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Is the Pipe Organ A Stepchild in Academe?

by R. E. Coleberd

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

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Pipe organs advertised for sale by colleges and universities raise serious questions about the vitality of the King of Instruments in institutions of higher learning.  Organs that are abandoned or replaced are routinely advertised in the classified columns of The Diapason and The American Organist, an economical and efficient way of reaching potential buyers. However, until now, solicitations by schools have clearly been the exception.

In discussions with active and retired organ faculty and
music department personnel across the country, the author has discovered what
he finds to be a disturbing nationwide phenomenon symptomatic of a paradoxical
trend in higher education.  The
advertised sales seem to be the tip of an iceberg. Many organs, having too
often been systematically neglected and abandoned, are now being sold off at an
increasing rate. The experiences of the schools cited below, together with
comments by faculty who, all too often, have watched the sad spectacle of the
pipe organ fading into the sunset, demonstrate that we are witnessing a crisis
with profound implications for cultural life in America.

The purpose of this paper is to create awareness of the
gravity of the situation. We will analyze causes of the phenomenon and give
examples to illustrate the scope of the problem in both auditorium, concert
hall, practice and studio instruments. The reader will, no doubt, be aware of
similar examples elsewhere. Each one differs but there are common threads
through all of them.  We will offer
recommendations on how persons who are deeply distressed by these ominous
developments--because their lives are so closely connected to the instrument:  faculty, students, alumni and concerned laymen--can protect and promote the pipe organ in an academic setting. In retrospect, we believe the S.O.S. should have been tapped out thirty years ago.

Background

We begin with the premise that a pipe organ on a college
campus is an integral part of the intellectual, cultural, artistic and musical
resources of the school, standing alongside the telescope in the observatory,
the paintings and sculpture in the art gallery and the book collections in the
library. These time-honored treasures of a campus setting constitute the raison
d'être of institutions of higher learning, traditionally the trustees of
our culture and the guardians of our future in science and the arts. They make
possible its mission and accomplishments, and define its status and recognition
among its peers.

We continue with the admonition that a pipe organ is
symbolic of the achievements of western civilization and the legacy of our
European origins. It embodies the collective experience of generations in its
recognized prominence in the creativity and expression of music as well as in
architecture, technical developments and craftsmanship. Without the King of
Instruments, the great music it made possible would not have been written, and
without this rich tradition the instrument would not have enjoyed its glorious
position in history. The pipe organ embraced the finest craftsmanship in
Europe, just as precision workmanship survives in organbuilding today, symbolic
of the artistry of hand-crafted objects. In technical strides, the instrument
was the equal of any developments in the 19th and early 20th centuries. At the
turn of this century, the pipe organ was perhaps the most complex mechanism
ever developed. The combination action and other features of the console,
particularly the unrivaled Austin combination action, were an example of binary
algebra and an immediate predecessor of the computer. The Skinner player
mechanism on residence organs employed a pneumatic/mechanical computer to
decipher the rolls; in retrospect a further development of Charles Babbage's
difference engine dating back to the 1820s.1

Therefore, a pipe organ is not merely an appliance or
teaching device. Its value and contribution, along with other cornerstones of a
campus setting, are in the perpetuation of an atmosphere of excellence in
learning and human aspirations in culture and the arts. Sadly, these timeless
elements have gone largely unnoticed today by college administrators and state
legislatures who fail to recognize the stature of the instrument in their
budgetary deliberations and who base their decisions on square feet of space
required, number of credit hours generated and dollars of support necessary.

The fate of the instrument and the crux of the problem is,
in many ways, a manifestation of the unique characteristics of the pipe organ
which set it apart from other campus resources. The pipe organ in an
institutional setting suffers from a spatial, temporal and what some might call
an existential problem. In comparison with other musical instruments it is
quite large, requires considerable space, is fixed in location and, therefore,
its musical delivery is confined to the proximity of the instrument. In
contrast, violinists and pianists perform in a variety of venues the world over
thereby fostering a close symbiotic relationship between themselves, their
music and the instrument. Moreover, as Will Headlee points out, because of the
nuances and complexities of the pipe organ, requiring a close interaction with
the performer, music making on the organ is akin to chamber music which
necessitates a chamber music mentality versus a soloist mentality.2
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The linkage between organists and the
instrument is not so close in part because they play many different
instruments. The problem is exacerbated when the music-going public think of
themselves as deciding first to go to hear an organ, and second, to hear a
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particular organist.
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Sadly, they don't go very often.
Furthermore, those interested in organ music per se have available compact
discs of the world's great instruments, and in the course of listening to them
they become less interested--and less supportive--of instruments of lower
quality and reputation.

The pipe organ is no longer a priority item with music
school deans and department chair persons, who must compete for students and
who struggle to maintain their share of a diminishing campus budget in an
atmosphere of financially strapped institutions. Tragically, pipe organs are
too often considered expendable. As Western Washington's Albert Smith explains:  in contrast to other musical instruments, a pipe organ is a "terribly expensive musical medium to purchase and maintain."3 In physical and dollar terms it is rather like
comparing an ocean liner to a rowboat. 
A violin may require a new string or two, an oboe a reed.
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But Smith doesn't have funds in his
budget for a routine service call.

The instrument is also the victim of the pronounced secular
trend in policy decisions in the upper echelons of university administration.
In all but the few remaining traditional church-related liberal arts colleges
which enjoy a very close and continuing denominational affiliation, religious
beliefs are intellectually suspect in the quest for "truth" and
perhaps nothing is more "politically incorrect" on campus today than
organized religion. Religious faith and corporate worship are sometimes viewed
as a sign of personal weakness and dependency. Perhaps because the pipe organ
is so closely tied to the church in the layman's mind, it is perceived as an
antique or museum piece and is, therefore, irrelevant to the pursuit of
knowledge in our time, particularly in the frantic search for "hot
buttons" such as computer science and genetic engineering to generate
publicity and garner public and private financial support.

The declining fortunes of the pipe organ in academe are
also, without doubt, a reflection of the waning interest in high culture in the
baby boom generation. The prior generation, the war babies, were deeply
involved in cultural pursuits, as measured by attendance and financial support.
But their offspring, as surveys show, are two-career families who are often
pre-occupied with television, movies and pop culture, and who frequently spend
their limited time working out at the health club or surfing on the Internet.
Baby boomers' education levels, though higher than their parents, differed
significantly:  fewer chose liberal
arts degrees with the corresponding affinity for the arts; more chose business
and engineering. Judith Balfe, author of a forthcoming study comments:
"For their parents' generation, those who had higher education and higher
income, the arts were far more important to their understanding of themselves
and their civic responsibility." Today, audiences are segmented and
targeted by advertisers, and "the sense of a culture--at least a popular
culture--which transcended generations" is gone.4

In the economic and political exigencies of state
legislatures and often their private school counterparts as well, cost-benefit
analysis has emerged, in this era, as the overriding criterion for the
allocation of funds in higher education. Under these mandates, the pipe organ
is acutely vulnerable to changing patterns of student enrollment and facilities
use. One conspicuous development in this trend is the designation of professional schools as "stand alone" enterprises (the law school at the University of Virginia and the business school at Duke University are examples) with sole responsibility for their financial well-being. Presumably they can be funded adequately by tuition, alumni giving, endowments and continuing education fees, all a manifestation of the economic fortunes of these
professions in our society. In contrast, these sources of support are decidedly
limited for the arts.  It is
difficult to imagine that the income of a church musician would ever endow a
pipe organ let alone a music department or school.

We must emphasize that there are decided limits to the
market-driven mentality which so pervades our colleges today. An institution of
higher learning is not a consumer products business, like detergents or
toothpaste, in which products (curriculum) are changed to suit every whim of a
fickle public. It is not a middle eastern bazaar in which the travelers
(students) shop in passing for rugs and brass (courses). If a college or
university "sells out" to the marketplace and surrenders every
vestige of intellectual rigor and vitality, it risks becoming a trade school.
Over time, the application of cost-benefit analysis in the funding of state
supported schools erodes the distinction of an institution of higher learning
from any other state agency (prison, mental hospital, orphanage, etc.). The
resulting minimum level of funding substantially diminishes its unique and
time-honored function.  Can an
academic institution, let alone a pipe organ, survive in such an atmosphere?
The well-known social critic Thorstein Veblen  in his polemic The Higher Learning in America: A
Memorandum on the Conduct of Universities by Business Men

style='font-style:normal'>, identified what we now term the market mentality;
the prevailing emphasis on "practical or useful" curricula as
measured by the payoff in the job market. If Veblen's acid critique was
premature in 1918, it couldn't have been more prophetic of the sad situation today.5

Auditoriums and Concert Halls

In the earlier decades of this century, the college
auditorium was customarily a focal point of the campus landscape, and often an
architectural masterpiece.  As a
convocation center it symbolized the collegial atmosphere of the institution.
No auditorium was complete without a large pipe organ, often a superb
instrument by a renowned builder such as George Hutchings or E. M. Skinner.
This was also a period in which the university organist enjoyed high visibility
and a prominent position in the faculty hierarchy beyond his appointment in the
music department, in part because, frequently, he had studied in Europe, a mark
of distinction and status in the professoriate of that era. Presiding at the
auditorium console, his heroic and inspiring music welcomed student and faculty
gatherings for convocations, and he accompanied the singing of the national
anthem and the alma mater. He played the processional and recessional for
commencement, and accompanied the glee club. The auditorium and the pipe organ
thus served as a unifying force in the undergraduate experience, contributing
to that vital sense of community, identity and the search for meaning so
tragically lacking in many schools today. No more! In our time campus speakers
are specialized and appeal only to certain disciplines and departments. Schools
have become too large for campus-wide convocations, and commencement has been
moved to the football field to accommodate the crowd. Moreover, in the
politicized atmosphere of a college campus today, there is too often no common
culture or purpose, no collective embrace of the universal values of an
institution of higher learning. Instead, each self-serving school or department
has become "privatized," looking out for its own interests and
grasping aggressively for its share of the diminishing public and private
funding. Whereas in earlier times the pipe organ was an integral part of the
auditorium and its function, now the instrument is too often underutilized and
dismissed as redundant. In the current use of the building it is merely in the
way, something to be ignored or cast aside.

The rebirth of the tracker organ in the 1950s, first with
widely-publicized European imports, and then with instruments by small domestic
builders, polarized the academic community and called into question the
efficacy of the American classic organ and its romantic and orchestral
ancestors. Music departments philosophically and functionally moved toward
earlier instruments, including the harpsichord. Large auditorium organs were
suddenly deemed out of date and expendable. This was also a time when budgets
allowed for obsolescence and replacement. But not today! Gone are the times
when instruments could be changed every generation in compliance with
nationwide fads and fashions, or to suit the demands of the teaching profession
who argued that a tracker instrument was necessary to attract students and who
were most likely expressing their desire to emulate their peers. Not that
obtaining a tracker was any assurance of protecting the status of the organ in
the school. True, they are smaller and require less space. But because of the
fundamental connection of the organ with church music, there is still the risk
of its being alienated by the deeply entrenched secular outlook on campus.

James Madison University

James Madison University, named for our fourth president, is
a school of 12,500 students in Harrisonburg, Virginia, southwest of Washington,
D.C. In 1937, the then Madison College, one of three teachers' colleges or
"normal schools" in the state, installed a landmark four-manual
fifty-two rank Möller pipe organ in Wilson Hall, scaled and voiced by the
legendary Richard O. Whitelegg. 
According to the late John Hose, Möller tonal director, this
instrument was one of the first four-manual Whitelegg Mollers.6 The dedicatory
recital was played by the nationally known keyboard artist Charlotte
Lockwood.  In a Möller
advertisement in the January, 1937 edition of The American Organist, the
builder stated that the instrument ". . . has already been adjudged as
definitely outstanding among the best organs in the East."7 This
pronouncement was validated by Senator Emerson Richards, who, reviewing the
instrument in the September edition of the same journal added: "Organ history has begun a new chapter and M. P. Möller Inc. is to be congratulated upon having written one of the first verses."8 Apart from its place in the resources of the university,  this instrument is an important milestone in the organ reform movement, and in the history of the Möller Company, for decades one of the premier companies in the American organ industry and now defunct. It is a signature instrument in the career of Whitelegg, an important figure in the twentieth-century legacy of the pipe organ in America. Yet tragically, these factors were overlooked when Wilson Hall was renovated in 1986. The stage was extended to accommodate a variety of venues, but no thought was given to the future of the organ. During remodeling the console was disconnected and stored in an unheated construction trailer which turned out to be its death sentence. As is well-known among organbuilders, a console stored under such conditions will deteriorate; in this case, it disintegrated. A local newspaper story soliciting community support to restore or replace the console of the now-forgotten organ fell on deaf ears. The university administration has made it known that campus investments in the arts will, at the present time, most likely depend upon private funding. In locked chambers today,  this majestic instrument stands mute, perhaps never to speak again.

The events at James Madison illustrate another common
problem in the academic fortunes of the pipe organ:  the conflict between the music and drama departments in
multi-purpose facilities. In 1968, the university built a fine arts center and
installed a three-manual Möller organ, a welcome sign that the
administration recognized music and the place of the organ in its concept of
the arts. However, as a result of poor space planning and failure to anticipate
overlap in facilities use, the music department soon tangled with the drama
department for use of the performance area. In due course, the music department
lost the turf battle and the Möller organ was taken out and sold to a
church in Ohio. A large four-story building to house the music department was
built in 1989, but budget limitations prevented the inclusion of a recital
hall, which precluded the addition of a pipe organ as an integral and visible
part of the resources of the facility. The only hint of a pipe organ on campus
today is the two practice instruments in the music building. The faculty uses
five instruments in town churches for teaching and student performances.

New England Conservatory

The sad situation in Jordan Hall at the New England
Conservatory of Music in Boston, is the result of discontinuities, conflicts
and budget priorities, beginning in many cases several decades ago, which are
seemingly endemic to the fate of concert hall instruments today. Built in 1902,
Jordan Hall featured a three-manual Hutchings organ which was a notable
addition to the cultural and musical resources of the city. It symbolized, no
doubt,  the importance of organ
study in the musical philosophy and mission of the Conservatory, as well as the
significance of a recital and instructional instrument in a concert hall.

Rebuilt and enlarged by Ernest M. Skinner in 1920, this
renowned instrument was widely used and well maintained, with a new console in
1928 and further work by Aeolian-Skinner in 1947. As tastes changed in the
1950s, the organ fell out of fashion and other demands for the hall took
precedence. In 1957, its status was seriously diminished when George Faxon, an
icon figure in the New England organ fraternity, left the Conservatory. His
successor, Donald Willing, ordered two European trackers (Metzler and Rieger)
to define the "new look" in pipe organs for the school. By the
mid-1960s, the Jordan Hall organ was passé and neglected; ten years
later it was was unplayable. In 1995, in an all too familiar policy decision,
the instrument was omitted from a $12 million renovation of Jordan Hall on the
grounds of expense and limited use--the busy hall schedule allows no time for
organ students.  One wonders if it
is only a matter of time until the instrument is sold. When an organ is both
unplayable and inaccessible, the chances of its survival are slim indeed.

University of South Dakota

At the University of South Dakota in Vermillion, the
twenty-eight rank, four-manual E. M. Skinner organ of 1928 was put in the dock
two years ago, a victim of deteriorating leather and wind leaks. The school
administration, under pressure to conform to enrollment and credit hours as the
overriding criteria for budgeting, and answering the call of the state
legislature to cut expenses, is uninterested in restoring the instrument. This
experience, common in publicly supported institutions, illustrates the fact
that there are seemingly no appropriations for maintenance, a situation which
is especially devastating for the pipe organ which requires scheduled routine
maintenance, as well as major expenses in the periodic renewal of chest
leather, and today in an electrical upgrade of the console. Today the "Why
do we need it?" reasoning asserts itself as well as the "Look what we
can do with the $100,000 (or more) required when only a few students play it
and hardly anybody listens to it."!

Western Washington University

The 1200-seat auditorium at Western Washington University in
Bellingham, houses a 1951 three-manual Möller organ, which fell into
disrepair and has been unplayable for twenty years. Campus politics have
dictated that the auditorium be used primarily for drama productions. Albert
Shaw, former music department chairman, estimates it would require $100,000 to
restore the instrument to its original condition, an outsized figure as
maintenance budgets go and a sum virtually impossible to justify given the
primary use of the building.

In 1978 Western Washington constructed a 700-seat concert
hall and installed a two- manual tracker instrument to complement three
practice organs. Then, in a familiar story, the theory professor who taught the
handful of organ students retired and was not replaced. Organ instruction was
then terminated only to be resumed after three years and then discontinued
again. Because a service call from Canada, two days at a minimum of $350-$500,
is prohibitive under current department budgets, neither the concert hall
tracker nor the three practice organs are maintained on a regular basis.

The University of Indianapolis

The University of Indianapolis, formerly Indiana Central
College, a United Methodist affiliated school, is yet another example of how
changing priorities and the economics of space use impact the fortunes of an
auditorium organ. It also illustrates the decision to consign the organs on
campus arbitrarily to a music facility and view them primarily as a teaching
and performance vehicle in a specialized and exclusive curriculum.

The recently-sold three-manual Möller organ was
installed in 1963 when the auditorium was used for convocations and chapel
services, campus-wide functions that were discontinued years ago. With the
auditorium now assigned to the drama department, the instrument was deemed
redundant and expendable.  The
possibility of enlarging and relocating the Möller was briefly considered
some years ago, but  the idea ended
when a new Fine Arts Center was built with a 500-seat recital hall to house a
new tracker instrument yet to be installed.

The evidence to date at James Madison University, the
University of South Dakota, the New England Conservatory, Western Washington
University, The University of Indianapolis and perhaps countless others,
strongly suggests that unless determined action is taken, auditorium pipe
organs may be doomed, especially if the building is the only performance
facility on campus.

The provision of a separate "Jewel Box" recital
hall for the pipe organ, as for example at the universities of Arizona and
Iowa, is viewed by some observers as a mixed blessing. On one hand, it would
appear to guarantee a permanent position for the instrument, insulating it from
the competition for space elsewhere in the building. On the other hand,
removing the organ from the mainstream of the music department, as well as the
rest of the campus, threatens to isolate it and erode the much-needed support
of the university community.

The greater use of off-campus organ resources by music
departments is an emerging trend that is viewed positively in certain quarters
of the teaching profession. At the University of Washington, Carole Terry
considers contractual arrangements with Seattle churches to be one of the
strengths of her program. These instruments, of various periods and tonal
design, complement the Paul Fritz tracker on campus, and afford the students a
much broader orientation to the pipe organ and to the spectrum and
interpretation of its literature. They also offer attractive teaching and
performance opportunities. 

This is the position of Frostburg State University in
Maryland which recently sold a 1970 Tellers organ, an instrument that had
suffered from a poor location and whose installation had never been
satisfactorily completed due to budget limitations. The faculty have long used
two excellent and recently updated Möller organs in Cumberland, within
walking distance of the campus, for teaching and performances. That this is
viewed as a permanent solution to the organ resource needs of the school is
reflected in the fact that the recital hall in the recently completed
multi-million dollar fine arts center omitted any space provision for a pipe
organ. A small, five-rank portable organ, to be used largely for accompaniment,
will be the only hint of a pipe organ on campus.

Arrangements between schools and local churches bodes well
for the pipe organ by reinforcing the linkage between the instrument and its
music in a liturgical setting. Yet it also suggests a lack of commitment to the
organ program in resource and curricular decisions of the school and a tragic
neglect of organ music as a foundation for a high quality education in music.
In the tenor of this paper, it ignores the place of a pipe organ in the broader
cultural dimensions of an institution of higher learning. A small portable
instrument to accompany other music offerings is indicative of a very minor and
largely supportive role for the instrument.  The absence of a recital instrument in a prominent campus
gathering place ignores the time-honored place of the pipe organ in the visible
(and in this case articulate) jewels of a college or university.

Practice and Studio Instruments

The sale of practice and studio organs by Concordia
(Nebraska), Cornell University, Frostburg State (Maryland), Kent State (Ohio),
Stevens Point (Wisconsin), Syracuse, and UCLA among others, with more to come
no doubt, is the final phase in the lockstep sequence of events that marks the
diminishing fortunes of the pipe organ in academe. Step one, declining
enrollment, began with economic forces impacting the organist profession in the
1970s. Wolfgang Rübsam of Northwestern University explains:
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"When it became generally known
that the poorly paid church organist market would no longer justify parental
tuition investment in an organ education, organ enrollment collapsed."9
This was especially true if the degree was to be financed by loans which could
never be repaid on a church organist's salary. Graduate degrees, frequently at
comparatively costly yet highly visible and quality private schools or conservatories, were likewise unattractive because the academic market had dried up.

Step two was idle instruments, and the emerging
"opportunity costs" of the space which clamored for other use.
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Step three was to sell the instruments.
To appease penurious state legislatures, campus budget officers liquidated the
under utilized resources and converted the space to a current "hot
button" at the school, perhaps a computer lab.  With budget officials breathing down their necks, the music
department meekly acceded to the cuts, hoping to save what they could in a
campus-wide scramble for funds. Step four is to not replace the organ professor
when he retires (Corliss Arnold at Michigan State and Will Headlee at Syracuse
are examples). The final step in this sad progression is the
"outsourcing" of organ instruction; i.e, to contract with a local
organist to teach the few students on a per diem basis with no benefits.

Concordia College

Concordia College in Seward, Nebraska is one of numerous
Concordia schools in the Lutheran denomination, whose traditional purpose was
to train teachers for their parochial schools. The school master or his
associates were also expected to be the parish musician, a tradition dating
back to colonial times; for example, with Gottlieb Mittelberger in the 1750s in
Pennsylvania.10 The teaching-and-parish-musician position reflected, no doubt,
the influence of Henry Melchior Muhlenberg, founder of Lutheranism in America
and an ardent champion of the pipe organ.11 Every student at Concordia was
automatically enrolled in organ lessons, which necessitated fifteen
instruments, most of them practice organs, to service a student body of 600. In
recent years, the number of students preparing for church vocations has fallen
to 40 percent of the enrollment, resulting in "excess capacity" in
pipe organ resources. The decision to sell five instruments was prompted in
part by the desire to convert one practice room into a piano studio and another
into a computer lab. This example is perhaps exceptional in view of the high
percentage of the student body using the instruments. Nevertheless, it
underscores the close relationship between enrollment and resource needs, and
how swiftly an adjustment occurs when need declines.

Kent State University

Kent State University, a public institution in northeast
Ohio, with 22,000 students, including 300 enrolled in the music department, dropped organ instruction in the spring of 1981. The number of students in the combined degree program in sacred music and applied organ performance had dropped to six, far below the number needed to justify a tenured faculty position and to continue practice room space begging for other uses.  Ironically, the school had formerly counted as its organ instructors two of the most promising young keyboard artists and teachers in the country in John Ferguson, now at St. Olaf College, and Larry Smith, now at Indiana University. The enrollment collapse was the direct result of the dismal outlook for organ graduates in the marketplace. This was confirmed in an informal survey by Dr. Walter Watson, then head of the music department, which revealed that the number of full-time organ positions in the greater New York City area, had fallen from 600 in the 1950s to between 150 and 200 in the 1980s, a situation thought to prevail throughout the country.12

The absence of supporting curricula at Kent State in
philosophy and theology to augment the sacred music degree added to the
rationale for discontinuing the program. Two small practice organs were sold to
churches and some thought has been given to selling the 20-rank studio organ
and using the proceeds to update the auditorium instrument, now in need of
restoration. In recent years the financial fortunes of the school were severely
impacted by the statewide budget crunch, which forced the music department to
cancel the marching band temporarily, to remove telephones from faculty offices
and require faculty to pay for photocopying materials for their classes. A
small foundation stipend carried them over until budgets were restored but the
organ instruction situation has not changed. This may be an extreme example of
the financial indigence of music departments, but it is certainly not an
isolated one.

University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point

The University of Wisconsin at Stevens Point is a striking
illustration of the predicament of public institutions which are acutely
sensitive to enrollment shifts and budget constraints.
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When organ enrollment collapsed and the
organist retired, the faculty position was eliminated and the decision made to
sell the four pipe organs and channel the diminishing resources elsewhere. The
plan now is to also sell the Ronald Wahl tracker instrument and use the
proceeds to rebuild the Steinway concert grand piano. Organ programs in the majority of schools in the state university system, not including the University at Madison, are reported to be severely curtailed or defunct.

Syracuse University

In view of its stellar position in postwar graduate organ
study, the experience of Syracuse University is revealing and particularly
significant.  The Syracuse program
rose to prominence under the leadership of Arthur Poister, a much-admired
teacher and an eloquent spokesman for the organist profession, together with
his colleagues and successors Will Headlee and Donald Sutherland.
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With the University of Michigan and the
Eastman School of Music, Syracuse shared the distinction of being three premier
graduate schools for organ study in the country. In the 1950s, the programs
benefited enormously from "degree inflation," as Headlee calls it,
which was then capturing the profession: the DMA supplanted the MMus as the
terminal degree in organ performance and became the "union card" for
an academic appointment.

The halcyon days at Syracuse were a manifestation of
promising academic job opportunities for organists, the attraction of the
trophy Holtkamp instruments in Crouse Auditorium and Hendricks Chapel, the
magnetism of Poister and his staff, and the all-important pipeline from Oberlin
to Syracuse where Poister had earlier taught. But Poister knew it couldn't
last. He often said to Headlee, "When will the bubble burst?"13 When
it did, in the late 1970s, the university moved swiftly to drastically curtail
the organ program.  Four of the six
Holtkamp "Martini" practice organs were sold.  When student credit hours plummeted to near zero, the administration elected not to replace Headlee upon his retirement and to outsource organ instruction with a part-time teacher, Katherine Pardee. She was the director of music at Hendricks Chapel whose funding is totally separate from the instructional budget of the school. The experience at Syracuse is an all-to-frequent example of how rapidly a once proud program that educated a generation of prominent teachers and performers can decline and virtually disappear.

The linkage between the initial investment and now
disinvestment decisions in pipe organs as a function of student enrollment
(demand) is an expression of the "imputation" theory of value
(zürechnung) propounded by the eminent Austrian economist Carl Menger
(1840-1921) wherein the demand (bedarf) for and value of an economic good
echoes backward into its resource base. In a market analogy, if the demand for
cigarettes falls, the demand and price for leaf tobacco declines and then the
need for and rent on tobacco growing land recedes.14

Within the music department curriculum and faculty, the
organ teacher is often odd man out. 
This sad situation is attributable to more than the decline in students
and credit hours. It is primarily a reflection of what Arthur Birkby of the
University of Wyoming calls the "softening" or "dumbing
down" of the pedagogical approach to music education.15 The contemporary
emphasis upon country, gospel, jazz and rock-based music means students have
decided that it is no longer necessary to be well-grounded in classical
precepts. Thus the core curriculum in theory, counterpoint, analysis and
composition, where the pipe organ and its music would be recognized, has been cast aside.16 Given this mindset, is it any wonder the organ is viewed today as a "fuddy duddy" instrument, as Birkby laments?  Rübsam adds that with organs and pianos being pushed into the corner in churches in favor of of electronic keyboards and all manner of audio-mixing devices, a career in church music is no longer attractive to the serious musician.

A Call to Action

In the foregoing analysis we have demonstrated how
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economic and political realities in
higher education together with the indifference of campus leaders and state
legislatures, with their slide-rule mentality (and without shame), have
resulted in a tragic loss of recognition of the pipe organ's time-honored place
in academe. These examples of the liquidation of pipe organs are perhaps logical
and defensible in view of the vice-grip economics overshadowing our
institutions of higher learning today. Yet the impression lingers that the
decisions are based primarily on expediency and without proper recognition of
the place of the instrument among the "untouchables" which would
certainly be true of other campus jewels. One cannot imagine, for example, that
if enrollment in astronomy courses declined, the school would sell-off the
telescope and turn the observatory into a laboratory for genetic engineering.

The following are suggestions that can and must be
implemented to stem the tide of indifference, neglect and abandonment, and to
protect and promote the King of Instruments in institutional settings.

The first step is an awareness of the urgency of the problem
and the need to take determined action. Pipe organ aficionados--professors,
alumni, organists and concerned laymen--must be ready to "lie down in
front of the bulldozer" (so to speak) to stop the carnage. This begins
with periodic inquiries on the status of the organs on campus and expressions
of ongoing interest in their well-being. The "Friends of the Northrop
Organ" at the University of Minnesota, described by Charles Hendrickson in
an article in the March, 1996 edition of The Diapason, is a fine example of the
type of organization that should be established at every school.17

The organ professor must be visible, articulate, and
proactive in promoting the instrument. 
In short, he or she must become an evangelist with fire in the belly, or
as one observer said:  "The
organist has got to come out of his hole, and fight!" They must interact
more frequently with the faculty and campus at large, and use every opportunity
to make sure the organ and its music are included in applicable courses. For
example, to advance the organ as an intellectual and cultural resource to the
larger campus community the organist, in cooperation with professional
organizations, could develop a slide lecture for presentation to classes in
history (western civilization), philosophy (aesthetics), architecture,
engineering and others.

The organist should solicit a firm commitment from the
university administration to recognize and maintain the instruments on campus.
To protect the fine Holtkamp organs at Syracuse, Will Headlee orchestrated a
celebration of the Centennial of Crouse Auditorium. The Organ Historical
Society citation for "an instrument of historic merit worthy of
preservation" was read to the gathering which included the chancellor on
the platform. In responding the chancellor gave assurances that the organ was
recognized and would continue to be honored. Headlee cautions that every time
there is a changing of the guard one has to go in and sell the situation all
over again.

Yale University, under the inspired leadership of Thomas
Murray, university organist, and Nicholas Thompson-Allen and Joseph Dzeda, the
two associate organ curators, has reached out to various constituents on
campus. In a well-conceived effort to promote high visibility and awareness of the pipe organs at Yale, these men have encouraged music students, technology
classes, and other university organizations to schedule tours and
demonstrations of the instruments. Undergraduates expressing an interest in the
pipe organs and occasionally using them as a topic for a class term paper are
welcomed and given full co-operation.

During Alumni Reunion Weekend each Spring, Friday morning
and afternoon tours are conducted of the trophy Hutchings-Steere-Skinner organ
in Woolsey Hall for alumni and their families. Murray demonstrates and plays
the instrument and then the curators guide the visitors on a brief walk through
the chambers. This creates in the alumni a sense of "pride of
ownership" in the instrument and they recognize it and the other fine pipe
organs on campus as an integral part of the heart and soul of Yale University.
This effort was rewarded two years ago when an alumnus, who had joined the
group, was moved to finance the restoration of a rank of pipes which had been
taken out of the organ more than sixty years ago. 

The music department should work closely with other
departments to establish maintenance funding in the budgetary process and
encourage the administration to persuade the state legislature of the
legitimacy and necessity of maintenance allocations. At the University of
Washington, the organ professor, Carole Terry, can submit a requisition for
tuning or repairs but bureaucratic guidelines have thus far ruled out a service
contract. In an effort to confront the realities of the budgetary process and
yet find a way to work within the system, Larry Schou, at the University of
South Dakota, is attempting to consign the Skinner auditorium organ to the
music instruments museum budget to promote its restoration.

Pipe organs should be given maximum coverage in campus
publicity. This includes descriptions and photos in promotional material and
catalogs, post cards for sale in the bookstore (now at University of Wyoming),
and descriptions and comments in campus tours for visitors and prospective
students. The campus radio station could be requested to play classical organ
music every week.

The instruments can be promoted to non-music students
throughout the campus, encouraging them to sign up for lessons, perhaps by
student teachers, and practice 
time. This might include "open console," periods when
students, under the supervision of the faculty, can reserve time to play at
their leisure. Who knows, perhaps some engineering student who elects to relax
at the organ a couple of hours a week, will come back in twenty years, having
made a fortune in computers or genetics, and endow the whole department!

Given the realities of diminished funding, organ teachers
may well have to perform routine maintenance, primarily tuning but perhaps also
minor repairs. In their devotion to the instrument, they must do everything
possible to keep it playing.  When
a pipe organ is no longer playable, it is half way out the door.

As a last resort, schools may come to rely on volunteers to
keep organs playing. This has worked successfully at the University of
Minnesota where the devoted service of Gordon Schultz is well recognized.
Professional organ technicians throw up their hands at this prospect, but it
may be the only re-course. The American Theater Organ Society has been notably
successful in harnessing the skills and energies of enthusiasts. Many of their
members play a major role in the restoration and preservation of these period
instruments.

Workers and community leaders now speak of themselves as
"stakeholders" in the fortunes of the businesses and community where
they work and live, with a vested interest that transcends the exigencies of
competition and profit. Perhaps this concept should be applied in a college
setting with professors, students and alumni viewed as stakeholders in the
cultural jewels of the campus.

In a followup article the author will explore promising
developments in the academic fortunes of the pipe organ.
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> 
Research for this paper has disclosed
several situations where institutional recognition is encouraging, endowments
are forthcoming and student enrollment is growing. Readers who know of such
illustrations are encouraged to reply to the author on his e-mail:
[email protected]                

For research input and critical comments on earlier drafts
of this paper, the author gratefully acknowledges: Corliss Arnold, Nelson
Barden, Jack Bethards, Dean Billmeyer, Arthur Birkby, Joan DeVee Dixon, Joanne
Domb, Joseph Dzeda, John Ferguson, Laura Gayle Green, Yuko Hayashi, Will
Headlee, Herbert Huestis, Dale Jensen, the late Stephen Long, Richard
McPherson, Charles McManis, John Near, Albert Neutel, Charles Orr, Katherine
Pardee, Robert Rosen, Wolfgang Rübsam, Larry Schou, Steve Shoemaker, Albert
Smith, Larry Smith, John Chappell Stowe, Carole Terry, and Walter Watson.

Notes

                  1.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             
Campbell-Kelly, Martin ed., Charles Babbage: Passages from the Life of a Philosopher, New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1994, Introduction and Chapter V and VII.

                  2.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             
Telephone interview with Will Headlee, July 9, 1996.

                  3.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             
Telephone interview with Albert C. Shaw, October 1, 1996.

                  4.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             
Proffitt, Steve, Interview with Judith Balfe,  "Is Support for the Arts Literally Dying Off?", Los Angeles Times, February 23, 1996, p. M-3.

                  5.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             
Veblen,
Thorstein, The Higher Learning in America:  A Memorandum on the Conduct of Universities by Business
Men,  New York:
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> 
B. W. Huebsch, 1918.
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> 
See also Joseph Dorfman, Thorstein
Veblen and His America, Seventh Edition, Clifton, N.J.: Augustus M. Kelley,
1972, pp. 234, 395-410.

                  6.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             
Interview
with John Hose and Adolph Zajic, 1964. Another was the four-manual sixty-rank
instrument for Wilson College in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania with a stoplist
designed by Virgil Fox. The famous Whitelegg diapason chorus on the erecting
room floor in Hagerstown was purchased by Trinity Methodist Church in
Youngstown, Ohio in 1942, and later incorporated in the great division of the
four-manual eighty-nine rank instrument completed in 1947. Whitelegg died in
1944. See The Diapason, August, 1937, p. 1, June, 1943, p. 22, August, 1947, p.
1.

Related Content

Promoting the Pipe Organ in Academe

by R. E. Coleberd

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

Default

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

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

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

Invaluable Goods

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

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

Auditorium Organs

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

Mansfield University

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

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

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

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

Boston University

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

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

Promoting the Pipe Organ

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

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

Liberal Arts Colleges

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

Marylhurst College

Practical Outreach

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

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

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

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

Dordt College

Church Music Training

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

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

University of Evansville

Musical Anchor for Liberal
Arts

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

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

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

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

Organ Study and Other Curricula

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

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

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

Drake University

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

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

State Colleges

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

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

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

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

Central Missouri State

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

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

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

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

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

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

Promoting the Pipe Organ

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

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

Liberal Arts Colleges

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

Conservatories and Universities

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

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

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

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

Oberlin College

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

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

Westminster Choir College

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

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

Summary

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

Organ professors in academe are a very close-knit
professional group who communicate with each other frequently and who are eager
to find ways to bolster the immediate prospects of their school and the
fortunes of their colleagues elsewhere as well. They should be encouraged to
exchange ideas in regional and national gatherings of organists and music
educators and on the Internet. The professional media should be admonished to
publicise program details and achievements. Perhaps the AGO should contemplate
establishing awards to individuals and programs that demonstrate innovation and
leadership in advancing the profession and the instrument.
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For critical comments on earlier drafts of this paper the
author gratefully acknowledges: 
Byron Arneson, Nelson Barden, Jack Bethards, Charles McManis, Albert
Neutel, Jack Sievert and Haskel Thomson.

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

Notes

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

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

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

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

                        5.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>                 
Martin
Trow, "Aspects of Diversity in Higher Education" in Gans, Glazer, Gusfield
and Jenks, eds, On The Making of 
Americans:  Essays in Honor
of David Riesman, Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, 1997, pp. 171-270.
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Trophy Builders and their Instruments A Chapter in the Economics of Pipe Organ Building

by R. E. Coleberd

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

Default

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

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

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

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

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

Roosevelt

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

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

E. M. Skinner

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

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

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

Erzähler-Christ Church, Hartford, Connecticut

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

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

French Horn-Williams College, Williamstown, Masssachusetts

Kleine Erzähler-Fourth Presbyterian, Chicago

Gross Gedeckt-Second Congregational, Holyoke, Massachusetts

Corno Di Bassetto-Williams College, Williamstown,
Massachusetts

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

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

Orchestral Bassoon (16')-Skinner Studio, Boston

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

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

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

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

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

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

Aeolian Skinner and G. Donald Harrison

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

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

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

Aeolian

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

The Automotive Industry:

Dodge, Horace E., Detroit, Michigan

Dodge, John F., Detroit, Michigan

Firestone, H. S., Akron, Ohio

Ford, Edsel B., Detroit, Michigan

Kettering, C. F., Dayton, Ohio

Olds, R. E., Lansing, Michigan

Packard, W. D., Warren, Ohio

Seiberling, F. A., Akron, Ohio

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

Merchants and Manufacturers:

Armour, J. O., Lake Forest, Illinois

Cudahay, J. M., Lake Forest, Illinois

DuPont, Irenee, Wilmington, Delaware

DuPont, Pierre S., Wilmington, Delaware

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

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

Wrigley, Wm. Jr., Chicago, Illinois

Publishers:

Bok, Edward, Merion, Pennsylvania

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

Pulitzer, Mrs. Joseph, New York, New York

Scripps, W. E., Detroit, Michigan

Railroads and Public Utilities:

Flagler, John H., Greenwich, Connecticut

Harriman, E. H., Arden, New York

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

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

Steel and Oil:

Carnegie, Andrew, New York, New York

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

Rockefeller, John D., Pocantico Hills, New York

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

Schwab, Charles M., New York, New York

Teagle, Walter C., Portchester, New York

Wurlitzer

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

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

Holtkamp

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

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

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

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

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

Schlicker

The market for a neobaroque instrument embracing the
Orgelbewegung  movement was growing
and the established industry was caught with an image problem it could not yet
overcome, opening the door for yet another builder to rise to prominence and by
redefining  the instrument and
capturing a preferred position in a specific market, to achieve trophy status
under our definition. This was Herman Schlicker. His launching pad was the rebuild of the 1893 Johnson organ in the Grace Episcopal Church in Sandusky, Ohio in 1950 with the advice and encouragement of Robert Noehren.16
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Schlicker would go on to etch his
definition of the pipe organ in bold relief: a comparatively severe instrument earmarked by a mild fundamental, a shift in the tonal balance with an emphasis on upperwork, and a reduction in the percentage of strings in the tonal resources as well as a preference for 18th-century strings of an almost soft principal timbre to the exclusion of romantic (pencil) strings.  Baroque style chorus and color reeds were featured in stoplists favoring early music, often suggesting the Praetorius mantra
(reflecting the influence of close friend and confidant Paul Bunjes).
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To augment his tonal resources, Schlicker devised a
"Tonkanzell" electropneumatic windchest featuring a long channel with
the valve closing against a side rail as opposed to closing directly under the
toehole as in conventional pouch-action chests. This was designed to buffer aerodynamically the effect of the opening valve on the pipe foot and to approximate the wind characteristics of the slider chest.17 He was also an early advocate of the slider chest in nonmechanical construction and incorporated it in several instruments.

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

Fisk

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

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

Summary and Conclusions

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

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

The Economics of Pipe Organ Building

It's Time To Tell the Story

by R. E. Coleberd
Default

Introduction

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

Assumptions

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Economics

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

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

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

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

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

Rising Cost

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

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

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

The Electronic Organ

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

Church Giving

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

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

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

Pipe Organ Imports

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Predictions

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Notes

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

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

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

                        4.                  Ibid.

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

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

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

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

                        9.                  Taylor, op. cit.

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

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

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

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

Organ Teaching in the Small Liberal Arts College

by William Kuhlman

William Kuhlman is Professor of Organ at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa where he has taught since 1969. He is a graduate of Saint Olaf College and received his advanced degree from Syracuse University. His major instructors have included David N. Johnson, Arthur Poister, Grete Krogh and Harald Vogel. He has previously written an article for The Diapason entitled "Andrew Carnegie and the Organ," and an article in the July 2002 issue of The American Organist reviewing "Sacred Music 2002" at the University of Iowa. He recently recorded a new compact disc of organ and brass music for Telarc with the Empire Brass at Luther College. He performs five days a week for services of the campus community on the 3-manual, 41-rank Robert Sipe organ at the 1500-seat Center for Faith and Life. Kuhlman is represented by The Concert Artist Cooperative.

 

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Small liberal arts college teaching is an area rich in challenges and creative possibilities. Having taught in the field for the past 34 years has prompted me to reflect on its rich opportunities as well as its perils for those desirous of a walk down similar paths. Few students in graduate studies working toward career paths in college or university teaching can anticipate the realities awaiting them upon successfully joining this guild. In the paragraphs that follow I will share a few of my experiences in hopes that the information will benefit those seeking to pursue an academic career.

 

Henry Adams once said, "A teacher affects eternity; one can never tell where one's influence stops." At this very moment, graduate students throughout the many fine programs around the country are honing their skills as performers and becoming the best players they possibly can. Their influence on organ students of the future will undoubtedly manifest itself in many positive ways. When the young Arthur Poister was teaching in Sioux City, Iowa, he had no idea that he would later be quoted over and over again and regaled as one of the great seers of organ pedagogy in the 20th century. Likewise with Russell Saunders when he was a young man teaching at Drake University: he never realized how far-reaching his influence would be as a scholar, a student of the instrument and its literature, and as an extraordinary "teacher of teachers." For those unfamiliar with these two names, Arthur Poister at Syracuse University and Russell Saunders at Drake (and later, the Eastman School of Music) were surely considered two of the giants of organ teaching in America from the 1950s through most of the 80s. They would undoubtedly agree with the quote attributed to the English music critic/musicologist Ernest Newman, who said: "A good teacher is slowly discovered. The bad teacher is quickly found out!" For those aspiring to this wonderful profession, the rewards are many, the diversity of experiences enjoyable and a great pleasure at times. The positives far outweigh the negatives.

But a few caveats would well-serve those aspiring to academia. Organ teaching and playing in America has undoubtedly reached a level unparalleled in history. The instruments we play and teach on are of a caliber unrivaled anywhere in the world. Top-flight preparation through superb teaching continues to produce competition winners and wonderful young artists. One wonders, however, whether playing skills alone will suffice to prepare graduates from our excellent conservatories, colleges and universities for the few teaching positions that become available each year. Perhaps a few musings from personal experience will be helpful.

When I was in graduate school studying at Syracuse with Arthur Poister, my interest in theory, history, pedagogy, church music and service playing was secondary to the pursuit of my performance skills. I had assimilated a reasonably good feel for liturgical organ playing growing up in the atmosphere of St. John Lutheran Church and Grace Lutheran Church in the western Chicago suburbs, where an excellent brand of church music was being espoused by the likes of Gerhardt Becker, Carl Schalk, Paul Bouman, Paul Bunjes, Richard Hillert and other giants of Lutheran church music. By the time I left high school I had played a fair number of church services (which I enjoyed immensely) and adored playing hymns both on G. Donald Harrison's Aeolian-Skinner at church as well as on our Model 45 Baldwin at home. When my parents bought our Baldwin on South Wabash Avenue in Chicago, the demonstrator was none other than the inimitble Reginald Foort, the staff organist at the BBC in London prior to the war. I was privileged to have lessons from him for about two years while I was studying with our local Lutheran church musicians Becker and Bouman. Reggie taught me technique from the "Stainer Method Book." Later on we worked on the E-Flat Trio Sonata of Bach and assorted chestnuts from the orchestral literature such as his transcription of Offenbach's Orpheus in the Underworld and some glorious renditions of tunes such as "Night and Day" and "Dancing on the Ceiling."

All of these eclectic experiences helped to kindle my passion for playing the organ and served me well in college and university and my first organ-ist/choirmaster position at St. Michael's Episcopal Church in the idyllic town of Cazenovia, New York. However, like my colleagues in the graduate program, most of my energy was expended in preparing memorized organ recitals and studying a narrow range of literature. Our primary goals were to hone our skills to become the best teachers and players that we could become. In this respect, "Mr. Poister" was the paragon of the "model teacher/performer."

When I decided to track into academe in the late 1960s, the opportunities were plentiful. Many good jobs were open in both church music and college work. However, when I was hired into my first full-time position at Jamestown College in North Dakota in 1967, I quickly experienced a "wake-up call" when I found myself on committees, teaching and advising non-major students and thus having to know and understand the college catalogue and all its nuances. I was required to play for college celebrations and chapels, conduct the touring a cappella choir, teach piano and harpsichord, music history, church music, a January term course on "The Fine Arts in Chicago" and assorted other duties I had never dreamed I would be undertaking. Once over the initial shock, I dug in and started shoveling.

Teaching in a small town at a small liberal arts college with students that were either beginners or low intermediate players presented a new set of challenges. As the only professionally trained organist in the region, I felt like I was stranded on a wind-blown oasis at times. My two departmental colleagues were a band director and a flower-child composer/theorist with whom I maintained splendid relationships, but whose direct interest in my own field was, to put it mildly, limited. I missed the interchange and compatibility of the Syracuse classmates in Mr. Poister's last studio at the University. I longed to commune once again with wonderful organ colleagues like Wayne Leupold, John Strege, Bill Neill and Larry Smith and to chat endlessly about notes inégale, interpretations of the Reubke Sonata or whatever other subtle nuances of performance practice that may have been subjects for nattering as we met in the halls and coffee shops at the time.

It was fortuitous that when I went to Luther College, Decorah, in 1969 with a few years of college teaching under my organ shoes, I was a little less naive than several years before. I reveled in the opportunities afforded by the rich organ culture that Gerhard Krapf had cultivated in the State of Iowa. I delighted in the collegial relationship which I formed with both Gerhard and his superb colleague Delbert Disselhorst and later on Delores Bruch at the University of Iowa. I found great inspiration in the work that Gerhard and the university organ technician Carroll Hanson had done to introduce great new organs into the state. My work was cut out for me to emulate their model in both teaching and bringing much-needed new instruments to my "quadrant" of Iowa.

The reality of my first years at the new position came as somewhat of a shock to this idealistic young savant, eager to make his mark at his first college job. A number of smaller shocks hit me straight on:

* Luther College conducted non-compulsory daily plus Sunday chapel services. A lot of literature had to be covered in a given week with a dozen voluntaries and hymns to be played, and numerous choral and instrumental accompaniments to be learned.

* I was given about a dozen liberal arts students per semester to advise. A few were music majors, but many were pursuing majors in biology, classics, French and other areas outside my field of expertise.

* I served on a variety of committees--the curriculum committee, (which I also served as chair), social committees (for Christmas parties, faculty retirement fetes and the like) and on planning committees for extra-curricular events such as college anniversaries, celebrations like the Martin Luther 500th anniversary, the Bach celebration in 1985 and three visits by the King and Queen of Norway. There were convocations featuring Vice-President George H.W. Bush, Attorney General Edwin Meese, Crown Prince Harald of Norway, and later on, his son Prince Haakon.

* I had to find concertatos as we planned Homecoming worship services, Baccalaureates, Christmas concerts and other festival services. I discovered that I really needed to do my homework here and ended up writing many of my own. This too was a new experience for me.

* I was required to teach theory and ear training to fill out my load--areas  which I never dreamt I would have to master. In the process I had to become conversant in Sibelius, Finale and various software programs such as MacGamut and C.A.T. I felt like a fish out of water much of the time!

* I found myself attending more required meetings than I thought possible. A typical week: Monday afternoons, Sunday worship planning with campus pastor A; Wednesday mornings, full college faculty once a month, and the Humanities Division every other week; Wednesday afternoon's meetings with Campus Pastor B to choose hymns and plan daily chapel services; Friday mornings three times a month, full music faculty meetings; other days--meetings of ad hoc committees of various kinds. In short, a lot of time that I once thought I would spend in a practice room.

* As an apparent result of having attended another "liberal arts" college as an undergraduate (Saint Olaf), I found myself teaching courses in the general humanities. I learned that there are certain perils resultant from conversations at social occasions with English faculty. Indiscriminately dropping authors' names or titles of recently read books can lead one down yet another dark alley such as becoming the discussion leader in sections of the core program for first year students with topics like "Greek Mythology" or "Maoist China"!

Despite having resisted and often eschewed past parental advice, I find myself having saved a few chestnuts of my own to pass on to the next generation of prospective small college pedagogues:

Music appreciation. Sometime your organ load may be too small and you'll be asked to teach this or a similar introductory course populated by Physical Education or Science majors wishing to fulfill their fine arts requirement. Even though this is not your specialty, you will be asked to be a good scout and to pitch in. Know your Grieg Concerto and Peter and the Wolf and you will have a jump-start! Ear training and sight singing are other favorite courses which department chairs like to pass around to fill applied teacher's loads, the general assumption being that these are courses that anyone can teach!

Politics. You will want to get your own agenda across, but you will want to do so in such a way that you keep your fellow colleagues' diverse needs in mind as well, and find ways of working within your department without alienating your co-workers. You may for example want to initiate an organ project, which I have had the opportunity to do on four different occasions at our college. It will be very important for you to diplomatically nurture this idea with your colleagues without forgetting that they too may have needs important to them. The eternal problem is how to strike a balance and be a good department member at the same time as having your agenda realized at some point in time.

The draft. I was fortunate not to be drafted into the armed services back in the 60s. But in the 70s, I found myself drafted in my college job into other similarly rigorous duties by befriending one of our theater directors and finding myself joyfully conducting orchestras for musicals like Kurt Weill's Three Penny Opera and playing one of the two piano parts for a production of The Fantasticks.

Developing an audience for organ music. I did not immediately find the same receptive and interested audience for organ music we experienced at graduate school. You will undoubtedly have to build an audience for organ music in the community. The organ journals have had exhaustive articles on this subject over the years and so this turf does not need to be re-seeded. The surest way to kill an uncultivated audience would be to play a dry, academic recital right off the bat, or to have a guest who does so. Be sensitive to the tradition and level of musical sophistication or lack thereof.

New instruments. You may have the wonderful opportunity to procure a pipe organ sometime in your career. A whole host of creative ideas about who the best builder might be for the task, about how to raise funds, and about how to engender enthusiasm and excitement for the project will have to be thought through. Back in the 70s, long before Pipedreams was so much a part of our lives, I hosted a half-hour program each week on our local radio station called "The King of Instruments." I scripted and narrated the program myself, and would play organ recordings from the station's library and reel-to-reel tapes from my own performances and that of my friends and colleagues. This was one of several techniques I thought would engender some interest in attaining new organs at our college. It worked!

Hosting recitalists. You will have to get to know the ins and outs of "presenting." This means finding appropriate recitalists either from your pool of acquaintances or from the management rosters. It can also involve seeking funding through various sources, selling tickets, promoting the recital through your church or college newsletter, radio, TV, posters, church bulletins, newspapers and so forth. How much or how little hosting needs to be done? Donor dinners, AGO and student guild chapter sponsorship are all avenues worth pursuing.

*

In order to achieve promotion and tenure commensurate with your degrees and years in service, several things are necessary. You can read all about this in a college's faculty handbook, but here is the Cliff Notes summary:

Practice time. Many times in schools of music and colleges with strong programs such as ours with 50 faculty and staff in our department, recital and performance work will suffice instead of research. However with a full teaching load, practice time is often precious to find and the first thing to go. I set aside "untouchable" hours from 7:30 until our chapel service begins at 10:00 am and work on recital, church, chapel and accompaniment music during that period. One would be wise to set aside a part of your day in your life as church musician or academic, and make this time sacrosanct. No calls, no interruptions, no make-up lessons!

Contributions to the department. You will be asked to be on calendar committees, library acquisition committees, building committees, departmental publication committees, ensemble committees and a host of other arcane bodies within your department, which set policy, curriculum and other functions of the program. You must do this willingly and cheerfully if you ever expect to receive the requisite glowing evaluations from the colleagues who will review your work. The hiring and review process now as compared to 30 years ago is thoroughly analytical, precise, regulated and organized. Many of us opine that we probably never would have risen through the ranks to full professor if the current rubric had applied when we were climbing the "tenure ladder."

Contributions to the college and the community. A young faculty member with aspirations toward tenure gladly, willingly and eagerly serves on various strange "task forces" and ad hoc committees in order to be noticed by deans and department heads. Directing and/or playing at local churches or synagogues, becoming a participant on school or hospital boards and service organizations are small but integral factors in the tenure mix.

Writing skills. We think so often in music that writing is secondary or maybe not at all important relative to what we will do in a college job. Nothing could be further from the truth. I am constantly writing: grant proposals, proposals to committees, drafts of ideas, reports, minutes of meetings, articles for newsletters and magazines, and a variety of diverse documents such as letters of recommendation for graduate study, letters supportive of Fulbright and Rhodes scholarship applicants and the like. I also am constantly being asked to write evaluations for colleagues in the department who are up for promotion and tenure, or are applying for other jobs. Being able to write clearly is not a luxury but a prerequisite of the job.

Speaking skills. You are frequently required in an academic position to speak at faculty meetings, to introduce speakers, to give talks to local organizations, to do workshops of various kinds, to be a consultant for organ projects, to speak at AGO and church body conventions, conferences and workshops. Speaking confidently with a modicum of good grammar and syntax, and presenting oneself in a professional manner is paramount.

Corollary Issues

As College Organist at a relatively small (2800 students) but important college in the region, I am often called upon to give advice to churches on finding organists, and in replacing or restoring a variety of organs out and about. Be ready to willingly help out, or have access to people who might be able to give the needed advice. You will find yourself the "caretaker" of organ and perhaps church music in your area and will be called upon to be the local resource for a variety of strange and interesting requests, often hilarious, sometimes bizarre. A few examples:

a. "Where can I find replacement tubes for my Hammond B-3?"

b. "How much is my Estey reed organ worth? Would you appraise it for me?"

c. "Where can I find an organ arrangement of The Battle Hymn of the Republic?"

d. "Would you play a recital on our 1920 Hinners for our church's 100th anniversary celebration? You might want to tune it first!"

e. "Would you be willing to go through my late Aunt Minnie's organ music and tell me what it's worth for tax purposes?"

f. "Would your music library like my late great-uncle's collection of revival hymnbooks?"

g. "Could the College use a pair of Leslie speakers?"

h. And, of course, the perennial questions: "Do you have any students that could play for services this year at West Paint Creek Presbyterian Church in rural What Cheer? Our council just raised the fee to $20.00 per service."

If you are teaching as I do, in a small college atmosphere, you will soon find that a five-day workweek is impossible for the most part. You may spend part of your weekend supporting colleagues' lectures and performances, attending your students' junior and senior organ recitals or those of students and instrumentalists enrolled in your classes. When your own students present recitals there will of course be the attendant hours of extra coaching and rehearsal. Many of your "free" Saturdays may be usurped by admission department requests to meet with prospective students who can only visit the campus over a weekend. You will want to become better known in the community by helping your colleagues in the area with recital and workshop programming. Become active in the local AGO and regional denominational associations. Attend lectures by colleagues in other departments and show interest in areas beyond your own program and agenda.

Recruiting. You may be surprised to discover that dozens of talented organ students are not automatically going to come knocking at your studio door. You have to find clever ways to encourage the good ones to enter your studio. Scholarship support from your administration is critical. Sponsoring workshops in organ and church music, summer organ camps and keyboard festivals are all part of the game we have to play to get good students to come to an expensive school and study organ as one of their academic subjects. We may fall into a few great students with little or no effort but most frequently will have to work hard to convince them of the benefits of our program versus that of our competitors. Read your magazines. Be an activist in the perpetual campaign to interest young people in our instrument. Find out how to sponsor a Pipe Organs and Pizza event for young keyboardists, invite youngsters in church choir programs up to the organ loft, invite school groups to come in and have a fun, entertaining 30-45 minutes hearing the sounds and experiencing the wonders of the pipe organ. Our future as teachers and performers depends on energetic new ideas and creative approaches.

Studio teaching. I was absolutely certain when I started my teaching career that all of the pieces I had labored on during my college and university studies would be within easy access of most if not all of the students whom I would teach. Sowerby, Reubke, Liszt, Mendelssohn, Bach, Buxtehude, Bruhns, Lübeck, Böhm, Sweelinck, Scheidt, Hindemith, Langlais, Messiaen--no problem! And then, of course, there'd be the ever-reliable Gleason and later on Stauffer and Ritchie, Soderlund, and Davis, for those few beginners who needed a little retrofitting or tune-up. Nothing could have been further from the truth. Many, if not most of the students enrolled for lessons at small liberal arts colleges are either taking lessons for the first time, or for only a year or two. Many will be non-music majors. In counting my student load of 16 lessons in the spring semester, four were education majors, four were applied music majors, and the rest from other departments with history, nursing and/or undetermined majors. From amongst these diverse groups, many will end up giving junior and senior recitals at the point at which they are prepared and interested in doing so. Others take lessons simply because they want to be prepared to play a competent church service. The dilemma in a liberal arts program is whether to accept only high-potential students with great keyboard ability or to accept most or all of those who enroll and teach to their level. On the one hand, it's more interesting and professionally fulfilling to accept only a few "superstars." On the other hand, one's teaching load may, as a result, be filled with duties outside of your expertise or general interest.

Be prepared to teach entry-level pieces such as Dupré's 79 Chorales, Keller's 80 Chorale Preludes, Pachelbel and Walther manualiter, easy trios by Krebs, Hudson, using method books such as Roger Davis or the new series that Wayne Leupold has developed. Accept every promising pre-college age student you can lay your hands on. This is our future as organ pedagogues if our instrument is to survive. Isn't it ironic that in the present day, we're experiencing a level of organ building in the country unprecedented in history, while in many quarters, organ music in many churches is being relegated to the dust heap in favor of the praise band!

Coda

Bring to your job applications and your vitae as diverse and well-rounded a background as you can manage within your graduate programs. Deans and department chairs that are looking at dossiers are rarely looking for a candidate qualified to teach only to their specialty.

The diversity of experiences which include living life in a bucolic college town with diverse cultural and physical attributes, interesting colleagues and the rich opportunities available, all serve to  make a career in college teaching well worth considering. Perils and pitfalls exist, but in the end, the rewards are abundant.

This article was developed from a lecture presented at the University of Iowa on November 11, 2001.

The Fred and Ella Reddel Memorial Organ at Valparaiso University

Part 2

by Philip Gehring, Martin Jean, William F. Eifrig, and Dr. John
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The Reddel Memorial Organ at Valparaiso University: the first 30 years

As plans were being made in the middle 1950s for the
construction of a new chapel on the campus of Valparaiso University, the
administration was determined to provide an organ suitable to the size of the
building and of a  character to
carry forward the tradition of fine Lutheran church music already
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> 
established at the university. Dr. 0.
P. Kretzmann, university president; Dr. 
Theodore Hoelty-Nickel, head of the music department; and Dr. Heinrich
Fleischer, university organist, conferred with Dr. Paul Bunjes. The chapel
building, modern in dress but traditional in its long nave, elevated chancel,
and high ceiling, was originally conceived with a bridge across the nave on
which the organ would be placed, but saner counsel prevailed and the organ was
placed in the rear gallery.

In the 1950s the tracker revival was still some years in the
future. Tonal designs in the 50s usually included independent principal
choruses in each division, with the addition of some Romantic stops; voicing
was clearer and more forthright than that of Romantic organs. But electric key
and stop action was still the norm, and free-standing pipework was advocated.
Valparaiso University turned first to one of the preeminent organ builders in
this so-called "American Classic" style, Walter Holtkamp. Disputes
about tonal design and architectural features resulted in awarding the contract
to another builder, also known for his own particular brand of American Classic
organs: Herman Schlicker, of Buffalo, New York. The organ, designed by Dr. Bunjes
in collaboration with Mr. Schlicker, was completed and installed in the summer
of 1959. The dedication of both chapel and organ occurred on September 27 of
that year; E. Power Biggs played the opening recital to an overflow audience.

The principal donor for the organ was the Reddel family, of
St. Joseph, Michigan, and the instrument has since been known as the Fred and
Ella Reddel Memorial Organ. Originally planned as an instrument of 4 manuals
and 101 ranks of pipes, including an antiphonal organ in the chancel, the organ
at its dedication consisted of only 67 ranks and no antiphonal division. Over
the ensuing years, other donors, notably Kenneth Merrill of South Bend,
Indiana, and the Gaertner family of Farmington, Michigan, enabled a few
additional ranks to be added. The organ did not reach its planned size,
however, until the major renovation of 1995. The idea of an antiphonal division
was abandoned. However, the Valparaiso organ is an instrument of luxurious
size, allowing the player a widely varied palette of tonal colors. And even
more important, the designer and builder achieved the unity of character and
blend of stops that are the hallmark of the best organs.

In its first thirty years, the Reddel organ was host to many
of the world's leading organists. And generations of students, their parents,
faculty, and visitors have experienced the dimension that the Reddel organ has
added to Sunday and daily worship.

--Philip Gehring

Professor Emeritus of Music

University Organist, 1958-88

Behind the scenes of the organ renovation

"The organ should have sounded better," we all
thought that balmy fall afternoon during our guest organist's recital. The
playing was superb, but in spite of the fact that the organ was freshly tuned,
it was becoming clear, especially to some of our alumni present in the audience
that day, that the organ's voice was showing signs of age. One particularly
devoted alumnus, Michael Friesen, 
was thoughtful enough to bring this to the attention of the president of
the University. Likewise, in his typically efficient manner, Dr. Harre asked
the organ faculty to look into the matter. Prof. Gehring, Eifrig, Bernthal and
myself recommended that two consultants be brought to campus to evaluate the
organ's condition. Jack Bethards, president of Schoenstein Organs in
California, and Lynn Dobson, who later was hired to do the work, both announced
that the organ was in need of serious attention. Because of heavy use during
the school year, mechanically speaking the organ had aged three to four times
faster than a normal church organ. Tonally, pipes had become dirty and had
fallen off speech. Visually, the organ was in need of a good cleaning. Finally,
with the development of technology in the last decade, it would improve the organ's
usefulness and flexibility to update its systems.

The latter issue was the easiest to deal with. Solid State
Logic was asked to design the new relay system and combination action and
provide MIDI and playback capabilities for the organ.

Mechanical issues were also relatively straightforward. The
swell boxes had never worked properly, so the very latest, state-of-the-art
Peterson motors were installed. An elegant new console was built, copied after
the old one. While the organ was disassembled, it seemed financially prudent to
restore all the leather.

The tonal nature of the organ was doubtless the most
delicate issue to deal with and the one which required the longest
deliberation. Extra funds had become available to complete the organ, but we
also needed to consider what voicing could be done on the Schlicker pipes. Our
first priority was to keep the original nature of the organ intact. Here was an
excellent example (and one of the largest) of Herman Schlicker's innovative
work. All of the original scales (save for slight modifications to the the 8';
and 4'; principals on the Great) remained untouched. Selective voicing was done
to the flue pipes, not to change the nature of their tone, but rather to give
it more bloom in the chapel. Reeds were cleaned thoroughly and new tongues were
inserted in many, thus improving speech and tonal production.

A related concern was the organ specification. In 1959, the
funds did not exist to build the fourth manual. A Brustwerk and selected stops
from the other three manuals and pedal were left off. The committee thought
that since the essence of the original Brustwerk stops existed elsewhere on the
organ, and that several other stops, such as a two-rank celeste at 4'; pitch,
and two 4'; regals would not be as useful, we recommended some modifications be
made. There seemed to be a need for more 8'; pitch and string tone on the
organ, which caused us to add two 8'; principals (Positiv and Solo) and a
Salicional in the Swell and strings in the Solo. The battery of reeds in the
Great were completed as planned, but new reed colors were added to the other
divisions--a French Chalumeau, Vox Humana, Clarinet and English-style Trumpet.
Since it was clear that the new fourth manual would not be a Brustwerk and, in
fact, would include a set of strings, the decision was made to enclose the
stops and include Harmonic Flutes 8'; and 4'; and 4'; Principal. A cornet was
mounted on top of the box. A Schreipfeife (13/5'; and 11/7';) which was on the
original Bunjes specification, was installed on the Swell. Electronic 32's
would prove much more economical than the 12 wood pipes called for in 1959.

The organ was re-dedicated in a liturgy on Sept. 15, 1996.
John Scott, Organist/Master of Choirs of St. Paul's Cathedral, London played
the afternoon recital.

--Martin Jean

Associate Professor of Organ

The School of Music and the Institute of Sacred Music, Yale
University

The process of restoration and enlargment

The approach of 1985, the Bach tricentennial, encouraged the
university organists to propose finishing the incomplete Schlicker organ. Not
only did the instrument lack almost one-third of the original stoplist, but
twenty-five years of constant use with only minimal repairs had left the organ
in need of major rehabilitation. The university, however, had other capital
projects underway; no large donor could be courted for the organ project. That
would wait for another decade.

The program for 1985, however, was the basis on which the
1995 project was conceived. By the mid-eighties the university organists had a
quarter-century of experiencing the Schlicker organ in the acoustics and
worship programs of the chapel.

The chests of most divisions were set up to receive the
prepared-for ranks, but there were neither chests for the Brustwerk division, nor
did Schlicker or Bunjes have any idea where such a division would be located.
There was also the need for larger sounds, not the miniatures of the specified
Brustwerk.

In 1985 Professors Gehring and Eifrig proposed an
alternative to the Brustwerk, a division that was not an independent chorus of
stops but rather a supplement to the Great. Not wanting to violate the
Bunjes/Schlicker concept, the university organists called this "the Cantus
Firmus Division," with additional horizontal trumpets and a set of
Principals to which the other divisions could be coupled. Such a plan would
enable the organist to lead the singing of 1500 voices in "packed
house" worship, soloing out hymn melodies above full organ accompaniment.
The 1985 plan waited for a later project, and the Bach year was celebrated on
the incomplete Schlicker organ.

By the 1990s Valparaiso University had attended to the
several building projects that had earlier taken precedence over the organ
rehabilitation and completion of the center for the arts. Now a new
administration was in a position to let an arts building represent its
accomplishments. Planning such a building for the music department of necessity
included plans for organ performance and instruction. At an early stage of
conceptual planning thought was given to a moderately large organ for a concert
hall. Budgetary restrictions as well as recognition that the Schlicker in the
chapel would always be the locus of organ performance left the concert hall and
its instrument out of the concepts for the Valparaiso University Center for the
Arts. In that center, dedicated in 1995, practice rooms for four organs were
provided and the Bauer Organ and Choral Room gave the Schlicker teaching organ
a happy environment for teaching, rehearsals, and small recitals or master
classes.

Martin Jean's appointment as University Organist coincided
with planning and construction of the arts center. The chair of the music
department and Jean reminded the university administration and the public that
the organ at the chapel is very much a component of the arts center as well as
a prominent voice for the musical arts in Lutheran worship. A turning point in
this campaign occurred when the Vice-President for Finance understood that the
Schlicker organ, suffering twenty-five years of neglect, was not serving
students well in their organ education. Her appreciation of this fact set in
motion the renovation, completion, and expansion of the Schlicker/Bunjes organ.

Funded by the Vice-President's office, the organists and chapel
staff of the university first drew up a list of builders from whom to solicit
interest in the project. Those interested were asked to state their
expectations for the renovation/completion, proposing a specification that
would modify the original Bunjes stoplist while respecting the Schlicker
character of the existing instrument. The organists and chapel staff
recommended that the Dobson Organ Company be contracted to refurbish and
complete the chapel organ. The University Office of Institutional Advancement,
while engaged already in a major capital funding drive, undertook to secure the
funds needed by the project. The Eickhoff family were generous supporters of
the almost half-million dollar capital investment.

--William F. Eifrig

Professor Emeritus of Music

Teaching organ students on the renovated Reddel Memorial Organ

It has indeed been a joy to teach organ students on the
Reddel Memorial Organ at the Chapel of the Resurrection. The clarity of the
ensemble, the presence in the room of individual stops, and the color and
balance afforded by the completion of the organ have been noticeable to members
of the campus community and visitors alike.

For students, the renovated organ offers a greater tonal
palette from which to choose registrations. The addition of the 16'; and 4';
chorus reeds on the Great increased the brightness and gravity of this
division; the extension of the 16'; Fagott from the Great into the Pedal and
the addition of an independent 8'; 
Trompette in the Pedal increased flexibility in this division. Various
divisions have been "filled out" by adding ranks "prepared
for" but not included in the original construction. Thanks to the addition
of a 13/5'; Großterz on the Great, II Schreipfeife on the Swell, and mounted
Cornet on the Solo we now have the luxury of Cornet combinations available on
all four manuals. The Pedal division now includes a 51/3'; Quinte (from the
16'; overtone series) and an 8'; Flötenbass for more versatility. The new
Solo division, which is enclosed, has greatly expanded the tonal possibilities
of the overall instrument. In addition to providing new colors available as
solo stops--8'; Harmonic Flute, large-scale Cornet, Clarinet, and Trumpet--the
Solo division augments the resources for playing 19th and 20th-century organ
literature. Other additions have made it possible to register organ music of
certain composers or schools more effectively. For instance, the addition of an
8'; Principal on the Positiv and 8'; Vox Humana on the Swell has greatly
enhanced the registration of Franck's organ music. The French 8'; Chalumeau on
the Positiv has likewise enhanced the playing of French Baroque music.

The sophisticated technology now available has made it more
convenient to store and retrieve registrations used by a variety of students.
Solid State Logic offers the capability of storing 40 general registration
combinations on each of 256 memory levels. The MIDI technology allows students
to record music which they are studying for playback in "real time."
Also, the Positiv, Great, Solo, and Pedal have two MIDI channels available
which can play sounds from a MIDI synthesizer, thus adding to the tonal
resources of the organ.

Organ students at Valparaiso University study church music,
particularly service-playing, which includes the playing of hymns,
congregational songs, liturgical service music, and accompaniment of choral
music. All of these areas have been positively impacted by the availability of
new tonal resources on the chapel organ. For instance, the accompaniment of
hymns at worship would formerly require the use of the Great principal chorus
including the mixture. This was due to the large acoustic space of the chapel
which needed to be filled with sound even when the chapel was not filled with
worshipers. After the renovation, the situation is much improved as the Great
Principals 8';, 4'; and 2'; provide sufficient clarity and strength to support
congregational singing. The tenor range of the ensemble is also more audible
and distinct in speech. The addition of the 8'; and 4'; Harmonic Flute (Solo)
and 8'; Holzflöte (Great) have proven very useful for choral
accompaniment.

Finally, the completion of this major renovation has sparked
new interest in the organ and organ music both from students on campus and from
students in elementary schools in the area.

--Dr. John Bernthal

Associate Professor of Music

Associate University Organist

 

“Organ Renewal” in the Southwest

The Holtkamp Organ at the University of New Mexico

Arlene DeYoung Ward

A native of Los Angeles, Arlene DeYoung Ward is currently coordinator of the piano lab and the piano proficiency program, and teaches organ along with John Clark at the University of New Mexico, Department of Music. Ms. Ward is a veteran of more than 100 solo organ and harpsichord recitals, including the complete works of J. S. Bach. In addition, she has published articles in both The American Organist and The Diapason on the subject of the Orgelbewegung. Most recently, she has completed two CDs, featuring music of J. S. Bach and organ music of Spain and Spanish America. Current recordings in progress are Music for Flute and Organ, with flautist Laura Dwyer, and Nineteenth Century Masterworks for the Organ. Ms. Ward has been a featured organ concerto soloist with both the Symphony Orchestra of Albuquerque and the Los Alamos Sinfonietta, has been heard nationally on The Pacifica Foundation Network as soloist in the American Guild of Organists (Los Angeles Chapter) 20th-century organ music series, and has toured in Oulskapar, The Netherlands, and Darmstadt-Eberstadt and Hamburg, Germany.

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“Most of what I have learned about organs has come from working on organs or from observing organs. But I have had two principal teachers. The first was John Swinford of Redwood City, California. He taught me about organ tone. The second was Walter Holtkamp, Sr. He taught me that an organ should be articulate above everything else. And he did a fair job of teaching this lesson to the country as a whole.”--Charles Fisk1

“Someday people will realize that the organ is a keyboard instrument and not just a big vat of sound.”

--Walter Holtkamp, Sr., 19542

Any discussion of organs designed by Walter Holtkamp, Sr., must begin with the profound influence of the Orgelbewegung (Organ Renewal) movement in Germany during the first three decades of the twentieth century, as well as its French manifestations with Nadia Boulanger. The Orgelbewegung strongly influenced the work of Walter Holtkamp. One of Holtkamp’s organs, designed shortly before his death in 1962, resides in Keller Hall at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, and is the organ featured and pictured in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (2001), Volume 18, page 635.3

But before we trace the history of this instrument, its visual impact and articulate good sound, here follows a history of the movement that inspired its creation.

The Orgelbewegung (Organ Renewal) Movement

The portrayal of 20th-century church music’s regeneration, effected primarily in Germany in the 1920s, should be viewed only as an attempt to trace the outlines of an age which justifiably has been called “the Renaissance of church music” (O. Sohngen). As the Renaissance of Humanism stood upon the shoulders of its predecessors, so does this newest epoch of Protestant church music have its roots in the past. Consequently, we are obliged to shed light upon the diverse historical determinants and principal features in the development of the “Renaissance,” whose influence extends to the present and perhaps even into the future. The rebirth owes a great deal more to the hymnologists, liturgists, restorers of church music, and liturgical reformers in musicology, as well as to one or another 19th-century creative musician, than was immediately apparent to the new generation around 1930.4

--Adam Adrio

The various trends and movements that characterize the music of the 20th century are usually considered under the heading of New Music.5 New Music may perhaps be regarded simply as anti-Romanticism. One group particularly known is Les Six in France, a group that formed a front against the romantic concept of things artistic. Another manifestation is the movement generally known as neo-Classicism. Although Ferruccio Busoni is usually considered its prime mover,6 neo-Classicism experienced its real beginnings with Igor Stravinsky in his Octet for Wind Instruments (1923). Perhaps the chief exponent of neo-Classicism was Paul Hindemith, with his mastery of contrapuntal technique. Heinrich Strobel, a major biographer of Hindemith, shows the affinity of the neo-Classical movement to the aims of Les Six.7 [Briefly summarized, neo-Classical works exhibit a kinship with Bach and earlier composers through the consistent use of contrapuntal texture and imitative procedures; a decided preference for motor rhythms; the choice of comparatively short themes with sharply defined rhythms; the reduction of orchestral resources and color; and the rejection of the idea of program music. Thus, compactness and structural clarity are principal aims of neo-Classicism.]

Since it came into being at about the same time as neo-Classicism, exhibits a similar reaction to the excesses of the 19th century, and shares its retrospective nature, the German “Renaissance of church music” and within it the Orgelbewegung8 must be regarded as parallel movements within a more limited sphere. Rochus von Liliencron stated in 1900: “The New . . . can be discovered only through reverent contact with the old church art of the 16th century and the Protestant of the 18th; but for the purpose of permeating the music to today with the exalted, genuinely religious spirit of the old art, rather than of imitating it insensitively.”9 The Orgelbewegung, then, was primarily a reaction against the Klangideal of the 19th-century organ, a return to the organ music of the Baroque masters, and a renewal of interest in polyphony and the organ as a vehicle for compositional activity.10

Albert Schweitzer, in his 1906 essay “Deutsche und franzosische Orgelbaukunst und Orgelkunst,”11 favored a reform in organ construction to make available an organ that would be more compatible to the works of J. S. Bach and his predecessors. As history often has a habit of doing, the political turmoil in Europe culminating in World War I prevented the idea of reform in organ building until the 1920s. A major step in the direction of the Orgelbewegung was taken when Willibald Gurlitt, together with the organbuilder Oskar Walcker, undertook the construction of the Praetorius-Orgel in 1921 at the University of Freiburg in Breisgau. This instrument was constructed according to the specifications which Praetorius set down in his Syntagma Musicum II:  Organographia (1619).12 In the aftermath of the Praetorius-Orgel, a number of other old organs in Germany were discovered, including those built by Arp Schnitger (Jakobi-Orgel, Hamburg, 1688-1692) and the Silbermann-Orgel in Freiburg.

Beginning in 1925, several organ conferences were held in Germany, with the purpose of clarifying the direction of the Orgelbewegung for organbuilders. As Friedrich Hogner has suggested, however, the effect of these would have been lost if they had ended with a mere revival of the classical organ masters, important as that was, and had not operated as a fruitful stimulus to contemporary composers.13 The French were not only aware of the efforts of their German neighbors; beginning in the middle of the 19th century they had experienced their own renewal of composition, organbuilding and, through the Lemmens school, brilliant technique. Nadia Boulanger (1887-1979), arguably the most influential teacher of composition of the 20th century, was not only aware of the efforts of the Orgelbewegung, she became deeply involved in it. An organist herself, Boulanger was an organ recitalist of considerable fame as well as a composer and one of the first professional female conductors. An important figure in American musical life as well, she toured the country as an organist in 1925, giving the premiere of Copland’s Symphony for Organ and Orchestra,14 and lived here during World War II, conducting the Boston Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra and New York Philharmonic, and teaching at Wellesley, Radcliffe and Juilliard.15

The Holtkamp Family--Early Works

In the United States, wave after wave of German immigrants arrived during the second half of the 19th century, settling through the American Midwest with especially large communities in the Dakotas, the Texas hill country and the Ohio River valley. For generations they remained faithful to their religious heritage, language and customs. In fact, during the 19th century, so many new Americans spoke German rather than English that German almost became the official language in several areas, losing, for example, by only one vote in the Texas legislature as the language of that state.

Several members of the Holtkamp family emigrated from Ladbergen, Westfalen, Germany to the United Stated in the 1850s and 1860s. Heinrich Herman Holtkamp settled in Illinois;16 Heinrich Wilhelm and his brother came to New Knoxville, Ohio. The latter Heinrich Holtkamp and his wife Mary produced eight children, and it is their son Herman Heinrich “Henry” Holtkamp (d. 1932) who was the first organbuilder in the family.17

The Holtkamp Organ Company traces its lineage back to 1855, when G. F. Votteler established a shop in Cleveland, Ohio. In 1903, the first organbuilding Holtkamp, Herman Heinrich “Henry,” moved to Cleveland to join the then retiring Henry Votteler. Briefly named the Votteler-Holtkamp-Sparling Company, control of the firm eventually passed to Herman’s son, Walter Holtkamp (1894-1962), in 1931.18

The young organbuilder Walter had already been profoundly influenced through contact with musicians who had in turn been inspired by their teacher, Nadia Boulanger. Chris Holtkamp, in a phone interview, spoke of his grandfather’s musician friends who had worked with Boulanger. Exposing her students to the real literature of the French and German Baroque and the new ideas about organbuilding, these young organists and composers returned from Paris, sought out Walter Holtkamp and encouraged him to “look into this,”19 and a new era of organ building in the U.S. began. Although of German descent, Walter Holtkamp, Sr. had never attended any of the famous Orgelbewegung conferences in Hamburg or Freiburg, but learned about the new movement and its “sound ideal” through his French connections.

After 1918 and the end of WWI, the American economy was experiencing a “boom” cycle in the decade referred to as the “Roaring Twenties.” “The craze for ever-larger, more opulent organs, filled with luxury stops designed to tickle the ear, and conceived as one-man symphony orchestras, seemed to take over. The competition was on for possession of the largest and most extravagant instrument. The pipes of these organs were then buried in chambers out of sight, sometimes behind heavy curtains or carvings. This development tended to lose sight of the classical nature, its functional character, its . . . dignified tradition.” In addition, American organists tended to play transcriptions of symphonies in their recitals, to a great degree ignoring the great literature composed for their instrument in previous centuries.20

Walter Holtkamp, now strongly influenced by the new ideas and rediscovery of early music, advocated several seemingly radical notions: Pipes, he said, should be out in the open, clearly visible to the eye. To bury them in “chamber-tombs” is like asking a violinist to play from a closet backstage with the door closed, “like trying to woo a lady by correspondence,” he said. With pipes displayed in the open, fewer would be needed. Holtkamp’s success in obtaining very open positions for his organs gave them a presence and spontaneity that made him famous. So he insisted on smaller, leaner instruments, carefully designed to make each rank distinctive in its own right but essential to the total ensemble of tone--as his German contemporaries called it, the Werk-Orgel. Moreover, he demanded the highest quality materials and workmanship. The metal pipes were to have a high content of pure tin, the ivory on the keys was to be thick-cut and heavy, as ivory absorbs perspiration while other materials allow moisture to collect in puddles, to the distress of the player. (It is duly noted that it is now illegal to import pure ivory into the U.S.)

In 1933, Walter Holtkamp addressed the American Guild of Organists and the Association of Pipe Organ Builders with a pronouncement that is regarded as the starting point for a return to integrity in organ design in the U.S. He said, “The watchword should be smaller organs of finer quality, in advantageous positions. They are more of a pleasure to build and certainly more of a pleasure to listen to. The mammoth thing may satisfy the ego of the purchaser, but it sins against all the dictates of good taste and the laws of musical sound.”21

Following the philosophy of the early Orgelbewegung and the ideas of Boulanger and her disciples, Walter Holtkamp first designed several portativ organs for use in smaller church buildings--a vision for a rich, authentic pipe organ sound at a price that could compete with the newly-emerging electronic organ. The result was a totally self-contained, single-manual, three-stop pipe organ. Holtkamp said that the portativ organ was typical of his urge to natural, functional expression. Besides adapting the pipe organ to the smaller setting, the early portativs incorporated design features that were to become hallmarks of even the largest Holtkamp organs.

In several early Holtkamps, tracker key action was used (this was by no means the only action for later organs). Most important, however, was the placement of the organ pipes within the space where they would be heard, rather than in rooms or chambers adjacent. Only about a dozen of these early Holtkamp portativs were built; several, though, are still in use and can be seen and/or heard at the Smithsonian Institution, the Cleveland Museum of Art and (still in constant church use) at Faith Lutheran Church, Jacksonville, Illinois. This latter instrument has been recently enlarged by  Chris Holtkamp, who saw to it that the visual design of the new pipes complemented the design of the existing, that the woods and finishes of the cabinetry were carefully matched, and the integrity of the original portativ was not compromised.22

As the Holtkamp Organ Company became ever more famous, another surge of organbuilding came after the Second World War. This time, colleges and universities around the country were demanding high quality organs. The upsurge in serious historical musicology in the 1950s and ‘60s would result in many institutions of higher learning greatly desiring organs that brought to life the excitement of the early music so avidly being rediscovered, and which could, in addition, do justice to new music as well. Among those institutions with funds newly available to achieve these goals were such prestigious schools as Amherst, UC, Emory, Furman, Hollins, Indiana, Juilliard, MIT, Northwestern, Oberlin, Ohio Wesleyan, Randolph-Macon Woman’s College, Salem, Sweet Briar, Syracuse, Wellesley, Yale and Duke.23 Is it any wonder that the University of New Mexico should desire the same for their new performing arts complex of several halls?

The University of New Mexico and its Holtkamp Organ

Following World War II, universities around the country were again booming, along with the economy. UNM was certainly no exception, as students poured in. For a time, the various departments in Fine Arts were scattered around campus. By the middle 1950s Tom Popejoy, President of the University from 1948-1968, Edwin Stein, Dean of the College of Fine Arts, and Joe Blankenship, Chairman of the Music Department, had determined that the university needed a true Center for the Arts, with several performing and exhibit halls, rehearsal halls, an art museum, classrooms, libraries, faculty offices--in fact, everything that a first class university should have. Even more astonishing to those of us working in universities today, there were funds available to make all of this happen, and fairly quickly: a 2000-seat auditorium (Popejoy Hall) and a 324-seat Recital Hall (later named Keller Hall in memory of Walter Keller, Music Department Chair (1967-70). Any music or art department needs seem to have been funded within the 10-year period that the Center for the Arts was conceived and built. This included a fine organ for the Recital (or Keller) Hall, with 51 ranks and 2,471 pipes.24

At a time when university music departments across the country were sharing the excitement of musicological research and the rediscovery of neo-Baroque organbuilding principles, this was a rare opportunity for a brilliant builder, Walter Holtkamp, to work together with the architect Edward Holien and acousticians Bolt, Baranek and Newman, to build what was considered to be the very best possible marriage of instrument and building--a contrast to the problems innate in building an organ for an already existing space.

Accordingly, Edwin Stein contacted Walter Holtkamp in March 1960; Holtkamp was retained as the designer of the organ in January 1961 and completed the design between January and April, 1961. Several other organs were at various stages of design and building during this same time, and a comparison of their specifications shows where Walter Holtkamp’s creative energies had taken him. Tragically, Walter Holtkamp died in February of 1962, at the relatively young age of 68, while still realizing his considerable creative powers. Organs conceived during the late period in addition to the one for UNM included St. John’s Abbey in Collegeville, Minnesota, Lakewood Presbyterian Church, St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Mountain Brook, Alabama, the Unitarian Church in Arlington, Virginia,25 and Westwood Lutheran Church in St. Louis Park, Minnesota.

This final project was another opportunity to work with the architects (Sovik, Mather and Madsen) and once again with the acoustical engineering firm of Bolt, Baranek and Newman. The organ at St. John’s Abbey was the last large contract, completed in November, 1961, before Walter Holtkamp’s death.26 St. John’s organ was placed in a monastically austere, not to mention large, church, and the brothers felt that the organ might be dwarfed by the scale of the room. Never conceived for concert use, but rather to serve the monastic community at prayer, the pipes were placed behind a red cloth screen, acoustically transparent, chosen primarily for architectural considerations. The brothers at St. John’s Abbey consider this organ to be Walter Holtkamp Sr.’s magnum opus. One should comment, however, that the Holtkamp at St. John’s was first played by the great Flor Peeters at its inaugural.27 It is most useful, now, to compare the specifications of this sister organ with the one in Keller Hall at UNM--only slightly smaller, but in this instance, one meant to be played in concert and to be seen.

At this point in the creation of the organ in Keller Hall at UNM, some construction delays occurred, and the organ was not completed until December of 1967. St. John’s was indeed the final opus totally designed and installed by Walter Holtkamp, Sr. These last half dozen or so organs designed by Holtkamp were then completed by his son, Walter Holtkamp, Jr., who insured the integrity of his father’s design. Another important figure, then, in this installation at UNM came to be the new Department Chair, Walter Keller, who was a keyboardist (harpsichord, piano and organ) and musicologist of some note. Thus there was a virtual guarantee that the vision of those 20th-century builders of the Orgelbewegung would come to fruition at UNM.28

Our Holtkamp in Keller Hall was inaugurated in grand fashion, with a conference and series of lectures by the composer-author William Schuman. The inaugural recitals in what was then called Recital Hall, now Keller Hall, were given in February and March, 1968. Featured artists were Catharine Crozier, Wesley Selby and the UNM choirs, brass and string orchestra together with Wes Selby.29 The original recordings of those programs are now available on CD, thanks to recording engineer Manny Rettinger (UBIK Sound).

I am pleased to report that our newest generation of young students, particularly those in our Music Appreciation courses (more than 1,000 of them in several sections!), really love our Holtkamp organ. It is exciting to me as both teacher and performer to have a full house of excited 18-year-old students come to organ recitals--our new audience of the future for the next generation of concert organists.

The Holtkamp at UNM is in marvelous condition, helped by the temperature control designed into the building and the commitment of the Music Department to preserve the organ with the help of the Mountain States firm for tuning and maintenance. It has been continuously played since its installation, by numerous students of Wes Selby and Wes Selby himself, now Professor Emeritus of Organ and Theory, as well as numerous guest artists over the years, organ instructor Edwina Beard, and by myself. With our excellent recording system in the hall, new CDs continue to be made with this instrument. The author is grateful to Wes for his oral history and contributions to this article. It is Wes’s picture that accompanies this article, playing the instrument in its, and his, early days at UNM. The author is also grateful for the extensive interviews and oral history contributions by Professor Emeritus Dr. William Seymour.

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