NEWS on the GROW

edited by Allen Zeyher

Alaska officials ponder
only road to Juneau

Juneau, Alaska, is currently accessible only by airplane or boat. The city of 31,000 is the capital of the state, but many Alaskans have never been there because of its remoteness. That could change a little if the state government’s plans for a 65-mile, $281 million highway survives in the federal transportation bill, The New York Times reported.

The highway would connect Juneau to the rest of the state’s highway system through Canada, but some residents vehemently oppose the idea. They like Juneau’s remoteness. If Alaskans wanted a more accessible capital, they could move it to Anchorage or another city, but several attempts over the past 40 years to do just that have failed. Even with the highway, the trip from Juneau to Anchorage would be 800 miles.

The planned highway is a proposal of Gov. Frank Murkowski and U.S. Rep. Don Young, who is influential in transportation policy as chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

Critics say the road would cost too much and possibly take funding away from other needed infrastructure projects. They also say the proposed alignment would threaten bears and other animals in the Tongass National Forest and would be dangerous in winter because of avalanches.

A draft environmental study is scheduled to be released this month. If the highway is not built, Juneau will remain the only state capital that cannot be reached by car.

ARTBA grassroots program
wins Telly Award

The American Road & Transportation Builders Association (ARTBA) has won the 2004 Telly Award for the multimedia training program it produced this year to help construction-industry workers across the nation get involved in federal legislative advocacy in support of increasing federal transportation investment.

The prestigious award, founded in 1979, annually showcases the best work of the most respected advertising agencies, production companies, television stations, cable operators and corporate video departments in the world.

More than 10,000 entries from all 50 states and five continents are submitted annually. On average, only about 7% of those entries are selected as winners. The Telly Awards are affiliated with the Center for Creativity, an organization that was founded in 1963 to research and study advertising, design, production and journalism.

ARTBA developed “Mobilize! A Grassroots Legislative Action Program for Transportation Construction Firms,” which includes a 10-minute DVD, CD-ROM, PowerPoint presentation and instructional booklet. It is believed to be the first multimedia package developed by a national transportation association to facilitate grassroots training.

The program provides information about how decisions made by Congress and the White House affect the transportation construction market. It also offers employees tips on how to get involved in helping shape federal policies that will benefit their future livelihoods.

ARTBA engaged Washington, D.C.-based LAI Creative Media for the production work, and the DVD features innovative grassroots techniques that have been used successfully by Harrisburg, Pa.-headquartered Stabler Cos./PSI and by Oldcastle Materials Inc., which is located in Washington, D.C.

The association distributed nearly 1,500 kits to companies throughout the country with the goal of bolstering activities in support of a significant increase in federal transportation investment as part of the TEA-21 reauthorization.

Cement demand up in 1st quarter

Portland cement demand increased 14.8% in February, followed by a 23.8% increase in March, according to The Monitor, published monthly by the Portland Cement Association (PCA). On a seasonally adjusted annualized basis, March’s reading of 125.9 mmt is a single-month record. Year-to-date consumption is tracking 12% above last year.

Blended cement was rather flat in March at -0.3%. Year-to-date consumption is down 12.3%.

Masonry cement consumption increased 28.3%, following significant gains in January and February. Year-to-date consumption is 21.3% above 2003 levels.

Cement and clinker imports continued to grow at 7.9% in February and 11.5% in March. Year-to-date, imports are up 13.7% from the first three months of last year.

PCA’s statistics reflect the latest data from several government-issued reports.

Environmental streamlining
a success in marshland highway

Involving all the interested agencies early allowed the Federal Highway Administration and the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development (LADOTD) to finish the environmental study of a replacement highway through a sensitive marsh area in just 44 months, according to a “Success Story” on the website of the American Association of State Highway & Transportation Officials.

The new Louisiana Rte. 1 will provide enhanced access to the vital oil, gas and fishing industries in the gulf area. It also will provide a more reliable evacuation route in case of a severe storm such as a hurricane while preserving the marshes that buffer the area from those gulf storms.

The new four-lane highway will replace an old two-lane structure. Instead of a lift bridge over Bayou Lafourche at Leeville, there will be a new fixed, high-rise bridge. The road will stretch 16 miles from Fourchon to Golden Meadow.

Ronald Ventola, chief of the Regulatory Branch of the New Orleans District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, credited the FHWA and the LADOTD for understanding the sensitivity of the habitat and being willing to adjust the construction plan. He also gave the resource agencies credit for understanding the need for the highway and the lack of good alternatives.

One accommodation to the habitat was the decision to use “end-on” construction except for the high-rise bridge near Leeville. According to the end-on construction method, the heavy equipment working on Rte. 1 will sit on a platform on concrete piles instead of in the marsh. A crane on the platform will drive piles and place segments of the viaduct bridge then move to the next platform and repeat the process.

The FHWA and the LADOTD also undertook a study of the effect on the marsh grasses of the shade from the new structure.
The marshes are already threatened. In the past 50 years, 1,500 square miles of Louisiana’s gulf wetlands have disappeared through erosion and subsidence. In 2000, while FHWA and LADOTD were preparing the Environmental Impact Statement for Rte. 1, another 164 square miles of the salt marsh suffered a severe dieback of marsh grass. With the continuing erosion of the coastal marshes, the existing highway has become increasingly susceptible to flooding during storms.

The agencies that participated in the planning included the U.S. Coast Guard, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the National Marine Fisheries Service, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and others.
Those involved in the process said the cooperation and mutual respect among the agencies proved the U.S. DOT could streamline the environmental review process with the least effect on the environment.

The new La. Rte. 1 will become part of the National Highway System in view of its intermodal link to the U.S. energy supply.

Protection Tip of the Month

Many eye injuries on construction sites result from flying wood dust and other debris like paint chips, dirt and concrete particles. Solvents, paints and adhesives used in construction can be toxic to the eyes and skin. Eyewashes and drench showers should be in place to mitigate such hazards at heavy construction sites. Equipment ranging from bottle eyewashes through portable stations to plumbed fixtures is available to meet the unique needs of your work site. And an updated American National Standard for emergency eyewash and shower equipment includes minimum performance requirements and installation, maintenance and training specifications. ANSI Z358.1-2004 may be ordered by contacting ISEA, 1901 N. Moore St., Suite 808, Arlington, VA 22209 or 703/525-1695 or visit www.safetyequipment.org.

HIGHWAY NAMES
IN THE NEWS

Association news >>>>

JCB Inc., Savannah, Ga., has restructured its North American sales and marketing: Bob Wright will head dealer development, remarketing, governmental sales and business planning; Bruce Narveson has been named vice president of sales for the Northeast region; Jan Nielsen is now general manager for the Central region; David Hahn has been named general manager of the Western region; Ron Fulmer is now general manager for Canada; and Gordon Henderson will continue as vice president of sales for the Southeast region.

Meris Gebhardt has joined the sales staff at Tracker Software Corp., Snowmass Village, Colo.

PBM Concrete, Rochelle, Ill., has merged into J.W. Peters, Burlington, Wis.

JLG Industries Inc., McConnellsburg, Pa., has made a binding offer to purchase Delta Manlift, a Tonneins, France, subsidiary of the Manitowoc Co. Inc. JLG also will acquire certain intellectual property and related assets that will allow it to relaunch selected models of Manitowoc’s recently discontinued Liftlux aerial work platforms at a later date. Scott Brower has been named vice president of marketing and market development at JLG.

Anthony E. Fiorato, president and CEO of Construction Technology Laboratories, Skokie, Ill., has been elected president of the American Concrete Institute, Farmington Hills, Mich.

The American Society of Safety Engineers, Des Plaines, Ill., has been named secretariat of the American National Standards Institute’s A10 Accredited Standards Committee on Safety Requirements for Construction and Demolition Operations, which aims at protecting workers and the public.

Vernon Wehrung, president of Modern Precast Concrete, Ottsville, Pa., has been elected chairman of the board of the National Precast Concrete Association, Indianapolis.

Tim Gillespie of Sika Corp., Lyndhurst, N.J., has been voted a fellow of the International Concrete Repair Institute.

Engineering news >>>>

C. Diane Matt has joined Women in Engineering Programs & Advocates Network as the first executive director.

Arthelius “Trip” Phaup, P.E., is relocating to Ralph Whitehead Associates’ Atlanta office to assume the duties of Transportation Group leader.

James Rowan has been named area manager for the Philadelphia office of Parsons Brinckerhoff Quade & Douglas Inc. Parsons Brinckerhoff has appointed Mary Clayton North Carolina area manager.

HNTB Corp., Kansas City, Mo., has appointed Mary Axetell senior vice president. The firm also has appointed four vice presidents: Uri Avin, Rhett Leary, Jim Riley and Mark Urban.

Ben Berra of Skelly and Loy Inc., Harrisburg, Pa., has been designated by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission as a qualified bog turtle surveyor in Pennsylvania.

Raymond F. Messer, P.E., has been named by Texas A&M University’s Department of Civil Engineering as the recipient of the Friend of the Department 2004 Award. Messer is president and chairman of the board of Walter P. Moore.

Horner & Shifrin Inc., St. Louis, Mo., has named Jamie McVicker, P.E., transportation/civil project manager, as an associate of the firm. Lisa E. Fennewald, P.E., also has been named associate and promoted to assistant project manager.

KS Engineers, Newark, N.J., has added Eugene W. Little and Eileen Della Volle as vice president of business development.
URS Corp., Seattle, has named Dave Alford manager of the company’s Pacific Northwest region.

Michael D. Spitz, P.E., has joined McMahon Associates Inc. as a senior project engineer in the firm’s Cape Coral, Fla., office.
At Carter & Burgess Inc., Kenneth Carper, P.E., CPSWQ, has joined as a vice president and unit manager of the Raleigh, N.C., Transportation Programs Unit, and James “Woody” Woodruff, P.E., has joined as a senior project manager in the Salt Lake City office.

by R.E. Coleberd

R. E. Coleberd, an economist and retired petroleum industry executive, is a contributing editor of The Diapason.

Introduction

The turn of the twentieth century was a watershed era in the rich and colorful history of pipe organ building in America. Enterprising and resourceful builders, armed with the new non-mechanical actions, rode the crest of a tidal wave of rapidly growing markets. New markets emerged and expanded at an exponential rate: mortuaries, fraternal lodge halls, theaters, and mansions of the wealthy. Tubular pneumatic and later electro-pneumatic windchests and detached consoles, with virtually unlimited configurations offering unprecedented mechanical and tonal versatility, redefined the King of Instruments and made it ideally suited to the space and location requirements of these new venues. In the church market, the cornerstone of the industry, demand reached a crescendo, both in the mushrooming urban industrial centers and in the rural and small-town hinterland, bolstered by record prosperity in industry and agriculture.

From today's perspective, it is perhaps surprising to learn that organbuilding was then considered to be in the mainstream of American business. The industry attracted entrepreneurial and mechanical talent as well as capital from local business development agencies and from wealthy individuals who purchased stock in an organ enterprise to add to their investments. New nameplates appeared and established firms expanded in response to the feverish demand. In addition to Aeolian, Austin, Kimball, Möller, Skinner and Wurlitzer, firms that rose to prominence in the ensuing decades, the industry comprised supply houses, notably pipemakers Gottfried and Pierce, whose voiced metal pipework made possible a plethora of small builders. Some firms prospered, weathering the storms of the inherently high risk business of organbuilding, while others flourished briefly and then disappeared, the victims of brutal competition, poor management, the ups and downs of the business cycle and natural disasters.

The Stevens Piano and Organ Company of Marietta, Ohio, a onetime music retailer and later reed organ manufacturer, built pipe organs for a brief period beginning in 1909 and probably ending in 1913. Today we know of only five Stevens church organs extant, all rebuilt, and one theater organ of record, long gone. Surely there were more. The historical importance of the Stevens firm lies not in the number of instruments they built, nor in any noteworthy mechanical and tonal innovations. Its significance rests, in the author's judgment, in the fact that it uniquely symbolized several of the salient characteristics of American organbuilding during this pivotal epoch.

Industry Markets and Trends

The early 1900s were an auspicious time to be in the business of building pipe organs. The decades before and after the turn of the century were a period of record prosperity throughout the economy and especially in agriculture. The wholesale price index for farm products in 1911 was 33 percent higher than in 1890 while the price of household furnishings, a measure of living costs, was up only six percent. In another comparison, real earnings of all employees (money wages factored by prices) rose 24 percent between 1900 and 1911, in contrast to a rise in the Consumer Price Index of only 13 percent during this period.1

Added to this were broad societal changes which translated into rising per capita real income and a sense of well-being. These included a decline in the birth rate and thus a reduction in the number of persons supported by a wage earner, a larger proportion of adults supporting themselves including, for example, wives and daughters freed from domestic chores by labor saving devices and seeking employment, and an increase in governmental services. Elsewhere, as Paul Douglas, an economist and former U.S. Senator from Illinois, noted in his epic work Real Wages in the United States, 1890-1926, "an extension of free education, of playgrounds and parks and of public health, all contribute to increase the real income of the working-class."2

Prosperity throughout the economy brought far-reaching changes in the market for keyboard instruments. Households "traded up" from the reed organ to the more expensive piano with its greater musical versatility. As Robert Gellerman notes in The American Reed Organ and the Harmonium: "The reed organ reached its peak of popularity about 1890. . . . After 1900 the piano, the player piano, and the phonograph began to replace reed organs as the musical instrument in the home."3

In the church market, farmers and small town folks, having satisfied their short-term standard of living, funneled streams of cash into their parishes, creating an enormous demand for a small, compact and functional pipe organ, often to replace a reed organ, what we now call the commodity segment of the market.4 This lush market was recognized early by Estey, Farrand & Votey, Hinners, Kimball, and Möller, manufacturers of reed organs, who were weary of the brutal competition in reed organs, a market that had peaked and leveled off while, conversely, the pipe organ market was growing like a tropical weed. John L. Hinners, the Henry Ford of the pipe organ, built an affordable instrument for the small church just as Ford manufactured an inexpensive motorcar for the masses.5 Other firms identified in the tracker segment of the commodity market were Barckhoff and Felgemaker, while in non-mechanical action Estey was initially prominent but soon virtually all builders were active. Coincidentally, these two actions overlapped; the Hinners peak year was 1911 but by then Estey was well established.

With the first public exhibition of non-mechanical action at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition in 1876, and especially after the advent of the Austin Universal Air Chest, even today a marvel of mechanical ingenuity, the days of the tracker were numbered.6 Builders became acutely aware that they must come up with a workable non-mechanical system or they could not compete and survive. They scrambled to find an answer. One solution was to solicit an individual experienced in non-mechanical action who was looking for an opportunity and who could be persuaded to join a firm and bring with him a time-tested system, thus avoiding the uncertainty and potentially high costs of untried and unsatisfactory mechanisms. Another was to preempt the scheme of a competitor with perhaps just enough minor changes to call it original so as not to provoke a patent infringement lawsuit. The emerging tubular pneumatic ventil windchests, broadly categorized as "lever" and "cone valve," were remarkably similar within each major type.

Reed organ manufacturers enjoyed virtually free entry into the pipe organ business. They already had an established brand name signifying product acceptance, catalog and music store distribution, and a labor force with woodworking skills. And now they had a steady supply of quality voiced metal pipework from eastern suppliers Gott-fried and Pierce. The importance of metal pipe suppliers to the fortunes of these soon-to-be pipe organ builders cannot be overestimated; without these sources, numerous nameplates would not have appeared. It was no coincidence that Hinners began building pipe organs in 1890, the year Gottfried began his pipemaking venture. From 1890 until the 1920s, Hinners bought all of its metal sets from Gottfried.

Collins Stevens

Collins R. Stevens (see photo) was born in Pittsfield, Vermont on October 29, 1848.8 His large family traced their ancestry to one Andrew Stevens, a soldier in the Revolutionary War who settled in Barnard, Vermont in 1777.9 Stevens was educated at the Royalton Academy where his musical training was under the direction of Professor C. L. Howe, a pupil of the legendary Eugene Thayer.10 In 1859 Stevens began an eighteen-year tenure with the Estey Organ Company in Brattleboro which would profoundly influence his future career.

In 1877, with his musical training and practical experience in the Estey factory, and perhaps mindful of the limited opportunities for an outsider in a family-owned business, Stevens elected to go into business for himself. He moved to Marietta, Ohio, an historic town at the confluence of the Ohio and Muskingum Rivers, founded in 1788 as the first settlement and headquarters of the Old Northwest Territory, where he opened a retail music store.11 Soon Stevens was well-known and respected in the community. He gave private music lessons, both vocal and instrumental, was active in several chapters of the Masonic Lodge, and was organist at the Congregational Church. His store featured sheet music and supplies along with such well-known makes of reed organs as Clough & Warren, Burdette, Wilcox & White, and New England. He also stocked Knabe, Lindeman & Sons, and James & Holstrom pianos.12

Stevens had, perhaps, considered the possibility of entering the reed organ manufacturing business. He was, most likely, kept informed of developments in the industry, in part by his acquaintance with Estey and also by traveling salesmen. He appears to have discussed this prospect with Orin C. Klock, a traveling representative of a New York piano house and described by the local press as "one of the best salesmen in the business."13 In 1892, local promoters, trustees of "The Bond Fund," offered $10,000 to the Lawrence & Son piano company of Boston to relocate to Marietta.14 This signaled to Stevens that money was available and he sprang into action. First, he--or quite possibly Klock--obtained an offer from Oswego, New York, to establish a reed organ factory there and then he successfully parlayed this into a matching offer from Marietta.15 Collins Stevens then journeyed to Chicago to call upon reed organ manufacturers there and apprise himself of the latest techniques which together with his Estey experience would enable him to begin production.16 The new enterprise, ostensibly a joint venture between Stevens and Klock, was initially reported to have been incorporated in West Virginia in 1892 as the Stevens & Klock Company with a capitalization of $36,000. The first instruments were built under the Stevens & Klock logo. Soon, however, the name was changed to the Stevens Organ Company, occasioned by "the retirement of the junior partner." Subsequently, the logo changed as the company was renamed (perhaps reorganized with new capitalization) the Stevens Organ and Piano Company.17 D. B. Torpy, whose extensive local business interests included glass, oil, flour milling and banking, was named president.18

The new venture was located in the former Exchange Hotel (see photo), a multi-story edifice built in 1831, and said to have been the first hotel built in the upper Ohio Valley.19 The site, on the banks of the Ohio River, afforded convenient water and rail transportation; however, it was vulnerable to river flooding which would prove to be a disaster in the years ahead.

The Stevens Reed Organ

As a measure of his shrewd entrepreneurial instincts, Collins Stevens wisely concluded that to enter the reed organ industry, already oversupplied and highly competitive, he would have to introduce a conspicuously new instrument to penetrate the market. Thus the Stevens Combination Reed-Pipe Organ, illustrated by Style F (see photo), an instrument radically different in appearance, alleged tonal character and mechanical features from conventional models, made its debut. The key features were a piano case, a 71/2-octave compass, and "pipe cells" (rectangular resonators) which combined with a "wide" reed were said to produce a pipe-like tone quality. Another feature was a Swell effect accomplished by rapid and reduced pedaling, instead of the customary knee levers, with pedals shaped exactly like a piano pedal. The Stevens catalog pointed to the "incomparable superiority over organs of the old style of construction."20 The Marietta Register lavishly praised the new organ, calling it "a truly meritorious instrument . . . the finest specimen of parlour furniture ever introduced" which "from a musical standpoint surpasses all organ effects and proves a very formidable rival to the piano."21

The business prospered, with production reportedly reaching over 600 instruments a year by the turn of the century.22 Nonetheless, the reed organ industry would shortly experience a persistent decline and spell the end for certain firms. The newfound household economic prosperity caused consumers to substitute the more costly piano, with its far greater musical capability, now that they could afford it.23 In retrospect, the innovative Stevens reed organ perhaps symbolized a bridge between the reed organ and the piano in the home and the reed organ and the pipe organ in the church.

A. G. Sparling

The career of Allan Gordon Sparling (see photo), was a leitmotif of the character and complexion of pipe organ building in the first half of the last century, illustrating many of the salient features of the industry of that period and the careers of individuals who worked in it. These included the emergence of new nameplates and the demise of others, the overriding importance of non-mechanical action in the fortunes of particular firms, and the mobility of labor, reflecting opportunities for skilled workers, particularly those experienced in the new windchest actions. Sparling was born on August 6, 1870 in Seaforth, Ontario, Canada.24 After a high school education, he began his long career in organbuilding, where he became known as an "action man," in 1892 as an apprentice with the Dougherty Organ Company (reed organs) in Clinton, Ontario. He reportedly worked ten hours a day for three dollars a week. In 1895, he moved to the Goderich Organ Company in Goderich, Ontario. In 1899, marking his entry into pipe organ building, he became shop superintendent of The Compensating Pipe Organ Company in Toronto.25

The Compensating Pipe Organ Company

The Stevens pipe organ venture, while not in a strict business sense a successor to The Compensating Pipe Organ Company, was directly linked to it in the person of Allan Sparling. In a quest for capital, The Compensating Company decided to relocate from Toronto to Battle Creek, Michigan in June, 1902, and in October floated a common stock offering of 7,500 shares, par value $10.00 per share, at an offer price of $3.33 per share.26 In January, 1903, a contract was awarded for a new factory building in the Merrill Park section of the city. In July that year, the legendary Ransom E. Olds of Oldsmobile motorcar fame, a large stockholder, was elected chairman of the board of of The Compensating Company.27 This firm advertised a combination reed and pipe instrument, the details of which are unknown, but in building conventional pipe organs the business initially prospered.28 Soon, however, it failed, and in early 1906 the firm declared bankruptcy.29 In May of that year, largely through the efforts of the Battle Creek Business Men's Association, the Lyon & Healy Company of Chicago purchased the Merrill Park facility, for a reported $35,000, and moved pipe organ production there, retaining Sparling as shop foreman. To celebrate their good fortune, the businessmen of Battle Creek held a banquet at the Post Tavern on November 1, 1906 in honor of Lyon & Healy officials.30

In 1907 Lyon & Healy delivered a two-manual ten-rank tubular-pneumatic pipe organ, Opus 1476, to the Marietta, Ohio, Unitarian Church (built in 1857), replacing a Jardine tracker instrument.31 In January, 1908, Lyon & Healy elected to discontinue pipe organ building in Battle Creek and sold the facility to the John F. Corl Piano Company which acquired it to combine production there from two plants, in Jackson and Grand Haven, Michigan.32 Following the completion of Lyon & Healy contracts in Battle Creek, reportedly in mid-February, 1908, Sparling remained there for several months to build a three-manual instrument, under the Lyon & Healy nameplate, for the new Independent Congregational Church, whose building was dedicated on October 11, 1908.33

During installation of the Lyon & Healy organ in the Unitarian Church in Marietta, Collins Stevens, ever alert to market opportunities, must have learned that Lyon & Healy was suspending pipe organ production and, most important, that Allan Sparling, a seasoned action man with a time-tested windchest, was available. This was the catalyst for Stevens' entry into the pipe organ business. Soon he and Sparling made a deal, for in January, 1909, a Battle Creek newspaper reported that Sparling was now with the Stevens Company in Marietta.34 He brought with him the Lyon & Healy tubular-pneumatic ventil windchest (see diagram p. 20), which became the Stevens chest and would also follow him to Cleveland when he joined the Votteler-Holtkamp-Hettche Company.

The Stevens Pipe Organ

On Friday evening, July 2, 1909, Professor Llewelyn L. Renwick played the dedicatory recital on the two-manual, eighteen-rank, Stevens pipe organ in the First Baptist Church of Marietta (see photos p. 20). Renwick was described in the local press as a teacher at the Detroit Conservatory of Music and the University of Michigan who had studied with Guilmant, Widor, Dubois and Wager Swayne.35 Assisted by local vocalists and instrumentalists, his recital (see program p. 21) featured several works well-known today as well as others seldom heard in recent times.36

As represented by the instruments in the First Baptist Church in Marietta and the First Methodist Church of Crooksville, Ohio (see stoplists), the Stevens pipe organs were typical of this period which was marked by higher wind pressures, the predominance of eight-foot pitch in the manual stops with nothing above 4' pitch, notably larger scales for diapasons, a 73-note Swell windchest reflecting the prominence of the 4' coupler in building an ensemble, and the ubiquitous Aeoline, an ultra-soft string stop on the Swell.

On the Marietta instrument, eighty percent of the manual stops are of 8' pitch. The scale 40 of the Open Diapason on the Great and the 42 scale Diapason on the Swell manual are, from today's perspective, enormous. They would afford power and fundamental but, most likely, not much harmonic development. As Robert Reich, former president of the Andover Organ Company comments, "In general, the presence of such a large scale Diapason on the Great signifies the intention that this stop alone would dominate the Great and other stops would be used alone or in combinations with each other but not to be expected to add much to the full organ."37 The rationale for the Gross Floete on the Great, which conceivably could have been a Doppel Floete, is perhaps explained by the large Diapason. As Audsley observes, "This valuable stop, when artistically voiced, may be introduced instead of a Second Open Diapason 8 ft., as it combines admirably with a large Open Diapason."38 As Charles McManis notes, this stop could be very useful, with more body than a Diapason and adding fullness to the treble.39

The influence of Estey and Lyon & Healy on Stevens and Sparling in the composition and voicing of this instrument is intriguing but virtually impossible to discern. Reich, a keen observer of Estey and other New England builders of this period, notes that the 4' Octave and Great Octave Coupler would offer something of a Chorus. However, he cautions that in some Estey organs the 4' Octave was a tepid Violina scale and thus was atypical of historic and contemporary definitions of this voice. Compounding the problem of tonal attribution is the fact that small builders of this era ordered metal pipework from suppliers; in Stevens' case information to date says Gottfried, most often without detailed instructions on voicing. Reich adds that the 4' Rohr Floete, if indeed it was a Chimney Flute as opposed to the widely used Harmonic Flute, suggests Estey, who used them on occasion. He observes that the augmented pedal division became common after the introduction of non-mechanical action, adding, "The Double Open Diapason, an expensive stop, provided a suitable foundation under the large scale Great Diapason, a luxury not always found on an organ of this size."40

Stevens' pipe organ venture prospered, and in the fall of 1911 The Diapason reported that he had sold his retail music store, described as "the largest music house in southeastern Ohio," to the Wainwright Music Company for $25,000 in order to devote his full attention to the pipe organ business "in which line his firm is having a very large trade."41 Two years later, however, the business apparently fell victim to the Ohio River flood of March, 1913, which devastated eastern Ohio and which also wiped out the legendary organbuilder Carl Barckhoff downstream in Pomeroy, Ohio. In Marietta, the river crested 23 feet above flood stage and 85 percent of the city was under water.42

The subsequent history of the Stevens business, apart from reportedly suspending operations after the flood, is largely unknown but evidently continued in some manner. Ever alert to developments in the market for musical products, Collins Stevens began manufacturing a phonograph called the "Alethetone." In 1919 the firm advertised as "Manufacturers of Pianos, Organs and Builders of Pipe Organs and Talking Machines," but the 1924 advertisement as "Phonograph Manufacturers" would appear to be more accurate.43 Collins Stevens died of heart disease on April 30, 1921 at the age of 72.44 The company went out of business in 1924 and the building was then occupied by the Sewah Sign Company. It was destroyed by fire in 1937.45

In 1911 Allan Sparling relocated to Cleveland, joining the Votteler-Holtkamp-Hettche Organ Company, perhaps in response to an offer or a more promising opportunity. His move was further indication of the mobility of pipe organ labor and especially the demand for workers with mechanical skills, the so-called "action men." He began building the tubular pneumatic ventil windchest he had used at Lyon & Healy and Stevens. The firm was renamed the Votteler-Holtkamp-Sparling Organ Company in 1914.46 Sparling continued until retiring to St. Petersburg, Florida in 1943.47 Charles McManis, who followed his five-year apprenticeship with Peter Nielsen in Kansas City with Holtkamp in the fall of 1941, remembered Sparling as a very quiet man of medium height and slender build who was then making consoles.48 Sparling subsequently returned to Cleveland where he died of kidney failure on April 27, 1950 at the age of 79.49

Specification

First Methodist Church, Crooksville, Ohio

Stevens Piano & Organ Company,

Marietta, Ohio

Manual Compass, CC to C4  61 notes

Pedal Compass, CCC to G 32 notes

Great Organ

                  8'             Open Diapason

                  8'             Melodia

                  8'             Dulciana

                  4'             Principal

Swell Organ

                  8'             Stopped Diapason

                  8'             Violin Diapason

                  8'             Aeoline

                  8'             Oboe Gamba

                  4'             Flauto Traverso

Pedal Organ

                  16'          Bourdon

                  16'          Lieblich Gedeckt (Polyphone)

Couplers

Swell to Swell 16'

Swell Unison

Swell to Swell 4'                              

Great to Great 4'

Great to Pedal 8'

Swell to Great 16'

Swell to Great 8'

Swell to Great 4'

                  Swell to Pedal 8'

Swell to Pedal 4'

Accessories

Expression Pedal                              

Crescendo          

Sforzando Reversible

Great to Pedal Reversible

Wind Indicator

Crescendo Indicator

Sforzando Indicator      

Specification

First Baptist Church, Marietta, Ohio

The Stevens Organ & Piano Co.,

Marietta, Ohio

Compass of Manuals, CC to C4, 61 notes

Compass of Pedals, CCC to G, 32 notes

 

Great Organ

                  8'             Open Diapason-Scale 40, metal

                  8'             Gross Floete, wood

                  8'             Dulciana, metal

                  8'             Melodia, wood

                  8'             Gamba, pure tin

                  4'             Octave, metal

Swell Organ (73-note chest)

                  16'          Bourdon, wood

                  8'             Open Diapason-Scale 42, metal

                  8'             Stopped Diapason, wood

                   8'            Salicional-70 per cent tin

                  8'             Aeoline, metal

                   4'            Rohr Floete, metal

                  8'             Orch. Oboe, reed

                  8'             Vox Humana, reed

Pedal Organ

                  16'          Open Diapason, wood

                  16'          Bourdon, wood

                  16'          Lieb. Gedeckt, wood (Sw)

                  8'             Flute, wood (ext)

                  8'             Gedeckt, wood (ext)

Couplers

Operated by tilting tablets over swell keyboard

Great to Pedal 8'

Great to Great 4'

Swell to Pedal 8'

Swell to Pedal 4'

Swell to Great 8'

Swell to Great 16'

Swell to Great 4'

Swell to Swell 16'

Swell to Swell 4'

Swell Unison Cancel

Pedal Movements

Balanced Swell Pedal

Balanced Crescendo

Sforzando Pedal--this pedal fills a long-desired requirement of the performer, as it   enables him to bring the Full Organ into instant use and as quickly back to its former combination.

Great to Pedal Reversible          

Adjustable Combinations

3 Pistons placed over draw stops making combinations of Swell Organ and Pedal

4 Pistons placed over Swell Manual operating combinations and releasing same

3 Pistons placed over draw stops of Great, making combinations for Great Organ and Pedal

4 Pistons placed under Great Manual, operating combinations and releasing same.

Accessories

Tremolo

Crescendo-Indicator

by R. E. Coleberd

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

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

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

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

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

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

Roosevelt

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

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

E. M. Skinner

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

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

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

Erzähler-Christ Church, Hartford, Connecticut

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

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

French Horn-Williams College, Williamstown, Masssachusetts

Kleine Erzähler-Fourth Presbyterian, Chicago

Gross Gedeckt-Second Congregational, Holyoke, Massachusetts

Corno Di Bassetto-Williams College, Williamstown,
Massachusetts

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

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

Orchestral Bassoon (16')-Skinner Studio, Boston

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

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

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

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

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

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

Aeolian Skinner and G. Donald Harrison

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

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

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

Aeolian

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

The Automotive Industry:

Dodge, Horace E., Detroit, Michigan

Dodge, John F., Detroit, Michigan

Firestone, H. S., Akron, Ohio

Ford, Edsel B., Detroit, Michigan

Kettering, C. F., Dayton, Ohio

Olds, R. E., Lansing, Michigan

Packard, W. D., Warren, Ohio

Seiberling, F. A., Akron, Ohio

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

Merchants and Manufacturers:

Armour, J. O., Lake Forest, Illinois

Cudahay, J. M., Lake Forest, Illinois

DuPont, Irenee, Wilmington, Delaware

DuPont, Pierre S., Wilmington, Delaware

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

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

Wrigley, Wm. Jr., Chicago, Illinois

Publishers:

Bok, Edward, Merion, Pennsylvania

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

Pulitzer, Mrs. Joseph, New York, New York

Scripps, W. E., Detroit, Michigan

Railroads and Public Utilities:

Flagler, John H., Greenwich, Connecticut

Harriman, E. H., Arden, New York

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

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

Steel and Oil:

Carnegie, Andrew, New York, New York

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

Rockefeller, John D., Pocantico Hills, New York

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

Schwab, Charles M., New York, New York

Teagle, Walter C., Portchester, New York

Wurlitzer

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

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

Holtkamp

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

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

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

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

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

Schlicker

The market for a neobaroque instrument embracing the
Orgelbewegung  movement was growing
and the established industry was caught with an image problem it could not yet
overcome, opening the door for yet another builder to rise to prominence and by
redefining  the instrument and
capturing a preferred position in a specific market, to achieve trophy status
under our definition. This was Herman Schlicker. His launching pad was the rebuild of the 1893 Johnson organ in the Grace Episcopal Church in Sandusky, Ohio in 1950 with the advice and encouragement of Robert Noehren.16
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  Schlicker would go on to etch his
definition of the pipe organ in bold relief: a comparatively severe instrument earmarked by a mild fundamental, a shift in the tonal balance with an emphasis on upperwork, and a reduction in the percentage of strings in the tonal resources as well as a preference for 18th-century strings of an almost soft principal timbre to the exclusion of romantic (pencil) strings.  Baroque style chorus and color reeds were featured in stoplists favoring early music, often suggesting the Praetorius mantra
(reflecting the influence of close friend and confidant Paul Bunjes).
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> 

To augment his tonal resources, Schlicker devised a
"Tonkanzell" electropneumatic windchest featuring a long channel with
the valve closing against a side rail as opposed to closing directly under the
toehole as in conventional pouch-action chests. This was designed to buffer aerodynamically the effect of the opening valve on the pipe foot and to approximate the wind characteristics of the slider chest.17 He was also an early advocate of the slider chest in nonmechanical construction and incorporated it in several instruments.

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

Fisk

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

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

Summary and Conclusions

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

Perhaps this 
builder will reflect the swing of the pendulum back to the romantic
tradition and the emergence of an eclectic instrument embracing the
contemporary as well as an historical perspective in liturgical music. This
builder, and the entire industry, must be able to confirm the stature of the
pipe organ within the myriad of musical options such as synthesizers,
sequencers and auto-accompaniment being promoted today. The King of Instruments
must be recognized as the legitimate and time-honored vehicle for musical
expression in corporate worship. In retrospect, the history of the instrument
in the American experience is perhaps closely tied to the fortunes of the
mainline denominations and the middle class, both increasingly challenged by
the sweeping socio-economic changes now evident in our society. Ethnic and
language characteristics of migrant populations mitigate against identification
with traditional religious groups and the realities of a rapidly changing
global marketplace impact the wage profile and employment structure of our
economy.  As one industry veteran
explained, the danger as we move into the 21st century is that "the
reorganization of religious expression makes the sounds of the pipe organ less
vital to 'religiousness,' hence less important."20 Our challenge is to
reverse this mindset and to assert that the pipe organ is central to musical
expression in religion and these other developments are ancillary to it.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>          n

Larry Palmer and Joyce Johnson Robinson

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

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

More than 2000 organ enthusiasts spent an exhilarating week in the City of the Angels, enjoying a well-paced, well-organized schedule of high-quality musical events. Los Angeles weather, cool and sunny, was a joy after a month of unusually abundant rain in Texas.

In a sense, each person experienced a unique convention, since many of the morning programs were given two or three times in order to accommodate the number of attendees, and afternoon activities had been pre-selected from the more than 60 workshops and competition rounds offered. Evening events usually accommodated the entire convention, the exception being Tuesday's three concurrent services of worship. Perception and reception of particular events, thus, were influenced by the particular sequence in which they were experienced. For instance, Monday morning's "green group" progression of three recitals provided a satisfying order, while Wednesday's schedule did not. 

Rather than a chronological, day by day report, here are some high points from "my" convention choices.

The Walt Disney Concert Hall and the first public performances on its Glatter-Götz/Rosales organ

Architect Frank Gehry's landmark building, new home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, is a striking and beautiful creation, immediately taking its place among America's most exciting concert halls. This 274 million dollar project pays apt tribute to American film maker Walt Disney with its decidedly whimsical and non-traditional architecture, and Gehry's organ case satisfies Lillian Disney's request that the organ not suggest a church. The controlled chaos of the pipe façade is the visual focus of the concert room; it is, however, well integrated into the hall, largely due to the use of the same wood, Douglas fir, for pipes, wall, and ceiling.

The 109-rank, four-manual organ is equipped with two consoles. In traditional case placement, the mechanical-action one was utilized for Joseph Adam's solo performances of Reger's Fantasia on BACH, Vierne's Naïades (played fleetly with impressionistic bravura), and Danse and Finale from Naji Hakim's Hommage à Igor Stravinsky. A movable, electric-action console, placed in front of the orchestra to the left of conductor Alexander Mickelthwate, allowed proper soloists' positions for organists Cherry Rhodes, in the program-opening premiere of James Hopkins' Concierto de Los Angeles, and Robert Parris, for the rarely-heard Concerto I in C Major of Leo Sowerby.

Architect Gehry was in attendance; so was the acoustician Yasuhisa Toyota, and the organ builders. A pre-concert stroll through Melinda Taylor's stunning gardens allowed an opportunity to view Gehry's rose-shaped fountain created from 8,000 hand-broken pieces of blue and white Delft china--his "Rose for Lilly," in honor of Mrs. Disney.

Solo Organ Performances

Mary Preston at the Glatter-Götz organ opus 2 (1998) in Claremont United Church of Christ

Dallas Symphony resident organist Mary Preston played a perfectly constructed program on a splendid mechanical-action organ in a church with sympathetic acoustical environment. At her third performance of the morning Ms. Preston elicited spontaneous (and forbidden) applause with a compelling opening work, Jean Guillou's dazzling, difficult, and complex Toccata; left us spellbound with the magical gossamer conclusion of Duruflé's Scherzo; showed both charm and considerable comedic ability in George Akerley's A Sweet for Mother Goose (six movements for organ and narrator based on familiar nursery rhymes); and displayed an absolutely magisterial rhythmic control in Jongen's Sonata eroïca. Program notes by Laurie Shulman pointed out a musical connection between Jongen and Messiaen, an analogy strengthened by the happily chirping birds heard through open windows on the right side of the church.  Human auditors were equally ecstatic at this stellar performance.

Martin Jean at the Dobson organ in the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels

Yale University's Martin Jean gave a riveting performance of the complete Dupré Passion Symphony as conclusion to the second half of the first concert attended by the entire convention crowd. Spanish architect Rafael Moneo's massive cathedral, dedicated in 2002, seats 3,000 people in a spacious contemporary edifice of restrained elegance. The four-manual, 105-rank Dobson organ fills this space with noble and powerful sounds, as expected from its impressive 32-foot façade principals and dominating horizontal reeds. The organ performance was all the more appreciated coming as it did after a choral performance of works by Byron Adams, Morten Lauridsen, and C. Hubert H. Parry horribly amplified through the Cathedral's public address system. (Seated in the last row, we heard the choral sounds through crackling speakers positioned in the downward pointing, trumpet-shaped central posts of the chandeliers; any hope of a balance with the accompanying organ was thereby destroyed.)

Samuel Soria at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels

Cathedral organist Samuel Soria played a prelude-recital before the Friday morning business meeting of the American Guild of Organists. Wanting to hear the Dobson organ from the best possible vantage point, we eschewed bus transport, walked the few blocks from the convention hotel to the cathedral, got there before the crowd, and chose an optimal seat in the left transept, diagonally across from the organ case. There the organ had splendid presence, character, and all the fullness one could want, qualities well illustrated in the playing of this talented young man. An appreciated tie-in to AGO history, his opening piece, Fanfare by past-president Alec Wyton, displayed the organ's horizontal reeds to fine advantage.  Atmospheric impressionism was equally well served in Herbert Howells' Psalm Prelude, set 2, number 1 ("De profundis clamavi ad te, Domine") with its steady crescendo from the softest stop to a mighty full organ climax, and the corollary retreat to near silence. But it was in Sowerby's fiendishly difficult middle movement from his Symphony in G ("Fast and Sinister"--listed in the program as "Faster") that Soria best displayed his formidable technique and sense of the work's architecture, giving a sensitive, secure reading of this quintuple-meter tour de force.

Christopher Lane at the NYACOP Finals in St. James Episcopal Church

One of three finalists to compete in the National Young Artists Competition in Organ Performance, Lane, a student at the Eastman School of Music, gave the only playing of the required Roger-Ducasse Pastorale to realize both its delicacy and forward sweep. With no lack of virtuosity in the culminating mid-section "storm" music, Lane also limned the delicate contrapuntal writing in this unique organ work from the French composer.  Judges Craig Cramer, Bruce Neswick, and Kathryn Pardee, deliberating at length, chose Yoon-Mi Lim (Bloomington) as first place winner. Dong-ill Shin (Boston) was the third contestant.  Additional required repertoire played by all three contestants included Deux Danses (Le miroir de Meduse and Le Cercle des Bacchantes) by California composer James Hopkins, and Bach's Toccata, Adagio and Fugue in C, BWV 654, the only organ work by the master included in the published convention program book. (This final competition round was heard by approximately one-tenth of the convention registrants.) One additional Bach piece, a chorale prelude from the Orgelbüchlein, Herr Christ, der ein'ge Gottes Sohn, BWV 601, was played simply and stylistically by Namhee Han, a guest organist who gave the pre-concert recital before ensemble amarcord's program at Wilshire United Methodist Church. Ms. Han holds the Ph.D. in applied linguistics and is currently studying for her MM in organ at UCLA.

Paul Jacobs at Westwood United Methodist Church

Young Mr. Jacobs, playing from memory, had no technical or musical limitations during his noontime playing of the monumental Reger Chorale-Fantasy on Hallelujah, Gott zu loben. It was refreshing to hear Handel's G-minor Organ Concerto (opus 4, no. 1) as a representative (albeit in transcription) of the conspicuously absent baroque organ repertoire. Jacobs' attractive program also included John Weaver's Toccata and the premiere of Margaret Vardell Sandresky's The Mystery of Faith. With four manuals and 153 pipe ranks, the Schantz organ could have recused the added 85 digital voices to the advantage of the whole.

Lynne Davis at First Congregational Church

American organist Lynne Davis has spent much of her distinguished career in France. For her pre-service recital before Evensong she played three works from the French organ repertoire: Vierne's Toccata in B-flat minor, opus 53/6, Marchand's Grand Dialogue in C, and Franck's mighty Choral in E Major on the immense composite organs of First Congregational Church, comprising five manuals, 339 ranks, and seven digital voices for a truly "surround sound" experience. It was playing of intensity with a distinctly personal approach; especially in the Franck, Ms. Davis presented a nuanced, individual, and ultimately satisfying reading of this Romantic masterwork. In the Marchand, the organ certainly provided commanding reeds for a classic French Grand Jeu, but seemed to be lacking a Cromhorne of sufficiently aggressive character to assure a proper balance for the accompanying voices.

Choral Performances

ensemble amarcord at Wilshire United Methodist Church

The five-man vocal ensemble, all former members of the St. Thomas Choir of Leipzig, filled several unique categories at this convention: they were the only Europeans engaged for the program, and they gave the only ensemble presentation of a work by J. S. Bach, a two-stanza chorale from the Kreuzstab Cantata, BWV 56, "Du, o schönes Weltgebäude." It received an especially eloquent performance, with words perfectly articulated, and the almost-painfully beautiful suspensions viscerally calibrated for maximum tension and release of the piquant harmonies. The particularly welcome program alternated early music (stark and athletic organum, supple Byrd motets, the familiar Tallis anthem If Ye Love Me, elegant in its noble simplicity) with 20th (and 21st) century choral works.  The concluding Gloria (2001) by Sidney Marquez Boquiren was performed with the singers in a circle.  Long-held dissonant chords built around an ostinato pitch, were sustained throughout with nearly-unbelievable breath control. Repeated text phrases swirled like incense to create an unforgettable shimmer of sound. From start to finish this was virtuoso music making, with not a microphone or speaker to mar the sound.

Dale Adelmann's setting of the Spiritual "Steal Away to Jesus"

Heard as the Introit for the Service of Evensong at First Congregational Church, this, and the equally exquisite singing of Herbert Howells' St. Paul's Service by the choirs of All Saints' and St. James' Episcopal Churches, conducted by Adelmann and James Buonemani, proved to be the full ensemble choral highlights of the convention for this listener. Of course, choirs need to be superb at these services to compare with the hymn singing of a thousand, or more, organists, most of them paying attention to punctuation, pitch, and proper vocal production. It makes for participatory experiences that remain in the memory.

New Music

David Conte: Prelude and Fugue (In Memoriam Nadia Boulanger) for Organ Solo. E. C. Schirmer No. 6216.

What a way to begin the first solo organ recital of a convention! A single pedal B-flat sang out gently. Then a theme, beginning with the opening intervals of Raison's (and J. S. Bach's) Passacaglia was spun into a 14-measure cantilena, after which the solemn five-minute Prelude built slowly, always above the continuing pedal point. The ensuing Fugue, its memorable subject carefully shaped by Ken Cowan at the recent Fisk organ in Bridges Hall of Music at Pomona College, fulfilled the promise of the Prelude, moving inexorably from duple to triple accompanimental figurations, and building to a full climax with pedal flourishes. A work worthy of Maurice Duruflé or Gabriel Fauré, and a fitting tribute, as well, to Boulanger, the great French teacher with whom Conte studied for three years early in his career.

George Akerley: A Sweet for Mother Goose for Organ and Narrator. Hinshaw Music, Inc. HPO3009

Winner of the 2004 Holtkamp-AGO award in organ composition, this charmer of a suite weds appropriately pictorial music with rhythmically notated texts for the narrator in a pleasure giving work that should find its way into many organ recital programs. (It is music for young persons of all ages.) "Little Bo-Peep" allows the organist to take off on an extended pedal cadenza, to be halted only by the irritated shout of the narrator. The head of a school instructs her charges on good behavior in "The Clock." There's Irish musical color aplenty in "The Cats of Kilkenny," and, after a recitation of the poetry, the organist plays a solo tone poem to illustrate the "Tale of Miss Muffet." Mathematical note groupings provide comment for "One, Two, Buckle My Shoe;" while the concluding movement ("The Fiddlers") provides chuckles of recognition with its ritornello based on the famous Widor Toccata. That it was so well presented by Mary Preston, with the ebullient Kathy Freeman as narrator, made for a memorable premiere indeed.

Denis Bédard: Duet Suite for Organ and Piano (Details: www.majoya.com)

Duo Majoya (Marnie Giesbrecht, organ; Joachim Segger, piano) gave a most unusual recital at Bel-Air Presbyterian Church. Two Canadian composers provided commissioned works for the Duo; each had some interesting musical ideas to communicate. The more accessible work was this Suite, comprising an Introduction, Fughetta, Menuetto, Romance, and Final, full of wit, good humor, and memorable melodies, many reminiscent of Poulenc's catchy and romantic voice. Three movements from Jeffrey McCune's Crossing to Byzantium, and his arrangement of Stravinsky's Danse infernale de roi Katschei from The Firebird, plus Joe Utterback's brief Images: A Jazz Set completed the program, which would have benefited from more textural variety, perhaps provided by a solo offering from each of these fine players. The Bel-Air organ, reconstituted from a Casavant instrument heavily damaged in the 1994 Northridge earthquake, now consists of 60 pipe ranks plus 91 digital voices, including both Cherubim and Seraphim hanging speakers: not a particularly happy marriage of sounds for this hilltop-sited church.

Other newly-commissioned and prize-winning works heard at convention events I attended included anthems by Byron Adams and Michael Bedford, works for instruments with organ by Mary Beth Bennett, Ian Krouse, and Erica Muhl, plus the Hopkins and Sandresky works mentioned previously, as well as an anthem by Williametta Spencer, premiered in the Ecumenical Protestant service, not on my schedule. 

Workshops

Organ Recordings from the Past, David McVey's self-effacing session on gems from the audio history of organ playing, was a model of effective, well thought-out presentation. All the requisite citations were listed in a spacious 8-page handout. The motto "Res ipsa locutor [The thing speaks for itself]" was borne out as McVey kept comment to a minimum in order to allow complete performances of works recorded by Widor (Andante sostenuto from his Gothic Symphony, committed to disc in 1932), Tournemire (Chorale-Improvisation on "Victimae paschali," 1930), Thalben-Ball (Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries, 1931), Sowerby (his Carillon, 1946), Schreiner (Vierne's Naïades, 1959), Biggs (Daquin's Noël grand jeu et duo at the 1936 Aeolian-Skinner organ of the Germanic Museum at Harvard), Fox (Bach's Passacaglia at Avery Fisher Hall, Lincoln Center, 1963), and Crozier (Dupré's Prelude and Fugue in G minor, opus 7/3, 1959).

Panel Discussion on the Disney Hall Organ, ably moderated by Jonathan Ambrosino, with organ builders Caspar von Glatter-Götz and Manuel Rosales, architect Craig Webb from Gehry Partners, and organ consultant Michael Barone.

An overflow crowd of 500 assembled to hear the whys and wherefores behind the inspiration and evolution of Gehry's unusual organ design for the new hall, and the challenges posed during the installation of the instrument. 

Extra-musical happenings

Television personality and actor David Hyde Pierce (of Frasier fame) brought along the necessary props: his organ shoes, a book of registrations copied down at some early lessons (numbers only, no stop names), a tattered copy of the Gleason Method. Pierce, who really did study organ with several noted teachers, took his audience through a quick course on ornamentation ("I don't care"), temperament, and various other organ-specific arcana. The huge crowd responded with almost-constant hilarity.

The Very Rev. Canon Mary June Nestler's sermon at Evensong moved with quiet humor from her own experiences as a voice student through some of the shared vicissitudes of the organist's profession (especially vis-à-vis relationships with the clergy) to a sound theological conclusion, and a prayer for peace.

Class Acts

Frederick Swann: organist and AGO president extraordinaire

Both for a very fine recital at the Crystal Cathedral, his "home base" during the years 1982-1998, and for his deft, unpretentious handling of the American Guild of Organists presidency, Swann deserves high accolades. Always in command of the music he played, never pompous or overbearing in his official actions, Fred serves as an exemplary leader for the national organization, and he represents the profession well with his high musical and personal standards.  Who would not love him for his one-sentence disposal of the listed "Presidential Remarks" at the national meeting? Kudos, as well, for his service as performances chair of the convention. The artists selected for the program were consistently top-notch.

The Convention Committee

To Dr. Robert Tall and his legions of hardy workers for the stellar planning and smooth organization of a first-rate convention, especially noted in the efficient and on time management of the necessary bus transportation. Mailing the convention program book (itself a work of art) more than a month before the actual event allowed attendees the opportunity for advance preparation and orientation. Bravi tutti!

Additional Observations

It was my first experience to see two hotel elevators (in the headquarters hotel, the Westin Bonaventure) marked with historic plaques, noting their use by actor (now Governor) Arnold Schwarzenegger in the 1993 movie The Terminator.

Crystal Cathedral organist Christopher Pardini's fine performances of The Joy of the Redeemed, composed by AGO founding member Clarence Dickinson, not only showcased the Aeolian-Skinner organ in the Cathedral's Arboretum, but served as an effective aural connection to an important figure in the Guild's history.

What a savvy idea to present this year's AGO President's Award to Craig Whitney, an assistant managing editor at The New York Times and author of the best selling book All the Stops. His enthusiastic and engaging writing about the world of organ music and its personalities has provided  some much needed popular awareness for the profession.

Peter Krasinski's masterful organ improvisation at the AGO annual meeting was based on the song "Chicago, Chicago," a theme selected and presented to him by improvisation committee chair Ann Labounsky. This served as a not-so-subliminal aural advertisement for the next national convention, to be held July 2-6, 2006.

 

It's Time To Tell the Story

by R. E. Coleberd

Introduction

My presentation, "The Economics of Pipe Organ Building: It's Time to Tell The Story," is the viewpoint of an economist, not a builder or a musician. It reflects my fervent conviction that organbuilders must be aware of the economic parameters which shape their business. I also strongly believe that builders must communicate the unique dimensions of their age-old craft to their constituents and clientele. This, in my judgment, will contribute to the support so essential for their well-being in the challenging years ahead. My goal was to present some facts and figures for the builders to think about, to discuss with their colleagues, and perhaps to use in presentations to prospective clients. As one builder has remarked: "Organbuilding is an anachronism in the American economy."1

Assumptions

We begin with certain assumptions which are critical to the discussion. First, we call attention to the fact that no two builders are alike. Each builder has his own vision of his enterprise, his product and his market. We also recognize that APOBA is a far more diverse group today that it was thirty years ago when it was comprised primarily of comparatively large firms building non-mechanical instruments.

Second, as an economist, I define organbuilding as an industry. By industry we mean a group of firms and suppliers engaged in building the instrument and its components on an ongoing basis. Organbuilding is categorized by the US Department of Commerce in the Standard Industrial Classification seven digit code 3931-211. In building a one-of-a-kind product, organbuilding differs radically from the traditional view of industry as comprised of a handful of relatively large firms manufacturing automobiles, appliances, pharmaceuticals and computers. Therefore, because of the unique highly individual and artistic nature of organbuilding as an age-old craft, some builders, perhaps particularly small shops, view organbuilding as no more an industry than sculpting, portrait painting, or even piano concertizing.

Third, organbuilding is a business. The firm is subject to business realities and must conduct its affairs in accordance with them. These include balance sheet and income statement guidelines and property and contract requirements. Unfortunately, some builders, perhaps those with what one prominent executive described as a "cavalier" attitude, sometimes don't pay careful attention to these realities. We also assert that organbuilding is subject to broad economic forces which include wage rates in local labor markets and overall market determined prices for materials and components. In addition, organbuilding is critically influenced by the general economic climate of depression and inflation as history so forcefully demonstrates.

Fourth, in economic parlance, the structure of the industry is a quixotic example of two types of competition. Organbuilding is and always has been a highly competitive industry. When measured by the number of firms and ease of entry it is similar to textbook examples of pure and perfect competition. In a survey I made for a paper years ago entitled "The Place of the Small Builder in the American Organ Industry," one builder, Fritz Noack, reported that his capital cost for entering the trade was $200.00.2 Theoretically, any builder can build the same stoplist, pipe scales and casework. In practice, however, sharp differences exist between builders and instruments. Therefore, in the nature of the product, a specification good in which no two instruments are alike, organbuilding is more like a product differentiated oligopoly. Competition reflects many factors: price, windchest action, level of workmanship, prior installations, reputation, endorsements and status seeking by the organist and the buyer.

Fifth, the concept of market segments is useful. Churches, educational institutions, theaters, private dwellings, lodge halls, and funeral homes have been identifiable markets for pipe organs over the years. Each of these markets has its own demand determinants. Membership and giving would be key determinants for the church market. For concert halls and art museums, major private gifts would be all important. The builder has no direct influence on these demand determinants which critically shape the outlook for his business.

Sixth, we acknowledge that some builders don't recognize themselves as part of an industry insofar as there are interests and concerns common to all participants. Macroeconomic demand determinants don't interest them. Nor is the idea of competition, in a broad sense, viewed as particularly relevant to their enterprise. Their clientele wants their instrument, not just an organ. In an analogy, people don't go to a piano recital, they go to hear Andre Watts. This builder's clientele is perhaps most often a individual, not a committee, and quite likely a prominent academic who will make the choice of builder. Most important, funding is taken for granted. It is presumed that the buyer is authorized to pay whatever price is required to obtain the chosen instrument.

This phenomenon reflects the close symbiotic relationship between the instrument, the performer, and his employer. The instrument is what accords status to the organist's church or school and himself, and is the way he obtains recognition among his peers. It is his ego alter. This has always been true and always will be. It was, no doubt, the case with the Hooks, certainly so with Roosevelt, Skinner, Aeolian Skinner and Holtkamp. The role of brand preference among competitively sensitive and socially conscious pipe organ buyers was supremely illustrated with WurliTzer in the theater market and Aeolian in the mansions of the wealthy. Those familiar with my articles in The Diapason know that I have developed and continue to reiterate the theme of invidious comparison and competitive emulation (Thorstein Veblen) as a very real phenomenon in the organ marketplace.

Economics

The salient factor in organbuilding and the one that distinguishes it as an industry from all others is the labor intensive nature of the product. This overriding factor largely explains the postwar history of the industry and will determine its future. We would argue that 80 percent of the value added in building a pipe organ is labor. Value added by manufacture is the difference between the cost of of inputs--raw materials, semifinished components and labor (including fringe benefits)--and the sale price. Industries with sixty percent or more value added by labor are considered labor intensive. Among them are products of the so-called "needle trades"--for example, robes and dressing gowns, 64 percent labor and curtains and draperies, 68 percent labor. For leather gloves and mittens the value added by labor is 84 percent. Aircraft and shipbuilding are other obvious examples of very high labor input.3

In contrast, capital intensive and technologically advanced industries, enjoy low labor costs even with high wages and benefits. Examples of low labor cost are: Primary Copper, 18 percent; Electronic Computers, 27 percent; and Household Appliances, 25 percent.4 The implication of high productivity, high wage industries for organbuilding is that they determine the wage structure of the national as well as the local economy. In a full-employment economy such as ours, organbuilders face enormous pressures to pay competitive wages or face high turnover with the resulting disruptions, delays and cost overruns. The high cost of organbuilding mirrors the labor input and wage rate; when wages go up, costs go up in lock step. The wage pressures of a full employment economy are a direct threat to cost containment in organbuilding.

The availability of low-wage labor explains why the Möller Company in Hagerstown, Maryland was able to operate for decades as America's largest builder. With 350-400 factory workers, Möller shipped at least one complete instrument every working day in the 1920s and again in the 1950s. Hagerstown, out on a shelf in western Maryland, was bypassed by prosperity and suffered for years from relatively high unemployment. Möller, therefore, could obtain all the workers it required at comparatively low wages. Conversely, no organbuilder could have operated in Detroit or Pittsburgh, because they could never have paid the union wages of auto workers and steel workers and remained competitive. 

Organbuilding is similar to the performing arts in the preponderance of labor cost to total cost and the absence of productivity increases. A widely-acclaimed study, Performing Arts: The Economic Dilemma, disclosed that the share of salaries of artistic personnel to total expenditures was 64% for major U.S. orchestras and 72% for the London Symphony Orchestra.5 The principal conclusion of this authoritative work, commissioned by the Twentieth Century Fund and written by Professors Baumol and Bowen of Princeton University, was that the arts operate within the framework of a complex economy. This coupled with the inability to achieve a sustained increase in productivity makes even higher costs an inevitable characteristic of live performance. So it is with organbuilding.

The predominant role of labor input in organbuilding is illustrated in Table 1 where we compare the number of man-hours necessary to fabricate representative components of a pipe organ with those required to manufacture an automobile. For pipe organs, four key components: an 8' Diapason, 61 pipes, voiced, an 8' Trumpet, 61 pipes voiced, a 16' Bourdon, 32 pipes, voiced, and a pitman action windchest of five stops are portrayed. The contrast is indeed striking.

Rising Cost

The second dominant characteristic of organbuilding is the persistent rise in cost over time. This is illustrated for the key components over the last twenty years in Table 2. More important, when we compare the rise in cost of organ components to the producer price index for the whole economy, the increase is greater for organbuilding as shown in Table 3. This argues that in the event inflation reappears in the US economy, the cost of organbuilding will increase at a higher rate than reflected in the producer price indexes.

What are the implications of rising costs for organbuilding? Fifty years ago, in 1948, you could buy a three-rank Möller Artiste for $2975. Today, you could scarcely buy one set of pipes below 4' pitch for this amount of money. Using the church market as a point of reference, will there be a pipe organ industry ten years from now, or twenty years down the road? To answer this question we hark back to our major premise that when church giving is rising in proportion (or greater) to the increase in income generated by a growing economy, the market scarcely blinks at rising pipe organ costs. This relationship underscores the ongoing fact that it isn't the price of an organ that is the primary determinant of demand, but income, i.e., having the funds to buy them.

In 1900 the price of a Hinners tracker organ was about $125 per stop. Recall that with a force of 90 workmen in Pekin, Illinois, Hinners was building three instruments a week. Remember also that per capita real income in agriculture between the Panics of 1897 and 1907 was the highest in history. Farmers paid less for what they bought and got more for what they sold. With their short-term living standard satisfied, they pumped rivers of cash and pledges into the churches who bought Hinners, Barckhoff, Felgemaker and Estey organs. These were four builders who, with standard specifications, capitalized on this huge rural market, what we have called the commodity segment of the market. By the end of the Hinners era, ostensibly the tracker era, this firm counted over three thousand instruments in more than 40 states and in several foreign countries.6

The Electronic Organ

The critical confluence of cost and revenue in the demand for pipe organs is illustrated in the recent history of the electronic organ. Another major premise in this discussion is that the electronic church organ is a substitute for the pipe organ. To verify this hypothesis we obtained the annual sales of the Allen Organ Company for the last twenty years and plotted them against the cost of our key pipe organ components as shown in Figure 1. The results are astounding! An almost perfect fit, a statistician's dream; you could scarcely ask for a closer correlation. The demand for the electronic church organ as a function of the price of a pipe organ illustrates the economist's concept of cross-elasticity of demand. The higher the price of a pipe organ the greater the demand for the electronic substitute. Furthermore, based upon these correlations, we could write a regression equation that says if this relationship holds, for every dollar increase in the price of a pipe organ there will be a certain increase in the demand for the electronic church instrument.

Church Giving

If we accept the premise that the electronic church instrument is a substitute for the pipe organ, we perhaps can argue that the real culprit is the failure of church giving to keep pace with pipe organ costs in recent decades unlike earlier periods. Statistics compiled by empty tomb inc. for 27 Protestant denominations for the period 1968-95 and published in "The State of Church Giving," reveal that church giving has "fallen" dramatically.7 To be sure, in a growing economy per capita personal disposable income has increased as have contributions for congregational finances. However, the percentage of income contributed has declined steadily and the increase in dollar giving is nowhere near the year to year increase in income. Whether measured by the percent of income given in 1968 or the yearly income increase, the amount given for congregational finances would have been $2.5 billion more in 1995 if these percentages had held. Two and a half billion dollars would buy a lot of pipe organs. If we view church giving within the household budget as a concept of market share, we see that the collection plate has taken a back seat to other expenditures: sporting goods, toys, pizza, and travel, among others. John and Sylvia Ronsvalle of empty tomb point out that in 1992, church giving was only 23 percent of total leisure spending. They attribute this to the pervasive hedonistic consumer-driven culture of our time.8

The implications for the church market from the giving levels we have just illustrated would appear to be ominous. If we assume costs will rise and we couple this with the diminishing rate of church giving, we will then reach a point at which, theoretically, the price per stop for a pipe organ will cause the demand to drop off sharply, if not virtually disappear. What is this point? We don't know, but we could be getting close to it. Can we say there is no demand at $30,000 per stop; perhaps not even at $25,000 or $20,000?

Not all builders believe the figures for church giving are relevant to the demand for pipe organs or that projected increases in price per stop will spell the end of the industry. They view the King of Instruments not as a utilitarian device to accompany church services but as an art form akin to a fine painting. Thus a "high end" market will continue to exist because sophisticated, discriminating--and wealthy--individuals will always select the instrument of the ages, in the same spirit in which they build their art collections--without regard to cost. These builders hold that the industry, now numbering many small shops in addition to the few larger builders, has adjusted and stabilized to this level of output, as evidenced by the demise of Möller, a builder for the commodity market which has now been almost totally preempted by the electronic instrument. A good illustration of this new paradigm is the firm of Taylor and Boody in Staunton, Virginia who by choice build only thirty to thirty-five stops per year.9

Pipe Organ Imports

Imported instruments have been a significant part of the American pipe organ scene since WWII. Large instruments by Rieger, Flentrop and Von Beckerath plus smaller ones from a host of other European builders were the cornerstone of the tracker revival in this country. They were often viewed as a status symbol by the organist profession who proclaimed "if it's foreign it's finer." The principal source of offshore instruments today is our northern neighbor Canada. The sensitive issue of Canadian imports, based primarily on the insurmountable cost advantage afforded the Canadian builder by the exchange rate, is not a new one. In February, 1931, Major Fred Oliver, veteran of the Canadian Expeditionary Force in WWI and husband of Marie Casavant, acknowledged before the US Tariff Commission that Canadian-built organs were less expensive than American instruments. He argued that clients bought them because they liked them better than the domestic product. Could they have liked them better because they were less expensive?

For many years organ imports, including those from Canada, were not a problem. American builders were busy with healthy backlogs and the Canadian share of the market was unobtrusive and not growing. Nonetheless the threat was lurking and today, in the author's judgment, it is a major one. Based upon the dollar value and the number of instruments imported from Canada in the past two decades, I, as an economist, view the Canadian competition as a significant threat to the American organ industry. I also feel strongly that the US buyer should be apprised of the implications of a decision to buy a Canadian-built organ.

Foreign trade statistics published by the Bureau of the Census, US Department of Commerce show that in the 1980s Canadian builders exported an average of 43 instruments per year to the US, their primary market, valued at $3.8 million per year and representing two-thirds of total imports. For the eight year period 1990-97, Canadian imports averaged 19 instruments per year valued at $4.2 million per year. In the most recent years the numbers are: 1995, 21 instruments, value $5.2 million, 76 percent of total imports; 1996, 24 instruments, $4.5 million value, 75 percent of all imports; and 1997, 22 instruments, $5.1 million total value representing 70 percent of total foreign-built organs. Table 4 portrays the value of Canadian imports in US dollars, as declared at the point of entry, for the years 1975-97 and the percent of dollar imports accounted for by Canada and Netherlands-Germany. The dollar figure is a better indicator of the import threat than the number of instruments for the same reason that the number of voiced stops is more representative that the number of instruments in that it more accurately reflects industry activity. One instrument of 100 stops is in terms of output larger than eight instruments of ten stops each. These figures understate the impact of Canadian imports which significantly influence the price structure of the organ market, making it difficult for domestic builders to compete, especially for the larger and more prestigious contracts.   

The Canadian import threat exists, primarily perhaps, for the larger firms in non-mechanical action and in situations where a price sensitive committee, as opposed to an individual, often makes the decision. Conversely, some builders, chiefly smaller firms with a guild versus business mentality, do not view Canadian competition as a threat. To them price advantage is not a pivotal factor in choice of builder in situations where the instrument and the builder are highly individualized in the unique and incomparable nature of their work.

The problem results from coupling the 80 percent labor cost of organbuilding with the Canadian dollar which has hovered around 70 cents in recent years and fell to 63.7 cents in August, 1998. If we assume that a representative wage in organbuilding in the US today is $12.00 per hour, for an American builder to compete with the 70 cent Canadian dollar his workers would have to take a pay cut to $8.40 per hour. When committees elect to purchase a Canadian-built organ this is precisely what they are asking the hapless American workers to do. Perhaps committees should ask themselves whether they would be willing to work for $12 an hour, let alone $8.40?  Furthermore, it is unethical and patently unfair for a committee to accept an offer from an American builder to spend hundreds of dollars flying them across the country to see installations, only to lose the contract to a Canadian builder solely on the basis of price.

Keep in mind also that the Canadian market is hermetically sealed against the American builder. Except for one project by Schoenstein, it has been impossible for an American builder to get work in Canada. This is attributed to the cultural protection issue. Canadians are paranoid about the "invasion" of their culture by American media and have taken steps to block American magazine sales and satellite TV programming in direct violation of the rules of the World Trade Organization. One government official hysterically compared stores selling satellite dishes to dope pushers.10 Perhaps if the Canadians are so touchy about their culture we should return the favor and talk about protecting our rich culture in pipe organ building; the legacy of Hilbourne Roosevelt, Ernest Skinner, Donald Harrison and Walter Holtkamp!

The author is not alone in his analysis of the present and future impact of Canadian competition on the outlook for American organbuilding. Erik Olbeter, project director of the prestigious Economic Strategy Institute in Washington, D. C. agrees that US firms cannot indefinitely absorb the exchange rate differential in the labor cost basis of organbuilding. He adds that since no US builders have been able to sell into the Canadian market, this is a powerful argument in support of the domestic firm.11

There are, of course, two sides to every question. Canadian builders enjoy a positive image, a distinguished history and can point to many fine instruments in this country. Therefore, if the client elects to recognize these factors in choosing a builder and to disregard the implications for American builders, that is their business. But at least they ought to be aware of what they are doing!

Predictions

In conclusion, let me turn to my crystal ball, cloudy though it is, and make some observations and predictions about pipe organ building in America in the coming years. Remember that economists can't resist the temptation to forecast; it's a congenital defect in the profession. You are free to disagree with me and I acknowledge that many of you will elect to do so.

First, pipe organs will always be built, and organbuilding activity, in its many forms, will continue indefinitely. The level of output and the composition of the industry is impossible to predict and I wouldn't hazard a guess. Long-established major builders have previous instruments to rebuild, update and relocate. Small tracker shops may build one instrument a year. Builders of all sizes may move into service work to maintain cash flow while awaiting an order for a new instrument or a rebuilding project. If the industry is defined by total employment this will include suppliers and service firms.

Second, it is clear to me as an economist that a reversal of the persistent decline in church giving is critical to the outlook for the industry. As the King of Instruments, the pipe organ must be recognized as a symbol of the broader dimensions of culture throughout the ages, bridging nations and generations, an essential component of religious symbolism vital to the experience of corporate worship, and the object of sacrificial devotion by churchgoers who stand in opposition to the hedonistic consumer-driven culture of our time. Forbes Magazine, highlighting the resurgence of popularity of mechanical watches over quartz watches pointed out: "An unscientific survey of several dozen watch experts produced one common thread: mechanical watches have soul, have workmanship, have intrinsic value that cannot be found in quartz timepieces. It is this fact, and not a Luddite, reactionary longing for the old days, that makes these watches so popular."12 So it is with the pipe organ. Like a diamond, the high cost of a pipe organ is what makes it so distinctive and so valuable.

Third, the perception of an organ today in the eyes of many churchgoers exacerbates the cost problem. The instrument has to be large and, therefore, expensive. A pipe organ must exert a commanding presence in the sanctuary as reflected in the console of a nonmechanical organ, one with three or more manuals and lots of drawknobs, and in the totality of a mechanical instrument. Above all, the sound must project power, majesty and grandeur, as evidenced by the popularity of the 32' pedal reed today.

Fourth, each builder faces a management challenge of how large an operation his market will sustain and the make-or-buy decision with every project. On an emotional level the builder must continually ask himself whether he is a businessman or an artist and how to balance these all too often conflicting interests. Above all, he must resist the temptation to cut prices to stay in business. This is the road to ruin. As they say in the ocean shipping business, those who live by the rate cut die by the rate cut.  Organbuilding must live in the real world of cost and revenue; there are no "sugar daddies" out there willing to put money into a failed pipe organ business because of the romance of it.

Fifth, supplemental electronic components are here to stay, primarily because they are the only way to keep costs down. The danger, and perhaps it is a real one, particularly for small instruments, is that the electronic organ comes to define the pipe organ whereas it must be the other way around. 

Sixth, the Canadian dollar will remain weak for many reasons. Canadian organ imports will perhaps grow and command a greater share of the market for new instruments. In the author's judgment, the current import levels already pose a serious threat to the future of the American industry.

Seventh, the greatest threat to organbuilding in the US, or anywhere, is inflation. I have already suggested that with current levels of church giving there is no market at $30,000 per stop. If our economy were to experience three to five years of double-digit inflation, organbuilding on a sustained basis would largely disappear. Church contributions would continue to erode as our aging populace struggled to make ends meet, the demand for social services by churches would rise, and the electronic organ would preempt the church market. Milton Friedman, the widely-quoted economist and celebrated Noble laureate told Forbes Magazine in December, 1997 that he expects a period of much higher inflation sometime in the next ten to twelve years. Let's hope Friedman is wrong.13

Notes

                        1.                  Telephone interview with George Taylor, March 15, 1998.

                        2.                  Coleberd, Robert E. Jr., "The Place of the Small Builder in the American Organ Industry," The Diapason,Vol. 57, No. 12, November, 1966, p. 45.

                        3.                  1995 annual survey of manufactures, US Department of Commerce, Economics and Statistics, Bureau of the Census, Table 2, Statistics for Industry Groups and Industries: 1995 and 1994, pp. 1-10--1-27.

                        4.                  Ibid.

                        5.                  Baumol, William J. and William G. Bowen, Performing Arts--The Economic Dilemma, Copyright 1966, The Twentieth Century Fund, Inc., First M.I.T. Press Paperback Edition, August, 1968, Second Printing, December, 1977, p. 145.

                        6.                  Coleberd, Robert E. Jr., "Yesterday's Tracker--The Hinners Organ Story," The American Organist, Vol. 43, No. 9, September, 1960, pp. 11-14.

                        7.                  Ronsvalle, John L. and Sylvia Ronsvalle,The State of Church Giving through 1995, Champaign, Illinois, empty tomb inc., December, 1997, passim.

                        8.                  Table 18: "Combined Per Capita Purchase of Selected Items Compared to Composite Per Member Church Giving in Constant 1987 Dollars" in John L. Ronsvalle and Sylvia Ronsvalle, The State of Church Giving through 1994, p. 61.

                        9.                  Taylor, op. cit.

                        10.              Olbeter, Erik R. "Canada's Cultural Hangup," Journal of Commerce, April 3, 1997, p. 6-A. See Also "Cultural Struggle" The Journal of Commerce, July 2, 1997, p. 8-A. Craig Turner, "Canadian Culture? Whatever It Is, They Want To Preserve It," Los Angeles Times, March 30, 1997, Section D, p. 1, 12. Joseph Weber, "Does Canadian Culture Need This Much Protection?," Business Week, June 8, 1998, p. 37.

                        11.              Telephone interview with Erik Olbeter, Economic Strategy Institute, Washington, D.C., June 6, 1997.

                        12.              Powell, Dennis E., "A Glance At Some Of The Timepieces That Made History," Forbes FYI, November, 1997, p. 152.

                        13.              "Milton Friedman at 85," Forbes, December 29, 1997, pp. 52-55.

John Bishop

The convention of conventions
Conventions are big business. Tens of thousands of like-minded people gather in huge hotels and exposition halls for orgies of sales, parties, seminars, and exhibitions. Poking around the Internet, I found that the Specialty Equipment Marketing Association expects about 130,000 attendees at their 2007 convention to be held ten days from now at the Las Vegas Convention Center. SEMA (serving the specialty automotive industry since 1963) deals with custom equipment for cars and light trucks. They are planning a seminar for the 2007 convention titled Mean and Green: Bio-fuel Hummers, Fords, and off-road machines, where they will be exhibiting a 700-horsepower Hummer powered by bio-fuel. They’re not telling what the fuel mileage will be—500 bushels-per-hour? It isn’t easy being green.
In early December, the Las Vegas Convention Center will host the NFR (National Finals Rodeo) Cowboy Christmas Gift Show. They expect 20,000 attendees. Last March the Nightclub and Bar Convention & Trade Show attracted 38,000 people, and in August 13,000 people attended the convention of the American Pool Players Association at the Riviera Hotel in Las Vegas.
Given Las Vegas hotel prices, the cost of travel and food, and the propensity of conventioneers to consume various commodities with unusual gusto, the amount of money involved in these huge shows is incomprehensible. How do they manage the logistics? Imagine the swirl at the hotel check-in desk when 50,000 people are trying to check in on the same day.
Last week the American Institute of Organbuilders gathered at the Valley Forge Conference Center and Radisson Hotel in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania. The Specialty Equipment Marketing Association has about a ten-year head start in membership development. Founded in 1963, their convention is now among the largest in the country. The AIO was conceived in 1973 and chartered in 1974. I don’t know the exact count, but I believe that around 250 of us attended, and to be truthful, I doubt we’ll get into tens of thousands any time soon.
This seems like a small group, but friends who are not involved in the organ world are amazed when I tell them I’m going to a national convention involving several hundred organbuilders. These are the people who say, “I didn’t know there were any of you left.” I’m feeling pretty good, how about you?
Any convention has an exhibit hall in which vendors show their wares to members of the trade. There were almost 25 firms exhibiting at the AIO convention, including companies that provide leather, specialty tools and hardware, keyboard restoration, organ pipes, console parts, and of course, solid-state control systems. The exhibits hall is open for several hours each day, especially in the evening when it becomes the locus for the convention’s social life. After dinner people swirl through the exhibits, run into old friends, make new friends, and head off to the hotel bars in small groups.
One benefit of this tradition is the dispelling of myth—I’ve been doing business with suppliers to the organbuilding trade for 30 years, and it’s fun to meet those with whom you’ve spent countless telephone hours. You get to form a personal connection with the person who answers the phone at the order desk, and to discuss technical problems in detail with the engineers who design and build the equipment. Over the years I have found great value in knowing the people I talk with on the phone. These relationships are unspeakably valuable when I’m calling from a job site where wedding limos are showing up outside and the organ is acting up.
I got active in organbuilding in the late 1970s just as solid-state controls for pipe organs were entering the market. I had my start in workshops that specialized in tracker-action organs, and my immature understanding didn’t allow much space for digital equipment. I knew many people who resisted or ignored using it. I was fortunate to work for several years along side an old-timer who had worked personally next to Ernest Skinner (in fact, I assumed the care of two Skinner organs he had helped install in the 1920s and had maintained ever since!) who said, “that stuff is for you young guys.”
In the ensuing generation, many if not most organbuilders have had at least some experience with solid-state equipment, and many use it exclusively. Years ago, I remember being easily bewildered. I would stand trembling with my hand on the switch before turning on a system for the first time and would be looking for smoke, unfairly (to both the supplier and myself) assuming that there would be smoke to see. I handled the circuit boards as though they were poisonous, and while I understood what they were supposed to do, I had no idea how they did it.
Enough time has passed that we’ve been through generations of solid-state equipment. Looking back, the earliest systems seem pretty primitive. The companies offering them went to great trouble to make the pin-boards (rows of pins where you connect the wires from the console controls to the system) look as much like traditional pipe organ equipment as possible. Later, multiplexing was introduced—logic-based systems that reduce organ music to data streams that allow the information to be passed from console to chamber using a single wire. In my memory, multiplexing was the first scary leap. Simply put, the system is based on a clock that scans all the console outputs a prescribed number of times per second and sends a code along the wire to the chamber where it is “unscrambled” by another clock. For someone who started with trackers, it was hard to imagine that it would work or that it could be reliable. At about that time, there was a Star Trek movie during which the USS Enterprise was under reconstruction and the famous Transporter was malfunctioning. When a crew member was “beamed” up or down, the machine failed to unscramble the molecules accurately, resulting in horrible scrambling of human tissue. Would this happen to our organ music?
At first bad things did happen. One system I worked with had a clock that was going too slow, resulting in herky-jerky organ music. And lightning strikes were death. I was caring for a couple large organs that had new multiplexing systems, and I sweated out thunderstorms with good reason.
Now we are getting used to software-based systems in which the organbuilder connects the console controls (keyboards, stop knobs, piston buttons, swell shoes) to rows of pins, and using software determines which pin does what. After the organ is finished, you could decide to change divisional pistons into generals by updating the software through e-mail.
It’s fun to think back a few generations to the time when electro-pneumatic combination actions and pitman chests were introduced. Any good modern organ builder knows the symptoms of trouble in a pitman chest. But when those chests were first being perfected, technicians must have sweated out mysterious problems the way I have with solid-state gremlins.
In the exhibit hall of the AIO convention, I was most impressed by the sophistication of new developments in solid-state pipe organ controls, and even more impressed by the sophistication of my colleagues, the organbuilders, who in the last 30 years have worked hard to understand the function, uses, and benefits of this equipment. I joined in conversations in which organbuilders were suggesting improvements, offering solutions to problems, and describing innovative ways they’ve found to use existing controls. I saw an institutional comfort level that can only be to the benefit of our clients. We’ve come a long way, baby.
Because I’ve been involved in some very large organ projects in recent years, I’ve noted an important way in which organ organbuilding industry has changed. Seventy-five years ago, when American organbuilders were producing thousands of organs each year, there were a number of companies that had hundreds of employees. It was much easier for such a large company to marshal the forces to erect a 32-foot Principal, or just to transport an organ of 100 ranks or more. They had people employed in experimental roles, developing combination actions, relays, and new types of voices. Today it’s rare to find a company with 100 employees, and most companies employ fewer than ten people. In this environment, the importance of the supply house is increased as we can decide independently whether or not to build pedalboards “in house,” or which solid-state control system best fits the design and function of the console we design.
I thank the people from the companies who exhibited at the AIO convention. I appreciate the hard work you’ve done developing new products. The American organ industry is strengthened by your efforts. The fees you paid for exhibition space helped make this valuable experience possible. And thanks for the candies, wine, keychains, and door prizes you provided!
Earlier this year I wrote a two-part essay about the new life of the famous, enormous, and almost indescribable organ in the former Wanamaker’s Department Store (May and June 2007, “Size Matters”). In it, I wrote that Philadelphia boasts an unusual array of very large organs. The Wanamaker organ (6/462), the Austin organ (4/167) at Irvine Auditorium of the University of Pennsylvania, and the Dobson organ (4/124) at the Kimmel Center (home of the Philadelphia Orchestra) add up to 753 ranks in three organs that are within a few miles of each other. The Wanamaker Store and the Kimmel Center are within walking distance. The participants in the AIO convention had a wonderful opportunity to hear these three giant and wildly diverse instruments in two successive days.
While organ-people will no doubt always refer to the Wanamaker Store in Philadelphia, credit must be given to Macy’s Department Store, now the proprietor of this most grand of retail spaces. Robin Hall is an executive vice-president in charge of Macy’s Department of Annual Events, the group that produces the Thanksgiving Day Parade and July Fourth Fireworks along with numerous flower shows and musical reviews. There can be no division of a modern American corporation more enthusiastic or better equipped for the care of this most singular of pipe organs. In the brief period since their occupation of the store, they have funded extensive and expensive long-needed repairs, provided a large amount of space in the building dedicated to an organbuilding workshop, and established a collegial relationship with Curt Mangel, curator of the organ, and Peter Conte, Grand Court organist. To hear Peter and Curt talk about the people of Macy’s is to hear a gushing exceeded only by the amazing sounds of the organ itself. (Please refer to this column in the May and June issues of The Diapason for more about the Wanamaker Organ.)
Anyone who has attended an organ convention knows the bus rides—hundreds of like-minded people rattling across the countryside on a tight schedule to hear and see organs. Along with the organ demonstrations, there were workshop tours (Patrick J. Murphy & Associates and Nelson Barden at Longwood Gardens), workshop seminars on mounting toe-studs, stenciling façade pipes, and rebuilding Spencer organ blowers, and lectures in a large conference room at the convention hotel. Those lectures were on subjects as diverse as rebuilding and repairing Möller pitman chests, recovering keyboards, and conflict resolution.
Patrick Murphy, whose organbuilding workshop is in Stowe, Pennsylvania, was the chair of the convention, and the staff of his company was present throughout answering questions, guiding us as sheep on and off the buses on schedule, and providing a cheerful and welcoming presence. Randall Dyer (Randall Dyer & Associates of Jefferson City, Tennessee) is the chair of the AIO’s Convention Overview Committee. These folks deserve the gratitude of America’s pipe organ community for their contribution to the education, celebration, and advancement of American organbuilders.
I have always thought that organbuilders are a collegial bunch. Although we are competing with each other in a small market, we are typically willing to assist each other with advice and exchange of ideas, and even by sharing workers when projects get larger than a small staff can handle. But during most of the working year, we are buried in organ chambers in our own areas, seemingly out of touch with what our colleagues are doing. In King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, we came out of our holes blinking in the sunlight, and shared a wonderful week of professional growth and companionship. Nice to see you all. See you in Knoxville next year.■