Noack Opus #164

Pasi Pipe Organ Builders, Inc., Roy, Washington; Saint George’s Episcopal Church, Arlington, Virginia

From the organ builder

When all the stars line up as they have for this project, a happy outcome is almost a sure thing. Right from the beginning, several years ago, when I was invited to submit a proposal for a new organ at Saint George’s Episcopal Church in Arlington, Virginia, all the different components of a good chance were there.

Dr. Benjamin Keseley sent me a packet of complete information about the building and the music program at Saint George’s and their desire for a new instrument. Following a site visit and meeting with the organ committee, we submitted the proposal with specifications and drawings. The window needed to be preserved in its full glory and there needed to be ample space for the choir. The goal was to end up with a rather complete two-manual and pedal instrument without borrowing between stops.

I would like to take this opportunity to express my deep gratitude to the good people at Saint George’s led by the Reverend Shearon Sykes Williams, rector, who has lent a great amount of support to the music ministry. A special thank you to Dr. Benjamin Keseley, minister of music, always ready to listen and act on the many components that made this project a success. Thank you to the choir, the backbone of a church music program, and all the friendly people at Saint George’s.

None of all this could have happened without the team effort at Pasi Organ Builders, starting with Markus Morscher, long-time right-hand wood guy who ensures smooth operations at the shop and installations; Maurine Pasi, reed pipe maker, carver and general organ builder; Luke Sumerfield, pipe maker; Anthony Balducci, on site installation; David Cason, finish voicing assisting on site; Mark Matters, stop action combination system including wiring.

Thank you to everyone contributing in any way to the successful completion of Opus 28.

—Martin Pasi

From the voicing assistant

I assisted with the voicing of Pasi Opus 28 during the month of November 2021. Part of that experience, unique for an organist, was to hear the instrument come into being in an integral way, a kind of slow-motion evolution. It has been fascinating to hear so many individual voices and colors emerge into a cohesive and artistic whole!

At 33 stops over two manuals and pedal, this instrument includes complete principal and flute choruses in all divisions, colorful variety in foundation and reed voices, and several uniquely colorful stops. Principal choruses have the required brilliance for clarity while the individual tone of the pipes is remarkably warm and vocal in quality; these are plenums with both liveliness and gravitas. The Swell plenum is not secondary to the Great but stands on its own with brilliance and character. Capped and open flutes are available at 8′ and 4′ pitches, and the 4′ flutes are particularly “telling” in the room, giving the cornet combinations remarkable weight. The mutations and 2′ stops simply dance. The Great Trumpet has plenty of brilliance, and like the principals, it is warm throughout its range. The Swell 16′ Dulcian adds transparent warmth and color to the ensemble and is of course a beautiful solo stop. The Swell strings are quite bright, with gentle speech, and carry throughout the room beautifully. Pedal reeds also lend harmonic color while adding to the fundamental presence of that division. The two 16′ Pedal flues—one open, one stopped—complement each other well; the bass tones in the Pedal are present, and never out of balance. (At the conclusion of my time with the organ, the Swell Trumpet and Oboe were not yet in place.)

A few unique features lend even more interest to this already expressive instrument. Most Pasi instruments include an 8′ Suavial, which is tuned as a celeste to the 8′ Principal; the effect is bold and swimming foundation tone. The Quintadena is transparently bright and colorful in contrast to the warm flutes. A rare luxury is the Swell Principal, which is in the façade! Its construction is nearly the same as that of the Great Principal, and its tone is only slightly different. Having both principals in the façade is part of what gives Opus 28 its sense of gravitas, and along with the Pedal Principal, the option to play a Bach trio on balanced and singing principals is more than welcome! These layers of effect, placement, and color from the principals, Quintadena, and Suavial lend the kind of color and variety that we normally only expect from choruses and upperwork. These quieter effects coupled with a responsive action make this instrument imminently expressive; there are layers and layers of color to explore.

Organists who play this instrument for the first time will notice the sensitive action and buoyant acoustic. The overall playing experience is a delight and quite intimate thanks to the proximity of the console to the case; the console is detached, but not distant. At the bench one can hear the room and still sense the immediacy of the action. The console layout is neat and comfortable, with all stops and controls easily visible. The control system is by Pipe Organ Control, which integrates perfectly with the console, with minimal pistons for memory and sequencer control.

I must not omit an obvious first impression for any who see this instrument: the case. The visual impact of this instrument is stunning. Like the tone of the instrument itself, the visual element of the case and façade complements the church without overwhelming the space, a clear testament to the artistry of Martin Pasi and his immensely talented shop of artisans.

Congratulations to Martin Pasi and Saint George’s congregation on this collaboration.

—David Cason

David Cason is organist of Trinity Lutheran Church, Lawrence, Kansas. He continues organ study with James Higdon at the University of Kansas where he earned master’s and bachelor’s degrees in organ performance.

From the minister of music

Saint George’s Episcopal Church is a vibrant, social-justice-minded parish located in the heart of Arlington, Virginia, a few miles from downtown Washington, D.C. The music ministry spans from cradle to grave, offering a graded choir program for children as well as choral and bell opportunities for adults. Music is a cornerstone of the Saint George’s community, from Sunday morning to monthly Evensong, concerts, and informal gatherings.

When I arrived in the summer of 2009, I found a delightful congregation strongly committed to their ministries, including music. The organ was a 1911 Wicks that was reengineered by Newcomer Organ Company and installed into an annexed chamber off the front of a newly built nave in 1952. At two manuals, 25 stops, and 27 ranks, the organ received minor reconfigurations throughout the years. In the past twenty years it had fallen into disrepair, not because of neglect, but simply because it was not designed to last for that long. The console and switching system were in a very fragile state. There were also fundamental design flaws: its scaling was too small for the room, and a floor level placement meant the pipes spoke directly into the choir’s ears. Despite these things, the organ sounded remarkably better than it deserved because the room’s acoustic was quite good.

With the arrival of a new rector in December 2010, the parish soon began to address the need for an updated and accessible worship space. The church recognized that the organ and room were linked: changes to one affected the other. An organ committee was formed to work alongside the renovation committee to evaluate the organ and determine how to best support the needs of a growing and dynamic music ministry. After receiving a thorough education in organ building, the committee commissioned an independent review of the instrument from John Santoianni, curator of organs at Duke University, to supplement their own review and study. The vestry unanimously agreed with John and the committee’s conclusion that building a new instrument would yield the most successful result, and in the long run be the most cost-effective path forward.

The committee continued their work visiting many organs from electronic to hybrid to electric-action and mechanical-action instruments. Through this extensive survey and research, they determined that a mechanical-action instrument would be the best choice for the church. After soliciting proposals and interviewing several organ builders, the committee and vestry chose Martin Pasi. His proposal was for a two-manual, mechanical-action instrument of 33 stops, 39 ranks, with a detached console. The committee was impressed by Pasi’s approach to organ building and the fine attention to detail in all aspects of his instruments.

As an organist who knew Pasi’s work, I was thrilled with the choice. I have played several of Pasi’s instruments and have been impressed with the responsive action, the quality of stops rich in fundamental tone, and the lyrical voicing—and his organ cases are beautiful.

While the organ committee did its work, the renovation side of our project focused on the redesign of the nave to provide an accessible altar and space. Plans for the choir area were designed in conjunction with Martin’s design. This allowed us to prepare a proper seating area for the choir with clear sight lines to the organ console, construct steel floor supports for the organ, design in-floor heating so that it was not under the organ or other instruments, and provide proper humidification and future electrical connections for the organ.

From the very beginning of these projects, I insisted that Saint George’s retain the services of an acoustician. Having experienced the exceptional results of Bob Mahoney’s work at Bales Organ Recital Hall at the University of Kansas, I knew this was essential to a successful space renovation. We hired Bob to guide our process and committed to having acoustical considerations be one of our core principles for the renovation. I was pleased that the parish quickly understood addressing these considerations at each step of the journey, while not inexpensive, would yield invaluable results. We were thankful for Bob’s approach to acoustical design that sought to tune the building acoustic for music and treat the spoken word with technology. To this end, the church installed a Meyer line-array column speaker that successfully allows for the spoken word to be understood clearly in a reverberant space.

Acoustical modifications to the room included the installation of a new silent HVAC system, complete with tunneling large, insulated ducts under the floor to move large quantities of air slowly. Care was taken to ensure air returns were at a significant distance from air supply to reduce noise. All HVAC systems were designed to noise criterion 25.

Further acoustical upgrades to the building included the addition of an inch of solid wood to the nave ceiling to increase bass response and filling voids in the plaster walls of the chancel with high density foam insulation to create a solid mass. The old chamber that would be used for the Pedal division was strengthened with double layers of sheetrock placed on studs eight inches on center. Cavities were filled with high-density foam.

A new ceiling was constructed above the choir area with a sawtooth design to help move sound out past the proscenium arch. This ceiling design proved extremely effective. Final acoustical tests reaffirmed our acoustical work was highly successful with a new reverb time of over four seconds (before organ installation) and a significant increase in bass response. This was all one could hope for in a simple room from the 1950s that seats 300 people. The tremendous results of the room’s acoustical modifications have enabled our new organ to speak in a very relaxed and free manner.

The installation of the organ was a joyous occasion for the people of Saint George’s with nearly fifty people, aged 4 to 92, carrying in many parts of the organ on a Sunday afternoon in early October 2021. The parish support for and excitement about this organ is broad and infectious. This beautiful instrument will support our needs for leading congregational singing, accompanying the choir, and playing of a wide range of organ repertoire for generations to come.

Opus 28 is a sheer joy to play. From the quality of its sounds to the vocality of its voicing, soulful winding, and exquisite action, this instrument sings. I am continually impressed with each stop’s ability to function well both in solo and ensemble roles. It is efficient and plays like a larger instrument. The layout of this organ makes it an exceptional tool for teaching about all aspects of the organ, including construction, design, and winding (with its optional foot-pumped bellows). It is an instrument that teaches you how to play.

I commend Martin and his team for their exceptional work. We are thrilled to be a part of the Pasi family and blessed to count Martin and his associates a part of our community. They brought forth a beautiful instrument of praise for the worship of God. This project is a fine example of the perfect marriage of room and instrument, and we couldn’t be happier. We look forward to sharing it for years to come. Soli Deo Gloria!

—Ben Keseley

Minister of Music, Saint George’s Episcopal Church, Arlington, Virginia

 

Builder’s website: pasiorgans.com

Church’s website: saintgeorgeschurch.org

Photo credit: Dr. Benjamin Keseley

GREAT

16′ Bourdon 58 pipes

8′ Principal 58 pipes

8′ Suavial (MC) 34 pipes

8′ Spitzflöte 58 pipes

8′ Quintadena 58 pipes

4′ Octave 58 pipes

4′ Nachthorn 58 pipes

3′ Quinte 58 pipes

2′ Octave 58 pipes

1-3⁄5′ Terz 52 pipes

1-1⁄3′ Mixture IV 221 pipes

8′ Trumpet 58 pipes

Zimbelstern

SWELL

8′ Principal 58 pipes

8′ Gedackt 58 pipes

8′ Viol 58 pipes

8′ Viol Celeste (TC) 46 pipes

4′ Principal 58 pipes

4′ Rohrflöte 58 pipes

2-2⁄3′ Nazard 58 pipes

2′ Octave 58 pipes

2′ Waldflöte 58 pipes

1-3⁄5′ Tierce 52 pipes

1′ Mixture IV 221 pipes

16′ Dulcian 58 pipes

8′ Trumpet 58 pipes

8′ Oboe 58 pipes

PEDAL

16′ Open Bass 30 pipes

16′ Subbass 30 pipes

8′ Principal 30 pipes

8′ Spitzflöte 30 pipes

4′ Octave 30 pipes

16′ Posaune 30 pipes

8′ Trumpet 30 pipes

 

Tremulant

Swell to Great

Great to Pedal

Swell to Pedal

 

Freestanding case in solid hardwood, detached console

Hand-carved pipe shades

Mechanical suspended key action

Electric stop action with combination system by Pipe Organ Control/Matters

Foot-pumped winding system with three bellows in addition to the blower-fed bellows (75mm of wind on water column)

Well tempered tuning

Balanced Swell pedal

Slightly concave pedalboard

33 stops, 39 ranks, 1,996 pipes

John Bishop

Humble π

Archimedes (c. 287–c. 212 BC) lived in the ancient Greek capital of Syracuse, located on what is now Sicily. He was one of the great mathematicians, engineers, inventors, and astronomers of his time, even of all time. He imagined and recorded the origins of calculus and pioneered the concept of applying mathematics to physical motion, the applications of a screw, and the multiplication of pulleys and levers to allow the lifting of heavy objects. He is the source of the quote, “Give me a lever long enough and a place to stand, and I can move the earth.”

Among his many achievements was the realization of π (spelled pi), the mathematical constant that defines the properties of a circle and all shapes that are related to circles. ∏ is an irrational number—it cannot be expressed as an exact number. We round it off at 22/7 or 3.14, so we actually arrive at approximations of the exact number. It is a little like figuring a third of a dollar: $0.33 + $0.33 + $0.34 = $1.00. Because it cannot be expressed in an exact way, we use the symbol π to indicate the exact number. Around 600 AD, Chinese mathematicians calculated π to seven digits after the decimal, and with modern computing power it has been calculated to trillions of digits. It is infinite. Let’s stick with 3.14 to save time. ∏ is known as Archimedes’ Constant.

RELATED: Read "The Life of Pi" here

In the June 2021 issue of The Diapason, pages 12–13, I wrote about an encounter I had with a twenty-something kid in a local lumber yard as I was buying material to make a circular baffle to keep squirrels off one of our birdfeeders. I was planning to fasten aluminum flashing to the circumference of the circle, so I rattled off thirty inches (the diameter of my circle) times π to get a little under eight feet, so the ten-foot roll of flashing would be enough. The kid did not know about π (didn’t know about π?) so I gave him a primer. ∏ times the diameter of a circle (πd) is its circumference. ∏ times the radius squared (πr2) is its area. I suggested that we could compare the area of a twelve-inch pizza with that of a sixteen-inch pizza, and using the calculator in my phone, I rattled off the two areas, and he was impressed by how much difference that four inches made to the size of the pizza.

But when I recreated the exercise while writing the June column, I mixed up the formulas and used πd for the area rather than πr² (circumference rather than area) and triumphantly reported the difference between a twelve- and a sixteen-inch pie as about twelve and a half square inches. Had I used the correct formula, I would have found that the sixteen-inch pie is larger by about 88 square inches, or 44 two-inch bites, over six times more than my published result.

Two readers caught my mistake and wrote to me and to the editors of The Diapason. Nicholas Bullat is a retired organist and harpsichordist and former chair of the organ department and head of graduate studies at Chicago’s American Conservatory who also worked as a corporate and securities counsel. Nicholas carried the pizza story a step further using prices from a local pizzeria. Their $12.50 twelve-inch pie costs about $0.11 per square inch while the $18.00 sixteen-inch pie comes out at $0.09 per square inch. If I am right estimating a bite at two square inches, then those 44 extra $0.18 bites seem quite a bargain.

Glenn Gabanski, a retired high school math teacher in the Chicago area, also caught my mix up of pizza recipes, adding that the sixteen-inch pizza is 1.78 times larger than the twelve-inch. I will never buy a small pizza again. If the large one does not get finished, we will have leftovers for breakfast.

Achimedes’ mental model

Glenn found another significant error in what I wrote for the June 2021 issue. Remembering long-ago visits to Boston’s Museum of Science, I wrote:

When I was a kid on school field trips, I was interested in an exhibit at the Museum of Science in Boston that showed a perfect sphere and a perfect cone on a scale. Each shape had the same radius, and radius and height were equal. They balanced. My old-guy memory of my young-guy thinking had me wondering, “Who figured that out.” You can prove it by using π to calculate the volume of each shape.

The last time I was in that wonderful museum would actually have been when my sons were teenagers, more than twenty years ago, and I have since learned that the exhibit was installed around 1980, long after my field-trip days. I should hesitate to guess because I am apparently often wrong. Glenn pointed out that my memory of the cone and sphere could not be correct because the cone would have to be four times the radius of the sphere for the masses to be equal when the radii were equal. The volume of a sphere is V = 4/3 πr³. If r = 1, V = 4/3 π. The volume of a cone is V = πr²h/3. If r = 1, then V = π/3, ¼ the volume of the sphere. Using 1 for the radius made it easy to understand.

My foggy senior-citizen memory needed a boost, so I called the Museum of Science and was connected to Alana Parkes, an exhibit developer. When I described the volume-balancing exhibit she knew exactly what I meant and responded with a photograph reproduced here showing the balance beam with a cone and sphere on one side, and a cylinder on the other. If the radius of the sphere and the radii of the base of the cone and the cylinder are all equal, the volume of the cone plus the sphere equals that of the cylinder. I shared that with Glenn, and he whipped out his pencil and responded with a sketch, also reproduced here, a lovely piece of teaching with the reduction of the equations explaining the properties of the drawing. I am sorry the fellow in the lumber yard did not have Glenn as a teacher in high school.

I had engaging conversations with Nicholas and Glenn on Zoom, and I am grateful to them for reading carefully enough to catch my errors and respond. When I told Glenn that he was one of two who had written, he responded, “Only two?” And many thanks to Alana Parkes of the Museum of Science in Boston for her cheerful willingness to correct my faulty memory and provide this fine photograph.

Glenn mentioned that he had always been troubled by the moment at the end of The Wizard of Oz, when the Wizard confers a “ThD” degree on the Scarecrow, a Doctor of Thinkology, he explains. The Scarecrow instantly responds by misquoting the Pythagorean theorem. Humbug. (You can watch that scene here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxrlcLktcxU.) And remember that bird feeder baffle? The thirty-inch plywood circle with less than eight feet of flashing around it? It didn’t work. The squirrels “took the hill” within an hour.

A life’s work: remembering Fritz Noack

Forty hours a week times fifty weeks is 2,000 hours in a year. Maybe you took three weeks of vacation, but I bet you worked more than eight hours a lot of those days. At that rate, there are 100,000 working hours in a fifty-year career. Did you use them all wisely and productively? Professional accomplishments add up over a long career. I started writing this column in April of 2004 so this is the 208th issue at an average of 2,500 words, well over half a million words. When you visit, I will show you my pitchfork, um, I mean tuning fork. In twenty years, a church organist playing one service a week for fifty weeks each year plays at least 3,000 hymns, 1,000 preludes, 1,000 postludes, 1,000 anthems, and 1,000 dramatic lead-ups to the Doxology. Did you do that without repeats? Oh, right, you played a certain “Toccata” on twenty Easters.

If your life’s work was a billion bits on a hard drive or 250,000 emails, you cannot stand them in a field and review them, but when you walk into the workshop of the Noack Organ Company you see photos of 160 pipe organs on the wall leading up the stairs to the office. Fritz Noack founded the company in 1960 in Lawrence, Massachusetts, moved it to a larger workshop in Andover, Massachusetts, in 1965, and in 1970 purchased an old school building on Main Street in Georgetown, Massachusetts. A tall erecting room with a voicing balcony was added, and the Noack team has been producing marvelous organs there for over fifty years.

Fritz Noack passed away on June 2 at the age of 86. He leaves a vast legacy that stretches from the infancy of the “Tracker Revival,” the renaissance of American organ building, to the present day. He apprenticed with Rudolf von Beckerath, and worked for Klaus Becker, Ahrend & Brunzema, and Charles Fisk (at the Andover Organ Company) before starting his own firm.¹ The nascent company was home to a host of apprentices who have had important and influential careers in the business including John Brombaugh and John Boody.

An American renaissance

As a teenager in the Boston area in the 1970s, I was swept up in the excitement of that renaissance. My mentors took me to concerts, workshop open houses, and parties, and I soaked it all in. I remember a moment in the Würsthaus in Harvard Square, a long gone but much-beloved haunt for the organ community. We had come from a recital played by Fenner Douglass on the Fisk organ at Harvard Memorial Church and were gathered around a large round table. It must have been around 1973 or 1974, because I was thinking about applying to Oberlin and was excited to meet Fenner for the first time. Someone at the table noticed that there were nine people present who were organists for churches that had Fisk organs. The guest list would have included John Ferris, Yuko Hayashi, John Skelton, and Daniel Pinkham. (If anyone reading was there that night, please be in touch and fill in my erstwhile memory.) That has stood out for me as an indication of just how much was going on in the organ world there and then. C. B. Fisk, Inc., was founded in 1961, and barely a dozen years later there were nine Fisk organs in the Boston area alone.

There is quite a list of adventurous instrument builders who opened workshops in the 1960s and jump-started that renaissance, including Fisk and Noack, Karl Wilhelm, Hellmuth Wolff, and John Brombaugh. Fritz Noack’s career was the longest of all these. It is hard to think of any field of endeavor that was affected by a renaissance as profound as the pipe organ. Comparing the organs built by these firms in the 1960s with those built at the same time by the long established companies like Möller, Reuter, and Aeolian-Skinner is like comparing chalk with cheese. The combination of research and imagination that went into that was dazzling. People were traveling to Europe to study ancient instruments supported by Fulbright scholarships and Ford Foundation grants and experimenting with their findings after returning to their workshops.

During the 1980s and 1990s, I maintained over a hundred organs in New England, and I was familiar with many of the earliest organs of that renaissance. Some of them could truly be described as experimental organs, prototypes that combined newly formed interpretations of ancient techniques with the practicality of creating a complex machine with an experimental budget, and some could be honestly described as not very good. There was a lot of plywood, contrasting with the opulent hardwood European cases. There were primitive electric stop actions using automotive windshield-wiper motors to move the sliders. The noise of those motors was a noticeable part of the experience of hearing the Fisk organ at Harvard.

A common flaw of organs of that time was “wind-sickness.” American builders were not used to working with low wind pressures, and there was much to do to develop the ability to deliver sufficient volume of air pressure to larger bass pipes. Lifting a pipe of a 32′ rank in a Skinner organ and playing the note will blow off your topknot. Visiting the famous five-manual Beckerath organ at the Oratory of Saint Joseph in Montreal while Juget-Sinclair was renovating it, I was struck by the two-inch paper tubing used to supply wind to the massive 32′ façade pipes. That one-inch radius squared times π equals 3.14 square inches. The largest Skinner toehole is at least five inches in diameter. The two-and-a-half-inch radius squared times π is 19.625 square inches. I will take the large pizza, thanks.

In a nutshell

The Andover Organ Company and Otto Hoffman of Texas were among the earliest American builders of modern tracker-action organs. Hoffman was building organs in the late 1940s, but the activity centered around Boston was the biggest concentration of the start of the renaissance. Four significant Beckerath organs were installed in Montreal in the 1950s including the five-manual behemoth at the Oratory. That inspired the leadership of Casavant to quickly branch out into mechanical-action instruments to establish a foothold in their own country.

In 1964, Casavant installed a three-manual tracker organ with forty-six ranks (many of them 2′ and smaller) at Saint Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Wellesley, Massachusetts, Opus 2791, and Karl Wilhelm and Hellmuth Wolff were among the Casavant employees present. Shortly thereafter, both established their own firms. (That organ has subsequently been moved through the Organ Clearing House to Holyoke, Massachusetts, and replaced with a new two-manual instrument by Juget-Sinclair.) That same year, Fisk built the thirty-eight-stop organ (Opus 44) for King’s Chapel in Boston where Daniel Pinkham was the organist, the first modern American three-manual tracker organ. The first modern American four-manual tracker was built by Fisk in 1967 for Harvard, Fisk’s forty-sixth organ in the company’s first eight years.

Fritz Noack’s first large organ was the three-manual instrument for Trinity Lutheran Church in Worcester, Massachusetts, built in 1969, the fortieth Noack organ in the company’s first nine years. Those two small workshops produced close to a hundred organs in a decade. By 1980 when both firms were twenty years old, they had produced a combined 170 organs including the ninety-seven-rank Fisk at House of Hope Presbyterian Church in Saint Paul, Minnesota. That’s what I mean when I mention the tremendous amount of activity in Boston in the 1960s and 1970s.

Today, sixty years into the renaissance, we have a raft of firms to choose from, many of which are led by people who started in the Noack shop. It is fun to trace the genealogy of the American pipe organ business to understand how the histories of the companies intertwine.

I know others will write Fritz Noack’s biography, telling of his personal history and family. I am happy to point out the significance of his diligence and imagination, the extraordinary number of excellent instruments he produced in a workshop that I am guessing never had more than twelve people working at a time, and how I valued him as a friend and mentor as I made my way through life. I maintained perhaps ten of his organs, including the big one in Worcester (there was a swell Mexican restaurant nearby), and we had lots of close encounters when problems arose that we solved together.

He had a positive outlook, charming smile, and a twinkle in his eye. He carried the wisdom of the ages, always remained an avid learner, and helped raise the art of organ building in America for all of us. He gave the art a further great gift, ensuring his company’s future by bringing Didier Grassin into the firm to continue its work. With Fritz’s support and encouragement, Didier has added his style of design and leadership and has produced two monumental organs in his first years after Fritz’s retirement, Opus 162 in Washington, D.C., and Opus 164 in Birmingham, Alabama.

I salute Fritz Noack for all he has added to the lives of organists around the world. I am grateful for his friendship and wish him Godspeed as he assumes his new job, tuning harps in the great beyond.

Notes

1. noackorgan.com/history.

Paul Fritts & Company Organ Builders, Tacoma, Washington; Hillsdale College, Hillsdale, Michigan

From the builder

Paul Fritts & Company Organ Builders has recently completed the last of two new significant organs, the firm’s Opus 44 and Opus 45, for Christ Chapel at Hillsdale College in Hillsdale, Michigan. The chapel was completed in 2019 and provides seating for 1,350 within the 27,500-square-foot building. Designed by architect Duncan Stroik, the interior of the classically inspired chapel is modeled after St. Martin-in-the-Fields in London and Christ Church, Philadelphia. The 64-foot-high barrel vault ceiling, stone columns, wooden pews, and polished marble floors provide the space with excellent acoustics, especially in the elevated chancel at the front of the nave. In addition to regular services, the chapel provides space for college ceremonies and concerts. Consultant for the organ projects Dr. Paul Thornock and the builder worked extensively together with the architects throughout all phases of the project to insure the best possible musical and logistical results.

The design phase for these two projects was extensive. Never before were we tasked with building cases designed by the architect of the building where they stand. This requires a unique collaboration due to the tonal and structural requirements of an organ often unfamiliar to architects. The work ended well, problems were solved, and we are proud of the collaboration and how it has expanded our design scope.

Early on when the building was being designed it was determined that rather than making one very large organ, the needs of the program would be better served by two organs. Opus 44, completed concurrently with the new building in 2019, is conceived as a “choir” organ and speaks from the side of the chancel where it is in close proximity to small and large ensembles. Its 30 stops are divided between three divisions: the Great at impost level, the Swell above, and the Pedal divided on either side. The organ case is made of sapele mahogany to match all of the woodwork throughout the chapel. Its musical resources are designed to support a wide variety of service music and organ repertoire. The organ serves admirably as a solo and concert instrument in its own right, and it was dedicated with a concert by Nathan Laube on April 15, 2021.

To provide support for singing for a full congregation and to serve as a concert instrument, the Gallery Organ, Opus 45, has three manuals and pedal. Installation and tonal finishing were recently completed in October 2022. It, too, is housed in a sapele mahogany case with a large “broken” pediment, columns, and architectural capitals. The polished tin façade pipes are the lowest notes of the Great and Pedal Principal 16′ stops, both of which are independent. The en fenêtre keydesks of both organs are in the front center of the cases.

Both organs feature suspended mechanical key actions providing a light but easily controlled touch while sending tactile feedback to the player. Stop actions are mechanical with the inclusion of “intelligent” solenoids and 999-memory-level combination actions. General and divisional pistons, coupler and 32′ reversible toe studs, and a sequencer with multiple “forward” pistons and studs are part of both combination systems.

The stoplists were drawn up by the consultant and the builder. Both organs have substantial principal choruses on each of their divisions along with a variety of flute and string stops and are capped with a generous array of reed stops. The Gallery Organ includes both a large-scale 32′ Subbaß and an independent 32′ Posaune. Both French and German Trompets at 8′ reside in the Great, and a French-style 8′ Cromorne in the Positive as well as a Cavaillé-Coll inspired 8′ Hautbois in the Swell and 8′ Flûte Harmonique in the Great. There is also a Renaissance-style 8′ Trompet with duck-billed shallots included in the Swell. All are voiced with full-length resonators for a full yet colorful sound that blends appropriately with the overall organization of voicing style and related pipe design throughout. Compact design with reasonable access was important for space reasons and focus of the sound.

The Gallery Organ is similar in its layout to the Choir Organ, with the organ’s three manual divisions triple decked in the center with the Positive at the lowest (impost) level, the Great above, and the Swell at the top of the 38-foot-tall case. The Pedal division is divided on either side of the manual divisions. The 32′ Subbaß bass octave is placed on two windchests (C and C-sharp) at floor level at the rear of the case. Directly in front of the large Subbaß pipes, the 32′ Posaune stands on two windchests at floor level, the tallest of the tin resonators reaching to the top of the case.

The large pipes in the center façade are the lowest nine pipes (C to G-sharp) of the Great 16′ Principal. The largest four pipes of the Pedal 16′ Principal (C to D-sharp) are wooden, made of sugar pine, mounted inside the case. The Pedal façade pipes begin at E and continue to tenor f. The four smaller façade pipes in the outer fields and closest to the center field continue the Great 16′ Principal up to tenor e.

The pipes for both organs were made entirely in the Fritts workshop, the metal ones constructed of two alloys—high lead and high tin—that have been cast on sand. The process dates to ancient times and was the method used for the pipe making of Gothic and Renaissance organs and continued in some instances well into the Baroque period. The very rapid cooling of the pipe metal on the sand bed (compared to a relatively long cooling period on a cloth-covered table) produces material with a smaller crystalline structure, which has discernible benefits to the sound of the pipes. The speech of the pipes is enhanced with the pipes reaching their steady-state tone seemingly more quickly with less fuss, and with less obtrusive harshness and speech noise. Windways can be generous and pipe toes open encouraging a free, colorful, and unforced sound on relatively low wind pressures. The overall impact of the organs can then be determined by wind pressure and to a lesser degree pipe scales.

The Gallery Organ has five wedge-shaped bellows, all positioned within the case. The Great and Positive divisions share two bellows that have been carefully balanced to work together for good support of these divisions. The Pedal division makes use of one similarly sized bellows for the C and C-sharp sides and the Swell has its own bellows. The bass octave pipes of the 32′ Subbass are directly winded from the blower’s static pressure windline, which provides them with 120 mm (4¾ inches) of wind pressure. The Great and Positive divisions are winded at 74 mm, the Swell on 70 mm and the Pedal division on 76 mm.

The two organs are pitched identically at 440hz @ 70°F. Both utilize Kellner’s “Bach” temperament.

The Gallery Organ is provided with a dedicated air conditioning system that was planned at the outset and built as a part of the chapel construction. During summertime, air-conditioned air is circulated throughout the organ case and is regulated by a thermostat high in the Swell. During the heating season, air will continue to circulate throughout the case to control temperature stratification. Experience with similar systems in our organs has shown this to be critical for keeping vertically separated divisions in tune with one another.

The success of an organ project, or in this case, two projects, depends upon a great number of contributing factors. Chief among them is installing the organs in advantageous locations in a great space. A well-developed design and tonal plan along with meticulous craftsmanship and expert voicing and tonal finishing lead to outstanding results. The melding of the countless and seemingly disparate elements into a cohesive whole that is greater than the sum of its parts is the special alchemy that is superb organ building.

Special thanks go to the administration of Hillsdale College for their foresight and vision in commissioning these instruments and to project advisor, Dr. Paul Thornock. Thanks and appreciation also go to the staff of Paul Fritts & Company: Greg Bahnsen, Zane Boothby, Rain Daley, Paul Fritts, Raphi Giangiulio, Erik McLeod, Andreas Schonger, Bruce Shull, Ben Wooley, and to our bookkeepers and business managers, Robyn Ellis and Marlon Ventura. Carving work was provided by Dimitrios Klitsas. 

The completion of the Gallery Organ will be celebrated with an inaugural concert by Nathan Laube on April 13, 2023.

—Paul Fritts

From the consultant

The Hillsdale organ project began with a phone call from the architect who expressed the desire for a new organ to be as special and specialized as the building itself. The desire for mechanical action was in place before the consultant was hired.

An organ in the new Christ Chapel would be required to do many things, including playing for academic ceremonies, accompanying the college’s choirs and orchestras, playing repertoire, and serving as a teaching instrument. Hillsdale College President, Dr. Larry P. Arnn, believes that, “To elevate the hearts and minds of the faithful, Christ Chapel must be a home for musical beauty of the highest order.” Further, his desire to create a regularly sung evensong in the chapel was given considerable weight. The college’s large symphony orchestra also had to fit in the chancel.

The available space in the chancel precluded building a single large instrument in the front of the building that would completely fulfill the musical mission. Further, there was no appetite for placing an organ on the main axis at the front of the building. The only solution was two organs of complementary but distinct characters.

This visionary project was truly an “if you build it, they will come” affair. The college wished to build a sacred music program, and the administration understood that the infrastructure had to be in place to do it. Therefore, an organ professor was not yet in place during the design phase. The committee, which consisted of the architect, consultant, and various administrators, traveled throughout the Midwest to see and hear dozens of instruments by six of North America’s distinguished builders. It is fascinating how committees often have an “Aha!” moment in visiting a particular organ; this moment happened when they visited the Fritts organ at the DeBartolo Performing Arts Center at the University of Notre Dame. 

The result is a workhorse two-manual organ in the chancel with an efficient but developed Swell division that enables the organist to render choral accompaniments convincingly and to play the many liturgical events in the chapel, including evensong. The instrument also has sufficient power to pair with the orchestra. The Gallery Organ is the heroic instrument the college desired for large convocations and concerts.

Dr. Arnn’s ideals are borne out in these examples of the organ art: “There never has been a great university unconcerned with the question of the Divine. More than one-third of our students are involved in music—an invaluable gift that helps us to contemplate beauty, harmony, and meaning. To that same end, our splendid organs will help point man’s thoughts toward God.”

—Paul Thornock

From the architect

Christ Chapel at Hillsdale College, Michigan, is the first freestanding chapel in the college’s 175-year history. Located on the main axis of campus and forming a new quadrangle, the classical brick and limestone exterior features a domed circular entrance portico with Doric columns. Three concave entry doors lead into an elegant barrel-vaulted nave with limestone columns and mahogany side balconies. Large arched windows fill the space with natural light. 

The Choir Organ is located along the side wall of the chancel and framed by a limestone arch and Doric columns engaged to the wall. The case is 24 feet tall by 13 feet wide. Carved mahogany Corinthian columns divide the façade of the organ case into a taller central section and two side wings. This architectural motif (called a “Serliana”) is found throughout the chapel, such as on the second level of the main exterior façade, and the window above the altar in the chancel. A gold leaf inscription in the frieze of the entablature of the organ case reads: Laudate eum in Chordis et Organo (“Praise him with strings and pipes,” Psalm 150). Carved mahogany laurel wreaths punctuate the pedestal of the organ. Limestone relief panels in the chancel show a harp, trumpets, cymbals, and floral swags, visually depicting the praise of God called for in the psalm.

The Gallery Organ case harmonizes with the Choir Organ but is much larger, 30 feet tall by 30 feet wide. Its overall shape is also a Serliana motif. It has four 15-foot-tall fluted composite columns. An elaborate entablature and broken pediment with a receding apex are above. It also has an inscription across the pulvinated frieze: Cantate Domino Canticum, Novum Quoniam Mirabilia Fecit (“Sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done great wonders,” Psalm 98). 

While there are some examples of college chapels with two organs in the United States, there are few examples of the organs being conceived together. The architect has designed five other cases in the United States for both new and historic organs, and was inspired by the Saint-Sulpice grand orgue case by the architect Jean-François Chalgrin. The two new organs will be the centerpieces of Hillsdale’s expanding music program.  

—Duncan G. Stroik 

 

Builder’s website: www.frittsorgan.com

Architect’s website: www.stroik.com

College website: www.hillsdale.edu

 

Choir Organ, Opus 44

GREAT (Manual I)

16′ Bourdon

8′ Principal

8′ Salicional

8′ Rohrflöte

4′ Octave

4′ Spitzflöte

2-2⁄3′ Quinte

2′ Octave

Mixture IV

8′ Trompet

4′ Trompet

SWELL (Manual II)

8′ Principal

8′ Gamba

8′ Voix celeste

8′ Gedackt

4′ Octave

4′ Rohrflöte

2-2⁄3′ Nasard

2′ Gemshorn

1-3⁄5′ Tierce

Mixture III–IV

16′ Fagott

8′ Trompet

8′ Basson/Hautbois

PEDAL

16′ Subbass

8′ Principal

8′ Bourdon*

4′ Octave*

16′ Posaune

8′ Trompet

*Some pipes transmitted from other stops

Couplers

Swell to Great, Great to Pedal, Swell to Pedal

 

Polished tin front pipes

Suspended, direct mechanical key action

Mechanical stop action with electric pre-set system

Tremulant

Compass: Manual 58 notes; Pedal: 30 notes

Gallery Organ, Opus 45

GREAT (Manual I)

16′ Principal

8′ Octave

8′ Salicional

8′ Rohrflöte

8′ Flûte Harmonique

4′ Octave

4′ Spitzflöte

3′ Quinte

2′ Octave

Mixture VI–VIII

Cornet V

16′ Trompet

8′ Trompet

8′ Trompette

SWELL (Manual III)

8′ Principal

8′ Gedackt

8′ Baarpijp

8′ Violdigamba

8′ Voix celeste

4′ Octave

4′ Koppelflöte

2-2⁄3′ Nasat

2′ Octave

2′ Blockflöte

1-3⁄5′ Terz

Mixture V–VI

16′ Trompet

8′ Trompet

8′ Hautbois

8′ Vox Humana

POSITIVE (Manual II)

8′ Principal

8′ Gedackt

8′ Quintadena

4′ Octave

4′ Rohrflöte

2-2⁄3′ Nasat

2′ Octave

2′ Waldflöte

1-1⁄3′ Larigot

Sesquialtera II

Mixture VI–VII

16′ Dulcian

8′ Trompet

8′ Cromorne

PEDAL

32′ Subbaß*

16′ Principal

16′ Subbaß

8′ Octave

8′ Bourdon*

4′ Octave

4′ Nachthorn

Mixture VI–VII

32′ Posaune

16′ Posaune

8′ Trompet

4′ Trompet

2′ Cornet

*Some pipes transmitted from other stops

Couplers

Swell to Great

Positive to Great

Swell to Positive

Great to Pedal

Swell to Pedal

Positive to Pedal

 

Polished tin front pipes

Suspended, direct mechanical key action

Mechanical stop action with electric pre-set system

Swell Tremulant

Great & Positive Tremulant

Wind Stabilizer

Compass: Manual 58 notes; Pedal: 30 notes

 

 

Opus 44 Choir Organ: 

30 stops; 38 ranks; 1,854 pipes

Opus 45 Gallery Organ: 

57 stops; 85 ranks; 4,115 pipes

M. P. Rathke, Inc., Cincinnati, Ohio; Grace Episcopal Church, Carthage, Missouri

From the builder

When Father Steven Wilson, rector of Grace Church, first invited us to submit a proposal for a new pipe organ, he had my undivided attention from the start. Father Steve spoke of a historic 1869 Episcopal church with a distinguished tradition of liturgy and music, as well as a longtime focus on drama and the visual arts. Subsequent conversations led to the commissioning of our Opus 12, whose future arrival both church and organ builder looked forward to with fine enthusiasm.

First, though, we were challenged with designing a successful organ for a dry acoustic, in a space as compact and intimate as it is beautiful, and likely utilizing a somewhat unorthodox placement. Father Steve quipped that our reputation for engineering 10 lbs. to fit the proverbial 5-lb. bag would surely be tested here, and his words were to prove prescient.

Precisely where the organ would go was our first decision. The existing instrument, a decaying pipe/electronic combination whose metal pipework was nonetheless of extraordinary quality, if not voiced to its full potential, included a set of deep flower box-style windchests hung from the end wall of a shallow transept (see photo: “Removing pipework”). This singular arrangement did locate pipework high in the room, thus engaging the ceiling and helping carry sound out into the nave; it also created rather a claustrophobic atmosphere, looming darkly over choristers below, blocking light from a trio of high windows above, and literally overshadowing the transept. My first reaction—which some might consider unusual for an organbuilder—was “Father Steve, whatever we do, we’ve got to uncover those windows and get those pipes down off the wall.” Easily enough said, of course, but then where could they go, with floor space already at a premium?

The building helped make that decision for us. There was really only one location suitable for the choir in this small church: the transept, where the choir already sat. And the organ clearly needed to be close to the choir, not only for musical reasons, but also so that organist/choirmaster Peter Frost could continue to conduct from the console. Father Steve, himself a talented chorister, saw potential benefits in my suggestion that the main organ case be located per Sketch A, with the attached keydesk oriented as shown.

This is admittedly an unusual blind-corner placement for any significant portion of a pipe organ, let alone the sole two manual divisions, whose resources generally speak to better advantage directly into the main body of the church. But in this case, because the room is quite dry and because we had no opportunity to place manual pipework behind a façade fronting the swell shades—there simply wasn’t enough available depth without crowding the window—we were keen to obtain maximum blend by any legitimate means. It occurred to me that if we allowed sound to mix first in the transept, then reflect once off the front wall, both blend and projection might be served. And that’s exactly what happened. Early listening during finish voicing disclosed the uncanny illusion that all sound was actually emanating from the front walls (somehow!), producing a clarity and presence in the nave that both puzzled and pleased us.

Grace Church’s lack of acoustical resonance also informed Opus 12’s size and specification, for this is certainly a good-sized organ for a relatively small room. Although sound generally gets around well enough, music doesn’t really bloom, and appreciable reverberation is basically nonexistent. Never having previously designed and voiced for a space like this, I went back to the stately Hook & Hastings instruments I knew, played, and admired during my apprenticeship with C. B. Fisk, Inc.
H & H’s general approach, which greatly informed our work at Grace Church, was to saturate the space with plenty of rich fundamental tone, undergirded by manual doubles (here, one in each department) and supported by a generously scaled and winded Pedal. Reeds would almost invariably be on the smoother side, upperwork colorful but by no means aggressive.

Guided by Dr. Susan Marchant of nearby Pittsburg State University, the church settled on a two-manual, 24-stop specification with suspended mechanical key action, apart from the largest bass pipes, which are winded via conventional electro-pneumatic chests. Most of these large pipes reside in the so-called “Attic Pedal” division behind a speaking tin façade fronting a shallow chamber with limited headroom. Most interior Attic Pedal pipes are thus placed horizontally, as are notes #1–19 of the Great 16′ Bourdon, the latter located beneath the choir platform. The full-length 16′ Double Trumpet stands within the main case.

The pipework has truly eclectic origins. From the previous instrument we retained six choice ranks of 30% tin, superbly crafted by Stinkens, the renowned Dutch pipemaking firm. (The original voicers having really done no meaningful voicing, we were able to start essentially from scratch with fresh, unvoiced pipes.) Several lovely stops of pine, poplar, and oak were acquired from a church that was set to be demolished in a neighboring town. The remainder of Opus 12’s pipework is new.

Casework design was the result of a close and lengthy collaborative effort between Father Steve and me. Happily, both of us wished the organ to look as if it had always been there. The results reflect Father Steve’s and my firm conviction that, where possible, an organ’s casework and ornamentation should be in congenial dialogue with the room’s architecture and appointments.

Carvings were designed and executed by noted Boston-area sculptor Morgan Faulds Pike, who wrote the following in preparation for the organ’s dedication:

The carved white oak panels—above the console, above the swell shades, and in the attic pedal case—represent flora and fauna which symbolically resonate with the church interior, the city of Carthage, and, most endearingly, Father Steven Wilson’s specific requests for a carefully camouflaged “sparrow and her nest” (Psalm 84:3) and “somewhere, a little mouse.” Our design process was a stimulating collaboration from which Father Steve’s wishes and my design drawings produced something more like a working friendship than a design challenge.

The Alpha and Omega shades on the Attic Pedal directly relate to other A & Ω carvings in the room. The maple and oak leaf designs are representative of Carthage, Missouri (“The Maple Leaf City”) and the organ’s quartered oak casework, respectively. Above the console two panels, one depicting a Marian rose, the other the ancient Holly and Ivy of pre-Christian ritual, echo motifs that appear in more simplified forms elsewhere in the church. The designs evolved in keeping with Father Steve’s desire for the case to have everything to do with the church interior and the greater community; I must say here that they also reflect his own remarkable and unselfconscious aura of holiness. He wished the sparrow and her nest to be discretely perched within one of the swell façade shades, to be discovered only after some study. We based the sparrow on a North American song sparrow that was nesting at the time in a bush beneath Father Steve’s window. Her beautiful song might just allude to the choir singing beneath her perch above the swell louvres. The mouse, “a creature of great personal valor,” is a cheeky surprise, clinging to the lower frame of an otherwise-smooth front pipe shade.

This organ has been at once the most difficult and most rewarding we’ve ever undertaken, owing partly to the fact that so much of it is densely woven into the fabric of this lovely historic structure, one where nothing is truly level, plumb, or square. We thank the parishioners and staff of Grace Church for their unswerving support, friendship, and patience during installation and finish voicing. We sincerely hope our Opus 12 will serve this remarkable church for years to come.

—Michael Rathke

Builders of the organ

Saskia Croé

Rebecca Madison

Lauren McAllister

Stella O’Neill

Michael Rathke

Caleb Ringwald

Jefimija Zlatanovic

 

We are deeply grateful to the following individuals and organizations:

†The Reverend Steven Wilson (project leadership)

Dr. Susan Marchant (consultation)

Brad White (technical assistance)

Peter Frost (onsite voicing assistance)

Paige Rhymer (onsite voicing assistance)

A. J. Rhymer (onsite voicing assistance)

Will Endicott (onsite voicing assistance)

Jerin Kelley (onsite voicing assistance)

Chris Church (onsite voicing assistance)

Morgan Faulds Pike (carvings)

Nami Hamada (tonal finisher)

Casey Dunaway (tonal finisher)

Vladimir Vaculik (solid state installation)

Patrick J. Murphy & Associates (casework)

 

Diagram and photo credits

All photographs by Regina Newport except as noted:

Sketch A – Michael Rathke

Removing pipework – John Hacker, The Joplin Globe (used by permission)

 

From the organist/choirmaster

It was my great fortune to accept the position of organist/choirmaster at Grace Episcopal Church in 2017, just as the organ committee was reviewing proposals for a new instrument. Happily, the group needed little persuasion to select M. P. Rathke, Inc., to build their new organ. (By coincidence, I had just completed a summer internship in the Rathke workshop.) We worked with the builder to create a stoplist to fulfill a variety of needs: accompanying the choir, supporting congregational singing, and convincingly playing the repertoire, all while occupying a decidedly small space.

In addition, the 1890s nave would undergo significant cosmetic changes that, while uncovering original details of the building, might potentially be jarring for parishioners. Melinda Wilson, a gifted artist, fashioned an elaborate and clever gingerbread organ and choir layout based on the contract drawings so church-goers had an early 3-D explanation of the new look they could expect as the instrument took shape. The late Reverend Steven C. Wilson motivated the parish to fund the continuation of a well-established tradition of Anglican music. In signature Father Steve jest, threats of an “Organ Donor Dinner,” at which would be served the internal organs of various critters, resulted in many generous donations. The Reverend Joseph Pierjok expertly followed in the footsteps of his predecessor, continuing to support the construction of Opus 12 and bolstering the legacy of traditional worship at Grace.

Upon completion of Opus 12, the congregation immediately became less cautious singers, now being supported by the organ, rather than drowned in electronic sound. The choir enjoys improved acoustics: where they’d previously been tucked under imposing “flower boxes” that both stifled their sound and covered original stained glass, the transept is now open all the way to the ceiling. Voices now fill the space with ease, and the design of the case blends seamlessly into the architecture of the building.

Opus 12 is a welcome addition to the shrinking inventory of traditional instruments in southwest Missouri. It has been a great joy to help create an organ that will be an integral part of worship at Grace Church for generations to come.

—Peter Frost

GREAT (expressive, Manual I)

16′ Bourdon white pine & red oak 58 pipes

8′ Principal zinc & 50% tin 58 pipes

8′ Chimney Flute 30% tin 58 pipes

4′ Octave 50% tin 58 pipes

2-2⁄3′ Twelfth 50% tin 58 pipes

2′ Fifteenth 30% tin 58 pipes

1-3⁄5′ Seventeenth 30% tin 54 pipes

2′ Mixture III 50% tin 174 pipes

Zimbelstern

SWELL (expressive, Manual II)

8′ Dulciana (1–11 façade) zinc & 50% tin 58 pipes

8′ Celeste (TC) 50% tin 46 pipes

8′ Stopped Diapason white oak 58 pipes

4′ Principal 50% tin 58 pipes

4′ Open Flute 30% tin 58 pipes

2-2⁄3′ Quinte 30% tin 58 pipes

2′ Doublette 30% tin 58 pipes

16′ Bass Clarinet zinc & 50% tin 58 pipes

8′ Trumpet zinc & antimonial lead 58 pipes

PEDAL (unenclosed)

16′ Subbass poplar and 50% tin 30 pipes

16′ Bourdon (Great)

8′ Open Diapason (12–30 façade) pine & 70% tin 30 pipes

8′ Bass Flute (ext Subbass) 12 pipes

4′ Octave (ext Open Diapason) 12 pipes

16′ Double Trumpet (ext Swell) zinc & 30% tin 12 pipes

8′ Trumpet (Swell)

 

Three unison couplers

General tremulant

Direct mechanical key action apart from certain large bass pipes

Electric stop action with solid-state combination action

24 stops, 21 ranks, 1,182 pipes

 

Builder’s website: www.rathkepipeorgans.com

 

Church’s website: gracecarthage1869.org/

John Bishop

Down front or up in the back?

My home church is the Parish of the Epiphany in Winchester, Massachusetts, where my father was called as rector in 1966 when I was ten years old. The song, “Winchester Cathedral,” written by Geoff Stevens and recorded by The New Vaudeville Band, was released in August of 1966, and Dad received several copies of the recording as gag gifts from friends (Oh voh-dee oh doh). I had three years of piano lessons before we moved to Winchester, but singing in the choir there was my first experience participating in the music of the church. The harpsichord maker Carl Fudge was the organist, and as I have written frequently, he had a lot to do with my early career choices.

The organ at Epiphany, the first I played, was built in 1905 by the Ernest M. Skinner Company (Opus 128), a very early and seriously rundown example of Mr. Skinner’s work. The church is brick, of Gothic influence, and mythically shares proportions with “the” Winchester Cathedral. There is a classic Gothic chancel up several steps from the nave, and the choir was situated in fixed carved oak pews on either side. The Skinner console was on the Epistle side nearest the communion rail, right by the little alleyway through which the congregation returned to their seats in the nave after leaving the rail. I started organ lessons when I was twelve, and my first experience playing in church was when Mr. Fudge allowed me to slip onto the bench and noodle a bit while he received communion.

The church had an ancient forced-hot-air heating system with large registers in the floor. If you were a clever choir member or acolyte, you would finagle standing on one, and your cassock would inflate like a dirigible. There must have been a history of choir members fainting because the choir pews were equipped with smelling salts. These fifty-five-year-old childhood memories bring a burst of nostalgia. I am thinking of Eleanor Banks, the burly alto in the senior choir, who wielded a hairbrush like a nunchuck as the robed junior choir filed out of the choir room. In hindsight, it was good none of us had lice—she would have spread them through the whole choir.

I left Epiphany at thirteen to begin my career as an organist, filling in at the First Baptist Church (with a three-manual Estey), then as organist at Saint Eulalia’s Catholic Church (Conn Artist—you cannot make this stuff up), and then in neighboring Woburn, Massachusetts (three-manual 1860 E. & G. G. Hook, a stupendous organ). While I was building my resumé before leaving town for Oberlin in the fall of 1974, the people of the Parish of the Epiphany were grappling with the condition of the wheezing Skinner organ. In that Boston suburb, we were in the heart and heyday of the tracker revival, and Mr. Fudge with his early music background was advocating a new tracker organ to be placed in a not-yet-built rear gallery.

 

Meanwhile, down the street . . .

The First Congregational Church in Winchester has a commanding location on a hillside above the town center and an immense steeple that leaves no doubt that the Congregationalists got the concept of “location, location, location.” Their much-rebuilt 1925 Hook & Hastings organ was replaced in 1969 by
C. B. Fisk, Inc., Opus 50, a three-manual, mechanical-action organ with twenty-seven stops. Mr. Fisk wanted to place the organ in the rear balcony, but the church insisted on a chancel installation. His solution was to build a very wide, very shallow organ on the chancel wall. In fact, the organ breaks out of the wall and looms into the chancel airspace. The keydesk is on the floor under the organ facing the opposite wall, and the mechanical action goes under the organist and up the wall to the organ. Large doors open into the hallway behind to expose the action. Originally, there was a setter-board combination action behind that door that has since been replaced with a hundred-level solid-state system.

John Skelton was organist of the First Congregational Church back in the day, and he was my organ teacher through my high school career. The church was a five-minute walk from home, and I had generous practice privileges, spending most weekday afternoons in the thrall of the music and the instrument, learning to wrap my fingers and feet around the notes. Mr. Skelton was a gentle and generous teacher who encouraged and nurtured my passion. I loved working with him, and I loved playing on that organ. In summer of 2021, my son Chris and his wife Alex bought a house near where the Skeltons live, and while I was helping Chris with some repairs and modifications before they moved in, I had a swell evening with John and Carolyn.

A new Fisk organ was installed at the Parish of the Epiphany in 1974, just as I was leaving for Oberlin. It started with twelve stops on two manuals, and seven “prepared for” voices were added in 1983. The parish made the difficult decision to move the music making out of the chancel. The new balcony cost more than the $35,000 organ (imagine, a Fisk organ for $35,000), and while some parishioners were unhappy with the change, the relatively small organ was given a commanding position in the relatively large sanctuary. Of course, people familiar with Fisk organs know that “Charlie” was not known for having trouble filling churches with sound.

I did not play as much on Opus 65 as on Opus 50, but I did play a few recitals, perhaps a dozen services, and my sister’s wedding there. I have not been in that building since my father’s memorial service eight years ago, but I will always love the place and value its role in my earliest experiences with the music of the church. I will also always cherish the privilege of playing such brilliant, responsive organs when I was a pup.

Those two organs make a terrific comparison, built five years apart by the same firm in churches a half mile apart, and placed so radically differently in their buildings. They are both vibrant presences. The chancel placement in the Congregational church is surprisingly successful, partly because the chancel is very wide, so the organ’s sound directly reaches a large percentage of the area of the nave, because the acoustics are lively, and because the organ chamber is barely three feet deep.

The people at Fisk have dubbed these organs “Winchester Old” and “Winchester New,” a tongue-in-cheek reference to the hymntunes for “While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks by Night,” and “On Jordan’s Bank the Baptist’s Cry,” respectively.

As much space as you need?

I am fond of telling clients that there are two rules about placing a pipe organ in a church today. Rule #1: There is never enough money. Rule #2: There is never enough space. I have been in scores of older church buildings in which space was no issue. Think of a Catholic church built in 1880 seating 1,200 people. The ceiling is a barrel vault eighty feet up, so even if the balcony rail is twenty-five above the nave floor, there is still fifty-five feet of ceiling height. It is not unusual to find a nineteenth-century organ that is thirty-five or forty feet tall with a footprint of twenty by thirty feet with room left for a fifty-voice choir. Think of the grand organ formerly in the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Boston, now in storage. It is a rare modern building that will accommodate anything like that. It may be that the only chance of relocating such an organ would be to build a new organ from the pipes down and save the original voicing.

Even Gothic-style cathedrals pose serious challenges for organbuilders. The builders of the ancient cathedrals never imagined that people would be finding spaces for a hundred-plus ranks of organ pipes with all the associated mechanicals. The vaulted ceiling in Saint Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City is 112 feet off the floor, but the two 32′ stops are lying down in the triforium, the Contra Bombarde along Fiftieth Street and the (Double Open Wood) Diapason along Fifty-First Street. At Durham Cathedral, there are, count them, two big Open Wood Diapasons, both standing on the floor in the aisles beside the chancel, the sixteen-footer on the south aisle, and the thirty-two-footer on the north. At York Minster, the 32′ metal Diapason also stands on the floor of the aisle by the chancel, painted to imitate the stone fabric of the wall.

It is often problematic to place pipe organs in newer church buildings. The great interior height in many older church buildings is the result of the desire for proper proportions and the lofty superstructure that supports that high ceiling. Modern construction materials and techniques allow low ceilings to span great distances, and the economics of construction say that as a building gets taller, its cost increases exponentially. Are you paying $500,000 for each additional foot of height? Many modern churches are built without any planned accommodation for an organ, and plenty of architects do not know how much space and what sort of environment an organ needs.

The most extreme experience I have had with this was when a church in Virginia asked me to advise them about placing a pipe organ in their new building. I traveled there to find that although they had asked the architect to provide space for an organ, there was no place in the building to put it. The architect was present at this meeting, and he showed me a photo of an organ façade on the wall of a church and pointed to a space on an outside wall. He blanched when I told him that such an organ would be eight- or ten-feet deep behind the façade. It was an awkward moment. Disappointed, the church bought a digital instrument.

I view the task of evaluating a church building for the placement of an organ as harvesting space. Where in the building might an organ go? Can a classroom be converted to an organ chamber? Can additional height be captured by breaking through a ceiling into attic space? Will the organ be liturgically useful and acoustically successful if we put it there? In newer church buildings, we frequently find a sacristy behind the wall behind the altar. We could harvest the sacristy, open into the attic above, open the wall behind the altar, and make a perfect place for an organ—but I sure have run into opposition when I suggest taking the sacristy.

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The people of Saint Dunstan’s Episcopal Church in Shoreline, Washington, were willing to rethink and redesign the front of their church to accommodate a new organ. I visited there in 2016 to consult with them and found an amateur installation of a relocated organ with two “flower boxes” perched on the front wall and an enclosed swell stuffed in an attic behind the wall. There was a waist-high wall separating the choir from the altar and two false walls projecting from the front, enclosing the choir in a pseudo-chancel. Jonathan Ortloff’s design for the new organ created a proper chamber front and center. All the artificial barricades were removed, leaving a wide-open, flexible space for clergy, lay leaders, and musicians.

Susanna Valleau is music director at Saint Dunstan’s, a position she has held since before the inception of the organ project. She reports that Ortloff’s design was quickly accepted by the church’s rector and wardens and embraced by the congregation. The new flexibility of the sanctuary has allowed growth in the worship life of the parish as well as opening possibilities for community outreach, especially a variety of concerts.

The chambered organ

In the beginning of the twentieth century, it became popular to place organs in remote chambers, spaces separate from the rooms in which they would be heard. This can be partly attributed to economy—you save a lot of money when you do not have to build a case. It also means that you do not have an organ cluttering up the floor of the sanctuary (if you choose to look at it that way). This would never have been possible as a wide-spread practice without electricity. Electric keyboard actions made it possible to have great distances between keyboards and windchests, and organists had to learn to play by remote control.

Electricity was also crucial in enabling organs to break the bonds of their chambers, thanks to the luxury of virtually limitless wind supplied by electric blowers. Remember, Widor wrote all ten of his organ symphonies for the hand-pumped organ at Saint-Sulpice in Paris, France. Organ builders developed techniques of voicing with higher wind pressures, producing ever-more-powerful sounds. While the wind pressure of a large organ built by E. & G. G. Hook in the 1860s might have been two-and-a-half inches or three inches, it is common to find five inches of pressure on the Great and eight inches on the Swell of a Skinner organ dating from the 1920s, not to mention solo reeds on fifteen inches or twenty-five inches. Air is the fuel we burn to create organ sound. When Mr. Skinner put his Swell celestes and Flauto Dolces on eight inches of pressure, he coaxed them out of the chamber and into the room, stepping on the gas by running more air through the pipes.

Today we can compare the experiences of playing and hearing organs in chambers and in free-standing cases. In fact, there are several American churches where you can hear both in the same room. The First Congregational Church in Columbus, Ohio, has a three-manual organ by Rudolf von Beckerath (1972) in the rear gallery and a four-manual W. W. Kimball (1931) in chancel chambers. What a wealth of organ tone to experience under one roof.

The chapel at Duke University has a four-manual, hundred-rank Aeolian located in chancel chambers and a four-manual, hundred-rank Flentrop in a high gallery on the rear wall. There is also a small Brombaugh organ tuned in meantone in a side chapel. The Organ Historical Society held a national convention in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, in 2001 during which we heard the ultimate comparison of organs with recitals on each of those organs in the same day—Mark Brombaugh played the Flentrop, Margaret Irwin-Brandon played the Brombaugh, and Ken Cowan played the Aeolian. The range of music played was profound, from Frescobaldi to Wagner and Liszt, and conventioneers got a real earful that day.

Prepare the way.

When an institution is planning a room that will include a pipe organ, it is wise to engage an organ expert in the design process. It is a rare architect who would have a deep grasp of the space needed for an organ. In fact, without real practical knowledge, planning the size of an organ is likely to be arbitrary. How many stops must it have? Would it have fewer more powerful stops, or would the tonal variety that comes from a larger number of stops serve the needs of the institution best? These questions apply both to churches and universities. If it should be forty stops, should it be electric or mechanical action? And how do you arrive at forty stops? Where should the organ be placed for best acoustical advantage and logistical usefulness? You do not want to place a mechanical-action organ with an attached keydesk alone in a gallery with choir seating on the floor under it or at the other end of the room. The independent organ consultant can help answer all these questions without the conflict of angling for the contract to build the organ.

What will be the electrical requirements? How much might the organ weigh? How are the building’s walls constructed to maximize their effective resonance? In a recent job where an organ was removed for renovation and returned to its original location, the flimsy drywall behind the organ was reinforced with new heavy material, and the effect on the organ’s sound was dramatic.

Because the pipe organ is a monumental instrument, it relies on the integrity of its building for the projection of its sound. The building must provide the organ a safe and solid home. Flimsy construction absorbs sound. Rigid construction projects it. The organ should not be placed under valleys in the roof that would be prone to leak. Witness that the Cavaillé-Coll organ at Notre-Dame de Paris miraculously survived the catastrophic fire in 2019; the peaked roof above the organ between the two towers protected the instrument during that horrible event.

In many churches, it is obvious where the organ should go. In others, not so much. When you are going to the trouble and expense of acquiring an organ, set the stage well and get it right.