Restoration of the Casavant organ at The University of Redlands

The Mission Inn, Riverside, California, October 25, 2003

R. E. Coleberd

R.E. Coleberd is a contributing editor of The Diapason.

When you come to the end of a Perfect Day,

And you sit alone with your thought,

While the chimes ring out with a carol gay,

For the joy that the day has brought,

Do you think what the end of a Perfect Day

Can mean to a tired heart,

When the sun goes down with a flaming ray,

And the dear friends have to part?

Introduction

On Saturday evening, October 25, 2003, a gala banquet and recital for 250 guests in the Music Room of the Mission Inn in Riverside, California celebrated the rededication of the newly restored 1911 Kimball pipe organ. This majestic instrument, played daily by the staff organist and assistants in the early decades of the last century, was a defining characteristic of this world-famous resort hotel and a fond memory of the many guests who stayed there. Music at The Inn transcended the locality and reached the hearts of people everywhere when, in 1909, the noted song writer Carrie Jacobs-Bond (1862-1946) was inspired to write her most famous ballad "A Perfect Day" while visiting The Inn.1 This became the theme song of the programs and, appropriately, was the closing number of the recital which followed the banquet.

A milestone in the rich and colorful history of the pipe organ in America, the Kimball organ at the Mission Inn stands today as one of the few remaining hotel pipe organs in this country.2 As recitalist Dr. John Longhurst commented in his opening remarks: "its retention, renovation and recognition are a tribute to reverence for the past and a vision for the future." The project reflects the combined efforts of The Friends of the Mission Inn, a nonprofit support group, the generous bequest of the estate of Riverside historian Mrs. Esther Klotz, the enthusiastic support of hotel management and the untiring efforts of a local organbuilder who spent countless hours over two years bringing the instrument back to life.

The Mission Inn

The Mission Inn was built in 1903 as the Glenwood Mission Inn by Frank Augustus Miller (1857-1935) to the design of architect Arthur Burnett Benton, who championed the Mission Revival architectural style as an expression of California's Spanish Colonial heritage.3 Miller was responding to the growing demand by wealthy easterners for a warm winter climate and the luxurious features of a resort hotel. Here was an opportunity, with a signature facility, to compete with Pasadena and Redlands for this lucrative patronage. In 1910 the Cloister wing was added, one of several additions, and appointed with costly furnishings and objets d'art collected by Miller in his world travels. A focal point of the Cloister Room, located in the far right corner, is the three-manual Kimball pipe organ (see photo).

Over the ensuing decades, the Mission Inn, now listed on the National Register of Historic Places and California Historic Landmarks, played host to a star-spangled list of dignitaries. Presidents Harrison, McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt and Taft were guests. At the age of twenty-five John F. Kennedy attended a peace conference at The Inn. Richard and Pat Nixon were married in the Presidential Lounge, and Ronald and Nancy Reagan honeymooned there. Gerald Ford visited, as did George W. Bush in mid-October, 2003. Painted portraits of the presidents line the wall of the lobby adjacent to the lounge.4

The Kimball Organ

The Kimball pipe organ, with a commanding presence in the opulent Cloister Room, was dedicated on February 27, 1911 by John Jasper McClellan, a noted keyboard artist from The Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake City (see program).5 The occasion was a conference called by hotel owner Miller, described as a "humanist, prohibitionist, and as a tireless worker for international peace,"6 to discuss peace proposals espoused by Andrew Carnegie, the well-known steel magnate and philanthropist. McClellan's program, chosen in consultation with Miller, was an example of a repertoire deemed appropriate for a hotel pipe organ. The Music Room, as the Cloister Room came to be known, became a frequent meeting place for local organizations and hotel guests--bankers and school principals among many others--and a popular wedding venue.

In 1917 the Mission Inn employed Newell Parker as staff organist. He was a pupil of the prominent Los Angeles organist-composer Ernest Douglas.7 Appearing at the console in a blue cape and serving until his retirement in 1968, Parker played noon concerts daily and the ever-popular Sunday evening hymn sings. In 1931 Parker reported that he had played six hundred weddings in the past eight years.8 The American Organist published a list of compositions he found suitable for a hotel program (see box).9 Among notable organists who played the instrument was Alec Wyton, onetime president of the American Guild of Organists.10

The 1911 Kimball organ was a three-manual instrument of 32 ranks (see stoplist, p. 18) that the local press termed a "Cathedral" instrument "because it has the large variety of tone color, in number of speaking stops, and the dignity of tone expected in a cathedral organ."11 This no doubt pleased the image-conscious Miller who must have seen it as a competitive advantage in the market for the resort trade. The third manual was described as an Echo Organ located 150 feet from the main instrument while in fact it was a Choir division in the chamber.12

An analysis of the mechanical features and tonal palette of the Kimball affords key insights into the character and complexion of the American pipe organ at this time and in contrast to succeeding eras. Steuart Goodwin, a nationally-known expert in voicing and tonal finishing, who did the tonal work on the restoration in the chamber assisted by Wendell Ballantyne at the console, commented in the local press that the original instrument "isn't much different, really, from organs that were in churches in 1910."13 In this respect it is unique--and significant--in the history of Kimball, a major builder in the first half of the last century, in that it contrasts sharply with the orchestral paradigm of Kimball organs in the 1920s, the image customarily associated with this company's instruments. There was, of course, no distinctly hotel instrument, in contrast to the radically different theater organ emerging during this era.

Goodwin observes that some of the characteristics of early twentieth-century church organs shared by the Mission Inn instrument include large-scaled, robust, eight-foot Diapasons and at least one open wood flute (generally called "Melodia"); also, stops with names like Salicional and Cornopean.

The Kimball has three open flutes: Clarabella, Concert Flute and Gross Flute, all similar in scale. The Concert Flute has harmonic trebles. The Kimball strings are high in tin content, low in mouth cut-up and well voiced, in keeping with the builder's reputation for fine strings. They are delicate and bright in contrast to the larger more foundational strings favored later by G. Donald Harrison. The Trumpet and Cornopean are surprisingly bright, very Willis sounding, while the Clarinet is a bit soft. The Vox Humana was the familiar "Vox in a Box," located behind the Swell division in its own enclosure with manually set Swell shades and a separate, comparatively rapid tremolo. Some of the Diapason pipework was slotted, to alter the harmonic content into the more horn-like sound favored by most builders after about 1875.14

The Kilgen Rebuild

By 1930 the original tubular pneumatic key and stop action in the windchests and the lead tubing linkage to the console were obsolete and failing. The Inn then contracted with George Kilgen and Sons to rebuild and update the instrument mechanically and tonally.15 This work, supervised by the West Coast representative of the St. Louis firm, comprised a new console, installing electro-pneumatic primary action in the wind-chests, and adding stops and pipes. A major trend of the times was the use of the 4' coupler on manual divisions to brighten the ensemble in the absence of mixtures and mutations. This required adding chests and pipes to increase the manual compass on the Swell and Choir from 61 to 73 notes. The Pedal was expanded from 30 to 32 pipes. A unit flute, a 16' Lieblich Gedeckt, was added to the Swell, and a large Diapason added to the Choir. The Clarinet on the Great manual was moved to the Choir and replaced with a new French Horn (see stoplist, p. 18). Unfortunately, this new work was poorly placed. For example, the unit flute was located sideways in an alcove outside the Swell enclosure with the sound having to pass through the enclosure and the shutters. It was never satisfactory. Elsewhere, the new material was jammed in so closely and access so difficult that maintenance and tuning were nearly impossible.16

This instrument was introduced at a luncheon on January 19, 1931 before a blue-chip audience of two hundred forty-five musical personalities and southern California newspaper editors personally invited by Frank Miller. House organist Parker began the program with compositions by well-known Los Angeles and Long Beach organists who were present: Prelude and Allegro Quasi Fantasia by Ernest Douglas and A Vesper Prayer by Roland Diggle. The featured performer was the legendary Alexander Schreiner, then organist at both The Mormon Tabernacle and UCLA. After Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor and Ernst Harberbier's Enchanted Bells he played The Flight of the Bumble Bee prompting "an irrepressible burst of laughter and complimentary applause which called for a repetition of the number."17

The Restoration

By the late 1960s the future of the Mission Inn was in grave doubt. Then, in a groundswell of civic pride, The Friends of the Mission Inn, a non-profit support group, was founded in 1969, dedicated to preserving this time-honored monument to their community. It was saved by the combined efforts of The Friends and the far-sighted new owner, Duane Roberts, who committed the funds necessary to secure its future. In 2001 a generous bequest from the estate of Esther Klotz made possible the estimated $140,000 budget for restoring the organ. Roberts enthusiastically endorsed the project. The Friends first approached Ron Kraft, a Lutheran minister and organist, who had serviced organs in the neighborhood for nearly thirty years. But nearing retirement, he declined to assume the task, recommending instead his friend, organbuilder Ed Ballantyne.

Ballantyne (see photo, p. 17), who is also active in his family's marble and tile business, began his labor of love and then professional career in organbuilding in 1985 with the rebuilding and installation of an organ in his Mormon Church in Riverside followed by a similar project at the Ramona High School. Soon the Kimball challenge became a family affair with Ed enlisting the help of his younger brother Wendell and his son Ryan. Added to the team were Steuart Goodwin (q.v.) and Kraft. Of these men only Goodwin had been inside the Mission Inn organ and then many years earlier. When the team first entered the chamber, they encountered rain damage and a heavy layer of soot from the days when smudge pots were used to protect nearby citrus groves from cold weather. Ballantyne recalls: "We'd come out of there looking like coal miners."18

The goal of the two-year project was to return the instrument to its 1911 Kimball profile and update the specification within that paradigm as space and funds permitted (see stoplist). The Kimball windchest action was replaced with Peterson valves and the console rewired with Matters solid-state switching. The twelve-note extension chests on the Swell and Choir were discarded. Experience has shown that extension chests, connected with the main chest by tubing, result in unsteady wind and tuning problems. The Clarinet was returned to the Great division and the French Horn not reused. The Kilgen unit flute, never satisfactory, was eliminated as were the harp and chimes whose actions were defunct. The new individual valves on the windchests afforded unification options enabling Wendell Ballantyne, who figured importantly in the tonal work, to program the Second Diapason, Twelfth, and Mixture on the Great. The unit flutes in the Swell are now composed of pipes from the 16' Bourdon and the 4' Traverse Flute, both well-positioned for tonal egress. The new harp and chimes were sampled from MIDI. A major improvement was adding an independent 4' Octave and 2' Fifteenth to the Great, both unenclosed, adjacent to the 8' Open Diapason behind the façade, resulting in a more cohesive and vibrant ensemble.19

The Rededication

In keeping with the rich traditions of the Mission Inn, it was deemed appropriate that the recital on October 25 be performed by an organist from The Mormon Tabernacle, just as in 1911 and 1931. Drs. Clay Christiansen and John Longhurst, who currently share the position, welcomed the invitation. The music they chose (see program, p. 19) was designed to match the selections played on a pipe organ in 1911 with the restored instrument evoking the nostalgia of a bygone era. Longhurst commented that when they first heard the Kimball, they heard an instrument vastly different from what they were accustomed to: the Aeolian-Skinner in The Tabernacle and the Schoenstein in the Conference Center in Salt Lake City. "I wondered how we'd ever play Bach's Toccata, but decided that if they played it in 1911 we could too."20

Christiansen explained that in 1911 organ recitals featured transcriptions of orchestral pieces, often those linked to Edwin Lemare, "The Great Lemare," whose reputation was built on this music. This was a period when organ music reached the corners of American society that did not have recourse to symphony orchestras. The pipe organ, therefore, enjoyed a very prominent place in the musical landscape of our country. "We chose transcriptions of Waltz of the Flowers and Jesse Crawford's arrangement of Rhapsody in Blue as symbolic of this era. The many delicate stops on this organ--the Clarinet on the Great, for example--suggest a quieter, slower, more refined lifestyle in contrast to the rock concert, loudspeaker sound (and noise) of urban living today."21 By using four hands, he added, --as opposed to two hands--they could have three manual colors speaking at once in addition to the pedal, as well as frequent registration changes.

The program closed with "A Perfect Day." Indeed it was!

Well, this is the end of a Perfect Day,

Near the end of a Journey, too;

But it leaves a thought that is big and strong,

With a wish that is kind and true.

For the mem'ry had painted this Perfect Day

With colors that never fade,

And we find, at the end of a Perfect Day,

The soul of a friend we've made.

For research assistance and critical comments on earlier drafts of this paper the uthor gratefully acknowledges: Ed Ballantyne, Wendell Ballantyne, Clay Christiansen, Marene Foulger, Steuart Goodwin, Frances Larkin, Laurence Leonard, Jim Lewis, John Longhurst, Manuel Rosales, Rene Sturman and R. E. Wagner.

by R. E. Coleberd

 

Introduction

The Kimball Company of Chicago was one of the foremost pipe organ builders in America in the first three decades of the twentieth century.  Instruments of all sizes in churches, colleges, theaters, homes and municipal auditoriums across the country made the Kimball organ well-known to churchgoers and the music world of that era. The name lives on in epic instruments in St. John's Episcopal Church, Denver, and the Minneapolis Civic Auditorium, others lesser-known, and in the recollections of older generations. Ironically, very little has been written about the company and its instruments, apart from David Junchen's perceptive summary of the firm and its theater organ work.1 A systematic study of the tonal philosophy and practices of the firm, as well as design features and construction details of their instruments, is long overdue. No comprehensive history of the pipe organ and its builders in America in the twentieth century can be complete without a major study of Kimball.

George T. Michel, a forgotten figure in the pantheon of notable American tonal directors and voicers, was the heart and soul of the Kimball pipe organ. His superb voicing talents, which embraced the full spectrum from reeds to strings to a Diapason chorus, were complemented by the skills and experience of other factory personnel including superintendent Oscar J. Hagstrom, voicer Joseph J. Carruthers, pipemaker Frank A. Meyer, and the astute front-office businessmen Wallace Kimball, Walter Hardy, and the much-traveled Robert P. Elliot. Yet as Van Allen Bradley remarks, correctly, in his company history Music for the Millions: "It was Michel more than any other man who gave the Kimball pipe organ of the 20th Century its great reputation."2

Junchen was unsparing in his praise of Michel: "His reeds were constructed with a jeweler's precision. They had distinctive tone colors, stood rock solidly in tune and were perhaps more uniform note per note than any ever built. Michel's strings set the standard by which all others were judged. Their richness, timbre and incredible promptness of speech, even in the 32' octave, have never been surpassed."3

This article takes a close look at three instruments in two small liberal arts colleges in western Missouri--Park College in Parkville and Missouri Valley College in Marshall--as examples of Kimball's work in the 1930s, near the close of its glorious era in organbuilding. The 1930s were the crucial decade before WWII when changing tastes and preferences swept the pipe organ market. The King of Instruments began to break away from the romantic and orchestral paradigm of the 1920s and earlier and moved toward "old world" antecedents and the classic ensemble. How did Kimball, progressive throughout its history, articulate and implement these changes? The stoplists under discussion shed light on Kimball's approach to organbuilding in that watershed era. The recital programs dedicating these instruments are representative of organ recital fare during that period and in contrast to recent times.

The 1930s demand closer scrutiny. The pioneering work of Walter Holtkamp and G. Donald Harrison is well documented. What about other builders and their instruments? The majority were family-owned firms where change came slowly and was often viewed as a threat. Thus much of the industry fell behind in the emerging trends. These builders were reluctant to depart from stoplists that had worked so successfully a decade earlier. They moved gingerly into mixtures and mutations, while holding onto favorite stops of the previous era--solo reeds, for example. Likewise, there was a pronounced lag in voicing philosophy and technique. The distinctive character and blending quality of independent mutation ranks, which are tuned to pure‚--not tempered--intervals, was scarcely appreciated by voicers accustomed to wide-scale diapasons and other unison stops. What mutations existed were frequently extensions of foundation stops. Mixtures of the 1920s were largely confined to the narrow scale string-sounding Dolce Cornets. 

The following analysis is made possible by the vivid recollections of one elder statesman of the organbuilding fraternity, the brief remarks of another who has passed on, and the insights of several contemporary observers well-acquainted with Kimball instruments and the 1930s era.

Charles McManis, living and working in semi-retirement in Woodbury, Connecticut, helped install the 1938 Kimball at Park College, an inspiring early step in his long and distinguished career as an independent builder in Kansas City, Kansas. Charles has close family ties to Park College. His grandfather was one of the original seventeen students enrolled when classes began on May 12, 1875, in an old stone hotel downtown. His parents were both graduates of the school.4

Another prominent builder in the postwar era who observed Kimball and their work was Franklin Mitchell (1917-1998), tonal director of the Reuter Company from 1951 to 1993. As a sophomore at Missouri Valley College in 1935, sitting in the back of the chapel, Mitchell observed George Michel finish the new three-manual organ. This experience and the ensuing summer employment at the Kimball factory in Chicago, at the invitation of Michel, inspired Mitchell to become an organbuilder and significantly influenced his work. As Jack Sievert, formerly Mitchell's colleague at Reuter and now with the Schantz Company points out, certain aspects of Mitchell's early work at Reuter bore the unmistakable stamp of George Michel and Kimball.5 Mitchell's failing health and death on March 31, 1998 precluded additional detailed comments which would have added importantly to this analysis.

Park College

Located in northwest Missouri, in the town of Parkville on the Missouri River nine miles upstream from Kansas City, Park College was founded in 1875, the realization of a long-cherished dream of George S. Park whose name it bears. A Vermont native and veteran of the Texas War of Independence, Park was a successful land speculator and devoted churchman, whose name graced the village he founded in 1844. For two decades, Park pleaded with the Presbyterian Church to establish a college in what was then considered the frontier. His dream was made possible by Dr. John McAfee, a professor at Highland College in Kansas who came as the school's first president, providing the experience and leadership required to establish it. McAfee's vision for Park College was a work-study curriculum affording poor students the opportunity to obtain a college education and was symbolized in the new school's motto "Fides et Labor" (faith and labor).6

The Graham Tyler Memorial Chapel is one of the first buildings one sees when approaching the campus and forms an appropriate introduction to a historically church-related institution of higher learning. Standing majestically in front of a terraced green hillside, this modified Gothic edifice, with a cruciform floor plan, features an English hammer-beam ceiling in the nave and, above the altar in the chancel, an exquisitely detailed wood carving of the Last Supper by Alois Lang (see photos).7 Seating 700, the building was designed by Kansas City architects Greenbaum, Hardy & Schumacher, who were awarded a bronze medal by the Kansas City chapter of the American Institute of Architects for the design of the best institutional building in the area in 1931.8

The new chapel was made possible by an $80,000 bequest of Mary G. Tyler (total cost $135,000) in memory of her father, Graham Tyler, a Philadelphia merchant. It followed the "Old Stone Church" erected in 1852, and its successor McCormick Chapel, given by Mrs. Cyrus Hall McCormick of Chicago in memory of her husband, the farm machinery magnate and inventor of the McCormick reaper. These chapels housed only reed organs. Miss Tyler recommended the building be patterned after the Russell Sage Memorial Chapel in East Northfield, Massachusetts on the campus of the Northfield Mount Hermon School.9

In his quest for a suitable pipe organ for the new chapel, the president of Park, Dr. F. W. Hawley, wrote to his friend from student days at McCormick Seminary, Dr. Paul W. McClintock, then director of research in the Department of Building Fund Campaigns at the Presbyterian church headquarters in Philadelphia. Dr. Hawley requested advice and recommendations and McClintock was happy to oblige. Their correspondence offers a rare glimpse of the role of a consultant in an organ project, a role whose numbers are legion in the history of the organ business in America, and sheds light on the brutal, white-hot competition for work in the dark days of the Great Depression.10

McClintock began by strongly recommending that Hawley engage William H. Barnes as consultant for the project, which Hawley did. "You will find Barnes wonderfully helpful. He has a thorough knowledge of the organ, perhaps a better knowledge than any other living American and I know from my contacts with him that his advice is absolutely unbiased and can be thoroughly depended upon."11 In the meantime, Hawley wrote McClintock that he was "quite strongly inclined toward the Reuter Organ" because of the short distance (50 miles) from Parkville to Lawrence, Kansas. He mentioned that the founders of Reuter had trained at Casavant.12 McClintock quickly dismissed Hawley's concern over proximity to a nearby factory as a criterion for choosing a builder. He pointed out that builders had agents coast-to-coast and even in Laurel, Mississippi (where he had lived), a serviceman was never more than six hours away.13

Hawley asked whether McClintock was familiar with the Robert Morton Company of Van Nuys, California, a firm he had never heard of but one of the many firms sending in proposals once word got out that Park was buying an organ. The local representative was offering a $13,000 instrument, built for a theater in Oklahoma City but refused upon delivery, for $3,500. "I do not want to buy a cheap organ but if we can buy a good organ that will meet our needs at a very low cost we want to take advantage of all the saving we can," Hawley wrote. The representative also proposed a $15,000 new organ for $10,000 as an "introductory offer."14

McClintock continued by offering his opinion on builders whom he divided into two classes. In the first class he named: Austin, Casavant, Estey, Hook & Hastings, Kimball and Skinner. Their work can be "thoroughly depended upon," he said, adding that Skinner excels in reeds and Hook & Hastings in diapasons. In the second class he included: Hall, Kilgen, Midmer-Losh, Moller and Pilcher, builders whose work is "very good" but does not embrace the "same careful attention as to construction, mechanism, voicing and tonal balance." He faulted Reuter for lacking tonal balance and excessive octave coupling which he called duplexing. He wrote off Bennett whose instruments he had found unsatisfactory.15

President Hawley circulated the specification drawn up by Barnes, together with a cover letter, to twelve builders. Bids were received from Estey, Kilgen, Midmer-Losh, Moller, Pilcher, Reuter and Welte-Tripp.16 The Reuter sales manager, William C. Verney, was eager to obtain the contract and solicited support from friends whom he thought would be influential with Hawley. One was a prominent Kansas City lawyer, Thad B. Landon, who wrote Hawley: "I just want you to know that I had come in very close touch with these people . . . on some matters in the past few years and feel they are very good people with whom to work."17 Another was A. O. Thompson, well-known Kansas City lumber yard operator and trustee of the college, who while vacationing in Los Angeles sent a telegram to Hawley in care of Barnes: "Would appreciate your favoring Reuter organ provided price and quality are equal to other makers."18 In January, 1931, Hawley traveled to Chicago, to meet with Barnes and listen to several instruments. Based upon his own preference for the Kimball sound as well as Barnes' recommendation, he signed a contract with Kimball for a $15,000 organ. The terms were $5,000 upon delivery (and acceptance) and three annual installments of $3,333 each plus six percent interest.19 Kimball was represented in the negotiations by Herbert Hyde, well-known Chicago organist, composer and music impresario who joined Kimball in the Fall of 1930 after four years as western representative for Skinner.20

The Kimball pipe organ was given in memory of Mrs. Annette Young Herr of Mifflinsburg, Pennsylvania by her children. A twenty-three rank, three-manual instrument with four-rank echo division prepared for (see stoplist), it was designed by William Harrison Barnes, remembered today for his multi-edition and widely-circulated book, The Contemporary American Organ. Barnes presided at the console during commencement week, June 6-8, 1931. He played for the baccalaureate service and the chapel dedication program on Saturday, the organ dedication recital on Sunday evening, and commencement Monday morning. 21

The Barnes dedicatory recital (see program) featured traditional organ fare and the work of contemporary composers Joseph Bonnet, Marco Enrico Bossi, Joseph Clokey, Giuseppe Ferrata and Bernard Rogers.22 Appearing frequently in recital programs during this period, these composers are seldom heard in performances today. The Mendelssohn selection was from Elijah. Clokey's "Dripping Spring" was a character piece, so-called because the title describes the work. The Schubert number was a transcription.

A full-page biographical sketch of Barnes was featured in the Commencement Program. It began with his BA degree from Harvard and his organ study with Wallace Goodrich, dean of the New England Conservatory of Music, and with Clarence Dickinson in New York. His several church organist positions in the greater Chicago area were enumerated as were his offices in professional associations. He was also an associate editor of The American Organist. In recognition of his services to the college and his prominence in the organ world, Barnes was awarded an honorary doctorate (Mus.D) by Park College at this commencement.23

The 1931 Kimball organ specification (see stoplist) bore a strong resemblance to the previous era, and was in marked contrast to the two later Kimballs in this article. The Great manual contained a unit Diapason at 16', 8' and 4', a scheme which results in scaling discontinuity and octave overlap. Arguably, this sort of unification never works in building a true Diapason chorus. The Grave Mixture, a tepid stop comprising a Twelfth and Fifteenth with no breaks, was no Mixture at all. The wide-scale Clarabella was borrowed from the Pedal.

The Swell division was built around a unit Bourdon of 97 pipes. Also conspicuous in this tonal palette was a tapered flute and Celeste, played as one stop, and a Waldhorn, a robust reed voice which played at both 16' and 8' pitches. The Choir manual contained four independent ranks with the balance borrowed from the Great. The Celeste was matched with the Dulciana, not the Gamba, standard practice for that period. The nine-stop Pedal division embraced only two unified independent ranks with others, chiefly 16' voices, borrowed from the manual divisions. Again, this was typical of this period. The prepared for Echo organ stoplist was nearly identical to those of other builders in this era.

The organist and choirmaster at Park from 1921 to 1953 was Dr. Charles L. Griffith, 1887-1969 (see photo). A graduate of William Penn College in Iowa, where he taught music for 17 years before coming to Park, Griffith earned an M.A. degree from Grinnell College, also in Iowa, and a Ph.D. in music from the University of Iowa. He was awarded honorary degrees by Park and William Penn. After 21 years at Park, Griffith retired and returned to William Penn, as chairman of the Fine Arts Department. Griffith Hall, the Fine Arts Building at William Penn, is named in his honor.24

On the evening of December 25, 1937, scarcely six years after its completion, the beautiful Graham Tyler Chapel caught fire and burned to the ground. The blaze, believed to have started in the basement, spread rapidly and soon the roof fell in.25 The Kimball organ was destroyed as were objects d'art in the chancel. Construction of an identical replacement edifice began immediately. The Lang carving replaced a painting of The Lord's Supper above the altar in the chancel. A new and larger Kimball organ, with casework and display pipes to be duplicates of the first instrument, was ordered. Kimball was represented in the negotiations by N.W. Hillstrom who was quick to praise the new stoplist proposed by Barnes. "It is a very fine specification and would indeed make a glorious organ for the Chapel," he wrote, calling attention to the changes in each division including a "cohesive and vibrantly rich Diapason chorus" on the Great. He was particularly effusive about the 32' Sub Bourdon on the Pedal. "It is a charming stop against the softest of manual combinations and one that in my opinion should be included in every organ of note."26

The rebuilt chapel and the new three-manual, thirty-six rank Kimball organ (the five-rank Antiphonal division was prepared for) were dedicated during Fine Arts Week, October 23-30, 1938 in a program series. The inaugural recital Monday evening was again played by William H. Barnes, now Dr. Barnes, who also presented a lecture entitled "The Organ" Tuesday morning. His 1938 recital was more standard fare (see program), concentrating largely on works closely identified with the organ but also including Hugh McAmis' "Dreams," a work frequently played during that era.27

The recitalist Tuesday evening (see program) was the legendary Edna Scotten Billings, for decades the grande dame of Kansas City organists. Mrs. Billings chose a demanding program, including the very difficult "Variations de Concert" by Joseph Bonnet. Wednesday evening's program featured several instrumentalists, along with college organist Charles Griffith and his wife Blanche Noble Griffith, soprano. The series closed Thursday evening with an organ recital (see program) by Joseph A. Burns, a well-known local keyboard artist. He selected three compositions by Enrico Bossi, and "Le Vol du Bourdon" which is known today as "The Flight of the Bumble Bee."28

The 1938 Kimball (see stoplist) differs radically from the 1931 specification, reflecting the maturing classical outlook of Barnes and Michel. The Great division features a unit Gemshorn, which works very well in pitch, color and blending quality, and an authentic principal chorus, carefully voiced and capped with a Mixture IV made of tin. The Hohl Flote, a dark, broad scale voice which fills out the ensemble, is a wooden rank with arched upper lips and is full length in the 8' octave. It contrasts sharply with the Rohrflote on the Swell. The Great Trumpet, reflecting the orchestral paradigm, is Tromba sounding, confined and fundamental, designed to dominate the chorus on full organ. The Great Mixture begins on the 12th, the lower pitch typical for the period when organists were accustomed to using the super-coupler on full organ. Mixture composition and scaling of principal ranks was based upon this assumption. Each pipe of the mixture is winded on a separate valve.

The foundation for the Swell is the unit Rohrflute with a compass of 16' to 2', by now a trademark of George Michel. The Swell Trumpet, in contrast to the Tromba voiced Great Trumpet, is a brighter, more harmonically developed, open sound. The Salicional has a slight edge, and the Flauto Dolce, reminiscent of the Skinner voice of this name, is not as assertive as even a Dulciana but loud enough to be heard. The Corno d'Amour, a capped trumpet nearly identical to a Flugelhorn, serves in place of the customary Oboe. The Swell design also featured the Contra Fagotto as the 16' reed voice in place of the Waldhorn in the 1931 stoplist.

The Choir manual, boasting exquisite strings, Viola and Dulciana, and a notably fine clarinet, is voiced as a mild principal ensemble, a tad soft in an otherwise carefully balanced instrument. The 8' Concert Flute is made of wood harmonic pipes, and the 4' Lieblich Flote is a capped metal rank of singular beauty. The Pedal division, as in 1931, counts only two ranks with unification, plus many borrows from manual ranks. The five lowest pipes of the 32' Sub Bourdon, GGGG to BBBB, are enormous in scale, much larger than the following pipes in the 16' octave. The first seven notes in the 32' octave are resultants. The five-rank Antiphonal organ, in contrast to the projected 1931 stoplist (never installed), was added the following year and contained a Diapason and and Octave. The Park College Stylus, apparently referring to these stops commented: "Two new stops in connection with the echo organ will combine the features of both the echo organ and the antiphonal organ."29

Seated at the console demonstrating the instrument to the writer, Canon John Schaefer, organist and choirmaster of Grace and Holy Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in downtown Kansas City who is staff organist at Park, remarks that this Kimball organ has "real character" and an enduring quality that has survived the fads and fashions of the postwar era to remain a most attractive instrument. Carefully planned and executed, it is a tribute to the artistry of George Michel. Schaefer remarks that if there is a weakness in this instrument it is in the mutations, derived from the Dulciana in the Choir and Flute in the Swell, which "don't do much."30  In keeping with the period, the entire instrument was under expression when installed although subsequently the shades of the Great and Pedal divisions were removed.

The primary function of the Graham Tyler Chapel today, no longer used for scheduled chapel services by the college, is as one of the most popular wedding venues in the metropolitan area. Park College is now an independent school with no denominational affiliation. The epic Kimball organ, a noteworthy instrument by a neglected builder in a bygone era, was renovated in 1978 by Charles McManis who praised it in a letter to the college president as a noteworthy example of the "Clarified Ensemble" in the contemporary epoch of American organbuilding.31 When funds permit, it is scheduled for a full restoration by the Quimby Pipe Organ Company.

Missouri Valley College

Founded in 1888 by Cumberland Presbyterians, Missouri Valley College is located in Marshall, Missouri, a town seventy miles east of Kansas City, settled in 1839 and named for Chief Justice John Marshall of the U.S. Supreme Court. Marshall is the county seat of Saline County, so named because of numerous salt springs in the area. Stewart Chapel, built in 1906 (see photo), was given by prominent St. Louis lawyer Alphonso C. Stewart, L.L.D., a trustee and lifelong benefactor of the school, in honor of his father, General A. P. Stewart, Confederate States of America.32 The chapel was remodeled in 1935, a gift of Mrs. Olive Depp Richey, widow of an early trustee of the college. The new Kimball organ was designated the James Edward Richey Memorial Organ.33

The organist and keyboard professor at Missouri Valley was Claude Leslie Fichthorn, 1885-1972 (see photo). A native of Reading, Pennsylvania, where he studied piano, organ and voice in his youth, Fichthorn served local churches as organist and choirmaster while yet a teenager. Then, even without a college degree, he taught at Ursinus College in Pennsylvania before coming to Missouri Valley, in 1912, to teach piano. The following year he studied voice in Paris with Louis Dubigny, then returned to Missouri Valley where he completed a B.A. degree in 1916. In 1931, Fichthorn obtained an M.A. from Columbia University. He also held the A.A.G.O. certification. From 1920 to 1935, he was organist and choirmaster of the Westport Presbyterian Church in Kansas City and afterward, for twenty years, held the same position at the Methodist Church in Marshall.34

As the resident impresario of Marshall, Fichthorn, now dean of the school of music at Missouri Valley, was a man of broad musical interests and boundless energy. He orchestrated what must have been one of the most extensive musical programs for a town of 8500 people to be found anywhere. In addition to directing the keyboard, choral and instrumental music offerings of the college and serving as organist and choirmaster at the Methodist Church organ on Sunday morning, he organized and directed the Marshall Symphony, an ambitious project for a rural community but one not entirely unknown in the state.35 Fichthorn was awarded an honorary Mus.D. from Missouri Valley in 1948, in grateful recognition of his forty years of devoted service to the school. And in 1962, in reply to a citation for his half century of service to the school he said: "I have had fun and enjoyed my work, and that is why it has been so wonderful."36

Dean Fichthorn played the opening recital on the twenty-six rank three-manual Kimball organ on Thursday evening, December 5, 1935 (see program), preceding rededication of the chapel and dedication of the organ on Sunday afternoon. The Marshall Democrat-News described the forthcoming recital as designed to exhibit the tonal resources of the new organ. Bach's D-Minor Toccata and Fugue was said to be his work most often heard on radio since it was judged as more dramatic than the composer's other works which were deemed more classical. The choice of Widor's Toccata, selected specifically to exhibit the tonal colors of the organ, reflected the belief that as the premier organ composer of the late romantic period, he, unlike other composers, perceived the instrument's possibilities as an interpretive medium.37 Barbara Owen comments that his program was "quite ambitious" in that playing the complete Widor Symphony No. 2 was unusual, adding that organists and musicians in general weren't favorably disposed toward Stravinsky and the Firebird Suite in 1935. However, since Fichthorn was also an orchestra conductor, he most likely had a good feeling for orchestral works.38

In his program notes, Fichthorn asserted that Bach's fugues were the epitome of organ composition and the D-minor Toccata and Fugue was the most popular. The eight symphonies of Widor were said to be "unequaled in breadth of concept and richness of imagination" and the second symphony "more lyrical" than the others. The chimes of a church in Canada were the inspiration for Russell's "The Bells of 'St. Anne de Beaupre." Fichthorn described his composition "In the Forest" as: "An afternoon in the forest, heard are the peaceful brook, the call of birds, the threatening storm and a return to peaceful meditation." In that time as well as today, it was not unusual for organists to play their own works in a recital. Delius' "On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring" was portrayed as an impressionistic study by the recently deceased and the "most original" composer Great Britain has produced. Stravinsky's Firebird Suite was hailed as this composer's most popular work for orchestra.39

The choice of a three-manual design for an organ of just twenty-six ranks (see stoplist) was, no doubt, deemed appropriate for the teaching and performance demands of a college. With a budget limit of these resources, the voices were distributed over the manuals in a very interesting way. Professor Mary Ellen Sutton, organ teacher at Missouri Valley, 1968-73, described the unification and borrowing as "very skillful."40 The specifications for the instrument were written by Fichthorn and revised by William H. Barnes, with voicing and tonal finishing by George T. Michel. Program notes called attention to the thirty combination pistons and toe studs on the console incorporating the new Kimball Remote Control System. Also, a new non-rigid sound-absorbing material in the console made it as silent as possible. The entire instrument was under expression in two chambers.41

On the Great division, the Gemshorn lent itself well to unification, augmented the principal chorus, and added color and pitch. The 4' Flute, borrowed from the Swell unit Rohrflute, blended well with the 8' Harmonic Flute, while the Dulciana provided a soft stop on the division. The Diapasons I and II were a throwback to a previous era, indicating that the designers had not totally abandoned that paradigm. The Mixture began on the 15th, because there was no independent 2' stop on the division.

The Swell division, with the unit Rohrflute from 16' to 2' pitches, so typical of Michel, was supplemented by strings, string principals and a full reed chorus plus the ubiquitous Vox Humana, another vestige of previous times. Barbara Owen observes that on this Kimball, the Choir was nearly as large as the Swell, which was unusual for a period when the Swell was customarily the largest division of the organ. She notes that the absence of an Oboe among the reeds was also unusual. The 16' Waldhorn, frequently used by Skinner, would impart a "growl" at this pitch but was comparatively lacking in blending and solo quality and thus would disappear entirely from stoplists in the postwar era.42

The Choir began with an 8' Diapason borrowed from the Second Diapason on the Great. Therefore, it was most likely voiced as a string principal, as the independent voice on this division would customarily have been. The Melodia was unified to 4' and 2' and, in effect, would most likely have been a Wald Flute at 4' since the scales for the Melodia and Wald Flute were often the same. The reeds on the Choir, French Horn, Cor Anglais and Clarinet, were solo voices from the symphonic era.

Recalling the instrument from the perspective of the postwar era and his practices as tonal director of the Reuter Company, Franklin Mitchell said the diapasons would be considered a tad "hooty" today, while the trumpet was big in scale and would pass today as a tuba. The Clarinet was very "conventional" and sonorous. The Salicional string was thin and keen. The Waldhorn was a mild 16' reed with not much character. Mitchell commented that George Michel later veered toward diapason type strings, such as a small Geigen, which were not nearly as authentic as an orthodox string voice.43 Sadly, this notable instrument was lost when the chapel burned on February 28, 1973.44

Summary

The 1930s, marking the close of one epoch and the beginning of another, were a major turning point in the history of the pipe organ in America. The Kimball Company was an industry icon before WWII and a builder deserving of recognition today. The three instruments discussed above were milestones in the history of Kimball and representative of the progress of this landmark era in terms of several criteria. These include the emergence of an authentic principal chorus capped with a mixture, the place of chorus reeds in an ensemble and the role of mutations--although failure to embrace them as independent voices. Most important, they reflect Michel and Kimball's vision and implementation of the fundamental concepts of pitch, color, contrast and blend in the design and voicing of the inimitable King of Instruments.        n

                                   

R. E. Coleberd writes frequently on the history and economics of pipe organ building.

 

For research input and critical comments on earlier drafts of this paper the author gratefully acknowledges : Tom Atkin, Wilson Barry, E.A. Boadway, Christopher Bono, Carolyn Elwess, Laura Gayle Green, Alan Laufman, Charles McManis, Albert Neutel, Barbara Owen, Michael Quimby, Pam Reeder, Lois Regestein, John Schaefer, Katharine Fichthorn Schanz, Jack Sievert, and Mary Ellen Sutton.

 

Bibliographical material on Park College is found in Fishburn Archives, McAfee Memorial Library, and on Missouri Valley College in Murrell Memorial Library. The author expresses his appreciation to Carolyn McHenry Elwess of Park and Pam Reeder of Missouri Valley for their assistance.

Notes

                  1.              Junchen, David L., Encyclopedia of the American Theater Organ, Pasadena, California: Showcase Publications, Vol. 1, 1985, pp. 206-209.

                  2.              Bradley, Van Allen, Music for the Millions: The Kimball Piano and Organ Story, Chicago, Illinois: Henry Regnery Company, 1957, p. 191.

                  3.              Junchen, op cit, p. 209.

                  4.              Charles McManis, letter to the author, October 8, 1998.

                  5.              Jack Sievert, letter to the author, September 30, 1998.

                  6.             A Chronicle of Memories: Park College--1875-1990, Copyright by the Alumni Association of Park College, Parkville, Missouri, 1990, pp. 17-21. Also C. M. Elwess, "Park College: Past, Present and Future," Alumni Directory, 1995, p. V.

7.                    

Alois Lang (1871-1955), was a native of Oberammerg

 

PARK COLLEGE

PARKVILLE, MISSOURI

 

DEDICATION

ANNETTE MATILDA HERR ORGAN

PROGRAM

June 7, 1931

William Harrison Barnes

 

1. (a) Caprice Heroique                Bonnet

    (b) Reverie  Bonnet

    (c) Andante (Grand Piece Symphonique)   Franck

2. (a) Scripture and Prayer        Pres. Frederick W. Hawley

    (b) He, Watching Over Israel             Mendelssohn

3. (a) The Legend of the Mountain       Karg-Elert

    (b) Scherzo Rogers

    (c) Dripping Spring Joseph Clokey

4. Remarks concerning the Tonal Structure of the Organ         Barnes

5. (a) Nocturne                 Farrata

    (b) Beside the Sea   Schubert

    (c) Toccata (Gothic Suite)   Boellmann

 

Benediction

 

PARK COLLEGE

PARKVILLE,  MISSOURI

 

DEDICATORY RECITAL

William H. Barnes, Mus.D. (Park)

Monday evening, October 24, 1938

at eight o'clock

 

Grand Choeur Dialogue               Gigout

Sketch in D Flat               Schumann

St. Anne's Fugue             J.S. Bach

Chorale Prelude "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring"               J.S. Bach

Prelude and Fugue in B Flat     J.S. Bach

Chorale Prelude "Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming"     Johannes Brahms

Ronde Francais                 Boellmann

The Mirrored Moon      Karg-Elert

Pastorale              Cesar Franck

Chorale in E Major        Cesar Franck

Dreams                 McAmis

Theme And Variations                  Widor

 

Graham Tyler Memorial Chapel, Park College, Parkville, Missouri

W.W. Kimball, 1931

 

Great Organ (enclosed)

                  16'          Open Diapason (unit) 85 pipes

                  8'             First Diapason 61 pipes

                  8'             Second Diapason (from 16' Diap)                                            61 notes

                  8'             Clarabella (ext Pedal Bourdon) 17                                            pipes

                  8'             Concert Flute 61 pipes

                  4'             Octave (from 16' Diap) 61 notes

                  4'             Flute Harmonique 61 pipes

                  II              Grave Mixture 122 pipes

                  8'             Trumpet 61 pipes

                                    Chimes, 20 tubes

Swell Organ

                  16'          Bourdon (unit) 97 pipes

                  8'             Diapason 73 pipes

                  8'             Chimney Flute (from Bourdon) 73                                           notes

                  8'             Salicional 73 pipes

                  8'             Vox Celeste 73 pipes

                  8'             Spitz Flute Celeste 134 pipes

                  4'             Octave 73 pipes

                  4'             Flute (from Bourdon) 73 notes

                  22/3'      Nazard (from Bourdon) 73 notes

                  2'             Piccolo (from Bourdon) 73 notes

                  16'          Wald Horn 85 pipes

                  8'             Horn (from Wald Horn)

                  4'             Clarion (from Wald Horn)

                                    Harp (prepared for) 49 bars

Choir Organ

                  8'             Diapason (from Gt Second Diap)                                             61 notes

                  8'             Concert Flute (from Great) 61                                                                       notes

                  8'             Gamba 73 pipes

                  8'             Dulciana 73 pipes

                  8'             Unda Maris 61 pipes

                  4'             Harmonique Flute (from Great) 61                        notes

                  4'             Dulcet (Dulciana) 61 notes

                  8'             Clarinet 73 pipes

                  8'             Harp (from Swell)

Echo Organ (prepared for)

                  8'             Gedeckt 61 pipes

                  8'             Viol Aetheria 61 pipes

                  8'             Vox Angelica 61 pipes

                  4'             Flute (ext) 12 pipes

                  8'             Vox Humana 61 pipes

                                    Chimes

Pedal Organ

                  32'          Resultant 32 notes

                  16'          Diapason 44 pipes

                  16'          Second Diapason (from Great) 32                                            notes

                  16'          Bourdon 44 pipes

                  16'          Second Bourdon (from Swell) 32                                                               notes

                  8'             Octave (from Diapason) 32 notes

                  8'             Flute (from Bourdon) 32 notes

                  8'             Flauto Dolce (from Swell Bour-                                                                    don) 32 notes

                  16'          Wald Horn (from Swell) 32 notes

 

Source: The Diapason, March, 1931, page 2.

 

Graham Tyler Memorial Chapel, Park College, Parkville, Missouri

W.W. Kimball, 1938

 

Great Organ

                  16'          Contra Gemshorn (ext.) 12 pipes

                  8'             First Diapason 61 pipes

                  8'             Second Diapason 61 pipes

                  8'             Hohl Flote 61 pipes

                  8'             Gemshorn 61 pipes

                  4'             Octave 61 pipes

                  4'             Gemshorn (ext.) 12 pipes

                  4'             Flute Harmonique 61 pipes

                  IV            Fourniture 244 pipes

                  8'             Trumpet 61 pipes

                                    Chimes (Deagan "D" Kimball spe-                                           cial, piano hammer action) 25                                                                 tubular bells

                                    Tremolo

Swell Organ

                  16'          Lieblich Gedeckt (ext.) 12 pipes

                  8'             Geigen Diapason 73 pipes

                  8'             Rohrflote 73 pipes

                  8'             Salicional 73 pipes

                  8'             Voix Celeste 73 pipes

                  8'             Flauto Dolce 73 pipes

                  8'             Flute Celeste (T.C.) 61 pipes

                  4'             Octave Geigen 73 pipes

                  4'             Flute d'Amour (ext.) 12 pipes

                  22/3'      Nazard (ext.) 61 notes

                  2'             Flautino (ext.) 61 notes

                  13/5'      Tierce (prepared for)

                  IV            Plein Jeu 244 pipes

                  16'          Contra Fagotto 73 pipes

                  8'             Trumpet 73 pipes

                  8'             Corno d'Amour 73 pipes

                  8'             Vox Humana 61 pipes

                  4'             Clarion 73 pipes              

                  8'             Harp (prepared for)

                  4'             Celesta (prepared for)

                                    Tremolo

Choir Organ

                  16'          Contra Viola (ext.) 12 pipes

                  8'             Viola 73 pipes

                  8'             Viola Celeste (T.C.) 61 pipes

                  8'             Concert Flute 73 pipes

                  8'             Dulciana 73 pipes

                  8'             Unda Maris (T.C.) 61 pipes

                  4'             Lieblich Flote 73 pipes

                  4'             Viola (ext.) 12 pipes

                  4'             Dulcet (ext.) 12 pipes

                  22/3'      Dolce Twelfth (Dulciana) 61 notes

                  2'             Dolce Fifteenth (Dulciana) 61                                                                        notes

                  8'             Clarinet 73 pipes

                                    Chimes (Great)

                  8'             Harp (prepared for)

                  4'             Celesta (prepared for)

                                    Tremolo

Antiphonal Organ

Manual

                  8'             Diapason 61 pipes

                  8'             Melodia 61 pipes

                  8'             Viiole d'Amour 61 pipes

                  8'             Vox Angelica 49 pipes

                  4'             Octave 61 pipes

                                    Tremolo

Pedal Organ (Installed 1939)

                  32'          Sub Bourdon GGGG-BBBB* 5                                                                  pipes

                  16'          Open Diapason 44 pipes

                  16'          Bourdon 56 pipes

                  16'          Contra Viola (Choir) 32 notes

                  16'          Lieblich Gedeckt (Swell) 32 notes

                  8'             Octave (ext. Open Diapason) 32                                                                  notes

                  8'             Flute (ext. Bourdon) 32 notes

                  8'             Gemshorn (Great) 32 notes

                  8'             Stillgedeckt (Swell) 32 notes

                  4'             Flute (ext. Bourdon) 32 notes

                  16'          Contra Fagotto (Swell) 32 notes

                                    Chimes (Great), 8'

* First 7 notes Resultant

Pedal Antiphonal

                  16'          Lieblich Bourdon (ext. Melodia) 12                       pipes

 

Source: The Diapason, September 1, 1936, pp. 1-2.

 

PARK COLLEGE

PARKVILLE, MISSOURI

 

EDNA SCOTTEN BILLINGS

Organist

Tuesday evening, October  25, 1938

at eight o'clock

 

The Program

 

I

First Concerto  Bach

Allegro

Grave

Presto

Choral Prelude, "My Inmost Heart Doth Yearn"           Bach

Fugue in G Minor           Bach

 

II

Piece Heroique                  Franck

Saluto Angelico from "Cathedral Windows"   Karg-Elert

Romance             Bonnet

Lamento               Bonnet

Variations De Concert Bonnet

 

PARK COLLEGE

PARKVILLE, MISSOURI

 

ORGAN RECITAL

 

Joseph A. Burns, A.B., M.Mus., F.A.G.O.

Thursday evening, October 27, 1938

at eight o'clock

 

The Program

 

I

Fantasie And Fugue in G Minor              Bach

Ave Maria           Bossi

Siciliana, Stile Antico    Bossi

Scherzo in G Minor      Bossi

 

II

Clair De Lune  Karg-Elert

Chorale Inprovisation, "Jerusalem, Thou City Built On High"                Karg-Elert

Le Voldu Bourdon         Rimsky-Korsakoff

Andante Cantabile          Widor

Toccata in F      Widor

 

Stewart Chapel, Missouri Valley College, Marshall, Missouri

W.W. Kimball, 1935

 

Great Organ

                  16'          Contra Gemshorn (ext.) 12 pipes

                  8'             Diapason I 73 pipes

                  8'             Diapason II        73 pipes

                  8'             Harmonic Flute 73 pipes

                  8'             Dulciana (Choir) 61 notes

                  4'             Octave 73 pipes

                  3'             Flute (Swell) 61 notes

                  III            Mixture (12, 15, 19) 183 pipes

                  8'             Trumpet  73 pipes

                                    Chimes

                                    Harp

                                    Celesta

                                    Tremolo

Swell Organ

                  16'          Lieblich Gedeckt (ext.) 12 pipes

                  8'             Geigen Principal 73 pipes

                  6'             Rohrflote 73 pipes

                  8'             Flute Dolce 73 pipes

                  8'             Flute Celeste 73 pipes

                  8'             Salicional 73 pipes

                  8'             Vox Celeste 73 pipes

                  4'             Octave Geigen 73 pipes

                  4'             Flute d'Amour (ext.) 12 pipes

                  22/3'      Nazard (ext.) 61 notes

                  2               Flageolet (ext.) 61 notes

                  16'          Waldhorn 73 pipes

                  8'             Trompette 73 pipes

                  8'             Vox Humana 61 pipes

                  4'             Clarion 73 pipes

                                    Harp

Choir Organ

                  8'             Diapason (Great II) 61 notes

                  8'             Melodia 73 pipes

                  8'             Dulciana 73 pipes

                  8'             Unda Maris 73 pipes

                  4'             Flute (ext. Melodia) 12 pipes

                  4'             Dulcet (ext. Dul.) 12 pipes

                  22/3'      Dolce Twelfth (ext.) 61 notes

                  2'             Piccolo (ext. Melodia) 61 notes

                  2'             Dolce Fifteenth (ext.) 61 notes

                  13/5'      Dolce Tierce (ext.) 4 pipes

                  8'             French Horn 73 pipes

                  8'             Cor Anglais 73 pipes

                  8'             Clarinet 73 pipes

                                    Harp

                                    Celesta

                                    Tremolo

Pedal Organ

                  32'          Acoustic Bass 32 notes

                  16'          Open  Diapason 32 pipes

                  16'          Contra Gemshorn (Gt.) 32 notes

                  16'          Bourdon 32 pipes

                  16'          Lieblich Gedeckt (Sw.) 16 pipes

                  8'             Octave (ext. O.D.) 12 pipes

                  8'             Gemshorn (Gt.) 32 notes

                  8'             Flute Ouverte 32 notes

                  8'             Stillgedeckt 32 notes

                  4'             Super Octave 12 pipes

                  16'          Trombone (ext. Gt.) 12 pipes

                  8               Trumpet (Great) 32 notes

                                    Chimes

 

Source: The Diapason, January, 1936, pp. 1-2.

 

STEWART COLLEGE

MISSOURI VALLEY COLLEGE

MARSHALLL, MISSOURI

 

Dedicatory Recital

James Edwin Richey Memorial Organ

Thursday evening, December 5, 1935

Dean Claude Leslie Fichthorn, recitalist

 

Toccata and Fugue in D Minor                Bach

Symphony Number 2  Widor

Praeludium Circulaire

Pastorale

Andante

Salve Regina

Adagio

Finale

Marche Champetre        Boex

Largo, New  World Symphony               Dvorak

The Forest          Fichthorn

On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring               Delius

Firebird Suite    Stravinsky

Berceuse

Finale

R. E. Coleberd

R. E. Coleberd is a contributing editor to The Diapason.

Introduction

Pipe organ building in America today, as portrayed in the music media, is described exclusively as the crafting of new instruments, some with mechanical action and nearly all with carved or gilded cases. This is understandable given the news value of new instruments, but it is nonetheless unfortunate because it ignores a vital segment of organbuilding today: the restoration, rebuilding, refurbishing, updating, and modernizing of existing instruments as well as the building of new instruments from recycled and new material. This activity is primarily the work of individuals and small firms, unsung heroes in the spectrum of organbuilding today. Their work is especially important for two reasons: it speaks to the ongoing primacy of the King of Instruments as the time-honored musical medium in a house of worship, and the determination of congregations, recognizing this fact, to preserve and promote the pipe organ for present and future generations.
In 1966 the author published, in these pages, “The Place of the Small Builder in the American Organ Industry.” His comment that the independent builder “may well assume increasing importance in the future of the pipe organ and the organ industry”1 was perhaps prophetic of the situation today. In many ways this narrative is a continuation and update of that article. Forty years ago the pipe organ industry was dominated by the major builders, whose work accounted for 80% of the new instruments in a market where the discarding and replacement of older instruments was a major portion of the work. Today the situation is vastly different. The market is now only a shadow of its former self. Several major builders have folded, unable to continue under greatly diminished factory production; buyers have welcomed the electronic instrument amid drastically diminished mainline church membership and budgets; and the academic market, with certain notable exceptions, is gone because colleges and universities are market-driven and direct capital resources to enrollment demand.
Yet, organbuilding continues, and pipe organs will always be built in this country and the world over. An important segment of this effort, now demanding recognition, is the work of talented individuals, working alone and in collaboration with other artisans, to craft instruments of singular artistic merit in accordance with public recognition today that a pipe organ is a work of art and the work of an artist. In a statement in 1966 prophetic of the situation today, Robert J. Reich, founder and now retired president of the Andover Organ Company, an early participant in the tracker organ revival in America, stated his philosophy of organbuilding as “the craftsman’s approach to construction and the musician’s approach to tone.”2 Musical interest and skill begin early and often with other instruments, while craftsmanship is acquired through formal and informal training.
This article describes the career of D. Steuart Goodwin: the experiences and individuals who shaped his philosophy of organbuilding, details of several instruments in his opus list, and his contemporary voicing and tonal finishing assignments. Steuart has won the admiration and respect of organ committees, organists, and builders as evidenced by his assignments across the country. Jack Bethards, president of Schoenstein Organbuilders, calls Goodwin a genius:

There is no other way to explain his brilliance in so many fields. Steuart combines the well-honed skill of a master craftsman with the cultivated taste and sensitivity of a fine artist. He has a real gift for design both visual and tonal. He is a musician through and through. His touch with pipes is magical. With ease and efficiency, he can bring the best musical quality out of just about any set of pipes.3

Said Manuel Rosales of Rosales Organbuilders:

My friend and colleague Steuart Goodwin is a rare individual, whose organ building talents combine great skill, good taste, and economy of resources. He is equally at home with visual design, tonal finishing, and hands-on organbuilding. His love of the craft is exemplified by the warm and inviting sounds of his new instruments and many revoicing projects. He and his work continue to be a source of personal and professional inspiration for me, his coworkers, and his clients.4

Early life and education

Donald Steuart Goodwin, Jr. was born on April 9, 1942 in Riverside, California, the son of a building contractor who sang in college musical productions, and a sometime public school teacher and housewife who taught piano privately.5 His grandfather, Phillip Goodwin, taught violin in Redlands, California, and played in a string quartet. Steuart’s folks met at the University of Redlands, a Baptist liberal arts college long known for its fine musical program. Arthur Poister taught organ there in the 1920s when a celebrated four-manual, 54-rank Casavant organ, recently restored and updated, was installed in Memorial Chapel. The organ program at Redlands is primarily associated with Leslie Spelman (1903–2000), a nationally known teacher and pedagogue who joined the faculty in 1937.6
Steuart’s musical interests began early; his 96-year-old mother recalls that he could carry a tune at the age of two. He began cornet lessons in the fourth grade and enrolled in the band at Lincoln School in Riverside. He recalls as a youngster asking his mother about the Estey pipe organ in the family’s Methodist church, but what really turned him on was when, at the age of fourteen, he and his father saw Disney’s 20,000 Leagues under the Sea and heard Captain Nemo play Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor. “I went home and played my older sister Jane’s recording over and over, checked out books at the library on organbuilding, and from that time on I was permanently ‘hooked’,” he says.7
Eager to study organ, Steuart approached Roberta Bitgood, organist at Calvary Presbyterian Church in Riverside, who had studied organ with Clarence Dickinson and who was later national president of the AGO. She suggested he begin with a year of piano instruction, which he did, before studying with her for two years, in the 11th and 12th grades.8 While in high school, his future organbuilding career began when he installed a three-rank Robert Morton theatre organ in his family’s garage. His theatre organ interest continued and became part of his work.
In 1959 he matriculated in the music program at the University of Redlands, majoring in composition under Wayne Bohrnstedt, having already written two chorale preludes for organ and a sonata for woodwind quintet. He sang in the University Choir his freshman year and played in the concert band all four years. In 1961, his sophomore year, he won the $800 first prize in the Forest Lawn Foundation Writing Awards Contest with an essay entitled, “The Organ Builder Finds His Place.”9 During Goodwin’s junior year, the band director persuaded three trumpeters to switch to French horn, which was a wise move for Steuart as he went on to play horn for 13 seasons in the University-Community Symphony—until it was converted to all union professionals.10 In recent years he has played French horn in a woodwind quintet and in the Redlands Fourth of July Band.
Goodwin studied organ at Redlands with Raymond Boese (1924–1988), who came to Redlands in 1961 to join his former teacher and now colleague Leslie Spelman in the music department.11 By his junior year, Steuart had become dissatisfied with the Wicks, Harry Hall (New Haven), and Robert Morton practice organs on campus, all dated and woefully inadequate for modern pedagogy and performance. He convinced the school that they needed a tracker instrument, having been listening avidly to recordings by E. Power Biggs playing and narrating tracker organs in Europe. Scouring classified ads in The Diapason, he found an 1870s George Stevens (Cambridge) instrument for sale by Nelson Barden.12 After months of negotiating with school officials, the parties reached an agreement, whereby the school would pay for the instrument and shipping, and Goodwin would install it in Watchorn Hall. In gratitude for this effort, the school awarded him three credits toward graduation.13 Steuart’s senior recital at Redlands, featuring his own compositions, included a Trio for horn, violin and piano, a Quintet for woodwinds, a Sonata for organ, and a Suite for brass.14 He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in music in 1964.
During this period he built a small organ with paper pipes on which he could play a Haydn clock piece (see photos). Then, in a remarkable coincidence, E. Power Biggs played a recital on the Casavant in the Redlands chapel. Goodwin showed him the paper-pipes organ, and Biggs, unprompted, played that particular Haydn piece on it. Recognizing Steuart’s interest and promise, Biggs suggested that he apply for a Fulbright scholarship to study organbuilding in Europe. In his letter of recommendation to the Institute of International Education, Biggs wrote:

Steuart Goodwin has the possibly-unusual wish to study organ building in Europe, preferably in the center of fine organs, old and new, which is Holland. . . . I cannot think of anyone who would be more qualified for a Fulbright grant than Steuart Goodwin, nor anyone who could make better use of the opportunity. Already at Redlands he has proved his theoretical grasp of the subject, and his ability to transform ideas into action, and practical results.”15

The choice for the Fulbright year abroad for Goodwin, 1964–65, was between Flentrop and von Beckerath. He chose Flentrop because most Hollanders speak English, and his German was very limited. His experience was mixed, probably unlike that of most Fulbright scholars, he comments. He was assigned to the pipe shop where he acquired pipemaking skills, but he had a brief run-in with Mr. Flentrop. Inadvertently interrupting a conference while trying to introduce himself, he was subsequently ushered into the maestro’s office and severely scolded. “If we had been Germans you would have been thrown out immediately,” Flentrop said, adding, “you can stay here if you will simply work in the pipe shop and keep quiet. Try to observe the Dutch boys and behave as they do.”16 This meant never asking questions—asking questions was unheard of for an apprentice. He was never allowed to see the company woodworking shop in Koog an de Zaan. He did, however, make several sets of pipes for the Rugwerk division of the large four-manual Flentrop instrument in St. Mark’s Episcopal Cathedral in Seattle.
At the end of his Flentrop sojourn, Goodwin met with Dr. Martin Vente, internationally renowned organ historian and scholar, who provided him with a map locating important Dutch organs nearby. He spent several days traveling by train and bicycle to see many of them. The one that deeply impressed him and would greatly influence his emerging tonal philosophy and mark his work today was at the Oude Kerk in Amsterdam, ironically dismissed by Flentrop as too romantic.17 “I suffered something of a cognitive dissonance over this, since Flentrop represented the Neo-Baroque ideal espoused by Biggs,” Steuart comments. “I was supposed to like the Baroque, but found myself more deeply moved by the 19th-century voluptuousness of this instrument.”18
Returning from Holland, he opened a small shop in San Bernardino, soon welcoming an opportunity to move to a larger, well-equipped facility nearby, the former Fletcher Planing Mill, whose owner was retiring. There he built three small tracker organs and rebuilt two. Opus 1, a six-rank, two-manual tracker for the Fine Arts building at the University of Redlands, was originally purchased by the organ professor, Raymond Boese. He sold his interest to the university, which paid Steuart a nominal sum and traded him the Hall and Morton instruments. The stoplist comprised a Gemshorn 8' and Principal 2' on Manual I, a Gedeckt 8' and Rohrflute 4' on Manual II, and a 16' Bourdon and 4' Choral Bass on the Pedal, plus the usual couplers. His Opus 2, 1972, was an 11-rank, two-manual tracker for the Fourth Ward Mormon Church in Riverside. In 1973 he built Opus 3, a one-manual, four-rank rental organ. This instrument was used at the Memorial Chapel, University of Redlands, for the Feast of Lights one year, and has been rented by the Ambassador Auditorium and by the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Chamber Orchestras for use in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion and Hollywood Bowl. It is now in a home in Altadena.19 Reflecting on Opus 1 and 2, he describes this period as his Biggs, Flentrop, Schlicker days and says:

In each of these first two small organs there was to be only one independent eight-foot rank on the Great. It needed to work as an accompanimental sound as well as the foundation for a small principal chorus. At St. Bavo in Holland, I had heard an unforgettably warm tapered hybrid stop called ‘Barpijp,’ which inspired me to use a Gemshorn instead of a less flexible Principal or Stopped Flute. I experimented with using Gemshorns in a Swell division, but soon grew out of that and came to greatly prefer real string tone.20

During this long period of apprenticeship including travel, reading, talking with organists and organbuilders, and perhaps most importantly listening—to records and instruments—his philosophy of organbuilding and tonal ideals were taking shape, and he made certain fundamental decisions about the direction of his emerging career. He determined that he wanted to work individually, expressing his own artistic concepts, free from the constraints of established large builders where opinions differ, compromises are often the rule, and mimicking some academic paradigm or current fashion is required. His primary goal became to achieve “a certain populist sensibility when it comes to providing what will please congregations and audiences.”21 “Many times I have wondered whether to stay [in Redlands], but if I were to work for a nationally known organ builder, I would lose the independence I have here,” he told the San Bernardino Sun-Telegram in 1978.22 And as he told columnist Nelda Stuck of the Redlands Daily Facts in 1987, “There is no area of music I can think of where there are so many factions and arguments about style,” referring to Baroque vs. Romantic pipe organs and tracker vs. electro-pneumatic action.23

Trinity Episcopal Church

Opus 4, an instrument in which he takes particular pride, illustrates the scope of Goodwin’s early work and evidences his talents in voicing and case designs: the 35-rank, 31 speaking stops, three-manual tracker in Trinity Episcopal Church, Redlands, California. Originally built in 1853 by the prominent New York City builder George Jardine for the First Presbyterian Church in Rome, New York, it was acquired by St. Michael’s Ukrainian Catholic Church in Rome in 1908, where it was rebuilt by C. E. Morey of Utica, New York. Meanwhile, Trinity Church in Redlands installed a three-manual Austin, Opus 111, in 1904.24
The Jardine-Morey organ was acquired through the Organ Clearing House, and over a period of 19 months was rebuilt, together with parts of the Austin, as an eclectic instrument combining 802 original and 838 new pipes for a total of 1640 (see 1975 stoplist). This project illustrates the amalgamation of older and new material into an instrument of singular artistic merit. Through a vision of what these two instruments together could and should be, Goodwin was able to “see” how the skilful blending of solo and foundation stops would produce vibrant and colorful choruses and ensembles. This organ fulfills Goodwin’s conviction that there has to be a visual-sonic relationship, i.e., a relationship between what you see and what you hear (see photos). “A pipe organ should be capable of choruses, amalgams of many tones from many pipes, producing a rich, subtly infused musical statement,” he told Dennis Tristram, a reporter for the Riverside Daily Press newspaper.25
In an arched nave opening three lancet arches were formed of oak and filled with 15 newly painted and stenciled dummy pipes retained from the Austin façade. Trinity Church has been described as an example of 19th-century Anglo-American architecture, which led to the chancel case design that Steuart based on the case at Peterborough Cathedral in England designed by Arthur George Hill (1857–1923), described as one of the great Victorian organ builders.26
During the construction of this organ Steuart joined the choir, and ultimately became confirmed as a member of the church. This has provided an unusual opportunity for the builder to repeatedly update and modify the instrument over many years, both tonally and mechanically. The large single bellows was replaced a number of years ago with individual regulators for each division, resulting in steadier wind and the possibility of divisional tremulants. More recently electric stop and combination actions were installed, several ranks were added and others moved around, giving the organ more scope and a more English flavor (see 2004 stoplist).

Tonal evolution

Goodwin’s work is especially noteworthy because it represents the crafting of instruments embracing the required resources in tonal families and pitches capable of performing the great music of antiquity as well as today’s requirements, but one that is free from the strident and narrow definitions of Baroque, Neo-Baroque, North German, South German, or American Classic stoplists, scales, wind pressures, and voicing. These eclectic instruments, beginning with the work of individual artisans and small shops, have influenced a new style of organs, free from the prejudices against stops that in the 1950s were considered “old hat” and indicative of an obsolete organ that should be replaced. Formerly verboten stops—the Melodia, Cornopean, Harmonic Flute, and Vox Humana, for example—are now recognized for their intrinsic musical content and are often embraced without hesitation by many builders who incorporate them in their instruments, confident of their ongoing musical value. This approach extends to the use of wooden flue work and open flutes, a defining characteristic of American organbuilding from the very beginning, but largely eschewed in the 1950s in favor of metal ranks and tapered, half-tapered, stopped, and chimneyed stops.
Steuart’s Opus 5 was a restoration for St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Upland, California, of E. & G. G. Hook & Hastings’ Opus 734, 1873, formerly located in the First Baptist Church in Bloomington, Illinois. Opus 6 is a four-rank, two-manual house organ, featuring an ornate case and suspended action (see photo).27 This is an early example of an elaborate 18th-century case as built by the Dutch and Germans and pioneered by John Brombaugh in America at a time when the European builders were building modern cases in this country. In 1978, in a brief detour from mechanical action, Steuart built a two-manual, six-rank unit organ with electric action for the United Methodist Church in Yucaipa, California. “I never built another unit organ for a church,” he comments. “I am enthusiastic about the unit principle for a theatre organ, but you can easily overdo it in church work if you are concerned about good tone.”28
In 1978, David Dixon, who met Manuel Rosales at Schlicker in Buffalo and who became his partner in Los Angeles (and who later returned to Schlicker before his untimely death at an early age), approached Steuart about working for them, which he elected to do. He assisted in their introduction to tracker work, in designing cases, traded organ philosophy with Manuel, and acquired some refinements in voicing technique from Dixon.
Opus 8, a 13-rank, two-manual electropneumatic action organ for the First Baptist Church in Colton, California in 1979, marked a major milestone in Goodwin’s tonal philosophy, and contains elements that characterize his later work. In earlier years he was interested in tracker action, but over time came to believe that even 11 ranks (Opus 2, Fourth Ward Chapel, L.D.S. Church, Riverside) in a tracker aren’t very flexible. He became convinced of the value of a unit Gedeckt stop, which he first used in Colton and subsequently on several 12- or 13-rank instruments (see stoplists for Colton and St. George’s Episcopal Church). He began searching for a small, flexible church organ design, and the unit Gedeckt was part of the answer. “I hit upon it almost by accident while contemplating for Colton how to best use a couple of pitman chests incorporating one unit chest,”29 he comments, adding:
“The concept begins, as usual, with a complete principal chorus, 8' through mixture, on the Great. Next, on the Swell, I use a pair of strings (real string tone, not hybrids), a medium-bright Trumpet, and (where space and finances permit) a 4' Principal or Fugara. Budgetary concerns generally limit independent pedal ranks to the ubiquitous 16' Bourdon. The Great also contains an open metal flute, which, in the Colton prototype, was originally part of an Aeolian house organ. The pipes looked ridiculous to one brought up on Neo-Baroque ideals. The heavily nicked mouths were cut-up two-thirds in a half circle, and, yet, when you blew on them they were magically beautiful. I began to realize that you couldn’t depend on what other people said was good, you had to trust your own ears.
“The 85 to 97 pipes of a Lieblich Gedeckt are located on a unit chest in the Swell box. This rank is made available at three pitches on the Great, six on the Swell, and four to six pitches on the Pedal. Importantly, the Gedeckt stop tabs on each division are grouped together to the right of the straight stops and couplers, and they are not affected by the couplers.
“This arrangement makes the structure of the tonal design quickly apparent to an organist, while simultaneously making registration practically goof-proof. For instance, it is impossible to mix the derived mutations on the Swell with the principal chorus on the Great. I settled on the Lieblich Gedeckt for the one unified rank because it blends well at all pitches and because the pitch-beats caused by an equal-tempered rank used at mutation pitches are only barely discernible.
“In an organ of only 12 or 13 ranks, one can make dozens of useful combinations and build ensembles suggesting a much larger instrument. For instance, on the Pedal the 51⁄3' through 2' pitches—when used with the Great chorus coupled—reinforce the 16' line and create the impression that there is a Pedal mixture. A solo Cornet effect can be registered as follows: couple the string and celeste to the Great and silence them on the Swell using the Unison Off. Then set a solo combination of Gedeckt pitches such as 8', 4', 22⁄3' and 13⁄5' on the Swell (tremulant optional).
“The point of all this is to provide excellent sound and unusual flexibility in a small church organ design. To keep these organs even more affordable, we incorporate many used parts and pipes. A brand new console shell is hardly a necessity when so many are available used. I like to put the money where it counts the most—in careful voicing and tonal finishing, new electronic relays, and high quality visual designs.”30
The discovery of the Aeolian open metal flute, quixotically called Flute Piano (apparently for people barely musical and certainly not organists) was to mark a milestone in Goodwin’s career. Placed in the Great of his instrument in Colton, it proved to be of such great value as both a solo and ensemble stop that it led him to incorporate 8¢ open flutes on that division routinely. Most instruments, having a Chimney Flute on the Great and Gedeckt on the Swell, don’t have the flexibility of an open 8' flute, an important color in his judgment, adding, “I voice it quietly in the bass and midrange and somewhat ascendant from middle C up so one rank can be used three ways: as an accompaniment stop in the left hand, a solo stop in the treble and a lighter foundation than a Diapason in a Principal chorus.”31
Perhaps the most impressive example is found at Holy Cross Church in Santa Cruz, California. Built in 1889 on the site of one of the famous Spanish Missions, Holy Cross is an imposing neo-Gothic brick building with splendid acoustics. Starting with a 13-rank A. B. Felgemaker tracker obtained through Alan Laufman and the Organ Clearing House, Goodwin added 10 ranks including an open metal flute, two mixtures, two chorus reeds and a string celeste (see before and after stoplists above right, and photo on page 28).
In 1995, Steuart installed his Opus 15, a remarkably cohesive two-manual and pedal organ of 12 ranks, featuring the unit Gedeckt and the 8' open flute discussed above in St. George’s Episcopal Church, Riverside (see stoplist on page 26, and photo left). The striking white oak case is accented with bronze moldings and padouk wood stripes.32

Voicing and tonal finishing

In 1980 Steuart became associated with the Schoenstein firm in San Francisco, which marked still another chapter in his career, one that would grow and distinguish his work today. He worked closely with Jack Bethards, Schoenstein president, in the major renovation of the epic Aeolian-Skinner organ in the Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake City, where he did most of the flue voicing. Bethards does extensive consulting coast-to-coast, and when he concludes that the major problem with an organ is inferior tonal work, he often recommends Steuart, who, working with his assistant Wendell Ballantyne, has had nationwide assignments: New York, Georgia, Texas, and North Carolina. Reworking an older instrument almost always begins with a sensitive new organist, and one job leads to another. This work typically involves removing sizzle and chiff, increasing foundation tone, repitching a mixture with new breaks, and replacing unsuitable pipes. With his fine reputation as a voicer and finisher, when prospects hear his work, they want the same thing. For example, Steuart’s current work at the Covenant Presbyterian Church in Charlotte, North Carolina, is the direct result of his work at Myers Park Baptist Church there. Goodwin’s recent theatre work includes voicing, in collaboration with Lynn Larsen, a large theatre and romantic instrument in the home of Adrian Phillips in Phoenix, Arizona, and completing a mostly seven-rank Wurlitzer organ in his own home in Highland. His much admired tonal work on the epic four-manual, 26-rank Wurlitzer in Plummer Auditorium, Fullerton, led to his election to the governing board of the Orange County Theatre Organ Society.33

Summary

In a varied career marked by many accomplishments, Steuart Goodwin represents the individual organbuilder, working alone or in collaboration with others, a vital segment in the spectrum of organbuilding in America today. Long neglected but deserving of greater recognition, the work of these persons may well assume greater significance in the future of the trade and the instrument. Beginning with a rich musical background, often both instrumental and vocal, which continues, they acquire the knowledge and skills of building the pipe organ through travel, reading, observation and apprenticeship. In their deep commitment to the King of Instruments, they gladly sacrifice more lucrative occupations. Today and tomorrow, amid the manifold and far-reaching changes in our culture, the majestic pipe organ is recognized as a work of art and the work of an artist. There can be no better example of this truth than the life and work of Steuart Goodwin.
 

Steuart Goodwin & Co. Opus List

1. 1970. Two-manual, six-rank tracker practice organ. Now in home of Dr. Harold Knight in Dallas, Texas.
2. 1972. Two-manual, 11-rank tracker, 4th Ward, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Riverside, California.
3. 1974. One-manual, four-rank portable rental organ. Now in home of Bruce and Mary Elgin, Altadena, California.
4. 1976. Three-manual, 35-rank tracker, Trinity Episcopal Church, Redlands, California. With components of an 1852 Jardine from Rome, New York, obtained through the Organ Clearing House.
5. 1977. Two-manual, 17-rank tracker, St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, Upland, California. Rebuild of E. & G. G. Hook & Hastings #734, 1873, obtained through the Organ Clearing House.
6. 1978. Two-manual, four-rank practice organ in the home of Frances Olson, Mount Baldy Village, California.
7. 1978. Two-manual, six-rank unit organ, now in St. John’s Episcopal Church, Corona, California.
8. 1979. Two-manual, 13-rank electro-pneumatic, First Baptist Church, Colton, California.
9. 1984. Two-manual, 13-rank tracker, Our Lady of the Rosary Cathedral, San Bernardino, California. Rebuild of Moller #1701, 1913, obtained through the Organ Clearing House.
10. 1988. Two-manual, 23-rank tracker, Holy Cross Church, Santa Cruz, California. Based on A. B. Felgemaker #506, 1889, enlarged and considerably modified visually and tonally.
11. 1991. Two-manual, 11-rank, electric action, Stake Center, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Simi Valley, California. Incorporates many pipes and parts of Moller #5482, 1928, obtained through the Organ Clearing House.
12. 1992. Two-manual, 13-rank electro-pneumatic, Fontana Community Church, Fontana, California. Incorporates console and many pipes from the church’s 1920s Spencer organ.
13. 1993. Three-manual, 38-rank, electric slider chests, First Christian Church, Pomona, California. Extensive tonal revisions. Based on Hook & Hastings #2240 with prior modifications and additions by Ken Simpson and Abbott & Sieker.
14. 1995. Two-manual, 19-rank, electric and electro-pneumatic, St. Timothy Lutheran Church, Lakewood, California.
15. 1995. Two-manual, 12-rank, electro-pneumatic, St. George’s Episcopal Church, Riverside, California.

Other work

The tonal finishing team of Steuart Goodwin and Wendell Ballantyne has done extensive work on organs in California, Georgia, North Carolina, New York, Texas and Utah.
Steuart has worked on many case design and voicing projects with Rosales Organbuilders and Schoenstein & Co. For photographs and details visit .
For research input and critical comments on earlier drafts of this paper, the author gratefully acknowledges: Edward Ballantyne, Jack Bethards, Ken W. List, Albert Neutel, Donald Olson, Michael Quimby, Robert Reich, Manuel Rosales, Jack Sievert, and R. E. Wagner.

by Joseph Horning

Johannes Brahms, who died 100 years ago on April 3, 1897, composed the final installment of his musical legacy--the Eleven Chorale Preludes, Opus 122 --during the last year of his life. They were written during his summer holiday at Ischl, where Brahms had vacationed annually from 1889. But his final visit was clouded by Clara Schumann's recent death and his own illness, cancer of the liver, which had taken his father twenty-five years earlier and the symptoms of which he likely would have recognized.1

 

When considering Op. 122, it is valid to ask: "Are these works all that special?"--because no composer created an endless string of pearls. Indeed, Peter Williams revealed his reservations in a review in The Organ Quarterly:

[While] the stature of the man makes all his works interesting in some way or another, there is something depressing about this music.  I do not mean merely the death-centered theme of Op. 122 but the general tenor of the musical idioms found here, the kind of organ sound most suitable for them and the weird absence--considering who their composer was--of melodic flare or that dramatic sense of sonority and rhythmic impetus we know from the composer's symphonies.2

As these works are chorale preludes, Mr. Williams' mention of "melodic flare" is peculiar. And his comparison to the "sonority and rhythmic impetus" of Brahms' symphonies is irrelevant, as these are clearly miniatures, each wonderful and satisfying when played in an empathetic manner. But it is perhaps unfortunate that the complete organ works of Johannes Brahms--his four early works dating from 1856-7 and the "Eleven"--fit so conveniently on one CD, for they are becoming the most frequently recorded set of organ works, second only to Boëllmann's ubiquitous Suite Gothique. Unlike the latter, however, Brahms' "Eleven" are a collection rather then a suite, and their effectiveness is diminished when heard all at one sitting. I feel they have far more impact and are more enjoyable inserted one or two at a time into an eclectic program.

Clearly, what can be a small masterpiece in the hands of one can be tedious in the hands of another--and even more so for Op. 122.  For with these works, Brahms has hidden eleven treasures inside a maze. In this essay, we will examine the "Eleven" and discuss ways to make these treasures come alive.

Form of the Chorales

To begin, see Table 1 for a survey of the forms Johannes Brahms used in Op. 122.  In addition to simple harmonized treatments, Brahms embellished some chorales into aria form, extended some with interludes, or used each phrase as a motif for the accompanying parts (Pachelbel style), or surrendered to a free fantasy form in which the original melody is almost totally lost.3

One can see from Table 1 that half are on Passiontide or requiem themes.  But only number 10, based on the "passion" chorale, expresses the depths of the emotions implied by the text: "My heart is ever yearning for blessed death's release." Of those based on other themes, numbers 5 through 8 are warm, lovely and contemplative and number 4 is an outburst of joy. Even O Welt, ich muss dich lassen, the last of the "Eleven" and Brahms' final composition, is a gentle farewell to life. E. Power Biggs summed up these works very well in the Preface to his edition of Op. 122:

Composed in memory of his dearest and most faithful friend, Clara Schumann, at the same time the Preludes are a revealing document of Brahms' thoughts on his own life. One biographer, Niemann, points out that most of the Preludes are: "A retrospect and an epilogue, a salutation to youth and its ideals, and a farewell to this world which is, after all, so fair." Somber as many of the Preludes are, they yet have a warm, autumnal quality that is all Brahms' own.4

Baroque or Romantic?

Since the "Eleven" are cast in the traditional German form of chorale preludes, and since Brahms had applied himself diligently to the rediscovery of early music, in particular Bach with whose music he was quite conversant,5 there is the question of whether the interpretation should reflect performance practice of the late 19th century or early 18th century. The great body of Brahms' compositions show that he was a thoroughly Romantic composer of great power. His Classical inclinations, however, restrained him from some of the delicious excesses of, say, a Tchaikovsky. Brahms' "Eleven" require the performance practice of Brahms' age, not the Baroque. When Villa-Lobos' Bachianas Brasileiras, or Dupré's "Chorale in the Style of J. S. Bach" (Fifteen Antiphons), or Franck's Three Chorales are performed--all of which took their inspiration from Bach --the interpretive style should be that of the composer's age, not the 18th century.  So also with the "Eleven." Robert Schuneman makes a key point when he says:

One should not be deceived by the brevity of the chorale preludes, nor with an initial reaction to the printed page which makes them look like chamber music. Their religious nature, the sacredness, otherworldliness, the transcendental quality--all of this is expressed by Brahms (as in other Romantic music) with grandeur, monumentality, and weightiness in terms of organ sound in acoustic space.6

An initial look at the printed page has misled many an organist to think that the "Eleven" are as easy to play as they are short, but Brahms sophisticated writing often seems to jig where the hand wants to jog. Simply learning the notes is the organist's first task.  But it is remarkable how many organists confide that these works are often poorly played even if the notes are correct.  Indeed, Schuneman decried " . . . the stiff, unyielding, ungraceful and ragged performances which are so often heard . . . "7

A Romantic Framework

For idiomatic interpretations of Brahms' "Eleven," it helps to consider them within the context of the 19th century. Born in 1886 in Belgium, the renowned organ virtuoso Charles M. Courboin provides a link with that sensibility. His pupil, Richard Purvis, discusses Courboin's approach:

Courboin always returned to three elemental principles in the consideration of any piece. First, one had to consider the architecture of the work; second was texture; third was emotional content. The architecture was most important. "Where are the high points," he would ask, "and how are you going to do them justice? Where are the transitional points, at which you leave one mood and go to another?"

If the architecture defined the parameters of the piece, the texture was the actual landscape for which Courboin often used visual imagery as might describe an oil painting, an etching or a watercolor.  At other times he would discuss texture in more strictly musical terms: was it contrapuntal, harmonic, a combination of the two?  And what tools were you going to use to emphasize the texture rather than obscure it.  Once you had the architecture and had done justice to the texture, you could then afford to explore the fine points of the emotions you were trying to communicate.  Courboin constantly asked, "What emotions does the piece involve, conjure up, portray?"8

The Brahms Organ

Brahms did play the organ to some degree in the 1850s when he wrote the four early compositions. But as he was never a professional organist associated with a specific organ, there has been an active debate over the years concerning the ideal Brahms organ sound. For example, registrations recommended by Walter E. Buszin and Paul G. Bunjes reveal their ideal Brahms organ to be a Baroque affair on which one should draw no more than one 8' stop per division.9 The result is far from weight, grandeur and monumentality.

A key year in this discussion is 1833, the year of Brahms' birth and the year in which E. F. Walcker completed his first major achievement, a 3-manual, 74-voice trendsetter for the Paulskirche in Frankfurt.10 The Oberwerk had five 8' flues and the Schwellwerk had six. The structure of the 23-voice Hauptwerk was as follows: 32,16,16,16,8,8,8,8,51/3, 4,4,4,31/5,22/3,2,2,13/5,1,V,IV,V,16,8. Walcker built hundreds of organs based on similar principles throughout the 19th century, including a 3-manual, 61-voice instrument built in 1878 for the Votivkirch in Vienna,11 an organ which was certainly known to Brahms as he had settled permanently in Vienna in 1868.  The Oberwerk of the Votivkirch organ had four 8' flues and the Schwellwerk five. The structure of the 23-voice Hauptwerk is: 16,16,8,8,8,8,8,8,8,51/3, 31/5,4,4,4,22/3,2,2,VI,III,V,16,8,4.12 Franz Ebner, who recorded the "Eleven" on this organ, stated:

The instrument on which Brahms' art can most suitably be realized is not the Baroque organ but that type in which the endeavors of the 19th century to attain a full, warm, immediately arresting tone found fulfillment.13

However, a "Brahms organ" does not have to be huge or even large.  As Max Miller pointed out in his article, "The Brahms Chorale Preludes--Master Lesson," the small instruments in every organ culture aspire to the effects of large instruments and thus clearly indicate the idealized sound of the time.14 He offers this 1869 German stoplist in which 60% of the manual voices are of 8' pitch:

Hauptwerk: 16,8,8,8,4,III

Oberwerk: 8,8,8,4

Pedal: 16,16,8.

For a fuller discussion of organ design in 19th century Germany, see Robert Parkins' series of articles in The Diapason: "Rediscovering the German Romantic Organ" (January, February and March, 1989).

Registrations

Robert Schuneman devoted a full page of his Brahms article to excerpts from Hugo Riemann's Catechism of the Organ, which gives an insight into German organ playing from the period 1845 to 1895. This is most valuable reading for those who play Brahms. One of the key concepts is horizontal registrations.  That is, one first combines a succession of 8' stops--from the softest to the Diapason--to create a bed of unison sound to which one adds the Octave, the 16', the 22/3' Quinte, the reed, the 2' and the Mixture in that order. The manuals are coupled to achieve fuller effects, and "gap" registrations like 8'+2' are to be avoided unless the composer has specified it.15

In "Some Thoughts on the Sound of the Organ," John David Peterson offers valuable insights into the ideal Brahms "sound":

Brahms' orchestrations call for a rich blend of dark colors. His favored instruments were the horn, viola, violoncello and clarinet, and his piano works challenge the player to call forth half- and counter-melodies from the tenor register of thick textures. It is not surprising that his organ works share the same sense of musical color.16

The key word which sums up registrations for Op. 122 is "warmth." Thus it is surprising that Robert Schuneman would have said: "Strings, as we know them today [1972], and especially celestes, are not appropriate."17 German 19th century stoplists had many a Gemshorn, Salizional, Fugara and Viola da Gamba and the celesting stops Unda Maris and Voix Celeste were to be found.  If these sounds were part of the organ culture of Brahms' time, and if one of his favorite orchestral effects was massed cellos and violas, what better way can there be to realize Op. 122 than by including strings in the registrations? The quieter chorales--Nos. 5, 6, 8 and 11--are excellent candidates for a celeste. If one has a broad Violoncello Celeste, it might be just the thing for the pedal cantus in No. 10. And how better to let the final notes of No. 11 O Welt, ich muss dich lassen float up into heaven than with a quiet celeste?

Brahms' Markings

While Brahms didn't indicate registrations, he left dynamic indications which, coupled with the precepts in Riemann's Catechism, may well amount to the same thing (see Table 2).

The dynamic markings and performance indications would seem to be clear enough, with the possible exception of "dolce." In Dynamics in the Music of Johannes Brahms, Imogen Fellinger says that dolce implies a weakening of the given preceding dynamic strength, just as expressivo is an intensification of the predominant dynamic strength.18 This may well be so where the dynamic marking is forte. Thus "forte ma dolce" in numbers 1, 3, and 11 would translate "loud but sweetly" or "loud but not strident." However, it seems a bit of a stretch to say that "dolce" in numbers 5 and 8 actually implies a dynamic slightly softer than the indicated "piano." It probably calls for a "sweet" or "gentle" interpretation and has nothing to do with dynamics. In support of this, note that only numbers 2, 7, 9 and 10 are without the "dolce." What is different about them from the rest? Both 2 and 9 are sturdy and forthright (the latter remarkably so), number 7 is a combination of urgency and melancholy, and number 10 is characterized by great pathos.

Tempo

In preparing this article, I studied fourteen organ recordings of Op. 122 and two of the Busoni piano transcriptions of Nos. 4-5 and 8-11. The range of tempi is remarkable. The slowest interpretations of the complete "Eleven" take 42 minutes whereas the fastest last but 21 minutes--half as long, or twice as fast.  The median19 duration was 321/2 minutes. See Table 3.

It is easier and clearer to discuss the tempos of these works, which as Romantic works are subject to considerable rubato, using the duration of the piece rather than metronome indications. The player who wishes to play Brahms musically would be well advised to avoid the extremes of tempo. Speeding through these works with the fastest tempos renders them meaningless and trite, but performances with the slowest tempos lacked energy and were often boring and stultifying. I found it of passing personal interest that the tempos at which I play these pieces are, in most cases, pretty close to the median. These median durations would seem to be a good starting place for those attempting to discover the ideal tempos.

Rubato

In his essay, "Playing Around With Tempo," Robert Schuneman describes tempo rubato:

Most music is mechanical without it in some form. On the other hand, the same music may turn into a caricature of its own intent and content with too much of it poorly applied. It is the most difficult of all musical terms to describe in words, and it takes an extremely sensitive player to use it well.20

As rubato is so difficult to describe in words, I would recommend Arthur Rubenstein's renditions of the Chopin Nocturnes as a most exquisite example of rubato in 19th century music.21

One might divide music into two types: objective and subjective. With objective music, of which Brahms' early a-minor and g-minor Prelude and Fugue are two good examples, if you play all the notes in a reasonably steady tempo, you achieve 80% of the composer's intent.  With subjective music, of which the "Eleven" are an excellent example, if you simply play all the notes in a reasonably steady tempo you realize absolutely none of the musical content the composer put into the work. The worst performances (with the notes played correctly) one will ever hear of Op. 122 are those in which, to paraphrase the popular song, "the beat goes on."

Schuneman makes an excellent point which is quite relevant to Op.122:

With the emergence after 1830 of free forms, program music, salon music, and the seeking out of emotional content over form, declamatory expression (free tempo rubato) became much more indispensable to good performance.  Furthermore, as the 19th  century progressed, tempo rubato became increasingly tied to dynamics. Accelerando means crescendo and vice-versa; ritardando means diminuendo and vice-versa.22

The most important performance points here are that in Op. 122, the beat itself is modified, which is a considerably further modification of tempo than the 18th century notion of rubato, where the melody in the right hand was subject to rubato but the beat in the left hand was not.23

Chorale No. 5, Schmücke dich, provides a clear illustration of the above points. Consider Figure 1, which is a harmonization of the chorale, as it would be sung. The added crescendo and decrescendo markings--not to be overdone, of course--simply indicate what any good choir would do intuitively. This music, all music, for that matter, is meant to be performed expressively. So apply this dynamic pattern to Brahms' realization of the chorale in Figure 2 (expression marks added to the Henle edition). If played on the Swell 8' flues, subtle opening and closing of the swell box is no problem. Per the above discussion of rubato, a subtle accelerando would accompany the crescendo and a ritardando comes with the diminuendo. One might alternatively describe this as a slight increase and decrease in intensity. Then there is the syncopated rhythmic pattern in the left hand which Brahms notated as shown in Figure 3, the way George Bozarth would have preferred to notate it in the Henle edition.24 Then there are the delicious dissonances, Brahms beloved major seconds, which Samuel Swartz always said "Brahms put there to linger over." And finally, there are the notes here and there to which, in expressive playing, one gives agogic accents. Integrate all of this into a performance and one has a small masterpiece. Play it straight on through ignoring these factors, on the other hand, and one has a very trite rendition.

Another excellent example of the necessity for rubato is in Chorale No, 11, O Welt, ich muss dich lassen. The structure of the work has a forte section followed by a piano section followed by a pianissimo section--which is repeated six times. Whether Brahms is simply using a series of echos or is referring to the vigor of youth, the mellowness of middle age and the weakness of old age we cannot know. But all of the pianissimo sections need to end with a ritard and a pronounced pause before beginning the next forte section. It is truly amazing that many play this work as if a metronome were clicking inside their heads, rushing past the pianissimo to get at that forte just in the nick of time. See Figure 4 for the interpretation marks I would suggest, and heed Max Miller's advice:

The variables of building and organ will dictate how much time is to be allowed and how freely the echoes should be taken. The non-harmonic tones require spaciousness and breadth in performance.  Time, for Brahms, has with this last composition ceased its hurry and its very meaning.25

Yet another reason for rubato is to give meaning to one of Brahms' favorite rhetorical gestures, the sigh motiv.  Consider the first four bars of O Gott, du frommer Gott (Figure 5), where the sigh motives are indicated by a bracket.  They are descending in mm. 2-3 and inverted in mm. 4-5.  Played in a metronomical tempo, these gestures are as musical as the regular clicks and whirs of factory machinery.  Played with a slight relaxation of tempo, they define the essence of Op. 122.

Indicated Phrasing

In addition to the dynamic and tempo markings, Brahms indicates a wealth of phrasing. Consider the first four bars of No. 1 in Figure 6. Brahms clearly and deliberately sets out a phrasing pattern which leaves little doubt of his intentions. In No. 3, however, there may be some question about the two-note slurs (see Figure 7). Some organists misinterpret these slurs as phrasing marks, and play the two eighth note figures as an eighth and a sixteenth, with a sixteenth rest before the next group begins. This misguided approach gives a jerky, frenetic sound which is the antithesis of the feeling of the chorale, O Welt, ich muss dich lassen. What Brahms meant by these markings was to give a slight stress to the first note of the groupings of two eighth notes. If strings played this piece, there would be the slightest, almost infinitesimal, pause in the sound as the bows changed direction between the eighth-note groupings. And this is precisely how it should be played on the organ.

It is in the very pianistic No. 4 that the precision markings in the Urtext Henle edition clearly communicate Brahms' intentions--markings which are changed or omitted in some other editions. See Figure 8 for the first four bars of No. 4. The quarter notes in the alto voice form a melody in which some notes are held longer than the precise note values, as indicated by the secondary slurs. In bars 1 and 3 the notes marked A are held for two beats,26 in bar 2 the note marked B is held for five beats, and in bar three the note marked C is held for three beats. This is consistent with 19th  century piano practice.

Leslie Spelman, who has spent a good bit of his extraordinarily long career promoting the "Eleven" in both recital and masterclass, sees a parallel to the above technique in No. 10 (see Figure 9). The notes with the horizontal bars added above them form a melody, and Dr. Spelman suggests holding them beyond their indicated value. The notes with the added slurs are to be held even longer. All the while, observing Brahms' molto legato indication and keeping the pulse nicely articulated in the bass.27 This exquisite chorale is also very pianistic and, in fact, is marvelously realized on the piano with a cello playing the cantus. Organists have been ending this piece with an a minor chord for nearly a century, and the A Major ending in the new editions--correcting an error in reading Brahms' autograph by the original editor Mandyczewski--sounds very strange to ears accustomed to the minor ending. But Henle edition editor George Bozarth points out that all of the minor-key preludes in the "Eleven" do, in fact, end with a Picardy third.28 A pronounced ritard in the penultimate measure and a generous observance of Brahms' indicated Adagio in the final bar does "set up" the A Major chord.

Soloing Out Melodies

In several of the Chorales, Brahms allows a clearly discernible melody in the soprano to move moments later to an inner voice where it can be obscured by the accompaniment above it. For example, this happens in measures 5-6 and 14-16 of Es ist ein Ros' entsprungen and measures 28-31 and 38-41 of O Gott, du frommer Gott. There are two schools of thought on this challenge.  Vernon Gotwals feels it is wrong to solo out melodies because this:

. . . shows an unawareness of the abstract nature of Brahms' conception.  It is wrong to emphasize any voice in the manner of the piano in these organ pieces, as Brahms knew that the melody would be lost when it dipped into the tenor in No. 7 or climbed from tenor to alto in No. 8. His subtle conception is destroyed by those who cannot forebear going beyond his precise registrational directions simply because it is physically possible to do so.29

Of course, this implies that in Op. 122 Brahms' conception was a total departure from almost everything he had written before. In his previous compositions, the pianists, instrumentalists and vocalists were able to emphasize and bring out musical lines in a way most suitable for the performance. I find it very unlikely that Brahms would prohibit emphasis of these obscured melodic lines--in fact, he probably would find the very question incomprehensible.

There are two ways to treat these lines. One can choose "solo" stops of exactly the same character as the accompaniment so that the principal difference between solo and accompaniment is volume, or one can choose a contrasting tone color. The former approach is probably more characteristic, although I must confess that the temptation to solo the tenor portions of Es ist ein Ros' on a Clarinet is very strong. The Clarinet was one of Brahms' favorite instruments, and if one has a nice one it may serve quite well. One doesn't have to play these works exactly the same way each and every time. The tenor melody in Es ist ein Ros' can be played on the pedals as suggested in the Biggs' edition (see Figure 10). But an alternative solution, which Leslie Spelman learned from Joseph Bonnet, is to play both the bass and tenor on the pedals starting on the third beat of m. 5, leaving the left hand free to solo the melody (see Figure 11).30

O Gott, du frommer Gott is one of the longest and most graceful of the chorales. One can very easily play the cantus on the Pedal 4' Chorale Bass. Draw 8' stops (at least the 8' Diapason and flute) on both the Great and Swell and couple them. Thus in the forte sections played on the Great, the Swell box can give an arch to the line. And in the piano sections played on the Swell, the box allows expression and perfect balance whether the solo soars out above or is buried within the accompaniment. The timbre of the Chorale Bass would be quite similar to the Diapason and flute of the Swell, with just a boost to the volume (see Figure 12). For emphasis one can add the Swell 4' Octave in measures 22-26, 50-54 and during the final five bars, but there is no indication that the forte section with which the work concludes should be significantly louder than the forte section with which it begins.

Repeated Notes

In the slower of Brahms' chorales, repeated notes in the soprano and bass should always be articulated, but there are some decisions to make about the inner voices. No. 11 O Welt, ich muss dich lassen is an excellent case in point. Though instances occur throughout the piece, the final three bars with their implied molto ritardando are critical. One might very well separate all the repeated notes in a room with five seconds reverberation. But see Figure 13 for a suggestion of adding ties on the inner voices to have the feeling of repetition without choppiness. This is not to say that Brahms should "ooze." In mm. 24-25 of the same chorale are two instances where added phrasing marks in the left hand and pedal can help set up the ending (see Figure 14).

Conclusion

Brahms' Chorale Preludes are very special compositions. As Fenner Douglas once observed, it's too bad for organists that Brahms didn't have a church job for a while, so that we might have more works from this master. I would urge those interested to seek out the cited articles by Bozarth, Gotwals, Miller, Peterson and Schuneman for a broader scope and fuller understanding of the problems and possibilities these works present. Playing these works expressively on the piano is also very helpful, as is experimenting with legato and super legato touch on the organ. Those who unlock the secrets of Op. 122 will not just have gained eleven lovely pieces for their repertoire--they will have learned things of inestimable value which they can apply in countless other works. n

Appendix: Survey of Opus 122 Recordings

The Early Recordings

Of the four late '50s and early '60s recordings, the best are by Robert Noehren and Franz Eibner, but none of them leaves you wishing for a reissue on CD. Dr. Noehren's Brahms (Lyrichord LLST 7123) is well played with sufficient rubato and convincing transitions between sections. But both of the Noehren organs he recorded on were totally unenclosed 2-manual organs with Positiv rather than Swell. The lack of a swell box and absence of registrational variety limited this recording.

Franz Eibner (Teldec SLT 43018-B) had the best organ of the early LPs. The 3-manual, 61-voice Walcker in Vienna's Votivkirche dates from 1878 and was certainly heard by Brahms. The organ's sound--with its rich palette of flutes, strings and principals--is most appropriate to Brahms. Eibner's playing, though consistently a bit stiff, borders on satisfactory, with suitable rubato at times but some awkward transitions. Some chorales, like Schmücke dich, he trots through with no regard to musical subtleties.

The other two early recordings are very disappointing. Karl Richter's recording on the Steinmeyer in the Herkules-Saal in München (Deutsche Grammophon 138906 SLPM) features a most unattractive organ sound. His registrations overemphasize screechy upperwork and de-emphasize the fundamental, sometimes creating a "music box" effect. Richter's playing is completely insensitive to the music, charging right through Opus 122 from start to finish.

Kurt Rapf's recording on the organ of Vienna's Ursulinenklosters is even worse, with an organ sound lacking fundamental but featuring prominent chiff on the manuals and a loud, deep and murky pedal sound. The plenum on No. 11 has searing mixtures, snarly reeds, booming bass and no "middle." Rapf's playing displays the fastest tempos at which these pieces have ever been recorded. All of the notes are there, but none of the music.

The Best of the Modern Recordings

(Note: All the CDs except Arkay include the complete works of Brahms.)

One of the most satisfying recordings to date is by Carole Terry on the 4-manual Flentrop of St. Mark's Cathedral in Seattle (Musical Heritage Society MHS 512523M). Blessed with a rich palette of principals and flutes in a gorgeous acoustic, the organ has a fine sound although the pair of Gemshorns on the Swell are a far cry from real strings. This recording was made before the recent rebuild added a wonderful 32' Posaune to the Pedal and an 8' Trumpet to the Great, plus enabled the 32' Prestant to actually speak. Ms. Terry's playing is simply elegant. She has a real empathy with Brahms and uses rubato and phrasing to create a truly musical result. The two settings of Herzlich tut mich verlangen are the high point of the recording: No. 9 is quite virile on a big registration and No. 10 is the essence of sensitivity.

Another fine recording on LP, unfortunately out of print, is by Bernard Lagacé (Titanic TI-38).  He recorded Opus 122 on the 1977 2-manual 23-voice Wolff organ in New York's Eighth Church of Christ Scientist. The neoclassic design has its limitations for Brahms, but Lagacé uses it fully and well. His playing is inventive, lively and sensitive.  Hopefully this recording will be reissued on CD.

Nicholas Danby made an elegant recording on the organ of the Church of the Immaculate Conception in London (CRD 3404). This 3-manual 44-voice organ is of some historical interest, having been built by Anneesens in 1876, rebuilt by Bishop in 1914, and completely remodeled in 1926 by Henry Willis III to the designs of G. Donald Harrison and Guy Weitz (organist from 1917 to 1967). Its virile plenum (with tierce mixtures), typically English reeds, rich foundations and colorful flutes make for a varied listening experience. Unfortunately, Danby failed to use the two sets of strings, but his playing is imaginative, solid and sensitive. A high point is an attractively up-tempo rendition of Herzlich tut mich erfreuen with well handled transitions between the forte and piano sections, and a sensible (that is to say, slight) volume differential between the sections. All in all, a rewarding experience.

The Interesting Middle Ground

Georges Athanasiadès has made a charming recording on the huge 103-stop Jann organ of 1989 in the lush acoustics of the wildly Baroque Basilica of Waldsassen (Tudor 790). It missed the first tier only because of a severe lapse of taste on the chorale No. 1, where the cantus in the pedal is registered on flue stops plus a set of tubular bells--the effect is ghastly. But in the remaining ten chorales, Athanasiadès proves to be a resourceful player who provides the most tasteful registrational variety of all the recordings. In Herzliebster Jesu and O wie selig he goes to an extraordinary effort to solo out the melody--unnecessary, but interesting and not at all unpleasant. He makes tasteful use of the tremulant on the pedal cantus of the second Herzlich tut mich verlangen and on a splendid rendition of Es ist ein ros'. In the final chorale he exhibits a sensitive balance between the forte, piano and pp sections, with a very attractive string celeste based pp section. Clearly Mr. Athanasiadès has many good ideas and much to offer on this CD.

Jean-Pierre Leguay, one of the four titular organists of Notre Dame in Paris, has made an impressive recording on the monumental 4-manual 1890 Cavaillé-Coll at the Abbey of Saint Ouen in Rouen (Euro Muses 590073 AD 184).  This organ--lavishly equipped with diapasons, a great variety of flutes, several sets of strings and reeds galore--is actually not far from what one might consider an "ideal" Brahms organ. All the stops are colorful, and there is a great amount of variety in the 8' range. The massed unison stops, which are exhibited in Herzliebster Jesu, sing beautifully. For a climactic effect, nothing in the recorded literature of Opus 122 quite matches the final section of the first chorale, where Mr. Leguay adds the 32' Bombarde to an already grand plenum. Some of the chorales, Nos. 4-6 and 11 for example, are given a rather indifferent treatment, but O Gott, du frommer Gott sparkles in a high-energy high-volume treatment with reeds in both the forte and piano sections. A tasteful Es ist ein Ros' alternates a beautiful string celeste with a quiet flute. Opting for contrast and clarity, Mr. Leguay gives the pedal cantus in Herzlich tut mich verlangen to a Trompette. This recording is recommended for generally excellent playing and a quite stupendous sound.

Jacques van Oortmerssen chose the 1906 Setterquist organ of the Kristine Church in Falun, Sweden for his recording of the works of Brahms (BIS-CD-479). This 2-manual 30-stop instrument is based on the French Romantic organs of Cavaillé-Coll, but the sound is a far cry from St. Ouen. There are some lovely individual stops, but the plenum with pedal is murky and a 2' Octava sticks out rather than blending. Oortmerssen's usually elegant playing is uneven, with one chorale singing and soaring and the next plodding quirkily along. He does observe the implied crescendo in O wie selig and builds to a satisfying forte.

Herman Schäffer chose a 4-manual 92-stop 1911 Steinmeyer at the Christuskirche in Mannheim for his Brahms recording (Motette CD 10711). This instrument offers generally attractive sounds and great variety, but Schäffer's playing is uneven. Herzliebster Jesu has no energy and a painfully slow O Welt, ich muss dich lassen (No. 3) falls flat, but these are followed by an energetic and stylish Herzlich tut mich erfreuen.  Schäffer loves contrast, and solos the melody in Schmücke dich on an oboe, the pedal cantus in Herzlich tut mich verlangen (No. 10) on a trumpet, and the melody in O wie selig on a Nazard combination (with the bass played on a heavy and murky 16' pedal). In Es ist ein Ros', Herzlich tut mich verlangen (No. 9) and O Welt, ich muss dich lassen (No. 11) the contrast between the forte and piano sections is far too great. Within these works, however, there are registrations of great beauty, including some luscious string celestes. In sum, the playing and interpretations are uneven and the largely original historic organ is of interest.

Recordings Of Lesser Merit

One might think that recording Brahms on a 1965 4-manual 56-stop Marcussen organ would give a thin, chiffy and uncharacteristic sound (Nimbus NI 882 286-909). On the organ at the Odense Domkirche this is not so, although the upperwork (used only in the first chorale) is too intense. Kevin Bowyer's registrations prove that this instrument can give an appropriate sounds to Opus 122. His playing is another matter, though--tempos seem either to be too fast or too slow. For example, he makes a race out of Herz-lich tut mich erfreuen. But whether the tempo is fast or slow, he doesn't offer much more than the notes. In O Welt, ich muss dich lassen (No. 3) he misinterprets the slurs over the two eighth note groups for a very choppy result. His favorite chorale would seem to be Herzlich tut mich verlangen (No. 10), as he gives a very sensitive performance of it (at 4:38 the slowest of all the recorded performances) with a lush sound and a lovely articulate solo flute with tremulant for the cantus solo. Would that the other ten chorales had had this degree of attention.

Jonathan Dimmock recorded Opus 122 on a 2-manual 26-stop Frobenius at St. Stephen's Episcopal in Belvedere, California (Arkay AR 6113). A visceral involvement with the music seems to be missing, and there are some note problems. Dimmock followed a basically conservative approach to registration, passing on the opportunity for a true forte even for No. 9 Herzlich tut mich verlangen. Although he did make good use of the Gambe Celeste in two chorales, it was an unfortunate choice to solo the melody in O Gott du frommer Gott on the Swell Oboe, because this precluded a significant contrast between the forte and piano sections, a key element of the work.  Whereas O wie selig is satisfying with a nice Oboe combination, No. 11 O Welt, ich muss dich lassen receives a perfunctory performance without the crucial implied ritards between the pp and forte sections.

Robert Parkins recording on the large Flentrop in the Duke University Chapel would seem to have a lot going for it (Naxos 8.550824). A lush acoustic, large organ, talented performer. Large as the Flentrop is, however, is has no expressive divisions and no strings--one wonders how Opus 122 would have fared on the spectacular Aeolian at the front end of Duke Chapel. Parkins gets around this limitation well, however, and the massed 8' tones provide needed warmth. His tempos are the key problem--Nos. 1, 2, 3, 7 and 9 are or are among the slowest tempos on record. The energy of these pieces drains away and you are left wanting to shout "Get on with it!" Balance this criticism with artful performances of No. 4, 6, 10 and an especially sensitive rubato in No. 11. Interesting though flawed, but at a bargain price.

Rudolph Innig's performance of Opus 122 has little to recommend it (Dabringhaus and Grimm MD+GL 3137). The 3-manual Klais organ at St. Dionysius in Rheine is a lightweight neoclassical design with lots of mutations which Innig, unfortunately, uses.  His interpretations feature separated pickups, which are decidedly un-Brahmsian, and a general lack of sensitivity to the music.

 

Notes

                  1.              Heinz Becker, "Johannes Brahms," The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 1980, Vol. 3, p. 161.

                  2.              Peter Williams, Review in The Organ Quarterly.

                  3.              Anonymous essay on "Brahms' 11 Chorale Preludes" on Lyrichord LP (LL 123).

                  4.              E. Power Biggs, Preface, Brahms' Chorale Preludes, Mercury Music Corporation, 1949, p. 2.

                  5.              Becker, op. cit., pp. 173-174.

                  6.              Robert Schuneman, "Brahms and the Organ," Music/The AGO-RCCO Magazine, September, 1972, p. 34.

                  7.              Schuneman, op. cit., p. 34.

                  8.              Jonathan Ambrosino, "Lessons with Dr. Courboin--A Conversation with Richard Purvis," The Erzähler, Volume 4, Number 3, January, 1995, pp. 3-4.

                  9.              Brahms' Complete Organ Works, ed. by Walter E. Buszin and Paul G. Bunjes, Edition Peters.

                  10.           Peter Williams, The European Organ 1450-1850, published by The Organ Literature Foundation, 1967, pp. 94-95.

                  11.           Vernon Gotwals, "Brahms and the Organ," Music/The AGO-RCCO Magazine, April, 1970, p. 42.

                  12.           Günter Lade, Orgeln in Wien, Austria, 1990, p. 184.

                  13.           Franz Ebner, Program Notes to Teldec LP: SLT 43018-B.

                  14.           Max B. Miller, "The Brahms Chorale Preludes Master Lesson," TAO, April, 1979, pp. 43-46.

                  15.           Schuneman, op. cit., pp. 32-33.

                  16.           John David Peterson, "Some Thoughts on the Sound of the Organ," The Diapason, April, 1981, p. 16.

                  17.           Schuneman, op. cit., p. 34.

                  18.           Imogen Fellinger, Uber die Dynamik in der Musik von Johannes Brahms, (Berlin and Wunsiedel: Hesse 1961), p. 20. Translated by and cited in Schuneman, op. cit., p. 34.

                  19.           The "median" is the middle value in a distribution of data--half of the times are shorter and half are longer than the median.

                  20.           Robert A. Schuneman, "Playing Around With Tempo," The Diapason, May, 1970, p. 16.

                 21.           Arthur Rubenstein, The Chopin Nocturnes, RCA 5613-2-RC (two CD set).

                  22.           Schuneman, "Tempo," op. cit., p. 16.

                  23.           Peter Hurford, Making Music on the Organ, Oxford University Press, 1990, p. 67.

                  24.           George S. Bozarth, "Brahms Organ Works: A New Critical Edition," The American Organist, June, 1988, p. 56.

                  25.           Miller, op. cit., p. 46.

                  26.           Less a brief "lift" on the first quarter note in measure one, so it can sound again on beat three.

                  27.           Leslie Spelman, in a February, 1995, masterclass.

                  28.           Bozarth, op. cit., p. 57.

                  29.           Gotwals, op. cit., p. 48.

                  30.           Masterclass, February, 1995.

Permission to reproduce segments from Werke für Orgel granted by G. Henle Verlag.

 

Other articles of interest:

Franz Liszt and Johann Gottlob Töpfer: A Fruitful Relationship in Weimar

Théodore Dubois and César Franck at Sainte-Clotilde

Brahms Opus 122 in score

Cover

Buzard Pipe
Organ Builders, Champaign, Illinois

Opus 29,
completed November, 2003

All Saints
Episcopal Church, Atlanta, Georgia

Some years ago I was contacted about a new organ for All Saints Episcopal
Church by the assistant organist, Jefferson McConnaughey. We seemed to be
speaking the same language concerning how we thought organs should sound, and I
was eager to meet him, music directors Ray and Elizabeth Chenault, and to visit
the church. Our conversations were put on hold while the parish called a new
rector and undertook other projects. At the time we were blessed with
commissions to build the organ at St. Paul's Episcopal Cathedral, Oklahoma
City, and large instruments for Glenview Community Church (III/71) and Holy
Family Catholic Church of Rockford, Illinois (III/56).

A few years went by, and I was invited to visit the church. Judging from the
size of the instrument under discussion, I expected to enter a huge space.
Instead, the church was more modest than vast, the acoustic more understated
than generous. At first blush, it seemed that 40 stops could have adequately
met their needs. But, no real lady ever gives up all her secrets at once, and
so I patiently looked and listened.

I listened to their former instrument while walking around the room, and
observed the acoustical phenomena under which the musicians had been laboring
for so long. The organ, although installed in the chancel in relatively close
proximity to the congregation, diminished drastically in volume in the nave. I
concluded that a part of the organ had to be installed in the body of the
church, to support singing and "pull" the sound out of the main part
of the organ installed in the chancel. Additionally, sound generated in the
nave lost its energy quickly; sound simply didn't travel well without becoming
garbled.

The musicians wanted to be able to properly register an organ to
"text-paint" Anglican Chant, choral anthems and ceremonial music in
the Anglican musical tradition. They needed a wide variety of accompanimental
tone colors at every dynamic level so that the organ could always support the
singers, even at pianissimo volume levels. It was equally important that the
organ musically render the great body of organ literature, even that of the
French Baroque school, of which Mr. McConnaughey seemed quite fond. And, the
Chenaults are duo organists; the literature which has been (and has yet to be)
commissioned for them had to be accommodated. This requires a large organ, as
coloristic stops outside the component voices for the essential choruses had to
be included and integrated into the design. Fortunately, these stops were never
in competition for space or funding, nor were our classic concepts of the
hierarchical scaling of divisions within the instrument ever compromised. Some
specific organs were studied: The Temple Church, London; King's College,
Cambridge; and St. Paul's Cathedral, London.

There is a beautiful chapel behind the Epistle side choir stalls, at 90
degrees to the axis of the church, which also serves as an overflow room on
Sundays. Worshippers there were relegated to viewing services on a small
closed-circuit TV, and could not participate in the hymn-singing because, being
outside the body of the church, they couldn't hear the organ. If the new organ
were to address and meet all the musical and acoustical requirements of the
church, then the chapel also needed to have some pipes in it, so that those
seated there could feel a part of the worshiping community.

All of these requirements were brought to bear upon a single instrument. Yes,
I agreed, this instrument has to be large--very large. Even if the room seats
only 550 souls, the musical and physical requirements dictated an organ of a
size which one might initially think out of proportion.

The position and installation of the new Main Organ was relatively
straightforward. The Great, Swell, Choir, Tuba, and Pedal would have to be
installed in the chancel, in an enlarged version of their existing chamber,
plus spaces created by cantilevering steel platforms into the chancel space on
both Epistle and Gospel sides.

The antiphonal division, a romantic Solo Organ including a Diapason Chorus
which mirrors the Great, had to be installed in the nave. But there was no
floor space for cases, no desire to see columns, and windows everywhere, many
of them signed by Louis Comfort Tiffany. By clever engineering of the diatonic
windchest layouts (which we had first used at St. Paul's Cathedral in Oklahoma
City) we were able to tuck the Solo Organ cases up in the rafters of the church
above the narthex, on either side of a central great window. By creative use of
perspective, we were able to engineer the location of the supporting steel
platforms so that they wouldn't block the view of the Tiffany windows in the
side aisles, yet give us sufficient height for the pipes inside the cases.

As conversations concerning the tonal design took shape, Ray, Elizabeth, and
Jeff fell in love with our tonal style which, while embracing eclecticism, has
its own unique personality. They visited both our large organs, and Jeff
actually played Sunday services on our Opus 7 organ at The Chapel of St. John
the Divine in my wife Linda's stead. The All Saints organ is a very logical
outgrowth of our style as practiced in our smaller organs, and as our two
larger organs have led us. The humble beginnings of Opus 7 at the Chapel, in
which we made 29 stops into a cathedral organ, can be seen all over this much
larger organ. Well-informed national and historical inspirations are
distributed throughout, so that the whole is at unity with itself. No German
Hauptwerk, French Récit or English Chair Organs for us. For example the
Great includes the mature English practice of 8' First & Second Open
Diapasons, married nicely to the French Fonds d'Orgue. A voluptuous Full English
Swell has continental fire by virtue of the authentic (but modified) French
reed battery, but the lyrical soft solo reed is a plaintive English Oboe. No
quirky nomenclature either. Although rooted in 19th-century English practice of
"Diapason, Principal, Twelfth, Fifteenth," etc., the stops in our
organs are what they say they are. If the Swell reed is spelled
"Trompette," you can be assured that you will hear a Trumpet with
French shallots and pipe construction.

The Great is based upon a 16' Double Open Diapason of tin which stands
proudly in the Gospel side case along with the rest of the division. A complete
Diapason chorus through Mixture, flutes at 8' & 4', and a Viola da Gamba
make up the flue work, and the reeds are Trombas, brought up to the manuals from
the Pedal Trombone. The Mixture breaks at octaves, rather than at fifth
intervals. In this way, one doesn't hear alternating unison and fifths playing
as the top rank, and the breaks are virtually unheard.

The Great also incorporates an harmonic corroborating stop which was more at
home in English and American concert organs of the early part of the last
century. Our four-rank Harmonic Mixture has in it a unison, a quint, a tierce,
and a flat-seventh. These are all the harmonics present in Tromba class reeds,
which are on the Great at 8' and 4' pitches. We originally included the
Harmonic Mixture as a way to prevent the dark Trombas from covering the
brightness of the mixture work in full organ, but have found that when used
sans Trombas, the ancient flavor of 18th-century Dutch organs is perceived in
an uncanny way. One could even imagine the wind to be unsteady--but of course
it's not!

The Solo has a Diapason Chorus nearly mirroring the Great, and despite its
distance from the Main Organ, it can exactly balance the Great Plenum in
certain contexts. The Solo contains a pair of E. M. Skinner-inspired Gambas,
the celesting rank in the case across the church from its unison pair. Now
that's a Celeste! The Flügel Horn, while a lyrical romantic solo reed, has
just enough harmonic interest to function beautifully as a chorus reed. The
Bassett Horn is certainly at home playing obbligato parts in Elgar, but has
just enough Cromorne in it to play Daquin with a French nose in the air.

One can use the Choir in a classic context, as a Positiv when a lighter foil
to the Great is desired. But this division is the real choral accompanying
workhorse. It's one of the most elegant, light, but profound Choir divisions we
have created. The Choir features a flute chorus from 16' up, and a proper
Diapason chorus complete with a four-rank quint mixture, a fifth interval
higher than the Great. But the luxurious feature in this day and age is our
Dulciana Chorus, which includes a three-rank mixture in which the 4' enters
early on at tenor C. Our Dulcianas are truly small Diapasons, and there is
nothing like the effect of accompanying voices with Diapason color, but at such
a soft volume. The Dulciana Mixture has many uses in coloring and painting
texts, 90% of which I would never have envisioned. Our Cornopeans are
small-scaled, but fundamental Trumpets as the original prototypes were, not the
horn-like Cornopeans one would otherwise love to hate. The Clarinet is truly of
English style, and the English Horn is orchestral in color with enough body to
be the foundation of the Choir reed battery, yet enough jazz in the color to
differentiate itself from the more fundamental Swell English Oboe.

The Chapel Organ includes a small-scaled Diapason Chorus at 8' and 4' to
lead the hymn-singing, and an 8' Aeoline and Vox Angelica. These very, very
soft string-toned stops allow the worshippers there to feel connected, and also
provide a powerfully effective pianissimo "wrap-around" effect as the
softest sounds concluding a smooth decrescendo. These little strings can just
be barely heard in the nave as the expression box closes on the Solo Flute
Cœlestis. When they play alone, they are literally in another room, off in
the distance.

In the All Saints organ, the Great, Swell, Choir, Solo, and a portion of the
Pedal divisions play upon 4 inches of wind pressure. The Trombones and Trombas
play upon 7 inches of wind, the Solo Festival Trumpets on 6 inches, and the
Major Tuba plays upon 20 inches of wind. The Tuba is housed in its own
expression box, and the organist can easily select which expression shoe may be
used to operate the Tuba's expression (or whether it is to remain open) by a
simple rotary switch. We aim to expand the color and dynamic range of the pipe
organ, while keeping the console controls simple and straightforward.

Before I was selected as their builder, Ray, Elizabeth, and Jeff charged me
to design the perfect instrument for all their requirements, and they would
undertake the responsibility of presenting this plan to the organ committee to
get their reaction, and see if the instrument would have to suffer at the hands
of "value engineers." Although my past experience made me somewhat
timid about presenting such a large (expensive) instrument as part of a
selection competition, we arrived at the specification of 63 straight speaking
stops, 87 ranks of pipes (5229 pipes overall), in five free-standing cases
throughout their church.

I will never forget the evening of a crucial organ committee meeting when I
received an excited telephone call from Ray. The musicians presented the
proposal and the room fell silent. People on the committee asked questions to
the effect: "Now, do all three of you musicians agree on this builder? Do
all three of you agree with each other in every respect to this instrument?"
When the answer was an emphatic yes, a committee member said: "How many
times do musicians agree with each other about anything, let alone every of the
many thousands of details in this organ's design!? This is what we need for All
Saints, and we need John-Paul to build it for us." A member of the
committee, Sarah Kennedy, later wrote a check for the entire project, in loving
memory and in honor of her family, The Kenans.

The organs' visual designs were developed during August and September of
2001. The first draft of the Chapel Organ's design was revised to be more in
keeping with the modern nature of the chapel (and less like King's College,
Cambridge). The Main Organ and the Solo Organs were built according to my first
pen-and-ink renderings.

All of my design drawings are executed by hand. The discipline of cleaning
the drafting table and truing the parallel bars and 90-degree instruments
contributes to clearing my mind of everything except what I need to think about
for the organ on the blank piece of paper.

It is always my goal to design organ cases which appear as though they had
always been in the church. The All Saints cases use shapes and colors found
throughout the room, and mirror the restrained nature of the Victorian Gothic
design. But the cases become vivid, exciting, and dramatic by incorporation of
the fabulous red enamel and gold leaf adorning the church's clerestory. The
inclusion of the red gave me license to add contracting pieces of red-stained
Honduras mahogany in the stained white oak cases. The soaring nature of the
Solo Organs, as their lines ascend while moving toward the great window, seemed
to cry out for heraldic angels, announcing the Great Day of Judgment on
gold-leafed trumpets. Thanks to parishioner David Foerster for making these
possible.

All of us will remember exactly where we were on 9/11. I was at the drafting
table finishing the designs for the Main Organ cases. I had penciled the
drawing the day before and was preparing to ink the drawing when I heard the
news reports. My entire staff came up to the drafting room and we all went to
the conference area where a small television showed us the horrors unfold as
the second airliner smashed into the second building. As we heard a large
airplane overhead, being sent to land at our local airport, I was asked if we
were going to close for the day. I said, no. We had to go about our task of
making beautiful things, especially in light of the ugliness that visited
itself on our country that day. If we wanted to take time off individually to
mourn our country's losses, go with my blessing, but the doors would remain
open and I would continue to draw a beautiful pair of pipe organ cases.

I set to cleaning out my India ink pens, and put on a CD of The English
Anthem II from St. Paul's Cathedral,
London.

Oh Lord, look down from heaven, and behold the habitation
of Thy holiness and of Thy glory: Where is Thy zeal and Thy strength? Thy
mercies towards me, are they restrained?

My deepest thanks to the musicians at All Saints Church, everyone on the
organ committee, Greg Kellison, chairman; Paul Elliott, the rector; David
Foerster, and Sarah Kennedy for selecting me and my firm for this tremendous
commission.

My overwhelming gratitude goes to the members of my staff whose hard work
and dedication made such an excellent instrument so sublime: Charles Eames,
executive vice president, general manager and chief engineer; Brian K. Davis,
associate tonal director; Keith Williams, service department director; Shayne
Tippett, shop manager; Jay Salmon, office manager; Evan Rench, pipe maker,
voicer; Steve Downes, tonal assistant; C. Robert Leach, cabinetmaker; Stuart
Martin, cabinetmaker; Kenneth McCabe, winding systems; Ray Wiggs, consoles,
windchests; Robert Ference, service technician; Stuart Weber, service
technician; Jonathan Borchardt, service technician; JoAnne Hutchcraft Rench,
receptionist.

--John-Paul Buzard

GREAT (4-inch wind pressure)

Manual II - unenclosed pipework

16' Double Open Diapason

8' First Open Diapason

8' Second Open Diapason (ext 16')

8' Viola da Gamba

8' Harmonic Flute

8' Bourdon

4' Principal

4' Spire Flute

22/3' Twelfth

2' Fifteenth

2' Fourniture V

13/5' Harmonic Mixture IV

16' Double Trumpet

8' Trombas (ext Ped)

4' Clarion (ext Ped)

Tremulant

Chimes

8' Major Tuba (20" wind)

8' Tuba Solo (melody coupler)

8' Fanfare Trumpets (Solo)

SWELL (4-inch wind pressure)

Manual III - enclosed and expressive

8' Open Diapason

8' Stopped Diapason

8' Salicional

8' Voix Celeste

4' Principal

4' Harmonic Flute

22/3' Nazard

2' Flageolet

13/5' Tierce

22/3' Full Mixture V

16' Bassoon

8' Trompette

8' Oboe

8' Vox Humana

4' Clarion (ext 16')

Tremulant

8' Major Tuba (Gt)

8' Fanfare Trumpets (Solo)

CHOIR (4-inch wind pressure)

Manual I - enclosed and expressive

16' Lieblich Gedeckt (wood)

8' English Open Diapason

8' Flûte à Bibéron

8' Gedeckt Flute (ext 16')

8' Dulciana

8' Unda Maris

4' Principal

4' Koppel Flute

2' Recorder

2' Mixture III–IV (Dulcianas)

11/3' Fourniture IV

Sesquialtera II (22/3' & 13/5')

16' English Horn

8' Cornopean

8' Clarinet

Tremulant

Cymbalstern (14 bells)

8' Major Tuba (Gt)

8' Fanfare Trumpets (Solo)

Harp (digital)

Celesta (digital)

ANTIPHONAL SOLO (4- & 51/2-inch wind)

Manual IV - in twin cases over the narthex (expressive)

8' Open Diapason

8' Viola da Gamba

8' Gamba Celeste (CC)

8' Melodia

8' Flute Cœlestis II (Ludwigtone)

4' Principal

4' Flûte d'Amour

2' Doublette

11/3' Mixture IV

8' Flügel Horn

8' Corno di Bassetto

Tremulant

Cymbalstern (8 bells)

Chimes (Gt)

8' Fanfare Trumpets

8' Major Tuba (Gt)

Harp (digital)

Celesta (digital)

PEDAL (various wind pressures)

32' Double Open Diapason (digital)

32' Subbass (digital)

32' Lieblich Gedeckt (Ch, digital)

16' First Open Diapason

16' Second Open Diapason (Gt)

16' Bourdon

16' Lieblich Gedeckt (Ch)

8' Principal

8' Bass Flute (ext 16' Bourdon)

8' Gedeckt Flute (ext 16' Lieblich)

4' Choral Bass

4' Open Flute (ext 16' Bourdon)

22/3' Mixture IV

32' Contra Trombone (wood)

16' Trombone (wood, ext 32')

16' Double Trumpet (Gt)

16' Bassoon (Sw)

8' Trumpet (ext 16')

4' Clarion (Sw)

8' Major Tuba (Gt)

8' Fanfare Trumpets (Solo)

CHAPEL (4-inch wind, floating)

8' Open Diapason

8' Aeoline

8' Vox Angelica (tc)

4' Principal

Chapel on Great

Chapel on Swell

Chapel on Choir

Chapel on Solo

Chapel on Pedal

Intraddivisional couplers

Gt/Gt 16-UO-4

Sw/Sw 16-UO-4

Ch/Ch 16-UO-4

Solo/Solo 16-UO-4

Interdivisional couplers

Gt/Ped 8, 4

Sw/Ped 8, 4

Ch/Ped 8, 4

Solo/Ped 8, 4

Sw/Gt 16, 8, 4

Ch/Gt 16, 8, 4

Solo/Gt 16, 8, 4

Sw/Ch 16, 8, 4

Solo/Ch 16, 8, 4

Pedal Stops to Divisional Pistons

The Wicks Organ Company, Highland,
Illinois has built a new organ for the Barrington United Methodist Church,
Barrington, Illinois. In 1999 the church building was destroyed by fire. Their
losses included a 41-rank Möller pipe organ, which had been rebuilt as
recently as 1988. As planning for their new building began, the search for a
new pipe organ started. The church’s demands for their new organ were
that it had to be a great congregational organ, but also able to perform for
recitals as well. The sanctuary was to be a top-notch performance facility as
well as a place of worship. The church desired an organ of 3 manuals and 5
divisions, including an antiphonal. Each division was to have a principal
chorus, and the foundations of the Great organ were to be exposed.

The church committee heard many styles of instruments built by Wicks over
the last seven decades. This included, a North German neo-Baroque style
instrument, a symphonic organ scaled and designed by Henry V. Willis, an
American Classic, and an Aeolian instrument from the 1920s that had been
rebuilt by the Wicks Organ Company in conjunction with Mr. Madison Lindsey. The
service playing abilities of each instrument were demonstrated to the
committee, and they identified and found themselves drawn to the
English/symphonic style of the rebuilt Aeolian instrument. The organ committee
chose Wicks over several other builders after hearing several new Wicks
installations and the company ‘s recent success in exactly this style of
instrument.

The completed organ is described as an English service organ with orchestral
capabilities. The instrument is able to not only provide a seamless crescendo
from ppp to fff, but can do it with flair. In addition to service music, the
organ is able to perform every possible type of organ literature from the
Renaissance to the present. It is also able to realize orchestral
transcriptions with great skill, thanks to the presence of many orchestral solo
stops in each division, blending choruses, and 2-inch thick beveled and overlapping
felted shades. The completed organ consists of 24 ranks of pipes and 25 digital
voices. The Wicks design team pre-engineered space to accommodate real pipe
ranks to replace these voices. The Swell is on 7 inches of wind, the Pedal 10
inches; the Choir and Great are on 6 inches, with the exception of the
Clarinet, English Horn, and Tuba in the choir, which are all on 10 inches.

The solo reeds of this organ are of a unique style, derived from the
Willis/Wicks style reeds used in many Wicks organs over the decades, married to
the traditional ideas of Skinner solo reeds. The end results were clear,
smooth, stops of unique color and great versatility throughout the compass. The
greatest asset to the organ is the lively acoustical environment of the sanctuary.
The collaboration of the building committee, acousticians Kirkegaard &
Associates of Chicago, and the Wicks Organ Company have resulted in a
beautiful, successful combination of organ and room.

The console is drawknob style with 45-degree side jambs, a glass music rack,
and P&S keys with ivory resin naturals and ebony sharps. The drawknobs are
made of polished hardwood. Made of red oak, the interior is very light and the
exterior is stained to match the woodwork of the chancel furnishings. The console
features a tilt tab that allows the digital Tuba and Festival Trumpet to
emanate from the antiphonal division located in the rear of the church instead
of their native divisions. The console also has a Manual I/II transfer for
French literature.

Installation of Opus 6412 began in August of 2003, and an initial tonal
finishing and adjustment of digital voices took place in early September. After
the church’s dedication, Wicks tonal director Dr. William Hamner and reed
voicer Greg Caldwell completed an entire tonal finishing.

--Brent Johnson

Great (exposed)

16’ Violone*

8’ First Open Diapason

8’ Second Open Diapason

8’ Violoncello

8’ Harmonic Flute (Ch)

4’ Principal

4’ Flute Octaviante

2’ Fifteenth

IV Full Mixture

8’ Chorus Tuba (Ch)

8’ Festival Trumpet* (Ant)

8’ Tuba Mirabilis* (Ant)

Chimes* (Ant)

Swell (expressive)

16’ Minor Bourdon*

8’ Open Diapason

8’ Stopped Diapason*

8’ Viola*

8’ Viola Celeste*

8’ Flauto Dolce*

8’ Flute Celeste*

4’ Octave Diapason

4’ Triangular Flute*

22/3’ Nazard*

2’ Recorder*

13/5’ Tierce*

IV Plein Jeu

16’ Waldhorn*

8’ Cornopean

8’ Oboe*

4’ Clarion

8’ Festival Trumpet* (Ant)

8’ Tuba Mirabilis* (Ant)

Tremolo

Choir (expressive)

8’ Geigen (1-12*)

8’ Concert Flute

8’ Dolcan*

8’ Dolcan Celeste*

4’ Octave Geigen

4’ Transverse Flute

2’ Harmonic Piccolo

16’ Bass Clarinet

8’ Clarinet

8’ English Horn

8’ French Horn*

8’ Festival Trumpet* (Ant)

8’ Tuba Mirabilis* (Ant)

8’ Chorus Tuba

Tremolo

Harp*

Antiphonal (unenclosed - floating) (prepared)

8’ Festival Trumpet*

8’ Tuba Mirabilis*

Chimes*

Antiphonal Pedal (prepared)

Pedal

32’ Contre Bourdon*

16’ Open Wood

16’ Major Bourdon

16’ Violone* (Gt)

16’ Minor Bourdon* (Sw)

8’ Principal

8’ Flute

8’ Stopped Flute

4’ Octave

4’ Harmonic Flute (Gt)

32’ Ophicleide*

16’ Trombone (1–12*)

16’ Waldhorn (Sw)

8’ Tromba

8’ Trumpet (Sw)

4’ Oboe (Sw)

7-bell zimbelstern

*= Digital Voices

The Isle of Man

From Peter Jones, the Offshore Organbuilder

This article is coming to you from the Isle of Man, an island some 30 miles long by about 14 miles wide, and sitting midway between Ireland and England. Its longest river--the Sulby--stretches for a full 10 miles or more, and Snaefell--the highest mountain--reaches a height of over 2,000 feet. Anyone with a world atlas and a magnifying glass to hand will have no trouble in locating the "Island," as those who live here often term it, off the west coast of England, facing Liverpool.

 

 

The Isle of Man may be little known in the wider world (or even on the "adjacent island" of England--we don't say "mainland," of course!) but like most places it does have its peculiar features which mark it out for those with special interests. It is an off-shore finance center, for example, with relatively low rates of tax. It is known for its motorcycle races (the "TT Races") which take place on the public roads--one of the largest (and arguably most dangerous) circuits of its kind in the world. For those who like unspoiled countryside to look at or walk over, and a quiet and relatively unhurried way of life, the Isle of Man is the place to be. It is an island of Fairies, one of the largest water-wheels you are ever likely to see, Celtic stone crosses and much more. Most important to me, and I hope of interest to readers, its small area is home to a surprising variety of some 50 or so pipe organs, and I am more than happy to have been the resident organ builder here for over 20 years.

For those of us with a fascination for the King of Instruments, there is much to be said about life here--too much for one article such as this--and rather than describe the organs as a whole in greater or lesser detail, I thought it might be better to describe some of the incidents which make the life of "the organ man" anything but tedious.

Looking back over the work undertaken in the recent past, I see one job which will be of interest to the great majority of organ players, from the professional recitalist to the home enthusiast who plays only for his own enjoyment. I refer to an ambition which attracts so many organists, and which eludes all but a few--the luxury of a real pipe organ in one's own home.

How many have investigated this possibility, only to find that the cost (and sometimes the space) involved ensures that the pipe dream remains just that? True, there is the electronic substitute--smaller and cheaper, with a great variety of Golden Tones of one kind or another--and then again the organ in church is usually available to the serious player--albeit not so attractive in the winter, nor so convenient for that odd 30 minutes practice at the end of the day. But for those badly infected by the organ bug, the unfortunates with an acute case of "organitis," there can never be any hope of a cure until they can see for themselves those gleaming ranks of metal and wooden pipes and the console with its several keyboards, waiting in the music room for their sole use!

So it was with The Reverend Alec Smith. His love of the organ had actually led him to start an apprenticeship in organ building as a young man, but he quickly saw the light, heard the call, and became an ordained priest in the Church of England. At that time, he assembled a worthy (if somewhat ungainly) collection of pipes, old keyboards, bits of mechanism, etc., into a Frankenstein creation which crouched in the corner of one of the large rooms of the vicarage in his country parish in England. This creation was a credit to its owner, but more than a little ponderous for anything other than a large house (preferably not your own) with plenty of spare rooms. When, in the fullness of time, Alec became an army chaplain, and he and his wife Jean were inevitably posted abroad, the organ was dispersed, almost all of it never to be seen again.

On retirement from the army, Alec settled in the Isle of Man and became Organ Advisor to the Diocese. It was now that the organ-building bug, which had lain dormant for so many years, was re-awakened, and the idea of a house organ was again proposed. There were, of course, several problems. The usual ones--centered around lack of space and finances--were, quite rightly, pointed out by Jean, and in any case there was a seemingly adequate 2-manual electronic, with its equally large speaker cabinet, already taking up far too much room in their small cottage in the Manx countryside. Jean correctly pointed out that it was more room they needed, not a pipe organ!

In a attempt to save some space, and acting on the advice of the local music shop, new and much smaller speakers were fitted to the electronic by an "expert" from Douglas, the Island's capital. After a day spent fitting the new speakers into the ceiling (with the novel use of a screwdriver to create some suitable holes in the plaster), the expert switched on, at which point there was an impressive bang followed by an ominous burning smell. It seemed, on later examination, that the amplifiers (intended to power two large speaker banks in a church setting) had seen the modern speakers as a virtual short circuit in electrical terms, with the inevitable result. The expert withdrew, promising to "work something out." I believe he left the Island, and, in any case, was never seen again. The electronic was no longer adequate. It was dead.

At this point, a further discussion took place on the subject of a new pipe organ, and Jean was persuaded, but only agreed on one seemingly-impossible condition: aside from the console, the new organ must not project into the room any further than the line of the first ceiling beam (some 14≤ from the end wall). Since there was no possibility of siting anything behind the walls (three of them being external, and the fourth taken up with the fireplace) the situation appeared hopeless, and it was at this point that Alec called me in.

Impossible situations regarding space are a challenge to the organ builder. More than one has succumbed to the temptation to push too-large an organ into too-small a space, with disastrous results, and I have seen the consequences of several of these unhappy situations. In one such case, an instrument was built in which the Great and Choir (mounted one above the other and in front of the Pedal pipework) "speak" into a solid masonry wall some 3 feet thick. Tuning/maintenance of such an organ is difficult if not impossible, and a warning to any organ designer. Alec's requirement was for the cheapest possible instrument, with a fair selection of stops over two manuals and pedals, all within a depth of 14≤. It had to fit into one small room of a cottage which has only three rooms on the ground floor (the other two being the kitchen and porch) and it must not be a monster from the tuning/maintenance standpoint.

There was space for only two or three sets of pipes, but Alec stated from the outset that, "I want more than three wheels on my car," so we were obviously looking to something other than mechanical action with two or three stops. This need to make the most of the available pipework suggested an "extension organ" of some sort. This, and the restrictions of the site, dictated electric action, and financial considerations suggested the simple mechanism as shown in the sketch. The question of electric versus mechanical action is one of those subjects likely to provoke strong opinions both for and against. In my view, each system has its merits and I am happy to work with either, but when a client requests more stops than the room or budget will allow, the obvious way forward is for a stoplist extended from a small number of ranks, and this means an electric mechanism. The design shown, if correctly made, is reliable, very quick (giving good repetition) and quiet. Incorrectly handled, it is none of these things, and has thereby acquired a poor reputation in some circles. With sufficient funds, and more space, an electro-pneumatic action would have been more sophisticated, but with enough care taken in its design and construction, direct electric action (as shown) is almost as good.

Some readers may be unfamiliar with the idea of an "extension" organ. This is an instrument in which a set, or "rank," of pipes is available to be played at more than one pitch. For example, a set of flute pipes could be played at 8' pitch (via a console stop labeled, say, Stopt Diapason 8') and the same set could also be available at 4' pitch (via a console stop labeled Flute 4') or at 16'  pitch (in which case the console stop might be labeled Bourdon 16') and so on. Clearly, the idea has its uses and abuses, as in the case of the 2-manual and pedal organ in which every console stop was actually taken from a single rank of Dulciana pipes!

The final stoplist is one which I have used successfully on various occasions. It is based on three ranks representing the three main tone-colors of the organ:  Diapason, Flute and String. Each of the three ranks consists of 73 pipes, and are listed below as:

Rank A/ Open Diapason, running from C13,

Rank B/ Stopt Diapason, running from C1, and

Rank C/ Salicional, running from C13.

In addition there are 12 stopped Quint pipes (shown below as "Q") running from G8 (at 8' pitch) for the pedal 16' stop (see later).

(Reed tone was not included, as it is difficult to have conventional reeds sufficiently quiet for such a small setting. In any case, there was no space available.)

Note that the Open Diapason is of small scale, and this made it much more suitable, for our purpose, than the more usual scaling of such a stop. When selecting second-hand pipes for a home extension organ, a Principal would be the first choice  to provide the Open Diapason--Principal--Fifteenth "stops," as they appear on the console, and I have even known a Gamba to make a very acceptable open metal extension rank, once it had been re-scaled and re-voiced. Ideally, where finances are not a limiting factor, new pipes should be made for all ranks, so that their scaling can be suited to the room and stoplist.

If an "extension" scheme is to work, musically, it is important to avoid the temptation of too many stops from too few pipes. I know of one organ with the stops simply repeated on each keyboard, and though this gives maximum flexibility, it is very confusing from the player's point of view, and the instrument as a whole is strangely bland and characterless. The three sets of pipes for Alec's organ were made available at different pitches, under the guise of different stop names, to make registration more straightforward from the player's point of view. In this way, some 15 speaking stops are available to the organist, instead of three which would result from the use of mechanical action.

The specification shown has only one stop (the Stopt Diapason) actually repeated on each manual. This is because it is so frequently used, and blends with the other two ranks at 8' pitch.  None of the other manual stops are repeats, and they have been arranged so as to discourage the use of the same rank at only one octave apart. (E.g.,  the Open Diapason 8' is intended to be used with the Salicet 4', or the Flute 4', not the Principal 4', as you might expect.) Using the stops of an extension organ in this way reduces or (more usually) eliminates the well-known "missing note" problem, which occurs when one strand of the music runs across another, and both need a pipe from the same rank, albeit from different extended "stops." If, for instance, the Stopt Diapason 8' and Flute 4' are drawn on the same manual and key C25 is held down, the pipes heard, as counted from the flute rank, will be C25 and C37. Now add manual key C13, which will sound pipes C13 and C25 (which is already playing from key C25). In this example a pipe at the pitch of C25 should appear twice, but actually appears only once. The missing note will be most obvious if either of the two manual keys is held down while the other is repeated.

One of the most important criticisms to be levelled at an extension scheme is this problem of missing notes, which can lead to a lack of clarity. For all practical purposes, this drawback can be completely overcome by a combination of the organ builder (in preparing a modest stoplist) and the player (in thoughtful use of the instrument, so that the smallest number of stops is drawn at any one time, preferably from different ranks, or at least from ranks separated by more than one octave). In actual practice, this kind of stop selection becomes automatic to the organist who realizes the limitations of the instrument.

Another important factor in the success of this type of organ is the regulation of volume and tone quality of the pipes within a stop, and also the regulation of the stops in relation to each other. Each stop is regulated with a very gradual crescendo from bass to treble. This requires subtle handling, but when correctly carried out results in a clear ensemble in which the treble parts can be heard above the tenor and bass.

The ranks themselves are regulated with much less distinction in power than would usually be the case, so that equivalent pipes of the Stopt Diapason are similar in volume to those of the Open Diapason, and the Salicional, while quieter, is not far behind. This results in much less contrast in power among the 8' stops and this is a compromise, of course, though you still have variety of tone. The blend between ranks played at different pitches is much better than if they are regulated in a conventional manner, with the Open Diapason much louder than the Stopt Diapason and Salicional distinctly quieter. In an instrument such as this, contrast in power is created more by contrasting combinations of stops than between the ranks themselves. Regulating the ranks as if they were separate stops (a mistake often found in both church and house extension organs) results in the Open Diapason and Principal obliterating everything else, while the Fifteenth screams. 

I have used the specification shown several times, including my own house organ, and find it to behave very much as a 'straight' instrument would. I seldom use the couplers, though there are occasions when they become necessary. While it requires thoughtful registration to get the best from an extension organ, a scheme such as this, with a small number of stops, arranged so as to discourage the use of the same rank in two stops separated by only one octave, is very successful.

To cut down costs, Alec agreed to the use of his old electronic as a console, and also to the use of any other second-hand parts which could be obtained. He was also interested and able to lend a hand in the actual construction, when his earlier experiences in organ building were a great asset. The need to keep within 14≤ maximum depth was easily dealt with, by taking up the entire width of the room, side-to-side.

Knowing the number and range of the ranks and the space available, the first step, in a job such as this, is to measure the pipework, in order to see how best to arrange the pipes, and, indeed, if they will fit in at all!

Metal pipes need to be measured in height and in diameter, wooden ones in height only (including any stoppers). In practice, nearly all metal pipes run to a standard scaling (i.e., the rate at which the diameters reduce from note C1 through to the top pipe). Wooden pipes vary considerably, both in scaling (the internal width and depth) and in the thickness of the wood used, which in turn decides the external width and depth. There is also the question of the foot, which, in second-hand wooden pipes (and some new ones) can be bored well off-center. For these reasons it is best to make a paper template of the bottom of each wooden pipe, as described later.

I already had a small scale (i.e., relatively small diameter) Open Diapason rank, and a Salicional, both running form C13 (so the longest pipe in both sets was about 4' speaking length) and Alec located, from a friendly organ builder on the mainland, the Stopped Diapason pipes (running from C1) and a bundle of miscellaneous stoppered wooden pipes for the pedal Quint.

The necessary measurements were taken and noted down in the form of a table. I find it convenient to have a sheet of paper with the 12 notes C through to B in a column down the left-hand edge, followed by vertical columns headed "1--12" then "13--24" then "25--36" and so on, up to "73--84," placed from left to right across the page. This forms a table which will cover an 84-note rank, the biggest usually needed. (Note C85 is only necessary in the case of a rank which runs from 8' pitch to 2' pitch, where the organ has a manual key compass of 61 notes. This C85 pipe needs an additional square to itself.) Every square represents a pipe, and in each one can be written the length and diameter (if metal), together with other details such as size of a rackboard hole, and toe hole etc., which are also measured at this time.

Notice that only the Stopped Diapason rank has its bottom octave (in organ building terms, a "Stopped Bass") the largest pipe of which is, like the other two ranks, something over four feet long. The Salicional and Open Diapason share this bottom octave, as does the 16' pedal stop (the "Harmonic Bass") which produces an acceptable 16' substitute, in the first 12 notes of the pedalboard, by playing the Stopped Bass pipes with the appropriate Quint pipe (from a separate and therefore very soft, 12-note rank of wooden pipes). The resultant note (actually a low hum) which is created from a combination of any stop of 8' pitch and its quint is at 16' pitch. Admittedly, this is much softer than the two pipes actually sounding. The pedals from C13 up play the Stopped Bass again, and then the rest of the Stopt Diapason, thereby sounding at true 16' pitch. These compromises are necessary to reduce the size of the organ, and, if carefully carried out, are soon accepted by the player and listener, especially in a small room.

While there is no substitue for the soft, heavy, warm tone of a full-length Bourdon bass, I have asked many players (including several professionals) their opinion on this "resultant" 16' pedal stop. So far, no one has realized what he was playing until it was pointed out. They all accepted it as a pedal 16'  stop, like any other. The least convincing notes in the bottom octave are, predictably, the smallest three or four. If there is room for full-length pipes down to, say, F#7, so much the better.

It is worth noting that a quinted 16'  effect which uses the pipes of the Stopt Diapason rank only is almost always a failure, because the quint will be too loud. If you have no room for the extra Quint pipes, it is better to use the 8' octave of the Stopt Bass on its own (from pedal keys C1 to B12) before completing the pedal compass by repeating the Stopt Bass followed by the rest of the Stopt Diapason. Another possibility worth considering is a 16' bottom octave in free reeds.

Full-size card or paper templates are needed to represent the metal pipes, as seen from above. It is not normally necessary to make these for every pipe, as different stops usually reduce in diameter, note for note, to a more or less standard pattern. If this pattern is known, the set of templates need cover only the range of diameters from the fattest metal pipe in the organ (in this case C13 of the Open Diapason) down to the minimum spacing dictated by the pipe-valve mechanism. (As direct electric action was being used and the smallest magnets were 3/4≤ wide, with pipes placed directly above the valves, minimum pipe spacing = 3/4≤ + 1/8≤ clearance [= 7/8≤] no matter how small the pipes.)

Like most organ builders, I have a set of these circular templates for general use, so templates for the metal pipes were already at hand, but the wooden pipes had to have paper templates individually made to show their exact shape and the center of the pipe feet. Such a template is made by taking an over-sized piece of paper, drawing on it a circle which equals the diameter of the pipe foot, cutting this out, and sliding the paper up under the pipe and creasing around the four sides. Once the paper is removed and trimmed to size, the original circle can be taped back into place, resulting in an accurate template.

Alec's wooden Stopt Diapason (reputedly by the well-known Victorian organ builder, William Hill) was over 100 years old, and may have been in more than one organ during its lifetime. Its mouths were rather high, which made the tone breathy, and some of the pipes had been mitred, or were cut too short, possibly where they had been in a crowded swell box. But it was basically sound and we went on the basis that it could be made acceptable by repairs, lowering the mouths and re-voicing. The Salicional and Open Diapason ranks were also Victorian, from a local Methodist church. Again, they were not perfectly scaled or voiced for a house  organ, but were basically well-made and capable of re-voicing. All the pipes were measured, and with the tables of measurements and templates to hand, and a given space into which to fit the pipes and action, the process of "setting out" could begin.

An instrument with direct electric action enables the builder to arrange pipework in almost any pattern, within the limits of the room and the physical space taken up by the pipes themselves (or, in the case of the tiny treble notes, the size of their magnets and valves). My preferred system of setting out is slightly unusual, in that I like to place the taller pipes behind the smaller pipes, regardless of their rank. Most other builders would plant pipes in rows, each row being made up from pipes of the same rank.

Secondly, and in common with many of my colleagues, I prefer to plant pipes in "sides," i.e., pipe C1 on the extreme left of the organ, and C#2 on the right, working down to the treble pipes in the middle. In this way, all the pipes of the "C side" (C, D, E, F#, G#, A#) will be on the left, and those of the "C# side" (C#, D#, F, G, A, B) will be on the right.

These two underlying principles result in a pipe set-out which is visually attractive, compact, and which offers the greatest accessibility for tuning and maintenance. Admittedly, it does lead to some complications in the cabling patterns between the console and the magnets, but this is not an insurmountable problem. (In fact, the many cables for this organ were made up, wire by wire, by my school-boy workshop assistant, with no errors at all.)

Alec and I set out our templates on strips of white paper, as wide as Jean would permit, (the 14≤ maximum) and as long as the space available (i.e., the width of the room: 157≤ or just over 13 feet). After a day or two of pushing the templates around, and, bearing in mind the many details such as how the pipes could be best faced away from each other, the space to be allowed for rack pillars, cable registers, assembly screws and many other essentials beyond the scope of this account, we decided upon the ideal arrangement, with the pipes set out on three chests. The chests were placed one above the console, for the treble pipes, and one on each side at a lower level, for the bass pipes. The central chest was just under 13≤ from front to back, and the two other chests were only 9≤ wide. The whole organ would stand in the maximum ceiling height of 91≤ (barely over 71/2 feet). The actual planting pattern was so tight that every possible space has been used, given the limited width and length available. Even so, no pipes are crowded, and all of them have been accommodated. The fronts of the three chests were made from oak-veneered ply salvaged from the old speaker cabinet and console back of the electronic. Consequently, they matched the finish of the console exactly.

Admittedly, there was no room for any casework or building frame, and we had yet to solve the problem of space for the blower, wind pressure regulator, wind trunks, low voltage current supply and one or two other essentials, but these are minor obstacles to the true organ fanatic!

The actual construction of the instrument started with the chests--comprising the pipe ranks, toe boards, or top boards (on which the pipes stand) "wells"  (the sides and ends) and bottom boards. Details of each chest varied with the numbers of rows of pipes, but the sketches showing the basic mechanism will give a good idea of a typical chest in cross-section.

Strips of mdf (a sheet material available in 3/4≤ thickness) were cut for the top boards for each of the three chests, and the pipes centers were punched directly onto them, using the paper setouts, taped down, as a template. Based on these centers, the magnets, valves, pipe racks and the many other details of the mechanism can be marked out and fitted. Unfortunately, a detailed description of this procedure is beyond the scope of a general article such as this. While the basis of the mechanism is shown clearly in the sketch, there are a great many practical details which must be finalized in design and observed in manufacture, if this deceptively simple idea (drilling a hole, screwing a magnet and valve under it, and planting a pipe on top of it) is to be carried through to create a reliable musical instrument. Such a mass of information has not, to my knowledge, ever been written down, as it is essentially based on practical experience over the years. If any readers are interested in further practical details, it may be possible to describe some of the problems involved, and how they are overcome, in a future article, but only a practicing organbuilder can have all the necessary skills and knowledge to cope with every situation, and this makes it impossible to give a general "recipe" for building an organ.

The wind supply is provided by a small electric blower of course, but this one is unusual, in that it was passed on to Alec by an organ-building friend from the days of his original house organ. Indeed, it turned out to be the very same blower, which had returned to him, after an absence of 30 or more years! It proved to be an excellent machine, and very quiet when housed in a new silencing cabinet.

It was necessary to regulate the wind pressure to a value suitable for the pipes and their setting, and, of course, we had no space for traditional bellows. In a case such as this, I used my own design of wind pressure regulator (basically a hinged plate of 1/2≤ sheet material, "floating" over a rubbercloth diaphragm, and supporting some suitably-tensioned springs). Movement of the plate controls a valve which allows wind from the blower through to the chests. As the pipework makes a demand on the supply, the valve opens just far enough to maintain pressure to within 1/8≤ or less at peak demand. This is an acceptable degree of control, and only a very critical ear will notice the slight fall-off in power. Every builder has his favorite design for such a regulator (sometimes called a 'schwimmer' or, in my case, a 'compensator') and they all bear a strong family resemblance. Not all are equally effective, however, and some are prone, under adverse conditions, to fluttering (creating an effect like a very rapid Tremulant). Again, only experience of such devices can provide a way out of trouble, though there are some basic rules in compensator design.

The steady, regulated wind from the compensator is fed to the chest by a rather broad, but shallow, wind-trunk (made in mdf, like the blower box and compensator). This is fixed to the back wall, out of sight, behind the console.

With all the basic elements designed, there still remained the question of the 14≤ limit on width. Obviously, the blower box and compensator were too wide to keep within the limit, so it was decided to camouflage them, together with the circuit boards, transformer/rectifier unit, and other large components.

In the final design, the three chests were screwed to plates of 3/4≤ ply, previously fixed, in a true vertical position, to the rather uneven stone wall. The console was placed centrally, with the two outer chests (holding the bass pipes) low down on each side. The third chest (containing all the treble pipes) was fixed centrally on the wall, just behind and above the console's music desk. Two bookcases were made to fill completely the gap between the sides of the console and the side walls of the house. They were set rather further forward than would be usual, with a broad top which ran back to the wall behind, effectively disappearing under the side chests.

On the left of the console, the bookcase is a real one, with its top extending over the circuit boards and transformer/rectifier unit hidden behind. To the right of the console the seemingly identical bookcase is, in fact, a dummy. Its shelves and books are only about 11/4≤ deep. (One of the more bizarre scenes in the workshop was that of pushing large quantities of scrap books through the circular saw, leaving their spines and an inch or so of paper and cover. These truncated volumes look convincing when glued, side-by-side, onto the foreshortened bookcase back.) The space under the dummy bookcase top contains the blower box and compensator. The bookcases, blower box, compensator, etc., all sit on 3/4≤ ply panels which have been leveled onto the floor.

Once Alec had installed his real books and ornaments, the organ (while visually dominating such a small room, as it must) blended into its domestic setting beautifully, with a spectacular visual touch being provided by a trumpet-blowing angel, carved in oak, which had been salvaged from a local church altarpiece,

What of the finished product? Naturally, the instrument is a compromise--but then this is true of all but the largest organs. It is a pity, for instance, that there was no room for a swell box, or another rank, but it is a wise builder or player who knows when he has gone as far as space and finances will allow. The wooden Stopt Diapason rank had its top lips lowered, and was re-voiced to produce a charming, rather quaint sound, with none of the original's unattractive, breathy tone. The Open Diapason had to be softened to just short of dullness, and now adds considerable fullness and warmth. The Salicional has made an excellent quiet voice, and is also very useful in its other pitches, where it adds brightness without shrillness. This is most important in a small room, and it is worth noting that, the larger the room (up to cathedral proportions) the brighter and more cutting the treble pipework can, and must, be. But the opposite is true for a small space, where top notes can easily become uncomfortably piercing--hence the lack of Mixtures on small house organs with no swell boxes. Many visiting organists, both professional and amateur, have played Alec's instrument since its completion, and all have been pleasantly surprised by its resources and the fact it is possible to produce satisfying performances of both classical and romantic works, albeit with some ingenuity on the part of the player.

True, it would have been possible to install a "large" electronic with three or four manuals, a wide range of stops and artificial reverberation, and I can see the attraction of such an idea, especially for the player whose interest lies in large-scale, romantic works. But, I cannot imagine anything less convincing than the sound of pedal and manual reeds, with Diapasons and mixtures, echoing with a five-second reverberation, across a room some 16 feet long and 8 feet high. The sound of a small organ in a small room, with no reverberation at all, is an authentic one and has a special charm. Whether it be two or three ranks of pipes offered with mechanical action as two or three stops, or whether, as in this case, the ranks are extended to several "stops," the small domestic instrument has a sound and fascination all its own, and is capable of giving much pleasure, both visually and musically, over many years.

 

Peter Jones will be pleased to receive comments, either on this article, or relating to readers' own experiences, at: The Bungalow, Kennaa, St. John's, Isle of Man, 1M4 3LW, Via United Kingdom

 

Manual I

                  8'            Open Diapason A

                  8'            Stopt Diapason B

                  4'            Salicet C

                  4'            Flute B

                  22/3'    Twelfth C

                  2'            Fifteenth A

                                    Man II/Man I

Manual II

                  8'            Stopt Diapason B

                  8'            Salicional C

                  2'            Salicetina C

                  11/3'    Nineteenth C

Pedal

                  16'         Harmonic Bass B & Q

                  8'            Bass Flute B

                  4'            Fifteenth A

                  2'            Salamine C

                                    Man I/Ped

                                    Man II/Ped

Summary

                  A              Open Diapason 73 pipes

                  B              Stopt Diapason 73 pipes

                  C              Salicional 73 pipes

                  D              Quint 12 pipes