Fire in Berlin Philharmonic hall--no apparent damage to pipe organ

Lorenz Maycher is organist-choirmaster at First-Trinity Presbyterian Church in Laurel, Mississippi. His interviews with William Teague, Thomas Richner, Nora Williams, Albert Russell, and Robert Town have appeared in The Diapason.

Introduction
Clarence Dickinson (1873–1969) had one of the longest and most influential careers in the history of American church music. The first installment in this series of Dickinson’s own writings, Reminiscences, appeared in the July issue of The Diapason and covered his early childhood and musical awakenings in Lafayette, Indiana, his formal study, and his first recitals and church appointments in Evanston and Chicago, where musical friends urged him to study abroad.
Reminiscences, Part Two, begins with Dickinson’s arrival in Berlin in 1898 and traces his musical studies in Europe with Reimann, Guilmant, Moszkowski, and Vierne, his meeting and falling in love with Helen Adell Snyder, and his return to Chicago, where he became an overnight success as organist-choirmaster at St. James Church and founding conductor of the area’s most prominent choral societies. All material used in this series is taken from the Dickinson Collection, Dr. Dickinson’s own personal library, which is housed at William Carey University in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. We are very grateful to Patricia Furr and Dr. Gene Winters of William Carey University for granting access to this special collection, and for permission to use these items in this series intended to preserve the life and legacy of Clarence and Helen A. Dickinson.
—Lorenz Maycher
Laurel, Mississippi

Dr. Heinrich Reimann, the organist of the Kaiser Wilhelm Gedächtnis-Kirche in Berlin, took only one pupil a year. I was fortunate enough to arrive in 1898 just as the last year’s pupil, Karl Straube, had left to become organist of Bach’s old church in Leipzig. I had gone to Reimann because of his reputation as the greatest organist in Germany, but did not know of him as musicologist, composer, and scholar. Reimann was up-to-date with all the French technique of the day, but had an exalted interpretation of the masterpieces of all organ repertoire. He wrote the program notes for the Philharmonic, and was librarian of the Royal Music Library, which contains such a large collection of manuscripts of the great early composers. He collected many folk songs for a series of historical recitals by Amelie Joachim, one of the great singers of the day, many of which Mrs. Dickinson and I later edited for church use. Reimann gave an organ recital while I was in Berlin, which Kaiser Wilhelm and his old court attended. It was the only organ recital I have known where it took a cordon of police to keep the overflow crowd out.
In the middle of the winter, Reimann said to me, “I have broken my rule and have taken one more student, a young girl from America whom I heard playing a very good piano transcription of one of Bach’s chorale preludes. I was so struck with it that I told her she should study some organ,” which she did. I never met her while abroad, so when I returned to America I kept looking for news of this brilliant organist whom I had never met. At an A.G.O. dinner I sat next to a charming young lady and we discovered we had been studying in Berlin at the same time. I told her of my experience with Dr. Reimann and that he had taken on a young lady student whom I had never met, and she replied, “I was that young lady.” It was Olga Samaroff, the brilliant pianist, who of course became too busy with her tours as a concert pianist to continue with organ study, but felt that it had helped her piano playing greatly.
I also studied theory and composition that year with Otto Singer, most widely known as the arranger of Wagner opera accompaniments for the piano as published by Schott. Singer was a friend of Strauss, taking the first rehearsals of his new tone poems, as he did for the first performance of Ein Heldenleben. I heard the Berlin premiere, and the critics made fun of Strauss for making himself the “Helden” by using the themes of his own works. I remember Singer defending him by asking, “Whose themes could he use?” Singer said Strauss worked the entire composition out in his head before he put a note on paper, and then had made only slight changes in the arrangement of voices in the brass parts.
Singer put me through Rischbieter’s Harmony book, which puts each given theme to be harmonized in each of the four parts, the alto and tenor being much harder to harmonize effectively than I had heretofore done. Singer sat at the side of the piano smoking his pipe, criticizing me very severely. He seemed to be an old grouch to me, but it was wonderful training and invaluable assistance when I later came to improvising fugal bits with Vierne in Paris. And, when I returned to Chicago to teach theory in first the Columbia Conservatory, and then my own Cosmopolitan School, I used the Rischbieter themes in the same manner in my class, using the soprano, alto, and tenor clefs, which helped when it came to score reading.
In Berlin, I lived on Wilhelm St., and was awakened practically every morning at six as the Kaiser rode by at the head of his troops, out for their daily drill. I did not have the financial struggle so many musicians have. Only once did I not have enough to eat for a period. I roomed in the home of Fräulein Schumann, a distant relative of the composer. The roomers were all men: a Dane, a Norwegian, two Germans, and two Americans. The other American was a student at the university who had run out of money and could not get back to St. Louis, where he said a position was awaiting him. He said he would receive money as soon as he arrived, but could not get any sent to him in Berlin in advance. If I loaned it to him, he would send it back immediately. So I drew my balance in the bank that was to take care of me for the next few months, keeping just enough for the next few weeks. The money never came, and I was afraid to write home for more, for fear they would think I had squandered it “in riotous living,” as so many of the students were doing. So I got down to one roll and a cup of coffee at the automat. At that time, I was taking part in a play to be given for the benefit of the American Club, and we were invited to the apartment of Andrew White, the American Ambassador to Germany, for an evening rehearsal. Afterwards, we were given a most sumptuous supper of all kinds of rich foods. But I was in such a condition that I could not touch a bit of the food that I needed so much. Fortunately, the next day I received a large check from my father, with a letter saying, “I’m quite sure you have plenty of money for the winter, but I want to make sure.” This kind fatherly letter was the last I had from him, as he died very suddenly soon after.
Berlin, at this time (1898–1899), was the great music center of the world, and for a mark and a half (37 cents), we heard the leading conductors of the day: Felix Weingartner, Arthur Nikisch, Karl Muck, Richard Strauss, and Siegfried Ochs. I felt they taught me the control of a proper accelerando and ritard in the building of a climax. When I came home, my former teacher said, “Well, what is that?—just a little faster, and a little slower.” Siegfried Ochs, with his chorus of 1,000 and the Berlin Philharmonic, brought out every detail perfectly, but also the great majesty of such numbers as the “Sanctus” and “Cum Sancto Spiritu” given as Bach undoubtedly heard them in his conception. I do get very impatient with these critics who say you cannot have this music properly done with more than thirty singers, which is but a pencil sketch, like the preliminary drawing for a great Rembrandt, with its glorious light and color.
In Berlin, not only did we have great orchestral concerts and operas, but we had the debuts of many young players. Rebling, the assistant conductor of the Philharmonic, was sadly overworked. We not infrequently feel that a conductor has gone to sleep, but poor Rebling actually did go to sleep at the switch. During a very long cadenza in a piano concerto, he laid down his baton and leaned heavily on the stand, dropping lower and lower. As the cadenza’s end drew near, the orchestra began raising their instruments, with the concertmaster finally raising his bow to bring them in on time with the crash of full orchestra. Poor Rebling, leaping into the air, rubbing his eyes and grabbing his baton frantically, tried to find out where they were, to the great delight of the audience.
Of course, many of these concerts were wonderful treats. Busoni, the great pianist of the day, gave a series of four historic concerts with the Philharmonic, playing fourteen concertos (*) on four successive Saturday nights. The house was full of the greatest musicians in Berlin. At the end of the last concert, Busoni came out and played an encore—his own arrangement of the Bach D Major Prelude and Fugue—in tremendous style, turning to look at the audience, and ended on a C-natural, after a month of perfect playing when you could criticize nothing. I heard Widor do the same thing while in the loft with him one time. Among his visitors that day was a very beautiful young lady standing at his right. As he finished a big number in F Major, ending with a run in the pedal, he turned to her saying, “My dear countess,” and landed on an E-natural that rang out from the pedal Bombarde. I have used this as a warning to my students—do not relax until the last note is played.
After my winter with Reimann in Berlin, in the summer of 1899, I took a trip with a friend, Arthur Burton, who was later to become a well-known baritone and vocal teacher in Chicago. He had been studying with William Shakespeare, the great conductor and vocal coach in London. At this time there arrived a very lovely old lady from Hamilton, Ontario, who was going to meet a young lady, Helen Adell Snyder, in Heidelberg and travel with her. As Arthur and this older lady had become very good friends, and discovered they were to be in Switzerland at the same time, they decided to leave a note at Cooke’s Travel Agency in Lucerne so that they might see each other. Arthur and I found such a note in Lucerne. We called on them at their hotel and had lunch together, but they were just leaving for Geneva. Unfortunately, Arthur and I had just sent out our laundry and had to wait for “the wash,” or we would have joined them on the same train. We caught the first train possible and had three very delightful days with them. I said to Arthur, “You can have your old lady. I’m going to take the girl,” and at the end of the third day Adell and I were engaged. We each had two more years of study—she to get her Doctorate at Heidelberg (from which she graduated summa cum laude in 1901, the first woman to do so in the Philosophy Department), and I to study in Paris. When I met Adell, I knew that here was inspiration in a young and beautiful woman who also possessed great knowledge. However, that was not the reason I had the courage to ask her to wait for a poor organist who would probably never make more than $2,000 a year; it was just intense love at first sight. I believe the real thing comes that way, though, of course, it can come slowly, I suppose, as has been described in many stories, without the individual being aware of it for a long time.
In the fall of 1899 I moved on to Paris, intending to study with Widor, who could play in tremendous style, but, if he were not particularly interested, could be very dull. Meanwhile, I discovered Guilmant, who was at the height of his career. One of the first concerts I heard in Paris was the dedication of a new organ shared by four organists: the organist of the church; Gigout, one of the most brilliant players of the day; Widor, third; and Guilmant, last, showing his greatness in every way. I studied with him for the next two years, and never regretted it. That first year I also studied composition with Moritz Moszkowski.
The second year, I went to Vierne (who had just been appointed organist of Notre Dame, and possessed a lovely organ in his home) for composition, improvisation, and plainsong accompaniment. How he ever got the notes of his compositions on paper I do not understand, as the head of a quarter note was as large as the end of a little finger because of the little sight left in him. I had a pedal piano in my room in the Latin Quarter, and the use of an organ in the Cavaillé-Coll organ factory and that of the American Episcopal Cathedral, where I was organist and an Englishman was director of the boy choir. I wrote my first organ piece, “Berceuse,” during the year I studied with Vierne, and dedicated it to Helen Adell Snyder. Professor Peter Lutkin, of Northwestern, sent it to H. W. Gray for recommendation for publication. It was refused. I then sent it to Schirmer and Ditson, who likewise returned it. (After returning from Europe, I later played it in a recital on the Ocean Grove Auditorium organ, and had the fun of having the same three publishers come up and say they would like to publish it!)
When my generous supply of money had run out in Paris, I felt I should begin to try and give out something, instead of always comfortably receiving, so returned home in 1901 with 125 pieces in my memory. So began the next portion of my life, first as director of the choir at McVickers Theatre, where Frank Crane, a popular minister in Chicago, was preaching on Sunday mornings, and the following year as director of music at First Methodist Church in Evanston. After only six months there, I became organist-choirmaster at St. James Episcopal Church in Chicago, with a boy choir of sixty. I enjoyed this choir very much for six years, although the strain of replacing eight or ten boys a year, along with the many rehearsals and discipline, was rather wearing. I rehearsed the boys alone twice a week at 4:30. They were out of school by 3:00, so I usually had to interrupt a game of baseball at an exciting moment, and it was difficult to get them in on time. After such an experience one day, I walked past Notre Dame Catholic Church and found the priest having the same trouble. He finally lost his temper and called out, “Any little boy who is not inside this door in two minutes I am going to send straight to Hell.” You should have seen them run! He had an unfair advantage over me. All I could threaten my boys with was the loss of a two-week encampment during the summer. This was the real pay for their year’s work.
Part of the job of running the boy choir in Chicago was putting on a light opera to raise funds for summer camp at one of the Wisconsin lakes. One year we chose the far end of Lake Mendota, north of Madison. It was near an insane asylum, and some of the harmless patients often walked through the camp and saw the boys. One of them always came swinging an alarm clock. When we asked her why she carried the clock, she replied, “Oh, they say time flies, but he’s not going to get away from me!” Another one was a very coquettish old maid who sort-of flirted with the boys, and they had fun drawing her on, nicknaming her “311,” but never telling her what it meant: “311” was the hymn “Ancient of Days.” Another hymn they delighted in, which our rector, Dr. Stone, often selected as a processional, had a line that always occurred just as the boys came in sight of the congregation. I could not stop them from always turning their heads towards the congregation, and roaring out, “My God, what do I see and hear.” There was another they delighted in: St. James was in the aristocratic north side of Chicago, and our principal rival was Grace Church, on the south side. The boys always emphasized in singing this line, “On the north side are the palaces.”
At this same time, I was offered the conductorship of the Aurora, Illinois, Musical Club without ever having held a baton or directed a chorus or orchestra. I went to Frederick Stock, the conductor of the Chicago Orchestra, who gave me a few suggestions. Of course, I always braced up my orchestra with a goodly number of players from the Chicago Symphony, which is really what put us over. This gave me very good experience, as we presented a different oratorio at every concert, never repeating anything in five years, giving the Chicago premiere of Davies’ Everyman and other such novelties, and ending with Wagner’s Tannhäuser in concert form. Aurora was a railroad center, down below the hills, so the train station was just filled with smoke. For one of the rehearsals I took the boy soprano soloist from St. James. “You don’t need to worry about my manners, Dr. Dickinson. My mother told me what to do and say.” When we alighted from the train in the midst of a great cloud of smoke, so that you could not see a thing, he said, “Aurora is a lovely city, isn’t it!”
To show you how busy I became: my weekly schedule soon meant catching a 5:30 train for the hour ride to Aurora, and getting dinner on the train. The train was a deluxe express—first stop Aurora—and the thru passengers were allowed to come into the diner, while those in the day coaches were kept locked up. Fortunately, I found a key that would fit the door, and so, when the headwaiter was at the other end of the dining room, I’d unlock the door and come in. He and the waiters were always startled to see me come in, but always served me, thinking me to be a member of the board. So, I always had my dinner and arrived at the hall in time to rehearse the orchestra for an hour, and the chorus for an hour and a half. Catching a ten o’clock train back to Chicago, I then crossed to another station and caught the sleeper to Dubuque, Iowa, where I taught for four hours the next day, then had rehearsals for the Bach Society of Dubuque, following the same routine of rehearsing the orchestra first and the chorus last. I then caught the sleeper back to Chicago, where I taught at the Cosmopolitan School, of which I was the director, until the middle of the afternoon, and then rehearsed the boys at St. James. I took the evening off! On Thursday, I was back at school for classes in the morning, rehearsal for the Musical Art Society at 2:30, a rehearsal of the English Opera company at 4:00, and, at 6:30, the chorus of the Sunday Evening Club rehearsal. Friday morning was given up to organ lessons at the church, and, in the afternoon I attended the concerts of the Chicago Orchestra. Friday evening was given over to rehearsing the men and boys of St. James for the Sunday service. Saturday morning was the service at Temple Kehilath Anshe Mayriv. In the afternoon, I practiced for various services. Sunday morning and afternoon was spent at St. James Episcopal Church. Once a month, in the afternoon, there was a large important festival service with a short organ recital following. Then came the Sunday Evening Club, a service held at Orchestra Hall, for which we had distinguished preachers from all over the country, a large chorus, and a fine quartet of soloists. I played a half-hour program of organ music, and then, putting another organist on the bench, conducted the chorus. Mondays I taught at the Cosmopolitan School until four o’clock, when I went to rehearse the boys at St. James. In the evening, I caught the train to Aurora, and the week began all over again!
Many interesting things happened along the way: One time, on the way to Dubuque, a deep cut between two hills was filled with snow. Our engine tried to ram it, getting stuck so tight it could not go back or forth. We were held there all night and most of the next day, with nothing to eat but a few chocolate bars. This spot had belonged to one man, but two little towns had grown up around it, so he named them after his daughters. We men on board decided we would send telegrams explaining our absence by saying, “Snow storm delay: spent the night between Elizabeth and Anne.”
Another amusing incident took place during the forming of the chorus for the Sunday Evening Club in Orchestra Hall, which was made up of the best soloists who sang morning and afternoon services in their churches. The men for the chorus proved easy, as practically all my men at St. James came. I had to advertise for women, and when I arrived for the auditions at my Cosmopolitan School of Music in the Auditorium building, I found the place full, much to the distress of my teachers. The first I took into my office was a mother and daughter. The old lady immediately said, “I am sure you want Jenny. She can sing higher and lower, and softer and louder than anyone you have ever heard. Jenny, show the gentleman your high C,” whereupon Jenny let out the loudest, wildest shriek you ever heard, like the sound of a wounded hyena. I could hear doors open and feet come running, and the manager opened the door to ask if he could be of any assistance. Of course, I told Jenny that nothing more was necessary. That settled it, but, as a matter of form, I told her I was compelled to hear the others who had come, and I would let her know. We did secure a beautiful chorus in the end.
In 1904, after being engaged for five years, Helen Adell Snyder and I were married. Following our studies abroad, she had become Dean of Women at the State College of Pennsylvania, and I had returned to Chicago $3,000 in debt—a good deal of money in those days. The first year I saved nothing; the second year I saved $1,500, and the third year, $1,500. I went to the wealthy young lady who had loaned me the money and said “Here’s the balance. However, I have been engaged for five years and would very much like to get married and go to Europe on our honeymoon. Instead of paying you back now, I am sure I can do it next year.” She very kindly consented, and Mrs. Dickinson and I sailed on the Romanic, although we preferred calling it the “Romantic.”
My older sister met us at Boston to say goodbye and said, “This is very nice. Our friend Miss Blanchard is sailing on the same boat with ten young ladies, who I am sure will want to meet you.” Naturally, we were not so sure and we engaged four steamer chairs—the two on the North side had our names on them; the two on the South side, where we always sat—nothing. So we dodged them until the last day.
We landed in Gibraltar, where there were men selling Maltese lace. Mrs. Dickinson was buying some for her mother. The man started the price at $10.00 and Mrs. Dickinson, having lived in Europe, countered with $5.00. Each gave in until they were only $1.00 apart, whereupon the man turned to me and said, “Father will pay the $1.00. What’s a dollar to Father?”
We took a boat to Tangier, and after a few days’ stay, another boat around to Cádiz, a very beautiful way to enter Spain, as it projects out into the ocean and the houses are painted pink, blue, and white—nice gay colors. At luncheon I asked for a glass of milk—not realizing that the only milk available would be goat’s milk, which one notices as soon as it enters the room. The waiter, of course, could not understand this request for milk, as this was my first day to use my Spanish, and he brought me several different articles until I took the menu and drew a picture of a cow, whereupon he immediately cried, “Si, Si, Señor,” dashed off, and came back with two tickets for the bull fight.
I played several recitals on the organs in Spain. The most surprising request I received was in Cordova, where the Gothic chapel is set down in the midst of the old mosque, with its 900 pillars of different colored marbles, creating a very mystical atmosphere. After I had tried the organ a bit, the priest organist said to me, “There is one American tune I have always wanted to hear. Will you play it for me?” I said, “Surely, if I know it.” He replied, “It is Yankee Doodle Dandy.” So, Mrs. Dickinson, who was not allowed to come up into the organ loft where there were priests and monks (so strict are the rules!), was rather aghast when she heard the strains of “Yankee Doodle” echo through and around the 900 columns! It was in Spain that we first began to collect folk songs. One of the earliest was “In Joseph’s Lovely Garden.”
The greatest choral group I ever had was the Musical Art Society of Chicago, which I organized in 1906. This society was made up of 50 leading singers of the city, and we performed the great choral music of the church, which had never been heard in Chicago. While I was in Paris, I was much fascinated by the beautiful singing of the 15th and 16th century music by the famous choir of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, and longed for an opportunity to present these works, as well as modern music of the day. All this would require a chorus made up of very good musicians. Thus was born the idea of a society composed of the best soloists in Chicago. Mrs. Dickinson said one day, “Is this really your heart’s desire?” “This is the thing I want most.” She immediately turned to the telephone and called singers one by one, starting with personal friends who were among the top singers of the city, until fifty had agreed, most hesitatingly, to come to a meeting. This meant singing for pleasure, no money in it for anyone.
The devotion of the singers was marvelous. Individual members would go to New York to sing with the Philharmonic Orchestra, and then, if compelled to miss a rehearsal, hurry back for private rehearsals in order to prepare for the coming concert. Any one of them could sing over a big orchestra, and when you put them together, it was stunning. We could perform unknown music, old and very modern, in any language, and we gave Chicago its first hearing of works by Palestrina and Gabrieli, and the “Sanctus” and “Cum Sancto Spiritu” from the great B-Minor Mass in concert with the Chicago Orchestra. This was still in the day of the quartet, and this kind of music was new to them. They were very conscientious singers, and would study those runs at home. Three of the best altos in Chicago were sisters, one of whom was Mrs. Clayton Summy, and they would get together in her home and rehearse these difficult numbers. At their third rehearsal, they entered the room, and were greeted by Mrs. Summy’s parrot singing “Cum Sancto Spiritu,” the only parrot I ever knew that sang Bach.
I recall that for one performance of Messiah there, I had the bass and tenor of the First Presbyterian Church of New York, who had come out to sing at another event. It was very successful, and the visiting singers returned to New York and reported that it was the best performance they had ever heard. Word of this must have got around, for in 1909 I was invited to the Brick Presbyterian Church to succeed Archer Gibson. Because the salary was less than what I was making in Chicago, I was also asked to conduct the Mendelssohn Glee Club, succeeding Frank Damrosch, and was also organist at Temple Beth-El, located at Fifth Avenue and 76th Street (now merged with Temple Emanu-El). Even then I came to New York at a financial sacrifice, but for greater opportunity.■

* Busoni piano concerto series
October 29, 1898: Bach D minor, Mozart A major, Beethoven G major, Hummel B minor
November 5: Beethoven E-flat, Weber Konzertstück, op. 79, Schubert Fantaisie in C major, op. 15, Chopin E minor
November 12: Mendelssohn G minor, Schumann A minor, Henselt F minor
November 19: Rubinstein no. 5 in E-flat, op. 94, Brahms D minor, Liszt A major

To be continued

Jay Zoller is organist at South Parish Congregational Church in Augusta, Maine, where he plays the church’s historic 1866 E. & G.G. Hook organ. He holds degrees from the University of New Hampshire and the School of Theology at Boston University. He is a retired designer for the Andover Organ Company and currently designs for the Organ Clearing House. He resides in Newcastle, Maine, with his wife Rachel. Zoller, as a high school student in 1961, was fortunate to hear Heinz Wunderlich play at the Methuen Memorial Music Hall on Wunderlich’s first American tour. They began a professional relationship in 1989, when Zoller played in a masterclass that Wunderlich was giving. Since then, Zoller has studied some of the Wunderlich organ works with Professor Wunderlich and has performed many of his organ compositions in recital. In addition to writing several articles about Wunderlich for The American Organist, Choir and Organ, and The Diapason, he has played in all-Wunderlich recitals in Hamburg, Germany in 1999, 2004 and now again in 2009. His article, “Heinz Wunderlich at 90,” appeared in the April 2009 issue of The Diapason.

Birthday concerts in Hamburg
My wife, Rachel, and I flew out of Newark on Thursday, April 23, and landed Friday morning at Tegal Airport in Berlin, Germany. Our friend Matthias Schmelmer, who will be important later in this story, helped us to the Hauptbahnhof. There we took a fast train for the two-hour ride to Hamburg, where the birthday celebrations were to take place. As one of the recitalists, I had been given an hour and a half of practice time on Friday evening the 24th, and an hour the next morning to prepare for the first concert, which was to take place on Wunderlich’s birthday itself, April 25. There were five other organists participating, as well as a vocal ensemble, so the time we had available was limited and valuable.
I was to play the Fuga Variata, a piece Wunderlich had written in 1942 during the war. Suffering from jet lag and with my wife practically falling asleep beside the console, I found the allotted time barely enough to register the piece. After a night of rest, I was looking forward to my hour of practice the next morning. Imagine my surprise when, arriving in the balcony, the performer practicing before me said that we had a cipher on the Hauptwerk. Luckily, we found a key to the organ case, and I was able to fix the problem. My years of organbuilding came in handy!
The four-manual Beckerath organ in St. Petri had been completely rebuilt by the Schuke Organ Co. since my visit five years ago. Several new stops were added to make the choruses more complete, along with a new console and, most welcome, a new solid-state system with multiple memories; all was done in keeping with the Beckerath sound.
Unlike many churches in the USA, German churches have hard surfaces within large spaces, and refrain from using carpeting. As a result, the sound is unlike almost anything you hear in this country. I gauged the reverberation in St. Petri to be 6 to 8 seconds—long enough to require some adaptation in one’s playing to allow for it.
The performance of “Former students playing music of Heinz Wunderlich” went very smoothly. The Kontrapunktische Chaconne was played by Dörte Maria Packeiser (Heidenheim, Germany); next I played the Fuga Variata; a chorus under the direction of Cornelius Trantow sang Four Motets for unaccompanied chorus; Izumi Ikeda (Fukuoka, Japan) played the Sonata Tremolanda Hiroshima; Andreas Rondthaler (Hamburg) played Dona Nobis Pacem with violinist Solveigh Rose; Emotion and Fugue was played by Eva-Maria Sachs (Erlangen); and the program ended with Orgelsonate über ein Thema played by Sirka Schwartz-Uppendieck (Furth). As in subsequent concerts, the church was full and the audience enthusiastic. All the performers ended the evening with dinner at a local restaurant with Professor Wunderlich.

Ökumenische Messe
The next day, Sunday, a performance of the Wunderlich Ökumenische Messe (Ecumenical Mass) took place as part of the morning service at St. Petri. It was sung by the Hamburger Bachchor St. Petri under the baton of the St. Petri music director, Thomas Dahl. This is a very effective setting of the Mass for a cappella choir, and the experienced chorus of St. Petri made it memorable. The music was soaring and lyrical, with suggestions of Gregorian chant, and put me in a contemplative frame of mind.
Sunday afternoon we toured an amazing exhibit of the works of Edgar Degas at the Hamburger Kunsthalle, followed in the evening with dinner at the home of Thomas Dahl with his wife Steffi and their two delightful daughters. We were able to inspect the two-manual Fürer organ in the little village church of St. Nicholas next door, where Thomas is able to practice. Although a much smaller church than St. Petri, the beautiful interior of wood and plaster is sympathetic with the organ, making a clean and distinct sound.
After being tourists on Monday, we boarded a train on Tuesday for Bremen where we toured again, the highlight being the St. Petri Church—a huge, garishly painted cathedral, possessing four organs. In the main part of the sanctuary is the large Sauer organ originating from 1893. During several rebuilds, it has been enlarged to its present four manuals and 98 registers. A three-manual Bach Organ was built in 1966 and sits primly in a side aisle balcony. The remaining two organs are a one-manual Silbermann Positiv from 1732/33 and a one-manual and pedal Wegscheider organ from 2002, which accompanies the choir.

Wunderlich’s 90th birthday concert
Following an afternoon in the contemporary art museum, we returned to Hamburg in time for Heinz Wunderlich’s recital at St. Jacobi in the evening. The recital was played on the Kemper organ, which has been restored since my last visit five years ago. The church is also the home, of course, of the famous Arp Schnitger organ, which dominates the end of the church in the second balcony. The Kemper sits on one side of the lower balcony. Professor Wunderlich chose four pieces for his program: Bach, Präludium und Fuge in h-Moll, BWV 544; Wunderlich, Sonata Tremolanda Hiroshima; Reger, Fantasie und Fuge über B-A-C-H, op. 46; and Wunderlich, Sonata über den psalm Jona.
Professor Wunderlich’s playing, at ninety, is still immaculate, and the Kemper was appropriate for the music on the program. Although I have heard the Schnitger organ on several occasions and have played it myself, I couldn’t help but wish that we could have heard the Bach on the Schnitger organ instead. In any event, American recitalists should acquaint themselves with all of Wunderlich’s music, as it is of the highest quality.

Organ and orchestra
On Wednesday evening, we gathered at St. Petri again for the final Wunderlich birthday concert, a program for chorus, organ, and orchestra. Thomas Dahl had a demanding evening with the Organ Concerto No. 7 in B-flat Major, op. 7, no. 1, of Georg Friedrich Handel; Heinz Wunderlich’s Easter cantata, Erschienen ist der herrliche Tag, written in 1992; the premiere performance of Wunderlich’s Concerto for Organ and Orchestra on the Name B-A-C-H; and Mendelssohn’s Psalm 42, “Wie der Hirsch schreit,” op. 42. The soprano soloist was Dorothee Fries and the organist Andreas Rondthaler. The chorus was once again the Hamburger Bachchor St. Petri. The evening was exciting, with the Wunderlich Concerto being only one of many highlights for me.
One other Hamburg organ that deserves mention is in the Church of St. Georg. The church, which is dedicated to the Trinity, was built in 1747 and destroyed by bombs in 1943. Only the damaged steeple remained, which was repaired, and a new church, representative of 1950s architecture, was built. The sanctuary, which was designed to serve the purpose of a concert hall as well, seats 700 people, has galleries large enough for an orchestra, and boasts a 1959 E. F. Walcker & Co. organ with 36 registers.

Berlin
On Thursday morning, we boarded the train for our trip back to Berlin. Having never been to Berlin, I wasn’t sure that I was going to like it, but we found the city a delight, with the transit easy to get around on, and more things to see than we could possibly include in our remaining week. The city has been rebuilt, and like Hamburg, construction seems to be going on constantly.
Our friend, Matthias Schmelmer, is the director of music and organist at Kirche zum Heiligen Kreuz (the Church of the Holy Cross) in Berlin. Thanks to his many contacts, I was able to see and play more organs than I ever would have on my own. The largest is the Sauer organ in the Berliner Dom. The cathedral itself is an impressive building, with a dome reminiscent of St. Paul’s London or St. Peter’s Rome, and the organ is equally impressive. At 7,000 pipes and 113 registers on four manuals and pedal, it is one of the largest in Germany. Once I determined that the swell pedals worked opposite to ours in the USA and that the Great is the lowest manual, I was off for an enjoyable evening.
The organ built for Princess Amalia in 1755 by Peter Migendt and Ernst Marx was the next instrument on our agenda on Monday morning. It had had several homes since it was built, but is now located in the Berlin Karlshorst. The organ is awaiting restoration in the fall, but is completely playable in its small church. It has two manuals and pedal with 25 stops. The sound is clear and bright, and the reeds, which were added in 1960, are compatible with the time period. A complete delight!
Monday afternoon brought us to Schmelmer’s own church, with its rather unique, for Germany, E. & G. G. Hook organ. Much has been written about this 19th-century American transplant from Woburn, Massachusetts, and I won’t add to that now. Suffice it to say that it has a wonderful new home in a very live building. The building itself is unique in that a steel structure has been added internally, with catwalks around the central area so one can walk around the church at the balcony level. Built in behind arches throughout are glassed-in offices and conference rooms that look out on the sanctuary proper. In the center of the church and extending up into the dome is a large tent hanging by ropes or cables. I can only imagine that it is to deaden the reverberation somewhat.
Across the street in a quiet cemetery lies the grave of Felix Mendelssohn. We spent several meditative moments at his graveside and that of his sister, Fanny and her husband, William Hensel.

Leipzig and Dresden
On Tuesday we fulfilled a lifelong desire of mine, to visit the churches where J. S. Bach worked for the last decades of his life. Although we did not hear the organs in either St. Nicholas or St. Thomas, we sat enjoying the atmosphere and were able to pay our respects at the grave of the greatest of composers. Later, we walked to the home of Felix Mendelssohn, which is not far away, and got a taste of his home and life. Of particular delight were his drawings and watercolors displayed there.
We had also wanted to visit Dresden and were glad we did. After a bus tour around the city, we found our way to two churches that showed two different methods of reconstruction. The Kreuzkirche had been completely burned out during the fire bombing of February 13, 1945. The church, which seats 3,200, was rebuilt in a simple style and rededicated on February 13, 1955. The raw plaster walls, which were intended as a temporary measure, were kept as a reminder of the night of terror when tens of thousands of Dresden people were killed. The great Jehmlich organ, which was destroyed, was replaced by a new Jehmlich organ of 76 registers and four manuals and pedal.
The restoration of the Frauenkirche was finished in 2005 and was completed in exquisite and loving detail. It is an almost unbelievable place, with its marbleized and gold-leafed surfaces, exquisite colors, central altar of which 80% had been saved from the rubble, and glorious organ. We were fortunate that as we walked in, the new organ built by Daniel Kern, with four manuals and pedal and 67 registers, began to play. As the organist demonstrated the instrument, we sat overwhelmed by the sound and the beauty of the space around us. (See Joel H. Kuznik, “Dresden’s Frauenkirche: Once a Silbermann, Now a Kern,” in The Diapason, February 2006.)

Max Reger’s organ
The last organ I played in Berlin was ordered and designed by Max Reger. In 1913, the acquisition of an organ was planned for the Schützenhaussaal, where Max Reger was conductor of the ducal orchestra. Since Reger wished to have a movable console, the contract was signed with Steinmeyer, the only company capable of the work at the time. Reger ordered the organ very informally using only a post card!
The organ was built for Reger, and in the end he was satisfied with the results. The dedication recital was played by Karl Straube on April 19, 1914. Unfortunately, illness forced Reger’s resignation soon afterward, and so he only played it for the Duke’s funeral on June 26. In August, World War I began and the organ wasn’t used any more. Today the organ sits in the Weihnachtskirche (Christmas Church), which began as a community hall. The room is not large, and the organ speaks from behind wood latticework directly and loudly into the space. It was an exciting experience to sit at the console where Reger and Straube sat!
In addition to organs, we visited many historical sites including remnants of the Berlin Wall, Checkpoint Charlie, the Brandenburg Gate, and the Reichstag. Our primary interests were in the many museums that Berlin has to offer, however. One of the most outstanding for us was the Berggruen Museum with its large collection of Picasso, Matisse, Klee, Braque, and Giacometti. We highly recommend it.
We were reluctant to end this memorable trip with its concerts, organs, museums and serendipitous surprises.

To be the very best

I often remind myself (and you) of my start in church music. Dad, the Episcopal priest, the organist/choirmaster who was a harpsichord maker in real life, singing in the choir, and taking organ lessons . . . The culture of the music department of that wonderful church, charged with the excitement of the burgeoning movement of historically informed performance, and the revival of classic organbuilding, so active in the Boston area in the 1960s. I was hooked. I spent most of my after-school hours in local churches, practicing. I had paying jobs playing the organ in church from the age of thirteen, and I set my sights on attending the Conservatory of Music at Oberlin.  

In my early teenage years I spent one summer washing dishes (saving up my earnings to buy a Zuckermann harpsichord kit), then two summers working for a landscape company on Cape Cod, pushing lawnmowers around the estates of the rich and famous. I played the organ for a summer parish in our town on the Cape and spent most evenings there, practicing and messing around with the organ.

Since those three summers, everything I’ve done has been with the pipe organ. My sons were troubled by this when they got old enough to be wondering what they might do with their lives—“if Dad knew when he was fourteen, what am I supposed to do?”

I know many other musicians who came through high school knowing exactly what they wanted to do with their lives. Those players who spend their adolescent years developing the techniques, embouchures, musculature (AKA chops) necessary for playing their instruments, hopefully nurtured by enlightened and caring teachers, have an incredible leg up. Just as it’s easiest to learn a second language as a toddler (my grandson Ben, at nearly two, has the advantage of parents speaking with him equally in English and Portuguese), the musician who reads music fluently and sets the foundation for a comfortable technique at a young age will have a big advantage later on.

Our system of higher education is set up that way. You’re not going to be accepted as an incoming student in a serious music school when you’re just out of high school unless you have some credible ability with your chosen instrument. I was pretty sure of my organ-playing prowess as an eighteen-year-old freshman entering Oberlin, and I learned a lot about that “big fish in a small pond” syndrome in my first days on campus. Everyone there had been a star in high school, and I was startled to learn that during those first days there was to be a “Freshman Orientation Concert” showcasing new students who had been singled out as exceptional. Funny, they didn’t ask me! The gauntlet was laid down that night.

In the first few days of classes, I learned a thing or two about teachers who expected a lot from their students. One stands out in my memory. Robert Melcher taught Music Theory, notably the cornerstone, two-semester course intended to ground freshmen in musical analysis and four-part harmony. And I mean ground freshmen. He ground up freshmen.

Melcher was a diminutive elderly man whose gait made his head arrive before the rest of him. My classmates reading this will snicker as they recall his tremulous little tenor voice singing symphonic melodies “on loo.” The opening cello melody of Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony sticks out in my mind. Loooooo-Loo Loooooo-Loo Loo Loo Loo Looooooo-Loo Looooooo.

Robert Melcher sure did know music theory, and he was a relentless teacher. And he was as mean as a rooster with his tail on fire. Early on he set organists at ease, saying that we were “theory prone” because of the way we understood bass lines. Part of the curriculum included the notation of figured bass, right up our alley. Made us feel great, but must have been hard on the others. When he called on someone in class who couldn’t answer his question, he made them squirm. And he deliberately called on people when he knew they wouldn’t know the answer—and he gave them hell for not knowing.

In particular, he had it out for singers. He generalized, he profiled, and he terrorized them. It was horrible to watch. Today, fully forty years later, I’m grateful that he was my teacher. He gave me a firm foundation in that critical subject that I still value. But I’ll never forget him finishing one of those Loo-loo melodies and then whipping around to pounce on some unsuspecting daydreamer, humiliating them to the point of tears in front of their peers.

How do you get to Carnegie Hall?

That’s the lead to an old joke—the punch line is “Practice.” I had it in mind that it came from the old comedian Henny Youngman.* When I googled, I found that there is controversy, even a few squabbles about who first came up with it. Candidates include Jack Benny, Jascha Heifetz, and Arthur Rubenstein. The Carnegie Hall website states that it was violinist Mischa Elman, grumbling to a pedestrian as he left a frustrating rehearsal, the story as told by Elman’s wife.

How is it that the promising young talent finds his way to the right instrument and, knowingly or not, devotes his life to it while still a teenager? What does it mean to forsake at least part of whatever constitutes a normal childhood to strive to excel in a chosen field? And what is the responsibility of the teacher to acknowledge the student’s sacrifice, to encourage his ambition, and to challenge him in a way that honors his talent without affecting his emotional wellbeing?

The new movie Whiplash tackles this conundrum in the brutal story of Terence Fletcher (played by J. K. Simmons), a brilliant but abusive teacher in an exclusive jazz school. He notices the exceptional talent of a first-year student, a drummer named Andrew Neyman (as played by Miles Teller). Fletcher sees greatness in Neyman and uses intense verbal, physical, and emotional abuse to encourage it. He even abuses Neyman’s fellow students, especially other drummers, in his effort to bring out Neyman’s innate greatness.  

In the course of the film we learn that one of Fletcher’s former “great” students had died young—Fletcher told the students in the band that it was a car accident, but we learned that it was, in fact, suicide, encouraged by Fletcher’s brutal methods. We see Andrew make a shy and embarrassed attempt to have a first girlfriend, whom he later enrages when he breaks off the relationship, predicting that he will ultimately be bitter because she’s holding him back from greatness. In Andrew’s eyes, it’s Nicole’s bad luck to simply be a liberal arts student without having declared a major—incomprehensible to him who has been driven to be the world’s greatest drummer since he was a little boy, as we see in his home-movie clips.

Andrew puts tremendous pressure on himself, practicing until blood pours from his blistered hands and defending his drive to greatness in the eyes of his doubting family. Having been awarded “the part” as the school’s premier ensemble participates in an important competition, Andrew wriggles badly injured out of an overturned wrecked car and sprints to the concert hall where he plays his heart out until he collapses. Fletcher rewards his effort by expelling him from the school.

Wendy and I saw Whiplash a few days after it was released. While I never experienced anything like the brutality of Fletcher’s philosophy of teaching, I left the theater with memories of conductors who pummeled me, of friends who gave up their musical passion in despair, and of students being humiliated in front of each other. A week later, I invited a friend who is a great performer to see the movie with me. The second viewing was harder for me to watch because knowing what was coming next in each scene, I was cringing in advance.

Late in the film, Fletcher is brazen as he talks about his methods. He refuses to apologize, even though we know that his style had led directly to the suicide of a student. For much of the film, it’s hard to tell who is the main character. Fletcher is an “equal opportunity” abuser who thinks nothing of shredding the hopes of a promising student in front of his peers. And Andrew is a vulnerable young man with exceptional talent. Part way through the film, Andrew throws in the towel. But his burning, bleeding desire to be the best hurtles him back into the fray.

The lowest common denominator

After seeing Whiplash twice, I’m fascinated by the dilemma of how one finds the balance between Fletcher’s manic desire to spot and encourage greatness and the physical and emotional limits that must be imposed on how teachers relate to their students. Fletcher does things that would have him in jail in a heartbeat if he had been teaching in a public high school. But he’s the leader of the award-winning premier ensemble in the rarified world of the highest levels of education in a splinter-thin pursuit. It’s a cutthroat atmosphere, and Fletcher teaches us the origin of that phrase.

I had the inverse experience when working as director of music at a suburban Congregational church. In staff meetings, the associate pastor was outspoken about being sure that the church treated people equally. Fair enough, as we’re taught that we’re all equal in the eyes of God. But I think she took that too far when she suggested that I should not single out children in the Youth Choir by giving them solos. I should think about how that would make others feel less significant. I was dumbfounded, but I was not found dumb, at least in sense of at a loss for words.

I told her that when I was a kid singing in the Youth Choir, I was given solos to sing. When I was a middle school and high school student, I got all the gigs playing the piano to accompany choruses. That’s why today I’m the director of music. Other kids who sang in that 1960s Youth Choir are now doctors, attorneys, scientists, professors, even priests. I know this because I was reunited with many of them at my father’s memorial service last spring. Wouldn’t I have failed as a mentor if I hadn’t encouraged the children with special talents? And doesn’t it work out that someone who is passed over for the solo on Sunday gets handed the ball in a Little League game?

There are ordinary lawyers and star lawyers, ordinary doctors and star doctors. They might be equal in the eyes of God, but I’ve been treated a couple times by ordinary, even mediocre doctors, and I’ll choose the star any time.

Walking the line

There’s a balance in this conundrum, a line that separates teaching methods that are too harsh and abusive from those that treat all levels of talent equally. Star students should rise to the top. Their teachers should expect the best from them. And the best teachers have both methods and instincts to encourage the students to do their best.

I know that many readers of The Diapason were exceptional students as they forged their way through adolescence, and that many were lonely and outcast because of their devotion to an art form that requires intense discipline. I recommend strongly that you see Whiplash. The film is intense, fast moving, startling, and sometimes scary. It tells the story of the value and the trials of working hard on a specialized education. And it ultimately shows the reward of real devotion to a challenging art.

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In March of 2012, I had a bad fall at work. I was tuning in a lovely old Hutchings organ in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the support for a ladder gave way. I came down from about six feet up and landed flat on my back. Made some kind of noise. My colleague Joshua, sitting at the keyboards, whispered, “What was that?” The wind was knocked out of my lungs, and I had to lie still for a few moments before I could draw breath. I had a cracked vertebra and later had a wicked bout with sciatic pain as that critical nerve has received quite a tweak.

I cringe when I think about what might have happened. I was lucky. I can walk. I know that my right leg and foot are not the same—that sciatic nerve is something like the strings of a marionette—it holds you, and you don’t know anything about it until it goes funky, but I got off easy.

Ironically, a couple years earlier I had participated in a panel discussion at a convention of the American Institute of Organbuilders about organ maintenance, and one of the panelists had spoken at length about workplace safety.

It’s the middle of November as I write, and across the country and around the world, organ technicians are stocking their tool-bags and sharpening their tools, putting fresh batteries in flashlights, and making a round of phone calls and e-mails to clients as they schedule seasonal cold-weather tunings (please be sure the heat is up). As we fan out to do battle against ciphers, remove moths from shallots, adjust contacts, and set temperaments, we remember the hazards of the trade. All of the ladders and walkways in a hundred-year-old organ are a hundred years old. The organ in which I fell was built in the 1880s, around 130 years old.  

We climb off the ladder onto the walkboard and feel it sag under our weight. The walkboard is covered with dust and feels slick underfoot. We reach out to the sky-rack of the façade pipes to stabilize ourselves, and it moves sickeningly, the pipes rattling in their loose hooks.

After I fell, I singled out a half-dozen churches whose organs presented special hazards to technicians. I wrote to each of them, telling of my accident, and proposing the installation of new ladders, handrails, supports, and stabilizers. They all responded positively, and that work is now complete. It’s a pleasure to walk out on that precipice, holding on to a sturdy new steel railing. Somehow, it makes me hear better.

I encourage my colleague organ techs to identify those situations that are unsafe and propose remedies to your clients. We can have a new professional organization, the Society for Prevention of Injuries to Tuners (SPIT).

This is on my mind as my Facebook page is alive with posts from fellow tuners hitting the road, offering prayers and salutations. And it’s on my mind because of a dramatic event in New York City. Last week, the Freedom Tower at One World Trade Center was formally opened. Among the first tenants is Condé Nast, publisher of the popular magazines, Vanity Fair and The New Yorker. Built on the iconic site, it has 104 stories, and is 1776 feet tall. Freedom Tower, get it? 1776?  

Around 8:00 am on Wednesday, November 12, two window washers climbed into their scaffold—a mechanized walkway hung from davits on the roof of the building that lowers the workers down the side of the building. Something went wrong with the system of pulleys and lines, and the rig wound up hanging vertically at the 69th floor, rather than the more comforting horizontal. The workers were securely tethered to the machine, as was all their equipment. News reports mentioned liquids falling from the platform, which would be bad enough for someone on the sidewalk, but no buckets, squeegees, brushes, or whatever other gear they might have had on board fell.

Within about an hour, a special team from New York Fire Department was inside the building at that floor, cutting through three layers of special tough glass to make an opening that would allow the stranded window guys to climb to safety inside.

That site is sacred to us all, especially to those New Yorkers who witnessed the original calamity there. And the NYPD gained a special spot in the national consciousness through their heroic response to the disaster.

As I watched the drama unfold on television, I was struck by the remarkable preparation involved. Thinking back on it, of course the NYPD would have teams specially trained and equipped to deal with high-rise emergencies. There are a lot of tall buildings in this city. But it was very moving to watch the firefighters handling those sheets of glass a thousand feet above the sidewalks, leaning through the opening and helping those guys inside.

NYPD Battalion Chief Joseph Jardin was quoted saying, “It was a fairly straightforward operation.” Some teacher saw the good in him and encouraged him to be the best. 

* I was right remembering a story connecting Henny Youngman to Carnegie, but it was the Carnegie Deli on 7th Avenue between 54th and 55th Streets in New York, around the corner from Carnegie Hall. It was a favorite “hangout” of Henny Youngman, and when owner/founder Leo Steiner died, Youngman eulogized him as the “deli lama.”

John Bishop is executive director of the Organ Clearing House.

revolution: n. 1a. Orbital motion about a point, especially as distinguished from axial rotation: the planetary revolution around the sun. b. A turning or rotational motion about an axis. c. A single complete cycle of such orbital or axial motion. 2. The overthrow of one government and its replacement with another. 3. A sudden or momentous change in a situation: the revolution in computer technology. (The American Heritage Dictionary, Houghton Mifflin Company, 2000)
evolution: n. 1. A gradual process in which something changes into a different and usually more complex or better form. 2a. The process of developing.
b. Gradual development . . .
word-play: n. 1. Witty or clever verbal exchange; repartee. 2. The act or an instance of such exchange.

I can name that tune in four notes.
In 1964 the comedian and parodist Allen Sherman (1924–1973) performed a concert with Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops Orchestra. The program included Sherman’s reading of Peter and the Commissar, a parody on Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf with Cold War overtones (when discussing the effectiveness of an imaginary Politburo, Sherman quipped: “A camel is a horse that was designed by a committee.”), and a hilarious orchestral medley, Variations on “How Dry I Am,” which opens with a statement of the original and familiar melody (sol-do-re-mi) and continues with the beginnings of a series of familiar compositions and songs that start with the same four notes, ranging from You are my sunshine to the 1812 Overture. There’s even an inversion moment quoting one of the variations of Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a theme of Paganini.
I think most musicians have had the experience of freely associating a few notes from one melody with another. I know it’s happened to me many times—I’m sitting all dressed up at Symphony Hall surrounded by serious music lovers (and a few old men snoring), when one of those associations hits me—I chuckle and receive my wife’s elbow. And I know I amused the choir at church countless times (at least I thought so) by interrupting a rehearsal to turn a phrase from an anthem by Vaughan Williams into a Rodgers and Hart song. As a budding continuo player while a student at Oberlin, we roared one night in rehearsal turning the second trio from the last movement of Bach’s first Brandenburg Concerto into “The Lonely Goatherd” from The Sound of Music. You can’t tell me Richard Rodgers never heard Bach.
Word-play is same sort of thing. You hear a word that reminds you of another, swap them in context, and you have a pun—that high form of humor that invites such frequent elbows. It’s a matter of sound association—does that make musicians naturally inclined as punsters (otherwise known as pundits)?
I’ll give you a couple classics for free:
Dorothy Parker (1893–1967) was a writer and poet, perhaps best known for her humorous commentary on urban life in America published in The New Yorker. She was a founding member of the Algonquin Round Table, a group of writers, critics, and other literary folk who gathered each day for lunch at the Algonquin Hotel (West 44th Street near Fifth Avenue) from 1919 to about 1929. Harpo Marx, Tallulah Bankhead, and Edna Ferber were among other participants. Speaking about the Round Table years later, writer and curmudgeon H. L. Mencken commented, “their ideals were those of a vaudeville actor, one who is extremely ‘in the know’ and inordinately trashy.”
One session included a contest—each member was given a word around which to construct a pun. Ms. Parker was given horticulture. Her response, “You can lead a whore to culture but you can’t make her think.”
Science-fiction writer Isaac Asimov presented his favorite pun, which involved the story of an old cattle rancher whose offspring inherited the ranch, renamed “The Focus Ranch” as a stipulation of the will. The source of the name—“Where the sun’s rays meet.” Get it—focus, sun’s rays?1

An evolutionary revolution
In the last several days I’ve experienced two artistic revolutions and as I reflected about them, the word evolution joined the fun. I couldn’t find any published etymological connection between the two words, but I can’t avoid the sound association leading to a more meaningful connection—is a revolution a re-evolution? The evolution of musical theater includes several revolutionary moments like Monteverdi’s opera, The Coronation of Poppea (1642), which stands out as a breathtaking and groundbreaking composition with a raft of soloists, a chorus, lots of orchestral music and dancing—a mid-17th-century foreshadowing of the tradition of romantic Grand Opera.
Yesterday we attended a live-by-satellite broadcast from the Metropolitan Opera of Hector Berlioz’s La Damnation de Faust. The revolutionary brainchild of Peter Gelb, general manager of the Met since 2006, these performances are broadcast to nearly 800 venues, including movie theaters and concert halls, exponentially expanding the Met’s paying audience. The audiences are treated not only to huge-format excellent-quality broadcasts of the great operas, complete with “see every hair” close-ups so well known from televised sports, but also to backstage tours and interviews that give a great sense of the bustle that goes on behind the scenes. You see grand stage-sweeping shots and intimate close-ups. When the on-stage lovers are embracing, noses five inches apart and singing at the top of their gargantuan voices, one wonders if there is any hearing left when the afternoon is over. (Makes me think of the cheek-flapping films from early G-force experiments.)
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) created the character of Doctor Faust, a melancholy aging scholar who is contemplating suicide until he hears church bells and an Easter celebration. As he changes his mind, he is approached by Satan (Mephistopheles), who undertakes to win his soul. After several twists and turns, Satan provides Faust with the vision of a lover who ironically kills her mother using Faust’s bottle of poison as a sleep aid, trying to keep the old woman out of the way so she could encounter Faust. In the original Faustian Deal, Dr. Faust signs a pact with the Devil committing his soul to the underworld in return for freeing his lover for ascension into heaven. (After all, it wasn’t her fault that Satan made her fall in love!)
Hector Berlioz (1803–1869) was a revolutionary composer. His skill and insight as an orchestrator was such that his treatise on orchestration is still used in formal musical educations. He was a pioneer of the use of huge musical forces, on several occasions conducting more than a thousand musicians in performance. Berlioz originally called La Damnation de Faust a “légende dramatique”—as such it has most frequently been performed as an oratorio, only gradually evolving into a recognized part of opera repertoire.
Berlioz’s score is fantastique, contributing to the evolution of the symphonique tone poem, his interest in the form having been piqued by such masterworks as Beethoven’s Sonata Pathetique. His orchestral technique is far ahead of its time. His sense of the dramatique is unique—the evil villain’s actions oblique, and the outlook for Faust’s soul is blique.
The evolution of stagecraft has been forever changed by electronics. The set for the Met’s production of Faust is a three-tiered skeleton on which the cast of characters carries on, and onto which virtual scenery is projected. The grid changes from a crucifixion scene to a bustling boozy inn to a stately mansion—from a creepy and spooky forest to the underworld and finally to heaven, all controlled by the proverbial flicking of switches. The concept is as revolutionary as the media. And I’ll tell you, watching such a progressive production in a quaint little tin-ceilinged second-story theater in a small town in Maine is surreal. Damnation and ascension complete, we walk out onto Main Street greeted by a wintery wind and the familiar sights and sounds of our little town. Revolution complete.
I think Hector Berlioz, whose imagination stunned the French public in the middle of the 19th century (200 years after the first performance of Coronation of Poppea), would have loved how the Metropolitan Opera, ostensibly but no longer that most stodgy of institutions, would present his music in such an imaginative and revolutionary way.
The other evolution of my week of revolutions was my second visit to the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. I have yet to hear the extraordinary, revolutionary Rosales/Glatter-Götz organ in a live performance, but I have now had two opportunities to be with the organ in the company of Manuel Rosales in an otherwise empty hall. The visual design is fanciful enough in photographs, more so when viewing the organ from the hall. But the most fanciful is standing amongst the curved 32-foot Violone pipes that comprise the essence of the unique design. It’s a little like looking in a curvy fun-house mirror—the familiar is lost, and you feel a little disoriented. After all, the façade pipes of most organs sit obediently on an impost above the fray. To get to the “tracker console” of the Disney organ, you walk between a forest of façade pipes. Their toes are on the stage floor around the console—wind coming from who-knows-where through the floor.
Looking at the façade from inside the organ is a little like getting a backstage glimpse at the Met—you can see the clever structure that supports the façade: each pipe is curved, each pipe faces in a different direction, and there’s no apparent order to them that can be derived from musical scales, tuning systems, or chest order, as with virtually every other organ with an architectural presence. So much for obedience. (Notice that I didn’t bother to mention symmetry!)
In one sense this mighty organ represents a logical evolutionary step. In the past couple decades we’ve celebrated the design and construction of quite a few tremendous new concert hall organs. Each one has design features that build on its predecessors. A terrific amount of work has been devoted to understanding how to move enough air through an organ to produce pleasing and musical tones that can take a listener from whisper to volcano. It’s a grand achievement for a pipe organ to “stand up to” a modern symphony orchestra, which is capable of bewildering volumes of sound. To achieve that with modest wind pressures and slider chests is especially impressive.
There’s nothing quite like the bass response of a symphony orchestra. No great conductor is willing to wait a nano-second for a bass note to develop. The bottom notes from the orchestra’s tuba, trombone, contrabassoon, cellos and basses, and timpani are in the listener’s ears right now. Having spent a lifetime working to make organs sound their best, I can remember myriad struggles with bass response. Think of that low note in the Pedal Bourdon that yodels a little around the second partial before it settles on its pitch, or the note in the Contra Bombarde that offers a half-second of pfffff before you hear a note. No way. The organs that play with modern orchestras have to perform with their orchestral neighbors. On the Disney organ it’s possible to draw a dozen or stops at 32- and 16-foot pitch and play staccato notes in the bottom octaves—surreal.
§
On the score of his massive Grande Messe des morts (Requiem), Berlioz notes, “The number [of performers] indicated is only relative. If space permits, the chorus may be doubled or tripled, and the orchestra be proportionally increased. But in the event of an exceptionally large chorus, say 700 to 800 voices, the entire chorus should only be used for the Dies Irae, the Tuba Mirum, and the Lacrymosa, the rest of the movements being restricted to 400 voices.”
The score calls for 4 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 English horns, 4 clarinets, 8 bassoons, 12 horns, 4 cornets and 4 tubas (in the orchestra), 4 brass choirs [Choir 1 to the north: 4 cornets, 4 trombones, 2 tubas; Choir 2 to the east: 4 trumpets, 4 trombones; Choir 3 to the west: 4 trumpets, 4 trombones; Choir 4 to the south: 4 trumpets, 4 trombones, 4 ophicleides (usually substituted by tubas)], a battery of percussionists, 16 timpani played by 10 timpanists, 2 bass drums, 4 tamtams, 10 pairs of cymbals, 25 first violins, 25 second violins, 20 violas, 20 violoncellos, 18 double basses, 80 women’s voices (divided between sopranos and altos), 60 tenors, 70 basses, and tenor soloist.
Alas, no organ. And he thought it would be a grand performance.
But the nearly equally ambitious (minus the four spatial brass choirs) Te Deum is scored for 4 flutes, 4 oboes (one doubling on cor anglais), 4 clarinets (one doubling on bass clarinet), 4 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 2 cornets, 6 trombones, 2 ophicleides/tubas, timpani, 4 tenor drums, bass drum, cymbals, tenor solo, 2 large 3-part (STB) mixed choirs, 1 large unison children’s choir, strings, and (yes, Virginia) organ.
I’d love to hear that piece performed in Disney Hall. Given available space, they’d probably have to settle for about 300 singers, but that’d do. In the hall’s spectacular acoustics I’m sure I’d be able to hear every “K”, every “T”—and while most vowels would be clear, I’m afraid barely “O’s.” (Sorry, Hector.)

Performance

Rockport, Maine, is a quiet, picturesque village nestled between the bustling towns of Rockland and Camden. It’s on the west shore of Penobscot Bay, which forms the east end of the region known as mid-coast Maine, and like the surrounding towns, Rockport is a combination of a working fishing harbor and home to many private pleasure boats. There are a couple of active boatbuilding workshops there, and dozens, if not hundreds, of moorings bedeck the enclosed harbor. The area is home to many high-end vacation residences, so there’s a strong market for good musical performances, and Rockport, with two excellent restaurants and a vintage opera house within a few doors of each other, is known for the many outstanding concerts presented each summer.

But not last Tuesday. After a terrific dinner, Wendy and I took our seats in the opera house for a concert presented by a string quartet that’s resident in the area, and we were immediately stricken by the backstage sounds of the cellist, feverishly practicing a narky passage that started with a very high note, followed by a dramatic downward flourish. He played it over and over, right through the concert’s starting time, never getting the high note quite right, and sounding more frantic with each repetition. It was a dreadful display.

Finally, the quartet took the stage. Their concert attire was sloppy, and their progress from stage door to their chairs was haphazard. They opened the program with a few lofty remarks about the piece they were about to play, and offered a lackluster reading. Though the printed program indicated that they would play two pieces before intermission, they left the stage after the first piece, and the cellist went right back to his nervous and ineffectual practicing, still never quite reaching that high note. The audience was left to wonder if this was the intermission. There were no cues offered by house lights and no announcement about alteration of the program. The quartet would be joined by a singer for the final two pieces, so I suppose it made sense to present them together without break, but the sequence was strange and unsettling, especially as it was accompanied by dozens more missed chances at that pesky high note. Dozens.

Once again, it was a relief when the anguish stopped and they took the stage. The singer was a young woman who grew up in the area and made good. She has performed in several major opera houses including the Metropolitan Opera in New York, and she knew how to dress appropriately. Her beautifully chosen dress and carefully coiffed hair was in stark contrast to the sloppy, uncoordinated garb heaped on the four chairs. The first piece they offered together was by Respighi, an erudite work with elusive structure, and none of them managed to pull out any sense of form. Finally, in Samuel Barber’s shimmering Dover Beach, the soprano got some traction and pulled the quartet toward meaningful playing. Inexplicably, the gullible audience gave them a standing ovation. Must have been the singer’s family. At least we had a wonderful dinner.

Rockport is 45 minutes from our place in Newcastle, and we had them in shreds by the time we got home. The quartet has been resident in the area for over 20 years, and they’re supported by a not-for-profit board that raises funds and organizes their concerts. Maybe things are a little too easy for them. Their performance lacked any sense of passion or commitment to the music.

The Salt Bay Chamberfest is an annual event in Damariscotta, Maine, which adjoins our town of Newcastle. The concerts are held in a barn owned by the Damariscotta River Association. It’s not a converted barn, it’s just a barn with wood walls and roof, cement floor, folding chairs, and a concession stand selling wine and cheese. Last summer, we heard a program that included three pieces by Kaija Saariaho: Nocturne, Cloud Trio, and Je sens un deuxième coeur. (Later in the year, her opera, L’amour de Loin, was premiered by the Metropolitan Opera, the first opera written by a woman to be presented there in more than a century.)

That concert ended with Arnold Schoenberg’s mystical Verklärte Nacht for string sextet, with Alan Gilbert, then music director of the New York Philharmonic, playing viola. Those musicians were used to performing in central formal venues, but they gave the same level of energy and commitment to their performance in the barn. It was rich and rewarding.

§

I’ve long admired The Bobs, an a cappella vocal quartet formed in 1981 and now preparing their farewell tour. They write their own material in a rapid-fire hipster style, and they sing brilliantly in close harmony. I heard them live in a concert at Harvard University’s Sanders Theater, a thousand-seat venue in Memorial Hall, just up the street from the museum formerly known as the Busch-Reisinger, home of E. Power Biggs’s iconic Flentrop organ. As we left the room after the concert, I was exhausted and assumed that most people present felt the same way. I reflected that those four performers spent enough energy to wear out the entire audience.

Just what is performance? Of course, performance is an artist presenting before an audience. Performers are actors, musicians, dancers, comedians, and various combinations of all those elements. But there’s more to it than sitting at an instrument, playing pieces of music. And, for the audience, the performance is more than simply sitting in a chair and listening.

There’s some kind of deal, some kind of relationship set up between performer and audience. Perhaps it’s tension—the audience is expectant and the performer intends to sate them. Perhaps it’s trust—the audience relies on the performer to present the music freely and accurately. Perhaps it’s risk—the performer interprets familiar passages in new ways, causing the audience to sit on the edge of their seats. And perhaps it’s the baring of soul—the performer exposes his inner person to the audience, willing to share his private thoughts from the stage.

Some years ago, Wendy and I saw Tony Kushner’s play Homebody/Kabul at the Trinity Repertory Theater. One scene involved a male character, a diplomat in a position of power, who offered to provide the woman the visa she sought in return for sex. There was a struggle of wills until the actress tore off her blouse and, naked from the waist up, consented to the humiliation. That act took my breath away as an expression of a performer, baring herself both literally and figuratively. Her nakedness was metaphorical, a shout of anger at the ugly behavior of the diplomat. Her ability and willingness to do that in anger, apparently spontaneously, was one of the most eloquent instants in any performance I have witnessed.

Oh yes, I hear you sniggering out there. Of course he would never forget that. But how many of us have had performance anxiety dreams in which we are sitting at the organ in front of a room full of people and realize in horror that we are naked? Given the number of times I’ve heard friends and colleagues relate similar dreams, I’ll answer my own question. Lots of us. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist or a psychiatrist to realize that those images are related to the requirement and expectation that when we perform, we are baring our souls and our artistic psyches before our audiences. Are we ready for that?

One concept of performance, often repeated, is that the performer is a vessel through which the music passes. An iconic painting hangs on a wall, open to the enjoyment and interpretation of the viewer. There is no need for a middleman between the artist and the consumer. The greatness of a composer is nothing but squiggles on a page until an artist brings them to life. And in my experience, the best performers and the most exciting performances happen when the artist-as-vessel is a conveyor of energy. Not only do the squiggles become organized sound, but they become energized, dancing, flitting, or tearing across the room. The artist transforms the squiggles into force, and topknots are uprooted.

That’s the sign of a great actress, who seems to be a completely different person in every role she plays. Think of the great Maggie Smith as the imperious, scathing Dowager Countess in Downton Abbey, and compare that to the homeless Mary Shepherd in The Lady in the Van. You Downton Abbey fans, if you haven’t met Mary Shepherd, you must.

Bigger than yourself

Sometimes, the artist-as-vessel gets carried away and grows bigger than the music. Physical histrionics are purposefully created, supposedly adding to the artistic experience. The unvarying result is the opposite. The music takes a back seat to the performer, and the audience is the poorer. It’s as if you’re watching a gymnastics meet rather than an artistic performance. I don’t mind an occasional flourish, or a toss of the head at the end of an exciting passage, but I dislike unnecessary movement that seems theatrically planned.

Le Poisson Rouge is a trendy performance venue on Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village. It’s downstairs (one can only imagine what would happen if there was a fire), and you sit at tables where you can order (pretty good) food and (very good) drinks. It’s within walking distance of our apartment, and we’ve heard quite a few wonderful performances there. But there was this duo-piano concert, two sisters who were personifications of the too-flashy, too-theatrical musician. The first chord made me cringe: the pianos were not in tune with each other. Wendy put her hand on my elbow, and hissed, “Behave.” She was right. I consoled myself by scrawling commentary on the program throughout their performance. The two pianists spent the evening tossing their hair, throwing their hands in the air, and making what their coaches must have thought were alluring facial expressions. We often talk about that performance in social settings, and we invariably call them “The Kissy Sisters.”

In professional football, a team is penalized when a player displays histrionics. It’s officially called “excessive celebration.” What if you had a button on the armrest of your concert hall seat that allowed you to vote? Artists whose first and last names are the same would be banned from the field.

Distraction

Did I mention that the pianos were not in tune with each other? Those who present concerts must accept the responsibility to create a suitable setting for performers and listeners. There were several hundred of us in that room, in fifty-dollar seats with twenty-dollar drinks. Don’t tell me that there wasn’t money to hire a piano tuner. There were two lovely Steinway “B’s” on the stage—at least they brought in good instruments. But had the pianos been in good tune, it might have taken me two or even three measures to dislike the performance.

During performances at Carnegie Hall in New York, there are huge glass snifters full of Ricola™ lozenges placed throughout the lobbies and corridors, a nice touch of consideration for all concert-goers. I remember hearing a radio story years ago about the London Symphony introducing “Silent Sweets,” little hard candies wrapped in paper specially designed to be quiet when opening.

Coughing and rustling candy wrappers are small fry when compared to cell phones. We’re all used to the public announcements before performances, reminding audiences to silence their cell phones. Look across the audience of a big formal concert and guess how many cell phones are in the room. Out of 2,500 people, I bet there are fewer than a hundred who don’t have phones with them.

On Thursday, January 12, 2012, The New York Times reported: 

They were baying for blood in the usually polite precincts of Avery Fisher Hall. The unmistakenly jarring sound of an iPhone marimba ring interrupted the soft and spiritual final measures of Mahler’s Symphony No. 9 at the New York Philharmonic on Tuesday night. The conductor, Alan Gilbert, did something almost unheard-of in a concert hall: He stopped the performance. But the ringing kept going on, prompting increasingly angry shouts in the audience directed at the malefactor. 

You can read the story at http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/13/nyregion/ringing-finally-stopped-but-….

Coughing, crying babies, cell phones, and late arrivals are all intrusions into the relationship between performer and audience. Some are unavoidable. There are times when you just can’t help coughing. But thoughtful audience members must do their best to preserve the full experience for those around them. There’s a lot to be said for bringing children to concerts, but there’s a continuum between the child’s gain and the collective loss of hundreds of listeners whose experience was marred. Cell phones? No excuse. But the poor guy whose phone spoiled the New York Philharmonic’s concert had a plausible explanation. The New York Times reported that his company had replaced his Blackberry with an iPhone that day. He thought he had silenced it at the start of the concert, but didn’t realize that the alarm was set.

The consummate performer

We all have memories of spectacular live performances. Organist Stephen Tharp played the closing concert of the 2014 convention of the American Guild of Organists. Boston’s 3,000-seat First Church of Christ, Scientist (The Mother Church) was filled to capacity with what must be the most critical audience an organist can face, and Tharp let loose with a performance that was dazzling both technically and artistically. His reading of his own transcription of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring took the audience places they’d never been. In the three years since, I’ve discussed that concert with dozens of others who were there, most recently last night. And while you’d think that the wide world could dredge up one fussbudget who would criticize, I’ve never heard it. The concept of organ concerts changed that night, and everyone present knew it.

Another instance displaying the consummate performer was the Portuguese pianist Maria João Pires’s experience with the Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra in 1999. She was engaged to play a Mozart concerto, checked which one by referring to the orchestra’s published schedule, and prepared the piece. Not a good source, apparently. Amazingly, the first reading with the orchestra was during an open rehearsal in front of an audience. Conductor Riccardo Chailly began Mozart’s Concerto No. 20 in D Minor. Pires gave a shocked look, buried her face in her palm, then told Chailly that there was a problem. As the orchestra played, he turned to her and said something like, “You played it last year. You’ll be fine.” And she was. By the time the orchestra’s introduction was over, she had pulled herself together, dredged her memory for the correct piece, and played it flawlessly. You can see a video of that incredible moment at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fS64pb0XnbI.

I doubt that I fully understand the physiology that makes some people able to perform. How can a major league pitcher throw a strike in a tense situation when millions of people are watching? How can an actress toss aside all modesty to be someone else in front of an audience? How can a musician maintain control of her body to perform such intricate motions in front of thousands? What drives people to do that? What expansiveness of spirit is necessary? What generosity? What intense concentration?

I may not understand it, but I sure am grateful for every opportunity I’ve had to hear someone play beautifully. All of us who perform at any level need to witness others doing it as often as possible.

James Lewis is an organist, organ historian and commercial photographer. He has researched the organs of California for over 35 years and has published articles on the subject in several periodicals. This article is a small section of a much larger text of a forthcoming book from the Organ Historical Society.

Introduction
Los Angeles is home today to many wonderful organs. During the early twentieth century, pipe organs were constructed for spaces beyond the typical church, theater, or university setting. This article traces the histories of over a dozen pipe organs in private homes, social clubs, school and church auditoriums, and even a home furnishings store. It provides a glimpse of organbuilding—and life—in a more glamorous, pre-Depression age.

Temple Baptist Church
Come back in time to the spring of 1906, where we find the Temple Baptist Church of Los Angeles readying their new building for opening. Although the new complex was financed by a religious organization, it was not designed as a traditional church building. Architect Charles Whittlesey produced plans that included a 2700-seat theater auditorium with a full working stage, two smaller halls, and a nine-story office block, providing the burgeoning city with a venue for various entertainments and civic events, and Temple Church with facilities for church activities. Even though the official name of the building was Temple Auditorium, it was also known over the years as Clune’s Theatre and Philharmonic Auditorium. In addition to church services, the Auditorium was used for concerts, public meetings, ballet, silent motion pictures, and beginning in 1921, the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra and the Light Opera Association.
It was the first steel-reinforced poured concrete structure in Los Angeles. The auditorium had five narrow balconies and was decorated in a simplified Art Nouveau-style influenced by Louis Sullivan’s Auditorium in Chicago. Color and gold leaf were liberally used, and the concentric rings of the ceiling over the orchestra section were covered with Sullivanesque ornamentation and studded with electric lights. Concealed behind this area, on either side of the stage, was the organ.
The Auditorium Company ordered a large four-manual organ (Opus 156) from the Austin Organ Company of Hartford, Connecticut. Similar to the auditorium itself, the instrument was used more for secular occasions than for church services. It was the first large, modern organ in Los Angeles and contained such innovations as second touch, high wind pressures, an array of orchestral voices, and an all-electric, movable console with adjustable combination action.
The instrument had a partially enclosed Great division, with a large selection of 8′ stops that included four 8′ Open Diapasons. Second touch was available on the Swell keyboard through a Great to Swell coupler. The Choir division was labeled Orchestral and contained a variety of soft string and flute stops along with three orchestral reeds. The Solo division was on 25″ wind pressure and unenclosed except for the Harmonic Tuba, unified to play at 16′, 8′ and 4′ pitches. 25″ wind pressure was also used in the Pedal division for the Magnaton stop, playable at 32′ and 16′. An article about the Auditorium in the Architectural Record magazine stated “the roof is reinforced with steel so that the tones of the large organ will not cause any structural damage.”1 A mighty organ, indeed!
The four-manual console was located in the orchestra pit and movable within a range of 50 feet. Its design was influenced by the early consoles of Robert Hope-Jones and featured two rows of stop keys placed above the top keyboard, a style affectionately known as a “toothbrush console,” because to an active imagination the two rows of stop keys looked like the rows of bristles on a toothbrush.
In 1912, Dr. Ray Hastings (1880–1940) was appointed house organist, and he played for church services, silent motion pictures, radio broadcasts, public recitals, and with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra.2
Temple Auditorium and its mighty Austin organ served Los Angeles for many years, but by the 1950s the place was beginning to look a bit tired. Sometime after World War II, the interior was painted a ghastly shade of green, covering up all the color and gold of the original decorative scheme. In 1965 the Philharmonic Orchestra and Light Opera both moved to the new Los Angeles Music Center and the Auditorium never again operated as a theater.
The organ began to develop serious wind leaks, and the 25″-wind-pressure Solo division and Pedal Magnaton were finally disconnected. A supply-house console replaced the original Austin console in the 1960s and was moved out of the orchestra pit to the stage.
Sunday morning services of Temple Baptist Church became sparsely attended as people moved out of Los Angeles to the new suburbs. There did not seem to be any use for the old Auditorium, and the complex finally succumbed to the wrecker’s ball in 1985. The pipework from the Austin organ was sold off piecemeal and the chests were left in the chambers to come down with the demolition of the building. What began as Los Angeles’s first, modern organ of the 20th-century came to an ignominious end.

Temple Auditorium, Los Angeles
Austin Organ Company, 1906, Opus 156

GREAT
(unenclosed)
16′ Major Diapason
16′ Contra Dulciana
8′ First Diapason
8′ Second Diapason
8′ Third Diapason
8′ Gross Flute
8′ Claribel Flute
4′ Octave
4′ Hohl Flute
3′ Twelfth
2′ Fifteenth
(enclosed)
8′ Horn Diapason
8′ Violoncello
8′ Viol d’Amour
8′ Doppel Flute
4′ Fugara
III Mixture
16′ Double Trumpet
8′ Trumpet
4′ Clarion

SWELL
16′ Gross Gamba
8′ Diapason Phonon
8′ Violin Diapason
8′ Gemshorn
8′ Echo Viole
8′ Vox Angelica
8′ Gemshorn
8′ Rohr Flute
8′ Flauto Dolce
8′ Unda Maris
8′ Quintadena
4′ Principal
4′ Harmonic Flute
2′ Flageolet
III Dolce Cornet
16′ Contra Posaune
8′ Cornopean
8′ Oboe
8′ Vox Humana
Tremolo
Vox Humana Tremolo

ORCHESTRAL
16′ Contra Viole
8′ Geigen Principal
8′ Viole d’Orchestre
8′ Viole Celeste
8′ Vox Seraphique
8′ Concert Flute
8′ Lieblich Gedackt
4′ Violina
4′ Flauto Traverso
2′ Piccolo Harmonique
16′ Double Oboe Horn
8′ Clarinet
8′ Cor Anglais
Tremolo

SOLO
8′ Grand Diapason
8′ Flauto Major
8′ Gross Gamba
4′ Gambette
4′ Flute Ouverte
2′ Super Octave
8′ Orchestral Oboe
8′ Saxophone (synthetic)
16′ Tuba Profunda
8′ Harmonic Tuba (ext)
4′ Clarion (ext)

PEDAL
32′ Contra Magnaton
32′ Resultant
16′ Magnaton
16′ Major Diapason
16′ Small Diapason (Gt)
16′ Violone
16′ Bourdon
16′ Dulciana (Gt)
16′ Contra Viole (Orch)
8′ Gross Flute
8′ ‘Cello
8′ Flauto Dolce
4′ Super Octave
16′ Tuba Profunda (Solo)
8′ Tuba (Solo)

Swell Sub
Swell Octave
Orchestral Sub
Orchestral Octave
Solo Sub
Solo Super
Swell to Pedal
Swell to Pedal Octave
Great to Pedal
Orchestral to Pedal
Solo to Pedal
Swell to Great Sub
Swell to Great Unison
Swell to Great Octave
Orchestral to Great Sub
Orchestral to Great Unison
Solo to Great Unison
Solo to Great Octave
Great to Swell Unison Second Touch
Swell to Orchestral Sub
Swell to Orchestral Unison
Swell to Orchestral Octave
Solo to Orchestral Unison

Tally’s Broadway Theatre
Eight years after the Temple Auditorium organ was installed, Tally’s Broadway Theatre took delivery on a four-manual organ advertised as “The World’s Finest Theatre Pipe Organ.” The 47-rank organ had been ordered early in 1913 from the Los Angeles builder Murray M. Harris, but by the time it was installed in 1914 the name of the firm had been changed to the Johnston Organ Company and the factory moved to the nearby suburb of Van Nuys.
Tally’s instrument must have been the original “surround sound,” as most of the pipework was installed in shallow chambers extending down both sides of the rectangular-shaped auditorium. The Choir division was on the stage and had its own façade, while the Echo was behind a grille at one side of the stage. Positioned on a lift in the orchestra pit, the four-manual drawknob console was equipped with a roll player.
This was not the sort of theatre organ that would come into prominence during the 1920s, a highly unified instrument full of color stops all blended together by numerous tremolos. Tally’s organ was not that much different from a Murray M. Harris church organ, except for the saucer bells and a lack of upperwork.
Installation was still underway when it came time for the opening concert, but since the show must go on, the event took place. A reviewer wrote “while the unfinished and badly out of tune instrument, under the skillful manipulation of an excellent performer, did give pleasure to a large portion of the big audience, nevertheless it was an unfinished and badly out of tune instrument and as such it could not favorably impress the ear of the critic.”3
Charles Demorest, a former student of Harrison Wild in Chicago, who played at Tally’s, was also the organist at the Third Church of Christ, Scientist, and gave Monday afternoon recitals on the organ in Hamburger’s department store. In the May, 1914 edition of The Pacific Coast Musician it was mentioned that “Charles Demorest is doing much to uphold good music for the motion picture theatres by the quality of his organ work at Tally’s Broadway Theatre, Los Angeles, where he has a concert organ of immense resources at his command. This instrument is a four-manual organ equipped with chimes, saucer bells, concert harp and echo organ. Mr. Demorest plays a special program every Wednesday afternoon at four o’clock where an orchestra and soloists further contribute to the excellence at the Tally Theatre.”4
In the mid-1920s, the May Company department store next door to Tally’s was doing a booming business and needed larger quarters. Negotiations with Tally led to the theater being purchased and torn down to make way for a greatly expanded May Company building. The organ was crated up and moved to Mr. Tally’s Glen Ranch, where it was stored in a barn. It was eventually ruined by water damage when the roof leaked.

Tally’s Broadway Theatre
Johnston Organ Company, 1914

GREAT
16′ Double Open Diapason
8′ First Open Diapason
8′ Second Open Diapason
8′ Viola
8′ Viol d’Amour
8′ Tibia Clausa
8′ Clarabella
4′ Octave
4′ Wald Flute
8′ Trumpet
Cathedral Chimes
Concert Harp
Saucer Bells

SWELL
16′ Bourdon
8′ Open Diapason
8′ Violin Diapason
8′ Violin
8′ Voix Celeste
8′ Aeoline
8′ Stopped Flute
4′ Harmonic Flute
2′ Harmonic Piccolo
16′ Contra Fagotto
8′ Horn
8′ Oboe
8′ Vox Humana

CHOIR
16′ Double Dulciana
8′ Geigen Principal
8′ Dulciana
8′ Lieblich Gedackt
8′ Quintadena
4′ Dulcet
8′ Clarinet

SOLO
8′ Diapason Phonon
8′ Harmonic Flute
8′ Tibia Plena
8′ Harmonic Tuba
8′ Orchestral Oboe

ECHO
8′ Flauto Dolce
8′ Unda Maris
8′ Concert Flute
8′ Orchestral Viol
4′ Flute d’Amour
8′ Vox Mystica

PEDAL
32′ Acoustic Bass
16′ Open Diapason
16′ Bourdon
16′ Contra Basso (Gt)
16′ Dulciana (Ch)
16′ Lieblich Gedackt (Sw)
8′ Violoncello
8′ Gross Flute
8′ Flute
16′ Trombone

Swell Tremolo
Choir Tremolo
Solo Tremolo
Echo Tremolo

Trinity Auditorium
In 1914, inspired perhaps by the success of Temple Auditorium, Trinity Southern Methodist Church opened their new Trinity Auditorium, a large Beaux Arts structure on South Grand Avenue containing a multi-use 1500-seat auditorium and a nine-story hotel with rooftop ballroom.
An organ was ordered from the Murray M. Harris Company, but just like the Tally’s Theatre organ, it was installed under the name of the Johnston Organ Company. The organ was a four-manual instrument of 63 ranks situated above the stage floor, but within the proscenium arch, with an Echo division in the dome at the center of the room. The drawknob console was at one side of the orchestra pit.
The tonal design was typical of a large, late Murray Harris organ, boasting an assortment of 8′ stops and big chorus reeds on both the Great and Solo, but without the usual Great mixture. The Tibias, Diapason Phonon in the Swell and the slim-scale strings of the Solo division, stops not normally found on Harris organs, show the influence of Stanley Williams, the firm’s voicer since 1911, who had worked with Hope-Jones in England.
Arthur Blakeley was house organist and played for church services, silent motion pictures, weekly public recitals and with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, who used the building from 1918 to 1921. It was noted that by May 1915, Blakeley had provided music for 108 performances of a film entitled “Cabiria” and played over one hundred different compositions in his weekly recitals, ranging from works by Bach, Handel and Wagner to Reubke’s Sonata on the 94th Psalm.5
There was one area in which Trinity Auditorium failed to emulate Temple Auditorium—financing. To construct the auditorium and hotel complex the church secured such a heavy mortgage that one newspaper account claimed it was financed clear into the 21st century. A few years after it opened, Trinity Auditorium was taken over by a management company that continued to operate it as a public venue, and the church moved to humbler quarters.
Trinity Auditorium was a popular place for meetings of the local AGO chapter, and among the artists heard there were Pietro Yon, Charles Courboin, and Clarence Eddy. The organ continued to be used for films, concerts and later on, radio broadcasts, but by the 1940s it had become a liability. To save the expense of upkeep on an instrument that by then was only occasionally used and to secure more space on the stage, the organ was removed and broken up for parts.

Trinity Auditorium
Johnston Organ Company, 1914

GREAT
16′ Double Open Diapason
8′ First Open Diapason
8′ Second Open Diapason
8′ Viola di Gamba
8′ Viol d’Amour
8′ Tibia Clausa
8′ Doppel Floete
4′ Octave
4′ Harmonic Flute
22⁄3′ Octave Quint
2′ Super Octave
16′ Double Trumpet
8′ Trumpet
4′ Clarion
Cathedral Chimes

SWELL
16′ Lieblich Bourdon
8′ Diapason Phonon
8′ Violin Diapason
8′ Salicional
8′ Aeoline
8′ Vox Celeste
8′ Lieblich Gedackt
8′ Clarabella
4′ Principal
4′ Lieblich Floete
4′ Violina
2′ Harmonic Piccolo
IV Dolce Cornet
16′ Contra Fagotto
8′ Cornopean
8′ Oboe
Tremolo

CHOIR
16′ Double Dulciana
8′ Geigen Principal
8′ Dulciana
8′ Quintadena
8′ Melodia
4′ Wald Floete
4′ Dulcet
8′ Clarinet
Tremolo
Concert Harp

SOLO
8′ Gross Gamba
8′ Tibia Plena
8′ Harmonic Flute
8′ Viole d’Orchestre
8′ Viole Celeste
16′ Ophicleide
8′ Tuba
4′ Tuba Clarion

ECHO
16′ Echo Bourdon
8′ Echo Diapason
8′ Viol Etheria
8′ Unda Maris
8′ Concert Flute
4′ Flauto Traverso
8′ Vox Humana
Tremolo
Concert Harp (Ch)

PEDAL
32′ Double Open Diapason
32′ Resultant
16′ Open Diapason
16′ Violone
16′ Tibia Profundo
16′ Bourdon
16′ Lieblich Gedackt (Sw)
16′ Dulciana (Ch)
16′ Echo Bourdon (Echo)
8′ Octave
8′ Violoncello
8′ Flute
16′ Trombone
16′ Ophicleide (Solo)
8′ Tuba (Solo)

University of Southern California
In 1920, the University of Southern California placed an order for a large concert organ to be built by the Robert-Morton Organ Company and installed in the new Bovard Auditorium on the USC campus. Under a headline reading “Organ Attracts,” the Los Angeles Times told that “a great increase of interest is being manifested by the faculty and student body of the organ department, USC, since the announcement was recently made that the new organ, one of the largest in the southwest, is soon to be installed in the auditorium of that institution. The instrument will be provided with eighty stops and 500 pipes.”6 Well, perhaps a few more than 500!
Bovard is a large auditorium graced with a dollop of Gothic tracery, originally seating 2,100 on the main floor and in two balconies. The Robert-Morton organ, the largest instrument built by the firm, was located in concrete chambers on either side of the stage and completely enclosed, except for the 16′ Pedal Bourdon. It was not an ideal installation, as the Swell and Choir divisions were placed so they spoke onto the stage area and the Great and Solo were located in the auditorium proper. For organ recitals, the stage curtains had to be open so the audience could hear the entire instrument.
By 1920, the builder no longer made drawknob consoles, so the Bovard organ was supplied with a four-manual horseshoe console. It was placed in the orchestra pit and had color-coded stop keys; diapasons were white, flutes blue, strings amber, reeds red, and the couplers were short-length black stop keys placed over the top keyboard.7
The organ had two enormous 32′ stops. When the instrument was completed at the Van Nuys factory, low C of the 32′ Bombarde was assembled outside the main building and supplied with air so that its sound could be demonstrated for the local residents.
In June of 1921, the organ was dedicated in two recitals given by the British virtuoso Edwin Lemare. It was a well-used instrument in its day, providing music for university events, concerts, commencement exercises, and it served as the major practice and recital organ for many USC organ students.
By the mid-1970s the organ had fallen out of favor and some of the pipework was vandalized by students, causing the instrument to become unplayable. It was finally removed from the auditorium in 1978, and the undamaged pipework was sold for use in other organs.

University of Southern California
Robert-Morton Organ Company, 1921

GREAT
16′ Double Open Diapason
8′ First Open Diapason
8′ Second Open Diapason
8′ Third Open Diapason
8′ Viola
8′ Erzahler
8′ Doppel Flute
8′ Melodia
4′ Octave
4′ Wald Floete
2′ Flageolet
V Mixture
16′ Double Trumpet
8′ Trumpet
4′ Clarion

SWELL
16′ Bourdon
8′ Open Diapason
8′ Horn Diapason
8′ Salicional
8′ Celeste
8′ Aeoline
8′ Viol d’Orchestre
8′ Viol Celeste
8′ Stopped Diapason
8′ Clarabella
8′ Gemshorn
4′ Violin
4′ Harmonic Flute
2′ Piccolo
III Cornet
16′ Contra Fagotto
8′ Cornopean
8′ Flugel Horn
8′ Oboe
8′ Vox Humana
4′ Clarion
Tremolo

CHOIR
16′ Contra Viole
8′ Geigen Principal
8′ Dulciana
8′ Quintadena
8′ Concert Flute
8′ Flute Celeste
4′ Flute
22⁄3′ Nazard
2′ Piccolo

SOLO
8′ Stentorphone
8′ Gross Flute
8′ Gamba
8′ Gamba Celeste
8′ French Horn
8′ English Horn
8′ Saxophone
8′ Clarinet
8′ Orchestral Oboe
8′ Tuba
Harp
Chimes

ECHO
8′ Cor de Nuit
8′ Muted Viole
8′ Viole Celeste
4′ Zauberfloete
8′ Vox Humana
Tremolo

PEDAL
32′ Double Open Diapason
32′ Resultant
16′ Open Diapason
16′ Bourdon
16′ Violone (Gt)
16′ Lieblich Bourdon (Sw)
16′ Contra Viole (Ch)
16′ Echo Bourdon
8′ Principal
8′ Flute
8′ Cello
8′ Dulciana
4′ Flute
Compensating Mixture
32′ Bombarde
16′ Trombone
16′ Fagotto (Sw)
8′ Trumpet

Grauman’s Metropolitan Theatre
When Grauman’s Metropolitan Theatre was constructed at Sixth and Hill Streets in 1923, Tally’s Broadway Theatre must have looked rather dowdy in comparison. The Metropolitan, a monumental piece of architecture, was and remained the largest theater in Los Angeles and had a four-manual, 36-rank Wurlitzer Hope-Jones Unit Orchestra, Opus #543. This was the largest organ built by Wurlitzer at the time, beating out the celebrated Denver Auditorium organ by one rank. The 36 ranks of pipes were divided between two sections of the theater: 24 ranks in chambers located over the proscenium arch and 12 ranks in the Echo division at the rear of the balcony. Albert Hay Malotte, Gaylord Carter and Alexander Schreiner were Metropolitan organists at various times, accompanying films and presenting organ solos enhanced by lighting subtly changing color to match the mood of the music.
James Nuttall, who installed the organ, escorted a writer for the Los Angeles Times through the newly installed instrument and provided a description of its resources:
The tonal chambers, or swell boxes as they are technically termed, each measure 20 feet long and 11 feet wide, and are arranged above the proscenium arch. They are constructed in such a manner that they are practically sound proof, being built of nonporous inert material, with the interior finished in hard plaster. The front wall of each chamber facing the auditorium is left open and into this opening is fitted a mechanism built in the form of a large laminated Venetian blind. The opening and closing of the shutters in this Venetian blind produce unlimited dynamic tonal expression from the softest whisper to an almost overwhelming volume.
In the basement of the theatre is the blowing apparatus consisting of two Kinetic blowers connected directly to a twenty-five horsepower motor. Each of the blowers is capable of supplying 2500 cubic feet compressed air per minute. The compressed air is used to work the electro-pneumatic actions as well as to supply the various tone producers.
There are four manuals on the console, and the pedal board on which the bass notes are played with the feet. The stop keys number 236 and these are arranged above the keyboards on three tiers and are divided into departments of independent organs. The lowest manual is the accompaniment organ, the middle keyboard is the great organ and is so arranged so the echo organ may be played from this manual. The third manual is a bombarde organ and the top one is the solo organ.8

Although the advent of sound motion pictures silenced many of the organs in Los Angeles theaters, the Metropolitan organ was in use much longer due to the continuation of live stage shows well into the 1950s. In 1960 the theater was closed and by 1961 it had been demolished and the organ broken up for parts.

Poly-Technic High School
Poly-Technic High School was one of several high schools in the Los Angeles area to have a pipe organ. For their new auditorium, completed in 1924, the school ordered a four-manual organ from the Estey Organ Company. Decorated in the Spanish Renaissance style, the auditorium seated 1,800 and had a full working stage. The organ was installed in chambers located on either side of the proscenium, with the console in the orchestra pit.
The instrument had an automatic roll player in a separate cabinet and a console with Estey’s recent invention, the “luminous piston stop control.” These were lighted buttons placed in rows above the top manual of the console. When pushed, the button lit up signifying that that particular stop was on. Another push turned the stop off. This system presented all sorts of problems; it was inconvenient to use, the “luminous piston” was difficult to see under bright lights, it could give an organist a very nasty shock, and some organists could not resist spelling out naughty words with the lights.
The organ had a clear, pleasant sound in the auditorium’s good acoustics due possibly to Estey’s local representative Charles McQuigg, a former voicer of the Murray M. Harris Company, who installed and finished the instrument. Crowning the full organ was a reedless Tuba Mirabilis voiced on 15″ wind pressure, an invention of William Haskell of the Estey Company. The pipes looked like an open wood flute, but sounded like a stringy Horn Diapason. It was a rather convincing sound, until one knew the secret.
Classes in organ instruction were offered at Poly High, the instrument was used for recitals and public events held in the auditorium, and the roll player was used to play transcriptions of orchestral works for music education classes.
The organ eventually fell silent due to lack of use, lack of maintenance, and problems with the luminous pistons. When the auditorium was refurbished in 1979, the organ was removed so that the chamber openings could be used for stage lighting trees. It was sold, put into storage, and eventually broken up for parts.

Poly-Technic High School
Estey Organ Company, 1924, Opus 2225

GREAT
8′ Open Diapason I
8′ Open Diapason II
8′ Dulciana
8′ Gemshorn
8′ Gross Flute
8′ Melodia
4′ Flute Harmonic
8′ Tuba
Harp

SWELL
16′ Bourdon
8′ Open Diapason
8′ Salicional
8′ Viole d’Orchestre
8′ Viole Celeste
8′ Stopped Diapason
4′ Flauto Traverso
8′ Oboe (reedless)
8′ Cornopean
8′ Vox Humana
Tremolo
Chimes

CHOIR
8′ Violin Diapason
8′ Viol d’Amour
8′ Clarabella
8′ Unda Maris
4′ Flute d’Amour
8′ Clarinet (reedless)
Tremolo

SOLO
8′ Stentorphone
8′ Gross Gamba
8′ First Violins III
8′ Concert Flute
4′ Wald Flute
2′ Piccolo
8′ Orchestral Oboe
8′ Tuba Mirabilis (reedless)

PEDAL
32′ Resultant
16′ Open Diapason
16′ Bourdon
16′ Lieblich Gedackt (Sw)
8′ Bass Flute
8′ Tuba Mirabilis (Solo)

The Uplifter’s Club
One of a number of organs installed in Los Angeles’s private clubs was this instrument built by the Skinner Organ Company in 1924 for the Uplifter’s Club. Located in the remote Santa Monica Canyon section of Los Angeles, the club was formed in 1913 as a splinter group of the Los Angeles Athletic Club by a number of wealthy members, for “high jinx.”9 Recreational facilities were constructed in the canyon and some members built cabins and cottages to use for weekend retreats.
In 1923 construction on a large clubhouse began and in 1924 the three-manual Skinner organ was installed. The instrument was a large residence-style organ with many duplexed stops and a roll player mechanism. The organ provided music for the relaxation of members, music for skits and plays, and occasionally a local organist was invited in to play a recital of light selections.
During World War II the club began selling off its holdings, and by 1947, it had disbanded. The organ was sold to the First Methodist Church of Glendale, where it was treated to a number of indignities to make the instrument more suitable for church use, the result being at great odds with the original intent of the organ.

The Uplifter’s Club
Skinner Organ Company, 1924, Opus 449

MANUAL I
8′ Diapason
8′ Chimney Flute
8′ Gedackt
8′ Violoncello
8′ Voix Celestes II rks
8′ Flute Celestes II rks
4′ Orchestral Flute
4′ Unda Maris II rks
8′ Vox Humana
8′ French Horn
8′ Tuba
Tremolo
Harp
Celesta
Chimes
Kettle Drums

MANUAL II
8′ Chimney Flute
8′ Violoncello
4′ Orchestral Flute
8′ Corno d’Amore
8′ English Horn
8′ Vox Humana
8′ French Horn
8′ Tuba
Tremolo
Chimes
Kettle Drums

MANUAL III
8′ Diapason
8′ Voix Celestes II rks
8′ Flute Celestes II rks
8′ Gedackt
4′ Unda Maris II rks
Tremolo
Harp
Celesta
Piano (prepared)

PEDAL
16′ Bourdon
16′ Echo Lieblich
16′ Gedackt
8′ Still Gedackt
16′ Trombone (Tuba)

The Elks Club
Located just off the fashionable Wilshire Corridor facing Westlake Park was the Elks Club, a 12-story building constructed in 1926 to contain a lodge hall, dining rooms, lounges, swimming pool, tennis and racquetball courts, a full gymnasium, and residential facilities for members. Entering the building, one encountered a monumental reception hall some 50 feet in height, with a vaulted ceiling painted with scenes from mythology. A wide staircase rose dramatically to the Memorial Room that functioned as a lobby for the lodge room.
On the front page of the Van Nuys News for November 18, 1924 was an article announcing “H. P. Platt, manager of the Robert-Morton Organ Company, announces that his concern has been awarded a contract for constructing a huge pipe organ to be placed in the new Elks Temple of Los Angeles. Specifications for the huge organ will make it the largest unified orchestra pipe organ in the United States. The contract price was said to be $50,000.”
“Unified orchestra pipe organ” is probably the best description for the four-manual, 60-rank organ that the Robert-Morton firm installed in the Elks Club in 1926. The stops are divided into Great, Swell, Choir, Solo and Pedal divisions, but the contents of each are not what one would expect in either a concert or theatre organ.
The main organ is in four chambers, one in each corner of the lodge room, with Echo and Antiphonal divisions speaking through openings centered over the entrance doors. These two divisions were heard in either the lodge room or the Memorial Room by means of dual expression shades. A two-manual console in the Memorial Room played the Echo/Antiphonal divisions so an organist could entertain lodge members lingering in the Memorial area before a meeting without the sound penetrating into the lodge room.
Currently, the instrument is unplayable. The two-manual console has been disconnected and although the four-manual console remains in position, over half of the ivories are missing. Workmen stomping through the pipe chambers on various occasions have trod on many of the smaller pipes, a few sets are missing, and water leaks have damaged other portions of the organ.
Stepping back in time to happier days, we can read about the organ when it was the talk of organ-playing Los Angeles. In December, 1925, a Los Angeles newspaper reported “the new $50,000 organ for the Elk’s great temple will be given its official test before officers of the Elk’s Building Association tomorrow evening. The test recital will be at the plant of the Robert-Morton Organ Company, builders of the instrument. For the benefit of members of the lodge and the public, the recital will be broadcast over KNX radio between 7 and 7:30 o’clock. A half an hour of cathedral and concert music will be played on the huge instrument by Sibley Pease, official organist of the Elk’s lodge.”10
In May 1926, Warren Allen, organist of Stanford University, gave the opening recital, playing compositions by Bach, Boccherini, Saint-Saëns, Douglas, Wagner and ending with the Finale from Vierne’s Symphony No. 1. A reviewer noted that “the organ is an instrument of concert resources and full organ is almost overpowering in tone. It ranks as one of the finest in the city.”11
For many years the organ was used almost every day of the week for lodge meetings, concerts and radio broadcasts. Dwindling membership and the expense of upkeep on the huge Elks building caused the remaining members to find smaller quarters in the late 1960s. Left abandoned for a while, the building has seen use as a YMCA, a retirement center, and a seedy hotel; it is currently being rented for large social events and filming. Due to the extensive damage done to the organ and the great expense of a restoration, this is probably another large, once-popular instrument that will never play again.

Elks Temple, Los Angeles
Robert-Morton Organ Company, 1926

GREAT
16′ Open Diapason
16′ Gamba (TC)
8′ First Diapason
8′ Second Diapason
8′ Tuba
8′ French Horn
8′ Kinura
8′ Gross Flute
8′ Clarinet
8′ Doppel Flute
8′ Gamba
8′ Violin I
8′ Violin II
8′ Violin III
8′ Quintadena
8′ Dulciana
4′ Tuba Clarion
4′ Octave Diapason
4′ Doppel Flute
22⁄3′ Twelfth
2′ Fifteenth
III Cornet
Harp
Glockenspiel
Xylophone
Chimes
Strings F
Great 2nd Touch
8′ Tuba
8′ French Horn
8′ Gross Flute
8′ Gamba

SWELL
16′ Contra Fagotto
16′ Tibia Clausa
16′ Swell Bourdon
16′ Violin (TC)
8′ Trumpet
8′ Open Diapason
8′ Violin
8′ Tibia Mollis
8′ Tibia Clausa
8′ Gedackt
8′ Orchestral Oboe
8′ Vox Humana
8′ Violin I
8′ Violin II
8′ Violin III
8′ Viol d’Orchestre
8′ Viole Celeste
8′ Salicional
8′ Aeoline
4′ Octave Diapason
4′ Tibia Clausa
4′ Bourdon Flute
4′ Flauto Traverso
4′ Vox Humana
4′ Violina
4′ Salicet
22⁄3′ Bourdon Nazard
2′ Bourdon Piccolo
Harp
Glockenspiel
Xylophone
Chimes
Bird
Strings P
Strings MF
Swell 2nd Touch
16′ Fagotto
16′ Trumpet (TC)
16′ Bourdon
8′ Tibia Clausa
4′ Flauto Traverso

CHOIR
16′ Violin (TC)
16′ Double Dulciana
8′ English Diapason
8′ Flugel Horn
8′ Clarabella
8′ Clarinet
8′ Gemshorn
8′ Viola
8′ Violin I
8′ Violin II
8′ Violin III
8′ Dulciana
8′ Unda Maris
4′ Harmonic Flute
4′ Violina
4′ Dulcet
2′ Flageolet
2′ Dolcissimo
Snare Drum Tap
Snare Drum Roll
Tom-Tom
Castanets
Sleigh Bells
Wood Drum
Tambourine
Strings F
Choir 2nd Touch
8′ English Diapason
8′ Flugel Horn
8′ Clarabella
8′ Clarinet

SOLO
8′ Tuba Mirabilis
8′ Stentorphone
8′ Philomela
8′ Gross Gamba
8′ Oboe Horn
4′ Tuba Clarion
4′ Gambette
Chimes

ANTIPHONAL
8′ Trumpet
8′ Open Diapason
8′ Hohl Flute

ECHO
16′ Echo Bourdon
8′ Night Horn
8′ Flute Celeste
8′ Viol Sordino
8′ Vox Humana
4′ Fern Flute
4′ Violetta
Bird

PEDAL
32′ Resultant Bass
16′ Double Open Diapason
16′ Trombone
16′ Pedal Bourdon
16′ Swell Bourdon
16′ Echo Bourdon
16′ Contra Fagotto
16′ Violone
16′ Dulciana
8′ Open Diapason
8′ Tuba
8′ Pedal Flute
8′ Doppel Flute
8′ Echo Bourdon
8′ Cello
8′ Dulciana
4′ Tuba Clarion
4′ Dulcet
III Cornet

Pedal 2nd touch
Bass Drum
Snare Drum
Tympani
Bass Drum/Cymbal
Buttons Above Solo
Klaxon
Telephone
Cow Bell
Bird
Tremolos
Swell
Great
Choir
Solo
Antiphonal
Echo
Swell Vox Humana
Echo Vox Humana
Couplers
Pedal Octaves
Great to Pedal 8, 4
Swell to Pedal 8, 4
Choir to Pedal 8
Solo to Pedal 8
Swell to Swell 16, 4
Choir to Swell 16, 8, 4
Solo to Swell 16, 8, 4
Great to Great 16, 4
Swell to Great 16, 8, 4
Choir to Great 16, 8, 4
Solo to Great 16, 8, 4
Choir to Choir 16, 4
Swell to Choir 16, 8, 4
Solo to Solo 16, 4

Barker Brothers
Barker Brothers, the pre-eminent home furnishings store of Los Angeles, moved into a new building in 1927. Occupying all of 7th Street between Flower and Figueroa Streets, the 12-story façade was in Renaissance Revival style and loosely patterned after the Strozzi Palace in Florence. Entering through the main doors, the visitor stepped into a 40′ high lobby court furnished with leather sofas and chairs, oriental carpets, and a decorated vaulted ceiling.
During the 1920s, Barker Brothers served as the southern California representative for the Welte Organ Company. Their previous store had a Welte organ used to entertain customers, and when Barkers moved out, the instrument was rebuilt into two organs; the main section went, with a new console, to the Pasadena home of Baldwin M. Baldwin, and the Echo division, also provided with a new console, was packed off to Mrs. Belle Malloy in San Pedro.
Barker Brothers’ new store had three Welte organs. In the lobby court was a four-manual, 26-rank concert organ that was played daily for the store’s patrons. The four-manual drawknob console was centered along the east side of the lobby and the chamber openings high on the wall had gold display pipes. A three-manual, nine-rank theatre-style instrument was in a 600-seat auditorium on the 10th floor, and a two-manual, 10-rank organ with player attachment was installed in the interior design studio.
On the evening of March 28, 1927, the three Welte organs were dedicated, beginning with the instrument in the lobby court and then moving to the auditorium organ, where members of the Los Angeles Organists’ Club entertained. Guests were invited to hear the residence organ in the interior design department and enjoy the automatic roll player device.
Among the organists playing the lobby court organ on that evening were Albert Hay Malotte and Alexander Schreiner. Malotte played Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue and the quartet from Verdi’s Rigoletto, but Schreiner no doubt stole the show when he played the “Great” g-minor fugue of Bach and closed the program with Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries.12
The lobby court organ was very popular with Los Angeles residents and the daily recitals were well attended. Welte designed the instrument for maximum flexibility; the Great and Choir shared stops, while the Swell and Solo were independent divisions, except for the Great Tuba Sonora that was available on the Solo at 16′, 8′ and 4′ pitches.
When the Welte Organ Company closed in 1931, the residence organ was sold to a home in the Brentwood section of the city. The auditorium instrument was eventually sold to the Presbyterian Church in La Canada, but the lobby court organ was kept in use until the early 1950s. After the Second World War, the daily organ recitals were popular with older folks who lived in affordable but respectable downtown residential hotels. The store management felt having pensioners strewn about the lobby lowered the tone of their upscale operation and removed the organ in 1955, selling the console to a private party and the pipe work to a local church.
There was a more insidious reason for removing the Welte organ. Barker Brothers had become the local agents for the new Hammond Chord Organ and didn’t want competition from the “real thing” while an employee was demonstrating the new electric device. The Los Angeles Times for May 12, 1955 announced: “A musical tradition at Barker Bros. has been broken! Barker Bros. pipe organ of some 30 odd years vintage is no longer the cornerstone of the store’s tradition. One fine day it was an impressive part of the main lobby and the next day, the massive monolith was a legend. A compact, sweet little number, modern in design and execution, has replaced the pipe organ. The Hammond Chord Organ now reigns supreme. A representative from Barker’s Piano Salon on the mezzanine floor is in daily attendance at his Chord Organ post.”

Barker Brothers Store
Lobby Court Organ
Welte Organ Company, 1927

GREAT
16′ Double Open Diapason
8′ Principal Diapason
8′ English Diapason
8′ Tibia Minor
8′ Claribel Flute
8′ Viola
4′ Octave
4′ Forest Flute
8′ Tuba Sonora
Harp
Celesta
Piano

SWELL
16′ Lieblich Gedackt
8′ Diapason Phonon
8′ Philomela
8′ Gedackt
8′ Violin II rks
8′ Solo Violin
8′ Salicional
8′ Vox Angelica
4′ Chimney Flute
22⁄3′ Nazard
2′ Flautino
13⁄5′ Tierce
16′ Contra Fagotto
8′ Trumpet
8′ Oboe Horn
8′ Vox Humana
4′ Octave Oboe
Tremolo
Vox Humana Vibrato
Harp
Celesta
Piano

CHOIR
16′ Contra Viol
8′ English Diapason
8′ Tibia Minor
8′ Claribel Flute
8′ Flute Celeste
8′ Viola
8′ Muted Violin
8′ Voix Celeste
8′ Viola
4′ Traverse Flute
2′ Piccolo
8′ Clarinet
Tremolo
Choir 2nd Touch
8′ Principal Diapason
8′ Tibia Minor
8′ Tuba Sonora
8′ Clarinet
Celesta
Chimes
Solo to Choir
Swell to Choir

SOLO
8′ Tibia Clausa
8′ Violoncello
4′ Harmonic Flute
16′ Tuba Profunda
8′ Tuba Sonora
8′ French Horn
8′ English Horn
4′ Cornet
Tremolo
Harp
Celesta
Chimes
Piano

PEDAL
32′ Acoustic Bass
16′ Diaphonic Diapason
16′ Bourdon
16′ Violone (Gt)
16′ Lieblich Gedackt (Sw)
8′ Octave
8′ Flute
8′ Cello (Gt)
8′ Gedackt (Sw)
16′ Tuba Profunda (Solo)
8′ Tuba Sonora (Solo)
4′ Cornet (Solo)
16′ Piano
8′ Piano
Chimes

Organ studios, residences,
theaters
During the 1920s, many American organ builders maintained organ studios in Los Angeles to provide prospective customers with a sample of their wares. The studio usually featured a residence-style organ, complete with automatic player, in a home-like setting. The Skinner Organ Company went so far as to install a residence organ in the home of their local representative, Stanley W. Williams.13 The Aeolian Company displayed their Opus 1740 in the George Birkel Music Company, where fine pianos and phonographs were also available. Wurlitzer had a studio in downtown Los Angeles and a second showroom in the posh Ambassador Hotel, where they installed a Style R16, three-manual, ten-rank residence organ. In an overstuffed room off the hotel’s main lobby, patrons of the hotel could relax and listen to organ music presented several times a day by a member of the Wurlitzer staff.
Residence organs were popular additions to many of the fine homes built in Los Angeles before the Depression hit. Members of the movie colony enjoyed organs in their homes, and the Robert-Morton Company built instruments for Thomas Ince, for Marion Davies’s immense beach house, and for Charlie Chaplin, who used the organ to compose most of the music for his films.
Aeolian had organs in the homes of Harold Lloyd, cowboy actor Dustin Farnum, and Francis Marion Thompson, in addition to instruments in the residences of radio pioneer Earle C. Anthony, oil baron Lee Phillips, department store mogul Arthur Letts, and Willits Hole, who had an Aeolian organ in the art gallery wing of his Fremont Place mansion.
The Estey Organ Company’s sole contribution to the film colony was a small four-rank unified organ in the Hollywood home of “Keystone Kop” Chester Conklin.
There were a number of Welte residence organs scattered around Los Angeles, including a two-manual instrument in the home of John Evans, a property later owned by actress Ann Sheridan and Liberace. The large Welte organ in Lynn Atkinson’s exquisite Louis XVI-style home was in a ballroom that opened onto terraced gardens. The exterior of the estate was used as the television home of the “Beverly Hillbillies,” although the then-current owner finally tossed out the production company because too many tourists were knocking on the front door wanting to meet Jed Clampett.
The largest residence organ in Los Angeles was in the 62-acre estate of Silsby Spalding. The Aeolian organ (Opus 1373) had three manuals, six divisions, a 32′ Open Diapason, and 67 ranks of pipes. It was installed in the Spalding’s large music room in 1919 and spoke through three tall arches faced with ornamental metal grilles.
Two very exclusive and elegant apartment buildings in Los Angeles each had a Robert-Morton organ in the living room of the largest apartment. “La Ronda” and the “Andalusia” were both located on Havenhurst Drive and built in the Spanish style with enclosed gardens and fountains surrounding the apartments. The organ in the Andalusia had four ranks of pipes, a roll playing mechanism plus xylophone, marimba, chimes, celesta, and a small toy counter. La Ronda’s Robert-Morton organ had five ranks of pipes, no roll player, and fewer percussion stops.
There were a number of secular organs that had been planned toward the end of the 1920s, but were never built, and one could argue that with several of the instruments, their early demise was a desirable thing.
During the 1920s, Charles Winder ran the Artcraft Organ Company, a small firm that built garden-variety organs for neighborhood churches throughout southern California. In 1926 Winder announced the formation of a new company, The Symphonaer Company, to build “symphony concert organs.” The announcement continued: “The Symphonaer Concert Organ is described as an instrument that reproduces the true symphony orchestra, giving the effect of every instrument used in the largest of symphony orchestras.” A $1,000,000 plant was to be built offering employment to 100 craftsmen. Joining the venture was the British concert organist Edwin Lemare, who would serve as director of music and specifications. Built alongside the factory would be Symphonaer Hall, a recital hall equipped with a large Symphonaer organ, where Lemare would give frequent recitals and broadcast the instrument over a local radio station.14 The enterprise died in the planning stages and the Artcraft Organ Company went broke in 1928.
Alexander Pantages ordered a five-manual Robert-Morton organ for his spectacular Hollywood Pantages Theatre that opened in 1930. Although the theater was and still is a success, the organ was never built due to the advent of sound films, an expensive lawsuit in which Pantages was involved, and the closing of the Robert-Morton Company. The four large organ chambers remain empty to this day.
The Hollywood Bowl, the world’s largest natural amphitheater, is used as a popular venue for summer concerts, accommodating audiences of up to 18,000. The Hollywood Bowl program for July, 1929, published a letter from the Bowl manager relating that organist Edwin Lemare was working to interest the Hollywood Bowl Association in installing an outdoor organ in the amphitheater. The letter went on to state that Lemare had prevailed on an organ builder to install an organ in the Bowl provided that $10,000 was spent to build enclosures for the instrument.15 Fortunately, the scheme never progressed past the planning stage.

Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum
In the late 1920s, the Welte Organ Company submitted a proposal to the Civic Bureau of Music and Art of Los Angeles to build a five-manual outdoor organ for the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.16 The Coliseum, opened in 1923, covers a total of 17 acres and originally seated 76,000. Although there is nothing in the proposal stating where the organ would be located in the huge stadium, concrete enclosures may have been planned in and around the Peristyle, a focal point along the east end of the huge structure.
The installation of an organ in the Coliseum would have been an even greater acoustical nightmare than an organ in the Hollywood Bowl. Among the features of the proposed specification was a fifth manual called “Orchestral” that was home to four separately enclosed divisions, Diapason, Brass, String and Woodwind, three of which had their own pedal sections. The console would have stopkeys placed on angled jambs and a remote combination action. Nothing ever came of the proposal, and the 1929 stock market crash and closing of the Welte Corporation in 1931 sealed the instrument’s fate.
The proposal reads:

The Welte Organ Company, Inc., hereby agrees to build for the Civic Bureau of Music and Art, Los Angeles, California; herein referred to as Purchaser, and to install in the Coliseum, Los Angeles, California—ONE WELTE PIPE ORGAN. Ready to use and in accordance with the following specifications, viz: Manuals, five, compass CC to C4, 61 notes; Pedals, compass CCC to G, 32 notes; the windchests of manuals affected by octave couplers to be extended one octave above the compass of the keyboard, to 73 notes. Electro-pneumatic action throughout. Philharmonic pitch A-440. Console type, concert; stop control, stopkeys and tablets. Combination action adjustable at the console, visibly affecting the registers. Remote control inside setter.

Los Angeles Coliseum

GREAT - Manual II
16′ Double Diapason
16′ Bourdon
8′ First Diapason
8′ Second Diapason
8′ Third Diapason
8′ Violoncello
8′ Double Flute
8′ Clarabella
51⁄3′ Quint
4′ First Octave
4′ Second Octave
4′ Third Octave
4′ Tibia Plena
4′ Harmonic Flute
31⁄5′ Tenth
22⁄3′ Twelfth
2′ Fifteenth
V Plein Jeu
V Cymbale
16′ Double Trumpet
8′ Tromba
4′ Clarion
8′ Grand Piano
4′ Grand Piano
Minor Chimes
Great 2nd Touch
Diapason Section
Brass Section
String Section
Woodwind Section
Solo to Great 8
Tower Chime
2′ Glockenspiel

SWELL - Manual III
16′ Quintaton
16′ Contra Viola
8′ Open Diapason
8′ Horn Diapason
8′ Viola da Gamba
8′ Salicional
8′ Voix Celeste
8′ Tibia Clausa
8′ Harmonic Flute
4′ Octave
4′ Geigen Principal
4′ Salicet II rks
4′ Flute Couverte
4′ Traverse Flute
31⁄5′ Tenth
22⁄3′ Twelfth
2′ Fifteenth
2′ Piccolo
VI Mixture
16′ Contra Posaune
8′ Cornopean
8′ Trumpet
8′ Oboe Horn
8′ Vox Humana II rks
4′ Clarion
8′ Grand Piano
4′ Grand Piano
Swell 2nd Touch
Diapason Section
Brass Section
String Section
Woodwind Section
Solo to Swell 8
Chimes
2′ Glockenspiel

CHOIR - Manual I
16′ Waldhorn
8′ Open Diapason
8′ Waldhorn
8′ Tibia Minor
8′ Viol d’Orchestre
8′ Violes Celestes II rks
8′ Claribel Flute
8′ Quintaphon
4′ Octave
4′ Wald Flute
4′ Violin
22⁄3′ Twelfth
2′ Fifteenth
2′ Flageolet
13⁄5′ Seventeenth
11⁄7′ Septieme
1′ Twenty-Second
16′ Contra Fagotto
8′ Clarinet
8′ Vox Humana II rks
4′ Clarion
Minor Chimes
2′ Glockenspiel
8′ Grand Piano
4′ Grand Piano
2′ Xylophone
Snare Drum, Tap
Snare Drum, Roll
Choir 2nd Touch
Diapason Section
Brass Section
String Section
Woodwind Section
Solo to Choir
Chimes
2′ Glockenspiel
Snare Drum, Roll
Triangle

SOLO - Manual IV
16′ Violone
8′ Diapason Magna
8′ Tibia Plena
8′ Solo Gamba
8′ Gamba Celestes II rks
8′ Harmonic Flute
4′ Octave
4′ Concert Flute
4′ Solo Violin
III Cornet
16′ Ophicleide
8′ Tuba Mirabilis
8′ Tuba Sonora
8′ Military Trumpet
8′ French Horn
8′ Orchestral Oboe
4′ Clarion

ORCHESTRAL - Manual V
Diapason Section
16′ Major Diapason
8′ Double Languid Diapason I
8′ Double Languid Diapason II
8′ Diapason Phonon
8′ Open Diapason
8′ Geigen Principal
4′ Double Languid Octave
4′ Octave
22⁄3′ Twelfth
2′ Fifteenth
11⁄3′ Nineteenth
1′ Twenty-Second
IX Grand Chorus
Diapason Section Pedal
16′ Diaphonic Diapason
16′ Diapason
102⁄3′ Quint
8′ Diapason Octave
8′ Octave
4′ Super Octave

Brass Section
16′ Trombone
16′ Serpent
8′ Tuba Magna
8′ Tuba Sonora
8′ Tuba Mirabilis
8′ French Trumpet
8′ Muted Trumpet
8′ Post Horn
8′ French Horn (closed tone)
8′ French Horn (open tone)
51⁄3′ Corno Quint
4′ Tuba Clarion
4′ Trumpet Clarion
22⁄3′ Corno Twelfth
2′ Cor Octave
Brass Section Pedal
32′ Contra Bombarde
16′ Bombarde
16′ Trombone
8′ Trumpet

String Section
16′ Contra Basso
16′ Violin Diapason
16′ Contra Viola
8′ Violin Diapason
8′ Violin Diapason Celeste
8′ Violoncello I
8′ Violoncello II
8′ Cello Celestes II rks
8′ Nazard Gamba
8′ Gamba Celeste
8′ First Violin
8′ Second Violin
8′ Third Violin
8′ Violin Celestes II rks
8′ First Viola
8′ Second Viola
8′ Viola Celestes II rks
8′ Muted Violins III rks
4′ String Octave
4′ Violins II rks
4′ Muted Violins III rks
2′ String Fifteenth
III Cornet des Violes
String Section Pedal
32′ String Diaphone
16′ Double Bass
16′ Violone
8′ Cello

Woodwind Section
16′ Bassoon
16′ Bass Saxophone
8′ First Saxophone
8′ Second Saxophone
4′ Soprano Saxophone
8′ English Horn
16′ Bass Clarinet
8′ Basset Horn
8′ First Clarinet
8′ Second Clarinet
8′ Orchestral Oboe
8′ Kinura
8′ Orchestral Flute
4′ Solo Flute
2′ Solo Piccolo

PEDAL
64′ Gravissima
32′ Diaphone
32′ Violone
16′ Diaphone
16′ Major Bass
16′ Diapason
16′ Violone
16′ Contra Basso (String)
16′ Tibia Clausa
16′ Wald Horn (Ch)
16′ Bourdon
16′ Contra Viola (String)
102⁄3′ Quint
8′ Diaphone
8′ Principal
8′ Octave
8′ Violoncello
8′ Wald Horn (Ch)
8′ Flute
51⁄3′ Octave Quint
4′ Super Octave
4′ Fifteenth
4′ Tibia Flute
V Harmonics
V Fourniture
32′ Contra Bombarde
16′ Bombarde
16′ Tuba Profunda
16′ Serpent (Brass)
16′ Ophicleide (Solo)
16′ Double Trumpet (Gt)
16′ Contra Posaune (Sw)
16′ Contra Fagotto (Ch)
8′ Bombarde
8′ Tuba Sonora
4′ Bombarde
4′ Cornet
16′ Grand Piano
8′ Grand Piano
Bass Drum, Stroke

Pedal 2nd Touch
64′ Gravissima
32′ Diaphone
32′ Contra Bombarde
Solo to Pedal 8
Solo to Pedal 4
Diapason Section 8
Diapason Section 4
Brass Section 8
Brass Section 4
Tower Chimes
Minor Chimes
Thunder Drum, Stroke
Thunder Drum, Roll
Kettle Drum, Roll
Chinese Gong
Persian Cymbal
Vibratos
Choir
Choir Vox Humana
Swell
Swell Vox Humana
Solo
Woodwind
String, Fast
String, Slow

Conclusion
The stories of these instruments testify to the near-ubiquity of the pipe organ early in the twentieth century, including its use in films and stage shows. Even film actors owned and played pipe organs, in a golden age that now survives only in recollections such as this.