In the wind . . .

Intelligent design
Now there’s a hot-button issue. I’m as tempted as I am unqualified to wax poetic on the opposable thumb of the panda or the flightless birds and swimming lizards of the Galapagos Islands, and I know very well that the pages of a topic-specific journal such as The Diapason are not the appropriate place. I’m thinking about the contrast between the usefulness that results from anything that was designed well and the uselessness of poor design.
Boston is both famous and infamous for the massive rehashing of its tunnels, bridges, and highways know as The Big Dig. It’s famous as an ambitious example of the significant reworking of a city, infamous for many billions of dollars in cost overruns and aggravating disruption of the city’s life for well over a decade, and for tunnels under the harbor with fatally collapsing ceilings and hundreds of leaks.

Intentional design
One component of the Big Dig is the Zakim Bridge, purported to be the world’s widest suspension bridge, which crosses the Charles River, connecting the underground Central Artery with Interstate 93 going north out of the city toward New Hampshire.
Conceived as part of the Big Dig, the Zakim Bridge in Boston is simply beautiful. Its striking lines dominate views across the city from every angle. It’s breathtaking to come out of the tunnel looking straight up the bridge. Driving from the west, looking down the Charles River, the bridge reminds one of a sailing ship. We live in Charlestown, a neighborhood across the harbor from downtown, parts of which are warrens of curving and crossing Revolutionary War-era streets. As we walk those streets we are amazed at how often you come around a corner to see a view of the bridge framed in the center of the street. It’s a wonderful design—so wonderful that I can’t recall hearing anyone criticize it.

Ignorant design
I often tell colleagues about the church that engaged me as consultant to help them acquire a pipe organ for their new sanctuary. They had instructed their architect of their intention to have a pipe organ—the building should be prepared to accommodate one. I traveled to visit the church and was surprised to see that there was no place in the room where an instrument of sufficient size could be placed. I looked at the room from every angle, thought of how an organ might be placed on a cantilevered shelf, and remembered photos I had seen of an organ located in a huge flower-pot suspended from the ceiling, but I simply couldn’t see where an organ could go in this building.
After I had been in the sanctuary for a couple hours, the organ committee and architect arrived for the meeting. The architect unrolled a drawing that showed a nice organ façade on the wall on the left side of the sanctuary. It was an outside wall. It was my unpleasant task to inform the architect in front of the committee that an organ would require six or eight feet of depth behind that pretty façade. Neither the architect nor the committee knew that. There would be no pipe organ.

Function follows form
As I’ve lived most of my life in New England, I’ve long been familiar with century- (even centuries-) old church buildings. Built before the introduction of public address systems, hung or dropped ceilings, or steel-and-drywall construction techniques, the buildings were made of real materials heavy enough to support their structures. The height of a ceiling was determined by proportion: following observations made in places like Athens more than twenty centuries ago, if a room was “so many” feet wide and “so many” feet long, the ceiling had to be “so many” feet up. It’s pretty simple math. Most people agree that the ceiling in the Parthenon was just the right height!
The majesty of a room’s acoustical properties would be a direct function of its size. The larger the building, the heavier the walls must be to support the higher roof. Place an organ of appropriate proportions on the long axis of the room and you could hardly fail. We might hear a big Hook organ in a large church and say, “those people really knew something.” But you can also say that some designers today may know too much.
We see modern worship spaces decorated like living rooms with plush carpets, and ceiling height determined by the clearance necessary to accommodate the Home Depot chandeliers. We’re given 18 feet of height for a pipe organ in a building with 450 seats. It’s destined to fail before the first note is sounded. So along with our artificial climate, artificial sound system, artificial proportions, and artificial flowers, we are doomed to using an artificial organ. And because we can, we drive the artificial organ with a stoplist suitable for a room with an 80-foot ceiling. Thirty-two-foot organ tone does not sound good in a room with an 18-foot ceiling.
Last month while shopping for Christmas presents in Harvard Square, I came across a book that I needed more than anyone on my list: 101 Things I Learned in Architecture School by Matthew Frederick, published in 2007 by the MIT Press. I read the entire book standing in the store before I bought it. It’s 5¼ inches tall and 7½ inches long, perfectly proportioned to present his 101 thoughts on 101 pairs of facing pages. On each right-hand page is a pearl of architectural wisdom. On each facing left-hand page is Mr. Frederick’s illustrative sketch.
Some of Mr. Frederick’s points are pretty basic and practical. Number 1 is “How to draw a line:”

Architects use different lines for different purposes, but the line type most specific to architecture is drawn with an emphasis at the beginning and at the end. This practice anchors a line to a page and gives a drawing conviction and punch. If your lines trail off at the ends, your drawings will tend to look wimpy and vague.
Oh, I get it, when you’re designing something, you should mean to do it. The facing page shows two versions of the same sketch—one anchored to the page, and one wimpy. Point taken.
Others are more theoretical. Number 11 is “Use ‘denial and reward’ to enrich passage through the built environment:”

As we move through buildings, towns, and cities, we mentally connect visual cues from our surrounding to our needs and expectations. The satisfaction and richness of our experiences are largely the result of the ways in which these connections are made.
He’s talking to me about the Zakim Bridge. See a glimpse of it as you head up one street, be denied as it disappears when you turn a corner, see it from another angle as you cross the next block, come up out of the tunnel and safely cross the river. What a reward.
Number 28: “A good designer isn’t afraid to throw away a good idea.”

Just because an interesting idea occurs to you doesn’t mean it belongs in the building you are designing.
How many buildings and how many pipe organs have suffered as they try to do and try to be too many things at once?
Number 33 is a good one: “If you wish to imbue an architectural space or element with a particular quality, make sure that the quality is really there.”

If you want a wall to feel thick, make sure it is thick. If a space is to feel tall, make sure it really is tall.

What did I just say about the thickness of walls?
Number 95: “A decorated shed is a conventional building form that conveys meaning through signage or architectural ornament.” The accompanying sketches show a small shoe-box building dwarfed by a sign saying “Drive-thru Sunday Services,” contrasting a proper looking church building with a pitched roof and a cross on top. One is captioned “meaning conveyed by signage,” the other “meaning conveyed by architectural symbol.” If it looks like a duck, it is a duck.
And number 96, a purely practical observation: “Summer people are 22 inches wide. Winter people are 24 inches wide.” Sketches—a woman in a bikini and a man in a parka passing each other in opposite directions.
On several occasions I’ve attended convention workshops for organbuilders led by architects. Each time the conversation has dwindled to a litany of horror stories—indignant organbuilders anxious to prove that architects have no idea what they’re doing. But how many organbuilders have designed instruments in which chest-bungs cannot be reached, reservoirs cannot be removed for releathering, and how many have designed organs that look too big, too small, or fail to complement the design of their buildings.
Which brings me back to Mr. Frederick’s number 86: “Manage your ego.”

If you want to be recognized for designing a good or even great building, forget about what you want the building to be; instead ask, “‘What does the building want to be?”
In the world of artistic expression through design this seems counterintuitive. Anyone who’s seen one or two buildings designed by Frank Gehry will instantly recognize another. Does Mr. Frederick imply that Frank Gehry’s success is due to successful management of his ego? Or as you walk through the various corridors and spaces inside Disney Hall, do you find that you’re moving comfortably through attractive spaces, moving logically past necessities like water-bubblers and rest rooms, or hearing music in an environment that’s both aurally and visually spectacular? I do.

Deceptive design
The Gothic cathedral is perhaps one of the grandest repeated architectural forms we have. I’ve been fortunate to visit some of the great examples in Europe, where you marvel at what the artisans were able to do eight or nine hundred years ago. They hoisted huge stones hundreds of feet up—one of the towers is 349 feet tall and was finished in the 1140s. These workers would have been the first people in their community to be up that high—to look down on birds flying, to see the vast view across the countryside. It must have been terrifying, and it must have been hard for them to describe at home around the dinner table. But what they built is so true and so real that the building is still used daily the same way it was used when it was new. We were at Chartres on a Saturday when there was an impressive succession of weddings underway. Entire wedding parties were lined up in the square. As soon as one was finished, a man with a mobile phone called the organ loft and the next procession began.
I know several cathedral-scale Gothic-style buildings that are really concrete and steel affairs with plaster interiors molded to look like Gothic stone tracery. You know it the moment you walk inside—the sound isn’t right. There’s an aura about a building made of real carved-by-hand stones piled on top of each other to form columns and traceries that support a ceiling that’s a hundred feet up. Now that’s a building that can have 32-foot sound.

Inspirational design
Recently I was at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC. I’ve been there many times, and each time I’ve found new treasures that are part of the fabric and lore of the place that offer fresh inspiration. Around the doorway leading out the north transept, you can find six-inch mice carved into the stone a little above head height. There’s an alcove with a statue of Martin Luther King, commemorating the fact that he gave his last sermon in that building a few days before his assassination. There are hundreds of carvings of saints, political figures, and theologians. And there are some carvings of the stone carvers who built the building.
The windows are extraordinary. Framed in the ancient forms of Gothic arches, they feature brilliant contemporary designs. On a sunny day, the church’s interior is ablaze with colored light—a stunning and magical effect. One of the great windows on the south wall of the nave depicts stars and planets and includes a piece of rock from the moon, presented to the cathedral by the astronauts of Apollo XI. In side and lower chapels you find mosaics depicting the same classic biblical scenes found in the great ancient churches using the same ancient techniques and materials but featuring dazzling contemporary designs. It is the juxtaposition of modern expressions framed in ancient architectural forms that I find most moving about this building.
The National Cathedral stands as a great metaphor for meaningful change and progression of expression. There is something in this building for everyone to appreciate, and neither the ancient nor the contemporary overwhelms the other.
The National Cathedral is located on top of a hill where it can be clearly seen from five miles away on Interstate 95, joining the Washington Monument and the United States Capitol as high points on the skyline. In fact, the central tower of the cathedral is the tallest structure in the city. Drive through the city and catch a glimpse of it once in a while between the trees, around the corners. Arrive at the intersection of Massachusetts and Wisconsin Avenues and be rewarded in the presence of such a massive and brilliant masterpiece. There’s not a wimpy line in the place. The space has been imbued with reality—the walls seem thick because they are thick, the interior seems tall because it is tall. The signs out front are simple and tasteful—this is no decorated shed. I doubt that Matthew Frederick had anything to do with the design of the National Cathedral, but his little book helped me understand it a little better.?

John Bishop is executive director of the Organ Clearing House.

Tan shoes and pink shoelaces . . .
You can spot him a mile away. Red checked pants, a striped shirt, paisley tie, and a cute little wool cap with a pom-pom—a veritable cornucopia. All the colors are too bright and they all clash with each other. How do we know they clash? I know there’s a physical reason—the physics of light, that is. Mix two cans of paint with the same ingredients, and put a few drops of a tint from the other end of the spectrum in one of them, and voila! They clash. But spectrographic explanations aside, I’m reminded of the comment made by Supreme Court Justice Potter Stuart while hearing an obscenity case in 1964: “. . . pornography is hard to define . . . but I know it when I see it.” No question, those pants and that shirt clash.

A polka-dot vest, and man, oh man. . .
Organ-folk are quick to make judgments about clashing styles or poor taste. If I had a nickel for every time I heard a friend or colleague make a knowing and snide comment about the tacky decorations of a church interior, I’d have a lot of nickels. I’m not sure I know from where this predilection comes, but it’s strong and prevailing. The funny thing is that while the comments are delivered in a sardonic tone, sometimes accompanied by a little sniff, they’re usually right. Seems that most every time I hear such a comment, I agree with the sniffer. I wonder if others hear me making comments like that.

Tan shoes and pink shoelaces. . .
You catch a glimpse of a church building out of the corner of your eye from a fast-moving train, and you know without thinking about it that the architect got the proportions wrong. Simple rules and mathematical ratios were worked out millennia ago to define good proportions. A building façade that’s twice as tall as it is wide simply doesn’t look as good as one where the width is three-fifths of the height. In round and rough terms, that’s the Golden Section—the builders of the Parthenon used it, Leonardo da Vinci drew and defined it, and Arp Schnitger used it. Frank Gehry has gone as far away from it as he could, the theory being that if all the lines are curved, proportions don’t apply. (Oops, there I go with a snide judgment—in fact, I like the looks of most of his buildings.)
A big panama with a purple hat band.1
Last week I participated in a conference presented by the City University of New York Research Center for Music Iconography, and the Organ Historical Society. “Organs in Art/Organs as Art” included many interesting discussions of how the pipe organ appears as visual art. The schedulers grouped several papers on pipe organ design into one day, providing a fascinating overview of how organbuilders struggle with design issues. In one sense, a pipe organ is a furnishing in a room. But because the organ is likely to be the largest and often the most complex design element within an architectural space, there are all sorts of possibilities for clashing designs and ideas. This struggle has been going on for centuries—there are many places where a Baroque organ was imposed on a Romanesque church, for example. And today we see modern organs with ornate classical designs placed in simple contemporary rooms. Is the mixing of architectural styles on a monumental level necessarily the equivalent of that clash of plaid and stripes?

§

I’ve been reflecting on modern church buildings, especially about how many new churches are built and decorated as though they were private homes. The ceilings are low, flat, and plain, perforated in some sort of geometric pattern with recessed light fixtures—as if upside-down prairie dogs would poke out their heads to look around. Windows are plain, perhaps in wan pastel tones. Plush carpets absorb the nasty shuffling sound of the congregation coming and going along with the carefully prepared music and spoken words, so public address systems are installed to overcome the lack of resonance and the worship takes on a clangy, brash tone of voice. Door hardware is straight from Home Depot, and fancy electronic lighting controls adorn the walls by each door.
These fixtures give the place a look of utility and efficiency, completely ignoring the idea of creating a place conducive to worship. The efficient-looking fixtures are often accompanied by a squad of volunteers who run around before each service plugging in microphones and taping notes to the walls about which switches should never be touched, This means you!
From outside, the building looks like a ranch house. Steeples are made of aluminum in factories and arrive at the construction site on trucks. The spire, originally serving as a symbol of closeness to God, has become a decorative element stuck on the roof, a pro-forma icon.
Many buildings that fit this description do not have pipe organs, or even the facsimile of pipe organs. And I suppose it’s not up to me (or us) to make judgments about that. But when such a building does get a pipe organ, it can be exciting for the organbuilder to design an instrument that instills the sense of worship that the building otherwise lacks. The pipe organ makes the place be a church. And because there’s precious little in the way of architectural expression with which to clash, the organbuilder can have a field day introducing splendor without fear of upsetting the natural laws.
I know of many instances where an attractive, decorated organ case brings beauty to a plain building, creating a sense of worship in a drywall box. But above all, it’s the responsibility of the worship leaders, clergy, musicians, and lay people alike, to create that sense, whether in a thrilling stone building with Gothic arches or in a glade under a sunny sky.

§

A few weeks ago I was riding the Broadway Express “1” train in New York, when a woman toting an electronic keyboard and a milk crate got on board. The doors closed with the ubiquitous New York electronic voice braying, “Stand clear of the closing door, please,” the milk crate became a podium and with an artificial boom-chicka-chick snare-brush background, that familiar strain from Johann Sebastian Bach’s BWV 147, Jesu bleibet meine Freude filled the air. At one end of the car a cell phone rang with the opening mordents and scales of BWV 565: beedle-deeeee, duddle-duddle-dut-daaah—beedle-deeee, dut-dut-dut-daaah. Such trivialization of such magnificent music. The subway car resonated with cheapness that originated in the mind of one of music’s greatest liturgists. Another cell phone proclaimed the eight-note chaconne of the Taco-Bell Canon.
I got off the car three stops early and waited for the next train. I chide myself for sounding like an old fogey, but I really dislike the trivial use of such grand literature.
Commercial classical radio stations seem only to have a half-dozen recordings. I know it’s not literally true, but as I travel around the country tuning in to the local station in a hotel room, I get the sense that if Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, Mozart’s Fortieth Symphony, Respighi’s Ancient Airs and Dances, and a few war-horse piano pieces were banned, there would be no more commercial airing of good music.
Barnes & Noble is a symbol of the homogeneity of our cultural lives. There’s no denying that those big temples of literature with snazzy espresso bars and overstuffed chairs attract people to bookstores like never before. Twenty years ago we might have dreamed about a chain of 75,000 square-foot bookstores with 200-space parking lots and escalators. But the fact is, the books they stock and feature are all bought centrally, so avid readers in Washington, DC and Cheyenne, WY are seeing the same things. If the buying-gurus of the massive chains don’t think a book will sell, it may not get published. The commercialization of literature gets in the way of freedom of expression.
Likewise, I think it easy to draw the conclusion that there are only a couple dozen decent pieces of organ music. I go in and out of many church buildings and always look at last week’s bulletin to take notice of what’s being played. It’s remarkable how homogeneous the programming of church music has become. Many of us lament the trend of churches seeking alternative forms of musical expression, but repeat my exercise with commercial classical radio and remove Carols for Choirs from every music library in the country, and a mighty number of church musicians would have no idea what to do for Christmas.
Take away Purcell, Stanley, Pachelbel, Mendelssohn, and Wagner and there would be no more wedding music. I know that the bride’s mother always insists on the same music, but let’s use some imagination here. Challenge yourself. Plan an entire year of preludes and postludes without repeating a single piece. If you play Toccata and Fugue (you know the composer and the key without being told) every six weeks, you may unwittingly be contributing to the onward march of praise bands. It’s a great piece, but isn’t there something else to try?
We lament the dilution of the centuries-old tradition of the pipe organ, but we fail to champion new ideas, new expressions, or new thoughts that make the music in our church different from others.
Back to Frank Gehry with his bendy rulers. Never was an architect so imaginative as to design whole buildings with no straight lines. His Walt Disney Hall in Los Angeles is a kaleidoscope of forms and shapes that challenges and delights my eye. Contrary to the traditional forms of concert halls, I find it hard to relate the shapes of the interior spaces to those of the exterior. And the organ—man alive, what a wild conception. I’m sure there are plenty who think it’s horrible, but I love the fact that he was willing to stretch the boundaries and produce a new form. During my first visit to the instrument, I was fascinated to hear colleague Manuel Rosales describe the design process—his insistence that the organ must work as a traditionally conceived musical instrument, common somehow to the experiences of a broad range of players. But while the great classics of the literature sound stunning, the phantasmagorical façade cries out for new forms of expression.
It is our responsibility to present the pipe organ, even in its most traditional forms, to the public of the twenty-first century in such a way as to inspire modern minds, which are apparently so easily satisfied by homogeneity—by Big Macs, Barnes & Noble, and, God forgive me, Antonio Vivaldi’s Four Seasons.

John Bishop is executive director of the Organ Clearing House.

Timelessness
I’ve had some nice experiences with older things in the last few days. This morning (it’s Tuesday) I saw a 1912 Cadillac on Main Street. Yesterday I tuned an organ built in 1928 by the Skinner Organ Company and made a quick service call on an organ built by E. & G. G. Hook in 1870 (#529). On Sunday my wife and I attended a recital played on an organ built by E. & G. G. Hook in 1868 (#466). And on Saturday, a colleague and I visited a restored narrow-gauge steam railway.
I’m writing on a Dell laptop that must be about 20 months old. Now that’s old. Funny how a laptop can be more rickety than a pipe organ built 140 years ago.
The Cadillac is a great-looking car (see photo). The paint job was vibrant, the leather seats had a distinctive luxurious smell, the chrome was polished, and the whole thing looked perfectly elegant. The engine ran smoothly, and the car drove regally down the street attracting attention from every direction. The owner has clearly invested a terrific amount of effort, knowledge, and money to make it look and run so beautifully, and I admire the passion behind the preservation of such an elegant artifact.
But the car had a simple cloth roof and it didn’t look as though the windows would achieve a very tight seal when closed. The windshield doesn’t completely separate the car’s interior from the wind, rain, or insects. The tires are thin and the wheels are made of wood. At the risk of offending those who have toiled and moiled preserving antique automobiles, I prefer modern cars for everyday use. I appreciate the fact that the windows of my car really close so I can choose between having the wind in my erstwhile hair and having the option to use the heater or air conditioner depending on the weather. I like the automatic transmission, the electric windows, the radio and CD player, and the cup holders. I like the windshield squirter and the multiple-speed windshield wipers. It snows a lot where we live. The large tires and four-wheel drive add a lot to our safety in the winter. And anti-lock brakes and air bags were both wonderful innovations, making cars much safer. I don’t think I’d like having to rely on a car made in 1912 the next time I have to spend a day driving in the rain. The modern car is better.
§
My friend Patrick Murphy is proprietor of Patrick J. Murphy & Associates, organbuilders in Stowe, Pennsylvania. His company has produced many fine new instruments, and has renovated or restored a long list of both mechanical and electro-pneumatic organs. Take a look at <www.pjmorgans.com&gt;. He is also a train buff. He’s interested and knowledgeable in the history and operation of railroads, and he owns model trains that run on live steam. Patrick and his wife Les spent last weekend with us in Maine, and while “the wives” found something else to do, Pat and I visited the Wiscasset, Waterville and Farmington Railway in Alna, Maine (see photo: WW&F).

The WW&F had roots from the 1830s and was fully established in 1894 as a two-foot gauge railroad. In the world of trains, the gauge is the distance between the rails. Modern railroads have a standard gauge of four feet, eight-and-a-half inches (4′ 8.5″). Strange number, isn’t it? It turns out that early American trains were patterned after English trains of the early eighteenth century. Those were built using the same jigs and tools used to make carts and carriages. The width of the carriages was intended to stay consistent with the width of ancient roads so their wheels would not be worn out by ruts of different widths. So who came up with that measurement in the first place? The horsemen of ancient Rome, who else? Four feet, eight-and-a-half inches was the standard width of a Roman chariot, wide enough to accommodate the rear end of a Roman war horse. Next time you see a modern train roll by, think of Charlton Heston in a toga!
Narrow-gauge tracks are less expensive to build than those for full-sized trains, especially considering the rough terrain of rural Maine, and the curves in the tracks can be tighter, but the trains themselves are small so they have less capacity for passengers and freight. The WW&F stopped operating in 1937. Most of the rolling stock was scrapped and the rails were torn up. The land that formed the right-of-way stayed in the ownership of Frank Winter, the last president of the railway. In 1940, he transferred ownership of the land to the Winter Scientific Institutes, a company he formed for the purpose of avoiding the taxes on the land. And in 1985, Harry Percival of Alna, Maine purchased most of the land. It was his vision to restore the railroad as a museum.1
To tell an extraordinary story in a few sentences, a non-profit corporation was formed, a large membership of volunteers assembled, and today there are about two-and-a-half miles of track re-laid by hand on the old rail bed. They have acquired two historic steam locomotives, one that is operational that came from another two-foot railroad, the other originally owned by the WW&F, currently being restored on the premises. The enthusiasm and quality of workmanship of these volunteers is displayed regularly when the museum is open. A modest admission fee gets you a ride on a steam-powered train and a tour of the workshops and museum. I recommend this to anyone traveling along Route 1 in Lincoln County, Maine. Visit their website at <www.wwfry.org&gt;.
This is testament to the vision of one man and the enthusiasm of hundreds more. But while this tiny train is fun to ride, I’d hate to have to rely on it to get from Farmington to Wiscasset, Maine in February. It would be a long, noisy, cold, uncomfortable ride. Your eyes are filled with smoke and cinders, and the seats in the passenger coach are pretty small (see photo: John and Pat).

The photo shows Patrick and me joining the engineer and fireman on board. I had the sense we might be too much for the thing! And I learned that one of the hazards of operating such small railroad equipment was that the weight of the water (to be converted to steam) carried in the tender behind the locomotive was sufficient to derail the train if the engineer took a corner too fast. The modern train is better.
§
Let’s compare the organs that I’ve seen and heard in the last few days. In 1868 and 1870, Elias and George Hook were building tracker-action organs, logical enough because electricity was not to be available for decades more. (Thomas Edison first equipped the Manhattan home of J. P. Morgan with 250 electric lights on Thursday, June 8, 1882.2) Ernest Skinner was committed to the use of direct-current electricity to operate the actions of his organs by about 1904.
The two Hook organs are pretty similar (see photo: Hook #466). Opus 529 has a Great Trumpet and a Swell 2′ stop not found in Opus 466—otherwise the stoplists are identical. The voicing is brilliant and clear, and the cases are made of black walnut. The sharp keys of Opus 466 are higher and wider than those of Opus 529, as if the builders realized that they were uncomfortable to the player and changed them in the intervening two years. Both of these organs have been renovated and are in terrific playing condition (see photo: Hook #529).
The Skinner organ is about 60 years newer than those Hook organs, but 80 years qualifies it as old. It has the symphonic voicing characteristic of Mr. Skinner’s vision. Many organists agree that the sharp keys on Skinner keyboards are as comfortable as any to the player. There’s a simple combination action, a concave-radiating pedalboard, and Skinner’s very effective eight-stage whiffle-tree engine.
(Here’s our second allusion to horses—a whiffle-tree is the rig used to connect a team of horses to a carriage that allows each horse to pull independently while the horsepower of all of them is added together. Mr. Skinner’s Swell engine incorporates the whiffle-tree concept to allow the pneumatic for each stage to move the shutters independently, with the motion of all pneumatics combining to provide the full range of power and motion of the shutters. Skinner made these motors in eight- and sixteen-stage versions.)
While the Hook and Skinner organs are very different, they have in common an essential element: all three of these organs are absolutely vital and appropriate for modern use. While you can say a modern organ is different, you cannot say that it’s better. Automobiles and railroad trains have been improved immeasurably over the years, but a pipe organ that’s 80 or even 140 years old is an organ for today. It’s timeless.
It’s amazing that you can play music written a year or two ago on an organ built just after the Civil War. How did the brothers Hook conceive of instruments that would be so useful now? Did Mr. Skinner know that his organs would sound good to people living and working in the twenty-first century? (Actually, from what I’ve read about him, he may have thought that his organs would be the only instruments worth playing in the twenty-first century!)
Many modern organists prefer to play instruments festooned with lots of electric and solid-state gadgets. Pistons and toe-studs with sequencers and multiple memories, transposers, and programmable crescendos are the playthings of the modern organist. There’s no question that gear like that allows ever more flexibility of registration, and after all, registration is one of the organist’s most important expressive tools; but the three organs I’m thinking about today all have fewer than 20 ranks and each of them are easily and effectively played without sophisticated modern controls.
And by the way, these three organs are within three miles of each other in Medford, Arlington, and Lexington, Massachusetts. Let me know when you’re coming to the area and I’ll organize your visit. You history buffs will be interested to know that the addresses of these churches (High Street in Medford and Massachusetts Avenue in Arlington and Lexington) are all on the route of Paul Revere’s famous ride on April 18, 1775 (Mozart was nineteen years old), warning the militias of towns in Middlesex County of the approach of the British soldiers (“Redcoats”) in the hours before the start of America’s Revolutionary War. Your visit could include a whole range of historical interest.
I’m especially fond of an historical marker in Arlington Center that tells of an 80-year-old patriot who killed three British soldiers on April 19, 1775: “. . . He was shot bayoneted beaten and left for dead, but recovered and lived to be 98 years of age” (see photo: Samuel Whittemore).
§
It may not make much sense to compare the timelessness of a work of art with the advance of technology. The usefulness of a modern automobile is relevant to today’s conditions. We expect to be able to drive at 70 miles per hour for hours without stopping, no matter what the weather. But we look at a Renaissance painting and appreciate its content and composition as well as the technique and vision of the artist, even if we could produce a more authentic image of the same scene with our 8.0-megapixel digital camera.
I believe that advanced technology has generally added to our world. I’m pleased with the BlackBerry that allows me to check e-mails in a taxicab. While I’m annoyed by people who use their cell phones rudely, I sure find it a convenience to have one when I’m traveling. (Maybe rude people will be rude no matter what equipment they have.) But I believe the advance of technology in the world of the organ has led to the compromise of authenticity. Solid-state switching has added much to the art of organ playing, but in my opinion, digital sound has not. The majesty of air-powered sound in a large building or the intimacy of air-powered sound in a small room is not improved upon with digital reproduction. It is not a musical, artistic, or liturgical advantage to introduce the specifications of a 100-stop organ in a 100-seat room. It is not a musical, artistic, or liturgical advantage to introduce the pitch produced by a 32-foot pipe in a room with a 15-foot ceiling. And it is not a musical, artistic, or liturgical advantage to have an antiphonal organ with Trompettes-en-chamade in a room with a 50-foot center aisle. A bride can walk that far in about eight measures of Purcell—why make such a racket?
Digital instruments are often purchased by small churches whose members claim there’s no space for an organ. But these churches are typically trying to get a large three-manual organ into their small room. Of course there’s not enough room. A room that seats 100 people needs an organ of eight stops. Don’t tell me you can’t play Widor on an eight-stop organ. I know that. I don’t want to hear Widor in a 100-seat room.
Funny, I don’t mind rolling up the windows of the car, turning on the air-conditioner, and enjoying a cup of coffee while listening to Widor played on Widor’s organ at full volume. Keeps me off the phone!■

Yesterday was Easter. I’ve spent the last three weeks roaring around New England in a flurry of organ tuning. As I moved from church to church I had the feeling that organ tuners get to see and smell more lilies than anyone besides florists. Each place I went had a more glorious display than the last. It’s a treat to witness the excitement of preparation in so many parishes and a privilege to play a part in that excitement by working to see that organs are at their best.

I think of all those sanctuaries now, the morning after. There’s a particular aroma—the mingling of white lilies and candle smoke. That aroma in turn mingles with the springtime sunshine as the sexton clatters around the nave straightening hymnals and gathering the bulletin inserts that name the donors and memorials for “this year’s Easter flowers.”

The organist left on vacation last night, to return in ten days to a choir room piled high with choral music left from the Holy Week services and the task of planning the music for the next liturgical cycle (dare I say that it’s only 32 Sundays until the beginning of Advent?). One of the trumpet players left behind his music stand and his check—we’ll hear from him soon. Otherwise, things will be quieter until Pentecost and Church School Sunday.

As for me, I lost my last mixture-tuning brush under a rackboard on Good Friday afternoon—I need to make a new batch. My car is full of tools, cleaning supplies, and the hardware store bags that supplied a dozen miscellaneous improvised repairs. There’s a long list of non-organ-repair phone messages on my desk, and heaven knows how many e-mails.

In the last few weeks I’ve visited about 30 organs. I’ve oiled blower motors, un-stuck keys, tuned reeds (lots of reeds!), replaced pouches, adjusted tremulants, regulated actions, cleaned keyboards, vacuumed under pedalboards (I always keep the pencils I find), and removed potted plants from the tops of consoles. I’ve removed the remains of moths, flies, mice, and one bat from critical locations in organ chambers. I’ve stood in the nave and listened to balances between organ and choir, and I’ve played passages for organists so they can hear their registrations. I even did a lunchtime music store errand for an organist—we are a full-service organ company!

A busy season of maintenance visits is a fine time to reflect on the majesty of the pipe organ. Each one is different. Each has its quirks. Some pipe organs are mediocre, nondescript, even poor. A fine pipe organ of any style, description, or size is an artistic treasure. In the February 2006 edition of this column, I posed the rhetorical question: which is better, tracker or electric action? There is no limit to how this question might be answered, but if I would propose a correct answer to my own rhetorical question, it would be: “A good organ is a good organ—a poor organ is a poor organ.”

I suppose the next question is how do you define a “good” organ? I’ll give it a whirl and I’ll be pleased to hear what you readers have to add.

1. A good organ is the product of an organbuilder’s artistic vision and philosophy, not the product of mass-production. Many instruments built by large firms certainly are good organs—as long as the leadership of the firm conceives their products as artistic creations.

2. A good organ is designed and built to be a credible vehicle for the presentation of great compositions of organ music. (I’m not addressing the question of whether every organ should be able to present many different styles of music.)

3. A good organ is compatible with its surroundings. It must be of a size and scale appropriate to the room it’s in. It must add to, not detract from, the architecture of its home.

4. A good organ has mechanical and structural integrity, which is synonymous with comfort and ease of playing, reliability of performance, and economy of maintenance.

5. A good organ has the metaphysical qualities necessary to excite the senses and move the emotions of both players and listeners.

These are all relative qualities, difficult to describe, easy to debate. How do we define good? What makes a good bottle of wine? What constitutes a good sermon, a good college course, or a good day? I may not be able to define it, but I know it when I see it. What makes a good meal? One that “does the job” by filling you up, or one that presents a subtle combination of flavors—perfectly cooked and beautifully presented—that goes beyond simple nutrition or satiation to reveal the philosophy and artistry of the chef? Can this analogy apply to the organ?

The rapid advance of digital sound creation and reproduction has complicated this debate. In his editorial letter published in the April issue of The Diapason responding to the February 2006 edition of this column, Dr. Christoph Tietze wrote, “I believe that the almost universal acceptance of electric action is partially responsible for the growing acceptance of electronic instruments today, for it is only one step further from fooling the fingers to fooling the ear also.” I suggest that fooling the fingers is hardly the point. How the music-making happens is between the instrument builder, the composer, and the performer—perhaps an unholy alliance, and certainly often an ongoing argument. The effective performer is free to add comment to the music but that presentation is always subject to the listener’s judgment. It should make no difference to the listener whether the keyboard is electric or mechanical—what does matter is whether the performer is comfortable with the instrument, whatever it is. As long as we have different performers, it must be acceptable to have different instruments.

Another reader responded to Dr. Tietze’s letter by carrying the debate a step further saying, “all art is, to a certain extent, fakery . . . There are some awful pipe organs . . . and it is [unreasonable] to claim that for all time and everywhere on earth, NO electronic organ would be better than such.”

As an advocate of the pipe organ, I am disinclined to compare them with digital substitutes. And I reject the idea that all art is fakery. Rather, I say that real art is real, and imitation or substitute art is fakery. One might say that a digital musical instrument is analogous to a print of a famous painting. It might be a very good print—I took a look at the online store of the Museum of Modern Art in New York (MoMA) and saw a print of a painting by Mark Rothko for $175—but it’s still a print.

As I scrolled through the MoMA catalogue, I didn’t see any copies of poor art. The marketing people have chosen outstanding art to reproduce and offer for sale. I can understand replacing an ugly original painting with a reproduction of something excellent. Does that describe some purchases of electronic instruments? If so, the person I’m most disappointed in is the builder of the inadequate pipe organ.
My analogy has a serious flaw. It’s easy to say that I’d rather view an original artwork than a reproduction, but while I have been in a few private houses that have original masterworks on the walls, I realize that such luxuries are not available to many of us. An original masterwork might be worth a million times the price of a reproduction (the MoMA store sells reproductions of Monet’s Water Lilies for $17.95). This ratio does not apply to pipe organs and their substitutes. If a pipe organ cost a million times as much as a digital one, perhaps even I would have second thoughts.

While I accept that some churches choose to replace pipe organs with substitutes, I do not accept the claim or even intimation that “you can’t tell the difference.” Of course we can tell the difference. We might choose the substitute anyway, but we can tell the difference. We can tell the difference between fresh-squeezed orange juice and frozen concentrate. We can tell the difference between a burger from the backyard grill and one from a fast-food joint. We can tell the difference between a live symphony orchestra and a recording of one. We can tell the difference between real flowers and plastic flowers.

We’ve all heard the economic arguments comparing pipe organs with electronic instruments. Does it take two, three, even four electronics to produce a combined life expectancy equal to that of a pipe organ? Depends on the organ. We often hear the claim that a pipe organ will last a hundred years between renovations. But consider this story. For the past twenty years I have maintained a large tracker-action organ that was built in the early 1970s—it was just over ten years old when I first tuned it. Since then we’ve replaced the original solid-state combination action and drawknob motors, the slider motor controls, and the leather of the schwimmers. When the largest pipes of the 16' Posaune collapsed, we repaired and reinforced the resonators and built new supporting racks. And when the original “space-age” lubrication of the sliders turned to glue, we took all the pipes out of the organ, cleaned and lubricated the sliders, and retuned everything. The total cost of these repairs far exceeded the original price of the organ. In most ways this is an excellent instrument, but if it was not owned by a parish that is truly committed to having a fine pipe organ, it could well have been replaced by a substitute.

I’m fortunate that my work keeps me in constant contact with the best (as well as the worst) pipe organs. For example, I’ll be in New York City this weekend where I’ll have to cull a long list of wonderful opportunities to experience great music in worship. There’s nothing quite like the experience of singing hymns in a huge church with a thousand souls in the congregation, a brilliant choir, monumental organ, and imaginative organist. I confess that I’m often unable to sing because of the lump in my throat. The organist improvises an interlude, the swell boxes open, the choir adds a descant, and I melt. Feel free to accuse me of sentimentality when I sling an old cliché, that’s what it’s all about.

It’s a natural extension of such an experience to want to try to emulate it at home. Visit the church of St. Sulpice in Paris and realize what Widor had in mind as he wrote his music. That famous Toccata wasn’t intended as a five-and-a-half-minute machine-gun volley of virtuoso notes, but a series of long rolling chords, four to a measure. Because so many of us revere it as a masterpiece, we play it on whatever organ we have, in whatever acoustical environment—but it’s a distortion of scale.

A musical instrument should reflect the scale of its surroundings. A somewhat sassy example is to be reminded that bagpipes were conceived as outdoor instruments. Appropriate scale is critical to the success of a fine pipe organ. Designing a pipe organ is a balancing act—the struggle (it’s almost always a struggle) to achieve balance between the musical needs of the parish, the available space, the available budget, and the builder’s philosophy. Andy Rooney, the curmudgeonly commentator on ABC television’s 60 Minutes, once said he’d been eating working-day lunches in New York restaurants for decades and had never once been surprised by a check that was lower than he expected. Likewise, it’s hard to imagine and nearly impossible to remember the organ project where there was both enough money and enough space!

In my opinion, including a digital 32' stop in a modest pipe organ in a modest building is a violation of scale—the building cannot support the development of that very special sound, and it sounds out of place. In other words, if the real thing wouldn’t fit, the fakery doesn’t belong. Likewise, we frequently see a digital instrument that emulates a pipe organ with 30 or 40 stops, installed in a sanctuary that seats fewer than 200 people. A pipe organ of 10 ranks would be plenty, but the buyers are beguiled with the grand specification and the resulting impressive console. With all due respect, I wonder if it’s necessary to be able to play the music of Widor in every church building. It’s the musical equivalent of stuffing a grove of 20-foot-tall plastic lilac and cherry trees into a sanctuary with an 18-foot ceiling. It’s out of scale, so it’s out of place.

I know that digital instruments are here to stay, and I know that many churches are delighted to own them. I’ve been working in and around pipe organs for almost 35 years, and I expect I’ll always be advocating the pipe organ. But I agree with one thing said by the reader who responded to the response—there surely are awful pipe organs out there. My last word to the buyers and builders of pipe organs today: the future of our passion depends on excellence. Keep buying and building the best organs you can.

John Bishop is executive director of the Organ Clearing House.

The hands of an artist
Wendy and I are just back from a vacation in Greece. Our daughter Meg has lived in Athens for three years, and we’ve visited several times. With her help, we’ve had a wonderful introduction to Greek history and culture. There are plenty of difficulties associated with living in Greece—the current economic crisis there is fueling labor strikes and deadly protests, and plenty of that was going on during our visit, just a few blocks from Meg’s apartment. But the deep history of the country is fascinating and moving. As you walk or drive around Athens you constantly rediscover the Parthenon perched high on the Acropolis. It seems there are hundreds of tiny streets that provide distant views of the majestic temple, and you can easily identify which rooftop terraces provide those views.
As you walk, you stumble across countless archeological sites hidden in quiet neighborhoods away from the bustle of the Acropolis. The city’s streets are lined with orange and lemon trees—sounds romantic and smells wonderful, until the fruit ripens and the sidewalks are littered with rotting lemons and oranges.
Greece is not a pipe organ country. There is a large organ by Klais in the Friends of Music Hall in Athens, but the dominance of the Greek Orthodox Church, which does not use musical instruments, means that there are very few organs there. Our vacation was a tour of the Cycladic Islands in the Aegean Sea, which form a political state whose capital is Spathi on the island of Serifos. The population of Greece is about eleven million—ten thousand are Roman Catholics, and most of them live on Serifos. There are dueling cathedrals (Orthodox and Catholic) on hilltops above the city, and sure enough, there’s a small pipe organ in the Catholic cathedral. We climbed hundreds of stairs from the port to the hilltop, and unbelievably we were not able to get into the organ loft.
It’s common in American churches to see a plaque honoring the succession of pastors. A few congregations around us in New England trace that history to the seventeenth century. Organists revere the plaque in the organ loft of the Church of St. Sulpice in Paris where organists are traced back to Nicolas Pescheur in 1601. (This has been easy to maintain as there have been only five organists there since 1863.)1 The plaque honoring clergy in the Cathedral of Serifos goes back to 343 AD. No kidding!
The island of Aegina is a touristy place near Athens, a good stopping point for boats traveling to the more distant Cycladies. It’s a major producer of pistachio nuts (we brought home a couple kilos) and home to some extraordinary archeological sites. The museum in Aegina Town includes decorated pottery from 2500 BC and shows a model of a bronze casting facility from about 1000 BC that was discovered nearby. I was captivated by the idea that such sophisticated techniques were developed so long ago (4500-year-old pottery kilns?), and as the Cycladic islands are volcanic, including a couple that are still active, I wondered what role volcanoes might have had in the development of crafts that depend on intense heat.
One of the most gifted Greek sculptors was Praxiteles. He lived from 400–330 BC, not all that old. But his work was far ahead of his time. As far as we know, he was the first to sculpt life-size female nudes from marble. There’s a legend that he had a romantic relationship with his primary model, Phryne, who came from Thespiae (origin of the term thespian) and was known as one of the most beautiful women of her time. She was the model for Praxiteles’ famous Aphrodite of Credos. Their relationship was explored by Camille Saint-Saëns in his comic opera Phryne. (How did he ever stumble on that subject?)
Praxiteles worked in Athens. His model came from Thespiae, about 150 kilometers away. He worked with marble from the Cycladic Island of Paros, more than 200 kilometers away by water. Think of the logistics of transporting a six-foot block of marble from Paros to Athens just to carve a statue of a pretty woman. It would be difficult enough now with power equipment and hydraulics. Praxiteles produced artworks of staggering beauty and unprecedented liveliness. I suppose his love for the beautiful Phryne brought out the best in him.

Too many cooks
I wonder if there was anyone looking over Praxiteles’ shoulder saying, “Take a little more off the top,” or, “You’ve got the left earlobe too fat.”
We know that happened to Michelangelo as he released David from a huge block of Carrara marble. He was commissioned by the Overseers of the Office of Works of the Cathedral in Florence, and was in fact the third artist to receive the commission. The overseers were very concerned that the huge and wildly expensive block of marble (already named David) was neglected for twenty-five years, lying on its side exposed to the elements. The committee got its act back together, had the stone set upright so artists could see its potential, and went looking for someone to realize the project after the first two attempts failed. Leonardo da Vinci was interviewed, but the twenty-six-year-old Michelangelo got the gig.
Not only was he hired by a committee to produce the piece, but another committee including Leonardo and his colleague/competitor Botticelli was formed to choose the location. There is record of disagreement among the members of the committee before the site by the entrance to the Palazzo Vecchio on Piazza della Signoria was chosen. Apparently Leonardo didn’t get his way.2
So much for the image of the artist toiling in his studio, free to express his deepest emotions through an unlikely medium that he understands better than anyone. It’s a romantic image to be sure, but especially when there’s a lot of money involved and the artwork is for a public place, there are likely to be a lot of spoons in the soup.

I know that guy
Each month I receive several journals with photos of pipe organs on the front cover and I always try to guess the builder before I look inside. I’m often wrong, but there are a half-dozen North American organbuilders whose styles are so clearly recognizable to me that I get them right every time. As most organs are commissioned by committee, I admire those builders who can create and maintain recognizable styles.
I like to think of a pipe organ as an expression of the sensibilities of the builder. I love the process of organ design, when the concept of an instrument gets put on paper. When several companies are invited to submit proposals to a church for a new instrument, it’s interesting to see the various drawings—how each firm would meet the particular challenges of the building. And sometimes we get to see several different concepts by a single builder for a particular instrument.
Organbuilder Lynn Dobson has produced many wonderful pipe organ designs, and as his firm celebrates its thirty-fifth anniversary they have created an online exhibition of many of his drawings, including designs of many organs that were never built. When you scroll through this rich display, you can see projects in various stages of design, from simple back-of-a-napkin pencil sketches to elaborate scale models. Take a look at the designs for the important organ they built for the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia (Opus 76) and you’ll see a drawing and a model (two different designs) that are radically different from the organ that was actually built. You can find this exhibit at www.dobsonorgan.com/dwg/home.html.
Dobson’s exhibition reflects his exceptional talent for design, and it implies thousands of hours of committee work as each design was presented, discussed, criticized, and altered. From first-hand experience I know well the feelings that accompany the rejection of a design by a committee member. One such meeting was held in a newly decorated church parlor, and I wondered if anyone who was speaking up against my design had been involved in creating the cacophony of clash and kitsch, which was that room.
Maybe I flatter Lynn by mentioning him in the same breath with Michelangelo, and to be honest I think Michelangelo is the larger talent, but the idea that a great artwork can be both the expression of its creator and of those who pay for and “consume” it, is one of the most interesting facets of the organbuilder’s trade. And that a personal style can transcend the whims and pressures of dozens of committees reflects both artistic integrity and conviction.

Stop, look, and listen
Visual design is only part of the job. A pipe organ is both an architectural element and a musical instrument. Ideally, there’s some relationship between an organ’s appearance and its musical content—but sometimes a building’s architecture doesn’t allow it. It’s easy to picture the stark contemporary building owned by a congregation that would be best served by an organ of classic style. Sometimes an ornate classic case looks good in such building—it’s possible to make a case for the organ to serve as the only beautiful thing in the place! But organbuilders often place organs with classic influence in contemporary buildings.
As we’re talking about Dobson, take a look at their instrument for the Church of St. Peter Claver in West Hartford, Connecticut: www.dobsonorgan.com/html/instruments/op85_westhart ford.html. The stoplist is classical, even predictable, but the case is pure contemporary. And by the way, in this design Dobson has dealt with one of the most common problems. Pipe organs are about height, and contemporary American church buildings often have low ceilings. The organ in West Hartford implies a struggle between the organ and the ceiling.
We often hear of a pipe organ that was designed by the local organist, a source of pride for a congregation. This usually means that the organist wrote up the stoplist, likely subject to discussion with the builder. If an organbuilder has a recognizable visual style, he would certainly have a signature tonal style. So how does it work if the Request for Proposal from a church includes a stoplist? What if the organbuilder doesn’t agree with the concept implied by that stoplist?
One good reason for including a stoplist in an RFP is to solicit proposals that are easy to compare. Once several proposals are studied and a builder is chosen, then it’s time to work on final specifications. So it’s back to the committee. I know of one large organ built several years ago whose stoplist was the product of many hours of conversation in a small bar across the street from the church.

Who brought the camel?
So what good comes from artworks designed by committee? You know the old saying, “A camel is a horse that was designed by a committee.” If too many people, especially those who know little or nothing about organs, are involved in planning an organ, whose art is it? Or is it even art? An organbuilder can withdraw a proposal if he’s not happy with the concept the client insists on, but you can’t eat a withdrawn proposal. How many of us have produced projects we disagree with? If you have a story, send me a message at john@organclearing house.com.
Our current project was greatly influenced by the church’s organist, whose insight into what an organ console can be was an education for me. Adding a half-dozen clever and unusual controls increased the organ’s flexibility exponentially. The time we spent together planning the project before any screws were turned or leather was cut was a collegial creative process that I think enlightened us both.
We often think of the artist as independent. Of course, art of a personal scale is usually the purview of the artist. But I wonder if the celebrated portrait artist John Singer Sargent was ever told, “Just don’t make me look fat.” I bet he was, and more than once.
Monumental art, including pipe organs, is almost always a community effort. There is usually a central creative force, but when there is a committee involved to raise and spend money responsibly, they usually insist on a role in the planning. If organbuilders are competing for a project, they must decide how much they want the job and how much they are willing to compromise their vision of the ideal instrument.
It’s rare for a builder to be given a blank check and a free hand. It would be a special opportunity for a creative person—but also what a huge responsibility. Organbuilders, if this ever happens to you, make sure you build something the church can use. 

Did you say millions?
It’s like making sausages. You might enjoy the finished product but you don’t want to know what went into it. Each month I sit to write, often after the official deadline has passed. If I’m lucky, I start with an idea that I’ve been chewing on for the past couple days. I’ve written a few notes on the index cards I keep in my briefcase and car, maybe I’ve even recorded a couple audio notes on my cell phone as I walk the trails in the park next door. The paragraphs are flowing before I get to my desk.
More usually, I sit down and stare at a blank screen waiting for inspiration. I play a recording of organ music, trusting that I’ll agree or disagree with something I hear or that the music will bring up a thought that I can spin into an essay. I type the usual heading, and there I sit. It’s like staring at your closet wondering what to wear to dinner. If only that shirt was clean I’d be all set. I fidget. I clean my glasses, I clean the screen of my laptop, I organize the piles of paper on the desk, allowing myself to be distracted by details I’d better get done first. I change the recording and try again. (Some of you have gotten e-mails from me commenting on your recordings—e-mails written as I get traction on my subject du jour (I don’t know the French word for month!)
When I have finished writing a column, re-read it several times, and shared it with my editor-wife for her observations and input, I attach the Word.doc to an e-mail addressed to my friend Jerome Butera, tireless editor of this journal, and press <send>. Often I hear from Jerome within minutes—there’s never any waiting before I know his reaction.
E.B. White was a celebrated writer for The New Yorker magazine and award-winning writer of children’s books (Stuart Little, Charlotte’s Web). Shortly after his second marriage to Katherine Sergeant Angell in 1929 (an editor at The New Yorker) he moved his family from Manhattan to a farmstead in rural Maine and continued his weekly writing for the magazine. Let me be quick to say I draw no personal comparisons to Mr. White, whose writing I admire and enjoy enough to justify periodic re-reading. But I can imagine the anguish and insecurity he felt waiting the days and weeks it took for the 1929-style U.S. postal service to get his manuscripts to New York and his editor’s responses back to Brooklin, Maine. (I know he had those feelings because he wrote about them—thank you, Jerome, for your dependable quick responses.)
Once a piece is in the hands of the editor, a new set of anxieties crops up. You know the thing about a tree falling in the forest—if there’s no one around to hear it, does it make a sound? Of course, we know it does—a sound wave is a physical thing that results from a transmission of energy, whether it’s a tree falling or air blowing through an organ pipe. You can’t stop physics. But it works as a rhetorical question: if no one reads what I’ve written, there’s no exchange of information. So once I’ve pressed <send> I wonder where my thoughts will wind up.

§

In mid-April this year when I wrote for the June issue of The Diapason, Wendy and I were fresh from Easter services at St. Thomas’ Church in New York. I was the one in the congregation scribbling notes on the bulletin and I knew exactly what I wanted to write. I could hardly wait to get home—but wait I did, because after a Midtown lunch we had matinee tickets for a play at the Manhattan Theater Club on East 55th Street in which the son of good friends was a cast member.
It wasn’t until the next morning that I wrote about the majesty and beauty of festival worship in that great church, about the brilliance of John Scott, St. Thomas’ organist and director of music, and about the public appeal from rector and organist for funding to support the commissioning of a (very costly) new organ. I wrote about how organs are likely to be replaced as styles change, even as organists succeed one another, and how the other artwork (reredos, windows, etc.) in places like St. Thomas’ Church is seldom changed.
This is one time that the tree made noise when it fell. Even before I received my mailed copy of the June issue, I had received e-mails and phone calls from friends commenting on what I had written, and in the next weeks Jerome forwarded two thoughtful letters he received from readers of The Diapason. Several important points were raised, and I thought it would be worthwhile to respond directly by way of continuing the conversation.
First, your assignment: re-read this column in the June 2011 issue of The Diapason.
Arthur LaMirande, concert organist from New York City, wrote:

It is with interest that I have read “In the wind . . . ” by John Bishop (The Diapason, June 2011). In particular: his remarks with regard to the Arents Memorial organ at St. Thomas Church, New York City.
Opines he: “We scarcely bat an eye before proposing the replacement of a pipe organ.”
Is he serious? He goes on to say: “Across the country, thousands of churches originally equipped with perfectly good pipe organs have discarded and replaced them with instruments more in tune with current trends, more in sync with the style and preferences [italics mine] of current musicians…”
He continues: “Over the decades of service that is the life of a great organ . . . ” [italics mine].
Now, Mr. Bishop surely must be aware that there are hundreds of organs in Europe that are fully functioning and that have been in existence and in use for centuries! (Never mind mere decades!) Even the organ at Notre Dame, Paris, which has been rebuilt several times, contains pipes that go back to the 18th century.

I don’t think I was opining, rather simply reporting. Plenty of perfectly good pipe organs have been replaced at the urging of a newly hired organist or because the church across the green got a new and larger instrument. It’s true, Europe is rich with hundreds of venerable instruments, and we can celebrate that their artistic content and historic value is recognized, allowing them to stay in situ and in service. And there are many wonderful historic instruments in this country that have survived the ravages of innovation and fad. Equally, I know many churches where early organs by E. & G.G. Hook were replaced by new-fangled Skinners in the 1920s that were in turn replaced by “revivalist” tracker-action organs in the 1970s—a new organ every fifty years whether you need it or not. When I was starting my career, an older colleague gave me this sage advice: never build an organ for a wealthy church. You’ll put your heart into your magnum opus and they’ll replace it during your lifetime.
States Mr. LaMirande:

On May 1st this year, I gave a recital on the Arents Memorial organ at St. Thomas Church. The major work on that program was the rarely performed Chaconne by Franz Schmidt . . . For an organ that “is on the verge of catastrophic collapse” [from the brochure passed out at St. Thomas Church to which Mr. Bishop makes allusion], it seemed to work extraordinarily well for me. With the exception of one cipher on a (non-essential) stop during rehearsal, I had no problems whatever with this organ. It succeeded in doing everything that I demanded of it. And that for a massive work calling for numerous changes of registration!

We might take exception to the phrase catastrophic collapse as used by St. Thomas’ Church. After all, assuming the organ hasn’t collapsed physically into the chancel wiping out the altos in the choir, what’s the big deal if an organ ciphers? (Organists: sorry to say, but there is no such thing as an organ that will never cipher.) Mr. LaMirande experienced a cipher while practicing for his recital, usual enough for any instrument. And if an organ ciphers during worship in a suburban parish church, we might shrug and chuckle, climb the ladder to pull the pipe, and go on with the show.

Keep your pants on.
I’ve found a delightful video on YouTube showing a significant wedding faux pas in which the best man’s pants fall down just as the couple starts to exchange their vows. As you might expect, the groom found that to be pretty funny—hilarious, in fact. The bride joined in, and the church was full of real, honest laughter for quite a while. The minister was a trooper, acknowledging the humor of the situation. You can find the video at <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26a8JITwImQ&gt;. You’ll love it. It’s easy to say “things happen” and enjoy the moment. There’s a nice-looking pipe organ in the church. If any of you recognize it, let me know.
But we have a fresh international example of worship and religious festival in which one would not chuckle at the slightest glitch. On April 29 many (most?) of us watched Will and Kate’s wedding. Lovely couple, weren’t they? Her dress and hair were just right. He had a nice twinkle in his eye, and I enjoyed his little quips to his brother and his new father-in-law. Good thing Prince Harry’s pants didn’t fall down. The television coverage allowed us glimpses into the personal level of the occasion. But this was a big occasion. Heads of state were omitted from the guest list because of ongoing political and military circumstances. The dignity of the nation’s royal family was on display at a time when many Brits are wondering about its future. Heaven only knows how much money was spent. If you include all that was spent by the news media in the weeks leading up to the wedding, the total certainly surpassed the gross national product of many countries. As far as we can tell, it went without a hitch. And the pressure on the staff and officials of Westminster Abbey was made obvious in another wonderful moment immortalized on YouTube when a verger expressed his relief by turning cartwheels across the nave when the whole thing was over. I know I’m giving you a lot of research to do, but don’t miss this one either: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81Obpxf_pd8&gt;.

Off with his head.
The four-manual Harrison & Harrison organ in Westminster Abbey has 84 stops and was installed in 1937 for the coronation of King George VI. How’s that for pressure on the organbuilder—miss that deadline and you’re in the dungeon. Had that organ ciphered during Will and Kate’s wedding, it would have been reported all over the world. Imagine that service grinding to a halt while some technician raced to the chamber. Seventy-five chefs at Buckingham Palace would have panicked. Think of the soufflés. The Queen’s lunch would be in ruins. I wonder what Katie Couric and Barbara Walters would have said. The pipe organ universal would have a big black eye. And it would not have been a non-essential stop. There can be no doubt that it would have been the 32-foot Double Ophicleide or the Tuba Mirabilis. Vox Angelicas don’t cipher when the pressure is on, and if it had during all that hoopla no one would have noticed. There’s an apocryphal story about a team of voicers (I think they worked for Skinner) finishing an organ. The man at the console shouted, “Is the Vox Angelica on?” From the chamber, “Yes!” “Make it softer.”
While it may be okay for an organ to cipher or a participant’s pants to fall down somewhere else, it is not okay at Westminster Abbey. And St. Thomas’ Church shoulders a similar responsibility for dignity, grandeur, eloquence, and perfection, inasmuch as perfection is humanly possible. The much-altered Aeolian-Skinner organ there is not the artistic equal of the famed and fabled St. Thomas’ Choir, and while the brilliant musicians who play on it don’t miss a beat, we can only imagine what it will be like to experience worship there when the new organ is complete. The musicians there can almost taste it. And the responsibility born by the leadership and membership of that church is heightened by the simple fact that in an age when a pipe organ of average size installed in a “usual” church can cost more than a million dollars, an instrument for such a place as St. Thomas’ absolutely costs many millions.
Samuel Baker of Alexandria, Virginia wrote:

In the June issue, John Bishop suggests that perfectly good pipe organs are discarded and replaced with instruments more in tune with current trends and more in sync with the style and preferences of current musicians because pipe organs are in motion, whereas windows and statues are not replaced because they are static; physically they stay still.
Despite Bishop’s claim that seldom if ever are original design elements integral to the style of the building itself subject to change because they are considered old fashioned, many examples are easily found in my neck of the woods of Federal-style churches being “Victorian-ized” or Victorian-style churches receiving neo-whatever treatments.
And certainly organs are replaced because styles of organbuilding and preferences of musicians change but, rather than ascribe the reason that windows and statues are safe but organs are not to the premise that one is in motion and the other isn’t, I would propose that many more pipe organs are replaced because they were poorly designed, built with sub-standard materials, received little or no voicing, and were wholly unsatisfactory installations in the first place. The same fate awaits stationary items of poor quality and artistic merit with equity.
I agree fully with everything Mr. Baker says here. I appreciate his interest in including these thoughts in this debate. I’ve been in and out of hundreds of church buildings (actually probably thousands, but that sounds specious) and I’ve seen countless examples of beautiful liturgical and architectural appointments that have been discarded in favor of newer, lesser “looks,” and I’ve seen less-than-thrilling original equipment replaced to great benefit. However, what I wrote (page 12, fourth column, second paragraph) is, “But seldom, if ever, do we hear of a place like St. Thomas’ Church replacing their windows or reredos.” The key word is “like.”
I wrote, “Just imagine the stunned silence in the vestry meeting when the rector proposes the replacement of the reredos.” The allusion is to the vestry and rector at St. Thomas’ Church, not the Second Congregational Church in Newcastle, Maine. On Easter Monday I was writing with tongue in cheek—but it’s fun to revisit the image. I don’t know any of them personally, and I haven’t been in their meeting rooms, but I imagine it would be an august group of accomplished, insightful, and influential people sitting at an elegant table in a grand room. And they would be stunned. Images of that reredos have been published on calendars, record jackets (remember those old black LPs?), CD jewel-cases, postcards, and publicity photos for generations. The choir, resplendent in scarlet and white, stands in the chancel with that heap of saints in the background. Replace the reredos? No, Father. It’s staying.
The Aeolian-Skinner organ was famously revised by G. Donald Harrison in 1956, converting the 1913 four-manual E. M. Skinner instrument (91 stops) from symphonic to neo-classical in style. Harrison was personally working on the project, hurrying toward completion in time for the AGO national convention that year. Taxi drivers were on strike and Harrison had to walk many blocks in city heat to get home. He died of a heart attack on the evening of June 14 (93 days after I was born) while watching Victor Borge on television. The organ has subsequently been revised several times. It’s 98 years since Ernest Skinner finished the organ, which has now been altered just about every generation with diminishing degrees of success.

When there’s so much need in the world . . .
Mr. LaMirande’s letter ends:

Incidentally, I can’t resist pointing out that while St. Thomas Church is prepared to spend the extraordinary sum of $8 million the homeless and destitute are ensconced on the front steps of this church every night of the week! . . . How many homeless and destitute could be fed, clothed, and housed for that $8 million?

This is one of the most difficult questions we face as we propose, plan, and create pipe organs for our churches. Of course, it’s the mission of the church to care for homeless, destitute people—to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. It’s also the mission of the church to provide and present worship experiences at every level. The Royal Wedding was cause for national and international celebration, but Oliver Twist and his cronies still haunt the back streets of London. Without the church’s need for illustration of religious texts, tenets, and principles, we would not have the sculpture or painting of Michelangelo, the organ music of Bach, the choral music of Mozart and Haydn, or the Gothic cathedrals. If it had developed at all, without the influence and resources of the church, the pipe organ would be a wholly different entity. And the majesty of our great churches as they serve as figureheads and examples for all worshipful expression supports and inspires the work of the church at all levels and in all places. Those who toil in suburban and rural vineyards travel to the big city to experience “big city” worship in “big city” buildings, just as we marvel in the great museums, theaters, orchestras, and other institutions that can only be supported in a city like New York. I care a lot about the homeless and I try to do all I can to support them, but I don’t go to St. Thomas’ Church to hear a sub-standard organ any more than I want to see plastic flowers on the altar in front of that reredos.
All this talk about expensive art leads us to the world of philanthropy. Any church that plans to acquire a new pipe organ will rely on the availability of a few large gifts to make it happen. I’ve long assumed and often witnessed that those individuals who are capable of making a major gift in support of an organ project do so because of their personal interests. But I’ve been privileged to witness another level of philanthropy that has informed and affected me deeply. Wendy served on the board of a major university for nearly twenty years. During that tenure we became friends with a lovely couple of immense wealth. They are dedicated to philanthropy—she focuses on social and humanitarian projects and he supports the arts. Their names are at the top of donor lists for every show in town. Several years ago during dinner at our house, the husband told us how a repertory theater company had approached him asking for a significant grant to support the production of a controversial play that tackled some of our thorniest social issues. He disagreed with a lot of the content and was uncomfortable with most of it, but he thought it was his responsibility to make the gift anyway. He said something to the effect of, “I knew if I gave them the money I’d have to go see the play.”
I was impressed and moved by this story, and in the years since I’ve often reflected on the nature of philanthropy and how much we all benefit from it. Whether it’s a church organ, a statue in the park honoring a public servant, an academic building, or a shelter for the homeless, the world relies on philanthropy. The trick is to be sure that all the bases are covered.