Trophy Builders and their Instruments A Chapter in the Economics of Pipe Organ Building

A Chapter in the Economics of Pipe Organ Building

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

Roosevelt

E. M. Skinner

Aeolian Skinner and G. Donald Harrison

Aeolian

The Automotive Industry:

Merchants and Manufacturers:

Publishers:

Railroads and Public Utilities:

Steel and Oil:

Wurlitzer

Holtkamp

Schlicker

Fisk

Summary and Conclusions

It's Time To Tell the Story

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.

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

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
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  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
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  particular organist.
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  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.
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  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:
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  "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.
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  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.
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  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.
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  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
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  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.

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

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
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  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.
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  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
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  by the administration.
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  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
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  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
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  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.
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.

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
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  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.
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  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.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>      

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:
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  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,
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  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.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>        

R. E. Coleberd, an economist and retired petroleum industry executive, writes frequently on the history and economics of pipe organ building. For research input and critical comments on earlier drafts of this paper, the author gratefully acknowledges: Wilson Barry, Larry Chase, David Harris, The Rev. B. B. Edmonds, Dorothy Holden, Ken Holden, Herbert Huestis, Paul Joslin, Alan Laufman, Charles McManis, Albert Neutel, John Norman, Barbara Owen, Robert Reich, Jan Rowland, Jack Sievert, John Speller, Robert Vaughan, and Randall Wagner.

Introduction

Students of pipe organ economics and history are continually fascinated by the wide variety of non-mechanical windchest actions developed by American organbuilders in the last century. These ingenious mechanisms speak to the resourcefulness of enterprising men eager to find an efficient and reliable system to differentiate their product and, thereby, to carve out a niche for themselves and their firm in the highly competitive marketplace for pipe organs. Windchest innovations formed the core of the nonmechanical systems. They would become a defining characteristic of American organbuilding in the first half of the twentieth century and mark its contribution to the evolution of the King of Instruments during this period. Marvels of mechanical ingenuity, they far surpassed developments on the Continent. As James B. Jamison commented: "In mechanisms they excel the Old World product so far as to make comparison unfair."1 Among the most important and far reaching innovations was the electropneumatic pitman action windchest which traces its origins to an obscure nineteenth-century Continental organbuilder, August Gern.

In writing a paper in which I remarked that Ernest M. Skinner had taken the pitman windchest to "Mount Olympus," I recalled a comment years ago by the late Dr. Homer Blanchard that August Gern was the inventor of the pitman action.2 Some years later I verified Blanchard's observation in Audsley's The Art of Organbuilding.3 I was curious about Gern and his system. At the suggestion of Barbara Owen, I phoned Professor Christopher Kent at the University of Reading in the United Kingdom who referred me to his student, Paul Joslin. Paul has researched and written on Gern's tenure in the British Isles. He kindly briefed me on Gern and sent me a copy of Gern's patent which would shed light on this question.4

Windchests

To begin, we need to review briefly the nature of a windchest and the nomenclature of the so-called "individual valve" actions. A windchest is a rectangular wooden box working in tandem with the console as a transfer mechanism, i.e., it transfers wind from the bellows to the pipes enabling them to speak. A stop action and a key action are its two essential components. Differences in the design and operation of these two actions distinguish one system from another and establish the two broad categories of nonmechanical windchest action: ventil and universal.

A ventil chest is distinguished by the fact that the individual stops are not winded unless the stop is on, i.e., pulling the stop knob opens a valve and charges the stop on the chest. Widely used in the early decades of this century, it was closely associated with the novel pull-wire ventil employed by Hillgreen-Lane, was incorporated in Kilgen organs until the firm's demise in 1958, was the mainstay of the Estey Company and was built by Tellers well into the post WWII era. Organ Supply Industries continued to list the ventil windchest in their catalog until 1982.5

A universal windchest is any system in which the wind is under all the stops at all times. The term "universal" is closely associated with the ingenious Austin patented system, in the beginning a large walk-in enclosure located directly under the pipe valve mechanism. Technically, however, a pitman action is also a universal windchest because the wind is always under all the stops. The salient feature of a pitman action is the key and stop action. As Randall Wagner, Organ Supply Industries executive, explains, a pitman action is fundamentally a fluidics mechanism, an x, y switch in which both x for stop and y for key must be "on" for the pipes to speak.6 These switches are, as Jan Rowland points out, relief valves which are activated by a motor, in modern practice a leather disc (formerly with a wooden stem) or flap, akin to a solenoid, whose movement seals or exhausts the key and stop channels.7 In the lexicon of today's computers these switches would be known as an AND gate.

By 1900 the race was on as the transition from tracker to non-mechanical action swept the American organ industry. Ten years later if you did not have a workable windchest you were either out of business (Gratian) or severely handicapped (Hinners). But if you had an efficient and competitive system, it just might be the cornerstone of a long and prosperous tenure in the industry (Austin, Wicks). The universal airchest of the Austin Company, with the familiar decal on the enclosure door, and "Built on the Bennett System" on the nameplate of the Bennett Organ Company instruments, demonstrated that firms were eager to capitalize on their innovations in the rapidly growing market for non-mechanical organs.

The pitman action gradually emerged as the odds-on favorite of American builders and organists, initially because of the overriding influence of Ernest M. Skinner, whose mechanism became the generic term for the system, but also because of its perceived advantages. By the post WWII era it had become dominant. The ventil, aside from the exceptions cited above, virtually disappeared. Skinner's contribution notwithstanding, innovations in windchest and console design and construction are, most likely, the work of individuals and firms over time in several stages of development. One is, therefore, understandably reluctant to attribute a major technological development in organbuilding to one individual. Nonetheless, if we can establish, from an analysis of his patent, that Gern's system functions like a pitman action then we are safe in saying that he is one of the pioneers of this redoubtable mechanism.

August Gern and His System

August Friedrich Herman Gern (1837-1907), a native of Berlin, Germany, was the son of a cabinet maker whose family had lived for several generations in or near Berlin and whose ancestry was traced as far back as 1415 when one Christian Gern was baptized in Zwichau. After acquiring woodworking skills, most likely from his father, Gern obtained organbuilding knowledge, probably from Carl Friedrich Buckholz, although he may have also worked with Sauer, Lang and Diese. In 1860 he migrated to France where he was employee and foreman of the celebrated Aristide Cavaillé-Coll (Buckholz was a pupil of Cavaillé Coll). In 1866, after installing one of the Parisian master's instruments in the Carmelite Church in Kensington in the United Kingdom, Gern opened his own shop in London. He operated from several locations in London and, from 1872 to 1906, at Boundary Road, Notting Hill (the shop building is extant).8

On November 6, 1883 Gern filed a patent application (see diagrams) for "Improvements In Organs And Similar Wind Instruments." He described his invention as a key and stop action channel "designed to simplify the construction and operation of parts . . . and to avoid the loss of wind and objectionable sounds that often result from leakage."9 His reference to loss of wind and objectionable sounds was, perhaps, referring to the Kegellade or cone valve chest, the system then widely used by Ladegast, Sauer and other German builders. Although the key and stop channels, acting as relief valves, were the focal point of his invention, there were other far-reaching implications of his system. One was provision of two sets of relief channels to permit duplexing. Another was the use of chest wind to open the valve. In this respect his mechanism was, theoretically, similar to "Roosevelt" type actions which utilized chest wind as the operating force. Interestingly, and as if to anticipate the future, Gern asserted that "collapsible or bellows-like cells" (i.e., pouches) could also be used.

The following step-by-step analysis of Gern's patent is made with some trepidation and a note of caution. It is very difficult to comprehend the working of up to six valve positions of the mechanism in a single set of diagrams each portraying only one position. Have you ever tried reading Audsley? The diagrams are reproduced courtesy of Robert Vaughan, chief engineer of the Reuter Organ Company, who copied them from Audsley. Ironically, Audsley had discovered an apparent error in the Gern patent diagram regarding the position of the pitman.

Following the diagrams: Figure 1 is the key action. When the center-pivot key A is depressed as the note is played, the lug a on the key tail opens the leather-covered pallet B, exhausting the key channel D. When the key is released, wind from channel E pushes down on pallets C and B, charging key channel D. A closer look suggests that pallets C and B work much like a primary action in a modern pitman windchest.

Figure 2 is the stop action. As shown, the stop is "on" with channel L exhausted through slide G. When the stop is "off" slide G is moved to the right, causing wind from H to recharge channel L.

Figure 3 is the heart of the mechanism. In the Gern system the pitman "motor" is a teeter-totter, hinged in the middle and pivoting up and down at each end, shown as m1, m2. When the key channel is exhausted from Figure 1,  wind from the stop action channel L (the stop is "off") pushes m2 up and m1 down, sealing the exhausted key channel and maintaining wind pressure in cylinder n on piston N. This keeps valve O (shown open in Figure 3) seated securely against the bottom board on which the pipe stands, thus preventing the pipe from speaking.

When the key is "off" and the stop is "on," the position of the teeter-totter pitman is reversed. Then wind from the stop channel L is exhausted and wind from the key channel D pushes m1 up and m2 down, causing key channel wind to maintain pressure under the cylinder and the valve to stay closed.

When both key and stop are "on," i.e., channels exhausted, the pitman motor floats causing wind in the chest to push down on piston N and open valve O, allowing the pipe to speak. Duplexing is accomplished by a dual set of key and stop action channels D1, D2, L1, L2 as shown in Figure 4.

Gern's patent did not immediately become an innovation in the Schumpeterian sense, i.e., the commercial application of an invention, because all evidence indicates that he never used it in his work, nor did anyone else.10 Audsley laments that he has never seen a working model from which to make drawings, adding that although he was acquainted with Gern's instruments he had not examined the inside of the windchests in them.11 Gern most likely was dissuaded from utilizing his system because, in comparison with other mechanisms of the day, it proved impractical and uneconomical to build. Audsley appears to confirm this when he says:  " . . . in our estimation, it is attended by several serious drawbacks, and must, in the manner in which it is fixed in the chest, be somewhat difficult to reach for cleaning or repairs."12

It must be emphasized that Gern did not call his invention a pitman action, a term designated much later and closely associated with the work of Ernest M. Skinner who is credited with further refinements and whose model became the definitive example of the system. The term pitman is not confined to organbuilding: it has been associated in antiquity with such diverse occupations as coal mining and saw milling and in engineering to denote mechanical linkage as in a steam engine or a steering column.13

The Skinner System

The concept of the pitman windchest was revived in 1897 by C. F. Brindley of Sheffield, England in a patent for a pneumatic pouch action which Sumner comments "anticipated the actual pitman action."14 The key to developing the pitman idea into a workable system, as reflected in the Brindley patent, was the pouch valve as opposed to Gern's piston valve. The pitman concept made its American debut in a Hutchings-Votey instrument in the Flatbush Dutch Reformed Church in Brooklyn in 1899. This was during Skinner's tenure with Hutchings and after his first journey to England. Wagner points out that this instrument: "probably used their pouch and lever action similar to what EMS used in his Opus 140 at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Cleveland with pitman action in 1906. It was only later that the pitman rail was put under the pouch rail."15 Skinner recognized the pivotal role of the pouch when he wrote: "My second acknowledgment is made to Casavant Frères of St. Hyacinthe, P.Q., who brought this type of motor (sic, i.e., pouch) to the state of refinement shown in the present manual chests and which, through their gracious courtesy, was given to me."16

The term pitman is attributed to Audsley who so named it because of the design of the action motor in the prototype of his day. "The Pitman-valve consists of a disc of fine, smooth leather firmly glued and tacked to the end of a short cylindrical stem of hard wood and well black-leaded to reduce friction to a minimum," he explained.17 The stem is the man and the orifice in which it moves is the pit (see diagram). The Skinner diagram is reproduced courtesy Norm Kinnaugh of the Reuter Organ Company. The American Organist describes it: "The name means man-in-a-pit: There is no Mr. Pitman connected with it—the man happens to be, instead, Mr. Ernest M. Skinner."18 Typically, Skinner took credit for the system: "The pitman stop action valve . . . is my contribution to this important factor in the composition of the organ," he wrote.19 The pouch valve and key and stop action pitman rail under the toeboard, perfected by Skinner, became the generic term for the system. It is characterized today by either a leather disc (without the formerly used wooden stem) or a hinged leather flap which acts as the relief valve/switch in exhausting the key and stop channels. 

Summary

The triumph of the pitman action in the early decades of this century is attributable, apart from Skinner's influence, to its pronounced mechanical advantages during this period, in addition to the perceived weaknesses of the ventil system. Herbert Huestis, in an intriguing hypothesis, theorizes that organbuilding follows playing style, both then and now. In the first three decades of the twentieth century the crescendo pedal made possible the style of playing on the larger instruments characteristic of this period. This was the era of transcriptions as concert fare, and of large instruments built by Skinner, Möller, Austin and Kimball for municipal auditoriums and similar venues as well as for churches.20 As Wilson Barry comments: "Virgil Fox was Mr. Crescendo Pedal."21 The pitman windchest is optimally suited to the crescendo pedal, both in adding stops in the buildup to a powerful chorus and in reducing stops while holding a chord. Conversely, the ventil chest, with its much slower stop action, is woefully deficient in this respect. Momentary pitch variation in a ventil chest results in the transition period when wind pressure rises and falls as the ventil channel is charged and emptied. In addition, the pitman is adaptable to playing one rank as two stops; for example, a Diapason at eight and four foot pitches, and for playing a Fifteenth separately from a Mixture.

In retrospect, a ventil windchest is less complicated in layout and, with fewer borings, is less expensive to build than a pitman, although with the separate enclosure required for the stop action it is somewhat larger. The exception was the venerable Estey windchest, which could accommodate a 43 scale Diapason on the chest, and was even smaller than  a pitman. Another drawback of the  ventil is having wind on only one side of the leather stop action valve which seriously shortens its life. Only a small percentage of the time does a pitman pouch have wind on just one side. Furthermore, as Robert Vaughan points out, in former times when the blower was customarily located in the furnace room of the church, coal dust would be drawn into the organ action. Leather is permeable and as the wind filtered through the leather, as in a ventil stop action, the acidic compounds inherent in coal would be deposited in the leather hastening its demise. Finding organ leathers blackened with coal dust was a common experience of servicemen of yesteryear.22

The respected firms mentioned above continued to build the ventil windchest long after it was technically obsolete because they felt comfortable with it and, logically, took pride in their work and their innovations in the evolution of windchest action. The Kilgen key action, particularly when measured on a unit chest, has long been recognized by experts to be among the fastest key actions ever developed.23 These builders believed that whatever differences existed in stop action speed versus the pitman were either non-existent or minimal and, therefore, were of no consequence in the marketplace. As Huestis points out, they were builders of comparatively small instruments where the crescendo pedal was not a pivotal factor.24 Lacking personnel familiar with alternative systems they were fearful of failure. Windchest systems existed side by side in the organ industry because windchest cost is only a fraction of the total cost of building an instrument and, therefore, is not a determining factor. Otherwise, if windchest cost had been dominant, the Austin mechanism, so economically superior in design and manufacture, would have driven out the rest of the industry and monopolized the market.

August Gern, a relatively unknown and long-forgotten figure in nineteenth- century Continental organbuilding, deserves a small niche in the pantheon of notable organbuilders for his seminal contribution to the pitman action. His concept of using chest wind as the activating force was a milestone in the evolution of the pipe organ windchest and his uncanny switching mechanism laid the foundation for the highly successful pitman electropneumatic system.

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

Introduction

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

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

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

Industry Markets and Trends

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

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

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

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

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

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

Collins Stevens

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

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

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

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

The Stevens Reed Organ

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

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

A. G. Sparling

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

The Compensating Pipe Organ Company

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

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

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

The Stevens Pipe Organ

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Specification

First Methodist Church, Crooksville, Ohio

Stevens Piano & Organ Company,

Marietta, Ohio

Manual Compass, CC to C4  61 notes

Pedal Compass, CCC to G 32 notes

Great Organ

                  8'             Open Diapason

                  8'             Melodia

                  8'             Dulciana

                  4'             Principal

Swell Organ

                  8'             Stopped Diapason

                  8'             Violin Diapason

                  8'             Aeoline

                  8'             Oboe Gamba

                  4'             Flauto Traverso

Pedal Organ

                  16'          Bourdon

                  16'          Lieblich Gedeckt (Polyphone)

Couplers

Swell to Swell 16'

Swell Unison

Swell to Swell 4'                              

Great to Great 4'

Great to Pedal 8'

Swell to Great 16'

Swell to Great 8'

Swell to Great 4'

                  Swell to Pedal 8'

Swell to Pedal 4'

Accessories

Expression Pedal                              

Crescendo          

Sforzando Reversible

Great to Pedal Reversible

Wind Indicator

Crescendo Indicator

Sforzando Indicator      

Specification

First Baptist Church, Marietta, Ohio

The Stevens Organ & Piano Co.,

Marietta, Ohio

Compass of Manuals, CC to C4, 61 notes

Compass of Pedals, CCC to G, 32 notes

Great Organ

                  8'             Open Diapason-Scale 40, metal

                  8'             Gross Floete, wood

                  8'             Dulciana, metal

                  8'             Melodia, wood

                  8'             Gamba, pure tin

                  4'             Octave, metal

Swell Organ (73-note chest)

                  16'          Bourdon, wood

                  8'             Open Diapason-Scale 42, metal

                  8'             Stopped Diapason, wood

                   8'            Salicional-70 per cent tin

                  8'             Aeoline, metal

                   4'            Rohr Floete, metal

                  8'             Orch. Oboe, reed

                  8'             Vox Humana, reed

Pedal Organ

                  16'          Open Diapason, wood

                  16'          Bourdon, wood

                  16'          Lieb. Gedeckt, wood (Sw)

                  8'             Flute, wood (ext)

                  8'             Gedeckt, wood (ext)

Couplers

Operated by tilting tablets over swell keyboard

Great to Pedal 8'

Great to Great 4'

Swell to Pedal 8'

Swell to Pedal 4'

Swell to Great 8'

Swell to Great 16'

Swell to Great 4'

Swell to Swell 16'

Swell to Swell 4'

Swell Unison Cancel

Pedal Movements

Balanced Swell Pedal

Balanced Crescendo

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

Great to Pedal Reversible          

Adjustable Combinations

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

4 Pistons placed over Swell Manual operating combinations and releasing same

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

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

Accessories

Tremolo

Crescendo-Indicator