From the organbuilder

It has been a high honor for me and my firm to design and build this new three-manual pipe organ for the St. Vincent Archabbey Basilica. The new Gallery Organ of 51 stops and 72 ranks of pipes was installed beginning in July 2014 and completed in October, having spent the previous two years in construction. The basilica is home to St. Vincent Archabbey, the oldest American Benedictine monastery, St. Vincent Parish, St. Vincent College, a four year co-educational institution, and St. Vincent Seminary.

This organ is the culmination of 18 years of thought, prayer, vision, and tenacity on the parts of the Benedictine community and the organbuilder. Nearly 20 years ago, I was asked to provide consulting services to address the failing organ previously installed in the basilica. The need for a new organ had become apparent to most all the monks because of the old organ’s deteriorated mechanical condition, but its greatest flaw was that the former instrument was tonally only about 30 percent as large as would be required to fill this large building with a wide variety of tone colors and volume levels. Abbey Organist and Choir Director Rev. Cyprian Constantine, OSB, embarked on a tireless effort to educate his confreres and superiors to what was really required, if sacred music at the abbey, parish, college, and seminary were to be taken to the highest level.

Following the old organ’s demise, use of an electronic instrument gave the community the time to raise the funds to begin construction. Sufficient funds had been raised from the parish in a previous campaign to allow us to design and construct a small Apse Organ and a console, which would control both it and the planned-for Gallery Organ. The Apse Organ is installed in two small chambers carved out of the sacristy behind the apse and utilizes the best pipework from the previous organ as well as new stops. From its installation in 2007 until the new Gallery Organ arrived, the Apse Organ accompanied the college’s choral ensembles and monastic services in the Great Choir; the electronic instrument was used for parochial Masses and services in the nave.

When it was determined to proceed with the Gallery Organ, the budget allocated for it 18 years previously was insufficient for the complete instrument and could not be increased. We had a dilemma on our hands: if we built an organ to simply accommodate the budget, it would repeat the past mistake of being too small for the basilica’s heroic size, volume, and the musical requirements placed upon an instrument in such an important and enormous place. So, we decided to build an organ with the infrastructure of a complete instrument of the correct size, installing the Great, Swell, and Pedal, but preparing the Choir division for future addition. This would provide the abbey with heroic bodies of sound to support the liturgical needs and accommodate a goodly body of the solo organ literature. The prepared-for Choir division will include a wide variety of softer orchestral reed colors and flue choruses for more registrationally involved choral accompaniments, and will act as a secondary foil to the Great for playing solo literature requiring three independent manual divisions. Currently a single console controls both organs. A second gallery console is also prepared for future addition for recitals and solo work, so the organist doesn’t have to suffer the delay of sound reaching his ears—while playing in real time—as at present.

Architecturally, the gallery posed a challenge: the gallery is not large, nor is the wheel window located high enough up on the wall to allow a generous configuration of pipes and their mechanical systems to live under it. Additionally, we were instructed that the organ must be located entirely in the gallery with no pipes over the rail. After reviewing the many drawings I had made during past years, Rev. Vincent Crosby, OSB, the abbey’s resident artistic director, suggested that he simply wanted to see pipes in the gallery, with only the amount of casework necessary to support them. This general direction and a rough sketch was the genesis for the visual design.

The Great division is split into two windchests located just behind the front of each of the large façade pipe groupings. The Swell is located on the right; the prepared-for Choir division will be on the left. The large 32′ and 16′ Pedal Trombone resonators and the 16′ Double Open Diapason basses are made of wood so that they can lie down under the window, with the remaining Pedal stops, the Solo Tubas and Trombas standing vertically under and around the window. The large façade pipes are all made of copper-lined polished tin, comprising the Pedal 16′ First Open Diapason, the continuation of the Great 16′ Double Open Diapason from the wood basses behind, the Pedal 8′ Principal, and the Great 8′ First and Second Open Diapasons. The smaller façade pipes in the central display are from the Pedal 4′ Open Flute. The largest pipe in the façade, low CCC of the 16′ Pedal First Open Diapason weighs over 350 pounds and required six men to hoist into the gallery; the smallest pipe’s speaking length is only an eighth of an inch. The metal pipes were all made in
the south of Germany, coincidental to the south German heritage of St. Vincent Archabbey. 

The decorations on the cases’ woodworking take their cues from the painted decorations in the colonnades in the basilica. These include 24-karat red-gold-leafed interlocking rings on a deep green background between maroon and gold-leaf striping, with blue enameled rosettes with gold-leaf highlights centered in each ring. Although the lower portion of the case cannot be seen from the main floor, being blocked by the solid balcony rail, it is made of 1½′′-thick solid white oak, incorporating Romanesque arches in each panel opening, stained and finished to match the other woodworking in the basilica.

John-Paul Buzard’s tonal style is easy to describe, but the most difficult to carry out successfully: “classically symphonic” (a term coined by a reviewer in The Diapason), Buzard organs intend to play music from every historical and nationalistic school with musical éclat and flair. (A bold statement, to be certain!) The challenge in achieving success in this difficult style is how to create an instrument that plays most everything, yet has its own singular and very individual artistic character. But, because we are Americans in the 21st century, I believe that our liturgical and concert organs need to be able to play everything. Therefore, every historic and nationalistic style of organbuilding is represented to some degree in each Buzard organ, but interspersed through the instrument evenly so that a balanced eclecticism is achieved. We don’t create this by building entire divisions of the organ in single styles as many do: a German Great, a French Swell, an English Choir, for example. The reason that we could in good conscience prepare the Choir division for the future is because of this even-handed dispersion of the style of the stops’ construction and voicing. When the Choir division is installed, then this instrument will be a complete artistic achievement. Although this organ is currently very impressive sounding, I liken it to a tapestry that is missing a color or two of embroidery.

The sumptuous acoustical environment of the basilica allowed us to truly freely exercise our voicers’ art. The St. Vincent Archabbey Basilica has, at its maximum, a reverberation time of 6.5 seconds; bass frequencies are nicely amplified by means of hard reflective surfaces on the walls, floor, and ceiling. This allowed us to achieve the rare effect that depending upon the piece of music played, you can easily imagine yourself in Paris, Haarlem, or York Minster! 

The organ was dedicated in a solemn service and concert on Sunday, November 23, 2014. Our own tonal associate, Jonathan Young, filled in for Father Cyprian Constantine, OSB, as recitalist, due to Father Cyprian’s need for emergency retinal surgery. Everyone on the staff of Buzard Pipe Organ Builders brings his or her own individual talents to the family table (although not every one of us can sit down and play a concert with two weeks’ notice!). And a new generation of organbuilders is being nurtured at the Buzard shop, as you will note in the “Here and There” column of this issue of The Diapason.

Deepest thanks to Father Cyprian Constantine, OSB, Father Donald Raila, OSB, Father Stephen Concordia, OSB, Archabbot Douglas Nowicki, OSB, and all the priests and monks at St. Vincent who were so complimentary and encouraging of
the project.

Thanks especially to the staff of Buzard Pipe Organ Builders for their tireless efforts.

 

Charles Eames, Executive Vice President and general manager

Brian K. Davis, Tonal Director

Keith Williams, Director, Service Department

David Brown, Foreman, Service Department 

Shane Rhoades, Foreman, Production department 

Trevor Dodd, Service Technician 

Christopher Goodnight, Master Cabinetmaker

Dennissia Hall, Receptionist and Administrative Assistant

John Jordan, Service Technician

Michael Meyer, Master Cabinetmaker 

Dennis Northway, Chicago-area Representative and Service Technician

Jay Salmon, Office Manager

Stuart Weber, Service Technician

John Wiegand, Service Technician

Ray Wiggs, Console and Windchest specialist

Jonathan Young, Tonal Associate

—John-Paul Buzard

 

From the tonal associate 

(and recitalist)

There are some unusual sounds in this organ, designed and scaled by our Tonal Director Brian Davis, who grasped the potential of the basilica and took full advantage of the unique acoustical environment to use some stops that don’t typically work in American churches. The empty room features around six seconds of reverberation and, perhaps more importantly, strong side and rear reflections, especially from the curved wall at the apse. The organ contains no fewer than three harmonic flutes, including the very wide-scale 8′ on the Great that functions like a true French Flûte Harmonique. The chorus reeds in the Swell are harmonic as well, and contrast nicely with the German-style Great Trumpet. Very unusual among American organs is this Vox Humana, built in French style and based on an example by Callinet. The large 8′ Great First Open Diapason and a mounted Cornet elevated six feet above the north Great windchest are particularly effective in the accompaniment of congregational singing; the bass-friendly room enables the pedal registers to provide a generous amount of gravitas without being pushed. A main chorus that extends up through five-rank Mixture and three-rank Scharff provides clarity in an acoustic that has the potential to be muddled at times.

Not surprisingly, the organ plays French music with ease. But, some of the stops that we might think of as being peculiarly “French” lend themselves very well in this room to other schools. The Vox Humana in particular is quite the chameleon, at home in Böhm’s Vater unser im Himmelreich as much as it is in Franck’s A-Major Fantasy. One of the more ravishing sounds on the instrument is the Swell Celeste, which extends all the way to low C.

I had the honor of playing the dedication recital when Fr. Cyprian Constantine, the incumbent organist, had to undergo emergency eye surgery. I chose a program that was French-biased but eclectic, including music from Preston, Widor, Franck, Bach, Vaughan Williams, and Tunder—the latter, music that typically isn’t played on “symphonic” organs like this. But the variety of colors, clear principal choruses, generous flutes, and panoply of reeds enable a wide range of literature to be rendered effectively. Tunder’s chorale fantasy on In dich hab’ ich gehoffet, Herr, especially, sounds amazing here—not what one would expect!

—Jonathan Young

The Isle of Man

From Peter Jones, the Offshore Organbuilder

This article is coming to you from the Isle of Man, an island some 30 miles long by about 14 miles wide, and sitting midway between Ireland and England. Its longest river--the Sulby--stretches for a full 10 miles or more, and Snaefell--the highest mountain--reaches a height of over 2,000 feet. Anyone with a world atlas and a magnifying glass to hand will have no trouble in locating the "Island," as those who live here often term it, off the west coast of England, facing Liverpool.

 

 

The Isle of Man may be little known in the wider world (or even on the "adjacent island" of England--we don't say "mainland," of course!) but like most places it does have its peculiar features which mark it out for those with special interests. It is an off-shore finance center, for example, with relatively low rates of tax. It is known for its motorcycle races (the "TT Races") which take place on the public roads--one of the largest (and arguably most dangerous) circuits of its kind in the world. For those who like unspoiled countryside to look at or walk over, and a quiet and relatively unhurried way of life, the Isle of Man is the place to be. It is an island of Fairies, one of the largest water-wheels you are ever likely to see, Celtic stone crosses and much more. Most important to me, and I hope of interest to readers, its small area is home to a surprising variety of some 50 or so pipe organs, and I am more than happy to have been the resident organ builder here for over 20 years.

For those of us with a fascination for the King of Instruments, there is much to be said about life here--too much for one article such as this--and rather than describe the organs as a whole in greater or lesser detail, I thought it might be better to describe some of the incidents which make the life of "the organ man" anything but tedious.

Looking back over the work undertaken in the recent past, I see one job which will be of interest to the great majority of organ players, from the professional recitalist to the home enthusiast who plays only for his own enjoyment. I refer to an ambition which attracts so many organists, and which eludes all but a few--the luxury of a real pipe organ in one's own home.

How many have investigated this possibility, only to find that the cost (and sometimes the space) involved ensures that the pipe dream remains just that? True, there is the electronic substitute--smaller and cheaper, with a great variety of Golden Tones of one kind or another--and then again the organ in church is usually available to the serious player--albeit not so attractive in the winter, nor so convenient for that odd 30 minutes practice at the end of the day. But for those badly infected by the organ bug, the unfortunates with an acute case of "organitis," there can never be any hope of a cure until they can see for themselves those gleaming ranks of metal and wooden pipes and the console with its several keyboards, waiting in the music room for their sole use!

So it was with The Reverend Alec Smith. His love of the organ had actually led him to start an apprenticeship in organ building as a young man, but he quickly saw the light, heard the call, and became an ordained priest in the Church of England. At that time, he assembled a worthy (if somewhat ungainly) collection of pipes, old keyboards, bits of mechanism, etc., into a Frankenstein creation which crouched in the corner of one of the large rooms of the vicarage in his country parish in England. This creation was a credit to its owner, but more than a little ponderous for anything other than a large house (preferably not your own) with plenty of spare rooms. When, in the fullness of time, Alec became an army chaplain, and he and his wife Jean were inevitably posted abroad, the organ was dispersed, almost all of it never to be seen again.

On retirement from the army, Alec settled in the Isle of Man and became Organ Advisor to the Diocese. It was now that the organ-building bug, which had lain dormant for so many years, was re-awakened, and the idea of a house organ was again proposed. There were, of course, several problems. The usual ones--centered around lack of space and finances--were, quite rightly, pointed out by Jean, and in any case there was a seemingly adequate 2-manual electronic, with its equally large speaker cabinet, already taking up far too much room in their small cottage in the Manx countryside. Jean correctly pointed out that it was more room they needed, not a pipe organ!

In a attempt to save some space, and acting on the advice of the local music shop, new and much smaller speakers were fitted to the electronic by an "expert" from Douglas, the Island's capital. After a day spent fitting the new speakers into the ceiling (with the novel use of a screwdriver to create some suitable holes in the plaster), the expert switched on, at which point there was an impressive bang followed by an ominous burning smell. It seemed, on later examination, that the amplifiers (intended to power two large speaker banks in a church setting) had seen the modern speakers as a virtual short circuit in electrical terms, with the inevitable result. The expert withdrew, promising to "work something out." I believe he left the Island, and, in any case, was never seen again. The electronic was no longer adequate. It was dead.

At this point, a further discussion took place on the subject of a new pipe organ, and Jean was persuaded, but only agreed on one seemingly-impossible condition: aside from the console, the new organ must not project into the room any further than the line of the first ceiling beam (some 14≤ from the end wall). Since there was no possibility of siting anything behind the walls (three of them being external, and the fourth taken up with the fireplace) the situation appeared hopeless, and it was at this point that Alec called me in.

Impossible situations regarding space are a challenge to the organ builder. More than one has succumbed to the temptation to push too-large an organ into too-small a space, with disastrous results, and I have seen the consequences of several of these unhappy situations. In one such case, an instrument was built in which the Great and Choir (mounted one above the other and in front of the Pedal pipework) "speak" into a solid masonry wall some 3 feet thick. Tuning/maintenance of such an organ is difficult if not impossible, and a warning to any organ designer. Alec's requirement was for the cheapest possible instrument, with a fair selection of stops over two manuals and pedals, all within a depth of 14≤. It had to fit into one small room of a cottage which has only three rooms on the ground floor (the other two being the kitchen and porch) and it must not be a monster from the tuning/maintenance standpoint.

There was space for only two or three sets of pipes, but Alec stated from the outset that, "I want more than three wheels on my car," so we were obviously looking to something other than mechanical action with two or three stops. This need to make the most of the available pipework suggested an "extension organ" of some sort. This, and the restrictions of the site, dictated electric action, and financial considerations suggested the simple mechanism as shown in the sketch. The question of electric versus mechanical action is one of those subjects likely to provoke strong opinions both for and against. In my view, each system has its merits and I am happy to work with either, but when a client requests more stops than the room or budget will allow, the obvious way forward is for a stoplist extended from a small number of ranks, and this means an electric mechanism. The design shown, if correctly made, is reliable, very quick (giving good repetition) and quiet. Incorrectly handled, it is none of these things, and has thereby acquired a poor reputation in some circles. With sufficient funds, and more space, an electro-pneumatic action would have been more sophisticated, but with enough care taken in its design and construction, direct electric action (as shown) is almost as good.

Some readers may be unfamiliar with the idea of an "extension" organ. This is an instrument in which a set, or "rank," of pipes is available to be played at more than one pitch. For example, a set of flute pipes could be played at 8' pitch (via a console stop labeled, say, Stopt Diapason 8') and the same set could also be available at 4' pitch (via a console stop labeled Flute 4') or at 16'  pitch (in which case the console stop might be labeled Bourdon 16') and so on. Clearly, the idea has its uses and abuses, as in the case of the 2-manual and pedal organ in which every console stop was actually taken from a single rank of Dulciana pipes!

The final stoplist is one which I have used successfully on various occasions. It is based on three ranks representing the three main tone-colors of the organ:  Diapason, Flute and String. Each of the three ranks consists of 73 pipes, and are listed below as:

Rank A/ Open Diapason, running from C13,

Rank B/ Stopt Diapason, running from C1, and

Rank C/ Salicional, running from C13.

In addition there are 12 stopped Quint pipes (shown below as "Q") running from G8 (at 8' pitch) for the pedal 16' stop (see later).

(Reed tone was not included, as it is difficult to have conventional reeds sufficiently quiet for such a small setting. In any case, there was no space available.)

Note that the Open Diapason is of small scale, and this made it much more suitable, for our purpose, than the more usual scaling of such a stop. When selecting second-hand pipes for a home extension organ, a Principal would be the first choice  to provide the Open Diapason--Principal--Fifteenth "stops," as they appear on the console, and I have even known a Gamba to make a very acceptable open metal extension rank, once it had been re-scaled and re-voiced. Ideally, where finances are not a limiting factor, new pipes should be made for all ranks, so that their scaling can be suited to the room and stoplist.

If an "extension" scheme is to work, musically, it is important to avoid the temptation of too many stops from too few pipes. I know of one organ with the stops simply repeated on each keyboard, and though this gives maximum flexibility, it is very confusing from the player's point of view, and the instrument as a whole is strangely bland and characterless. The three sets of pipes for Alec's organ were made available at different pitches, under the guise of different stop names, to make registration more straightforward from the player's point of view. In this way, some 15 speaking stops are available to the organist, instead of three which would result from the use of mechanical action.

The specification shown has only one stop (the Stopt Diapason) actually repeated on each manual. This is because it is so frequently used, and blends with the other two ranks at 8' pitch.  None of the other manual stops are repeats, and they have been arranged so as to discourage the use of the same rank at only one octave apart. (E.g.,  the Open Diapason 8' is intended to be used with the Salicet 4', or the Flute 4', not the Principal 4', as you might expect.) Using the stops of an extension organ in this way reduces or (more usually) eliminates the well-known "missing note" problem, which occurs when one strand of the music runs across another, and both need a pipe from the same rank, albeit from different extended "stops." If, for instance, the Stopt Diapason 8' and Flute 4' are drawn on the same manual and key C25 is held down, the pipes heard, as counted from the flute rank, will be C25 and C37. Now add manual key C13, which will sound pipes C13 and C25 (which is already playing from key C25). In this example a pipe at the pitch of C25 should appear twice, but actually appears only once. The missing note will be most obvious if either of the two manual keys is held down while the other is repeated.

One of the most important criticisms to be levelled at an extension scheme is this problem of missing notes, which can lead to a lack of clarity. For all practical purposes, this drawback can be completely overcome by a combination of the organ builder (in preparing a modest stoplist) and the player (in thoughtful use of the instrument, so that the smallest number of stops is drawn at any one time, preferably from different ranks, or at least from ranks separated by more than one octave). In actual practice, this kind of stop selection becomes automatic to the organist who realizes the limitations of the instrument.

Another important factor in the success of this type of organ is the regulation of volume and tone quality of the pipes within a stop, and also the regulation of the stops in relation to each other. Each stop is regulated with a very gradual crescendo from bass to treble. This requires subtle handling, but when correctly carried out results in a clear ensemble in which the treble parts can be heard above the tenor and bass.

The ranks themselves are regulated with much less distinction in power than would usually be the case, so that equivalent pipes of the Stopt Diapason are similar in volume to those of the Open Diapason, and the Salicional, while quieter, is not far behind. This results in much less contrast in power among the 8' stops and this is a compromise, of course, though you still have variety of tone. The blend between ranks played at different pitches is much better than if they are regulated in a conventional manner, with the Open Diapason much louder than the Stopt Diapason and Salicional distinctly quieter. In an instrument such as this, contrast in power is created more by contrasting combinations of stops than between the ranks themselves. Regulating the ranks as if they were separate stops (a mistake often found in both church and house extension organs) results in the Open Diapason and Principal obliterating everything else, while the Fifteenth screams. 

I have used the specification shown several times, including my own house organ, and find it to behave very much as a 'straight' instrument would. I seldom use the couplers, though there are occasions when they become necessary. While it requires thoughtful registration to get the best from an extension organ, a scheme such as this, with a small number of stops, arranged so as to discourage the use of the same rank in two stops separated by only one octave, is very successful.

To cut down costs, Alec agreed to the use of his old electronic as a console, and also to the use of any other second-hand parts which could be obtained. He was also interested and able to lend a hand in the actual construction, when his earlier experiences in organ building were a great asset. The need to keep within 14≤ maximum depth was easily dealt with, by taking up the entire width of the room, side-to-side.

Knowing the number and range of the ranks and the space available, the first step, in a job such as this, is to measure the pipework, in order to see how best to arrange the pipes, and, indeed, if they will fit in at all!

Metal pipes need to be measured in height and in diameter, wooden ones in height only (including any stoppers). In practice, nearly all metal pipes run to a standard scaling (i.e., the rate at which the diameters reduce from note C1 through to the top pipe). Wooden pipes vary considerably, both in scaling (the internal width and depth) and in the thickness of the wood used, which in turn decides the external width and depth. There is also the question of the foot, which, in second-hand wooden pipes (and some new ones) can be bored well off-center. For these reasons it is best to make a paper template of the bottom of each wooden pipe, as described later.

I already had a small scale (i.e., relatively small diameter) Open Diapason rank, and a Salicional, both running form C13 (so the longest pipe in both sets was about 4' speaking length) and Alec located, from a friendly organ builder on the mainland, the Stopped Diapason pipes (running from C1) and a bundle of miscellaneous stoppered wooden pipes for the pedal Quint.

The necessary measurements were taken and noted down in the form of a table. I find it convenient to have a sheet of paper with the 12 notes C through to B in a column down the left-hand edge, followed by vertical columns headed "1--12" then "13--24" then "25--36" and so on, up to "73--84," placed from left to right across the page. This forms a table which will cover an 84-note rank, the biggest usually needed. (Note C85 is only necessary in the case of a rank which runs from 8' pitch to 2' pitch, where the organ has a manual key compass of 61 notes. This C85 pipe needs an additional square to itself.) Every square represents a pipe, and in each one can be written the length and diameter (if metal), together with other details such as size of a rackboard hole, and toe hole etc., which are also measured at this time.

Notice that only the Stopped Diapason rank has its bottom octave (in organ building terms, a "Stopped Bass") the largest pipe of which is, like the other two ranks, something over four feet long. The Salicional and Open Diapason share this bottom octave, as does the 16' pedal stop (the "Harmonic Bass") which produces an acceptable 16' substitute, in the first 12 notes of the pedalboard, by playing the Stopped Bass pipes with the appropriate Quint pipe (from a separate and therefore very soft, 12-note rank of wooden pipes). The resultant note (actually a low hum) which is created from a combination of any stop of 8' pitch and its quint is at 16' pitch. Admittedly, this is much softer than the two pipes actually sounding. The pedals from C13 up play the Stopped Bass again, and then the rest of the Stopt Diapason, thereby sounding at true 16' pitch. These compromises are necessary to reduce the size of the organ, and, if carefully carried out, are soon accepted by the player and listener, especially in a small room.

While there is no substitue for the soft, heavy, warm tone of a full-length Bourdon bass, I have asked many players (including several professionals) their opinion on this "resultant" 16' pedal stop. So far, no one has realized what he was playing until it was pointed out. They all accepted it as a pedal 16'  stop, like any other. The least convincing notes in the bottom octave are, predictably, the smallest three or four. If there is room for full-length pipes down to, say, F#7, so much the better.

It is worth noting that a quinted 16'  effect which uses the pipes of the Stopt Diapason rank only is almost always a failure, because the quint will be too loud. If you have no room for the extra Quint pipes, it is better to use the 8' octave of the Stopt Bass on its own (from pedal keys C1 to B12) before completing the pedal compass by repeating the Stopt Bass followed by the rest of the Stopt Diapason. Another possibility worth considering is a 16' bottom octave in free reeds.

Full-size card or paper templates are needed to represent the metal pipes, as seen from above. It is not normally necessary to make these for every pipe, as different stops usually reduce in diameter, note for note, to a more or less standard pattern. If this pattern is known, the set of templates need cover only the range of diameters from the fattest metal pipe in the organ (in this case C13 of the Open Diapason) down to the minimum spacing dictated by the pipe-valve mechanism. (As direct electric action was being used and the smallest magnets were 3/4≤ wide, with pipes placed directly above the valves, minimum pipe spacing = 3/4≤ + 1/8≤ clearance [= 7/8≤] no matter how small the pipes.)

Like most organ builders, I have a set of these circular templates for general use, so templates for the metal pipes were already at hand, but the wooden pipes had to have paper templates individually made to show their exact shape and the center of the pipe feet. Such a template is made by taking an over-sized piece of paper, drawing on it a circle which equals the diameter of the pipe foot, cutting this out, and sliding the paper up under the pipe and creasing around the four sides. Once the paper is removed and trimmed to size, the original circle can be taped back into place, resulting in an accurate template.

Alec's wooden Stopt Diapason (reputedly by the well-known Victorian organ builder, William Hill) was over 100 years old, and may have been in more than one organ during its lifetime. Its mouths were rather high, which made the tone breathy, and some of the pipes had been mitred, or were cut too short, possibly where they had been in a crowded swell box. But it was basically sound and we went on the basis that it could be made acceptable by repairs, lowering the mouths and re-voicing. The Salicional and Open Diapason ranks were also Victorian, from a local Methodist church. Again, they were not perfectly scaled or voiced for a house  organ, but were basically well-made and capable of re-voicing. All the pipes were measured, and with the tables of measurements and templates to hand, and a given space into which to fit the pipes and action, the process of "setting out" could begin.

An instrument with direct electric action enables the builder to arrange pipework in almost any pattern, within the limits of the room and the physical space taken up by the pipes themselves (or, in the case of the tiny treble notes, the size of their magnets and valves). My preferred system of setting out is slightly unusual, in that I like to place the taller pipes behind the smaller pipes, regardless of their rank. Most other builders would plant pipes in rows, each row being made up from pipes of the same rank.

Secondly, and in common with many of my colleagues, I prefer to plant pipes in "sides," i.e., pipe C1 on the extreme left of the organ, and C#2 on the right, working down to the treble pipes in the middle. In this way, all the pipes of the "C side" (C, D, E, F#, G#, A#) will be on the left, and those of the "C# side" (C#, D#, F, G, A, B) will be on the right.

These two underlying principles result in a pipe set-out which is visually attractive, compact, and which offers the greatest accessibility for tuning and maintenance. Admittedly, it does lead to some complications in the cabling patterns between the console and the magnets, but this is not an insurmountable problem. (In fact, the many cables for this organ were made up, wire by wire, by my school-boy workshop assistant, with no errors at all.)

Alec and I set out our templates on strips of white paper, as wide as Jean would permit, (the 14≤ maximum) and as long as the space available (i.e., the width of the room: 157≤ or just over 13 feet). After a day or two of pushing the templates around, and, bearing in mind the many details such as how the pipes could be best faced away from each other, the space to be allowed for rack pillars, cable registers, assembly screws and many other essentials beyond the scope of this account, we decided upon the ideal arrangement, with the pipes set out on three chests. The chests were placed one above the console, for the treble pipes, and one on each side at a lower level, for the bass pipes. The central chest was just under 13≤ from front to back, and the two other chests were only 9≤ wide. The whole organ would stand in the maximum ceiling height of 91≤ (barely over 71/2 feet). The actual planting pattern was so tight that every possible space has been used, given the limited width and length available. Even so, no pipes are crowded, and all of them have been accommodated. The fronts of the three chests were made from oak-veneered ply salvaged from the old speaker cabinet and console back of the electronic. Consequently, they matched the finish of the console exactly.

Admittedly, there was no room for any casework or building frame, and we had yet to solve the problem of space for the blower, wind pressure regulator, wind trunks, low voltage current supply and one or two other essentials, but these are minor obstacles to the true organ fanatic!

The actual construction of the instrument started with the chests--comprising the pipe ranks, toe boards, or top boards (on which the pipes stand) "wells"  (the sides and ends) and bottom boards. Details of each chest varied with the numbers of rows of pipes, but the sketches showing the basic mechanism will give a good idea of a typical chest in cross-section.

Strips of mdf (a sheet material available in 3/4≤ thickness) were cut for the top boards for each of the three chests, and the pipes centers were punched directly onto them, using the paper setouts, taped down, as a template. Based on these centers, the magnets, valves, pipe racks and the many other details of the mechanism can be marked out and fitted. Unfortunately, a detailed description of this procedure is beyond the scope of a general article such as this. While the basis of the mechanism is shown clearly in the sketch, there are a great many practical details which must be finalized in design and observed in manufacture, if this deceptively simple idea (drilling a hole, screwing a magnet and valve under it, and planting a pipe on top of it) is to be carried through to create a reliable musical instrument. Such a mass of information has not, to my knowledge, ever been written down, as it is essentially based on practical experience over the years. If any readers are interested in further practical details, it may be possible to describe some of the problems involved, and how they are overcome, in a future article, but only a practicing organbuilder can have all the necessary skills and knowledge to cope with every situation, and this makes it impossible to give a general "recipe" for building an organ.

The wind supply is provided by a small electric blower of course, but this one is unusual, in that it was passed on to Alec by an organ-building friend from the days of his original house organ. Indeed, it turned out to be the very same blower, which had returned to him, after an absence of 30 or more years! It proved to be an excellent machine, and very quiet when housed in a new silencing cabinet.

It was necessary to regulate the wind pressure to a value suitable for the pipes and their setting, and, of course, we had no space for traditional bellows. In a case such as this, I used my own design of wind pressure regulator (basically a hinged plate of 1/2≤ sheet material, "floating" over a rubbercloth diaphragm, and supporting some suitably-tensioned springs). Movement of the plate controls a valve which allows wind from the blower through to the chests. As the pipework makes a demand on the supply, the valve opens just far enough to maintain pressure to within 1/8≤ or less at peak demand. This is an acceptable degree of control, and only a very critical ear will notice the slight fall-off in power. Every builder has his favorite design for such a regulator (sometimes called a 'schwimmer' or, in my case, a 'compensator') and they all bear a strong family resemblance. Not all are equally effective, however, and some are prone, under adverse conditions, to fluttering (creating an effect like a very rapid Tremulant). Again, only experience of such devices can provide a way out of trouble, though there are some basic rules in compensator design.

The steady, regulated wind from the compensator is fed to the chest by a rather broad, but shallow, wind-trunk (made in mdf, like the blower box and compensator). This is fixed to the back wall, out of sight, behind the console.

With all the basic elements designed, there still remained the question of the 14≤ limit on width. Obviously, the blower box and compensator were too wide to keep within the limit, so it was decided to camouflage them, together with the circuit boards, transformer/rectifier unit, and other large components.

In the final design, the three chests were screwed to plates of 3/4≤ ply, previously fixed, in a true vertical position, to the rather uneven stone wall. The console was placed centrally, with the two outer chests (holding the bass pipes) low down on each side. The third chest (containing all the treble pipes) was fixed centrally on the wall, just behind and above the console's music desk. Two bookcases were made to fill completely the gap between the sides of the console and the side walls of the house. They were set rather further forward than would be usual, with a broad top which ran back to the wall behind, effectively disappearing under the side chests.

On the left of the console, the bookcase is a real one, with its top extending over the circuit boards and transformer/rectifier unit hidden behind. To the right of the console the seemingly identical bookcase is, in fact, a dummy. Its shelves and books are only about 11/4≤ deep. (One of the more bizarre scenes in the workshop was that of pushing large quantities of scrap books through the circular saw, leaving their spines and an inch or so of paper and cover. These truncated volumes look convincing when glued, side-by-side, onto the foreshortened bookcase back.) The space under the dummy bookcase top contains the blower box and compensator. The bookcases, blower box, compensator, etc., all sit on 3/4≤ ply panels which have been leveled onto the floor.

Once Alec had installed his real books and ornaments, the organ (while visually dominating such a small room, as it must) blended into its domestic setting beautifully, with a spectacular visual touch being provided by a trumpet-blowing angel, carved in oak, which had been salvaged from a local church altarpiece,

What of the finished product? Naturally, the instrument is a compromise--but then this is true of all but the largest organs. It is a pity, for instance, that there was no room for a swell box, or another rank, but it is a wise builder or player who knows when he has gone as far as space and finances will allow. The wooden Stopt Diapason rank had its top lips lowered, and was re-voiced to produce a charming, rather quaint sound, with none of the original's unattractive, breathy tone. The Open Diapason had to be softened to just short of dullness, and now adds considerable fullness and warmth. The Salicional has made an excellent quiet voice, and is also very useful in its other pitches, where it adds brightness without shrillness. This is most important in a small room, and it is worth noting that, the larger the room (up to cathedral proportions) the brighter and more cutting the treble pipework can, and must, be. But the opposite is true for a small space, where top notes can easily become uncomfortably piercing--hence the lack of Mixtures on small house organs with no swell boxes. Many visiting organists, both professional and amateur, have played Alec's instrument since its completion, and all have been pleasantly surprised by its resources and the fact it is possible to produce satisfying performances of both classical and romantic works, albeit with some ingenuity on the part of the player.

True, it would have been possible to install a "large" electronic with three or four manuals, a wide range of stops and artificial reverberation, and I can see the attraction of such an idea, especially for the player whose interest lies in large-scale, romantic works. But, I cannot imagine anything less convincing than the sound of pedal and manual reeds, with Diapasons and mixtures, echoing with a five-second reverberation, across a room some 16 feet long and 8 feet high. The sound of a small organ in a small room, with no reverberation at all, is an authentic one and has a special charm. Whether it be two or three ranks of pipes offered with mechanical action as two or three stops, or whether, as in this case, the ranks are extended to several "stops," the small domestic instrument has a sound and fascination all its own, and is capable of giving much pleasure, both visually and musically, over many years.

 

Peter Jones will be pleased to receive comments, either on this article, or relating to readers' own experiences, at: The Bungalow, Kennaa, St. John's, Isle of Man, 1M4 3LW, Via United Kingdom

 

Manual I

                  8'            Open Diapason A

                  8'            Stopt Diapason B

                  4'            Salicet C

                  4'            Flute B

                  22/3'    Twelfth C

                  2'            Fifteenth A

                                    Man II/Man I

Manual II

                  8'            Stopt Diapason B

                  8'            Salicional C

                  2'            Salicetina C

                  11/3'    Nineteenth C

Pedal

                  16'         Harmonic Bass B & Q

                  8'            Bass Flute B

                  4'            Fifteenth A

                  2'            Salamine C

                                    Man I/Ped

                                    Man II/Ped

Summary

                  A              Open Diapason 73 pipes

                  B              Stopt Diapason 73 pipes

                  C              Salicional 73 pipes

                  D              Quint 12 pipes

Sarah Mahler Hughes

Sarah Mahler Hughes is Professor of Music, Organist of the College, and Chair of the Music Department at Ripon College, where she has taught since 1989. In July 2002 she appeared as a guest recitalist at the XVI Festival Internazionale Storici Organi della Valsesia in Campertogno (Piedmont), Italy. A special scholarly/artistic grant enabled her to examine and play a number of historic organs in Germany, including the 1687 Schnitger organ at the church of St. Peter and Paul in Cappel. In July 2004 she examined and played historic keyboard instruments in the Russell Collection at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland and in other cities.

A recent holiday in Scotland provided many opportunities to see and play organs and other historical instruments in addition to being a tourist in this beautiful country. My children and I spent two weeks visiting friends in St. Madoes. Using this village between Perth and Dundee as our home base, we toured much of the country and experienced Scottish history and hospitality firsthand. The trip was made possible in part by a scholarly/artistic grant from Ripon College.

Our first stop was Edinburgh. En route to the Castle we wandered into St. Giles' Cathedral, where John Knox initiated the Scottish Reformation in 1560. The Chancel Choir of the First United Methodist Church of Lubbock, Texas, was rehearsing in preparation for a lunchtime concert, and I heard Mozart's Ave Verum Corpus accompanied on the beautiful 1992 Rieger. The organ is one of the instruments featured on the 2-CD set, Twelve Organs of Edinburgh.1

The next organ I saw, and the first one I played, was in Old Saint Paul's [Scottish Episcopal] Church in Edinburgh. Built by Henry "Father" Willis in 1888 and subsequently refurbished in 1905, 1936, 1960, 1968 and most recently, by Nicholson's of Worcester in 1977, the specifications are as follows:

Great

16' Dulciana

8' Open Diapason I

8' Open Diapason II

8' Stopped Flute

8' Dulciana

4' Principal

4' Spindle Flute

22/3' Twelfth

2' Fifteenth

III–IV Mixture

8' Trumpet

Swell

8' Open Diapason

8' Lieblich Gedackt

8' Salicional

8' Celeste (TC)

4' Gemshorn

III–IVMixture

16' Contra Oboe

8' Cornopean

Tremulant

Pedal

32' Subbass (derived)

16' Open Diapason (wood)

16' Bourdon

16' Dulciana (Great)

8' Octave (ext)

8' Bass Flute (ext)

8' Dulciana (ext)

4' Super Octave (ext)

4' Octave Flute (ext)

4' Dulcet (ext)

16’            Trombone (ext Trumpet)

8' Trumpet (Great)

The organ has a rich, warm sound eminently suitable for both service accompaniment and solo organ repertoire. A sample of the former may be heard on the CD Hearts & Voices, Hymns sung by the Choir of Old Saint Paul's Church.2

The following day I was privileged to spend several hours playing instruments in the Russell Collection of Early Keyboard Instruments in St. Cecilia's Hall at the University of Edinburgh. John Kitchen, Senior Lecturer and College Organist, was my tour guide as we worked our way through two rooms of virginals, spinets, and harpsichords from the 16th to 19th centuries.3 There were also three organs in the collection, and this seems the most appropriate place to mention them.

The first is an enharmonic chamber organ built by Thomas Parker in 1765. Parker was a pupil of Richard Bridge, a London builder favored by Handel.4 Bridge himself was supposedly trained by Renatus Harris. The  instrument has one manual with the usual short octave at the bottom. The real curiosity is a set of levers, two on each side of the case above the keyboard, that allow the player to select accidentals: Ab or G# and Bb or A# on the left-hand side, Db or C# and Eb or D# on the right. Parker provided a set of pipes for each pitch and the organ case is correspondingly wider than that of the usual chamber organ. What a fascinating way to learn firsthand about mean-tone tuning! It's also interesting to imagine how a player would handle a chromatic piece—assistants might be required to change the levers during a performance. The four registers of the organ include a Stopt [sic] Diapason 8', Open Diapason 8' (which only extends to tenor C, requiring both diapasons to be played together in order to use the full range of the keyboard), Principal 4', and Fifteenth 2'. Dr. Kitchen has recorded Stanley's Voluntary in G, op. 7, no. 9, and Handel's Fugue in A minor, op. 3, on the Parker organ.5 Interestingly, Parker built a second, two-manual enharmonic organ for the Foundling Hospital in 1768.

Another 18th-century chamber organ dates from 1763, the date when St. Cecilia's Hall opened. The organ was used in concerts until the hall closed in 1798. (The hall, having been refurbished in the 1960s, is once again the venue for concerts featuring instruments from the Russell Collection.) The third instrument, located in the Newman Gallery, is a Bernard "Father" Smith chamber organ from c. 1680. The specifications, which consist entirely of divided stops, are:

Bass

8' Diapason Bass

4' Principal Bass

2' Fifteenth

Treble

8' Diapason Treble

4' Principal Treble

2' Octave Treble

[rebuilt by Mander]

Wind is supplied through either a foot bellows or a modern electric blower. All of the above chamber organs reflect the disposition of English organs built after the restoration of the monarchy in 1660; i.e., principal stops at 8', 4', and 2' and, in the case of the Parker, stopped diapasons at 8'. The conventional registrational pattern of the time included solo stops plus accompaniment (hence the usefulness of the divided stops arrangement), diapasons (open plus stopped) for slow introductory movements, and full organ (8', 4', and 2') for faster movements. Stephen Bicknell has suggested that "There was a considerable revival of interest [in chamber organs] in the second half of the 18th century contemporary with (and perhaps because of) the great popularity of Handel, who seems regularly to have used small or even portable organs when playing continuo and for the performance of organ concertos as interludes to larger works."6   Bicknell also states that

By the end of the eighteenth century the chamber organ was firmly established as the instrument of choice for a well-to-do household, challenging both the harpsichord and the emerging fortepiano. The relative stability of tuning compared to a stringed keyboard instrument must have been an advantage, but it should also be noted that a small organ is a good vehicle not just for keyboard music, but also for transcriptions of instrumental works, and could readily be used for the accompaniment of family prayers.

He concludes that the organ's qualities of "reliability, versatility and dignity" must have accounted for its popularity.7

A greater contrast with these historical instruments than the McEwan Hall organ at the University of Edinburgh cannot be imagined. Built by Robert Hope-Jones in 1897, rebuilt by Henry Willis in 1953 and by Rushworth and Dreaper in 1980, the organ has problems because of the disparate placement of its divisions (the hall was designed without provisions for an organ, even though it was common for municipal concert halls at that time to include large instruments). Nonetheless, the organ sounds grand in the reverberant acoustics of the hall, where university graduations are held. The console looks a bit like a Jules Verne creation with its pressure gauges and electric dials, one of which is connected to the swell pedal to show incremental gradation (or "incremental frustration" as it's known to players).

The preceding organ and those described below all date from the second half of the 19th century, living testaments to the phenomenal rate of growth in organ building in England between 1860 and 1900. A few statistics tell the tale: in 1898, Harrison & Harrison of Durham claimed to have built 1,100 organs since 1861. Norman & Beard of Norwich produced even more astonishing numbers: between 1898 when their new factory was built and 1915 the company built over 1,000 new organs. In comparison, Sauer of Germany reached opus 1,000 only after fifty years of activity.8 Reasons for the rapid expansion in English organ building are numerous and include the wholesale replacement of older instruments, particularly those with a limited compass, increased prosperity of the middle class, which paid for new church instruments, and the construction of municipal concert halls in towns of any size.

The next organs I played were in Dundee, the fourth-largest city in Scotland. Three distinguished instruments exist in a three-block area in the heart of the city, which is pleasant and pedestrian-friendly. The first organ is located in St. Mary's Parish Church (Church of Scotland). I had not called ahead—in fact, I was simply being a tourist walking about Dundee and decided to poke my head in since the front door was open. Upon seeing the rich interior and a magnificent display of pipes in the rear balcony, I asked the volunteer guide if I might look at the organ. She very graciously assented, and I was delighted to discover a large three-manual instrument built in 1865 by Forster and Andrew of Hull and subsequently rebuilt by Rothwell (1939) and J. W. Walker (1969 and 1988). The console was open and inviting, so it was only a matter of minutes before I was actually playing. The specifications are:

Great

16' Double Diapason

8' Open Diapason 1

8' Open Diapason 2

8' Stopped Diapason

4' Principal

22/3' Harmonic Flute

2' Twelfth

2' Fifteenth

II Sesquialtera

IV Mixture

16' Double Trumpet

8' Trumpet (ext)

4' Clarion (ext)

Swell

8' Open Diapason

8' Viola da Gamba

8' Voix celeste

4' Principal

4' Lieblich Flute

2' Flageolet

III Mixture

16' Contra Fagotto

8' Cornopean

8' Oboe

4' Clarion

Super Octave

Sub Octave

Choir

8' Rohr Flute

8' Salicional

4' Gedeckt Flute

22/3' Principal

2' Nazard

2' Flautina

13/5' Tierce

11/3' Larigot

III Cymbel

8' Krummhorn

16' Double Trumpet

8' Trumpet (ext)

4' Clarion (ext)

Pedal

16' Open Diapason

16' Sub Bass

8' Flute Bass (ext)

8' Violoncello (ext)

4' Choral Bass (ext)

16’ Trombone

8' Tromba (ext)

A full battery of couplers and pistons plus an 8-channel memory system makes this organ suited for many kinds of repertoire. I only had time to try a voluntary by Stanley and a Buxtehude toccata before my younger daughter came looking for me (I'd left her and her sister parked outside), but I was impressed by the sound and feel of the organ in this parish church that in 1990 celebrated its octocentenary.

My serendipitous sampling of organs in Dundee continued on another day at St. Paul's Episcopal Cathedral. As churches go in Scotland, it is rather new, the cornerstone having been laid in 1853. The organ was built by Hill and Son of London in 1865, the year of the Cathedral's consecration. Hill, Norman and Beard reconstructed the instrument in 1975. Like the organs I saw in other British churches (with the exception of St. Mary's), this instrument is located in the choir with the pipes facing the singers. The organist's back is to the choir. The disposition of this large organ is similar to St. Mary's:

Great

16' Double Diapason

8' Open Diapason

8' Stopped Diapason

8' Gemshorn

8' Viole d'amour

4' Principal

4' Harmonic Flute

22/3' Twelfth

2' Fifteenth

IVMixture

8' Grand Trumpet

Swell

8' Open Diapason

8' Stopped Diapason

8' Viole d'orchestre*

8' Viole Celestes

4' Principal

2' Fifteenth

II Mixture

16' Shalmey

8' Cornopean

8' Oboe

4' Clairon

Suboctave

[Super] Octave

Choir

8' Lieblich Gedeckt

8' Gamba

4' Suabe Flute

2' Flautina

11/3' Larigot

8' Grand Trumpet

8' Clarinet

Sub Octave

[Super] Octave

Tremulant

Pedal

32' Harmonic Bass

16' Bourdon

16' Echo Bourdon**

16' Open Diapason

8' Bass Flute

8' Octave

4' Super Octave

4' Flute

2' Octave

16' Trombone

4' Clairon

Sub Octave

[Super] Octave

Unison Off

Tremulant

Swell & Choir under expression

Sw-Ch, Sw-Gt, Ch-Gt, manual-pedal couplers

General (4) and divisional pistons

* Very stringlike; works especially well with the Viole Celestes

** Enhances the Bourdon 16'

As was the case at St. Mary's, I was allowed access to the organ by helpful parishioners. When I arrived at St. Paul's on a Saturday morning, the only person I could find on the premises (even though the front doors were wide open and a charity hamburger stand was getting ready to open for business on the front steps) was the verger. He led me to the instrument, turning on power switches and lights as we went, saying "We have to show you Scottish hospitality!" I played for an hour, trying out various sounds and combinations and finally let it rip with the Widor Toccata. Feeling self-indulgent but happy with the sonic results, I set about changing my shoes and packing up when I was startled by two members of the flower committee who appeared and thanked me for playing. They told me that people in the street, hearing the music, had stopped to peer inside the church, probably wondering if a wedding were in progress.

A third large organ exists in Dundee within blocks of St. Mary's and St. Paul's. Situated approximately midway between the two churches is Caird Hall, Dundee's civic auditorium. The organ was built in 1922 by Harrison & Harrison to a design by the famous blind organist of Edinburgh, Alfred Hollins. The Caird Hall organ was Harrison & Harrison's first concert hall organ; as such it differs from some of their other instruments in having brighter reeds (on heavier pressure than usual) and more orchestral colors than the average church organ. In 1991 the organ was restored by the original firm with only minor changes to its original sound. No tonal changes were made, but the pitch was raised to make the organ usable with other instruments. Carlo Curley played the rededication recital on this occasion. A stoplist follows:

Great

16' Double Geigen

16' Bourdon (wood and metal)

8' Large Open Diapason

8' Small Open Diapason

8' Geigen

8' Hohlflute

8' Rohrflute

4' Octave

4' Waldflute

22/3' Octave Quint

2' Super Octave

IV Harmonics 17,19,b21,22

16' Contra Tromba

8' Tromba

4' Octave Tromba

Swell

8' Open Diapason

8' Stopped Diapason

8' Echo Salicional

8' Vox Angelica

4' Octave Geigen

4' Stopped flute (metal)

2' Fifteenth

V Mixture 12,19,22,26,29

8' Oboe

8' Vox Humana

Tremulant

16' Double Trumpet

8' Trumpet

8' Horn

4' Clarion

Orchestral Organ

16' Double Salicional (metal)

8' Viole d'Orchestre

8' Violes Celestes (to FF, 2 ranks)

8' Harmonic Flute

4' Concert Flute (harmonic)

2' Harmonic Piccolo

16' Cor Anglais

8' Corno di Bassetto

8' Orchestral Oboe

Tremulant

8' Tuba (unenclosed)

Pedal

32' Double Open Wood (FFFF)

16' Open Wood

16' Open Diapason (metal, leathered)

16' Geigen (Gt)

16' Salicional (Orch organ)

16' Subbass (Gt)

8' Octave (wood)

8' Flute (Gt)

16' Ophicleide (metal)

16' Trombone (Gt)

8' Posaune

The organ's pneumatic action has been fitted with an electronic memory, and the combination pedals removed and replaced with toe pistons. Otherwise, the instrument remains as it was originally. A concert series in the early autumn featured the organ and it was recorded in October 2004. I was unable to play the Caird Hall organ because of a guitar festival in progress, but the staff was most helpful in showing me the console and wind system and providing me with specifications for the instrument.

Some general observations can be made, at this point, about the organs I saw in Scotland. The large instruments are originally from the 19th century and are based on an orchestral tonal design with a preponderance of stops at 8' pitch. The pedal divisions rely heavily on extensions from the manuals. Bicknell identifies the philosophy underlying this esthetic as ‘build-up:' "the gradual crescendo from piano to fortissimo achieved by adding stops one by one, [which] seems to be the dominant characteristic of these Victorian instruments."9 It works in this wise: flue pipes come in many colors, from clear and fluty to reedy with harmonic overtones. As the flues approach the reedy end of the spectrum, mild strings and reeds come into play, creating a smooth blend. Swell-to-Great couplers further increase fullness of sound while masking any addition of single stops, and the Swell pedal also assists in creating a smooth crescendo. As Bicknell points out,

This manner of playing was later to become an idée fixe with English builders and players . . . As a method it was taken so much for granted that it can safely be assumed that Willis's mixtures were not usually intended to be heard unless some reeds were already drawn . . . there is no provision for a chorus of principals and mixtures that can be used extensively on its own: this is . . . in complete contrast to German taste.10

Although the reference is to instruments built by Willis, the description is general enough to be applied to other large late-19th and early 20th-century organs.

Perhaps it seems incongruous that all of the organs I saw and played in Scotland were built by English firms. Were there no Scottish organbuilders in the 19th century and earlier? Regardless of how we might think of Britons as members of a United Kingdom, there are national differences among the English, Scots, Welsh, and Irish. A bit of research was necessary to unearth information about organbuilding in Scotland, from which a clearer picture emerges of the past three centuries.

At the heart of the question is the ban on instruments in church issued by the Church of Scotland from the Reformation (around 1560) until around 1868.11 Organs were allowed for concerts and domestic use, but none were built or installed in this denomination until a very late date. Other denominations—the Episcopal, Roman Catholic, Unitarian, Congregationalist, and Baptist churches—were exempt, and instruments dating from the 18th century are known to have existed in them.12 Early 19th-century Scottish organbuilders, including Small, Bruce & Co of Edinburgh, John Renton, also of Edinburgh, and Robert Mirrlees of Glasgow, specialized in chamber organs, at least two of which are extant.13 I was very surprised to learn that the oldest surviving Glasgow-built organ was made by James Watt in 1762. The renowned engineer and inventor, associated more with the first steam engine than with pipe organs, constructed a single-manual instrument concealed in a table. It was the first of three organs built by Watt.14

In the second half of the 19th century, other firms arose in Dundee, Aberdeen, and Edinburgh, but they found it difficult to compete with the well-established English builders. An admittedly cursory search for information on Scottish builders in the 19th and early 20th centuries produced nothing—but perhaps a written history is in progress.

Today, Lammermuir Pipe Organs (est. 1983) is perhaps the best-known firm in Scotland and the only workshop "north of the border" specializing in new, mechanical-action organs.15 Op. 50 is scheduled for completion in 2005. The other company listed in an Internet link to pipe organ builders in the United Kingdom is Michael Macdonald (est. 1975) of Glasgow.16 Interestingly, besides building new instruments, Macdonald engages in rescuing historic organs from redundant buildings (primarily churches closed due to dwindling congregations).

I would like to think of my visit to Scotland as a prelude to further organ crawls  there and in other parts of the United Kingdom. There are many instruments to be played and much history to be learned in these islands.  

R. E. Coleberd

R. E. Coleberd, an economist and retired petroleum industry executive, is a contributing editor of The Diapason. He is a director of The Reuter Organ Company.

Introduction

In the following narrative, the interaction of an organist and an organbuilder in the design of a new instrument and selection of a builder is described in some detail by each of them. The organist, Jerome Meachen, an Oberlin and Union graduate, was organist/choirmaster of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Waterbury, Connecticut. In 1957 St. John’s, upon the recommendation of Meachen, acquired a 70-rank, three-manual McManis organ. It was followed, when he changed positions, by a 67-rank, three-manual at Redeemer Episcopal Church in Sarasota, Florida (completed in 1966), and in 1973, by a 49-rank, three-manual for Manatee Community College, Bradenton, Florida. The builder, Charles McManis, a trained organist who had apprenticed briefly with Walter Holtkamp before World War II, operated a small shop in Kansas City, Kansas. His skill in flue voicing would become widely recognized and acclaimed in a sixty-year career, which counted more than 125 new instruments and rebuilds.

The discussion highlights the steps in the evolution of their tonal philosophy. It was a process of listening, comparing and choosing sounds and stops in the quest for authenticity in the revolutionary epoch that characterized American organbuilding in the decades following World War II. Before their first meeting, Meachen had acquired a preference for non-legato playing while McManis had been taught the legato style. Despite this difference, the two men found common ground in their admiration and profound respect for the tonal work of William A. Johnson, a legendary nineteenth-century New England tracker builder, and his successors.

Background

The choice of a relatively unknown independent builder in 1956 was decidedly the exception for this era. In the 1950s, pipe organ building in America was the province of the integrated major builders who had controlled the market for new instruments since the turn of the century. M. P. Möller of Hagerstown, Maryland, the “General Motors” of the industry, with a force of more than 400 workers, delivered 365 instruments in 1928 and in the decade 1950-60, with perhaps 200 employees, built 125 organs per year.1 Other builders, those who had survived the drastic shakeout during the Great Depression of the 1930s, were likewise busy, with comparatively large work forces and lengthy backlogs.

In retrospect we might safely say the 1950s, though a vibrant decade, marked the beginning of the end of what could be termed the “commercial” era of organbuilding in America that extended back to the 1920s and perhaps even earlier. Builders, including such highly successful businessmen as Mathias Peter Möller, concentrated almost exclusively on production to meet the enormous market demand in all venues. Company executives, sons of the founder, not musicians, were largely unfamiliar with the great literature for the organ. Sadly, they scarcely comprehended the interface between Bach, Buxtehude and other composers and the subtleties and nuances of fine voicing and finishing in building the King of Instruments. Their instruments were often quite successful in the context of a “production organ,” with uniform and consistent voicing, thanks to the skills of talented shop voicers, but, in retrospect, they were perhaps lacking in artistic statement, which can come only from meticulous tonal finishing. On small organs there was virtually no concept of tonal finishing once the instrument was installed and tuned. Only with the large “signature” instruments was time scheduled for tonal finishing, for example by John Schleigh of Möller and Herb Pratt of Aeolian-Skinner.2

Yet the organ reform movement was underway and gaining momentum, beginning with the pathfinding efforts in the 1930s of E. Power Biggs, Melville Smith, King Covell and others. The major themes are well known: lower wind pressures, smaller scales and higher pitches in flue work and the introduction of chorus in place of solo reeds. A “vertical” tonal palette emerged, featuring a full range of pitches in place of the former “horizontal” palette, dominated by stops of 8-foot pitch. These elements combined in the cohesive blending of individual voices, and the emphasis on ensemble in the building of primary and secondary choruses as reflected in the work of Walter Holtkamp and G. Donald Harrison in the North German and American Classic paradigms.

Leaders in the organist profession, highly educated, widely traveled and well-read, people like Robert Noehren and Parvin Titus, were captivated by the new sounds and ensembles which awakened them to the instrument’s rich music from antiquity. They began paying close attention to European instruments, through travel and recordings, as well as 19th-century work of notable American builders (Hook, Erben, Johnson and others). They wisely looked beyond the stoplist and listened carefully to the sound. The reintroduction of the tracker instrument, first by European builders, followed by an emerging U.S. industry of small shops, reinforced the historic and intrinsic artistic value of the King of Instruments. Steady improvement in the tone quality of the electronic instruments soon spelled the end of the commodity segment of the pipe organ market rooted in the image of an organ as a utilitarian device in support of corporate worship.3

By the end of the century it was recognized that the heart and soul of a pipe organ, a work of art, is the tonal edifice, which begins with a vision and continues through design, voicing and tonal finishing of the instrument. These requirements were most often found in the combined talents of the tonal architect and skilled, dedicated artisans in his shop, seldom in one individual. Harrison, Holtkamp and Fisk, for example, were superb designers but were not voicers. Schopp, Pearson and Zajic were supremely talented reed voicers. But once in a while one individual comprised them all. George Michel of Kimball perhaps came close and, in the author’s judgment, Charles McManis fits this image.

In any revolutionary epoch, change in an established industry comes slowly and sometimes from the outside. American organbuilders, badly shaken by the lean years of the Great Depression and World War II, were to some degree insular, isolated and ingrown. On balance they were reluctant to abandon existing practices and slow to adopt new and untried techniques with unknown consequences. Voicers, trained in-house on high-pressure, wide-scale stops of 8-foot pitch, scarcely comprehended the new generation of flues and reeds. They and their superiors had been disinterested in historic instruments, American and European, which they viewed as antiquated and obsolete. But they could not ignore the revolutionary changes around them, and some firms wisely brought in outsiders--men like Richard Piper at Austin and Franklin Mitchell at Reuter--who were listening and eager to apply their ideas to new stoplists.

At the close of World War II, the demand for organ work far exceeded the supply of qualified people. Factories enjoyed lengthy backlogs and were hard pressed to meet production schedules. Service firms comprised primarily older men, former employees of firms who had failed in the Great Depression--for example, Syl Kohler in Louisville (Pilcher) and Ben Sperbeck and Milton Stannke in Rock Island (Bennett). Honest and hard working, they can best be described as mechanics; few had either voicing experience or any concept of a modern chorus or ensemble. This afforded an opportunity for a newcomer, a young man who had listened carefully, had a firm conviction of what pipe sound should be, and had acquired the voicing skills to bring the sound of a pipe to the tone quality he desired.

Jerome Meachen writes:

A native of Oklahoma City, I studied organ with Dana Lewis Griffin, a student of David McK. Williams at St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church on Park Avenue in New York City, and then enrolled at Oberlin College where my teachers were Leo Holden and Grigg Fountain. Holden was a 19th-century organ teacher--Rheinberger, romantic, and very happy with the E. M. Skinner organ in the chapel. His whole approach to organ playing was: “write down the fingering I give you and the registration I want you to use.” It was a very dry--and I felt antiquated--approach. In contrast, Fountain said: “select your own registration from what you hear, we will discuss it and you defend it.” This was essential to broadening my understanding of organ music and what I wanted to develop in my own touch on the instrument. While at Oberlin I practiced on the Johnson organ at Christ Episcopal Church in Oberlin courtesy of Arnold Blackburn, also on the Oberlin organ faculty. This awakened me to the beautiful voicing of this builder. Of course northeast Ohio was Holtkamp country. When I began studying with Fountain, my last two years, he had just obtained a Holtkamp at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Cleveland. While I was fascinated with the sounds of this instrument, I found it ear-shattering. I well remember one Saturday afternoon when I was practicing at St. Paul’s. Walter Holtkamp came in, climbed up on the Swell box and said play full organ. He just reveled in the volume, but I found that sort of sound excruciating.

A milestone in my career was a recital at Oberlin by Ernest White. I was fascinated by his approach, non-legato, in contrast to legato, which was the basic style at Oberlin. Legato evolved because of the acoustics organists had to deal with in American churches. Nothing happened after you took your finger off the note so you had to pull everything together.

After graduating from Oberlin I enrolled in the School of Sacred Music at Union Theological Seminary in New York City, where I arranged to study with Ernest White, then an adjunct faculty member. We shared a common interest in repertoire and liturgy. White had me listen to orchestral recordings of Mozart and commented: remember, “Bach was a violinist as well as an organist.” Bob Clark, another graduate student, and I found White way ahead of his time in non-legato sound, which broadens your understanding of the organ. This is the sound one finds in Europe and what we were striving for in America. Working with White was working with the literature and developing the capacity to do his particular style of non-legato in terms of liturgy, the Anglican approach and plainsong. This was very enlightening to me. I was fascinated by White’s approach to playing the studio organ at St. Mary the Virgin, the second studio instrument, this one by Möller. His technique was a detached sound, like the ringing of bells. Unfortunately, the voicing was so loud it was difficult to listen to. This alerted me to the distinction between intensity and decibels, a key distinction in my thinking. I was also intrigued by the design of the organ, which had a 32’ Cornet using individual stops and two Swell boxes providing two ensembles. This inspired the use of separate swell boxes and couplers for flues and reeds at St. John’s. My admiration for Johnson continued when I practiced on their instrument at the Mott Haven Dutch Reformed Church in the Bronx while at Union.4

Charles McManis writes:

As a pre-teenager in Kansas City in the 1920s, with my parents I often rode the streetcar to Independence Boulevard Christian Church to hear Sunday afternoon recitals by the legendary Hans Feil on the four-manual, 1910 Austin organ. In the 1930s while I was a student at the University of Kansas, I spent summers and holidays working with Peter E. Nielsen, a local serviceman, tuning and rebuilding pipe organs. Two of these instruments were Johnson trackers from the 1880s.5 They were especially impressive and were to influence fundamentally my concept of voicing.

Enrolling as a liberal arts major at the University of Kansas in Lawrence I became a student of University Organist Laurel Everette Anderson, an Oberlin master’s graduate who then studied for three years in Paris with Joseph Bonnet. He taught the legato method, and emphasized proper turning of phrases and making real music out of notes. He greatly expanded my knowledge of the pipe organ and emphasized nuances of color and singing quality in organ voices. Following graduation with an A.B. degree in 1936 and having already set my sights on becoming an organbuilder, I obtained a Mus.B. at KU in 1937, which required my playing an hour-long recital from memory. The thought occurred to me that I might be the first organbuilder who could play more than “Yankee Doodle” on what he had built.

I began my organbuilding career with a shop in the basement of my parents’ home. I rebuilt three organs and built one new instrument. My Opus 2, 1939--electrifying and adding nine ranks to a 1910 tubular-pneumatic Kilgen--is still playing in the Central Christian Church in Kansas City, Kansas. Then, having learned of his growing prominence in the organ reform movement, I apprenticed with Walter Holtkamp in Cleveland for a few months, eager to learn from him. I assisted with the installation of a three-manual Holtkamp organ at Olivet College in Michigan. It had Great and Positiv slider chests, but the Swell had ventil stop-action for want of sufficient space for a slider chest. When I compared the sounds of slider chest pipes and those on the ventil chest I was surprised to find that I could hear no difference. Walter’s instruments were visually well designed and beautiful to look at but, frankly, I was disappointed with his ensemble sound and tone quality. The voicing lacked a certain richness of tone. In checking Holtkamp pipes I noticed that he nicked only on the languids and not on the lower lips. As a result, pipes occasionally tended to emit an abnormal squeaking sound. He was not interested in building a truly classic organ as much as building a distinctive Holtkamp organ. In retrospect I find that I employed very few of Holtkamp’s ideas in my later work. Based on my background in music, I wasn’t hearing in his organs the sounds I wished to hear in my own instruments.

Following the attack on Pearl Harbor and the U.S. entry in World War II, I enlisted in the Army. Prior to shipment overseas my outfit was stationed at Camp Kilmer, New Jersey, for a few days. I went on pass to New York City to hear G. Donald Harrison’s new Aeolian-Skinner in the main sanctuary of St. Mary the Virgin Episcopal Church. This was my first acquaintance with mixtures and upperwork, which Laurel Anderson had talked about at KU, but which were conspicuously absent in the Austin organ in Hoch Auditorium there. Then, as a chaplain’s assistant, I was stationed in Europe where I took every opportunity to play and inspect European instruments. I remember, in particular, the famous Cavaillé-Coll instrument in the church of St. Ouen at Rouen, which inspired Guilmant’s Eighth Organ Symphony. This was the first time I had seen a five-rank mounted cornet and reeds with sunken blocks in the boots.6 After the war I returned to Kansas City, Kansas and set up shop again. On one occasion, being in New York City, I attended a recital given by Ernest White on his new Möller studio organ at the Church of St. Mary the Virgin. I left at intermission because the organ was painfully loud. In my voicing I try to make a rank of pipes only as loud as needed to ping the tone off the walls, blowing only hard enough to fill the room at the desired volume.7

Jerome: Following graduation from Union, I was appointed organist/choirmaster at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Waterbury, Connecticut. When we went looking for a new instrument to replace the 1869 Hook & Hastings, I wasn’t enamored with the sounds of Holtkamp, Möller, Schlicker and Austin, and mentioned my dilemma to my good friend Bob Clark, whose judgment I valued. He was organist at the Peddie Memorial Baptist Church in Newark, New Jersey, where my wife was soloist, having the best-paying solo position in the area, while I was at Union. He said, “Why don’t you check with Charles McManis, who builds organs that sing and don’t shout.” When I learned he was in Danbury, Connecticut, I went down to get acquainted, and we hit it off immediately.

Charles: In the early 1950s I became acquainted with Robert Noehren through our writings in The Diapason and The American Organist magazines. I worked for him on the Hill Auditorium Skinner in Ann Arbor, and built a new organ for Frankenmuth, Michigan, where he was the consultant. When he was named consultant on the Johnson at Emmanuel Lutheran Church in Danbury, Connecticut, whose organist had been his student at Michigan, I was called in. My strong feelings concerning Johnson flue pipe voicing began during my apprenticeship days in Kansas City. I discovered that diapason pipes mouth-blown very gently, then increased to full volume, had scarcely any change in pitch. Volume was regulated at the toe hole, not by opening the flue. In contrast, classical open toe voicing regulated volume at the mouth, which I found totally inadequate. I revoiced the 8-foot Principal, increasing its richness of tone, primarily by opening the toes and, to a lesser degree adjusting the mouths. Jerry and I connected as musicians, no doubt in part because I too had a degree in organ. We both agreed on what we didn’t like. I obtained the contract for the St. John’s, Waterbury, organ (see photo and stoplist) in part because Parvin Titus was the consultant. The St. John’s rector, Rev. John Youngblood, had been a curate in Cincinnati, knew Mr. Titus and trusted his judgment. Also, I had built the new instrument for the Second Church of Christ, Scientist in Dayton, where Titus also had been the consultant.

Jerome: The Johnson sound was already in my head, not only from Oberlin, but from the fine Johnson in Mott Haven Dutch Reformed Church in the Bronx, where I first practiced when I went to New York. I explained that we were looking for intensity not decibels in organ sound, colors and ensembles that sing. Charles showed me what he was doing. It was soon obvious this was just the ticket for us. These initial impressions were confirmed when my wife and I visited St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Kansas City, Kansas, and heard for the first time a complete McManis instrument. All the voices were exquisite; the 8-foot principal was a well-supported, big baritone sound. Having worked in training choirs at an early age, striving to blend individual voices, I found in the lovely individual voices of this organ an exquisite ensemble and chorus.

Charles: When Jerry came to Kansas City, the mixtures and ensemble sounds on the Great and Swell at St. Paul’s were what really got to him. The voices together on each manual resulted in contrasting sounds but very much related. We talked at length about voicing and drew up a specification for a three-manual instrument for St. John’s. (See specification.) I also discussed what I had done in reworking old pipes and changing pitch. This was very important because in the 1869 Hook & Hastings at St. John’s a number of old ranks were reworked.

I first saw Waterbury after Meachen returned from Kansas City, and was dismayed to find dry acoustics and such terribly large scales in the Hook & Hastings. The only principal stop I could use was the 16-foot on the Great, which would work well in the Pedal division. We were able to cut down and revoice a number of 8-foot stops; for example, the 4-foot principal on the Swell had been an 8-foot violin diapason. If the scale and mouth treatment were correct, the desired sound would follow.

Let me quote from my forthcoming autobiography to explain the tonal philosophy of this instrument: “The classic Werkprinzip theory of terraced manual pitches had not yet hit the AGO cocktail hour conversation when Jerry and I drew up the design for Opus 35 (St. John’s Church Waterbury, CT) on that Sunday afternoon. Submitted to organ consultant Parvin Titus, he heartily approved of the design, but suggested inclusion of the rather outstanding Oboe from the 1869 H&H. But back to the Werkprinzip! While numerous other stops are needed in each division, the backbone is the Principal chorus, as shown below:

I:              Great     8’ Principal       11/3’      Mixture

II:            Swell    4’ Principal        2/3’       Scharf

III:          Brustwerk           2’ Principal        1/3’       Cymbel

Pedal     8’ Principal       11/3’     Mixture

For purposes of contrapuntal clarity, the Pedal chorus should be the same pitch as the Great, plus suitable 16’ underpinning. Polyphony does better without the growl of a sub-octave mixture cluster.”

After the tornado hit downtown Waterbury in July, 1989, heavily damaging the St. John’s organ, I replaced 35 ranks of pipes including replacement of the Brustwerk Singend Regal with a brass Krummhorn and substitution of a Swell 4’ Clarion for the earlier 4’ Krummhorn. Also, the 32’ extension of the Pedal reed was linked to the Posaune instead of the Contrafagotto.

Jerome: Another factor which impressed me about the McManis was its compatibility with what I call a theatre sound by which I mean, it had to dance. In the theatre organ you had a detached pedal and a strong emphasis on the melodic line when you are thinking bass line and melody. This is why I was very comfortable doing figured bases. It was non-legato; it was instrumental. When you were featuring the posthorn, you were quite willing to detach it. My father loved theatre organ, so from the time I started playing, I developed something of a theatre style. Searle Wright, the well-known organist at St. Paul’s Chapel, Columbia University, also did a great theatre style.

Charles inspired my definition of intensity because he viewed the entire instrument as a whole. In a three-manual you could draw the principal and mixture on each division, couple them together and you had a basic ensemble evoking a very intense, rich but not very loud sound because you didn’t have to fill in and thus did not have an awful lot of stops working. Thus the concept of full organ was very discriminating; the full organ piston didn’t bring on everything. You are dealing with colors and when you put everything on you end up with brown or gray. And with a tremolo on each division if you wanted to cantus firmus you could do it anywhere in the instrument.

This instrument fulfills my belief in the theological aspect of an organ. With my developing interest in liturgy I was very much aware of the person in the pew. I hold that the organ must be people-friendly, in support of congregational singing whether it be chant or hymnody. Surrounding rather than hitting the congregation with sound--making a joyful noise, not just a noise. Charles spoke of attending a recital on the Möller practice organ at St. Mary the Virgin in New York and finding it so loud he left after the first half of the program. I agree. White offered me a chance to practice on that organ but I told him I would be using only one or two stops so I might as well practice on the chapel organ. The sound was so high in decibels I couldn’t hear it.

Redeemer and Manatee

This paper has focused on the St. John’s organ. Those at Redeemer Episcopal Church and Manatee Community College continued the fundamental practices in the philosophy of McManis and Meachen. They also reflected modifications and forward thinking in their approach, as did the rebuilding and restoration of St. John’s in 1989.

At Redeemer in Florida, the former ten-rank Möller, with its subsequent addition of nineteen Aeolian-Skinner ranks, was skillfully integrated into the 67-rank new instrument. In place of the 16’ Quintaton on the Great, they chose a 16’ Gemshorn mounted on the chancel wall, extended to an 8’ Gemshorn and a 4’ tapered flute in a seamless tonal progression. The Great and Positiv exposed chests were equipped with toeboard expansion chambers to increase richness of tone.

The 49-rank Manatee Community College organ was installed in Neel Auditorium at the point of a pie-shaped building on a 35-foot shelf at the back of the stage. In an obviously “werkprinzip” layout (see photo, page 20), in a variety of shapes, it was enclosed in a mahogany case. The 16’ Pedal Principal exposed at the center hid the movement of Swell shutters behind. To its left were the lower notes of the 16’ Subbass and 16’ Posaune; to the right, the pipes of the Hooded Trumpet and more Subbass metal pipes. To the far left in the left façade was the Great 8’ Principal, and to the far right the 4’ Positiv Principal in the façade. Roofs of the façades differed but all were related to the focal point mentioned above.

The Manatee Great included a 16’ Gemshorn, all the usual 8’ and 4’ stops, plus a normal 11/3’ Mixture, a 2/3’ Acuta, and an 8’ Trumpet. The Swell mixture was a 1’ Scharf and the Positiv had a 1/3’ Cymbel. The thoroughly adequate Pedal division included a 32’ Dulzian and the usual 8’ and 4’ ranks. As would be expected, the Pedal mixture lowest pitch was 11/3’, but pipe scales were larger than those of the Great Mixture.

Summary

The above dialogue illustrates the way in which the concept of organ sound in the mind of an organist and soon-to-be builder begins with formal study of the instrument and is heavily influenced by the instructor and his experience. With this background, they are then prepared to compare and contrast a wide variety of sound in determining their own definition of it: for Meachen and McManis, a singing sound. It also argues that the ultimate test of the voicer’s art, be it Johnson or McManis, is the 8’ Diapason found on the Great, a belief shared by organists and builders for many years.

In an article in The Diapason, based upon his lecture to the AIO Convention in Pittsburgh in 1977, McManis explains the details of flue voicing and the practices of Tannenberg, Gratian, Kilgen, Hook & Hastings, Johnson, Wurlitzer, Estey (William E. Haskell), Cavaillé-Coll, and Kimball.8 This paper, now considered a classic, together with the recognition of his peers in his selection as instructor in flue voicing at a seminar of the American Institute of Organbuilders, established him, in the author’s judgment, as one of the finest flue voicers of the twentieth century.9

Charles passed away, at age 91, on December 3, 2004 in South Burlington, Vermont. Providentially, he and his wife Judith had just completed his autobiography. It contains vivid recollections of personalities and detailed descriptions of his instruments in a sixty-year career that spanned the arc of the postwar history of organbuilding in America. This priceless volume is scheduled to be published by the Organ Historical Society in 2005. It will find a prominent place on the shelf of every organist, organbuilder and organ enthusiast.

For research assistance and critical comments on drafts of this paper, the author gratefully acknowledges: Gene Bedient, Jerry Dawson, Charles Eames, Donald Gillette, Albert Neutel, Barbara Owen, Michael Quimby, Elizabeth Schmidt, Jack Sievert and R. E. Wagner.

Cover

Paul Fritts & Company, Tacoma, Washington

Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton, New Jersey

 

On February 2, 2001, the new Joe R. Engle pipe organ, Opus
20 of Paul Fritts & Co., Organ Builders, Tacoma, Washington, for Miller
Chapel at Princeton Theological Seminary was dedicated with festivities which
included a dedication service and dedicatory recital, followed by a three-day
colloquium (sponsored by the seminary) featuring a variety of worship services,
recitals, lectures and panels on topics related to the organ in both historic
and contemporary worship.

David Dahl talks with Paul Fritts about the new organ.

 

David Dahl: After
you were selected to build the new organ for Miller Chapel, how did you arrive
at the concept we see and hear now at the seminary?

Paul Fritts: I
listened carefully to the musical needs for the chapel as expressed by Martin
Tel (organist and C. F. Seabrook Director of Music at the seminary) and the
members of the organ committee (chaired by James F. Kay, Associate Professor of
Homiletics and Liturgics at the seminary). They desired an organ with a strong
identity which would serve the daily worship of seminarians, as well as musical
concerts involving choir, soloists, and various instruments. Martin Tel stated:
"This is a very important instrument; seminarians need to be exposed to
and ‘moved' by an instrument of exceptional merit, such that in their
later work as clergy they would be encouraged to seek similar quality."

 

Dahl: In order to
reach consensus on the scope of the instrument, were there limitations which
you needed to consider?

Fritts: Limitations
can be both an asset and a drawback; they are a fact of life. If we try to
eliminate limitations everything gets watered down. For Miller Chapel it was
decided that the "identity" would be an organ known to be historically
successful with congregational singing and a large body of liturgical organ
repertoire. This identity was to be a blend of related North and Central German
and Dutch concepts common to the late 17th and early 18th century, in which a
large secondary division would serve as both an Oberwerk and Swell as companion
to the Great and Pedal.

 

Dahl: Would you say
that the concept is more "historically inspired" than a copy of some
form of an old organ?

Fritts: Definitely! I
worked to build this organ with an integrity based on historic models, but in
the end it represents what I think will work and sound best at this point in
time. It is a modern instrument.

 

Dahl: Would you
comment on how you arrived at the type of casework and architectural style we
see here at Princeton?

Fritts: Miller
Chapel is quite similar to Kilworth Chapel at the University of Puget Sound,
Tacoma, Washington, where ten years ago we built an organ with a case design
similar to organs in 18th-century central Germany"such as those built by
builders like Gottfried Silbermann and Hildebrandt. This concept works well
there, and I thought that, with the same height restrictions coupled with a
fair amount of depth, a similar casework and internal arrangement of the
divisions would be successful at Princeton. We also talked about the organs of
the early American organ builder, David Tannenberg, who built instruments in
Lutheran, Moravian and Reformed churches in the Mid-Atlantic region. Many of
his organs found their place in the meeting-house style of building, where he
most often used an 18th-century style case design. This building style is not
unlike Miller Chapel.

Placing the organ front and center was a decision reached
after exploring the possibility of the rear balcony. A good deal of remodeling
was done to provide more width to the front of the chapel, so that the organ
could stand on the floor at the front, with its presence clearly "in the
room." The remodeling, taking into account prior and current values for
worship and music, also provided a flexible open space in front of the organ
case, which during the colloquium following the dedication was the place for a
very effective modern dance program with organ music of Bach and Eben.

I wanted a rather spacious case inside for the pipes, like
Central German organs of Bach's time, which represents a change for me from
some of the previous organs I've built in the more traditionally confined cases
of North German style organs. This spaciousness would particularly ensure the
effectiveness of the Swell division.

 

Dahl: Could you
speak a bit more about your approach to building the Swell division, which,
with 14 independent registers, is rather substantial?

Fritts: Yes, it is a
rather large division. Some people have asked why there are not three manuals
with an organ of 39 stops and some 60 ranks. Quite simply there was not enough
height to do that, and I believe that a Swell should be on the large size in
order to be effective. We decided that both the Great and the Swell should have
principal choruses based on the 8' level. To make the Swell effective, there
are shutters on three sides of the Swell, which is positioned above the Great
with rather free egress to the room. These shutters close tightly to make even
a fairly large ensemble rather quiet; yet when open fully, the effect is
similar to that of an Oberwerk. The Swell contains three reeds, of which the
Hautbois 8' is closely modeled after Cavaillé-Coll"an exception to
the Germanic roots of the organ, but nevertheless one which blends well within
the total ensemble.

 

Dahl: I see that
your mixture registers are IV-VI ranks, or V-VII ranks. Are there up to six or
seven different pitches in these mixtures?

Fritts: The mixtures
normally have but four pitches; in the treble some of the pitches are doubled
with a second set of pipes. This helps achieve better tuning and focusing in
the ensemble. Multiple unisons do not increase loudness much at all. The Swell
Mixtur V-VII has an optional Tierce rank which may be added or left out.

 

Dahl: Getting back
to some of the limitations we spoke of earlier, I notice that you did not limit
the stop action to mechanical action, but you "piggybacked" an
electric stop-action with solid-state combination and memory system. Would you
comment on that decision?

Fritts: With a
straight mechanical stop action there is little or no chance of failure to use
the organ. However, we all agreed that with the size of the instrument and the
variety of purposes for which it would be used, it would be good to have a
state-of-the-art combination system. We installed a 99-level solid state memory
system, in which each memory level has 20 general pistons. A
"sequencer" is also provided, permitting the organist to advance from
one general to the next by the use of one lever located to the right of the
Swell pedal.

 

Dahl: The organ is
tuned in the well-tempered system known as "Kellner." Would you speak
about this choice for Miller Chapel?

Fritts: This is
quite an amazing solution to the challenge of temperament and tuning. All keys
are playable, and each has a slightly different personality. The major thirds
of the most commonly used keys (especially for hymn singing, and a majority of
repertoire) are more in tune than with equal temperament. However, even in the
more remote keys the Kellner temperament works well. We advocate this
temperament for nearly all of our instruments.

 

Dahl: The colloquium
in February (2001) offered a "test" for the flexibility and
capacities of the organ?

Fritts: It certainly
did. The opening dedication service as well as the variety of worship services
throughout the symposium included robust singing from the assembly, for which
the organ rose to the occasion with color and variety. One especially
interesting moment was the singing of a hymn in an African-American gospel
style. Here the organ took on a character not heard before and which worked
remarkably well. Recital pieces during the symposium not only included expected
works from the Baroque era, but also from the 19th and 20th centuries. While
the organ is Germanic in roots and personality, there is also sufficient
eclectic broadening to permit credible performance of music from all periods.

 

Dahl: How did the
organ work with the choirs which sang during the colloquium, and during the
morning seminary worship services?

Fritts: The
dedicatory recital included the Seminary Choir singing the Benjamin Britten
Rejoice in the Lamb, for chorus, soloists and organ. This was a good test for a
wide dynamic range, quick color changes and blend with voices. The Westminster
Choir of Westminister Choir College also presented an evening concert which
included the C. V. Stanford Magnificat & Nunc Dimittis in C, which required
the organ to work like an English cathedral organ. Here the Swell division
responded well to the demands of a wide dynamic range.

 

Dahl: Is there
anything you would do differently if you built this same organ again?

Fritts: Even if I
tried to make this identical organ again, with the same drawings, materials,
scaling and voicing, it would turn out somewhat differently. In any handcrafted
instrument, every crafted piece depends on so many variables at the time it is
crafted, adding up to a particular result at a particular time. Yes, there are
a few things I might "tweak" about pipe scaling and the action design
were I to go around again with this organ, but fundamentally, I am quite
pleased with the results we got at Princeton. We did not know how the room
would be after its remodeling nor how the room would "receive" the
organ. Happily the acoustical results exceeded my expectations for a room of
its size and shape insofar as it works with the tonal properties of the organ.
It fills the room easily with a "full yet relaxed presence." With
each instrument we build we try to improve in some way, although on occasion we
might regret a small decision here or there. If the ideal result for a given
organ might be compared to the "search for the Holy Grail," we will
probably never reach the ultimate goal, but hopefully with each instrument we
do get a little closer to it.

 

Postscript: The Paul
Fritts & Co. Organ Builders shop is located in a semi-rural part of Tacoma,
Washington. A total of seven craftsmen make up the work force. Paul's sister
Judy Fritts designs and carves pipe shades for the organs. Nearly every
component of each organ is made locally in the shop, including the casting of
metal for pipes, key actions, casework and wooden parts of the organ. Future
contracted organs will be installed at Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York;
Thompson Chapel of St. Mark's Cathedral, Seattle, Washington; and in a new
organ/ choral hall at the University of Notre Dame, South Bend,
Indiana."DPD

 

David P. Dahl is professor of organ emeritus at Pacific
Lutheran University.

 

From the Seminary organist:

The installation of the new organ in Miller Chapel was
conceived as part of a larger project"the renovation and re-dedication of
Miller Chapel. The plans for a new organ were thus able to evolve over a
prolonged period of theological and liturgical reflection. The committee's
primary objective was to come to an understanding of the functions of an organ
in this seminary community.

Princeton Theological Seminary is an institution of the
Presbyterian Church (USA). The primary liturgical function of an organ in a
seminary rooted in the Reformed tradition can be stated simply: the organ must
first and foremost undergird and encourage congregational singing. The
functions of the organ as accompaniment to choral singing and as an instrument
for organ literature are clearly ancillary. Our operating conviction was that
if all due attention were  given to
the primary function of the instrument, with design aspects supporting the role
of the choir, the function of the organ as a performing instrument for
literature would also fall into place.

And thus the form of the Miller Chapel organ is heavily bent
toward the sound of the congregation's voice. The organ stands in the same room
as the singers. The disposition allows for a wide range of accompanying
possibilities. The concern for supporting congregational song is borne out in
the two full principal choruses and in the presence of two distinct mixtures on
the Great division. It was recognized that mixtures designed for contrapuntal
literature have a different make-up than those designed primarily for the full
plenums needed for homophonic playing (e.g., the accompaniment of a vigorous
hymn). It is notable that in the Reformed Churches of the Netherlands many organs
were built (or rebuilt as the case may be) primarily for the accompaniment of
robust singing. These organs tend to have mixtures which markedly favor
homophonic textures"mixtures which may also obscure contrapuntal lines. On
the Miller Chapel organ the Great Scharff represents the mixture particularly
suited for homophonic accompaniment. The possibility of adding the Tierce rank
to the Swell Mixture accomplishes some of the same effect.

In the end, it was our desire to present to the seminary
community an instrument of consummate beauty and integrity which would inspire
a striving for excellence in the broader church which the seminary serves. We
saw in Paul Fritts a craftsman who builds upon the native strengths of the
organ. We sought to give him freedom to flesh out in an instrument the
functions we would call forth from the organ.

Paul, in his interview with David Dahl, recognizes that
there are inherent benefits in the limitations one encounters as one goes about
one's art. I fully concur. The organ as it was proposed and eventually built by
Paul Fritts has broad capabilities, and also recognizable limitations. It is
incapable of fulfilling all the instrumental musical requirements of daily
worship at Miller Chapel. Such a statement is not only prudent but, once
acknowledged, also liberating. The organ does not need to "do it
all." The seminary community represents many indigenous traditions beyond
the Western tradition in which the organ originally blossomed. The presence of
this instrument instructs all of us to pursue other musical traditions with the
same authenticity and integrity, whether this means the employment of piano,
conga drums, bamboo flute or Hammond organ. Conversely, we are free to build
and use the pipe organ according its native strengths.

The Miller Chapel organ project is thus not a regression to
some rigorously pure Reformed dogma of worship music. (Indeed, such a proposal
would eliminate the construction of an organ at all!) Rather, this project is
an attempt to build upon the strengths of a developing and living Reformed
tradition. It is an attempt to build on the native strengths of the pipe organ
as a liturgical instrument in a thoroughly modern and enlivening way. Now that
the instrument is in its place, it will be the calling of generations of
organists to have the wisdom and grace to discern when this instrument is and
when it is not the most appropriate means for leading the people's prayer and
praise. In such a context this installation can be understood to be a
progression. May it be so.

"Martin Tel

C. F. Seabrook Director of Music

 

Paul Fritts & Company Organ Builders: Greg Bahnsen,
Robyn Ellis, Ricky Frith, Jon Hamelton, Jacob Nelson, Michael Phelau, Andreas
Schonger, Peter Tomter, Judy Fritts (carver)

James Kay, Chair of Miller Chapel Renovation Committee and
Organ Committee

The organ was made possible by a generation by Mr. Joe R.
Engle, for whom the instrument is named.

For more in depth articles about the chapel renovation and
the Joe R. Engle organ, see The Princeton Seminary Bulletin, Vol. XXII No. 1
(New Series), 2001.

The Joe R. Engle Organ

GREAT

                  16'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>          Bourdon

                  8'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             Principal

                  8'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             Rohrflöte

                  8'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             Quintadena

                  4'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             Octav

                  4'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             Spitzflöte

                  22⁄3'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>      Quint

                  2'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             Octav

                  13⁄5'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>      Tierce

                                    Mixtur
IV-VI

                                    Scharff
III-V

                  8'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             Trompet

                  4'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             Trompet

                  8'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             Bärpfeife

SWELL

                  8'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             Principal

                  8'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             Gedackt

                  8'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             Violdigamba

                  8'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             Voix
celeste

                  4'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             Octav

                  4'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             Koppelflöte

                  22⁄3'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>      Nasat

                  2'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             Octav

                  2'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             Gemshorn

                  13⁄5'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>      Terz

                                    Mixtur
IV-VI

                  16'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>          Dulcian

                  8'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             Trompet

                  8'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             Hautbois

PEDAL

                  16'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>          Principal

                  16'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>          Subbaß

                  8'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             Octav*

                  8'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             Bourdon*

                  4'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             Octav

                  2'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             Nachthorn

                                    Mixtur
VI-VIII

                  16'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>          Posaune

                  8'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             Trompet

                  4'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             Trompet

                  2'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             Cornet*

*Transmissions from other pedal stops

Couplers

                                    Swell
to Great

                                    Great
to Pedal

                                    Swell
to Pedal

 

Compass: 56/30

Features: Burnished tin front pipes, suspended key action,
mechanical stop action with pre-set system by Solid State Logic Ltd., variable
tremulant, wind stabilizer, Tierce (1 rank for Swell Mixture), Cimbelstern,
Vogelgesang, manual wind supply option, Kellner temperament

 

Robert G. Dial, Organbuilders, Springfield, Illinois, has rebuilt the organ at Grace United
Methodist Church, St. Louis, Missouri. The organ was built by M. P. Möller
in 1952, Opus 8353. The project included releathering and rewiring the entire
instrument, as well as the addition of five new ranks. The original console has
been rebuilt with new keyboards, drawknobs, couplers, tilting tablets, and
terraces, as well as a Solid State Logic combination action and multiplex
switching system. Although some ranks were repositioned within the instrument,
all the original pipework was retained. On February 11, 2001, the organ was
rededicated during the morning worship service. The rededication recital was
played later that day by John Walker. Kathleen Bolduan is the church's director
of music.

 

GREAT

                  16'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>          Violone

                  8'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             Diapason

                  8'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             Rohrflöte

                  8'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             Gemshorn

                  8'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             Violone**

                  4'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             Octave

                  4'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             Harmonic
Flute*

                  22⁄3'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>      Twelfth

                  2'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             Fifteenth

                                    Fourniture
III

                  8'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             Trumpet*

                                    Chimes

                                    Gt
16-UO-4

                                    Zimbelstern*

SWELL

                  16'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>          Flute
Conique

                  8'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             Geigen
Principal

                  8'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             Gedeckt

                  8'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             Viole
de Gambe

                  8'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             Viole
Celeste

                  8'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             Flute
Conique

                  8'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             Flute
Celeste

                  4'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             Geigen
Octave

                  4'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             Flute
Traverse

                  4'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             Flute
Conique

                  2'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             Octavin

                                    Plein
Jeu III

                  16'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>          Fagotto

                  8'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             Trompette

                  8'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             Oboe

                  8'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             Vox
Humana

                  4'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             Clairon*

                                    Tremolo

                                    Sw
16-UO-4

CHOIR

                  16'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>          Erzahler

                  8'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             Viola*

                  8'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             Viola
Celeste+

                  8'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             Hohlflöte++

                  8'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             Nachthorn

                  8'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             Erzahler

                  8'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             Erzahler
Celeste

                  4'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             Spitzprincipal

                  4'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             Koppelflöte

                  4'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             Erzahler

                  4'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             Erzahler
Celeste

                  22⁄3'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>      Nazard

                  2'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             Waldflöte

                  13⁄5'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>      Terz

                  8'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             English
Horn*

                  8'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             Clarinet

                  4'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             Rohr
Schalmei+++

                  8'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             Harp

                  4'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             Celeste

                                    Tremolo

                                    Ch
16-UO-4

BOMBARDE

                  16'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>          Contre
Trompette

                  8'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             Trompette
Harmonique

                  4'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             Clairon
Harmonique

                                    Harmonics
IV

                                    Bombarde
4'

PEDAL

                  32'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>          Contre
Violone

                  16'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>          Principal

                  16'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>          Subbass

                  16'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>          Violone

                  16'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>          Erzahler

                  16'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>          Flute
Conique

                  102⁄3'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>   Quinte

                  8'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             Octave

                  8'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             Bourdon

                  8'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             Violone

                  8'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             Erzahler

                  8'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             Flute
Conique

                  51⁄3'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>      Quinte

                  4'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             Choralbass

                  2'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             Octave

                  32'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>          Contre
Bombarde (1-12 digital)

                  16'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>          Bombarde

                  16'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>          Fagotto

                  8'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             Bombarde

                  8'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             Fagotto

                  4'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             Bombarde

                  4'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             Rohr
Schalmei

 

                                    Transposer

                                    All
Swells to Swell

                                    Great/Choir
Transfer

                                    Tower
Chimes

 

* New stops

** New Gt Violone ext

+ Former Ch Keraulophon

++ Moved from Gt

+++ Moved from Sw

 

Andover Organ Company,
Methuen, Massachusetts, has rebuilt the Hook & Hastings Opus 2117 organ at
the Community Church of Jackson, New Hampshire. The organ was built in 1906
with two manuals and seven stops. In 1965 Andover revoiced the Great, replaced
the Swell 8' Viola with a 2' Principal, and replaced the 4' Harmonic Flute with
a 4' Rohrflute.

Another builder made some unworkable changes in the late
1970s. The Swell 4' Rohrflute was moved to the Great and converted into an 8'
Flute. It took the place of the Great 8' Dolce, resulting in no string stop on
the organ. The Dolce was cut in half and moved to the Swell as a 4' Flute.

In January 2001, Andover returned the 4' Rohrflute to the
Swell. A used Dolce installed on the Great now provides a soft stop for accompaniment.
Pipes were voiced, regulated, and tuned. In addition, Andover releathered the
pallets, and installed new pull-down wires and neoprene links on the manual key
action to cure a problem with ciphers. Table and slider holes were enlarged to
provide adequate wind for stable tuning. Chests were shimmed to provide proper
clearance for sliders and eliminate wind noise and leakage.

GREAT

                  8'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             Diapason

                  8'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             Dolce

                  4'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             Octave

                                    Sw/Gt

SWELL

                  8'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             Gedeckt

                  4'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             Rohrflute

                  2'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             Principal

PEDAL

                  16'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>          Bourdon

                                    Gt/Ped

                                    Sw/Ped

J.H. & C.S. Odell, East Hampton, Connecticut, Opus 644

St. Ann’s Episcopal Church, Bridgehampton, New York

From the Rector of St. Ann’s

The committee all agreed--something had to be done. For
years the church organ had been in irreversible decline, and the time had come
to act. I regarded this to be a daunting and confusing challenge in which we
needed professional counsel. Dr. Mark Andersen guided us through the various
options and needs of the decision-making process, and by July 2004 it was
agreed that J.H. and C.S. Odell of East Hampton, Connecticut be engaged to
restore the organ. It was a decision that we would never regret.

In September 2004, Edward and Holly Odell arrived to remove
the existing organ. Pipes were carefully laid out in special boxes. Frames and
blowers were removed--and those were only the things that I could
identify! It all happened remarkably quickly, and before long the truck was
driven away leaving a large space where the console had once stood, and a
spotlessly clean church where the disassembly had taken place.

The novelty of using just piano and occasional other
instruments wore off after Christmas, and we waited anxiously for the organ to
return. Our patience was not helped by tantalizing photographs and reports sent
regularly from the Odell factory showing the new instrument taking shape!

It was March 2005 (the day I was flying off on vacation)
that the Odell team returned. It was time to put the whole thing together, but
it was only two weeks before Holy Week, and three to Easter. Could it really be
done?

Eight days later I returned to find the church in wonderful
disarray with parts and pipes everywhere, and Edward Odell looking and sounding
confident, if a little tired. Yes, of course it could be done. The project was
running according to schedule. The organ would be partly voiced by Palm Sunday
and ready for Easter.

Every part was in place and every promise fulfilled. A
magnificent new console was carefully maneuvered into position. Pipes were
ready and being expertly voiced by Holly Odell. Cables and wires were
connected. The organ had life--and was indeed ready for Easter morning. It
was resurrection in a different form!

We have not looked back since then. Not only has this
instrument enhanced our Sunday worship, it has enabled us to host a season of
superb organ recitals over the summer, and earned for St. Ann’s Church a
reputation for being a place where good music can be found.
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> 

Working with the Odell Organ Company has been not only a
proven right decision but also a joy. From the outset we not only admired the
professionalism of Edward and Holly Odell, but also came to share in their love
of organs and sheer depth of knowledge in their field. All these things,
coupled with their warmth and sense of humor, have made the whole process one
which we can reflect on with immense satisfaction. It is never an easy task for
a small parish church to embark on such a large project and investment, but we
know that we have learned and benefited so much from choosing the right organ
and the right builder.

The Reverend Tim Lewis, Rector

St. Ann’s Episcopal Church

Bridgehampton, New York

From the Consultant

As an organ consultant for nearly 35 years, I have had the
opportunity to design a large range of instruments from the smallest two-manual
to several five-manual instruments throughout the United States, England, and
Australia.

St. Ann’s parish is that wonderful combination of
sophistication in a relaxed atmosphere. It is many New Yorkers’ church away
from home, and the organ would have to meet the discriminating tastes of
parishioners who worship in some of the largest churches in the metropolitan
area.

There was not much with which to start--an old hybrid
Möller from the ’20’s that was on its very last legs after having several ranks
replaced over the years. I designed an organ specification capable of
accompanying a proper Anglican service, but in a size and fit that matched St.
Ann’s. After requesting bids from many organbuilders, it was clear that J.H.
& C.S. Odell had the talent to see the task through with outstanding
results. Tonally the organ now fits the space perfectly and is complete enough
in specification to satisfy even the most discriminating organists. The
craftsmanship is superb, and the voicing is clear and clean, leaning beautifully
toward the English tradition. The project has surpassed my expectations.

Mark Andersen, PhD

New Berlin, New York

From the Organbuilder

Our Opus 644 began life as what could be termed a “Heinz 57”
instrument, which is to say it featured a combination of pipes and parts from a
combination of organbuilders and suppliers. The console case and most of the
wooden pipes in the organ date from a five-stop 1927 M.P. Möller instrument,
which was then rebuilt and altered in the early 1970s. It was during this 1970s
rebuild that much of the original pipework was replaced.

As we found it, the organ was a unified instrument of modest
resources, most of them well made if not terribly well looked after. It was
unrefined, but met the basic requirements. In the 1980s a German supply house
Trumpet 8’ and Mixture III (inexplicably, a Zimbel based on 2?3’ pitch) were
added, along with a polished tin Gemshorn that was used to form a façade. The
entire organ was in a single expression chamber to the right of the chancel. The
existing electro-pneumatic unit chests, made from solid mahogany, were in good
physical condition, though the installation made maintenance access difficult
in certain areas.

In July of 2004, Dr. Mark Andersen (organ consultant to St.
Ann’s) approached us with a prospectus that included a rebuild and enlargement
of the organ. In addition to new pipes and new chest work, a new 3-manual
terrace-jamb console was part of this plan.

Dr. Andersen’s proposed stoplist would add a total of nine
ranks to the organ. The scheme had an immediate appeal, as it would expand the
resources of the organ to include a full principal chorus in the Great, as well
as a new 8’ Rohrflute to contrast the existing Chimney Flute in the Swell.
“Fleshing out” the Great with six new ranks allowed us to recast the remaining
resources to work as a mostly independent Swell division. The new scheme would
also extend the existing Trumpet to 16’ pitch to play from the Pedal and add a
small Cornet (a tenor C, 2-rank 12/17 combination, scaled and voiced to match
the new Great flute).

The challenge, of course, was to now somehow fit 19 ranks in
a space that before barely contained eight. Early in the design process it became
evident that much of the precious real estate in the organ chamber could be
reclaimed if the many offset chests for various ranks could be consolidated
onto a new single offset chest that would also provide for the new Trumpet 16’.
We also wanted to ensure the new chamber layout would permit adequate access
for service and, most importantly, tuning. Rebuilding the existing expression
shades and fitting them with new expression controllers made available space
that had been previously occupied by a pneumatic motor with an unwieldy linkage
system.

We developed a new 7’4? diatonic chest scale to accommodate
the new stops and the relocated Gemshorn. The existing Principal 8’ was
carefully revoiced to give it more moderate power, and the new principal ranks
were scaled and voiced to build from this new foundation. The new Great Bourdon
8’ was voiced using a special arch cutup schedule, which lent the pipes a color
that allows the stop to work superbly as both a solo and ensemble voice. The
Swell was given its own new 3-rank mixture based on 2’ pitch, and the existing
Zimbel mixture was recomposed into a more appropriate chorus mixture based on
11?3’ pitch for the Great.

Though the action for the new chestwork was specified to be
electro-mechanical, we milled all windchest toeboards to be no less than one
and one-half inches in thickness. This, along with proper attention to voicing,
successfully offset any pipe speech problems normally anticipated with this
type of action. Our windchests were made from solid poplar, with the exception
of the toeboard for the new Swell Mixture, which was milled from sugar pine.

The new console and case, both entirely of our own design
and manufacture, were milled  in
our East Hampton shop from solid quarter-sawn white oak, and stained and
finished to match existing fixtures in the sanctuary. The console interior
(stop jambs and key cheeks) was milled from solid walnut and finished with
hand-rubbed Danish oil. The façade pipes are polished tin, made to custom
specifications we developed and submitted to our friends at Giesecke. The new
flue pipes were built to our scales by Luc Ladurantaye Tuyatier of Lac Saguay,
Quebec.

Along with the standard complement of accessories, the
console features an integrated control system with multiple memory levels,
programmable crescendo and sforzando, 12-step transposer and MIDI interface for
record and playback ability. The digital Antiphonal division was contracted and
installed separately by Artisan Instruments.

Edward Odell

J.H. & C.S. Odell

Glück New York,

New York, New York

The Church of Our Lady of Loretto, Cold Spring, New York

This historic church, known for its remarkable collection of
stained glass windows, was recently restored, with a new instrument and a
marble chancel floor included in the renewal plans. Under the direction of Fr.
Brian McSweeney, Pastor; Frances Pergamo, Director of Music; and Fr. Richard D.
Baker of the New York Archdiocese, three organbuilders were each invited to
present their vision of an appropriate musical instrument. The smallest and
most stylistically focused proposal submitted, the new Glück organ occupies a
traditional position in the rear gallery to great acoustical advantage. While
the organ looks toward the French orgue d’accompagnement of the 1860s for both
its concept and tonal palette, it is certainly not intended to be a stylistic
copy.

The manual soundboards are placed side-by-side at impost
level, with the Swell to the right, its vertical shutters operated by direct
mechanical linkage. The two large wooden pedal stops stand on their own
windchests behind the organ. The Great organ incorporates some pipework from a
mid-1870s Levi Underwood Stuart organ of undetermined provenance. Interior
metal pipes are of 70% lead alloy, except for the Swell strings, which are of
50% tin. Wooden pipework is of pine and fir. The façade pipes are built with
English bay leaf mouths arrayed in a swag pattern after Gottfried Silbermann’s
façades of the 1740s.

The walnut keydesk en fenêtre sports beveled figured maple
jambs and pao ferro drawknobs. Both pedal and manual accidentals are Brazilian
rosewood. Compasses are 56/30; there is no combination action, but the three
unison couplers are reversible by toe paddles. The case is painted in various
shades of olive, with details in sapphire, ruby, and faux marbre. Architectural
design was by Sebastian M. Glück, who executed the Neapolitan-style angel,
tower finials, and buttress niches, which are suitably polychromed and gilded.
Color photographs may be viewed at the firm’s web site at
<www.glucknewyork.com&gt;.

The structural design and layout are the work of Albert
Jensen-Moulton, general manager of the firm, who was assisted in the
construction of the organ by Dominic Inferrera, foreman. Voicing and tonal
finishing were accomplished on site by Sebastian M. Glück, tonal director. The
organ was formally dedicated in a series of three recitals by Lana Kollath, Dr.
Jennifer Pascual, and the builder.

--Benito Orso

GREAT

8’               Open
Diapason

8’               Open
Wood Flute

4’               Principal

2’               Doublet

8’               Hautboy
(from Swell)

                       Swell
to Great

                       Swell
to Great Octaves

SWELL

8’               Salicional

8’               Voix
Céleste

8’               Stopped
Diapason

4’               Harmonic
Flute

8’               Hautboy

                       Tremulant

                       Swell
to Swell Octaves

PEDAL

16’           Open
Wood Bass

16’           Stopped
Bass

8’               Octave
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  from Great

8’               Hautboy
from Swell

                       Great
to Pedal

Swell to Pedal

                       Swell
to Pedal Octaves