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

Neal Campbell

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

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

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

An organ for the completed
cathedral emerges

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

SWELL
First bay, south triforium
(Sowerby Memorial)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Related Content

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

Michael Fox

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

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

 

Harrison & Perry

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

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

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

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

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

 

Opening concert

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

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

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

 

Tuesday, November 15

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

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

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

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

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

 

Wednesday, November 16

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

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

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

Thursday, November 17

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

D. B. Johnson Memorial Organ, Aeolian-Skinner Opus 1257, Winthrop University, Rock Hill, South Carolina: Restoration by Létourneau Pipe Organs

David Lowry and Andrew Forrest
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Winthrop University began in 1886 in Columbia, South Carolina as the Winthrop Training School, to train women teachers. Robert Winthrop, chair of the Peabody Foundation in Boston, was the philanthropist who made the effort possible, with a generous gift of $1,500, plus a personal check for $50 for books to David Bancroft Johnson, the Columbia Superintendent of Schools, who was the school’s mentor. The state legislature soon found reason to establish a Normal and Industrial School for Women, and in 1895, Rock Hill was the chosen city. Winthrop’s name was retained. Some decades later the name was changed to Winthrop State College for Women. Eventually it became Winthrop College. Men were admitted in 1974, and a few years later the name changed to Winthrop University. Some 6,500 students at bachelor and master degree levels populate the campus today. The Department of Music is in the College of Visual and Performing Arts.
The College Auditorium and Conservatory of Music (the wording engraved in stone high up on the outside façade) were built in 1938–39 with funds from the WPA (Work Projects Administration). For fourteen years the concept of an organ for the College Auditorium (later designated the James F. Byrnes Auditorium) was a dream of the music department head, Dr. Walter B. Roberts. Under Roberts’ guidance, alumni raised $15,000, and the State of South Carolina appropriated $35,000. Ultimately, the 1952 contract with the Aeolian-Skinner Organ Company of Boston, Massachusetts, was for $59,865. Some months later another $3,000 was applied to the contract for the 32′ Contre Basse. The Class of 1914 (which in that fateful year was so penniless that it was unable to leave a class gift) achieved its goal in 1955 by donating $1,400 for the Deagan chime stop. The total of the initial expenditure added up to $64,265.
A 1951 letter from G. Donald Harrison, president and tonal director of the Aeolian-Skinner Organ Company, thanks Dr. Roberts for the invitation to design an organ for Winthrop, but Harrison goes on to say:

. . . as the college is a state school, bids will be necessary. I feel that in view of this it would be useless for us to put in a bid as we are bound to be the highest bidder with absolutely no chance of landing the contract.
President Sims just a week later, July 17, responded that

. . . the determination of which organ offered the most for the price could not be made on a mere dollar basis . . . I cannot guarantee that the committee will eventually select the organ you submit, still I do want you to feel that any proposal you make will receive careful consideration . . .
A month later, Harrison sent a specification of the proposed instrument and a justification of the tonal design that reflects the philosophy now known as “American Classic.”

Fifteen or more years ago, I developed a type of organ which combined both Classical and Romantic material in one instrument, the sole idea being to produce an organ that was capable of giving authentic renditions of all types of worthwhile organ music and an instrument that would suit players such as Virgil Fox, on the one hand, and Professor Fritz Heitmann at the Berlin Dom, on the other.

Harrison himself was in the auditorium in August 1955 for the final voicing of the organ. It was ten months later that Harrison died in his apartment in New York City, while finishing the rebuilding of the E. M. Skinner organ (Opus 205A) in St. Thomas Church, Fifth Avenue.
Today the D. B. Johnson Memorial organ stands as one of the few Aeolian-Skinner organs with Harrison’s signature that is not a rebuild of a previous instrument. It reflects Harrison’s 1950s concept of what his American Classic sound should be, and he obviously took advantage of calculating his design for the 3,500-seat space, which boasts a two-second reverberation time. Virgil Fox played the inaugural recitals November 2 and 3, 1955.
For the first ten years after the installation, the college organists (a title no longer used) were Jeannette Roth, Wilbur Sheridan, Wilmer Hayden Welsh, and George Klump. David M. Lowry became college organist in 1965. Lowry became professor emeritus in 1996, and has remained the part-time organ professor since. Many undergraduate and graduate students have performed their degree recitals on the Byrnes Auditorium organ. Lowry has been heard in nearly 100 performances—solo recitals, lecture-recitals, ensemble concerts, symphony orchestra programs, and the annual Festival of Carols.
The roster of guest artists on the organ is remarkable, due greatly to the support of Dr. Roberts for its first few years, then with the continued support of Dr. Jess T. Casey for over thirty years. That list includes Marie-Claire Alain, Robert Anderson, Robert Baker, David Craighead, Catharine Crozier, Virgil Fox, Fernando Germani, Jerald Hamilton, Yuko Hayashi, Anton Heiller, Paul Jenkins, Wilma Jensen, Marilyn Keiser, Jean Langlais, Simon Preston, Alexander Schreiner, Larry Smith, Murray Somerville, John Chappell Stowe, and many others.
As with the purchase of the instrument, the search for a builder to restore the instrument fell into a category of specialized work where the low bid did not have to be the winner. A panel of judges read the proposals, and the voting for the winner was under the supervision of a state agent. Létourneau Pipe Organs of Saint-Hyacinthe, Québec won the contract. In 1967, Fernand Létourneau, at just 23 years of age, was present in Rock Hill installing an organ for another firm when Marie-Claire Alain played a recital in Byrnes Auditorium. Following the concert, he came to a private party for her and engaged her in conversation about Dom Bédos de Celles. It was a significant moment in his life that he has never forgotten, and he made it very clear to Winthrop authorities that he was in total agreement about not changing anything tonally on the organ. Andrew Forrest, artistic director of the firm, achieved total cooperation with all the artisans in the project.
Today the restored organ stands as one of the country’s prized historic instruments, in that the number of nearly pure G. Donald Harrison signature organs becomes ever more rare.
—David Lowry, DMA, HonRSCM
Professor of Music Emeritus
Curator for the Restoration

The Aeolian-Skinner Organ Company’s tumultuous history is well documented and the cast of characters still seems familiar nearly forty years after the company’s demise. The books The American Classic Organ and Aeolian-Skinner Remembered by Charles Callahan vividly illustrate the ideas, external pressures and internal tensions that shaped the company until 1972 and, indeed, there remain many parallels in the daily machinations of an organ shop over thirty-five years later. Specifically, The American Classic Organ provides helpful insights into the motivations of G. Donald Harrison, the company’s tonal director from 1933 through to his death in 1956. Jonathan Ambrosino has also done much to document Aeolian-Skinner and Harrison’s rise to prominence through his writings for numerous journals and his scholarly liner notes for JAV Recordings’ series of recordings on vintage Aeolian-Skinners.
Aeolian-Skinner’s Opus 1257 in Byrnes Auditorium at Winthrop University is a remarkably unaltered example of Aeolian-Skinner’s work in 1955. Harrison’s work in the 1950s was marked by a number of prestigious rebuilding projects, and against this backdrop, the Winthrop contract represented a real opportunity for Harrison to design a large instrument free from outside influences. All decisions regarding the organ’s tonal design, from its stoplist to scaling and winding details, were left to Harrison, and the console plate bearing his signature indicates a particular interest in the final result. Following the organ’s installation during the early summer of 1955, Harrison traveled to Rock Hill to personally supervise the tonal finishing for several days during the month of August. As such, the D. B. Johnson Memorial Organ is a landmark instrument: in addition to its celebrated status as a superbly effective pipe organ, it also represents one of the last significant Aeolian-Skinners supervised from beginning to end by Harrison.
Jumping ahead to the 21st century, the D. B. Johnson Memorial Organ was still in remarkably good form some 52 years after it was completed, thanks to Professor of Music Emeritus David Lowry’s efforts. Fundraising for the restoration was generously provided by Winthrop alumni plus local individuals and businesses, with the project being spearheaded by Shirley Fishburne and David White and the university’s Alumni Association and Development Offices. An in-house recording of the instrument’s au revoir bash on May 21, 2007 gives a good account of repertoire from Bach to Howells to Diemer, rendered with conviction and color. Nonetheless, the instrument was in growing need of attention by then: the console’s pistons were temperamental at best, one of the pneumatic swell engines had failed entirely, and with increasing regularity, individual notes or entire stops had become unreliable or outright inoperative. From the very beginning of the project, it was imperative that the instrument remain tonally unchanged, and our approach here was to treat Opus 1257 with great deference. Largely a mechanical restoration, the instrument is today ready to serve for additional decades as an acclaimed concert and teaching instrument.
The most obvious indicators of the recent work are the discrete changes to the instrument’s four-manual console, though the console had also undergone some earlier restorative efforts. The organ’s original remote combination machines had been replaced by a primitive Solid State Logic (now Solid State Organ Systems) capture system in the early 1980s—following repeated floods in the auditorium basement—and three of the console’s four manuals had also been recovered with new ivories. As part of the 2007–2009 restoration project, the console was upgraded with new solid-state equipment, including capture and coupling systems. The console now boasts 256 levels of memory, a USB-based system for storing and recalling memory levels, the usual complement of general and divisional pistons, and a new general piston sequencer. The new coupling system also permits a Great–Choir manual transfer and restores the console’s All Swells to Swell feature (now programmable on general pistons as desired). At the request of David Lowry, one new coupler was added for additional flexibility, the Positiv to Choir 16′.
The console’s original silver wire and bronze plate contact system was restored with new silver wire contacts, while the four manuals’ bushings were replaced and the ivory key coverings cleaned and polished. New thumb pistons and toe pistons—in the Aeolian-Skinner style—were provided, using the same contact mechanism as the originals, while the original pneumatic stopknob actions were replaced with new electro-repulsion solenoids from Harris Precision Products. The walnut console shell and elegant dog-leg bench were both stripped, repaired as needed and refinished.
The organ itself was dismantled in late May of 2007, and the console, reed stops, and other restorable components were packed and shipped to our workshops in Québec. All 8′ and smaller flue pipes were also removed from the chambers and packed carefully for storage in various locations within Byrnes Auditorium. Subsequent to the organ’s return, the chambers were cleaned and painted by John Dower and Company.
Once in our workshops, all of the organ’s various pneumatic actions were recovered with new leather, including wind reservoirs, concussion bellows, expression motors, pouchboards, note and stop primaries, and tremolo units. The organ’s reed stops were carefully dismantled, cleaned and measured; resonators were repaired as needed and then each stop was checked on a voicing jack. As much as possible, the existing reed tongues were reused, with new tongues being provided only where the existing tongue was damaged. The single exception to this was the bass octave of the Choir 16′ English Horn, which was revoiced to cure a chronic slow speech problem.
We returned to Winthrop University with the organ in October 2008 to begin reinstalling the organ’s many components. During this process, the two wind reservoirs that had proved impossible to remove were recovered with new leather, and all of the organ’s wind chests and wooden framing were wiped down. The organ’s flue pipes were also cleaned prior to reinstallation, with tuning scrolls being soldered closed and re-cut for the 16′ and 8′ octaves. The longest pipes of the 32′ Contre Basse extension had originally been mitered to fit under the chamber ceiling and were fitted with baling wire slings in the early 1960s for support, with the slings coming down through holes in the plaster ceiling above. To provide better access to the top of the chamber, we built a new access ladder and platform, and the mitered 32′ pipes were fitted with new twill tape slings. Again, the slings pass through the chamber ceiling to a sturdy metal frame in the attic above. The tuning scrolls on these large pipes had also, over time, succumbed to gravity and unrolled and ultimately proved impossible to salvage; these scrolls were cut off and custom-made tuning sleeves lined with felt were provided for tuning.
The organ’s wind system and electro-pneumatic windchests were then reassembled, with care taken to replace all wind trunk collars with new split leather gaskets. The organ was also entirely rewired within the chambers, joining the new SSOS coupling system to the new Reisner electro-magnets that were retrofitted in our workshops. Wind pressures throughout the organ were restored to those listed in the 1955 specification, as the Swell and Choir divisions had slipped slightly. The wind reservoir feeding the 8′–4′ Trompette en chamade rank and the Pedal 16′–8′–4′ Bombarde unit was, however, restored to the 87⁄8″ pressure as it was when we began our restoration.
Following the reassembly of the instrument and testing, a team of voicers began their work that continued into January 2009. All of the organ’s 3,820 pipes were thoroughly regulated for proper volume and speech, but few alterations were made in cases where there were obvious problems between adjacent pipes. New adjustable toe blocks were fitted for the bass octaves of the Great 16′ Contra Geigen and the Swell 16′ Flauto Dolce, allowing much finer regulation for these pipes. The relatively simple but time-consuming regulation process yielded some unexpected results, with particular improvements in the clarity and overall refinement of the 32′ and 16′ registers.
A detailed inventory was also taken on site of most flue stops in an effort to flesh out G. Donald Harrison’s scaling practices at the end of his career. Generally, the pipework confirms that Harrison favored narrow basses and broader trebles, coupled with a fine, refined style of voicing. Reed stops are generally small to average in scale—the 8′ Trompette en chamade and the Swell 8′ Trompette were built to the same scale!—but are on generally high wind pressures. A surprising variety of shallot types were also used to good effect.
Prior to our restoration, two tonal alterations had been made to Opus 1257. The first change was a revision of the Swell III-rank Plein jeu, as the original was felt to be insufficient against the powerful Swell reed chorus. Modified in 1965 by Arthur Birchall, the mixture was transposed up a fifth, going from 2′ pitch to 11⁄3′ pitch. From a detailed examination of the pipes, it appears that as many of the 1955 pipes were reused as was practical, requiring but 31 new pipes to complete the revised stop. Despite its non-original composition, our restoration of the organ left the III-rank Plein jeu in its 1965 form, as the mixture is a good fit with the rest of organ and in particular, addresses the Swell reeds in a telling fashion.
The 8′–4′ Trompette en chamade was also modified during the 1970s by moving up the break between natural and harmonic-length resonators, with the first harmonic pipe moving from c25 to f#31. This cured persistent tuning problems in this range and what David Lowry remembers as “an unfortunate tone akin to a New York City taxi cab.” At the same time, the unit chest for this stop was also moved to the very front of the Great-Pedal chamber from its original location beside the Pedal main chest for better projection. An angled plywood baffle was also added above the pipes, providing protection from dust contamination and directing sound out of the chamber.
In conclusion, our work on the D. B. Johnson Memorial Organ at Winthrop University is one of the most interesting and best-documented restorations we’ve been privileged to carry out in recent years. Opus 1257 is a persuasive, musical instrument through which Harrison’s tonal philosophy shines; it has much to offer today’s tonal discussions. We are grateful to have had this opportunity to restore and perhaps more importantly, learn from this magnificent pipe organ.
— Andrew Forrest, Artistic Director
Létourneau Pipe Organs

GREAT (3-3⁄4″ wind pressure)
16′ Contra Geigen
8′ Diapason
8′ Spitz Principal
8′ Holzflöte
4′ Principal
4′ Rohrflöte
2-2⁄3′ Quint
2′ Super Octave
1′ Fourniture IV
2′ Cornet III–VI
8′ Trompette en chamade (Pos)
4′ Clairon en chamade (Pos)
Chimes (Ch)

SWELL (expressive) (6″ w.p.)
16′ Flauto Dolce (ext)
8′ Geigen Principal
8′ Stopped Diapason
8′ Viole de Gambe
8′ Viole Celeste
8′ Flauto Dolce
8′ Flute Celeste (t.c.)
4′ Prestant
4′ Flauto Traverso
2′ Fifteenth
1-1⁄3′ Plein jeu III
16′ Fagot
8′ Trompette
8′ Hautbois
8′ Vox Humana
4′ Clairon
Tremulant

CHOIR (expressive) (5″ w.p.)
8′ Viola
8′ Viola Celeste
8′ Dulciana
8′ Concert Flute
4′ Prestant
4′ Flûte harmonique
2-2⁄3′ Sesquialtera II
16′ English Horn
8′ Cromorne
4′ Rohr Schalmei
Tremulant
8′ Trompette en chamade (Pos)
4′ Clairon en chamade (Pos)
Chimes

POSITIV (3″ w.p.)
8′ Nason Flute
4′ Koppelflöte
2′ Principal
1-3⁄5′ Tierce
1-1⁄3′ Larigot
1⁄4′ Cymbel III
8′ Trompette en chamade (8-7⁄8″ w.p.)
4′ Clairon en chamade (ext) (8-7⁄8″ w.p.)

PEDAL (5″ w.p.)
32′ Contre Basse (ext Gt 16′) (6-1⁄4″ w.p.)
16′ Contre Basse (6-1⁄4″ w.p.)
16′ Geigen (Gt)
16′ Bourdon
16′ Flauto Dolce (Sw)
8′ Principal
8′ Gedeckt Pommer
4′ Choral Bass
4′ Nachthorn
2′ Blockflöte
2-2⁄3′ Mixture IV
32′ Fagot (half-length ext Sw 16′)
16′ Bombarde (87⁄8″ w.p.)
16′ Fagot (Sw)
8′ Trompette (ext) (87⁄8″ w.p.)
4′ Clairon (ext) (87⁄8″ w.p.)
8′ Trompette en chamade (Pos)
Chimes (Ch)

Mixture Compositions (as of 2009):

Great IV Fourniture:
c1 to b12: 22-26-29-33
c13 to b24: 19-22-26-29
c25 to b36: 15-19-22-26
c37 to b48: 12-15-19-22
c49 to f#55: 8-12-15-19
g56 to c61: 5 - 8-12-15

Great III–VI Cornet:
c1 to f18: 15-17-19
f#19 to f42: 12-15-17-19
f#43 to f54: 8-12-15-17
f#55 to c61: 5-8-8-10-12-15

Swell III Plein jeu:
c1 to f18: 19-22-26
f#19 to f42: 15-19-22
f#43 to f54: 12-15-19
f#55 to c61: 8-12-15

Positiv III Cymbel:
c1 to f6: 36-40-43
f#7 to b12: 33-36-40
c13 to f18: 29-33-36
f#19 to b24: 26-29-33
c25 to f30: 22-26-29
f#31 to b36: 19-22-26
c37 to f42: 15-19-22
f#43 to b48: 12-15-19
c49 to c61: 8-12-15

Pedal IV Mixture:
c1 to g32: 19-22-26-29

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Lewis & Hitchcock,
Beltsville, Maryland
Chevy Chase United Methodist Church, Chevy Chase, Maryland

Like the Sound of a Great Amen
(So begins the description of the church organ in the booklet prepared for the dedication of the new building in 1954.) Perhaps no other single facet of a worship service provides at once so much pleasure and so great an inspiration as does its music. The traditional musical foundation in Christian churches is the pipe organ. Organ music opens and closes each service. It creates an atmosphere of reverence aurally, much as Gothic architecture—often aptly called “frozen music”—does visually. Chevy Chase Methodist Church can be as proud of its inspiring new organ as of the sanctuary itself. In the words of a music critic, writing of the thrilling dedicatory concert on December 5, 1954, our organ “is in every respect worthy of its attractive surroundings . . . It sounded like one of the best organs in Washington.”
This organ represented the height of organbuilding for its time. It had just about everything an organist could want then. But this was a time when music in the church was much less varied than it is now fifty-plus years later. In addition, several things conspired against the organ.
When the sanctuary was complete, it was judged to be too reverberant, and the organ to be too shrill. Curtains covered the organ chamber, and acoustical treatment was applied to the ceiling. We like to say that the most important stop on the organ is the room in which it is located. The organ became a jewel in a velvet box; many of the tone colors were swallowed up.
The organ was also built at the beginning of the “Organ Reform Movement,” when organs were being designed to have more clarity. One of the fashions then was to make the unisons thin and the octaves larger, which, while making the organ a bit clearer, often made them lack body. So many times in trying to accompany a soloist or choir the organ was either too soft or too loud; there was a missing medium level of sound.
Also, many stops seemed better suited to other divisions than where they were located. Couplers helped tie sounds together, but the organist had to do lots of strange maneuvering to make that happen, and it tied up manuals that were needed elsewhere.
When the age of the organ made a mechanical refurbishing necessary, we drew up plans of how to make the organ be the best it could be. The first thing was to fix the room, and that was done to great effect. All music benefits from the wonderful new floors and ceiling.
Then stops needed to be relocated to where they fit best. As the original console could not be expanded, a new console was designed, with all the latest technology available to the organist. Next, new stops were added to fill in missing sounds, all capped by the commanding Trompette en Chamade in the rear gallery.
The result is an instrument that is a joy to play and hear. All the stops are where they should be to perform the literature. A new middle layer of sounds makes it easy to accompany a soloist or choir. And the full sound of the organ can lift the congregation to new heights in hymn singing. Charles Wesley wrote “O for a thousand tongues to sing my dear Redeemer’s praise.” Now the organ does.
Linda Ellinwood was the musician who spearheaded this effort, working with Gerald Piercey on the tonal design. Grey Emmons served as the chair of the organ committee.
Text and pictures by Gerald Piercey; console picture by Randy Walker

M. P. Möller Opus 8839, 1954
Rebuilt by Lewis & Hitchcock, Inc.

GREAT
Chimes (21 tubes, in Choir)
8′ Diapason (new) 61 pipes
8′ Bourdon 61 pipes
8′ Viola 61 pipes
moved from Choir
8′ Flûte Harmonique 49 pipes
new & new chest,
1–12 from Pedal Bourdon
4′ Octave 61 pipes
4′ Rohrflute 61 pipes
22⁄3′ Octave Quint 61 pipes
2′ Super Octave 61 pipes
11⁄3′ Fourniture IV 244 pipes
new & new chest
8′ Bombarde (Choir)
Tremolo
Gt/Gt 16′–Unison Off–4′
8′ Trompette en Chamade 61 pipes
new & new chest, in rear gallery

SWELL
16′ Rohr Bourdon (ext 8′ Rohrflute)
8′ Diapason Conique 61 pipes
moved from Great on new chest
8′ Rohrflute 73 pipes
8′ Viole de Gamba 73 pipes
8′ Viole Celeste tc 61 pipes
4′ Principal 73 pipes
4′ Harmonic Flute 73 pipes
2′ Flautino 61 pipes
2′ Plein Jeu III (new) 183 pipes
8′ Trompette 73 pipes
former Clarion with new 1–12
8′ Oboe (new) 73 pipes
Tremolo
Sw/Sw 16′–Unison Off–4′
8′ Trompette en Chamade (Great)

CHOIR
8′ Gemshorn 61 pipes
moved from Great on new chest
8′ Cor de Nuit 73 pipes
8′ Dulciana 73 pipes
8′ Unda Maris tc 61 pipes
4′ Principal (new) 73 pipes
4′ Nachthorn 73 pipes
22⁄3′ Nazard 61 pipes
2′ Blockflute 61 pipes
13⁄5′ Tierce 61 pipes
1′ Cymbal III 183 pipes
moved from Swell on new chest
8′ Clarinet (new) 73 pipes
Tremolo
8′ Bombarde 73 pipes
former Swell Trompette moved,
revoiced, on new chest
Ch/Ch 16′–Unison Off–4′
8′ Trompette en Chamade (Great)

PEDAL
32′ Untersatz 32 notes
new, Walker Paradox unit
16′ Diapason 32 pipes
16′ Bourdon 32 pipes
16′ Rohr Bourdon (ext, Sw) 12 pipes
8′ Octave (ext 16 Diap) 12 pipes
8′ Bourdon (ext 16 Bourd) 12 pipes
8′ Rohrflute (Swell)
4′ Super Octave (ext) 12 pipes
4′ Flûte Harmonique (Great)
4′ Rohrflute (Swell)
2′ Diapason Conique (Swell)
32′ Bombarde 32 notes
new, Walker Paradox unit
16′ Bombarde (ext Ch Bomb) 12 pipes
16′ Bassoon (ext Sw Oboe) 12 pipes
8′ Trumpet (Choir Bombarde)
4′ Oboe (Swell)
8′ Trompette en Chamade (Great)
Couplers
Great to Pedal 8′, 4′
Swell to Pedal 8′, 4′
Choir to Pedal 8′, 4′
MIDI on Pedal

MIDI on Swell

Swell to Great 16′, 8′, 4′
Choir to Great 16′, 8′, 4′
MIDI on Great

Swell to Choir 16′, 8′, 4′
Great/Choir Manual Transfer
MIDI on Choir
Pedal to Choir 8′

Cover feature

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A. E. Schlueter Pipe Organ
Company, Lithonia, Georgia
First United Methodist Church, Atlanta, Georgia

Atlanta First United Methodist Church was originally organized as Wesley Chapel in 1847, and has maintained a long tradition of excellence in worship. The present church was built in 1903, when Mr. Asa Candler purchased the former church site for the headquarters of Coca-Cola. After moving to the new location, the church changed its name to Atlanta First United Methodist Church. Many Methodist luminaries have served this congregation, including the venerable Pierce Harris.
The first pipe organ known to be installed in the church was a two-manual Roosevelt in 1885. When the present church was built, this instrument was moved. In 1919, the organ was re-actioned and rebuilt by Möller. Further changes occurred in 1953 when the organ was enlarged to 46 ranks by another firm. A new façade was built from new and existing pipes in a “pipe fence” array; while commanding in stature, the new façade did not pay homage to the architecture of the building and was poorly constructed. Fortunately, during the 1950s work, ten stops from the former Roosevelt instrument were retained; unaltered, they could be considered for inclusion in the new 2008 instrument. Over the succeeding years, the organ was rebuilt as sections failed and generally kept in working order. The organ provided the basic needs for service playing, but, quite simply, was too small for the space.
Jump forward to 2003 when senior pastor Rev. Wayne Johnson commissioned a feasibility task force to redefine the church’s mission and plan for future ministry. As with many downtown churches, the community around the church was displaced as office buildings replaced homes. Yet this church saw opportunity. The feasibility task force determined it needed to continue its television ministry, continue its education through the Candler School (founded at Atlanta FUMC, but now only affiliated through the denomination), and renovate and restore the church building. It was noted that the organ needed to be addressed as part of the building infrastructure. The task force engaged an architect to provide possibilities for the chancel renovation. J. Donald Land, director of music and organist, led the charge to consider the organ and its renovation or replacement.
A. E. Schlueter Pipe Organ Company was one of several firms interviewed for the project. We viewed this as a real opportunity to build an instrument of significance in our hometown. It is not often that an opportunity develops to build a “Magnum Opus” in the same city as a firm’s location. The Schlueter family decided that the building of this instrument was more important than simple financial gain. Trust that our pencils were very sharp because of this unique opportunity to create art. In our interview, we discussed with the committee the opportunity for an organ of multiple divisions and a wide palette of colors, in an organ case that would complement the church. Specific emphasis was placed on preserving the stewardship of the past. In our design, pipework from the two previous instruments was incorporated in the various departments of the organ.
Quality organbuilding is never the result of one individual but of the synergy of a team. In this respect, our firm was ably assisted by the Atlanta First United Methodist Church clergy, music staff, church staff, and feasibility task force. These individuals readily gave of their time and talents and provided invaluable assistance from the inception of the organ project to its installation and tonal finishing. Specifically we would like to recognize Dr. Bob Smith, chair of the feasibility task force, who was charged with the selection of the architect and organbuilder; J. Donald Land, director of music and organist; Wally Colly, church liaison; senior pastor Rev. Wayne Johnson, deceased, whose vision propelled this project forward even in his absence; and current senior pastor Dr. Jim Ellison.
As part of the building renovation, the choir loft was to be lowered (it was eight feet above the pulpit). This meant that the organ case would need to begin from a much lower plane than the actual organ chamber. We designed the lower case walls to begin below the main organ chassis and act as a reflective shell for the choir. The interior layout of the organ was designed to allow the choir to hear the organ without taking the full brunt of large registrations. In effect, the organ “blooms” just forward of the choir loft.
At the center point of the organ, the chamber is only nine feet deep, so modest cantilevers were designed into the organ case to grow the chamber space without creating a large shelf above the choir that would hamper hearing the organ. Visually, these forward pipe towers give the illusion of a more forward presence.
The engineering that developed would require the organ divisions to be stacked one on top of another. Often stacked organs rely on the division above to form the ceiling for the lower division. This is a problem because the sound speaks into windlines, reservoirs or schwimmers, organ actions, or other parts. It is also mechanically difficult to service the above division because of the sea of pipes located below it; this is often remedied by placing additional perch boards over the pipes, thus adding more impediments to sound reflection. Our solution was a careful design that built dedicated floors and ceilings in each division.
The layout of the organ finds the Swell, String and Choir divisions located on the bottom level. The Solo and Great divisions are located in the top level of the organ, with the Pedal in an open two-story chamber in the center of the case. The Great is enclosed with a ceiling that allows it to speak into the center of the case and to blend with the lower divisions in the chancel, rather than going completely over the musicians’ heads. This purposefully built chamber has proved very effective in coalescing the many divisions of the organ and eliminates geographic specificity of the individual organ stops. The rear of the church houses the Antiphonal, Antiphonal Pedal and Trompetteria divisions of the organ. The Antiphonal is situated at the same height as the Great organ, thus promoting tuning stability.
Because the church has a very active television ministry, there was a concern about the console being exposed and commanding behind the pulpit. A lift was designed that allows the console to be lowered to reduce its visual signature, and, when not needed for other church events, the console can be lowered down and rolled into a side parking location. The platform then can be raised to increase the available space in the chancel.
The console and organ case are constructed of quarter-sawn white oak. We made a conscious effort to incorporate elements of the church building into the console and organ case. Our design engineers, Howard Weaver and Robert Black, saw to it that arches, quatrefoils, and acanthus leaves became part of our vocabulary. It was clear that portions of the organ case would require large grille openings to provide maximum divisional egress into the room. We did not desire to use cloth grilles in the organ case. These impede airflow, are long-term maintenance issues, and affect sound. We designed wood grilles with an open quatrefoil pattern, which allow both the free passage of sound and airflow for tuning stability.
In designing the console, we were very concerned about the ergonomics of its layout. Those who have had the opportunity to sit at larger consoles are aware of their visual and physical challenges. To overcome some of the issues of actually reaching the playing surfaces, we foreshortened the organ sharps as the keys ascended from Manual I to Manual V. The keyboards are not sloped, but with subtle adjustment to the manual relationships even Manual V is comfortable to reach. A similar consideration was given to the pedalboard and expression shoes, which were designed using proportions normally found in our three-manual consoles. Special attention was given to the layout of the pistons, toe studs, drawknobs, and tilting tablets. The end result is that all of the controls can be used and seen without the leaning and craning about that occurs on a large console. It is a very comfortable console to play.
Some interesting facts about the organ:
• the organ contains 93 ranks with 5,360 pipes represented in nine divisions;
• in excess of 10,000 board feet of lumber were used to build this instrument;
• the organ contains over 10 miles of wiring for switching and control;
• the organ uses wind pressures that range from 3½" to 11";
• the main manual windchests are slider, with reeds on electro-pneumatic windchests;
• three divisions of the organ are located in the rear chambers;
• the Trompette en Chamade in the rear of the sanctuary is made from brass;
• the organ weighs over 44,000 lbs.;
• the front organ case stands over 43 feet tall;
• the instrument contains pipes of lead, tin, zinc, brass, and wood;
• the wind for the organ is created by three blowers;
• the organ is controlled with a five-manual console.
The tonal design of this organ was the result of many discussions. Prior to scaling this instrument, organist Don Land and I were able to visit a number of recent instruments built by our firm. Doing this in a short time frame was very helpful to determine tonally where we had gone and where we were going. Don brought in local organists Tom Alderman, David Stills and Richard Morris for their input to the specification and console layout. Tom Alderman worked as a consultant to Don. As a triumvirate, we worked through the myriad of decisions involving the final stoplist, drawknob layout, couplers, pistons, toe studs, and other controls. In the end, I recognize that I was offered a tremendous level of trust and generally an unfettered hand in the tonal design and scaling of the organ.
As the final specification became the math of scales, halving ratios, metal thickness, mouth widths, cut-ups, and languid bevels, I had the good fortune of having Daniel Angerstein and John Tanner to look over my notes. We have worked together on many projects over the years.
For tonal finishing, I was very ably assisted by a team led by Daniel Angerstein, with the assistance of John Tanner, Lee Hendricks, and Bud Taylor. I want to thank Daniel, John, Lee, and Bud for their input regarding division balance, dynamics, color, neutrality, fundament, harmonics, chiff (or lack of), treble ascendancy, and so many other factors. There must always be a final arbiter of design and direction and, in those instances where I followed a different path or tonal treatment, the civility for further discourse remained. I would like to personally single out Daniel Angerstein for his contribution to this project.
It is the daily give and take and discussion that allows art to flourish. It is a rule of organbuilding that you will not make everyone happy with your choices and decisions. The most important question is not “what will others think?” but “have I completed the work to the best of my ability and the charge or commission that I was given by my client to achieve their vision?” As a builder, it is important always to remember what the service role of the instrument will be, and that in the end, the instrument you are building is a tool for worship and is part of the church fabric. Just as your thumbprints are on the instrument, so must be the thumbprints of the church members.
On a project of this size, one challenge was keeping the organ in tune and making adjustments called for during tonal finishing. To make this happen, the voicers would work from 8 am to noon and then break. During lunch hour, members of our staff would take the opportunity to “punch-list” final items and adjustments. When the voicers returned, the room again would settle into the silence of single tones and “louder, softer, more flue, less flue,” etc. After the voicers left in the evening, the crew was again released to make adjustments until 9 pm, when the tuning crew arrived to perform the nightly vigil of preparing the organ for the voicers in the morning. Where stops required work beyond a reasonable ability to perform it in the chamber, we would prepare sample Cs and remove the stop for voicing in our shop. The completed stop would then be installed into the organ for final finishing. This ballet of work went on for weeks on end, and I wish to thank the dedicated members of my staff for the completion of this instrument and for the internal support provided from one staff member to another.
Special recognition must go to our craftsmen, Marc Conley and Robert Black, who were ever present in overseeing the design, engineering, and building of all of the myriad parts that constitute an instrument of this stature. They ensured that the final fit and finish met our standards of quality in engineering and execution. Marc served on the “sharp end of the stick” and worked untold hours at the church to see the project to its completion.
Tonally, this instrument reflects our desire to create organs that possess warmth and clarity. In this room, which promotes clarity of tone and gentle unforced voices, we found wonderful bass presence but the need for an ascendant treble. In the tonal design, all of the divisions of the organ are based on an 8' principal chorus. We differentiated these principal choruses, in addition to the vast array of flutes, strings, and mutations to allow the performance and support of many schools of repertoire. The organ was designed with numerous strings and celestes. It is an absolute joy to hear a transcription on the organ or the subtle undergirding of a choir. With the plethora of solo reeds in the organ, we were able to provide differing reed choruses in the various divisions and pure ensemble function for some of these departments. The organ has reeds designed after English, German, and French styles. The completed instrument pays homage to the important organbuilders and organbuilding styles of the past but is not a copy of any particular builder or style.
This instrument was designed to play a role in all musical styles of worship, from traditional to contemporary. To support the non-traditional role, the instrument is equipped with MIDI capability and a separate chamber audio system. This allows other tones not normally associated with the organ to be generated and controlled by the console. In this manner the organ can blend its voices with other sounds and participate in services that might normally exclude the pipe organ.
Early on, the client had discussed the inclusion of some digital voices in the organ. There was a desire for some stops in the organ that would be considered secondary or tertiary in nature and were the type of stops that might normally be drawn out of a MIDI sound module. They did desire that these stops be voiceable and individually tunable, which specifically excluded MIDI voices. In our interview, we were asked if we would consider working with Walker Technical Company in the installation of these voices. Even though the majority of our experience had been limited to 32' and 16' extensions and percussions, we were aware of the high quality of engineering and sound quality provided by Walker.
As we considered the inclusion of digital voices, the primary question was how? It is probable that, in consultation with the client, we could have left prepared-for stops in the console, to be completed by a third party without our direct involvement. In effect, the stops could have been added in a “don’t ask, don’t tell” fashion, which we considered unpalatable. I am well aware that this method of installing digital stops has allowed some firms to remain “intellectually honest,” but I consider this method to be, at best, morally untenable. If you are providing for additions to the organ in the console and relays, which forces a digital solution because the chamber, winding system, or structure could never accommodate the proposed installations, you cannot pretend you simply did not know, and worse, you have ceded part of your tonal vision to a third party. We considered that if this were the desire of the client, we would work to ensure as seamless an integration of the adjunct stops as possible and to consult on the stops and their voicing.
One fundamental concern with the inclusion of digital stops is where does one start and where does one end once the genie is “out of the bottle.” Our consideration was simple—even though there was a possibility to use digital voices, we strongly desired the organ to be able to stand on its own with the speakers and amps unplugged. There were instances where it would have been much easier to leave out that additional 16' register of pipes in lieu of a digital voice. I am proud to say we resisted this temptation and made organbuilder choices.
Bob Walker worked directly with our firm and Daniel Angerstein in voicing and tuning these stops, and we were very pleased with the final results. Where we desired the voicing and balances to be altered and changed, Mr. Walker was accommodating and worked to achieve a result in keeping with our overarching tonal philosophy for this instrument. The digital stops are as seamless as we had hoped, and the stops contribute around the periphery, as planned by the client, without overtly placing their presence on the stoplist. To the critics, I would say that our firm approached this instrument with integrity of design, and you can indeed play the organ successfully without any digital stop. There are now 93 ranks of wind-blown pipes where there were 46 ranks, and we have completed the tonal vision of our clients in a unified, cohesive manner.
In the end, how do we view this project? In truth, we are still overwhelmed by the opportunity presented to us and the fine work completed by our staff. It is as if we have been so close to the project it is difficult to see what we have done. Analytically, we are aware that the instrument is stunning to hear and see, and yet it will take time to back away far enough from the façade, console, and thousands of pipes to see and hear what others already know of this instrument.
Personally, I do know this—our firm was gifted with an opportunity to build an instrument that we could only have dreamed of at the beginning of our career. We are grateful for the trust placed in us by Atlanta First United Methodist Church and so very fortunate to have the talented and skilled staff that we enjoy. Our tonal philosophy is to “build instruments that have warmth not at the expense of clarity and clarity not at the expense of warmth.” We are thankful to have been given such a grand canvas upon which to express our tonal ideals.
In summation, I would like to thank my father and our company founder, Arthur E. Schlueter, Jr. He is the foundation upon which our company was built and continues to thrive. His continuing role as artist, mentor, and president provides the ongoing oversight of our firm. I am humbly proud to call him both Boss and Dad, as we together work to build instruments for worship.
—Arthur E. Schlueter III

A.E. Schlueter Pipe Organ Company wishes to thank its staff including:
Arthur E. Schlueter Jr., president
Arthur E. Schlueter III, vice president/tonal and artistic direction
John Tanner, vice president of production/tonal finisher
Howard Weaver, senior design engineer
Rob Black, master cabinet-maker/organ engineer
Marc Conley, production supervisor
Bud Taylor, assistant production supervisor
Shan Dalton, office manager
Bob Parris, executive assistant
Barbara Sedlacek, office support
Mike Norris, woodshop foreman
Tony DiLeo, console builder
Bob Black, BSME, mechanical engineer
Joe Sedlacek, console wiring
Jeffery Chilcutt, CAD operator
Michael DeSimone, leathering and assembly
Dustin Carlisle, organ assembly
Sam Polk, organ assembly, tuning assistant
Kelvin Cheatham, organ assembly
Wilson Luna, assembly and wiring
Norma Renteria, leathering, assembly and wiring
Rockshawn Owens, organ assembly
Ruth Lopez, leathering and assembly
Kevin Cartwright, tuning & tonal assistant
Bob Weaver, leathering, assembly, tuning and service
Othel Liles, electrical engineer
Patty Conley, relay wiring
Herb Ridgely, Jr., sales & support
Mike Ray, electronics technician
David Stills, sales & support
Rick Stewart, sales & support
Dave Kocsis, program manager

The cover photo is by Michael Mitchell of Creative Expressions. Other photo credits as indicated.

GREAT (Manual II, unenclosed)
32' Contre Bourdon (Pedal)
16' Bourdon (Pedal)
16' Violone 73 pipes
8' First Open Diapason 61 pipes
8' Second Open Diapason 61 pipes
8' Violone (ext)
8' Harmonic Flute 49 pipes
(common bass from Rohrflote)
8' Rohrflote 73 pipes
5-1/3' Gross Quint 61 notes+
4' Octave 61 pipes
4' Prestant 61 pipes
4' Rohr Flute (ext)
3-1/5' Gross Tierce 61 notes+
2-2/3' Twelfth 61 pipes
2' Super Octave 61 pipes
2' Waldflote 61 pipes
2-2/3' Cornet III 183 notes+
1-1/3' Fourniture V 305 pipes
2/3' Scharf IV 244 pipes
16' Contra Trompete 85 notes+
8' Trompete (ext)
4' Clarion (ext)
16' Trombone (Solo)
8' Tromba (Solo)
8' Festival Trumpet (Solo)
Tremulant
Chimes (enclosed with Solo)
Cymbalstern
Great to Great 4'
MIDI on Great A
MIDI on Great B

SWELL (Manual III, enclosed)
16' Lieblich Gedeckt 73 pipes
8' Violin Diapason 61 pipes
8' Traverse Flute 61 notes+
8' Stopped Flute (ext)
8' Viola de Gambe 61 pipes
8' Viola Celeste 49 pipes
8' Viol Dolce Celeste II 122 notes+
8' Flute Celeste II 122 notes+
4' Prestant 61 pipes
4' Harmonic Flute 61 pipes
4' Unda Maris Celeste II 122 notes+
2-2/3' Nazard 61 pipes
2' Flageolet 61 pipes
1-3/5' Tierce 61 pipes
2' Plein Jeu Grave IV–VI 330 pipes
2/3' Plein Jeu Acuta III–IV 208 pipes
16' Bombarde 61 notes+
16' Contre Fagotto 85 pipes
8' Trompette 73 pipes
8' Oboe 61 notes+
8' Vox Humana 61 notes+
4' Clarion (ext 8')
4' Fagotto Clarion (ext 16') 24 pipes
Tremulant
Swell to Swell 16'
Swell Unison Off
Swell to Swell 4'
MIDI on Swell A
MIDI on Swell B

STRING ORGAN
(Manual III, enclosed with Swell)
16' Viol Celeste II 122 notes+
8' Viol d’Orchestra 61 notes+
8' Viol Celeste Sharp 61 notes+
8' Viol Celeste Flat 61 notes+
8' Dulcet Celeste II 122 notes+
4' Violina Celeste II 122 notes+
4' Dulcet Celeste II 122 notes+
8' Vox Mystique 61 notes+
Tremulant
String Unison Off

CHOIR (Manual I, enclosed)
16' Quintaton 61 notes+
8' Weit Principal 61 pipes
8' Voce Umana 61 notes+
8' Bourdon 61 pipes
8' Gemshorn 61 pipes
8' Gemshorn Celeste 49 pipes
8' Unda Maris II 122 notes+
4' Principal 61 pipes
4' Nachthorn 61 pipes
2-2/3' Nasat 61 pipes
2' Wald Flute 61 pipes
1-1/7' Septieme 61 notes+
1-3/5' Terz 61 pipes
1-1/3/ Quint 61 pipes
1' Sifflote 61 pipes
8/9' None 61 notes+
2' Choral Mixture IV 244 pipes
1/2' Terz-Cymbal III–IV 208 pipes
16' Corno di Bassetto 61 notes+
8' Clarinet 61 pipes
16' Dulzian 61 notes+
8' Holzregal 61 notes+
4' Rohr Schalmei 61 notes+
8' Tromba (Solo)
8' Harp 73 notes+
4' Celesta (ext)
Tremulant
Choir to Choir 16'
Choir Unison Off
Choir to Choir 4'
MIDI on Choir/Pos A
MIDI on Choir/Pos B

ANTIPHONAL (Manual I, enclosed)
16' Bourdon 97 pipes
8' Principal 61 notes+
8' Gamba 61 pipes
8' Salicional 61 pipes
8' Voix Celeste 49 pipes
8' Gedeckt (ext)
8' Flute Celeste II 122 pipes
4' Principal 61 pipes
4' Harmonic Flute 61 pipes
2-2/3' Nazard (ext 16')
2' Blockflote (ext 16')
2' Mixture IV 244 pipes
16' Contre Trumpet 61 notes+
8' Harmonic Trumpet 61 pipes
8' Flugel Horn 61 pipes
Tremulant
Antiphonal to Antiphonal 16'
Antiphonal Unison Off
Antiphonal to Antiphonal 4'

SOLO (Manual IV, enclosed)
8' Major Open Diapason 61 notes+
8' Violincello 61 pipes
8' Violincello Celeste 49 pipes
8' Doppelflote 61 pipes
8' Flauto Mirabilis 61 notes+
4' Claribel Flute 61 pipes
4' Eclat V 305 notes+
8' Tromba 61 pipes
8' English Horn 61 pipes
8' Harmonic Trumpet 61 pipes
8' Festival Trumpet 61 notes+
8' French Horn 61 notes+
16' Tuba Magna 73 notes+
8' Tuba Mirabilis (ext 16')+
4' Tuba Clarion (ext 16')+
Tremulant
Solo to Solo 16'
Solo Unison Off
Solo to Solo 4'
MIDI on Solo A
MIDI on Solo B

TROMPETTERIA
(Manual V, enclosed with Antiphonal in gallery)

8' Tuba Mirabilis (Solo)
16' State Trumpet 85 notes+
8' State Trumpet (ext)+
4' State Trumpet (ext)+
2' Tierce Mixture V 305 notes+
16' Trompette en Chamade TC
8' Trompette en Chamade 61 pipes
4' Trompette en Chamade 49 notes

PEDAL (unenclosed)
32' Contre Diapason 32 notes+
32' Contre Bourdon 32 notes+
32' Contre Violone 32 notes+
16' Principal 44 pipes
16' Wood Open 32 notes+
16' Violone (Great)
16' Bourdon 44 pipes
16' Lieblich Gedeckt (Swell)
16' Quintaton (Choir)
8' Octave (ext 16')
8' Violone (Great)
8' Bourdon (ext 16')
8' Gedeckt (Swell)
4' Choralbass 32 pipes
4' Nachthorn 32 pipes
4' Rohr Flute (Great)
2' Octavin 32 pipes
2-2/3' Mixture V 160 pipes
32' Contre Bombarde 32 notes+
32' Contre Basson 32 notes+
16' Ophicleide 32 notes+
16' Trombone 12 pipes
16' Bombarde (Swell)
16' Contre Fagotto (Swell)
16' Corno di Bassetto (Choir)
8' Festival Trumpet (Solo)
8' Bombarde (ext 32')
8' Tromba (Solo)
4' Clarion (Solo)
4' Clarinet (Choir)
MIDI on Pedal A
MIDI on Pedal B

ANTIPHONAL PEDAL (enclosed)
32' Echo Bourdon 32 notes+
16' Principal 32 notes+
16' Bourdon (Antiphonal)
8' Octave 32 notes+
8' Gedeckt (Antiphonal)
16' Contre Trompette (Antiphonal)

+ Walker stops

Coupler Rail
Great to Pedal 8, 4
Swell to Pedal 8, 4
Choir to Pedal 8, 4
String to Pedal 8
Antiphonal to Pedal 8
Trompetteria to Pedal 8
Solo on Pedal (couplers follow through)
Swell to Great 16, 8, 4
Choir to Great 16, 8, 4
String to Great 8
Antiphonal to Great 16, 8, 4
Trompetteria to Great 8
Solo on Great (couplers follow through)
Swell to Choir 16, 8, 4
String to Choir 8
Antiphonal to Choir 8
Trompetteria to Choir 8
Solo on Choir (couplers follow through)
Antiphonal to Swell 16, 8, 4
Trompetteria to Swell, 8
String on Solo 8 (couplers follow through)
Trompetteria to Solo 8

The King of Instruments

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

John A. Hansen

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

Default

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

The Harrison Era

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

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

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

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

style='font-style:normal'>.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Whiteford Era

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Post-Whiteford Era

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Reverberation

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

Jacket Art

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

In Conclusion

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

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

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

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

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

Historic Aeolian-Skinner installed in Amarillo, Texas

Robert P. Rapp

Robert P. Rapp has combined careers in medicine and music, earning his M.D. degree from the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston in 1956. After serving in the U.S. Air Force, he went into private practice in Austin, Texas. Dr. Rapp has been active in the American Guild of Organists since age 14, serving as dean of the Austin chapter 1979–81. He studied organ in Galveston 1937–46 with Norman Niles and Georgia Anne Rahe, with Lee Norrell in San Antonio (1946–47), Anthony Rahe in Houston (1949–50), Walter Haacke in Wiesbaden, Germany (1958–60), and Jerald Hamilton at the University of Texas (1961–62). He has held church organist positions at St. Mary’s Cathedral, Galveston; St. Joseph’s German Church, Galveston; the Shrine of the Little Flower, San Antonio; First Baptist Church, Galveston; St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church, Austin; and Good Shepherd Episcopal Church, Austin. Dr. Rapp acted on behalf of St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, Amarillo, Texas, beginning in 1996, to purchase the Aeolian-Skinner organ from the University of Texas, and worked closely with the UT Dean of Fine Arts, Dr. David Deming.

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“The largest pre-war (World War II) Aeolian-Skinner built by G. Donald Harrison remaining almost entirely as built has been acquired by St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, Amarillo, Texas.” Thus starts the article in The Tracker (Journal of the Organ Historical Society), volume 41, number 3, 1997.
In 1938, Dr. Ezra William Doty, at the age of 31, was hired to be the first dean of the College of Fine Arts at the University of Texas in Austin. At the time there was no faculty, no curriculum, no building, and a $64,000 budget for assembling all of these. In 1940, a new Music Building was built—the only air-conditioned building on the campus—and by 1942 Dean Doty had assembled an art, music, and drama faculty that combined professional expertise with academic credentials.
The October 1, 1941 issue of The Diapason reports that Aeolian-Skinner was awarded the contract to build a new instrument for the Music Building in the summer of that year at a price of $35,000.1 Their Opus 1024 quickly became the “crown jewel” of the school. Dr. Palmer Christian, professor of organ at the University of Michigan and with whom Dean Doty had studied, played the dedication on November 10, 1942.
In various issues of The American Organist in 1944, there are detailed accounts of the recital hall and the organ, along with much information long forgotten. Dr. Christian is quoted:

The new Aeolian-Skinner is an excellent job, one of the best yet. The clarified ensemble does not sound like a horrified ensemble—there is orchestral color. The Orchestral Oboe is excellent. The floating Positiv is a fine achievement, likewise the floating String Organ. Full organ is perfectly tempered to the size of the room—106 stops in a room seating 504—and the climaxes do not blow one out of the seats.2

Opus 1024 was described in the University of Texas campus newspaper The Daily Texan as being

eight organs in one: there is the Positiv, an authentic 17th-century instrument, and a Great organ which is designed in 18th-century tonal style. The usual Swell, Choir, Solo and Pedal organs are included, but these have a choice collection of orchestral solo stops. The other organs included in the one instrument are the Bombarde, which contains heavy reed stops, and a floating String division, both of which may be drawn on any of the four manuals or pedal. The console has four keyboards of 61 notes each and a pedal board with 32 notes. The round and square pipes are made of tin, lead, zinc, and wood.3
Thus began the life of this magnificent, state-of-the-art instrument, containing 6,173 pipes, 103 ranks, 106 stops and 84 voices, with 45 couplers and 70 combination pistons. It quickly became the landmark organ for Aeolian-Skinner. Organists and organ committees from afar came to play, listen, and gain insight into organ planning, construction, and choices of specifications.
As Opus 1024’s fame grew, so did Aeolian-Skinner’s reputation as the maker of highly esteemed organs. Opus 1024 stands out with its famous Aeolian-Skinner kin in Texas as a masterwork of American organ building. G. Donald Harrison last visited Opus 1024 on July 26, 1954. In his letter to Henry Willis (in London), he remarked that the temperature was an astounding 113 degrees!
The music library at the University of Texas verifies that 130 individual organists had performed 293 programs on Opus 1024 over the years 1942–1981. Among the famous organists presented were Catharine Crozier, Alexander Schreiner, Arthur Poister, David Craighead, Marcel Dupré, Carl Weinrich, Virgil Fox, Flor Peeters, Claire Coci, Fernando Germani, Marilyn Mason, Jean Langlais, E. Power Biggs, Robert Noehren, Jeanne Demessieux, George Markey, Vernon de Tar, Jack Ossewarde, John Weaver, Jerald Hamilton, Robert Baker, William Teague, Heinz Wunderlich, William Whitehead, Pierre Cochereau, André Marchal, John Rose, Peter Hurford, Gillian Weir, and Michael Murray.4
In 1965, after countless hours of heavy use for over 23 years by students and visiting artists, it became obvious that renovation was required. Aeolian-Skinner provided a new console, a new combination action, some mechanical repairs and revoicing of reeds, and some revoicing of flues at a total cost of $65,000.5
Following this, the organ was once again heard by the public. These performances were popular (and free), giving the listening public an opportunity to enjoy classical pipe organ music constantly, and continued until 1975. (Michael Murray was the last noted recitalist to perform in the series.) In 1979, Opus 1024 ceased to be used for degree performances. The churches about the campus were used instead. In 1981, the last public hearing of the organ was played by American Guild of Organists members, with Dean Doty in attendance.
In 1983 a new music building was completed (Bates Recital Hall), and a large tracker organ was installed there. The old Music Building recital hall was used for lecture space by the Architecture Department. Various music programs were given there, but the organ sat silent on stage, console locked, with façade pipes still visible.
So ends one chapter of Opus 1024; now begins the next. On February 11, 1996, an accidental fire destroyed St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Amarillo, Texas. It was at this time that it was brought to the attention of Margaret Lacy, the organist of St. Andrew’s, that perhaps the UT organ could be purchased and become a part of the new sanctuary.
After many inquiries and contacts with the UT regents and staff, in 1997 Opus 1024 was rescued from its “retired” status and bought by St. Andrew’s Church. The church chose Schoenstein & Co. to rebuild the organ because of the company’s Aeolian-Skinner connection (Louis Schoenstein worked for
E. M. Skinner, and Lawrence Schoenstein was the West Coast representative for Aeolian-Skinner).
From the very beginning of the construction of the new St. Andrew’s sanctuary, acoustics and placement for the instrument were of utmost importance. Space for the organ was prepared, similar in size to the organ chamber as it existed in the recital hall in Austin, but with better tonal egress. Thanks to the joint efforts of Margaret Lacy and the church’s forward-looking leaders, Jack Bethards, president and tonal director of Schoenstein & Co., Ewart “Red” Wetherill, acoustical consultant, and the Overland Partners, architects, of San Antonio, Texas, Opus 1024 was on its way to having a truly favorable environment to enhance its American Classic tones, which G. Donald Harrison had labored so hard to achieve.
In its Austin home, the only drawback the organ had was that the hall was without reverberation (planned that way by “experts”), so that G. Donald Harrison was never pleased with its placement. In fact, a news article in The Daily Texan of November 11, 1942 quotes a comment gleaned from audience criticism: “the auditorium is too completely lacking in echo.” Now, in Amarillo, it would have the luxury of 3–4 seconds of reverberation, thus giving all the qualities of sound that its original designer had hoped for.
Schoenstein & Co. meticulously made sure that the 1942 Harrison installation was true to the maker’s original tonal ideas. Any changes made in configuration were to the betterment of the pipe locations, with correct speech being maintained. These were as follows:
1) The huge pipes of the 32′ Contra Bourdon were put on the third level above the enclosed boxes for the Choir, Swell, String and Solo divisions, thereby giving them direct speech into the nave rather than being placed in a far left alcove as in Austin;
2) The 32′ Kontra Posaune pipes were likewise placed directly in front of the exposed chests (Pedal, Great, and Positiv divisions), giving them a similar clarity rather than being muffled as in the original layout;
3) The Solo Tuba 8′ did not fit properly on the Solo chest, and was placed unenclosed also in front of the exposed chests described above, thereby giving it direct egress (Research in Aeolian-Skinner records fails to reveal why the Tuba had been placed on a toe board that was too small. It may have been a last minute change, an error, or one of the 1964 changes.);
4) On the Solo chest in the Tuba position Schoenstein added their beautiful Symphonic Flute 8′, thus providing an open solo flute to complement the stopped one;
5) There were two complete changes. The Great mixture, Fourniture III–V, was of extremely large scale in the trebles and at full volume would have been too loud for its new home. Therefore 285 new pipes were made and the original pipes were carefully wrapped and boxed and are in the storage area of the new sanctuary. The same was true of the treble pipes of the Great Quint, which were replaced.
The organ has two additions other than the Symphonic Flute: a Cymbelstern and a medium-volume, medium-scale Pedal 16′ Bourdon. The original stopped Subbass of huge scale was too large in the responsive acoustics of the church and could be used only in large combinations. Its name was changed to Major Bass.
All this makes the organ absolutely complete, lacking nothing for any organist or literature being played. There should be no complaints from any source as to these enhancing changes to an instrument so well respected.
In August 2002, the new sanctuary was completed, and in September 2004 the installation of Opus 1024 began. The huge van arrived containing the vast cargo of the instrument. This included all eleven chests, along with the Vibraharp mechanism, the 62-year-old sugar pine wood for the structure and expression boxes (Choir, Swell, Solo, String, and Bombarde divisions), the reservoirs, tremulants, expression motors, and other parts that had been completely restored to their original pristine condition by Schoenstein over the prior three years.
Work was under the direction of vice president and plant superintendent, Louis Patterson. Tonal finishing was by Jack Bethards with Mark Hotzenpiller and Steuart Goodwin with Wendell Bolltyme. Other key Schoenstein personnel were David Beck, Peter Botto, Chris Hansford, Oliver Jaggi, Joe Lamberana, George Morten, Robert R. Rhoads and Chet Spencer. To provide mobility and multiple memories, the console was equipped with a Peterson ICS control system (replacing the original combination action and relay) and Harris stop knob actions.
Over the next several months, the people of St. Andrew’s marveled at the installation process, and eagerly awaited the day that they could hear Opus 1024. That day came in November 2004, when 25 ranks of the Swell and Choir were playing. Margaret Lacy played it for the first time and was just amazed. She said, “It was a glorious sound, and with over three seconds of reverberation time. Opus 1024 had been given a vibrant and thrilling new voice.” (Seventy-eight ranks were yet to be heard!) In February 2005 the installation was completed. All 103 ranks were in and playing. The Aeolian-Skinner was brought back to life.
The Amarillo Globe-News reported the event of the organ’s arrival as “An Unusual Organ Transplant.”6 There can never be a happier group than those people living in the city of Amarillo who weekly (and quite often daily) get to enjoy the tones of one of the most spectacular organs ever produced by the Aeolian-Skinner company.
The list of organists who have played Opus 1024 in its new home keeps growing, with each performer declaring what a thrill it is to play. The transition from Austin to Amarillo made all the difference and extended the playing life of Opus 1024.
The exciting inaugural event occurred in June 2005 with Thomas Murray performing solo and in conjunction with the Amarillo Symphony Orchestra (playing Handel’s Concerto in F and Poulenc’s Concerto in G). The future of the organ is nothing but exciting as Margaret Lacy continues to bring the brightest and best musicians to come and enjoy the renovated and renewed powerful and beautiful tones of Opus 1024, first heard 63 years ago.
Thus the organ has reached its final destination and fulfilled the dreams of not only its designer, but the dreams of a vast number of organists and non-organists in the west Texas city of Amarillo. It is waiting for any and all who desire to hear what a “vintage” Aeolian-Skinner can sound like in the electronic age. Nothing can compare to what you will experience when you sit in St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church on South Georgia Street.

St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church
Amarillo, Texas
Aeolian-Skinner Organ Co., Opus 1024
84 voices, 103 ranks

GREAT (3″ wp)
16′ Double Open Diapason*
16′ Quintaten
8′ Diapason
8′ Principal
8′ Bourdon
4′ Octave
4′ Rohrflöte
22⁄3′ Quint
2′ Super Octave
13⁄5′ Tierce
III–V Fourniture
III Cymbel
Vibra-Harp (Choir)
Harp (Choir)
Chimes (Solo)
Harp-Celesta (Choir)
Bombarde on Great
String on Great
* Rank to be added when casework is completed.

SWELL (3¾″ wp)
16′ Rohrgedeckt
16′ Contra Salicional
8′ Geigen Prinzipal
8′ Stopped Flute
8′ Flauto Dolce
8′ Flute Celeste
8′ Salicional
8′ Voix Céleste
4′ Oktave Geigen
4′ Flauto Traverso
22⁄3′ Nazard
2′ Flautina
13⁄5′ Tierce
IV Plein-Jeu
16′ Fagotto
8′ Trompette
8′ Oboe
8′ Vox Humana
4′ Clarion
Vibra-Harp (Choir)
Harp (Choir)
Harp-Celesta (Choir)
Tremulant
Bombarde on Swell
String on Swell
Swell 16′
Swell Unison Off
Swell 4′

CHOIR (3¾″ wp)
16′ Contra Viola
8′ English Diapason
8′ Concert Flute
8′ Viola
8′ Viole Sourdine
8′ Viole Celeste
8′ Dulciana
8′ Unda-Maris
4′ Fugara
4′ Harmonic Flute
2′ Zauberflöte
16′ Bassoon
8′ Clarinet
8′ Cor Anglais
Vibra-Harp
Harp
Chimes (Solo)
Harp-Celesta (Toe lever with indica- tor for dampers)
Tremulant
Bombarde on Choir
String on Choir
Choir 16′
Choir Unison Off
Choir 4′

BOMBARDE (7″ wp)
16′ Bombarde
8′ Trompette Harmonique
4′ Clarion Harmonique
IV–VI Grand Choeur

SOLO (10″ wp)
8′ Symphonic Flute
8′ Doppelflöte
8′ Violoncello
8′ Violoncello Céleste
4′ Concert Flute
8′ French Horn
8′ Orchestral Oboe
Chimes
Tremulant
8′ Tuba (Unenclosed)
Bombarde on Solo
String on Solo
Solo 16′
Solo Unison Off
Solo 4′

POSITIV (2½″ wp)
8′ Nachthorn
4′ Koppelflöte
22⁄3′ Nasat
2′ Prinzipal
13⁄5′ Terz
1′ Sifflöte
III Zimbel
Cymbelstern

STRING (10″ wp)
16′ Contre Viole
8′ Viole de Gambe
8′ Gambe Celeste
8′ Viole d’Orchestre
8′ Viole Celeste
8′ Gemshorn
8′ Gemshorn Celeste
4′ Violina

PEDAL (5″ wp)
32′ Contra Bourdon (ext. Major Bass)
16′ Principal
16′ Major Bass
16′ Sub Bass
16′ Contra Salicional (Swell)
16′ Contre Viole (String)
16′ Lieblich Gedeckt (Swell)
8′ Principal
8′ Gedeckt Pommer
8′ Still Gedeckt (Swell)
8′ Salicional (Swell)
51⁄3′ Quint
4′ Super Octave
4′ Nachthorn
2′ Spitzflöte
V Mixture
32′ Kontra Posaune
16′ Posaune
16′ Bombarde (Bombarde)
16′ Bassoon (Choir)
8′ Trumpet
4′ Clarion
2′ Rohrschalmei
Chimes (Solo)
Bombarde on Pedal
String on Pedal

Couplers
Great to Pedal 8′
Swell to Pedal 8′
Swell to Pedal 4′
Choir to Pedal 8′
Choir to Pedal 4′
Solo to Pedal 8′
Solo to Pedal 4′
Positiv to Pedal 8′

Swell to Great 16′
Swell to Great 8′
Swell to Great 4′
Choir to Great 16′
Choir to Great 8′
Choir to Great 4′
Solo to Great 16′
Solo to Great 8′
Solo to Great 4′
Positiv to Great 8′

Swell to Choir 16′
Swell to Choir 8′
Swell to Choir 4′
Solo to Choir 8′
Positiv to Choir 8′
Pedal to Choir 8′

Great to Solo 8′
Swell to Solo 8′

Great/Choir Transfer

Console
Peterson ICS-4000, capture combination action: 100 memories and lock
16 General pistons (13 duplicated by toe studs)
10 Great pistons
10 Swell pistons
10 Choir pistons
10 Solo pistons
10 Pedal pistons
4 Coupler pistons
1 Set piston
1 General Cancel piston
Programmable piston range for each memory

Swell to Great reversible piston and toe stud
Positiv to Great reversible piston
Choir to Great reversible piston
Solo to Great reversible piston
Swell to Choir reversible piston
Positiv to Choir reversible piston
Solo to Choir reversible piston
Great to Solo reversible piston
Swell to Solo reversible piston
Great to Pedal reversible piston and toe stud
Swell to Pedal reversible piston and toe stud
Choir to Pedal reversible piston and toe stud
Positiv to Pedal reversible piston
Solo to Pedal reversible piston and toe stud
32′ Posaune reversible toe stud
32′ Bourdon reversible toe stud
All Swells to Swell reversible piston and toe lever with indicator
Manual 16s and Pedal 32s Off reversible piston and toe lever with indicator
Mixtures Off reversible piston and toe lever with indicator
Reeds Off reversible piston and toe lever with indicator
Cymbelstern reversible toe lever
Full Organ reversible piston and toe lever with indicator

Three balanced expression pedals
Crescendo pedal with indicator
Pedal on Solo combinations
Pedal on Swell combinations
Pedal on Great combinations
Pedal on Choir combinations

Peterson ICS-4000 relay system

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