Timothy Olsen appointed organist at Cornell

The Organ Historical Society’s Annual Convention, August 11–14, 2014

The Organ Historical Society’s 59th Annual Convention took place in central New York with the historic Genesee Grande Hotel, Syracuse, as convention headquarters, though some of us stayed at the equally pleasant Park View Hotel three or four blocks away, owing to a lack of accommodation at the main hotel. One might not normally bother with such details, but I would like to begin by mentioning that Birnie’s Bus Service of Rome, New York, provided the OHS with the best bus service I think I have ever experienced on any convention. I also have to say that after the Vermont convention of last year, perhaps the best OHS convention ever, I was not expecting the Syracuse convention to be nearly as good. But in the event, I was very presently surprised to find that, if a little shorter than last year’s, it was in many ways equally fine. Enormous credit for this is due to Ryan J. Boyle, the chair of the convention, and his committee, as well as the Richmond staff and the Board of Directors of the OHS.

Sunday, August 10, and Monday, August 11

On Sunday, August 10, there was a pre-convention tour of New York State wineries, and on Monday morning there were further wine events, tours, and museum visits. The pre-convention events included a recital by Jillian Gardner, a student of James David Christie at the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music. Gardner’s recital took place in the Lodi Historical Society on E. & G. G. Hook Opus 140, a two-manual organ built in 1852.

The convention proper, however, began at 8 p.m. on Monday evening with Hector Olivera’s recital on the 1952 Walter Holtkamp, Sr., III/61 organ, Job number 1659, in Hendricks Chapel, Syracuse University. This organ incorporates much of the action and pipework from the previous Aeolian organ, Opus 1771 of 1930. The instrument was designed in consultation with the redoubtable Arthur Poister (1898–1980), who served as music director of Hendricks Chapel from 1948 to 1965. Mr. Olivera is, of course, a great showman in the tradition of Virgil Fox and, ably assisted at the console by his frog Harry, gave us a very entertaining recital. His performance of the Aria from Bach’s Suite in D Major, BWV 1068, reminded me a great deal of Virgil’s. Among other things, he gave us some very interesting stereophonic cuckoo effects in the Allegro from Handel’s Organ Concerto No. 13 (“The Cuckoo and the Nightingale”), and ended with an improvisation on a submitted theme, which turned out to be the hymn tune Lasst uns erfreuen, finishing with a skillfully improvised fugue. 

Tuesday, August 12

Tuesday, August 12, began with a short bus trip to Temple Concord in Syracuse. This is one of the oldest Reform synagogues in the United States; its present building dates from 1911. 

Joby Bell treated us to a recital on the IV/44 Tellers organ, Opus 998 of 1965. The Tellers Organ Company, successors to A. B. Felgemaker & Co. of Erie, Pennsylvania, was of course a relatively local company in this part of the country. I had never heard any of their instruments from the 1960s before and was quite impressed with the sound of this organ. It has a neo-baroque specification, but is a warm sound with no tendency toward screechiness in the voicing, such as one finds in many instruments of the period. That such an instrument could sound so fine in a relatively unfavorable acoustic is a great tribute to the Tellers firm. The organ proved an excellent medium for Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in E-flat (“St. Anne”) while Jean-Yves Daniel-Lesur’s haunting In Paradisum gave Joby Bell the opportunity to show off the contrasting flutes of the Antiphonal and Echo divisions. The recital ended with a fine performance Sowerby’s Pageant.

We proceeded then to St. Anthony of Padua Catholic Church in Syracuse where Silviya Mateva, one of last year’s OHS Biggs Fellows, treated us to a recital on the church’s 1951 Casavant organ. This organ, which replaced an earlier one by Morey of Utica, was an old-style Stephen Stoot Casavant, built at the time when the firm had hardly begun to take note of the neo-classical movement. Its rich tone suited it extremely well to the Elegy of William Grant Still, and Ms. Mateva made good use of the Swell Cornet as a solo stop in Bach’s Chorale Prelude on ‘Allein Gott in der Höh sei ehr,’ BWV 662. Lionel Rogg’s Partita on ‘Nun freut euch’ also came off very well despite being a modern piece in neo-baroque style. I did feel, however, that the organ was a little heavy for the Buxtehude Präludium und Fuge D-Dur, BuxWV 139, and though it was very well played, I rather wished she could have chosen a piece more suited to this particular instrument.

After lunch at the Franciscan Church of the Assumption, where we were able to inspect the historic plumbing in the restrooms, we took the buses to St. Cecilia’s Catholic Church in Solvay, New York. The City of Solvay developed largely around Ernest Solvay’s ammonia-soda process for the production of sodium carbonate. The Solvay plant closed in 1986, leaving the city both economically depressed and environmentally compromised, but following massive redevelopment, things have greatly improved in recent years. I was particularly looking forward to hearing the organ at St. Cecilia’s, a II/15 tracker by J. H. Willcox & Co. of Boston, Opus 23 of 1872. Since in the 1980s, I belonged to Trinity Episcopal Church in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, which originally possessed an 1872 Willcox with a practically identical stoplist; this organ had been electrified by Durner c. 1920 and replaced by Aeolian-Skinner Opus 1240 in 1955. 

I was therefore looking forward to hearing what an original Willcox sounded like, as there are very few of them still around. Organist and organ-builder J. H. Willcox was one of several members of the E. & G. G. Hook firm that left and started their own companies shortly after Frank Hastings took over from the Hook brothers. After a couple of years, J. H. Willcox & Co. morphed into Hutchings, Plaisted & Co., and then into Hutchings & Co. I was by no means disappointed in my expectations, since the Willcox organ turned out to be one of the outstanding organs of the convention, and Christopher Marks gave an excellent recital on it. The organ has some exquisite strings and flutes, a bright, sparkling Great chorus and a surprisingly impressive full Swell. Among other things, the recital included some interesting pieces by American composers. Among these were the Miniature Suite of James H. Rogers (1857–1940) and the Variations on an American Air (Stephen Foster’s “Old Folks at Home”) by I. V. Flagler (1844–1909), of whom there will be more to say more anon. The recital concluded with the first ever performance of Romance and Tarantella by Kurt Knecht (b. 1971), commissioned for this convention by Christopher Marks.

Later in the afternoon, we went to Westminster Presbyterian Church in Syracuse to visit another delightful tracker organ, a II/21 instrument William A. Johnson of Westfield, Massachusetts, Opus 43 of 1855, enlarged by Johnson & Son c. 1865. The recital was given by Robert Kerner, one of the principals of the organbuilding firm of Kerner & Merchant, and again we were by no means disappointed. Though more refined and less brilliant than the Willcox, the Johnson organ proved to be an excellent medium for both classical and romantic music, including Sweelinck, Buxtehude, Bach, Franck, and Boëllmann. Kerner included some movements from Franck’s L’ Organiste, and I thought the beautiful flute stops of the Johnson organ were particularly effective in these. We heard again the Prière à Notre-Dame from Boëllmann’s Suite Gothique, also included in Hector Olivera’s recital at Hendricks Chapel the previous evening, and I have to say I much preferred hearing Mr. Kerner play it on the Johnson.

Later in the afternoon we took the buses to Plymouth Congregational Church in Syracuse, which is the home of one of the finest four-manual Möller organs I have ever heard, Opus 5827 of 1930, with some tasteful additions made by Kerner & Merchant in 2012. The organist was Bryan Anderson, a four-year student at the Curtis Institute who is surely going to be one of the outstanding organists of his day. Brilliant, yet quiet and unassuming, he played the recital entirely without music. The main work in his program was Karg-Elert’s Homage to Handel, a series of 54 variations on a ground bass. Besides being highly virtuosic, this is a wonderful piece to demonstrate an organ, since in the course of its 54 variations it uses just about every registration conceivable. 

Following cocktails and dinner at the Drumlins Country Club, we finished Tuesday’s program with a recital given by the Syracuse University Organist (now on the University of Michigan faculty), Kola Owolabi, with Gabriel DiMartino, trumpet. This was performed on another three-manual Walter Holtkamp, Sr., organ, Job number 1649 of 1950, in the Setnor Auditorium, Crouse College, Syracuse University. It incorporates pipework from previous instruments by Roosevelt and Aeolian. It was a ground-breaking instrument at the time it was completed. Crouse College was originally the women’s department of Syracuse University; then it became the performing arts center, and now—the artists and dramatists having moved to other buildings—it is occupied exclusively by the music department. The concert included Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in G Major, BWV 541, as well as Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition transcribed for organ and trumpet by Vincent DiMartino, Gabriel DiMartino, and Kola Owolabi. In the middle of the recital, we also heard Owolabi play J. G. Walther’s Partita on ‘Meinen Jesum lass ich nicht’ on the other organ in Setnor Auditorium, a I/4 tracker with pull-down pedal by the Strasbourg firm of Schwenkedel, Opus 123 of 1968. It is a very pretty little instrument of its kind. And so to bed . . .

Wednesday, August 13

The Wednesday program required us to get up a little earlier than normal for a day trip to Ithaca, New York. On the way we stopped at St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Cortland, New York, where John Ronald Daniels gave us a recital on the church’s II/21 Morey & Barnes tracker, Opus 165, which was first used on Christmas Day of 1895. The organ is feisty, bright, and forthright. In some of its moods it reminded me of the work of Father Willis in England. It had previously been visited 34 years ago on the 1980 OHS convention. 

Following some several solo organ pieces by Théodore Salomé, Daniels was joined by the Clinton String Quartet in Salomé’s exceptionally beautiful Berceuse, op. 59, no. 5 (1894). This piece was written for a concert organized by Guilmant, but not performed, and has rarely if ever been performed since until now. Following it came Rheinberger’s well-known Cantilène from Sonata 11, which furnished an opportunity to show off the organ’s uncommonly fine Oboe. The Trumpet was similarly showcased in David N. Johnson’s Trumpet Tune in E. The recital ended with Lefébure-Wély’s wonderfully tasteless Boléro de concert. I shall probably not be around to see it, but it is very much my hope that this fine Morey & Barnes organ will still be there to be enjoyed by future OHS members in another 34 years’ time.

On our arrival in Utica we split into two groups, and the group I was in went first to Trinity Lutheran Church for a short recital by Annie Laver on John Brombaugh’s Opus 2 of 1966, a small one-manual-and-pedal instrument of nine ranks. The recital included works by Buxtehude, Böhm, and Reincken. Following lunch at First Presbyterian Church (whose fine IV/84 instrument by Russell & Co., Opus 47 of 2006, we were unfortunately unable to hear owing to construction work in the church) we went to the First Unitarian Society of Ithaca, New York, which is the home of Hellmuth Wolff & Associés Opus 16 of 1975. This is a II/26 tracker, and it has a sister organ in Wolff’s Opus 6, formerly in the Anabel Taylor Chapel of Cornell University in Ithaca, and now at Binghamton University (SUNY). Jonathan Biggers, who played the recital at the Unitarian Church in Ithaca, is professor of organ at Binghamton, so he gets to play the other Wolff organ there. He gave an excellent recital of Bach, Böhm, and Bruhns (the G major), and the organ sounded exceedingly fine, though perhaps a little loud for the room.

After lunch we moved to the Uris Hall Auditorium for the OHS Annual Meeting, after which we divided into three groups, which perambulated the Cornell campus for the rest of the afternoon. My group went first to the Sage Chapel of Cornell University for a recital given by Gregory Crowell on the I/7 Vicedomini organ built in Italy in 1748. As well as seven speaking stops, this instrument has an Ussignoli (Nightingale) stop and a double-acting Sforzando marked “Tiratutti.” Appropriately, Mr. Crowell’s recital consisted mostly of early Italian music, though an exception was James Woodman’s Gagliardo, which gave us an opportunity to hear the Ussignoli. Another piece, Bernardo Storace’s Ciaccona, enabled us to hear the 8-ft. Voce Umana (Principal Celeste).

Our group next went to Barnes Hall Auditorium for a lecture by Cornell music professor and university organist, Annette Richards, on “The Genesis of the Cornell Baroque Organ,” describing how the Wolff organ in the Anabel Taylor Chapel was replaced by a replica Schnitger organ built in collaboration with GOArt at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. This collaborative effort was overseen by Munetaka Yokota, and involved a cooperative enterprise between workers from GOArt, Parsons Pipe Organs, and CCSN Woodworking of Ithaca, the latter being responsible for the case. The Schnitger organ chosen for replication was that of the Court Chapel at Charlottenburg, built in 1706 and unfortunately destroyed in World War II, though not before every aspect of it had been painstakingly catalogued by Karl Schucker. The case was based on the instrument at Claustahl-Zellerfeld and the mechanism on several North German Schnitger organs. However, the tonal design of the Charlottenburg organ that has been duplicated was most unusual in being, unlike other Schnitger organs, designed primarily for the performance of music of the Galant style. The room where the lecture was held also contains a GOArt pipe organ, a I/5 with divided keyboard built in 2003, but we unfortunately did not get to hear this.

After the lecture we went to the Anabel Taylor Chapel to hear a recital on the II/42 GOArt Schnitger replica organ of 2009–10 that Professor Richards had been discussing. The recital was given by another Cornell music professor, David Yearsley, who appropriately included mostly repertoire from the Galant style. The organ case dominates the Anabel Taylor Chapel, and I was afraid that the sound might prove overwhelming. I was pleasantly surprised, however, to discover that the volume was just right for the room, and that it was indeed a magnificent instrument of its kind. 

Following a cash bar and dinner at the Celebrations Banquet Hall in Ithaca, we returned to Sage Chapel for the evening recital given by Christopher Houlihan on the celebrated III/68 Aeolian-Skinner organ, Opus 1009 of 1940, which incorporates quite a bit of pipework from the previous organ, Ernest M. Skinner Company Opus 175 of 1909. This was a landmark organ in its day. The recital included three works by J. S. Bach, together with the Grande pièce symphonique of Franck. Although the latter is probably my least favorite of Franck’s twelve major organ works—I find it a little long and rambling—Houlihan gave a magnificent performance of it. At the end of the recital we were treated to the Scherzo from Vierne’s Symphony No. 2 as an encore, and I also thought this came off very well on the organ. Houlihan played the three Bach pieces, including the Passacaglia in C Minor BWV 582, extremely well, but here I thought the Aeolian-Skinner basses a little ponderous for Bach—certainly in comparison with the GOArt organ we had just heard. Organ design has come a long way since 1940! And so back to Syracuse . . .

Thursday, August 14

The doyen of Syracuse organists is Cornell University Organist Emeritus Will Headlee, a familiar figure at OHS conventions. Thursday, August 14, began with a recital given by Professor Headlee on the Ernest White Möller organ at the Episcopal Church of the Saviour, Syracuse, New York. This was M. P. Möller Opus 9734, an instrument of three manuals and five divisions, built in 1962. The recital was titled, “Homage to Ernest White 1901–1980,” and I was expecting something rather screechy-sounding. Once again I was pleasantly surprised for, as Professor Headlee explained, the church asked for an organ in the English Cathedral tradition and this is exactly what Ernest White gave them. Two manual doubles and independent, pure-tuned mutations on the Pedal division add to the instrument’s rich effect. Indeed, I thought it in many ways more useful as an eclectic organ than the Aeolian-Skinner in Sage Chapel, being equally at home, for example, in works by Bach and Karg-Elert.

Following this we all piled in the buses for a visit to St. Michael’s Lutheran Church in Camillus, New York, home of a II/21 Schlicker of 1965. Allison Evans Henry gave a recital of Bach, Howells, Vierne, and from the Syracuse Collection, Homage to Persichetti by Janet M. Correll (b. 1942). We also heard a charming arrangement for Vivaldi’s Concerto in D Major, arranged for organ and classical guitar. The solo guitarist was Timothy Schmidt. This was a very nice little organ, and indeed I don’t think a small church looking for value for money in 1965 could have done any better than to buy a Schlicker organ such as this. We then split into groups again, and my group went first to Cazenovia College for an extremely pleasant luncheon. For anyone who is looking for a college for their undergraduate degree and who is especially fond of ice cream, of which they had a splendid selection, Cazenovia College ought to be near the top of the list. 

In the afternoon we went first to the First Presbyterian Church in Cazenovia, home of C. B. Fisk Opus 70, a II/32 tracker of 1976. The organ contains some pipework from the previous instrument by J. G. Marklove. Christopher J. Howerter treated us to a program of de Grigny, Bach, Buxtehude, and Canadian composer Sir Ernest Campbell MacMillan’s Cortège académique. We also heard our Convention Chair, Ryan J. Boyle, singing bass, and alto Abby Witmer, accompanied by the organ in Dudley Buck’s “The Lord is My Light.” This is an excellent organ all round; one of Charles Fisk’s best, I would say. 

We went then to the May Memorial Unitarian-Universalist Society of Syracuse where we heard a recital given by Glenn Kime on the II/28 Holtkamp organ, Job Number 1797 of 1965. The repertoire consisted of Pachelbel’s Praeludium in D Minor, three Bach chorale preludes, the last movement of Mendelssohn’s Sonata No. 1, and two movements from Spirits and Places by Ernst Bacon. These were very pleasant and most unusual, and we were honored to have the composer’s widow in the audience. In spite of it having no swellbox, I thought that this was the most versatile and attractive of all the Holtkamp instruments we heard during the convention. 

Following dinner in the Armory Square neighborhood of Syracuse, we walked to the Catholic Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception for the last, and one might say culminating, recital of the OHS convention. Immaculate Conception’s organ is a three-manual built by Frank Roosevelt of New York City, Opus 520 of 1892, rebuilt and tastefully augmented by Schantz in 1980. Schantz’s head voicer, Bob Maye, did excellent work matching the new work to the old, and the organ now has three manuals and pedals and 60 ranks. Our recitalist was the internationally acclaimed Diane Meredith Belcher, who played an excellent program commencing with the Passacaglia on a theme by Dunstable by John Weaver, who was present in the audience and indeed as an OHS member had attended the whole of the convention. This was followed by the Lullaby from the Second Suite of Calvin Hampton, Gigout’s Pièce jubilaire en forme de prélude et fugue, Étoile du soir from the third suite of Vierne’s Pièces de fantaisie, and Rheinberger’s magnificent Sonata No. 8 in E Minor. Altogether a wonderful end to a wonderful OHS convention.

Friday, August 15 

On Friday morning, my wife and I departed Syracuse and wended our weary way through Ontario and back to the Midwest. The lucky few got to stay another day for the optional post-convention tour. This included visits to Johnson & Son Opus 510 of 1878 at First Baptist Church, Meridian, New York, to Skinner Organ Company Opus 644 of 1927 at St. James Episcopal Church, Skaneateles, New York, a Steere & Turner of c. 1891 at Willard Memorial Chapel, Auburn, New York, and St. Mary of the Assumption Roman Catholic Church in Auburn, New York, which has both an 1890 Carl Barckhoff Church Organ Co. organ and another one of 1872 by Garret House. Recitals were given by Carol Britt, Rosalind Mohnsen, Matthias Schmelmer, and Nicholas Bideler. For an even more select few who had been able to register early, there was also a lunch cruise aboard the Judge Ben Wiles
motor launch. 

Anabel Taylor Chapel
Cornell University Baroque Organ
Ithaca, New York
GOArt / Parsons / Lowe

Selection
In 2003 Cornell University began planning for a new Baroque organ that would complement the existing Aeolian-Skinner organ in Sage Chapel (Opus 1009 III/68, 1940), as well as other smaller instruments located on campus. The decision was made to place the new instrument in an enlarged rear gallery, constructed with heavy timbers, in the intimate acoustic of Anabel Taylor Chapel. The new Baroque organ would be built by the Gothenburg Organ Art Center (GOArt), part of Gothenburg University in Gothenburg, Sweden, under the primary leadership of researcher and organbuilder Munetaka Yokota. This would not merely be an organ in “Baroque style,” but as much as possible, a reconstruction of an organ that could have been built in the late 17th or early 18th centuries by the German builder Arp Schnitger. The organ that Schnitger built in 1706 for the Charlottenburg Schlosskapelle (Palace Chapel) in Berlin was used as the primary model. This instrument is unique in that it blends the usual characteristics of Schnitger’s instruments built for the area around Hamburg (northwest Germany and the Netherlands), and characteristics of instruments in eastern and central Germany similar to what Johann Sebastian Bach would have known. It was also a sizable instrument for the Palace Chapel in which it stood.
The Charlottenburg organ was unfortunately destroyed during World War II, but there are recordings of the organ in addition to several photographs and documentation data, which allowed GOArt to use the original organ as a model. Because the Charlottenburg organ was confined in an unusual space, it was decided to follow a different model for the case design. The organ built by Schnitger in 1702 for the church of St. Salvator in Clausthal-Zellerfeld was chosen as a model for the case. Although its mechanism has been replaced several times since, the original Schnitger case is still in existence.
During the planning for this project, it was also decided to research how Schnitger built instruments in a city that was some distance from his home in Hamburg. This prompted GOArt and Cornell to enlist cabinetmaker Christopher Lowe of Freeville, New York, and Parsons Pipe Organ Builders of Canandaigua, New York, as local collaborators on the project. GOArt would design the organ, make the pipes, and build the keyboards, pedalboard, music rack, and bench, and provide all of the blacksmith work. Chris Lowe would construct the case, moldings, and balcony structure, and Parsons would build all of the internal mechanism: bellows, foot pumping mechanism, wind trunks, sperrventile, tremulant, key action, stop action, and windchests. The Parsons firm, Chris Lowe, and Munetaka Yokota would all work together to install the completed organ once the organ was set up and tested at Parsons’ Canandaigua workshop.

Parsons’ participation
Each new project brings its own set of challenges, and when a project involves three primary collaborators working for a university that demands perfection, those challenges could become overwhelming. However, working carefully through each new challenge, the final result speaks for itself as to the dedication to quality brought by each party.
One of the first challenges that we were presented with was the process of communicating design drawings. The design team in Gothenburg created a 3D CAD model of the organ. This model could be imported to our own 3D software, enabling us to measure components and create our own supplemental technical drawings. Three-dimensional computer modeling provides us with a greater sense of how all of the components relate to each other, allowing us to look at any combination of components and to rotate the computer model, and examine it from many angles. This was especially useful during this project, as this construction style was new to our staff and different from that to which we were accustomed.
Although the communication of CAD files across platforms provided challenges, other modern forms of communication were invaluable to this project, and are something that we guess Schnitger might have appreciated if it had been available to him. The use of Internet video conferencing allowed us to demonstrate and ask questions about specific shop techniques while allowing us to watch as Munetaka addressed these questions through demonstration, sketches, and gestures. These calls became daily occurrences during the latter part of the project and were crucial to its success.
This project was to be a “Process Reconstruction”—a term coined by the GOArt research team to describe the method used to discover unknown construction techniques, through the process of actually building the organ, rather than just through scholarly discussion. In other words, sometimes we cannot know the specific process or the correct way of building a component until we have experimented. In the end, this required us to learn many new skills and gave us an appreciation for the process that we may not have otherwise known.
The use of woodworking techniques consistent with the period was essential for the project’s success. We were permitted to use power equipment to mill lumber and cut it to size, but the final surface needed to show the traces of hand planing and scraping. As modern woodworkers, we are more likely to reach for our router or palm sander than for our hand plane. The necessity of using hand planes and scrapers in this project has re-trained us to reach for those tools and complete the task at hand before we could have gotten the router set up. The organ is made entirely of quarter-sawn white oak. This construction style relies heavily on joinery, some nails, and some glue. Long nails, ranging in length from 4 to 5 inches, were hand-forged by a blacksmith in Sweden, along with all the other ironwork required for the key and stop action, the bellows pumping mechanism, and the casework hinges and locks. Leather was provided by a German supplier, using period tanning techniques.
The key and stop actions are made in a manner consistent with Arp Schnitger’s practice. The key action rollers are made of white oak. Key action squares are made of iron and were supplied by GOArt. Most trackers and stickers are made of white oak, and the ends are hand wrapped with twine for strength. All metal trackers are of brass wire, and all trackers and stickers have hand-bent brass wire ends inserted. The key action is suspended, which means that the keys pivot at the tail and hang from the trackers or rest on the stickers from the chest. The Manual key action travels up from the key to the rollerboard, which is nailed to the back frame of the organ. The Rucwerk keyboard pushes stickers that carry the action to a rollerboard, which is located under the organist. The Pedal key action also relies on stickers that transfer motion to a rollerbox, which carries the motion, via trackers rather than rollers, to the Pedal chests on either side of the organ.
The stop knobs are made of pear that has been dyed black, with a bone button in the center. The stop action traces and trundles are made of white oak, with iron arms and levers. The iron arms are heated red-hot and then pounded into the oak trundles and are secured by quickly peening the iron.
The organ is winded from four large wedge bellows located in an isolated room in the tower of Anabel Taylor Chapel, approximately 30 feet above and behind the organ. The bellows can be foot pumped, or an electric blower can be used for practice without an assistant. Solid oak windlines connect these bellows to the organ. Windlines are joined with splines or inserted with tenons, and all joints are sealed with leather. A single Schnitger-style tremulant affects the entire organ.
Five windchests are located throughout the organ. The Manual and Pedal each have two chests, and the Rucwerk has one. All of the chests are built of solid quarter-sawn white oak. Given the wide humidity swings common to New York State, leather slider seals are used to eliminate runs and provide consistent wind to the pipes through changing climatic conditions. This required that each individual toeboard be carefully shimmed to allow the sliders to move with the correct freedom.

Casework
The casework was made by Christopher Lowe and Peter DeBoer in Chris’s workshop outside of Ithaca, New York. As the parts were made over an eleven-month period, they were assembled in a nearby barn. The case is made almost entirely of quarter-sawn white oak, mostly domestic. The oak in the long pedal tower frames and the thick posts at the console sides was imported from Germany. The rear panels are made of unfinished pine. Traditional joints hold the frame together: dovetails, splines, and pegged mortise and tenon. The panels are held together with clenched wrought-iron nails and have hand-forged iron hinges where access is needed for tuning. The molding profiles taken from the Schnitger organ in Clausthal-Zellerfeld were smoothed with an array of old wooden molding planes and custom-made planes and scrapers.
When Chris asked for guidance on what the finished surface of the moldings should be like, Munetaka responded, “We want to see the tool marks . . .
but they have to be nice tool marks.” The insides of the panels are finished with an extra deeply scooped texture for its acoustic property. All the oak has been fumed with ammonia to darken it, and the exterior surfaces were rubbed with linseed oil with iron-oxide pigment. The pipe shades are of basswood scroll-sawn to leafy shapes, and were painted by Joel Speerstra and his mother, Karen, with shadows and details to appear three-dimensional.
The casework was dismantled from the barn and moved to our Canandaigua workshop in November 2008. The interior components were installed over the next year, and the entire organ was enclosed in a tent and fumed with ammonia. Following this process, three wooden stops were installed for testing, and the organ was featured in an open house event at our facility on January 10, 2010.

Installation
Installation of the organ began in February 2010. This process required more on-site construction than to what we are accustomed. Because the pipes were shipped directly to Cornell University, the racking process had to be completed on-site. This required burning the rack holes to the correct size, for each pipe, in a tent outside the chapel in the frigid February air. The various tapered irons were carefully heated in a hand-crank coal forge; monitoring the exact temperature of the irons was critical to the process. Once ready, the irons were used to enlarge the holes by burning the wood until the pipes fit correctly. All of the upper racking was performed on-site, with the façade pipes being carefully carried up the scaffold to be marked for the precise location of the hook. Once soldered, a pin was located and driven into the oak rack.
All of the pipes that are offset from the main chests are conducted with lead tubes that were individually mitered, soldered, and fit on-site, and forced into leathered holes in the toeboards.

Pipework
The majority of the pipes in the organ are combinations of lead and tin. The wooden stops are made of pine. The pipe metal was cast on sand, as it would have been in Schnitger’s time. This technique was “rediscovered” by GOArt as part of their original research project in Gothenburg. In contrast, the modern method of casting thick metal sheets and then planing metal to the desired thickness by machine, produces a weaker material because it removes the hardest metal from the outer surface.
As Munetaka Yokota notes,

If the handcraft worker has to do everything by hand, then she or he will have the incentive of casting it as close as possible to the desired thickness and with the desired taper, and scraping it minimally, but very carefully, in the areas where it must be scraped well for acoustical reasons. This much more complex process works with the metal to create a sheet that gives a structural and acoustic result that, almost as a byproduct of the process, is as close as possible to the original Schnitger pipes. . . . Process reconstruction was developed with the goal of reproducing the acoustical quality of the 17th-century organ pipes, and this . . . philosophy is applied to the rest of the organ production as much as possible.

Final product
The organ was publicly presented during the Organ Inauguration and Dedication Festival and Conference, March 10–13, 2011 on the Cornell University campus. Many lectures were presented detailing the world that existed when the original organ at Berlin’s Schlosskapelle was introduced in 1706. There were demonstrations of the organ’s individual stops and a discussion about the construction process, and numerous concerts to demonstrate the organ as a solo instrument as well as how it worked together with other instruments. The inaugural concert by Harald Vogel was presented twice to allow more people to experience the new instrument in the intimate space of Anabel Taylor Chapel. The first inaugural concert also featured the new composition Anacrusis by Kevin Ernste. This piece featured the organ with electronic sounds as well as live organbuilding sounds made by numerous students and organbuilders who had worked on the instrument.
We would like to thank Professor Annette Richards, University Organist, who was the impetus behind this project and the glue that held it all together. Professor David Yearsley also provided welcome support and encouragement throughout the project. The support of Jacques van Oortmerssen, who served as inspector for Cornell during the project, was crucial to its success, and his performance during the festival was a tribute to his contributions.
The artistic endeavor of building the organ now gives way to the artistic endeavor of using it to teach and to enrich the lives of people for generations to come. For Parsons Pipe Organ Builders, there is a single underlying purpose to creating these beautiful instruments: that this organ will be used by Cornell students to glorify God through weekly services of worship.
—Parsons Pipe Organ Builders
4820 Bristol Valley Road
Canandaigua, NY 14424-8125
888/229-4820
www.parsonsorgans.com

To view a descriptive video produced by Cornell University, visit <http://www.cornell.edu/video/index.cfm?VideoID=1017&gt;.

Parsons’ staff:
Richard Parsons
Calvin Parsons
Duane Prill
Peter Geise
Aaron Feidner
David Bellows
Glenn Feidner
Graham Sleeman
Jay Slover
Matthew Parsons
Steven Martindale
Tony Martino

Photo credit: Timothy Parsons, unless otherwise indicated

Anabel Taylor Chapel
Cornell University Baroque Organ
Ithaca, New York
GOArt / Parsons / Lowe

MANVAL (II)
1 PRINCIPAL 8 fus
2 QVINTADENA 16 fus
3 FLOITE DVES 8 fus
4 GEDACT 8 fus
5 OCTAV 4 fus
6 VIOL DE GAMB 4 fus
7 SPITZFLÖIT 4 fus
8 NASSAT 3 fus
9 SVPER OCTAV 2 fus
10 MIXTVR 4 fach
11 TROMMET 8 fus
12 VOX HVMANA 8 fus

RVCWERK (I)
1 PRINCIPAL 8 fus
2 GEDACT LIEBLICH 8 fus
3 OCTAV 4 fus
4 FLÖITE DVES 4 fus
5 OCTAV 2 fus
6 WALTFLÖIT 2 fus
7 SEPQVIALT 2 fach
8 SCHARF 3 fach
9 HOBOY 8 fus

PEDAL
1 PRINCIPAL 16 fus
2 OCTAV 8 fus
3 OCTAV 4 fus
4 NACHT HORN 2 fus
5 RAVSCHPFEIFE 2 fach
6 MIPTVR 4 fach
7 POSAVNEN 16 fus
8 TROMMET 8 fus
9 TROMMET 4 fus
10 CORNET 2 fus
(preparation)

TREMVLANT
VENTIEL MANVAL
VENTIEL RVCWERK
VENTIEL PEDAL
CALCANT

Four wedge bellows

Pitch: a1 = 415 Hz
Compass: Manuals C, D–d3
Pedal C, D–d1
Temperament: Werckmeister III

The stop names are presented as on the stop labels. Note that the “x” has been replaced by a “p” in both the Rucwerk Sepquialt and Pedal Miptur, possibly as a nod to the division names Rückpositiv and Pedal.

30 stops, 40 ranks, with one preparation.

Karen McFarlane has announced her retirement from twenty-four years of active concert management, effective January 1 of this coming year. Karen McFarlane Artists, Inc., which in 2001 will mark its 80th anniversary, was originally founded by Bernard R. LaBerge. In 1962, his long-time secretary, Lilian Murtagh, took over the agency, which was transferred to Ms. McFarlane shortly before Mrs. Murtagh's death in 1976.

Under Karen McFarlane's tenure, the management has continued to represent many of the world's finest concert organists, and in addition has ventured into two new areas. In 1982, Ms. McFarlane became the first concert manager for organists to officially promote the winner of a major national competition, and since that time has volunteered her assistance to 10 NYACOP winners, working with each for a two-year period. She agreed in 1990 to represent the gold medal winners of the Calgary International Organ Festival, and, although she has been invited to represent winners of other major international organ competitions, she has chosen to work with competitions which are based in North America. In 1985 her management began to import select collegiate and cathedral choirs of men and boys from England to North America, starting a trend of tours by English choirs that has continued. During the past fifteen years she has toured the choirs of St. Thomas Church, New York City; Canterbury Cathedral; Salisbury Cathedral; Winchester Cathedral; King's College and St. John's College, Cambridge; Westminster Abbey and Westminster Cathedral, London; and The Cambridge Singers (John Rutter, director).

Karen McFarlane holds a bachelor's degree from Lindenwood College, St. Charles, Missouri, where she studied organ with Franklin Perkins. She also attended Washington University and Union Theological Seminary, and studied with Claire Coci. In 1966 she moved to New York City to assist Frederick Swann at The Riverside Church. She has also served as Director of Music/Organist at St. Mark's Episcopal Church in San Marcos, Texas, and as Director of Music/Organist at Park Avenue Christian Church, New York City. She took over the Lilian Murtagh Concert Management in 1976, has served as Associate Choirmaster at The Church of the Covenant, Cleveland, since 1988, and has been married to Walter Holtkamp, Jr. since 1982. Karen McFarlane is listed in Who's Who in America, Who's Who in Entertainment, the International Who's Who in Music, and The World Who's Who of Women. She received the Avis H. Blewett Award from the St. Louis AGO, and was one of two recipients of the national AGO's first Edward A. Hansen Leadership Award in 2000.

The new president of Karen McFarlane Artists will be John McElliott, who is currently Booking Director for the management. Mr. McElliott grew up in Akron, Ohio, where he was introduced to church music as a boy chorister in the Men and Boys Choir at St. Paul's Episcopal Church, under the direction of Robert Quade. He then went on to study organ and voice at The University of Akron, and later was a choral scholar with the Choir of Winchester Cathedral in England. He has had a great deal of performance experience as a singer with early music groups such as Apollo's Fire, and has a solid knowledge of organ repertoire as well. He is married to organist Yuri Sato.

On September 8 of this year, in recognition of her forthcoming retirement, Karen McFarlane was honored by her entire roster of artists at a musical event held at the Peabody Conservatory of Music in Baltimore. The event, which was secretly planned for more than a year, was a program of "Musical Gifts," in which each artist on the roster either composed or commissioned a piece for organ, solo voice, or choir. A total of 30 new works were composed, of which 26 were performed that evening.

Organ:

George Baker: Chorale-prelude, If Thou But Suffer God to Guide Thee

Guy Bovet: Tango de setimo tono (a modo de Habanera)

Petr Eben: Preludium I (commissioned by Susan Landale)

Ann Gebur: Meditation on "Schmücke dich" (commissioned by Clyde Holloway)

William Harvey: Vocalissimus (commissioned by Christopher Young)

Martin Haselböck: Birthday Card with Signature

Marilyn Keiser: Variations on "Good Christian Friends, Rejoice"

Olivier Latry: Arabesque on the Name of Karen McFarlane

William McVicker: Six Variations über una tema de Vincent Youmans (commissioned by David Goode, James O'Donnell, Jane Parker-Smith, Simon Preston, Ann Elise Smoot and Gillian Weir)

Craig Phillips: Tribute—A Lullaby for Organ (commissioned by David Craighead)

Daniel Pinkham: The Salutation of Gabriel (French horn/organ)(commissioned by Joan Lippincott)

Myron Roberts: Fantasy for Organ (shared dedication with Robert Baker)

Daniel Roth: from Livre d'orgue pour le Magnificat

Robert Sirota: Fanfare for Many Members (commissioned by Donald and Phyllis Sutherland)

Frederick Swann: Meditation on "Repton"

Thomas Trotter, arr. from Vivaldi: Alla Rustica

Hymns:

Gerre Hancock: A Hymn for Karen (hymn-tune: Karen)

Todd Wilson: He Comes to Us as One Unknown (hymn-tune: Cedar Hill)

Solo Voice:

Diane Meredith Belcher: Lutebook Lullaby

Stephen Kennedy: St. Theresa's Bookmark (commissioned by David Higgs)

Thomas Murray: Earth with Her Ten-Thousand Flowers

Anne Wilson: May There Always

Choir:

Marie-Claire Alain: Two Early French Noëls for Choir

Stephen Cleobury: Founder's Prayer

David Hill: Sing Lullaby                                                   

Alan Morrison: The Lord Bless You and Keep You

Peter Planyavsky: Choral arrangement of Lasst uns erfreuen

Stephen Tharp: O Sacred Feast

In addition, a humorous group sing-along piece entitled "A Ditty for Karen," by Peter Hurford, was performed. John Weaver, who has over the years become the management's "Poet Laureate," read a Special Recitation. Performances of the above new works were by many of the roster organists, Phyllis Bryn-Julson, soprano; John McElliott and David Hoffman, baritone; Larry Williams, French horn; and a choir composed of Peabody voice students. The welcome was given by Robert Sirota, Director of the Peabody Conservatory. A benediction by Victoria Sirota closed the evening. It was the largest number of new works premiered at any event in memory, many of which are being published.

As of January 1, Karen McFarlane Artists will have a new address: 2385 Fenwood Road, Cleveland OH 44118. Toll-free telephone: 866/721-9095; Fax: 216/397-7716; E-mail: [email protected]. The web-site for the management is www.concertorganists.com. Karen McFarlane ([email protected]) will continue, on a part-time basis, to expand performance opportunities for the management's competition winners and young organists, as well as handle the planning for the yearly choir tours. David Hoffman, who has been with the management for many years, will continue as Office Manager.