Families of Professional Organists in Canada

by James B. Hartman

James B. Hartman is Senior Academic Editor for publications of the Distance Education Program, Continuing Education Division, The University of Manitoba. His recent publications include articles on the early histories of music and theater in Manitoba. He is a frequent contributor of book reviews and articles to The Diapason.

                  All excellent things are as difficult as they are rare.

--Baruch Spinoza, Ethics (1677)

 

The organ has been a prominent feature of the musical life of Canada since the earliest days of the first European settlement. The first organs were brought from France to Québec City around 1600 and organbuilding flourished mainly in Québec and Ontario from the mid-nineteenth century onward.1 Growth in organbuilding accelerated in the years 1880-1950 following the establishment of Casavant Frères in 1879 in Saint-Hyacinthe, Québec. Therefore it is not surprising that organists became prominent around the same time.

As soon as trained musicians began arriving in Canada, usually from England, many of them opened music studios to offer private instruction in piano, voice, organ, and violin. Some were also active in community orchestras or served as church organists and choirmasters. A few took employment in local music stores to supplement their meagre income from professional duties. With the advent of silent films in the early 1900s some organists obtained positions at theaters that had installed pipe organs where they played improvised or specially arranged accompaniments to the events unfolding on the silver screen.

Although the great majority of organists were known only in their local communities, some gifted individuals achieved wider recognition by making exceptional contributions to the musical culture of the country. This article will chronicle the careers and accomplishments of seven such outstanding organists who were active in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

Frederick H. Torrington (1837- 1917) was born in Dudley, near Birmingham, England, where he received his early musical training. Later studies in piano, organ, theory, and choral music led to his position as organist at St. Ann's Church in Bewdley at the age of sixteen.

Torrington moved to Canada in 1856, first working as a piano tuner in Montréal then as organist-choirmaster at St. James Street Methodist Church. He taught privately and at several schools, and conducted instrumental and choral groups, including the Montréal Amateur Musical Union. For three years he was bandmaster of the 25th Regiment, Queen's Own Borderers. In 1869 he organized the Canadian section of an orchestra that performed in the First Peace Jubilee in Boston. In the same year he settled in Boston to become organist at King's Chapel and to join the New England Conservatory of Music as teacher of piano and organ; he also conducted various choral groups and was violinist in the Harvard (later Boston) Symphony Orchestra. He gave organ recitals in Boston, New York, and other eastern cities.

In 1873 Torrington returned to Canada to become organist-choirmaster at Metropolitan Methodist Church in Toronto and conductor of the Toronto Philharmonic Society 1873-94. His influence on the musical life of Toronto included conducting choral-orchestral works and organizing musical festivals. Other activities included director of music at the Ontario Ladies' College in Whitby, conductor of the Hamilton Philharmonic Society in the 1880s, and founder of the Toronto Conservatory of Music in 1888, serving as its director until his death.

In the late 1880s Torrington became president of a group modelled on the Royal College of Organists, founded in England in 1864, dedicated to uniting organists and raising the standards of the profession. Although his group did not last for long, it was a predecessor of the Canadian College of Organists, founded in 1909. Torrington's work with various amateur orchestras led to the formal establishment of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra in 1906. He left his organist post at Metropolitan Church in 1907 for a similar position at High Park Methodist Church.

It should be recalled that in these times the organ was regarded as a substitute for the orchestra; consequently, organ recital programs usually included a number of transcriptions. For example, one of Torrington's recitals in 1869 included Rossini's William Tell Overture and the Andante from Beethoven's Septet on the same program with Mendelssohn's Organ Sonata No. 1. Nevertheless, Torrington championed the music of Bach, and his performances of the master's works were enthusiastically received by his audiences. He composed several patriotic songs, a choral work, and some organ music.

Herbert A. Fricker (1868-1943) was born in Canterbury, England, where he received his early musical training as a chorister, and later as assistant organist, at Canterbury Cathedral. In London he studied with Frederick Bridge and Edwin Lemare. His subsequent career in Leeds included city organist, symphony orchestra founder and conductor, and festival choirmaster, along with other positions as organist in various churches and schools, and as a choral society conductor.

Fricker came to Canada in 1917 to become conductor of the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir, a position he held until 1942. His cross-border musical activities began immediately with his choir's program with the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra under Leopold Stokowski in 1918; this reciprocal association continued for seven years. Under Fricker's leadership the choir gave Canadian premieres of several major choral works by such composers as Beethoven, Berlioz, and Walton. Fricker served as organist at Metropolitan United Church, Toronto 1917-43, organ instructor at the Toronto Conservatory of Music 1918-32, staff member at the University of Toronto, and conductor of the Canadian National Exhibition chorus 1922-34. He was an active organ recitalist and adjudicated many competition festivals. He was president of the Canadian College of Organists 1925-6.

Fricker composed several organ works and made arrangements for organ, all published by various London firms. His choral pieces included both sacred and secular works. Over his lifetime Fricker accumulated an extensive library of books and musical scores that were given to Toronto libraries after his death.

William Hewlett (1873-1940) was born in Batheaston, England, where he was a choirboy at Bath Abbey before moving to Canada with his family in 1884.

In his new country he enrolled at the Toronto Conservatory of Music where he studied organ, piano, theory, and orchestration, graduating in 1893 with a gold medal for organ playing and extemporization. While in Toronto he served as organist-choirmaster at Carlton Street Methodist Church at the age of seventeen. In 1895 he moved to London, Ontario, to become organist-choirmaster at Dundas Centre Methodist Church and conductor of the London Vocal Society 1896-1902. Later he moved to Hamilton, Ontario, to become musical director at Centenary Methodist Church 1902-38; his Twilight Recitals on Saturday afternoons were a significant aspect of the Hamilton music scene for about twenty-five years. He was one of the founders of the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir and served as its first accompanist 1895-7, and he accompanied the celebrated singers Ernestine Schumann-Heink and Dame Clara Butt when they visited Canada. He was one of the co-directors of the Hamilton Conservatory of Music and served as its sole principal 1918-39; during this time he travelled widely in Canada as adjudicator and examiner. He conducted the Elgar Choir, which was frequently joined by the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra. In 1927 he conducted a 1000-voice choir in a celebration of the sixtieth anniversary of the Confederation of Canada.

Hewlett was a prolific composer in the smaller forms; he contributed to the Methodist Hymn and Tune Book (1917) and was one of the compilers of the United Church Hymnary (1930). He was one of the most respected Canadian organists of his generation and an expert on church organ installations. He served as national president of the Canadian College of Organists 1928-9.

Healey Willan (1880-1968) was born in Balham (later part of London), England, and was taught music at the age of four by his mother and his governess. At the age of eight he entered St. Saviour's Choir School, Eastbourne, where he studied piano and organ. By the age of eleven he directed the choir and alternated with the incumbent organist in playing evensong services. After private organ study in London he served as organist-choirmaster at three churches in various parts of England in succession 1898-1913. During this time he developed a reputation as an authority on plainchant in the vernacular (i.e., English, not Latin).

Willan came to Canada in 1913 to head the theory department of the Toronto Conservatory of Music and to become organist-choirmaster at St. Paul's Anglican Church, Toronto. His recital programs around this time exhibited his comprehensive repertoire, including much English music. In 1914 he was appointed lecturer and examiner for the University of Toronto and served as director of the university's Hart House Theatre, writing and conducting music for plays. He was vice-principal of the Toronto Conservatory of Music 1919-25 but his position was terminated as an economy measure and possibly on account of internal politicking involving Ernest MacMillan (see below). In 1921 he became organist-choirmaster at the Anglican Church of St. Mary Magdalene, an association that continued until his death; while there he introduced an Anglo-Catholic style of service music.

Apparently Willan possessed a facetious brand of wit: he was heard to say that the organ was a dull instrument, that organ recitals bored him, and that he was unable to play his own major compositions. On being elected president of the Arts and Letters Club of Toronto in 1923 he promptly set its constitution to music.

Willan held many influential appointments: member of the Arts and Letters Club for fifty years, president 1923; president of the Canadian College of Organists 1922-3, 1933-5; honorary president and life member of the Royal Canadian College of Organists; university organist at the University of Toronto 1932-64 and teacher of counterpoint and composition 1937-50; president of the Authors and Composers Association of Canada 1933; chairman of the board of examiners of Bishop's University; summer guest lecturer at the University of Michigan 1937, 1938; chairman of the British Organ Restoration Fund to help finance the rebuilding of the organ at Coventry Cathedral 1943; summer guest lecturer at the University of California at Los Angeles 1949; co-founder and musical director of the Gregorian Association of Toronto, 1950; founder and musical director of the Toronto Diocesan Choir School; and fellow of the Ancient Monuments Society of England. He was commissioned to compose an anthem for the coronation of Elizabeth II in 1953, the first nonresident of Britain to be so honored.

Willan's public honors included the Canada Council Medal 1961, Companion of the Order of Canada 1967, and a diploma from the Province of Ontario in recognition of his role in Canadian musical life. A group of his admirers formed the Healey Willan Centennial Celebration Committee to encourage activities marking the centenary of his birth in 1980, and the Canada Post Office issued a commemorative stamp bearing his portrait.2

Willan was a prolific composer. His works encompassed dramatic music, vocal music with instrumental ensemble, works for orchestra and band, chamber music, piano works, organ works,3 and choral works; many of the latter have been recorded by groups in Canada, the USA, and England. He also wrote twenty-four articles on church music and organ playing.4

Lynwood Farnam (1885-1930), who became a legend in the organ world, was born in Sutton, Québec, a small town southeast of Montréal. Following basic musical training he continued his studies for three years as a scholarship student at the Royal College of Music in London, England, beginning in 1900. He held several church positions in Montréal and taught at the McGill Conservatorium until accepting a post at Emmanuel Church, Boston, in 1913. The story is that he impressed the audition committee by presenting a list of 200 pieces that he had committed to memory, stating that he was willing to perform any of them; he was hired immediately.

After overseas service during the war Farnam became organist-choirmaster at Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, New York, in 1919. By the time he played his last recital there in 1920 he had given 500 organ recitals. As a concert organist his performances were noted for their flawless technique, infallible memory, and profound musicianship. His reputation was consolidated among his colleagues by a dazzling performance for the American Guild of Organists in 1920. In 1925 he made organ rolls for two companies that manufactured player organs. 

Farnam's New York fame gained him an appointment in 1927 as head of the organ department at the Curtis Institute of Music, Philadelphia, where he taught weekly until his death at the age of forty-five. His pupils included a number of prominent Canadian and American organists. At the climax of his career in 1928-9 he played the complete organ works of Bach in twenty recitals in New York, repeating each program at least once in response to public demand.

Although Farnam did no improvising and composed only one piece for organ, he was one of the great interpreters of his time, introducing North American and European audiences to contemporary organ music, particularly that of French and American composers, as well as to the forerunners of Bach. Louis Vierne dedicated his Organ Symphony No. 6 (1931) to Farnam's memory.

Ernest MacMillan (1893-1973) was born in Mimico (Metropolitan Toronto), the son of a Scottish Presbyterian minister who became an internationally recognized hymnologist. He began his organ study at the age of eight with the organist of Sherbourne Street Methodist Church in Toronto and performed in public shortly thereafter. He accompanied his father to Edinburgh, Scotland 1905-8, where he had the opportunity to take lessons from Alfred Hollins, the noted blind organist, occasionally substituting for him at St. George's West Church, Edinburgh. Around the same time he enrolled in music classes at the University of Edinburgh in preparation for his first diploma. Upon returning to Toronto, now at the age of fifteen, he took an appointment as organist at Knox Presbyterian Church, where he remained for two years. He then returned to Edinburgh and London to complete his work for the Fellow, Royal College of Organists diploma and extramural Bachelor of Music degree at Oxford University, both awarded in 1911 before his eighteenth birthday. Back in Toronto he served as organist-choirmaster at St. Paul's Presbyterian Church in Hamilton, commuting on weekends.

Thinking that his piano training had been neglected on account of his concentration on the organ, he went to Paris in 1914 for private study. While visiting Germany at the outbreak of war he was detained as a prisoner of war; there he befriended other English composers (including Quentin Maclean, see below), organized a camp orchestra for musicals, and concentrated on composition, including a work later submitted as part of the requirements for his Doctor of Music degree from Oxford University.

Back in Canada in 1919 he embarked on a lecture-recital tour of the west in which he played organ pieces and described his experiences as a war prisoner. In 1920 he began teaching organ and piano at the Canadian Academy of Music, and in 1926 became principal of the amalgamated Toronto Conservatory of Music. As an examiner and festival adjudicator, he travelled extensively throughout Canada offering stimulation and encouragement for musical development in small centers. In the following year he became dean of the Faculty of Music at the University of Toronto, initially a titular position.

By this time MacMillan had moved away from the organ as an exclusive preoccupation; his new interests included education, administration, and developing systems and policies, although he continued to conduct and to compose new music and arrange old music as required. One of his unusual projects, in collaboration with an ethnologist in 1927, was recording and notating music of native peoples in northern British Columbia. In 1931 MacMillan became conductor of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, a position that enabled him to develop an unused potential. In 1935 King George V knighted him for his services to music in Canada. In the late 1930s he gained fame as a conductor in the USA, appearing in such prominent series as the Hollywood Bowl concerts and with the symphony orchestras of Chicago, Philadelphia, and Washington, DC.

1942 was a banner year for MacMillan: first, he was offered, but did not accept, an invitation to succeed Donald Francis Tovey in the Reid Chair of Music at the University of Edinburgh; second, he succeeded Herbert Fricker as conductor of the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir (see above). In 1945 he filled conducting engagements in Australia, and in Rio de Janeiro in the following year. Also in 1946 he was instrumental in establishing the Canadian Music Council and served as president of the Composers, Authors, and Publishers Association of Canada until 1969; one of his first projects was the organization of a concert of Canadian music for the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. As part of his renewed interest in the piano he performed piano concertos with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, gave recitals, and made radio broadcasts. In 1950, during a weeklong festival to celebrate the Bach bicentenary, he offered a lecture-recital on the Clavierübung, playing all of Book 3 from memory. Although he resigned as conductor of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra in 1956, and of the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir in 1957, he still accepted conducting engagements with other musical organizations, travelled throughout Canada to initiate new projects to encourage young musicians, and acted as a classical disc jockey for a Toronto radio station.

MacMillan was a productive composer of musical works for the stage, orchestra, orchestra and choir, band, chamber groups, keyboard, and choir and voice. His writings included works on music instruction, articles in music journals, and other publications. He has been the subject of numerous articles by other writers.

Recognized as Canada's musical elder statesman, in later years MacMillan served as a member of the first Canada Council 1957-63 on account of his extensive participation in the musical arts. He participated in the formation of the Canadian Music Centre, serving as its president 1959-70, and of the Jeunesses musicales of Canada, serving as its president 1961-3. He received the Canada Council Medal in 1964. He was recognized by many public tributes on his seventieth and seventy-fifth birthdays, and these events were marked by special publications and revivals of his works. In 1970 he was made a Companion of the Order of Canada.

Quentin Maclean (1896-1962) was born in London, England, and studied organ there in the early 1900s and with Karl Straube (organ) and Max Reger (composition) in Leipzig 1912-14. During World War I he was interned in Germany where he met Ernest MacMillan (see above). In 1919 he served as assistant organist at Westminster Cathedral, then toured British theaters with newsman Lowell Thomas, providing background music for a lecture-film on Palestine. He was theater organist at many English cinemas 1921-1939 and began to broadcast regularly on BBC radio in 1925.

Maclean moved to Canada in 1939 where he continued his theater organ career in Toronto for ten years. He became one of the best-known organists of his time for his frequent radio broadcasts of background organ music for plays, poetry readings, and music for children's programs. He was organist-choirmaster at Holy Rosary Church 1940-62 and taught at the Toronto Conservatory of Music and at St. Michael's College, University of Toronto.

Maclean composed concertos for organ (two), harpsichord, piano, electric organ (two), harp, and violin; works for solo organ (eight), pieces for orchestra and other solo orchestral instruments, a string quartet, piano pieces, a cantata, and other choral works, among others. He was noted for his diverse musical interests, technical skills, musical memory, and high standards in the composition and performance of serious music, secular and liturgical.

*

Two features are noteworthy with respect to the individuals surveyed here. With the exceptions of Farnam and MacMillan they were born in England and received their early musical training there, which undoubtedly influenced their later musical orientation. Two of them lived for some time in the USA: Torrington 1869-73 and Farnam 1919-30, periods in which their careers flourished. The wide range of the experience and achievements of the seven organists is impressive. Taken collectively, they exhibited exceptional competence in a broad variety of activities: church musician, concert recitalist, teacher, lecturer, composer, arranger, conductor, festival organizer and adjudicator, examiner, writer, academic administrator, academic staff member, president of a professional organization, and expert on organ installation. At least one became a recognized authority in a specialized field (Willan, plainchant). All of them can be counted among those who have contributed significantly, in their specialized fields, to the musical life of Canada. 

 

Notes

                  1.              For a brief history of organbuilding and the major manufacturers, see James B. Hartman, “Canadian Organbuilding,” The Diapason 90, no. 5 (May 1999): 16-18; no. 6, (June 1999): 14-15.                 

                  2.              With Canadian soprano Emma Albani (1847-1930), who was commemorated in the same way at the same time, Willan was the first Canadian musician to be honored in this fashion.

                  3.              Willan made significant contributions to music for the organ. His monumental Introduction, Passacaglia and Fugue (1916) was described by Joseph Bonnet as the greatest of its genre since Bach. Other works combine Englishness and European chromaticism reminiscent of Reger and Karg-Elert. After 1950 his works became more contrapuntal, and chorale preludes became his most frequent form of expression.

                  4.             See, for example, “Organ Playing in its Proper Relation to Music of the Church.” The Diapason 29, no. 10 (October 1937): 22-23. He discusses the different--but sometimes overlapping--functions of concert organists (excelling in technique) and church organists (beautifying the liturgies or verbal forms, supporting the congregation, accompanying the choir, and welding the entire service into an appropriate whole). “As a general rule, I do not like large organs, large choirs or large noises of any sort, but there are occasions when grandeur is not only appropriate, but positively necessary . . .” (23). 

 

The biographical information in this article is derived from the Encyclopedia of Music in Canada, Second Edition, and is used by permission from the University of Toronto Press.

Dana Cottle Brown,
Minister of Music Emeritus at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Alexandria,
Virginia, died on March 9, after an extended illness. Born on August 10, 1930,
in Woburn, Massachusetts, he began his musical career at the age of fifteen as the
organist in two Congregational churches in his home town. He then entered the
Boston Conservatory of Music, majoring in organ, and upon his graduation in
1952 was awarded the Conservatory Silver Medal for High Honors. During his
conservatory years, Mr. Brown served as assistant organist and choirmaster of
Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Boston. He received his Master of Sacred Music
degree from the School of Sacred Music, Union Theological Seminary, New York
City, serving during that time as director of music at Hollis Presbyterian
Church, Hollis, New York. Upon graduation, he served two years in the Armed
Forces as a chaplain's assistant at Fort Belvoir, Virginia. Prior to
being called as Westminster's first minister of music in 1957, Mr. Brown
earned his AGO Choirmaster's certificate; he later was dean of the
Alexandria AGO Chapter from 1963 to 1965, also serving as conductor of the
Guild's senior choir and junior choir festivals. In 1999 he was awarded
an Honorary Life Membership in the Northern Virginia AGO Chapter.

Mr. Brown served Westminster Church for 33 years: he
directed four choirs, including the establishment of two handbell choirs; he
oversaw the installation of the four-manual Moeller pipe organ and arranged for
its dedication recital by Virgil Fox; he gave many organ concerts, both at
Westminster and as a guest of other churches; and he initiated the Westminster
Concert Series and Young Artist Series, made possible by gifts from the Rosalee
Brown Stubbs Memorial Fund. He retired in 1990, but contined to assist the
church's music and worship program until his death. He is survived by a
brother, a nephew, and a sister-in-law. A memorial service was held at
Westminster Church on March 18. Participating in the service were organists
David Erwin and Lawrence Schreiber, the Westminster Choir, and soprano Marilyn
Moore-Brown.

 

Paul Sifler died on
May 20 in Hollywood, California. He was 89 years old. Born in Ljubljana,
Yugoslavia, the son of an organ builder, Sifler became an American citizen in
his youth. Prior to establishing his residence in Los Angeles, California,
where he served as organist of St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Hollywood and
Temple Sinai in Glendale, he held similar posts in New York City, including St.
Paul's Chapel. Sifler's work as a composer, organist, and
choirmaster was a life-long pursuit. Among his many works are the oratorio, In
the Days of Herod the King, the Mass for Voices and Marimba, and Seven Last
Words of Christ for organ. His monumental achievement is Hymnus, five volumes
of organ works based on hymns. Many of his choral and instrumental works have
been published and recorded, including The Despair and Agony of Dachau,
published by Belwin/Mills and recently recorded by Mary Preston on the Meyerson
Center organ in Dallas, Texas, for the Gothic label. Most of Sifler's
works are available from Fredonia Press, 3947 Fredonia Dr., Hollywood, CA
90068.

 

Guy Thérien
died on May 11 in St-Hyacinthe, Québec, Canada, after a brief battle
with cancer. Born in 1947, he studied organ with Bernard Lagacé and
served his apprenticeship with Casavant Frères from 1965 to 1968. In
1968 he joined Orgue Providence, Inc., and in 1978 this company was renamed
Guilbault-Thérien, Inc., after the partnership of André Guilbault
and Guy Thérien. Over 50 new organs of tracker and electro-pneumatic
action were built under his supervision, in addition to more than a hundred
rebuilding and restoration projects of existing instruments. Since 1992 Mr.
Thérien served as president and owner of the firm. He was a founding
member of the Pro Organo Society (1970) and Amis de l'Orgue de Montréal
(1991). Among his notable instruments are those at the Grand Séminaire
Chapel in Montréal and in the chapel at Brick Presbyterian Church in New
York City. He is survived by his wife Lyne and four young children (Jean-François,
Jean-Chris-tophe, Jean-Philippe, and Marie-Ève).
Guilbault-Thérien, Inc. continues its work under the direction of
longtime partner and chief voicer Alain Guilbault.

by James B. Hartman

Organbuilding in the United States and Canada is a thriving art practiced in hundreds of shops throughout the continent. Emerging from decades of stylistic extremes, organbuilders are combining a wealth of knowledge from the past with new technologies to meet contemporary design challenges. North American builders, compelled by a unique spirit of cooperation and openness, are successfully raising the artistic standards of this time-honored craft. (American Institute of Organbuilders, descriptive statement.)

The organ has occupied a prominent place in the musical culture of Canada since the days of the first European settlement, chiefly because of its close connection with church music and the ambitions of many congregations. The first organs, brought from France, were installed in Québec City around 1660. An anecdotal report mentions the acquisition by a Halifax church of a Spanish instrument that had been seized on board a ship in 1765.1 Following a period in which organs continued to be imported from England and France, organbuilding began as early as 1723 and flourished mainly in Québec and Ontario from the mid-19th century onward.2 By the second half of the 19th century, organ building had become a relatively important industry in Eastern Canada, where companies had acquired sufficient expertise to compete in the international market, including the United States.3

The development of organbuilding in Canada proceeded through several phases, beginning with early builders.4  The first known organbuilder was Richard Coates, who arrived in Canada from England in 1817; he supplied mainly barrel organs to several small churches in Ontario. Joseph Casavant, the first Canadian-born builder, installed his first instrument in the Montréal region in 1840; he transmitted his skills to his sons, who later established the company that achieved world-wide recognition. The arrival from the United States of Samuel Russell Warren in 1836 marked the introduction of professional-calibre organbuilding into the country. His family firm had produced about 350 pipe organs by 1869; it was sold in 1896 to D. W. Karn (see below). Other prominent organ builders included Napoléon Déry (active 1874-1889), Eusèbe Brodeur (a successor to Joseph Casavant in 1866), and Louis Mitchell (active 1861-1893) in Québec, and Edward Lye (active 1864-1919) in Ontario.

The years 1880-1950 were marked by unprecedented growth in organbuilding, beginning with the establishment of Casavant Frères in 1879 in Saint-Hyacinthe, Québec. The Canadian Pipe Organ Company/Compagnie d'orgues canadiennes was established in 1910 by some former Casavant staff, also in Saint-Hyacinthe (when the firm closed in 1931 its equipment was acquired by Casavant). Prominent Ontario builders included the firms of Richard S. Williams (founded 1854 in Toronto), Denis W. Karn (commenced 1897 in Woodstock), C. Franklin Legge (founded 1915 in Toronto, joined by William F. Legge 1919, who later established his own company in Woodstock around 1948), and the Woodstock Pipe Organ Builders (an organization of skilled craftsmen in that Ontario town, 1922-1948). Several smaller, independent builders were active for a time in Ontario, the Maritime provinces, and Manitoba (late 1880s). British Columbia, on the other hand, seems to have had no indigenous organbuilders, for instruments were imported from the United States or from England on ships that sailed around Cape Horn; one of the earliest arrived in Victoria from England by this route in 1861.

In the early 1950s some organbuilders, encouraged by younger organists who had played European instruments, as well as the increasing availability of sound recordings of these organs, turned to classical principles of organbuilding to counter what they perceived as the colorless sound palettes of Canadian organs of the 1930s. The return to earlier tonal aesthetics, inspired by the so-called 17th-century "Baroque organ," found expression in the construction of bright-toned, tracker-action instruments. The "new orthodoxy" was enthusiastically assimilated by Casavant Frères and by a number of independent builders in the same region, some of whom had received their training in Europe. Karl Wilhelm, Hellmuth Wolff, André Guilbault and Guy Thérien, Fernand Létourneau, Gabriel Kney, and Gerhard Brunzema were prominent in this movement, and many of them are still in business. Their accomplishments, along with the activities of other known organbuilders of the 1990s, will be described in chronological order, according to their founding dates, in the remainder of this article.5

Casavant Frères, Saint-Hyacinthe, Québec (1879)

Casavant is the oldest continuing name in organbuilding in North America. Joseph Casavant (1807-1874), the father of the founders of the company, began his organbuilding career while still a Latin student at a Québec religious college, where he completed an unfinished organ from France with the help of a classic treatise on organbuilding. By the time he retired in 1866, after 26 years in business in Saint-Hyacinthe, Québec, he had installed organs in 17 churches in Québec and Ontario, but none of them survive. His sons, Joseph-Claver Casavant (1855-1933) and Samuel-Marie Casavant (1850-1929), worked for Eusèbe Brodeur, their father's successor, for a few years. They opened their own factory in Saint-Hyacinthe, Québec, in 1879, following an extended tour of western Europe inspecting organs and visiting workshops; Claver had apprenticed briefly with a Versailles builder before the tour. In the early years the Casavant brothers were conservative in their tonal design, emulating the ensemble sound of the kind they had heard in old-world instruments that they had examined during their European tour. But from the outset the brothers were innovators, beginning with improvements in the electric operation of their organs in the 1890s. As their reputation spread beyond the cities and towns of their province, production increased steadily.

The company experienced difficult times in the 1930s due to economic conditions, much standardization, and repetitive tonal design. Production was curtailed during the years of World War II due to a shortage of materials, and the company manufactured many unit organs during this period. Later, new initiatives were undertaken by several imaginative artistic directors who served with the firm between 1958 and 1965: Lawrence Phelps from Aeolian-Skinner in the U.S.A.; and European-trained Gerhard Brunzema, Karl Wilhelm, and Hellmuth Wolff.

Most present-day Casavant organs exhibit a conventional design that retains both symphonic and modern elements in subtle synthesis. Casavant organs are recognized for their special tonal qualities and the way the individual stops are blended together into a chorus at all dynamic levels. Time-tested actions include tracker, electrically operated slider windchests, and electro-pneumatic (since 1892; tubular-pneumatic was last used in the mid-1940s). The company workshop has eight departments: metalworking, woodworking, mechanism, consoles, painting, racking, voicing, and assembly. Virtually all components are made in the workshop, including all flue and reed pipes (to 32-foot-length), reed shallots, windchests, consoles, keyboards and pedalboards, and casework, although specialized wood carving and gilding are done by outside artisans. A few electrical components, such as blowers, power-supply units, electromagnets, solid-state combination and coupling systems, and hardware, are purchased from world-wide suppliers. All visual designs are coordinated with their intended surroundings; there are no stock designs. Organs are completely assembled for rigorous testing and playing in preparation for on-time delivery.

The company resumed the construction of tracker-action instruments in 1961 after a lapse of about 55 years, producing 216 such organs since that date. By the end of 1998 the total output amounted to 3,775 organs of all sizes, and many of these have received enthusiastic testimonials from renowned recitalists over the years. Although sales were limited mainly to North America until World War II, Casavant organs now have been installed in churches, concert halls, and teaching institutions on five continents. The firm's largest instrument is a five-manual, 129-stop organ with two consoles installed in Broadway Baptist Church, Fort Worth, Texas, in 1996. The great majority of the very large instruments have been installed in locations in the United States; the exception is the four-manual, 75-stop organ in Jack Singer Concert Hall, Calgary Centre for the Performing Arts, in 1987. The company also engages in renovation projects and additions to existing organs.

The key personnel include Pierre Dionne, President and Chief Operating Officer (from 1978), formerly Dean of Administration at the Business School of the University of Montréal; Stanley Scheer, Vice-President (1984), formerly Professor of Music and Head of the Department of Fine Arts at Pfeiffer University, Misenheimer, North Carolina, holds a Master of Music degree in organ performance from Westminster Choir College, Princeton, New Jersey; Jean-Louis Coignet, Tonal Director (1981), a professionally trained physiologist with a doctorate from the Sorbonne, contributor to music journals, the most knowledgeable authority on the work of Cavaillé-Coll today, was formerly organ expert for the City of Paris; Jacquelin Rochette, Associate Tonal Director (1984), formerly Music Director of Chalmers-Wesley United Church, Québec City, holds a Master's degree in organ performance from Laval University, performs regularly on CBC radio, and has recorded works by several French composers for organ; Denis Blain, Technical Director (1986), with many years of practical experience in virtually all aspects of organbuilding, is in charge of research and development; Pierre Drouin, Chief Engineer, holds a Bachelor of Architecture degree from Laval University, introduced computer-assisted drafting, and supervises the design and layout of each organ. In 1998 the company had 85 full-time employees, many with more than 30 years of service with the company. All levels of management and production personnel function as a team.

Keates-Geissler Pipe Organs, Guelph, Ontario (1945)

The company was established in 1945 in London, Ontario, by Bert Keates (he came from England in his infancy) and relocated to Lucan, Ontario, in 1950. When it was incorporated in 1951 the assets of the Woodstock Pipe Organ Builders (formerly Karn-Warren) were purchased. The company moved to Acton, Ontario, in 1961, a more central location in the province. In 1969 the growing firm took over the business of the J. C. Hallman Company, a manufacturer of electronic instruments and pipe organs, when it discontinued making pipe organs (but not parts for them). For several years some organs were manufactured under the name of Keates-Hallman Pipe Organs.6 The company moved to Guelph, Ontario, in 1994.

Dieter Geissler was born in Dittelsdorf, Saxony, Germany, where he began his trade as a cabinetmaker. At the age of 14 he commenced his apprenticeship with Schuster & Sohn, Zitau, where he remained from 1946 to 1950. In 1951 he moved to Lübeck, West Germany, where he worked as a voicer with E. Kemper & Sohn for five years. In 1956 he moved to Canada to join Keates's staff. When Keates retired at the end of 1971 Dieter Geissler became president of the firm, which he purchased in 1972, and adopted the present company name in 1982. His son, Jens Geissler, joined the company in 1978.

Keates-Geissler organs are offered in all types of action and are custom built to any required size. Altogether, 147 new organs7 have been installed at locations in Canada, the United States (about 15), and Barbados, West Indies. The output includes a number of four- and five-manual instruments; the largest is a five-manual, 231-stop organ, installed in the First Baptist Church, Jackson, Mississippi, in 1992 (a compilation of its original 1939 E. M. Skinner instrument, a 1929 five-manual Casavant organ removed by Keates-Geissler in 1986 from the Royal York Hotel, Toronto, and some additional structures by the company). The firm has undertaken a substantial number of renovation, rebuilding, and reinstallation projects over the years, about 1,500 altogether, about 75 of these in the United States.

All wooden pipes are made in the factory, but metal pipes are made by Giesecke or Laukhuff in Germany to the company's scaling specifications; preliminary voicing is done in the factory before final voicing on-site. The windchests of electro-pneumatic instruments feature Pitman-chest action that includes some unique features to overcome the effects of extremes in temperature and humidity; the company is the only such manufacturer in Ontario and one of a few in Canada. Expandable electronic switching systems are designed and made in the factory from readily available components to facilitate replacement. Solid-state switching and multiple-memory combination actions are also manufactured. Console shells are handcrafted from solid wood in the factory; tracker touch is an available option. Keyboards are custom made to the company's specifications by Laukhuff, Germany, and blowers are acquired mainly from the same company. The company had four full-time employees in 1998; other part-time workers are hired as needed.  

Guilbault-Thérien, Saint-Hyacinthe, Québec (1946)

This company originated with the Providence Organ Company, established in Saint-Hyacinthe in 1946. The partners, André Guilbault, whose father Maurice Guilbault had worked for Casavant, and Guy Thérien, a voicer from Casavant, joined forces in 1968 when the elder Guilbault retired. The present company name was adopted in 1979. When André Guilbault retired in 1992, Alain Guilbault (no relation) acquired an interest in the company.

At the outset the company manufactured electro-pneumatic instruments, but built its first mechanical-action instrument (Opus #1 in a new series), a two-manual, 7-stop organ, in 1970, immediately followed by several small one- and two-manual instruments. From 1974 onward the typical instruments were medium-size, two-manual organs. Larger instruments of three or four manuals began to appear with greater frequency after 1983, the largest being a four-manual, 45-stop organ installed in Grace Church, White Plains, New York, in 1989, the only installation in the United States to that time. While the tonal layout of the organs is mainly inspired by European sources, mainly French, the swell divisions of the larger instruments are sufficiently versatile to handle symphonic literature.

The output of new organs was about 55 to 1998, mainly in Québec and Ontario. The company's work has also involved the restoration and reconstruction of a similar number of Québec organs, mainly by Casavant, but including some of historical significance that are over a hundred years old by such early builders as Napoléon Déry and Louis Mitchell. 

Several compact discs featuring performances by Québec organists on instruments manufactured by the company, or on reconstructed historical Casavant instruments, have been released in the past decade.8

Principal Pipe Organ Company, Woodstock, Ontario (1961)

The company was established by Chris Houthuyzen in Woodstock, Ontario, a town with a continuing tradition of organbuilding. The founder served his apprenticeship and received further training in The Netherlands before coming to Canada. Small to medium-sized instruments, employing electro-pneumatic action, are the company's specialty, with a contemporary emphasis on the guiding principles of Dutch organbuilding. A total of 119 installations have been completed over the years; the largest was a four-manual, 58-rank instrument. Wooden pipes are made in the shop, but most metal pipes come from suppliers in the United States; their scaling is dictated by the acoustics and intended use of the organ. Chests, reservoirs, ducting, consoles, and casework are manufactured on the premises. Much of the company's work involves rebuilding and maintaining organs, as well as the installation and servicing of church bells, including cast and electronic carillons on behalf of the Verdin Company, Cincinnati, Ohio. The company had three employees in 1998.

Gabriel Kney, London, Ontario (1962-1996)

Gabriel Kney was born in Speyer, Germany; his father was a master cabinetmaker and amateur bassoonist, and his mother was a singer. He served his apprenticeship in organbuilding with Paul Sattel in Speyer (1945-1951), where he assisted in the restoration of historic, sometimes war-damaged, instruments, along with new organ construction. Since the era was a time of transition from the "Romantic" style of organbuilding to the concepts of Orgelbewegung, this trend provided him with the opportunity to learn about and participate in the building of organs of both concepts. Concurrently he was a student of organ literature, liturgical music, harmony, and improvisation at The Institute of Church Music in the same city.

He emigrated to Canada in 1951 and joined the Keates Organ Company in Lucan, Ontario, as an organbuilder and voicer. In 1955 he was co-founder, with John Bright, of the Kney and Bright Organ Company in London, Ontario, with the intention of specializing in tracker instruments. The timing was premature, for only a few musicians and teaching institutions found such instruments of interest; with the exception of two teaching organs of tracker design supplied to a college in the United States, most of the early organs were requested to have electric key action. In 1962 Gabriel Kney established his own company in London, Ontario, where, with enlarged facilities and a staff of six to eight, he specialized in mechanical-action instruments. Organs from the period between 1962 and 1966 were designed in the historic manner of Werkprinzip, with organ pipes enclosed in a free-standing casework and separated into tonal sections. The tonal design of smaller instruments followed 18th-century North European practices, with some tuned in unequal temperaments of the period.

Altogether, his shops produced 128 organs since 1955; the largest in Canada being the four-manual, 71-stop, tracker-action instrument with two consoles in Roy Thomson Hall, Toronto. Since the early 1970s almost three-quarters of the installations were in locations in the United States, several of these in large universities. Occasionally maintenance and historic instrument restoration projects were undertaken.

Wooden pipes were made in the shop, with the exception of very large pipes made to specifications by suppliers in the United States, England, or Germany. Metal pipes also were made to order by independent pipemakers in Germany or Holland. Some console components, such as keyboards, were obtained from suppliers in the United States, England, or Germany. Electric switching devices came from the United States in earlier years, later from England. Blowers were imported from Laukhuff in Germany, Meidinger in Switzerland, or White in the United States. All casework and chest construction was done in the shop.

In 1996 Gabriel Kney retired from active organbuilding and closed his company. Since then he has acted as a consultant to churches seeking advice on organ purchase, restoration, and tonal redesign, and sometimes to other organbuilders.

Karl Wilhelm, Mont Saint-Hilaire, Québec (1966)

Karl Wilhelm was born in Lichtenthal, Rumania, and grew up in Weikersheim, Germany. At the age of 16 he entered apprenticeship with A. Laukhuff, Weikersheim (1952-1956), followed by working experience with W. E. Renkewitz, Nehren/Tübingen (1956-1957), and Metzler & Söhne, Dietikon, Switzerland (1957-1960). After moving to Canada, in 1960 he joined Casavant Frères, where he established the department and trained several employees for the production of modern mechanical organs; while there he was responsible for the design and manufacture of 26 organs. In 1966 he established his own firm, first in Saint-Hyacinthe, then moved to new facilities in Mont Saint-Hilaire, near Montréal, Québec, in 1974. For a while he was assisted by Hellmuth Wolff, now an independent builder (see below).

Karl Wilhelm specializes in building mechanical organs of all sizes, 147 to date, of which 69 are located in the United States and two in Seoul, Korea. Of the total output, 43 are one-manual instruments, 93 are two-manual instruments of medium size, and 11 are three-manual instruments--the largest is a 50-stop instrument in St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church, Toronto, installed in 1983. Two have detached consoles, and four have combination actions with electric stop-action; all instruments have mechanical key action. The design and layout of instruments adhere to the principles of the classical tradition of German and French organbuilding. Three-manual instruments feature a large swell division, suitable for the performance of Anglican Church music and the Romantic repertoire.

All wooden pipes are made on the premises, along with almost one-half of the metal pipes that are handmade of a tin-lead alloy; other metal pipes are imported from Germany. Scaling and voicing are done in the classical open-toe manner for natural speech and mellow blend. Windchests and bellows, consoles and action, and cases are manufactured in a 9,000 sq. ft. workshop. Organs may have cases of contemporary design, or perhaps are more ornate with moldings and hand-carved pipe shades that are compatible with the architecture of the location. Blowers are acquired from Laukhuff, Germany; miscellaneous parts come from other suppliers. The firm does not engage in rebuilding or renovation but services and tunes its own instruments throughout North America. In 1998 the firm had five employees, all trained by Karl Wilhelm.

Wolff & Associés, Laval, Québec (1968)

Hellmuth Wolff was born in Zurich, Switzerland. While a teenager he apprenticed with Metzler & Söhne, Dietikon, Switzerland (1953-1957); in his spare time he built his first organ, a four-stop positiv instrument. He received additional training with G. A. C. de Graff, Amsterdam (1958-1960) and with Rieger Orgelbau, Schwarzach, Austria (1960-1962). In the United States (1962-1963) he worked with Otto Hofmann, in Austin, Texas, and Charles Fisk, in Gloucester, Massachusetts. After moving to Canada he worked with Casavant Frères (1963-1965) in its newly established tracker-action department, and then with Karl Wilhelm (1966-1968), with whom he had worked at Casavant. In the interval 1965-1966 he returned briefly to Europe to work as a designer and voicer with Manufacture d'orgues Genève, in Geneva. Besides playing the piano and singing in choirs wherever he went, he completed his musical training by taking organ lessons with Win Dalm in Amsterdam and later with Bernard Lagacé in Montréal.

In 1968 he opened his own business in Laval, Québec, with one employee; his present associate, James Louder, started his apprenticeship with Hellmuth Wolff in 1974, after training in classical guitar and English. The first large project undertaken in that year was the construction of a three-manual, 26-stop instrument at the Church of St. John the Evangelist, New York City; this was one of the city's first modern tracker-action organs and it incorporated features not yet seen in North America. In 1977 the company moved to a new shop; the firm became incorporated in 1981, and James Louder became a partner in 1988.

Hellmuth Wolff has been part of the Organ Reform in North America since the movement came to this continent in the early 1960s. He specializes in mechanical-action instruments, large and small, whose design is inspired by French or German classical traditions, although other styles are represented that are designed to accommodate a wide range of organ literature. A total of 42 organs have been manufactured; about one-half of these were installed in locations in the United States. While a few small residence or practice instruments have been built, the majority are two-manual organs, in addition to eight three-manual organs, and one four-manual, 50-stop/70-rank instrument installed in Christ Church Cathedral, Indianapolis, Indiana, in 1989.9 Other related activities include rebuilding, restoration, and maintenance work, chiefly in the Montréal area.

Wooden pipes are made on the premises, while metal pipes are acquired from several pipemakers in Canada, U.S.A., and Europe; some reeds are made there, also. Windchests, consoles, and cases are also manufactured on site. Blowers are acquired from Meidinger and Laukhuff in Germany. Several installations feature both mechanical stop-action and capture systems; the first was built in 1977 for the Eighth Church of Christ, Scientist, in New York City; it was probably the first such system in North America. Both sequencers and traditional multilevel capture systems are used. There were eight employees in 1998.

Hellmuth Wolff, along with his associate, James Louder, have contributed to symposiums and written publications on organs and organbuilding.10 Fourteen compact discs, featuring performances by Canadian and American artists on Wolff instruments, have been released, and three others are in preparation.11

Brunzema Organs, Fergus, Ontario (1979-1992)

Gerhard Brunzema was born in Emden, Germany, and grew up in Menden on the Ruhr river, a northern part of the country where there was an abundance of historic organs. After World War II he apprenticed with Paul Ott in Göttingen and worked with him as a journeyman organbuilder (1948-1952). He received extensive technical training, including acoustics, at the Brunswick State Institute for Physics and Technology (1953-1954), and received a Master's degree in organbuilding in 1955. In 1953 he joined the prominent European organbuilder Jürgen Ahrend in the construction and restoration of organs, some in Holland and Germany of great historical significance; this association continued for 18 years. After emigrating to Canada he joined Casavant Frères in 1972 and served as artistic director until 1979; during that time he was responsible for the design of several notable organs in Canada, the United States, Japan, and Australia, along with the restoration of a number of historic Casavant instruments in Ontario and Québec. His experience at Casavant gave him the opportunity to work with very large organs, an experience that was lacking in Germany.

In 1979 he established his own business in Fergus, Ontario. Throughout his career he specialized mainly in small, one-manual, four-stop, continuo organs (25 in all); most of his nine two-manual instruments--the largest was 25 stops--were made between 1985 and 1987. In 1990 he was joined by his son, Friedrich, who had completed his apprenticeship in Europe. Until the time of his death in 1992, Gerhard Brunzema's total output amounted to 41 instruments; of these, 20 were installed in Canadian locations (mainly in eastern provinces), 17 in the United States, one in the Philippines, one in South Korea, and two in European countries. The tonal design of his instruments was strongly influenced by Schnitger organs that he had studied and restored while in Europe. He believed that basic organ design cannot be learned through restoration work, because such instruments were conceived by others; nevertheless, in restorations the intentions of the original builders should be respected. As for new instruments, his philosophy was that "An organbuilder should choose a style and stay with it, so that he not only continues to develop his own skills, but also continues to help improve the skills of the people working for him. . . . Become a master of one thing, get over the initial difficulties very quickly, and then polish your knowledge, the details of which will finally add up to a very good result."12

Koppejan Pipe Organs, Chilliwack, British Columbia (1979)

Adrian Koppejan was born in Veenendaal, Holland, and apprenticed with his father, who was an organbuilder there. He worked with Friedrich Weigle in Echterdingen by Stuttgart, Germany (1963-1966), with Pels & Van Leeuwen in Alkmaar, Holland (1968-1972) as shop foreman of the mechanical organ department, and with his father's company, Koppejan Pipe Organs, in Ederveen, Holland (1968-1972). He moved to Canada in 1974 and established his own company five years later.

Adrian Koppejan strives for a clear, warm, but not loud sound in his instruments, a preference inspired by classical organs of North Germany. This sound palette is reflected in the instruments in which he specializes: small and medium-size tracker instruments; he has built five electromechanical organs, as well. His output to date consists of 19 organs; these have been installed in churches and private residences in British Columbia, Alberta, and Washington state. His largest organ is a three-manual, 31-stop, electromechanical instrument, with a MIDI system, installed in the Good Shepherd Church, White Rock, B.C., in 1995. An instrument of similar size was constructed in 1998. Rebuilding, restoration, maintenance, and tuning are also part of regular activities.

Wooden pipes are mostly acquired from Laukhuff, Germany; metal pipes come from Stinkens in Holland and Laukhuff in Germany. Keyboards are made in Germany by Laukhuff or Heuss. Winding mechanisms, consoles, solid oak cabinets, and casework are manufactured in the shop. Blowers are supplied by Laukhuff, and electrical control systems come from Peterson in the U.S.A. There were two part-time employees in 1998 as Adrian Koppejan reduced the scope of his operations in anticipation of retirement.

Orgues Létourneau,  Saint-Hyacinthe, Québec (1979)

Fernand Létourneau was born in Saint-Hyacinthe, Québec, where he worked for while as a carpenter before entering employment with Casavant Frères in 1965; there he apprenticed with his uncle, Jean-Paul Létourneau, who was head reed voicer. He remained with the company for 14 years, where he was head voicer from 1975 to 1978, when he decided to set up his own independent company. First, with the help of a Canada Council grant, he embarked on an organ tour of Europe to study the voicing of old masters. Upon his return to Canada in 1978 he began building organs in Sainte-Rosalie, Québec, and became incorporated in 1979. His first organ, a two-manual, 6-stop instrument, was started in the basement of the family house and then displayed in the shop of a cabinetmaker; it was later acquired by the Conservatoire de Musique du Québec, Hull, where dozens of students have learned to play the organ on this small instrument. In 1984 he moved back to Saint-Hyacinthe, where three other organbuilders were already established. The factory's first building was formerly a municipal water-filter plant; the partially underground space provided a room 35 feet in height, ideal for erecting organs. A second industrial building was acquired recently to supplement the original premises.

A total of 55 organs of various sizes have been built to 1998; 13 others are in progress. The great majority have mechanical action, utilizing classical principles used in European instruments, and with the flexibility provided by ranks inspired by Dom Bédos, Schnitger, and Cavaillé-Coll. The largest will be a four-manual, 101-stop, mechanical-action instrument intended for the Francis Winspear Centre, Edmonton, Alberta. International distribution has been common from the outset, beginning with three early instruments that were installed in Australian locations in the early 1980s (the builder had become known on account of his activities as a voicer of Casavant instruments in that country). Others have been placed in New Zealand, Austria, England (Pembroke College, Oxford, 1995; an instrument is under construction for the Tower of London for completion in late 1999), the United States (over one-third of the total production), and Canada (chiefly eastern provinces, a few in the west). The company now has permanent representatives in the United States, England, and New Zealand. Fernand Létourneau prefers to build instruments of eclectic tonal design that are suitable for the performance of a wide range of organ literature. Historic restorations have also been undertaken.

All organ components, with the exception of electronics, are made in the factory, including wooden and metal pipes to 32-foot length, keyboards, consoles, and casework. Blowers are acquired from Laukhuff, Germany. Middle-size organs are equipped with electronic sequencers, card readers, and similar devices. The company is constantly engaged in rebuilding and restoring instruments of different vintages to original condition, about 50 to date, several of which have been designated as historical or heritage instruments. In 1998 there were 45 full-time staff in the Létourneau "family," of which a number are related to one another as father-son/daughter, uncle, brother, cousin, and husband-wife.  

         

James B. Hartman

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

--Sir Thomas Browne (1605-1682)

Religio Medici [1642]

Marvin Beinema, 84,
died July 29 in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Born on October 28, 1919, in
Worcester, Massachusetts, he was proficient at the keyboard at an early age;
from age 12 he served as accompanist to his father, a professional singer, and
he was keyboard accompanist in his high school. In 1940 he began studies at the
New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, where his teachers were Everett
Titcomb and Carl McKinley. His studies were interrupted the following year,
however, when he entered U.S. Navy, serving as chaplain’s assistant. On
December 16, 1942, he married Pauline (“Polly”) Anderson. After the
war he returned to the conservatory and graduated (cum laude) in 1949. While at
the conservatory he was summer organist at Old South Church and served for one
year as interim organist at the Church of the Advent, a position which, he
explained, “put me on the track towards a career as an Episcopal
organist.” With that goal in mind he entered Union Theological Seminary
in New York, studying with Carl Weinrich, and graduated in 1951 with the degree
of Master of Sacred Music.

Mr. Beinema was appointed organist-choirmaster at Trinity
Episcopal Church in Ossining, New York, in 1949, and then, in 1953, at Christ
Church in Roanoke, Virginia, where he also taught music classes and directed
youth conferences and community singing. In May, 1959, he was appointed
organist-choirmaster at Trinity Episcopal Church in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania,
where he led a choir of men and boys until 1970, when Trinity went to a choir
of men and women. He and Polly raised their two children, Peter and Nancy, in
Bethlehem, and Marvin also found time for the composition of sacred music. His
output includes church anthems, Anglican service music, and a three-year cycle
of psalm settings. He retired from Trinity on October 1, 1995. He was a
longtime member of the American Guild of Organists and served as dean of the
Lehigh Valley chapter.

Mr. Beinema is survived by his wife, two children, and three
grandchildren. In recognition of his 37 years of service to the church, Trinity
Church presented him with an annual organ concert in his name, given by a
prominent concert organist, in 2002. Charles Callahan and Marilyn Keiser have
been the guest recitalists to date, and Leo Abbott is presenting this
year’s recital in October. Contributions supporting this annual concert
may be made to the “Marvin Beinema Memorial Fund,” with checks made
payable to Trinity Episcopal Church, 44 E. Market St., Bethlehem, PA 18018.

--Lorenz Maycher

Composer Jean-Louis Florentz died July 4, 2004 in Paris, after a prolonged coronary illness. Born
December 19, 1947 in Asnières, he studied piano then organ in his youth,
later studying natural sciences, literary Arabic and ethnomusicology at the
Universities of Lyon and Paris, and music at the Paris Conservatoire with
Olivier Messiaen, Pierre Schaeffer and Antoine Duhamel. Composition awards
include the Lili Boulanger Composition Prize (1978), the Georges Wildenstein
Prize (Institut de France, 1985), Grand Prix Musical de la Ville de Paris
(1989), the Grand Prix Musical of the Fondation Price Pierre de Monaco (1990),
SACEM’s Grand Prix for Symphonic Music (1991), and the René
Dumesnil Prize (Académie des Beaux-Arts, 1993). He was elected a member
of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in 1993. His music is published by
Alphonse Leduc, Paris.

Professor of Ethnomusicology at the Conservatoire National
Supérieur de Musique in Lyons, Florentz carried out extensive field
research in music and animal acoustics in the West Indies, Polynesia and
especially Africa. His compositions reflected this research, filled with
African birdsongs, Coptic and Muslim chants, as well as complex polyrhythms and
an essentially modal melodic and harmonic language.

His four published organ works are Les Laudes
style='font-style:normal'> (Lauds), op. 5 (1985), a seven-movement work
celebrating the religious faith of Ethiopian Christians; Debout sur
le Soleil (Standing on the Sun), op. 8
(1991), an extended single-movement work inspired by a book by Jacques
Leclercq, priest at Notre-Dame Cathedral; La Croix du Sud
style='font-style:normal'> (the Southern Cross), op. 15 (2000), based on a
Tuareg poem; and the Prélude of l’Enfant noir
style='font-style:normal'> (The Black Child), op. 17 (2002), the only completed
portion of what was to have been a 14-movement cycle inspired by a novel by
Guinean author Camara Laye. All these works exhibit a rich and powerful
symphonic command of the organ medium, also featuring the use of numerous and
unusual mutation stops.

Choral works include Magnificat: Antiphone pour la
Visitation, op. 3 (1980) for tenor solo,
chorus and chamber orchestra; Asún (Requiem de la Vierge
style='font-style:normal'>), op. 7 (1988) for 3 soloists, chorus,
children’s chorus and orchestra; and Asmara
style='font-style:normal'>, op. 9 (1992) for mixed chorus a cappella. All
Florentz’s works are published by Alphonse Leduc, Paris.

--Timothy J. Tikker

by James B. Hartman

Part 1 of this article was published in the May, 1997 issue
of The Diapason, pp. 18--21.

Westminster Presbyterian Church

Westminster Church had a reed organ until 1894, when it
acquired the discarded Warren pipe organ from Grace Church. Then, five years
later, D. W. Karn, Woodstock, Ontario, completed the installation of a
two-manual, 24-stop instrument; the opening recital on the handsome instrument
was anticipated as "one of the most interesting musical events of the
season,"28 and the organ was compared favorably with the one in Holy
Trinity Church.29

In 1912 the church replaced the organ with a four-manual,
49-stop Casavant organ at a cost of $10,500. This organ, which has undergone
several modifications since that date, is the grandest organ in Winnipeg in the
Romantic tonal tradition. For this reason it has served as the location for
many concerts and recitals by local players and world-renowned organ virtuosos
over the years.

St. Stephen's Presbyterian Church

When St. Stephen's Church was erected in 1903, it acquired a
new organ through a rather unusual sequence of events. In the same year the
Winnipeg College of Music opened, with a staff of fifteen teachers who offered
courses in piano, organ, voice, violin, harmony, and theory. The College had
ordered a two-manual $2,000 organ from an unidentified Toronto builder,
probably either Warren or Williams, for installation in their building. How St.
Stephen's acquired their organ was reported in a weekly newspaper:

When it came to making alterations in the new college
building it was found that it would be impossible to erect the organ there without inconvenience and a large expenditure of space--and the college business is growing so fast that space is a very valuable consideration. So, in this dilemma a convenient arrangement was made with the authorities of St. Stephen's church by which the organ will be placed in that church, used at the services and be available for college purposes during the week.30

The organ was only in use for about three years, when it was
replaced by a three-manual, 29-stop instrument, installed by Casavant
Frères in 1906 at a cost of $5,050.                     

Augustine Presbyterian Church

Organ installations received greater publicity when the
inaugural concerts were played by touring recitalists. For example, the
American organist Clarence Eddy, who had been the official organist at the
Paris Exposition in 1899 and who was reputed to have opened more organs than
any other living organist, played two recitals on the new three-manual, 28-stop
organ installed in Augustine Presbyterian Church by D. W. Karn, Woodstock,
Ontario, in 1905:

   Light
and color were transformed into waves of melody at Augustine church last
evening before a delighted audience of between seven and eight hundred music
lovers, assembled at the first of the two inaugural recitals on the new organ
by Mr. Clarence Eddy, a pastmaster on the great church instrument. The church
is as new as the organ so there were no grim ghosts of by-gone Covenanters to
protest against the introduction of a musical instrument in the kirk, but even
had there been they would have been soothed by the carnival of sound which the
magnificent instrument produced under the master touch of the world-wide famous
American organist.

   The
organ is set in an alcove on a level with the gallery and above the choir. It
was manufactured by the Karn Organ and Piano company, of Woodstock, Ontario, of
which Mr. Wright is the local manager. It is a splendid instrument, the largest
and best in western Canada, with over 2,000 speaking tubes; and, thanks to its
large open diapasons, it has a wide volume of sound which is unequalled by many
even larger instruments. Mr. Eddy himself is delighted with it. "It is
brilliant," he said, "and it was a pleasure to me to play on
it."31

The Augustine organ is the earliest instrument installed in
Winnipeg that still remains active, although it has undergone refitting and
renovation several times in the intervening years.

Other Installations

The arrivals of new organs in other large city
churches--Zion Methodist in 1905, Fort Rouge Methodist in 1906 and 1911, Young
Methodist in 1907, Wesley Methodist in 1908, St. Luke's Anglican in 1910, St.
Giles Presbyterian in 1913, and others--continued to receive attention in the
daily newspapers. With some exceptions, inaugural recitals by local players
were often ignored, perhaps because they were not stand-alone events, but were
part of dedication services involving religious rituals and church choirs. The
installation of a new organ also provided an opportunity for local organists to
inspect and play the instrument. Five city organists performed at a private
trial of the new three-manual Casavant organ at Broadway Methodist Church in
1907. Leading members of the congregation and several city clergymen were
present, along with J. C. Casavant, the head of the organ building firm.32

Local Players

As soon as trained musicians arrived in Winnipeg, usually
from England, they opened music studios in Winnipeg to offer private
instruction in voice, piano, organ, and other instruments. Many of these people
were also active in local orchestras or served as church organists and
choirmasters. Some took employment in local music stores to supplement their
meagre income from professional duties. For example, this advertisement was
printed in a daily newspaper:

Mr. C. J. Newman (Associate London Academy of Music),
Organist and Choirmaster, Holy Trinity Church, is now prepared to receive or
visit pupils for organ, piano and voice culture. He is also open to accept
concert engagements as a pianist, accompanist, or for organ recitals. For terms
and appointment, address, for the present, Prince's Music Store.33

In the early days organ recitals in the larger churches were
played before capacity audiences, and they were much more frequent than they
are today. Sometimes they were shared performances involving church choirs,
vocalists, or other instrumentalists. A number of Winnipeg organists were
particularly active, and the newspaper columnists followed their careers with
sustained interest.

One of the earliest was Dr. P. R. Maclagan, a native of
Scotland, who became a church organist there at the age of eighteen. Before
coming to Winnipeg in 1882, he was organist at Christ Church, Montréal,
for about twelve years. He served as organist at several prominent Winnipeg
churches and was in demand as a recitalist throughout the city:

The recital of organ music given by Dr. Maclagan in St.
Mary's Church on Tuesday evening was attended by a large and fashionable
audience, including most every professional and amateur organist in the city.
The programme was an unusually heavy one, and contained representative
compositions of nearly all the Great Masters, classical and modern. . . . The
technical difficulties of some of the pieces, notably the Guilmant sonata, are
enormous; yet they were all performed, not only with apparent ease, but with a
degree of artistic finish seldom or never heard in the country. . . . The
performance was probably superior to anything hitherto executed by that
talented artist, and his many friends who were present expressed their delight
at again enjoying his masterly interpretations.34

On one occasion he travelled to New York to play at one of
the Episcopal churches there. He was musical conductor of the Musical and
Operatic Society, and also of the Madrigal Society, before his untimely death
of consumption in 1887 at the age of thirty-six.

Among the organists who contributed to the development of
the local musical culture was Kate Holmes, organist at Grace Methodist Church
in the 1890s. While a review of her recital at Christ Church Anglican in 1892
was highly appreciative, its condescending tone would not pass late
twentieth-century feminist criteria unchallenged:

Christ church was well filled last evening by a music loving
audience, who had gathered together to hear and appreciate what is not too
often heard in this city, high-class music, well played on the organ. To very
few women is given such power over the master instrument as to Miss Holmes, who
is the organist of Grace church. Without apparent effort, she handles the keys
in a manner that proves her exceptional ability, for a woman, on the organ.

The programme which was selected was a very comprehensive
one, and was well calculated to exhibit the resources of the fine instrument
that Christ church now boasts.35

Robert D. Fletcher played his first reported recital at Holy
Trinity Anglican Church on 27 September 1898; eventually he was appointed
organist at the church, probably due to his demonstrated competence at a number
of recitals he played there and at other locations. This enthusiastic amateur
was pursuing medical studies (he received his medical degree in 1903) at the
time he was awarded a Master of Arts degree from The University of Manitoba in
1902 for his treatise, "The Church Organ--Its Evolution--Some Famous
Instruments." The opening paragraph of his 21-page dissertation accurately
reflected current views of the organ as a rival of the orchestra:

There is probably no instrument which has so engrossed the
public attention, as well as Musicians generally, as the organ, embodying in
its completeness almost all the principal effects obtained from band or
orchestra in solo as well as ensemble playing, even surpassing these in some
respects, and as capable of the most delicate pianissimo as the thundering
forte.

The reviews of his recitals also revealed attitudes towards
organ recitals in general that were widely held at this time:

Music--a branch of the art that, speaking locally, does not
hold its proper place in public esteem. There is usually an absence of vulgar
clap-trap at organ recitals, and in a beautiful church like Holy Trinity the
refined and restful surroundings add much to the impressiveness of such
occasions. Tuesday's programme was by no means a formidable one, in fact there
was not a "big" number on it; but its performance was characterized
by care and skill as to execution, and intelligence as to registration.36

There is a danger in organ music of relying too entirely on the mechanical effects for the interpretation of the work and while these effects are very necessary, in fact indispensable, nothing can take the place of a sympathetic, artistic delivery on the part of the performer himself. There are very few organists in the west who can entertain an audience as did Mr.
Fletcher last evening.37

Fletcher's great popularity can be gauged by the large
attendance at his recitals. He had a dedicated following in other social
circles, for he also played ragtime piano pieces at "smoking
concerts," where groups of men spent evenings playing cards amid the
fragrant odour of superb Havana cigars and being entertained by singers, small
orchestras, and instrumentalists. Even so, ragtime generally was denounced as
musical rot that makes money.38 Nevertheless, one critic deplored the meagre
collection received at one of Fletcher's organ recitals: "His talents will
some day be more substantially appreciated than in a community in which an
audience of one thousand 'music lovers' contribute the magnificent collection
of forty dollars and fifteen cents."39

Eva Ruttan was one of a new generation of organists emerging
in Winnipeg in this period. She received keyboard training in the city before
leaving in 1905 to study with Henry S. Woodruff, organist and musical director
of Westminster Presbyterian Church, Minneapolis. On her return to Winnipeg two
years later, she opened a studio to accept students in piano and organ and also
became the organist at the new Fort Rouge Methodist Church, where she remained
until 1909. Her first public recital in 1907 was praised in print:

The lady shows distinct improvement in her manipulation of
the difficult instrument, and plays with fine expression. Her best numbers were
"Fanfare" by Lemmens and Lemare's "Andantino." Good
organists are not so many in the city but that a new recruit to the ranks will
be warmly welcome.40 

J. C. Murray, organist at St. Stephen's Church, was not a
frequent recitalist, but he was well known and appreciated in the musical
community. In 1908 a London publisher issued an album of his musical
arrangements of Elizabethan lyrics. One of his rare public performances, in
1909, was compared favourably with those of two world-class players, Edwin
Lemare and Clarence Eddy, who had visited Winnipeg, in terms of his command of
the organ's resources and his mastery of the art of improvisation.41 Murray
later received a warm posthumous tribute from an organist-diarist:

Mr. Murray had been an occasional pupil of Guilmant, i.e., I
think he had benefited on several occasions on courses of lessons designed for
pupils, who could have the time to run over to Paris from Great Britain and sit
at the feet of the great master. Mr. Murray was a superb player and maintained
the highest traditions of organ playing . . . [and] his playing had a charm and
finish that will not be easily forgotten.42

The same diarist also reminisced about George Dore, organist
at Holy Trinity Church for a time, who had arrived in the city from Chatham,
Ontario, late in 1890:

Professor Dore . . . was an elderly gentleman who played for
a time at Holy Trinity and subsequently was organist of the Anglican church in
Portage la Prairie. He had the hall marks of a fine musician and claimed, I
have no doubt with truth, to have been a fellow chorister with Sir John Stainer
and Arthur Sullivan. He was a remarkably clever improviser and a genial soul,
and I think of him with kindness as a man with the instincts of an artist and a
gentleman.43

When Zion Methodist Church installed a new three-manual
Casavant organ in 1905, the new organist Fred M. Gee was at the console. Gee
emigrated from Wales to Winnipeg in 1902 at the age of twenty and opened a
studio to teach piano and organ. In the following year he joined the staff of
the Winnipeg College of Music and became organist-choirmaster of Westminster
Presbyterian Church. For several years after his arrival in Winnipeg, until
around 1907, he was referred to as F. Melsom Gee, perhaps to preserve a family
identification with his father, Melsom D. A. Gee, who followed his son to
Canada in 1906 and served as organist at All Saints' from 1907 until his death
in 1921. Fred Gee served as organist at several churches, including six years
at All Saints' beginning in 1925, and often played inaugural recitals
elsewhere. He established Winnipeg's Celebrity Concert Series in 1927, later
described as the largest on the North American continent. As a full-time
impresario, Gee brought many world-renowned musical artists to perform before
large, enthusiastic audiences. A few months before his death in 1947, Gee was
the soloist in MacDowell's Piano Concerto No. 2 with the visiting Minneapolis
Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Dimitri Mitropoulos.

Arnold Dann was one Winnipeg organist who achieved
prominence in the field of music education. Shortly after arriving in the city
to become organist at Grace Church, he opened a studio and secured an academic
appointment at Wesley College in 1918:

With the assistance of several talented teachers . . .
[Dann] will conduct classes in all grades for the study of pianoforte, harmony,
musical aesthetics, and interpretations. . . . Mr. Dann is planning to give a
series of organ and piano recitals personally. In addition he will deliver his
popular lectures on "Music and War," "The Complete
Organist," and "The Rise and Development of the Tune."44

Dr. Riddell, principal of [Wesley] College, recognizes the
importance of music as a communal asset and the necessity of placing it in
Winnipeg on the same footing as other arts and sciences. The services of Arnold
Dann, the well known piano virtuoso, and successful director of music at Grace
church, have been engaged. He has been given a professorship and a place on the
faculty of the college.45

Dann's recitals drew large crowds, and their frequency
clearly reflected their sustained success with the musical listening public.
Dann served as organist at Grace Church and held his teaching appointment at
Wesley College until he left Winnipeg in 1923 for the United States, where he
later became organist and choirmaster at a new one million dollar church in
Pasadena, California, in 1924.

Visiting Recitalists

Winnipeg was host to some of the world's most renowned
organists during this period; most of them came from the United States, several
from England, and prominent Canadian players were also represented. Advance
notices of their appearances were followed by lengthy and mainly appreciative
reviews of their recitals. The first reported recital by a visiting organist
took place at the Central Congregational Church in 1890. It was given by the
touring English recitalist Frederic Archer who, according to the English Globe,
"is now the greatest of modern organists . . . 2,000 organ recitals at the
Alexandra Palace." For an admission fee of 50 cents, the audience heard a
program comprised chiefly of transcriptions of orchestral or operatic works by
familiar composers. His return to the city early in the following year was
again accorded an enthusiastic reception.

In succeeding years, Winnipeg audiences heard recitals by
these performers:  J. Warren
Andrews, Minneapolis, at Grace Church in 1894; Frederick H. Torrington,
principal of the Toronto College of Music, at Grace Church in 1898; William C.
Carl, the New York organist who was on his way to give an inaugural recital in
Dawson City, Yukon, at Grace Church in 1903; Rosa d'Erina, the distinguished
Irish prima donna and organist, at St. Boniface Cathedral in 1905; Arthur
Dunham, the organist at Sinai Temple in Chicago who had received a testimonial
from the famous French organ virtuoso and composer Charles-Marie Widor, at Knox
Church in 1906 and 1914; Edwin H. Lemare, the expatriate English organist and
Paderewski of the organ who became a performing superstar of the organ in the
course of world-wide tours, at Grace Church in 1908; Lynnwood Farnam, the
Canadian organist who became a legend in his own time by committing 200 pieces
to memory and playing 500 recitals by the time he was thirty-five, at Augustine
Church in 1908; William Hewlitt, a co-director of the Royal Hamilton
Conservatory of Music and heralded as one of the most brilliant players in the
country, at Broadway Church in 1909; Gatty Sellars, the English organist who
was accompanied by the King's Trumpeter, at Grace Church in 1911 and St. Andrew's Church in 1912; Henry Woodruff, Minneapolis, at Knox Church in 1913; Albert D. Jordan, the Canadian recitalist who had served as organist at the
Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco, at Westminster Church in 1915;
Herbert A. Fricker, former city organist of Leeds, England, who came to Canada
to conduct the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir, at Westminster Church in 1919; Ernest
MacMillan, who eventually would become recognized as Canada's musical elder
statesman, at Westminster Church in 1919; and T. Tertius Noble, formerly
organist of Ely Cathedral and York Minster before settling in New York, also at
Westminster Church in the same year.

What They Played

The content of organ recital programs over the years can be
attributed to a variety of factors: the performers' backgrounds, training,
musical interests, and technical abilities; reverence for musical tradition and
the attraction of new material; the perceived musical preferences of audiences;
and the tonal resources of the organs. In Winnipeg in the early 1900s there
were only a few orchestras or instrumental groups that could provide public
performances of musical masterpieces of the past or of contemporary works.
Access to this realm of musical culture was broadened by the inclusion in organ
recitals of many transcriptions of operatic, choral, or instrumental works by
major composers. This practice, which was also evident in England and the
United States, eventually attracted much criticism, even in Winnipeg. Dr. Ralph
Horner, the music director of the Imperial Academy of Music and the Arts in
Winnipeg and music editor of a weekly newspaper, later referred to as the
"grand old man of music" in the city, commented on this issue in an
article that advocated more frequent organ recitals in city churches as a means
of increasing public familiarity with good music:

I am not an advocate for playing arrangements of orchestral
music on the organ, for the attempt to illustrate or imitate the orchestra only
results in disparaging the "King of Instruments," but in the absence
of a Symphony Orchestra these organ recitals can be the means of making people
acquainted with orchestral compositions which otherwise they would never
hear.46

In the four decades preceding 1920, there were 111 reported recitals, consisting of 733 selections in all. Slightly more than one-third of all the pieces performed were transcriptions of a wide range of works by the major composers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The most frequently
performed pieces were derived from Wagner's operas Lohengrin, Parsifal, and
Tannhaüser; and Handel's choral works, including his ever-popular
Hallelujah Chorus and Largo. Haydn was represented by arrangements of his
symphonic and chamber works. Audiences also heard organ interpretations of
marches by Gounod (Marche militaire), Mendelssohn (War March of the Priests
from Athalie), and Chopin (Funeral March), along with arrangements of Grieg's
Peer Gynt Suite and Dvorak's New World Symphony. Transcriptions of Von
Suppé's Poet and Peasant Overture, as well as of Beethoven's overtures
and some of his piano pieces, were also presented.

As for original works, Alexandre Guilmant's organ
compositions were the most frequently played, led by his Marche funèbre
et chant séraphique; the earliest reported performance of his Sonata in
D Minor, written in 1874, was in 1885. Bach's toccatas, preludes, and fugues
began to be played often, but almost none of his chorale preludes; more than
half of their performances were by several visiting recitalists. The first
reported performance of his dramatic Toccata and Fugue in D Minor was in 1883.
Mendelssohn was first represented in 1885 by his Sonata No. 1 in F Minor,
composed about forty years earlier. Pieces by Louis
Lefébure-Wély, the fashionable Parisian organist who demonstrated
instruments of the leading French organ builder Cavaillé-Coll in the
mid-1800s, rapidly became recital favourites; one of his works, the Offertoire
in G, was played in the first known organ recital in Winnipeg in 1878, about
ten years after its publication. The works of Charles-Marie Widor were not
included in the programs of touring organists until 1905. Interest in the
compositions of Edwin H. Lemare escalated following his recitals in Winnipeg in
1908, and local organists included many of his lighter works--particularly his
Andantino, later popularized as Moonlight and Roses--in their programs for many
years. The compositions of Alfred Hollins, the blind English organist, began to
appear in the programs of both visiting and local players at least a decade
before his visit to Winnipeg in 1926.

The audiences at organ recitals probably consisted of
parishioners of all the major churches and members of the general public
possessing different degrees of musical enlightenment, along with the leading
musical people of the city--"the tutored and untutored alike," as one
newspaper commentator described them. A "full house" at a large
church would have amounted to a crowd of over 1,000 people. Considering that the
population of Winnipeg around 1900 was about 40,000, and although it more than
tripled within a decade, it is evident that attendance at organ recitals was a
significant aspect of musical culture. These musical-social events were but one
manifestation of intense musical activity that included the forming of bands,
church orchestras, choral societies, and choirs, as well as the establishment
of several musical conservatories, music teachers' associations, and music
clubs, and the inauguration of the Manitoba Musical Competition Festival.

Theatre Organs and Organists

Moving picture theatres were the chief form of popular
entertainment in the cities and towns of Manitoba and elsewhere in the early
years of the twentieth century. The larger Winnipeg movie houses also had
resident vocal soloists, instrumentalists, and orchestras that gave brief
concerts before screenings of motions pictures or during intermissions.
Vaudeville acts and sometimes local military bands were featured in these
events, too.

Theatre organs first were used to provide musical
backgrounds to the action in silent movies. Sometimes these sonic backdrops
were improvised spontaneously by the organist, sometimes they were adaptations
of composed music. In some respects the theatre organ was a competitor of the
orchestra, for the pipe ranks and stop lists of these organs mimicked
orchestral instruments. They were also equipped with a variety of percussion
devices, such as drums, traps, xylophones, bells, and chimes. Organ consoles
were elaborately decorated structures, often of coloured glass backlighted to
silhouette the player. Sometimes they were mounted on hydraulically-operated
platforms that allowed the organist, seated at the console, to rise
dramatically into the audience's view from beneath floor level, playing all the
while.

A bizarre instrument called "The Fotoplayer" was
installed in Winnipeg's Bijou Theatre in 1915. Many of these relatively
inexpensive music machines, manufactured by The American Photo Player Company,
New York, were installed in theatres throughout the United States and
elsewhere, where they added to the public's enjoyment of silent films. This
mechanical wonder included a pressurized reed organ section and perhaps several
ranks of organ pipes, along with various sound effects, all of which could be
played manually or by means of paper rolls. Some models had a device for
shifting quickly from one roll to another to follow the mood changes of the
film. The single keyboard was centred between two sound cabinets that housed
the electric blower, wind chests, and special effects devices. It was
advertised as "The Ninth Wonder of the World, The Musical Masterpiece that
Expresses the Griefs, Joys, and Triumphs of the Artists; that Supplies the
Unspoken Words in the Pictures--Magnificent Orchestral and Organ Tones."

Organ recitals of current popular music and transcriptions
of familiar light classics took on an independent life of their own with the
advent of talking pictures. These performances, like those of theatre
orchestras, were additional attractions to the current motion picture being
shown, and often featured special music for the Christmas season. It is
interesting to note that theatre organists endeavoured to maintain high
standards in their selections of music, whether to accompany the motion picture
or for short recitals during intermissions:

Modern theatres have for some time been equipped with
splendid pipe organs. Good orchestras have been introduced, and are now a
recognized feature. The music is one of the chief attractions. One organist who
plays at a large picture house said recently, "besides recital programmes
and special organ solos, I gave request numbers to get the musical pulse of our
audiences. Only once have I received a request for ragtime or any real cheap
piece. On one occasion I had a request for a Bach Fugue."47

Some theatre organists earned a living out of this activity,
while others occupied posts as church organists at the same time. Their
careers, involving moves from one theatre to another or presiding at the
opening of a new instrument, were reported in the entertainment sections of the
newspapers, perhaps in the belief that their fans would want to follow them
from theatre to theatre.

The installation of a large theatre organ in the Province
Theatre in Winnipeg in September 1917 created a high level of interest. The
three-manual, electric-action instrument (claimed to be the only organ in
Winnipeg so equipped), containing 2,000 pipes, was supplied by the Toronto
organ builder C. Franklin Legge. The $20,000 instrument also had a self-playing
mechanism  that allowed the
instrument to perform on its own in the absence of a trained organist. The
organ was formally opened by George E. Metcalfe, "The Organist
Supreme" from the Pacific Coast, who amused the theatre customers with a
steady stream of improvisations on the "Wonder Organ" throughout the
afternoon and evening. On that occasion the theatre was featuring the
hand-coloured film "Mayblossom," made in France by
Astra-Pathé. 

The Winnipeg theatre organist Walter Dolman had a career as
a church organist before and after his experience in Winnipeg cinemas. Born in
England in 1875, he was appointed organist in a church in Burton-on-Trent at
the age of fourteen. After coming to Canada in 1903, he lived in Toronto and
worked for a while with F. H. Torrington, principal of the Conservatory of
Music, then moved to Chatham, Ontario. He was a church and theatre organist
briefly in Detroit, Michigan, before coming to Winnipeg around 1918 to play at
the largest movie theatres. Later in his career he inaugurated a daily series
of "twilight recitals" in the late afternoon and early evening, when
he presented a mix of music by modern masters, earlier composers, and popular
numbers in vogue with the younger set. In 1928 he moved to nearby Kenora,
Ontario, to become organist at Knox Church in that town, where he remained
until his death in 1947.

The question of the influence of the theatre organ generally
on the development of an appreciation for mainstream organ music was the
subject of a borrowed newspaper editorial. The fear that "bad" music
would drive out "good"was unfounded, according to this writer:

The feeling among musicians that the organ performances
given in "movie" shows lower the public taste for dignified music
seems to be increasing. In regard to the general influence of
"movie"organ music a writer in Musical Opinion says: "When the
instrument began to take a prominent part in the 'movies,' some of us thought
that people, having the organ thus brought to their ears night after night,
would esteem it more highly. But this is not likely to provide an exception to
the rule that 'familiarity breeds contempt.' We are now beginning to see that
the old aloof position of the organ was not a bad thing. True, its public was
limited, but if it spoke to comparatively few, the few were devotees. It is not
likely to gain new ones from its association with Mr. Chaplin."48

Later Years

The 1920s marked the height of fashion for cinema organs.
Several of the larger movie theatres in Winnipeg installed pipe organs in this
period, and the arrival of a new instrument was a matter of intense interest on
the part of the popular musical establishment and the entertainment industry.
Following the advent of the first sound-synchronized "talkies" in 1928, the role of the theatre organist began to change. With the gradual demise of silent motion pictures, cinema organists still continued to provide musical
entertainment before picture showings and during intermissions, but these
practices eventually were discontinued as the talking movies came to be
regarded as self-sufficient entertainments in themselves.

The Winnipeg Centre of the Canadian College of Organists was
established in 1923 by some of the city's leading organists. This small but
enthusiastic group sponsored recitals by local and visiting players and
arranged special events for the improvement of church music generally. The
1920s were the peak period of organ recitals, and the 1930s were almost as
active. The frequency of new organ installations diminished over the succeeding
decades, particularly during the years of World War II, when materials were in
short supply. Many renovations of existing instruments were undertaken in the
1950s, but only a few of the churches built after this time acquired pipe
organs, preferring less costly electronic instruments instead.

The past four decades have been marked by renewal,
consolidation, and modest growth in the fortunes of the organ. Interest in the
organ and its music is still relatively strong today, considering the various
musical and performing arts alternatives, as well as the other forms of
cultural entertainment now available. But in terms of organ installations,
recitals, and intensity of public interest in the King of Instruments and its
players, the period of the "Golden Age" of the organ remains
unsurpassed in the history of music in Manitoba.               

Notes

                        28.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>              FP,
15 April 1899.

                        29.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>              Winnipeg
Tribune, 22 April 1899.

                        30.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>              TT,
31 October 1903

                        31.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>              FP,
22 February 1905.

                        32.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>              TT,
27 April 1907.

                        33.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>              FP,
18 June 1888.

                        34
style='mso-tab-count:1'>                FF,
11 November 1885.

                        35.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>              FP,
19 May 1892.

                        36.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>              TT,
1 October 1898.

                        37.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>              FP,
12 September 1900.

                        38.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>              TT,
1 June 1901.]

                        39.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>              TT,
5 October 1901.

                        40.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>              TT,
19 October 1907.

                        41.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>              TT,
8 May 1909.

                        42.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>              "Recalling
Early Organists: From the Diary of the Late Jas. W. Matthews," FP, 3
January 1925.

                        43.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>              "Few
Pipe Organs When Winnipeg was a Hamlet: Diary of the Late James W. Matthews
Recalls Early Instruments and Players," FP, 13 December 1924.

                        44.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>              FP,
31 August 1918.

                        45.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>              "Wesley
College to Inaugurate Music Department," FP, 14 September 1918.

                        46.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>              "Music,"
TT, 17 February 1912.

                        47.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>              "Music,"
FP, 23 March 1918.

                        48.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>              FP,
21 September 1918.