In the Wind

John Bishop

Creative freedom

Last Wednesday I was doing a service call at a church in New Jersey, where the Organ Clearing House installed a relocated organ a couple years ago. The pastor was holding keys as I tuned the reeds—a little unusual perhaps, except that this pastor was an organist before he was ordained. It was he who conceived and drove the acquisition of the organ, and we’ve enjoyed a friendly relationship since.

It’s a real pleasure for an organbuilder when a parish appreciates an instrument he has provided and uses it well. Along with the pastor’s affinity for the instrument, that church’s organist is doing a wonderful job finding his way around the organ, and using it creatively as he leads worship for the parish.

An organ tuner can tell a lot about a local organist by the character and quality of the list left on the console, and this organist’s lists are concise, accurate, and correct. When I commented on that, the pastor waxed enthusiastic about the organist’s work, and said something to the effect that although once in a while he disagreed with a choice, he knew he had to stay out of it and let his organist be creative. Terrific. How many organists out there would quail at the idea of working with (or for) an organist-pastor?

 

Yes, chef

A couple days later, Wendy and I went to the movies followed by a light supper at the friendly bar at the end of the block. While Wendy’s literary pull often draws us toward weighty films, this time we saw Chef. It included some personally painful scenes about divorced parents struggling to do right by their son, but otherwise it was fun, funny, and scintillating.

Carl Casper (John Favreau) is chef of a popular and prominent restaurant in Los Angeles owned by Riva (Dustin Hoffman). They learn that the big-shot restaurant critic (played by Oliver Platt) is coming to review the place, and Casper drums up excitement among the kitchen staff planning a special knockout menu. There are fantastic scenes involving a whole pig arriving in the kitchen in a big plastic bag, and a lot of mouth-watering test cooking. When Riva gets wind of this, he storms into the kitchen brandishing the regular menu and essentially orders Casper to present the usual fare. “It’s what we’re known for.” Casper protests, referring to their agreement that Riva wouldn’t interfere in the kitchen, but to no avail.

Predictably, the critic pans the place. Enter Casper’s son, the quintessential smarty-pants kid with a smart phone, who shares the resulting Twitter traffic with his dad. The critic has thousands of followers. Casper, the quintessential social-media newbie, pours fuel on the fire by mouthing off, thinking he was tweeting to the critic, and only the critic, and the fun really starts as Casper challenges the critic to return for a “real meal.” Hearing that news, Riva repeats his insistence, adds an ultimatum, and Casper storms out of the kitchen to find himself in an adventure that includes some mouth-watering food scenes and a hilarious caper with his ex-wife’s first husband. It’s all about creative freedom.

 

For all the saints

Fifth Avenue in New York City is a classy address, but with the Disney Store between 55th and 56th Streets, and the NBA (National Basketball Association) store between 47th and 48th Streets, it’s not quite as elegant as it once was. It’s hard to imagine Mrs. Astor or Mrs. Vanderbilt stopping in to buy an eight-foot-tall Mickey Mouse, even though either of them would have had help to carry it home. We’ll not discuss the Dennis Rodman sunglasses.

Halfway between these two tacky icons you’ll find St. Thomas Church. It’s a wonderful place for worship, a legendary place to hear music, and a refreshing respite from the million-dollar huckstering going on elsewhere in the neighborhood. (People routinely spend more on handbags in that neighborhood than I will ever spend to buy a car!) Walk into the nave and allow your breath to be taken away.

The reredos behind the high altar includes sixty figures of carved stone. I wonder if the artist proposed sixty-five, and the vestry voted to limit the project? People often refer to the “price per stop” of pipe organs. Do you suppose there’s a “price per saint” for a reredos?

In 1499, the 24-year-old Michelangelo completed Pietà, commissioned as the funeral monument to a French cardinal who was a representative to Rome. It’s a little over 68 inches tall and nearly 77 inches wide, and it weighs about 6,600 pounds. I did a Google search and learned that the current price of Carrara marble is $2.25 per pound. (Believe it or not, even though it’s prone to stains, people use it for kitchen counters. You shouldn’t carry coffee in paper cups inside St. Peter’s.) Looking at photos of Pietà, it’s hard to tell just how much of the original block of marble is left, but let’s guess that Michelangelo took away two thirds of the material to reveal his masterpiece. If so, the original block would have weighed 19,800 pounds. At today’s price, that’s $44,550. (I don’t know if that includes shipping.) Did Michelangelo’s commission specify the maximum weight and cost of the marble? Or did they simply provide him with a block? I wonder if Michelangelo tried to hold out for a larger block? Given cost-saving devices such as laser cutting tools, hydraulic cranes, diesel engines, and railroads, I bet the cost of marble relative to other consumer items is lower than it was in 1500. Just imagine the effort involved in bringing a 20,000-pound block down a mountain and 400 kilometers to Rome using technology available in 1500 AD.

A few years later, Pope Julius II commissioned Michelangelo to paint frescos on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Michelangelo worked on that project from 1508 until 1512. I wonder if the Pope established a budget. I wonder if he put a limit on the number of scenes depicted. Did Michelangelo provide sketches for the client’s approval? I wonder if Julius II stopped in once in a while to check on the progress, and if so, did he ever put in his two cents’ worth about color choices? Did he pay attention to the vibrancy of the colors? “Mickey, that blue looks pretty rich. What’s the price per tube?” Did he fuss about how slow it was going? Or did he say, “Knock yourself out. Have a blast. Don’t worry about the cost.” I doubt it.  

A related thought: We have just finished dismantling an organ in a church where the pastor was downright unfriendly. I wonder if Julius II and Michelangelo liked each other? Early in the movie, the kitchen staff spreads the word to Chef Casper that “Riva is coming,” in sharp, explosive whispers. Think of Michelangelo’s young assistant hissing, “The Pope is coming . . . ”

 

You say you want a revolution…

In the early 1960s, the Beatles turned the music world upside down. The radical messages in the lyrics of their songs thrilled some people and terrified others. Old-timers fretted about the end of civilization, what with those hippie hairstyles and all. Funny, because looking at photos of the Fab Four from those days with dark jackets buttoned up, and skinny dark ties with white button-down shirts, they might as well be a quartet of congressmen—except they were too creative for that.  

Those songs were innovative and provocative. Millions of young people were influenced by them. And each of those millions has experienced the moment of hearing the Beatles for the first time in an elevator soundtrack—the music that changed the world reduced to twinkling away in the background. And what a gold mine is that twinkling. After pop-music icon Michael Jackson recorded a couple songs with former Beatle Sir Paul McCartney, Jackson seized an opportunity to incense McCartney by outbidding him to purchase the rights to the Beatles’ catalogue, putting McCartney in the position of having to pay licensing fees every time he wanted to sing Hey Jude.

According to the website Mail Online (of the British newspaper Daily Mail), following Jackson’s death, copyright laws allow the rights to return piecemeal to McCartney.  A revolution at what price?

 

Leave the driving to us

A week ago, I was waiting for a bus in the teeming New York Port Authority Bus Terminal, listening to a nondescript Vivaldi concerto for strings over tinny public speakers. I’ve been present for plenty of serious recording sessions where microphones and music stands are set about on a wood floor. There are open instrument cases strewn about along with half-finished bottles of water. A small group of musicians is playing their hearts out to the microphones for posterity. Together they listen to playbacks of each take, discuss, and start again. Do you suppose they realize that all that effort is destined for broadcast in a bus station? Does that define commercial success for a musical ensemble? Artistic fulfillment?

The parish organist spends all day Saturday at the console preparing a blockbuster postlude for the next morning. The recessional hymn is finished, benediction and response checked off, and he launches into it. Ten minutes later, with a paper cup of coffee in the narthex, the smiling congregants tell him, “The music was beautiful, as always.” I once appreciated that feedback, but when the same person says the same words with the same inflections week after week, year after year, it gets a little hollow. Was she listening? Did she notice anything special about it this week? Or does “as always” cover it for her, taking away the responsibility to listen critically?

Classical radio stations love listener surveys, inviting their audiences to vote on their favorite music. It’s like a sprawling focus group and allows the stations’ librarians to cull all that complicated overbearing music that no one likes from their record collections. No votes for Alban Berg? Out it goes. As a teenager listening faithfully to WCRB in Boston in the 1970s, I was already aware that it was a pretty short list of music they played: a Mozart symphony (number 40 in G minor), a Vivaldi concerto (Four Seasons), something by Respighi (Ancient Airs and Dances), another Vivaldi concerto (another season down, two to go).

The Louvre in Paris is one of the world’s largest museums with over 650,000 square feet of exhibit space. It’s the most visited in the world with nearly ten million visitors a year. There are more than 35,000 objects on display, but for most visitors only one is a focus point. It’s a painting about the size of a coffee-table book, thirty inches by twenty-one inches. Because it’s so very iconic and valuable it’s pretty much buried, concealed in a transparent vault. So many people throng to see it that most only get a quick glimpse. Of course it’s an essential artwork—enigmatic, mysterious, beautiful, wistful. But you can make more of your time in those hallowed halls if you simply don’t bother. Miss Mona will be fine without you. Go the other way and see all the rest of that glorious art at your own pace.

 

The art of organ building

It’s fun to wax poetic about organbuilding from the point of view of the humanities. The Greek physicist and inventor, Ctesibius (ca. 285–222 BC) created the hydraulis, widely considered to be not only a forerunner to the organ, but the actual first example of one. The remains of a primitive pipe organ were found in the ruins of Pompeii, the ancient Italian city destroyed by the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 AD. The organ in the Basilica of Valère in Switzerland, made famous by E. Power Biggs’s 1967 recording, Historic Organs of Switzerland, is accepted as the oldest playable organ in the world. Biggs’s jacket notes stated that the organ was built in 1390. Others now think it was more like 1435. But whether or not we need to quibble about a difference of 45 years, that’s a mighty old organ.

Twentieth-century organbuilders used sixteenth-century models as the basis for contemporary instruments around which developed a revolution in the trade. And many of those original sixteenth-century instruments survive and are played regularly, proof that such ancient ideals remain vital and relevant to modern musicians.

Organs built in the sixteenth and twenty-first centuries all combine the fruits of many skills. Take a close look at a metal organ pipe and marvel at the precision of the hand-drawn solder seams that join the various pieces of metal. Inspect the edges of leather gussets on a pipe organ bellows and see how the craftsman’s knife tapered the edge to microscopic thickness, just to ensure that there was no loose edge to get snagged and delaminate.

See the precision of the playing actions (either electro-pneumatic or mechanical)—how fast the notes repeat, how uniform is the touch and feel of the keys. And marvel at the glorious architectural casework, beautifully designed, built, and decorated to promote and project the instrument it contains, and to enhance its surroundings.

The company that built that organ is surely a collection of high-minded individuals, capable of the creation of such a masterpiece. But wait. You have no idea how many cooks might have been involved.

 

Art by committee

A church invites an organbuilder to present a proposal for a new instrument. He delivers a drawing or a model. Using blue tape, someone in the church marks off the space to be occupied by the proposed organ. That Saturday, the women of the altar guild arrive to prepare the sanctuary for tomorrow’s services. They see the tape outline—to them it looks like a police photo of a crime scene. They storm the rector’s office, demanding that the organ not cross a specified but imaginary line. Please don’t take offense, all you members of altar guilds. You do wonderful work and we’re grateful. But I know of one fine organ that was sorely compromised in the design stage by exactly this scenario.  

The same rector reviews the proposal. It looks a little imposing. Too fancy, too shiny. That organist has enough of an ego problem. Let’s tone it down a little.

The organist reviews the proposal. There’s no Larigot, there’s only one soft solo reed, and nothing at 32-foot. I’m not sure I can manage without a third (or fourth) keyboard. Can we beef it up a little?

The vestry/board of trustees/finance committee/session (your choice) reviews the proposal. No, our data suggests that we will not be able to raise more than…

And if the architect is still around, “How can you do this to my building?”

In the 1960s, comedian Allan Sherman (Hello muddah, hello fadduh . . .) produced a hilarious parody of Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf in collaboration with Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops Orchestra. The recording of Peter and the Commissar was released in 1964, at the height of the Cold War—it was just two years after the Cuban Missile Crisis—and using the familiar tunes and orchestrations of Prokofiev’s score (apparently no one had gotten their hands on those rights!), Sherman told in outrageous verse of how the fictional Peter had written a new tune, but had to obtain approval from the Commissars of Music before releasing it.

The Commissars had all sorts of ideas about how to improve it, including giving it the beat of a bossa nova—and gave Peter examples of their alterations to previous applications from famous composers like “Beethoven’s Fifth Cha-cha-cha,” “Brahms’ Lullaby Rock-n-Roll,” and “Pete Tschaikovsky’s Blues.” This kind of buffoonery was perfect for Fiedler and the Boston Pops. You can hear this terrific and biting romp online at www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFseskG8JTY.

Allan Sherman’s poetry reminds us of the stories of Julius II and Michelangelo, Riva and Chef Casper, Paul McCartney and his struggle to retain control of the artistic output of the combo that changed the world, and countless other examples in which a creator is disappointed by the influence of outside forces.  

One memorable line from Peter and the Commissar stands out: 

 

We all have heard the saying that is true as well as witty, 

A camel is a horse that was designed by a committee. 

John Bishop

We’re expecting

It’s happening. The new organ arrives next week. The old one just gave up. The first time it ciphered no one knew what it was, but later on it happened so often we got used to it. Our organist learned tricks about how to make them go away--the tricks worked most of the time, but sometimes we had to finish the service using the piano. She started bringing up the subject at music committee meetings. That led to the committee making a presentation at Annual Meeting--a perfect opportunity to form a new committee. 

The organ committee went to work studying the old organ. They asked our organ tuner to describe the problem. The tuner had some ideas about how it could be made better--we could clean something, releather something else, add a mixture, replace a couple ranks of reeds, rebuild the console with solid-state switches along with a lot of fancy accessories. One committee member thought that would be like painting an old car--it would look fancy, make a better impression, but deep down it would be the same old clunker. Another committee member said, “That organ was played for my parents’ wedding, both their funerals, my wedding, and my daughter’s wedding. It’s part of our heritage. I’d hate to see it go.”

It took a year for them to make their first decision, and at the annual meeting they made a presentation recommending that we should replace our organ. Someone asked what it will cost. The chair of the committee stood up, he hesitated before he said something like, “more than you can imagine.” Bad answer. Did that ever start something! One suggestion was to establish a limit. Someone responded, “It doesn’t make sense to limit something before we have any idea what it could or should cost . . .” Many organ projects are doomed to failure when a budget is established too early.

Who do we think we are?

“It would be awful if the committee works another year and we vote it down because it’s too much money. . . How can we justify spending that much on ourselves when there is so much need in the world--in our own town? There’s the Bishop’s annual fund, tsunami relief, the soup kitchen. Isn’t there a parable about sharing? . . . St. What’s His Name just bought an electronic (funny how the adjective becomes the noun). My friend told me it hardly cost anything and it sounds great. . . Pipe organs are so, like, yesterday. . . This would be a wonderful way to revitalize our worship, and to offer something special to our community. . . What are we running here, a concert hall? . . .  Seems to me we’d just be buying an expensive toy for the organist. Maybe we should find an organist who’s happy with what we have. . . They don’t use the organ at the ballpark anymore, I think recorded music would be just fine--if we bought a fancy sound system we’d spend a lot less, and we’d get a PA system at the same time--we’d kill two Byrds [sic] with one stone.”

All those questions lead to one: Who do we think we are? Are we a parish willing to commit to a bold and exciting new path? Are we inclined to make a quick and easy decision, unwilling to challenge ourselves? Or do we take the easiest path and do nothing?

How many church committee members does it take to change a light bulb?

Change? Change? That light bulb doesn’t need to be changed. My grandmother paid for that light bulb.

They voted to ask the committee to study the options and to make a report at a special meeting in six months. It took some doing, but in the end they agreed not to limit options that early in the game. They authorized hiring a consultant to give professional advice. And the committee said they were willing to keep working.

At first, the committee was overwhelmed. There were so many different types of organs to consider. Most of them had never imagined the concept of comparing organs. An organ is an organ, right? What’s to compare? They realized that choosing an organbuilder could determine what kind of music would sound best in our church. Is it possible to build an eclectic organ--an organ that sounds great playing any style of music? They realized that choosing an organbuilder could determine what the interior of the church would look like. How do we relate the design of a new organ to the architecture of our church? 

They made a list of questions and statements to use when they interviewed organbuilders. They made a list of organbuilders, inviting them to make proposals. They traveled to see and hear examples of their work and to visit workshops. They talked with church members and organists around the country asking opinions. Did you have a good experience working with them? Did they build an organ that serves your church well? Are visiting organists comfortable playing it?

One of the companies on their list had renovated several organs but had never actually built a new organ. The committee was impressed by the builder’s philosophy. He had a well-equipped workshop and a congenial crew. His previous clients all said he was great to work with; they were happy with the work he had done. Would he be capable of creating a fine instrument for us? Every great artist--painter, sculptor, composer, organbuilder--created Opus 1! Would our church and the art of organbuilding benefit if we supported a young builder?

Six months passed and we had that next parish meeting. The committee made a presentation. They showed photos of organs--three examples from each company they were talking with. They told us about the various proposals they had received. They described the range of sizes (number of stops) and the range of prices. They described their process--they had visited three workshops and nine organs. They related the interview experiences. They told us their conclusions about an appropriate size and price range for a new organ. This meeting was easier because there were fewer mysteries--fewer unknowns. We voted to support their conclusions. A parishioner suggested now that we know an appropriate price range we should establish a limit we could be comfortable with. Fair enough. It’s hard to start a fund drive without knowing a goal!

The committee promised to stay in touch. They would write articles for the newsletter to keep the congregation updated. They would be available to hear people’s questions and concerns and to report those back to the committee. 

After that meeting the committee had confidence. They knew they had the support of the congregation--their friends and neighbors who would be asked to pay for an organ. They had learned a lot about comparing organs. They had learned to trust their own ears--to listen to an instrument and talk about their reactions. They knew that an organ isn’t necessarily an organ. For many people, simply making an opportunity to hear three or four different organs in one day is enough to learn to describe differences. Organs have distinct personalities, quirks, comfort levels. You can even learn to tell by listening if an organ is not comfortable playing a certain piece of music.

The committee told us later that there was a magic moment in an interview with one of the builders. He was showing the committee a drawing of a proposed organ explaining how it would fit our needs, and they could feel that he was pushing them. He wanted to put the organ in a different location--the committee had not even thought of that as a possibility. They realized that they were talking with an artist with a vision, an artist who was confident that his vision was right. The design was different from everyone’s preconceived ideas of what kind of organ we would buy. At that moment the committee understood the process at a new level--you develop confidence in the work of an organbuilder and trust that his philosophy will promise you an exciting instrument. No organ committee can design an organ. An educated organ committee places faith in the artistic vision and technical ability of an organbuilder and trusts in a thrilling result.

There was another parish meeting--the last one. The members of the organ committee were excited. They had done a lot of work and given a lot of their time. Imagine, taking time from a busy life to travel to look at pipe organs! You could just tell that they knew they had a good decision. A couple of days later the chair of the Board of Trustees signed a contract with the organbuilder.

Our organbuilder (has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?) gave us a list of conditions. We were to rebuild the walls around where the organ would go so they would reflect sound and would not rattle or buzz when the organ was played. We were to provide electrical hookups according to specifications. We were to rebuild the floor under the organ so it was level and supported weight in the right places. We were to remove the carpet in the aisle. Doesn’t it make sense to consider the acoustics when you consider a new organ? The organ isn’t the only thing to benefit from improved acoustics. Once we were doing that, why shouldn’t we have the floor sanded and refinished? Why shouldn’t we have the walls painted? Wouldn’t it be great if we could install the new organ in a refurbished room? After all, you’d hate to raise dust around a new organ a few years later. Organs hate dust!

We did all that. Our organbuilder sent us photos of the progress, and we set up slide shows in the narthex after worship. When the organ was nearly finished we were invited to an open house. What a great day. There were dozens of people from our church and many of the builder’s friends and colleagues. Photos of our church building were on display along with the drawings and designs. Different people played on our organ, we sang hymns and tried to imagine what it would be like at home.

The organ arrives next week.

We can hardly wait. Everything’s in place. The church looks terrific--the floor is gleaming, there’s new lighting in the chancel. When you clap your hands inside there’s a new ring to it. We had to go to city hall to get parking permits for the truck that would bring the organ. That was a fun clue into what an event this is. You almost never see trucks that size in our neighborhood.

Last Sunday there was lots of talk about anticipation. The organ committee is planning lunch for all of us after church next Sunday. The organ will arrive after lunch.

Join me next month as the truck arrives, is unloaded, and the workers start to install the organ.

John Bishop

I feel privileged to be involved with an instrument that has such a grand heritage and so thoroughly captivates its players, builders, and listeners. I value “shop talk,” those conversations with colleagues or aficionados that broaden our knowledge by sharing experiences--I’ve often been chided by family members for the specialized jargon that peppers those talks. But we cannot thrive on shop talk alone. We strengthen our art by developing and nourishing connections with the rest of the music world, with the broader expression of the arts, and with as many facets of our culture as possible. 

I have recently read (and reread) a book that I think offers a thoughtful opportunity for enrichment by considering the heritage of another musical instrument. I recommend Stradivari’s Genius written by Toby Faber (Random House, 2004).

“It’s a Strad”

Antonio Stradivari (1644-1737) was the preeminent member of the revered and prolific tradition of violin-making in Cremona, Italy. His local competition included such well-known names as Amati and Guarneri, family workshops whose products are highly revered today, but Stradivari’s instruments were superior enough that he stood out among giants. Today his name is widely respected as a mark of excellence.

 

The evolution of music can be studied from three different points of view, that of the composer, the performer, and the instrument builder. None could advance without the others, and I think it’s interesting to note how the sway of influence has passed back and forth. Ludwig van Beethoven, Claude Debussy, and Igor Stravinsky were composers who introduced new, imaginative, even controversial musical languages that brought the art of musical expression to new levels. Niccolò Paganini, Franz Liszt, Vladimir Horowitz, and Yo-Yo Ma stand out as performers whose technical skill and artistic perception have influenced, even changed the way others approach the instruments.

A number of builders of musical instruments have similarly influenced the development of music. Aristide Cavaillé-Coll produced a huge number of pipe organs that included countless innovations both in tonal resources and mechanical controls. The instruments he built inspired an entire school of organ composition and playing--the music of Widor, Vierne, Franck, Tournemire, Duruflé, Dupré, and Messiaen (to name just a few) was all inspired by the work of Cavaillé-Coll. It’s hard to imagine today’s organ world without it. By the way, Cavaillé-Coll’s genius was not limited to the development of the organ--he is also credited with the development of the circular saw blade.1

American organbuilder Ernest M. Skinner is an excellent example of an instrument-maker whose work has had profound and lasting influence on the art of organ playing. The Ruckers family (Hans I, Hans II, Andreas I, Andreas II) were at the center of the famous Flemish school of harpsichord building. Remarkably, about 135 of their instruments built between 1581 and 1680 survive today, a central and profound influence on modern harpsichord makers and players.2 Steinway & Sons is certainly not the only show in town, but it is impossible to separate their brand name from the evolution of the piano virtuoso. 

Antonio Stradivari’s career spanned over seventy years, during which he produced more than 1100 instruments. Most were violins, but he also built many cellos, fewer violas, guitars, and harps. About 650 instruments built by Stradivari survive, most of which are used regularly by modern virtuosi. From the admittedly naïve point of view of an organbuilder, the construction of the violin seems simple, but Stradivari’s Genius offers rare insight into the world of instrument building and the various ways that instrument makers have influenced the evolution of musical composition and performance.

The premise of the book is made clear by the subtitle: Five Violins, One Cello, and Three Centuries of Enduring Perfection. After an introductory overview of Stradivari’s life and career, the author traces the history of six individual instruments from original purchase to the present, their paths often crossing. The fact that the full history of so many Strads is known is testament to their value. Each instrument has a name (as do the majority of the extant instruments), often the name of the instrument’s most prominent owner, and each has a life story. 

What makes something great?

For three centuries now there has been a continuing debate about just why Stradivari’s instruments are so much better than others. One theory acknowledges that the shape, size, and position of the soundholes (also known as f-holes) is critical--that the master’s skill is evident in the precision with which these important features are made. Another theory focuses on the varnish used to finish the instruments. Stradivari used a unique varnish made of materials indigenous to his area that remains notably soft when cured. Would a harder finish inhibit the instruments’ resonance? Does the varnish act as a filter for certain harmonics? If so, how?3

Another interesting theory was described in an article written by Duncan Mansfield and published in USA Today on December 2, 2003.  According to that report, Dr. Henri Grissino-Mayer, an expert in tree-ring dating at the University of Tennessee, theorized that a “Little Ice Age” that affected Europe from the mid-fifteenth through the mid-nineteenth centuries slowed tree growth resulting in uncommonly dense Alpine Spruce, the wood used exclusively by Cremona luthiers. This Ice Age was at its coldest between 1645 and 1715--remember that Stradivari was born in 1644. Dr. Grissino-Mayer suggested that this particularly dense wood contributed to the magic of Stradivari’s instruments:

“It just amazed me that no one had thought of this before,” said Dr. Henri Grissino-Mayer, “the relationship between the violins, the trees that they were made from, the climate that existed when the trees grew and how it affected wood density to create a superior tonal quality. It just started clicking, and I thought, ‘Oh, we are on to something,’” he said.4

Perhaps the superiority of Stradivari’s instruments results from a combination of these factors. I have no doubt that there are many more theories, but the fact remains that the instruments are incomparable. Faber’s book goes on to say that while Stradivari’s work was admired during his lifetime--the original purchasers knew they were getting something very special--the instruments did not achieve their potential until they had aged for decades, even as long as a century.

Faber makes major points in this delightful book that have special significance to us who study and work with pipe organs. One is that it was common for Stradivari’s instruments to be purchased by patrons and either given or loaned to the virtuosi who could show the instruments’ capabilities to best advantage. 

The virtuoso gambler

Unlike those who play orchestral instruments, organists do not have freedom to choose the instrument they play. There are those fortunate organists who are given the opportunity to participate in the planning of a new instrument on which they will be playing, and some whose choice of where to audition is influenced by the instrument involved, but even they must play on whatever instrument is available when they are away from home. And the organist is virtually never in the position of actually purchasing the instrument. The funding for these monumentally expensive works of art must be provided by a patron or by an organized group of donors. 

Early in the nineteenth century, violin virtuoso Niccolò Paganini was to play a concert in a theater in Leghorn, a coastal town in Tuscany. He arrived without a violin, having pawned his instrument to pay a gambling debt. The owner of the theater was a French merchant and amateur violinist named Colonel Livron. He loaned his valuable instrument (built by Stradivari’s competitor, Guarneri del Gesù) for the concert, realized that the instrument had found “its true master,” and gave it to Paganini, saying, “Never will I profane strings which your fingers have touched; that instrument is yours.”5

A singular loaner

One of the instruments followed in Faber’s book is the incomparable cello known as the Davidoff, one of whose twentieth-century owners was Jacqueline du Pré, the brilliant cellist whose career was cut short by multiple sclerosis. As her illness progressed, she changed to a modern instrument that was easier to play and the Davidoff was placed in storage with a Parisian luthier. About ten years later, du Pré’s husband, the conductor and pianist Daniel Barenboim, met the young virtuoso Yo-Yo Ma after which Barenboim and du Pré loaned Ma her instrument. After du Pré’s death in 1987 at the age of 42, Ma was the first to be offered the opportunity to purchase the cello, an offer he reluctantly turned down as both his career and his children were young and he was unable to afford such a purchase. An anonymous enthusiast heard of Ma’s decision from the luthier where the instrument was stored, purchased it, and presented it to Ma as a lifetime loan.6  This was the third time in its history that the use of the Davidoff cello had been made possible by a philanthropist.

Keep the receipt

By the way, it’s Ma’s other cello that had an extra-curricular taxi ride in 1999. He inadvertently left his 1733 Montagno (Venice) cello in the trunk of a cab but wisely kept the receipt. The NYPD tracked the cabbie’s medallion and returned Petunia to her owner within five hours. For years after you could hear Ma’s recorded voice advising you to keep your receipts when you got into a cab in New York.7

Why is all this relevant to the pipe organ? The funding of our instrument is crucial to its future. The price of an excellent pipe organ of even moderate size can easily exceed a million dollars. The church that can consider a purchase like that is becoming ever rarer. The history of our civilization is rife with wealthy donors whose vision was broad enough to appreciate the value of art and who provided funding in support of the work of the artist. It’s hard to imagine a world without the art made possible by people named Medici, Esterházy, Guggenheim, or Rockefeller. The steel magnate Andrew Carnegie donated more than 8800 pipe organs.8 It should be the mission of modern organists, organbuilders, and enthusiasts to take every opportunity to cultivate such relationships.

Adapting and evolution

Faber made another point in his book that I thought was revelatory, stating that while so many Strads survive today, not one is in original condition. Each was modified during the nineteenth century to adapt it for modern playing. The angle of the neck was changed as were the original tapered fingerboards. The instruments were built when common pitch for “A” was around 420 Hz--some of their pitches have been raised to as high as 460 Hz to accommodate the pitches of certain orchestras. Raising the pitch necessarily increases the tension of the strings and the force the instrument must bear, requiring heavier sound posts and other modifications. Also, the design of the bow was greatly altered. The bows that Stradivari knew had about 1/4 inch of horsehair--modern bows have more like 7/16”, allowing the player to draw ever more sound from the instrument. Faber concludes, “it all presents us, however, with a supreme irony: the brilliant and powerful tone for which Strads are famous, and which is most responsible for their value, is very different from what their maker himself must have heard.”9

Even more interesting, Yo-Yo Ma enhanced his exploration of seventeenth-century music by having the Davidoff cello returned as closely as possible to its original condition including gut strings, a baroque bow and bridge. He uses a different instrument for all other music.10

This has everything to do with our modern conversation about the pipe organ. We have researched the methods of organbuilders from every period and every country. We have studied the relationships between the instruments and the music written for them and have built modern instruments in ancient styles to enhance that study. We have restored older altered instruments to their original condition. We energetically discuss the possibilities of playing one style of music on another style of instrument--sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, and we often disagree.

There are countless differences between the organ and the violin. It is surely a risk to draw parallels without careful thought. But I find it interesting to learn about the approach to some of these questions as discussed by our colleagues who work with other instruments.

“It’s a Doozy”

August and Fred Duesenberg were bicycle makers in Iowa who developed an interest in gasoline engines. In 1926 they joined in partnership with Errett Cord to build the luxury J-model Duesenberg automobile, producing fewer than 500 vehicles between 1928 and 1937.11 While the Duesenberg automobile was wildly expensive, available only to the most wealthy patrons, it set such a high standard of style, quality, and excellence that we use the term Doozy today to refer to anything extraordinary or bizarre.12

If bizarre is part of Doozy, I suppose that defines the difference between It’s a Doozy and It’s a Strad. Maybe I should look up bizarre . . .

John Bishop

John Bishop is executive director of the Organ Clearing House.

The hands of an artist
Wendy and I are just back from a vacation in Greece. Our daughter Meg has lived in Athens for three years, and we’ve visited several times. With her help, we’ve had a wonderful introduction to Greek history and culture. There are plenty of difficulties associated with living in Greece—the current economic crisis there is fueling labor strikes and deadly protests, and plenty of that was going on during our visit, just a few blocks from Meg’s apartment. But the deep history of the country is fascinating and moving. As you walk or drive around Athens you constantly rediscover the Parthenon perched high on the Acropolis. It seems there are hundreds of tiny streets that provide distant views of the majestic temple, and you can easily identify which rooftop terraces provide those views.
As you walk, you stumble across countless archeological sites hidden in quiet neighborhoods away from the bustle of the Acropolis. The city’s streets are lined with orange and lemon trees—sounds romantic and smells wonderful, until the fruit ripens and the sidewalks are littered with rotting lemons and oranges.
Greece is not a pipe organ country. There is a large organ by Klais in the Friends of Music Hall in Athens, but the dominance of the Greek Orthodox Church, which does not use musical instruments, means that there are very few organs there. Our vacation was a tour of the Cycladic Islands in the Aegean Sea, which form a political state whose capital is Spathi on the island of Serifos. The population of Greece is about eleven million—ten thousand are Roman Catholics, and most of them live on Serifos. There are dueling cathedrals (Orthodox and Catholic) on hilltops above the city, and sure enough, there’s a small pipe organ in the Catholic cathedral. We climbed hundreds of stairs from the port to the hilltop, and unbelievably we were not able to get into the organ loft.
It’s common in American churches to see a plaque honoring the succession of pastors. A few congregations around us in New England trace that history to the seventeenth century. Organists revere the plaque in the organ loft of the Church of St. Sulpice in Paris where organists are traced back to Nicolas Pescheur in 1601. (This has been easy to maintain as there have been only five organists there since 1863.)1 The plaque honoring clergy in the Cathedral of Serifos goes back to 343 AD. No kidding!
The island of Aegina is a touristy place near Athens, a good stopping point for boats traveling to the more distant Cycladies. It’s a major producer of pistachio nuts (we brought home a couple kilos) and home to some extraordinary archeological sites. The museum in Aegina Town includes decorated pottery from 2500 BC and shows a model of a bronze casting facility from about 1000 BC that was discovered nearby. I was captivated by the idea that such sophisticated techniques were developed so long ago (4500-year-old pottery kilns?), and as the Cycladic islands are volcanic, including a couple that are still active, I wondered what role volcanoes might have had in the development of crafts that depend on intense heat.
One of the most gifted Greek sculptors was Praxiteles. He lived from 400–330 BC, not all that old. But his work was far ahead of his time. As far as we know, he was the first to sculpt life-size female nudes from marble. There’s a legend that he had a romantic relationship with his primary model, Phryne, who came from Thespiae (origin of the term thespian) and was known as one of the most beautiful women of her time. She was the model for Praxiteles’ famous Aphrodite of Credos. Their relationship was explored by Camille Saint-Saëns in his comic opera Phryne. (How did he ever stumble on that subject?)
Praxiteles worked in Athens. His model came from Thespiae, about 150 kilometers away. He worked with marble from the Cycladic Island of Paros, more than 200 kilometers away by water. Think of the logistics of transporting a six-foot block of marble from Paros to Athens just to carve a statue of a pretty woman. It would be difficult enough now with power equipment and hydraulics. Praxiteles produced artworks of staggering beauty and unprecedented liveliness. I suppose his love for the beautiful Phryne brought out the best in him.

Too many cooks
I wonder if there was anyone looking over Praxiteles’ shoulder saying, “Take a little more off the top,” or, “You’ve got the left earlobe too fat.”
We know that happened to Michelangelo as he released David from a huge block of Carrara marble. He was commissioned by the Overseers of the Office of Works of the Cathedral in Florence, and was in fact the third artist to receive the commission. The overseers were very concerned that the huge and wildly expensive block of marble (already named David) was neglected for twenty-five years, lying on its side exposed to the elements. The committee got its act back together, had the stone set upright so artists could see its potential, and went looking for someone to realize the project after the first two attempts failed. Leonardo da Vinci was interviewed, but the twenty-six-year-old Michelangelo got the gig.
Not only was he hired by a committee to produce the piece, but another committee including Leonardo and his colleague/competitor Botticelli was formed to choose the location. There is record of disagreement among the members of the committee before the site by the entrance to the Palazzo Vecchio on Piazza della Signoria was chosen. Apparently Leonardo didn’t get his way.2
So much for the image of the artist toiling in his studio, free to express his deepest emotions through an unlikely medium that he understands better than anyone. It’s a romantic image to be sure, but especially when there’s a lot of money involved and the artwork is for a public place, there are likely to be a lot of spoons in the soup.

I know that guy
Each month I receive several journals with photos of pipe organs on the front cover and I always try to guess the builder before I look inside. I’m often wrong, but there are a half-dozen North American organbuilders whose styles are so clearly recognizable to me that I get them right every time. As most organs are commissioned by committee, I admire those builders who can create and maintain recognizable styles.
I like to think of a pipe organ as an expression of the sensibilities of the builder. I love the process of organ design, when the concept of an instrument gets put on paper. When several companies are invited to submit proposals to a church for a new instrument, it’s interesting to see the various drawings—how each firm would meet the particular challenges of the building. And sometimes we get to see several different concepts by a single builder for a particular instrument.
Organbuilder Lynn Dobson has produced many wonderful pipe organ designs, and as his firm celebrates its thirty-fifth anniversary they have created an online exhibition of many of his drawings, including designs of many organs that were never built. When you scroll through this rich display, you can see projects in various stages of design, from simple back-of-a-napkin pencil sketches to elaborate scale models. Take a look at the designs for the important organ they built for the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia (Opus 76) and you’ll see a drawing and a model (two different designs) that are radically different from the organ that was actually built. You can find this exhibit at www.dobsonorgan.com/dwg/home.html.
Dobson’s exhibition reflects his exceptional talent for design, and it implies thousands of hours of committee work as each design was presented, discussed, criticized, and altered. From first-hand experience I know well the feelings that accompany the rejection of a design by a committee member. One such meeting was held in a newly decorated church parlor, and I wondered if anyone who was speaking up against my design had been involved in creating the cacophony of clash and kitsch, which was that room.
Maybe I flatter Lynn by mentioning him in the same breath with Michelangelo, and to be honest I think Michelangelo is the larger talent, but the idea that a great artwork can be both the expression of its creator and of those who pay for and “consume” it, is one of the most interesting facets of the organbuilder’s trade. And that a personal style can transcend the whims and pressures of dozens of committees reflects both artistic integrity and conviction.

Stop, look, and listen
Visual design is only part of the job. A pipe organ is both an architectural element and a musical instrument. Ideally, there’s some relationship between an organ’s appearance and its musical content—but sometimes a building’s architecture doesn’t allow it. It’s easy to picture the stark contemporary building owned by a congregation that would be best served by an organ of classic style. Sometimes an ornate classic case looks good in such building—it’s possible to make a case for the organ to serve as the only beautiful thing in the place! But organbuilders often place organs with classic influence in contemporary buildings.
As we’re talking about Dobson, take a look at their instrument for the Church of St. Peter Claver in West Hartford, Connecticut: www.dobsonorgan.com/html/instruments/op85_westhart ford.html. The stoplist is classical, even predictable, but the case is pure contemporary. And by the way, in this design Dobson has dealt with one of the most common problems. Pipe organs are about height, and contemporary American church buildings often have low ceilings. The organ in West Hartford implies a struggle between the organ and the ceiling.
We often hear of a pipe organ that was designed by the local organist, a source of pride for a congregation. This usually means that the organist wrote up the stoplist, likely subject to discussion with the builder. If an organbuilder has a recognizable visual style, he would certainly have a signature tonal style. So how does it work if the Request for Proposal from a church includes a stoplist? What if the organbuilder doesn’t agree with the concept implied by that stoplist?
One good reason for including a stoplist in an RFP is to solicit proposals that are easy to compare. Once several proposals are studied and a builder is chosen, then it’s time to work on final specifications. So it’s back to the committee. I know of one large organ built several years ago whose stoplist was the product of many hours of conversation in a small bar across the street from the church.

Who brought the camel?
So what good comes from artworks designed by committee? You know the old saying, “A camel is a horse that was designed by a committee.” If too many people, especially those who know little or nothing about organs, are involved in planning an organ, whose art is it? Or is it even art? An organbuilder can withdraw a proposal if he’s not happy with the concept the client insists on, but you can’t eat a withdrawn proposal. How many of us have produced projects we disagree with? If you have a story, send me a message at john@organclearing house.com.
Our current project was greatly influenced by the church’s organist, whose insight into what an organ console can be was an education for me. Adding a half-dozen clever and unusual controls increased the organ’s flexibility exponentially. The time we spent together planning the project before any screws were turned or leather was cut was a collegial creative process that I think enlightened us both.
We often think of the artist as independent. Of course, art of a personal scale is usually the purview of the artist. But I wonder if the celebrated portrait artist John Singer Sargent was ever told, “Just don’t make me look fat.” I bet he was, and more than once.
Monumental art, including pipe organs, is almost always a community effort. There is usually a central creative force, but when there is a committee involved to raise and spend money responsibly, they usually insist on a role in the planning. If organbuilders are competing for a project, they must decide how much they want the job and how much they are willing to compromise their vision of the ideal instrument.
It’s rare for a builder to be given a blank check and a free hand. It would be a special opportunity for a creative person—but also what a huge responsibility. Organbuilders, if this ever happens to you, make sure you build something the church can use. 

Canadian Organ Duettists Sylvie Poirier and Philip Crozier on tour in summer 2003

Philip Crozier

Philip Crozier was born in Preston, England, and was a boy chorister in Blackburn and Carlisle Cathedral Choirs. In 1979 he graduated from Cardiff University, and was awarded the Glynne Jones Prize for Organ in two consecutive years. Between 1978 and 1980 he studied in Paris with André Marchal.

For the past several years my wife Sylvie Poirier and I have had the pleasure of traveling extensively giving concerts of organ duets. In the course of numerous concert tours we have amassed a considerable number of very happy memories, sprinkled with some less delightful tales.

It may be worthwhile at this point explaining how all this began. Sylvie and I first met in 1982 as candidates in the Chartres International Organ Competition and at the time lived on opposite sides of the Atlantic. Sylvie was born and living in Montréal, while I am from England. One thing led to another, culminating in my immigration to Canada and our marriage in 1984. The result was that we pooled together our respective collections of organ music and recordings, learning a lot from each other in the process. Our duet playing began later that decade when we decided to try out some organ duets we had bought--enough to make a complete program in two halves which then became the subject of a broadcast on Radio-Canada in May 1990--our debut concert as duettists. That one event was so well received that we were urged and encouraged by several kind folk to continue and do more, so we were stimulated to expand beyond this one concert and examine the available repertory, increase it by commissions and promulgate it by performances and recordings. In 1991 we played in Germany for the first time as duettists, our international debut as such, and it has since grown and grown. We have now commissioned and premiered seven organ duets by composers from Canada, Germany, France and Britain, and released three CDs of organ duets.

From the outset we have preferred to concentrate on original organ duets (the Mozart and Beethoven works excepting, which we consider valid as organ duets) because we are always fascinated by how and why a particular composer would have conceived an organ duet and how he handled this form of  music making, rather than someone taking an existing framework and adapting it for two players. It is also very exciting to unearth original works that have long been out of print, but there is still a lot we are looking for.

Planning a tour

It has become an annual event for us to travel to Europe during the summer when I have vacation time from St. James United Church and Temple Emanu-El-Beth Sholom in Montréal. Undertaking a concert tour that lasts around forty days presents a number of challenges. A good part of the success or otherwise is a direct result of what happens in the weeks before the plane is boarded, so a significant amount of preparation is obviously necessary; there are so many diverse  eventualities to cover. Planning the actual traveling requires some time consulting train schedules and maps. Occasionally we have had to postpone concerts to subsequent years because of the impossibility of reaching a destination in time.

The choice of repertory for the individual concerts is always carefully  planned to include a good representation of standard duet works which are quite often hardly known at all, taking into account the suitability of the instrument to the music and the availability of playing aids (because we do our own registration unaided, pistons or not, with rare exceptions). Our programs are submitted well in advance, always to include Canadian content, and fulfilling requests that are asked of us, when possible. We also like to include some of our own commissioned works. Organ duettists are relatively rare, and the repertory is not enormous, so concert organizers often prefer to hear duet works that the audience and organists alike are happy to discover or rediscover.

2003 Tour: “Cancelling summer”

The planned tour for summer 2003 was all working out well when I received an e-mail in January  from  David Rogers of Doncaster, England, a long-time friend who in addition to being a fine musician, improviser and recitalist (albeit a reluctant one), is a recording specialist with a huge knowledge of repertory and recording technique. He had made the acquaintance of one individual named Nick, an organ enthusiast who does not play and is not a recording technician, but whose plan was to start a record company devoted to organ music, to be recorded and edited by David. At Nick’s request David asked if I could record the Reubke Sonata on the 94th Psalm--a piece I had never played, but have known well since childhood as a listener, initially through an old LP of the never to be forgotten magisterial reading of Brian Runnett. David had made Nick familiar with my organ playing through private recordings of concerts I had given some twenty years ago. So I eagerly began learning this wonderful work and completed the task in due course.

Sylvie and I also greatly admire the organ works of Petr Eben whom we met in Prague in 1995 and 2000, and it was also suggested we record some of his works with the upcoming 75th birthday of the composer in mind. In 1993 we had broadcast Job and Faust on Radio-Canada (performances that Petr Eben himself was delighted with), but this music remains quite unknown in Canada. Consequently we invested much time, energy and enthusiasm into this new project where we had been assured all funding was in place, greatly encouraged by this unexpected recording opportunity. The organ of Fulda Cathedral in Germany seemed entirely suitable to the repertory in our opinion, and its availability was negotiated and booked. After all the required arrangements had been made with the cathedral, the repertory approaching where we wanted it to be for the recording (it is vital not to “peak” too soon) and a crescendo of excitement building day by day, Nick suddenly sent us an e-mail five weeks before our departure, citing a family problem and ending “my business will have to be sidelined temporarily, so, as they say in the satirical press, Summer is cancelled.”

Shocked and dismayed, we respectfully requested that the recordings could still proceed in his absence with David alone (Nick had insisted on being present at all recording sessions), since these had now become mitigating circumstances and by this stage the planning and preparation for the recording was so far advanced. This was refused outright so we were in a terrible dilemma: do we cancel and possibly jeopardize everything later, or wait, hoping the issue can be resolved, or do we continue alone? The impasse with Nick was not advancing anywhere and we began doubting the sincerity and goodwill of what had been achieved thus far in the project we had embarked upon.

A swift decision had to be made--every day counted with our departure for Europe approaching rapidly. It became more and more apparent that we were going to have to go it alone if these recordings were to be realized. Those final five weeks were spent frantically trying to salvage the situation, soliciting donations from friends and organizations so we could begin the actual  recording. This took up so much of our time that hardly any organ practice was done in those five weeks--not the best situation to be in before a tour of twelve concerts and a recording project! With much regret I decided to abandon the Reubke--this after all was to have been only half of one CD, the other half being taken up with the Piano Sonata by a pianist of repute. There was precious little time remaining before our departure and this had to be principally devoted to the Eben pieces which demand so much concentrated work, in spite of the monumental distractions preying on our minds constantly.

Limburg

It was relaxing in a strange way to be on the plane flying to Europe on the evening of July 16 after the turmoil of the preceding five weeks; we had done all we could, securing enough funding to cover the production of two compact discs. Arriving at Charles de Gaulle airport, Paris, it was clear that our flight connection to Frankfurt was beyond reach. Six hours later, with a good meal along the way, we were airborne again. We were met at Frankfurt by Markus Eichenlaub, organist of Limburg Cathedral where we were to play the first concert. After the hour drive to Limburg and settling in to the Priester Seminar, our home for the next three nights, we were taken to the cathedral by Mr. Eichenlaub. A pleasant fifteen-minute walk from our residence, the thirteenth-century cathedral has a commanding presence over the surroundings, perched on a hill overlooking the River Lahn.

The organ by Hans-Gerd Klais (1978) is a large four-manual with eight combinations, spread across the west gallery and will likely be restored in a year or so. Mr. Eichenlaub suggested we hear it from downstairs as he demonstrated its many colors, and it was of great value to hear it played beforehand. He is a very gifted improviser, and it felt somewhat surreal with the fatigue of the journey starting to bite hard as we wandered  around this magnificently beautiful building, with the evening sunshine streaming through the windows.

Then we were left to explore it for ourselves and begin registering the program which included Two Pieces for Organ Duet by Ronald Arnatt, a first for us. It proved to be quite a challenge to make this particular piece work on that organ; the second movement is aptly named “Octopus Music.” There was a video hook up for the concert itself (which was very well attended). We needed to change the pistons as we progressed since we had also chosen this as the venue to give the German première of our most recent commissioned duet, the 2me Suite pour orgue à quatre mains by French organist Jean-Luc Perrot. Following the concert we went to an excellent Spanish restaurant with our hosts and some of their friends.

During our time in Limburg we also enjoyed a barbeque on the lawn with the organist and his wife and son. We were the only visiting residents in the seminary, home to just a few nuns, in a spacious new building, so were alone and basically had the whole place to ourselves, with easy access to the small two-manual tracker organ in the chapel. Finally we were able to really concentrate on practice, instead of answering the telephone, meeting people to explain and discuss the aforementioned imminent recording project, and sending multiple e-mails and letters. Just being at the organ and making music was very therapeutic--how we wished life could always be like that!

Fulda (First visit)

Leaving Limburg on Sunday July 20, we took the train to Fulda and were greeted that afternoon by Domorganist Hans-Jürgen Kaiser and taken to the Priester Seminar where we had individual rooms with a shower. It was relatively spartan accommodation, home to several priests in training from all over the world, including French-speaking from Africa, but quiet and comfortable, and situated just behind the cathedral. There was also a rail timetable thoughtfully posted on the notice board. Our good friend David Pearson in Kiel had supplied us with various train times for our travels; he acts as our agent in Germany and was a key player in all the Fulda arrangements.

The cathedral was built in the new Baroque manner (1704-1712) to the design of the architect Johann Dientzenhofer and is an outstanding work of art. Inspired by the Roman Baroque style, it reuses the architectural core of the ancient Abbot Ratgar’s Basilica (9th century). In keeping with the splendor of the building in which it is housed, the organ is truly magnificent. The glorious case dates from the time of the cathedral’s construction, and today the organ consists of 72 speaking stops, including some 24 from the large Sauer organ of 1876/77 which was rebuilt and enlarged by Christoph Glatter-Götz of Rieger-Orgelbau and completed in 1996. The specification can be found on the company’s website <www.riegerorgelbau.com/db/pdf/Fulda.pdf&gt;. The four-manual console is well equipped with a multiple memory system (32x12 generals), two-way sequencer and additional electric action for some of the couplers. What a great thrill it is to play this wonderful instrument, and Mr. Kaiser was most helpful during our time in Fulda. We were allowed access to the organ in the evenings and partly during the lunch hours when we could play quietly.

David Rogers arrived the day after with his very specialized and compact recording equipment. At last the much anticipated recording project of organ works by Petr Eben was about to begin. Over several nights spread over one and a half weeks, Sylvie recorded Job (a narrator in Montréal has recorded the French text of the Biblical readings to go between the movements), and I did Faust, A Festive Voluntary and A Small Chorale Partita. There were a few unexpected interruptions--on one evening a private guided tour, and on another evening a trainee priest began practicing the organ in the chapel behind the high altar. Because it is also a monastery and a major learning place, from time to time there were some extraneous noises that had a tendency to arrive just as the last chord was dying away! Despite this, there was hardly any traffic noise because the cathedral is perfectly situated away from roads. We had been lent a set of keys, and on one evening had considerable trouble locking the cathedral door. Something was wrong with the lock and it was fixed the next day.

Rheda-Wiedenbrück

We interrupted our time in Fulda later that week and rented a car driven by David Rogers to go to Rheda-Wiedenbrück, our next port of call. As we went to collect it we noticed a German newspaper photograph with major headlines from Iraq and two familiar faces front and center. One fact about concert touring is that we tend not to follow the news, and in Fulda we had neither radio nor television. On the journey, in which we ran into some very heavy rain, we picked up news on the car radio. The hotel in Rheda-Wiedenbrück was the first time we had seen a television screen since leaving Montréal, and the demise of these two individuals was the big news of the week, along with gruesome photos.

Upon arrival we were met by a lady at the hotel who gave us the church keys; we deposited our cases and went to eat. We were ravenous and found a pizzeria close to the church and went in about 7 pm, fully expecting to be out by 8:30 pm--the organ was available all evening. In the end it took nearly forty-five minutes after placing the order before the soup was served and nearly an hour after that for the pizza, which was very ordinary. It was approaching 10 pm before we left the restaurant, irritated by the apparent indifference of the patron, and not in the mood to have a good practice. It was almost dark by this time and we fumbled around in the gloom trying to find switches and keyholes. We registered the program, grateful for the playing aids, and returned to the hotel.

The next day, Friday July 25, David Pearson arrived for a surprise visit in time for the concert at St. Clemens Kirche, where the three-manual organ is by Fischer & Krämer (1984), details of which can be found at <www.fischer-kraemer.de/rheda.htm&gt;. It was our third concert in this church where a few years ago we first met Ralf Bölting, composer of several organ duets. Our program included one work we commissioned from him in 2000, the Toccata on “Vom Himmel hoch” (the third movement of the Triptych on German Christmas Carols), but unfortunately he could not attend the concert. We have several good original Christmas duets in our repertory, but are frequently asked not to play them during the summer, so we were happy to be able to include it.

Zwillbrock

On Saturday the four of us filled the rented car and headed to Borken to stay with our good friend Kurt-Ludwig Forg, director of the music school there, a recitalist and author of numerous articles and a frequent visitor to North America. We left David Pearson in Münster so he could take the train north to Kiel because of services the next day.

On Sunday afternoon July 27, we played a concert to a capacity audience at the Barockkirche St. Franziskus in Zwillbrock, a delightful small village on the Dutch border. The website (in German) <www.zwillbrock.de/barockkirche/&gt; contains information about the historic two-manual organ and an interior photograph of this beautiful baroque building. It is possible to perform a complete concert of original organ duets on a small instrument and gain very satisfactory results, and this particular one served the repertory really well. The program included Fugue à six parties et deux sujets à 4 mains by Clément Loret and Petite Suite by Canadian organist and composer Denis Bédard, and many of our CDs were sold afterwards. We have given concerts on organs of all sizes and found repertory that is suitable in each case.  That is the challenge for the performer--to construct an interesting program on the organ that is available. We aim to exploit the resources of repertory and instrument as much as possible. It is amazing what some of these smaller instruments can do.

Fulda (Second visit)

Then it was back to Fulda to begin the second week of recording sessions, having fulfilled our concert duties for the time being, and avoiding the heavy service schedule in the cathedral over the weekend. Because we had the car we took a pleasant day off and made a pilgrimage to Eisenach which is not far away in former East Germany. The border is no longer apparent, but passing through the flowing landscapes of Thuringia familiar to Bach and entering the town of Eisenach, there is much evidence of reconstruction. We parked the car close to the Georgenkirche where Bach was baptized. It was also the scene of major protests in 1989, as documented in several photographs in the church aisles depicting all three galleries filled with the townsfolk as the Communist era was nearing its final sunset there. The Bachhaus, Bach’s birthplace, was the first museum to be dedicated to Johann Sebastian Bach and is well worth a visit. Established in 1906 through the Neue Bachgesellschaft, its collection includes archives, household items and other treasures from the time of Bach, in addition to a valuable assortment of musical instruments. The visit includes a live demonstration of these historical  instruments. In the souvenir shop we purchased several recordings, a poster of the Bach Family Tree, and a tie and umbrella of Bach’s handwriting. Meanwhile a baseball cap (which at one time I would never have imagined wearing) provided invaluable protection against the burning sun.

During that last week in Fulda we also visited the Michaelskirche adjacent to the cathedral; it is one of the most notable medieval sacred buildings in Germany--its crypt dates from Carolingian times originating between 819 and 822 as the burial chapel in the former Benedictine monks’ cemetery on the same site. Daily at 6 pm the bells peal forth from both the cathedral tower and  the Michaelskirche. What a glorious sound this is, which David Rogers captured on tape. We have decided to add it to the end of Sylvie’s CD.

For the recording sessions we stayed in the cathedral until around midnight every night, finishing the proceedings in the congenial surroundings of a neighboring hostelry where we mulled everything over before turning in for the night. Finally we accomplished what we set out to achieve, two compact discs of works by Petr Eben. One night we were treated to a spectacular thunderstorm and on another night, returning to the seminary at about 1:45 am, we could hear the organ in the cathedral and quietly went to investigate. The great instrument on the west gallery was being played, along with the one at the other extremity of the building in the chapel behind the high altar. A work for two organs--both organists were remarkably together, but we never found out who they were.

Itzehoe

On Friday August 1, we went our separate ways; David Rogers headed back to England and we travelled north to Kiel to stay with David Pearson, with whom we took the train to Itzehoe on Saturday where we found the four-manual 1905 Sauer to be quite disappointing, despite a relatively comprehensive specification, far from what the stoplist had promised by way of sound selection. The program included the very first organ duet by a Canadian composer, Duet for Organ by Frederick R.C. Clarke dating from 1954. This concert attracted the lowest audience of the tour with about twenty-five in attendance. However we played an encore on the other instrument that shares the gallery, some four stops that contain original Arp Schnitger pipes from 1716-1719.

Estonia

Our first visit to Estonia began on Monday August 4, when we took the airport bus from Kiel to Hamburg and boarded the Estonian Air flight to Tallinn where we were to give three concerts in the Tallinn XVII International Organ Festival, the first Canadian organists and duettists to be invited to perform in this prestigious festival which came into being in 1987. As such we were the grateful recipients of a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts under their International Performance Assistance in Music (Pilot Project). Our programs acknowledged that support.

The meal on the plane was surprisingly good, and upon arrival we were met by Eva-Maria Asari from the Canadian embassy and Tiiu Valper, assistant to Festival Artistic Director Andres Uibo, and driven to the hotel in old Tallinn where all the performers are lodged, aptly named “Old Town Maestro’s.” This was the beginning of a lovely week which included a guided tour of the Canadian embassy with its magnificent view over a part of the city walls, and the harbor. We received an invitation for lunch a few days later with the Canadian Ambassador, His Excellency Mr. Robert Andrigo, and his wife, along with other representatives from the embassy and the festival. It was of course an honor and pleasure to be guests of the ambassador and his staff and to discuss our career and performance plans. My mother arrived in Tallinn also, staying in another hotel outside the old town. This was the only time on the tour we could meet up because once again a trip to my native England was not possible this year.

The festival itself featured artists from several countries and each generally performed in three different venues, not just in Tallinn but in other towns as well, and attended each others’ concerts when possible. On the  first evening we attended an excellent organ recital by Andras Viragh from Hungary in the cathedral (Tallinna toomkirik) where there is a large three-manual Sauer (1913). This church also has one of the largest collections in all of Europe of coat-of-arms epitaphs of well-to-do families dating from the medieval era. Later in the week Andres Uibo gave a splendid concert at the Niguliste muuseum-kontserdisaal (Niguliste Museum-Concert Hall) which included a fine Fuge in D minor by Rudolf Tobias (1873-1918) whose picture appears on the 50 Krooni note alongside an organ, the only banknote in the world that has an organ on it (also available on a souvenir fridge magnet).

On August 9 we attended a most satisfying program entitled “Dance and Mass.” The dance was in the first half, the dancers being the Vilnius Camargo Troupe, and the Estonian Baroque Soloists playing Lully, Campra, Bach, Vivaldi and others from the period, all choreographed. “A Mass for Sunday Misericordia Domini” was the title of the second half consisting of Gregorian chant and North German baroque organ music. Peter van Dijk from Holland performed Scheidemann, Hasse, Praetorius, extracts from the Tablature of Martinus Leopolita (ca. 1580), Sweelinck, Karges and Buxtehude. The choral Mass sections were sung by the ensemble Vox Clamantis, which comprises a diversity of musicians, singers, composers, instrumentalists and conductors who all have a common interest in Gregorian chant, under the direction of Jaan-Eik Tulve. The musical forces were a finely balanced complement all the way through the concert.

Our first recital was on Tuesday August 5 in the impressive Pärnu Concert Hall which is less than one year old and fully equipped. Pärnu is a very popular holiday resort in Estonia, particularly favored by politicians. The organ builder Martin ter Haseborg was present when we arrived and was available should there be problems with the instrument. There remained a few pipes that still needed to be connected and some finishing touches to the instrument here and there, but this did not affect our program during which we gave the Estonian premières of three of our commissioned works: Sinfonietta by Denis Bédard; Dance Suite for Organ Duet by South-African born Canadian organist and composer Jacobus Kloppers; and the aforementioned 2me Suite pour orgue à quatre mains by Jean-Luc Perrot. The specification of the three-manual organ along with photographs can be found at <www.concert.ee/eesti/parnu/orel/index.php&gt;.

The second concert was originally scheduled to be in Viljandi on a two-manual instrument but in due course this was changed to Räpina Church on Thursday August 7. Räpina is a somewhat bare place near the Russian border not far from Lake Peipsi, the fifth largest lake in Europe. The priest welcomed us, along with the local organ maintenance technician. Before the concert the priest and his wife invited us to their home for some refreshments. The audience was spread around the church and on the gallery, and the organ was in many ways the most satisfying instrument we played in Estonia. The program included  the Sonata in G minor (op. 50) by Leberecht Baumert, a fine duet that has only recently become generally available, and the Estonian première of the Petite Suite of Denis Bédard. The concert closed with some prayers led by the priest. There was  not a great deal of time to rehearse, as in Pärnu, and we collected a poster bearing a variant of my name-- Sphilip Crozier. The return journey was beautified with a fabulous sunset,  around 11 pm in early August.

I should mention that we had a preview of Estonia three years ago when Karl Raudsepp, a Montréal-based organbuilder, gave a very captivating talk and video presentation to the Montréal Centre of the RCCO on Balticum 2000, the ISO Congress of that year that visited Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. Karl is the only member of his family not to have been born in Estonia, and he has been preparing an inventory of Estonian organs. I am grateful to him for the following information:

The organ in Räpina Church is a fairly large two-manual instrument, built by August Terkmann in 1934. It also incorporates some stops from the 1857 organ originally built by the Tartu organbuilder, August Kessler. The new stoplist was worked out in conjunction with the well-known Estonian composer and organ teacher, August Topman. It was the last instrument built by Terkmann. Among his employees at the time were the brothers Oskar and Voldemar Gutmann as well as Otto and Alfred Gutdorf.

The stoplist is as follows:

Manual I

16’             Bourdon

8’                  Principal

8’                  Gamba

8’                  Flauto amabile

8’                  Doppelgedackt

8’                  Gemshorn

8’                  Salicional

4’                  Oktav

4’                  Hohlflöte

22/3’        Quinte

2’                  Oktav

                        Cornett III-V

                        Cymbel III-IV

                        Subkoppel II-I

                        Superkoppel II-I

                        Superkoppel I

Manual II (under expression)

16’             Gedackt

8’                  Geigenprincipal

8’                  Quintaton

8’                  Flöte

8’                  Lieblichgedackt

8’                  Viola

8’                  Vox celeste

4’                  Principal

4’                  Rohrflöte

2’                  Koppelflöte

                        Mixtur III-V

8’                  Trompete

                        Subkoppel II

                        Superkoppel II

                        Glocken

                        Tremolo

Pedal

16’             Principalbass

16’             Subbass

16’             Gedacktbass

8’                  Oktavbass

8’                  Cello

102/3’   Quinte

16’             Posaune

                        I-P

                        II-P

                        Superkoppel II-P

The Echo organ, planned for installation in the gallery behind the altar, and playable from Manual II, was never built due to the lack of funds. It would have comprised the following stops:

Echo

8’                  Fernflöte

8’                  Undamaris

4’                  Gemshorn

Karl also added in a further e-mail to me that August Terkmann is credited with introducing many new technical innovations into organ building in Estonia, including the use of electricity. His instruments are renowned for their gentle voicing and singing quality. Räpina’s organ stands out as a remarkable example of his work.

Our third concert was at the Niguliste Museum-Concert Hall on Sunday August 10. Details and photographs of this former church can be found at <www.ekm.ee/english/niguliste/&gt;. The organ was built in 1981 by the Rieger-Kloss company and has 4 manuals and pedal, 63 registers, and 4711 pipes. The  program included two movements from one of our commissioned duets, Suite de noëls by Canadian organist and composer Gilles Rioux, as well as the Bombardo-Carillon by Charles Henri Valentin Alkan for pedals alone, and ending with the Toccata Française (sur le nom de H.E.L.M.U.T.) by Ralf Bölting which is a real showcase work. The concert was attended by the ambassador and the full staff of the Office of the Canadian Embassy and broadcast live on Estonian Classical Radio. Before this concert I recorded an interview for the same program that was aired during the interval.

At the conclusion of the concert there was a fine reception hosted by the festival which is run by the State Concert Institute Eesti Kontsert and in our experience is extremely well organized. Ground transportation in the form of comfortable mini buses belonging to Eesti Kontsert was provided from the airport and back, and for the two-hour drive to Pärnu and three-hour ride to Räpina. In each of these venues outside Tallinn we received the same courtesy and warm welcome extended to us in Tallinn. The driver himself, an employee of Eesti Kontsert, was responsible for the distribution of programs in Räpina where everything ran smoothly. We had the chance to explore a bit during some of the free time that week. It was most interesting to go into a supermarket, something that always fascinates me in different countries, and it was very well stocked with all the usual household necessities. Milk products were in abundance, so they have their act together on that one. Just a visit to a supermarket can give a snapshot of the location--and if this was anything to go by, Estonia is on the right path.

Garding

The week passed very quickly in Estonia, before we returned to Kiel on Monday August 11, for the next venue a couple of days later in Garding, some two hours by train. It is a beautiful small town, and the delightful ancient St. Christianskirche was completely full for the concert which we opened with the Duet for Organ by Samuel Wesley. The organ was built in 1974 by the Schuke company of Berlin. The organ case of the Hauptwerk dates back to 1512, and as such is the oldest unchanged organ case in North Germany. The casework for the Rückpositiv was completed in 1680. The specification is below:

Hauptwerk (C-f3)

8’                  Regal

8’                  Prinzipal

8’                  Rohrflöte

4’                  Oktave

2’                  Oktave

                        Mixtur IV-V

8’                  Trompete

Rückpositiv (C-f3)

8’                  Gedackt

4’                  Rohrflöte

4’                  Prinzipal

2’                  Gemshorn

11/3’        Quinte

                        Sesquialter II (from c0)

                        Scharff III-IV

Pedal (C-f1)

16’             Subbaß

8’                  Prinzipal

4’                  Choralbaß

                        Hintersatz IV

16’             Fagott

Saarbrücken

After a couple of days rest in Kiel we headed south to Saarbrücken on Friday August 15 to play at the Basilika St. Johannis. We met our host Bernhard Leonardy, organist of the basilica, later in the evening, and visited the town in his open top sports car. This was a first for us too, exhilarating to experience the fresh midnight air like this. We had only one hour on the organ before the 11:30 am recital the next day, but fortunately the five-manual Hugo Mayer from Saarland organ has a multiple memory system. Further information about the church and a specification of the organ with photographs of the console can be found at <www.basilika-sb.de/&gt;.

Wiesbaden

After the concert we ate at a small snack bar near the station because we had our luggage with us and needed to be at the station for the train that gave us good connections to Wiesbaden. Travel from Saarbrücken to Wiesbaden was plagued with rail problems, beginning with the non-arrival of the ICE that was running one hour late, forcing us to take a taxi from Mainz to Wiesbaden. Gabriel Dessauer, organist of  St. Bonifatius, had left instructions for us to be at the church to collect various keys after the Saturday evening Mass. He was away and was only returning in time for our concert on Sunday afternoon. Over the years we have developed a technique for working rapidly on a new instrument--we prepare for the eventuality that there is often a short amount of practice time on the instrument due to circumstances beyond our control--but we do find it is invaluable to gain access to the organ the day before the concert. On this occasion we almost missed an evening on the three-manual Mayer organ which has 640 pistons allowing for instant comparison of various registration options and is “user-friendly.” Information about the church and organ and music are on the church website <www.st-bonifatius-wiesbaden.de/&gt; and there is an English section too.

Gabriel Dessauer arrived the day of the concert to greet us. Our visit coincided with an annual Fest going on in the town, with a huge selection of wines, beers and food on stands in the main town square. It was so good to be part of this great celebration but a huge downpour of rain, essential though with the heat wave going on at the time, watered it down somewhat. The church with its vibrant acoustics was akin to a sauna bath.

Heiligenhafen

Following Wiesbaden we returned north to Kiel, breaking the journey for a second visit to Borken to see Kurt-Ludwig Forg for a couple of days. Such free days are much appreciated in a concert tour. The last concert in Germany was on Thursday August 21 at the Stadtkirche in the coastal town of Heilgenhafen which boasts much tourism and fish restaurants, but lacks reasonable public transportation, not being served by a railway, and a bus service that finishes before the end of the concert. David Pearson came with us for the day trip and we were well received by the organist Dörte Czernitzski. The concert was very well attended; one special characteristic was that the organ bench was polished to perfection, enabling us to slide forward straight into the pedalboard with effortless ease. So we had to be vigilant all the time! 

Paris

The next day we had an early start for the long train journey to Frankfurt airport from where we had an evening flight to Paris. Late trains and missed connections had become quite rife on this trip (not typical of Germany, I might add), so we decided it was better to be safe than sorry. In Paris we were met by Sylvie’s brother who has lived in France for more than thirty years. On Saturday afternoon we went to rehearse at La Madeleine to find that there were two weddings so we had to return in the evening.

General Kalck, who is in charge of concert organization, proudly demonstrated the organ to us. As he was explaining the various registers and their history, I was observing and memorizing their location. One interesting fact about this organ is its shortage of 8’ diapason stops. There is a wide plethora of sound at 8’ pitch, but only one Montre 8’ on the Grand Orgue and Positif respectively, and not on the other two manuals. The absence of more principal sound at 8’ pitch is not so noticeable. A multi-memory system accelerates matters much faster in the relatively short practice time available. He left us to it, giving us precise instructions and exact telephone numbers to call when we had finished so we could be let out of the building. Reassuringly, they matched those posted on the organ console, so we enjoyed exploring the delights of this wonderful monument of French organ building, with its grandstand view down into the nave (not so easy if one is afraid of heights).

La Madeleine has had a long succession of distinguished organists including  Camille Saint-Saëns (1857-1877), Théodore Dubois (1877-1896), Gabriel Fauré (1896-1905) and Jeanne Demessieux (1962-1968). After about three hours we had done all the necessary work and then telephoned but could not obtain a free line. Half an hour later, with no joy whatsoever, it seemed we were doomed to spend the night in the Madeleine. Sylvie stayed upstairs, trying the telephone again and again, while I went hunting for exit points and other telephones. Thus I discovered just about every door in the building, various tunnels, spiral staircases and iron grills. Tourists do not usually have the freedom and privilege of such explorations; what a wonderful place it is! In the sacristy I found another telephone in the dark but  still could not get a line, then a portable one that I took back into the church so I could see better. Between us we tried everything but nothing worked. I continued walking around, sincerely hoping I would trigger an alarm somewhere, but after about forty-five long minutes a voice shouted from high up over the high altar to enquire if we had terminated for the night because the organ was no longer being played. It was a janitor and we informed him that obtaining a telephone line was impossible. After checking the telephones and finding them to be in order he let us out. It was a relief to be outside on the street. The next day General Kalck greeted us with a question “what happened last night?” Then he added “did you add a zero to the number?” That was the key to the problem.

The concert was attended by over 500 people, many of them Parisians returning to the city after their traditional month away. Jean-Luc Perrot and his wife also came to hear the performance of his 2me Suite pour orgue à quatre mains which in fact was its première in France. François-Henri Houbart, organist of La Madeleine since 1979, was away for that weekend, performing a concert elsewhere so we did not have the opportunity to meet him.

The next day we flew back to Montréal, arriving home tired but fulfilled. Before the trip we purchased some good disposable cameras so we could have a record of everything because our own camera had recently become non-functional. We took numerous photographs including all the organs and their consoles and most of the people mentioned in this article, and eagerly awaited their development. When I went to collect them they were unrecognizable! The photographs had been mixed up with another customer when they were forwarded to a central processing plant and were never traced. The photos here are by David Rogers.

List of repertory performed on this tour (all organ duets)

*Sinfonietta, Denis Bédard (1950-)

Petite Suite, Bédard

Two Pieces for Organ Duet (1989), Ronald Arnatt (1930-): “Sarabande with Variations,” “Octopus Music”

Fantasie in f-Moll, KV 608, W. A. Mozart (1756-1791)

Fantasie in f-Moll, KV 594, Mozart

Fuge in g-Moll, KV 401, Mozart

*Dance Suite for Organ Duet, Jacobus Kloppers (1937-)

Fugue in D major, Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (1809-1847)

Adagio, WoO 33/1, Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)

*2me Suite pour orgue à quatre mains, Jean-Luc Perrot (1959-)

Sonate g-Moll, op. 50, Leberecht Baumert (1833-1904)

Duet for Organ, Frederick R. C. Clarke (1931-)

*Toccata on “Vom Himmel hoch,” Ralf Bölting (1953-)

Toccata Française (sur le nom de H.E.L.M.U.T.), Bölting

Duet for Organ, Samuel Wesley (1766-1837)

Vier variierte Choräle für die Orgel zu vier Händen, op. 19, Christian Gottlob Höpner (1799-1859)

Fugue à six parties et deux sujets à 4 mains, Clément Loret (1833-1909)

Sonate in d-moll, op. 30, Gustav Merkel (1827-1885)

Präludium und Fuge in B-dur, Johann Georg Albrechtsberger (1736-1809)

Praeludium und Fuge in C-dur, Albrechtsberger

Introduction und Fuge in d-Moll, op. 62, Franz Lachner (1803-1890)

Fugue in e-Moll, op. posth. 152, Franz Schubert (1797-1828)

*Suite de noëls (extracts), Gilles Rioux (1965-): “L’Attente” (Venez divin Messie), “La joie” (Il est né le divin Enfant)

Bombardo-Carillon, Charles Henri Valentin Alkan (1813-1888)

* Organ duets commissioned and premièred by Sylvie Poirier and Philip Crozier

John Bishop

Is there really no such thing as bad publicity?

I had my first real job in an organbuilder’s workshop during the summer after my freshman year in college. I’ve often told the story of my first day--I was stationed outside in the parking lot by myself with the façade pipes of an old organ, sawhorses, a garden hose, and a gallon of Zipstrip®. I can imagine the previous week’s production meeting: “save it for the new kid!” It was a tough start, but it quickly got better. I remember that summer as a series of adventures as we worked on projects throughout New England, and I’m still at it.

Along with many other firsts I experienced that summer was my first exposure to media coverage of the pipe organ business. We were working in a church building installing a rebuilt instrument and a reporter from the local newspaper came to do a story that was published under a front-page photo that showed a colleague “voicing” a large organ pipe. I knew that what he had in his hands was a dummy façade pipe (one of those I had stripped)--it was both amazing and amusing to see how serious and erudite an organ builder can look while raising a virtual languid. (Remember “The Emperor’s New Clothes”?)

Five minutes of fame

Since then I have read many such stories in local newspapers. They often get some important technicality wrong, giving us a chance for a knowing snicker, but they have great value in raising public consciousness about the instrument. Many an organbuilder has been made a local celebrity by a photo and story published in a home-town newspaper. Alan Laufman, my predecessor at the Organ Clearing House, was notorious for seeking out the press whenever he went to work in a new town. He wasn’t looking for personal notoriety, he was spreading the word. 

On a wider stage, Craig Whitney, veteran foreign correspondent and assistant managing editor of the New York Times as well as organist and organ-enthusiast, has published a number of excellent and informative articles in the Times in recent memory. In his articles, Mr. Whitney’s compelling writing focuses the interest of the layperson, and his reporting skills produce content profound enough to educate the professional. His contribution to our field is immeasurable. I have had countless conversations with people who respond to hearing what I do for a living by saying, “Pipe organ builder! I didn’t know there were any of you left.” But whenever one of Whitney’s articles is published in the Times, friends and family from around the country call to be sure I know about it, and for the following couple weeks, daily conversations with new acquaintances invariably lead to, “I just read a story in the Times about that.” It’s a special pleasure to be able to respond by saying that I agree it was a good story and he really got it right. For those few days, people seem to be aware of the organ business.

This subject is on my mind these days because of a story broadcast recently on WBUR, “Boston’s NPR News Station.” On January 18, 2005, the First Baptist Church in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts was destroyed by fire. The church’s organ was lost that night, robbing the neighborhood of the distinction of being home to two pre-Civil War three-manual organs built by E. & G. G. Hook. A month or so ago, I was approached by Keith O’Brien, a local freelance writer who was preparing a story for The Boston Globe about the loss of that organ. In the course of his conversations with church officials and members, he had learned about the work of The Organ Clearing House and asked me for an interview during which we discussed the preservation of nineteenth-century instruments, their artistic and historical value, and their relevance to modern music making. 

Working on that story Mr. O’Brien became aware of the Organ Historical Society convention about to begin in southeastern Massachusetts, and began preparing a subsequent story for NPR. He asked me for another interview and I looked forward to hearing what seemed to be a well-conceived story. It was to be broadcast on NPR’s Morning Edition so I knew I’d hear it first thing in the morning on the bedroom radio. There it was, the pleasure of hearing organ music on the radio news. But there was that familiar theme: “I didn’t know there were any of you left.” 

Most organs don’t burn up

On the surface, the story was just fine. It was nice that the Organ Historical Society’s convention was noticed and mentioned so prominently in the press. The center of the story was the “resurrection” of an organ built in 1876 for Trinity Church in Boston by Hilborne Roosevelt, now installed in Our Lady of Guadalupe in New Bedford. The organ had been little used, seriously damaged by water due to leaks in the church’s roof and tower, completely silent for decades, and made playable again by heroic volunteer efforts on the part of OHS members. I’m certain that those listening to the story were compelled by the idea of a group of enthusiasts working hard to preserve a slice of antiquity. But I doubt that a listener would understand that there is any good reason for preserving antique organs. Following several comments that included phrases like “fumbling with the keys . . . “ that did little to impress the listener about the skills of an organbuilder, the clincher for me was when O’Brien said with reference to the Jamaica Plain fire, “most organs don’t burn up--they just fade away.” Yikes! I hope I’m never inside an organ when it fades away.

Who am I, and why am I here?

The story missed the point. Or as I reflected after hearing the story, I should have made a point of making the point: We are not a small sect of aficionados preserving antique organs to satisfy our own interests. Rather, we recognize the beauty and historicity of these instruments for their relevance to modern worship and modern music-making as well as for their antiquity. It’s special to realize that a century-old instrument is durable enough for regular use. But we must be sure to point out that it’s amazing that the instrument keeps its place in our modern society on its artistic merits as well. The pipe organ is not a relic from an earlier age--and neither are we who devote our lives to it.

The website of the Organ Historical Society, <www.organsociety.org&gt;, is worth a visit. It will keep you current with the Society’s activities, and it’s a terrific place to shop for music and books. As I thought about the story on WBUR, I remembered that the Society’s bylaws are published on the website and I took a look to refresh my memory. Here’s the relevant excerpt:

2. PURPOSE. The Society is an international organization for friends of the organ. The purpose of the Society is:

(a) To encourage, promote, and further an active interest in the organ and its builders, particularly those in North America . . .

I think some words are missing--or perhaps a better way to put it, I think some missing words are implied. I doubt that the bylaws’ authors intended that the active interest we are to further should be limited to the “friends of the organ.” I believe that it is our responsibility to our art to broadcast its relevance, its beauty, its majesty whenever and wherever we can. If the organ world is considered arcane, mysterious, or worse irrelevant, how can we assure its future?

The cost of building a new pipe organ has increased dramatically since my introduction to Zipstrip®. When I was first in the organ business a new twelve-stop organ built by a premier builder was installed in my home town for about $36,000. Today, that sum will purchase somewhere between one and two stops. Imagine a hypothetical random survey of modern organists, asking them to write down an “ideal” stoplist. I bet most of them would show more than 50 stops. That hypothetical 50-stop “ideal” organ certainly costs more than a million dollars today. Put enough of those pesky 32s in the stoplist and you will exceed $1.5 million. That’s the equivalent of at least fifty or sixty years of the salary of many of the organists I know.

Any monumental public art work is the product of vision and ambition. It’s easy to underestimate the appropriate scope of the vision. The newly hired organist of a church can play on a tired old instrument for a few weeks and mention casually during coffee hour that the church needs a new organ. That’s an observation, not a vision. The vision--the credible, mature, thrilling vision that involves a new organ necessarily includes an understanding of the capabilities and priorities of the community. Does this mean that a vision has to be realistic? Perhaps a vision is realistic only to the visionary. Everyone else sees it as a fantasy until they are persuaded that it’s possible--until they can share the vision.

Seers have everything!

Cyrus Curtis (1850-1933) was a visionary. He founded the Curtis Publishing Company which brought him fame and fortune principally through the success of The Ladies Home Journal and The Saturday Evening Post. Our culture would still be the richer if Curtis’ contribution was measured only by Norman Rockwell’s nearly half-century (1916-1963) of cover illustrations for The Saturday Evening Post. (Now that’s an important patronage!) Curtis grew up in Portland, Maine where Hermann Kotzschmar, organist of the family’s church, was one of his father’s closest friends, a friendship that was close enough that the son’s full name was Cyrus Hermann Kotzschmar Curtis. The young C.H.K. Curtis was so fascinated and inspired by Kotzschmar’s playing that he taught himself to play the organ well enough to master four-part hymns. As he achieved fantastic financial success, he installed instruments built by the Aeolian Organ Company in his home in Wyncote, Pennsylvania. Aeolian’s Opus 784 was built for Curtis in 1896 and enlarged by five ranks in 1903 as Opus 943. Opus 1374 was installed in the house in 1916, incorporating Opus 943 as the Antiphonal Organ.1 But the lasting proof of Cyrus H.K. Curtis’ devotion to the pipe organ is the grand instrument he gave to the City of Portland, built by the Austin Organ Company, dedicated to his father’s friend, and known to this day as The Kotzschmar Organ. Today the Friends of the Kotzschmar Organ (www.FOKO.org) oversees the maintenance of the instrument and presents a popular series of concerts each year.

Was it Cyrus Curtis’s vision that the organ he named for his father’s friend would still be in prominent public use, a beloved fixture of a small city nearly a century later? (It’s a safe bet that without the municipal organ, we would not remember that Hermann Kotzschmar was the organist of the First Parish Unitarian Church in Portland for 47 years.) Was he challenging people he would never meet--those people who formed The Friends of the Kotzschmar Organ when a fiscal crisis ended the city’s financial support for the organ? How often do we take such grand public fixtures for granted? And let’s take a step back. Was it Cyrus Curtis’s idea to place the organ in City Hall, or did some enterprising bureaucrat approach the wealthy native son?  

Portland is the largest city in Maine with a population of only 64,000 people. The population of the metropolitan area is about 230,000.2 If five percent of American cities that size had hundred-rank municipal organs, there would be a lot more people subscribing to The Diapason. And why not? It’s simply a matter of public relations. Is there a visionary in your town? I know where to find the organs!                        n