A Tribute: Searle Wright (1918–2004)

Bruce P. Bengtson began his study of the organ at the First Congregational Church, Waterloo, Iowa, and served as organist for the church from 1958–1964. He received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Northern Iowa in 1964 and a Master of Sacred Music degree in 1966 from Union Theological Seminary in New York City. In 1968 he completed the requirements for the Associate Certificate of the American Guild of Organists. He has served as organist and choirmaster for churches in Waterloo, Iowa; Elizabeth, New Jersey; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; and Lincoln, Nebraska. He served as organist-choirmaster of Christ Episcopal Church in Reading, Pennsylvania, from 1971–1982; he relinquished the choirmaster responsibilities in 1982, but has continued to serve Christ Church as organist. In the fall of 2005 he celebrated 50 years as a church organist.

This article was inspired by Ralph Kneeream’s elegant and moving tribute to Searle Wright in the November 2004 issue of The Diapason. Dr. Kneeream strongly encouraged me to memorialize my thoughts and impressions of Searle as a teacher to provide an additional perspective on the talents and contributions of this remarkable man. It was my privilege to study organ, composition and improvisation with Searle from September 1964 through May 1966, and to be able to keep in contact with him after graduation from Union Theological Seminary’s then-existing School of Sacred Music until his death June 3, 2004. As a teacher of composition One of his aphorisms was specifically applicable to this area of music study: “Write quickly, but revise exceedingly slowly and carefully!” While he was referring to musical composition, his cautionary wisdom applies equally well to writing an article! I have endeavored to carefully follow this advice in compiling these thoughts and reflections. As a composer of numerous organ and choral works himself, he often joked about it being said of him that he was in this century (the 20th) but not of it! This self-deprecating humor was generally followed by this remark: “If one is going to write conventionally, one must have something to say and write exceedingly well.” He always advocated that a composition have a good “tune” or melody involved. He was not averse to 20th-century compositional devices (polytonality, 4th-built chords, etc.), but these were used as means to an end, not an end in themselves. He encouraged honest efforts at composition, but he could come down hard in his evaluations. I vividly recall his written comments on one of my own efforts, which I still have: “Good grief, the chords! The piece can’t move! It falls under its own weight!” This sent shock waves through my system at the time. But the encouraging part of his teaching style came to the fore in his comment on the last page: “Big talents carry big responsibilities!” I had been brought down, but also lifted up. He proceeded to outline in writing some of the options that could correct my many compositional errors. As a teacher of improvisation He worked with the Union students in a class setting. He would demonstrate how to build an improvisation with what seemed, and were, very basic and practical methods. It sounded easy when he would demonstrate, but I think there was a certain apprehension in all my classmates when we had to play, knowing his phenomenal reputation as an improviser and our natural desire to avoid making total fools of ourselves! Yet I always felt he was able to correct us without putting us down, and in such a way that we were willing to embrace and work on his corrections and suggestions. I will never forget one time when it was my turn to improvise in class. Somehow I got stuck on a theme from Grieg; no matter how hard I tried, I could not shake the theme or improvise my way out! While the theme was good, I soon ran out of material and ways to deal with the theme. Mercifully, I somehow brought the improvisation to an embarrassing conclusion. As I turned around on the organ bench, I could see the looks on the faces of some of my classmates; all of us awaited his comments. With a broad smile Searle said: “Well, it sounds like Bruce got stuck in a tune taught him by his Swedish grandmother!” He was aware that I am Swedish on my father’s side, and well aware that the composer of the theme was Norwegian. Much relieved, I joined my classmates in a good laugh, and he proceeded to show us all how to escape from such musical traps in the future! Part of our improvisation training was learning how to “decorate” hymns with passing tones and harmonic changes, as well as using hymn tunes as the basis for an improvised prelude to a service. While teaching this subject, he did not hesitate to express his opinion on free accompaniments: “Dr. Noble’s (T. Tertius Noble, Organist and Master of the Choristers at St. Thomas Church, Fifth Avenue, New York City from 1913–1943) free accompaniments are fine, but he didn’t always put the melody in the top voice. If you’re going to do a free accompaniment, leave the melody intact in the top voice.” I never had the privilege of hearing Searle play a service, but Dr. Kneeream tells me that Searle was very careful to play the hymns as written for the services. When I heard this I was reminded of another of Searle’s sayings: “Just because one can do something does not mean one should!” Another valuable lesson he taught was how a chromatic sequence is constructed and functions. Using a variety of examples, he demonstrated how this knowledge can hasten learning the music of Vierne. He progressed from that lesson to show us how to improvise around a cipher, a skill I once heard him demonstrate “under the gun” when he was playing theatre organ for his 75th birthday party in Binghamton, New York. He worked around the persistent cipher for over two minutes, never losing a beat, until it suddenly ceased, allowing him to proceed! As an organ teacher As an undergraduate organ major at the University of Northern Iowa, my organ study was with Philip Hahn (later, Dr. Philip Hahn, AAGO, President of the American Guild of Organists), who was a student of Robert Noehren at the University of Michigan. The question of whom among the Union faculty I should study with arose when I was accepted at Union. Phil suggested I write to Dr. Noehren, since he had heard me play in my sophomore year at UNI when he was at the university to work on final plans for his new instrument slated for installation in the newly completed music building. I well remember Dr. Noehren’s reply: “You have had enough discipline in your training. Now the time has come for you to have some freedom. Therefore, I recommend you study with Searle Wright.” I told this story to Dr. Baker (Dr. Robert S. Baker, Dean of the School of Sacred Music) during my entrance interview with him at UTS and recall his reaction: “Very interesting that Bob (Dr. Noehren) would recommend you study with Searle. They are of very different persuasions, you know!” Thus it came to pass that I studied with Searle. During my first year at Union, I had my lessons on the organ in James Chapel at Union, not at St. Paul’s Chapel, Columbia University, where Searle was the Organist and Director of Chapel Music, because of scheduling problems. Searle was not, to put it mildly, enamored of the sound of the organ in James Chapel! And it was no wonder. The room was dreadfully dry acoustically, which would put any organ at a disadvantage from the outset. Rebuilt and updated in 1960, at a time in American organ building when pipe scales were getting thinner and thinner, making mixtures work properly with the thinly scaled foundational underpinning was a real problem. Dr. Baker had the Swell mixture replaced at least three times after he became Director of the School upon the death of Dr. Hugh Porter. Searle was accustomed to the magnificent G. Donald Harrison American classic Aeolian-Skinner and the reverberant acoustics of St. Paul’s Chapel. I vividly recall Searle’s frustration during one of my lessons while helping me with a registration. Exasperated, he muttered: “This organ is as subtle as a train wreck!” However, that did not stop him from finding combinations that not only worked well for the literature being played, but were beautiful! He had a wonderful ear for sounds and total mastery of the art of registration. One of my many lasting memories is how excited he would become when I came to my lesson prepared with a significant amount of literature to play. He loved it when I was willing to take his ideas on the pieces and at least try them. During my second year at Union, my lessons were in St. Paul’s Chapel. Scheduled to begin at 2 pm on Fridays, they seldom got underway until 2:30. Searle was not a morning person! He often stayed up as late as 4 am practicing or composing, followed by sleeping until noon. Therefore, 2 pm was very early in his day. He would come in late, half-awake, apologizing for being late and saying he had to stop along Broadway to get an orange juice. Upon ascertaining I had prepared a number of pieces for him to hear, he quickly awakened as his enthusiasm bubbled to the surface. Having taken advantage of the 20–30 minutes he was late to work out registrations on the magnificent chapel organ, I would begin to play. His keen ear for color would take over as he would rapidly approach the console from his “listening post” in the nave of the chapel to compliment me on my registration, quickly followed by: “Have you thought of doing it this way?” as he changed all the stops I had selected! In amazement I marveled that I had not thought of it in the new way and would reach for my pencil to jot down the idea. But he would protest, “No, don’t bother to write it down; you could also think about doing it this way,” and quick as a flash, he would again change all the registration. The moral of the story soon became readily apparent: he felt it limiting to be doctrinaire; rather, he encouraged me to use my ear, take into account the resources at my disposal, the acoustics of the room, the structure of the music, etc., to achieve a series of musical sounds that emphasized the music and what it was trying to convey. He was exceedingly generous with his time. If I had a significant amount of repertoire prepared, my “hour lesson” might well run until nearly 5 pm when he had his Friday evening choir rehearsal! I well recall stumbling out of the chapel physically exhausted, but mentally and emotionally on an unbelievable “high” after those lessons. They were so stimulating! His knowledge of the repertoire was comprehensive. Often during lessons he would ask if I knew or played such-and-such work. Often, I not only did not play it, I had never heard of it! He would allow me the time to write down the names of these suggestions. My organ scores are rife with names of works to learn, written in pencil scrawls that fade more and more as the years go by. I am still, after all these years, exploring some of the suggestions he made in those lessons. Though the pencil scrawls are faded or nearly invisible after 40 years, my memory of the man, his teaching and his ideas are as fresh in my mind as if I had just heard them yesterday. As in his teaching of composition and improvisation, he could be a very encouraging organ teacher. After playing a noonday recital at St. Paul’s Chapel, I expressed my disappointment in missing too many notes in the G-Major Voluntary, op. 1, no. 5, by William Walond. Searle pointed out that errors in this type of music can be minimized by first taking care to cover the notes one is about to play, then keeping your hand and wrist as quiet as possible while playing. While he did not often talk about technique or fingering, when he did, it was right on target and to the point. Note that this was brought home to me by the one who was to give me “freedom” and not impose more discipline on me! “Most players have more technique than they need,” he would say. “Technique must be the servant of the music.” He had such a wonderfully fluid technique and sat very quietly on the bench, always playing with an economy of motion; but could he move when the music called for it! I vividly recall his working with me before my master’s recital at St. Thomas, helping me to set registrations, tempi, etc. He would walk around the nave, listening intently. Interestingly enough, he did not radically alter the sounds I had chosen; rather, he adjusted them for balance in the room in a way I could not possibly do from the console. As we worked, he would frequently tell me how the organ was when it was all E. M. Skinner during the time he was working with Dr. Noble. I recall his mild grumbling about Harrison putting the Great manual on the bottom and questioning the wisdom of a French-style organ in an Anglican church. But he loved “his” Harrison Aeolian-Skinner in St. Paul’s Chapel, built almost 20 years before the St. Thomas instrument. On my master’s degree recital, I played Searle’s Introduction, Passacaglia and Fugue. As we were planning the repertoire for my recital, he asked me if I would be interested (note: asked me!) in learning the work. He described it as a big virtuoso piece not many people play. He had written it for Marilyn Mason in 1960, and she gave its first performance at the AGO national convention in Detroit that year. Searle felt it to be a good piece and worthy of the time I would need to spend on it. I readily agreed to tackle it! Since one of the requirements for the Master of Sacred Music degree at UTS in those days was to write both abbreviated and extended program notes on each work in our master’s recital, I arranged to interview Searle and get the background of the piece “straight from the horse’s mouth,” as he said. As we sat in “The Pit” (the “break room” at Union) over coffee, he told me about his life and the piece. He was especially proud of the work; it had come out in print only three years earlier. I shall always treasure the note he wrote in my score after the recital, “Thanks for a great performance!—Searle.” He championed Vierne and Karg-Elert when they were out of vogue in the 1960s. I studied the Vierne Triptyque with him. It ends with the “Stèle pour un enfant defunt,” the last piece Vierne played on his recital at Notre Dame in June, 1937, when he collapsed and died at the console just prior to the customary improvisation. Searle took such pains in teaching these little miniatures, talking about ways to pace and phrase them. I have all his markings in my score, and I treasure them. What he accomplished with me in those lessons was not only to give me a thorough understanding of those specific pieces but also to develop my understanding and feeling for the use of phrasing and rubato, not only in the music of Vierne, but other composers as well. His teaching philosophy • Use your ear, decide on and practice your pacing, don’t forget the big line, and play musically. • There are no difficult pieces, only unfamiliar ones. Your job as a musician is to make familiar that which is unfamiliar and to communicate. • A teacher is constantly in danger of falling into the trap of trying to be all things to all people, of trying to do too much, and of being a jack-of-all-trades. It is good to know something about a lot of things musical, but it is necessary to remember that it is “a little” that one knows. The teacher must take a point of view in order to give the subject studied a personality and a point of departure. The teacher’s viewpoint should be only a point of departure, not the gospel for the student. Epilogue I took my last lesson from him in April, 1993, at the First Congregational Church in Binghamton, New York, his last church position. The entire lesson was devoted to the Final from Vierne’s Fifth Symphony, which Searle had played impromptu for me one time during a lesson at St. Paul’s Chapel to illustrate a point he had been making about “the big line” versus detail treatment. I was so overwhelmed hearing him play the piece at the time that I promised myself I would learn it some day. Before the Binghamton lesson, he had relearned the piece himself so he could teach me. This was so typical of Searle: he believed in preparing and expected the same of his students. I still have all his markings and suggestions in my score. This lesson took place before the articles were published showing that the metronome markings in the Vierne symphonies are wrong. He said that the tempo markings in the score of the Final were “ridiculous!” “Slow it down! Just let the piece happen.” He also talked about the construction of the piece, how to handle the three episodes before the theme recurs in minor, then again in major against the triplet figuration. As always, he talked about the big line and the shape of the piece. “The details are fine, but if you lose the shape of the piece while getting the details, what have you gained?” After the lesson (21⁄2 hours, just like in the “old days!”), I took him out for dinner. He would accept no pay for the lesson! We had a wonderful conversation on a variety of topics. After dinner I bade him goodnight as he headed back to the church—he wanted to practice! He was working on the Roger-Ducasse Pastorale. Even Searle admitted it was a hard piece! It was the last time I saw him alive, but I kept in contact with him by phone the rest of his life. He seldom wrote letters and was generally good for an hour on the phone, joking that he was vaccinated with a phonograph needle! What a legacy he left! May the soul of the faithful departed rest in peace, and may light perpetual shine upon him. Amen.

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

Introduction

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

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

Background

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jerome Meachen writes:

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

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

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

Charles McManis writes:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I:              Great     8’ Principal       11/3’      Mixture

II:            Swell    4’ Principal        2/3’       Scharf

III:          Brustwerk           2’ Principal        1/3’       Cymbel

Pedal     8’ Principal       11/3’     Mixture

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

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

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

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

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

Redeemer and Manatee

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

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

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

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

Summary

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

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

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

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

Lorenz Maycher has recently been appointed director of music at First-Trinity Presbyterian Church, Laurel, Mississippi, and is producer of the compact disc series, “The Aeolian-Skinner Legacy,” found at . His interviews with Thomas Richner, William Teague, and Nora Williams have been published in The Diapason.

Among his many admiring colleagues, Albert Russell is considered not only a prince of the organists’ realm, but as a gentleman’s gentleman. These attributes are rare enough in this day, but they are uniquely combined with great humility, affability and graciousness.
Those of us who have been fortunate enough to know him for years know also of his dry wit and wonderful good taste. His recently released Aeolian-Skinner Legacy recording [See p. 20–Ed.] enables his outstanding musicianship to be shared with a new following of fans, all of whom will be delighted that he has generously given this fascinating interview.
—Charles Callahan
Orwell, Vermont
July 2007

Lorenz Maycher: Tell me about your early years, and how you got interested in the organ.
Albert Russell: I was born in Marlin, Texas, which is near Waco. Later, we moved to Stamford, near Abilene, out in the Panhandle. I was interested in the organ from early childhood and used to go to choir practice with my mother and drive the organist crazy, reaching up and playing the keys while they rehearsed. I started piano lessons at the age of six, and organ at twelve, taking lessons on a two-manual Estey at the Methodist Church, where the highest pitch was 4′. My teacher would put on the sub-coupler and say she was “searching for depth.” She gave me mostly transcriptions. Rachmaninoff Prelude in G Minor, Caprice Viennois of Fritz Kreisler, and Dreams of Hugh McAmis were some of my pieces. I went to my first lesson wearing tennis shoes, but she got rid of those. Her students were not allowed to use the tremolo while we were practicing, because she was afraid it would break and she wouldn’t be able to use it on Sunday. She kept a clothespin on the tremolo stop so we wouldn’t use it. There was a ceiling fan above the console in the choir loft where birds would build nests that would fall into the choir loft. Dick Bouchett was one of her students, and later we were good friends.
I left Stamford when I graduated high school and went to study with Robert Markham at Baylor, where I had a full scholarship. Baylor had a good music department, and Markham had built the organ in the main auditorium there; it was installed beneath the stage and had some theatre organ stops in it. He was organist at First Baptist in Waco, where he played a large Pilcher. He was very good to me and brought me back after I had left Baylor to accompany Messiah. I was also chapel organist at Baylor, and was organist at First Lutheran Church in Waco, and, later, First Methodist Church in Marlin.
Then I was in the Air Force, stationed in Bryan, Texas, and was fortunate to get to play in the civilian churches. I would play the chapel service using a field pump organ at first and then we got a Hammond, which made me feel like I was playing a five-manual Skinner. After the service I would then go into town and play at First Presbyterian. When I got out of the Air Force, I went to the University of Texas in Austin, and auditioned for and got the job at University Methodist Church, which was a nice position. Archie Jones, who taught in the music department at the university, was the choir director. It was great fun to try to play the organ loudly enough to support a congregation of 1200 Methodists singing “the good ole hymns!” I would have been an organ major, had we not been required to play from memory. I can memorize, but have never felt I played as well from memory. I don’t make music as well—too busy worrying about the notes. Gerre Hancock, Joyce Jones, and Kathleen Thomerson were some of my classmates at UT. Gerre played at University Baptist Church. The organ at UT was the first Aeolian-Skinner I had any contact with, and it was such an eye opener. I studied organ with John Boe and Earl Copes and learned from both of them. Earl Copes now lives in Sarasota, Florida and is still playing recitals. We are still in contact.
The summer of 1953, I came to Washington, D.C. I had heard William Watkins play a recital at Baylor and vowed then that I’d like to study with him. And sure enough, I did in the summer of 1953. He was so wonderful to me, and got me jobs playing the organ all over town. When I got to Washington, I had $50 in my pocket, so had to get a job in a hurry.

LM: You came to Washington just to study with him?
AR: Yes. Studying with him that summer was such a great experience that I decided to come back to Washington in January 1954 to work with him some more at the Washington Musical Institute, where I completed my bachelor’s degree.
I had gone to a fortune-teller in San Antonio, and she had said I would find a job not related to music in Washington within three days of my arrival. Sure enough, the third day I was hired as a flunky in the office of Senator Prescott Bush, the grandfather of the current president. And again, thanks to Bill Watkins, I was busy playing in churches all over town. He opened up a whole new world for me and presented me in recitals at his own church, New York Avenue Presbyterian. I got to know many of the Washington musicians through him and vowed then that, if I were ever offered a job, I would move here. And, sure enough, here I am.
In the fall of ’54, I enrolled in the master’s program at Union Theological Seminary in New York, studying organ with Hugh Porter. He taught his lessons on the E. M. Skinner at the Academy of Arts and Letters. That first year I had a little church job in Cloister, New Jersey, and took the bus out there. The second year, I played at West End Collegiate Church on an old Roosevelt that had been redone by Austin. Donald McDonald had been there, and he turned over the reins to me. We had eight professionals for the choir. It was a fun job.
That year, I decided to study organ with Searle Wright just to get a different perspective on things. I got to play a number of noonday recitals at St. Paul’s Chapel at Columbia, where he taught his lessons. Searle’s accompaniments of oratorios at St. Paul’s were superb. He would always laugh and say if he didn’t have such good acoustics, he’d be fired. He didn’t have time to practice a lot, but he always played wonderfully.
I learned about being a good musician from Searle. He always taught such interesting repertoire, like Robert Russell Bennett’s Trio, where all three voices are in different keys. I chided him about that piece for years afterwards for giving me something so difficult. It is a good piece, but is disconcerting!

LM: Every time I run across a recital program of yours, the repertoire is completely different. How did you acquire such a large and varied repertoire, with so much new and challenging music?
AR: I am a fast reader, so can learn quickly. I’ve always had a craving to learn new music, and enjoyed going to Patelson’s to buy music that other organists did not know or weren’t playing. Searle was awfully good about introducing me to music that was not being played a lot.
I also studied composition with Searle. He was never a morning person, and that class was at 9:00 a.m. He was ALWAYS late and just did not want to be there at all! He said I always wrote music that sounded like Delius, which I took as a compliment.
Through Searle, I got to know John Huston quite well, and Robert Crandell, who was at First Presbyterian in Brooklyn. John Huston was at St. Ann’s in Brooklyn with that wonderful Skinner that Virgil’s teacher put in. Charlotte Garden loved that organ. Through the faculty at Union, I made many connections in New York City, and as a result, got to play one of the opening recitals on the new Aeolian-Skinner at St. Thomas in 1956. It was an absolutely thrilling organ. Ed Wallace was the assistant at that time. George Faxon, Henry Hokans, and Clarence Watters were three of the other recitalists on the inaugural series.
During my second year at Union, I was chapel organist and got to accompany the choir’s Christmas concert, with Ifor Jones conducting. I once made the mistake of giving him a pitch with the celestes on. Well, I never did that again!

LM: Was Ifor Jones just a terror?
AR: He could be very hard on people in choral conducting class, and some were reduced to tears. He would say, “You should be a butcher, rather than a musician.” But it certainly separated the men from the boys. He would never allow anyone to conduct a straight four-beat pattern, which he thought was square, but insisted on a flowing, musical pattern. I think I learned as much from him, musically, as anybody.
However, years later, George Faxon and I often combined choirs. Once, we were rehearsing the In Ecclesiis of Gabrieli at Trinity, Boston. I was conducting and George was at the organ. Roger Voisin, the first trumpet in the Boston Symphony, was also playing. He said, “George, I cannot follow Mr. Russell. Would you please conduct?” So, we traded places. It was not funny at the time, but is now that I look back on it. I had always used Ifor Jones’s flowing style of conducting and, of course, orchestral people never knew where I was.
At Union, I also learned an awful lot from Robert Shaw’s mentor, Julius Herford. We all laughed at him at the time for what we thought was his overly romantic interpretation of Bach. Actually, he was making music. We were too young to appreciate that.
Charlotte Garden taught oratorio accompaniment. She was a terrific teacher and organist—and was fun. She was so tiny that she looked like a peanut sitting at that huge Möller console at her church, Crescent Avenue Presbyterian Church in Plainfield, New Jersey. She and Virgil were always vying for who could play the large Reger works the fastest.
I studied improvisation with Harold Friedell, and got to play one of the Lenten recitals at St. Bartholomew’s. He was also good to me and had a wonderfully dry wit. He taught at the church, and I would think of what I was going to improvise on while on the subway on the way to the church. As you know, his music is very modal. He improvised in the same style and taught this style for improvisation in service playing. Thank goodness we did not have to improvise fugues or strict form, because I would not have been good at it. Friedell’s service playing was smooth, and he used the organ beautifully—including the dome organ and all those goodies up there.
I remember Virgil came to the Lenten recital I played at St. Bart’s. I did the “Sicilienne” from the Duruflé Suite, and used the dome Vox Humana—shouldn’t have been using it, but Virgil thought it was the highlight. Bobby Hebble and Ted Worth were there with Virgil—we were good friends. I had gotten to know Virgil through a friend of mine who was a tenor in the choir at Riverside. He thought I should play for Virgil once. So I did, and that is how I got started substituting for him whenever he was away, and playing oratorio accompaniments, which was a good experience for me. Dick Weagly conducted the choir and he was a good musician.

LM: When you played for Virgil Fox, what were his comments?
AR: He said, “I like the way you pull stops.” That’s all I remember. But, I learned so much from him just by observing. I had first heard him in recital at Highland Park Presbyterian Church in Dallas in 1948. It was electrifying. I also heard Marcel Dupré that same year at McFarlin Auditorium at Southern Methodist University. I’ll never forget Dupré’s recital. It was the first time I heard the Widor Toccata. The Hillgreen-Lane organ was in such poor condition that they had to work on it for a solid week to get it ready for the recital.

LM: Did Virgil Fox practice for hours on end?
AR: Yes, at night. I practiced at night, too. Also, at Riverside, I had to do anything I could to make money, so I ran the elevator, sang in the afternoon choir for oratorios, and ran the switchboard. I probably got $5 for singing, but did learn a lot of repertoire. Virgil loved ice cream, so a lot of the time after practice, we would get in his convertible and go downtown to Rumplemyers on Central Park South. He was not a drinker, so we would have ice cream instead.

LM: Was his playing always prepared?
AR: Sometimes he simply did not have the time to practice, and would come in fresh from a solo recital tour to accompany an oratorio. But his monumental talent always carried him through in great style. Dick Weagly would complain that the organ was too loud, and he and Virgil had many altercations about this. One thing I always admired about Virgil was he stood up for what he believed in, and never changed, whether others thought he was right or wrong. William Watkins was the same way. I got to travel with Virgil some and we had wonderful conversations. He had a lot of personal depth and was a very kind person to many people.

LM: You must have heard some great recitals at Riverside.
AR: Yes. Charlotte Garden, Claire Coci and Searle were some outstanding ones. I remember Claire Coci broke the crescendo pedal.
The summer of ’56, I played for Virgil while he was away. Then, after graduating from Union, I went to Hartford to be organist-choirmaster at Asylum Hill Congregational Church. Soon afterwards, I also got the jobs teaching at Hartt College and as university organist at Wesleyan University.

LM: What was Asylum Hill like when you arrived?
AR: It was very disappointing. I arrived there in August, and people did not go to church in the summer because they were at the shore. There was no air conditioning, so people would not go to church even if they were in town.
We had the services in the chapel, so I had my debut there on a concert Hammond with not many people present. They had gotten rid of the all-professional choir and only had four paid singers. So, in September I really had to start from scratch with volunteers. Later on, we went to eight paid people and started the oratorio choir, which got up to about sixty people. We did all the major works, which I conducted and played. People came from as far away as Boston, Worcester, and Springfield to sing in the choir.
The organ was an old E. M. Skinner, with a very beautiful case, up in the gallery. The Swell reeds were terribly loud, completely obliterating the choir. I was told when I went there to not even think about mentioning a new organ, as the E. M. had just been restored (they had taken out the Swell Mixture and replaced it with a flute celeste). It did have some nice sounds, but soon began ciphering, and finally ciphered on the Tuba on a Sunday morning, which got things going nicely for a new organ.
We formed an organ committee and took them to visit Symphony Hall, Boston, and several other good Aeolian-Skinners. We listened to other builders, but Aeolian-Skinner was by far the preference.

LM: Did Joseph Whiteford design the new organ?
AR: Yes. We drew up the stoplist together. I had met Joe through Virgil, and then later met Paul Callaway through Joe. Both were so good to me, and that started my association with Aeolian-Skinner.

LM: I know a lot of organists who look down their noses at Joseph Whiteford’s instruments, but don’t you think they were beautiful?
AR: Absolutely. Some of Joe’s organs from the early ’60s are among the best instruments Aeolian-Skinner ever built. Philharmonic Hall in New York, for example, was certainly one of the finest. I always enjoyed hearing Joe talk about organs, because he did it from a musician’s viewpoint. Joe had wonderful ears and good taste, but was also a good musician. For my money, that is the reason his organs turned out so well—because they were musical. We spent many hours together at the piano, talking about music and listening to singers. He was exposed to a lot of good musicians, too, and was friends with Samuel Barber, Gian Carlo Menotti, Thomas Schippers, and Earl Wild.
Donald Gillett was also a great artist, and I fully back his work. Both Joe and Gillett did use smaller scales and higher-pitched mixtures than Harrison, but it was beautiful work. You have to remember that we all grew up with organs that sounded like black smoke, where the highest pitch on the entire organ was a 4′ flute. Their organs were a reaction to those. They craved clarity and brilliance, and their organs were suave, beautiful creations.

LM: What were Joseph Whiteford’s goals when he designed the Asylum Hill organ?
AR: One thing he said was, “Let’s build an organ where you can use a lot of it all the time, and not have to save it for Easter Sunday.” It filled the church, but was not a bombastic instrument. I loved it and it played the literature beautifully. In the Ruckpositv, he took the old E. M. English Horn and made a Regal out of it, which was very effective. I used that in the slow movement of the Handel G Minor Suite in the Aeolian-Skinner “King of Instruments” series.
For the opening concert, we did a program for organ and orchestra with the Hartt College orchestra, and did the Seth Bingham Concerto for Organ and Brass, the Poulenc Concerto, and the Handel Sixth—no solo organ repertoire. For the second concert, we did the Duruflé Requiem and I played the Suite.

LM: You made two recordings on the Asylum Hill organ for Aeolian-Skinner.
AR: Yes, the organ solo LP at Asylum Hill included the Healey Willan Introduction, Passacaglia and Fugue. We sent the recording to Willan, and he liked some things, and some he didn’t. He thought the organ was too thin for this piece (not having three diapasons on the Great!). The recording also included the organ at Philharmonic Hall in New York City, which I believe was the first recording made on the new organ. Joe Whiteford had been talking to me for a while about recording those two organs, and then he mentioned having the choir do the Duruflé Requiem.
We did the Philharmonic Hall recording first. When we got there, I was supposed to have practice time, but there was something going on in the hall. I had played enough Aeolian-Skinners that I knew what to expect, so I just looked over the organ and set some pistons. When the hall finally emptied, I was able to try out my combinations. We could not start recording until the subway had stopped, which was around midnight, so, I had from 11:00 to midnight to set up the organ and practice. That was it. I practiced and recorded in the same night! When we finally got started recording, we went well into the night. I would stop every hour and take a shower. Joe was present for the session, and the recording engineer for the New York Philharmonic recorded it.
When we made the recordings in Hartford, John Kellner from Aeolian-Skinner did the recording. He was awfully good. We did the Duruflé in a separate session, and as far as I know, it was the first commercial recording of it made in the United States. We sent it to Duruflé, and like Willan, there were things he liked and things he did not like. I hear things now in the recording that I cannot stand—some things that are non-legato that should have been legato, and the choir did not do its best singing—completely my own fault. Ultimately, I did get to coach this with Duruflé when the Asylum Hill choir sang the Requiem at St Paul’s Chapel in New York in about 1964. Duruflé conducted and Madame Duruflé played.

LM: Did you enjoy life in Connecticut?
AR: Living in New York had prepared me for the rough winters. I had always been told that New Englanders were cold people. But I found them to be some of the most wonderful people I’ve ever met. From day one, it was a happy experience, and introduced me to many people who have become lifelong friends—Barry Wood, at First Baptist, Worcester; Hank Hokans, at All Saints, Worcester; Dick Westenberg. We all played in each other’s churches often. Dick was kind enough to invite the Asylum Hill choir to join his at Central Presbyterian in New York for a concert. George Faxon I got to know through Joe Whiteford, and that was a long, long collaboration. We combined choirs often at Trinity, Boston, and I played for his Evensongs when he was away. Later, when I moved to Washington, he had me come up and accompany the Brahms Requiem during Lent, and the next night I played a Lenten recital. That was a busy time, because I practiced there the week of, got back to Washington Saturday night to play for church Sunday morning, then went back to play the Brahms that night and the recital the next day. The organ at Trinity, Boston was splendid for accompanying. The whole front organ was enclosed, and the console was of George’s special design—low, so you could see over it. That was one of the happiest musical relationships and friendships, with George and Nancy Faxon, I have ever had. We had the best times together and I always stayed at their house. Many late night sessions were spent in their wonderful kitchen over glasses that always seemed empty.

LM: In Hartford, was Asylum Hill the only thriving music program in town?
AR: No. Sumter Brawley did wonderful things with orchestra and chorus, like the B Minor Mass. He was at Trinity Church right around the corner. Can you believe he has now retired and is living in this very building here in Washington? He still conducts marvelous concerts, having done one just recently at the Cosmos Club.

LM: Tell me something about your teaching career.
AR: Hartt College was my first teaching job. I had a lot of good students, and it was a learning experience for me, too. I did the organ and church music courses. Later the college joined the University of Hartford as the music department. We got an Austin in the concert hall. John Holtz, also on the faculty, took over the organ department when I moved to Washington. He was a marvelous teacher—brilliant—a much better teacher than I. He really lit a fire under his students. I was always better at coaching graduate students, rather than starting beginners, which just did not interest me.

LM: Did you start the contemporary organ series at Hartt?
AR: No. John Holtz did, and it really put Hartt on the map. John asked me to review the concerts one summer, and I was so unlikely to do it because I’ve never been a fan of extremely contemporary music. But I had to admit that after a week of listening, it was almost like hearing an old friend.
I was also university organist at Wesleyan. On Sunday nights, I’d go down there to play for chapel then teach the next day. There was a new Schlicker in the chapel. That was an interesting experience, again accompanying oratorios, although most of the time we used instruments with the organ. The Smith College choir would come down and join us. Iva Dee Hyatt was their conductor. She was fabulous.

LM: Were you working seven days a week?
AR: Yes, and I did up until my later years in Washington.

LM: Are you a workaholic?
AR: No. I simply needed the money, and, if I wasn’t teaching, needed to practice for recitals. Here in Washington, even on my day off, I would spend it practicing over at National Presbyterian, rather than going downtown.

LM: When did you come under management?
AR: I got to know Roberta Bailey very well at Riverside, when she was managing Virgil. He was her first client. Then she took on Karl Richter, Hank Hokans, Pierre Cochereau, and Anthony Newman. She and I were friends, and she knew I was already doing quite a bit of recital work, so she invited me to join her. She got me a lot of dates for which I was very grateful.

LM: When did you move to Washington?
AR: 1966. I had been in Hartford ten years. One day I received a letter from the rector at St. John’s, Lafayette Square, asking me if I would be interested in the job. Paul Callaway and George Faxon had recommended me to him. At the time, I had not been thinking of leaving Hartford. But I had always liked Washington a great deal, so was interested. On my way to play a recital in the Midwest, I stopped off here in the middle of a big snowstorm to audition. I was hired in the spring of 1966, and remember weeping bitterly my last Sunday at Asylum Hill, and I cried all the way to Washington. John Harper was the rector who hired me at St. John’s, and was there for my entire tenure as organist. He left me to do my work and was always totally supportive.
Coming here was one of the best things that ever happened to me. Phil Steinhaus was my predecessor. He had been here for two years before leaving to work in Boston at Aeolian-Skinner and the Advent. The organ at St. John’s was a late E. M. Skinner and Son, although Aeolian-Skinner had redone the Great. The choir was a small, professional group of 13, which I had always wanted. The organ was just a mess, and it didn’t take long to convince the rector we needed a new one, which we got in 1969.
I had become interested in Gress-Miles, and thought, in that situation, with the organ stuck in a hole, that an aggressive instrument was the best way to go. There was not enough room to enclose two divisions, which was unfortunate. We had wanted to put the organ in the gallery, but, because St. John’s is a historic structure, we were not allowed to change the room in any way. So, we had to plunk it back in the hole. I worked with Ed Gress on the design of the organ, and he was wonderful. He was a theatre organist, but also knew the classical literature very well and knew its demands. We both drew up individual stoplists, then collaborated on the final one.

LM: How was it for accompanying?
AR: It did as well as it could do under the circumstances, with only one enclosed division. But, if we had gotten a milder organ, it wouldn’t have been successful. The former Skinner there just didn’t get out at all. Paul Hume reviewed the opening recital of the Gress-Miles, and one of the first things he commented on was how much better the new organ got out. I played a solo recital for the opening, and Bob Noehren played another. He was a great mentor of mine. We had met through John Holtz in Hartford. We also did the Duruflé Requiem and the opus 5 Suite on a program. Paul Callaway played the other one—there were four inaugural concerts.

LM: Was the reverberation system in place at St. John’s when you arrived there?
AR: Yes. The church had one of Aeolian-Skinner’s reverberation systems, which allowed one to make music in that practice room situation. The system was very convincing, particularly in the middle of the nave. If you were by the speakers, under the balcony, it was less convincing, although it helped tremendously with hymn singing. There were fifteen speakers, each with delayed sound, and each with its own timing. It was a heck of a lot better than not having it. Christ Church, Cambridge was, I believe, their first one. Joe Whiteford set one up at Christ Church Cathedral, Houston for the 1958 AGO convention. I played the Mozart K. 608 Fantasy, first without, then with, reverberation, and Joe gave a lecture.
At St. John’s, we had several Sunday mornings a year that were all music, so we would do an oratorio. We had excellent singers in the choir, especially after the Kennedy Center opened, which attracted even better singers to town. One time we were doing the Mozart Requiem, and, soon after we began, the alto doing the quartets became ill and had to leave. So, I looked at one of the other altos. She nodded, and sang the quartets without a flaw. Another time we were doing Messiah, and I played the introduction to “And the Glory,” and when it was time for the altos to enter on the opening C-sharp not one alto peeped. So I played it again and, this time, it worked. Explain it.
We hosted several regional conventions in Washington, and the choir either sang programs or services for these. We had the AGO national convention in 1982. I was program chairman for that, and we did the Duruflé Requiem the opening night of the convention to a full house. I’ll never forget the choir processing in to Hyfrydol. Later, they told me, “We just stopped singing so we could hear that enormous, thrilling sound coming from all the organists in the congregation.” You couldn’t put on enough organ. I conducted and played the Requiem, and Donald Sutherland played the Widor Fifth Symphony before the service.

LM: Did you play for a lot of dignitaries at St. John’s?
AR: Yes. Before every presidential inauguration we had an early service. And, every president worshiped there. Once in a while the rector would say, “Let Helen play the last hymn, and you can come out and meet the president.” He was very nice about that. The only ones who were there regularly were the Fords. It sounds glamorous to say the president was there, but security was such an issue that it made life difficult. The Secret Service men would put dogs in the organ chambers. There was one Sunday where we had a bomb scare while the choir was practicing, so we had to finish the rehearsal out on the sidewalk, using a pitch pipe.

LM: You did quite a bit of teaching in Washington, too, didn’t you?
AR: Yes. I got Peabody at the same time as St. John’s, because Phil Steinhaus had been at both, and just turned the reins over to me. Arthur Howes was teaching there at the time. I taught all day on Mondays for $10 an hour. The concert hall had an Aeolian-Skinner, but I taught on a Walcker practice organ with a mixture that could be heard all the way to Washington. I needed my martinis after eight hours of that.
Leo Sowerby also asked me to teach at the College of Musicians. I taught people who came to the college just for organ lessons and who were not college students themselves (there were only eight college students, whom I did not teach). I called my students the “out-patient department,” and they had their lessons at St. John’s. In fact, I met my future assistant at St. John’s teaching her there—Helen Penn. I got to know Leo quite well and learned a great deal from him. I was particularly fortunate to coach Forsaken of Man with him when we did it at St. John’s. He lived on Wisconsin Avenue across from the National Cathedral. We watched the 1968 fires on 14th Street from his apartment. I remember a party where Leo sang “I can’t give you anything but love, baby,” accompanied by Garnell Copeland, organist at Church of The Epiphany. It was something. Speaking of Garnell, I judged the Ft. Wayne competition one year and thought I recognized Garnell Copeland’s style of playing, and sure enough, it was he. We flew back to DC together.
Preston Rockholt was my boss at the College of Musicians. He and Paul Callaway were the organ teachers there. Paul was so much fun. He was tiny, but was a musical giant. He always parked his big Buick convertible car by sound!
I also taught organ at American University and Catholic University. I never enjoyed teaching as much as playing recitals or doing church work. Perhaps I was a good teacher for some people, but I knew I wasn’t for others. Maybe all teachers feel that way. The lovely thing is, some of my former students keep in touch, and we have become good friends over the years.
In the early ’80s, I noticed I had a problem with my right hand. I thought it was carpal tunnel syndrome—something that could be fixed. I would warm up every morning by playing Hanon on the piano for 30 minutes before going to the organ, and noticed it there first. Then, at the organ, I noticed it on the Widor Toccata. One finger, on my right hand, would just lock. So, I went to every doctor in town and in Baltimore, and was not diagnosed. Leon Fleisher had had the same problem, and had been diagnosed at Mass. General, so that’s where I went, to the doctor who had diagnosed him. Sure enough, I had the same thing—focal dystonia—a neurological problem that cannot be cured. I decided to give up the church. I know St. John’s did not understand why I left, and why I have continued to play elsewhere since I left in 1985. But, I had to follow my conscience. I did not want tourists coming from all over the world to a church where the organist could not play major literature. Of course, people were asking right and left for the Widor Toccata for weddings, which was out of the question.

LM: Has your hand problem improved now, twenty years later?
AR: No. It is worse. I have tried everything and have had injections, but they did not work.

LM: Do you play at all now?
AR: Yes. I have done a lot of playing. I have just had to learn which pieces to stay away from—no Widor—and to use bizarre fingering. Fortunately, I have received a number of invitations to play the Duruflé Requiem, which I am still able to do because the most difficult part of the work is in the left hand. Also, I have switched the right hand part in the “Introit” to the left hand. I played it most recently at St. Paul’s, K Street, where I’ve played it several times for Jeffrey Smith, and at National Presbyterian Church. I was fortunate to get to perform it frequently early in my career, too. I also do little recitals for a group of people here in my building and am playing a program for them just this next week at National Presbyterian Church, where I am fortunate enough to practice each week. My good friend, Bill Neil, is the organist there and he is so kind to give me the time. These little demo recitals are very informal—we talk about the organ and I play for them. We just have a good time, like family.
I cannot imagine being more fortunate than I have been all through my school years, career, and now in retirement to have had the teachers, colleagues, friends and bosses who have given me an enormous amount of support and affection.What else is there that matters in life?

A native of Centralia, Illinois, Charles Huddleston Heaton was educated at DePauw University and Union Theological Seminary in New York City. Following service in the U.S. Army, he was organist/director of the Second Presbyterian Church and Temple Israel in St. Louis, and from 1972–1993 held a similar position at East Liberty Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh. Following retirement he has been organist in residence at Trinity Cathedral and served as interim for a year each at Calvary Episcopal and Oakmont Presbyterian Churches. Dr. Heaton is a Fellow of the AGO, has written two books and published several anthems, and was editor of the Hymnbook for Christian Worship. He is a staff reviewer of new recordings for The Diapason magazine, and is listed in current editions of “Who’s Who in America.”

Somehow during my grade school years, I got into the habit of writing in a diary each night, and have kept it up for over seventy years. Recently I was looking up a name in the 1954 book, the year I was released from the army and my wife (Jane) and I drove to New York so I could begin doctoral studies at the School of Sacred Music of the Union Theological Seminary.
Hundreds of people were at the school during those years; perhaps these items will recall pleasant days. The writing is presented as is, with no attempt to revise or change comments I perhaps would not agree with fifty-plus years later. To identify characters a bit: Dr. Porter was the director of the school, Searle Wright was director of the Chapel Music at Columbia University, Harold Friedell was organist-choirmaster of St. Bartholomew’s Church, Virgil Fox was organist of the Riverside Church, Julius Herford taught musicology and baroque interpretation at UTS, Vernon deTar was organist-choirmaster at the Church of the Ascension.
The title of my dissertation was “The Disciples of Christ and Sacred Music.”
Trips to Plainfield, New Jersey nearly always were to Crescent Avenue Presbyterian Church, where the legendary Charlotte Lockwood Garden played and directed (student of Clarence Dickinson, then of Louis Vierne). Choir and organ playing were superb. Mrs. Tangeman was Clementine Miller Tangeman, a member of the prominent Disciple family in Columbus, Indiana. Dr. Skinner of Second Presbyterian Church in St. Louis was W. Sherman Skinner. Dr. Thompson is Van Denman Thompson; both Morgan Simmons and I studied at DePauw with him—a magnificent teacher and performer.

1954
Sept. 14. Spent quite a little time going to New Brunswick and auditioning for the job of Chapel Organist for Rutgers University. They wouldn’t say for sure, but I believe I got the job. Will play there Sunday at any rate.
Sept. 19. Played the service at Rutgers this morning, and got the job permanently!
Sept. 21. Finally got registered to the tune of $390. Ouch. They charge by the point for us doctoral candidates.
Sept. 26. Did the Rutgers service today and it went quite smoothly. The organ has no general pistons, but can be well managed. [Rutgers Chapel had a lovely 3-manual E. M. Skinner organ with gorgeous sounds. I did not direct the choir.]
Oct. 3. We drove back and went to St. Bartholomew’s Church for “Elijah.”
Oct. 4. Had the Herford analysis class all afternoon and he piled work on. Ugh.
Oct. 7. This evening we went to a buffet supper for the Disciples’ Club in Dr. and Mrs. Bates’ apartment. Most pleasant.
Oct. 11. We went to the broadcast of the Bell Telephone Hour concert tonight with Robert Casadesus. Splendid.
Oct. 13. We went to the Amsterdam Concertgebouw orchestra at Carnegie tonight. Beautiful playing.
Oct. 17. Heard a recital by E. Power Biggs this evening.
Oct. 25. This evening I heard deTar do “The Creation” down at the Church of the Ascension. Not too good.
Oct. 30. This afternoon we went down to St. George’s Church and I played the huge old Austin there. Had great fun. [Organist-choirmaster of this historic church was George W. Kemmer. His choir did elegant work.]
Nov. 8. Attended a longish and dullish lecture by Archibald Davison tonight.
Nov. 14. Went to Riverside this evening for Vaughan Williams’ “Dona Nobis Pacem.”
Nov. 17. Went to a recital by Jack Ossewaarde at St. Bart’s which was quite fine on the modern stuff, but not too good on the Bach.
Nov. 20. This afternoon we heard a tenor recital by the great Roland Hayes. His voice isn’t too fine any longer, but the magnificent spirit is there!
Nov. 29. The Seminary had a beautiful memorial service this afternoon for the great Henry Sloane Coffin, who died the other day. We heard Ernest White play a fine recital tonight.
Nov. 30. Morgan (Simmons) and I went to the Cathedral of St. John, and Alec Wyton played the big organ there quite a while.
Dec. 4. We heard a beautiful piano recital by Guiomar Novaes this afternoon. Really superb.
Dec. 13. Finally had the big carol service for the first time tonight. Everything went off quite well. I played the organ for most of it. We had a party here afterwards.
Dec. 14. Did the carol services twice more today, and got the thing concluded nicely. Kind of tiring.

1955
Jan. 5. Ben and Dan and I went down to the 8th Street Wanamaker store to see the old organ today. It is to be sold, etc. A great old monster—110 ranks. We couldn’t play it, though, the thing was disconnected.
Jan. 9. Went to Riverside and heard Bach’s “Magnificat.”
Jan. 12. Talked with Dr. Porter and he said I could be chapel organist at Union the next summer.
Jan. 14. Friedell gave me four tickets to a Bach concert tonight honoring Albert Schweitzer’s eightieth birthday.
Jan. 16. Went to St. Bart’s this afternoon and heard the Evensong. Friedell asked me to play an organ recital there in July!
Jan. 17. I practiced nearly five hours today, for a change.
Jan. 26. Lots of music today—the complete dress rehearsal of Mozart’s “Idomeneo” at Juilliard, and a Palestrina program by the Dessoff Choir. Very good.
Jan. 29. Today I registered for the second semester at Union. Tuition: $360.00. Wow.
Feb. 5. Went over into Brooklyn and visited Dr. Dickinson in the hospital today.
Feb. 7. Good news: I passed the German reading exam. Bad news: Had to pay a $5 fine on a parking ticket. Also heard a fair organ recital by Jeanne Demessieux, a French organist.
Feb. 12. We drove down to St. George’s Church and picked up a set of flute pipes Mr. Kemmer gave to Ben Smith today. He is going to build an organ with our help! I also played a wedding at Riverside this afternoon. [Ben Smith is J. Benjamin Smith, later director of chapel music at Duke University.]
Feb. 18. Had an organ lesson today. Cost $24 for the car, but they put in new plugs, points, etc., and the thing runs much better so far.
Feb. 21. Tonight I took a rehearsal of “Elijah” at Columbia for Searle Wright.
Feb 28. Herford had a dullish class in Bach analysis today.
Mar. 5. Went on the Music School retreat to the Crescent Avenue Presbyterian Church at Plainfield today.
Mar. 10. Heard Corliss Arnold play a recital over at Columbia this noon. It was quite good.
Mar. 12. Dr. Volkel gave me his old copies of “The Diapason” for 1926 to 1930!! They are in splendid shape. [I later had all the years of “The Diapason” bound and ultimately donated to the library of DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana, where I fervently hope they still reside!]
Mar. 14. The music school had a fine party tonight—Searle Wright played jazz until 12:30, to Jane’s delight.
Mar. 19. Got the remaining “Diapasons” from 1930 to 1946 from Dr. Volkel today.
Mar. 20. Went to St. George’s Church and heard Kemmer and his group do a splendid “St. Matthew Passion.”
Mar. 24. I am going to play at Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church this summer.
Mar. 25. Tonight we heard Virgil Fox give the opening concert on the huge new Riverside Church organ. It was showy and flamboyant.
Mar. 26. Practiced at St. Paul’s all morning. Then had a “Crucifixion” rehearsal in a little church I am playing it for. Jane had her first false labor pain last night!
Mar. 29. Played my recital over at Columbia this noon. It went off quite well, although I forgot and took a second ending in the Dupré, shortening the piece slightly!
Apr. 3. In the afternoon we went to St. Patrick’s to see Courboin, but he wasn’t playing. [Charles M. Courboin was the legendary organist of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, and one of the very finest performers I ever heard by any standard.]
Apr. 6. Jane didn’t feel very good this afternoon and labor pains got more and more frequent.
Apr. 7. Jane had a little girl this morning about 4:30. We named her Rebecca Lynn.
Apr. 11. (Much about Mother and Baby . . . ) Tonight I took a rehearsal for Searle Wright again.
Apr. 23. Went to a superb concert of baroque music over at Juilliard. Harpsichord, portative organ and all.
Apr. 24. Jane went with me to Rutgers today, then we drove to Bound Brook, New Jersey and talked to some people about a possible job there.
Apr. 26. We heard an organ recital by Lady Susi Jeans tonight at the
Cathedral.
May 1. The people from Bound Brook I saw last Sunday were at Rutgers to hear the service. Heard the annual service of Negro spirituals at St. George’s Church this afternoon.
May 10. Took the third of my organ exams this afternoon. Judges were Searle Wright, Friedell, and Porter. I played the 6th trio sonata of Bach, the “Elegie” by Flor Peeters, and the 1st movement of Vierne’s first symphony. Went off OK.
May 16. Went to Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church this afternoon and Mr. Lee showed me all around the facilities, as I am playing there this summer.
May 21. Spent the morning up at The Reformed Church in Bronxville practicing for tomorrow and the afternoon for a wedding over in James Chapel.
May 22. Raced to Bronxville after Rutgers and played the big choir service up there.
June 9. Did the first section of the written work for the AAGO exam this afternoon.
June 10. Completed the second section of the Guild exam all this afternoon. Think I did OK on it.
June 12. Got up quite early and went to Freehold, New Jersey, where I have the choir and organ for the next three Sundays. Quite a pleasant situation in the Methodist church there.
June 14. Have started reading in Disciple history for my dissertation.
June 22. I made a tentative outline of my dissertation today and Dr. Tangeman and I discussed it.
June 28. I worked quite a while over at Madison Avenue this afternoon.
June 30. Had a funeral at Madison Ave. this morning. Morgan Simmons is here now for summer school. [My colleague from both DePauw and Union, Morgan F. Simmons, was for some 28 years organist-choirmaster of the Fourth Presbyterian Church in Chicago. We remain great friends.]
July 5. Dick Peek is up for the summer. We had him over tonight. I played the first chapel service this morning. Also have a couple of organ students lined up.
July 6. My article on Alexander Campbell’s hymnody came out in the June 29 issue of “The Christian-Evangelist.”
July 7. The church at Bound Brook said I could have the job for next year if I wanted it.
July 9. Had two weddings this afternoon, so it was profitable. Morgan cooked a big dinner for six of us tonight. Was very good.
July 14. Went down to Bound Brook tonight and ended up by getting the job there. $50 per week plus the fine apartment next door. So a move is in store. Will have four choirs and a fine organ.
July 20. We had a choral service in chapel this morning which I directed and all. Played a wedding this afternoon. The Tangemans asked us up tonight. Very pleasant visit.
July 21. Heard a typically bad organ recital by Claire Coci at Riverside
tonight.
July 25. Worked on bibliography quite a bit today. Also attended a choir rehearsal tonight to watch Ifor Jones conduct.
July 26. Accompanied Doric Abriani on a voice exam this afternoon. Gave a couple of lessons.
July 28. Heard John Huston play a fine recital in Riverside tonight.
Aug. 9. Got the welcome news today that I passed the Associate exam in the Guild! Took it in June, and now the trip back wasn’t wasted.
Aug. 11. Had our last bibliography class this afternoon and ended up with a B+ in the course. Morgan is leaving tomorrow and the school closes up for a month.
Sept. 2. We got up, loaded the car up and raced to Bound Brook. Then I picked up a big truck and drove back to New York and Jim Francis and I hauled all our furniture out here. A real job!
Sept. 4. Had to get up early and commute into New York for a change—the last day at Madison Avenue.
Sept. 7. Worked on the choir rehearsal deals today a lot. Had our first rehearsal tonight and it was pretty successful.
Sept. 11. First Sunday in Bound Brook was quite a success, musically speaking. I went to Westminster fellowship tonight trying to recruit members for the youth choir.
Sept. 17. Had my two little choirs this morning—about forty kids altogether.
Sept. 20. Sent out the first hundred questionnaires pertaining to my dissertation today.
Sept. 27. Went in to Union and registered today—$150 tuition. Am taking private theory lessons with Mr. Friedell now.
Sept. 29. In to Union and had a preliminary lesson with Friedell today. Am taking theory and all preparatory to taking the F.A.G.O. exam next year.
Oct. 12. Had the two choirs tonight and worked quite a little on modulating and all today.
Oct. 18. Worked on theory and did the initial bit of actual writing on my thesis today.
Oct. 23. Was too sleepy during the services today! Went to Plainfield and heard an organ recital by Dr. Michael Schneider, a German organist. Was very fine.
Nov. 3. Had a long trip into NYC today. Started giving a girl organ lessons at Union. Practiced at St. Bartholomew’s Church, too.
Nov. 7. Worked on early hymnals a lot today, trying to get stuff down on paper! Worked on theory a bit—reading alto clef and transposing.
Nov. 20. Went to Westfield and heard Dr. Volkel play a good organ recital this afternoon.
Nov. 22. Went into NYC today and practiced, also heard a program of liturgical music at St. Mary the Virgin.
Dec. 5. Went in and practiced at St. Bartholomew’s Church all afternoon, and the recital seems to be going well.
Dec. 7. Played the recital at St. Bart’s tonight, and it went off quite well.
Dec. 11. Drove to Princeton this afternoon and heard a Christmas Vesper in their beautiful chapel. Carl Weinrich played and it was very fine.
Dec. 25. We had fine Christmas services at the church today, despite a few absent choir members on vacations. We had to take our tree out this evening, it was shedding so badly.
Dec. 26. Started preparing a bunch of historical organ recital programs that I have to do sooner or later.
Dec. 29. This evening Margie and Paul Koch came out to stay and eat with us.

1956
Jan. 5. Tried to find out if I will graduate this spring or not, but no success!
Jan. 13. Spent some time typing up my historical organ recitals in their final copy.
Jan. 15. Tonight we drove in and took the Boggesses with us to Carnegie to an all-Wagner program the Tangemans got us tickets for.
Jan. 17. Went into Union today to play some baroque music for the committee, and learned of a couple more piddling things I have to do for this elusive degree.
Jan. 21. Completed the first draft of the “anti-organ” dispute for my dissertation.
Jan. 23. Fired off a couple of letters to Butler University at Indianapolis to see about the possibility of teaching there next year.
Jan. 26. Had a long talk with Dr. Tangeman today and it seems that Dr. Porter has nearly ruined my chances of getting the doctorate this year.
Jan. 30. Began the long job of calculating the results from the questionnaires on Christian Church music this afternoon.
Feb. 2. It is pretty final that Porter isn’t going to put through my degree this year, although both Tangeman and Friedell were for it. He is griped off that I quit studying with him.
Feb. 14. Tonight was a fine Mozart program at the Crescent Ave. church which we attended. Was busy on my thesis and practicing.
Feb. 16. Had a pretty good day in New York. Stopped by and talked with Dr. Adams at Park Ave. Christian Church about Disciple music a while. [The Reverend Doctor Hampton Adams was one of the distinguished clergy in the Disciples of Christ denomination.]
Feb. 26. Beautiful day, so all the fair-weather Christians turned out for church this morning.
Feb. 27. This evening we heard the Philadelphia symphony and the Rutgers choir in a wonderful performance of Mahler’s “Resurrection” Symphony. Certainly was a splendid job.
Mar. 1. Am going to NYC tomorrow instead of today, so I worked more on my dissertation and Friedell stuff. Also practiced.
Mar. 9. Today I finished copying out my six responses and sent them off to Canyon Press to see if they would publish them.
Mar. 11. Dan Byrens and Fred Stroop played a fine organ recital over in Plainfield this afternoon and they came for dinner afterwards.
Mar. 13. Made a New York trip to interview a man from Boston University about a job today, but I am sure they want an older person for the job.
Mar. 21. Completed the first draft of my dissertation today, hallelujah. There is a lot of checking and all that to do, but it is good to have it this far done.
Mar. 22. Tonight we went to Rutgers, heard the Boston Symphony. Got stuck in the ice and had to be pushed out.
Apr. 1. We sang our Cantata “The Green Blade Riseth” by Searle Wright at both services this morning, and it went very well.
Apr. 7. All manner of feverish activity today. It is Rebecca’s first birthday, and George and Dona Lee were out to proofread my dissertation.
Apr. 21. Page 100 completed on the final four copies of my dissertation!
Apr. 26. Went in to Union for all the day, and up to Bronxville tonight to rehearse for a choral program Sunday.
Apr. 29. Spent the afternoon to and from Bronxville, where I played the choir festival at The Reformed Church like I did last year.
May 4. Typed on the dissertation—now to page 170. Ought to be nearing the end before too long, I hope.
May 6. Dr. and Mrs. Tangeman came out for the service and had dinner with us. She took back some of my dissertation to read.
May 8. Finally finished typing the main text of my dissertation—200 pages. Now have all the odd stuff to get out like appendices and bibliography.
May 12. This afternoon I completed the typing of my dissertation!
May 17. Went to New York today and interviewed Dr. Heerens from the Southern Baptist Seminary with an idea to teach organ there.
May 27. The choir sang Noble’s “Souls of the Righteous” today and ripped it off perfectly splendidly!
May 29. They wired from Louisville today and said it was decided not to change organists this year, but did I want it for 1957! Now the problem is “what to do.”
June 4. Had to go to New York just to practice an hour on the Guild examining instrument. A wondrously out-of-tune organ.
June 7. Took half of the written work and the playing part of the FAGO exam today. The playing was beastly difficult, and really kept me sweating.
June 20. Morgan and Mary Simmons and their baby came out here to stay all night. He is getting this job for next year.
June 24. The convention of the American Guild of Organists begins tomorrow.
June 26. Lots of people at the convention. Dr. Thompson came out from DePauw.
July 2. Trip to Allentown Pa. today to conduct a rehearsal and look into a possible job. They have old facilities now, but the possibility of a new church, organ, etc.
July 7. Yesterday I wrote a special delivery letter to the pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church in St. Louis about a job there. Tonight he called me and arranged an appointment with himself and the chairman of his music committee on Tuesday!
July 10. I went to Union to interview a Dr. Skinner and Mrs. Fischer of the Second Presbyterian Church in St. Louis. They have a complex combination job there which I think we landed! There is a TV telecast program once per week, as well as the church and a possible temple. [W. Sherman Skinner was a brilliant preacher. It was an honor (and my great good fortune) to work with him in St. Louis.]
July 13. Picked up my dissertation from Dr. Tangeman. Have to make corrections on the final copies—then it is finished!
July 15. They had a nice reception for us at the church today. Heard from St. Louis that we definitely are going there!
July 29. Rode to Princeton this afternoon and heard and watched Arthur Bigelow, the bell-master, play a carillon recital—quite exciting.
July 31. Went to Union today and took my dissertation. Learned that last week they were looking for a Minister of Music at the National City Christian Church!! Too late.
Aug. 5. Played the last service at Bound Brook today. The choirs and music committee gave us a purse of $47.00!
Aug. 6. Went to NYC to take a last coaching lesson from Friedell on my organ exam Wednesday.
Aug. 8. Played a last exam today in New York, which officially concludes my doctoral work, as nearly as I can determine.
Thursday August 9, 1956. We loaded up and left Bound Brook.

•

Over the years, I have noticed that most people seem to feel that the time they spent at whatever college or university marked the zenith of excellence for that institution. Most of us who were privileged to attend the School of Sacred Music of Union Theological Seminary during the 1950s probably feel somewhat the same way. I hope these personal entries from my diaries will bring fond memories back for many, and indicate to younger readers what the church music scene was like then in New York City.

James B. Hartman is Associate Professor, Continuing Education Division, The University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada, where he is Senior Academic Editor for publications of the Distance Education Program. He is a frequent contributor of book reviews and articles to The Diapason.

Across the centuries many outstanding musicians--from Johann Sebastian Bach to Charles-Marie Widor--are recognized for their outstanding achievements in composition, performance, and other notable contributions to organ culture. At the same time, many of these individuals contributed to other musical fields--instrumental and choral--not directly related to the organ. On the other hand, in the wider musical world sometimes this focus has been reversed, when outstanding practitioners in the instrumental and choral fields exhibited significant capabilities with respect to the organ.

This article will chronicle the activities of six selected outstanding figures of the broader musical society whose connections with the organ are perhaps not so widely known. The criteria for their selection include their prominence in music history within their chosen areas of activity, along with the availability of significant information about their involvement with the organ to make interesting stories. While their status in the world of the organ does not match those of the "giants" mentioned above, they worked industriously and successfully within the context of their other major activities as "alternative" organists.

Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901) was the son of an innkeeper in the tiny village of Le Roncole, near Parma, Italy. His first music lessons were at age 3 with the village schoolmaster-organist, succeeding him at his death six years later. His father bought his promising 8-year-old son a battered spinet; Verdi's love for the instrument was such that he kept it for eighty years. In 1823 he was sent to a grammar school in the nearby town of Busseto, where he lodged with a cobbler; he walked three miles back to Le Roncole every Sunday and on other feast days to play the organ, often carrying his boots so as not to wear them out. In Busseto the young Verdi studied for four years with Ferdinando Provesi, the choirmaster and organist of the collegiate church of San Bartolomeo and director of the Philharmonic Society. By age 12 Giuseppe had decided to pursue a serious musical career. He gave his first organ concert at age 13, replacing someone who was ill, when he played some of his own music on the chapel organ.

In 1829, at age 16, his application for the post of organist in nearby Soragna was rejected, perhaps because of his youth, so he continued to deputize for his ailing teacher at Busseto in composing for services, processions, and concerts, while also playing at Le Roncole. As an unpaid apprentice it was expected that he would take over both the salary and the position when Provesi died. Other musical activities included teaching younger pupils, copying parts for the Philharmonic Society, and playing the piano at musical gatherings. By the time he was 18 he had written an assortment of musical compositions, including marches for a brass band, various pieces of church music, and piano pieces.

In 1833 Verdi went to Milan to further his musical education, but he was refused enrollment at the Conservatory on the grounds that it was overcrowded, he was over the maximum age for entrance, he had problems with his hand position on the keyboard, and was a "foreigner." This rejection was a source of bitterness throughout Verdi's life. Nevertheless, he studied canons and fugues with the Conservatory's accompanist and director of music. Meanwhile, his former music teacher in Busseto, Provesi, died, leaving his post at the church vacant, and Verdi applied for it, unsuccessfully. Verdi's lifelong passion for theatergoing started about this time, and his habit of reading novels and plays unrelated to music prepared him for his later intense commitment to opera.

In 1834 musical "civil wars"--street brawls, church invasions, lampoons, arrests, and prosecutions--were waging between members of the Philharmonic Society, which supported Verdi, and opposing factions over the proposed appointment at Busseto. These events resulted in a royal decree banning the use of instrumental music (other than the organ) in church; this edict remained in effect for seventeen years until Verdi succeeded in having it removed in 1852.

Partly to avoid involvement in these uproars, Verdi applied for the position of cathedral organist at Monza, a larger town close to Milan; the Philharmonic Society threatened to restrain him with physical force if he tried to leave Busseto. On this occasion his examiner, the court organist, assured him that he had enough knowledge to be a maestro in Paris or London. In April 1836 he signed a nine-year contract as maestro di musica of Busseto; he took up his new position in 1838.

Now Verdi began work on an opera for Milan's Teatro Filodrammatico, which he continued until leaving Busseto in 1839. His first effort, Rocester, was never performed, but parts of it were reworked into Oberto, Conte di San Bonifacio, which opened on 17 November 1839 with moderate success. At this point Verdi's interest in the organ had ceased with his increasing involvement with opera. By 1860 Verdi was the most successful opera composer of the age. In time, his works, such as Rigoletto, Il Trovatore, La Traviata, Aida, and Otello, became among the world's best-known and most-loved musical dramas. On the other hand, he wrote no compositions for solo or accompanying organ, and none of his operas include the instrument in any way. The organ world's loss--not a significant deficit considering Verdi's many misfortunes and missed opportunities surrounding the organ--was the opera world's gain.

Anton Bruckner (1824-1896) was the first-born son of a family of eleven children of a village schoolmaster and organist in the town of Ansfelden, near the provincial capital of Linz, Austria. Young Anton ("Tonerl") received his first music lessons from his father, then from his cousin-godfather, who was a competent composer of church music. In 1837 he became a choirboy at the nearby Augustinian monastery, St. Florian, where he later served as a substitute organist. The organ there was a large four-manual instrument built by Krismann in 1771; it was one of the greatest on the continent at the time, and one from which the young player received inspirations of beauty and grandeur.

Until 1840 Tonerl led a secluded but thoroughly musical existence as a chorister who also studied piano, organ, and violin. In that year he enrolled in a one-year course of studies at Linz that would qualify him as an elementary school teacher, although for a while he had considered studying law and entering the civil service. Nevertheless, in 1845 he returned to St. Florian as a deputy organist and became chief organist in January 1855; this appointment lasted for ten years. Earlier, on a journey to Vienna in October 1854, he requested an examination by three outstanding Viennese organists who gave him enthusiastic testimonials; these were followed in 1855 by similar tributes from a well-known master organist from Prague. However, he was rejected for the post of cathedral organist at Olmütz in the summer of 1855.

Although Bruckner had intended to study organ with one of his examiners, he abandoned this plan when the post of organist at Linz cathedral became vacant. Bruckner, who was attending as a listener at the preliminary competition, joined in at the last moment and beat his competitors with his improvised performance of a fugue; he won again in the main competition in January 1856. This appointment freed him forever from the drudgery of teaching and the monastic seclusion at St. Florian, and introduced him to the livelier surroundings of the provincial capital.

In November 1861 Bruckner passed his final examination at the Vienna Conservatory. His improvised fugue on a given subject so overwhelmed the examiners that one of them stated, "He should have examined us! If I knew one-tenth of what he knows, I'd be happy." Another one thought that his improvisations closely resembled Mendelssohn's music.

Although Bruckner's earlier application for the position of organist-designate at the imperial court chapel in Vienna had been unsuccessful, he was finally given the post at the Hofkapelle in September 1868. It was an unpaid but prestigious position without much opportunity to assist on great occasions, apart from playing for the emperor and his family; eventually he achieved a paying position. In addition to playing the organ at services and coaching the choirboys, he directed performances of his own church music. His organ recitals at St. Epvre in Nancy and at Notre Dame in Paris in 1869 were warmly reported in the press, and were welcomed by the organ-building firms of Cavaillé-Coll and Merklin-Schütze, on whose new instruments Bruckner had improvised. Encouraged by these successes, Bruckner briefly considered a career as a concert organist. He apparently made strong impressions on such knowledgeable musicians as Franck, Saint-Saëns, Gounod, Auber, and Thomas.

On a journey to England in August 1871 as an official delegate of the Vienna Chamber of Commerce and participant in an international organ competition on a new instrument in Royal Albert Hall, Bruckner's performances received mixed reviews, but his improvisation on God Save the Queen was a highlight of his program of works by Bach and Handel. In July 1886 he was honored with the Franz Josef order and he was also received by the emperor personally, who enjoyed listening to his organ playing. In 1886 Liszt had just died, and Cosima Wag-ner invited him to perform at her father's funeral; Bruckner marked the occasion with improvisations on themes from Parsifal.

Reports on Bruckner's performing style as an organist vary greatly. Although he never composed seriously for the instrument, his powers of free improvisation were generally admired. One of his obituaries suggests that the professional critics had a poor opinion of him. Nevertheless, his early experiences at St. Florian undoubtedly left indelible imprints on his creative imagination, since some aspects of his orchestral style reveal influences of the dynamism of the organ.

His compositions for organ include: Four Preludes (ca. 1836); Prelude in E-flat major (ca. 1837); Prelude and Fugue in C minor (1847), strongly reminiscent of Mendelssohn; Two pieces in D minor (ca. 1852); Fugue in D minor (1861), which has been described as "academic and uninspired"; and Prelude in C major (1884). In the broader musical field his international recognition rests on his nine symphonies, choral church music, chamber works, piano pieces, and a few solo songs.

Antonín Dvorák (1841-1904) was born in Nelahozeves, near Kralupy, Czechoslovakia; his parents ran a village inn and his father was a butcher. He had violin lessons and played for village occasions as a child. When he was a butcher's apprentice, while living with his childless aunt and uncle in Zlonice in 1853, he had music lessons with the town cantor who filled the post of organist and choirmaster, as was the custom with village schoolteachers in those days. At this time Dvorák began to learn harmony and keyboard instruments.

Eventually his father allowed his son to become a musician and to qualify as an organist, so in 1857 the youth entered the Prague Organ School, where he remained for two years, studying theory and singing, as well as organ with the director of the choir at the Cathedral of St. Vitus. Young Dvorák was poor, shy, and sensitive, and not particularly fluent in German, so his talent was not immediately recognized at the school. Nevertheless, in 1859 he graduated with a second prize; his leaving certificate testified that he was "admirably fitted to fulfill the duties of organist and choirmaster." At the graduation concert Dvorák played some of his academic-style preludes and fugues. Around this time he supported himself as a violist in a small orchestra that played in restaurants and at dances. He also worked as an organist and teacher, and eventually married the sister of one of his pupils.

After his marriage he left the National Theater orchestra, in which he had played the viola for eleven years, to become organist at St. Adalbert's Church in 1874; this post left more time for composition, besides raising his status in the eyes of his mother-in-law. While there, Dvorák was appointed to a committee that judged the competing bids for the reconstruction of the church organ and supervised the completion of the project.

In the course of his career Dvorák served on numerous committees and administrative bodies dealing with musical matters, such as theater and arts societies, music competitions, and editorial boards; more specifically, a jury for government stipends to artists, and a member of the board of directors of the Czech Academy of Sciences and Arts in 1890.

A purely private matter was his donation of a new organ, on the occasion of his fifty-third birthday, 8 September 1894, to the church at Vysoká, near a mining town about forty miles south of Prague, where his brother-in-law had his estate.

Concerning Dvorák's ability as a performing musician, little attention has been paid to his achievements on the organ, but his abilities undoubtedly were much above average. Although he held a regular organist's position only from 1874 to 1877, he was appointed as organist for the inauguration of the renewed Czech University in Prague in 1882.

Although Dvorák produced no works specifically for solo organ, a number of his compositions--several songs and vocal duets--specify organ accompaniment. His total creative output includes eleven operas, choral and vocal works, nine symphonies and other symphonic works, various instrumental concertos, chamber music, and piano pieces. His "New World" Symphony (op. 95 in E minor, 1893) and the "Dumky" Trio (op. 90, 1890-91) are frequently heard on recorded radio programs.

Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924) was born at Pamiers, a little town in the Ariège region in the south of France. The youngest of six children, Gabriel's father was a teacher and his mother was the daughter of a retired captain. His earliest introduction to music was when he lived with foster parents in another town, where he would listen to a harmonium being played in an old convent chapel, which inspired him to improvise on the instrument on his own. One day the 4-year-old child was overheard by an elderly blind lady, an excellent musician, who suggested to his parents that his evident talent should be developed.

Eventually, in 1854, he secured a scholarship at Louis Niedermeyer's École de Musique Classique et Religieuse in Paris, a newly established boarding school for training organists and choirmasters. He remained there for eleven years, studying organ (the school had a 12-stop instrument and a pedal piano), piano (one classroom contained fifteen pianos), singing, plainsong, and theoretical subjects. His acquaintance with contemporary music came from Saint-Saëns, who became his piano teacher in 1861 after the death of Niedermeyer, and who remained a close friend and furthered his academic career. While at school Fauré and his friend, Eugène Gigout, planned their future careers as eminent church musicians.

Fauré was not particularly inspired by the organ, perhaps thinking that the mechanical instrument lacked the sensual subtleties of the piano. Even so, the organ's special feature, its powerful bass pedals, left a lasting impression as indicated by the strong bass lines in some of his piano pieces. According to Saint-Saëns, Fauré was a "first-class organist when he wanted to be," but he never kept up his technique and preferred to improvise. He left the school in January 1866 with the first prize in piano performance, organ, harmony, and composition. During this period he composed his first songs, piano pieces, and one choral work.

Fauré's first position was as organist at St. Sauveur in Rennes, which he held from January 1866 to March 1870. He was in trouble with the clergy from the outset, when he used the sermon time for a smoking break. He was dismissed after appearing at a morning service dressed in white tie and tails worn at a municipal ball the night before. His next appointment, at Notre-Dame de Clignancourt in Paris, also ended abruptly with his dismissal for missing a service to hear a Meyerbeer opera.

Following military service in 1871 Fauré was employed briefly as organist at St.-Honoré d'Eylau, a rich parish church in Paris. A more important appointment was as second organist at St. Sulpice in Paris, assisting Charles-Marie Widor; the church had a magnificent 100-stop Cavaillé-Coll instrument. The two musicians amused each other by improvising competitively in tandem during services; their subtle modulations probably were not understood by the clergy or other listeners, however.

A high point in Fauré's career was his appointment in 1877 as choirmaster, a prestigious but low-paying position, at Ste. Madeleine, Paris's most distinguished and fashionable church, where he succeeded Saint-Saëns, who had resigned; he held this position until 1896. Although Fauré's duties did not specifically involve organ playing, the church's impressive Cavaillé-Coll instrument was available for practice purposes when he was not teaching or working on his compositions.

Fauré's renown strengthened during the 1920s, and societies devoted to giving concerts of his music and publishing his works were formed in France in the 1930s and in succeeding years. He was not a widely popular composer, and his music had more appeal to connoisseurs than to the wider musical public. Even so, he cannot be counted among the "giants" of musical history.

Fauré's creative works include one opera, sacred choral works, nearly 100 songs, chamber music, piano pieces, and works for piano and orchestra. His Thème et variations, op. 73, Dolly Suite, 4-hands, is frequently heard on recorded radio programs, and performances of his Requiem still attract good audiences. Although Fauré respected the organ as an instrument having a classical repertoire, his compositions did not include any works for solo organ, but several of his choral and vocal works specify organ accompaniment. Consistent with his respect for Bach, he wrote the preface for an edition of Bach's "48" and revised the whole of Bach's organ works with unofficial help from Joseph Bonnet and his friend Gigout.

Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924) was born in Lucca, a small city in northern Italy, which had enjoyed a considerable reputation for its church music up to the end of the eighteenth century. The Puccini family had an impressive musical lineage of five generations of musicians in two centuries (eighteenth and nineteenth). Giacomo, the fifth of seven children, was expected to follow the family tradition and become organist at San Martino Cathedral. Giacomo's father encouraged his lazy son's mastery of the organ--the child was 5 years old at the time--by placing coins on the organ keyboard so that the boy, trying to grasp them, would have to push down the keys and produce sounds.

Following his father's premature death in 1891, Giacomo's uncle on his mother's side assumed the position at San Martino and continued instructing Giacomo until the child reached the appropriate age of succession. In time, Giacomo's organ playing improved to the level of assisting his uncle at San Martino, as well as performing in other smaller churches. He also played the piano at weddings, in taverns, and in houses of prostitution, as well as at a local convent, where he was rewarded with cups of hot chocolate in addition to his small fee of a few lire that was to be sent directly to his mother.

As a member of a fun-loving gang of youths, when he was playing the organ at a small village church where his brother acted as organ-blower, they decided to get extra money by stealing some organ pipes and selling them to a scrap dealer. In order to avoid detection of the crime, Puccini adjusted his playing of harmonies by avoiding notes of the missing pipes, which delayed discovery of the theft for a long time. Another source of income was from his only pupil, a young tailor--both were 16 years old at the time--and the lessons continued for four years, 1874-8. Puccini wrote his earliest compositions, consisting of short organ pieces, for him; the young man later became a composer of organ pieces himself.

Around this time, Puccini began composing in earnest, chiefly organ music for the church service. Many of these pieces were improvisations that Puccini later transcribed; some of them were derived from folk songs and popular operas, which startled both the priests and congregations. Puccini also introduced lively marches as postludes to play the congregation out of the church; for this he was reprimanded by his elder sister who was preparing to become a nun.

Puccini's first contact with opera was through his teacher, who introduced him to the scores of Verdi's Rigoletto, Traviata, and Trovatore. This experience probably had a decisive influence on Puccini's subsequent career, because he and several friends made a thirty-mile round trip to Pisa to hear Verdi's masterpiece, Aida. At this time Puccini abandoned the family tradition of becoming a full-time church organist and decided to pursue operatic craft at the Milan Conservatory, which he entered in 1880 with the aid of a scholarship from Queen Margherita. His scholarly record was consistently brilliant in counterpoint, his main subject, although he had yet to discover the secrets of the stage.

Puccini's fame rests chiefly on his twelve operas, particularly Manon Lescaut (1893), La Bohème (1896), Tosca (1893), Madama Butterfly (1904), and Turandot (1926); two of his operas, Edgar (1889) and Tosca (1893), contain parts for organ. He also composed various pieces of church music, several choral works, two orchestral works, chamber music (chiefly string quartets), two pieces for piano, and seven songs with piano. His catalogue of works also contains several pieces for organ (before 1880).

Charles Ives (1874-1954) was born in Danbury, Connecticut, where his father, George Ives (1845-1894), was a music teacher who directed bands, choirs, and orchestras. The father had an intense interest in musical innovation and experimentation, such as microtones, bitonality, and acoustics, which he shared with his two sons, Charles and Moss. For example, independence of mind was developed by practicing ear-training exercises such as singing in one key and being accompanied in another. Charles recollected playing drums in one of his father's bands that marched past another group, generating a discordant clash of conflicting keys and rhythms; this phenomenon is reflected in some of his later unconventional compositions.

While at home, young Charles studied drums, piano, and organ with various teachers, becoming a competent pianist by age 12. In 1889 he took his first salaried post as organist at the Second Congregational Church, then at the Baptist Church, in Danbury. At the same time, he composed songs and choral works, along with occasional organ solos that may have been used as interludes in church services or in church-sponsored recitals.

In 1893 Ives moved to New Haven to attend Hopkins Grammar School in preparation for entry into Yale University. While at Hopkins he took a job as organist at St. Thomas's Episcopal Church to help his father pay his expenses. In March 1894 he tried out for an organist position at the Baptist Church, but his application failed.

When Ives began full-time study at Yale in September 1894--he went there primarily for the athletics and as part of the family heritage--he was already an accomplished organist, a skilled composer of band music, and songwriter in the popular style. For his entire four years at Yale he played the organ at Center Church in New Haven--the oldest and most prestigious church there--where he was allowed to play his own compositions. Prior to, and during this appointment he commuted to New York to take organ lessons from Dudley Buck, one of the leading organists of the country. At Yale he took composition lessons from Horatio W. Parker, an established young composer of church music. Under Parker's direction Ives composed his First String Quartet, over forty songs, and several marches, overtures, anthems, part songs, and organ pieces.

Following his time at Yale, Ives moved to New York in September 1898 to take a position as a clerk with the Mutual Life Insurance Company; later he founded his own insurance company, Ives and Myrick. Even before the end of the Yale term, he had secured a position as organist at Bloomfield Presbyterian Church, New Jersey, to begin the following summer. He commuted to this position for two years before moving to Central Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, where he remained until June 1902. In these organist positions Ives remained a well-rounded musician, playing services and recitals, and composing practical pieces. His recital repertoire included works or arrangements by Bach, Mozart, Handel, and Brahms, and often music of his own. One of his works that received its premiere at Central Presbyterian Church was The Celestial Country, an ambitious work scored for two solo quartets and choir, string quartet, brass, tympani, and organ. Around this time Ives decided never to apply for another musical position in order to achieve his musical freedom from the demands of audiences. Although his ultimate decline in composition is sometimes attributed to health problems, he simply may have exhausted his ability to achieve his high artistic aims. Even so, he received the Pulitzer Prize for his Third Symphony in 1947.

Ives's music has its roots in the nineteenth-century Romantic conception of music as an embodiment of emotion and national feeling. The principal aim of his mature works was the personal representation in music of the range of human experience--particularly American experience--in all its drama, emotional power, and confusion. This aim is often revealed in the titles of some of his compositions that deal with specific events: for example, The Fourth of July, Decoration Day, Holiday Quickstep, Thanksgiving, and Washington's Birthday. His musical productions include choral music, vocal music, chamber music, orchestral music (including four symphonies), two piano sonatas, and the Variations on America for organ (written at age 17). Although the original scores of a number of his compositions for organ have been lost, they were incorporated into works for other instruments.

Ives's compositional style reflects his earlier experiences with his father's innovative experiments: explorations of tonality and serial procedures, polymetric and polyrhythmic constructions, experiments with quarter-tones, the use of space as a compositional element, and layered polyphony and multidimensionality. Ives's works were rarely performed during his lifetime, nor were they widely published. In recent years the Charles Ives Society has generated editions and playing materials of his music that are a challenge to all and a threat to some.

In addition to the six alternative organists discussed above, several other well-known names might be added to this group.

Arthur Sullivan (1842-1900) learned to play many wind instruments from his father in London before embarking on an intense period of musical training, including the Leipzig Conservatory, 1858-60. Returning to London, he worked as a teacher and accompanist, as well as organist at St. Michael's, Chester Square, 1861-7, and at St. Peter's, Cranley Gardens, 1867-72. His musical collaboration with W. S. Gilbert produced some of the best-known pieces of popular musical theater, many of which still are traditional offerings of school and college musical groups.

Gustav Holst (1874-1934) first learned music from his father, an organist and pianist. He began conducting local orchestras while attending grammar school, and then played the organ at Wyck Rissington, Gloucestershire, in 1892, although the instrument never figured in subsequent professional appointments. Some of his orchestral compositions became enduring contributions to the musical world. His powerful Choral Fantasia (1930) for soprano, chorus, and orchestra, also includes the organ.

Hamilton Harty (1879-1941) learned piano and counterpoint from his organist father. From age 12 he held organ posts, first at Magheracoll Church in Antrim County, Ireland, then at Belfast and Bray (near Dublin). He played viola in a Dublin orchestra and became known as a piano accompanist in London. In 1920 he became the conductor of the Hallé Orchestra, which he formed into one of the country's finest orchestras.

Leopold Stokowski (1882-1977) entered the Royal College of Music, London, at age 13, where he studied piano, organ, and composition, receiving his diploma in 1900; he also studied at Oxford University (B.Mus., 1903). He was organist at St. James, Piccadilly, 1902-5. In 1905 he moved to New York as organist and choir director at St. Bartholomew's Church on Madison Avenue. Following his debut as a conductor in Paris, he was engaged by the Cincinnati Orchestra in 1909, then by the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1912, an internationally famous organization that he led for twenty-four years.

Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992) began to compose at age 8, even before any formal instruction. He entered the Paris Conservatory in 1919, achieving prizes in counterpoint and fugue, accompaniment, organ, and improvisation (with Marcel Dupré), history of music, and composition. In 1931 he was appointed organist at l'Église de la Sainte Trinité in Paris, remaining in that position for over forty years. Many of his composed organ works reflect aspects of the theological creed of the Catholic faith. Although not a member of any particular school, Messiaen has had a major influence on contemporary music.

William Herschel (1738-1822), British musician and astronomer, is an unusual figure to conclude this section, considering his unique combination of occupations. He pursued an active career as violinist and conductor in the 1760s, and he played the organ at the Octagon Chapel in Bath from 1766 onwards. In 1780 he was accepted into the Bath Literary and Philosophical Society. In the following year, using a telescope he had partially designed and constructed himself, he discovered the planet Uranus.

There is a music wherever there is a harmony, order, or proportion; and thus far may we maintain the music of the spheres.

--Sir Thomas Browne (1605-1682)

Religio Medici [1642]