he accompanied the
Maîtrise choir, directed by the quick-tempered Canon Louis Merret until 1959; then by a marvelous musician, Abbot Jean Revert, who allowed the congregation to sing during alternated verses at vespers. Michel Chapuis accompanied all the daily Masses and nearly all the canonical offices in Gregorian chant: prime (on feast days), tierce, the grand Mass, sext, none, vespers, and compline. One day, a priest sang too high and reproached Michel Chapuis for playing a pitch that was too high, when, in fact, he had mistaken a tourist boat whistle on the Seine for an organ note! In spite of the hordes of tourists that invaded this church, this position brought great joy to Chapuis for nine years: it enabled him to unite his capacities to resonate universal beauty in such a breath-taking setting, with its traditional liturgy and its fantastic acoustics that enhance any musical note. Michel Chapuis strongly believed that music ought to pacify, console, and comfort humanity. Above all, he hoped that his musical offerings would illuminate other people’s lives.²²

Michel Chapuis collaborated closely with the two titulars of the grand organ: Pierre Cochereau²³ and Pierre Moreau.²⁴ Each Sunday the two organs dialogued, continuing a tradition established in 1402, when Frédéric Schaubantz installed the grand organ in its present location. This dialogue, issued from the Gallican ritual, had remained intact, except during the Revolution, from 1790 to 1798. A 1963 Philips record documented Pierre Cochereau playing his own Paraphrase de la Dédicace and Louis Vierne’s Triumphant March, with Michel Chapuis accompanying Jean Revert’s choir singing works by André Campra and Pierre Desvignes. In September 1984, when Pierre Cochereau decorated Michel Chapuis with the Chevalier of the Legion of Honor, he recalled his improvisations at Notre-Dame and had wondered if J. S. Bach had composed a seventh trio sonata!

 

A pioneer in early French music
interpretation

Impassioned by early French Classical music, Michel Chapuis realized that most of the Parisian organs by such builders as Cavaillé-Coll, Merklin, and Gutschenritter were symphonic or neo-Classical in style, thus unsuitable for the early French repertory. While organists did regularly play the repertoire, however, they did not use notes inégales in their playing. For example, in 1956, when Michel Chapuis went to Marmoutier to meet the American Melville Smith, during his rehearsals for the first complete recording of Nicolas de Grigny’s Livre d’Orgue by Valois, he was surprised that he did not dare to use notes inégales there, even though he had been playing them for over thirty years, simply because he did not want to appear to be original (“Je ne veux pas paraître original”).²⁵ Chapuis concluded that he was a bit timid, probably since the great master organists in Paris at that time had not used them. Nonetheless, Melville Smith’s landmark recording highlighted Muhleisen and Alfred Kern’s 1955 restoration of this historic 1710 Silbermann and received the Grand Prix du Disque.

Curious by nature, Michel Chapuis carried out extensive research to understand the performance practice of notes inégales. His departure point was Eugène Borrel’s book on the interpretation of French music from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries [The Interpretation of French Music (from Lully to the Revolution)].²⁶ This book, well in advance of its time, remained the continual reference point that guided Chapuis’ interpretations. It emphasizes that to enchant auditors, one must play like a singer, with clear pronunciation, an appropriate emotion, expression, and character: serious, sad, happy, or
pleasant.

An organist in the seventeenth century knew how to bring out the main themes, such as plainchants, and could boldly improvise counterpoint on them. Like harpsichordists, they “touched” keyboards by holding their fingers as close to the keys as possible. They played vividly on the Positive Plein Jeu, interpreted Récits tenderly, and played Tierces en tailles with emotional melancholy. Their fingerings enabled them to play notes inégales naturally.

During his nine years at Notre-Dame, Michel Chapuis did not need much time to prepare his work there: this gave him lots of time to consult hundreds of early French organ and singing treatises and prefaces from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries, beginning with Loys Bourgeois (1530), who had indicated that eighth notes should be sung in groups of two to render them more graceful. Thanks to his musical intuition, his solid supple technique, and his courageous spirit, he then incorporated notes inégales, appropriate ornaments, and registrations into his interpretations of early French music. Michel Chapuis acknowledged Jules Écorcheville’s research.²⁷ In 1958, Chapuis gave a conference with Antoine Geoffroy-Dechaume²⁸ at Saint-Nicolas-des-Champs Church, presenting musical illustrations of the application of notes inégales and dotted rhythms. The interpretation of the French national hymn, La Marseillaise, is an excellent example of the natural application of notes inégales: although notated with eighth notes, it is sung with dotted notes. Of course, when one uses early fingerings, one plays naturally with notes inégales. This landmark conference inspired organists such as Marie-Claire Alain²⁹ and marked the beginning of a new era in early French music interpretation.

Michel Chapuis brought early French repertory to life, expressing past rhetoric naturally, with nobleness, simplicity, and good taste. Guided continually by Eugène Borrel, his playing was “elegant, distinguished, and animated without excessiveness” [“élégant, distingué, chaleureux sans outrances”].³⁰ In fact, when he gave a concert on the Gonzalez organ at Saint-Merry Church in May 1963, interpreting works by Titelouze, D’Aquin, and Dandrieu Noëls, no one even noticed that he had played with notes inégales.³¹ Nicole Gravet’s book on registrations in French music from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries was a guide to him.³² His numerous recordings of early French music in the 1960s testify to his natural assimilation of notes inégales: Dandrieu, Guilain, and Raison on the Clicquot in Poitiers (by Lumen) and others by Harmonia Mundi: François Roberday at Manosque and Isle-sur-Sorgue, François Couperin’s two organ Masses on the Isnard at Saint-Maximin, François Couperin at Le Petit-Andely, Louis Marchand and Gaspard Corette on the Clicquot in Souvigny (Grand Prix), Nicolas Clérambault on the 1765 Bénigne Boillot at Saint-Jean de Losne, Gaspard Corette and D’Aquin in Marmoutier (the only restored organ),³³ and his improvisations on the 1746 J. A. Silbermann at Saint-Quirin Lettenbach.

 

Installation near Dole

During his military service at Mont-Valérien (near Paris) from 1954 to 1955, Michel Chapuis met many of his lifelong acquaintances, notably Jacques Béraza (the future organist at Dole, 1955–1998), Jean Saint-Arroman³⁴ (with whom he collaborated in future organ academies and publications of early French music), and the orchestra conductor Jean-Claude Malgloire. Shortly thereafter, he also met the ingenious organ visionary and voicer, Philippe Hartmann.³⁵ From 1955 to 1958, Hartmann lived with Pierre Cochereau’s family, on Boulevard Berthier in Paris. He babysat for his children, Jean-Marc and Marie-Pierre, and enlarged his house organ to seventy stops.³⁶ A few years later, when Michel Chapuis and Francis Chapelet came to visit Pierre Cochereau, they joyfully improvised a trio sonata on his organ, his Steinway piano, and his harpsichord, before savoring some champagne!³⁷

During this period, Chapuis visited Dole regularly. His appointment as organ professor at the Strasburg Conservatory in 1956 assured him a solid income. At Jacques Béraza’s advice, in 1958, he purchased a historic seventeenth-century home in Jouhe, a village near Dole, where he installed his pianos, harmoniums, and his personal library. During this same period, Philippe Hartmann moved to Rainans, a nearby village. Together, their overflowing energy, encyclopedic knowledge, and extraordinary imagination influenced an entire generation of organbuilders who apprenticed there from 1958 to 1969, notably Alain Anselm, Bernard Aubertin, Louis Benoist, Jean Bougarel, Didier Chanon, Jean Deloye, Barthélémy Formentelli, Gérald Guillemin, Claude Jaccard, Dominique Lalmand, Denis Londe, Marie Londe-Réveillac, Jean-François Muno, Pascal Quoirin, Alain Sals, and Pierre Sarelot.³⁸

 

From Saint-SОverin to the Royal Chapel in Versailles

In 1963, at the suggestion of Father Lucien Aumont,³⁹ Michel Chapuis crossed the Seine River to the Latin Quarter to succeed Michel Lambert-Mouchague as titular of the grand organ at Saint-Séverin Church.⁴⁰ Among some of the past organists who maintained a great classical tradition there were: Michel Forqueray (1681–1757), Nicolas Séjan (1783–1791), Albert Périlhou, composer and director of the Niedermeyer School (1889–1914), Camille Saint-Saëns, honorary organist (1897–1921), and Marcel-Samuel Rousseau (1919–1921).⁴¹ After his arrival, Michel Chapuis reinstated the classical system of rotating organists that existed before the Revolution in Parisian churches. Over the years, he shared this post with Jacques Marichal (1963–c. 1972)⁴² and Francis Chapelet (1964–1984),⁴³ then with André Isoir (1967–1973), Jean Boyer (1975–1988), Michel Bouvard (1984–1994), François Espinasse (1988), Michel Alabau (1986–2016), Christophe Mantoux (1994); and two substitute organists: Jean-Louis Vieille-Girardet (1973–1994), and François-Henri Houbart (1974–1979). In 2002, Chapuis was named honorary organist and Nicolas Bucher succeeded him as titular until 2013, when he in turn was succeded by Véronique Le Guen.⁴⁴

In 1963, the 1748 Claude Ferrard/1825 Pierre-François Dallery/1889 John Abbey⁴⁵ organ was in poor shape. In 1963 and 1964, the Alsatian builder Alfred Kern reconstructed the organ according to the plans of Michel Chapuis and Philippe Hartmann,⁴⁶ who decided upon the use of mechanical action. This exemplary reconstruction as a four-manual neo-Classical German-French organ with fifty-nine stops marked a turning point in French organ construction. It used all of the Abbey windchests and existing pipes, including Claude Ferrard’s Positif Cromorne, the Récit Hautbois, and several mutation stops, along with twenty-two new stops. The disposition of its newly constructed Plein-Jeu stops, with its Cymbale-Tierce stop, allowed the interpretation of both early French and German literature for the first time in Paris and enabled Michel Chapuis to accompany the congregational singing with vitality and variety. The third keyboard, Récit-Resonance, enabled him to couple the other two keyboards to it. The natural keys were made of ebony, and the sharps of white cow bone. The Positif de dos was placed mid-height in the church, enabling the organ to resonate fully. Chapuis inaugurated the instrument on March 8, 1964, with two different programs: the first consisting of works by Couperin, Buxtehude, and Bach; and the second, works by de Grigny, Marchand, Sweelinck, Böhm, and Bach.⁴⁷ After initial work by Daniel Kern in 1982 and Dominique Lalmand in 1988, the organ was restored again in 2011 by Dominique Thomas, Quentin Blumenroeder, and Jean-Michel Tricoteaux, respecting Alfred Kern’s work.

Michel Chapuis had arrived at Saint-Séverin during the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965). This parish’s ecumenical approach mirrored that of the Community in Taizé. With that in mind, Michel Chapuis adapted Bach chorales to the Catholic liturgy with French texts. The organists collaborated with priests to prepare the liturgy in accordance with the texts and the different colors of the liturgical year. Instead of beginning the Mass with Asperges me and an appropriate Gregorian Introit, the chorale “Nun komm der Heiden Heiland” served as the opening hymn during the four Sundays in Advent. Before each Mass, Michel Chapuis softly accompanied a rehearsal of the liturgy. After improvising a prelude to the opening hymn on the Positif Plein-Jeu, he accompanied the congregation on the Grand Orgue Plein-Jeu. Father Alain Ponsard requested Michel Chapuis to compose a Sanctus, known as the Saint-Séverin Sanctus, sung throughout France. Later, his former student and substitute organist, François-Henri Houbart, composed a partita based on this Sanctus.⁴⁸

Two recordings by Cantoral⁴⁹ attest to Michel Chapuis’ fine accompaniments. Harmonia Mundi recorded his interpretations of Jehan Titelouze’s hymns and Magnificat at Saint-Séverin. His other recordings in the 1960s and 1970s echoed the repertory he played there: works by Louis Couperin (Deutsche Grammophon), Nicolas de Grigny (Astrée), French Noëls by Balbastre, Dandrieu, and D’Aquin, and the complete works of Nicolas Bruhns, Vincent Lübeck, J. S. Bach, and Dieterich Buxtehude (Valois).⁵⁰ Recording the complete organ works of Bach was extremely difficult: after learning all the scores, he recorded alone at night, set up the magnetic tapes, pushed the “record” button, and went up to the organ loft to play; if there was a noise or the slightest error, he started all over, until it was perfect.

In 1966, Édouard Souberbielle gave a concert at Saint-Séverin. In 1968 and 1969, Chapuis organized a concert series entitled “Renaissance of the Organ,” for the Association for the Protection of Early Organs, on the first Wednesday of each month at 9:00 p.m.: on October 9, Michel Chapuis opened this series with a Bach concert; on November 6, Marie-Claire Alain played Bach and early German masters; on December 4, Pierre Cochereau performed Bach, Mozart, Liszt, and improvised; on January 8, 1969, André Isoir gave an eclectic concert for the Christmas season; on February 5, Francis Chapelet played selections of Art of the Fugue and the Toccata in C Major by Bach; on March 5, Helmuth Walcha was scheduled to play Bach’s Clavierübung III, but, unable to perform, was replaced by Marie-Claire Alain; on May 7, Xavier Darasse performed Messiaen, Bach, and Ligeti; and on June 6, Luigi Ferdinando Tagliavini performed Frescobaldi, Muffat, and Bach. In the fall of 1969, concerts were given by Michel Chapuis, Heinz Wunderlich, Anton Heiller, and Helmut Walcha. From October 1970 to June 1971, Michel Chapuis performed the complete works of J. S. Bach there.

In 1995, Michel Chapuis was appointed titular of the prestigious historic Robert Clicquot organ,⁵¹ rebuilt by Jean-Loup Boisseau and Bertrand Cattiaux, at the Royal Chapel in Versailles. On November 18 and 19, 1995, he inaugurated this organ and was named honorary organist there in 2010. This position was the crowning summit of his concert career.⁵² At this exquisite historic royal palace, he was truly an ambassador for French culture, receiving artists from the entire world.

 

A. F. S. O. A.: The Association for the Protection of Early Organs

On December 21, 1967, a group of organists, organ historians, and builders, as well as amateur organ admirers, joined forces to protest against abusive transformations of historic French organs and founded the Association for the Protection of Early Organs
[A. F. S. O. A., Association pour la sauvegarde de l’orgue ancien]. Their first general meeting took place on March 1, 1968. Jean Fonteneau, a substitute organist at Saint-Séverin, was president for the first year; the organ historian Pierre Hardouin, its primary editor; Michel Bernstein, editorial secretary; and Michel Chapuis, artistic advisor. Among its honorary members were Jean-Albert Villard and Helmut Winter. Other members included Father Lucien Aumont, Michel Bernstein, Bernard Baërd, Dominique Chailley, Jacques Chailley, Francis Chapelet, Pierre Chéron, Pierre Cochereau, René Delosme, Christian Dutheuil, Robert Gronier (a future president), André Isoir, Henri Legros, Émile Leipp, the architect Alain Lequeux, the astronomer James Lequeux, Charles-Walter Lindow, Pierre-Paul Lacas, Dominique Proust, Jean Saint-Arroman, Gino Sandri, Marc Schaefer, Jean-Christophe Tosi (a future president), and Jean Ver Hasselt. They struggled to renew interest in the unforgotten historic early French organ and its music. In 1969,
A. F. S. O. A. organized an international François Couperin competition for organ and harpsichord at Saint-Séverin and on the François-Henri Clicquot organ (1772), restored by Alfred Kern, at the Royal Chapel in Fontainebleau. It also organized visits to organs, such as the Clicquot at the Poitiers Cathedral, and organs in Alsace.

A. F. S. O. A. ardently defended a respectable restoration of the 1748 Dom Bédos organ in Bordeaux and protested against Gonzalez’s restoration of the historic Couperin organ at Saint-Gervais Church in Paris.⁵⁴ In 1954, this firm, under Norbert Dufourcq’s direction, had already considerably transformed Jean de Joyeuse’s 1694 Baroque 16′ organ in Auch Cathedral: out of the 3,060 pipes there, 620 were considerably altered and 2,240 had disappeared, notably the Grand Plein-Jeu.⁵⁵ Michel Chapuis felt that Victor Gonzalez’s neo-classical Plein-Jeu, although pitched too high, was remarkably well-voiced and suitable for a small instrument installed in a studio or a home, but not for a large organ in a church. When Norbert Dufourcq went to visit the historic eighteenth century Jean-Baptiste Micot organ in Saint-Pons-des-Thomières (in the Hérault), the organist, Jean Ribot, hid the keys so that he could not enter the organ loft to look at the organ.⁵⁶

Michel Chapuis strongly supported research on the French Classical organ Plein-Jeu, notably by his friends Jean Fellot⁵⁷ and Léon Souberbielle.⁵⁸ Thankfully, in 1954, Pierre Chéron and Rochas saved the splendid Grand Plein-Jeu in the 1774 Isnard organ at Sainte Marie-Madeleine Basilica in Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume.⁵⁹ In 1957, Robert Boisseau voiced a Roethinger organ in the French Classic style that included a Plein-Jeu as described by Dom Bédos, in Saint Louis du Temple Benedictine Abbey in Limon-Vauhallan (in the Essonne south of Paris). It was designed by Édouard and Léon Souberbielle. On November 7, 1959, Claude Philbée made a private recording of Michel Chapuis improvising to demonstrate the organ’s stops.⁶⁰

In 1967, Michel Chapuis pleaded with André Malraux, the minister for cultural affairs since 1959, for new policies concerning the restoration of early organs. He explained that past massacres of historic organs had given a bad name to organbuilding in France. He estimated that around seventy historic organs remained intact in France: thirty large instruments and forty smaller instruments. He suggested that, as in Austria or the Netherlands, a group of experts be appointed to form a new national commission of historic organs in addition to regional commissions. Before dismantling each organ for restoration, it should be completely evaluated and inventoried, with precise measurements, photos, and recordings. However, advocating for drastic changes in the French administration was not an easy task!

As A. F. S. O. A. encouraged, restorations were carried out that respected the past. As a member of the Commission for Historical Monuments, Michel Chapuis travelled in his Citroën van to visit organs and photographed them with his Rolleflex box camera. Here are some of the organs beautifully restored between 1968 and 1998: Perthuis, Malaucène, Saint-Guilhem-le-Désert, Saint-Lizier, Forcalquier, and Sète by Alain Sals; Houdan by Robert and Jean-Loup Boisseau; three cuneiform bellows to activate the wind in the Clicquot in Souvigny by Philippe Hartmann;
Ebersmunster by Alfred Kern; Albi and Carcassonne by Barthélemy Formentelli;
Villiers-le-Bel, Juvigny, and the Dom Bédos in Bordeaux by Pascal Quoirin; Semur-en-Auxois by Jean Deloye with Philippe Hartmann; Seurre in Bourgogne, Saint-Martin-de-Boscherville in Normandy, and Saint-Antoine-L’Abbaye by Bernard Aubertin; the 1790
Clicquot in Poitiers by Boisseau-Cattiaux Society;⁶¹ Bolbec by Bertrand Cattiaux; and the reconstruction of the Jean de Joyeuse in Auch by Jean-François Muno. Between 1994 and 1997, the builders Claude Jaccard and Reinalt Klein built a replica of the Houdan organ (except the case) in the Kreuzekirche Church in Stapelmoor, Germany (in the North of Ostfriesland): Organeum Records recorded Michel Chapuis playing works by Böhm, Boyvin, Dandrieu, and Jullien on this organ on September 17, 1998.⁶²

In the 1980s, Michel Chapuis supported the Cavaillé-Coll Association, which advocated for quality restorations of Romantic organs. He kindly advised this author’s research on Aristide Cavaillé-Coll’s secular organs. Among the Cavaillé-Coll organs restored between 1985 and 1997: the grand organs in Sacré-Coeur Basilica and in Saint-Sulpice in Paris, by Jean Renaud; Charles-Marie Widor’s 1893 house organ in Selongey, Côte d’Or (1986), and Édouard André’s 1874 house organ in Decize, by Claude Jaccard; the grand organ in Poligny, by Dominique Lalmand and Claude Jaccard, the grand organ in Saint-Sernin Basilica in Toulouse, by Boisseau-Cattiaux.

 

Organ professor

An eminent professor, Michel Chapuis acknowledged that the best way to learn music is to teach it. He loved to transmit his musical heritage and his practical knowledge. His intuition and his astute sense of observation and analysis enabled him to transmit elements of interpretation that cannot always be explained. He taught organ at the Strasburg Conservatory from 1956 to 1979, at the Schola Cantorum in Paris from 1977 to 1979, at the Besançon Conservatory from 1979 to 1986, and then succeeded Rolande Falcinelli at the National Superior Conservatory of Music in Paris, from 1986 to 1995. He also gave masterclasses in numerous academies in France: early French music on the historic Isnard organ at Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume Academy, founded in 1962; German and French early music on the 1752 Riepp/1833 Callinet organ in Semur-en-Auxois (in the Côte-d’Or) in the mid-1970s;⁶³ in the Pierrefonds Academy (in the Oise) with Jean Saint-Arroman in the 1980s; and in Saint-Bertrand-de-Comminges⁶⁴ (in the Haute-Garonne) from 1976 to 2008, notably with André Stricker and Jean Saint-Arroman. He also gave masterclasses in Stapelmoor, Germany (with André Stricker and Pierre Vidal), as well as in the United States and Japan.

At the Strasbourg Conservatory, Michel Chapuis taught in the Catholic organ class, alongside André Stricker,⁶⁵ who was in charge of the Protestant organ class. As the organ department grew, two more professors were added to balance the department: in 1962, Marc Schaefer,⁶⁶ a Protestant, and, in 1963, Pierre Vidal,⁶⁷  a Catholic. In June 1964, Helmut Walcha inaugurated the Kurt Schwenkedel organ (III/64) in the conservatory concert hall. Michel Chapuis helped to determine its stoplist, which he described as being both “classical and personal.”⁶⁸ Of note, the organ case included horizontal Montre pipes.

In 1986, when Michel Chapuis began to teach at the Paris Conservatory, it was still located on Madrid Street, before its transfer to la Villette in 1991. Instead of giving lessons on the dusty 1951 Jacquot-Lavergne organ there, he preferred to teach on beautiful church organs: at Saint-Séverin, in Dole, and in Poligny. Open-minded, he never imposed any particular interpretation on his students⁶⁹ but used his immense knowledge, his fantastic imagination, his humanistic approach, and his witty humor to guide them from the visible text to the invisible spirit of the music. He emphasized the importance of a calm, supple body, notably in hands and wrists, to give great lightness and liberty to fingers, which remain in contact with the keys. With his soft, sweet voice, he calmly encouraged students to go beyond the notes, to recreate the composer’s musical conception in a harmonious and sober manner. He abhorred inadequate and superficial ornaments and inappropriate expression. He enabled his students to understand the inherent marvels in each score, its underlying harmonies, rhythmic structures, and melodic expression, and helped them to incorporate these elements into their interpretations with an appropriate style, with spontaneity, good taste, and excellent registrations.

How fortunate I was to study with Michel Chapuis and Jean Saint-Arroman at the Academy in Pierrefonds in 1983 and 1984. Eugène Borrel’s book on the interpretation of early French music was truly indispensable to interpreting early French music expression in a well-balanced harmonious manner, with natural fluidity and ease. We accompanied singers to understand the underlying nature of a musical text, its pronunciation, its appropriate expression and style, its inherent harmonies. We studied the early French organ and its music: figured basses, dance rhythms, registrations, tempi, temperaments, ornamentations, and learned how to appropriately express and embellish the musical line. Its sweet, gentle expression⁷⁰ finds its summit in the Tierce taille and numerous Récits.

We presented recitals at Saint-Séverin and Saint-Gervais churches. While studying on early historic instruments does not guarantee a beautiful performance, it enables an interpreter to play ornaments, registrations, phrasing, etc., with greater ease. As Jean Saint-Arroman pointed out, it is impossible for early music to be heard as in former centuries because “life and sensibility have changed too much, and, at least for the listeners, the music which was ‘modern’ has become ‘ancient’” [“la vie et la sensibilité ont trop chargé, et, au moins pour les auditeurs, la musique qui était ‘moderne’ est devenue ‘ancienne’”].⁷¹

Michel Chapuis inspired an entire generation of organists, among them: Scott Ross (at Saint-Maximin); Robert Pfrimmer, Étienne Baillot, Antoine Bender, Lucien Braun, Henri Delorme, Alain Langré, François-Henri Houbart, Jean-Louis Vieille-Girardet, Hélène Hébrard, Chieko Mayazaki and Henri Paget (at Strasbourg Conservatory); Régis Allard, Michel Bouvard,⁷² Yasuko Uyama-Bouvard, Makiko Hayashima, Hisaé Hosokawa (at the Schola Cantorum); Marc Baumann, Sylvain Ciaravolo, Pierre Gerthoffer, Luc Bocquet, Éric Brottier, Bernard Coudurier, Roland Servais, Véronique Rougier, Vinciane Rouvroy, Marie-Christine Vermorel (at the Besançon Conservatory); Valéry Aubertin, Valérie Aujard-Catot, Franck Barbut, Philippe Brandeis, Yves
Castagnet, Slava Chevliakov, Denis Comtet, Françoise Dornier, Thierry Escaich, Pierre Farago, Jean-François Frémont, Mathieu Freyburger, Christophe Henry, Emmanuel Hocdé, Jean-Marc Leblanc, Marie-Ange Laurent-Lebrun, Éric Lebrun, Véronique Le Guen, Erwan Le Prado, Gabriel Marghieri, Pierre Mea, Nicolas Reboul-Salze, Marina Tchébourkina,⁷³ Vincent Warnier (at the National Superior Conservatory of Music), and Frédéric Munoz (in numerous academies).

 

International concert artist

Michel Chapuis was a great artist who consecrated his entire life to enriching other people’s lives with beautiful music. Although he often said that he never took vacations, in all truth, he worked too much, giving generously to others: as a teacher, as a member of the national organ commission for cultural affairs, as a church musician, and as a concert artist. He delighted in sharing his passions with others: photography, tramways, historic books, and architecture, among others. Fascinated with movement, he often invited visitors to his home to take a ride in his old train wagons, which he pushed on the train tracks he had installed in his yard: an unexpected experience! His listeners sensed such sparkling joy when listening to his captivating interpretations, from its kindling intense, fiery warmth to its gentle gracious sweetness. Conscious of the acoustical resonance of each room, he knew how to let silences speak fully, thus clarifying the musical narration and providing it with spiritual depth and elevation.

When I met Michel Chapuis in Saint-Séverin in 1984, I admired his noble yet gentle manner of playing. Although his hands were robust and gnarled, as if he had labored as an eighteenth-century tanner along the canals in Dole, once he began to play, they floated just above the keyboards, but his fingers were deeply enrooted in the keys,⁷⁴ like those of J. S. Bach! His vivid imagination and fantasy excelled in the interpretation of
Dieterich Buxtehude’s works. I remember the numerous interesting discussions in the church reception hall after Mass with artists from all over the world.

Michel Chapuis considered himself to be Catholic in the universal sense of the term.⁷⁵ On May 7–8, 1979, during the inauguration of Alfred Kern’s restoration of the 1741 Jean-André Silbermann organ at Saint-Thomas Lutheran Church in Strasburg, he illustrated the mission of the organ in the church by improvising in the French Classical style on themes from the old Parisian Ritual. Like the great humanist Albert Schweitzer, who had preached in this church, he believed that when music is felt deeply, either sacred or secular, it resonates in spiritual spheres where art and religion may meet.

Michel Chapuis played concerts in Europe, the United States, Russia, and Japan. He came to the United States at least on three occasions. On November 26 and 27, 1968, he gave a recital and masterclass at Northwestern University School of Music, Evanston, Illinois, and returned to play at Rockefeller Memorial Chapel, University of Chicago, in 1978. During this same year, he inaugurated the Yves Koenig organ at Saint-Sulpice Church in Pierrefonds, performing Nicolas de Grigny’s entire Organ Mass. In Japan, he gave his first organ recital in the NKH Hall in Tokyo in 1976. He inaugurated three Aubertin organs there: his opus 48 (III/48), in the French Classical style at Shirane-Cho/Minami-Alps in 1993, where he returned at least ten times to give academies, concerts, and masterclasses, recorded by Plenum Vox in 1999; opus 13 (II/13) in the Lutheran Church in Tokyo in 1999; and opus 22 (II/22) in a home in Karuizawa in 2003. He gave concerts and masterclasses many times in Russia, notably on the Charles Mutin organ at the Tchaikovky Conservatory in Moscow beginning in 1993.

Throughout his entire career, Michel Chapuis collaborated with singers, choirs, and orchestras, as illustrated in several recordings: the 1967 Harmonia Mundi record of François Couperin’s Leçons de Ténèbres with Alfred
Deller, countertenor; Philip Todd, tenor; and Raphael Perulli, viola da gamba, at Augustins Chapel in Brignolles
(Var); in 1997: Quantin CD of four Handel concertos, opus 4, with the Marais Chamber Orchestra directed by Pascal Vigneron; and an Astrée CD of Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s Port Royal Mass in Houdan, directed by Emmanuel Mandrin; a 1998 CD of his inauguration of Laurent Plet’s restoration of the 1847 Callinet organ at Saint-Pierre Church in Liverdun captured his accompaniments of three local choirs, with works by Scheidt, Rinck, Boëly, Mendelssohn, Ritter, Herbeck, and Berthier.⁷⁶ In 1999, Glossa Records recorded his improvised verses in Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s Messe de Monsieur de Mauroy at Saint-Michel-en-Thiérache with Hervé Niquet’s Le Concert spirituel. In 2000, Plenum Vox recorded his inauguration of Bernard Hurvy’s twenty-six-stop early nineteenth century transitional-style organ in Charbonnières-les-Bains (near Lyon), with the Saint-Roch Choir directed by J. M. Blanchon, with works by Bach, Buxtehude, Mendelssohn, Guilmant, Bruckner, and improvisations on Salve Regina. Ekaterina Fedorova, soprano, the founder of Plenum Vox Records, gave many concerts and recorded with him: Magnificats by Guilain, Dandrieu, Beauvarlet-Charpentier, and improvisations on the Dom Bédos organ at Saint-Croix Abbey Church in Bordeaux in 2002, and Burgundian Christmas carols, vocal works by Clérambault, and improvisations on the 1768 Bénigne Boillot organ in Saint-Jean-de-Losne in 2003.

At the end of each concert, Michel Chapuis improvised in a style that valorized the organ with a wide variety of registrations. In 2004, when he improvised at the end of his concert on Jean-François Muno’s exemplary reconstruction (1992–1998) of the 1694 Jean de Joyeuse organ at Auch Cathedral, he received a standing ovation that lasted for over ten minutes! During the last ten years of his life, even as his vision deteriorated, his luminous and graceful improvisations continued to enlighten his audiences. Many of them were recorded live by Plenum Vox: a 2003 DVD in the Royal Chapel in Versailles and in Souvigny, a 2004 CD in the Romantic style on the Cavaillé-Coll organs at Saint-Ouen and Poligny, and a 2005 DVD in the German Baroque style on Bernard Aubertin’s organ at Saint-Louis-en-l’Île Church in Paris. He had assimilated the early French repertory so well that he was capable of improvising in the style of each composer and each period. He knew how to discern the tonalities that resonated well on each organ: for example, C Major and D Major in Dole, and G Major at Saint-Séverin.

Michel Chapuis’ 2001 Plenum Vox recordings in Dole remind us that this organ remained the star that inspired him throughout his entire career. These three CDs illustrate his eclectic repertory on this versatile instrument with three faces: the German face (Buxtehude, Kellner, Rinck, with improvisations), the French face (Boyvin, Tapray, d’Aquin, Balbastre and improvisations on Ave Maris Stella), and the Romantic face (Mendelssohn, Czerny, Guilmant, Brosig, Boëllmann, and Franck).

In addition to being a pioneer who revolutionized the French organ world in the second half of the twentieth century, this great concert and liturgical organist and professor generously shared his time, knowledge, and documents with his colleagues, students, and friends. His conception of French good taste goes beyond time and space: it encourages us to memorialize the past, far beyond an idea of comfort and superficial rapidity, by embracing beauty with simplicity, constant research, meditation, and spiritual depth. In addition to his beautiful music, his humanistic and fraternal approach to life, his conviviality, his humble simplicity, as well as his liberty of spirit, will continue to inspire us.

 

A French-American organist and musicologist, Carolyn Shuster was organist at the American Cathedral in Paris. In 1989, she was appointed titular of the Cavaillé-Coll choir organ at the Trinité Church and founded their weekly concert series. She has performed over 500 concerts in Europe and in the United States. She has also contributed articles to Revue de musicologie, La Flûte Harmonique, L’Orgue, Orgues Nouvelles, The American Organist, and The Diapason. Her recordings have been published by EMA, Ligia Digital, Schott, and Fugue State Films. In 2007, the French Cultural Minister awarded her the distinction of Knight in the Order of Arts and Letters. 

 

Notes

1. Cf. Marc Baumann, “Interview with Michel Chapuis in Marienthal,” transcribed by Hubert Heller, February, 2003, and in www.union-sainte-cecile.org.

2. Cf. Pierre M. Guéritey, Karl Joseph
Riepp et l’Orgue de Dole, 2 vol. (Lyon, FERREOL, 1985).

3. Cf. Jacques Gardien, “Les Grandes Orgues de la Collégiale de Dole,” L’Orgue, no. 25, March 1936, pp. 6–14.

4. Odette Goulon, her married name, was appointed organist at Temple du Luxembourg in Paris in 1991. The dates of organists in this article are mostly those found in Pierre Guillot, Dictionnaire des organistes français des XIX^e et XX^e siècles, Sprimont, Belgium, 2003.

5. Émile Poillot (1886–1948) was organist of Saint-Bénigne Cathedral, Dijon, 1912–1948.

6. Cf. Claude Duchesneau, Plein Jeu, Interviews with Michel Chapuis (Vendôme: Le Centurion, 1979), p. 34. The Germans occupied Dole from June 17, 1940, to September 9, 1944.

7. Marquis Bernard de Froissard (1884–1962) was an administrator of Société Cavaillé-Coll, Mutin, Convers, & Cie. 

8. Jeanne Marguillard was organist at Sainte-Madeleine Church, Besançon, 1947–1993.

9. Édouard Souberbielle (1899–1989) also taught at Schola Cantorum and at Institut Grégorien.

10. Paule Piédelièvre (1902–1964) studied piano with Blanche Selva and was organist at Étrangers Church.

11. Yves Margat contributed articles to Guide du Concert. 

12. René Malherbe (1898–1969) was organist and choir director at Saint-Pierre-du-Gros-Caillou Church.

13. Simone Villard (b. 1927) was appointed organist at Sainte-Radegonde Church in Poitiers in 1952.

14. Jean-Albert Villard (1920–2000) was organist at Poitiers Cathedral, 1949–2000.

15. Joseph Gélineau, SJ (1920–2000), was a Jesuit priest, composer, and French liturgist. 

16. Denise Chapuis (b. 1928). They had seven children: Jean-Marie (†), Claude (†), Bruno, Laurent (who worked with the harpsichord builder Anselm and the organbuilder Alain Sals), François, Claire (†) Christophe, ten grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.

17. Cf. Claude Duchesneau, op. cit., p. 58.

18. Jean-Marc Cicchero, Hommage à une Passion, Éd. O. V., 2018, p. 126. Erwin Muller had apprenticed with Schwenkedel, then as a voicer with Gonzalez. His shop was active in Croissy from 1950–1986.

19. Line Zilgien (1906–1954), organist there from 1940–1954, was close to Claire Delbos, Olivier Messiaen’s wife.

20. Claude Hermelin (1901–1986), began to study voicing in 1923 with Charles Mutin (cf. J.-M. Cicchero, op. cit., p. 64) and wrote articles under the alias Jean Mas.

21. Gabriel d’Alençon (1881–1956) restored the 17th-century organ in Rozay-en-Brie and was interested in temperaments. From 1936 to 1939, Claude Hermelin collaborated with him in Sotteville-lès-Rouen, and they gave courses in organbuilding at Schola Cantorum, Paris.

22. Cf. Claude Duchesneau, op. cit., pp. 212–213.

23. Pierre Cochereau (1924–1984) was titular of the grand organ at Notre-Dame Cathedral, 1955–1984.

24. Pierre Moreau (1907–1991) played there, 1946–1986. Michel Chapuis wrote the preface to his Livre d’Orgue (Europart Music, 1990).

25. Claude Duchesneau, op. cit., p. 96.

26. Eugène Borrel (1876–1962), violinist and musicologist, L’Interprétation de la musique française (de Lully à la Révolution), Paris, Librairie Félix Alcan, 1934, p. 150.

27. Jules Écorcheville (1872–1915), musicologist, wrote De Lulli à Rameau—L’esthétique musicale (Paris, 1906). 

28. Antoine Geoffroy-Dechaume (1905–2000), Les secrets de la musique ancienne, recherches sur l’interprétation (Fasquelle, 1964).

29. Cf. Jesse Eschbach, “Marie-Claire Alain, pédagogue internationale,” Marie-Claire Alain, L’Orgue, Cahiers et Mémoires, no. 56, 1996—II, p. 59. She mentions that this concert took place in 1958, but this date needs to be verified.

30. Eugène Borrel, op cit., p. 150. 

31. Claude Duchesneau, op. cit., p. 98.

32. Nicole Gravet, L’orgue et l’art de la registration en France du XVI^e siècle au début du XIX^e siècle, originally published in 1960, it was reedited with a preface by Michel Chapuis, Chatenay Malabry, Ars Musicae, 1996.

33. In 1996, the European Organ Center in Marmoutier reedited Michel Chapuis’ interpretations of Böhm, Buxtehude, J. S. Bach, de Grigny, and Dandrieu on this organ.

34. Cf. his publications on French Classical music, 1661–1789: Dictionnaire d’interprétation (Initiation), (Honoré Champion, 1983) and L’Interprétation de la musique pour orgue (Honoré Champion, 1988); his early music facsimiles are edited by Anne Fuzeau. He teaches in the early music department at the National Superior Conservatory of Music in Paris.

35. Philippe Hartmann (1928–2014) had apprenticed with Gutschenritter, worked three months for Gonzalez, for Émile Bourdon in Dijon, eight years for Pierre Chéron, collaborated with Georges Lhôte, with Jean Deloye from 1969–1975, worked independently at Le Havre in 1982, and as a voicer for Haerpfer.

36. In 1993, Daniel Birouste incorporated it into the organ at the Saint-Vincent Church in Roquevaire (Bouches-du-Rhône).

37. Cf. Yvette Carbou, Pierre Cochereau Témoignages (Zurfluh, 1999), p. 38.

38. Cf. Jean-Marc Cicchero, op. cit., pp. 104–105.

39. Father Lucien Aumont (1920–2014) lived in a tower of Saint-Séverin Church. From 1947 until 1987, he recorded concerts there and broadcast them in programs at Radio-France-INA.

40. He had been organist there from 1921 until 1960.

41. Cf. Félix Raugel, Les Grandes Orgues des Églises de Paris et du Département de la Seine, Paris, Fischbacher, pp. 100–102.

42. Jacques Marichal (1934–1987) was also choir organist at Notre-Dame Cathedral from 1964 to 1987.

43. Francis Chapelet (1934), a well-known specialist in Spanish organ music, is honorary organist at Saint-Séverin. 

44. The three actual titulars at Saint-Séverin are François Espinasse, Christophe Mantoux, and Véronique Le Guen.

45. John Abbey II (1843–1930).

46. In 1966, Philippe Hartmann built a choir organ (I/7) for Saint-Séverin. Roger Chapelet, Francis Chapelet’s father, painted its organ case.

47. L’Orgue, no. 112, Oct.–Dec.1964, p. 110.

48. François-Henri Houbart, Partita sur un choral dit Sanctus de Saint-Séverin (Delatour France, 2010).

49. Cantoral: UD 30 1299 and 5, UD 30 1385.

50. For a complete list of Michel Chapuis’ recordings, cf. Alain Cartayrade, www.france-orgue.fr/disque.

51. Cf. M. Tchebourkina. L’orgue de la Chapelle royale de Versailles: À la recherche d’une composition perdue // L’Orgue. Lyon, 2007. 2007–IV no. 280. She was organist at the Royal Chapel in Versailles 1996–2010.

52. Plenum Vox (PV 004) recorded a CD of Nivers, Lebègue, Couperin, Dandrieu, Marchand, and Lully there in 1999 and a DVD in 2003.

53. Bärenreiter published the first eight issues of their periodical, Renaissance de L’Orgue, from 1968 to 1970, followed by Connoissance de l’orgue, until 2000. At the end of the 1960s, Jean Fonteneau taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. While in the Boston area, he promoted A. F. S. O. A. by organizing concerts and lectures at Saint Thomas in New York City and at Harvard University.

54. In May and June 1967, several articles appeared in the French newspaper Le Monde and L’Art Sacré. This restoration by Gonzalez was highly supervised by the A. F. S. O. A.
55. Cf. Michel Chapuis, notes in the Plenum Vox CD of the complete works of Jacques Boyvin in Auch, PV 011, 2004.

56. XCP Montpellier, recorded Michel Chapuis’ concert there on September 5, 1993: cf. www.france-orgue.fr/disque.

57. Jean Fellot (1905–1967) wrote À la recherche de l’orgue classique (reedited by Édisud in 1993).

58. This book was written by hand and printed by the author at Montoire-sur-le-Loir in 1977.

59. Cf. Pierre Chéron’s inventory in L’Orgue de Jean-Esprit et Joseph Isnard à la Basilique de la Madeleine à Saint-Maximin, 1774, prefaced by Michel Chapuis (Réalisation Art et Culture des Alpes-Maritimes, Nice, 1991).

60. According to Sister Marie-Emmanuelle, this organ had 31 manual stops and its pedal stops were borrowed. Curiously, its action was electro-pneumatic. One can hear Michel Chapuis’ improvisations on https://youtu.be/5u-0eR3BYko. This organ was integrated into a new 42-stop neo-classical organ by Olivier Chevron, inaugurated in the Abbey at Celles-sur-Belle (Charente-Maritime) on May 5, 2018.

61. Cf. Cathédral de Poitiers, 1787 à 1790, L’Orgue de François-Henri Clicquot (Direction of Cultural Affaires in Poitou-Charentes, 1994).

62. This CD also includes Harald Vogel in the Georgskirche.

63. He taught in Semur-en-Auxois with Odile Bayeux (organ), Blandine Verlet (harpsichord), Alain Anselm (harpsichord building), Philippe Hartmann (organbuilding) and Jean Saint-Arroman (French performance practice).

64. This festival was founded by Pierre Lacroix in 1974 under the musical direction of Jean-Patrice Brosse.

65. André Stricker (1931–2003) taught there, 1954–1996. He had studied with Helmut Walcha.

66. Marc Schaefer (b. 1934), a former André Stricker student, taught there until 2000.

67. Pierre Vidal (1927–2010), composer and musicographer, remained there until 1991.

68. Cf. Jean-Louis Coignet, “L’Orgue du Conservatoire de Strasbourg,” L’Orgue, no. 117, January–March 1966, p. 39.

69. Cf. Éric Lebrun article blog SNAPE: www.snape.fr/index.php/2017/11/13.

70. Cf. Eugène Borrel, op. cit., p. 148. 

71. Jean Saint-Arroman, “Authenticity,” in Dictionnaire d’interprétation (Initiation), Paris, Honoré Champion, 1983, p. 13.

72. Michel Bouvard was an auditor and studied with Chapuis at Saint-Séverin.

73. In 1999, Natives recorded the organ works of Claude Balbastre interpreted by Michel Chapuis and his student Marina Tchebourkina on the historic grand organ at Saint-Roch Church, Paris.

74. Cf. Roland Servais, “Ses mains étaient comme des racines,” Chronique des Moniales, Abbaye Notre-Dame du Pesquié, March 2018, pp. 25–27.

75. Cf. Pastor Claude Rémy Muess, “L’église luthérienne Saint-Thomas de Strasbourg retrouve son orgue Silbermann,” L’Orgue, no. 173, January–March 1980, pp. 5–11. 

76. Available at: Association Amis de l’orgue de Liverdun, 1, place des Armes, 54460 Liverdun, France.

John Bishop

It’s about time, it’s about space . . . 

Music is one of the most elegant ways we have to measure and control time. Time is about the generous breath an organist gives the congregation at the end of a line of a hymn and the beautifully paced pause between verses. Time is about never giving the listener or singer the sense that you’re in a hurry, even in a piece that is fast and furious.

Inspiration is a magical word that refers to innovation and new ideas and also to the intake of breath. One of the special moments in musical time is the sound of inspiration as a choir breathes in unison at the start of a piece. The music starts a full beat before the first note. All these examples are also about space, the breath between lines or verses, and the control and spacing of tempo. Thoughtful consideration of time and space are among the most important elements in a moving musical performance.

When I was a pup, just out of school in the late 1970s, I was working for Jan Leek, organbuilder in Oberlin, Ohio. One of our projects was the renovation of a Wicks organ in the cavernous and ornate St. James Catholic Church in Lakewood, Ohio.¹ I don’t recall the exact date, but remember that the organ was built in the 1930s, comprising a big three-manual instrument in the rear gallery, and a modest two-manual organ behind the altar, all played from two identical consoles. The 1970s was the early dawn of solid-state controls for pipe organs, so our project was replacing the original stop-action switches with new analogue switches.

The job involved weeks of repetitive wiring, much of which I did alone, sitting inside the organ during daily Masses and the recitation of devotional rites. I heard “Hail, Mary” repeated hundreds, even thousands of times, led by the same faithful woman, so I not only memorized the text, but can still hear the quirky inflections of her voice, which I associate with the memory of the beeswax-and-incense smell of the church’s interior: “. . . and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, JEE-zus.”

The building is huge, and the acoustics endless, and there was a majesty about that repetitive chanting. It was even musical because the different tones of inflection lingered in the reverberation, turning the spoken word into song. Listening to that for countless hours allowed me insight into the origin of music. The later intonation of text as chant made the words easier to understand, and the natural succession of fauxbourdon embellishing the single line was the first step toward the rich complexity of today’s music.

A few weeks ago, Wendy and I attended a concert by Blue Heron, a polished vocal ensemble that specializes in Renaissance choral music. You can read about them, and hear clips from their recordings at www.blueheron.org. They are in the midst of a project titled “Ockeghem@600,” in which they are performing the complete works of Johannes Ockeghem (1420–1497) over a span of about five years. The project includes performances of music by Ockeghem’s predecessors and contemporaries, providing a significant overview to the development of this ancient music.

That music roughly fills the gap between the origin of chant and the advent of tonal harmony, more than a hundred years before the birth of Sweelinck (1562–1621). Ockeghem and his peers were striving to take music in new directions, wondering what sounded good as chordal progressions, as counterpoint, and simply, as harmony. There is a sense of experimentation about it that reflects the genius of innovation. The performance we heard was at First Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts, just off Harvard Square, where the brilliant Peter Sykes is director of music. The building is a grand Victorian pile, and while it doesn’t have the endless acoustics of that stone interior in Lakewood, Ohio, it’s big enough to have spacious sound.

As we listened to the timeless sounds, my mind wandered to the devoted Hail, Mary women of Lakewood, drawing connections between the “spoken singing” I heard there and the explosion of innovation at the hands of the Renaissance composers. There were many homophonic passages, but also exploration into imitation (the forerunner of fugues) and melismatic polyphony. And along with the tonal innovations, those composers were learning to manage time.

Harvard University professor of music Thomas Forrest Kelly is an advisor to Blue Heron, and the ensemble recorded a CD of plainchant and early polyphony to accompany Kelly’s insightful book, Capturing Music: The Story of Notation,² in which he traces the invention and development of musical notation. In Chapter 3, “Guido the Monk and the Recording of Pitch,” Kelly examines how Guido of Arezzo, Italy, developed notation to indicate musical pitch around the year 1030, and in Chapter 4, we meet Leoninus, an official of the as yet unfinished twelfth-century Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris, France, who is credited with developing notation for the recording of rhythm in music.

I recommend this book to anyone whose life revolves around reading music. Professor Kelly unveils countless mysteries about musical notation, including the origin of the names of the solfège scale. It is a compelling read.

§

There were some wonderful organs in the wood-frame-and-plaster New England buildings of my teenage life, but they certainly didn’t have much reverberation. I was around 25 years old when we did that work at St. James in Lakewood, Ohio, and it was one of the first places where I had freedom to play in such a huge acoustic. I was mesmerized by the sense of space. There was the obvious magic of releasing a chord and listening to the continuation of sound, but even more, I loved the way the building’s space gave the music grandeur. I had an epiphany as I played Widor’s ubiquitous Toccata. Suddenly, it wasn’t about 32 sixteenth notes in a measure, but four grand half-note beats. The harmonic motion was like clouds rolling across the sky, and the spaciousness of the room turned the sixteenth notes into chords. The music went from frantic to majestic. So that’s what Widor had in mind.

Take a minute with me on YouTube. Type “Widor plays his toccata” in the search field. Voilà! There’s the 88-year-old master playing his famous piece on the organ at St. Sulpice in Paris. It takes him seven full minutes to play the piece. Scrolling down the right-hand side of the screen, there was a list of other recordings of the same piece. I saw one by Diane Bish with 5:47 as the timing. I gave it a try and found that Ms. Bish was speaking about the performance and the organ for nearly a full minute, and she played the piece in less than 5/7 of Widor’s time. There sure were a lot of performances to choose from. Most of them were around five-and-a-half minutes long, and only a few were over six minutes. No one but Widor himself made it last for seven. Have we learned anything today?

More than 800 years after Leoninus started writing down rhythms at the Cathedral of Notre Dame, on November 15, 2015, a special Mass was celebrated there in memory of the victims of the terrorist attacks in Paris two days earlier. Olivier Latry was on the bench, and as the priest consecrated the bread and wine, Latry set sail with La Marseillaise like only a genius cathedral organist can. The vast church was full, and emotions must have been running high. Latry established a powerful rhythm and gave the music a harmonic structure worthy of the towering room. His improvisation was about time and space in the extreme. It’s just over four minutes long, but it seems eternal, perfectly paced, and exquisitely scaled for the occasion. If I had been in that church, I would have needed to be carried out. Sitting at my desk in Maine, I’m weeping as I write. Watch it with me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbwJACUxXdo.

The other day I had a meal with David Briggs, the virtuoso organist who is dining out these days on his capacious transcriptions of symphonies by Mahler and Elgar. How appropriate that he has been appointed artist in residence at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City. Church buildings don’t get bigger, and pipe organs don’t get grander. That iconic church is a perfect stage for solo music-making on such a grand scale.

Like Notre Dame, but for only about an eighth as long in time, St. John the Divine has been the site of immense pageantry and ceremony. Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama have preached there. Leonard Bernstein conducted the New York Philharmonic there. Philippe Petit walked across the nave on a tightrope there. John Lindsay, Alvin Ailey, and Duke Ellington were buried from there. Elephants have paraded down the center aisle for the blessing of the animals. To walk and breathe in any building of that scale is to experience the ages.

It is no wonder that David could be master of such a space. He was bred for it. As a boy chorister at Birmingham Cathedral, he watched the organist out of the corner of his eye, waiting for him to draw the Pedal Trombone. He was organ scholar at King’s College, Cambridge, where the renowned choir sings in one of the world’s largest college chapels, with one of the trickiest organ console placements in Christendom. From that hidden console, twenty-something David had the bench for some of the most visible services in history, as the Festival of Lessons and Carols is broadcast to hundreds of millions of listeners around the world. He has held positions at the cathedrals in Hereford, Truro, and Gloucester. He was born and bred to make music in huge spaces, a far cry from the frame buildings of my musical childhood.

David’s performances and improvisations are informed by his innate understanding of space. While many musicians are baffled by long reverberation, he harvests it, molds it, and makes it serve the music. No building is too large for his concepts of interpretation. A great building joins the organ as vehicle for the flow of the music.

 

Bigger than the great outdoors

Bagpipes, yodeling, and hog-calling are all forms of outdoor communication with a couple things in common. Bagpipes were commonly used on battlefields for military communication. Yodeling traces back to the sixteenth century, when it was a means of communication between Alpine villages and by animal herders for calling their flocks. Hog-calling is for, well, calling hogs. The other thing they have in common is that they are all air-driven. Wind-blown acoustic tone is as powerful as musical tone gets. No one ever put a Plexiglas screen in front of a violin section.

Around 1900, Robert Hope-Jones, the father of the Wurlitzer organ, invented the Diaphone, a powerful organ voice with unusually powerful fundamental tone. The sound of the Diaphone carried so efficiently that the United States Coast Guard adopted the technology for foghorns, used to warn ships of coastal dangers. The pipe organ combines bagpipes, yodeling, hog-calling, and foghorns as the one instrument capable of filling a vast space with sound at the hands of a single musician.

Igor Stravinsky famously said of the organ, “The monster never breathes.” He was right. It doesn’t have to. It’s the responsibility of the organist to breathe. Playing that wonderful organ at Notre Dame, Latry has infinite air to use. That does not give him the mandate to play continuously, and he doesn’t. The recording I described shows him at the console in an inset screen. The space he leaves between chords is visually obvious—his hands are off the keys as much as they’re on. He uses every cubic foot of the huge space for his breathing. As Claude Debussy said, “Music is the silence between the notes.” A Zen proverb enhances that: “Music is the silence between the notes, and the spaces between the bars cage the tiger.”

Nowhere in music is the space between the notes more important than for the organist leading a hymn. You have an unfair advantage. According to Stravinsky, you can hold a huge chord until Monday afternoon without a break. According to Wikipedia (I know, I know), the lung capacity of an adult human male averages about six liters. There’s a six-pack of liter bottles of seltzer in our pantry waiting to be introduced to whiskey, and it surprises me to think that my lungs would hold that much. It doesn’t feel that way when I’m walking uphill. But it’s a hiccup compared to the lungs of a pipe organ. With the privilege of leading a hymn comes the responsibility to allow singers to breathe.  

As you read, I imagine that you’re nodding sagely, thinking, “Oh yes, I always allow time to breathe.” Because of the amount of travel my work requires, I no longer lead hymns. I’m a follower. Frequently, as I gasp for breath, I wonder if my admittedly energetic hymn playing allowed those congregations time to breathe. I hope so.

I often write about my love for sailing. Friends seem surprised when I draw a parallel between a sailboat and a pipe organ, but for me, it’s simple. Both machines involve controlling the wind. You can describe the art of organ building as making air go where you want it, and keeping it from going where you don’t want it. When I’m at the helm, I harvest air, the same way David Briggs harvests space. I set the sail so it reaps maximum energy from the air. And to inform my organ playing, when I’m sailing, I use only a fraction of the air available. The huge volume of air above the surface of the ocean moves as a mass. Sometimes it’s moving slowly, and sometimes it’s flowing at great speed. I raise 400 square feet of canvas to capture thousands of cubic miles of moving air.³

Two weeks ago, we experienced a violent storm on mid-coast Maine. It blew over 60 miles per hour for 18 hours, and it rained hard. We were fortunate to avoid damage to our house, but friends and neighbors were not so lucky. Thousands of trees fell, there was no power, phone, or internet service for nine days, and it took emergency workers four days to open the road to town. I love wind. It’s my favorite part of weather. I love sitting on the deck with wind coming up the river. I love it when I’m sailing. But there’s such a thing as too much. That storm was too much. People in Houston and Puerto Rico know what too much wind can be.

When you’re playing a processional hymn, you’re Aeolus, god and ruler of the winds. You’re Zephyrus, god of the west wind. You have the wind at your fingertips. What a privilege, and what a responsibility. Use it wisely. Use it to create time and space. Use it to move a sailboat, not to knock down trees. Think of the spaces between the notes. Think of the clouds flowing across the sky. You’re the weather maker. You’re lucky.

 

Note: ‘It’s about time, it’s about space . . . .’ are the opening words of the theme song of a 1966 television sitcom by the creators of ‘Gilligan’s Island.’ ‘Gilligan’ lasted three seasons while ‘It’s About Time’ lasted only one, a clear indication of the degree of artistic content. It has been an annoying earworm today as I try to conjure images far more grand.

 

Notes

1. There’s a slide show of photos of this church on the homepage of https://www.stjameslakewood.com/.

2. W. W. Norton & Company, 2015.

3. Ours is a 22-foot catboat with a single gaff-rigged sail.

John Bishop

In the niche of time

The history of organ building and organ music is deep and rich, but the longer I toil in those vineyards, the more I realize how small it is in the wider world. The histories of art, architecture, literature, and philosophy fill libraries and geo-political history—especially the great procession of warfare that dominates every epoch of human existence, influencing the flow of the arts and academic thought. It may seem trite to acknowledge the relative insignificance of the pipe organ, but I notice that many professionals in the field focus on the interrelation of historic and geographic subdivisions of organ history, separate from the context of more general world history. 

I’ve often mentioned the juxtaposition of the fashionable Rococo courts of Western Europe, complete with minuets and powdered wigs, and the Minuteman of Lexington, Massachusetts, scrambling behind walls and fences, trying to outsmart the British Redcoats in the early days of the American Revolution. Paul Revere (1735–1818), Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826), Franz Joseph Haydn (1732–1809), and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–91) were all contemporaries. 

Most of us have all the libraries of the world at our fingertips—a few clicks or keystrokes can call up reliable information on any subject. You can do it while you’re sitting on an organ bench. Give a Google or two to consider the composer on your music rack today—what painters, philosophers, or writers might he have met? What war was coming up or going on? How might that have influenced his thinking? Or did he scram when things got rough so he could work in peace?

 

Ancient roots

The history of the pipe organ spans more than 2,250 years, starting with the hydraulis created by Ctesibius of Alexandria, Egypt, in about 256 BC. Sounds mighty old, but the hydraulis didn’t come out of thin air. Panpipes are still familiar to us today and predated the hydraulis by many centuries. With a dozen or more of individual flutes lashed together, the panpipe is a sort of pipe organ, minus the mechanical valve systems and the User Interface (keyboards) of “modern organs” built after 1250 AD. You can hear live performances on panpipes (for a modest donation) most days in New York’s Times Square Metro Station.

The Chinese sheng is a little like an ocarina with vertical pipes—an obvious precursor to the organ. It’s easy to find photos online. It is a common mainstay of Chinese classical music, with ancient roots. Archeologists working in the Hubei Province in 1978 unearthed a 2,400-year-old royal tomb that contained a sheng.

Most of us learned about the supposed oldest playable organ from E. Power Biggs, who featured the organ in the Basilica of Notre Dame in Valère, Sion, Switzerland, in his 1967 recording, Historic Organs of Switzerland. We read on the jacket notes of that vinyl LP that the organ was built in 1390, more than a century before Christopher Columbus ostensibly discovered the New World. It’s now generally thought to have been built in 1435, 17 years before the birth of Leonardo da Vinci. Filippo Brunelleschi (1377–1446) was active in Florence at that time—the dome of the cathedral there for which Brunelleschi is perhaps best known was constructed right at the time of his death. Cosimo de’ Medici, the great patriarch of the fabled Florentine banking family, inherited his fortune in 1429. Nicolaus Copernicus, the astronomer who told us that the sun is the center of the universe, wasn’t born until 1473.¹ It’s fun to note that Cosimo, Brunelleschi, and the builder of the organ at Sion lived in a world where it was believed that Earth was the center of the universe.² As a sailor, I wonder how Christopher Columbus navigated?

 

Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck (1562–1621)

Sweelinck was born and died in Amsterdam. He assumed the position of organist at that city’s Oude Kerk in 1577 at the age of fifteen and worked there the rest of his life. His employment was unusual for his day in that playing the organ was his sole responsibility. That left him with plenty of time to teach, and his studio included such luminaries as Praetorius, Scheidemann, and Samuel Scheidt. So while he was born in the last years of the broadly defined Renaissance, his music and teaching formed a bridge between, let’s say, Palestrina and Buxtehude—a mighty tall order.³

One of Sweelinck’s greatest hits is Balletto del Granduca, a set of variations on a simple theme. On my desk right now is the “sheet music” edition I bought as a teenager ($1.00), Associated Music Publishers, edited by E. Power Biggs. (Wasn’t he a great educator?)

Painters Rubens and Caravaggio were Sweelinck’s contemporaries, and St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome was completed a few years after his death. Heliocentrism (the Sun as the center of the universe) was confirmed by astronomer Johannes Kepler in his publication Mysterium Cosmographicum in 1596. The Edict of Nantes was signed by King Henry IV of France in 1598, recognizing the basic rights of Protestants (Huguenots) in predominantly Roman Catholic France, including the right to freely practice their religion. Henry IV was murdered in 1610 by the radical Catholic François Ravaillac, and succeeded by his son, Louis XIII. Coincidentally, the King James Bible was published in 1611.

Sweelinck was a Calvinist, a doctrine governed by the regulative principle, which limited worship to the teachings of the New Testament. Calvin notwithstanding, Sweelinck’s creativity was encouraged by the Consistory of Dordrecht of 1598, in which organists were instructed to play variations on Genevan Psalm tunes in an effort to help the people learn them.

On closer shores, British refugees established the Colony of Virginia in 1607, French refugees established the city of Quebec in 1608, and Dutch refugees founded New York in 1612. The first African slaves arrived in Virginia in 1619, two years before Sweelinck’s death.

Given that much of the migration of Europeans toward the “New World” was inspired by religious persecution, we read that Sweelinck lived in an era of dramatic international religious tension and change. It’s not much of a stretch to compare those tensions around the year 1600 with today’s religious persecution, division, and fundamentalism.

(I’ll let you do Bach!)

 

Felix Mendelssohn (1809–47)

Beethoven (1770–1827) was 29 when Mendelssohn was born, and Mendelssohn was 24 when Brahms (1833–97) was born.⁴ Felix Mendelssohn was as precocious as musicians get. He wrote 12 string symphonies between the ages of 12 and 14. His three piano quartets were written between 1822 and 1825 (you do the math!)—these were his first published works. I’ve long counted his overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream among my favorite pieces. Its brilliant passagework, soaring melodies, sumptuous orchestration, and driving rhythms are a tour de force for modern orchestras and ferociously challenging to organists playing it in transcription. If you didn’t know better, you’d think it was a mature work, but it’s the product of a 17 year old. What were you doing when you were 17?

The 1820s was a decade of violent uprisings all over Europe. Italians revolted against King Ferdinand of the Two Sicilies, resulting in the formation of a constitutional monarchy. A colonel in the Spanish army assembled a mutiny against King Ferdinand VII, who capitulated to their demands for a liberal constitution. France answered Ferdinand’s plea for assistance by sending 100,000 soldiers, quelling the uprising, and restoring the absolute monarchy. There were revolutions in Portugal and Brazil, and in a brutal revolutionary war, Greece won independence from the Ottoman Empire. The death of Napoléon Bonaparte in 1821 coincided with Mendelssohn’s prolific adolescence. In the United States in 1825, John Quincy Adams was president, the Erie Canal was opened, and Eli Whitney, inventor of the cotton gin, passed away.

One of Mendelssohn’s greatest hits is his Violin Concerto, completed and premiered in 1845, four years before his death. The year 1845 was a busy one around the world. Edgar Allan Poe published The Raven, Baylor University and the United States Naval Academy were founded, James Polk succeeded John Tyler as President of the United States, and the potato blight began in Ireland. In 1845, Frederick Douglass published his autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, an earth-shaking work that represented several giant steps in the march toward the American Civil War.

There were many “firsts” that year: a “screw-powered” steamship crossed the Atlantic, anesthesia was used to ease childbirth, the New York Herald mentioned baseball, and the rubber band was invented in Great Britain. It has never occurred to me to associate Felix Mendelssohn with baseball, anesthesia, or rubber bands. Do you suppose Mendelssohn ever rolled up a manuscript with a rubber band?

 

Charles-Marie Widor (1844–1937)

Widor is probably forever to be remembered by legions of organists and brides for one piece of music. But seventy-five measures of sixteenth notes in 4/2 time, followed by three of big whole-note chords in F major is a pittance when compared to the rest of his massive output of music. He wrote tons of orchestral music including symphonies, works for orchestra with organ, piano, violin, cello, harp, chorus, and various huge combinations. There are six duos for piano and harmonium, a piano quartet, a piano quintet, and sonatas for violin, cello, oboe, and clarinet. There are reams of piano music, songs, and choral music, even music for the stage. But all we really know are ten organ symphonies along with a half-dozen incidental pieces for organ. And most of us only play one of his pieces. Oh yes, there’s also a doozy in G minor, but it’s a lot harder.

Widor was one of the most important teachers of his generation, succeeding César Franck as professor of organ at the Paris Conservatoire in 1890, later leaving that post to become professor of composition. His students included Marcel Dupré, Louis Vierne, Charles Tournemire, Darius Milhaud, and Albert Schweitzer.

Widor studied in Brussels with Jacques-Nicolas Lemmens (lots of us play Lemmens’s Fanfare). When he finished those studies in 1868 at the age of 24, he moved to Paris where he was appointed assistant to Camille Saint-Säens at Église de la Madeleine. And in 1870, he was appointed “provisional” organist at Ste-Sulpice, the most prestigious post in France and home to the fantastic Cavaillé-Coll organ that is revered, cherished, and studied by generations of organists and organbuilders around the world. His primary advocate for that envied position was Aristide Cavaillé-Coll himself, who had been disappointed by the flippancy of the music of Louis James Alfred Lefébure-Wély (1817–69), the previous organist who had presided over the first years of Cavaillé-Coll’s masterpiece. It’s rumored that Cavaillé-Coll’s agitation contributed to Lefébure-Wély’s early death. (You gotta watch out for those organbuilders!)

Daniel Roth, the current organist at Ste-Sulpice,⁵ visited New York City to play a recital at Church of the Resurrection, where I, with the Organ Clearing House, had installed a renovated and relocated 1916 Casavant organ. It was an exciting moment for us to have such a master player perform on “our” instrument, but one of the most interesting moments came not at the organ console, but walking the sidewalks of Park Avenue, when Monsieur Roth told me some of the back story surrounding Widor’s appointment in 1870.

That’s the year that the Franco-Prussian War broke out. Chancellor Otto von Bismarck had used brilliant and nefarious schemes to provoke a French attack on Prussia. The French Parliament declared war on the German Kingdom of Prussia on July 16, 1870, the Germans were armed and in position, and quickly invaded northeastern France. Paris fell to Prussian forces in January of 1871. In May of 1871, the Treaty of Frankfurt gave Germany what is now Alsace-Lorraine, and the balance of power in Europe was upset. France was determined to reclaim lost territory, Britain was nervous about the change of balance in power, and the seeds were sown for World War I.

In that harsh political climate, patriotic (and perhaps, bigoted) Frenchmen considered Belgium as German,⁶ and Widor’s detractors whispered in the ears of the priests that Widor “plays like a German.” Cavaillé-Coll prevailed, and Widor was appointed. But his appointment was never made formal. He served Ste-Sulpice as provisional organist for 64 years. Widor’s student Marcel Dupré succeeded him, and served until 1971—more than a hundred years after Widor’s appointment.⁷

Claude Monet (1840–1926) completed some of his early works while living in Paris between 1865 and 1870, when Camille Doncieux was his model for The Woman in the Green Dress, Woman in the Garden, and On the Bank of the Seine. Camille gave birth to their son in 1867, and they were married on June 28, 1870, less than three weeks before the start of the Franco-Prussian War. As the war started, Monet fled to England with his new wife and child, where he studied the work of John Constable and J. M. W. Turner. How’s that for war influencing the arts?

Édouard Manet, James Whistler, Edgar Degas, and Auguste Renoir were contemporaries of Widor. Monet, Manet, Degas, and Renoir were all active in Paris when Widor was organist at Ste-Sulpice. I wonder if they met? What would they have talked about?

 

And that organ?

The Cavaillé-Coll organ at Ste-Sulpice was built in 1862, incorporating some pipes from the previous (1781) Clicquot organ. With five manuals and a hundred stops, it was one of the largest organs in the world. (An additional voice was added when Widor retired.) It included pneumatic actions to assist the vast mechanical systems, a complex wind system with multiple wind pressures (all in the days of hand-pumping), a state-of-the-art whiz-bang console with arrays of mechanical registration devices, and a huge palette of tonal innovations. 

Europe had not cornered the market on war in those days. The American Civil War was in full swing when Cavaillé-Coll completed that organ. In 1862, Jefferson Davis was inaugurated as President of the Confederate States of America, Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, and Julia Ward Howe’s Battle Hymn of the Republic was published in the Atlantic Monthly. Henry David Thoreau died on May 6, 1862. Do you suppose Widor ever read Thoreau’s Resistance to Civil Government, Slavery in Massachusetts, or Walden? And who will be the first to include Battle Hymn of the Republic on their recording at Ste-Sulpice?

§

Maybe Felix Mendelssohn was aware of Eli Whitney’s cotton gin, but it would be a reach to trace how that machine influenced Mendelssohn’s music (though there are dissertations out there that seem just as obscure). Widor had to have noticed the Prussian occupation of Paris as he was starting his epic tenure at Ste-Sulpice. He must have had terrifying walks to church past Prussian soldiers brandishing weapons. Such a sight would have influenced my improvisations. And suppose he had happened to meet Degas or Renoir at a reception. Would he have gone to the studio for coffee the next day and discussed the confluence of pictorial art and music?

In its collective history, the organ is an exquisite example of the highest of human achievements. It combines an array of crafts, it functions thanks to scientific principles, and it evokes the full range of human emotions. But it’s not a be-all or end-all. Its place in our society is the result of complex evolution, and given the complexity of today’s world and the state of today’s church, we’re passing through a time that has been less than a Golden Age.

But the range of the instrument, the breadth of its history, and the sheer power of its voice continue to keep it in the forefront. However obscure and arcane, its nearly unique status as a vehicle for improvisation equips it perfectly as an instrument of the future. What will future generations deduce from today’s organ music when they look back and consider the wide world in which we live today?

And here’s a hint: your recital audience loves to hear this stuff. Of course we’re interested in the intricacies of sonata form, or the structure of a fugue (“listen for the entrances”), but the people might get more out of connecting your organ world with their history world, their literature world, their art world. It took me about seven hours to write this piece, including the deep research. It’s not a big effort, and it adds a lot. The buzz phrase in the real estate world is “location, location, location.” How about “relevance, relevance, relevance?” ν

 

Notes

1. A general note: In this essay, I’m tossing about lots of supposedly specific facts. As usual, I’m sitting at my desk with nothing but a laptop, and I’m gathering data from quick Google searches. Much of the data comes from Wikipedia, which we suppose is generally accurate, but cannot be relied on as absolute. I am, therefore, not citing each specific reference, and offer the caveat that any factual errors are unintentional. They are offered to provide general historical context, and discrepancies of a year or two are inconsequential for this purpose.

2. There may well be some hangers-on who still believe that the sun revolves around the earth!

3. Similarly, Haydn was eighteen years old when J. S. Bach died, just as the Baroque era was ending. 

4. I like telling people that my great-grandmother, Ruth Cheney, was seven years old when Brahms died, and my sons were present at her funeral in 1994. On her hundredth birthday she increased from one cigarette a day to two! I treasure her piano, an 1872 rosewood Steinway, passed through our family to me as the only musician in my generation.

5. Daniel Roth has just been named International Performer of the Year by the New York City AGO chapter.

6. Today, Belgium has three official languages: French, German, and Dutch.

7. It’s poignant to remember that in his memoir, Dupré wrote of the agonies of World War II. He and his wife stayed at their home in Meudon during the Nazi occupation. German officers visited their home, planning to install guns on the roof, which commanded a view of Paris. Somehow the presence of the big pipe organ in the Salle d’orgue helped them decide not to. Later, their home was badly damaged by a German bomb. For the first two weeks of the German occupation, with no other transportation available, the Duprés (then in their fifties) walked the several miles to Ste-Sulpice.