Twin Perspectives on AGO Seattle 2000, Part 1

Part 2

Northwest Spaces

Physical, metaphysical, mental and spiritual; Concerts expand one's perceptions and test prejudices

A random survey around the convention seemed to reveal a tie vote for favorite recitals, between the paired events at Pacific Lutheran's Fritts organ and the Kynaston recitals at St. James Cathedral. The balance was tipped by the "Catholic Worship," the office of Lauds offered three times at the Cathedral, not most by the music, the ceremony, nor the incense ("not a fragrance-free corner"), but by the sermon of the Cathedral's Pastor, the Very Rev. Michael Ryan. Imagine a room of musicians listening intently to a sermon! Fr. Ryan suggested that, in a twist on the imagery of Donne, visitors and music in the place are made honest parts of the Sacrament.

The new Rosales organ was dedicated only two weeks before the convention, in a solo recital by Cathedral organist Joseph Adam proving the success of the marriage between old and new instruments in literature from Bach to Widor. The program featured a large solo work by Naji Hakim, The Last Judgment, on motifs from the windows around which the organ case is spaced on the theme, "As ye did it to the least of these, my brethren." Those who managed to be at the Cathedral at supper time on July 4th heard it in reprise; a virtuoso prelude to fireworks, of course, a sort of rondo returning to great bass clusters; a better work than the one with orchestra which ended the convention. I'd already heard the organ accompanying a professional choir the week before that, and was struck by the way Manuel Rosales has sprouted a new and different organ from the same tonal roots as grew the Hutchings-Votey in the gallery almost a century ago. If hubris can be said to have characterized the Fisk project, one can say that the Rosales work betrays a certain humility.

I can't add much to what has been said about the PLU Fritts, save that I find the work to be so blended in tone that I like to sit as close in as possible--and that the beauties of the sound bear that close examination. Neither quirky nor subdued, it is simply a work of great balance and maturity. A close third in favorite recitals was John Weaver's at the new Reuter organ at University Presbyterian Church. This church is only a few blocks from my home, and I've been there on a Sunday morning, as well as early on when I asked the organist how they were going to fit a tracker into this chancel. "Not a tracker," she said, "Absolutely not a tracker." I came to scoff, but left with praise.

The Northwest had for decades exactly one electropneumatic builder, with a sort of "American Classic" style, whose best work was heard in a Kimberly Marshall program with wind ensemble--but in reaction to which, the area has grown its strong "Baroque revival" tracker bias and trend. A Skinner, several Kimballs, a Kilgen, and an Austin are long gone; the Hutchings at St. James, possibly not the best of the lot, is all that remains of what the region has deemed an outworn style. In this vein, one very fine young teacher left the Weaver event steaming, outraged that such outdated playing should be allowed!

The pendulum swings, with a half-period of about thirty years; warm fundamental sound has come back even to "Baroque" organs. What we heard when John Weaver played this large Reuter organ seemed to me not to be highly colored; in the Brahms preludes we heard varieties and textures of gray, mauve, pastels--subtly varied and never extreme. The playing was skilled, tasteful, assured. The Bach transcription of Ernst which opened displayed a legato manner we simply don't hear around here; when was the last time I saw legato manual changes? Weaver's own Suite (1995) was followed by an encore, a paraphrase on "For All the Saints" and "When the Saints," whose themes are inversions of each other. Commissioned by the Reuter firm, the piece elicited requests for copies; it's in print (Boosey and Hawkes, I think) and appears on the CD Weaver has already made on this organ, available from the OHS. For our prejudice, we are admonished.

For the record, this Reuter organ was opened last winter by Dame Gillian Wier, as was, a couple of years back, a large Casavant across the lake in Bellevue, Washington, played by James Holloway of PLU in the convention's "Protestant Worship." On Sunday Dame Gillian made a pre-convention appearance at University Methodist Church, just down the street from home of this new Reuter organ, playing on the remains of a Kimball rebuilt by the local builder in the '70s. Despite the lateness of the program book, and thus of the ad for the event, a good house was present to admire the poised skills of another major figure.

Young Artists Edie Johnson and Paul Johnson shared a recital at the Church of the Epiphany's new Fritz Noack tracker, a finely made, chambered installation which does not speak very well into a not very hospitable room. My notes remind me that Ms. Johnson ended with Hakim's Homage to Stravinski, where a pulsing crescendo really wants an acoustic lacking in this parish church. She opened with a Handel concerto with lavish ornament and articulation, transcribed from an early barrel organ, in a stately manner reminding me of a Stanley voluntary. Mr. Jacobs played all Bach; a rhapsodic Praeludium and Fugue in a, preceded by the e-minor trio sonata whose first movement featured quite a lot of rubato which I thought not quite completely under control, and opening with the Sinfonia from Cantata #29 in Dupré's transcription, a broad orchestral sound which brought out the best of the organ's German side. This was really advanced playing from two already admired stars of the near future.

David Hurd's program on the Willis was a bit of a puzzlement. His opening Toccata served chiefly to demonstrate the under winding of the organ, a problem present since the low-bid 1987 installation. This organ was thrust upon the Jesuit-led parish before they were ready for it--it was an Organ Clearing House panic salvage from a redundant West End London church--and is still a bit of a mystery to the Jesuit-led congregation, who still ask "Is this a good organ?" Its virtues were clearer in a Mendelssohn f-minor sonata; one could imagine Felix playing on just such sounds. Sad to say, the commission by old friend Roupen Shakarian, "Inner Places for brass quintet and organ," was not a success. The inner movement was the best, with a night call and the sound of the Willis strings, but elsewhere the 20th-century brass utterly overpowered the gentle 19th-century pipes. Roupen, a widely heard conductor as well as composer, has always seemed an exuberant fellow; an introspective piece didn't reflect the qualities I know. The improvisation ending the recital made one regret the lost opportunity to have heard this playing on an adequately restored organ.

--DC

We often hear the term "in this space," in reference to lofty sanctuaries or cathedral churches. "Sacred places" are set aside in recognition of their special qualities of wonder, awe and spiritual power. Two such places exist in Seattle, and they are the cathedrals of St. Mark and St. James.

Christa Rakich's performance and playing ability was exquisitely matched to the justly famous Flentrop at St. Mark's Cathedral, Seattle. She seemed to innately sense the length of phrase for the magnificent acoustic of this formidable box of a room that was once a war-time armory. As sunlight streamed through the immense clear glass windows onto massive whitewashed columns, she spun phrases of Bach, Franck and Hindemith in perfect harmony with the space of the church and gorgeous sonority of the instrument. There are few places where one can hear neo-classic pipes with such a comely tone. Mixtures sparkle and pipe speech is transformed into a rich cusp of sound, announcing imminent warmth and generosity.

St. James Cathedral is not quite walking distance from St. Mark's. It is a much larger room with a vaulted ceiling and central dome of huge proportions. Like St. Mark's, it is a mystical place which invited the commission of a unique organ for the year 2000, just as St. Mark's Cathedral did in 1965.

Nicholas Kynaston must have wide experience playing English organs in immense cathedral spaces, because he presented a flawless performance on the two organs that occupy this large space. In reality, they are more than a city block apart. He played with such consummate rhythmic assurance, that one sensed only the acoustical union of the two instruments. And a May-December marriage it is.  Manuel Rosales completed this new organ for the chancel of the church just in time for the convention, yet it perfectly complements a 1907 Ferrand-Votey in the balcony! Scaling and voicing of the two organs give a "hand in glove" effect that is truly uncanny.

St. James Cathedral has such generous reverberation that a lesser organist could be trapped into "playing to the chancel," and letting chords fall like glass shards. Kynaston knew the formula for playing to the entire room with an immensely musical result. He gave a reading of mostly unfamiliar works--his choices seemed if anything, to add to the magic of the performance.

Another significant performance at St. James Cathedral was Bach's B-minor Mass, very ably conducted by Martin Haselböck with local choral and orchestral forces. Haselböck has a fluid conducting technique that is inspiring to watch. He is able to whip up crisp accents then relax as the music flows on, almost by itself. His is an innately musical approach which drives, but never forces the music.

A short conversation with James Savage, music director of this Cathedral Church, revealed that the new Rosales organ fulfilled the dreams of the late Howard Hoyt, who, as organist, pressed for such an instrument for some 17 years. Mr. Savage is justifiably proud of this accomplishment, which is surely the dream that Howard Hoyt nourished all that time.

--HH

Bookends:

Guy Bovet opening recital and Gala closing concert with the Seattle Symphony and Hatsumi Miura, Carole Terry and Marie-Bernadette Dufourcet-Hakim on the Fisk organ at Benaroya Hall

It is unusual for a major convention to bookend first and last concerts with one particular organ; however in Seattle the opening and closing concerts showcased the Fisk Organ at Benaroya Hall, the new home of the Seattle Symphony. It is far more common to exhibit important new organs with symposia of one form or another, where the weight of time bears less heavily, since the organs are finished well in advance of the event and not freshly minted just in time for a major assemblage.

We avoided a chronological account of the convention for a number of reasons, one of which was the somewhat controversial reception of this organ and the room in which it makes its home. We also point out that the immense success of this convention is the result of not one new organ in the city, but many. Seattle floats in a sea of new and impportant organs!

The Rosales organ at St. James Cathedral was, at convention time, just a few weeks old, the new Reuter organ at University Presbyterian a few months old, the Fritts organ at Pacific Lutheran University just a year old, and Martin Pasi's organ at Lynnwood just five years old. There were also some very significant organs that were not heard because the rooms were too small to house the crowd: John Brombaugh's landmark instrument at Christ Church, Tacoma, and Paul Fritts' new organ at the Church of the Ascension come to mind.  In a word, the sophistication of the organ culture in the Northwest is legendary and the task of building a new organ there might be compared to composing opera in nineteenth-century Italy. There is formidable competition!

I would like to believe that the Fisk organ at Benaroya Hall is not a finished work, but might be subject to the artistic vision of its creators for some time to come. Some organ builders prefer to withhold performance on their instruments until the moment of "acceptance." I remember one episode, where as representative of a major organ builder, I waited for that "acceptance" while a local organist called all around the village, trying to find someone who would be brave enough to "accept" the organ! I much prefer the strategy I have come to know with the organ builders Martin Pasi and Paul Fritts--new stops are played in public, one by one, as they are installed in the organ. This seems to be a sure-footed way to test the organ in the room with and without an audience. I sincerely hope that the Fisk organ has begun this process of testing so that the necessary adjustments may take place.

--HH

Let me admit to some bias. I've known and admired Guy Bovet for a quarter century and more, and some aeons ago made a harpsichord for him. His brilliant mind and iconoclastic bent are givens; his ear and skills indisputable. All the odder, then, that in his recital on the monumental new Fisk which now completes the Seattle Symphony's two-year-old home, he managed to convince many a hearer, including me, that this is not a success.

In The Diapason of February 1982, Calvin Hampton laid out basics of organ for use with orchestra, including needs for sheer loudness, what Steven Dieck has called "a wall of opaque sound." That article was basic reference in early planning for the new hall. Local AGO folk had witnessed a "demonstration" of the organ in February, under odd ground rules: no literature, nor anything more than four bars, was to be played, and no sounds not considered "finished" were to be heard at all. We came away then with the impression of a Great geigen chorus heard through the wrong end of a telescope, a somewhat smaller Swell chorus, some interesting flutes, promising reeds, and one overwhelming Bombarde, setting the upper limit of the sound, the only register to involve the room at all--and an injunction not to discuss the evening, lest we offend. 'Twas said that since then the normal choruses had been brought up a bit--but for impact and presence, the organ still seems to depend on high-pressure "stentor" ranks.

The Seattle Symphony, in its former home, played on a large stage below a high scenery fly into a large opera house, sawing away to make themselves heard. The new hall was planned with as small a stage and as low a ceiling as practicable, placing the band at the mouth of a horn for maximum projection and accuracy. The players have been struggling to refine their sound downward in this efficient space. Musical Director Gerard Schwartz wanted the room to be relatively dry; in an exchange with M. Bovet, he remarked that he "really likes to hear the notes." That one can do; I've heard my harpsichord perfectly from the top of the back balcony. Smoothness and blend are other matters, as we heard the last night of the convention; but that's another tale.

The confined space below that ceiling forced a horizontal design to the organ; not encased, as the Flentrop at Rotterdam's De Dolen [The Diapason, June 1969,] but really in a room extending up behind the ceiling; far from our current thoughts about spaces for organs! The chests are spaced around this room in a way far from the classical encasements of the successful Fisks in Dallas and Yokohama; whoever remarked to me that this was an electropneumatic organ which happened to have trackers was not far from the mark. Although Fisk has the best record in North America with orchestral hall instruments, this might have been a project better built by someone else.

Seattle organ fans have been spoiled, maybe, by a number of wonderful matches of organs with unusual rooms; Benaroya concert hall isn't one of them. Maybe elsewhere one would find this organ wonderful. Other observers, who moved about the hall, found the effect to vary widely. The room had been praised for the well distributed, if not blended, sound of the orchestra in every seat. Barbara Owen, for one, reported the sound from lower side seats not to be loud, and Richard Campbell, critic for the daily paper, commented at length on the organ's uneven sound about the room. Michael Barone reports that on tape the organs sounds just fine. For me, forward and back, it was mostly crude and LOUD; loud enough to be industrial, to threaten hair cells in the inner ear. Charles Fisk, on leaving a career of bomb making for organs, remarked (I paraphrase) that "the only way an organ can hurt anyone is to fall over on him." He was wrong.

Bovet played for the last Seattle National Convention in 1978; a program of French and Spanish music, on an organ of the most severe North German school. Before beginning, he offered a brief demonstration of the stops "so that you can hear the organ before the magic of performance converts it into something it was perhaps never intended to be." There was no such magic this year. Like Ron Weasley's broken wand (of Harry Potter lore), Sunday's recital backfired. The early days to follow were filled with speculation, as some who read the Internet organ gossip columns will know, about Bovet's intent, even possible malice. Bovet is heavily involved in a much larger forthcoming Fisk, for the cathedral in Lausanne, and some thought he was sending Fisk a message. I had one chance to corner him to ask--but he headed the other way.

My sharpest commentator suggested to me the obvious: that what we heard was the demonstration; that, finding the organ of too little interest to inspire artistry, Bovet just let us hear what the organ really was. It might be so. The decision to open the recital with the St. Anne Prelude and Fugue played, not on the normal choruses, but on the solo stentor division, began the controversy. Steven Dieck, president of the Fisk firm, was still shaking his head two days later: "We never, ever, imagined that anyone would ever do that." Add to that such minor details as a couple of timing errors with the combination action, and one knew that at the very least we were not hearing the skill and subtleties which are Bovet's usual virtues.

It was, typically for Guy, an unusual if not an odd program, pairing familiar Franck and some of Bovet's stock Balbastre with Alain, Karg-Elert, and some of Bovet's own "compositions." We heard some lively playing on beautiful flutes and a somewhat Germanic Franck, but not the promised " . . . refined, colorful world of the German Romantic organ."

I find that I have, on tape, an interview with Bovet from the House of Hope Fisk, in which he can be heard to say, "I'm not a composer, but I compose anyway." I take him at his word. His pieces, some of them now rather famous, I suspect of being tests for the listener. These three "Tangos ecclesiaticos" did let us hear unusual sounds, but not the attractive side of this multi-faceted personality. However heard, it was an oddly disconcerting beginning to a fabulous week of music.

-- DC

The opening recital of the AGO Seattle 2000 convention by Guy Bovet provided no Mozartean cadences to go gentle on the ear. Rather, he threw the organ into the hall in a brutal embrace. So began AGO Seattle 2000 with a Fisk organ that duels with orchestra, rather than augmenting it. Who said the organ was required to exceed the power of an orchestra? Surely, this is a misconception, carried to its absurd conclusion at Benaroya Hall, Seattle.

Perhaps Bovet found himself in the infamous court of the emperor with no clothes, where the only alternative, given the obligation of performing the opening recital, was to "tell it like it is," pull out all the stops and let 'er rip. The angry sound that ensued succeeded in driving more than a few listeners to the far reaches of the hall. It was a simple matter of finding a back row and inquiring if there was an empty seat. There, one could hear the organ with a more rational perspective, but surely, something is wrong when the best seats in the house are in the back rows!

--HH

The final event featured organists Hatsumi Miura, incumbent at the Fisk organ in Yokohama; Carole Terry; and Marie-Bernadette Dufourcet-Hakim. I was pleased by several personal touches: Dr. Terry's playing of the Copland Organ Symphony was underwritten in memory of Northwest native Leonard Raver. Playing in the augmented percussion section were Matt Kozmirowski, whose earliest gig in Seattle was with Raver at St. Mark's, and Paul Hansen, son of beloved Edward.

The concluding concert with the Seattle Symphony had been prefigured the night before the convention opening, when in the official premiere of the Fisk organ (sold out a year in advance) James David Christie of Boston opened with the Bach Prelude and Fugue in G, BWV 550, and later the last movement of Guilmant's Symphony No. 1 in d. Bovet played a Handel Concerto in F, Op. 4, No. 4, and the Pièce Héroïque of Franck. Carole Terry, consultant on this project and named "Resident Organist and Curator," offered a Haydn Concerto No. 2 in C, and the world premiere of David Diamond's Symphony No. 10, begun a decade ago but lately completed to include the organ in the last two movements. The debut was broadcast and recorded. I can report from the wireless that Bovet's playing of the Handel displayed all his usual witty use of rubato and some quite beautiful flutes, and convincing Franck. Christie's playing was bravura; he was able to stay on to play the complete Guilmant for the Symphony's subscription audience after the convention. Terry's was straightforward; the Diamond was long and rather dull. (Maestro Schwartz has been a long-time supporter of Diamond; doubtless a recording will appear.)

Schwartz' faults as conductor do not run to over-subtlty. A trumpeter, he demands full-out playing from his brass, with matching brightness elsewhere. All the music for the Finale was of this model; a former conductor of Seattle's orchestra is quoted [I paraphrase again] "People don't like music; they like the noise it makes." [Wasn't it Beecham who said this? If not, never mind.] In Robert Sirota's commissioned In the Fullness of Time, with a tuned bell ostinato, the orchestra submerged the organ at the end. On the other hand, I noticed that in the Poulenc Concerto the ascending string figure was obscured by organ tone.

The whole concluded with Hakim's Seattle Concerto in three movements; big and splashy in the manner of Stravinsky, it quoted Night on Bald Mountain a couple of times, contained a Slavic march, and ended with a great noise with an echoing cheer from the audience. One anonymous Bostonian said that this convention was the first to exceed the high standard set in 1976. As a local, I think that visitors had a good view of the reasons the Northwest takes pride in its organ culture, along with some shortcomings. The weather was hospitable; for the first time in living memory, it didn't rain on the fireworks, either on the 4th of July or from the organs.

--DC

Reflections on the "Seattle Organ Culture"

As an epilogue to a review of the AGO Seattle 2000 convention, it seems mandatory to recognize the overwhelming presence of an organ culture in the Pacific Northwest that is most unusual and compelling. The organ is a vibrant instrument here, full of mystery and charm and more than anything else, known to hundreds of thousands of people in the area.

This all began with the installation of the now famous Dirk Flentrop organ at St. Mark's Cathedral in 1965. Perhaps audiences were captivated by the unique space and spiritual energy of this church; perhaps it was the acoustics; perhaps the beauty of the instrument--most likely all these qualities lead to enormously well attended weekly concerts, year after year. One cannot forget that this came about while Peter Hallock was Cantor of St. Mark's. He has left this legacy to his successors.

The Pacific Northwest, once dubbed "Tracker Alley" by John Hamilton (from the University of Oregon) is simply full of wondrous sounds of the organ from a variety of gifted builders. John Brombaugh moved out west from Germantown, Ohio to be part of it. Martin Pasi encountered these famous organs when he visited as a guest of David Dahl, recently retired professor of organ at Pacific Lutheran University, Tacoma. Dahl has singlehandedly "professed" the qualities of finely crafted organs to church after church in the area and as a consequence, left an indelible mark on the history of organ art in this place.

Edward Hansen created the now famous "noon recitals" at Plymouth Congregational Church in Downtown Seattle. Most convention goers knew him as past president of the AGO. Locally, he was revered as a professor at the University of Puget Sound and looked up to by his students as a moral and spiritual icon by which they could set their compass. These disciples have gone on to major posts in the organ world, but more importantly, they have become moral and spiritual icons for their students.

Randall J. McCarty worked tirelessly to bring pipe organs to countless churches in the Northwest, especially through auspices of the Organ Historical Society and Alan Laufman's Organ Clearing House. As a performer of early music and instructor in harpsichord at Pacific Lutheran University, he influenced students and local organists year after year. A testament to his influence in the area is the fact that after his passing, local interest in the organ as a musical instrument gained momentum, rather than losing it. Perhaps this whole phenomenon is like the space shuttle--once it goes into orbit, it stays there.

The "Seattle Organ Culture" gives way to the "Northwest Fusion Organ," as organ building goes from strength to strength in the Pacific Northwest. It might be said that it has entered its second generation. Edward Hansen was succeeded by Steven Williams as organist of Plymouth Congregational Church, and chair of the AGO Seattle 2000 committee. David Dahl has been succeeded by James Halloway at Pacific Lutheran University. Melvin Butler is successor to Peter Hallock at St. Mark's Cathedral. Joseph Adam carries on the memory of Howard Hoyt as organist of St. James Cathedral. And my co-reviewer David Calhoun walks to a great extent in the footsteps of his late partner Randall McCarty. It is a second generation organ culture now, and as such, has become world class, resting squarely on the shoulders of those who created it and their able successors who foster it today. It is time to reflect on this magnificent legacy.              HH

When an organ builder creates an instrument for his alma mater, the stage is set for a career achievement and the conception of a work of art. Such was the case when Charles Fisk built his masterpiece at Stanford University. In the same spirit, Paul Fritts created the magnificent opus that was the centerpiece of an International Symposium entitled "The Organ in the New Millennium" at Pacific Lutheran University, Tacoma, Washington.

This symposium was jointly sponsored by the Westfield Center and Loft Recordings of Seattle, Washington. It attracted organists and organ enthusiasts from all over the world. Scheduled events included four daily concerts, most of which were held at Lagerquist Hall in the new Mary Baker Russell music center at Pacific Lutheran University, Tacoma, Washington.

"The Organ in the New Millennium" embraced multiple efforts to approach a fairly difficult subject. The participants had at their disposal an organ of the highest excellence, but no crystal ball. However, they proceeded to present their views of the transition between millennia in a series of panel discussions which served as a framework for the symposium.

Brainstorming

As one might suspect, predictions for the future were plentiful and to some extent, easy come, easy go. Despite the more predictable questions and answers, only a few panelists and participants had the courage to say they didn't know what the future might hold, and even fewer had the fortitude to admit that they couldn't be sure what the organs of the 21st century might be like. All seemed to agree that the artistic expression of the organ builder's art was here to stay and that quality far outweighed quantity as a worthy goal. Roberta Gary of the University of Cincinnati exemplified the spirit of the conference when she recalled a "5 star experience" as she discovered the John Brombaugh organ at Ashland Avenue Baptist Church in Toledo, Ohio. Martin Pasi described the first time he experienced the revival in American organ building at the Fairchild Chapel in Oberlin, Ohio. It was plain to see that a well deserved "lifetime achievement award" was in the making for John Brombaugh.

How often the wisdom of elders comes out in storytelling. John Brombaugh related, in somewhat hilarious detail, learning to sing as a child. With characteristic nonchalance, he claimed that he "never quite made it to soloist," because he "couldn't make his voice wiggle." However, he learned that the art of singing is the art of music, that the organ is a musical instrument, first and foremost, and that the organ must sing if it is to be musical. All agreed that "making pipes sing was much more important than making them hum." Hopefully, the reader will note that this was not a dry discussion of "historically informed" musicology, but a spirited outpouring of what the organ meant to these major players and builders of our time, mirth notwithstanding.

Music making

During the four-day course of the event, some seven recitals and fifty-four compositions were played on the three-manual, 54-stop Fritts organ. (See the June issue, pp. 1 and 19 for description and specification.) The presentation of this instrument, along with important organs of John Brombaugh in Tacoma, and Martin Pasi in Lynnwood, Washington, provided proof positive that outstanding organ building is alive and well in Washington State. Quentin Faulkner of the University of Nebraska at Lincoln commented that, "the Pacific Northwest builders are in the process of creating a new organ type that will not merely incorporate, but will fuse the previous organ styles that feed into it, and thus will transcend all of them." He stated that "There is of course an element of risk in such an undertaking, but also an immense amount of excitement and adventure . . . in leading the organ into a new age!"

What will the organ of this new age be like? This concentration of recitals gave the symposium participants a preview of the new directions a historically derived organ might take. In this case, the sum of the concert series seemed to be greater than each part. Far from being worn down, this listener attained new heights of perception with each recital and most fortunately the last concert was as fresh as the first. The scope of musical styles was panoramic. There was an almost symphonic element to the progression of concerts as it continued over this four-day period. David Dahl's opening recital served as an overture to the week's events with an exposition of the organ's considerable capabilities. Professor Dahl's 30-year career at Pacific Lutheran University is obviously capped by the installation of this magnificent organ. His opening recital gave him the opportunity to breathe life into the week's events with a highly varied program that included "A diverse suite" of some 13 composers, spanning time periods from 1583 (Frescobaldi) to the present (Cindy McTee and the late William Albright). It is interesting to note that Dahl has served as advisor for more than 30 pipe organ projects in the last 40 years and on the eve of his retirement was able to bring about the installation this superb instrument in his own university.

Hatsumi Miura, organist of Yokohama Mirato Mirai Hall in Japan, presented a program of 20th-century music which developed the theme of "new directions" and demonstrated the broad capabilities of this organ. She began symbolically enough, with A Prophecy for Organ, by Daniel Pinkham and ended with the cheerful Salamanca of Guy Bovet.

Margaret Irwin-Brandon, organist of the Unitarian Universalist Society in Springfield, Massachusetts, broadened the palette with fantasias and baroque transcriptions that introduced the listener to the lyric qualities of the instrument. She seemed to play the organ like a violin, rather than a Steinway and encouraged the audience to listen with their whole attention. To heighten their awareness of the sound of the organ, she invited listeners to move about the hall at will, throughout the concert program--a fairly brave thing to do, when you consider the sight of somber "ghost walkers," slowly treading from nook to cranny of the room. Her final presentation of Arvo Pärt's Annum per Annum was thwarted by the failure of one of the power supplies in the organ. This necessitated some quick thinking on her part to save the piece. It turned out that the rapid-fire computerized pyrotechnics of the "sequencer" overwhelmed a 5 cent fuse. Such is the irony of high technology when applied to an ancient form.

An organ for all seasons--a new organ type?

After these diverse presentations of organ literature, Peter Sykes, organist of First Congregational Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts, gave a bravura performance of the Poulenc Concerto in G Minor and Maurice Duruflé's Requiem. This vocal repertoire brought additional awareness of the musical qualities of the organ. Rather than competing with the orchestra and choir, it seemed to expand tonal sonorities. Of particular note was the effectiveness of the Kellner temperament in providing a foundation for orchestra and choir. The pure chords underlying the choral passages of the Requiem hushed the audience and heightened the sanctity and depth of the music. Throughout this performance the listener was introduced to a kind of feminine nobility that few organs possess. Beyond power, this organ has profundity and lyricism.

Craig Cramer, of Notre Dame University, presented Bach's partitas, trios and chorales and revealed more of the intimate qualities of the organ and the hall. Again, the listener could not ignore the fact that the organ wanted to be played like a violin, rather than a mega-piano. And ever mindful of the possibility of finding the best seat in the house, this lowly scribe positioned himself behind a chair that is permanently reserved for the donor of the hall, Mary Baker Russell. An amazing discovery was a sharp slap echo that could heard there and nowhere else. Could it be that she has the worst seat in the house?

By the sixth recital, one would think that every stop in the organ would have been heard once, twice or even thrice. Nevertheless, William Porter of the New England Conservatory scored a direct hit with his improvisation on O dass ich tausend Zungen hätte (Oh, that I Had a Thousand Tongues). Yes, he played the thousand tongues of the rich reed choruses of the organ which, in this writer's opinion, take their place amongst the best reeds in any organ, anywhere. There simply are not enough superlatives to describe the perfection embraced in these reeds. John Brombaugh once remarked that the best reeds contain both fire and ice--that the blaze of sound has to include some measure of restraint or reserve as well as bravado. Paul Fritts has achieved this quality in his reeds.

The stage was set for the last movement in this symphony of concerts. Martin Rost is organist of the 1659 Stellwagen organ in St. Mary's Church, Stralsund, Germany, which provided  the inspiration for this organ. The Stellwagen and Fritts organs share the same lofty structure and noble authority--the Stalsund casework is enhanced with enormously imposing even magisterial statues, while the Fritts carvings display busty gargoyles, introverted sculptures and a few insects and other artifacts of the Pacific Northwest. Rost proferred a freshly revised concert featuring the music of Scheidemann, Ritter, Köhler, Brahms and Mendelssohn. He hushed the audience with the softest stops on the organ and rendered the Brahms Chorales with magic as well as spirituality. He closed the symposium concerts with the Mendelssohn Sonata in C minor, giving an air of restraint and modesty, like a Mozartean cadence. The crowd went wild with a standing ovation.

An overview

One must make the inevitable comparison with the Westfield Center sponsored "Historical Organ in America" at Tempe, Arizona in 1992. (See reports in The Diapason, June, 1992, pp. 10-12, by Herbert L. Huestis, and July, 1992, pp. 12-13, by Rudolf Zuiderveld.) What were the similarities and differences between these two gatherings? The Arizona conference featured the documented work of a dozen organ builders and opened up the lines of technical communications in an entirely new way. Trade secrets gave way to genuine "help lines" from one organ builder to another. This meeting was collegial and convivial in the same way as the Arizona conference, but lacked the documentation that was presented by the same group of organ builders seven years ago. Despite presentations made by such luminaries as Christopher Kent of the University of Reading, England and Hans Davidsson of the University of Göteborg in Sweden, there seemed to be more opinion than hard data.

However, the sheer number of concerts provided the opportunity for the organ literature to speak for itself as it related to this splendid Paul Fritts organ. An incredible variety of organ music was played during this session. It seemed that the organists who presented recitals took great care with the literature they brought to the organ. Few if any compromises were made, and almost all the music that was played worked well on the organ. (One cannot help but note the exception of César Franck.)

It seemed like a good opportunity to look at just how wide a range of music could be played on an organ that was built on a historical "platform," but was obviously an instrument of tremendous flexibility. In the space of four days, seven recitals were presented with a total of 54 selections drawn from 400 years of organ literature. It is interesting to note that of all the music performed, thirty percent was from the 17th century, another 30 percent from the 18th century, 7 percent from the 19th century and an astounding 26 percent from the 20th century. Two of the seven concerts featured music that was exclusively contemporary. This organ speaks to our own time with the same authority as the age of J.S. Bach. This is no small accomplishment and demands a very broad flexibility in both voicing and tonal development. Another aspect of interest was the unique ability of this organ to accompany choir and orchestra. The tonal palette of the organ was every bit as varied as any orchestral color and the Kellner temperament provided a resonance that is unknown in most orchestra halls.

This symposium provided absolute proof that historically inspired organs can attain tremendous flexibility for the performance of the repertoire. The Fritts organ was not at all restrictive, as an analysis of the recital content will show. It is capable of playing a very big slice of organ literature, very well.

"Off-campus" concerts

Three events occurred off campus, in "must see" venues that provided some of the most inspiring music and worship experiences of the symposium. Mark Brombaugh of the United Church on the Green, New Haven, Connecticut, presented a recital on the milestone organ built by his brother John at Christ Church in Tacoma, Washington. David Dahl has spent his long career at Christ Church along with his post at Pacific Lutheran University. To a very great extent, the sublime achievement of Paul Fritts at PLU can be directly linked to the inspiration provided by John Brombaugh's milestone organ at Christ Church. It is an understatement to say that they are cut of the same cloth. Mark's recital was dedicated to his father Burlin Brombaugh, who was present at the symposium. The central feature of this recital was a commissioned work on his father's favorite Spanish Hymn in honor of his 90th birthday.

A joint recital by Melvin Butler and Roger Sherman, both of St. Mark's Cathedral in Seattle, provided the opportunity to hear Messiaen and Franck, among other composers, in the newly renovated cathedral space. The 1965 Flentrop organ illustrates the long lasting values acclaimed at the symposium. In his opening remarks, Roger Sherman recounted the time that the cathedral vestry was presented with two proposals for a new organ by Dirk Flentrop. The organ builder had suggested a modest organ as an alternative to the lofty instrument that now stands in the cathedral. The dean's reasoning for selecting the magnificent organ that has provided a musical legacy to the city for the last 30 years: they didn't have the money for either one!

A final event was the participation of the symposium group in worship at Trinity Lutheran Church in Lynnwood, Washington. This solid, working class church is the home of a new organ recently built by Martin Pasi of Roy, Washington. Rodney Gehrke, organist of St. Mark's Lutheran Church in San Francisco, presided at the organ for the service and was assisted by a vocal quartet from Pacific Lutheran University. The symposium participants were enthusiastic to be sure and were matched by parishioners note for note and word for word as they fervently sang the hymns and service music. One could not help but observe that "richening up" the music worked so much better than "dumbing it down!" The performance of all this music suggested that the impact of this symposium was not so much its forecast for the future, but the presentation of what was possible in the organ music of the 21st century. The panel discussions were infused with humor as well as platitudes and serious presentations and readings of papers. Perhaps the greatest impact was provided by the "who," as well as the "what," and "why." The closing of the international circle of organ builders was amply demonstrated in the remarks of two European organ builders present, John Mander of London and Kristian Wegscheider of Dresden. It was clear that they felt the Americans, in their revival of the historic organ, had taken knowledge gained from the European masters to new heights and that here at Pacific Lutheran University "a circle of learning" was completed when they took this information back to the continent.

All that aside, the raconteurs carried the day when it came to preparing for the new millennium. The subject of "Cincinnati" had come up in John Brombaugh's remarks, and Roberta Gary quoted that city's most revered citizen, Samuel Clemens, who said that if the end of the world came in his lifetime, he wanted to be in Cincinnati, because everything happened ten years later there. Could it be, that like the celebrated Mark Twain, organ builders will always seek values that last longer than the fashion of the day? If this meeting is any indication, the future of the organ is in good hands in the 21st century.

Herbert L. Huestis, Ph.D., is a graduate of the Eastman School of Music, where he studied with David Craighead. He is a pipe organ technician in British Columbia and Washington State, where he specializes in restoring and renovating vintage reed stops.

A common story of many an American organ builder's career is that they apprenticed in America and subsequently traveled to Europe where they experienced the work of the old masters in Groningen, Arlesheim, Upsala, or some small village in Friesland. Having embraced these historic ideals, they returned to America to establish themselves as builders of modern tracker organs.

Martin Pasi's pursuit of the art of organ building is a similar adventure in reverse. He was born the fifth of six children on December 21, 1953 in Bregenz, Austria, on Lake Constance. Martin trained at Rieger Orgelbau in Schwarzach, just six miles from his home, then discovered the fervor and passion of historic organ building in America. Ultimately he fulfilled his dream of becoming an organ builder near Tacoma, Washington, where he builds organs that are very much in the spirit of the old masters.

After completing a business course in high school, Martin worked in a local office long enough to discover that the world of commerce was not for him. His father, Kassian Pasi, had been a wood worker and to Martin, working with his hands made more sense than filling out forms. Rieger Orgelbau was near his home and he applied for an apprenticeship. (See sidebar on European training for organ builders.) His first year at Rieger was spent in the woodworking department building organ cases. At the end of that time, he completed a case on his own. In his second year, he was assigned to the console division, then in general assembly. As an apprentice in that department, Martin began to travel with pipe voicers to do field installations of new organs.

It was his good fortune to assist a voicer who was impressed with his skill and his ear. This led to an assignment in the voicing department for the remainder of his apprenticeship. Work in voicing took him to Australia, Africa, the U.S., and many places in Europe. On one occasion he was sent to voice an organ in Liberia--the organ blower was not installed correctly, and had burned out! To complete the voicing, the organ had to be pumped by hand.

On a trip to Cleveland, Ohio, Martin visited Charles Ruggles' organ shop to borrow some tools. By chance he met Charles' sister Barbara and the rest is an organbuilder's fairy tale. They were married and traveled coast to coast voicing for Rieger. With his fate sealed by marriage, he joined the Karl Wilhelm shop and moved to St. Hilaire, Quebec.

In his new home, Martin discovered vastly different aspects of North American and European organ building. Acoustics (or a lack thereof) were apparent; however, one of the real benefits that Martin discovered in his new homeland was that churches are heated. A winter installation or rebuilding project in a frosty European cathedral can be a real trial and it was a relief to work in comfortable surroundings during the winter! The reader can imagine how quickly pipes heat to the voicer's touch when they are far below room temperature--and how many times they have to be cut before the pitch stabilizes.

Martin's initial curiosity about historic organs began when he met Susan Tattershall, who was working in Rieger's restoration department. In 1986, while working on the west coast, he met David Dahl and Paul Fritts at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington. There, he discovered the energy and commitment to the historic style of organ building that is the hallmark of David Dahl, Paul Fritts, and Ralph Richards. He joined the firm of Fritts & Richards as a pipe maker and participated in the construction of several major pipe organs in Washington, including Gethsemany Lutheran Church in Seattle, the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, and the University of Washington in Seattle.

By 1990, Martin was able to open his own shop with fellow organ builder Halbert Gober, whom he had met some years previously at Karl Wilhelm's shop in Quebec. They were joined by Markus Morscher, a master woodworker that Martin had known in Austria. They had the good fortune to buy a surplus elementary school, complete with classrooms, offices and gymnasium. The school had been closed, so Martin went directly to the school board with a proposal to put an organ shop there. This small school building became an organ shop with all the "extras," including a complete pipe making facility, capable of turning out hammered lead pipes. Eventually, Halbert Gober returned to Canada to open a shop of his own in Toronto, Ontario, where, like Martin, he makes hand crafted organs.

Throughout his organ building career, Martin Pasi has encouraged young organ builders to come to his shop for additional experience in the "journey" phase of their European training. A number of aspiring organ builders have spent a year as a journeyman in Martin's shop before returning to Europe for their "Master's" study.

It is especially notable that Martin looks at pipe making as the most integral and to some extent, mystical element of the organ building process. Since the success of pipe making springs from the pouring of the metal, much care has to be taken from the very beginning. Even the choice of a casting day is somewhat folkloric. Some say the stars have to be in order and certain astrological signs should agree. Martin finds no fault with these considerations.

His drawings show strong respect for the pipes as the foundation of the organ. The facade usually comprises many pipes, including the principal rank which is the heart of the organ. He feels that every aspect of pipe making affects the ultimate beauty of the organ and that personality of the organ is formed from the casting day onwards. He says that he builds organs the only way he knows how--from the pipes outward.

He makes his pipes the same way they were made in the fifteenth century. This process starts with the first sweep of molten metal down the length of the casting bench. He describes the process with a characteristic understatement:

     "Casting to thickness is not that hard, really. You have to have a steady hand as you guide the liquid metal down the canvas. It's a matter of how fast or slow you go."

Martin points out that most organ factories plane pipe metal to thickness. But control of the casting process allows him to pour the metal directly to thickness and hammer it for stiffness and its best tonal qualities. The metal that is destined for the top of each pipe is scraped so that the upper rim of the pipe will be thin for cone tuning. Relatively few organ builders master the art of casting metal to exact thicknesses required for a full range of organ pipes, without resorting to a planer.

Martin's pipes are made of metal that is mostly lead, with a very small percentage of antimony and other metals. This gives the lead a stiffness that it would not have if it were absolutely pure. In his shop, scales and patterns are calibrated in traditional ways, but he is no stranger to the computer. He keeps careful records of historic organ scales that will be applicable to his organs. This is evident in the wide variety of reed stops which he has made. But there is also a strong sense of uniformity in his organs. There is a sound that is present in every one which must surely come from his homeland. It is a pure and deep fundamental tone like the baryton horn that Martin played during his school years near the shores of Lake Constance.

Opus List

Opus 1    Table Regal 8' (Residence, Dr. Craig Cramer)

Opus 2    2 manuals and pedal. 18 stops, Coral Isles Church, Tavernier, Florida. (Completed Summer of 1992)

Opus 3    2 manuals and pedal, 9 stops, Jannine Cansler residence, Portland Oregon. (Completed June of 1993)

Opus 4    2 manuals and pedal, 29 stops, Trinity Lutheran Church, Lynnwood, Washington. (Completed February 1995)

Opus 5    2 manuals and pedal, 24 stops, Lola Wolf residence, Kirkland, Washington. (Completed July of 1996)

Opus 6    1 manual, Sitka, Alaska. (Restoration of Kessler organ from Estonia, 1844)

Opus 7    2 manuals and pedal, 27 stops, First Church of Christ Scientist, La Mesa, California. (Completed February of 1997)

Opus 8    3 stop continuo organ, St. Mark's Cathedral, Seattle, Washington. (Completed 1996)

Opus 9    2 manuals and pedal, 7 stops,  St. Augustine's in the Woods Freeland, Washington. (Completed November of 1997)

Opus 10   2 manuals and pedal, 30 stops, West Vancouver United Church Vancouver, British Columbia. (Completed Spring of 1998)

In Progress

Opus 11   2 manuals and pedal, 32 stops with 32' in pedal for St. Augustine Catholic Church, Spokane, Washington. (Completion in May, 1999)

Opus 12   2 manuals and pedal 12 stops, residence organ for Mr. Richard Kirkland in Pasadena, California. (Completion in Fall of 1999)

Opus 13   2 manuals and pedal, 29 stops, Bedford Presbyterian Church, Bedford, New York. (Completion in Fall of 2000)

Opus 14   3 manuals and pedal, 54 stops (dual temperament), St. Cecilia RC Cathedral, Omaha, Nebraska. (Completion in Fall of 2002)

A Thumbnail Sketch of European Training in Organ Building

Briefly, here are the steps involved in a European training program in Organ Building:

Sign up a 4 year "apprentice" contract with a major organ building firm.

Enroll in the "Instrumentenmacherschule" in Ludwigsburg, Germany (or its equivalent). Attend a three month period of instruction each year.

Pass exam for "journeyman papers" (Gesellenbrief) for organ building.

Spend 3 "traveling" years as journeyman organ builder. The organ builder is on his own, participating in recognized organ builder's shops.

Attend Instrumentenmacherschule for one additional year. The applicant is expected to build an organ entirely on his own and complete course work that includes "business theory."

Symposia held April 7–9 by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Herbert L. Huestis is a graduate of the Eastman School of Music, where he studied organ with David Craighead 40 years ago. After a stint as a full-time church organist, he studied psychology and education at the University of Idaho, where be obtained his Ph.D. in 1971. He spent time as a school psychologist, and was subsequently lured back into the organ world and took up pipe organ maintenance with his wife Marianne and son Warren. For some years he has specialized in reed voicing, and as he approaches retirement spends more and more time tuning pianos. Ironically, his interest in temperaments comes from developments in piano tuning, where 19th-century tuning styles have been recovered in the manner of a lost art.tt

In 1993, over 30 organ builders met in Tempe, Arizona to discuss the significance of “The Historical Organ in America” and to ponder the future of historically informed organ building. Twelve years later, a new Martin Pasi organ in Omaha’s St. Cecilia Cathedral is the realization of a future that could only be a matter of conjecture a decade ago. Pasi’s Opus 14 is a magnificent achievement--musical, spiritual and architectural. 

In 2005, from April 7-9, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln School of Music and the Westfield Center held a symposium entitled “The Organ as Mirror of Religion and Culture--Temperament, Sound and Symbolism.” This symposium was also sponsored by the Schola Cantorum of St. Cecilia Cathedral in Omaha, Nebraska.  The new Pasi dual temperament organ made these far-reaching discussions possible in a way one could only dream of a decade ago.

I must admit that since dual temperament is a rare undertaking in organ building, I thought of it as an experimental and possibly excessive luxury. After a thorough acquaintance with this fine instrument, its setting and its players, I find that dual temperament is extremely practical in its application to church music, both old and new. This was a big surprise. After attending the symposium, I felt that it was possible to reflect on three aspects as they relate to the new Martin Pasi organ: philosophical, metaphysical and practical. 

My first impressions in this magnificent cathedral were hardly philosophical. I marveled at the sound of the organ, the splendid acoustic and the phenomenal artistic decoration and design of the church. This is truly an extraordinary space, where the celebration of both sonic and visual art is evident throughout the building. Once my ears were filled with the vocal sound of the organ, I felt purity and harmony beyond expectations. The effect of meantone tuning is visceral. It calms the nerves and soothes the soul! Whatever understanding of “temperaments” I carried into this space evaporated in a sense of sheer sound and harmony. So much for reading about temperaments in the context of western civilization and pouring over comparative charts. Pure sound is pure sound!

The rather complex symposium entitled “The Organ as Mirror of Religion and Culture” opened April 7 with a recital by Kevin Vogt, director of St. Cecilia Cathedral Schola Cantorum. Interspersed between organ selections was a reading of John Dryden’s “Ode to Saint Cecilia” given by Marie Rubis Bauer, also an organist of the cathedral. The immediacy and impact of the music and spoken word set the stage for discussions of philosophy and culture which followed. A presentation called “The Organized Cosmos” was made by Quentin Faulkner (University of Nebraska-Lincoln), followed by discussions of philosophy and organ music. Calvin Bower (Notre Dame University) gave a talk entitled “Sign, Reference, and the Communion of Saints: First Steps Toward an Aesthetic of Sacred Music,” which emphasized the “transcendent” nature of church music. Music, at the moment of its inception in the church, “transcends” for a brief moment the worlds of temporal and spiritual reality, residing for a transient period of time in both spheres. This is the “communion” or the magic of the moment--pretty heady stuff for a lowly organist and scribe.

That evening, we repaired to a concert by Hans Davidsson (Eastman School of Music), David Dahl (Pacific Lutheran University, emeritus), and Kevin Vogt, which featured works by Matthias Weckmann, J. S. Bach and David Dahl. The ancient philosophers believed in the melding of the mind and body, and I had no doubt that the combination of beautiful vocal tone and purity of tuning in the organ had a complex physiological and psychological effect. One’s attention was drawn so forcibly to the organ that time was forgotten. The music of Matthias Weckmann came to life as if it had been composed yesterday. Bach’s works took on a whole new meaning. 

Friday, April 8, Hans Davidsson offered several presentations on the subject of “The Harmony of the Spheres,” which explored what he called “sacred geometry” or the patterns of construction that organ builders knew throughout the ages. He explained that these “building blocks” enabled the building of cathedrals and organs in times past, much like cow barns in our own time, built by common folk without the aid of drawings or architects. Organ building had a practical, intuitive nature that made it possible for builders to construct monumental organs without the aid of drawings or architects, just like the cathedrals that housed them and the stained glass that adorned them.

With these thoughts fresh in our minds, we attended Solemn Vespers with improvisation by Susan Ferré in alternation with Gregorian chant. Again, inspiration came from well-established patterns and style  (like “barn building”). There was an uncanny ease with which the improvised musical examples fleshed out the philosophical discussions we had just heard. It seemed that the Westfield Center folks were on the same wavelength as the academics.

Metaphysical aspects of the organ were further explored by Fr. Anthony Ruff of St. John’s Abbey. Along these lines, a unique presentation on “The Organ as Symbol” was made by Charles S. Brown. Curiously, he also took up the metaphor of barns, and took the participants on a “Pilgrimage through Round Barns.” This rather far-reaching discussion of the symbology of the organ touched on discussions of eschatology, folk religion and masks in aboriginal cultures. All this did not lose sight of the organ as a unique instrument, embedded in a very long history of western civilization. Panel discussions gave the opportunity for much storytelling. Many participants were able to give an account of their own unique experiences of “organ encounters,” some rather touching.

Temperament was a significant subject of formal presentations. On April 9, Ibo Ortgies gave a synopsis of his study of tuning as it pertains to the works of Dietrich Buxtehude and his contemporaries. He presented a picture of 17th- and 18th-century performance practice that was extremely compatible with meantone tuning and did not at all support the idea that “well-tempered” tuning was necessary for the performance of this music. In fact, a central part of his thesis seemed to refute the notion that Buxtehude had the Marienkirche organ retuned in well-temperament. In his words, that seemed not to be the case, despite the fact that it was widely assumed to be true.

Along these same lines, Hans Davidsson made presentations on the new four-manual 17th-century North German organ at Göteborg University, Göteborg, Sweden. This is now the largest meantone organ on the continent, and goes a long way to support Ortgies’ thesis that meantone tuning was far and away the most common tuning clear through the 18th century. Along with these insights, Bruce Shull of Taylor & Boody Organbuilders gave a presentation on the newly discovered Bach/Lehmann temperament, which opens up new avenues for the appreciation of Bach’s music. This audience, already committed to early music, was able to appreciate such information and insight and see its application in the daily recitals and musical examples of the symposium. 

These presentations stretched the mind of every listener in preparation for a concert of new music for the organ by Robert Bates. I confess that I was apprehensive about modern music performed on a meantone organ. How could contemporary music work on an organ that captured the tuning of the 17th and 18th centuries? Bates presented works by Arvo Pärt, Gyorgy Ligeti, Joan Tower, Naji Hakim, and his own Chromatic Fantasy and Charon’s Oar. Would he explore the dark, dissonant side of meantone tuning? With this question in mind, I discovered the genius of an artist committed to beauty and yes, the “metaphysical” properties of this organ in our time. The concert was followed by a reception and listeners could regain their poise. This was a not-to-be-forgotten experience!

There was still an unaswered question: Was a dual temperament organ a luxury in the worship service? A number of participants stayed an extra day to find out. St. Cecilia Cathedral is a very large church, and the two services were filled with many families, young children, a seeing-eye dog, and, fortunately, a group of nuns from the entire community. The music was simple, straightforward and traditional. Kevin Vogt played the service, and I marvelled at his ability to shift effortlessly between the meantone and well-tempered divisions of the organ, depending on the nature of the music. Modal compositions came to life in meantone tuning--not surprising, but what a rare opportunity to hear “ordinary” church music with such an “authentic” flavor. The simplest psalms and congregational responses jumped off the page with fresh meaning and inspiration. In this sense, it underscored the absolute practicality of dual temperament. Tuning that makes ordinary church music appeal to hardened traditionalists surely deserves to be called a practical application.

So there it was: philosophy, metaphysics and practical application--all explored through in-depth lectures and discussions, elegant performances and appealing church services in less than a week. These events came together smoothly through the efforts of all the individuals who contributed so mightily to this fine symposium. They included Quentin Faulkner, George Ritchie, Susan Ferré, Hans and Ulrika Davidsson, David Dahl, John Koster, Bruce Shull, Roger Sherman, Ibo Ortgies, Kevin Vogt, Marie Rubis-Bauer, Charles Brown, Calvin Bower, John Koster, Gene Bedient, John Brombaugh, Fr. Anthony Ruff, Robert Bates and of course, Martin Pasi, organbuilder.

July 1-6, 2002

Larry Palmer is a contributing editor of The Diapason.

Despite heat and humidity this convention proved to be a stellar presentation of high-quality events. Indeed, throughout the week's major recitals there were probably more drops of sweat than dropped notes! Careful thought had gone into programming: each day began with recitals (or a recital followed by a repertoire session). Worship (preceded by a short concert) began the afternoon, followed by educational workshops. Each evening featured an 8 p.m. concert. Artists and instruments were well matched. Disruptions and problems were minimal, especially considering the large number of registrants. Chartered bus transportation was efficient (and cool). In a well-planned and executed first, public transport schedules and directions were provided for those who wished to take charge of their own itineraries, and guides aided these intrepid adventurers.  A large number of center-city events took place within a reasonable walking distance.

This was the fourth convening of an American Guild of Organists national gathering in Philadelphia, previous conventions having occurred in 1930, 1939, and 1964. Many still recall, as well, the 1977 International Congress of Organists in this unique city of major symphonic and retail-store pipe organs, the Ben Franklin Busybody mirror, cheese steaks, and assorted historic charms.

This report will, of necessity, represent only one person's schedule. I attended all the major concerts, save one. As for workshops, the elegant (though heavy) 278-page program book listed 80 (of which one was cancelled); I was able to sample four. Daily worship offerings, in addition to the early morning ecumenical services held at the convention hotel, numbered fourteen. I got to two of them. A chronological report seems pointless; the convention was divided into four color-coded groups, each assigned to attend many of the events at different times.

Two orchestral programs at Girard College

The Philadelphia Orchestra's new concert venue, Verizon Hall in the downtown Kimmel Center for the Arts, presently contains only the façade of a large Dobson pipe organ scheduled for completion in 2006. Thus concerts with orchestra were scheduled on Tuesday and Saturday evenings in the Chapel of Girard College, home to a magnificent four-manual E. M. Skinner organ. That Tuesday's offering happened at all was a tribute to professionalism and sheer determination! Because of the stifling heat, the orchestral musicians would have been justified in refusing to play; indeed, union rules allow them to refuse to perform in such adverse conditions. The performances, however, ranged from heroic to outstanding. James David Christie opened the program as soloist in the first modern performance of the just-published Widor Symphonie in G minor, opus 42 bis--an arrangement of the first and last movements from the composer's Sixth Organ Symphonie with a middle movement arranged from the Andante of the Second Organ Symphonie. Almost immediately, during the second statement of the opening theme the stand lights for half the orchestra and the conductor suddenly went out; so the performers overcame not only heat and humidity but relative obscurity, in addition to constant distraction as technicians tried to rectify the lighting problem.

The fun of hearing familiar music in a new and attractive guise coupled with the drama surrounding its performance led to shouts of "Bravo" and sustained applause from the overflow audience, which, no matter how uncomfortable it might have been, seemed to realize that the players were even less comfortable!

With full lighting restored, Craig Phillips was the deft soloist in his own Concertino for Organ and Chamber Orchestra (1995), a three-sectioned work of great melodic and rhythmic appeal, played without pause.

Although four overheated players exercised their option of leaving the orchestra at intermission, there was an immediate new sense of purpose as Diane Meredith Belcher made her entrance to play the Jongen Symphonie Concertante, opus 81! The organ console's central placement high above the stage allowed favorable sight lines for observing Ms. Belcher's energetic, musical, and poetic performance of Jongen's impressionistic tour-de-force, arguably the most successful coupling of organ and orchestra in the repertoire. The performance of this intricate work was a marvel of synchronization, made more so since the pipes of the 1933 organ are installed in the ceiling, at considerable distance from the console. The assistant conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra, Bulgarian-born Rossen Milanov, proved himself an able collaborator.

The Saturday closing concert, an evening of inspired choral singing from the 38-member Voices of Ascension, with orchestra and Mark Kruczek, organist, conducted by Dennis Keene, found us back at Girard College. Relief from the punishing heat had arrived on Friday and a significant number of conventioners departed on Saturday, so the Chapel was not as overwhelmed with audience as it had been for the opening concert. Carlyle Sharpe's short AGO/ECS Publishing award-winning choral work Laudate Nomen served as an upbeat, rhythmically-pungent "curtain-raiser" to the premiere of Ruth Watson Henderson's 24-minute cantata From Darkness to Light. From the quiet opening tympani notes to the hushed and yearning setting of the final words, "Darkness sang to the light and the kiss of love was peace," this lovely work, alternating Biblical texts (sung by baritone soloist Charles Robert Stephens) and choral settings of poems by the 20th-century Canadian writer Wilfred Watson, spoke in a communicative but individual tonal language. Impressionistic harmonies, a constant sense of forward motion, and deft handling of the orchestral voices all combined to make this the most immediately appealing of the large-scale commissions for Philadelphia 2002. It is definitely a work worthy of repeated hearings.

As an unscheduled addition to the program we were given a polished performance of C. Hubert H. Parry's coronation anthem I Was Glad, complete with the often-omitted cries of "Vivat Regina Elisabetta," an appropriate gesture in this, the British Queen's Golden Jubilee year. It was especially gratifying to have one final opportunity to revel in the grandiose full sound of the Girard Chapel organ, one of the finest surviving examples of E. M. Skinner's late work.

A major theme of this gathering was the celebration of the centenary of the birth of French composer Maurice Duruflé. All of his organ works were programmed during this week, as were the unaccompanied Four Motets on Gregorian Themes. For the culminating final offering of this remembrance, Keene and his superb Voices of Ascension performed Duruflé's Requiem, opus 9, with mezzo-soprano Zehava Gal. One of the most beloved settings of these ancient texts, Duruflé's masterpiece received a sublime reading, with every subtle nuance aptly and carefully observed. It was obvious that all involved knew the work intimately. I have never heard a better realization of this haunting, gentle score which I first experienced in 1959 in Holland, with the composer himself at the organ.

Three top-notch organ recitals: Parker-Smith, Morrison, Miura

A third memorable event at Girard College was the spectacular July 4 organ recital by Jane Parker-Smith. Noting that 226 years ago to the very day a group of gentlemen in Philadelphia had declared independence from Great Britain, convention general chair Dennis Elwell remarked that "the convention committee had invited two British organists to play at this gathering to demonstrate that we were gracious winners." Indeed we were all winners to enjoy such artistry! Flanked by two registrants, Ms. Parker-Smith put the organ through its paces in a program of virtuoso works that, in her hands (and feet), never seemed to overwhelm or tire the listener: Impetuoso (Wiedermann), Passacaglia in D minor (Middelschulte--a major work of 62 variations incorporating both the BACH motive and the chorale Ein' feste Burg), Toccata, opus 12 (Germani). Duruflé's opus 4, Prelude, Adagio, and Chorale Variations on the Veni Creator, has rarely sounded better. Especially compelling was Parker-Smith's playing of the beautiful Adagio, her pavane-like statement of the Chorale, and her attention to some surprising manual counterpoint in the accompaniment to the 4-foot pedal flute solo of the third variation. Scherzo Symphonique, transcribed by Jeremy Filsell from a 1974 improvisation by Pierre Cochereau, brought this outstanding recital to a quicksilver conclusion.

Alan Morrison in Princeton

For this listener the new organ work making the most lasting impression during the week was William Bolcom's Borborygm (a Latin/Greek word meaning "a rumbling of the bowels"), based on sketches by the late William Albright and dedicated to his memory by his long-time University of Michigan colleague. Beginning with the eponymous quiet low rumblings in the pedal, the 9-minute work reached its climax in a repeated, drum-like ostinato passage, and then subsided into quietness. Constantly arresting and interesting, this skillful work by the distinguished Pulitzer Prize-winning composer suggested Albright's style without sounding like an imitation. Morrison's performance was riveting, as was his entire recital (heard in the first of its four repetitions).

Another reconstructed Cochereau improvisation, Berceuse in Memory of Louis Vierne, utilized the melody of Vierne's own Berceuse (from 24 Pieces in Free Style)--a tune with startling similarity to the opening phrase of the Rodgers and Hart song There's a Small Hotel. At the climax of this piece Morrison utilized the brilliant Gallery Trumpet stop for the first time in his program.

Masterful command of registration and a deep understanding of the work characterized Morrison's playing of Duruflé's Suite, opus 5. The somber E-flat minor Prelude, perhaps the composer's most elegiac work, waxed and waned with powerful force; the daunting cross rhythms of the Sicilienne were expertly limned, and the thrilling, if over-exposed, Toccata (with the composer's revised ending) was tossed off with virtuoso aplomb.

A week largely devoted to organ music reminded one most pointedly of the absolute need for a sympathetic acoustical space if the organ is to be a successful musical medium. The Princeton University Chapel provided such an enjoyable partnership of noble Gothic-revival edifice with noble four-manual E. M. Skinner/Aeolian-Skinner/N. P. Mander organ (1928/1954-56/1991) installed on both sides of the chancel, plus additional divisions in the nave and west gallery.

Hatsumi Miura in Chestnut Hill

A breath of the past was just the needed antidote to three days of large electric-action organs, orchestral transcriptions, and mostly 20th-century repertoire; a more effective aural cleanser than Hatsumi Miura's elegant playing of the three-manual 45-stop Mander tracker organ (2000) of suburban Chestnut Hill's Presbyterian Church would have been difficult to imagine! The gentle tonal variety offered by the organ's slightly-unequal Kellner temperament, the player's artistic range of touches, and her beautifully-developed program in which works of Frescobaldi, Cabezón, and Cabanilles set off the novelty of Jehan Alain's medieval estampie-like Fantasmagorie and, as emotional high point, his Première Fantasie, led us to the satisfaction of stylistically-played Bach (the double-pedal An Wasserflüssen Babylon, BWV 653b and Prelude and Fugue in C, BWV 545). Brava Miura for this musical high point, and bravo Mander for an eloquently voiced instrument consisting of an encased Great, Swell, and Pedal, with separately encased Choir on the gallery rail, all with full 61-note manuals and 32-note pedal, thank you very much!

The organ as fun

For a group of professionals who take themselves very seriously far too much of the time, it was salutary to experience the organ as entertainment, lighter fare, yes . . . even fun! Among multiple opportunities to do this: the effervescent Hector Olivera amazed with his astounding musicianship at the Roland Atelier AT 90S digital keyboard instrument, especially with an expertly-nuanced and accurately-colored transcription of Stravinsky's Firebird Suite. With faux-castanets clicking from his keyboard-orchestra he brought down the house with a Foxian rendition of Bach's Gigue Fugue. Introducing the concert, Olivera's duo partner Richard Morris quipped "You've heard music you're supposed to hear this week; now here's what you want to hear!" Best of their collaborative efforts (prefaced by Morris' comic proffering of a tuning note and Olivera's "tuning" of his electronic-keyboard tympani) was their performance of the Poulenc Concerto in G minor. A two-keyboard version of Guilmant's Symphony Number 1  for Organ and Orchestra, opus 42, allowed a comparison of this composer's adaptation from a solo organ work with that of Widor heard at the opening concert. Of the two, Guilmant's seemed to be a more idiomatic, better balanced essay for organ and orchestra.

To lighten the procedings at the complimentary breakfast and annual AGO business meeting on Saturday morning, the Philadelphia Organ Quartet (Michael Stairs, Colin Howland, Rudolph Lucente, and Peter Richard Conte) provided their own brand of zaniness at four electronic instruments. Popular favorites included a rip-roaring Light Cavalry Overture thundering forth from twelve keyboards and four pedalboards, Tiptoe Through the Tulips for "petals" alone, and a relentlessly funny spoof of authentic performing practice, a "newly-discovered Sonata in C by the classical Swiss composer 'Monk Mueller'," for which Conte's instrument was tuned to a decidedly earlier (mis)temperament and a lower pitch than that employed by his accomplices.

Speaking of Peter Richard Conte, the Grand Court organist of the Wanamaker Organ at Lord and Taylor's department store displayed his considerable artistry on the world-famous six-manual instrument of more than 28,000 pipes. A twice-performed concert on the evening of July 4 featured his own transcriptions of Overture to Candide (Bernstein), The Sorcerer's Apprentice (Dukas), Edwin H. Lemare's arrangement of Wotan's Farewell and Magic Fire Music from Die Walküre (Wagner), and the truly unique opportunity to hear Dupré's Passion Symphony in its first complete performance on this organ since the composer first improvised it here in December, 1921. Historical performance practice of the first order! Conte's playing of the entire program was of the highest musicality, with an unimpeachable sense of timing and registration and absolute technical control. Both organ and building appeared to be in tip-top shape as were most of the convention venues. And what could have been more fitting than his encore, Sousa's Stars and Stripes Forever, complete with alternating red, white, and blue lights and an unfurling monster flag? No additional fireworks were needed for this patriotic celebration!

More organ recitals

Martin Baker, the "other" British recitalist, was saddled with a smaller instrument (38 ranks of 1921 Austin spread over four manuals and pedal) in a padded room (the visually attractive Congregation Rodeph Shalom). Baker made what he could of his assignment, playing particularly well in Duruflé's Scherzo, opus 2 and in his improvisation on a Jewish psalm melody, for which he utilized rapid repeated notes in an effective and telling manner. Organ and space did not abet his flawless playing of Mendelssohn (Sonata in A), Liszt (Orpheus), or Reger (Chorale Fantasia on Ein' feste Burg).

Similarly disadvantaged, Ann Elise Smoot's recital preceding afternoon worship at St. Mark's Episcopal Church died on the "hothouse" vine of a packed church, afflicted by high humidity and a program that sandwiched the potentially-exciting Reger Chorale Fantasia on Hallelujah! Gott zu loben between two dutiful works by Stanford. In this setting Ms. Smoot was unable to churn up much excitement. At the succeeding worship service the much-discussed, usually-deplored new nave division appended to the historic Aeolian-Skinner organ managed to prove its mettle by ciphering.

For Cherry Rhodes' recital on the Martin Ott organ of Trinity Lutheran Church in suburban Lansdale the only piece that seemed at home was the opener, Bach's lovely mostly-manualiter Pastorale in F. This very Germanic instrument did not do much for Ms. Rhodes' otherwise masterful performances of French and French-leaning works: Scènes d'Enfant d'après "The Turn of the Screw" (Jean Guillou), Meditations on Salve Festa Dies (Fr. Marius Walter), and Variations on Victimae Paschali Laudes (Jiri Ropek), the latter performed in memory of University of Alabama organ professor Warren Hutton, whose sudden death at the pre-convention pedagogy conference had both shocked and saddened the assemblage.

Organist Robert Plimpton capitalized on the Austro-German accents of the 1974 Rieger organ in Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church for assured performances of Bach (Chorale Partita on Sei gegrüsset) and Buxtehude (Toccata in F, BuxWV 157). The organ failed to be as sympathetic to the French vocabulary of  Franck's Grande Pièce Symphonique. Plimpton performed his teacher Robert Elmore's Holiday for Organ as if it were his own, and he seemed to revel in this return to the 98-rank organ installed during his tenure at the church.*

Repertoire enrichment sessions

Two beloved organists, both master teachers, gave organ-related recent-repertoire "mini-recitals" at featured morning time slots: Marilyn Keiser (organ and instruments) and David Higgs (solo repertoire). A third session surveying some recent choral works was offered by Clifford Hill.

Keiser devoted her program to works by living American composers, concentrating on appealing performances of two from the four Psalms for Flute and Organ by Moonyeen Albrecht, Dan Locklair's Sonata da chiesa for flute and organ (both with the elegant collaboration of flutist Mimi Stillman), Robert Powell's Carols of Christmas (which charmed, but failed to cool the room), and, with the Fairmount Brass Quintet plus tympani and cymbals, Craig Phillips' Suite. It was fortunate that the artist chose this format, for open windows admitted as much street noise as air, and her several remarks were totally obliterated by the beeping of backward-intentioned trucks.

David Higgs presented first performances of two works from the commissioned Philadelphia Organ Book (consisting of six pieces). Especially attractive was Star Rising by first-time composer for the organ Erik Santos, who was present. Also in attendance was Emma Lou Diemer, composer of the second work premiered, Prepare the Royal Highway. Because of excessive heat in the non-air-conditioned First Presbyterian Church, Higgs shortened his program; on Thursday, he mentioned that, having dispensed with a jacket, he was "playing in his shirtsleeves for the first time ever in public performance."

The immediate "hit" of Higgs' program was Recollection (Soliloquy No. 2) by David Conte. ECS Publishing head Robert Schuneman reported that all thirty copies brought to the convention sold out immediately after Higgs' first presentation on Tuesday, and more than 200 orders for it were placed during the week. In celebration of the national holiday, Higgs ended his program with 19th-century Harvard Professor of Music John Knowles Paine's sturdy Double Fugue on My Country, 'tis of Thee for the Full Organ.

Competitions

Once again a distinguished panel of judges (Margaret Kemper, Mary Preston, and George Ritchie) confounded those listeners who sat through the complete final round of the National Young Artists Competition in Organ Playing by choosing a safe, middle-of-the-road winner, Timothy Olsen. As has been increasingly the case in recent competitions I have attended, the audience prize winner (selected by votes from those who "stick it out" for the complete program), second-ranked Kola Owalabi, provided more interesting and exciting music-making. If the goal of this competition is to launch a young artist's concert career, it would seem that, once again, the audience made a more "judicious" choice than did the judges.

Not one of these players succeeded equally in all four required pieces ("Great" Praeludium in E minor, Bruhns; Allein Gott in der Höh sei Ehr, BWV 663, Bach; Etude in A-flat, Schumann; Allegro maestoso [Symphonie III], Vierne). If pressed for my own choice it would have been third place winner Christian Schmitt, whose Vierne seemed to my ears the one performance conveying the menace inherent in this work. His Bruhns was stylistic, if less fanciful than Owalabi's, whose delightful playing of the Schumann was the only one to capture its fantasy and to translate the composer's pianistic idiom to the organ with reasonable success. As is often the case, flexibly-articulated, stylish Bach-playing eluded all three players.

Winners of the National Competition in Organ Improvisation (which I did not hear) were Peter Krasincki (first prize), Neil Weston (second), and David Macfarlane (third). All three improvised on themes submitted by Harry Wilkinson. Judges for this event were Mary Beth Bennett, Lynn Trapp, and John Vandertuin.

A few workshops

While only four in number, my workshop choices included a wide range of topics offered by presenters at various stages of their careers. Nevertheless, each was successful, and each workshop held my interest. On Tuesday, as preparation for the evening concert, I went to hear veteran Widor-scholar John Near discuss the composition and reception histories of the work we were to hear. I am a longtime admirer of Near's exemplary editions of the Widor organ symphonies; he has added further to his luster by preparing Widor's opus 42 bis for performance! Much of what he said had been printed in the extensive notes so generously provided in the convention program book. It was particularly gratifying to hear Near's reference to our own venerable journal as he quoted The Diapason report (April 1919) of the American premiere of Widor's Symphonie in G minor featuring organist Charles Courboin with the Philadelphia Orchestra, conducted by Leopold Stokowski. (The journal's correspondent reported 10,000 auditors in Wanamaker's Grand Court; other sources suggested the tally might be as high as 12 or 15,000.)

At Tuesday evening's performance I was seated in the balcony, close to Dr. Near, and was therefore privy to his delight as he held in his hands, for the first time, printed copies of his new edition (published by A-R Editions, Madison Wisconsin).

On Wednesday I attended "Thomas Jefferson's 'Favorite Passion'," a workshop by younger scholar Nancy Cooper from the University of Montana at Missoula. She kept us engaged in Jeffersonian biography and Cooperian wit (beginning as she quoted the musical 1776, "It's hot as hell in Philadelphia"), doled out to an overflowing roomful of interested folk. Musical examples from Jefferson's music collection were played on a lovely three-stop continuo positive organ, opus one, by Michael Rathke, now of Fort Worth, Texas (formerly employed by Fisk of Gloucester).

For the Friday time slot, I chose to sample a session on the music of my Oberlin Conservatory classmate Calvin Hampton, presented by Shelly Moorman-Stahlman from Lebanon Valley College. Some unforeseen glitches in her PowerPoint presentation and some non-sequentially copied musical examples notwithstanding, Ms. Moorman-Stahlman gave a well-organized overview of Hampton's organ music and highlighted his expertise in hymn-writing. Her performance, from memory, of The Primitives and Everyone Dance from the composer's Five Dances (1982) served as aural "bookends" to her presentation, and reminded us anew of the terrible loss Calvin's death represents to the organ world. Almost too poignant in this context was a notice posted on the bulletin board beneath the organ gallery of Arch Street Methodist Church: "Because of AIDS we remember . . ."

Finally, on Saturday, I learned again from the redoubtable Marilyn Mason, who presented a workshop, "A Lifetime of New Music," highlighting some of her 78 commissions of organ music. Beginning with prayer, continuing with focused wit, dropping nuggets of wisdom as she proceeded, Professor Mason charmed her audience. She was joined by Jean Randall, who shared the playing of several pieces by Gregory Hamilton, Gordon Young and Jean Langlais from the just-published first volume of the Mason Music Library Collection of Commissioned Works for Organ (MorningStar Music Publishers). In addition, Ms. Mason played Toccata from Suite for Organ (1947) by Edmund Haines, her very first commissioned work.

As for memorable humor, Mason shared a story from her recent trip to Spain during which an old acquaintance, a priest, told her "Madame Professor, you are looking so well preserved." She also recounted her classic tale of an encounter with a Boston matron during a recital visit to Symphony Hall.  Queried by the dowager about her Mason family pedigree, the artist replied that she was "Just Miss Mason from Michigan." To this the Bostonian commented, "Here we think breeding is everything." Without missing a beat Mason responded, "In Michigan we think breeding is fun, but not everything . . ." Of equal value in the good advice department, Prof. Mason left us with the observation, "The amateur practices to get it right; the professional practices so it can't be played wrong."

Choral components

Fine choral singing graced the convention, starting with the Monday evening Gathering Celebration at the Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul. Gerre Hancock led his marvelous Saint Thomas (New York) Choir of Men and Boys in Duruflé's Four Motets; The Twelve by William Walton (whose centenary also occurs in 2002), and the first performance of a new work, Jacob's Prayer by Owen Burdick (to a text by Gian Carlo Menotti). Expecially lovely was Burdick's chordal setting of the words "O God, let me not die in darkness," and timely, too, for we were informed during priestly welcoming words that a power failure at 4 p.m. had rendered the building untenable for the evening service: "Only God's love (and the quick response of the electric company) restored organ, lights, and air conditioning in the nick of time." This was a relief on several fronts, since the weather deities historically seem to have had little regard for organ conventions. (I think of recent AGO gatherings in Boston, New York, Dallas, Denver; only Seattle was vouchsafed a pleasantly cool week!) It was good to know that, at least for the opening event, God appeared to be siding with organists!

The athletic, intricate accompaniment to Walton's joyous setting of master poet Wystan Auden's memorable text was handled skillfully by Judith Hancock. Stirring improvisations to open and close the service were created by Gerre Hancock and John Weaver. Another new work, Ceremonies for Organ and Brass Quintet by Jennifer Higdon, commissioned to mark the 100th anniversary of the Philadelphia Chapter of the AGO (the first "national" chapter outside New York City), clocked in at more than 30 minutes. This was simply  too much of a good thing. In future hearings, for which individual sections could be selected, the work might prove more effective. (I would suggest Opening Ceremony, Celebration [organ solo], and the last movement, Celebration.)

At the other end of the week, a Saturday concert by the Toronto Children's Chorus introduced the convention to Philadelphia's new concert venue in the Kimmel Center. Verizon Hall is cello-shaped, with four tiers of seats; the upper balconies actually surround the stage area. A dark wood interior, somewhat dry acoustically, has seats upholstered in vibrant red. This color was repeated in robes worn by 55 girl singers; the 13 boys were garbed in white shirts and black pants.

What a superb ensemble! Founder and conductor Jean Ashworth Bartle conducted the long and difficult program, drawing impeccable tuning, clear articulation, and satisfying musical results from her young charges. Their unified diction of Latin, German, and English texts was remarkable and easily understood, gratifying since there were several unannounced changes to the printed program. Pure sounds, plus added appoggiaturas, marked the stylish opening Stabat Mater (Pergolesi). An unaccompanied Ave Maria (Holst) and Eleanor Daley's delicate setting of Hilaire Belloc's The Birds (with piano) gave some welcome relief from the incessant brightness of the accompanying large electronic instrument by the Walker Technical Company.

Composer Ben Steinberg, urbane and succinct in his pre-premiere remarks, was given an exemplary first performance of his Psalms of Thanksgiving. Skillful writing for harp and cello (when not overbalanced by the organ) and flowing, singable choral lines resulted in 20 minutes of easy listening. Impressive poise and projection characterized the Chorus member who served as narrator. However, the work as a whole lacked sufficient variety to sustain interest. Like Jennifer Higdon's, this composition should fare better in excerpted form. Not for the first time during the week's new music I thought of the late Igor Kipnis' quotable quip about an interminable John Cage happening, "It reminded me of the New York Subway, but at least the Subway goes somewhere."

Some closing thoughts

Featuring "Rising Stars," winners of the 2001 AGO/Quimby Regional Competitions for Young Organists, as pre-service recitalists for the worship services proved an effective way to showcase emerging talent. I heard an adroit program of Vierne works played by Brett Maguire at Old St. Peter's Church on Tuesday. Previously I had sampled a Dallas presentation of her convention recital by Lucinda Meredith from Houston, also an assured and able player. The other "stars" in this constellation, still to be heard at some future occasions, included Tim Pyper, Christian Lane, Charles Burks, Thomas Schuster, Martin Grajeda, Jr., and Rico Contenti.

Following Maguire's recital a service of "Worship Through the Day" was offered by the 29-member choir from the Royal School of Church Music Training Course for Teenage Boys and Girls (10th grade through second-year college students), directed by Murray Forbes Somerville, with Eric Plutz, organist. Among a wide range of musical offerings was the first hearing of Douglas Major's anthem Love Poem to God (text by Rainer Maria Rilke) for choir, organ and synthesizer, featuring a congregational refrain ("What will you do, God, when I die?") signaled at each return by the haunting sounds of wind chimes. The young singers rose splendidly to the not-inconsiderable challenges of this work.

It was general cause for celebration to note a goodly contingent of younger AGO members, truly the future of the organization. Frequently manning the Exhibit Hall information booth for Oberlin Conservatory, organ majors Owen Cannon (entering freshman) and David Mislin (junior) were representative of these fresh faces. It was fun to recall the past, too, as I visited with Marjorie Jackson Rasche, FAGO, whom I met in 1957 as an Oberlin sophomore at my own very first AGO convention, a regional gathering in Akron, Ohio. Here she was in Philadelphia, seated next to me at the dinner-reception given by the Guild for members holding certification (FAGO, AAGO, ChM, CAGO, SPC). And, as unlikely as it might seem after reading that collection of letters, the ample Italian menu consisted of more than alphabet soup!

Diversity! It should be apparent to those reading this report that the program offered a wide range of offerings geared to many differing tastes. As a respite from continual organ music during the morning spent in Princeton, the seven-member New England Spiritual Ensemble sang a program of African-American music, their selections chosen to illustrate James Weldon Johnson's descriptive poem O Black and Unknown Bards. (And later, in Philadelphia, on a recreative walk, I discovered the historic marker dedicated to Francis Johnson [1792-1844], "America's first native-born master of music, African-American . . . .")

Another program "sorbet," though not on my schedule, was a concert by the Renaissance band Piffaro, early ensemble music sandwiched between carillon selections played by Lisa Lonie at St. Thomas Church, Whitemarsh, in Fort Washington.

The many Philadelphia connections between artists, pieces, and instruments (some of them noted in the remarks above) were appreciated. (Chairman Elwell and performance chair David Furniss are to be commended for this further felicity!) The plethora of faculty, students, and former students from the Curtis Institute of Music, in particular, made it apparent how very important this place of higher learning has been to the musical scene in Philadelphia and throughout the nation.

Another appreciated "first" at this meeting was the program book mention of the maintenance persons or firm responsible for upkeep and tuning of each convention organ.

Now that the 46th national convention of the American Guild of Organists has passed into history, might I suggest that, in order to secure the continued blessings of posterity, some of the expected profits generated by such a large attendance be set aside to endow an air conditioning assistance fund, with generous grants to the next east coast venue selected as host for a mid-summer convention? After all, who knows? There might not be any free paper fans, the next time around!

                  *Thanks to Dallas colleague Annette Albrecht, who served as my surrogate ears for Robert Plimpton’s recital.

                  Photographs by William Leazer (of the Dallas AGO Chapter).

The Organ Historical Society held its forty-second annual convention in Portland, Oregon, from Sunday, July 13, through Saturday, July 19. Here are, first, a kind of organ travelogue and, secondly, some broader considerations evoked by the organs and the playing.

Convention headquarters was the Best Western Rose Garden Hotel,  across the Willamette River from downtown Portland. Accommodations were certainly adequate, as was transportation. So was the food, when we finally got it. Future convention leaders really must insist to caterers who are seemingly geared for bar mitzvahs and weddings that there be four food-serving lines, and if possible a single seating. Only in this way can 200 OHS convention-goers keep to their tight schedule of organ demonstrations and bus rides, and possibly have the chance of a short walk before the next scheduled activity. It is also worth noting that as the OHS ages so do its members; it is cruel to keep the oldest of them standing a long time in line. Because of a disagreement between the hotel and the convention leadership, the exhibits and evening social hour had to be transferred to the shop of organ-builder Richard Bond, with a shuttle bus. Later the René Marceau shop was opened for a social hour as well, but it appeared that the need of using the after-hours bus resulted in lower attendance. In general, the painstaking, thoughtful southern hospitality of the 1989 New Orleans and 1993 Louisville conventions remains an ideal well worth keeping in mind. But on to the music.

Sunday

The convention opened at 3 pm on Sunday the 13th, with Michael Barnes playing the 1870 Derrick-Felgemaker "portable organ," which has a diapason and a dulciana to tenor F, a stopped diapason bass that is always on, a manual super coupler, and a 17-note pedal coupler. It was played at Westminster Presbyterian Church, Portland, although Mr. Barnes owns the instrument. He was assisted by Susan McBerry, soprano.

The next event was Karl Mansfield's demonstration of the 1887 Cole & Woodberry at St. Andrew's Lutheran Church, Vancouver, Washington. (Vancouver is across the Columbia River from the Portland area. Portland is at the meeting of the tributary Willamette and the "really big" Columbia.) This II/23 instrument was rebuilt in 1996 by Jeremy Cooper of Concord, New Hampshire; it was relocated through The Organ Clearing House, as were many of the instruments heard at this convention.

It is noteworthy, indeed, that only two of the old instruments we heard at the Portland convention are in their original locations. It may well be that, as more old churches close, relocation is the shape of the future.1 It seems that there was an original stock of tracker organs set up during the later 19th century, but that few of these remain.2 The earlier stock of tracker organs yielded in time to electro-pneumatic instruments of varying merit and to the ubiquitous electronic substitutes. These, evidently, are yielding in turn to new tracker organs as well as to a significant number of old trackers transplanted from points east.

The third Sunday event was a program of Reform synagogue music presented by John Strege, organist and choral director, with Judith Schiff, soloist, and a vocal quartet, at Congregation Beth Israel, Portland, using a 1928 Reuter organ with five divisions, one of them a floating string division.

On Sunday evening, Douglas Cleveland presented a recital of French romantic and post-romantic music, including the entire second symphony of Louis Vierne, at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral. The instrument there is a 1987 III/89 of Manuel Rosales; one local organ enthusiast described it as being a true "magnet" for the organ art in the Portland area. Because of previously set travel plans I was unable to arrive in Portland before late Sunday evening; but I heard that Sunday's happenings were something for the builders, rebuilders, movers, singers and players--and their local fans--to be justifiably proud of.3

Monday

Monday the 14th began with a lecture on the organ history of the Pacific Northwest by David Dahl, professor of music and university organist, Pacific Lutheran University, and director of music at Christ Episcopal Church, both in Tacoma, Washington. He emphasized the importance of the installation, in 1965, of a large Flentrop organ in St. Mark's Cathedral, Seattle, under the leadership of then organist Peter Hallock. This, along with other, smaller European instruments gave impetus to local builders to begin using north German models, and ultimately, according to Professor Dahl, to a climate of opinion wherein the first choice of the educated northwest organist will be a tracker organ. Organ "reform"--the term is deliberately used--is primarily a reform back to the northern 17th or 18th centuries.

The next two presentations provided examples for Dahl's lecture. The first was at St. Mark's Cathedral (Anglican Church in America) in Portland where we heard a III/44 by Werner Bosch of Kassel, Germany. We are particular indebted to Mark Brombaugh, who at the last minute substituted for the ailing Delbert Saman. Mr. Brombaugh also showed off a thoroughly charming Dutch chamber organ from around 1790, restored with new casework in 1982 by Frans Bosman.

Then we moved on to Beaverton, Oregon, and St. Andrew's Lutheran Church, where William Porter (professor at The New England Conservatory) gave a fine short program on an excellent 1994 instrument (II/20) by Tacoma Builder Paul Fritts. One sensed here a thoughtful and successful adaptation of the baroque model, designed for the large, hard-surfaced European church, to a not-so-large and rather dry American room. Professor Porter improvised, and played Bruhns and Buxtehude expressively, in a manner suggesting improvisation. One assumes improvisations listed in a program are pieces not written down (as opposed to made up on the spot); that, too, is doubtless authentic baroque practice. There are beyond question countless baroque masterpieces known now to the angels alone, but Professor Porter's pieces, known to us, too, were enthusiastically applauded.

On Monday afternoon James Hammann of New Orleans gave (handsomely as always) an all-Mendelssohn program on the 1890 II/13 Kilgen at St. Pius X Catholic Church, Portland, which organ was moved to its present location in 1985 by Bond Pipe Organs. This small but refined instrument (22/3' and 2' but no mixture) suited the Mendelssohn very well. On other occasions OHS audiences have heard Dr. Hammann play elaborate numbers; they would have been out of place here, so he offered the short Mendelssohn pieces instead.

Next came the demonstration of a similar instrument in St. Thomas Moore Catholic Church, Portland. In this case Bond in 1982 somewhat altered a 1914 Kilgen, but was constrained by the congregation to locate it in a thoroughly unsuitable place, a sort of organ cave behind the main altar. Portland organist Thomas Curry did the best he could in an interesting program of period pieces by Walter Spinney and Wenham Smith. But the sound fall-off from cave to nave was most regrettable; one hopes the owners will sacrifice some nave pews to better sound. Smith's variations on Beecher, one of the finest, most dramatic variation sets by a 19th-century American, thus lost much of their impact.4

After St. Thomas More's we went to St. Patrick's, Portland, where Dean Applegate first played briefly on a small English organ (c. 1875, unknown builder, two whole and two half ranks), restored by Bond. But the main attraction was Mr. Applegate's Cantores in Ecclesia, a choir of women, girls and boys who under his direction performed a program of 20th-century British music for treble voices. An excellent accompaniment was provided by Douglas Cleveland, who was asked to do this on short notice.

The final event of this busy day was also a kind of double-header, if not triple-header. In St. Mary's Catholic Cathedral Bruce Neswick played first the 1996 II/19 Martin Ott organ in the chancel and then the III/41 Los Angeles Art Organ (Murray Harris) instrument in the rear gallery. The latter organ seemed to be a kind of conventioneer, too, having migrated here from San Francisco, where it was heard in the 1988 OHS convention. It was rebuilt in 1996 with some additions by Bond, and Mr. Neswick's choice of (among other things) Brahm's Prelude and Fugue in A minor was particularly apt for showing it off. As a closer, this artist and Oakland organist and composer Ronald McKean improvised a passacaglia using both organs.

Tuesday

Tuesday, July 15, began with a lecture on OHS-sponsored European organ tours by executive director William Van Pelt. Then we went to All Saints Episcopal Church, Portland, where we heard Cheryl Drewes, the incumbent organist, give one of the most musically satisfying demonstrations of the convention--and on one of the most satisfying instruments. The Bond firm enhanced an 1892 Jardine organ, adding, subtracting and moving assorted ranks (now II/15); the result is dramatic, well suited to the room. Some observers did wonder a bit at Bond's penchant for enameling organ pipes white: they tend to remind one of objects not normally associated with the organ.

Oh happy day: the next presentation was also one of the musically most satisfying of the convention--David Dahl's demonstration of a five-rank, divided single-manual Hinners of 1915. This was in the Presbyterian Church in Aurora, south of Portland. In repertory ranging from Francisco Peraza (d. 1598) to Haydn, Dahl made skillful use of the divided keyboard. The church's pastor, Mary Sue Evers, made a very telling point about getting people to play it: if they got a decent though small pipe organ they stood a much better chance of getting a credible musician for their worship. After hearing the Hinners we heard an excellent lecture on the Hinners firm by Allison Alcorn-Oppedahl. Her remarks had the considerable merit not only of discussing the Hinners instruments, but of incorporating many more social-science reflections than remarks by organ historians usually do. Hinners organs were cannily marketed  to a market that came (the small, usually rural church) and then went.

After an ice-cream social and a longish bus ride to Vancouver, Washington, we next heard Marilyn Kay Stulken ably demonstrate a one-manual, eight-rank Moline organ of 1879. Since this organ did not have a divided keyboard, Ms. Stulken made very creative use of a stop-puller assistant; her selections ranged from John Redford to Johannes Brahms, and this little 8-4-2' instrument handled them remarkably well, provided one overlooked some problems of tuning temperament. The final event of the day was also in Vancouver, at St. Luke's Episcopal Church, where Paul Klemme played organ solo numbers and accompanied trumpeter Gerald Webster on a II/17 W. K. Adams' Sons (Providence, RI, 1890), rebuilt and modified by Bond (1985).

Wednesday

Wednesday, July 16, opened with the annual meeting of the Society, presided over by outgoing president Kristin Farmer. We were encouraged to hear that the OHS is in good financial shape, but reminded--friends of the OHS, take note--that a substantial and necessary part of the Society's income comes from book, score and CD catalogue sales. The OHS now has a web page. When the ballots had been counted Barbara Owen emerged as the new president, with Scot Huntington as vice-president, and Michael Barone, Lois Regestein and Peter Sykes as new board members. Michael Barone, producer of the public radio series Pipedreams, also received the Distinguished Service Award. The 1997 Biggs fellows (recipients of an award designed to aid in attending a first OHS convention) were Joseph McCabe of Buffalo and Nicole Bensoussan of San Diego, both of whom are seventeen. Next year's convention will be in Denver (June 21-27), and that of 1999 in Montréal.

After the meeting we went to Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Portland, to hear an 1885 II/12 instrument, builder unknown, rebuilt with additions by Bond. Perhaps because of excessive carpeting and its location under an arch, it sounded rather thin. Where there seems to be a problem with the marriage of a relocated organ--or any organ--and its church the listener must, of course, take into consideration that the OHS are often an SRO crowd of sound-absorbers. The scheduled demonstrator, William Schuster, was detained, and while we awaited his arrival David Dahl accompanied an impromptu hymn-sing. Mr. Schuster's billing of four slight pieces by André Fleury as "An Organ Symphony" rather stretched a label. (It should be noted in passing that Fleury composed two real symphonies.)

Next stop was St. Ignatius Catholic Church, also in Portland, where Timothy and Nancy Le Roi Nickel presented a duet program on a (now) II/17 from around 1880, builder unknown, rebuilt in 1901 by Kilgen and rebuilt again in 1982 by Bond, with notable additions. The duet players did well, but they might wish to consider whether what is executed as a duet actually sounds like a duet, that is, with two real musical contributors in it. In piano duet-playing this is more readily evident, but the many levels of organ pitch tend to produce many notes but not necessarily the impression of two executants.5 Alas, our players were assigned a gallery organ, and part of the fun of duets is seeing them done.

Next came Grant Edwards's demonstration of the instrument in the Presbyterian Church at Milwaukie, an 1898 Pilcher rebuilt to II/13 by Bond in 1992. It is, in its present reincarnation, a handsome instrument, placed in the corner of a kind of liturgical stage in a fairly reverberant room. Mr. Edwards made it reverberate, but he and other players might consider that the repertory the "little American organ" does least convincingly is the French baroque.

The afternoon ended with a roller-skating session at the Oaks Roller Rink, Portland, while Don Feely played the four-manual 1926 Wurlitzer, formerly in the Broadway Theater, Portland. But the Wurlitzer is out in the middle of the rink with no swell boxes. Here once more is an instance of an equivocal situation for the player, listener and reviewer. We have to be grateful the thing was done at all, that is, the organ preserved, and yet we can easily think of cogent reasons for doing things differently.

After supper came what many at the convention considered its finest event, the recital by Peter Sykes (Longy School, Cambridge, and New England Conservatory, Boston) on the 1883 Hook & Hastings II/20 located in the Old Church concert hall, Portland, and restored by the Bond firm. Player and organ were superb. The first half of the program consisted of C. P. E. Bach's Sonata 6, Mozart's K. 594 Fantasia, a "Canzonetta" by G. W. Chadwick, and Lemmens's "Fanfare." After an intermission came Mendelssohn's Sonata 6, two short chorale-preludes of J. S. Bach, and a rousing rendering by all of J. S. Bach's harmonization of "Jesus, Priceless Treasure." For the Old Church Society, Inc., Delbert Saman accepted an OHS Historic Organ Plaque. Not least in this instrument's attractions is the fine restoration of its front pipes in brilliant red, green, blue and gold. It is worth noting, too, that Sykes followed the old OHS custom of providing a handout listing the registrations used. Before this recital people were recalling with pleasure his 1987 recital in Newburyport; now, no doubt, they will also fondly remember this one.6

Thursday

Thursday, July 17, started with a demonstration by James Holloway at St. Paul's Lutheran Church, Castle Rock, Washington. The instrument is in the orgue de choeur, or chancel, manner, built in 1990 by Frans Bosman, II/15 with additions prepared for. The 8' foundations together were delightfully clear. As for the tutti, all this organ needs is a "French" room; the whole ensemble (at least to this listener) tended to split into its elements, though again one must consider the acoustical effect of an SRO crowd.

The next demonstration was by James Denman, at Epiphany Episcopal Church, Chehallis, Washington. The organ was a II/10 Lancashire-Marshall of 1895, renovated in 1979 by the late Randall McCarty. In the same town we heard an 1890 Koehnken & Grimm, II/12, restored by Huestis & Associates and S. L. Huntington & Co. in 1993. The demonstrator was Joseph Adam. The silver pipes stenciled in crimson and dark green and the butternut casework were particularly handsome.

After lunch we traveled to Cathlamet, Puget Island, where in Our Savior's Lutheran Church Jane Edge ably demonstrated a fine I/9 Roosevelt of 1895 relocated from Katonah, New York. Her program included one of Mozart's church sonatas, K. 336, in which she was assisted by violinists Anne Edge and Phyllis Kessel and cellist Mary Flotree. Her program also included a community rendition of "Roll On, Columbia," one of the songs the Bonneville Power Authority hired Woody Guthrie to write in 1941 to popularize their dam.7

After returning to Portland we next heard a truly magnificent instrument, a 1916 E. M. Skinner IV/49, built for the Portland Civic Auditorium, restored in 1971-75 by the late David Bruce Newman, and now located in an auditorium at the Alpenrose Dairy. After a prayer and the singing of the national anthem we saw a short Laurel and Hardy silent film, quietly accompanied by Paul Quarino. Then came supper as guests of the dairy, and then a recital by Minneapolis organist Robert Vickery. In a series of mostly short pieces Vickery showed off a great variety of lovely Skinner sounds. Since this was an evening recital one could have wished for musically more developed numbers. Opening the chamber-access doors for the closer, a slight Firmin Swinnen toccata, seemed in poor taste; Skinner certainly did not aim for the threshold of pain with sheer loudness. We can hope that this fine instrument, created for a site significantly larger than its present home, will some day find a more suitable one.

Friday

On Friday, July 18, the first demonstration was by Charles Rus of San Francisco, using the 1904 II/13 Möller in the First Christian Church, Albany, Oregon. With its elegantly curving woodwork, this little organ is one of the most attractive pipe-fence organs I have seen. Mr. Rus' selections were well chosen to show off the instrument and very well played; they included a Buxtehude praeludium (pace temperament!) and what one listener called an attractive example of "90s American light," Three Pieces by Craig Phillips, tonal though dissonant, lively, thinly scored.

We next visited St. Mary's Catholic Church, Corvallis, Oregon, which has an 1892 II/20 Jardine rebuilt and altered by Bond in 1986. The demonstrator was Portland organist Paul Wood Cunningham. Also in Corvallis we heard another Portland organist, Lanny Collins, play a program of Orgelbüchlein chorales on the robust II/28 Noack installed in 1980 in the First United Methodist Church. Quite robust as well is the 1996 II/27 Bond in Cone Chapel (a large classroom, really) at Willamette University, Salem, Oregon, which was demonstrated by Marian Ruhl Metson.

One the way back to Portland we stopped at St. Anne's Chapel, Marylhurst College, where Tamara Still demonstrated a fine large Bozeman instrument, built in the French romantic style in 1994, III/37 with additional ranks prepared for, incorporating many ranks from a 1901 Hutchings-Votey. Back in Portland we were treated to another of the especially satisfying musical happenings of the convention, a demonstration by Michigan artist Mary Ann Crugher Balduf of an 1851 Henry Erben organ, which is in the "Chapel Hall" of the First Presbyterian Church and appears to have been in Portland since some time in the 1860s. With expert, split-second assistance from stop-puller Brian Buehler, Ms. Balduf used the one manual and six ranks with great imagination.

Friday ended with a program of recently composed works, including some of his own, performed by Ronald McKean on the 1996 II/37 Bond instrument (incorporating many pipes from an 1881 John Bergstrom) in Holy Rosary Catholic Church, Portland. The rich plenum includes a seven-rank mixture on the great--this in a high-ceilinged, reverberant hall. This instrument and the one in All Saints Episcopal Church were among the favorite Bond instruments heard. The presence in the pews of little plainsong hymnals (Liber Cantualis) suggested the possibility of alternatim literature involving the whole assembly, but that was not to be. Too bad, since so much baroque organ music (and Boëly, too) was meant to be used that way.

Saturday

The last day of the convention, Saturday, July 19, started off pleasantly with Will Headlee's demonstration of the 1913 II/18 Hinners in St. Charles Church, Portland. The attractive and reverberant room let shine what elsewhere might have been a rather bland instrument.8 Next we took a longish trip south to Mt. Angel Benedictine Monastery, in a striking hilltop setting, where of course we sang Engelberg and where Beverly Ratajak demonstrated two instruments. The 1966 II/16, built by Martin Ott for the monks' choir, was meant to accompany their sung office, which we heard it do, but its sound does not carry well into the nave. This is doubtless why the abbey has commissioned the Ott firm to begin, in 1998, a three-manual tracker in the rear gallery. Also heard was a delightful little three-rank instrument, now in a meeting hall, built in 1896 by one Joseph Speldrich, a dairy farmer working for the monastery. After a stop at the Eola Hills Winery we heard Barbara Baird of the University of Oregon, Eugene, demonstrate the 1972 Ahrend IV/51 in Beall Concert Hall at the University. The temperament is Werckmeister III, which gave Sweelinck's "Est-ce Mars" variations rather more sprightliness than they often get. One wished Boyvin's suite in the first tone had been alternated with a sung (or failing in that, a played in unison) Magnificat or Gloria, which would have presented the integral musical form.

Concluding the convention was the John Brombaugh instrument in Central Lutheran Church, Eugene, III/51, 1976, but altered by the builder in 1983, 1989 and 1992. The demonstrator was Margaret Evans of Southern Oregon State College, Ashland. The day ended with a round of applause for convention chairman Cliff Fairley and his colleagues, including program chairman Tim Drewes.

The Portland convention differed somewhat from many earlier OHS conventions. To be sure, the Pacific Northwest, like other large sections of the United States and Canada, simply does not have that many old organs. Given our national inclination to discard organs perceived as old, if they had fewer to start with, they now have even fewer left. Thus the 1997 convention heard, it appears, just about all the old organs--still in the original site, or transplanted--in the geographic area selected for the convention. Of particular note and a cause for celebration is how these old organs are loved and cared for; I did not hear a single organ that was not, it seemed, in a good state of repair. Many of the thirty-nine organs heard, however, were actually quite new instruments, or instruments that had been not restored precisely but rebuilt, so that even if this latter class of instruments contains more or less of old components, they are effectly new instruments.9 What we encountered in Portland, one might say, is along with organs an organ idea, an idea that has always figured in OHS concerns but that figured here more prominently. It is that tracker organs, often with a north German flavor, are the good organs, no matter what their age. One wonders if for some folks they are good for you like Saabs, Birkenstocks and benignly fertilized vegetables: when you get them you will be reformed.

The choice of organs to be heard in the Portland area inescapably tended to impress on the auditor, reformed or not, how tonally different organ-reform organs are from the area's stock of unaltered old American organs. As to choice of organs, we were led to wonder further how many admirable instruments might exist in the Portland area that are old, more or less, but just not trackers and/or in some manner baroque in tonal design. Of the thirty-nine instruments heard there were only three non-trackers, the 1928 Reuter, the denuded 1926 Wurlitzer, and, most importantly, the 1916 E. M. Skinner. Of course, if the number of unaltered old organs, whatever their type, were to be the criterion for holding an OHS convention in a certain area, and if that number were pegged to the level of the Northeast, then no convention would ever be held in Portland or other areas lightly endowed with old organs. That would not be good either for these areas or for the OHS at large. However, when a convention is held in such an area it would be well to aim for the greatest conceptual clarity attainable, and recognize that organ reform is not good organs tout court, but an idea, or complex of ideas, about what makes a good organ, and about which there remains some disagreement.10

The juxtaposition of truly old American with organ reform organs, the greater number of them being small to medium-sized two-manual instruments, leads to two further considerations.

First, one of the strengths of the Portland convention was that it offered the possibility of hearing baroque literature in other than equal temperament. Naturally, it sounds much better that way. Might we go a step further and ponder whether pre-equal-temperament literature sounds wrong played in equal temperament?11 I do not propose to answer that question, but several strategies come to mind. Might churches in a community or a denominational administrative area agree informally to offer different temperaments and literature? Or maybe the wave of the future laps on the shores of Cathlamet, where an interesting group of people with a one-manual instrument are considering installing another one-manual instrument: what if the second one were to be tuned in mean-tone? Some of the organists we heard seemed to think that "full organ" meant using most or all of the stops (and especially in passages where it wasn't needed, the 16' pedal reed). But might not a medium-sized organ, dedicated to the disciplined player, include alternatively tuned ensembles? In one of those tutti frutti OHS programs designed to show the prospective electronic-substitute buyer that a little American organ from 1895 really can play all manner of music, Sweelinck sounds "all right," but with a certain wistfulness one recognizes that he sounds much better out of equal temperament. The other side of this thought is that 19th-century instruments are better employed in doing 19th-century and later music, with judicious selections from the 18th century.

Secondly, a staple of OHS demonstrations--and properly so--is the program made of short pieces, miniatures. It shows off the possibilities of the instrument, and does it fast. Hearing a week-long succession of such demonstrations, necessary as they may be, does get you  thinking. Specifically, is there a danger that a procedure for a quick demonstration might become a musical ideal, the notion that organ music consists of miniatures, either versets or dance-movements, or fantasias put together from short-winded expositions? As anyone familiar with the problems of the opera composer knows, whereas under driving emotion words contract, music expands. Music is naturally expansive, both in opera and in music history generally. In other words, the so-called symphonic organ and the invention of various sorts of playing aids resulted from a real musical felt need, and not from the invasion of the organ world by wicked engineers. One hopes that future convention leaders and players, particularly those entrusted with the longer, evening recitals, will show us more instruments and literature characterized by a certain expansiveness.12 (The Cleveland and Sykes recitals set a worthy example.) To be avoided is the impression that the OHS fancies little instruments that do little snippets of music, and do them sometimes in tunings that would make the composers wince. Such an impression would, of course, belie the actual breadth of outlook found in the OHS, which is thus a good reason for taking care not to create it. The organs are the stars, yes, but they shine brightest in a heaven of clear musical thinking. One of the best achievements of the Portland convention is that it stimulated thinking about the organ art.

Notes

                  1.              Transplanted organs, often, are not spared the paradox that now affects so many old, now restored objects: all cleaned up and placed in rather antiseptic surroundings, they lose what Edith Wharton called the "rich low murmur of the past." Fast and Loose & The Buccaneers, ed. V. H. Winner (University Press of Virginia, 1993), p. 369.

                  2.              In 1870 prosperous Portland had some 10,000 inhabitants. Cf. Judy Jewell, Compass American Guides: Oregon (Oakland, 1996), p. 42.

                  3.              For the instruments see remarks by Barbara Owen and Alan Laufman in "OHS to Visit the 'City of Roses'," The Tracker XL: 1 (1997), pp. 6-7; and also Lee Garrett, "American Organ Reform in Retrospect," part II, The American Organist XXXI: 8 (August, 1997), pp. 74-75. For the convention programs of July 13 see "Dulciana's Diary," first autumn, 1997, issue of The Stopt Diapason (news-letter of the Chicago Chapter of the OHS).

                  4.              My copy is found in W. E. Ashmall, ed., The Organist's Journal, vol. I (New York, 1889-90), pp. 53-60. The title page lists Smith as active at Henry Ward Beecher's Plymouth Church in Brooklyn and carries the dedication, "To the memory of a Great and Good Man." Beecher had died in 1887. Variation 8 is entitled "Funeral March on the death of a hero." So Smith took an upbeat view of Beecher's legal problems.

                  5.              Robert Cundick's Three Pieces (Concordia, 1991) are a model of the kind of texture I have in mind.

                  6.              Hook & Hastings installed five organs in Portland between 1872 and 1886. This is the only one left. There are those, this writer included, who think the Hook & Hastings instruments of this time (and a little before and after) are the finest of all American work.

                  7.              Jewell, op. cit., p. 224.

                  8.              The church furnishings here were turned sideways, so that the altar is now on what was formerly the "gospel," or left side of the nave. It would not always work, but this is certainly a thoughtful way of getting more of the congregation closer to the altar while leaving the organ in place. (In this case, however, an organ was relocated from another church to the space originally provided for a pipe organ.) In sum, this rethinking of the nave makes it a theatre as opposed to a pseudo-medieval hall.

                  9.              Alas, two objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time, so 19th-century aeolines yield their chest space to upperwork. Still, there has from time to time been some debate as to whether aeoline-like ranks served as overtone-making "blending" stops and as such are integral to various registration combinations. In this view they are not just for giving pitch to the choir and additional piquancy to ministerial prayers.

                  10.           Garrett, op. cit., p. 77, wisely comments, "The important thing is that builders from both traditions [tracker and electric action] are talking to each other in a fashion not known 30 years ago." In time this more ample, generous reading of organ history will doubtless become more widely accepted.

                  11.           In time the organ with a 17th-century stop list and a 19th-century tuning may well be seen as a kind of compromise, just as some now view the more or less baroque stop list played with an electric action.

                  12.           I do not mean recitalists should yet again inflect their graduation recital on the OHS, as has occurred from time to time in previous years; if they are going to expand something, let it be their repertory.