Mark Buxton: An Appreciation March 23, 1961--December 18, 1996

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

Westminster Presbyterian Church

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

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

St. Stephen's Presbyterian Church

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

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

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

Augustine Presbyterian Church

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

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

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

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

Other Installations

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

Local Players

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Visiting Recitalists

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

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

What They Played

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

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

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

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

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

Theatre Organs and Organists

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Later Years

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

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

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

Notes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Letter to the harpsichord editor

Dear Mr. Palmer,

I don't often comment on articles in The Diapason, that is,
in a positive manner, but I don't know when I have enjoyed any writing as much
as yours on Momo Aldrich ["Momo!" in the August 1997 issue]. I assume
it was because I knew both Mr. And Mrs. Aldrich in the mid-50s. I worked in a music store in Palo Alto and met Mr. Aldrich when he watched me hang a picture of Landowska seated at a Pleyel. Mr. Aldrich asked me if I knew who the
"Lady" was; I said it was Wanda Landowska. He was surprised that I
knew.

At this point in time I knew Mr. Aldrich was on the faculty
at Stanford, but not much more. Shortly after that a friend also on the faculty
at Stanford saw me talking to Mr. Aldrich and later told me who he was, and
that he had studied with Landowska in France. Still later I read an article
about Landowska and it talked about Momo, but it took an organ recital at the
Stanford Chapel for me to meet Mrs. Aldrich, who he introduced to me as Momo.
Then the wheels started to turn.

I rebuilt several harpsichords in the next few years and after I completed the first one, and I might add that I was very proud of it, I asked Mr. Aldrich if he would play it and tell me what was right and what was
wrong.  This he did and he found
very little that was right. He made a list for me to follow and he came a
couple times a week to check on my work. Finally it suited him and he brought
in a student who wanted to buy a harpsichord. She liked it and it was sold.
Later he asked me to call on a friend in Palo Alto with a Neupert harpsichord.
It had all sorts of problems.  Mr.
Aldrich made a few suggestions, but it was Mrs. A. who came up with answers.
She told me that Landowska regularly rubbed a bar of soap on the sides of any
jack that seemed sluggish to her. And that she also trimmed plectra that she
thought were digging too much with a pair of fingernail clippers. I ended up
using both on the Neupert.

I have always felt that I learned much from both of the
Aldrichs, both in working on the harpsichord and in learning to hear it
"sing" as Landowska called it.

Some years later I was working for a company building
automated commercial broadcasting equipment. We were dubbing classical music
from records to tape and inserting tones and so on for it to control the
equipment. We had hired a recording engineer who had done much work in the
eastern part of the States and one day he happened to mention recording
Landowska. I asked him about it as she recorded at home.
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  He said that in one session they
detected an "extraneous" note that didn't sound like anything even a
Pleyel might have made. When they played it back for Landowska, she listened
carefully, and finally shrugged her shoulders and said, "I broke
wind," and walked off.

Anyway, again thanks for bringing back a lot of deeply
seated and very fond memories of two people who left many impressions on me
that still guide my thoughts in my work today . . .

Richard Warburton

Skykomish, WA

English early music losses

Carl Dolmetsch (23 August 1911-11 July 1997)

Carl Frederick Dolmetsch was the second son of early music
pioneer Arnold Dolmetsch.  His
mother, Mabel, a leading writer about early dance, was Arnold's third wife.
After his father's death in 1940 Carl succeeded him as director of the
Haslemere Festival. Carl Dolmetsch was best known as a player of the recorder.
Wartime production of plastics in the Dolmetsch workshop led to his creation,
after World War II, of the Dolmetsch plastic recorder, an instrument used by
millions of school children. Carl Dolmetsch also expanded the modern repertoire
for recorder by commissioning more than fifty new works from composers such as
Lennox Berkeley, Edmund Rubbra, and Jean Françaix.

Ruth Dyson (28 March 1917-16 August 1997)

Professor of Harpsichord and Piano at the Royal College of
Music from 1964, Dyson, of Dorking, had a long association with fellow townsman
Vaughan Williams (who was a patient of her doctor father). As Leith Hill Music
Festival Librarian in the 1930s Dyson had the duty of erasing pencil marks from
orchestral parts, and she particularly treasured the telephone call from
Vaughan Williams in which he queried, "Now, my dear, you haven't
forgotten, have you, that we're meeting on Monday at 10 to rub out the whole of
Creation?"

Dyson recorded the clavichord works of Herbert Howells, the
principal keyboard duets before Mozart, and particularly loved the music of the
English Virginalists and English Baroque composers Purcell, Arne, Chilcot, and
Blow.  Her long association with
the Dolmetsch family is documented on the compact disc, The Dolmetsch Years,
Programme Six (Allegro PCD 1018), although not all of her selections played on
the clavichord are correctly identified. (She plays C. P. E. Bach's Variations
on Les Folies, Howells' Dyson's Delight 
and Hughes' Ballet, and, as track 9, C. P. E. Bach's Fantasia in C
minor  from the 18 Probestücke
of 1753, not Lambert's Fireside [Howells].)

Ruth Dyson died of a heart attack following a particularly
happy week of teaching at the Dolmetsch Summer School.

George Malcolm (28 February 1917-10 October 1997)

Well-known as a harpsichordist of brilliant technique, whose
repertoire included the English Virginalists and the major 18th-century
composers, Malcolm was also Master of Music (1947-59) at Westminster Cathedral,
where his work with the choir of men and boys was highly regarded.
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  He was named CBE in 1965 and, in 1966,
an honorary Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford, from which he held degrees in
classics and music.

International Competitions in Bruges

The 12th Harpsichord and 6th Fortepiano Competitions (with a
first prize of 150,000/100,000 Belgian Francs) will be held this summer in
Bruges, Belgium from July 24 through August 1.  The competition, open to players born after December 31,
1965, will be judged by Francoise Lengellé, Wolfgang Brunner, Jesper
Christensen, Johan Huys, Gustav Leonhardt, Davitt Moroney, and Ludger
Rémy.  Information and
application forms (due by April 15), Festival van Vlaanderen-Brugge, C.
Mansionstraat 30, B-8000 Brugge/Belgium. 
Telephone 00.32.50/33 22 83; fax 34 52 04.

Clavichord Symposium in Magnano

The third biennial International Clavichord Symposium (24-28
September) co-chaired by Bernard Brauchli and Christopher Hogwood, was held in
its unique setting of Magnano in northern Italy. Special interest centered on
the pedal clavichord built by John Barnes and Joel Speerstra and expertly
demonstrated by Mr. Speerstra. Another unusual instrument was the
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  copy of a rare octave clavichord after
Praetorius, presented in a program of 15th- and 16th-century music. Many fine
copies of more familiar clavichords, particularly of the 18th century, were
displayed and demonstrated in a series of recitals, illustrated papers, and
discussion sessions.

The reawakening of interest in the clavichord is most
heartening and more than ably promoted by this influential international
conference.

--(Virginia Pleasants, London)

Features and news items for these columns are always
welcome. Address them to Dr. Larry Palmer, Division of Music, Meadows School of
the Arts, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX 75275. E-mail:
[email protected]

The topic of the twelfth San Anselmo Organ Festival was
“The Organ in California: Successive Styles and Changes.” The
underlying premise of the conference was that change is inevitable, as seen in
;the relatively short history of California since its first settlement by
Europeans. Linda Clark, Director of the Master of Sacred Music program at
Boston University School of Theology, provided sociological and theological
insight into each successive era. She emphasized that we “stand on the
shoulders of people who have faced similar situations and have inherited
practices from them.” “Practices” she defined as “a
complex set of culturally specific ways of accomplishing something of enduring
importance to people.” We have been formed by practices. Clark developed
her subject in brief daily “meditations” which were followed by
five minutes of silence and then the performance by Michael Struck of an organ
work relevant to the subject matter of the day.

Monday: Spanish/Mexican California

The entire conference was in the form of a giant organ
crawl. The first excursion was to Mission San José, which was founded in
1797 as the 15th in a series of Franciscan missions in California. Although an
organ had been ordered in the 19th century, it was not installed due to the demise of the missions when California became part of the United States. Therefore, its first organ is the new instrument installed in 1988 by Rosales Organ Builders. It is historically faithful to the early 19th-century Mexican organs, with a split keyboard, and is tuned in 1/4 syntonic comma meantone. Robert Bates of Stanford University played a recital which illustrated the poignancy of the tuning.

Juan Pedro Gaffney delivered a lecture on the music of the
Franciscan missions, pointing out that the rich musical life of the missions
was based on the mature tradition of musical practice in Mexico City, where
many of the friars had studied. The indigenous Californians adapted easily to
traditional western music as singers and instrumentalists.
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  Mission San José, for instance,
had a resident orchestra in the early 19th century. The friars also provided
Christian texts in native language and recorded historical narratives from
Aztec nobles.  Gaffney directed his
Coro Hispano de San Francisco in a vespers for the feast of St. John the
Baptist using music almost entirely from the great polyphonic choirbooks of
Mexico City Cathedral and other great Baroque Mexican churches.

Tuesday: Anglo Settlement of California

The first part of the 19th century under the Franciscans was
relatively stable politically and economically, and the arts flourished. But
beginning in 1840 the missions were secularized, the great rancheros began to
disappear, and non-Hispanic pioneers began to infiltrate the culture. The 1849
gold rush brought hordes of new settlers from around the world. San Francisco
grew into a city overnight. The miners found that the capriciousness of fate
was the central fact of existence; there was a wide chasm between religious
practice on the west and east coasts in that the pioneers’ commitment to
traditional values was not as widespread or deep. Moreover, the climate and
natural beauty of the region furnished transcendent experiences outside of
organized religion.

A remarkable collection of photographs of 19th-century
organs in California was shared by Jim Lewis. Most of the organs shown were
destroyed in the great San Francisco earthquake and fire in 1906. Of particular
interest was a seventeen-section panorama of San Francisco in 1878 showing a
profusion of churches. A prolific Bay Area organ builder of the time was John
Bergstrom, one of whose organs was heard at Christ Episcopal Church in
Sausalito where David Farr conducted the members of the Ragazzi Boys Chorus and
David Farr Chorale in a 1905 Victorian Matins.

After proceeding to San Francisco by ferry, we heard three
pre-fire organs played by students from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music
and their teacher, Wyatt Insko. At the First United Lutheran Church (the first
English-speaking Lutheran church in San Francisco), Frederick DeBoer played a
short program including Dudley Buck’s Concert Variations on the Star
Spangled Banner. The Woodbury & Harris organ (1899), in its third home, was
restored by Manuel Rosales, and has a flat 27-note pedalboard and mechanical
key and stop action. We then heard Franck’s Pièce
Héroïque played by Jung Ran Lim on a 1906 Pilcher organ at Central
Seventh Day Adventist Church. The Philadelphian Seventh-Day Adventist church
has a tubular pneumatic organ built by the Los Angeles Art Organ Company,
successor to Murray M. Harris. The blower was electric from the start. Yishiu
Chen performed Conrad Susa’s “March for a Joyous
Occasion.” 

The 1904 Möller organ in the Church of St. John the
Evangelist has been modified extensively. For example, the 16¢ Lieblich
Gedeckt has been reconstituted from four different ranks from other builders,
but the sound is seamless. Wyatt Insko played J. S. Bach’s transcription
of a Concerto in G Major by Duke Wilhelm Ernst of Weimar. The day concluded
with a wine-tasting and tour hosted by Jack Bethards of the historic
Schoenstein organ factory, founded in 1877.

Wednesday:  San
Francisco after the 1906 Fire

Wayne Leupold argued that transcriptions are now
respectable, citing arrangers from 1300 to the present—including, among
others, J. S. Bach, Boëly, Liszt, Saint-Saëns, Franck, Widor, and
Novello.  Some of the compositions
emerged “new and improved” with the transcriber’s own opus
number.  In the early 1900s Edwin
Lemare brought transcriptions to a new level of sophistication, as demonstrated
by Frederick Hohman, who played Lemare’s transcription of Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet Overture at a “1924 Concert of Organ Music” on the Skinner organ in Trinity Episcopal Church, which was installed in that year.

Christian Elliott accompanied a screening of Buster
Keaton’s film “Steamboat Bill Jr.” on the Wurlitzer organ at
the Castro Theater, performing his own score. His synchronization with
Keaton’s “singing” of the Prisoner’s Song and also with
the impact of various falling objects was faultless.

Civic organs were discussed at the Palace of the Legion of
Honor by John Fenstermaker, Ed Stout, and Jonathan Ambrosino. The
museum’s Skinner organ was installed with the premise that great music
should accompany great art. Ed Stout is currently restoring this 63-rank 1924
organ, rebuilding the console and adding a computerized combination action. The
organ has many unusual features, including an Arch Clarion and Chimes which are
designed to be heard in the courtyard. 
Another unusual aspect of the organ is that there are no obvious
“grills” or means for the organ to be heard in the museum. All of
the openings were originally covered in muslim and painted to imitate the stone
walls which surround them. Over the years, the paint had become so thick that
the sound of the organ was severely compromised. The restoration will include
the installation of a more suitable covering.

The First Church of Christ, Scientist in San Francisco has a
splendid example of the orchestral style of organ building —a 1924
Kimball that has been virtually unchanged. All the pipework is enclosed so that
“one can accompany the Aeoline with the Tuba Mirabilis,” according
to organist C. Thomas Rhoads, who demonstrated the tonal families and then
played a program which included his own transcription of the “Serenade of
the Doll” from Debussy’s Children’s Corner Suite.

Thursday:  The
American Classic Organ and The Early Organ Reform Movement

Jonathan Ambrosino showed how pipe organs were everywhere
during Victorian times—not only in churches but in private homes and even
yachts. If there was no resident organist, music was played from rolls; it was
the home entertainment center. There was—and still is—an Austin
organ in Balboa Park in San Diego where Edwin Lemare gave a concert series in
1902. Ambrosino  gave an absorbing
account of Murray M. Harris’ ups and downs, E. M. Skinner’s falling
out with three prominent California organists (Moore, Sabin and Allen) and the
ascendancy of G. Donald Harrison. Between 1930 and 1965 organs underwent swift
and dramatic change, but Harrison never rejected the romantic organ; he just
wanted to make it better. He looked backward for authentic organ sounds that
would serve previous periods of music, not imitations of orchestral sounds. He
never lost sight of the organ’s purpose, which was accompanying choirs.
He believed that all sounds in an organ needed to work together. A small
Æolian-Skinner organ (1939) at St. Boniface Church demonstrated this
emerging neo-classical trend with only eight ranks plus Plein Jeu. Other
builders reacted against the perceived sentimental excesses of the romantic
organ.

One of Harrison’s crowning achievements was the organ
at Grace Cathedral where we heard Evensong. Christopher Putnam gave a rousing
performance of Searle Wright’s Lyric Rhapsody for the prelude and John
Fenstermaker conducted the men’s choir in a setting of Psalm 126 by
Sowerby.

A concert of “Organ and Chamber Music for the American
Classic Organ” was performed at First Presbyterian Church in San Anselmo
by three organists. Layten Heckman’s portion included Hovhaness’
Dawn Hymn and Three Pieces for a Ceremony by Michael McCabe with the Festival
Brass Ensemble conducted by David Farr. Wilbur Russell played Wilbur
Held’s Music for the New Year, recently commissioned by the host church.
In Theme and Variations on “The Old Year Now Has Passed Away”
Russell showed the varying colors of the 1966 Æolian-Skinner.
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  John Pagett accompanied Susan Rode
Morris on the piano for Prayers, Songs and Praises by David Clark Isele. The
evening ended with a hilarious rendition of “The King of Instruments: A
Parade of Music and Verse.” The Ogden Nash-like text, by Albright and
Eugene Haun, was delightfully hammed up by Chandler Stokes, the pastor of the
church.

Friday: 
Latter-Day Reform Movement; The Tracker Revival; Historical Copies

The 1910 Hutchings organ at Old First Presbyterian Church
was a victim in 1950 of the trend toward neo-baroque voicing. Shrill upperwork
was added and important 8¢ ranks discarded. Visscher Associates has just
rebuilt and greatly enlarged the organ, keeping it faithful to the
organ’s original tonal purpose while expanding the instrument’s
versatility.  George Becker played
a historically diverse program including Franck’s Choral in B Minor in
which the Vox Humana was particularly effective.

At Stanford University Robert Bates introduced us to the
three magnificent organs at Memorial Church. A brand new addition is the
Katherine Potter-Brinegar cabinet organ built in Renaissance style (after
Compenius) by Paul Fritts and Company. 
It is tuned in 1/4 comma meantone temperament with suspended mechanical
key action, and easily movable to other locations in the church. The size of
the instrument is deceptive; the sounds, some pure and sweet and others
surprisingly sonorous, carry through the church with ease. The oldest organ in
the church is the large 1901 Murray M. Harris instrument which has been
reworked by Johnston Organ Company (a successor to Murray Harris), Ernest
Skinner, Æolian-Skinner, Rosales, and in 1995 by John DeCamp and Mark
Austin.  The 1984 Fisk-Nanney organ
epitomizes the tracker revival and can be played either in well temperament or
in one-fifth comma meantone by moving a lever.

We visited the home of Jacques Littlefield, in which there
is a large Fisk organ (1987) showing mixed French and German influences.
Noteworthy are the Dom Bedos Tremblant Doux and the harmonic flute which
changes greatly in character as it gets higher, demonstrated by Matthew Dirst
with D’Aquin’s Noël Étranger. Ewert (“Red”)
Wetherill gave an overview of  the
acoustical revisions of  Memorial
Church. He noted that the mosaic work on the walls provides superb
reflectivity, but that the jointed, lightweight plank ceiling is absorptive
especially in the lower registers. Improvements included removing a thick layer
of hair-covered felt from the entire ceiling of the church. The afternoon ended
with a typical Sunday morning service of Holy Communion at All Saints’
Episcopal Church where Gwen Adams is the music director. It is the
parish’s custom to print a large quantity of music directly in the Sunday
program, thereby encouraging maximum congregational participation. The parish
sings the same setting of the liturgy for the whole of a given church season so
that the congregation can learn it; they sing new hymns three or four weeks in
a row for the same reason.

The final event of the 1996 Festival was a concert with the
three organs at Stanford entitled: “Five Centuries of Transcriptions for
Organ.” Particularly effective was Paduana Lachrimae by Dowland,
intabulated by Sweelinck and played antiphonally by Robert Bates on the
Potter-Brinegar at the front of the church and Matthew Dirst on the Fisk in the
rear top gallery.  A rousing end to
the evening and the Festival was provided by Frederick Hohman with the
“Ride of the Valkyries” complete with Brunnhilde’s portamento
up to the high note, played on the Murray M. Harris.

In a follow-up conference in October titled “A
Changing Profession:  Embracing the
New Century,” the common thread of need for more education persisted.
Drawing on his article in the February 1996 edition of The American Organist,
“Leonard Bernstein, a Lodestar for the American Church Musician,”
Steve Pilkington urged us to “lighten up” in dealing with the gap
between the organist’s traditional musical orientation and the
congregational comfort level. We must educate congregations more and make music
accessible and inclusive the way Bernstein did in his young people’s
concerts. Harriet Nelson noted that shared traditions hold institutions
together while generational differences work against this. To confront this
trend we should be willing to adapt, have integrity, seek quality and develop
competence.

During research for her book Music in Churches, Linda Clark
studied the style of three Methodist congregations. The style of the first, a
rural congregation, was characterized by energy and hubbub; the second, located
in a suburban neighborhood, was formal and dignified; the third, a downtown
Boston African-American church, was characterized by rhythm, power, and a
call-and-response culture. She feels that conflicts over popular musical style
involve two separate issues:  the
quality of the music and the style in which it is performed.

John Pagett advised us to rededicate ourselves to aggressive
education, keeping aware of the pervasiveness of popular culture.

Jack Bethards, Manuel Rosales and Jonathan Ambrosino
discussed developments in organ design. Electronic organs have taken over the
cheap market. With the reduced volume of work there is less feedback and less
opportunity for development, but builders still get excited about reproducing a
sound they hear inside their head.

In an upbeat sharing session attendees contributed various
suggestions:  improve your
publicizing skills; play a congregant’s favorite hymns on their birthdays
(perhaps for donations to the music fund); write articles in the bulletin about
the organ music performed that day; investigate new electronic sounds (not
duplicative ones); improve acoustics of the church as much as possible; include
everyone possible as ‘extras’ in your music programs.

The Festival fully explored its subject matter and this
reviewer came away more aware of the debt we owe to those who came before us
and the responsibility we have in handing on to succeeding generations their
and our own “practices.” Change is endemic to every period and
provides the stimulus for a thoughtful determination of what our own
“practice” will be.

July 8-16, 1995, Paris, France

The sixth French Organ Music Seminar took place in Paris
with 37 organists participating. During the course of the seminar we heard and
played 17 organs dating from the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries.

The first afternoon was spent in private lessons at the home
of Daniel Roth. At 5 pm Bernadette Duforcet played and demonstrated the
Cavaillé-Coll organ at Notre Dame des Champs. Later at La
Trinité, Naji Hakim presented his improvisations and compositions in the
style of Messiaen, as well as stories about Trinité and Messiaen.

The next morning included Sunday Mass at Sacré Coeur
with its newly appointed young organist Philippe Brandeis. Some ventured to the
outskirts of Paris to St. Denis to hear an 11:30 recital played by seminar
member Bryan Kirk. Others went to St. Sulpice to hear the 11:30 recital given
by Daniel Roth. After lunch with Daniel Roth we went to St. Roch for an organ
recital on three organs given by François Levenchin, organist at St.
Roch, Sylvie Mallet, and Marie-Louise Langlais. The evening featured the
brilliant Russian organist, Yanka Hekimova, at St. Eustache. She used some very
interesting and shocking registrations. Like Guillou, she is a virtuoso, having
transcribed and recorded Mozart's Jupiter Symphony
style='font-style:normal'> for organ.

On Monday morning the group journeyed to the home of Marcel
Dupré in Meudon and heard a recital by a pupil of Marie-Louise Langlais,
Pascal Melis. Seminar members then played this organ, preserved exactly as
Dupré knew it. The afternoon and evening were spent with Daniel Roth at
St. Sulpice, where he lectured on the organ and the organists of St Sulpice and
improvised. Everyone had a chance to play.

Tuesday, July 11, began at the Kern organ at St. Severin
with the titulaire François Espinasse. Built in 1963, this organ was
based on the principles of the French Classical organ. At the same time Ste.
Clotilde was made available for lessons by Marie-Louise Langlais and for
playing. During the afternoon we went to La Madeleine and were treated to an
improvisation by François Houbard.

Wednesday morning and afternoon were spent at the Schola
Cantorum and at Ste. Clotilde hearing lectures and organ demonstrations by
Marie-Louise Langlais on Franck and the French School. To conclude the
afternoon Mme. Langlais had arranged an oboe and organ concert in the Ste.
Clotilde chapel. That night featured the first of three sessions with the
organist of Notre Dame, Philippe Lefebvre, who entertained us with stories of Notre Dame and outstanding improvisations. He graciously allowed seminar members time for playing the Notre Dame organ.

Thursday the lectures by Mme. Langlais continued at Ste.
Clotilde and there were more opportunities for playing and taking private
lessons at Ste. Clotilde and at St. Severin. In addition, Jacques Taddei
presented performance and improvisation at Ste. Clotilde. The night was spent
at Notre Dame with M. Lefebvre.

Friday included a trip to Chartres and a short tour of the
Cathedral by Malcolm Miller. We saw and heard the organ of Eglise St. Pierre as
well as the cathedral organ, arranged by Lynne Davis, who presented a recital
on the Chartres organ. We continued on to Dreux and played the organ there,
ending the afternoon with a wonderful buffet arranged by Ms. Davis. That night
we travelled back to Notre Dame for the final session with Philippe Lefebvre.

Saturday morning took place at St. Augustin featuring the
1899 mechanical action Cavaillé-Coll rebuild of an earlier Barker
instrument. Michelle Pinte, choir organist, was our gracious host. The rest of
the day was spent with Pierre Pincemaille at St. Denis. The 1841
Cavaillé-Coll is one of the earliest and has 69 stops of which 21 are
reeds. This is one of the oldest Gothic cathedrals and the burial place of the
kings of France.

Sunday morning seminar members went to various
churches--most were at the organ loft at Notre Dame with Olivier Latry.
During the afternoon we heard Susan Landale lecture on Messiaen. The evening
took place at Notre Dame once more, this time with Olivier Latry, co-titulaire
with Lefebvre of Notre Dame, who offered invaluable tips on improvising.

Monday morning another seminar concluded, with all of us
going our different directions. We are planning another seminar for the first
part of July, 1997 and will have a brochure available in August of 1996. Please
write for details.

--Christina Harmon

4330 Shirley

Dallas, TX 7522

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

In the March, 1997, edition of this journal we published
"Is The Pipe Organ A Stepchild In Academe?" The purpose was to call
attention to the perilous status of the King of Instruments in many
institutions of higher learning and to suggest concrete ways to shore up its
uncertain future. We closed the article with a call to action, a plea for
concerned friends of the organ--faculty, students, alumni and laymen--to take
determined action. We cited two examples of what is required: "Friends of
the Northrop Organ" at the University of Minnesota and alumni tours of
Woolsey Hall at Yale University, and we mentioned a followup article spotlighting promising developments.

The purpose of this article is to review the nature of the
problem in the context of the current complexion of higher education and to
discuss several auspicious programs in some detail.  The wholesale neglect, abandonment, and sell-off of organs
in colleges and universities which, sadly, threatens to continue, is perceived
as a nationwide phenomenon. This situation is attributed to the emergence of a
pervasive market-driven mentality in academe. Ill-advised budget officers and state legislatures are today preoccupied with student numbers and credit hours as the overriding criteria for funding. Policy and operating decisions by
administrators are based upon a frantic search for "hot buttons"
(computer science and genetic engineering, for example) to bolster enrollment
amid intense competition for students who are increasingly vocationally
oriented in their choice of school and curriculum. This short-sighted pragmatic
approach threatens the distinguishing features of a campus setting and its
time-honored mission as the repository of our culture, and the harbinger of our
future as a cultivated society.

In preparing this article the author has talked with a score
of music professors in all types of schools, public and private, large and
small, coast to coast. He has discovered some remarkable programs, which are
attracting institutional and community support leading to increased student
enrollment and funding. If the bold and imaginative initiatives taken by many
schools are adopted by others, the pipe organ has a bright future in academe.

Invaluable Goods

We repeat our premise that a pipe organ is not merely an
appliance or teaching device, but is a campus jewel along with the telescope,
the book collection and the art gallery. So recognized, these treasures should
be impervious to cost-cutting, down-sizing and departmental budget allocations
based upon enrollment. They should be classified as "invaluable
goods," a concept eloquently articulated by Professor Kenneth Arrow of
Stanford University, an internationally renowned economist awarded the Nobel
Prize in economics in 1972.  The
occasion for his commentary is his review of Margaret Jane Radin's seminal work
Contested Commodities in which her fear is that "actions which are
essential to personal identity fall under the sway of the market and are
measured by its criteria." Arrow's concept of invaluable goods rests upon
the belief that certain aspects of human life are so essential to whole
personhood that their existence and ultimate value cannot be measured in
dollars and cents. They are not--and should not be--bartered in the marketplace
and their value should not be judged by a monetary payoff. He acknowledges that
this concept is symptomatic of  a
failure of economics (and of the market mentality): "One of the oldest
critiques of economic thinking has been its perceived disregard of the deeper
and more sacred aspects of life" he writes.1 In short, when we begin, or
insist on, valuing the fundamentals of human life in terms of money, putting a
price on them and, without hesitation, buying and selling them based on this
criterion, we are asking for trouble. One example Arrow gives of invaluable
goods is children. No matter how poor or desperate a family might be, the idea
of selling the children is utterly unthinkable. Is it time that we invoke the
spirit of invaluable goods in our colleges and universities and declare the
pipe organ and other jewels of the campus as integral to the deeper and more
sacred aspects of the higher learning, and thereby untouchable?

We continue with the admonition that the trancendent
three-dimensional sound of a majestic pipe organ, as heard in an auditorium
convocation or chapel service, can evoke emotions which contribute immeasurably
to a vital sense of identity and community in the collegiate experience. One
striking, if novel, example of the lasting imprint of this experience is in
Robert L. Duffus's delightful little book The Innocents at Cedro. It
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  recounts the year 1907-08 when Duffus
and his brother William kept house for Thorstein Veblen in their sophmore year
at Stanford University. The publisher described the book as "an
unforgettable evocation of American college life in the early 1900s."
Written in 1944 near the close of a distinguished career in journalism as a
member of the editorial board of the New York Times, Duffus recalled what,
nearly four decades earlier, were his most cherished memories of college life,
the experiences that meant the most to him. Among them was joining fellow
students for a sack lunch on the quadrangle and listening to Professor Blodgett
practicing on the chapel organ. "The music would rumble along, formless in
the distance, but pleasant and tranquil" he wrote. 2

Auditorium Organs

We noted in the previous paper that the auditorium and its
majestic pipe organ have all but disappeared as a centerpiece of campus
activity. Too small for many functions or pre-empted by the drama department,
the auditorium often stands anonymously as a symbol of the vast increase in
enrollment and of specialized curricula, which together with other forces, have
compartmentalized student life into various "schools,"
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  i.e., engineering, business, nursing,
agriculture and others. We are happy to have discovered two exceptions.

Mansfield University

Mansfield University in Pennsylvania is one of fourteen
former state teachers colleges which now comprise the "University
System."  Its two organs are a
25-stop three-manual Austin, Opus 297, 1917, in Strawn Auditorium and a 27-stop
three-manual Moller, Opus 10652, 1970, in the Stedman Theater wing of the
Butler Music Building.

  These
instruments are the pride and joy of President Rod C. Kelchner, a graduate of
the school, who says: "You would have to drag me across the campus kicking
and screaming to get rid of our organs." He calls them significant symbols
in the ambience and character of the school and its history. He laments that
with the many changes in academe in recent years, history fades and is
forgotten; hence the need for reminders and recognition. Just as furniture
makes a house livable, hospitable to visitors and complements the personalities
of the occupants, so too do the treasures of a campus give it definition and
persona and bridge the generations, he asserts.

President Kelchner's office, not the music department, has
contracted for five maintenance visits per year for these instruments. This is
particularly significant because it illustrates the role the top administration
must play in the recognition and preservation of campus instruments. His
loyalty and devotion are especially noteworthy because Mansfield has not been
immune to organ enrollment trends. When the organ professor retired two years
ago he was not replaced, there are currently no organ majors on campus, and he
has had to go off-campus to find people to play the organ for commencement.

In another gratifying endorsement of music and its place in
the history of Mansfield, which will gladden the hearts of musicians
everywhere, President Kelchner chose Carl Ruck, a graduate of the school, as
commencement speaker two years ago. A well-known keyboard performer in the
Washington, D.C. area, Mr. Ruck also performs frequently on campus and is a
member of the alumni board. Kelchner toyed recently with the idea of a "non-traditional"
commencement, calling for the speaker, a musician, to be seated at the organ
console in Strawn Auditorium, playing and narrating classical music and its
place in time-honored liberal education, providing an alternative to the customary remarks to graduates.   

Boston University

The John R. Silber Symphonic Organ in the George Sherman
Union at Boston University is an eloquent example of the role of a pipe organ
as a distinctive jewel in a campus setting This instrument originated from gifts
of two residence organs to the school by prominent trustees who recognized the
lasting value of them in America's musical heritage and whose resources and
devotion to the school found expression in creating this one-of-a-kind campus
jewel.  The first organ was a small
Skinner in the home of Percy Rockefeller in Greenwich, Connecticut. The second
was a larger Aeolian from the Winchester mansion of William E. Schrafft, the
Boston candy-maker. Meticulously restored and greatly enlarged by organbuilder
Nelson Barden, this spectacular instrument resides in Metcalf Hall in the
Sherman Union, and was dedicated in October, 1994, in honor of Silber, the
Chancellor of Boston University.

This majestic instrument not only replicates the prominence
of an auditorium organ at the turn of the century, it goes a step further in
defining the institution and making a lasting impression on the students. With
102 ranks and 6,815 pipes, displayed prominently with the entire mechanism, the
latter behind plate glass windows, it becomes a commanding presence in the
ambience of student life. As Jonathan 
Ambrosino remarks: "From the start, the instrument was designed to
be a living display of art and technology, restored to perfection and open to
the public.  Whether playing or silent, the organ makes a statement on many artistic levels."3 As students pass through the building daily to and from classes, and as alumni gather for
special occasions,  the visual
presence and glorious sounds of this organ, linking past to present and transcending the cares of life, will evoke a lasting memory.

Promoting the Pipe Organ

In the economic realities of higher education, the market
mentality of administrators and state legislators who view a school today as a
business is here to stay, like it or not. In the final analysis, the best
guarantee of preserving faculty positions, maintaining instruments, and
budgeting scarce resources for tuning and periodic restoration and updating is,
first, never to miss a chance to call attention to the instrument. Second, is
to "shake the bushes" and aggressively recruit students from
traditional sources on campus and non-traditional sources within the community.
The type of missionary zeal required is found in Prof. William Kuhlman of
Luther College in Decorah, Iowa, who says proudly: "I have done everything
but stand on my head to bring about organ awareness and appreciation."
Indeed he has:  organ crawls after
church, summer organ camps for local grade school children, demonstrations for
faculty and board of regents spouses, family camps, church heritage workshops,
Halloween "monster concerts" and presentations to the local Rotary
Club.

In research for this paper the author has surveyed all types
of schools across the nation. He has come upon some enterprising and
imaginative faculty who are "pulling out all the stops" to promote
their departments, programs and instruments with gratifying results.
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  For purposes of analysis and
discussion, it is useful perhaps to divide the landscape of higher education
into three categories: small liberal arts colleges, state colleges including
urban branches of state universities, and major music schools and universities,
particularly those noted for professional and graduate study.

Liberal Arts Colleges

The liberal arts colleges were historically church
affiliated and many retain strong church ties today. The Lutheran schools, in
particular, enjoy a rich legacy of liturgical music in the heritage of their
denomination, and churches of all denominations traditionally reflect the
prominence of music in the experience of corporate worship. Thus, the church
connection augurs well for maintaining pipe organs as integral to campus
resources and central to the music program. These schools benefit from an
articulate and active alumni and the corresponding sensitivity of the
administration and trustees to alumni concerns in budgeting decisions. The
choice of liberal arts as an initial course of study is perhaps indicative of a
lesser concern with the vocational job-market payoff in selecting a school and
a curriculum. The church-going life style of students enrolled in these
schools, particularly those students having a musical background and interest,
may cause them to contemplate making a musical contribution to parish life and
to prepare for organ and choral opportunities. Therefore, although these
schools are not totally immune to the market-orientation mind-set, and have
adjusted curriculum to broader trends, they have never suffered such a loss of
organ enrollment as to justify ending the curriculum and liquidating the
instruments. The challenge of these schools is to continue to insure the
rightful place of music in the philosophical and operational image of the
liberal arts and to affirm organ study in music programs, resources and curriculum.

Marylhurst College

Practical Outreach

One of the most imaginative and innovative programs in a
four-year undergraduate curriculum is the one developed by Nancy LeRoi Nichol
at Marylhurst College, a Catholic women's school in Portland, Oregon. Acutely
aware of the precarious position of organ studies in her school and elsewhere,
where faculty are constantly admonished to "double our enrollment"
and to be "accountable" in matching revenue with cost, she has taken
giant steps to expand the student base far beyond the traditional BM and BA
degree programs in organ performance and sacred music. Her efforts benefitted
from a rich tradition in sacred music in the order which founded and operates
the school, and from the George Bozeman rebuild of a vintage Hutchings-Votey
tracker instrument installed in the auditorium in 1995.

Cornerstones of the new format at Marylhurst are two new
classes, a one-semester "Meet the Organ" and a one-year "Basic
Training in Organ." The first class is a semi-private group of three to
four students who, in recent enrollment, have ranged in age from 24 to 74. They
are seeking primarily a general introduction to the instrument. The class may
include non-organ music majors, non-music students from other departments and
music aficionados from the community. It sets its own course of study such as
service playing knowledge and skills, a specific repertory area, or perhaps,
depending on the students, preparation for an AGO exam. The goal of this course
is to foster a love of the instrument and its music, to recognize its singular
historic prominence in the spectrum of music and to promote the contemporary
role of the organ on campus and in the community.

The "Basic Training in Organ" class meets
two-hours a week in three ten-week terms, for a total of 60 hours of
instruction. Enrollment is limited to eight participants who are solicited
through a letter to local clergy of all faiths. It reminds them of the chronic
local, as well as national, shortage of organists and points out that this
economical and efficient program will fulfill their needs. Churches also are
encouraged to subsidize all or part of the students' $1242 per year tuition as
a wise and minimal investment that will pay rich dividends for many years in
the worship life of the congregation. Results have been most encouraging, with
interest coming particularly from piano teachers who welcome the opportunity to
broaden their keyboard experience and to increase their income potential by
becoming part-time church organists. In the class they learn fundamentals of
technique, registration, practical repertoire, and begin each class playing
church hymns.

The new programs more than meet the cost-revenue guidelines
mandated by the administration at Marylhurst. The semi-private group
instruction has been particularly successful in increasing productivity of
faculty resources without any decrease in quality. In Professor Nichol's
experience, the group format, with its collegial and supportive atmosphere for
learning, is far more advantageous to students at this juncture in their
careers than are individual studio lessons. In addition, the group format makes
lessons financially attractive for many students. At the end of the
introductory year the students can choose private lessons or continue in
semi-private instruction in groups of three. The school also has established a
Certificate in Sacred Music option, a two-year program in which one-half of the
curricula is in theology and the other half in music. The success of the
Marylhurst programs can be explained, in part, by the fact that it is primarily
a commuter school in an urban setting. Community outreach and the role of
continuing education is an established factor in its educational philosophy.
Thus, it has long been accustomed to probing the surrounding area for special
educational needs and the corresponding potential for enrollment.

Dordt College

Church Music Training

Dordt College in Sioux Center, (northwestern) Iowa,
illustrates the importance of a strong denominational and cultural tradition in
providing a prominent instrument on campus, and in keeping vibrancy in its
organ curriculum. A comparatively new school, founded in 1955, Dordt is
affiliated with the Christian Reformed Church of Dutch heritage.
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  Most students are from Christian high
schools where music programs are strong. Many students, including 150 from
Canada, are first or second generation immigrants from Holland where the organ
is a centerpiece of their culture. When these families visit the campus they
ask about the pipe organ. The large Casavant tracker instrument in the
auditorium makes a statement (see photo). Thus, music and the organ program,
established in 1967 by Dr. Joan Ringerwole, are a priority in the mission of
the school. The auditorium platform and instrument are reserved for organ
students from 6:00 am to 3:00 pm, after which it is available for choir, band,
orchestra, and other ensembles. As in many other church-affiliated colleges, a
number of non-music majors take organ lessons, seeking to become good hymn
players and build a repertoire of church music, perhaps in anticipation of
strong church ties as adults and an active role as a musician in the local
parish.

The place of organ in the achievements and image of the
school were recognized in an alumni magazine article, "Playing the organ
is their occupation," featuring four graduates from the 1980s who have
gone on to graduate study and to choice positions in the profession. These
include Dr. Christian Teeuwsen, professor of music at Redeemer College in
Ancaster, Ontario; Dr. Laura Vander Windt, organist and choirmaster at All
Soul's Church in Oklahoma City;  
Dr. Pamela Ruiter-Feenstra, university organist and music professor at
Eastern Michigan University; and Dr. Martin Tel, chapel organist and lecturer
in church music at Princeton Theological Seminary. "They're a passionate
group. Each of them speaks with warmth and intensity about the organ, its
repertoire and the joy of playing it," the alumni magazine columnist
wrote. Another organ graduate of Dordt, Brent Assink, president of the St. Paul
Chamber Orchestra, was named outstanding alumnus two years ago. A current
student, Bonnie Runia, a senior from Melvin, Iowa, won first place in her
junior year in the National Federation of Music Clubs competition. These people
speak with glowing praise for their teacher, Dr. Ringerwole, who inspired them.
"She was a gentle spirit, always pushing us to pursue excellence but never
hard on us. At the same time she expected a lot from us," said Vander
Windt.4

University of Evansville

Musical Anchor for Liberal
Arts

The University of Evansville, in Evansville, Indiana,
affiliated with the United Methodist Church, enjoys a rich tradition in organ
which dates back to 1919. The relocation of the school from Moores Hill,
Indiana to Evansville that year coincided with the installation, in the
Soldier's and Sailor's Memorial Colliseum, of a large Moller concert organ.
James Gillette, the first chairman of the music department at the school, was
also the municipal organist. He was succeeded as organ teacher on campus by
Ralph Waterman, who served many years. The program made giant strides in the
1960s under the leadership of Carl Staplin, the nationally-known keyboard
artist now at Drake University, who guided the selection of Holtkamp
instruments for the concert hall and the chapel. Staplin was succeeded by
Robert Luther, who moved to Carleton College in 1975 and he was followed by the
present incumbent, Douglas Reed.

The program also enjoys active support
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  by the administration.
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  The president, Dr. James Vinson, a
physicist by training who has a special affinity for organ music, says:
"The presence of the organ at significant ceremonies greatly enhances the
event." The two visiting artists in the annual recital series, in addition
to Reed's faculty recital, are funded by the administration. The college
chaplain, Dr. John Brittain, also an organist, is equally enthusiastic for the
organ program and its place in the school, as are the comparatively large
number of musicians in other departments.

A distinguishing feature of the Evansville liberal arts
philosophy and of the place of music in it, is the three-semester World
Cultures Curriculum. Here Reed presents a lecture on baroque keyboard music and
plays the harpsichord and the two Holtkamp organs. The organ is used
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  during noontime chapel recitals and was
part of a successful "Music at Midnight" event. Another popular event
in recent years was a "Handel with Care" program endowed by an
alumnus. On tours of the campus for visitors and prospective students, student
guides are instructed to call attention to the instruments.

Other attractions at Evansville for prospective organ
students are the Neu Chapel Organ Scholarship, awarded to a freshman, selected
by audition, each year. Also, the community's unusually rich organ resources
represented by Fisk, Jaekel, and Taylor & Boody tracker instruments.
Students are welcomed at performances and in master classes at the First
Presbyterian Church (C. B. Fisk, Opus 98, 1991) funded by the church's Sacred
Arts Series.

Organ Study and Other Curricula

If liberal arts students also are sensitive, ultimately, to
the employment outlook (i.e. the absence of well-paying positions in church
music), a majority of organ students are likely to be part-time while wisely
acquiring marketable skills in other departments. Nonetheless, part-time
non-music degree students are quite enough to support a program and to justify
the security of organ faculty and resources. This is the experience of Dr. John
Behnke of Concordia College in Mequon, Wisconsin. The majority of his students
are in accounting, business, physical therapy and other majors. They welcome
the opportunity to pursue a personal if not a primary career interest. His
appeal to them is based on his fervent belief that the future of the organ and
its role in a liturgical setting 
(where it is the most effective musical vehicle for leading group
singing) is in training grassroots organists. "Playing hymns well, playing
exciting uplifting hymn preludes are of equal importance to the organ
masterworks," he says, adding "I believe training an organist
exclusively for a career as a concert performer is unrealistic." The
importance of a church focus is echoed by Professor John Ferguson at St. Olaf
College who asks: "Why should a church invest in a college or university
trained organist if that person leads congregational singing no more creatively
than an amateur?" His experience suggests that students are interested in
developing skills as church organists as well as performers of the literature.
"They know that most of the professional opportunities are in
churches." The dual focus upon literature and church music at St. Olaf
perhaps explains why the organ department remains strong with 12 Bachelor of Music performance or church music organ majors out of a total of 26 organ students this year.

Much recruiting of high school students for future organ
study is indirect, as Davis Folkerts of Central College in Iowa explains. That
is, it begins with  the admissions
office soliciting applicants in the entire spectrum of music: band, orchestra,
vocal and keyboard. John Hamersma of Calvin College in Michigan finds music
students often are persuaded that organ study wisely complements their basic
program; such as in fulfilling the keyboard requirement in music education, or
as part of a combined degree, perhaps in music and religion. He observes
that  the organ holds a fascination
for students, once on campus, because of its size, visual appearence, range of
pitch, volume and color. Karen Larsen of Wartburg College in Iowa notes that
the flexibility of combined degrees, and of a broad curriculum in music, is
especially appealing to students due to uncertainties of the job market. And as
W. N. Earnest of  The Old Presbyterian Meeting House in Alexandria, Virginia notes: "Schools of all sizes and the AGO should recognize that churches aren't looking just for organists anymore; they're looking for ministers of music."

In the church affiliated liberal arts colleges, organ
teachers are accustomed to teaching courses as well as studio lessons and, in
fact, they welcome this broad approach to music as integral to their
philosophical approach to education. Professor Rudolf Zuiderveld of Illinois
College considers himself a professor of music, not just
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  of organ. He views himself as an
advocate of the liberal arts and its cosmopolitan approach to learning, a
curriculum he much prefers over a conservatory education at the undergraduate
level.

Drake University

At Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, a regional
privately-supported school, promoting the pipe organ is, in large measure,
maintaining the momentum of its sterling reputation. Drake is an eloquent
example of a thriving private school in a large metropolis (Washington
University in St. Louis is another) which is a focal point of the artistic and
cultural life of the community. It enjoys high visibility and widespread
community financial support. This in turn fosters administrative resource
priorities in support of its image.

Drake is well-known and highly regarded in the organist
profession,  particularly for its
excellent preparation for graduate study. This mirrors its emphasis on
performance. The bachelor's degree curriculum in church music requires the same
number of performance hours as a performance degree. The school's reputation is
also based upon its faculty and resources. The former began with the venerable
Frank Jordan in the 1940s , continued with the legendary Russell Saunders, and
is represented today by the well-known Carl Staplin. The resource attraction is
anchored in the 1972 Fine Arts Complex featuring a 50-rank three-manual
Holtkamp recital  instrument, a
three-manual Reuter studio organ and two modern practice organs. Mechanical
action instruments by Phelps and Dobson in nearby churches are also used for
teaching and recitals. Total organ enrollment of 39 students in 1997-98 attests
to the vibrancy and competitive position of  the school. Drake has recently launched a certification in
church music program encompassing seven courses in church music and eight hours
of studio instruction scheduled in weekend classes and to be completed over two
years.

State Colleges

In our second category of schools are former state colleges,
many of them now universities, which began as teachers colleges, located
regionally throughout the states, and new schools. Grand Valley State
University in Michigan is 
representative of large public institutions which emerged in response to
population growth and voter demand for higher education. It also reflects the
crucial role of private funding in adding essential resources to the base of
public support. Founded only thirty years ago, it enrolls thirty thousand
students, and aggressively recruits from the region with an ever-expanding
array of courses and programs. The Cook-DeWitt ecumenical center and concert
hall, the gift of two families, houses a 27-rank, two-manual Reuter organ. This
instrument permits organ instruction as the initial step in the future development of an organ curriculum.

In this classification we also include branches of state
university systems located in metropolitan areas, schools that are
predominantly vocational in orientation, offering myriad programs for part-time
and full-time day and evening students of all ages. These schools are the
quintessential examples of mass higher education focusing on transmitting
knowledge and skills and on training students for opportunities in the world of
work.

With their emphasis on career preparation in certificate and
degree programs, these publicly-supported schools are expected to bear the
brunt of the projected tidal wave increase in enrollment in the next several
years (400,000 in the next eight years in California alone), placing a premium
on facilities and bringing enormous pressure to increase faculty-student
ratios. The urban campus perhaps will end up resembling Grand Central Station,
with legions of students funneling in and out, moving anonymously through their
huge classes with scarcely any attachment to the school. Adding to this
prospect is the anticipated revolutionary impact of the Internet which in the
long run may diminish seriously the role of the campus in the educational
process. 

Yet sheer numbers and the clamor for low-cost education
should augur well for a minimum number of students in organ. Although campus
facilities may be crowded, the proximity of church instruments nearby, many of
them large and up-to-date, should fill the needs.  These schools will be able to capitalize on nearby
off-campus resources because churches, desperate for revenue, will be only too
glad to rent their faciliies. 

Central Missouri State

Central Missouri State University in Warrensburg, Missouri,
is symbolic of the transition of a school from having an auditorium organ as a
campus centerpiece to a much larger campus with specialized department
facilities. In 1923 the school installed a three-manual Austin organ in the
auditorium as a memorial to alumni casualties of World War I. Its prominence in
the image of the school was indicated 
by the photograph of the console in the college viewbooks of this era.
Heavily used until after World War II, the organ and the auditorium were
largely abandoned as a music facility when instruction and performance relocated
to a new music building with a McManis organ (see photo) which now services
department needs.

CMSU reflects some developments in state funding which in
their experience have worked to the detriment of organ enrollment. Formerly,
students paid a flat tuition fee per term which covered every type of
instruction, including studio organ lessons at no extra charge. This encouraged
students, many with strong church ties, to study organ as an academic interest
apart from their major field of study. Beginning in 1985, however, the school
moved to a fee schedule based upon number of credit hours. With the rising cost
of higher education, coupled with the premium placed on graduates with
marketable skills, the result of this "pay by the drink" mentality
has been to force students to concentrate on their major and degree
requirements, and to forego organ lessons because of the additional cost. In
Professor William McCandless's judgment, this has caused a noticable reduction
in organ enrollment, omitting those who had looked forward to beginning or
continuing an interest in organ with the resources on campus.

In another far-reaching development in Missouri, perhaps to
occur sooner or later in other states, the legislature has stipulated that each
of the five regional state colleges specialize in a particular curriculum,
ostensibly tied to vocational preparation; one in technology, another in public
service, another in teacher training, etc. The purpose is to foster economies
of scale in educational resources and to stem the tide of rising costs to the
taxpayer. The implications of this development are ominous for the fine arts in
general and music in particular. The legislature has mandated that all future
capital expenditures be channeled into these narrow specialties, and if capital
funds fall short of need, existing resources be converted, without hesitation,
to the newly-concentrated programs. This, in effect, seriously diminishes the
American tradition of liberal higher education and moves these hapless
institutions one step closer to becoming trade schools.

Promotion of the organ by interested people outside the
music department and the school is illustrated by the University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign.  When Michael
Ferris, the organ teacher, resigned to accept a position at the Eastman School
of Music, the chairman of the music department dragged his feet in appointing a
successor. Clergy at campus churches and thoughout the two cities called and
wrote to the dean pleading with him to replace Ferris, which he did in the
person of Michael Keeley. Steve Shoemaker, pastor of the McKinley Foundation
and Presbyterian Church, observes that In the March, 1997, edition of this
journal we published "Is The Pipe Organ A Stepchild In Academe?" The
purpose was to call attention to the perilous status of the King of Instruments
in many institutions of higher learning and to suggest concrete ways to shore
up its uncertain future. We closed the article with a call to action, a plea
for concerned friends of the organ--faculty, students, alumni and laymen--to
take determined action. We cited two examples of what is required:
"Friends of the Northrop Organ" at the University of Minnesota and
alumni tours of Woolsey Hall at Yale University, and we mentioned a followup article spotlighting promising developments.

The purpose of this article is to review the nature of the
problem in the context of the current complexion of higher education and to
discuss several auspicious programs in some detail.  The wholesale neglect, abandonment, and sell-off of organs
in colleges and universities which, sadly, threatens to continue, is perceived
as a nationwide phenomenon. This situation is attributed to the emergence of a
pervasive market-driven mentality in academe. Ill-advised budget officers and
state legislatures are today preoccupied with student numbers and credit hours
as the overriding criteria for funding. Policy and operating decisions by
administrators are based upon a frantic search for "hot buttons"
(computer science and genetic engineering, for example) to bolster enrollment
amid intense competition for students who are increasingly vocationally
oriented in their choice of school and curriculum. This short-sighted pragmatic
approach threatens the distinguishing features of a campus setting and its
time-honored mission as the repository of our culture, and the harbinger of our
future as a cultivated society.

In preparing this article the author has talked with a score
of music professors in all types of schools, public and private, large and
small, coast to coast. He has discovered some remarkable programs, which are
attracting institutional and community support leading to increased student
enrollment and funding. If the bold and imaginative initiatives taken by many
schools are adopted by others, the pipe organ has a bright future in academe.

Promoting the Pipe Organ

In the economic realities of higher education, the market
mentality of administrators and state legislators who view a school today as a
business is here to stay, like it or not. In the final analysis, the best
guarantee of preserving faculty positions, maintaining instruments, and
budgeting scarce resources for tuning and periodic restoration and updating is,
first, never to miss a chance to call attention to the instrument. Second, is
to "shake the bushes" and aggressively recruit students from
traditional sources on campus and non-traditional sources within the community.
The type of missionary zeal required is found in Prof. William Kuhlman of
Luther College in Decorah, Iowa, who says proudly: "I have done everything
but stand on my head to bring about organ awareness and appreciation."
Indeed he has:  organ crawls after
church, summer organ camps for local grade school children, demonstrations for
faculty and board of regents spouses, family camps, church heritage workshops,
Halloween "monster concerts" and presentations to the local Rotary
Club.

In research for this paper the author has surveyed all types
of schools across the nation. He has come upon some enterprising and
imaginative faculty who are "pulling out all the stops" to promote
their departments, programs and instruments with gratifying results.
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  For purposes of analysis and
discussion, it is useful perhaps to divide the landscape of higher education
into three categories: small liberal arts colleges, state colleges including
urban branches of state universities, and major music schools and universities,
particularly those noted for professional and graduate study.

Liberal Arts Colleges

The liberal arts colleges were historically church
affiliated and many retain strong church ties today. The Lutheran schools, in
particular, enjoy a rich legacy of liturgical music in the heritage of their
denomination, and churches of all denominations traditionally reflect the prominence of music in the experience of corporate worship. Thus, the church connection augurs well for maintaining pipe organs as integral to campus resources and central to the music program. These schools benefit from an articulate and active alumni and the corresponding sensitivity of the administration and trustees to alumni concerns in budgeting decisions. The choice of liberal arts as an initial course of study is perhaps indicative of a lesser concern with the vocational job-market payoff in selecting a school and a curriculum. The church-going life style of students enrolled in these schools, particularly those students having a musical background and interest, may cause them to contemplate making a musical contribution to parish life and to prepare for organ and choral opportunities. Therefore, although these schools are not totally immune to the market-orientation mind-set, and have adjusted curriculum to broader trends, they have never suffered such a loss of organ enrollment as to justify ending the curriculum and liquidating the instruments. The challenge of these schools is to continue to insure the rightful place of music in the philosophical and operational image of the liberal arts and to affirm organ study in music programs, resources and curriculum.

Conservatories and Universities

Our third category of schools comprises the nationally known
professional schools and universities including:  Eastman, Oberlin, New England Conservatory, Westminster
Choir College, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, North Texas and Yale. We are also happy
to note that, contrary to the report in the previous article, Syracuse
University, long a member of the elite group, is again prospering and
attracting students under the dynamic leadership of Katharine Pardee. The
curriculum of these schools is centered on career preparation as a performer or
teacher and, with the exception of Oberlin, focuses primarily on advanced
degrees. 

These prestigous schools enjoy a level of recognition and
support not found elsewhere among private and public institutions. The organ
faculty, with advanced degrees from top-drawer schools, are well-known and
highly esteemed in the profession, by virtue of their recital appearences
before American Guild of Organists gatherings as well as from their
well-publicised recital tours in this country and abroad. Their accomplishments
and high visibility contribute to the luster of the programs, are a key factor
in attracting highly qualified students, and, most important, guarantee vital
institutional support. Status-conscious administrators acknowledge that recital
performances and offices in professional organizations are, in terms of
institutional recognition, almost the equivalent of a Nobel Prize.

In addition, these institutions frequently are beneficiaries
of substantial private funding by wealthy individuals and families who identify
with the school as alumni or as benefactors in the arts. A striking example is
the $50 million 1973 endowment of the School of Sacred Music at Yale University
by Clementine Miller Tangeman, based on the Cummins Engine Company fortune
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  A more recent illustration is the $18
million Simon Music and Library building at Indiana University, now awaiting a
52-stop Rosales tracker organ. This building was funded exclusively by private
subscriptions to the University Foundation, not an appropriation by the
legislature of state tax dollars. 
The University of Iowa music department has also been privately endowed.
The prominence of these schools, in recent times, has hinged significantly on
private funding and their continued prosperity will depend on these sources.

These schools represent what Martin Trow defines as elite
higher education which centers around high ambition and the resources required
to nuture it. This paradigm reflects a close and prolonged relationship between
student and teacher, and the social and physical setting in which this kind of
relationship can exist, i.e., low faculty-student ratios, excellent physical
plant and other resources. It makes high demands on students in the severity of
the curriculum and because of these demands it does not encourage or admit
older or part-time students. It is most likely to be residential, highly
selective and richly staffed. Clearly these schools are in a class by
themselves. As Trow notes: " . . 
. elite higher education is too costly; . . .  only a fraction of students and teachers have the interests,
motivations and ability to profit from the intense and demanding personal and
intellectual relationships that mark it."5

Oberlin College

No discussion of the pipe organ in academe would be complete
without reference to Oberlin College which stands preeminent in the history of
music in colleges and universities in America. The nation's first conservatory,
founded in 1865, Oberlin is internationally recognized for its faculty and
facilities offering world-class musical training. With its rich tradition,
legions of distinguished artists and performers among its graduates,
unparalleled facilities, and uncompromising ideals in the higher learning, it
is clearly the exception to other schools. A leitmotif for excellence in
American higher education, the school has been blessed with the resources
required to maintain its gold-plated image. The luster and status of organ
study at Oberlin is confirmed by the spectrum of instruments beginning with the
1974 Flentrop in Warner Concert Hall embracing the 18th-century North German
style. It continued with the Brombaugh organ in Fairchild Chapel as an exquisite
example of the late Renaissance period. To complete the rainbow the school has
contracted for a $1.2 million Fisk organ, scheduled for installation in Finney
Chapel in 2001. A symphonic organ, made possible by the initial bequest of Kay
Africa, it will be well-suited for music of the 19th and 20th century. Styled
in the paradigm of Aristide Cavaillé-Coll, this Tiffany instrument will
reinforce Oberlin's image as progressive and up-to-date in the world of organ
pedagogy. In  the Fisk Opus List it
joins the company of Harvard, Stanford, Michigan, Rice and Wellesley, among
others, in the gallery of this prestigous trophy builder.
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  North Texas University has also
selected Fisk to build the recital organ for its new concert hall, as yet
awaiting funding.

Yet despite its lofty status, and the preferred position of
its graduates in the music marketplace, Oberlin has addressed the legitimate
aspirations of students who seek flexibility and potential employment options
outside music performance. The answer is a double degree program; a fifth year
program established thirty years ago for conservatory students who then receive
a Bachelor of Arts degree. This "Double Degree" program now includes
one-third of the 550 students enrolled in the conservatory. Officially described
as a program to produce a more broadly educated person, it undoubtedly reflects
a recognition by the school, and by the students, of the need to explore many
possibilities at this juncture in their budding careers. Oberlin's challenge is  to continue to command the financial resources needed to attract top talent, which means the generous scholarships required to bid them away from  competing schools.

Westminster Choir College

The staggering financial requirements of private higher
education today were dramatically illustrated in the recent history of
Westminster Choir College whose phalanx of prominent graduates have made it a
household word in American church music. According to Professor Eugene Roan,
the merger with Rider College (now University) three years ago was a godsend in
the fortunes of a school that, despite its sterling reputation, could not have
survived as a stand-alone institution 
For Rider, a college little-known outside New Jersey, the Westminster
acquisition gives them an instant nationwide visibility and prestige that no
amount of money could buy. As for Westminster, it gained the necessary
resources in scholarships and bricks and mortar to continue its storied
tradition. The organ program counted a total enrollment of 51 in the Fall of
1997 including 22 graduate students. The standards of admission and levels of
performance are the highest on record, according to Roan. An excellent
placement program features a subscription-only job newsletter circulated every
two weeks. With a preferred position in an uncertain nationwide job market for
church musicians, Westminster should continue to attract students who can
reasonably expect to find employment in their chosen profession upon
graduation.

The so-called elite institutions under discussion are
indicative of the fact that nationwide there is a core of highly qualified and
professionally ambitious students who actively pursue quality education in
high-profile schools, but who are increasingly selective in their choice of
school and are actively shopping for the best financial package. Therefore, the
financial challenge is one of obtaining scholarship money in ever increasing
amounts to attract the top talent and to compete successfully with other
schools which are seeking the same students. This is the economic price one
must pay for being an elite institution.

Summary

We have argued that the pipe organ is a jewel of a campus
setting, imparting definition and meaning to the collegiate experience.
Unfortunately, this fact has not been adequately acknowledged by the majority
of decision-makers. We have shown that if the organ is not to continue to fall
victim to enrollment criteria as the basis for funding, it must be aggressively
promoted on campus: to trustees, alumni, visitors, townspeople, in special
programs and to today's generation of students.  It should be featured in campus publicity, on tours, in the
alumni magazine, and in the recognition of organists among prominent alumni.
Marylhurst, with its enterprising community outreach, Dordt capitalizing on
church ties, and Evansville emphasizing the core of the liberal arts, are
showing the way. The innovative approaches of these schools, others we have
noted, and, no doubt, many more, can be adopted and applied successfully by
schools everywhere. The costs are minimal and the potential rewards are great.
Undeniably, the potential is there--in group study, combined curricula, and
untapped student sources within the community.

Organ professors in academe are a very close-knit
professional group who communicate with each other frequently and who are eager
to find ways to bolster the immediate prospects of their school and the
fortunes of their colleagues elsewhere as well. They should be encouraged to
exchange ideas in regional and national gatherings of organists and music
educators and on the Internet. The professional media should be admonished to
publicise program details and achievements. Perhaps the AGO should contemplate
establishing awards to individuals and programs that demonstrate innovation and
leadership in advancing the profession and the instrument.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>      

For critical comments on earlier drafts of this paper the
author gratefully acknowledges: 
Byron Arneson, Nelson Barden, Jack Bethards, Charles McManis, Albert
Neutel, Jack Sievert and Haskel Thomson.

For research input the author thanks:
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  John Behnke, Margaret Cries, George
Damp, Delbert Disselhorst, W. N. Earnest, John Ferguson, Davis Folkerts, Lee
Garrett, John Hamersma, Rod Kelchner, William Kuhlman, Karen Larsen, William
McCandless, Thomas Murray, Nancy LeRoi Nichol, Dale Peters, Douglas Reed, Joan
Ringerwole, Eugene Roan, Larry Smith, Carl Staplin, Herman Taylor, James
Vinson, Chris Young, and Rudolf Zuiderveld.

Notes

                        1.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>                  Arrow,
Kenneth J., "Invaluable Goods," Journal of Economic Literature, Vol.
XXV (June 1997), pp. 757-765.

                        2.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>                  Duffus,
R. L., The Innocents at Cedro, New York: 
Macmillan, 1944, p. 25. 
Reprint Augustus M. Kelley.

                        3.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>                  Ambrosino,
Jonathan, "The John R. Silber Symphonic Organ at Boston University",
The New England Organist,Vol. 7, No. 3, May & June, 1997, pp. 8-11.

                        4.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>                  Jongsma,
Sally, "Playing the organ is their occupation," The Voice,
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  Dordt College, Vol. 42, No. 4, May,
1997, pp. 12-13.

                        5.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>                  Martin
Trow, "Aspects of Diversity in Higher Education" in Gans, Glazer, Gusfield
and Jenks, eds, On The Making of 
Americans:  Essays in Honor
of David Riesman, Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, 1997, pp. 171-270.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>        

January 18, 1914-September 19, 2003

Catharine Crozier died on September 19, 2003, in Portland, Oregon, at the age of 89. A complete obituary appears in the November issue of The Diapason ("Nunc Dimittis," page 10). The following tributes are presented In Memoriam.

Catharine Crozier--Paragon of our profession

A fond remembrance by Thomas Harmon

Long before I saw her or heard her play, I heard the name Catharine Crozier spoken with reverence by my boyhood organ teachers. It was not until my undergraduate years at Washington University in the late 1950s that the long awaited opportunity presented itself when she came to St. Louis to play on the university's recital series in Graham Chapel. I shall never forget seeing her walk gracefully in her stunning floor length gown to the console, front and center on the chapel dais. A radiant smile on her face, she was truly a vision of elegance and beauty as she ascended to the bench, parting the skirt of her custom-made gown and draping it in a regal train over the back of the bench. Even before she raised her hands to sound the first notes, she had me mesmerized. I was in the presence of royalty, and, as the recital unfolded from memory, piece by piece, so perfectly juxtaposed, meticulously registered, beautifully articulated and flawlessly played, I knew that I was experiencing greatness. Little did I know, when I stepped up in awe to meet her and gush my admiration following the recital, that someday she and her renowned spouse Harold Gleason would become dear personal friends during their California years.

Many times over the next four decades I was treated to a Crozier recital, and my experience was always the same--programming that was on the cutting edge in exploring both early and new music, remarkable stylistic versatility that was always historically informed and up-to-date throughout her long recital and teaching career, meticulous registration with appropriately applied artistic restraint and impeccable technique. My first opportunity to hear Catharine after that unforgettable recital in Graham Chapel came more than a decade later, after she and Harold had moved to California and I had assumed the post of university organist at UCLA. One of my first actions in that post was to oversee restoration of the 4-manual, 80-rank Skinner organ in Royce Hall, designed by Harold in consultation with G. Donald Harrison. Harrison did the tonal finishing, and Gleason played the inaugural recital in September, 1930. Thus, I had many reasons for inviting Catharine to play at Royce Hall in January, 1972. My wife and I invited Catharine and Harold to be our houseguests during her recital visit, and we spent a memorable time together getting to know each other. They kept us laughing with their favorite form of humor, limericks, at which they were both virtuosi. Harold contributed greatly to my file on the Royce Hall organ with colorful stories of his California days and his interaction with UCLA, E. M. Skinner and G. Donald Harrison. (I was later to capture this on tape in an oral history interview that I did with him in another of the Gleasons' visits with us in 1978.) Catharine enjoyed our new Hradetzky house organ and revealed her ingratiating personality and clever wit, complemented by her delightful chuckle, as well as her appreciation of fine food and an occasional glass of sherry before dinner. Her Royce Hall recital was, of course, a triumph and a special moment for Harold to whom we paid tribute as the designer of the organ.

Sue and I later enjoyed being the Gleasons' guests in Rancho Bernardo, near San Diego, and later in their second California home in Claremont. Despite their success and fame, they lived a disciplined, unpretentious life, committed to artistic and scholarly excellence. It was in their Rancho Bernardo home that I saw and heard for the first time Catharine's harpsichord and cherished house organ by Laukhuff, with its 2-manual, custom-built Aeolian-Skinner console, on which she did much of her practicing and memorization throughout her career. The organ was designed to fit comfortably in a normal 8-foot ceiling height and to be easily movable, quite fortunately, since I believe it was purchased in their Eastman days, subsequently moved with them to Rollins College in Florida, then to four different locations in southern California and finally to Portland.

The year 1980 marked the 50th anniversary of UCLA's Royce Hall organ, and I invited Catharine to re-create Harold's 1930 dedication program, an invitation that she was pleased to accept. By this time we had become dear friends, and I revelled in hearing stories about Catharine's then forty years as a major recitalist. We discovered that we had a mutual love of trains, and she told enthusiastically of her train adventures all over the country as well as her spirit of adventure in exploring, usually on foot, each new town or city in which she performed. Catharine's recital at Royce Hall on June 6, 1980, was a very special event, indeed, and in retrospect was given further poignance and meaning by the fact that Harold Gleason passed away just three weeks later. Harold's funeral in the Claremont church that the Gleasons had attended offered yet another example of Catharine's very special qualities as a human being. Her presence that day was a role model of  deep spiritual faith, personal strength and acceptance, and her decision on the music for the service was communicated by the simple printed statement that the organ would be silent this day in respect for the loss of Dr. Gleason.

Another memorable recital occurred sometime in the early 1980s, when she performed Ned Rorem's complete Quaker Reader at Whittier College Chapel, including narration by Hollywood actor Peter Mark Richman.  Rorem, a great admirer of Catharine who was a champion of his and many other composers' new music, was present. If I had to rank them, I would say that the greatest Crozier performance that I have ever heard, perhaps the greatest organ recital that I have ever experienced, was her program for the 1987 Far West Regional Convention of the AGO in San Diego. Flawlessly performed by memory on the First Presbyterian Church's superb 4-manual Casavant organ were three 20th-century works: Ned Rorem's Views from the Oldest House, Norberto Guinaldo's Lauda Sion Salvatorem, and Leo Sowerby's Symphony in G Major (a Crozier signature piece throughout her long career). Following her performance, I told Catharine that I had never heard her play with such flair and depth of expression, and in an example of her keen wit, she replied that she was just now beginning to feel in control of the instrument. A day or so after the recital, dear Catharine accepted my invitation to have lunch with me and take a cruise aboard my boat at the harbor in Oceanside, and I shall always remember her boarding the boat like a seasoned yachtsman and her delight in the sea world around us. She loved adventure.

When I made my decision in 1983 to step down from my position as organist at the First United Methodist Church in Santa Monica to take on the job of Chair of the UCLA Music Department, I approached Catharine, who had moved to Whittier after Harold's death, about the possibility of her serving as interim organist at the church while a search was conducted for my successor. She indicated that she might like to do this, and the end result was her decision sometime later to accept the church's hopeful invitation to stay on as the regular organist. Fortunately, she accepted, moved to the Santa Monica area and delighted the congregation with her marvelous service playing for the next nine years. I was on hand to pinch hit for her when she was away playing recitals, but she proved to be dedicated to the position and seemed to thoroughly enjoy being back on the bench playing services regularly. The choir adored her (everyone did!) and many stayed in touch with her as personal friends after she moved to Portland in 1992. At that time, I had just stepped down from the chairmanship at UCLA and accepted the church's invitation to return for what turned out to be another nine years. While she was there, Catharine had overseen the installation of new swell reeds and a new great mixture, making the organ better than ever. Typical of her exemplary pedagogical approach to playing the organ, the organ copies of the hymnal and anthems were lightly marked in pencil with her fingerings, pedallings, registration and manual changes. I learned a lot from them and respectfully left the markings for my successors.

Late memories: her stunning 80th birthday recital at the Crystal Cathedral (how could anyone but Crozier play such a huge organ with such grace and control at the age of 80?); her 85th birthday recital at the First Congregational Church on the world's largest church organ (by this time she was handicapped by the loss of vision in one eye, but she had no trouble finding her way around the maze of that immense console and tossing off the Liszt BACH as though it were easy); and, finally, her "Life Experiences" presentation at the 2001 Northwest Regional Convention of the AGO in Eugene. I noted that she had grown quite frail, as John Strege and I called for her at her hotel room to escort her to the venue for her presentation, but her radiant smile and warm greeting were not frail. Her presentation was deeply moving to me and, I am sure, to everyone present. It was the last time I saw Catharine in person, although we spoke on the phone periodically after that. I shall miss her presence and her friendship but will be nurtured for the rest of my life by happy memories and her supreme example of excellence.         

A tribute to Catharine Crozier Gleason

by Karen McFarlane

To read Catharine Crozier's recital reviews is to realize what a superb artist we have lost. "Catharine Crozier . . . may be an honored veteran among organ players . . . but she can still run rings around much of her younger competition, not only in interpretive style but in sheer technique as well." (New York Times) "At home in any style, the versatile performer captured the excitement of an accelerating fugue by Schumann, tossed off a Hindemith sonata with neat non-sentimentality and made sparks fly in a fiery virtuoso finale by . . . Milos Sokola." (The Plain Dealer) " . . . she always got to the heart of the music." (Los Angeles Times) Through the observations of music critics, we have a picture of some of the recitals she played.

Those who were in her audiences during the course of her 62-year career saw a slender, elegant woman walk "onstage" and instantly communicate a commanding presence. By her demeanor, one knew even before a note was heard, that she was an authority; as she played, the depth and range of her artistry simply confirmed it. Her discipline, her attention to detail and her high intelligence were all part of a persona "programmed" for a successful life and career as performer and teacher. In thinking over the 38 years I knew Catharine, several adjectives come to mind: elegant, shy, witty, hard-working, thoughtful, warm and yet also reserved. She was comfortable with solitude. One did not "buddy up" with Catharine Crozier, yet she had close friendships in her life which she greatly prized.

I have clear memories of Catharine. First meeting her in 1965 during a sweltering summer in New York City, I was struck by how cool and unruffled she was by the heat, how as she taught students whose fingers were nearly sliding off the keys, she seemed unaffected by a similar human malady! In my mid-twenties I had the good fortune to share some delicious and entertaining meals with Catharine, her husband Harold Gleason, and Fred Swann, three people who from my perspective were on towering pedestals. It was the first time I realized that the finest artists tend to also be marvelous people, a truism I have been interested to observe ever since. Although I remained in a certain awe of Catharine all the years I knew her, I came to see her as a human being rather than as someone out of reach.

At the opening of the Tully Hall organ, where she shared the program with E. Power Biggs and Thomas Schippers, I was thrilled by Catharine's performance of the Barber Toccata Festiva, from the moment she walked onstage till the moment she left it. I remember being riveted by her performance at The Riverside Church of "Mary Dyer did hang as a flag" (Ned Rorem's Quaker Reader), as she fiercely portrayed that condemned woman's death. Then, on her 80th birthday she played a dazzling recital (all from memory except for one piece) at the Crystal Cathedral, closing with the Widor "Toccata" as her smashing encore. Considering that she had awakened the morning of the previous day in a swaying 20th-floor hotel room during the 1994 Los Angeles earthquake, her performance was remarkable for its calm ease. She was always so well prepared and confident, that even an earthquake could not shake her performance.

One of my fondest memories is of the time Catharine, my husband Chick Holtkamp and I vacationed at Mohonk Mountain House. She would invite us to her room for sherry in the late afternoon and, beautifully attired, she would join us for dinner. Though she declined to go on strenuous hikes with us or swim in the lake, she treated us to a staid carriage ride, which was pleasantly old-world in its flavor. Her innate sense of formality in such a setting was utterly charming; she had a talent for quiet enjoyment in any place she inhabited.

I recall watching her teach a master class at Eastman during her late 80s, with her mind untouched by age in any negative way, her warmth toward the students genuine, her knowledge of the music complete. She was a total professional to the end of her life. I recall the time when I was astounded at hearing her play a certain wedding processional. When I expressed my amazement that "I never thought I would see the day when Catharine Crozier would play the Wedding March," she in turn surprised me by her retort, "It comes with the job!"

The last ten years of Catharine's life were among her happiest, mainly due to her appointment as Artist-in-Residence at Trinity Cathedral, Portland, Oregon. The high musical standards of Canon John Strege and his superb choir met her own on a happy level. I flew out to Portland on four occasions during her final decade, always dining with her in good restaurants (she had a fine time "researching" restaurants before choosing which ones we would go to) and of course going to church with her. Each time we would attend a service at Trinity Cathedral, she would lean over and quietly say "I just love it here!" The last time I heard her there in recital was the first day of April, 2001. She was, as ever, splendid.

In addition to Catharine Crozier's grace and intelligence, she was possessed of an optimistic nature. She was not immune to sadness, but she had that sturdy Oklahoma constitution that just goes forward in the face of any adversity. Even when she lost one eye in the last years of her life, she said "Well, I just go on." Indeed, after the loss of that eye, she played her 85th birthday recital at First Congregational Church, Los Angeles, to a packed church of admirers. Catharine had a funny story to relate about the eye trouble that caused her to stop driving. She started calling a local taxi company to take her to the cathedral to practice each day, then later back to her apartment. After about a week of this, the drivers stopped asking her destination and automatically took her to one place or the other! She was pleased at being such a celebrity among Portland's taxi drivers!

There are many good stories "out there" about Catharine. Upon her death, I received some touching e-mails from friends and admirers which related to first meeting her, first hearing her play, studying the organ with her, and so on. One man commented on the special quality of light which seemed to infuse her playing during her later years, and he was quite right. In the early part of her career she was well-known for her brilliant technique and effortless playing, but as she grew older she continued to build on that technique, bringing a complete artistry to her mature years. We are fortunate that she recorded several CDs during the last 20 or so years of her life, among them first-rate performances of Rorem and Sowerby. A supporter of the highest possible standards in musical performance, she remains an excellent model for today's young musicians to emulate. She would probably tell them to seek out a fine teacher, develop an infallible technique, practice diligently, learn your repertoire thoroughly, have a firm goal of becoming an artist, behave in a professional manner, and you will have a fine chance for a career. Catharine Crozier lived a full and interesting life. Her innate musical talent, her thoroughness in her work, and her consummate artistry gave us a person who was a living legend in the world of organ music. The immense regard her fellow artists the world over had for her is testimony to her great stature among them. On both a professional and personal level, our loss is deeply felt.  

Remembering Catharine Crozier

by Canon John Strege, Director of Cathedral Music, Trinity Cathedral, Portland, Oregon

Reflecting on Catharine Crozier's involvement at Trinity Cathedral as Artist-in-Residence these past ten years is a remembrance of graciousness, superb artistry, encouragement, and unbridled enthusiasm. When I was notified that Catharine was moving to Portland, the Dean of the Cathedral and I immediately wrote her asking if she would consider becoming Trinity's Artist-in-Residence. In what seemed like only hours, she quickly responded by saying that she would be most pleased to accept this position. So began my relationship with Catharine.

Catharine would practice most afternoons in preparation for occasional Sunday morning voluntaries, organ recitals, and in the first years, her out of town master classes and recitals. As we developed a friendship, I was always humbled by her enthusiasm for the music at Trinity. She embraced the magnificent Rosales organ, the liturgy, the Trinity Choir and Cathedral Chamber Singers, and the loving Trinity community.

In the later years, as we drove together, attended concerts, had lunches and dinners, I was privileged to sample her great sense of humor, her many opinions about legendary organists from the past, her reminiscences of her extraordinary career and life with Harold Gleason, and her timely words of encouragement for my work in the church. When I asked her if she could arrive a few minutes early for one of her practice sessions to hear an organ piece I was preparing, she responded with, "How about this afternoon?" With her generosity, these "brief" coaching sessions could last well over an hour. As I have frequently mentioned to my colleagues, having Catharine Crozier in the congregation on any given Sunday gave a new meaning to the preparation of organ voluntaries for the liturgy.

As Catharine lived out her final decade in our midst, her playing at Trinity evoked an unspeakable transcendence. Her life was lived in the realization of being in the moment, maintaining the integrity of purpose and spirit, and always looking ahead to new challenges and opportunities.

Of the many blessings in my life, I consider the opportunity of being with Catharine one of the greatest. I cherish our friendship and affection we had for each other. Her physical absence is a profound loss, but her spirit, musicianship and grace will remain with me for all time.              

Remembering Catharine Crozier

by Fred Swann

Many of us can identify a person who, by their influence and inspiration, has been paramount in the development of our lives and careers. Catharine Crozier was that person for me.

Although I had read about her and had heard one of her recordings, I didn't meet Catharine until the summer of 1949. I had just finished my freshman year at Northwestern University School of Music when she and her distinguished husband, Harold Gleason, came to teach and to lead a summer church music workshop at the university. I had been playing the organ since age 10 and intended to be "a good church organist," but that summer the Gleasons convinced me to commit to a career as an organist.

Catharine played a recital on the E. M. Skinner organ in St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Evanston as part of the conference. The combination of her incredible performance and that organ, one of Skinner's most remarkable and exceptional instruments, was so overwhelming that on that very evening my standards of musicianship and performance were set in stone for life. I became a Crozier "groupie"--wore out all her recordings as they came out, traveled huge distances to hear her recitals, and tried, pathetically as I look back, to emulate her playing style. In addition to the musical benefits, I was privileged to develop a cherished friendship that has lasted a lifetime.

That same summer I played the Langlais Te Deum for the Gleasons. It was then still new to most American organists, and even they had not heard it. It became one of "her pieces" and she would frequently remark about my bringing it to her attention. Despite her encouragement and interest in having me study with her at Eastman after completing degrees at Northwestern, I felt so inferior and in awe of her that I was terrified to take the Eastman audition. Fearing the humiliation of not being accepted, I chose to study at Union Theological Seminary School of Sacred Music in New York. Mrs. Gleason, as we called her then, became quite cross with me over this, but, as things sometimes happen, the decision to go to New York City turned out to be a fortuitous thing for my career and for our friendship.

Forgive me if I've written too much in attempting to establish the roots of my indebtedness with this wonderful lady and consummate musician. The stories and anecdotes would fill a large book, but here I want to pay homage to my mentor--for although I never formally studied with her, I have never stopped absorbing knowledge and inspiration from her.

You're reading a number of tributes in these pages, and very probably many of them have used the same words in describing Catharine. She could be stern in her expectations from students, but her compassion and humanity never stopped growing throughout her life. She was thoroughly professional and never failed to live up to the highest demands that she made upon herself. She was the personification of elegance in her playing, and just to watch her at the console was a lesson in grace and form. Posture, hand position, economy of movement and a complete involvement in the music all combined for incredible performances. She had a great thirst for continual learning that allowed her music making to remain fresh and vital whether she was playing one of the "old masters" or a contemporary work. She played in perfect style, and with the latest scholarship, everything she chose. She embraced new works of many composers, especially American. Her performances of these works was so compelling that she "sold" them to a profession and to audiences that were usually more ready to accept the latest from France and elsewhere.

A physically attractive woman who carried herself with poise and grace, she was a quiet person--but she never "missed a thing," had a wonderful, dry sense of humor, and an infectious laugh. She could often say more with a look than some people can with many words. She delighted in simple things, like being driven up and down Fifth Avenue in New York to look at all the lights at Christmas time. When young, she enjoyed fine food and fancy restaurants at times, but her own cooking abilities were limited. If she invited you to dinner the invitation often came with the question "Well, would you like the tuna casserole or the other one?"

Dr. Crozier kept performing until about a year before her death. People just wouldn't let her stop. I had to do some real arm twisting to convince her to play recitals on her 75th and 80th birthdays at the Crystal Cathedral, where I was in residence at the time. Each program was stunning despite her misgivings beforehand. When I greeted her as she left the console at the conclusion of her 80th birthday recital, she, having just finished a stellar performance of the Reubke Sonata on the 94th Psalm broke into a wide grin, cocked her head, snapped her fingers, and said "By crackey, I did it!" And she continued to "do it". Despite advancing age and physical handicaps that would cause most people to quit, she finally agreed after much cajoling to come to First Congregational in Los Angeles to play a recital on her 85th birthday--and what a wonderful time we had! Friends had come from literally around the country and even some from Europe. After that she slowed down gradually but still played Vesper recitals at Trinity Cathedral in Portland, Oregon, on the great Rosales organ she loved and recorded on so magnificently.

Because of the wonderful friendships with the cathedral staff, especially Canon John Strege and Kevin Walsh, and the loving care she was given, she almost reached her 90th birthday in a very content existence. When a handful of us gathered near the organ console in early October for a private service of blessing and commitment of her ashes, there were tears and sadness--but also enormous thanksgiving for a life that brought so much joy and inspiration to untold thousands of people over her long and distinguished career. Her influence will live on for many generations to come.  She is now at peace.  May light perpetual shine upon her.