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The King of Instruments

A consideration of the record series made by the Aeolian-Skinner Organ Company

John A. Hansen

John A. Hansen, a native of Council Bluffs, Iowa, began his pipe organ career at the Aeolian-Skinner Organ Company in Boston in May of 1961, working in the console shop. Most of his time at the firm was spent in the Engineering Department. Sensing trouble in the distance, he left the company in 1965, returning to the Omaha, Nebraska, area (of which Council Bluffs is a part) to become a tuning and service technician. In 1985 he became Regional Representative of Austin Organs, Inc., for Nebraska and Western Iowa.

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The arrival of the post-World-War-II 331/3-r.p.m,
high-fidelity, long-playing recording was 
embraced by the legendary Aeolian-Skinner Organ Company of Boston as a
means of promoting its product. In the course of approximately twenty years,
thirty volumes of the series, entitled The King of Instruments, were released.
The series can be divided into three groups, (1) The Harrison Era, (2) The
Whiteford Era, and (3) The Post-Whiteford Era. The impetus for entering into
the venture came from Joseph S. Whiteford, who served as associate and
successor to the legendary English-born President and Tonal Director, G. Donald
Harrison.

The Harrison Era

Perhaps the most important recording of the entire series is
Volume 1, The American Classic Organ, a lecture-demonstration narrated by no
less than G. Donald Harrison. Many of the tonal examples were recorded at the
Cathedral Church of St. Paul, Boston, the organ there played by George Faxon.
Other organs used were those in Symphony Hall, Boston; First Presbyterian
Church, Kilgore, Texas; and New York's Cathedral of St. John the Divine, played
by Thomas Dunn, Roy Perry, Norman Coke-Jephcott, and Mr. Whiteford.
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> 
(The latter's efforts include the
improvised demonstration of the legendary St. John the Divine State Trumpet.)
The urbane, English verbiage of Mr. Harrison and the very persuasive musical
presentations are, even after almost fifty years, highly contagious. (Roy
Perry, however, did express to the writer regret that the examples of
string-tone stops were from Boston's Symphony Hall rather than those in the Kilgore
organ, which he felt were superior.)

Volume 2, Organ Literature: Bach to Langlais, features the
organs of Symphony Hall, Boston; the Cathedral Church of St. Paul, Boston; and
First Presbyterian Church, Kilgore, Texas. The playing of, respectively, the
Bach Trio Sonata No. 1 and the
Allegro  from the
A Minor
Concerto
of Vivaldi/Bach by George Faxon at
St. Paul's Cathedral may be the chief treasures of the disc, followed closely
by Roy Perry's unique rendition of Davies'
A Solemn Melody
style='font-style:normal'>. Thomas Dunn is said to have played the three Bach
Schübler
Chorales
and the Alain Litanies
style='font-style:normal'> at Symphony Hall, listed as the "Staff
Organist," while William Watkins received a similar listing, very
effectively playing the Sowerby
Carillon on the Kilgore organ. It might be argued that the use of three organs
to demonstrate the versatility of Aeolian-Skinner's work would have been better
served by a single instrument, but the recording is still very effective.

The next two issues, Volume 3, Organ Recital: Robert Owen
and Volume 4, Hilliar at St. Mark's, employed organs somewhat unique, in that
they both had divided Swell divisions. The first of these was recorded at
Christ Church, Bronxville, New York, and garnered perhaps the highest critical
praise of the early releases in this series, with the possible exception of
Volume 1. Owen's playing of the Walther Partita, Meinen Jesum lass ich nicht
style='font-style:normal'> and Messiaen's
The Prayer of Christ
ascending to the Father
may be the high
points of that recording. Edgar Hilliar was organist at St. Mark's Church, Mt.
Kisco, New York, and his playing of the Bach
Trio Sonata No. IV in E
Minor
is truly a marvel--a brilliant
example of how deft touch control can affect the pipe speech of a
non-mechanical action instrument. The Mt. Kisco acoustic is very dry; and,
perhaps somewhat unique in this series, no attempt was made to add artificial
reverberation to it. (The writer had the pleasure of hearing Mr. Hilliar in
recital at St. Mark's and will never forget his masterful playing of the Bach
"
Little" Fugue in G Minor,
using but a single flute stop.)

The "dry" acoustic at Mt. Kisco is placed in sharp
contrast by Volume 5,  The Music of
Richard Purvis, recorded in the spacious confines of San Francisco's Grace
Cathedral. Despite the listing of the player as the "staff organist,"
the organist was, in fact, the composer of the music. (One can only assume that
the player's designation was designed to avoid conflict with his other
recordings.) The most notable piece is the Partita on
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> 
Christ ist Erstanden

style='font-style:normal'>.

New York's Cathedral of St. John the Divine is the setting
of Volumes 6 and 8. The former, The Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, New
York City, is played by Alec Wyton and is perhaps most notable for Sowerby's Prelude
on  Deus Tuorum Militum,

style='font-style:normal'> written for the Cathedral's justifiably famous State
Trumpet. The latter, Norman Coke-Jephcott at Saint John the Divine, features
Wyton's Cathedral predecessor. Whereas Volume 6 was somewhat closely
"miked" to deal with the lengthy reverberation, Volume 8 seems to
revel in the vastness of the space. Coke-Jephcott's
Toccata on
"St. Anne"
is very exciting, and
the four opening notes on the lower registers of the State Trumpet in his
Bishops'
Promenade
are truly awesome!

One of Harrison's landmark organs of the mid-thirties is
that in St. John's Chapel of the Groton (Massachusetts) School, and it was used
for the series' Volume 7, Marilyn Mason in Recital. In addition to a very
spritely performance of Bach's Prelude and Fugue in D Major
style='font-style:normal'>, the recording is also notable for the performance
of Robert Crandell's
Carnival Suite for Organ
style='font-style:normal'>.

The largest organ built by Aeolian-Skinner was that in the
Mother Church, First Church of Christ, Scientist, Boston. Volume 9, The Mother
Church, Boston, features Ruth Barrett Phelps, for some years organist at the
Mother Church. Her playing of the Buxtehude Prelude and Fugue in G Minor
style='font-style:normal'> stands out in the writer's consideration, proving
that a large, electro-pneumatic-action organ can be a model of clarity. (The
writer once played the Buxtehude on this record for an organ-enthusiast friend
without telling him what the organ was, and asked him what sort of instrument
he assumed it might be--his response was that it must have been a North
European tracker!)

Volume 10, Music of the Church, was recorded at First
Presbyterian Church, Kilgore, Texas, where Aeolian-Skinner's first horizontal
Trompette en Chamade was installed. Four anthems, with Roy Perry at the console
and the church's choir augmented by the choir of Austin College, make up the
bulk of the recording. A rousing performance of C. Hubert H. Parry's I was
glad
--including the Coronation vivats
style='font-style:normal'>--begins the record. While the tempi, particularly in
the John Ireland
Greater Love hath no man and David McK. Williams' In the Year that King Uzziah died
style='font-style:normal'> are sometimes unusually slow, the performances are
still quite beguiling, certainly helped by the removal of the church's
carpeting for the recording. (The Texans certainly sang with great zeal, and
the "quasi-tympani" effect of multiple notes played on the 32'
stops after the words, . . . and the house was filled with smoke, in the
Willams anthem is especially notable.) Perry's playing of the evocative,
impressionistic evensong
Prelude on Iam Sol recedit igneus
style='font-style:normal'>, by Bruce Simonds, is a wonderfully quiet conclusion
to this, one of the series' most popular releases.

Henry Hokans at All Saints' is the title of Volume 11,
comprising pieces by Walond, Whitlock, Franck, and Dupré. The Worcester,
Massachusetts, organ was another of Harrison's "landmark" instruments
of the 1930s. As it evolved over a number of years, it was perhaps the most
"French" of his organs until his final one in St. Thomas' Church, New
York City. Mr. Hokans, successor to William Self at All Saints' Church, is one
of the most gifted players the writer has ever heard. His performance of
Dupré's Variations sur un Noël,
Opus 20, is absolutely electrifying!

Volume 12, Pierre Cochereau at Symphony Hall, contains, not
surprisingly, all French literature. Most significant is the player's Triptych
Symphony, in Four Movements
, a splendid
example of the art of improvisation. Works of Fleury, Dupré, and Vierne
complete the release.

The Whiteford Era

The death of G. Donald Harrison in 1956, while he was
completing the great organ in St. Thomas Church, New York, although portending
a gloomy future for Aeolian-Skinner, did not, by any means, spell the end of
the company's record series. An alliance was forged with Washington Records,
the first release of which was Volume 13, Organ Music and Vocal Solos, recorded
in the Mother Church, Boston, featuring organist Ruth Barrett Phelps and the
church's then tenor soloist, Frederick Jagel, who had a long and distinguished
career on the opera stage. Of the organ works, the Franck Fantaisie in A
style='font-style:normal'> and the Buxtehude
Ciacona in E Min
style='font-style:normal'>or are particularly memorable.

Volume 14, also on the Washington Records label, is entitled
New Dimensions in Organ Sound and features Catharine Crozier playing the large
organ in the Auditorium of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day
Saints in Independence, Missouri. The major work on this release is the
monumental Sonata on the Ninety-fourth Psalm of Julius Reubke, and the issue was the first to incorporate stereo
sound. The mystical atmosphere of Crozier's performance of Alain's
Deuxième
Fantais
ie is notable, as are the
reservoir-bottoming tone clusters! Joseph Whiteford, who seemed afraid of bold
sounds, felt that the tapes made at the Crozier recording sessions had too much
mid-range emphasis and instructed Mr. John Kellner, who had made the tapes, to
electronically lessen that emphasis while adding artificial reverberation from
the company's then-new reverberation system. Unhappily, the final tonal results
have a harsh, thin ambiance.

A number of the Harrison Era recordings were re-issued on
the Washington Records label.

The technical quality of the Washington Records releases was
a disappointment, and Volume 13, originally issued with monaural sound, was
re-released, under the previous arrangements for pressings, in stereo. (Interestingly,
it was found that the vibrato of Mr. Jagel--well past his prime when the
recording was made--was too slow; so the master tapes were speeded up, raising
the pitches of all pieces on the recording--vocal and organ--almost a
semitone.) At the same time, because of popular demand, Volumes 1 and 10 were
also re-issued. Since more pieces were recorded by Crozier than appeared on
Volume 14, two releases, Volumes 15 and 16, called, respectively, Catharine
Crozier, Program I and Catharine Crozier, Program II, were issued, with the
elegance of the Bach Trio Sonata No. 5 in C Major being perhaps the most particularly special addition.

The instrument used in Volume 17, Phillip Steinhaus, was
that in All Saints' Church, Pontiac, Michigan, a three-manual organ of more
modest proportions than most used in this series. Steinhaus, who would
ultimately serve a brief tenure as a company vice-president in the later 1960s,
recorded a diverse program ranging from Buxtehude to Langlais, with Paul de
Maleingreau's Tumult in the Praetorium
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> 
being perhaps the most unusual. Also
quite different is the rendition of Bach's
Passacaglia and Fugue in C
Minor
, which contains a cadenza, adapted
from the same composer's
Prelude and Fugue in F Minor.

Two Great Organs is the title of Volume 18, which features
Albert Russell playing, respectively, the organs in Philharmonic Hall, Lincoln
Center, New York City, and in Asylum Hill Congregational Church, Hartford.
(Russell was organist/choir director at the Hartford church.) The sound of the
now former concert hall instrument, playing pieces by Dupré, Buxtehude,
Bach, and Langlais, is impressive, invoking sadness that it was not retained in
what is now called Avery Fisher Hall. The writer, while an employee of
Aeolian-Skinner in the early 1960s, served on the installation team of the
Hartford organ and considers it one of the best of the Whiteford organs. Roy
Perry, who began the tonal finishing, agonized to Mr. Whiteford that he could
not get what he desired out of the Great 8' Spitzprinzipal, which, with
its tapered configuration, reflected Whiteford's reluctance to create a bold
principal chorus. (Donald Gillett, chief tonal finisher and, briefly, company
president after Whiteford's departure, liked to refer to "Joe's
'string-quartet' Greats!") After promising a new set of pipes, the
replacements had even more taper than the originals, prompting a plea to Arthur
Birchall, Assistant Tonal Director, from Perry. The third--and final--set, sent
by Birchall, was not tapered and was quite satisfactory. A large, four-manual
Austin console, which had replaced that of the previous E.M. Skinner organ,
contains the pressure regulator of the Rückpositiv division, making it
perhaps the only Austin console in which there is pressurized wind. The major
work played on the recording at Asylum Hill Church is Healey Willan's massive
Introduction, Passacaglia, and Fugue; and, even though the composer expressed
reservations about Russell's performance, it is a splendid reading.

The Hartford organ was also used in Volume 19,
Duruflé: Requiem. The writer had
the pleasure of hearing Albert Russell conduct and accompany this glorious work
on two occasions, once at Asylum Hill Church and later at Trinity Church,
Boston. Unforgettable was the sight, at the latter venue, of Russell's
gyrations while directing from the console and delivering a beautifully
conceived and executed organ accompaniment. The recorded Hartford performance
is superb, with the unnamed mezzo soprano's singing of the haunting Pie Jesu
bringing one close to tears. The
Requiem is preceded by Myron Robert's Prelude & Trumpetings
style='font-style:normal'>, in which the opening ascending notes in the lower
register of the Krummhorn are very effective.

While at Aeolian-Skinner, the writer had the very good
fortune of hearing John Weaver in recital on the famous Walcker/Aeolian-Skinner
organ in Methuen. His program concluded with an astounding performance of
Liszt's massive Fantasy and Fugue on Ad nos, ad salutarem undam.
style='font-style:normal'> As the final thunderous chord began to die away, one
could clearly sense the audience gasping! Fully equal to that transcending
performance is the one on Volume 20, John Weaver playing Liszt and Mozart,
recorded at the Lutheran Church of the Holy Trinity, New York, where Mr. Weaver
was organist and choirmaster at the time of the major rebuilding by
Aeolian-Skinner of the E.M. Skinner instrument in the mid-1960s. There would
doubtless be those who would express dismay at Weaver's use of shimmering
celestes at the beginning and closing of the Mozart
Fantasy in F
Minor
, K.594, but the performance is most
convincing even so. (It is sad to consider that an organ sounding so fine was
ultimately removed!)

Bob Whitley was organist/choirmaster at St. Luke's Episcopal
Church, San Francisco, where Volume 21, Music at St. Luke's, was recorded. Side
1 comprises pieces by Sidney Campbell, Leo Sowerby, Frederick Karam, Helmut
Walcha, and Jean Langlais, while Side 2 offers Searle Wright's fine cantata, The
Green Blade Riseth
. The small choir, while
obviously well trained, did not have a good blend--too many wide vibratos.

Christ Church Cathedral, St. Louis, was the venue of Volume
22, Maurice and Marie-Madeleine Duruflé. Madame Duruflé is heard
on Side 1, the major work being her husband's Prelude, Adagio, and Choral
style='font-style:normal'> with
Variations on Veni Creator
style='font-style:normal'>. While she was generally considered the virtuoso of
the pair, her husband's playing of his own Prelude from the Suite, Opus 5, and
of Tournemire's majestic
Improvisation on the Te Deum
style='font-style:normal'> are perhaps the chief glories of this very
impressive recording. Before coming to St. Louis, the Duruflés expressed
reservations about the organ's specifications but became quite enthusiastic
about the instrument after playing it.

The St. Louis organ was also used for the final King of
Instruments recording of the Whiteford Era, Volume 23, Ronald Arnatt. Arnatt,
at the time of the recording, was organist/choirmaster at the Cathedral. The
writer was on hand for the recording sessions, contributing a last-minute
tuning of the hooded Trompette de Reredos, located at a dizzying height behind
the stone reredos, and by holding one of the narthex doors to prevent rattling,
in soft passages, caused by the very effective electronic 32' Bourdon. The
soft movement of Sowerby's Sonatina is a
highlight of this release, which also includes works of Brahms, Bach, and
Arnatt.

Some of the Whiteford Era releases were issued as
pre-recorded, reel-to-reel tapes by Ampex. The writer has three of these
(Volumes 15, 16, and 18). The acetate backing of the tapes has not held up
well.

The Post-Whiteford Era

In 1966, Joseph Whiteford moved to the desert southwest,
assuming the title, Vice Chairman of the Board. At that time, John J. Tyrrell,
who had been company President since 1960, became the Board Chairman. In 1968,
Tyrrell left Aeolian-Skinner, and Whiteford sold his controlling interest in
the firm to Donald M. Gillett, who became President and Tonal Director. Gillett
was soon joined by Phillip Steinhaus, the organist featured on Volume 17, who
became Executive Vice President. Within three years the company's financial
condition had deteriorated significantly, and the controlling interest was
purchased by E. David Knutson, of Oklahoma, in 1969. Knutson appointed Dallas
tracker organ builder Robert M. Sipe to the position of Vice President, and
Sipe quickly became in charge of Aeolian-Skinner's operations. The company's
record series was of interest to him and; even though two post-Whiteford
recording sessions had been carried out prior to Sipe's arrival, he saw to it
that the next issue would be Volume 24, Paul Van Veelen, with that Dutch
organist playing the 18-rank, 2-manual Sipe & Yarbrough mechanical action
organ at St. Stephen United Methodist Church, Mesquite, Texas, built in
1963--six years before Sipe's association with Aeolian-Skinner. The program
consists of shorter works, ranging from pre-Bach to Piet Kee; and the sound of
the little organ, while rather arresting, is far removed from the
"American Classic" sound that had been associated with the company's
work. It is obvious that Sipe was making a clear declaration that
Aeolian-Skinner was heading in a much different tonal--and
mechanical--direction.

The next record to be issued--Volume 25, Clyde Holloway--is
the first of the two pre-Sipe recordings referred to earlier. Mr. Holloway plays
the Liszt Prelude and Fugue on BACH;
Mozart's familiar
Fantasy in F Minor,
K.608; and the Reubke
Sonata.
(The latter work also appears on Volume 15.) The organ used is that in the
National Presbyterian Church, Washington, D.C.

A pet project of Phillip Steinhaus was the organ for the
Cathedral Church of Christ the King, Kalamazoo, Michigan, which was used for
Volume 26, Alexander Boggs Ryan. Mr. Ryan played a varied program, with the
Franck Choral III in A Minor and the
Reger
Fantasy on Wachet auf!
being perhaps the most notable. Aeolian-Skinner was very late in completing
this organ; and, because a dedication recitalist had been contracted for well
in advance, it was necessary to temporarily install the small organ that had
been in Steinhaus' residence and would ultimately find a home in Memphis.
(Organ builders would be well advised to include an iron-clad clause in
new-organ contracts prohibiting the scheduling of opening recitals until
installation has been completed!)

When Robert Sipe came to Aeolian-Skinner, he brought with
him a contract for a 3-manual, mechanical action organ for Zumbro Lutheran
Congregation, Rochester, Minnesota, components for which were already on order
from a German organ supply house. Robert Anderson, of Southern Methodist
University, Dallas, was engaged to play for three releases in The King of
Instruments series. The first of these, Volume 27, Robert Anderson in a Program
of 20th Century Organ Music, consisted of two LP discs; and some of the pieces played
are very much avant garde, such as Ton Bruynèl's Reliëf
style='font-style:normal'> (Organ and 4 Electronic Sound Tracks). While the
writer feels that the Zumbro organ is not ideal for the Alain
Trois
Danses
, Anderson's performances are very
convincing. Also included, among others, is Vincent Persichetti's
Shimah
b'Koli
, which was commissioned for the
opening concert on the company's short-lived organ in Philharmonic Hall,
Lincoln Center. Of the three players on that remarkable program, Virgil Fox
(the other recitalists being Catharine Crozier and E. Power Biggs) was given
the task of performing the premiere of the Persichetti twelve-tone
composition--hardly typical of the traditional Fox repertoire! (Joseph
Whiteford was, like Virgil, less than kindly disposed to the work.) The writer,
who was in attendance at the premiere, also heard the piece played by Anderson
in a recital on the superb Aeolian-Skinner in First Central Congregational
Church, Omaha, Nebraska; and, while he is not sure that such serial
compositions fully qualify as music, he feels that Anderson did a masterful job
of splashing tone colors around the church and made the listening experience a
compelling one!

Volume 28, Robert Anderson in a Program of 19th Century
Organ Music, includes music by Schumann (Six Fugues on the Name BACH),
Franck, Widor, and Ives. The familiar Variations on America by the latter
composer is perhaps this disc's greatest success. While quite a step away from
traditional Aeolian-Skinner sounds, those of this tracker organ prove that
romantic literature can be played successfully on such an instrument, although
not as effectively as on the organs used previously in this record series.

Volume 29, Robert Anderson in a Program of 18th Century
Organ Music, comprises works by Cabanilles, Seger, Zipoli, Greene, C.P.E. Bach,
Dandrieu, and J.S. Bach--literature, along with some of the pieces on Volume
27, better suited to this organ.

As Aeolian-Skinner was in its early-70s death throes, the
final King of Instruments record, Volume 30, was issued, interestingly using
the title of Volume 10, Music of the Church. Zumbro Lutheran Congregation,
Rochester, was the recording's venue. That church's choir, along with the
Parish Choir of Calvary Episcopal Church of the same city, was conducted by
composer Gerald Near, with Zumbro's organist at that time, Merrill N. Davis
III, at the console. Davis opens the program with a quite rousing performance
of Vierne's Maestoso in C-sharp Minor,
an organ solo arrangement by Alexander Schreiner of the Kyrie from the
Messe
Solennelle
. The well-trained choirs sing
works by Fetler, Near, Vaughan Williams, Scheidt, and Zimmerman, while mezzo
soprano Anne Suddendorf is very effective in Hovhaness'
Out of the
Depths
and Ives' Abide with Me
style='font-style:normal'>. Avant garde composition is also represented by
Felciano's
God of the Expanding Universe, for organ and electronic tape.

Reverberation

One of the chief interests of Joseph S. Whiteford was the
acoustical properties of churches and concert halls. Correctly observing that a
majority of American churches, often because of lack of knowledge on the
subject and inept planning by architects, are acoustically hostile to organ and
choral music, he set about to design a synthetic reverberation system as a
cost-effective remedy to this situation. The result was a system consisting of
a specially modified tape recorder in which the tape would pass over one record
head, where the live sound would be planted on the tape, and then pass, in
turn, over eight playback heads, each sending its sound to its own series of
amplifiers and loudspeakers. (A patented randomizing circuit was also used to
smooth out the reverberation.) The most remarkable use of such a system was at
an outdoor concert, conducted by Thomas Schippers, concluding the 1960 Festival
in Spoleto, Italy. (A most fascinating description of this project, written by
John Kellner, company recordist [succeeding Mr. Robert Breed], reverberation
system builder, and the person who set up and ran the system in Spoleto,
appears in Charles Callahan's great 1996 book, Aeolian-Skinner Remembered--A
History in Letters [ISBN 0-9652850-0-6, published by Randall M. Egan].) With
the possible exception of Volume 21, all of The King of Instruments releases
from the Whiteford Era had artificial reverberation added, with Volumes 14, 15,
16, 17, 18 (Asylum Hill Church only), 19, 22, and 23 using the Aeolian-Skinner
system. For those volumes, the system set up in the company's electronics
department, on the fourth floor of its South Boston plant, was used; and it was
necessary for John Kellner to add the reverberation in the "wee hours of
the morning" in order to avoid noises generated by vehicular traffic,
aircraft, office personnel, the pipe shop, and the voicing rooms.
Interestingly, nothing on the record jacket notes indicates use of synthetic
reverberation.

Jacket Art

The jacket fronts of the original issues, Volumes 1 through
8, designed by John Tyrrell, are rather simple, having two sketches of classic
moldings, with a background of a large color panel (different colors on
successive issues) and a smaller white one. Pictures began to appear on the
jacket backs with Volume 6; and the front of Volume 9 has a large picture of
the Mother Church organ façade, with Mrs. Phelps, at the console,
pictured on the back. Volume 10 has a large picture of the Kilgore, Texas,
Trompette en Chamade, below a stained-glass window, on its cover; and the same
picture was used on the fronts of Volumes 13 (first release), 15, 16, 17, 18,
19, 20, 21, 22, and on the re-releases of Volumes 1 and 10. Volumes 11, 13
(second release), 23, 24, 25, 26, and 30 have front pictures of the respective
organs used. (On the jacket fronts of Washington Records' original release of
Volume 13 and on the re-releases of the earlier recordings, the ubiquitous
Kil-gore cover appeared with varying, much-less-than-flattering background
colors.) The cover of Volume 12, Pierre Cochereau at Symphony Hall, is a
departure from the norm, containing instead a sketch of Notre Dame, Paris,
drawn by Aeolian-Skinner Assistant Vice-President M. A. Gariepy, on the lower
left and a drawing of three manual keyboards on the upper right. (There are no
pictures of the artist or of the Symphony Hall organ on Volume 12.) The front
of Volume 14, from Washington Records, has a picture of the Independence,
Missouri, organ (arguably one of the finest examples of an uncased pipe
display, a marvelous testimony to the architectural artistry of John Tyrrell);
but, unfortunately, the pipes in the picture are gold in color, which is not
the case in actuality. ("Let's have some razzmatazz!!") Although the
Kilgore picture "graces" the front of Volume 18, Two Great Organs,
fairly large pictures of both of the organs used appear on the back; and there
is an insert with programs, stop-lists, and a picture of Albert Russell. The
Antiphonal division of the National Presbyterian Church instrument ap-pears in
a somewhat fantastical, kaleidoscopic manner on the front of Volume 25. The
jacket fronts of the three Robert Anderson releases are a major departure, each
containing its own original drawing by Jeanne Bastinier, who was a company
secretary during some of the firm's waning years. Because it contains two LP
records, the first Anderson issue has a folding jacket, with program notes and
the artist's picture on the insides of the folds. Volumes 28 and 29 have
inserts with those items. All three Anderson volumes have a large photograph of
the handsome Zumbro organ and its stoplist on the jacket backs.

In Conclusion

Aeolian-Skinner was not unique among organ companies in
issuing recordings of its instruments; but, to the writer's knowledge, no other
builder has ever come close to the sheer number of volumes that comprise The
King of Instruments series. Those, like the writer, fortunate enough to possess
the entire series doubtless realize what a treasure they have; and, if they
have access to a computer that can "burn" compact discs, they may
wish to follow the writer's example and copy the series to that format. (A tip:
both of the releases featuring the organ in the Cathedral of St. John the
Divine [Volumes 6 and 8] fit nicely on a single CD.)

To the writer's knowledge, three professionally issued
compact discs containing parts of the series are available. JAV Records has
issued their JAV-121, entitled Studies in Tone & King of Instruments,
containing both Volume 1 and an early-1940s 78 r.p.m. recording entitled
Studies in Tone. (John Kellner recollects of being told that Studies in Tone
was narrated by an English organist who sounded very much like G. Donald Harrison;
but, given the similarity of the verbiage to that of Volume 1 and the sound of
the narrators' (?) voices, the writer is hard-pressed to detect that different
persons narrated, respectively, the two recordings.) The William Watkins'
Kilgore, Texas, performance of the Sowerby Carillon, which is part of Volume 2,
Organ Literature: Bach to Langlais, is included on Raven OAR-310, Lorenz
Maycher plays Sowerby  (also
recorded at Kilgore). Pierre Cochereau's improvised, four-movement Triptych
Symphony
at Boston's Symphony Hall is
included on a two-CD set, Cochereau Les Incunables, available from the Organ
Historical Society as SOCD-177/8.

Mr. William T. Van Pelt, of the Organ Historical Society,
relates that Mr. Knutson "bequeathed" a large number of tapes, possibly
including the masters of The King of Instruments series, to the Society. The
tapes are apparently in very poor condition.

Those interested in the fascinating history of
Aeolian-Skinner are urged to read the Charles Callahan book mentioned earlier
and also his 1990 masterpiece, The American Classic Organ--A History in
Letters
(ISBN 0-913499-05-06, published by
The Organ Historical Society).

A sad testament to Aeolian-Skinner's demise in the early
1970s exists at the bottom right-hand corner of the back of the jacket of the
writer's copy of Volume 30--the final issue. A small box declares that the
record was "Produced for Aeolian-Skinner Organ Company, Inc., by King of
Instruments Records," addressed at a post office box in Dallas. The name
of the supposed record company and its address are rather crudely blocked by an
office stamp giving the organ company's address as 29 Melcher Street, Boston.
The once-great firm had degenerated to a small office that would soon also be
only a memory.

Related Content

Organ Historical Society 46th Annual Convention

by Malcolm Wechsler

The author thanks Scott Carpenter and Harry Martinas for editorial help with this report.

Default

The 46th annual convention of the Organ Historical Society
(OHS) took place June 21-28, 2001, in North Carolina, centering around
Winston-Salem. Convention registration brings with it the fabulous Organ
Handbook, with recital programs, organ specifications and photographs, and bios
and photos of performers. It's the Bible for the week, eagerly devoured, and
kept in one's library forever. As with last year, the editor this year was
Jonathan Ambrosino.

Thursday, June 21

The opening concert was held at First Presbyterian Church in
Greensboro, the perfect convention opening on several levels. The building is
stunningly beautiful, designed by Hobart Upjohn, modeled on the cathedral at
Albi in France, and somehow built in 1929 and 1930, in the height of the Great
Depression. It was able to accommodate the entire convention, not the case with
quite a few buildings later in the week, when we were often divided into
smaller groups. The organ, finished by Létourneau just last year, fills
the 1400-seat building with great clarity and power. It is a grand creation,
with large instruments in both gallery and chancel, beautifully encased. The
acoustic of the building is organ-friendly, but nothing more. Having chancel
pipes on both sides and a large gallery division placed very high up gives the
instrument a great presence. There is a very effective en chamade reed atop the
gallery division. The whole enterprise is undergirded by digital 32's, not
obnoxious all of the time, but often enough.

Bruce Stevens plays with grace and elegance. The program
opened with the Kerll Passacaglia in D Minor, which introduced us to the clarity of the instrument's choruses and
other combination possibilities, through a great variety of variations,
building to a quite sturdy ending. Next, Beethoven, Adagio in F Major (
Organ Sonata 8) played on a pleasantly limpid flute registration. Somewhere, at every recital of an OHS convention, a hymn gets sung, mostly meant to show the effectiveness of the organ as an accompanimental instrument, but the custom has taken on a life of its own. There is even a special hymnal printed, especially attractive this year. The recitalist gets to choose the hymn, and to accompany it with as much or as little freedom as wanted. The hymn, "I will give thanks with my whole
heart," to the tune Herr Jesu Christ, was sung in glorious harmony,
supported magnificently by Stevens. Next, Rheinberger, Introduction and
Passacaglia (from Sonata No. 8). This sonata is glorious, and both player and
organ did it complete justice. The huge power of the Pedal, some of it achieved
by illicit means (I would personally prefer a good Resultant), gave the ending
particular force. Then, Franck,
Choral No. 2 in B-Minor
style='font-style:normal'>; next, Stevens and flutist Marcella Leonard
performed
The Hedding Suite by
Everett Titcomb.
Liszt's Prelude and Fugue on B-A-C-H
style='font-style:normal'> received a totally splendid performance, virtuosic
in the extreme, registered without fear, including the en chamade in the
balcony. The Liszt was a glorious ending to a great recital, and a promising beginning for the week to come.

Friday, June 22

The first full day plunged us right into the OHS convention
bus-church-bus-church routine at its richest and fullest, complete with an 8:30
a.m. departure (and I might add, an 11:30 p.m. homecoming). We had a wide
variety of experiences this day, in the vicinity of Danville and Chatham,
Virginia, a two-hour bus ride from the hotel.

The first stop was Mount Vernon United Methodist Church,
Danville, housing a gentle and lovely 1860 Boston-built Simmons and Willcox
organ, rebuilt with significant additions by George Bozeman in 1988. As this
organ was saved and relocated through the good work of the late Alan Laufman
and the Organ Clearing House, it was somehow entirely appropriate that this
recital was played by the new director of the Clearing House, John Bishop. The
program: Bach, Prelude and Fugue in C Minor (BWV 549), began quietly, very slowly, and passionately; the fugue, on the other hand, was quite quick, almost Newmanlike, on a reedy registration, building naughtily with the gradual opening of the box; Pachelbel, Aria Sebaldina (from Hexachordum Apollinis); Derek Bourgeois (b. 1941, student of Howells), Serenade, written for the procession at his own wedding, a fine, accessible work, in a fresh but not shocking harmonic idiom. The hymn, "Christ is made the sure
foundation," was sung to
Westminster Abbey
style='font-style:normal'>--we got to sing in parts in our usual impressive
way, complete with descant. Langlais,
Noël with Variations, Choral (from 24 Pieces for Organ or Harmonium); Lefébure-Wély, Sortie--this was so well done, it made up for the over-exposure from which this piece now suffers. He who occupies the director's chair of the Organ Clearing House is able to shape and encourage one of the greatest programs to ever come out of the OHS. Its achievements under Alan Laufman were noteworthy. We offer John Bishop thanks for showing us his musical side, and wish him the very best in guiding OCH in the years ahead.

At Sacred Heart R.C. Church, Danville, James Darling,
well-known for his many years at Bruton Parish Church in Williamsburg, gave an
excellent recital on a Simmons organ from 1877, rebuilt with some tonal changes
by Andover in 1980-81. The program began with the Concerto in C Major, op. 6, no. 10, by Corelli, adapted for organ by Thomas Billington; then Grave (with variations) from Voluntary in D Major (op. 6, no. 5) of Samuel Wesley. The hymn, giving us a good chance at some excellent harmonizing, used the tune Hereford by Samuel Sebastian Wesley  for the text "O thou who camest from above" by
Charles Wesley. The program next promised more Wesley, but the artist had a
change of mind and moved smartly into the 20th century with a quite flashy and
wonderful chorale-based work,
Christ ist erstanden
style='font-style:normal'> by Ludwig Lenel, long associated with Muhlenberg
College in Allentown, Pennsylvania.

After a good lunch at the Knights of Columbus Hall (bar
closed!), we moved on to First Christian Church, still in Danville, which
became the scene of an unfortunate confluence of realities. OHS really tries,
with the help of always willing volunteers, to get organs into shape for our
pleasure and edification. This recalcitrant machine (built at a time when
Möller could actually build good instruments), through poor design,
including really ill-thought-out tuning and maintenance access, and long-term
neglect, in recent years due to the poverty of the congregation, defied all
attempts to bring it "online." Just to get inside the thing, lots of
heavy case pipes have to be removed, this landing one on the huge reservoir,
and leading to other contortions to actually get at the pipes that badly need
ministrations. With the complexities of running smoothly a convention of this
kind, and it does indeed run amazingly smoothly, this poor old organ and its
condition did not get sufficient attention. Baxter Jennings, longtime organist
at Sacred Heart Church, where we had just been, was the unfortunate player
assigned to play this instrument. Susanne Martin, choir director at Sacred
Heart, came along to sing the "Pie Jesu" from the Fauré Requiem, but was overwhelmed mostly by a too-loud registration, which in turn, might have been necessary if none of the softer stops had sufficient notes actually playing. I think too, that Mr. Jennings was totally terrified by the experience of not ever knowing what notes might play at any given time, and by knowing that under these almost impossible
circumstances he was playing for a church full of organists from all over the
country.

The next event took place at Chatham Presbyterian Church in
Chatham and involved a 1912 Möller. This 17-stop organ showed that in the
early 20th century some very good things could come out of Hagerstown. What a
solid and lovely instrument, and what a player is Randy Bourne. For the first
two pieces, the organ was hand pumped, with all the well-known benefits of
this: a Praeludium (WV33) of
Scheidemann, followed by the
Prelude & Fugue in F Major
style='font-style:normal'>, from the "Eight Little," with supple and
sensitive playing. Bourne spoke during much of this concert, and the compelling
nature of both the playing and the chat kept the audience at full attention all
the way. One of the first things he mentioned was his use, in the Bach, of an
old edition of 1909, a product of its time, suggesting soloing out sections
using a solo Flute accompanied by strings. Would this have been taken seriously
by many organists as little as ten years ago? Some would say we are returning
to the corrupt old ways of the pre-Orgelbewegung days. Others, I with them,
might say that we have matured musically, and can now ask what is musical
rather than what do the "rules" say. Next, four gently busy
Variations on "St. Catherine" written in 1999 by Robin Rokey. Bourne then played a ravishing transcription of Mélodie in E-flat Major (op. 42, no. 3) of Tchaikovsky, with the Flute solo accompanied on that rarity, "an audible Aeoline!" This was followed by another successful transcription, of a Mussorgsky piece, Fair at Sorochintzy, with images of the Cossacks
riding into a village, destroying it, and riding off--exciting stuff! The
program ended with the hymn "Love Divine, all loves excelling," sung
to
Beecher. And here was a
recitalist who understands the wonder of hymn singing, and he gave us a chance
at some harmony, and accompanied rather than dominated.

J. R. Daniels, who is organist and choirmaster at Saints
Simon and Jude Church in Pittsburgh, has been around OHS conventions since
1994, in which year he was an E. Power Biggs Fellow. He gave a concert this
year at Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Chatham, on a much-moved 1865 S.S. Hamill
organ of about 12 stops. Taylor and Boody did a restoration in 1992, adding a
pedalboard and a Pedal Bourdon. Here is another recitalist who understands
hymns--he supported us gently in a sweet old traditional Roman Catholic hymn,
letting us happily harmonize to our hearts' content. He then made an apt little
speech about how much louder this gentle instrument would have sounded when it
was built, to people who had so little noise and music in their lives. His
recital made me wonder whether we have matured sufficiently to accept most of
the music on this program! Daniels is, at present, researching the music of
Théodore Salomé (1834-1896). The program began with The
Canterbury March
, by Harry Crane Perin
(1868-1933), not a work of much substance. This was followed by the essential
Lefébure-Wély, Choeur de Voix humaines (
The Nuns'
Chorus
), consisting of Flute solo with
flourishes, accompanied on strings. Next, a kind of ornamented aria on "My
hope is built," by John Behnke, born 1953. It was then Salomé time.
Daniels warned us that the next piece,
Offertoire in D-flat
style='font-style:normal'>, had been referred to by John Henderson, in his A
Directory of Composers for Organ, as the worst piece of organ music ever
written. The recital ended with a more interesting work of Salomé,
Grand Choeur in A, altogether a better piece than the previous offering.

After a good dinner at the Stratford Inn Conference Center
in Danville, we headed to The Church of the Epiphany. George Bozeman,
organbuilder and a regular recitalist at these conventions, played the first
half on a 1928 Skinner of 16 ranks, I thought not a very successful example of
the breed. Bozeman, as always, gave us something unusual and interesting--the Sonata Cromatica (Seconda) of Pietro Yon. I was sure that what we were handed next was not going to work, but I underestimated us. We had in our hymnals a choral score of the Yon Gesù Bambino, and led by an excellent soloist who also conducted, Robert Sutter, we did a wonderful job. What a great idea, and what an interesting recital.

After a brief stretch, the program  moved to the balcony, with its 1978 Andover organ of 38
stops, for a contrast of epic proportions. There are 12 ranks of mixtures,
given unpromising names like Cymbal, or simply "Sharp." These are a
bit uppity, but judicious registrational pruning can work wonders, and there is
much that is beautiful in this instrument. The upstairs organist was Kathleen
Scheide, and she began with  Aria: Quis mutuos amores, by F.-X. Murschhauser; the hymn "Everlasting Arms of Love" to the tune Galliard; O Lamm Gottes (BWV 656) of Bach; the Reger Prelude and Fugue in B Minor,  and then we heard from Ms. Scheide as composer in a very pleasant piece called Aria
La Romanesca
. The program finished with
Scheide's own transcription of a Mozart piano duet, K. 358.

Saturday, June 23

This day began with John Farmer's fascinating history of the
much travelled Skinner (opus 248 of 1916), now comfortably and happily living
in the great Vanderbilt mansion, Biltmore, in Asheville, North Carolina, thanks
to Farmer's alertness and skilled ministrations. The following rather long
Internet address will give the story in some detail:

<http://www.biltmore.com/just_for_media/news_releases/whats_new_concert_…;
and this address will show the handsome console:

<http://www.biltmore.com/visit/biltmore_house/pipe_organ.html&gt;.
There are a few infelicities, like a "genuine forced-air organ," and
other minor oddities, but if you don't know Biltmore, or even if you do, this
is all interesting reading. My thanks to Harry Martenas for locating these
sites.

Next we boarded six buses for the longest journey of the
convention, a bit less than three hours, during which we were shown a rather
good video about the Biltmore mansion. The Asheville part of North Carolina is
wonderfully hilly, giving the bus drivers some anxious moments maneuvering the
sometimes narrow streets, including the one which brought us to Mount Zion
Missionary Baptist Church.

Presiding over Felgemaker Opus 713, 1901, two-manuals and 26
stops, was Will Headlee, always a wonderful presence at these conventions. He
spent some years of his life in Asheville, so this was something of a
homecoming. Out of respect for the organ's lineage, he began  the first movement of the Mendelssohn
A Major Sonata
on original Felgemaker
sounds--distinguished and beautiful sounds they are, too. For the Andante, he
used the original strings. Next, two choral preludes by Ludwig Lenel: "Now
praise we Christ, the Holy One" and "How brightly shines the morning
star;" then
, Was Gott tut, das ist wohlgetan
style='font-style:normal'>, Kellner;
Voluntary No. 1 in D Major, Boyce. This organ really does sing. I think everyone realized that we were in the presence of royalty, an organ with
distinguished beginnings well and lovingly restored tonally and mechanically,
with some additions, by John Farmer and Company. Also, somehow, in its
simplicity, the organ is really fine visually as well. Then, "Sarabande" and "Rhythmic Trumpet" (from
Baroques), Bingham; "Balm in Gilead" and "Swing Low," Utterback; Fantasy on "Roll, Jordan, Roll," Ralph Simpson (b. 1933), a really great fun piece (published by Morning Star); and the 1875 hymn, "I am thine, O Lord."

The next program took place at St. Matthias' Episcopal
Church, Asheville, and featured Carol Britt playing a one-manual organ built by
Reuben Midmer. Britt, organist and choir director at St. Augustine's Episcopal
Church in Metairie, made fine use of the single-manual instrument. The organ,
built in 1898, is original to this building. Ponder this from the program note:
"Original to the church, the Midmer organ is in a remarkable state of
preservation. Apart from maintenance and some patching to the bellows leather,
the instrument is essentially as installed 103 years ago." Was that a good
investment or what? The program: Triptych
(Prelude, Scherzo, and Fugue), Robert Powell;
Grand Triumphal March, Nicholls (1877), a real two-step played with wonderful panache. To play the Partita on O Gott, du frommer Gott of Bach on an instrument with limited variety takes a bit of work. With impeccable phrasing and some careful registration planning, this was a fine and arresting performance. It made perfect sense for us to next sing "O Gott, du frommer Gott," and we did indeed, happily with some directions for harmony and unison verses.

The next move was well up the social ladder, as we visited
the Vanderbilts in their stately home, Biltmore, in Asheville. After a lovely
dinner in "The Stable" on the estate, we then proceeded to the main
house to hear the organ, played partly by the Skinner player mechanism, and
partly by Kristin Gronning Farmer. Kristin, who chaired this convention, and
whose good and thoughtful work in that capacity we benefited from daily, has
also played for OHS conventions in the past, including Boston last year. In
addition to which, she is an organ builder, working with her husband, John
Farmer, and specializing in "gilding, pipe stencilling, polychrome
painting and faux finishes," which skills she makes available not only to
the "family firm," but also to other builders. After a demonstration
of some of the resources of the instrument, she let us sample some of what is
available on the Skinner semi-automatic rolls. It was all good fun.

Sunday, June 24

After yesterday's long ride to Asheville, we spent today
staying quite close to Winston-Salem, beginning the day at the hotel with the
annual meeting of the OHS. Bill Van Pelt presided, and those in charge of other
projects and committees of the society reported on activities since the last
meeting (in Boston in 2000). There were two E. Power Biggs Fellows this year:
Ryan Celestin of Metairie, Louisiana, and Bruce Ludwick, Jr. of Keyser, West
Virginia. An election of officers was held by mail prior to this meeting, with
some ballots submitted on the day. Elected as President: Michael Barone, whose
radio program, Pipedreams, produced and disseminated by Minnesota Public Radio,
is known throughout the U.S.

On to the buses at 11, going to the workshop of J. Allen
Farmer, Organbuilders--a great barn surrounded by beautiful countryside. On
display, a two-manual and pedal mechanical-action residence organ, two stops on
each manual division and a pedal 16'. Outdoors, on a perfect day, we were
treated to a fine buffet lunch.

Next stop, Maple Springs United Methodist Church to hear
James Hammann, who is on the faculty of the University of New Orleans, is
organist of St. Francis Xavier Church, and in his spare time runs an organ
maintenance business! The organ is a 1926 Casavant, originally located in
Detroit, but moved to Winston in 1982. Voluptuous describes it well, a 3-manual
instrument with all the good (big) stuff and a sound that is broad and warm.
The program: James Houston Spencer (1895-1967), Symphonesque
style='font-style:normal'>, op. 12 of 1933, a rich work, somewhat inventive
harmonically in a way occasionally somewhat reminiscent of Sowerby, followed by
our second convention performance of "Rhythmic Trumpet" from Seth
Bingham's suite,
Baroques, of
1944. This had the benefit of a wonderfully bold Trumpet, and was given a
really swaggering performance. Last, in this concert of music by composers who
lived at just about the same time,
Air with Variations (
style='font-style:normal'>written for William Strickland) by Leo Sowerby
(1895-1968).

Here, we did our famous split, dividing into two groups
because of some limited seating in one of the churches. My group went first to
Ardmore United Methodist Church, which houses an organ by Fritz Noack from
1978. Although I recognized a bit of aggressiveness in the sound occasionally,
its was more than compensated for by a luminous clarity and some really lovely
stops and ensembles. This was a most interesting recital, played by William H.
Bates, professor of organ at University of South Carolina in Columbia. He chose
"When in our music" to Engelberg as his hymn, which he played very broadly and did interesting things with the accompaniment. Abruptly changing modes, he played Retrové (Estampie III) from the Robertsbridge Fragment of the early 14th century; then Fantasie sus orgue ou espinette, arr. Guillaume Costeley, mid to late 16th century; the choral prelude Der Tag, der ist so freudenreich of Buxtehude, with the cantus on a beautiful Tierce with tremulant; John Stanley, Voluntary in C: Adagio and Andante; then, Brahms, Herzlich tut mich verlangen, played sensitively on Principal sounds; and Partita on "When in our music God is glorified" by Professor Bates himself. This recital was carefully designed to match the instrument, and all was played with great musicality, technical skill, charm and as needed, wit!

The buses took us then to St. Timothy's Episcopal Church for
a recital by Rachelen Lien, from New Orleans, where she is organist and choir
director at St. Matthew United Church of Christ and Parker Memorial United
Methodist Church. Lien chaired the OHS's national convention in New Orleans in
1989. Her assignment this day was to perform on the smallest instrument heard
in the convention, a charming Erben from 1851, temporarily living in the chapel
at St. Timothy's, while its home church in South Carolina is undergoing
structural work. The organ has one manual, no pedal, 5 stops, 5 ranks, 190
pipes! An 8' Open Diapason goes down to Tenor F, a Dulciana does the same, and
both are anchored by 17 pipes of a Stopped Diapason Bass. There is a 4'
Principal and a Flute to Tenor F. There is a very tight Swell box. For some of
the pieces, the hand pump was used. The program: Adagio in e minor
style='font-style:normal'>, J.S. Bach;
Allegro
style='font-style:normal'> from a Thomas Arne Concerto;
Soeur Monique of François Couperin, using the Swell box for the contrasts called for in the piece; Pastorale by Charles Wesley, using first the Dulciana, and then the 4' Flute for contrast, sounds of enormous beauty and integrity; Partita on "Ah, vous dirai-je, maman," Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach (1732-1795). Next, mezzo-soprano Mary Martin, violist Tony Pruett, and cellist Worth Williams collaborated with Rachelen in the Brahms Lullaby for the Christ Child, opus 91. A really special treat, followed by another, the Saint-Saëns The Swan with cellist Williams. Following this, the hymn "Built on the Rock." A fascinating program, beautifully played, ended with a good chance to sing.

The convention then moved into the main church for two more
events, and they were something of a family affair, in the broadest sense of
family. It honored people of this community and people who worked to make this
wonderful convention possible. Starting with the organ builder: this amazingly
versatile one-manual instrument is Opus 22 of 1994, by John Farmer. Through the
judicious use of common basses, space and money was saved, and divided stops
made possible accompanied solo effects. The organist who next played a recital
and then accompanied Evensong was Scott Carpenter. He is assistant organist at
this church--Kristin Farmer is director of music. The composer whose music we
heard both in the pre-service recital and in Evensong itself is Margaret
Sandresky, another treasure of this area, of whom more later. The recital: Préambule (24 Pieces), Vierne; next, an anonymous 18th-century English Cornet Voluntary, and courtesy of divided stops, we heard a beautiful accompanied Cornet, three ranks just from middle c up; next a full Trumpet divided at middle c made possible a Trumpet Voluntary of Thomas Dupuis (1733-1796); then, Nun freut euch (BWV 734) of Bach; next we heard the really lovely Celeste in Prayer in E-Flat of Guilmant. The final works on the program were two
parts of an
Organ Mass by
Margaret Sandusky based on the little 15th-century waltz tune
L'Homme
armé
. This was a wonderful recital,
which fact the audience acknowledged fully. Scott Carpenter is a player of
great assurance, musicality, and clarity.

Next was a really glorious Evensong, sung by the splendid
unauditioned choir of St. Paul's, Winston-Salem, conducted by Barbara Beattie.
Evensong began with the Richard Strauss Solemn Entry
style='font-style:normal'>, with the Giannini Brass Quintet.
Preces
and Responses
were by Martin Neary, then
followed the hymn, "O blest creator, source of light," to the Haydn
tune
Bromley. The Psalm was No.
19, impeccably sung to a fine S.S. Wesley chant. The canticles (
Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis in D) were by Sir Herbert Brewer (1865-1928). For the anthem, another lovely piece by Margaret Sandresky, The Turtle Dove. The closing hymn was "The day thou gavest, Lord, is ended," to the magnificent tune St. Clement.

After a good dinner at the Adams Mark Hotel, it was off to
St. Paul's Episcopal Church, and a joint concert by Margaret and John Mueller.
The organ is Skinner Opus 712 of 1929. Aeolian-Skinner did some revoicing work
in 1965, and in 1996-97 the Thompson-Allen firm of New Haven, Connecticut, did
a complete restoration. The St. Paul's organ has four manuals, 42 stops, 51
ranks--not huge, but quite telling in the space. The event began with Margaret
Mueller at the console as we lustily sang "For All the Saints," to Sine Nomine, complete with harmony for stanzas 5 and 6. After that, came an organ demonstration (Margaret). We were handed a two-sided, tightly-spaced sheet describing the demonstration. There were seven sections for the demonstration of the reeds, six for the Diapasons (no Prinzipals here), seven for Flutes, and three for the Strings; ah, and one
short section for the Harp and Celesta! Each of the sections dealt with
divisions separately, and ensembles and stops alone in those divisions. We then
heard
March on a Theme of Handel
by Guilmant;
Fantasie in C,
Franck; and finally the charming
A Wreath of Carols
style='font-style:normal'> by Margaret Vardell Sandresky (b. 1921), making use
in lovely and clever ways of the
Sussex Carol, Greensleeves, Lo how a
rose
, and In dulci jubilo
style='font-style:normal'>. John Mueller then took over for a very fine
Sonata da Chiesa for Flute and Organ assisted by flutist Julie Frye, written (1998) by North Carolina composer Dan Locklair (b. 1949). Dr. Mueller ended the program with the Allegro from the Widor Sixth. The audience essentially erupted at the end of this definitely "feel good" program, a tribute to two North Carolina composers, two well-loved North Carolina organists, and a most beautiful instrument.

Monday, June 25

The day began with a fascinating lecture by Jonathan
Ambrosino, who was just finishing a two-year term as President of the OHS.
"The Residence Organ, 'The Final Touch of Beauty for the Well-Planned
Home,'" took us back to those days of "yesteryear," the early
part of the 20th century when even radio did not exist commercially. If you
wanted music, you made it yourself. Just about everyone had a piano in the
parlor, and someone in the family who could play it. Those with wealth and
space had pipe organs.

After the lecture, a short bus ride took us to Centenary
United Methodist Church, Winston-Salem, for a concert involving Margaret
Vardell Sandresky and Dan Locklair. Centenary U.M.C. is not a small church,
surely seating at least a thousand souls. The church was begun in 1929, and
Austin installed an organ in 1931. With its usual uncanny thoroughness, the
Organ Handbook for the convention provides both the original specification and
that of today, after a number of revisions. The main redo was in 1963, not a
promising year! Right away, one notices that the Great lost its 16' Double Open
Diapason in favor of a Quintaten! Five 8' stops were whittled down to three.
The Second Open (albeit an upward extension of the 16') is gone, as is the
Doppelflute. The Great reed unit, Trumpet and Clarion, is gone. To be sure, in
the 1931 instrument the Great only went up to a 2' Principal, and that was an
extension of the 4'; now there is a IV Mixture, surely an improvement. The
Swell did not fare too badly, although it did lose its 8' Open Diapason, always
a shame, I think. It gained a 16' Contra Fagotto. I think I weep a bit for the
Choir organ, which must have had breadth and presence with an English Diapason,
Concert Flute, Flute Celeste, Dulciana and Unda Maris. These morphed into just
a Nason Flute, Dulciana and Unda Maris. It lost its Clarinet and Orchestral
Oboe in favor of a Larigot and Krummhorn. The Solo and Echo divisions are
changed somewhat in character, and possibly improved by the 1963 rebuild. In
1987, Austin made two additions of great significance: a not-too-frightening en
chamade reed in the back, and a solid 32' Bombarde in the Pedal.

The first part of the program was played by Margaret Vardell
Sandresky, who began with a work by her father, the first organist in the new
1931 building, Charles G. Vardell, Jr. (1893-1952). Appropriately, Mrs.
Sandresky registered using only stops from the 1931 organ. Skyland is a
wonderfully atmospheric work, with great soaring lines, and bits of nice glassy
effects, using also the French Horn and the Harp. Next, three works by Mrs.
Sandresky herself, beginning with a year 2000 commission from the Home Moravian
Church, a suite entitled The Good Shepherd, consisting of four chorale preludes based on Moravian Chorales; then a Wedding March written in 1982 while Mrs. Sandresky was organist of this church--somewhat British sounding, with great flourishes; and ending the first half of the program, En Chamade, written for OHS 2001. There are several movements, some with chimes, and some cleverly using the big reed in the back.

After a short break, the program resumed with Dan Locklair
playing his own music, beginning with a Fanfare for Organ
style='font-style:normal'>, written in 2000 on commission from Fourth
Presbyterian Church of Chicago. This was followed by three sections from the
Windows of Comfort (
Organbook 2),
commissioned in 1996 by First Presbyterian Church, Topeka, Kansas, and inspired
by that church's Tiffany windows. Then,
Ayre for the Dance and Jubilo
(A Prelude for Organ),
a 1998 commission
from the AGO for the 2001 regional competitions for young organists. Finally,
we had a chance to sing, and a good chance indeed with the Parry tune to
"O praise ye the Lord!"

We next did a rather free-form triple split. We all drove to
the great estate that Tobacco built, Reynolda House in Winston-Salem, spacious
and elegant. The room from which to hear the organ is not huge, hence the split
with assigned times for each group for hearing the recital, for eating lunch in
the various restaurants on the estate, and for simply walking around the
beautiful grounds. It did not work out exactly as planned, because it took
rather a time to check out the various restaurants and to get into fairly long
lines and to wait for service.

After this visit, the buses took us back to the hotel for a
rest period. Then, we rode to Greensboro for dinner at First Presbyterian
Church, and then to Christ United Methodist Church, the scene of which could
have been a convention planner's nightmare, but turned out more than o.k. We
were to have heard Lenora McCroskey. Ms. McCroskey suffered an injury to her
arm some days before she was to play, and realized it would not be possible to
meet the commitment. Her excellent former pupil Stewart Wayne Foster was,
fortunately, available to play. He is artist in residence and associate
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> 
organist of First (Scots) Presbyterian
Church and is founder/musical director of the Orchestra of St. Clare,
Charleston's first full-scale Baroque orchestra. Mr. Foster has been
coordinating the pipe organ component of the Piccolo Spoleto Festival since
1999.

We began with a hymn, "O Gladsome Light," to the
tune Cantique de Simeon, a Louis
Bourgeois tune harmonized by Claude Goudimel. The notes on the instrument
indicate that this was one of the organs completed in the last year of Charles
Fisk's life, 1982, and mentioned that it is  considered a sister organ to the one at Downtown United
Presbyterian Church in Rochester, New York. Mr. Foster is a superb player, possessing a very easy sort of grace, his movements sure and musically based. With very little notice, he was able to put together a most interesting program. He also spoke very clearly and well, with comments carefully chosen and useful. Nicholas Bruhns,
Praeludium in e minor; Bach, Toccata in d minor, BWV 913 (written with harpsichord in mind); Clérambault, Suite on the Second Tone; a setting of "Amazing Grace" by Robert Hebble, who was one of Mr. Foster's teachers; Toccata on "Old Hundredth" by Jack Jones (another of Mr. Foster's teachers). The recital ended with the Final from the Vierne Third Symphony, brilliantly played. By this point, I had wondered if Mr. Foster, given the late notice about playing, had actually had a chance to go out in the room and listen to the instrument with his registrations. Some judicious pruning could have made the big moments more bearable, something that was very much wanted in the Vierne, which was so splendidly done, but was also painfully loud.

Tuesday, June 26

The day began with a lecture by Peter Cameron entitled,
"George Jardine and Son, New York Organbuilders--An Era of Spectacular
Organs." Cameron has had a long career in organ maintenance, repair, and
restoration, and from 1977 to 1994 served as maintenance coordinator for the
Andover Organ Company. His lecture was a wonderful appreciation of a once great
company, from one who has had extensive hands-on personal experience with their
output. A great story, well told.

After the lecture, we did our three-way split to accommodate
one very small but beautiful venue in Historic Bethabara within Winston-Salem,
the "Saal" of the 1771 "Gemeinhaus," the meeting room in
which services were held in the Congregation House. While one part of the group
was hearing the recital, the other two parts were visiting the historical exhibits and enjoying the beautiful grounds. The little three-stop, single-manual organ in the "Saal" is by Charles McManis, built in 1971 after a 1772 organ by North Carolina builder Joseph Bultischek, an instrument that perished in a fire in 1942. Sadly and strangely, no one knows what the specification of that organ was, so Charles McManis, fortified with some knowledge of other very small organs used by the Moravians, settled on an 8' Gedact, 4' Principal, and 2' Octave.

Michael Rowland is director of music at Ardmore United
Methodist Church, and staff accompanist at Salem College. He played an
18th-century program beginning with Four Preludes of the English Moravian,
Christian Latrobe (1758-1836), followed by three Bach chorale preludes: Erbarm dich mein (BWV 721), Gelobet seist du (BWV 697), and Allein Gott (BWV 717). We then sang Allein Gott, two stanzas with harmony provided--sheer joy in that lovely place. Mr. Rowland was then joined by Lauren Kossler, a fine violinist, and together they played a suite for violin and keyboard by John Stanley. Thanks to them both for a perfect program for a most attractive and historic place.

Andrew Unsworth played an 18-stop Hook and Hastings
instrument of 1924, with no stop over 4', in a quite dead acoustic at Calvary
Moravian Church in Winston-Salem. Both Unsworth and the organ conquered all,
aided, no doubt, at times by the 73-note chests and attendant super coupler.
Currently organist and choirmaster at St. Paul's Evangelical Lutheran Church in
Durham, he holds a Ph.D. in performance practice from Duke. The program began
with two pieces by Henry Dunham (1853-1929), who taught organ at New England
Conservatory for 52 years: from the First Sonata in G Minor
style='font-style:normal'>, op. 10 (from 1882), an Allegro moderato, followed
by
Impromptu from a set of 12
pieces of 1912, op. 24; next, "Vision," Rheinberger, a lovely piece
requiring some dexterity at registration changes, which were very deftly
handled. The last of the organ pieces was the
War March of the
Priests
, Mendelssohn, played with great
flair and a fat and powerful registration--very satisfying indeed. Unsworth
proved himself to also be a very fine hymn player, giving really good support,
and doing clever bits of descanting, with a rather nice reharmonization of the
last verse of the hymn Redeemer of Israel, to a tune by Freeman Lewis.

Lunch was served at Centenary United Methodist Church,
Winston-Salem, following which we bused to Old Salem where we again broke into
three groups in order to accommodate the limited capacity of the "Saal" in the Single Brothers' House. While one group was at the recital, others were touring Old Salem. In the "Saal," Lois Regestein played her excellent recital three times in order to fit everyone in. The organ, by David Tannenberg, 1798, is gentle and sweet, and comprises five stops. The console is slightly detached and reversed. The instrument was rebuilt by Charles McManis in the mid-60s. The program: Organ Obbligatos to an Anthem, by Johann Ludwig Freydt (1748-1807); Fuga, by Johann Gottfried Gebhard (1755-?); Prelude No. 2 in C Minor, Prelude No. 6 in E-flat, by Christian Latrobe; Nun rühen alle Walder, by Ernst Immanuel Erbe (1854-1927), then another "Chorale Verse" based on the same tune, by Carl Anton Van Vleck; Voluntary IV in G, op. 7, by John Stanley; and then the hymn Morning Star, written in 1836 by Francis Florentine
Hagen (1815-1870). James Boehringer, former director of the Moravian Music
Foundation, and Kevin Brown, present administrator of the foundation, were both
acknowledged as having provided help in organizing the program.

We next walked to Home Moravian Church, where Paula Locklair
presented a most interesting slide-talk about the work of David Tannenberg and
his relationship with the Moravians in North Carolina. Mrs. Locklair has worked
with the various collections at Old Salem since 1975, and has been director of
collections since 1987, and is married to composer Dan Locklair. After her
talk, she introduced John Boody of the firm of Taylor & Boody, who gave a
slide-talk presentation about the company's project for restoring the 1799
Tannenberg organ for the Home Moravian Church. This is the oldest American-made
two-manual instrument extant. (For information on the project:
<www.taylorandboody.com&gt;.)

We then moved upstairs to the church, where the Piedmont
Chamber Singers, directed by James Allbritten, and accompanied by David
Pulliam, led us in a Singstunde, which is just what it sounds like--a wonderful
hour of singing, much of it done by us, with some choral works sung by the
Chamber Singers. We sang hymns that would be known to a Moravian congregation,
but not necessarily to us, and thus learned some new and quite interesting
hymns.

OHS planners always try to find occasional experiences other
than organs and organ music, and tonight was the night. We bused quite a long
way out of town to the Pollirosa Restaurant, obviously a very popular spot.
There was a long line and the place was really packed, but they were ready for
our group, and we had some wonderful barbecue and lots of other good things,
all accompanied by bluegrass music, live, on stage. There were also hayrides
available, but I did not notice any of our group indulging. We had six buses,
and they left for the hotel at intervals, so you could leave when you had had
your fill of food--and possibly of bluegrass. A lot of our gang really got into
it, singing and dancing up a storm, and me without my camera!

Wednesday, June 27

This penultimate full day of the convention featured an
array of various instruments. Here is the pipe count for the day: 362, 363,
951, 4926, 1038, and finally 6663. The day began with an almost two-hour bus
ride to New Hope Presbyterian Church in Chapel Hill, to hear Steve Barrell play
the 1987 one-manual organ by John Brombaugh. The program: Pieter Cornet (c.
1560-c. 1630), Four Versets on "Regina Caeli," featuring various combinations of sound, some of the fuller
bits somewhat on the harsh side, some individual voices quite beautiful.
Divided stops make possible solo and accompaniment, used to good effect. Then,
Johann Pachelbel (from
Hexachordum Apollinis
style='font-style:normal'>, 1699),
Aria Prima with Six Variations, the second variation on a beautiful Flute with tremulant. For something entirely different, we sang the hymn "Were you there," with a harmony of Barrell's own devising, based on the music of Fats Waller.

A very short bus ride brought us to Hillsborough and St.
Matthew's Episcopal Church for a recital by Grant Hellmers, an Australian by
birth, who has been at St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Richmond for 20 years,
and was assistant for the four years before that. Before his time in Richmond,
he held church positions in Australia and in Vienna. The two-manual Hook &
Hastings stock model organ dates from 1883. The program: Humoresque (L'organo
primitivo), Toccatina for Flutes
, Pietro
Yon; the beautiful Schübler
Wer nur den lieben Gott lasst walten, Bach, after which we sang the two stanzas given for the chorale, one in harmony, and the second in unison with a very nice reharmonization. The power of even half of an OHS convention was just too overwhelming (we were split in two groups at this point)--every stop was indeed on! Following the hymn, three charming pieces by Leopold Mozart, from Der Morgen und der Abend (Morning and Evening); then, "Lied" (from 24 Pieces in Free Style), Vierne, with the lovely Open Diapason for the melody; Percy Whitlock, Divertimento (No. 2 from Four
Extemporisations
); and finally, Allegro
(Number 6 of
Six Short Preludes and Postludes, Set 2, op. 105) of C. V. Stanford. Well conceived and beautifully played was this program, and the little stock organ really is
lovely.

Both New Hope Presbyterian and St. Matthew's Episcopal
provided lunch for their half of the convention party, after which we gathered
at the Chapel of Peace College in Raleigh, where Rosalind Mohnsen played her
16th OHS convention recital. The organ is a transplant, a gift to the college
given by Christ Church, Raleigh. I don't know how many intact organs by
Pomplitz & Company are extant. Here at Peace College, this 17-stop Pomplitz
found an excellent home, and it and the college were presented with an OHS
Plaque in recognition of this. It was accepted by the president of the college,
who said a bit about how much she enjoys this instrument. With only 17 stops,
this two-manual organ nonetheless has both a 16' Double Open and a Bourdon, and
is quite robust in other ways as well. The program began with March from Ten
Progressive Pedal Studies
of George
Whitefield Chadwick; then,
Gavotte Pastorale by Frederick N. Shackley (1868-1937); Prelude
in E-flat Minor
(op. 66-1911), Vincent
d'Indy (1851-1931);
Prelude and Fugue in B Major
style='font-style:normal'> (op. 99), Camille Saint-Saëns;
Pastorale in D Major, op. 13, William Wolstenholme (1865-1931); and finally an Allegro Moderato in D by Henry Smart (1813-1879). The recital came to a rousing close with the hymn "The Day of Resurrection" in glorious harmony to Henry Smart's well-known tune Lancashire
style='font-style:normal'>.

A bus ride brought us to the beautiful campus of Duke
University, with a chapel boasting three remarkable organs, upon each of which
we heard what could only be described as a perfect recital, tailored to match
the qualities of the instrument. We began at the west end of the chapel with
the famous four-manual Flentrop of 1976, with Mark Brombaugh offering a recital
of Buxtehude, Scheidemann, de Grigny, and a partita by James Woodman,
commissioned by Brombaugh in honor of his father. Woodman's Partita on
"Spanish Hymn
" was written in
1999 and comprises seven sections: Prelude, Chorale, Bicinium, Trio, Aria,
Fughetta, and Canon. The program ended with the hymn "Spanish Hymn,"
complete with three harmony verses and even a bit of a descant! The Flentrop
organ had a robust sound in the louder works and permeates the building wonderfully. The chapel's walls have been treated with several coats of sealant with excellent results. Equally impressive were the clarity and color of the quieter sounds.

The next event generated something akin to hostility. I
suppose the behavior of a few of our colleagues might be compared to the
reactions of some who demonstrated their opprobrium at the first performance of
Rite of Spring. Well, in truth, no
tomatoes were thrown on this occasion, but it saddens me to report that a
number of people left the building, saying things like "I don't have to
listen to this." Some even said things like: "I listened to the damn
Flentrop, but this is too much!" Meantone is not nearly as sinister as it
sounds! I heard Margaret Irwin-Brandon at OHS Boston the previous summer, where
she had the assignment of playing the Charles Fisk dual-temperament instrument
at Wellesley College. The anti-anything-different folks were in evidence there,
too. As at Wellesley, she chose a program absolutely perfect for the instrument
at hand: Frescobaldi,
Toccata Sesta, Bk. II, per l'organo sopra i pedali, e senza; Canzona Quarta; Toccata Quinta, Bk. II, sopra i pedali per l'organo, e senza. Then we sang "Savior of the nations, come" (Nun komm der Heiden Heiland), five harmony stanzas in our hymnlet, which means we all sang in meantone without any permanent injury, with the exception of stanza 3, which got switched amazingly into a triple meter, which we all managed quite well. Then Canzona II of Froberger, followed by Ballo della Battaglia of Bernardo Storace. Now, if anyone was in doubt about the personality of meantone tuning, the Frescobaldi works left no doubt. There are intervals that jar our "well"-conditioned brains and ears, and I found myself, as at Wellesley, looking straight up at the organ and listening with as much attention as I could muster--this contemplation coupled with a totally relaxed attitude. This is edgy, this is somewhat unsettling, but I can get used to it, and find these sounds more of a condiment than a threat. The very gentle beauty of this Brombaugh organ at Duke beguiled me into complete acceptance, and pleasure at having the opportunity to hear something from the history of our instrument. The Froberger was wonderfully gentle and sweet, and then the Storace was, well, a battle, with the little Regal on the Brustwerk doing yeoman service!

The journal of the Organ Historical Society is called The
Tracker, and back in the very early days, this was the perfect name.
Conventions included visits to, if not totally exclusively, almost exclusively
mechanical-action instruments. The broadening happened gradually, and now
convention goers visit historic E. M. Skinner organs, on which are often
conferred OHS plaques in honor of their preservation and maintenance. We have
often even visited new organs of note, no matter what mechanism makes the pipe
speak, e.g., the new Létourneau instrument at the first recital of this
convention! Welcome, I think, to the real world, with a broader view of real
excellence. I have not, and I know others who are driving the work of OHS have
not, abandoned a belief in the great virtues and advantages of tracker action.
This does not prevent me from thrilling at the sound of the Wanamaker Organ,
for example. The full circle we have made was brought into full view by all the
buzz and almost palpable anticipation of the next event, a recital on the
Aeolian organ in the east end of the chapel, an organ so reviled in times past
that there was a powerful movement to junk it. It makes the heart glad to know
that the OHS had a role in the campaign to save it, so there was some reveling
in all of this as we settled down to hear Ken Cowan give a convincing
demonstration of this instrument: Allegro vivace from the Widor 5th; Ave
Maria
of Marco Enrico Bossi (1861-1925) demonstrating the ravishing strings of the instrument; Roulade, Seth Bingham; Overture to The Flying Dutchman, Wagner; the hymn "In our day of thanksgiving one Psalm let us offer," to the glorious tune St. Catherine's Court, with harmony. (Let it be here stated that Ken Cowan does know how to accompany a hymn. I wrote in my book: "What an accompaniment!!") Words won't do in describing Cowan's simply stunning performance of a perfect piece for right where we were, the Liszt Ad nos, ad salutarem undam.

Thursday, June 28

The last day of the convention began with Rachelen Lien from
New Orleans, a regular performer at OHS conventions, giving a preview of a
January 2002 mini-convention entitled "A South Louisiana Organ
Odyssey." This event, to be held January 3-5, was to include tours of
plantations, monasteries, and convents, as well as the famous French Quarter.

A 45-minute bus ride brought us to the First Presbyterian
Church of Lexington, for a recital by Edward Zimmermann, a native of North
Carolina, now teaching at Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois. The organ, Opus
499 of Geo. S. Hutchings (1900), was relocated to this church through the Organ
Clearing House and members of the staff of Andover Organs, which company
rebuilt and enlarged the instrument in 1994. The program consisted entirely of
works by Otto Dienel (1839-1905), beginning with a chorale prelude on Lobe
den Herren
, for which Zimmermann used only
original Hutchings stops; we then sang just one stanza of the chorale. This
two-manual instrument of 23 stops and 28 ranks is very fine. There followed
three more chorale preludes:
Komm, O komm, du Geist des Lebens; Mach
dich, mein Geist, bereit
; and Wer
nur den lieben Gott lasst walten
. The
program ended with a three-movement
Grand Sonata No. 3 in F Major, op. 18, on the chorale Wie gross ist des Allmaecht'gen Guete. At some of the convention recitals, we are joined by varying numbers of members of the
congregation, which suggests the good news that there is interest in the organ.
From this church, there were many congregants, and I am sure they had their
interest and pride in the instrument strengthened.

After lunch in Winston-Salem, we moved on to another
surprisingly effective organ, speaking out of a very small rectangular hole
high on the east wall, looking for all the world like a large
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  
speaker enclosure. No date is
given for this Kilgen unit organ of 11 stops and 13 ranks. The church was built
in the early 1930s by a Presbyterian congregation, and the organ would seem to
be of the same period. In 1964, the congregation of St. James A.M.E. Church
bought the building. The organ was last played publicly 30 years ago. The last
time it was played at all was 20 years ago. At some point, before the organ
ceased to be used, some tonal changes were made under the direction of John
Mueller, which now, at this time of our organic thinking in the 21st century,
will either bring cheers or jeers. The Great 8' Open was replaced by a Mixtuur
III. The 8' Clarabella became a Gedeckt. The Dulciana became a 4' Octaaf. On the
Swell, the Vox Humana became a 2' Vlakfluit. When members of the convention
committee went to inspect this instrument, it was not playing at all--there was
no longer electricity to the blower. John Farmer and a crew, along with a
licensed electrician, got it all cooking again. There were a few members of the
congregation around for the recital, and I hope they might be persuaded to make
some use of the instrument, now that it can be played again. Those there seemed
impressed. Here we were treated to a concert by bass-baritone John Williams and
organist Max Smith. The program: Handel, Thanks be to Thee
style='font-style:normal'>; Mendelssohn (
Elijah
style='font-style:normal'>), Lord God of Abraham (preceded by the recitative);
Margaret Vardell Sandresky,
O God, my heart is fixed on thee
style='font-style:normal'> (Psalm 108); for organ alone: Adagio from Widor
Symphony No. 6; "I Stood on the River of Jordan," arr. Harry Burleigh; "Let Us Break Bread Together"; provided with full harmony, we happily sang "Fairest Lord Jesus" to the tune Crusaders' Hymn.

A 45-minute bus ride brought us to the third and last
"stately home" of the convention, the Chinqua-Penn Plantation,
devised and built by Mr. & Mrs. Thomas Jefferson Penn. A Skinner organ,
Opus 565, was installed in 1926. The pipes are in the basement, speaking out
into the great living room through large grates. For this visit, we were
divided in two groups to avoid crowding in the room where the organ resides.
While one group was walking the extensive and interesting grounds, the other
was listening to a recital, well played and chosen for the organ and venue, by
Mary Gifford, who is director of music at St. Leonard Catholic Church in
Berwyn, Illinois. Her program was perhaps a reproduction of at least the spirit
if not the specifics of what might have been heard by the residents of this home. There were four charming Edward MacDowell piano works arranged by Ms. Gifford: Hunting Song, An Old Love Story, To a Humming Bird, and the inevitable To a Wild Rose; next A Southland Song by William Lester, an English organist who settled in Chicago in the early part of the 20th century, and was for some years a reviewer for The Diapason; then we attempted to sing "When Mother Played the Organ," by George B. McConnell (text by Dick Sanford) and did not do
too badly at all. The perfect closer was the Mendelssohn
War March of
the Priests
arranged by Theodore Dubois.

After dinner at the plantation (one could get used to that),
we hopped on the bus for a one-hour relaxing trip to Greensboro, and West
Market Street United Methodist Church, where Peter Sykes played the final
recital of the convention. Organist at First Church in Cambridge,
Massachusetts, Sykes teaches organ, harpsichord, and chamber music at the Longy
School, and serves on the faculty of the extension division of New England
Conservatory. The organ at West Market Street is by Dobson in collaboration
with Manuel Rosales. Quoting from the Organ Handbook: "In the final
equation, Dobson designed and constructed the organ; Rosales provided basic
scaling with input from Dobson; and both companies shared equally in the
voicing and tuning process." Key action is mechanical, stop action,
electric. Some Pedal ranks are on electric action. There are three manuals and
39 stops, the third manual being a small Solo Organ, with an Harmonic Flute, a
5-rank Tenor G Cornet, an 8' Trumpet and an 8' Clarinet. The program:
Mendelssohn, Sonata No. 3 in A Major; a five-movement "suite" by
James Woodman, All Creatures of Our God and King: Sister Moon, Brother Sun, Mother Earth, All of Tender Heart, and Alleluia; the tune Lasst uns erfreuen appears here and there. Then, Tocccata in F (Bux 137); Fantasia and Fugue in C Minor, BWV 537, Bach; three "Tonstücke," op. 22 of Niels Gade; and to close, Duruflé Prélude, Adagio, et Choral varié on Veni Creator. The last hymn to be sung at this convention followed, a rather angular but ultimately attractive and singable tune by Derek Williams (b. 1945) to the text, "Give us the wings of faith." The Dobson/Rosales instrument, though not large, provided plenty of variety and color for such a varied program. There were, for me where I was sitting, a very few overpoweringly loud and harsh moments, and I thought it had to do with the Great Reeds, 16, 8 & 4, but others will have felt differently, I am sure. The instrument is surely a great success, and Mr. Sykes' performance was superb. The buses soon departed for the hotel, and one last look at the exhibits and the convivial bar  and it was all over for another year.

This was another wonderful OHS convention! Readers please
note: the 2002 OHS national convention will take place June 25-July 1 in
Chicago, Illinois. For information: 804/353-9228;

<www.organsociety.org&gt;.

Paul Callaway, Roy Perry and the Washington Cathedral Organ—A History and Memoir

Neal Campbell

Neal Campbell grew up in Washington, D.C., and attended the University of Maryland. He holds graduate and undergraduate degrees from the Manhattan School of Music, where he earned the DMA in 1996. He held church and synagogue positions in Washington, Virginia, Philadelphia, New Jersey, and New York, before assuming his present position at St. Luke’s Church, Darien, Connecticut, in 2006. He was for ten years on the adjunct faculty of the University of Richmond, and served three terms on the AGO National Council.

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In preparing the outline for a volume of memoirs reflecting on Aeolian-Skinner organs I have known, it became clear that my involvement with the organ in Washington Cathedral was sufficient in recollection, scope, and primary sources to warrant a chapter all its own. That is what is presented here, along with enough commentary to place the topic in context.
A note about the cathedral’s name: its full ecclesiastical name is the Cathedral Church of St. Peter and St. Paul in the City and Diocese of Washington. In most of the cathedral’s publications today it is called the Washington National Cathedral. During the era I was familiar with it (ca. 1964–1976), the cathedral was called simply Washington Cathedral in its weekly orders of service and other publications, listings in the local newspapers, and on all Aeolian-Skinner correspondence, so for ease of continuity that is how I refer to it in this article.

The new organ in 1937
Much misinformation and technical ambiguity surrounds the Washington Cathedral organ. This is due to the fact that by the time the cathedral organ was built, Ernest Skinner had left the company he founded in 1901. Also, at some point in the early 1930s the Skinner Organ Company merged with the pipe organ division of the Aeolian Company, creating the Aeolian-Skinner Organ Company. The entangling alliances of these dramas are beyond the scope of this article, but it is fascinating reading, and the reader is referred to Charles Callahan’s two books1 for the complete saga as told by the principals in their own words.
In 1932 Aeolian-Skinner built a small two-manual organ as its Opus 883 and lent it to Washington Cathedral while Ernest Skinner was still with the firm. Later in the decade, as the Great Choir was nearing completion, Ernest Skinner’s new company, the Ernest M. Skinner and Son Company, was contracted to build a large four-manual organ for the cathedral, and the small organ on loan was reinstalled by Aeolian-Skinner in Lasell Junior College in Newton, Massachusetts, retaining the 883 opus number. The organ no longer exists.2
By this time the cathedral worship space consisted of the Great Choir and two side chapels, a rather sizable and impressive edifice in itself, in spite of the fact that it represented but 20% of the finished cathedral church as planned. The new organ was built by the Ernest M. Skinner and Son Company of Methuen, Massachusetts, as their Opus 510. This was the company that Ernest Skinner and his son Richmond set up in a factory adjacent to Serlo Organ Hall in Methuen, now known as the Methuen Memorial Music Hall. Edward Searles, an eccentric organ aficionado living in Methuen, commissioned Henry Vaughan to build a new music hall, completed in 1909, to contain the old Boston Music Hall organ. In 1889, on a site adjacent to the hall, Searles had purchased an old textile mill and had Vaughan renovate it to function as an organ factory for James Treat. Treat had worked for Hutchings, Plaisted & Company in Boston, which is probably where Searles met him, as Searles had purchased an organ from Hutchings in 1880.3 From this factory they manufactured organs under the name of the Methuen Organ Company. Skinner purchased the factory and the hall during the Depression, and ran concerts in the hall and built several notable organs in the factory from about 1936 until the factory was destroyed by fire in 1943. Of the organs they built, the one for Washington Cathedral was by far the largest.4
Given the fierce loyalty in some circles to Skinner, and given his longevity (1866–1960), one wonders whether he might have been a stronger competitor had not the Methuen factory been destroyed by fire in 1943. For example, the Skinner organ for the new St. Thomas Church in 1913, Opus 205, was built in collaboration with T. Tertius Noble, and it remained one of Skinner’s favorites. Noble was likewise devoted to Skinner. From the Methuen factory Skinner electrified an old Johnson organ for Noble’s St. Thomas studio. The company also relocated and revised the organ in the Brick Church in New York when the church moved to its new and present location under Clarence Dickinson’s direction in 1940. Dickinson had also played the opening recital on Skinner’s Opus 150 at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in 1911. The records show that most of the work of the new Ernest M. Skinner and Son Company was limited to rebuilding and relocating some of Skinner’s former organs. Of the four-manual organs Skinner built in Methuen, only two survive: the organ in the chapel of Mt. Holyoke College (built in 1938 as his Opus 511, which was rebuilt from his previous organ in the chapel), and the organ in St. Martin’s Church in Harlem, a rebuilt Skinner from a previous location. He did build a completely new four-manual organ for St. John’s Lutheran Church in Allentown, Pennsylvania, but it has since been extensively modified. And a three-manual organ for St. Andrew’s Roman Catholic Church in New York is extant and unaltered, but unplayable.5
The committee to select a new organ for Washington Cathedral included Noble and Channing Lefebvre of Trinity Church in New York, each enthusiastic supporters of Ernest Skinner. So it is not hard to imagine the cathedral turning to this new company headed by Skinner to build its first organ, in spite of its somewhat shaky organization. According to Ernest Skinner, authentic Skinner organs were available only through the new company building out of Methuen—and this was arguably true. Advertisements in The Diapason and The American Organist about this time barely disguise Skinner’s contempt of the tonal philosophy of the continuing Aeolian-Skinner Organ Company, and his letters to the editor are openly hostile to G. Donald Harrison. Harrison for his part never responded in kind, though his business correspondence shows that Skinner’s remarks disturbed him. He ultimately let his own instruments speak for themselves as growing numbers of younger organists, many of whom had studied in Europe during and after World War II, found favor with his classically inspired instruments. Paul Callaway, the cathedral’s new organist, also studied with Dupré in Paris and later served in the war as a bandmaster in the South Pacific.

An organ for the completed
cathedral emerges

The Ernest M. Skinner and Son Opus 510 organ served the cathedral well in essentially unaltered form—albeit with additions—until 1973, at which time the major renovation began, the result of which is the present organ. In 1957, with the projected completion of the nave in sight, the cathedral began a series of consultations with Aeolian-Skinner regarding what steps it should take in providing for the organ. Although G. Donald Harrison designed a small, two-manual organ for the cathedral’s Bethlehem Chapel6 in 1951, he had nothing to do with the design of the main organ, and I have not discovered any comments by him about it. By the late 1950s the crossing, transepts and first three bays of the nave were nearing completion. The big decision before the building committee at that time was whether to build the great central tower over the crossing and let the nave wait its turn, or complete the interior of the nave and build the tower later. There were persuasive arguments for both approaches, but it was decided to build the tower and let the nave wait.
With all of that in mind, it was decided to develop a master plan for the organ with a view to gradually altering and enlarging the organ to accommodate the full cathedral. Joseph S. Whiteford, the new president and tonal director of Aeolian-Skinner, developed this in consultation with the cathedral organ committee, which in reality amounted to Callaway and his associate Richard Wayne Dirksen, reporting to and receiving reactions from the Dean, the Very Rev. Francis B. Sayre, Jr. Whiteford’s scheme specified what might be called a post-Harrison American Classic concept—a standard four-manual layout, together with a large Positiv, independent choruses on manual and pedal divisions, along with a plethora of imitative voices (some new and some saved from the old organ) and softer sounds to accompany the choir. The correspondence shows Whiteford to be in total command of the subject, including convincing arguments surrounding the scientific properties of physics and acoustics involved in the emerging cathedral space.
Responding to a request from the organ committee of the cathedral in February 1957, he says:

The present enclosed volume of air, which has so much to do with the acoustics of both the organ and choir, is between 60 and 70% of the completed Cathedral. Furthermore, the surfaces normal, or adjacent to the organ and choir, are approximately 90% complete. These are the most important surfaces and the most important air volume, since they have the most to do with the projections of the sound to the listener. The air spaces and surfaces at the West end of the Cathedral, for instance, while important as a terminus, do not shape and control the sound in anywhere near the same capacity as the Great Choir and Crossing.
The present organ is truly magnificent in certain respects. It has a wealth of soft voices which create an extremely fine effect. These were the high points of the period in which the organ was built. Since that time tremendous strides have been made in making instruments of this character greatly more flexible with regard to the many periods of music . . . [which] demands primarily, highly focused and clear sound, rather than the nebulous, floating, ethereal sounds of many strings and flutes in which the present organ now abounds.7

From this point Whiteford’s letter continues in language reminiscent of Harrison and Emerson Richards a decade earlier. He posits that the best location for the organ would be the yet-to-be-built west gallery, but that idea never received serious consideration. He then takes the cathedral through a logical long-range plan to accomplish the task, beginning with the console, wiring, and relays (“the nervous system of the organ” he says), then adding the Brustwerk and Positiv divisions nearer the choir and in direct sight line to the congregation, continuing with the replacement and relocation of various portions of the remaining divisions. This letter remained the vision statement for the work on the organ that culminated in 1976, when the full length of the nave was finally completed some 19 years later.
A thorough study of Whiteford and an analysis of his extant organs has yet to be undertaken, but his contributions to Aeolian-Skinner in his own right are considerable and warrant such a study. In fact, Whiteford worked very closely with Harrison during the building of some of the company’s most successful organs, and it often fell to him to implement the details of the schemes Harrison wrought. At the time when Callaway and Whiteford were discussing the future of the cathedral’s organ in 1957–58, some of Whiteford’s own most successful organs were built. Opus 1308 for St. Mark’s Church (now Cathedral) in Shreveport, Louisiana, and Opus 1309 for the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (now called the Community of Christ), in Independence, Missouri, come to mind. These were large four-manual organs in new, highly visible venues—very different in concept, use, and outcome, but important manifestations of Aeolian-Skinner as it emerged following the death of G. Donald Harrison. The Shreveport organ in particular derived much of its distinction through the on-site alterations and finishing of Roy Perry and J. C. Williams8, noted Aeolian-Skinner representatives in that part of the country. Callaway particularly liked the Shreveport organ and measured plans for Washington Cathedral against its success.
It is true that Whiteford did not come to organ building through the traditional apprentice method, and there is no doubt that many of the Aeolian-Skinner craftsmen (several of whom were old enough to be his father) didn’t respond well to what some perceived as Whiteford’s Johnny-come-lately status. But from my experience with many of his organs, I tend to agree with Emerson Richards in his report to Henry Willis III in England when, after Harrison’s death, he wrote “I think that he [Whiteford] has more ability than he is given credit for but he is impatient and for some reason does not inspire confidence—just why I cannot say.”9
By this time Ernest Skinner’s star had set, his attempts failed to set up a shop after the Methuen fire, and even though he was on the scene and continued to offer his diatribes against what he considered the desecrations of his masterpieces, no one paid much attention to him. Still, it is still hard not to feel a bit sorry for the grand old man as he saw his early successes at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, then St. Thomas Church, and now Washington Cathedral fall prey to advancing ideas carried out by the company still bearing his name!
The first step in the lofty long-range plan was to provide a new four-manual console to control the completed organ. The new console was encased in elaborate Gothic panels designed for the previous console by cathedral architect Philip Hubert Frohman, which had pedalboard, swell shoes, and toe studs on a hydraulic elevator. Thus, while the bench height remained the same, the pedalboard could be raised or lowered. Presumably this was to accommodate the disparate heights of the cathedral’s organist and his associate—Paul Callaway, who was unusually short, and Richard Dirksen, who was unusually tall. This 1958 console was referred to by Aeolian-Skinner as Opus 883-A, picking up on the opus number of the small two-manual it lent the cathedral in 1932, even though the original #883 was in place in Newton, Massachusetts, and the Ernest M. Skinner and Son Opus 510 was the only organ in situ.10 Sparse in design by comparison with the digital age of multiple levels of memory, it was luxurious for the time. It had 18 generals, remote combination action, and the usual couplers and pistons to make for ease in playing. The nomenclature engraved on the knobs reflected the projected new organ and only approximately correlated to the actual stops of the 1937 organ it controlled. On the Great, for example, the Prinzipal, Spitz Prinzipal, and Salicional actually drew Diapasons I, II, and III respectively. It was a bit confusing to the traveling weekly recitalist, but it somehow made sense and had the psychological effect of projecting the vision of the new organ. The console functioned in this way until the overhaul began in 1973.
The next step was to add two unenclosed divisions in 1963 named Brustwerk and Positiv with matching pedal in the so-called musicians’ galleries11, lofts above the canopies of the stalls in the Great Choir, in the first bay on either side of the Choir, carrying the job number 883-B. In 1965 as Opus 883-C, the Trompette en Chamade was installed in the triforium over the high altar.12 This was the organ I knew growing up: the 4-manual Ernest M. Skinner and Son, Opus 510, plus the new console, Brustwerk and Positiv, and Trompette en Chamade. During high school and college years I attended weekly services and events at the cathedral, and I played a recital on the Sunday afternoon series in 1971 while I was a senior in high school and a student of William Watkins. Unfortunately, I was too young to have been considered for the extraordinary College of Church Musicians, the graduate-level school founded at the cathedral by Leo Sowerby, which had closed its doors by the time I was of college age. I did know several of the Fellows of the College, and heard all of them as they played their recitals following Evensong on Sunday afternoons. Sowerby himself was often in attendance, and recitals frequently included his music.
While attending the University of Maryland, I did study privately with Paul Callaway for a year and observed his rehearsals and services, and will always be grateful to his memory for his helpful mentorship as I began my trek into the intricacies of the Episcopal Church. Weekly attendance at Evensong and the organ recitals that followed left an indelible memory. The variety of the repertoire and sheer amount of it was remarkable. The choir sang the Responses, Psalms, anthem settings of the canticles, and an anthem at the offertory. On the last Sunday of the month there was a cantata or group of anthems in place of the sermon. At Evensong the Psalms were either sung either to Anglican chant or plainsong, and the service began in one of two ways: 1) a processional hymn, followed by the Responses with the choir in place, followed by the Psalms to Anglican chant; or 2) the Responses were sung where the choir gathered in the north transept, and the Psalms were sung to plainsong in processional accompanied by handbell changes.
In addition to the standard cathedral repertoire of the late 19th and early 20th century, Callaway offered large doses of early music and modern music. I recall one Evensong when all of the music was by Byrd. The movable cathedral chairs for the congregation were arranged facing the north transept with a portable altar, candles, and officiants’ chairs set up on the nave floor, while the choir sang from the gallery above, and the entire service was unaccompanied. New works were also frequently premiered; particularly memorable was the dedication of the central tower in 1964 when new works by Samuel Barber, Lee Hoiby, Stanley Hollingsworth, Roy Hamlin Johnson, John La Montaine, Milford Myhre, Ned Rorem, and Leo Sowerby were given first performances.
Callaway usually played the organ voluntaries himself. His repertoire was vast, and he listed preludes and postludes to each service. The now-familiar practice of the principal musician as conductor, with the assistant doing all the playing, was not then in vogue, and Callaway usually played anthem accompaniments as well. Typically, the assistant organist turned pages, and perhaps played the sermon hymn. In retrospect it is easy to suggest that the technical security of the choir suffered, as they were only able to see Callaway through a series of mirrors. But it was the way things were done at the time, and it offered a window of opportunity to hear this extraordinary organist in the roles of recitalist playing the repertoire, service player, and accompanist. Callaway excelled in each of these capacities following the examples of his mentors, T. Tertius Noble and particularly David McK. Williams.
Even though Callaway was a pupil of T. Tertius Noble at St. Thomas Church, he was great friends with David McK. Williams at St. Bartholomew’s and often spoke of how much he learned from him. Part of Callaway’s duties as Noble’s student was to play the services at St. Thomas Chapel (now All Saints’ Church on East 60th Street) where Evensong on Sunday evening was late enough that he usually turned pages for David McK. Williams at 4:00 Evensong at St. Bartholomew’s. Here he observed in close-up detail Williams’s absolute control from the console, where by all accounts his accompaniments and improvisations were extraordinary. Callaway often told me of the profound effect David’s playing had on him, even though he was careful to say that never studied with him formally. Callaway was approached about the position at St. Bartholomew’s when David McK. Williams was forced to resign in 1946, but having just returned to the cathedral following service in World War II, he declined, and Harold Friedell was appointed.
Callaway’s playing of large doses of Bach chorale preludes and trio sonatas using the Brustwerk and Positiv were models of accuracy, style, liturgical appropriateness, and performance practice not as a subject unto itself, but a natural vehicle for expressive playing. The contrapuntal textures were clear and focused, and the new Brustwerk and Positiv divisions were the ultimate in Joseph Whiteford’s development of the classic Aeolian-Skinner sound in the post-Harrison era. They were characterized by low wind pressures, articulate yet even voicing, pipes of high tin content, and a location within sight lines of the choir and congregation. The Brustwerk and Positiv could be used by themselves in Baroque music; added to the old organ they added immediacy and clarity. In combination with the main organ and Trompette en Chamade, the combined divisions were good vehicles for thrilling performances of Callaway’s hefty doses of romantic and modern organ music. The organ is fairly well documented in LP recordings accompanying the choir and in solo repertoire, including a multi-volume complete performance of the Bach Clavierübung, Callaway playing Part III on the cathedral organ, and Ralph Kirkpatrick playing the other parts on harpsichord. Just before the 1973–76 work began, Callaway recorded an album of music of Gigout, Franck, Tournemire, and Messiaen on the organ, the specific intent being to document the organ prior to the renovation. The plan was then to record the same repertoire on the new organ in 1976, which he did. To my knowledge these LPs have not been transferred to CD, but are fairly easy to find through the various search engines.

The new organ 1973–76
With America’s Bicentennial observances on the horizon, the cathedral in the early 1970s poured considerable energy into completing the nave and organ, and planned several special services that culminated in the “Dedication of the Nave for the Reconciliation of Peoples of Earth,” in the presence of President and Mrs. Ford, and Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip on July 8, 1976. I sang during the service as a member of the University of Maryland Chorus. All aspects of the cathedral’s bicentennial programs were well reported in the media. The actual bicentennial date, July 4, 1976, was a Sunday, and the front page of the Style section of The Washington Post featured a picture of Roy Perry in the organ blowing a pipe, and a lengthy article by Paul Hume saying:

When Queen Elizabeth walks down the aisle of Washington Cathedral Thursday morning, she will be hearing one of the greatest pipe organs in the world . . . Perry worked among the thousands of pipes with the precision and infinite care of a jeweler cutting a priceless diamond so that its facets would produce the greatest possible beauty. And like the diamond, the sounds of the Washington Cathedral’s organ pipes can be expected to last, with care, indefinitely . . . they now stand ready . . . to create new beauty in a newly completed setting. There are those who know no beauty in all of music that can surpass theirs.13

Aeolian-Skinner had just ceased operation when the cathedral began its work in 1973. Joseph Whiteford, even though he retired from Aeolian-Skinner before its denouement, continued to be the person with whom the cathedral (that is, Callaway) corresponded regarding the new work, and it was always assumed that he would oversee the work for Aeolian-Skinner, even though he was officially retired. Whiteford, the son of a prominent Washington attorney and a graduate of St. Alban’s School on the cathedral close, was a good friend of Callaway, and it was natural that these two would be the point persons in the cathedral’s ever-evolving planning of the organ. Reading the 1957 correspondence, we see that the cathedral’s estimated time line for the completion of the cathedral was optimistic by several years. In hindsight, it is providential that the cathedral’s work was delayed. Had the cathedral contracted to accomplish its ambitious scheme with Aeolian-Skinner during its final days, the results would likely have included artistic difficulties and financial disasters.14
Roy Perry’s role in the cathedral organ renovation was an afterthought. Many of the former Aeolian-Skinner men who weren’t retired were still in business as suppliers to the trade. It was decided to gather a consortium—the cathedral’s term—of workers to design, build, voice, and finish the necessary pipes and chests, all under the direction of Whiteford, following the plan of his 1957 design. The one catch was that Whiteford, who lived in California, did not fly and apparently did not want to relocate to Washington for the long periods of time the job required. Whiteford pitched the idea to Callaway that Perry, as one of Aeolian-Skinner’s most successful field representatives and finishers, be the on-site supervisor and finisher for the cathedral, working under his (Whiteford’s) direction from California via telephone and hard copy correspondence. It is poignant to read Perry’s negotiations with the cathedral regarding his compensation. At this time Perry was retired and drawing Social Security payments. He explained to Dirksen—who was the cathedral’s agent in business and logistical matters pertaining to the new organ—that if in any given month he earned more than $175 his Social Security would be knocked out for the month. He therefore suggested that for the duration of the project, he be paid “$175 per month as a salary, plus expenses, for a total of $5,875 for the period April 1973–December 1975,”15 and the cathedral agreed to this schedule of payments.
In short order the cathedral had letters of agreement with Aeolian-Skinner pipemaker Thomas Anderson and head flue voicer John Hendricksen to provide the necessary new pipes. The new chests were made by the Ernest M. Skinner and Son Company of East Kingston, New Hampshire, the continuing company Skinner started when he left Aeolian-Skinner. Anthony Bufano, another Aeolian-Skinner alumnus, who was by then curator of the organs in the Riverside Church in New York, re-covered many of the pouches with Perflex and facilitated the necessary console details. Other structural components were entrusted to Arthur Carr and the Durst Organ Supply Company of Erie, Pennsylvania. All local arrangements were coordinated through the Newcomer Organ Company and their outstandingly gifted foreman Robert Wyant, who had taken care of the cathedral organ for many years. Among these principals—the cathedral (usually via Dirksen), Newcomer in Washington, Whiteford in California, Perry in Texas, Anderson and Hendricksen in Massachusetts, Bufano in New York, and Carr in Erie—flowed frequent communications for three years: correspondence, pipe orders, voicing notes, shop talk of every kind, travel arrangements, and occasional items of humor or personal and family notes of interest. In spite of intense seriousness of purpose and high artistic standards, it is obvious that there was a sense of family about this consortium.
It was a laudable plan that attracted huge interest in the organ community in Washington and elsewhere as word spread. It called for several unusual features to be built, retaining a large portion of the existing Ernest M. Skinner and Son divisions, and the Aeolian-Skinner Brustwerk and Positiv divisions located in the musicians’ galleries. The Trompette en Chamade over the high altar was of course to remain.
The Great in the first bay north triforium was to consist largely of new pipework intended to complement the two Baroque divisions. The tonal relationships (and to a large degree the pipes as well) of the three enclosed divisions were to remain, because of their proven effectiveness in accompanying the choir. Seated at the console, these divisions were located directly above the organist’s line of sight. Directly above, behind the case in the second bay north triforium was the Swell, followed by the Choir and Solo, in the succeeding third and fourth bay triforium galleries. The Pedal, located throughout the south triforium, was to be a combination of new and existing pipes, including the four full-length 32′ stops.
A small division, a typical Ernest Skinner Echo, which was played with the Swell division, was located in the fifth bay south triforium, opposite the main organ near the high altar. This was the location of the original organ that Aeolian-Skinner lent to the cathedral in 1932. It consisted of an 8′–4′ five-rank Choeur des Violes, an 8′ Éoliènne Céleste, and an 8′ Voix Humaine.16 To this was added a unique stop Perry developed with the curious name Flûte d’Argent II. Perry told me that once he had found an interesting flute stop built by Estey called Zartflöte or Silver Flute, which was a tapered flute that was also harmonic. It had a cool, clear sound that Perry thought would sound good with a celeste added to it, so he ordered it in some of the organs he finished for Aeolian-Skinner.17 I was present the night Perry pitched the idea to Dirksen to add this unique stop to the organ. Wayne liked it and said he would find the money somehow; it wasn’t cheap! In Roy’s previous use of this stop he called it Harmonic Spitzflöte II, or simply Silver Flute. Whiteford was fanatical about nomenclature and insisted that stops in the Great be given German names, and those of the Swell, French. So, this new stop became in Whiteford’s nomenclature Flûte d’Argent—Silver Flute. In French, of course, argent has more than one meaning, and many a visiting organist has wondered if it was a joke that the cathedral organ contained a “Money Flute.” It was an expensive stop to build and voice, so the double meaning may indeed be appropriate.
One of the chief goals of the new organ was to provide more sound directly into the crossing and nave, so it was decided to build a new division of significant tonal properties in the first bay south triforium, directly opposite the Great. This enclosed division had swell shade openings into the chancel and south transept, and was built with funds solicited in memory of Leo Sowerby, so the division became known as the Sowerby Memorial Swell division, since it was also to be played via the Swell manual. In effect, if not in planning, it was a Bombarde or Grand Choeur division—small but telling, consisting of a principal chorus topped by two mixtures, a chorus of French reeds, and an exceptional string celeste of special construction that extended all the way to 16′ C in the unison and celeste ranks.
Therefore, the Swell manual played pipes located in three locations: 1) the main Swell directly in front of the organist behind the north case, 2) the Sowerby Swell, opposite the Great, and 3) the Echo Swell in the fifth bay south triforium. Roy Perry told me that the job ought to have had a five-manual console, and it is easy to understand the organizational logic in such a plan. The organ would have benefited from having the Bombarde (Sowerby division) and Echo occupying the fifth manual, but in the pre-digital, pre-solid state age, it would have been enormously expensive, if not impossible, and the big plan did call for retaining the 1958 console. This brings up the important point that consistently stands out in the project: no expense was spared on what was done, but nothing was done that was considered unnecessary, and console rearrangements fell into that category. As it was, the total cost of the new 1973–76 organ was projected to be $216,000,18 which would equal a 2007 value of between 1.3 and 1.8 million dollars.19
Other unusual features included extending the 32′ Bombarde into the 64′ range for three notes for pieces ending in B, B-flat, or A. I recall that these three notes were ineffective, being half-length metal pipes extended from a full-length wooden 32′ rank. There weren’t many miscalculations in the project, but in a job of this scope a few were inevitable—some humorous, others serious. Perry may be best remembered for his beautifully finished celestes, but he was equally adventurous in designing bold, complex mixtures.20 For the cathedral he and Whiteford designed the unusual VI–X Terzzymbel intended initially to flank the Trompette en Chamade over the high altar, but eventually placed with the Great. He also called for an unusual mixture in the Solo called None Kornett to replace Skinner’s full mixture, but (in his words) “it was a vast disappointment on the voicing machine, so you may prefer to abandon these two top boards and re-engrave the [draw] knob PERRY’S FOLLY.”21 On the other hand, the use of Perflex, which Dirksen insisted upon, stung the cathedral badly in ensuing years, as it did many other jobs of the era when everyone was desperate to find a substitute for chest leather. In the 1960s some New York churches found that leather lasted less than a decade. As it turned out, Perflex itself was indestructible, but there seemed to be no satisfactory way to glue it to the wooden chests, so in short order Perflex was deemed even less suitable than leather.
The 1973–76 organ in Washington Cathedral is really the final statement of Aeolian-Skinner’s concept of the American Classic Organ. Among the cathedral consortium it was informally referred to as Opus Posthumous. Perry went a step further and printed stationery in jest (I think!) with the title “Organbuilders Anonymous” in a shaded copperplate font, listing the names of those taking part: “Roy Perry, Most Anonymous; Tommy Anderson, Almost Anonymous; John Hendricksen, All But Anonymous; Bob Wyant, Nearly Anonymous; and Honorary Anonymouses: Joe Whiteford, Wayne Dirksen, Harold Newcomer, Kim Bolten [sic], Arthur Carr, Jim Williams, Tony Bufano, Carl Basset [sic], Adolph Zajic, Bon Smith.”22 It was Perry’s hope to actually build organs in his post-cathedral days with this consortium. He and Jim Williams had previously built a few organs independent of Aeolian-Skinner using the services of several of them. Humor aside, this is as complete a list of workers as may be found anywhere else in the documentation of the building of the organ. They are all persons associated either with Aeolian-Skinner or the cathedral, with the exception of Adolph Zajic, the well-known reed voicer still working at Möller at the time, and the independent Carr. The one piece of the puzzle missing in the original consortium of Aeolian-Skinner alumni was a reed voicer. Oscar Pearson, the famous voicer who created the State Trumpet at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine23 was still alive, but had retired and was deaf.24 Herb Stimson, Aeolian-Skinner’s last reed voicer, died just about the time Aeolian-Skinner went out of business. So, for the cathedral, Möller built and Zajic voiced the Great reeds.
Roy Perry was central to the tonal outcome of the cathedral organ. I would venture to say that his influence was greater than that of Whiteford, who never made the trip to Washington either during the work or after. The correspondence often shows Perry dutifully asking permission to make various alterations, some slight, others significant. Except for stop nomenclature, it appears that Whiteford never tried to second-guess him. Perry’s on-the-job adjustments, combined with his natural gifts as a finisher, resulted in the unique sound stamped with his genius.
I had nothing official to do with the cathedral or its organ project. I had met Roy Perry in the summer of 1972 when I was a finalist in the AGO National Organ Playing Competition at its national convention in Dallas. My teacher, William Watkins, knew Perry and had played and recorded at his church in Kilgore, the First Presbyterian Church—home of the well-known Aeolian-Skinner organ, which in the 1950s and 60s was prominently featured in company sales literature and on the “King of Instruments” series of recordings. Volume II has recordings of both Perry and Watkins on the Kilgore organ, and Volume X featured the Kilgore organ and choirs. It was through these recordings that Perry’s name became known outside of the Texas-Oklahoma-Louisiana territory he covered for Aeolian-Skinner. The English choral repertoire on Volume X is standard fare now, but was revelatory at the time. However, it was in the American music that Perry used the organ to greatest effect, notably in his accompaniment of David McK. Williams’s anthem In the year that King Uzziah died, and Bruce Simonds’s Prelude on Iam sol recedit igneus, which he introduced to the organ world through the recording.25 Watkins thought it important that I meet Perry and see the Kilgore organ, and that was the source of our association.
When I learned of Perry’s involvement in the cathedral project I, still a student living in Washington, offered to meet him at the airport, run errands for him, and in the course of events introduced him to my fellow organists and showed him around town. His trips were a whirlwind of activity and were red letter days on my calendar.
On the one hand I was fortunate to have been able to simply sit and watch him at work finishing the various stops as installments of new pipework arrived. He listened as I played the pieces I was working on and came to some of my church services. His musical insights from his perspective as an organbuilder were valuable, especially regarding registration.
His knowledge of the repertoire was vast and greatly belied his humble upbringing. In designing several stops for the cathedral he would have special pieces of music in mind, and would often request that I have such and such a piece ready when such and such a stop arrived. For the new strings in the Sowerby Swell, he wanted to hear Duruflé’s Veni creator Adagio. And he wanted to hear Bach’s chorale prelude Nun komm der Heiden Heiland, BWV 659, beginning with the accompaniment on the new celestes, especially the opening pedal notes on the new 16′ Violoncelle Celeste against the boldest cornet in the organ.26 As the project completion drew near toward Holy Week 1975, he was particularly looking forward to the full ensembles in Langlais’ Les Rameaux, which was on the program for Palm Sunday. And he was irritated when Wayne Dirksen (in fact a fine organist who was in the class of Virgil Fox at the Peabody Institute) on Good Friday played Bach’s O Mensch bewein with the cantus firmus, in his words, “played on a lard-butted clarinet, with four cornets in the organ to choose from!”—a curious admonition given his preferred registration for the Bach Nun komm! He did love the cornet combination for Bach ornamented chorales, and I think he perceived string celestes, as a family of tone in his design, as an equally viable and appropriate accompaniment as are flutes or principals, and—who knows—he may have a point. He was a wonderful teacher, vivid in imagination, yet grounded in a thorough knowledge of the repertoire. I still feel his influence when practicing and playing.
On the other hand, in social settings stories of the personalities he had known and worked with flowed in a heady ether wherever we went. Early in his career he had come to New York to study with Hugh McAmis, and it was then that he met David McK. Williams and struck up their lifelong friendship. He told of how his involvement with Aeolian-Skinner began by accident and lasted for 25 years, during which time his sales amounted to roughly 25% of Aeolian-Skinner’s business, and he was full of humorous anecdotes of Donald Harrison’s trips through the Southwest on various jobs.
Likewise, for his part, Harrison had great regard for Perry and enjoyed his trips to Texas, as he relates in a letter to Henry Willis in England:

Roy Perry, or Perriola, as he is affectionately referred to in our organization, has supervised, with the aid of Jack Williams and his son, most of our important installations in Texas. He is an accomplished organist and has a wonderful ear. He is a top notch finisher and during my periodic visits to Texas I cannot remember a time when I have had to suggest that something might have been done a little differently. He just has that kind of organ sense.
I think you will also enjoy him as a personality. He knows some good southern stories and, by the way, he is an expert at southern hospitality. I always look forward to my trips down to his neck of the woods as we have a glorious time just waiting for sundown to start on a little nourishment.27

As the work was in the planning stages at the cathedral, I remember several of us being given a tour through the organ. Roy was explaining where the various stops and divisions were to be located or relocated. He was particularly proud of two sets of string celestes he was designing.28 These were to be of varying scales, very broad in tone, becoming narrower as the notes descended in the compass, and having 2/7 mouth construction, a mouth width usually found only on principal pipes. He said we would “smell the rosin” when we heard it. Being the eager and easily malleable students we were, we expressed appropriate awe, and he said rather matter of factly “well boys, the way I see it, if you can’t fill the house with string tone you’re just not sittin’ in the front of the bus.”
Roy was a character! He was part of that vanishing (vanished?) breed of larger than life extrovert, totally uninhibited Louisiana Cajun humorists, the likes of which Episcopal Washington had never seen. Though I was not part of it, he had a non-musical, non-organ-related social orbit involving the higher echelons of the cathedral hierarchy. Usually his trips, which brought him to Washington two or three times a year, sometimes for four or five weeks’ duration, included a big party where he cooked his famous Louisiana gumbo. These were the talk of the cathedral work force, and not just the music office. Accounts of these gatherings and recipes are also mentioned in the correspondence, taking their place along side voicing notes and complex cathedral schedules.
Roy made friends easily with all of the cathedral staff, especially the vergers and volunteer tour guides called Aides. He regaled us at dinner one night telling of a sight he swore he witnessed. A very tall “professional Texan” as he called him, complete with Stetson hat in hand, tooled leather cowboy boots, shirt with pearl buttons, and long, thick, white sideburns (think Jock Ewing in the nighttime soap opera “Dallas”) came up to Ginny Hammond, the Head Aide. He drew himself up as he took in the wide vistas of the transepts, the newly completed nave, then the high altar with the Trompette en Chamade atop, and said in his thickest Texan drawl, “Tell me, ma’m, is this yer MAIN SANC-tu-ar-y?”
At some point midway through the work, word got out that this former Aeolian-Skinner representative and finisher was nearby and consulting offers began to appear. He actually designed a rather interesting organ for All Saints’ Church in Chevy Chase, where I was assistant organist. The case was made that we could get a new organ in essentially the same way as the cathedral had via the consortium, but nothing came of the plan. I accompanied him to the Church of the Redeemer in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, which had sought his advice regarding their organ.29 He also did a thorough inspection and report for All Saints’ Church in Worcester, Massachusetts,30 and—in 1977 after the cathedral work was complete—made a visit and proposed additions at St. George’s-by-the-River, in Rumson, New Jersey.31 Also in 1977 he did what turned out to be his final work in some tonal refinishing to the organ in Church of the Epiphany in Washington, D.C.32 He died in May 1978.
I moved away from the city of my youth in 1976 just as the Bicentennial furor was dying down. I did return to play a Sunday afternoon recital at the cathedral in 1977 in a program of music I had coached with Roy. I have not played the organ since, although I have occasionally attended services at the cathedral when traveling, notably at the memorial service for Dirksen in July 2003, and have heard it on the telecasts of funerals and memorial services of national figures. The organ had its eccentricities and could easily be mismanaged by visiting recitalists lacking practice time. But the sound was still unmistakable as a creation imbued with Roy Perry’s magic and the Aeolian-Skinner aesthetic. The organ in its post-1976 state has been featured in several recordings, notably the series of live Sunday afternoon recitals on the JAV label, where the performances of Erik Wm. Suter, Gerre Hancock, Peter Richard Conte, Ann Elise Smoot, Todd Wilson, Daniel Roth, and John Scott display the great variety, contrast, and depth of this unique organ.
In reading the correspondence and technical data surrounding the creation of the cathedral organ, what impresses me most is the humility tinged with pride, innate talent, sense of history, exuberance, and exceeding devotion to the cathedral that this unique consortium exhibited. It is summed up best by Wayne Dirksen himself in a report as the work was nearing completion:

We began twenty-six months ago with the security of long planning (since 1957), the thorough experience and knowledge of two principal consultants, with confidence in our craftsmen and maintainers, and with ample time to correlate and coordinate a complex project toward the perfect result we believed possible.
Now the largest part is accomplished. During this Holy Week 1975, thousands will hear with their ears what we knew in our hearts: that an incomparably magnificent pipe organ will grace this cathedral for centuries to come, the result of extraordinary talents, devotion, and skills we have combined for its creation.33

The 1937 Ernest M. Skinner and Son Organ, Opus 510

GREAT
16′ Diapason 61
8′ First Diapason 61
8′ Second Diapason 61
8′ Third Diapason 61
Muted String Ensemble
8′ Principal Flute 61
8′ Clarabella 61
8′ Viola 61
8′ Erzähler 61
51⁄3′ Quint 61
4′ Octave 61
4′ Principal 61
4′ Harmonic Flute 61
22⁄3′ Twelfth 61
2′ Fifteenth 61
IV Harmonics 244
VII Plein Jeu 427
III Cymbale 183
16′ Posaune 61
8′ Tromba 61
8′ Trumpet 61
4′ Clarion 61

SWELL
16′ Bourdon 73
16′ Dulciana 73
8′ First Diapason 73
8′ Second Diapason 73
8′ Claribel Flute 73
8′ Gedackt 73
8′ Viol d’Orchestre 73
8′ Viol Celeste 73
8′ Salicional 73
8′ Voix Celeste 73
8′ Flauto Dolce 73
8′ Flute Celeste 61
Muted String Ensemble
8′ Aeoline 73
8′ Unda Maris 73
4′ Octave 73
4′ Harmonic Flute 61
4′ Gemshorn 73
4′ Violin 73
4′ Unda Maris II 122
22⁄3′ Twelfth 61
2′ Fifteenth 61
V Cornet 305
V Full Mixture 305
III Carillon 183
16′ Posaune 73
8′ Trumpet 73
(light wind)
8′ Cornopean 73
8′ Flügel Horn 73
8′ Vox Humana 73
4′ Clarion 61
Tremolo

CHOIR
16′ Gemshorn 73
8′ Diapason 73
8′ Concert Flute 73
8′ Gemshorn 73
8′ Viol d’Orchestre 73
8′ Viol Celeste 73
8′ Kleiner Erzähler II 134
4′ Harmonic Flute 73
4′ Gemshorn 73
4′ Violin 73
22⁄3′ Nazard 61
2′ Piccolo 61
13⁄5′ Tierce 61
11⁄7′ Septieme 61
III Carillon 183
16′ Orchestral Bassoon 61
8′ Trumpet 73
(small orchestral type)
8′ Clarinet 61
8′ Orchestral Oboe 61
Tremolo
Celesta 61
Celesta Sub 61

SOLO
8′ Flauto Mirabilis 73
8′ Gamba 73
8′ Gamba Celeste 73
4′ Orchestral Flute 61
VII Compensating Mixture 427
16′ Ophicleide 73
16′ Corno di Bassetto 12
8′ Tuba Mirabilis 73
8′ Trumpet 73
8′ French Horn 61
8′ Cor d’Amour 61
8′ English Horn 61
8′ Corno di Bassetto 61
4′ Clarion 73
Tremolo

PEDAL
32′ Diapason 12
32′ Violone 12
16′ Diapason 32
16′ Diapason (metal) 32
16′ Contra Bass 32
16′ Violone 32
16′ Bourdon 32
16′ Echo Lieblich Sw
16′ Gemshorn Ch
16′ Dulciana Sw
8′ Octave 12
8′ Principal (metal) 12
8′ Gedackt 12
8′ Still Gedeckt Sw
8′ Cello 12
8′ Gemshorn Ch
51⁄3′ Quinte Ch
4′ Super Octave 32
4′ Still Flute 32
4′ Still Gedeckt Sw
V Mixture 160
IV Harmonics 128
32′ Bombarde 12
32′ Fagotto 12
16′ Trombone 32
16′ Fagotto 32
8′ Tromba 12
8′ Fagotto 12
4′ Clarion 12
4′ Fagotto 12

Source: Aeolian-Skinner Archives <http://www.aeolian-skinner.110mb.com&gt; (accessed 16 September 2008). See also The Diapason, March 1937, pp. 1–2.

The New 1973–76 Organ
GREAT First bay, north triforium

16′ Diapason
16′ Violon (ext)
16′ Bourdon
8′ Prinzipal
8′ Spitz Prinzipal
8′ Waldflöte
8′ Holz Bordun
8′ Salicional
8′ Violon
8′ Erzähler
4′ Spitzoktav
4′ Koppel Flöte
22⁄3′ Quinte
2′ Super Oktav
2′ Blockflöte
II Sesquialtera
IV Klein Mixtur
IV–V Mixtur
IV Scharf
VI–X Terzzymbel
16′ Bombarde
8′ Posthorn
8′ Trompette
4′ Clairon
8′ Trompette en Chamade (Solo)
8′ Tuba Mirabilis (Solo)

CHOIR Third bay, north triforium
16′ Gemshorn
8′ Chimney Flute
8′ Viola Pomposa
8′ Viola Pomposa Celeste
8′–4′ Choeur des Violes V (Sw)
8′ Viole Céleste II
8′ Kleiner Erzähler II
4′ Principal
4′ Harmonic Flute
4′ Fugara
22⁄3′ Rohrnasat
2′ Hellflöte
13⁄5′ Terz
III–IV Mixture
II Glockenspiel
16′ Orchestral Bassoon
8′ Trumpet
8′ Cromorne
4′ Regal
8′ Tuba Mirabilis (Solo)
8′ Trompette en Chamade (Solo)
8′ Posthorn (Gt)
Harp
Celesta
Zimbelstern
Tremolo

SWELL
First bay, south triforium
(Sowerby Memorial)

16′ Violoncelle (ext)
8′ Montre
8′ Violoncelle Céleste II
4′ Prestant
V Plein Jeu
IV Cymbale
16′ Bombarde
8′ Trompette
4′ Clairon
Second bay, north triforium
16′ Flûte Courte
8′ Bourdon
8′ Flûte à Fuseau
8′ Viole de Gambe
8′ Viole Céleste
8′ Voix Céleste II
8′ Flute Celeste II
4′ Octave
4′ Flûte Traversière
22⁄3′ Nasard
2′ Octavin
13⁄5′ Tierce
IV Petit Jeu
16′ Posaune
8′ 2ème Trompette
8′ Hautbois
8′ Cor d’Amour
4′ 2ème Clairon
Tremolo
Fifth bay, south triforium
8′ Flûte d’Argent II
8′–4′ Choeur des Violes V
8′ Éoliènne Céleste II
8′ Voix Humaine
Tremolo

SOLO Fourth bay, north triforium
8′ Diapason
8′ Flauto Mirabilis II
8′ Gamba
8′ Gamba Celeste
4′ Orchestral Flute
VII Full Mixture
16′ Corno di Bassetto (ext)
8′ Trompette Harmonique
8′ French Horn
8′ Corno di Bassetto
8′ English Horn
8′ Flügel Horn
4′ Clairon Harmonique
8′ Trompette en Chamade
8′ Tuba Mirabilis
16′ Posthorn (Gt)
8′ Posthorn (Gt)
Tremolo

PEDAL
First through fourth bays, south triforium
32′ Subbass (ext)
32′ Kontra Violon (ext)
16′ Contre Basse
16′ Principal
16′ Diapason (Gt)
16′ Bourdon
16′ Violon (Gt)
16′ Violoncelle (Sw)
16′ Gemshorn (Ch)
16′ Flûte Courte (Sw)
102⁄3′ Quinte (from Gross Kornett)
8′ Octave
8′ Diapason (Gt)
8′ Spitzflöte
8′ Gedackt
8′ Violoncelle Céleste II (Sw)
8′ Flûte Courte (Sw)
51⁄3′ Quinte
4′ Choralbass
4′ Cor de Nuit
2′ Fife
II Rauschquint
IV Fourniture
III Acuta
IV Gross Kornett
64′ Bombarde Basse (ext)
32′ Contra Bombarde
32′ Contra Fagotto (ext)
16′ Ophicleide
16′ Bombarde (Sw)
16′ Fagotto
8′ Trompette
8′ Bombarde (Sw)
8′ Posthorn (Gt)
8′ Tuba Mirabilis (So)
8′ Trompette en Chamade (So)
4′ Clairon
2′ Zink

BRUSTWERK
First bay, north gallery
8′ Spitz Prinzipal
4′ Praestant
22⁄3′ Koppel Nasat
2′ Lieblich Prinzipal
IV–VI Mixtur
8′ Rankett

POSITIV First bay, south gallery
8′ Nason Gedackt
4′ Rohrflöte
2′ Nachthorn
13⁄5′ Terz
11⁄3′ Larigot
1′ Sifflöte
IV Zymbel
4′ Rankett (Brustwerk)
Tremulant

GALLERY PEDAL
First bays, north and south galleries
16′ Gedacktbass (ext)
8′ Oktav
8′ Nason Gedackt (Positiv)
4′ Superoktav (ext)
4′ Rohrflöte (Positiv)
16′ Rankett (Brustwerk)
4′ Rankett (Brustwerk)

Source: Washington Cathedral website <http://www.nationalcathedral/org&gt; (accessed 16 September 2008)

Annotated bibliography and sources
Callahan, Charles. The American Classic Organ: A History in Letters. Richmond: Organ Historical Society, 1990.
______________. AEolian-Skinner Remembered: A History in Letters. Minneapolis: Randall Egan, 1996.
Two volumes of letters, commentary, shop notes, and photographs, which chronicle the history of the Skinner and Aeolian-Skinner Organ Companies. Aeolian-Skinner Remembered also has essays and reminiscences by G. Donald Harrison’s son and other former Aeolian-Skinner employees.
Diapason, The. Arlington Heights, IL, Scranton Gillette Communications, Inc.
Feller, Richard T., and Fishwick, Marshall W. For Thy Great Glory. Culpeper, VA: the Community Press of Culpeper, 1965, 1979.
A history of the construction of the cathedral.
Workman, William G., and Dirksen, Wayne, comp. The Gloria in excelsis Tower Dedication Book. Washington Cathedral, 1964. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: R64-1214, with recording.
Contains the complete orders of service for the dedication of the central tower on Ascension Day, 1964, together with the music commissioned for the occasion.
“Guide to Washington Cathedral, A.” The National Cathedral Association, 1965. Library of Congress Catalogue Number 25-2355.
Contains much information and photographs about the cathedral’s music and organs, including a stoplist of the organ at that time. Also contains information about the College of Church Musicians.
“Guide to Washington Cathedral, A.” The National Cathedral Association, 1953.
Contains a photograph of the original Ernest M. Skinner and Son console, and other information on the organ also available in the 1940 edition.
Kinzey, Allen, and Lawn, Sand, comp., E. M. Skinner / Aeolian-Skinner Opus List. Richmond: Organ Historical Society, 1997.
Opus list and notes on the Skinner Organ Company, Aeolian-Skinner Organ Company, Ernest M. Skinner and Son Organ Company, and organs built by Carl Bassett, Skinner’s foreman.
Morgan, William. The Almighty Wall: The Architecture of Henry Vaughan. New York: The Architectural History Foundation, 1983.
Biography and analysis of the work of the noted architect, who was the first architect of Washington Cathedral and architect of Serlo Organ Hall, now known as Methuen Memorial Music Hall. Includes an entire chapter on the patronage of Edward Searles in Methuen.
“View Book of Washington Cathedral, A.” The National Cathedral Association, 1940.
Contains information about and photographs of the new organ.
Roy Perry Papers.
Files pertaining to the building of the cathedral organ 1973–76, consisting of correspondence and technical data. In the possession of the author.
Liner notes on recordings of the cathedral organ 1964–1976.

Web sites
Aeolian-Skinner Archives
<http://aeolian-skinner.110mb.com&gt;
Opus lists, notes, and photographs of organs built by the Skinner Organ Company, Aeolian-Skinner Organ Company, and Ernest M. Skinner and Son Company. Based on material in the Kinsey-Lawn OHS book of opus lists.
Vermont Organ Academy
<http://www.vermontorganacademy.com&gt;
Writings and photographs of Roy Perry from the archives of First Presbyterian Church, Kilgore, Texas. “Aeolian-Skinner Legacy” series of recordings.
Washington National Cathedral
<http://www.nationalcathedral.org&gt;
Music pages include information on the cathedral organs.

East Texas Pipe Organ Festival, November 14–17, 2011

Michael Fox

Michael Alan Fox is a retired bookseller and publisher who reviewed organ records for The Absolute Sound for 15 years. Growing up in San Francisco, he fell in love with Aeolian-Skinners while listening to Richard Purvis at Grace Cathedral; and as a disciple of Maurice John Forshaw—Jean Langlais’ first American pupil—he has an unshakable faith in seamless legato. He is organist of All Saints Episcopal Church in Hillsboro, Oregon.

Files
Default

 

The East Texas Pipe Organ Festival took place November 14–17 in and around Kilgore, Texas, and was one of the best organ-related gatherings I have ever attended. This was largely because of two men: Roy Perry, the former organist-choirmaster of the First Presbyterian Church of Kilgore, and Texas representative for Aeolian-Skinner; and Lorenz Maycher, the current Kilgore incumbent, and devoted historian of Aeolian-Skinner, who decided that Perry’s achievements deserved wider recognition.

 

Harrison & Perry

Admirers of the company know that
G. Donald Harrison held Perry’s work—and zany humor—in high esteem, and the Texas instruments that were installed by the Williams family of New Orleans and finished by Perry have a special place in the hierarchy of Aeolian-Skinner organs. (See “The Williams Family of New Orleans: Installing and Maintaining Aeolian-Skinner Organs,” by Lorenz Maycher, The Diapason, May 2006.) Perry’s own organ in Kilgore was featured prominently in the King of Instruments recordings that the company released to promote its organs, and the slightly larger sister organ in Longview was used by Catharine Crozier to make two important recordings of American organ music. If for no other reason, the Kilgore organ would have its place in history as the organ that introduced the chamade trumpet to America, perhaps a cause for sorrowful head-shaking to many.

Fashions changed in the following decades, and many regarded the American Classic ideal as unsatisfactory eclecticism, and it must be said that even before Harrison’s death that approach seemed to be narrowing its scope even as it was narrowing its scales, and some notable instruments came to be deprecated or ignored—or, worse, rebuilt.

Through these decades, some organists continued to maintain that the Roy Perry organs were very special. He figured prominently in Charles Callahan’s histories of Aeolian-Skinner, with letters to and from G. Donald Harrison. Inevitably, tastes changed yet again, and some of the Romantic aspects of Perry’s designs once again could be seen as reflections of a good musical sense rather than deviations from classical ideals. But the piney woods of east Texas are a long way from big musical centers, and mostly the instruments sat ignored by the larger world. One of them had even fallen on hard times, and due to changing worship styles was sitting unused.

I was enough of a dedicated admirer of G. Donald Harrison organs that I had occasional retirement fantasies about jumping in the car and heading on a long diagonal trek from the Douglas firs of the Northwest to the loblolly pines of Texas and actually hearing those two organs. For one reason or another, the fantasy trek never happened; and so when I read the announcement of this East Texas Pipe Organ Festival I signed up immediately. It ran from a Monday evening opening concert through Thursday evening, three non-stop days and nights.

The festival was essentially on the scale of an unusually good AGO regional, but it really was the work of one man with whatever support he may have asked for and received from others; those are details of which I know nothing. But however Lorenz Maycher made it happen, the organization was impressive. There were 50 or 60 attendees, a comfortable and convenient headquarters hotel, a
giant bus, catered meals that were never less than good and in the case of a gumbo dinner, just terrific, organs that had been freshly tuned (and because of some odd swings in the weather, even retuned), hospitable churches, and first-rate recitalists. For arranging this tribute to Roy Perry, Lorenz Maycher undoubtedly earned himself a place in the ongoing Aeolian-Skinner saga.

 

Opening concert

The opening concert was at First Presbyterian in Kilgore, and the program repeated the content of Roy Perry’s original recording, “Music of the Church,” Volume Ten in the King of Instruments series. A choir of some 30 voices was conducted by Frances Anderson, who as an Austin College student had sung on the original record. After the appropriate opening hymn (Engelberg), the choir, accompanied by Robert Brewer, sang Parry’s I Was Glad, Ireland’s Greater Love Hath No Man, and Vaughan Williams’s setting of Old Hundredth. Practical considerations led to the substitution of Elgar’s The Spirit of the Lord Is upon Me for David McK. Williams’s In the Year That King Uzziah Died, and following the congregational singing of St. Clement, Lorenz Maycher played Bruce Simonds’s Iam sol recedit igneus, the only organ solo on the original record. 

The concert set the tone for the festival perfectly. First Presbyterian is not a huge church—I’d guess that it seats around 300—and even though seat cushions had been removed, it is not a particularly live room. It is not a hostile building: music is clear and well balanced there, but it gets very little enhancement, so the organ’s glory is of its own making. It didn’t take long for that glory to be evident, as Robert Brewer accompanied the choir superbly. The Parry was tremendously exciting, even without the “Vivats”, and that first Trompette-en-chamade is still one of the very best examples, a well-nigh perfect balance of brilliance and body, just loud enough to dominate.

As I heard throughout that concert, and in the succeeding events in that church, Roy Perry’s own organ, Aeolian-Skinner opus 1173, embodies that kind of musical balance in any number of voices. Uniquely, I think, among instruments carrying the G. Donald Harrison signature plate, it is only “rebuilt” by Harrison, since it started life as a Möller, and much of the structure and even pipework (including the notable French Horn) remains from its origin. This perhaps makes Roy Perry’s achievement as a tonal finisher even more notable, because this instrument of 69 ranks is versatile and elegant beyond description. Other Harrisons that I have heard and loved—Grace Cathedral, Church of the Advent, St. John the Divine, etc.—owe something of their effect to their glorious buildings. Kilgore does it all on its own, and I left the concert convinced that I had just heard one of the world’s truly great organs.

 

Tuesday, November 15

The following day offered more opportunities to hear just how versatile the Kilgore organ is, as Maycher, former organist Jimmy Culp (who two days later was honored by the grateful church as its Organist Emeritus), and Casey Cantwell played organ works particularly associated with Opus 1173: Dreams, by Hugh McAmis; Christos Patterakis, by Roy Perry; A Solemn Melody, by Walford Davies; Nun komm der Heiden Heiland, by Bach; Introduction, Passacaglia and Fugue, by Healey Willan; Alleluia, by Charles Callahan; Songs of Faith and Penitence, and Requiescat in Pace, by Leo Sowerby; and The Way to Emmaus, by Jaromir Weinberger.

There were also reminiscences of Roy Perry, as there were later in the week; by my reckoning he would have emerged as the undisputed champion in an all-time contest of Readers’ Digest Most Unforgettable Characters. Attendees learned that his lovely Christos Patterakis was named not for some obscure Orthodox melody, but for an obscure name he saw on a local election campaign poster in California; his irreverence and impishness were as fully developed as his ear for proper pipe speech. For me the highlight among all this music-making was the performance of Weinberger’s solo cantata The Way to Emmaus for soprano and organ. Anneliese von Goerken did a lovely job on the demanding vocal part (it concludes on a pianissimo high A after 22 pages of very chromatic writing); Maycher showed off opus 1173 as no less spectacular an accompanying instrument. 

The Weinberger cantata for years was a tradition on Easter afternoon at Riverside Church, and I have retained a vivid memory of hearing Louise Natale and Fred Swann perform it in the late 1970s. The Kilgore organ was easily the equal of the Riverside giant in providing all of the color required. (I missed only the few Chimes strikes that Swann added; Maycher was faithful to Weinberger’s score.) Part of the magic and the versatility comes from the enclosure of most of the Great, which is both a Great (a splendid Principal chorus, with three mixtures including one that caps full organ in much the same way as the famous
Terzzymbel at Washington Cathedral) and a Solo, with an English Horn and a French Horn to go with an eloquent Flute Harmonique. With some very imaginative thinking, Roy Perry transcended the limits of the usual three-manual instrument and enabled it to be a giant in flexibility.

Later in the afternoon, Casey Cantwell demonstrated another approach Roy Perry took: at St. Luke’s United Methodist Church in Kilgore, opus 1175, he designed a very substantial instrument in a smallish room, but laid it out on two very complete manuals rather than the expected three. The Great, again partially enclosed, is almost enormous at 18 ranks; and the Swell has a chamade Trompette in addition to the usual reed chorus. In a dead room it seems like a recipe for disaster, but Casey Cantwell, moving on from having played the Willan Introduction, Passacaglia and Fugue on Opus 1173 in the morning, demonstrated that Perry knew what he was doing. It played the Bach Prelude and Fugue in E-flat well enough for these ears, and did a thrilling job with the John Cook Fanfare. The program also included Harold Darke’s Meditation on “Brother James’s Air,” Two Meditations on “Herzliebster Jesu” by Mark Jones, and Bach’s Adagio Cantabile arranged by Roy Perry. Cantwell improvised on some hymns, giving the attendees a chance to sing along as the themes were presented, and it was a model church organ in supporting congregational singing. And my fears at seeing those trumpets aimed at us were unfounded; they, and the organ, were just right. In an ideal world you might hope for a livelier room, but working in the real world Perry delivered a very satisfying and completely musical organ.

In the evening, Brett Valliant demonstrated further capabilities of Opus 1173 by using it to accompany a Harold Lloyd film, but I can’t comment on whether that worked or not, since I decided to save my energy for the late night cash bar, where more Roy Perry stories abounded. There sure are some great storytellers in Texas.

 

Wednesday, November 16

The following day the giant bus made the 70-mile trip east to Shreveport, where the group enjoyed the hospitality of the historic Shreveport Scottish Rite Temple, having lunch and dinner in a distinguished dining room. Upstairs in the 500-seat auditorium we heard Charles Callahan demonstrate the sounds of the 1917–1921 four-manual Pilcher, some voices of which weren’t available. Like all such fraternal orders, it faces an aging and declining membership; the preservation of their remarkable buildings, which are usually among the notable structures in every city where they are found, should be yet another cause to which organists might rally.

The major attraction in Shreveport was St. Mark’s Cathedral, Roy Perry’s largest installation. It was designed by G. Donald Harrison in conjunction with Perry and William Teague, then fresh out of the Curtis Institute and embarking on a long career at the cathedral, but it was not built until the Whiteford years. The festival’s visit to the cathedral was preceded by a session of further reminiscences of Perry at St. Mark’s former building, now the Church of the Holy Cross, where a 1920 E. M. Skinner was rebuilt by Aeolian-Skinner in 1949. William Teague—“Uncle Billy” to Roy Perry, and I suppose now about 90 (see “William Teague awarded Doctor of Fine Arts degree by Centenary College,” The Diapason, October 2011, p. 10)—was the star of the show, with a flood of stories that illustrated both Perry’s care for music, as when he sent pipes from the Kilgore strings back to Boston so that the scales could be duplicated for Teague’s organ then in the shop, and his wild sense of humor.

The St. Mark’s organ sounded particularly lovely in Charles Callahan’s prelude to the Evensong service, an atmospheric improvisation that hung in the air like wisps of incense. Following Evensong, Robert McCormick played a recital that started with a particularly colorful performance of the Elgar Sonata, and included three improvisations by Pierre Cochereau, reconstructed by Jeanne Joulain; McNeil Robinson’s Prelude on Llanfair, and Larry King’s Fanfares to the Tongues of Fire; the program ended with an improvisation on submitted themes. The cathedral has a generous acoustic, and the organ sounds like a vintage Perry right up to the point that the big reeds come on. I may be in a minority, but the Solo Major Trumpet unit was the first less-than-beautiful reed I had heard, and the Trompette-en-chamade in the Gallery ranks with that thing at the back of Riverside Church as the ugliest specimen I’ve experienced, and although I wasn’t carrying an SPL meter to be exact about it, I think it was brighter and nastier. I’ll bet Roy Perry would have agreed with me. But the unpleasantness was washed away later back at the hotel by an excellent martini—“Mother’s Milk” in Perry-speak. 

Thursday, November 17

The third day started with a little jewel, the 22-rank opus 1153A in the First Baptist Church of Nacogdoches. Roy Perry priorities are made clear by the presence of two celestes in a small two-manual, and again the organ fits the church like a dream. The church itself was an odd amalgam: distinctive stained glass windows and this vintage American Classic organ on the one hand, a full drum kit opposite the console and a light bridge that would be adequate for a good regional theatre on the other. In any case, Joseph Causby did a great job with a varied program from Bach to Locklair—that last being a substitution that allowed us to hear some very nice Chimes, again a voice found in most Perry organs. No snob, he . . . The program: Bach, Pièce d’Orgue, BWV 572, O Mensch bewein dein Sünde gross; Hindemith, Sonata I; Thalben-Ball, Tune in E; Duruflé, Scherzo, op. 2; Howells, Psalm Prelude, set 1, no. 3; and Guilmant, Final (Symphony No. 1 in D Minor). 

And the day continued in glory. I had gotten Catharine Crozier’s recordings from Longview in my teen years, but I wasn’t prepared for the size and magnificence of the building. It is like no other church I have seen, Gothic stripped down to the essential pointed arch and built in yellow brick on a grand scale. The window at the east end of the church is 66 high by 16 wide, and that reflects the sheer verticality of the design. The organ, Opus 1174, sits in chambers on either side of that lofty chancel, and Charles Callahan demonstrated its 85 ranks in a fascinating recital, mostly of unfamiliar pieces that I’m sure were chosen to show off every aspect of the organ: Wallace Sabin, Bourée in the olden style; Bach, Fantasie con Imitazione, All glory be to God on high, Lord God, now open wide Thy heavens, We all believe in one God; Cimarosa, Sonata IX; Handel, Andante; Paradies, Sicilienne; Gounod, Marche Nuptiale; Salomé, Villanelle; Jongen, Pastorale; Foote, Night–A Meditation, op. 61; Callahan, Three Gospel Preludes, Three Spirituals from Spiritual Suite, Fanfares and Riffs. It sounded wonderful in that huge room, a more sympathetic acoustic than Kilgore, and Opus 1174, wide open, filled it perfectly, the 8 and 4 Trompettes and Cornet of the Bombarde division being ideal climax reeds—but its quiet Romantic voices were just as effective. It is sad to think that the organ had fallen into disuse for some years and then was severely damaged by catastrophic leaks, but it is a cause for rejoicing that the church repaired and restored one of the real monuments of American Classic organbuilding.

The final event was a recital back at Kilgore by Richard Elliott, one of the masters of the Mormon Tabernacle Organ: Handel, La Rejouissance (Music for the Royal Fireworks); Bach, In dir ist Freude, BWV 615, Passacaglia in C Minor, BWV 582; Daquin, The Cuckoo; Widor, Andante sostenuto (Symphonie gothique, op. 70); Gawthrop, Sketchbook I; Elliot, Sing praise to God who reigns above, Be Thou my vision, Swing low, sweet chariot; Wagner, arr. Lemare, The Ride of the Valkyries. I’m sure the church elders were gratified to hear someone who daily plays an organ almost three times the size speak of how thrilled he was to be playing the Kilgore organ for the first time! In turn he managed to thrill the large audience, first with a superb performance of the Bach Passacaglia in the grand manner (every line of counterpoint there to be heard, but also every ounce of drama and passion—not the sort of effect you can get from a start-to-finish forte plenum), and finally with an all-out Ride of the Valkyries, with that miraculous Trompette-en-chamade spurring the riders on. Very exciting stuff—an over-the-top ending to an exciting week.

I am boundlessly grateful to Lorenz Maycher for organizing this heartfelt tribute to Roy Perry and his instruments. I can’t imagine how many hours’ work must have gone into planning all of the necessary arrangements and making everything work so smoothly. The music came first, but it was accompanied by good food and comfortable accommodations, and lots and lots of late-night stories. If the festival is repeated, I’ll sign up the day it’s announced, and you should, too.

Amidst the glorious music and the fun, there was an occasion for solemn reflection when the bus en route to Shreveport stopped to visit Roy Perry’s grave. His last years were difficult, and his death was tragic. His final resting place is in the family cemetery of the Crims, the local eminences who had built the church, donated the organ, and supported Perry’s musical education. His gravestone reads, “Music, once admitted to a soul, becomes a spirit and never dies.” Amen! 

 

 

The History of Organ Pedagogy in America, Part 2

Part 1 was published in the May 1996 issue of THE DIAPASON, pp. 10-13.

by Sally Cherrington
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The Introduction of Organ Voluntaries: The Organist as Solo Performer

Despite the emphasis on the organist as an accompanist in
the first half of the nineteenth century, the playing of voluntaries did not
suddenly commence in 1850.  The use
of voluntaries became common in some churches after about 1810, although in
other churches (particularly those in rural locations) voluntaries were not
played until much later in the century. In 1835, Musical Magazine in New York
City published an article complaining about abuses in voluntary playing, which
contained the following comments on the problem of inappropriateness:

Every real proficient on the organ, knows that voluntaries
upon that noble instrument, ought to consist of broken passages, scattered
chords, etc., etc., which will not seize upon the attention of the listener but
rather soothe his mind, into calm collected meditation. Any thing like a
regular air would here be out of place. Even the learned harmonies of the
Germans, impressive and beautiful as they are, prove for the most part too
spirit-stirring, in their influence, for American voluntaries. Some of our
organists, however, have but little invention, and others but little taste. So
when they should either be silent or be endeavoring merely to soothe the
worshipers into devout meditation, they rouse them by a march, an overture, a
sonata, or a thundering chorus. . . . Such abuses, if tolerated, will bring
voluntaries into disrepute; if not lead to the expulsion of the organ from our
churches.57

Orpha Ochse adds wryly that if the situation was so bad in
the cultural and intellectual climate of New York City, one could only imagine
what sorts of things the untutored village organists were playing for
voluntaries.58

The common complaint of too much showmanship, which had been
levelled at the performance of interludes, was also carried over to
voluntaries. For example, Jane Rasmussen notes that Episcopal churches were
often the first in an area to get an organ, and whenever possible they would then hire a competent organist from Europe, New York, or Philadelphia. The organists often played virtuosic voluntaries as a form of advertising in order to attract students to supplement their church salaries.59 Whether justified or not, this virtuosity was generally considered distracting to the tone of the
service.  In non-Episcopal (or less
wealthy) churches, this problem would probably have occurred somewhat later in
the century due to the later technical development of native players, but it
became a problem nonetheless.

Charles Zeuner

Prior to the publication of Zeuner's collections of organ
voluntaries, most organists who played voluntaries improvised them.
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> 
Zeuner presented an alternative for
those who did not yet possess this skill. Zeuner's Voluntaries for the Organ, published in 1830, was the first collection of organ music published in the United States, and consists of six voluntaries.60 Although the use of the term "voluntary" and his designation of the pieces as "Before Service" or "After Service" suggests that he intended the pieces for church use, Zeuner indicated on the score that the pieces were "composed and dedicated to the Handel and Haydn Society, Boston,"61 a secular musical society. However, his second organ publication, Organ Voluntaries, published in 1840, is clearly a volume for the church organist. This is a longer and more comprehensive work than his first collection, and consists of two parts. The first part involves 165 interludes and short preludes in a variety of keys (to be used with hymns). Part II contains "Practical Voluntaries to be used before and after services in churches," with intended uses specified for each piece.62
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> 
These voluntaries have no pedal parts,
and contain dynamic markings but only minimal registration indications. This
collection forms a sort of bridge between the earlier "methods" and
the forthcoming collections of music with instructive introductions: it is the
first comprehensive printed collection for church use of interludes and (more
importantly) voluntaries, which were becoming the new focus of most organists,
but it does not yet include any of the descriptions and admonishments for
performing them that the later collections include.

The opposite situation occurs in an article from The
American Journal of Music, published in Boston on February 25, 1845, and
entitled "On the Use of the Stops of the Organ."63 The anonymous
author explains that although the organ is the instrument best suited for
extemporizing (voluntaries in church), he has never seen any "practical
treatises" on this subject. Therefore, he provides stylistic and
registration suggestions for voluntary playing. In contrast to Zeuner, this
instructional treatise is all text and no music.

Thomas Loud

Thomas Loud's organ method with its extraordinarily lengthy
title, discussed briefly in the first of this series of articles, was also
published in 1845.64   As the
title suggests, The Organ Study: Being an Introduction to the Practice of the Organ; together with a collection of Voluntaries, Preludes, and Interludes, original and selected; a Model of a Church Service; Explanations of the Stops and their Combinations; Studies for the Instrument; and Examples of Modulation intended to aid the Extempore Student; accompanied by an Engraving and description of the Mechanical construction of the Organ begins with explanations of organ basics important to Loud. These include descriptions of the basic organ mechanisms and stops, as well as practical matters such as beginning and releasing chords (Loud recommends rolling the notes individually from the bottom until all notes are sounding) and playing shakes. Significantly, he uses this material to lead into pointers on accompanying, illustrated in his model service for the Episcopal Church, before turning his attention to playing voluntaries. He does include two sample voluntaries in his "model service":  an introductory voluntary (shown in Example 1) and a voluntary for before the second psalm or hymn (in other words, an offertory). These voluntaries are musically straightforward, with basic registrations provided. Both include trills (shakes), an ornament that Loud seemed to feel was absolutely essential to the church organist's success. While the first voluntary is manualiter, the second indicates that the organist is to play certain bass clef notes with the pedals. Loud, however, provides small notes at these spots for those organists whose instruments do not have pedalboards.

Loud follows his model service with many pages of hymn
preludes and interludes in a variety of major and minor keys before furnishing
15 pages of voluntaries for church use, composed by himself and a variety of
other composers (Rinck, Cross, Russell, etc.). He does include several
voluntaries which are transcriptions, principally of religious works by Haydn.
He avoids the popular music pitfalls decried earlier in this article; although
he does include one "Religious March" by Gluck, it is quite austere
in character. At the end of this section, Loud adds a page illustrating the
"fine effect" of embellishing the end of a voluntary with a simple
suspension, emphasizing again the modest nature of this music.

At the end of his method, Loud provides some interesting
directions showing how to produce registrations of increasing power on instruments varying in size from four stops to modest three- manual stoplists, as well as ways to achieve particular registrations "effects." This leads into his closing and quite notable conclusions on voluntary playing, with which he ends his method. His concern is that voluntaries be consistently used, but not abused:

The style of performing (voluntaries) on this instrument
should always be in accordance with the use made of it, as forming a part of
the service of the Sanctuary; nothing therefore, opposed to the sacredness of
the place, can with propriety be introduced: whatever may be the character of
the Stops made use of, the music should be chaste and solemn, and all the
variety of the instrument, should (in the hands of the efficient performer) be
made conducive to the same subject. . . . Voluntaries should as much as
possible be suited to the subject of the discourse or character of the service
. . . 65

Loud continues by explaining how specific divisions or stops
can help to achieve these lofty goals. He concludes by explaining how to play
"fancy voluntaries," which his text implies are improvised and
probably not for use in church. 
His final admonishment is still applicable for improvisers today: "
. . . above all, remember to stop in time--a common fault with performers is,
that they never know when they have done enough."66

Cutler & Johnson

Before returning to Johnson's important American Church
Organ Voluntaries
(mentioned in the first
article), we will make a brief digression to examine another of Johnson's
publications. Johnson originally published the Voluntaries in 1852 under his
name.  When it was republished in
1856, H. S. Cutler's name was included as well (see Example 2 - portraits of
Johnson and Cutler). A discussion of Cutler and the reasons for his addition in
the second edition is beyond the scope of this article, but apparently his
contribution was minimal (it is thought that perhaps he penned the
"Remarks"). Whatever the case, Johnson had originally intended to
write a second book, apparently planned in conjunction with
American
Church Organ Voluntaries
, called Instructions in the Art of Playing Voluntaries and Interludes and of Composing Simple Music. This book was conceived as a combination of an organ method and harmony book. It is thought that it existed in draft form and that Johnson was using it to teach his organ students. Unfortunately for the history of organ pedagogy, it was never published.67

Instead, Johnson published in 1854 his Practical
Instructions in Harmony, upon the Pestalozzian or Inductive System; Teaching
Musical Composition, and the Art of Extemporizing Interludes and Voluntaries
. This book was unique in organ "methods" published to this point in that it was directed at the more sophisticated music student.68 Basically, it is a book of music theory with practical keyboard exercises. It was probably intended as a successor to Johnson's popular Instructions in Thorough Base which had undergone at least six reprints by this time, testifying not only to the need for these types of materials but also to the growing technical sophistication of the organist.

Johnson's Practical Instructions, however, contains no
discussion concerning church voluntaries, but approaches them from a completely
technical standpoint. This is not the case in American Church Organ
Voluntaries
. The volume opens with
"Remarks," wherein the editors comment that one should speak of an
"opening voluntary" rather than a "voluntary before the
service" (as Zeuner does), since this voluntary is a part of the service
and should arouse the proper feelings in the listener for the worship which
will follow. They waste no time in criticizing the commonplace habit of playing
popular music, including bits of opera, as voluntaries. They warn the organist
not to give in to popular opinion which supports this sort of music, even if
they are getting pressure from a wealthy person in the congregation who has
money but no taste, ending by saying that in such cases it is better to
"vacate your office and retain the good opinion of all whose good opinion
is worth having" rather than to give in to "depraved taste."69
In regard to voluntaries after the service, Cutler and Johnson admit that there
are differing opinions on the value of playing music while people are leaving. They justify this practice by saying that there is already unavoidable noise at the end of the service as people prepare to leave, and therefore playing
appropriate music while this is happening will remind people for as long as
possible that they are still in the House of God. "What more appropriate
monitor than the solemn Diapasons judiciously managed?"70 The
"Remarks" answer many of the contemporary complaints mentioned
earlier.

The complete pre-publication title of this anthology, Organ Voluntaries, a Complete Collection, adapted to American Church Service, and designed for the use of Inexperienced Organists who have not Progressed far Enough in Their Studies to be able to Play Extemporaneous Voluntaries (i.e., improvised), indicates Johnson's purpose in compiling this collection--providing music for amateur organists. The voluntaries are all manualiter. Numbers 1-35 are opening voluntaries, while numbers 36-41 are opening voluntaries for use on festival occasions. Twelve closing voluntaries are included. Many of the voluntaries are by either Johnson or Cutler, but works by Haydn, Muller, Rinck, and Mendelssohn are included, as well as works by lesser-known composers of that period. The pieces contain some tempo, dynamic, and keyboard indications. The tempi vary, although in both the opening and closing voluntaries the majority of tempi designations provided are moderate. The voluntaries are one to two pages in length and generally homophonic in style. There are only isolated indications of sections with solo stops, marked in tiny print "solo . . . solo ends" (see Example 3 for the first half of an opening voluntary with these frugal registration markings). Thus there is nothing about these pieces which would relate them to popular music. Pinel suggests in the Foreword to the edition that although these pieces seem very plain to our contemporary ears, they would have been harmonically innovative, even "exhilarating," to mid-19th century rural listeners.71 (The harmony, while hardly daring, is more chromatic than that of the average hymns and service music.) One reason for the lack of excess in these pieces (and those in Loud's method) may have been the fact that Protestants were still strongly affected by the recent appearance of organs and conservative views of the appropriateness of instrumental music in
general.72 

The several printings of American Church Organ
Voluntaries
testify to its popularity.
Gould comments that in his travels he did visit some congregations where the
voluntaries were appropriate and therefore useful (although he had many
negative experiences as well). Thus, Johnson and Cutler's music or at least the
approach to service-playing which it and Loud exemplified was represented in
practice and was not just a theoretical goal.

Southard & Whiting

Although organ methods from the Continent, American
materials for playing the harmonium or cabinet organ, and other unannotated
volumes of voluntaries appeared after Johnson's anthology, the next significant
collection was that of L. H. Southard and G. E. Whiting, entitled The Organist (1868). This volume is also an anthology of music for service use, with an introduction discussing registration and other useful information for the church organist. However, as will soon become evident, there are many
differences between this collection and that of Cutler and Johnson, despite the
similarity of their subjects and their separation in publication by only 16
years.

In the second half of the 19th century, one can observe the
rise of concert organs and concert organists. Large organs were built at
Tremont Temple in Boston (1853) and the Boston Music Hall (1863). The
increasing popularity and professionalism of orchestras fueled the popularity
of orchestral transcriptions for organ. 
Organists adopted some of the Romantic excesses of European organists,
such as the fascination in trying to recreate "storms" on the organ.
It is noteworthy that the first piece performed on the new Walcker organ in
Boston's Music Hall was the "Overture to William Tell" by Rossini.73
At the same time, the technical improvements and expanded size of organs made
it more practical to perform legitimate organ literature of greater magnitude
than the voluntaries.  The
dedication recitals of organs in churches now were devoted exclusively to organ
solos, whereas previously these events consisted of vocal solos accompanied by
organ with perhaps a few organ voluntaries.74 Several sources mention that Bach
organ works were performed in America for the first time in this period (about
the mid 1860s). Most of the concert organists, however, were English or
European.

In examining The Organist, these changes in organ literature in the second half of the 19th century are reflected.  The subtitle of the volume indicates that it is "a collection of voluntaries, studies, and transcriptions of moderate difficulty," and includes information on registration (which will be explored shortly).  The editors explain in the introduction that "melodious and piquant Voluntaries" are part of the church organist's responsibilities, and that therefore the aim of this volume is to supply opening and closing voluntaries which meet these requirements, complete with registrations.75 Like the Cutler and Johnson volume, this collection was apparently intended primarily for less experienced players who were not yet adept enough to improvise appropriate service music.  It is interesting that, unlike Johnson who taught improvisation based on models of Bach, Southard and Whiting refer the aspiring church improviser to the piano sonatas of Mozart and Haydn as a basis of study, pointing already to a sharp difference in outlook.

The music supplied for opening and closing voluntaries by
Southard and Whiting differs markedly from that of Cutler and Johnson. Even the
titles underscore this difference: although the term "voluntary" is
used in the introduction, the pieces are entitled "Prelude" and
"Postlude" (or "Postludium"--see Example 4). This implies a
slightly different function than the term "opening voluntary" which
Johnson carefully chooses (probably something closer  "voluntary before the service"). In addition,
several of the pieces have titles like "Reverie" or
"Romanza," reflecting a strong Romantic secular influence. The pieces
are much longer than those in American Church Organ Voluntaries
style='font-style:normal'>, and all include pedal parts on separate staves.
Three of the pieces are identified as transcriptions of Haydn, Mendelssohn, and
Mozart. The pieces are very pianistic technically, and include a multitude of
interpretive marks, including articulation, phrasing, and many dynamic
markings. Big chords alternate with solo passages, with all sorts of pianistic
accompaniment figures; one prelude even has a cadenza (#4), and piece #5, a
"Pastorale," contains running scale passages in 32nd notes. The
Postludes are all loud pieces, but the style of the Preludes varies widely, and
one is not always sure which category the pieces with other titles fall
into.  There is even a
"March," one of the styles specifically attacked by church music
critics of the previous generation.

It is interesting that the final piece in The Organist is Bach's "Celebrated Prelude and Fugue in e minor" (BWV 533), as edited by Mendelssohn. This seems to be a direct reflection of the apparently successful introduction of Bach into the concert organ repertoire at this time. It also suggests that organists were no longer expected to be able to distinguish sacred music from secular or concert repertoire, since both were equally acceptable in church. Apparently the responsibility of the organist to musically interpret the text and mood of the hymns and scriptures which had been emphasized earlier in the century was no longer a principal focus.

One of the most conspicuous differences between the two
organ anthologies, however, is in the treatment of organ registration. Here a
brief digression is necessary to survey the changes which had taken place in
organ construction between the writing of these two volumes. Although Americans
had begun building their own instruments instead of importing them from England
in the first half of the 19th century, the English influence remained very
strong.  By 1850, although loud
organs (by early standards) were increasing in popularity, the basic sound was
light and bright, emphasizing the diapasons and flutes, with some reeds and
strings included.  The manuals and
pedalboards were not standardized--both the Pedal and Swell divisions tended to
have incomplete ranges.76 The first large American organ was the Hook and
Hastings instrument installed in the Tremont Temple, Boston in 1853, with four
manuals and 70 stops.77 Thus, from about 1860 on, the enthusiasm for
increasingly louder organs continued, with a bolder, brighter sound appearing.
Console controls and nuances of the expression pedals became more important.
Organs now tended to be placed in the front of the church rather than hidden in
the balconies, and cases were often eliminated.78

These changes say a lot about the change in the role of the
organ in the church service. Around 1841, one writer complained that the organs
were sometimes unsuited for leading congregational singing, one of the possible
problems being that they were too small to really lead the singers and keep
them on pitch.79 However, by about 1850, Gould writes that performances were
gradually getting louder, complaining that in some churches the choir and
congregation combined could not sing above the organ, satisfying only those
"who are more pleased with noise than with sense."80 Johnson and
Cutler warn the organist about playing too loudly while accompanying in their
opening remarks, explaining that the organ should be subordinate to the
singers.81 However, it is interesting that in The Organist
style='font-style:normal'>, although the organs by this time must certainly
have been louder, this warning is never mentioned.

To return now to the topic of registration, both volumes
include information on registration in their introductions, as well as sample
specifications. (See Example 5 for the basic specification list from the Cutler
& Johnson collection.) As might be expected from the changes in organ
building, a much wider variety of stops is mentioned in the later volume. Both
collections describe stops, but Johnson and Cutler add information on the
purpose of some of these stops in worship.  For example, they recommend the diapason as "well
suited to church purposes in general," but guard against using the flute,
which "is a fancy stop, and generally much abused . . . when used as a
solo stop . . . the effect is suggestive of the theatre, or ball-room, rather
than the church."82 Within the pieces themselves, Johnson and Cutler
suggest only one specific stop in the entire volume, sometimes designating
where a solo stop should be used but not suggesting a particular stop. Southard
and Whiting, on the other hand, provide detailed registration suggestions at
the beginning and throughout every piece, as well as directions to use the
couplers, expression pedals, and tremulant. They also suggest in the
introduction that one of the responsibilities of the organist is to create
"striking and delicious effects of the organ," which they advise
requires the use of varied registrations and separate manuals.83

This emphasis on registration, coupled with the changes in
organs observed above, suggest that the role of the organist was changing by
about 1870. Although Johnson and Cutler provide basic material on registration
for the stops generally appearing on a "modern" organ, they are not
as concerned with how the organist applies or combines these stops as they are
with the spiritual effects that various stops induce.  Southard and Whiting, however, comment from the start that
"the chaotic droning and ridiculous combinations of stops which were
satisfying until within a few years, will no longer be endured by Congregations
of average musical culture."84 This implies a concern that the organist
have a greater technical knowledge of registration than was previously
considered satisfactory. But this comment also suggests that the organist is
now expected to start with the registration concepts of "musical
culture" of the society at large and apply them to the service of the
church, reflecting the increasing importance of musical culture in society in
general. This differs from the earlier outlook on registration which assumes
that the organist chooses stops based on their contribution to solemn worship
without regard for (or deliberately in contrast to) the types of sounds
associated with secular culture.

A final point of contention regarding registration is
illustrated in the closing comment of the introduction to The Organ
style='font-style:normal'>i
st,
where the editors comment that they hope that their collection will "tend
to improve the taste and ability of players, and thereby create a general
demand for more complete and effective organs than are often found outside of
two or three of our largest cities."85 This is in marked contrast to
Cutler and Johnson, who, although they would agree with the goal of improving
the taste and ability of players, are trying to "improve" it in the
opposite direction from the goals of Southard and Whiting. It is noteworthy
that Gould writes in 1853 that organists should be careful that their playing
serves no other purpose than to recommend the organ and organ-builder86--what
Southard and Whiting seem to be suggesting as a positive goal.

It is interesting to note that in looking at the two
above-mentioned church music anthologies, there is scarcely any mention of
accompanying hymns and psalms. This may reflect the new rise of the use of
voluntaries and corresponding lack of suitable literature (thus the focus on
this aspect), or it may be considered a commentary on the relative lack of
importance of hymn-playing to these editors.  Southard and Whiting, for example, ignore the subject
altogether.

In studying the voluntaries in The Organ
style='font-style:normal'>i
st, it
becomes apparent that some of the registration changes must have required
pistons, which as stated were becoming more popular. This makes the fact that
this volume excludes a discussion of registering hymns even more interesting,
since changes between verses of hymns to illustrate the meaning of the text
would now have been much easier and smoother. Perhaps due to the emphasis in
earlier years on accompanying, the editors were interested in looking ahead to new directions in church music.

LP in LA: The 47th National Convention of the American Guild of Organists July 4-9, 2004--PART TWO OF TWO

Larry Palmer and Joyce Johnson Robinson

Larry Palmer is harpsichord editor of THE DIAPASON. Joyce Johnson Robinson is associate editor of THE DIAPASON.

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JR's Journey:

AGO Convention, Los Angeles, July 4-9, 2004

Over 2,000 organists from all 50 states and 17 foreign countries attended this meeting in Los Angeles. Blessed with fine weather, and shepherded to the various venues via comfortable, well-organized bus travel, attendees were able to experience the architecture and the instruments in many famed locations: the new Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles with its new 105-rank Dobson, the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, and of course the new Gehry-designed Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. My personal impressions were of consistently high caliber playing (everyone got an A; there were a few A-pluses, and some A-minuses), fine instruments and amazing spaces, and some interesting new compositions.

Monday

Mary Preston's program took place at Claremont United Church of Christ. Playing the 1998 Glatter-Götz/Rosales op. 2, the vivacious Preston showed spectacular energy as she bit into Jean Guillou's Toccata, a multi-textured wild ride of a piece with its bombast and staccato. Preston did a fine job bringing out the melodic line, which required frequent hopping between manuals. In the more lyrical Duruflé Scherzo, she displayed the beautiful colors of the organ's flute and string choruses. Preston joined forces with narrator Kathie Freeman (an actor, singer, and presently a manager of the Los Angeles Master Chorale) for the world premiere of George Akerley's whimsical and witty A Sweet for Mother Goose, a winner of the Holtkamp-AGO Award in Organ Composition. Based on selected Mother Goose nursery rhymes, the work combines rhythmically notated narration with the organ providing text illustration. Preston then demonstrated muscular playing in Jongen's Sonata eroïca, putting into play the full organ, with its weighty 32' Untersatz.

Ken Cowan played on the 66-rank C.B. Fisk Op. 117 (2002) in the Bridges Hall of Music at Pomona College. The room, with its highly ornamented ceiling, lacks a lively acoustic when filled to capacity. Cowan played his program from memory, beginning with David Conte's moody, cerebral Prelude and Fugue (In memoriam Nadia Boulanger). The Vierne works--Scherzo from Symphonie VI and Clair de Lune--showcased the Fisk's flutes and its assertive strings. Cowan closed with the first salvo in the convention Regerfest, the Fantasie on "Wie schön leucht' uns der Morgenstern, demonstrating the choruses (principal, flute, reed), and unleashing the organ's full power.

In Bridges Auditorium, which reminds one of an old-style movie palace (complete with zodiac images painted on the ceiling), Millennia Consort presented their program; they were at a disadvantage from the acoustic. The room and stage have great depth and width as well as height and length, and the sounds were quickly swallowed up--even the brass seemed underpowered in this great space. Alison J. Luedecke played a Rodgers Trillium 967, which also seemed unable to dominate the space. Its sound was most successful in solo passages; individual colors (particularly flutes) sounded well. But combined with the brass and percussion, it either was drowned out or the sound had a flatness to it.

John Karl Hirten's Variations on Auld Lang Syne presented the tune in various meters and key centers using techniques such as ostinato, inversion, and fugue. In Erica Muhl's Fleet, for percussion and organ, percussionist Beverly Reese Dorcy used a full complement of percussive color--small bells, marimba, vibraphone, drums, hanging cymbal, sheet of metal, and chimes--in varying textures such as percussion against an organ ostinato, and an organ and drum rhythmic onslaught.

Mary Beth Bennett's Preludes to the Apocalypse (like Fleet, a world premiere of an AGO commission), for two trumpets and organ, was inspired by biblical text relating to the Second Coming, the Transfiguration, and the Rapture. David Ashley White's Hymn (from Triptych), commissioned by Luedecke, was a lovely and lyrical movement centering on a hymn tune played by a trumpet offstage, a very striking effect.

Monday afternoon I attended two workshops. My general reaction to the convention workshops was disappointment of two kinds: either they were so well done that you were disappointed they could not have continued and gone into greater depth, or you were just disappointed. The latter type (fortunately, only one instance of this) will receive no further discussion here.

Elmo Cosentini presented a workshop on creating orchestral transcriptions for the organ. Cosentini first gave a bit of history of the transcription and then presented techniques for creating transcriptions. Most helpful were tips for successfully making a transcription that is idiomatic to the organ, such as using registrations that will place lines in the proper octave, and not repeating inappropriate figures from other instruments. The allotted time was insufficient for Cosentini's presentation, and this caused some consternation.

Monday evening, a choral concert was presented at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. The combined choirs (of the cathedral, and the churches of St. Charles Borromeo and St. Cyril of Jerusalem) performed the world premiere of Byron Adams' Praises of Jerusalem, heavily influenced by American (southern Protestant) hymnic style. Morten Lauridsen's Lux Aeterna, a five-movement work, is set to Latin texts, including from the Requiem Mass and Veni sancte spiritus; this is a thematically and texturally rich work that centered on references to light. The final work was Parry's I Was Glad. It was dismaying to hear the choirs, nestled under the overhang formed by the base of the organ case, indirectly through amplification. This also made for balance problems with the organ.

Martin Jean's recital was one of the convention high points. He played Duruflé's transcription of Tournemire's Improvisation sur le Te Deum, followed by Dupré's Symphonie-Passion. It was also the first chance to hear the cathedral's new Dobson instrument on its own, and it did not disappoint. This work (especially the Crucifixion movement), on that instrument, in the great space, along with Jean's cool and collected performance, all combined to form a sublime experience.

Tuesday

Tuesday morning's first stop was UCLA's Royce Hall, to hear UCLA University Organist Christoph Bull play the 1930 Skinner op. 818 (V/104). Not one to waste a minute, Bull strode on stage, slid onto the bench, and immediately struck the opening chord of Reger's Introduction and Passacaglia in d (round two of Regerfest). The full organ is a big sound--almost painful when heard from the balcony. Bull is a visibly passionate and energetic player; he bit into the dissonances of the Reger, and executed an exciting rendition of his own transcription of De Falla's Ritual Fire Dance from El Amor Brujo (displaying the reed chorus, which sounded from the back of the chamber and then front, providing spatial as well as coloristic contrast). Guitarist Scott Tennant then joined him to play the Ian Krouse's Renaissance-flavored Chiacona (after Bertali) for Organ and Guitar (world premiere of this AGO commission), an amplification, both in the volume and technical senses, of Antonio Bertali's work for violin and continuo. (This was the only piece Bull did not play from memory.) Bull closed the program with two more of his own transcriptions. First was Charles Mingus's jazzy Ecclusiastics; Bull is a natural for this type of music and he played with relaxed ease. He then segued into the finale to Mozart's "Jupiter" symphony.

On to St. Cyril of Jerusalem to hear the 1998 Rosales op. 23 (III/45). George Baker, clad in a white shirt and tie, began with the Vierne Third Symphony. His playing expressed the anguish and turmoil in the first movement, was lovely and sweeping in the Cantilène, danced through the scherzo-like Intermezzo, displayed the incredible beauty of the Adagio, and through waves of crescendo and decrescendo built up to the big finish of the Final. Baker made the changes between manuals--and textures--so seamless. The Rosales has powerful bass sounds--full, rumbling, and visceral. Baker's playing in the final passages of the Symphonie almost made one's hair stand on end. The "Lent" movement from Cochereau's Symphonie Improvisée had been  transcribed by Baker (a student of Cochereau's) from a recording. The movement's themes showcased a rich cornet and solo reeds. Baker concluded with his own composition, Tuba Tune Ragtime, a fun-house ride of Joplinesque idiom mixed with trumpet tune style--add the Zimbelstern and references to familiar pieces (including some Vierne and Widor), and you have a slightly wacky, very fun piece.

Robert Bates presented a very fine workshop on new sources and interpretations for early French registrations. This was an update on Fenner Douglass's guidelines as found in his 1969 book The Language of the French Classical Organ. Bates illustrated his talk with a handout of musical examples, and played recorded clips of French--and French-style--organs.

Craig Whitney's workshop entitled "The Organ and its Organists in America" focused in part on winning back audiences for organ music, and "proving the conventional wisdom about organs is wrong." Whitney, a New York Times editor and author of the book All the Stops, is an engaging speaker and his part history, part pep talk lecture was laced with anecdotes and fascinating facts (case in point: Dupré's Passion Symphony was first improvised at Wanamaker's). Whitney emphasized the need to do sufficient publicity for events: "Don't be afraid to be a pain." While the need for publicity may seem self-evident, we see countless examples of too-late publicity notices, or none at all, and the empty rooms that result from such neglect.

Tuesday evening I attended the Evensong service at First Congregational Church of Los Angeles, home to the 1935 Skinner op. 856, a massive collection of organs that, combined, total V/339.  The evening began with Lynne Davis's wonderful playing of Vierne's Toccata in b-flat minor, Marchand's Grand Dialogue in C, and Franck's Choral in E. The All Saints' Choir and the Choir of St. James' were directed by Dale Adelmann and James Buonemani. The service itself began with Adelmann's setting of the spiritual Steal Away to Jesus, heartbreakingly lovely in its crescendi and its hushed whispers of "steal away." There were settings of psalm and canticle settings by Craig Phillips and Herbert Howells, an anthem by Patrick Gowers (composer of the music for the Sherlock Holmes series seen a few years back on public television) and a wonderful homily by the Very Rev. Canon Mary June Nestler, herself a musician who really understands organists. Ladd Thomas capped it all off with that hot fudge sundae of pieces, the Widor Toccata--sweet, rich, and fun.

Wednesday

Back at the same church Wednesday morning, Judith Hancock, assisted by Gerre, began with Mendelssohn's Allegro (Chorale and Fugue); her playing was solid yet flowing, with beautiful articulation. She tackled one of her signature pieces, Petr Eben's challenging Nedìlni Hudba (Sunday Music), exhibiting deft handling of the many manual changes and hand crossings. In the Moto ostinato and Finale movements, through the use of different divisions she created a spatial melody, with sound jumping around the room. The pedal 'drumbeats' in the Finale were wonderful--her quietly disciplined technique made her fancy footwork all the more exciting.

Westwood United Methodist Church is home to a 1995-96 IV/153 Schantz, augmented with 85 digital voices, by Walsh & Tidwell. This is an enormous amount of instrument but it has to fight the acoustical brakes of heavy carpet and pew cushions, among other things. Paul Jacobs (who was at the side door of the church greeting conventioners as they entered!) played his program from memory. He began with a work by John Weaver (Jacobs' teacher and mentor), Toccata for Organ, an aerobic workout that nonetheless was very lyrical and lovely. Margaret Vardell Sandresky's The Mystery of Faith (world premiere and an AGO commission--one of my favorites of the new works) is a beautiful piece, sensitively played by Jacobs, utilizing various colors of the organ as it grows in complexity and volume, then reverting to quiet as it began. Jacobs' playing of the Handel Concerto in g minor was clean, crisp, well-articulated, and nicely ornamented. By now he had worked up enough steam to doff his jacket before playing Reger's Chorale-Fantasy 'Hallelujah! Gott zu loben,' in which Jacobs showed off his blinding technique. He brought out the chorale clearly, through the minefield of tempo and figurational changes (Round 3 of Regerfest).

At Wilshire United Methodist Church, Namhee Han played a program (not listed in our 1-lb. program books) of 'Herr Christ, der ein'ge Gottes Sohn' from the Orgelbüchlein (the only Bach I heard in the convention!), Brahms' O Welt, ich muss dich lassen, and Litaize, Prélude et danse fuguée. Then entered ensemble amarcord, five former choristers of the Thomaskirche in Leipzig. They would have pleased just as a change of pace, but more than that, the purity of their singing, the varied and interesting program choices, even the opportunity to hear Tallis' If Ye Love Me sung one to a part, made this performance another one of the convention's high points. Especially fine was their interpretation of Poulenc's Laudes de Saint Antoine de Padoue, and John Tavener's The Lamb.

The Wednesday night banquet featured actor David Hyde Pierce (star of stage and screens both big and small, including his role as Niles Crane in Frasier, seen by those who didn't have their rehearsals on Thursday nights). Mr. Pierce has studied the organ and served as a church organist, and his anecdotes of his organ-playing days were hilarious; he opened by displaying his organ shoes, and brought down the house with his opinion of mastering the details of ornamentation ('I don't care'). As if that weren't enough, Hector Olivera then dazzled the crowd with his fiery playing on the mighty Roland Atelier AT-90S, which was programmed with sounds that went way beyond the Spitzenundchiffenwerk we had been gorging on all week. He played the Flight of the Bumblebee, with the melody on the pedals at breakneck speed, and channeled Virgil Fox with his breezy interpretation of the Jig Fugue.

Thursday

The buses left early this day for a trip to Garden Grove. Attendees were able to enjoy a bit of the outdoors while strolling around the grounds of the Crystal Cathedral campus. Christopher Pardini, the cathedral's senior organist, demonstrated the 1951 Aeolian-Skinner.

Fred Swann presented a stunning program that opened with Robert Hebble's Heraldings, commissioned for the Cathedral, a fine splashy opening in 'stereo' (more for a truly quadraphonic, really, as it exploited the east and west chamade organs, and full organ of all the divisions). During all this there was racket from numerous noisy birds who seemed to take even the strongest crescendo in stride! In Franck's Choral II, the full organ passages really showed the power of the instrument; and when Swann drew the tremolo, one could feel one's own body trembling. After the Introduction and Passacaglia from Rheinberger's Sonata VIII came another rarely played work, Sowerby's Requiescat in pace, the performance of which was dedicated to the memory of Catharine Crozier. When Swann closed with the Final of Widor's Symphony VI, one of the cathedral's window panels was opened and the birds seem to have vacated the area. Perhaps it was due to the final six chords or so, with the en chamades in full volume.

In the evening was the event everyone had been waiting for: the concert at the Walt Disney Concert Hall, featuring the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the premiere performance of the 4-manual, 109-rank Glatter-Götz/Rosales op. 24, which some have come to refer to as the 'French fry organ,' based on the design of its façade pipes. Voiced assertively enough to stand up to an orchestra and an orchestral hall's acoustic, it had been reputed to be loud, but I found it to be just right. Cherry Rhodes, playing the movable console onstage, and the Philharmonic, led by Alexander Mickelthwate, opened the program with James Hopkins' Concierto de Los Angeles--Visión escondida y Visión revelada, another world premiere/AGO commission; here the organ functioned as ensemble player, and it was up to the task. Organ solo passages in the Concierto demonstrated the various colors of the organ. Next Joseph Adam played from the permanent console, beginning with the last Reger work of the convention, Fantasia über B-A-C-H, then Vierne's Naïades, and Naji Hakim's Hommage à Igor Stravinsky. Here the organ stood on its own, and displayed its wonders full throttle; it dominates the room, in an acoustic that is properly calibrated. Robert Parris and the orchestra then treated the audience to Sowerby's Concerto I in C Major, and the organ, hall, architect, acoustician, and organ builders received the standing ovation that was very much their due.

The spaces and surfaces of the building echo the sweeping, billowing shapes seen on the exterior; even the shape of the curved organ pipes is echoed, with what looked like a stub of a 64-foot pipe (curved, of course). One had the feeling of being on a large sailboat (Gehry, it turns out, is a sailor . . . )

Friday

All the attendees returned to the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. The last organ recital was presented by Samuel S. Soria, cathedral organist, playing Alec Wyton's Fanfare, Howell's Psalm Prelude, Set 2, No. 1, and Sowerby's Fast and Sinister (if there was this much Sowerby in Los Angeles, what will be left to hear in Chicago in 2006?). We had previously sat right in the line of fire of the organ; this time we were on the other side, with the pipework aiming past us to the left, yet the organ sounded much louder and clearer than it did before. The annual meeting included an improvisation (with references to the tune of Chicago, Chicago, That Toddlin' Town) by Peter Krasinski, the 2002 improvisation competition winner. The closing concert was presented by the Los Angeles Master Chorale, directed by Grant Gershon and with William Beck at the organ. The chorale stood front and center and was not assisted by microphones. Their wonderfully varied program included Byrd's Sing Joyfully, Billings' Beneficence, Jordan, and Chester, Michael Bedford's Psalm 96 (winner of the AGO/ECS Publishing Award in Choral Composition), with trumpeter Roy Poper, Fauré's Cantique de Jean Racine, the sublime Duruflé Ubi Caritas, Pärt's Solfeggio and The Beatitudes, Thompson's Alleluia, Roger Wagner's arrangement of Alleluia (The Old 100th), and Finzi's God Is Gone Up.

It could not have been a more satisfying conclusion to a week that was exhausting but enjoyable, at times even inspiring--an opportunity to hear marvelous new instruments in visually and acoustically awesome spaces, and a feast of new music to boot.

Congratulations, Los Angeles!

Trophy Builders and their Instruments A Chapter in the Economics of Pipe Organ Building

by R. E. Coleberd

R. E. Coleberd is an economist and petroleum industry executive.

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In his seminal article "The Economics of Superstars," in The American Economic Review1, Sherwin Rosen, professor of economics at the University of Chicago and recently (1994) honored as vice president of the American Economic Association, analyzed what he termed "an increasingly important market phenomenon in our time" and developed the economic implications of it. This is the phenomenon of the superstar, the tendency of talented performers to be singled out as superior to all others and, thereby, to dominate the market in which they perform. He asserted that the paradigm is found virtually everywhere in contemporary economic life; in professional athletics, arts and letters and in show business. In economic parlance, the analytical framework is "a special type of assignment problem, the marriage of buyers to sellers, including the assignment of audiences to performers, of students to textbooks, patients to doctors, and so forth."2  Superstars all share what is termed "box office appeal" which is the ability to attract a large following (audience) and to generate a substantial volume of transactions. Rosen was quick to comment that there is no magic formula for becoming a superstar but it involves a combination of talent and charisma in uncertain proportions.

Professional athletes and rock singers are obvious examples
of superstars today. However, Rosen gives one interesting example from the
world of music which occurred nearly two hundred years ago and which was cited
by the eminent nineteenth-century English economist Alfred Marshall.3 In 1801,
a Mrs. Elizabeth Billington reportedly earned the then princely sum of between
£10,000 and £15,000 singing Italian Opera in Covent Garden and
Drury Lane.4 With her extraordinary voice she defined Italian opera and female
vocal performance to the sophisticated urban gentry who flocked to her
performances throughout her career and who discounted other singers of lesser
ability.

Upon reflection, the author, an economist and longtime
student of market phenomena and the economics of pipe organ building, believes
the concept of superstars described by Rosen has a novel and intriguing
application to the King of Instruments and its builders in the last 100 years.
Perhaps it offers a partial explanation of the quixotic, always fascinating,
and endlessly intriguing market for the pipe organ and for the fortunes of
several builders. A glance at the history of the industry shows that certain
builders enjoyed a large following or "box office appeal" during
their era. What was the combination of "talent and charisma" that
accounted for their success?

Our definition of superstar as it applies to the pipe organ
hinges upon the ability of a builder to preempt substantially a particular
market during his era through tonal or mechanical characteristics, perhaps
working together, in his instruments. This builder virtually redefines the pipe
organ with the result that previous instruments are now considered obsolete and
the work of other builders noncompetitive. In economic analysis this concept
rests upon "imperfect substitution" among sellers which, in the
superstar market phenomenon, means that buyers invariably will single out a
particular product or service as best meeting their (individual and group)
needs. They do not consider other products and services to be an acceptable
alternative. Parallel to Rosen's observation of a conspicuous concentration of
output among sellers who have the most talent (as in rock singers) is the share
of certain nameplates in particular well-defined markets for pipe organs.
Although the pipe organ historically has had a large and diverse audience, we
must look at specific categories of the general market:
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movie theaters in the 1920s in which
Wurlitzer fits the definition, the residential market of that period in which
Aeolian gets the nod, and the college and university market in the immediate
postwar period in which Holtkamp is the outstanding example, and Schlicker is
perhaps a very good one.

A word of caution: definitions and concepts are always
arbitrary and frequently narrow. Thus they will evoke different interpretations
and diverging opinions among other observers. The author elects to make Rosen's
word "superstar" synonymous with his own term "trophy
builder." The readers, in their definition of trophy builders and
instruments, may elect to focus on certain instruments (The Mormon Tabernacle),
regions (New England), the work of tonal architects and voicers (Richard O.
Whitelegg) or inventions and systems (John T. Austin). Or, they may wish to
recognize, if not include in the definition, Robert Hope-Jones, whose
pioneering work in the emerging instrument at the turn of the century, was to
exert a pronounced influence on the industry. Well and good. The author merely
hopes that his own interpretation in the following discussion will shed light
on a unique aspect of the rich history of pipe organ building in America.

Roosevelt

Our first illustration of the superstar concept in American
organbuilding is Hilborne L. Roosevelt. His instrument for the Centennial
Exposition in Philadelphia, and many that followed, were truly a watershed in
the evolution of the pipe organ. As noted historian Orpha Ochse observed:
"One may say that the Roosevelt organs actually marked the beginning of a
new era in organ history."5 Through successful application of electricity
in non-mechanical action and the introduction of several new stops, he, in
effect, redefined the instrument. Now tracker action was increasingly
considered out of style in the growing urban market characterized by the
construction of large churches. 
The new voices, embracing the European romantic tradition, made possible
in part by the new action, suggested that the tonal pallet of the tracker was
out of date as well.  His
instruments embodied the hallmarks of the new era:  liberal use of enclosed divisions in divided chambers, echo
divisions, a detached console, 
adjustable combination action and the electric motor blower for wind
supply.  The affluent urban
customer got the message: there was something new in  pipe organs out there. They were quick to recognize it and
they were interested.  Roosevelt's
star rose swiftly and in the brief two decades he flourished he won what must
have been a lion's share of the business in New York City, and important
contracts elsewhere as well. News of the "new organ" traveled swiftly
across the country. Thus we had Roosevelt instruments in Danville, Illinois and
Kansas City, Missouri, among other 
small cities, all of considerable distance from New York. The most
widely publicized instrument of the Roosevelt era, if not in retrospect its
crown jewel, was the four-manual for the Cathedral of the Incarnation in Garden
City, Long Island.6

Ernest Skinner, who was to pick up the baton after
Roosevelt's untimely death (and his brother's decision to liquidate the
business), acknowledged Roosevelt's position in the evolution of the instrument
and the industry when he wrote: "Many organs were built by Roosevelt
according to the above plan (individual valve chest), which, together with his
fine tone, earned for him the most distinguished name of any builder of his
time."7

E. M. Skinner

The next trophy builder, who fits our definition eloquently,
is the renowned Ernest M. Skinner. Roosevelt had opened the door to a new era;
now Skinner would hoist his banner and march triumphantly through the city
church landscape for the next three decades.  The Skinner name became a household word and defined the
pipe organ among the knowledgeable urban gentry. What Tiffany was to glass
Skinner was to the pipe organ among socially conscious city folks. "And we
have a Skinner Organ" is one of the ways these people described their churches. This type of product identification, with perhaps no parallel in the pipe organ industry, is the dream of every advertising manager in business today. Skinner also enjoyed the same preferred position in the college and university market during his era that Holtkamp and Schlicker were to savor in the period after World War II.

Like Roosevelt's, Skinner's instruments were a combination
of mechanical and tonal innovations. "The mechanical and tonal factors of
the organ are dependent upon each other for a fulfillment of their
purposes,"8 he wrote. A major contributor was the pitman windchest,
light-years ahead of the Roosevelt ventil system, which would stand the test of
time and be adopted by numerous builders in succeeding decades. The origins of
the pitman action are found, no doubt, in the many experimenters in
single-valve action during the turn of the century.  One of them, reportedly, was August Gern,
Cavaillé-Coll's foreman, who later built organs in England under his own
name. But it remained for Skinner to take it to Mount Olympus. When the
lightning fast  pitman key action
(thirty-three milliseconds between key touch and pipe speech) and equally
responsive (and quiet) stop action was coupled with exotic orchestral voices,
the Skinner organ quickly became the "box office favorite."

William H. Barnes listed the stops, not always invented by
Skinner, but developed and utilized in his trophy installations, which became
hallmarks of his work and era. All stops are 8' unless otherwise noted.9

Erzähler-Christ Church, Hartford, Connecticut

Orchestral Oboe-Tompkins Avenue Congregational Church,
Brooklyn, New York

English Horn (8' and 16')-City College, New York

French Horn-Williams College, Williamstown, Masssachusetts

Kleine Erzähler-Fourth Presbyterian, Chicago

Gross Gedeckt-Second Congregational, Holyoke, Massachusetts

Corno Di Bassetto-Williams College, Williamstown,
Massachusetts

Tuba Mirabilis-Cathedral of St. John the Divine, New York

French Trumpet-Cathedral of St. John the Divine, New York

Orchestral Bassoon (16')-Skinner Studio, Boston

Gambe Celeste-Cathedral of St. John the Divine, New York

Bombarde (32')-Cathedral of St. John the Divine, New York

Violone (32')-Cathedral of St. John the Divine, New York

Sub Bass (32')-Cathedral of St. John the Divine, New York

Contra Bassoon (32')-Princeton University, Princeton, New
Jersey

Skinner's icon image was eloquent confirmation of the
fact  that an organbuilding
enterprise is the lengthened shadow of the key figure behind it.
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As his biographer Dorothy Holden wrote:  "In all truth, it was this ability to infuse his instruments with all the vitality, warmth, and charm of his own personality that created the very essence of the Skinner organ."10

Aeolian Skinner and G. Donald Harrison

The Aeolian Skinner organ was the gold standard for affluent
urbanites with champagne tastes, many of them Episcopalians, who viewed the
church and its appointments as the logical extension of their commanding
economic and social position in the community. That the instrument was built in
Boston, the fountainhead of American culture, was reassuring, and the name
Skinner in the logo denoted continuity with a firm of established reputation.
G. Donald Harrison had filled E. M. Skinner's shoes admirably and moved ahead
to carve out his own niche in the pantheon of great American builders.

Harrison's lasting imprint on American pipe organ heritage
began about 1932; for example, in Northrup Auditorium at the University of
Minnesota, and was well-established in 1935 with Groton School and Church of
the Advent in Boston instruments, which in the public mind were the
cornerstones of his era. These two trophy instruments were
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milestones in the emergence of the
American Classic tradition of which he was the leading exponent during his
time. As Ochse explains: "He coupled an appreciation for some of the
outstanding European styles with his thorough background in English organ
building."11 His goal was an eclectic instrument on which all schools and
styles of organ music could be played with clarity and with reasonable
authenticity.

In superstar products, endorsement is a key to status as is
the demonstration effect, which is the identification of purchasers with peer
groups and the desire to emulate them. With Aeolian-Skinner the demonstration
effect was most important and endorsement not as crucial. When prospective
clients were reminded of the Skinner legacy and shown the opus list: Symphony
Hall Boston, St. Thomas Episcopal, New York and Fourth Presbyterian, Chicago, to
name a few, they said "that's us" and signed up.
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With Holtkamp and Schlicker, on the
other hand, endorsement was paramount.

Aeolian

The Aeolian Duo Art pipe organ was the instrument of choice
among the business and social elite in the first three decades of this
century.  Their opulent life style
was anchored in castles, Italian villas and French chateaus featuring mirrored
ballrooms, manicured gardens and pipe organs and was augmented
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frequently by polo fields, yachts and
private railroad cars. The Aeolian reputation was initially distinguished by
its self-playing mechanism and superior roll library.  Then, the nameplate took over. The "Lords of
Creation" were only too glad to pay steep prices for the Aeolian
instrument in order to "keep up with the Joneses."
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Below is a sampling of familiar
names  among the captains of
industry who had Aeolian Duo Art residence organs.12

The Automotive Industry:

Dodge, Horace E., Detroit, Michigan

Dodge, John F., Detroit, Michigan

Firestone, H. S., Akron, Ohio

Ford, Edsel B., Detroit, Michigan

Kettering, C. F., Dayton, Ohio

Olds, R. E., Lansing, Michigan

Packard, W. D., Warren, Ohio

Seiberling, F. A., Akron, Ohio

Studebaker, J. M., Jr., South Bend, Indiana

Merchants and Manufacturers:

Armour, J. O., Lake Forest, Illinois

Cudahay, J. M., Lake Forest, Illinois

DuPont, Irenee, Wilmington, Delaware

DuPont, Pierre S., Wilmington, Delaware

Swift, G. F. Jr., Chicago, Illinois

Woolworth, F. W., New York, New York

Wrigley, Wm. Jr., Chicago, Illinois

Publishers:

Bok, Edward, Merion, Pennsylvania

Curtis, C.H.K., Wyncote, Pennsylvania

Pulitzer, Mrs. Joseph, New York, New York

Scripps, W. E., Detroit, Michigan

Railroads and Public Utilities:

Flagler, John H., Greenwich, Connecticut

Harriman, E. H., Arden, New York

Vanderbilt, W. K., New York, New York

Vanderbilt, W. K. Jr., Northport, Long Island, New York

Steel and Oil:

Carnegie, Andrew, New York, New York

Frick, H. C., Pride's Crossing, Massachusetts

Rockefeller, John D., Pocantico Hills, New York

Rockefeller, John D., Jr., New York, New York

Schwab, Charles M., New York, New York

Teagle, Walter C., Portchester, New York

Wurlitzer

The tidal wave of capital pouring into the construction of movie theaters after the turn of the century created an insatiable demand for the wondrous new musical medium, the theater pipe organ, pioneered in concept by
Robert Hope-Jones. Investors clamored to capture the fortunes awaiting them in
motion pictures, a spectacular new form of mass entertainment. No movie
theater, be it an ornate palace in a downtown metropolitan area or a small town
storefront cinema, was complete (or competitive) without a theater organ. The
demand spawned an entirely new industry--Barton, Link, Robert Morton, Marr
& Colton, Page and, of course, Wurlitzer which, bolstered by
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clever streetcar advertising, became
the generic term for the theater organ. What Kodak was to amateur photography
and Gillette was to shaving, Wurlitzer was  to the theater pipe organ.

The new industry emerged because the theater organ was a
radically different instrument; characterized by significantly higher wind
pressures, the horseshoe console, unification of the stoplist, and the tibia
and kinura, among others, as distinctive voices in the tonal pallet.
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Other builders produced theater organs,
chiefly during the years of peak demand, but they were primarily identified
with the church instrument and market. We award Wurlitzer the trophy accolade
because their output of over 2,000 instruments was more than twice the number
of their nearest competitor Robert Morton, who built slightly fewer than 900.13

Holtkamp

Walter Holtkamp was a true innovator in the Schumpeterian
sense, i.e., the concrete expression of ideas in marketable goods.
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He had the wisdom and good judgment to
recognize that the classical revival and the North German paradigm, which he
sought to emulate, required a radical departure from existing norms. It was not
a matter of substituting a stop here and there, of lowering wind pressure an
inch or two, or of dispensing with the ubiquitous strings and celestes of the
1920's. It would begin with the wholesale elimination of melodias, cornopeans,
flutes d'amour and numerous other stops, all arranged in a horizontal tonal
pallet dominated by the eight-foot pitch with an occasional four-foot stop. He
would introduce a vertical tonal pallet with a pitch range of 16' through
mixtures, and underscore the principal as the foundation of
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an organ chorus. Capped or semi-capped
flutes would provide color and harmonic development and blend well. He would
use primarily chorus reeds of Germanic "free tone" style as opposed
to "dark tone" English reeds in his ensemble.

To his great credit, Holtkamp surrounded himself with
knowledgeable people, and these persons of influence found in him the
pathfinder who would lead them to the promised land of a baroque organ. He was
said to be a stubborn man but he was a good listener.  William H. Barnes remarked that he had the good fortune to
be located in Cleveland where he benefited enormously from the friendship and
support of three important people in the organ reform movement: Walter
Blodgett, Arthur Quimby and Melville Smith.14 As his biographer John Ferguson
noted: "The continuing association with organists and musicians
sympathetic to his ideas was of central importance to the development of his
work."15 His close collaboration with architects legitimatized bringing
the organ out of chambers and resulted in the distinctive "Holtkamp
look."  Widely copied by other
builders, it was a distinguishing feature of his instruments and era.

After World War II he built a group of loyal followers, many
of them academics, led by Arthur Poister of Oberlin and Syracuse, whose
students moved on to choice academic and church positions and spread the gospel
of Holtkamp.  Soon he enjoyed a
preferred if not a virtual monopoly position in the upscale college and
university market where these leaders of the organist profession flourished.

The Holtkamp organ was the marquee instrument for
academe.  To have a Holtkamp was to
make a statement.  Installations at
Yale University and the University of California at Berkeley as well as
Syracuse University and Oberlin College, quickly convinced many schools, including small colleges like Erskine in Due West, South Carolina, that an important milestone on the road to academic excellence and peer recognition was a Holtkamp organ. Invidious comparison and competitive emulation (Thorstein
Veblen) were--and are--alive and well in academe. Thus it is no mere
coincidence that each of the three prestigous women's colleges in
Virginia--Hollins, Sweetbriar and Randolph-Macon--has a three-manual Holtkamp
instrument. When Hollins got the first one, the other two schools could not
have done anything else. 

Other builders couldn't compete with him in this market. As
one industry veteran, who asked not to be identified, remarked: "If they
were interested in a Holtkamp or a Schlicker, we knew we might as well fold our
tent." This market had pre-judged other builders and in the clamor for
peer recognition; it was the name that counted. Even if other builders used the
same scales and voicing techniques, they could not build a Holtkamp organ.
Poister, a grand person who was widely acknowledged as one of the finest organ
teachers of his or any generation, exerted what can only be described as a
fantastic influence on the fortunes of this builder. His championing of the
Holtkamp organ was surely the equal of the endorsement for breakfast foods and
athletic footwear by professional athletes today.

Schlicker

The market for a neobaroque instrument embracing the
Orgelbewegung  movement was growing
and the established industry was caught with an image problem it could not yet
overcome, opening the door for yet another builder to rise to prominence and by
redefining  the instrument and
capturing a preferred position in a specific market, to achieve trophy status
under our definition. This was Herman Schlicker. His launching pad was the rebuild of the 1893 Johnson organ in the Grace Episcopal Church in Sandusky, Ohio in 1950 with the advice and encouragement of Robert Noehren.16
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Schlicker would go on to etch his
definition of the pipe organ in bold relief: a comparatively severe instrument earmarked by a mild fundamental, a shift in the tonal balance with an emphasis on upperwork, and a reduction in the percentage of strings in the tonal resources as well as a preference for 18th-century strings of an almost soft principal timbre to the exclusion of romantic (pencil) strings.  Baroque style chorus and color reeds were featured in stoplists favoring early music, often suggesting the Praetorius mantra
(reflecting the influence of close friend and confidant Paul Bunjes).
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To augment his tonal resources, Schlicker devised a
"Tonkanzell" electropneumatic windchest featuring a long channel with
the valve closing against a side rail as opposed to closing directly under the
toehole as in conventional pouch-action chests. This was designed to buffer aerodynamically the effect of the opening valve on the pipe foot and to approximate the wind characteristics of the slider chest.17 He was also an early advocate of the slider chest in nonmechanical construction and incorporated it in several instruments.

Schlicker's tonal philosophy and his instruments were
especially appealing to German Lutheran congregations eager to embrace their
historical roots and to academics who shared his definition of the pipe organ.
Robert Noehren, from his lofty perch as university organist and
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professor at the University of
Michigan, enjoyed a wide following at one of the thriving centers for graduate
study in organ during this period. His recordings, recitals and convention
appearances earned for him a stellar reputation as a leading spokesman for the
organ reform movement and, thereby, directly and indirectly for the Schlicker
instrument.  E. Power Biggs also
was caught  up in the Schlicker
movement.18 The importance of endorsements by key spokesmen cannot be
overestimated in the fortunes of the Schlicker Company.

Fisk

By 1970 a phalanx of American organists had traveled to
Europe--on sabbaticals, tours and Fulbright Scholarships-- and been introduced
to many schools and streams of historical organbuilding. They became aware of
new possibilities in their own situations and responsive to a domestic builder
who articulated their ideas. This was Charles Fisk. His Harvard background was
convincing and his Boston location reassuring. In his writings and appearances
before professional groups, Fisk conveyed an in-depth knowledge of European
instruments, his own sympathy with continental ideas and his ability to execute
them.

The epic two-manual tracker organ Fisk built at Mt. Calvary
Church in Baltimore in 1961 was earmarked by the werkprinzip in case design,
suspended key action and, in this example, the tonal philosophy of Andreas
Silbermann.19  This instrument was
his springboard to an illustrious, though tragically short, career. He became
the first American tracker builder to challenge successfully the dominance of
such European builders as Flentrop, Rieger and von Beckerath, in the
construction of large instruments. In response to a loyal and enthusiastic
following, Fisk built a number of contemporary organs as well as period instruments patterned after specific historical antecedents. His rise to prominence is further evidence that each generation looks for--and finds--a new trophy builder, a shiny new nameplate that commands that elusive "box office appeal" and with it an unchallengeable (monopoly) position in a particular market. Over the years his instruments at Harvard and Stanford clinched his reputation much as Holtkamp's organs at Yale and Berkeley had done for him--a reputation still well-deserved  by the Fisk firm after the premature passing of Charles Fisk.

Summary and Conclusions

The trophy builder analysis based upon Rosen's superstar
phenomenon, offers a useful perspective on the all-important market dimension
of the economics of the pipe organ industry.  Its ingredients are: tonal and mechanical innovation,
location, the demonstration effect and endorsement, and each generation's
search for something new under the sun. Veblen's time honored psycho-social
phenomenon of invidious comparison and competitive emulation cannot be
ignored.  Who will be the next
trophy builder?

Perhaps this 
builder will reflect the swing of the pendulum back to the romantic
tradition and the emergence of an eclectic instrument embracing the
contemporary as well as an historical perspective in liturgical music. This
builder, and the entire industry, must be able to confirm the stature of the
pipe organ within the myriad of musical options such as synthesizers,
sequencers and auto-accompaniment being promoted today. The King of Instruments
must be recognized as the legitimate and time-honored vehicle for musical
expression in corporate worship. In retrospect, the history of the instrument
in the American experience is perhaps closely tied to the fortunes of the
mainline denominations and the middle class, both increasingly challenged by
the sweeping socio-economic changes now evident in our society. Ethnic and
language characteristics of migrant populations mitigate against identification
with traditional religious groups and the realities of a rapidly changing
global marketplace impact the wage profile and employment structure of our
economy.  As one industry veteran
explained, the danger as we move into the 21st century is that "the
reorganization of religious expression makes the sounds of the pipe organ less
vital to 'religiousness,' hence less important."20 Our challenge is to
reverse this mindset and to assert that the pipe organ is central to musical
expression in religion and these other developments are ancillary to it.
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