In the wind . . .

Intelligent design
Now there’s a hot-button issue. I’m as tempted as I am unqualified to wax poetic on the opposable thumb of the panda or the flightless birds and swimming lizards of the Galapagos Islands, and I know very well that the pages of a topic-specific journal such as The Diapason are not the appropriate place. I’m thinking about the contrast between the usefulness that results from anything that was designed well and the uselessness of poor design.
Boston is both famous and infamous for the massive rehashing of its tunnels, bridges, and highways know as The Big Dig. It’s famous as an ambitious example of the significant reworking of a city, infamous for many billions of dollars in cost overruns and aggravating disruption of the city’s life for well over a decade, and for tunnels under the harbor with fatally collapsing ceilings and hundreds of leaks.

Intentional design
One component of the Big Dig is the Zakim Bridge, purported to be the world’s widest suspension bridge, which crosses the Charles River, connecting the underground Central Artery with Interstate 93 going north out of the city toward New Hampshire.
Conceived as part of the Big Dig, the Zakim Bridge in Boston is simply beautiful. Its striking lines dominate views across the city from every angle. It’s breathtaking to come out of the tunnel looking straight up the bridge. Driving from the west, looking down the Charles River, the bridge reminds one of a sailing ship. We live in Charlestown, a neighborhood across the harbor from downtown, parts of which are warrens of curving and crossing Revolutionary War-era streets. As we walk those streets we are amazed at how often you come around a corner to see a view of the bridge framed in the center of the street. It’s a wonderful design—so wonderful that I can’t recall hearing anyone criticize it.

Ignorant design
I often tell colleagues about the church that engaged me as consultant to help them acquire a pipe organ for their new sanctuary. They had instructed their architect of their intention to have a pipe organ—the building should be prepared to accommodate one. I traveled to visit the church and was surprised to see that there was no place in the room where an instrument of sufficient size could be placed. I looked at the room from every angle, thought of how an organ might be placed on a cantilevered shelf, and remembered photos I had seen of an organ located in a huge flower-pot suspended from the ceiling, but I simply couldn’t see where an organ could go in this building.
After I had been in the sanctuary for a couple hours, the organ committee and architect arrived for the meeting. The architect unrolled a drawing that showed a nice organ façade on the wall on the left side of the sanctuary. It was an outside wall. It was my unpleasant task to inform the architect in front of the committee that an organ would require six or eight feet of depth behind that pretty façade. Neither the architect nor the committee knew that. There would be no pipe organ.

Function follows form
As I’ve lived most of my life in New England, I’ve long been familiar with century- (even centuries-) old church buildings. Built before the introduction of public address systems, hung or dropped ceilings, or steel-and-drywall construction techniques, the buildings were made of real materials heavy enough to support their structures. The height of a ceiling was determined by proportion: following observations made in places like Athens more than twenty centuries ago, if a room was “so many” feet wide and “so many” feet long, the ceiling had to be “so many” feet up. It’s pretty simple math. Most people agree that the ceiling in the Parthenon was just the right height!
The majesty of a room’s acoustical properties would be a direct function of its size. The larger the building, the heavier the walls must be to support the higher roof. Place an organ of appropriate proportions on the long axis of the room and you could hardly fail. We might hear a big Hook organ in a large church and say, “those people really knew something.” But you can also say that some designers today may know too much.
We see modern worship spaces decorated like living rooms with plush carpets, and ceiling height determined by the clearance necessary to accommodate the Home Depot chandeliers. We’re given 18 feet of height for a pipe organ in a building with 450 seats. It’s destined to fail before the first note is sounded. So along with our artificial climate, artificial sound system, artificial proportions, and artificial flowers, we are doomed to using an artificial organ. And because we can, we drive the artificial organ with a stoplist suitable for a room with an 80-foot ceiling. Thirty-two-foot organ tone does not sound good in a room with an 18-foot ceiling.
Last month while shopping for Christmas presents in Harvard Square, I came across a book that I needed more than anyone on my list: 101 Things I Learned in Architecture School by Matthew Frederick, published in 2007 by the MIT Press. I read the entire book standing in the store before I bought it. It’s 5¼ inches tall and 7½ inches long, perfectly proportioned to present his 101 thoughts on 101 pairs of facing pages. On each right-hand page is a pearl of architectural wisdom. On each facing left-hand page is Mr. Frederick’s illustrative sketch.
Some of Mr. Frederick’s points are pretty basic and practical. Number 1 is “How to draw a line:”

Architects use different lines for different purposes, but the line type most specific to architecture is drawn with an emphasis at the beginning and at the end. This practice anchors a line to a page and gives a drawing conviction and punch. If your lines trail off at the ends, your drawings will tend to look wimpy and vague.
Oh, I get it, when you’re designing something, you should mean to do it. The facing page shows two versions of the same sketch—one anchored to the page, and one wimpy. Point taken.
Others are more theoretical. Number 11 is “Use ‘denial and reward’ to enrich passage through the built environment:”

As we move through buildings, towns, and cities, we mentally connect visual cues from our surrounding to our needs and expectations. The satisfaction and richness of our experiences are largely the result of the ways in which these connections are made.
He’s talking to me about the Zakim Bridge. See a glimpse of it as you head up one street, be denied as it disappears when you turn a corner, see it from another angle as you cross the next block, come up out of the tunnel and safely cross the river. What a reward.
Number 28: “A good designer isn’t afraid to throw away a good idea.”

Just because an interesting idea occurs to you doesn’t mean it belongs in the building you are designing.
How many buildings and how many pipe organs have suffered as they try to do and try to be too many things at once?
Number 33 is a good one: “If you wish to imbue an architectural space or element with a particular quality, make sure that the quality is really there.”

If you want a wall to feel thick, make sure it is thick. If a space is to feel tall, make sure it really is tall.

What did I just say about the thickness of walls?
Number 95: “A decorated shed is a conventional building form that conveys meaning through signage or architectural ornament.” The accompanying sketches show a small shoe-box building dwarfed by a sign saying “Drive-thru Sunday Services,” contrasting a proper looking church building with a pitched roof and a cross on top. One is captioned “meaning conveyed by signage,” the other “meaning conveyed by architectural symbol.” If it looks like a duck, it is a duck.
And number 96, a purely practical observation: “Summer people are 22 inches wide. Winter people are 24 inches wide.” Sketches—a woman in a bikini and a man in a parka passing each other in opposite directions.
On several occasions I’ve attended convention workshops for organbuilders led by architects. Each time the conversation has dwindled to a litany of horror stories—indignant organbuilders anxious to prove that architects have no idea what they’re doing. But how many organbuilders have designed instruments in which chest-bungs cannot be reached, reservoirs cannot be removed for releathering, and how many have designed organs that look too big, too small, or fail to complement the design of their buildings.
Which brings me back to Mr. Frederick’s number 86: “Manage your ego.”

If you want to be recognized for designing a good or even great building, forget about what you want the building to be; instead ask, “‘What does the building want to be?”
In the world of artistic expression through design this seems counterintuitive. Anyone who’s seen one or two buildings designed by Frank Gehry will instantly recognize another. Does Mr. Frederick imply that Frank Gehry’s success is due to successful management of his ego? Or as you walk through the various corridors and spaces inside Disney Hall, do you find that you’re moving comfortably through attractive spaces, moving logically past necessities like water-bubblers and rest rooms, or hearing music in an environment that’s both aurally and visually spectacular? I do.

Deceptive design
The Gothic cathedral is perhaps one of the grandest repeated architectural forms we have. I’ve been fortunate to visit some of the great examples in Europe, where you marvel at what the artisans were able to do eight or nine hundred years ago. They hoisted huge stones hundreds of feet up—one of the towers is 349 feet tall and was finished in the 1140s. These workers would have been the first people in their community to be up that high—to look down on birds flying, to see the vast view across the countryside. It must have been terrifying, and it must have been hard for them to describe at home around the dinner table. But what they built is so true and so real that the building is still used daily the same way it was used when it was new. We were at Chartres on a Saturday when there was an impressive succession of weddings underway. Entire wedding parties were lined up in the square. As soon as one was finished, a man with a mobile phone called the organ loft and the next procession began.
I know several cathedral-scale Gothic-style buildings that are really concrete and steel affairs with plaster interiors molded to look like Gothic stone tracery. You know it the moment you walk inside—the sound isn’t right. There’s an aura about a building made of real carved-by-hand stones piled on top of each other to form columns and traceries that support a ceiling that’s a hundred feet up. Now that’s a building that can have 32-foot sound.

Inspirational design
Recently I was at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC. I’ve been there many times, and each time I’ve found new treasures that are part of the fabric and lore of the place that offer fresh inspiration. Around the doorway leading out the north transept, you can find six-inch mice carved into the stone a little above head height. There’s an alcove with a statue of Martin Luther King, commemorating the fact that he gave his last sermon in that building a few days before his assassination. There are hundreds of carvings of saints, political figures, and theologians. And there are some carvings of the stone carvers who built the building.
The windows are extraordinary. Framed in the ancient forms of Gothic arches, they feature brilliant contemporary designs. On a sunny day, the church’s interior is ablaze with colored light—a stunning and magical effect. One of the great windows on the south wall of the nave depicts stars and planets and includes a piece of rock from the moon, presented to the cathedral by the astronauts of Apollo XI. In side and lower chapels you find mosaics depicting the same classic biblical scenes found in the great ancient churches using the same ancient techniques and materials but featuring dazzling contemporary designs. It is the juxtaposition of modern expressions framed in ancient architectural forms that I find most moving about this building.
The National Cathedral stands as a great metaphor for meaningful change and progression of expression. There is something in this building for everyone to appreciate, and neither the ancient nor the contemporary overwhelms the other.
The National Cathedral is located on top of a hill where it can be clearly seen from five miles away on Interstate 95, joining the Washington Monument and the United States Capitol as high points on the skyline. In fact, the central tower of the cathedral is the tallest structure in the city. Drive through the city and catch a glimpse of it once in a while between the trees, around the corners. Arrive at the intersection of Massachusetts and Wisconsin Avenues and be rewarded in the presence of such a massive and brilliant masterpiece. There’s not a wimpy line in the place. The space has been imbued with reality—the walls seem thick because they are thick, the interior seems tall because it is tall. The signs out front are simple and tasteful—this is no decorated shed. I doubt that Matthew Frederick had anything to do with the design of the National Cathedral, but his little book helped me understand it a little better.?

Did you say millions?
It’s like making sausages. You might enjoy the finished product but you don’t want to know what went into it. Each month I sit to write, often after the official deadline has passed. If I’m lucky, I start with an idea that I’ve been chewing on for the past couple days. I’ve written a few notes on the index cards I keep in my briefcase and car, maybe I’ve even recorded a couple audio notes on my cell phone as I walk the trails in the park next door. The paragraphs are flowing before I get to my desk.
More usually, I sit down and stare at a blank screen waiting for inspiration. I play a recording of organ music, trusting that I’ll agree or disagree with something I hear or that the music will bring up a thought that I can spin into an essay. I type the usual heading, and there I sit. It’s like staring at your closet wondering what to wear to dinner. If only that shirt was clean I’d be all set. I fidget. I clean my glasses, I clean the screen of my laptop, I organize the piles of paper on the desk, allowing myself to be distracted by details I’d better get done first. I change the recording and try again. (Some of you have gotten e-mails from me commenting on your recordings—e-mails written as I get traction on my subject du jour (I don’t know the French word for month!)
When I have finished writing a column, re-read it several times, and shared it with my editor-wife for her observations and input, I attach the Word.doc to an e-mail addressed to my friend Jerome Butera, tireless editor of this journal, and press <send>. Often I hear from Jerome within minutes—there’s never any waiting before I know his reaction.
E.B. White was a celebrated writer for The New Yorker magazine and award-winning writer of children’s books (Stuart Little, Charlotte’s Web). Shortly after his second marriage to Katherine Sergeant Angell in 1929 (an editor at The New Yorker) he moved his family from Manhattan to a farmstead in rural Maine and continued his weekly writing for the magazine. Let me be quick to say I draw no personal comparisons to Mr. White, whose writing I admire and enjoy enough to justify periodic re-reading. But I can imagine the anguish and insecurity he felt waiting the days and weeks it took for the 1929-style U.S. postal service to get his manuscripts to New York and his editor’s responses back to Brooklin, Maine. (I know he had those feelings because he wrote about them—thank you, Jerome, for your dependable quick responses.)
Once a piece is in the hands of the editor, a new set of anxieties crops up. You know the thing about a tree falling in the forest—if there’s no one around to hear it, does it make a sound? Of course, we know it does—a sound wave is a physical thing that results from a transmission of energy, whether it’s a tree falling or air blowing through an organ pipe. You can’t stop physics. But it works as a rhetorical question: if no one reads what I’ve written, there’s no exchange of information. So once I’ve pressed <send> I wonder where my thoughts will wind up.

§

In mid-April this year when I wrote for the June issue of The Diapason, Wendy and I were fresh from Easter services at St. Thomas’ Church in New York. I was the one in the congregation scribbling notes on the bulletin and I knew exactly what I wanted to write. I could hardly wait to get home—but wait I did, because after a Midtown lunch we had matinee tickets for a play at the Manhattan Theater Club on East 55th Street in which the son of good friends was a cast member.
It wasn’t until the next morning that I wrote about the majesty and beauty of festival worship in that great church, about the brilliance of John Scott, St. Thomas’ organist and director of music, and about the public appeal from rector and organist for funding to support the commissioning of a (very costly) new organ. I wrote about how organs are likely to be replaced as styles change, even as organists succeed one another, and how the other artwork (reredos, windows, etc.) in places like St. Thomas’ Church is seldom changed.
This is one time that the tree made noise when it fell. Even before I received my mailed copy of the June issue, I had received e-mails and phone calls from friends commenting on what I had written, and in the next weeks Jerome forwarded two thoughtful letters he received from readers of The Diapason. Several important points were raised, and I thought it would be worthwhile to respond directly by way of continuing the conversation.
First, your assignment: re-read this column in the June 2011 issue of The Diapason.
Arthur LaMirande, concert organist from New York City, wrote:

It is with interest that I have read “In the wind . . . ” by John Bishop (The Diapason, June 2011). In particular: his remarks with regard to the Arents Memorial organ at St. Thomas Church, New York City.
Opines he: “We scarcely bat an eye before proposing the replacement of a pipe organ.”
Is he serious? He goes on to say: “Across the country, thousands of churches originally equipped with perfectly good pipe organs have discarded and replaced them with instruments more in tune with current trends, more in sync with the style and preferences [italics mine] of current musicians…”
He continues: “Over the decades of service that is the life of a great organ . . . ” [italics mine].
Now, Mr. Bishop surely must be aware that there are hundreds of organs in Europe that are fully functioning and that have been in existence and in use for centuries! (Never mind mere decades!) Even the organ at Notre Dame, Paris, which has been rebuilt several times, contains pipes that go back to the 18th century.

I don’t think I was opining, rather simply reporting. Plenty of perfectly good pipe organs have been replaced at the urging of a newly hired organist or because the church across the green got a new and larger instrument. It’s true, Europe is rich with hundreds of venerable instruments, and we can celebrate that their artistic content and historic value is recognized, allowing them to stay in situ and in service. And there are many wonderful historic instruments in this country that have survived the ravages of innovation and fad. Equally, I know many churches where early organs by E. & G.G. Hook were replaced by new-fangled Skinners in the 1920s that were in turn replaced by “revivalist” tracker-action organs in the 1970s—a new organ every fifty years whether you need it or not. When I was starting my career, an older colleague gave me this sage advice: never build an organ for a wealthy church. You’ll put your heart into your magnum opus and they’ll replace it during your lifetime.
States Mr. LaMirande:

On May 1st this year, I gave a recital on the Arents Memorial organ at St. Thomas Church. The major work on that program was the rarely performed Chaconne by Franz Schmidt . . . For an organ that “is on the verge of catastrophic collapse” [from the brochure passed out at St. Thomas Church to which Mr. Bishop makes allusion], it seemed to work extraordinarily well for me. With the exception of one cipher on a (non-essential) stop during rehearsal, I had no problems whatever with this organ. It succeeded in doing everything that I demanded of it. And that for a massive work calling for numerous changes of registration!

We might take exception to the phrase catastrophic collapse as used by St. Thomas’ Church. After all, assuming the organ hasn’t collapsed physically into the chancel wiping out the altos in the choir, what’s the big deal if an organ ciphers? (Organists: sorry to say, but there is no such thing as an organ that will never cipher.) Mr. LaMirande experienced a cipher while practicing for his recital, usual enough for any instrument. And if an organ ciphers during worship in a suburban parish church, we might shrug and chuckle, climb the ladder to pull the pipe, and go on with the show.

Keep your pants on.
I’ve found a delightful video on YouTube showing a significant wedding faux pas in which the best man’s pants fall down just as the couple starts to exchange their vows. As you might expect, the groom found that to be pretty funny—hilarious, in fact. The bride joined in, and the church was full of real, honest laughter for quite a while. The minister was a trooper, acknowledging the humor of the situation. You can find the video at <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26a8JITwImQ&gt;. You’ll love it. It’s easy to say “things happen” and enjoy the moment. There’s a nice-looking pipe organ in the church. If any of you recognize it, let me know.
But we have a fresh international example of worship and religious festival in which one would not chuckle at the slightest glitch. On April 29 many (most?) of us watched Will and Kate’s wedding. Lovely couple, weren’t they? Her dress and hair were just right. He had a nice twinkle in his eye, and I enjoyed his little quips to his brother and his new father-in-law. Good thing Prince Harry’s pants didn’t fall down. The television coverage allowed us glimpses into the personal level of the occasion. But this was a big occasion. Heads of state were omitted from the guest list because of ongoing political and military circumstances. The dignity of the nation’s royal family was on display at a time when many Brits are wondering about its future. Heaven only knows how much money was spent. If you include all that was spent by the news media in the weeks leading up to the wedding, the total certainly surpassed the gross national product of many countries. As far as we can tell, it went without a hitch. And the pressure on the staff and officials of Westminster Abbey was made obvious in another wonderful moment immortalized on YouTube when a verger expressed his relief by turning cartwheels across the nave when the whole thing was over. I know I’m giving you a lot of research to do, but don’t miss this one either: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81Obpxf_pd8&gt;.

Off with his head.
The four-manual Harrison & Harrison organ in Westminster Abbey has 84 stops and was installed in 1937 for the coronation of King George VI. How’s that for pressure on the organbuilder—miss that deadline and you’re in the dungeon. Had that organ ciphered during Will and Kate’s wedding, it would have been reported all over the world. Imagine that service grinding to a halt while some technician raced to the chamber. Seventy-five chefs at Buckingham Palace would have panicked. Think of the soufflés. The Queen’s lunch would be in ruins. I wonder what Katie Couric and Barbara Walters would have said. The pipe organ universal would have a big black eye. And it would not have been a non-essential stop. There can be no doubt that it would have been the 32-foot Double Ophicleide or the Tuba Mirabilis. Vox Angelicas don’t cipher when the pressure is on, and if it had during all that hoopla no one would have noticed. There’s an apocryphal story about a team of voicers (I think they worked for Skinner) finishing an organ. The man at the console shouted, “Is the Vox Angelica on?” From the chamber, “Yes!” “Make it softer.”
While it may be okay for an organ to cipher or a participant’s pants to fall down somewhere else, it is not okay at Westminster Abbey. And St. Thomas’ Church shoulders a similar responsibility for dignity, grandeur, eloquence, and perfection, inasmuch as perfection is humanly possible. The much-altered Aeolian-Skinner organ there is not the artistic equal of the famed and fabled St. Thomas’ Choir, and while the brilliant musicians who play on it don’t miss a beat, we can only imagine what it will be like to experience worship there when the new organ is complete. The musicians there can almost taste it. And the responsibility born by the leadership and membership of that church is heightened by the simple fact that in an age when a pipe organ of average size installed in a “usual” church can cost more than a million dollars, an instrument for such a place as St. Thomas’ absolutely costs many millions.
Samuel Baker of Alexandria, Virginia wrote:

In the June issue, John Bishop suggests that perfectly good pipe organs are discarded and replaced with instruments more in tune with current trends and more in sync with the style and preferences of current musicians because pipe organs are in motion, whereas windows and statues are not replaced because they are static; physically they stay still.
Despite Bishop’s claim that seldom if ever are original design elements integral to the style of the building itself subject to change because they are considered old fashioned, many examples are easily found in my neck of the woods of Federal-style churches being “Victorian-ized” or Victorian-style churches receiving neo-whatever treatments.
And certainly organs are replaced because styles of organbuilding and preferences of musicians change but, rather than ascribe the reason that windows and statues are safe but organs are not to the premise that one is in motion and the other isn’t, I would propose that many more pipe organs are replaced because they were poorly designed, built with sub-standard materials, received little or no voicing, and were wholly unsatisfactory installations in the first place. The same fate awaits stationary items of poor quality and artistic merit with equity.
I agree fully with everything Mr. Baker says here. I appreciate his interest in including these thoughts in this debate. I’ve been in and out of hundreds of church buildings (actually probably thousands, but that sounds specious) and I’ve seen countless examples of beautiful liturgical and architectural appointments that have been discarded in favor of newer, lesser “looks,” and I’ve seen less-than-thrilling original equipment replaced to great benefit. However, what I wrote (page 12, fourth column, second paragraph) is, “But seldom, if ever, do we hear of a place like St. Thomas’ Church replacing their windows or reredos.” The key word is “like.”
I wrote, “Just imagine the stunned silence in the vestry meeting when the rector proposes the replacement of the reredos.” The allusion is to the vestry and rector at St. Thomas’ Church, not the Second Congregational Church in Newcastle, Maine. On Easter Monday I was writing with tongue in cheek—but it’s fun to revisit the image. I don’t know any of them personally, and I haven’t been in their meeting rooms, but I imagine it would be an august group of accomplished, insightful, and influential people sitting at an elegant table in a grand room. And they would be stunned. Images of that reredos have been published on calendars, record jackets (remember those old black LPs?), CD jewel-cases, postcards, and publicity photos for generations. The choir, resplendent in scarlet and white, stands in the chancel with that heap of saints in the background. Replace the reredos? No, Father. It’s staying.
The Aeolian-Skinner organ was famously revised by G. Donald Harrison in 1956, converting the 1913 four-manual E. M. Skinner instrument (91 stops) from symphonic to neo-classical in style. Harrison was personally working on the project, hurrying toward completion in time for the AGO national convention that year. Taxi drivers were on strike and Harrison had to walk many blocks in city heat to get home. He died of a heart attack on the evening of June 14 (93 days after I was born) while watching Victor Borge on television. The organ has subsequently been revised several times. It’s 98 years since Ernest Skinner finished the organ, which has now been altered just about every generation with diminishing degrees of success.

When there’s so much need in the world . . .
Mr. LaMirande’s letter ends:

Incidentally, I can’t resist pointing out that while St. Thomas Church is prepared to spend the extraordinary sum of $8 million the homeless and destitute are ensconced on the front steps of this church every night of the week! . . . How many homeless and destitute could be fed, clothed, and housed for that $8 million?

This is one of the most difficult questions we face as we propose, plan, and create pipe organs for our churches. Of course, it’s the mission of the church to care for homeless, destitute people—to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. It’s also the mission of the church to provide and present worship experiences at every level. The Royal Wedding was cause for national and international celebration, but Oliver Twist and his cronies still haunt the back streets of London. Without the church’s need for illustration of religious texts, tenets, and principles, we would not have the sculpture or painting of Michelangelo, the organ music of Bach, the choral music of Mozart and Haydn, or the Gothic cathedrals. If it had developed at all, without the influence and resources of the church, the pipe organ would be a wholly different entity. And the majesty of our great churches as they serve as figureheads and examples for all worshipful expression supports and inspires the work of the church at all levels and in all places. Those who toil in suburban and rural vineyards travel to the big city to experience “big city” worship in “big city” buildings, just as we marvel in the great museums, theaters, orchestras, and other institutions that can only be supported in a city like New York. I care a lot about the homeless and I try to do all I can to support them, but I don’t go to St. Thomas’ Church to hear a sub-standard organ any more than I want to see plastic flowers on the altar in front of that reredos.
All this talk about expensive art leads us to the world of philanthropy. Any church that plans to acquire a new pipe organ will rely on the availability of a few large gifts to make it happen. I’ve long assumed and often witnessed that those individuals who are capable of making a major gift in support of an organ project do so because of their personal interests. But I’ve been privileged to witness another level of philanthropy that has informed and affected me deeply. Wendy served on the board of a major university for nearly twenty years. During that tenure we became friends with a lovely couple of immense wealth. They are dedicated to philanthropy—she focuses on social and humanitarian projects and he supports the arts. Their names are at the top of donor lists for every show in town. Several years ago during dinner at our house, the husband told us how a repertory theater company had approached him asking for a significant grant to support the production of a controversial play that tackled some of our thorniest social issues. He disagreed with a lot of the content and was uncomfortable with most of it, but he thought it was his responsibility to make the gift anyway. He said something to the effect of, “I knew if I gave them the money I’d have to go see the play.”
I was impressed and moved by this story, and in the years since I’ve often reflected on the nature of philanthropy and how much we all benefit from it. Whether it’s a church organ, a statue in the park honoring a public servant, an academic building, or a shelter for the homeless, the world relies on philanthropy. The trick is to be sure that all the bases are covered. 

John Bishop is executive director of the Organ Clearing House

Let’s get personal
When I was a student at Oberlin in the mid-1970s, I kept my meager checking account at the Lorain National Bank, where there were two cheery tellers. I enjoyed talking with them enough that I can remember their names and faces more than 30 years later. I can also remember the day that the bank christened its first ATM. When I needed cash, I was relegated to standing outdoors on the sidewalk poking the buttons of an alien machine. I worried about losing my card to the machine. I worried that it would shortchange me and I wouldn’t be able to prove it. And I missed the nice chats with the tellers. Today, after thousands of successful ATM transactions, I have to admit that I’ve never been shortchanged by a machine, I’ve only lost a card once (my card had expired), and because the tellers at the bank I frequent now are a pretty grumpy lot, I’m perfectly happy with the beeps and whistles of the ATM. And of course, 24-hour access to cash is a convenience to me as I’m almost as likely to be in a California airport in the middle of the night as in the bank branch near my home in Boston.
My first encounter with an ATM was pretty much concurrent with my entry into the organ-maintenance business. There were no cell phones or e-mail, so it was a common routine to spend a couple hours on the phone every few weeks making appointments for service calls. Most of those calls were to church offices where a secretary would answer the phone. Church secretaries were so devoted to their jobs that they never left their desks, and always answered the phone on the second ring. She ate her lunch (tuna fish on white with the crusts cut off, cut diagonally into four triangles) at her desk. The ubiquitous church secretary knew everything about the church—she (it was always a woman!) knew the organist’s schedule, the reliability of the sexton (for turning heat on for winter tunings), and whether there was a parade or festival in town that would make it hard for me to park.
As I got busier in the tuning business, I learned where I could find a decent phone booth—one that was away from noisy traffic, that had a functioning door, that had a place where I could put down a piece of paper to write on. It seemed there was always a traveling salesman with a car full of samples, standing outside the booth with arms crossed, tapping his feet (it was always a man!), waiting to use the phone. My first cell phone liberated me from all that. I could sit in the privacy and comfort of my car and make as many calls as I wanted. Great.
It was Isaac Newton, he of the dropping apple, who observed that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. The freer I became to place calls to church offices at my convenience, the fewer of those calls were answered in person. Today, many churches have limited their office hours to three mornings a week, and the full-time sexton has been replaced by a weekly cleaning service. The chairman of the property committee would turn up the heat, but he’s in Florida for the winter.
In most cases this works out fine. I leave a phone message or send an e-mail and get a reply the next morning. The church has an electronic thermostat that can be programmed weeks ahead. Even though I miss the personal contact, I’m glad to be doing the tuning.
Today’s instant communication means that a church can save some money. The church office phone can be forwarded to someone’s house, and I can make phone calls and send e-mail and text messages from my car. But is the fact that the church no longer really needs (or cannot afford) to maintain office hours an indication of the decline of the institution?
The Organ Clearing House has moved many wonderful pipe organs out of churches in New England. When I visit one of those old New England churches to assess an organ, I’m likely to find a fleet of mike stands and amplifiers, drum sets behind plexi-glass barriers, and miles of cables festooned across the choir loft. Often it’s an Asian, Hispanic, or African-American congregation that purchased the building 30 years ago. Many of those are thriving—jam-packed sanctuaries several times a week, lots of exciting fellowship, chicken-beans-and-rice dinners—I’ve had many lovely encounters with clergy and parishioners who are excited about their church’s growth and devoted to its work. It’s simply that their style of worship never has and never will involve pipe organs of any description.
Many of those New England organs have been relocated to thriving churches in the Southeast or Southwest—ironically following the “snow-bird” property committee chairman who is no longer available to turn up the heat for organ tuning. I wonder how many more generations of retirees there will be to support those churches, and where the organs will go next.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.
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.
I think this is funny because it’s true. I served as music director at a church with a beautiful white frame building with a steeple on a well-kept village green—the quintessential New England setting. What set it apart from other such nearby settings was that it was a new sanctuary—built after a fire in the 1970s. The clever building committee made sure that there was an electric outlet directly under each of the large sanctuary windows so the electric candles could be plugged in easily at Christmas.
The steeple had a Westminster chime that rang on the quarter-hour and that played hymns at noon and six pm. Trouble was, the hymns were in four-part harmony—that’s right, a bong-a-tron. I’ve always been an acoustic guy, and those faux bells annoyed me. One Sunday at coffee hour, a member asked me what I thought about the tower chimes, and I told him. I said that I was committed to acoustic musical instruments, and it irked me that electronic bells “rang” from the tower where I was the resident musician. He replied, “That’s too bad. I donated them.”
Yikes. That was quite a lesson.
By long-standing tradition, that church presented a Candlelight Carol Service on the first Sunday of Advent, complete with O Come, All Ye Faithful, Silent Night, and a Christmas Tea. The same woman had presided over the spigot of the silver tea urn for a generation.
After a few years of toiling to present Christmas music in the week after Thanksgiving, I raised the question to the pastor at a staff meeting. There was no midnight service on Christmas Eve, so I suggested we move the beloved candle lighting “Ceremony” to a new midnight service and present a special musical service on the afternoon of the Fourth Sunday of Advent. I was pleased that the pastor was receptive, and we worked hard to plan that way for the next year. On the First Sunday of Advent (which would have been the day of the Carol Service), a member stood up during the announcements and read a manifesto entitled “Death of a Friend” about the loss of the carol service.
Yikes. That was quite a lesson.
There was a lot of grumbling that Advent. I got a couple letters from parishioners who were disappointed with the change, and had my ears figuratively boxed a number of times at coffee hour. But the midnight service was well attended, the carol singing was moving, and the heavens showed approval by providing a beautiful light snowfall. (As I grew up in the Northeast, I’ve always associated Christmas with snow, though I doubt that snow played any part in the first Christmas.) We repeated the controversial plan the next year, and by the third year it was a new and inviolable tradition. It’s been ten years since I left that church—I sure hope they haven’t messed with “my” tradition!
§
Establishing a midnight service on Christmas Eve isn’t exactly innovation. In fact, I was so used to that tradition from other churches in my experience that it felt funny not to have one. But if there is to be a future for what I might call the “traditional” church—the church of pipe organs, Thursday night choir rehearsals, and Candlelight Carol services—we must find new ways to celebrate and present the magnificent music that is our heritage. There will always be a few great central (big city) churches that offer Evensong in the English Cathedral tradition, but they rely in many ways on the suburban church that feeds on the music of the past for the development of choristers, the breeding (if you will!) of organists, and the sustenance of organbuilding firms that can produce and maintain those wonderful instruments.
It is the responsibility of the musicians and instrument makers to be on a constant prowl for new ways to look at this that means so much to us. It’s already true that churches in remote areas cannot find qualified musicians to lead their worship. Why is that?
I like to repeat that one of things I like best about my work with Organ Clearing House is the continuing opportunities to visit and work with dozens of churches around the country. I have frequently observed that I am aware of sameness—that the Sunday bulletin of a church in Seattle is very similar to one in Maine. But one thing I know for sure, those churches that have the most vibrant “traditional” music programs are those that are led by musicians who participate fully in the life of the church. When you see the organist wearing an apron making sandwiches to be sold at the church fair, dropping in on the soccer games to see a youth choir member score a goal, or bothering to attend the high school musical to hear a choir member sing “I’m just a girl who cain’t say no,” you can bet that the choir rehearsals are rollicking and fun. There’s no rule that says only the pastor can visit parishioners in the hospital.
When I was active as a parish organist, I felt it was my responsibility and prerogative to play the great literature as preludes and postludes. But when I observe a brilliant and respected musician inviting a talented high-school student to play a prelude on the piano or flute, I know I am seeing effective ministry. I’m sorry I was so stubborn as to favor my rendition of a Bach prelude and fugue over providing a performance opportunity for a young person.
None of this means that you shouldn’t strive to offer the very best readings of the very best music in worship. There is no better way to feed the faith of loyal choir members than by challenging them with spectacular music, helping them develop their God-given talents, giving them the opportunity to bring something special to worship. Have you ever started a choir rehearsal by saying, “let’s just bring out this old thing . . .”?
I’ve gotten to know a congregation that recently purchased a significant organ by a well-known builder. The organist and director of music are both fine, high-spirited women who are enthusiastic about their work. And the organbuilders, much to their credit, are valued and appreciated as important members of the church family. The resident musicians have celebrated the instrument so the parishioners know that they have acquired something special. And though the organbuilders live and work a thousand miles away, they are present both to and for the church, bothering to attend performances and worship services, even making the effort to show up for an important birthday.
In these ways, our music will live.
When in our music God is glorified.
And adoration leaves no room for pride,
It is as if the whole creation cried Alleluia!
Let every instrument be tuned for praise!
Let all rejoice who have a voice to raise.
And may God give us faith to sing always Alleluia!

“ . . . and the livin’ is easy,”
It’s high summer and Americans are at the playground. Amusement parks are full, beaches are packed, and the highways leading to the beaches are global-warming nightmares—you can see the heat waves shimmering above the lines of cars. Having driven from Boston to our house in Maine on a recent Friday afternoon, my wife commented that on the highway she’d seen a lot of vacations she didn’t want to be on. These were the station wagons bristling with bicycles, packed with coolers, kids, and dogs, everyone with grim expressions on their faces (especially 80-mile-per-hour Dad), determined to have fun.

“ . . . Daddy’s rich,”
Three-miles-per-gallon motor-homes the size of troop carriers, topped with satellite dishes, towing trailers full of motorbikes and bass boats with 250 HP outboards, spew black exhaust through National Parks, idyllic countryside, and major cities alike. Along with all that gear are more gas cans than a landscaping crew. You see three or four such rigs with consecutive numbers on their license plates lumbering along in convoy. It’s as though we can measure fun by the price of our toys or by the amount of fuel we burn. You can just hear 80-mile-per-hour Dad shouting, “I’m paying $600 a day for this and you’re going to enjoy yourself.”
It’s especially hard when someone’s fun interrupts someone else’s. You’re sitting on the rocks with a friend, engrossed in conversation and watching the tide advance past your ankles toward your knees when a squadron of jet-skis comes screaming along, weaving and jumping over each others’ wakes, the riders having as much fun as possible considering the relatively small amount of fuel they burn. Finally they’re gone, and a hint of two-cycle (gas mixed with oil) exhaust lingers on the evening breeze.

“ . . . and your mama’s good lookin’,”
We’ve dieted and electrolyzed so we can expose maximum surface area to ultraviolet rays without embarrassment, and we pack our natty straw bags with chemical stews to ward off those rays and legions of flying pests. Marketers know how to capture the leisure dollar. Have you ever noticed how pottery studios, art galleries, and t-shirt meccas congregate near the vacation spots? Once in the elevator in a city hotel I heard a woman say to her friend, “stuff in Ann Taylor just looks so much better when you’re on vacation.”

“ . . . fish are jumpin’,” (sorry to be out of order!)
Reflect on those fancy white fishing boats you see on trailers on the highway—two big outboard motors at $25,000 each, electronic fish-finders, 100-gallon fuel tanks, and fishing rods galore. The first ten fish you catch are worth $6000 per pound. It doesn’t get any better than this.
Perhaps The Diapason isn’t the place for a global-warming tirade, or a cynical rant on American consumerism or vanity. And perhaps it’s too much of a cliché to repeat, “The best things in life are free.” But how much are we missing when we indulge in this expensive and noisy fun? And what are we teaching our children about priorities?
While all this is going on we wonder about the increasing difficulty of funding symphony orchestras, maintaining collections of art, presenting great theater, and yes, fellow readers, funding pipe organs. As a society we seem to be able to imagine a world without art, without music, without theater—but rich in football. This is proven by school-board budgets across the nation. Is there one town in America whose school committee cut sports programs in favor of the arts? (If you know of one please let me know.)
Here’s a little collection of thoughts that reflect these priorities. Some are my own, some are from bumper stickers:
1. Could we find statistics to prove that more kids have missed soccer practice in order to get to choir rehearsal than missed choir to get to soccer?
2. How many carefully prepared youth choir anthems have been compromised because of the hockey team’s Sunday morning ice time?
3. It would be a great day when the Defense Department had to have bake sales to buy warships and the schools had all the money they needed.
4. How can kids learn about the world around them when they’re watching videos every time they get in the car?
5. When you see three teenagers walking down the street, all talking on cell phones, do you suppose they’re on a conference call with each other? (I was once riding the Amtrak Acela between Boston and New York with an unnecessarily loud cell-phoner a few rows back. In each call he had to announce, “I’m on the Acela to New York.” His third interlocutor said, “So am I.” My fellow passengers and I knew long before they did that they were both in the same car with us. Much laughter.)
6. If young children are up at the crack of dawn and teenagers want to sleep until noon, why does high school start at 7:10 am and elementary school at 8:45?
As I write, the early-morning radio is playing Antonio Vivaldi’s Gloria one floor up. I hear it only vaguely in the distance but recognize it in the first few seconds (I can name that tune in one note!) because I first knew it as the accompanist of my high school’s concert choir more than 30 years ago. (I doubt that the same choir would be singing sacred music in Latin today, but that’s another story.) And as a high school student, it was my usual routine to go to the First Congregational Church (a three-manual Fisk organ) after school to practice for a couple hours. I was organist for a large Catholic church that many of my classmates were forced to attend. How’s that for being cool? But I have many friends and colleagues who grew up with similar priorities. As students at Oberlin in the mid-70s my friends and I argued about whether Herbert von Karajan or George Solti played better Beethoven. Had they been available, we would have been trading symphony orchestra cards in lieu of baseball cards. (Come to think of it, that would be a fun virtual game, trading an oboe player for a cellist to build the strongest orchestra.)
I am not saying that singing in the church’s youth choir is the most important activity for a young person. And I am not saying that boating is not fun—those who know me know how much I enjoy it. But the bumper sticker about the bake sale gives pause for thought. And it seems that ballot propositions for tax increases in support of the schools are often voted down by an older generation that feels they’ve done their part. In reality, the older we get the more we depend on the young. We notice the first time our physician is younger than we are. One of the big social impacts of John Kennedy’s presidency was that so many Americans were suddenly older than their president. I know many people who felt that change very clearly. So what will it be like when we have a president who grew up playing video games instead of practicing the piano?

When I was a kid . . .
We all know the old saw: the elderly uncle rattles on about walking ten miles to school every day and about how easy kids have it now. But I’ll offer another twist. When I was a kid, a community of generous and encouraging organists welcomed me. They took me to concerts and organ-shop open houses, and invited me to dinner parties. I felt privileged to witness, even participate in heady conversations. Along with my routine of practicing and lessons and the occasional recital, these experiences were important to my early understanding of what it could mean to be an organist. If you ever have an opportunity to invite a young person to an AGO event or a concert, make the most of it knowing how much impact it could have on a young artist.
You can also make the most of your own opportunities. The parish organist has few chances to hear others play—after all, everyone is at work on Sunday mornings. But when you’re vacationing, take a look at what’s going on in local churches. If you’re in a big city, there’s every chance you could hear something special—something that would inspire your work in the coming year, something you never heard before.

Bomb scare
Shortly after the 9/11 attacks I was leaving a job site and driving out of New York City with a couple trays of organ pipes in the back of my van. Leaving Manhattan, I went north on FDR Drive along the East River and got onto the ramp system of the Triborough Bridge to head back to New England. Let me set the scene in case you’ve never had that pleasure. The Triborough Bridge is actually of collection of three or four bridges (it’s hard to tell) and myriad ramps that connect the boroughs of Manhattan, Queens, and the Bronx. According to the New York State Department of Transportation, the bridge carries some 200,000 vehicles each day.
I was stopped by a state trooper on the Triborough ramp (no, I wasn’t speeding, they were stopping every vehicle) who kindly asked if I’d open the rear of my vehicle. He took a look at a rank of Principal and a rank of Trumpet pipes and asked, “What’re those?” My honest response revealed that the trooper was likely not an AGO member. I offered to demonstrate and he invited me out of my car. With a hot gritty city wind blowing through my erstwhile hair and the dramatic Manhattan skyline in the background, I picked up an eight-footer, pointed it skyward, and blew into its mouth. It was fortunate that I had a copy of The Diapason in the car so I could share photos of organs that featured pipes similar to those in the car. I was allowed to pass.
Last month we spent a college commencement weekend in Providence, Rhode Island. That Saturday morning (May 26) we picked up the Providence Journal (colloquially know as Pro-Jo) in which I read an article that reminded me of my Triborough experience. The headline was, “PIPE ORGAN AT CENTER OF SCHOOL BOMB SCARE.” Written by John Castellucci, the article began:
The suspicious-looking object that forced the evacuation of Tolman High School on Thursday wasn’t a pipe bomb—it was part of a pipe organ.
Tolman Principal Frederick W. Silva said yesterday that a couple of students had pried the pipe loose from the school’s circa 1927 pipe organ, which was walled off in a recent renovation of the high school auditorium and forgotten.
Tolman’s 1300 students were sent home and state fire marshal’s bomb squad was called in after a teacher spotted the object in a second-floor locker and alerted school officials.
Bomb squad members couldn’t figure out what the object was. They destroyed it as a precaution, applying a small explosive charge.
Because the detonation wasn’t followed by a bigger explosion, officials concluded that the object probably wasn’t a bomb.
The preservationist in me is concerned that the bomb squad may have failed to document the provenance, material, and dimensions of the pipe before taking such a rash action. The article went on:
. . . But because it looked so sinister, Pawtucket police officials asked the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms to get involved, handling the fragments over to a BATF agent late Thursday afternoon.
I’m sorry to report that BATF was apparently also unable to identify the object. The mystery was solved when the two students involved (both boys) confessed their deed. They were suspended for ten days. Mr. Castellucci concludes:
. . . Their motive for taking the pipe organ part? “What they found out was they could make noises by blowing up into it,” Silva said.

Timelessness
I’ve often heard and I’ve often used the word timeless to describe the sound of a pipe organ. Ten years ago I was finishing the restoration of an organ built by E. & G. G. Hook in 1868, their Opus 466. I was thrilled by the bold and clear choruses, beautiful flutes (I never heard such a Melodia), and the Swell Oboe that had the qualities of a chameleon, somehow adapting itself to whatever I wanted it to be. The Pedal Bourdon was soft when it needed to be soft, and somehow seemed louder when used with larger combinations. I played music of all eras with equal success, limited only by the relatively small scope (14 stops) of the organ. It was built for a church seating fewer than 200 people, the same size as its present home. (See photo 1.)
The Organ Clearing House recently dismantled a somewhat larger organ, built in 1879 by the same company, by then known as E. & G. G. Hook & Hastings. Frank Hastings had become a partner with Elias and George Hook in 1872—the addition of Hastings to the nameplate brought many innovations, both mechanical and tonal. This was Opus 946 with 21 stops, this time built for a church seating more like 900. With Trumpet on the Great, Cornopean on the Swell, larger scales, and a Double Open Wood, this relatively modest instrument makes a “big church” sound. The instrument has been purchased by a Roman Catholic church in the Pittsburgh area, a large parish that is embarking on an ambitious building program. This 130-year-old organ will be renovated and installed in a brand-new building, its timeless sounds and timeless case design beautifully suited for a new home. (See photo 2.)
If an organ built in 1868 or 1879 is well suited for the newest music, what will an organ built in 2009 be used for in 130 years? There will be 33 presidential campaigns in that period of time. Come to think of it, I wonder if the United States will still be electing presidents in 2139.
Most of the serious “classical” music performed today is from earlier eras, and many music lovers are vocal about not liking contemporary music. When James Levine became music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 2004 he dramatically increased the number of contemporary pieces the orchestra played. Friends offered us their prime seats saying that they didn’t choose to hear so much new music (the BSO has a box-office system that allows patrons to pass their subscription seats on to people of their choice). And as president of the board of a local professional musical ensemble, I recently received a letter from a supporter asking for assurance that her gift not be applied to the commissioning of new music.
We know that Felix Mendelssohn was inspired and influenced by the organ works of Bach, but we also know that his audiences flocked to hear his new compositions. When Mozart was writing a million notes each week, his audiences were listening to his music, not the music of three centuries earlier—Johannes Ockeghem or Josquin des Pres.
Why is this? What contemporary music do you like best? Is tonality a reflection of balanced proportions that please and comfort us while atonality jars us? A parallel thought: If a centuries-old landscape painting pleases you as a reflection of the world you know today, does an abstract painting leave you behind because it requires too much of your imagination to understand?
The choral music of John Rutter is wildly popular with modern choirs and congregations, not because it makes use of a contemporary musical language, but because it’s full of melodies and harmonies that are easily understandable using our traditional ears. I imagine Rutter’s Candlelight Carol may well wind up in tomorrow’s hymnals on the page facing Silent Night. His is beautiful music—I’ve programmed lots of it to the delight of the people of the church—but is it a language that will sustain what I know as traditional church music into the future? (By the way, please read these as rhetorical questions, not as expressions of my opinion.)

A matter of proportion
Compare the Parthenon to Disney Hall. (Yikes!) Situated magnificently on the Acropolis, a hilltop dominating Athens, Greece, the Parthenon was built under the rule of Pericles between 460 and 430 BC, a period known as the Golden Age of Athens. It is undergoing an important restoration today, work that will preserve this spectacular example of perfect architectural proportions for centuries to come. (See photo 3.)
Walt Disney Hall, the new home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, is a monumental building, clad in stainless steel, designed by Frank Gehry. Graceful and contrasting curves define the building’s exterior shapes, but when you view the exterior it’s difficult to imagine what the interior spaces are like. (See photo 4.) When you walk inside, you quickly lose track of where you are in relation to the exterior—as you sit in your seat in the auditorium just try to point north! Boston’s Symphony Hall echoes the shape and proportions of the Parthenon—when you walk around inside you have no trouble understanding where you are or which way you’re facing.
A painting by Jackson Pollack, a building by Frank Gehry, and a composition by John Cage are all contemporary expressions. Some admire them. Some are disoriented and confused by them. Some dislike them. Will people be flocking to them centuries from now while at the same time rejecting the artistic expressions of their day?
John Cage lived from 1912–1992, Aaron Copland from 1900–1990—contemporaries with wildly different musical languages. Anton Webern and George Gershwin were contemporaries as were Leonard Bernstein and Witold Lutoslawski. What a fascinating century.
Looking back a couple hundred years, we note that Johann Sebastian Bach lived from 1685 to 1750, Franz Joseph Haydn from 1732 to 1809, and Ludwig van Beethoven from 1770 to 1827. Overlapping lifetimes, great advances in the language of music, but are Bach and Beethoven as different as Cage and Copland who lived at the same time?
Through all of these generations of composition, the essential elements of the pipe organ have not changed. You draw the same principal chorus to play Mouret, Mendelssohn, and Messiaen. Timeless. But is it timely?
This year marks the 300th anniversary of the death of Dietrich Buxtehude, and a number of organists are presenting his complete works in commemoration. I applaud this and I admire the dedication it takes. It’s essential that the music of great masters be held up, studied, and interpreted afresh. At the same time, I believe that the future of the organ depends on the as-yet-undiscovered ways it can be presented to the listening public. What new language can thrive on the timelessness of the pipe organ?
More and more organists are devoted to improvisation—that most spontaneous of performance styles. It’s compelling for an audience to witness the opening of a sealed envelope that contains submitted themes, the wry smile of the performer, and the unleashing of a musical imagination. I’ve written about this occasionally in these pages and later heard readers’ comments that while they admire improvisation they feel it’s unattainable to them. Fair enough—and it’s funny that my own improvising sounds best when I’m alone in a church! But I ring the bell for the benefit of those who are just starting to learn about the organ, and of course, for those who teach. A constantly refreshed emphasis on improvisation is a great way to guarantee the future of the pipe organ.
I step back to put this in perspective. I was a student at Oberlin in the 1970s, a time when the academic emphasis of organ study was very strong. We were fascinated by early forms and styles of organ building and the music that went with them. A faculty member played a Widor Finale on a recital (on the shutter-less Flentrop organ tuned in Werckmeister III), and students were amused—it seemed a parlor trick. He was on to something—but I know I missed it. A couple years later I was part of a team that installed the new Flentrop organ at Trinity Cathedral in Cleveland—it’s almost 30 years old now! With our emphasis on early music so strong in those days, it was interesting to note that that organ had a Swell Box and a Celeste! (Is it a contradiction to have a Celeste tuned in unequal temperament?)
Those were also the days of the avant-garde. We heard and played music for organ with electronic tape, music for organ with the reservoir weights removed—music that was far enough from the mainstream that it was hard to hear, hard to understand, and hard to love. During the AGO national convention of 1976 I participated in a piece for organist and two organbuilders—a friend and I with music stands were inside the organ pulling on trackers, squares, and rollers. I remember it was fun, I remember that audience members walked out, but I can’t remember any melodies.
A little while ago I was calling for new forms of expression. Now I’m poking fun at them. It’s all leading to another rhetorical question: What is the purpose of art? Is it supposed to soothe and please us, or challenge and disturb us? Remember the challenge of the preacher, to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.
Listen to any commercial classical-music station—you’ll hear a daily “Mozart Hour” and what seems like a continuous loop that includes Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, symphonies of Beethoven and Brahms, tuneful suites by Grieg, Respighi, and Bizet, and precious little else. It’s not commercially viable to take artistic risks. The art museum mounts a show of Monet’s paintings and the lines go around the block. And it’s easy to find Monet’s house and garden at Giverny, just point your car in the right direction and follow any bus.
A couple years ago we saw a new play by Paula Vogel, The Long Christmas Ride Home. Roughly and briefly described, it’s the story of a family dealing with the son’s death caused by AIDS. The most controversial and difficult moments are acted by larger-than-life, anatomically specific puppets. Some time later I happened to have a conversation with a wealthy patron of that repertory company who had been asked to provide the funding for the creation of the puppets. He said that he was uncomfortable about it, he was troubled by the play, but that he felt it was an important thing to do. It is the true patron of the arts who will provide funding for something that troubles him.

Back to the future
What does all this have to do with the future of the pipe organ? People love to hear the music they love and they deserve to be challenged. Great art can be both. And great artists can be constantly looking for the balance between the popular offerings that pay the bills and the new ideas that stretch the boundaries and lay the path for coming generations. Good luck!■

The smell of quietness
I’m writing from New York City on the evening of Sunday, November 18. It’s five days before Thanksgiving, and Fifth Avenue is festooned with every gaudy bauble imaginable. European tourists are spending their gargantuan euros, spreading Christmas cheer from Gucci’s to Saks, from the Disney Store to the NBA Store. Elaborate light displays draw attention to $5,000 handbags, displays of shoes worthy of Imelda, and unimaginably expensive jewelry. Chestnuts are roasting on open fires. They smell terrific, blending with the bustle of the city. My mind’s eye flashes an image of the fireplace in our house, associating the smell of the chestnuts with sitting in the peace of that favorite of rooms. One of the carts selling chestnuts had middle-Eastern music playing over loudspeakers—no doubt a nod to the indigenous music of Bethlehem, Palestine, or the West Bank. Fitting. I’m pretty sure that the shepherds gathering in the alley behind The Inn were not singing four-part-harmony in the key of G. I’m pretty sure that snowy flakes weren’t falling softly, clothing all the world in white. In fact, I’m pretty sure that the shepherds weren’t white!
People are wearing Santa hats. And it’s snowing. It’s okay for it to snow in Manhattan, but it’s pretty early for snow here. I wonder if the Fifth Avenue Merchants Association made a special arrangement. Maybe Donald Trump has a connection—the ultimate networker. It would be better if he’d make it rain in Atlanta—they really need the water.
One of the stores is broadcasting Christmas music out to the sidewalk, I’m especially attracted to the meaningful Christmas favorite, the former nun singing, “these are a few of my favorite things.” Is there a Willcocks descant for that one? Maybe Rutter . . .
WWJD? I’ll tell you what he’d do, he’d go to Evensong at St. Thomas Church, Fifth Avenue at 53rd Street.
I’m staying in a little hotel on 54th Street, two blocks east of Fifth Avenue. It’s a pretty quiet street, but turning left onto Fifth is like entering a festive war zone. It’s mobbed, it’s noisy, a little scary for someone who woke up this morning in rural Maine. Walking into St. Thomas Church is like walking into another world. In fact, it is another world. It’s a world of serenity and grandeur, of peace and spirituality. It’s a world created by the best of human effort through design and craftsmanship. And just like the gaudy, extravagant, commercial scene outside, it’s the product of great wealth. In contrast to the neighboring stores that are bursting with Santas, inside the church, above the high altar is a reredos bursting with Saints. While some reredoses (or is it reredosi?) feature saints that are neatly tucked into their niches, some of those at St. Thomas Church are renegades—bursting out of their little spaces as though they were in conversation with each other, gesticulating, looking this way and that, making their points for the ages to witness. I don’t know the dimensions, but I guess that the thing is more than 50 feet tall. There’s a beautiful photo on the church’s website at <http://www.saint thomaschurch.org/interiorview.html>.
Perhaps it’s a crude question, but what would something like that cost? If we figure the price of a new organ as “so much per stop,” is the price of a reredos “so much per saint?” There must be 20 tons of stone involved, and heaven knows how many hours of skilled work taking away all the stone that doesn’t look like saints. We who regularly install organs might be able to imagine what it’s like to install stone carvings on this scale. But radically different from the commercialism on the street outside, this vast expenditure of money, skill, and human effort is dedicated and devoted to the glory of God as an eloquent expression of faith.
The choir stalls, pulpit, lectern, and organ case are all elaborately carved so that their massive construction appears delicate, even wispy in a few places. And the fabric of the building is stone, that most unyielding of media. Drop one stone on to another and you get chips, a little dust, even splitting in two. The fact that the graceful curves of the arches and ribs on the ceiling are made of stone defies the character of the natural material. And by the way, those active saints in the reredos are also “chips off the old block.”
There is a magnificent quietness to a building like this. You can hear distant noises from the street—an impatient taxi, an indignant pedestrian—and you can hear subway trains rattling up the River Styx, but these noises seem only to enhance the quietness. There’s a tinge of incense mixed with beeswax that is the peculiar smell of an Anglican church. It is the smell of quietness. Organbuilders know that the higher up you get in the building, the stronger the smell gets. It must be quieter up in the Solo Organ!
Another brilliant visual spectacle in this church is the richly decorated organ built by Taylor & Boody in the rear gallery, displayed with stunning lighting, and festooned with gold leaf. If you don’t notice it when you arrive, it can take your breath away as you stand, turn, and walk out of the church. This organ wasn’t used tonight—what we heard was the Skinner/Aeolian-Skinner organ in the chancel.
Sitting in the Gothic half-light before the service started, listening to and smelling the silence, I reflected on the complicated processes that go into the creation of monumental art works like the reredos, the organ, or the building itself. Having been involved in many projects building, restoring, and moving organs, I have firsthand experience with the complexities of the conversations that lead to the creation of these things. Moving from concept to vision to fundraising to design to construction to completion, these great efforts are both challenging and rewarding.
In Craig Whitney’s entertaining and informative book about the 20th-century American pipe organ, All the Stops, we read that during June of 1956 G. Donald Harrison, the famed creator of so many wonderful Aeolian-Skinner organs, was hard at work supervising the completion of the large organ in the chancel at St. Thomas Church, racing against the calendar to have the organ ready for the convention of the American Guild of Organists. In the late afternoon of June 14, Mr. Harrison left St. Thomas feeling unwell, walked eight blocks home because of a taxi strike, had dinner with his wife Helen, turned on the television to watch a performance by musician and humorist Victor Borge, and died of a heart attack at 11 pm. (I was a couple days short of three months old.)
I find in this story a link between a creative genius involved in great and enduring work and the passage of life. I wonder what stops Harrison was working on that last day? What was the last pipe he handled? Did I hear that pipe tonight? Did he know as he left the church that he would not be back? Did he stop for a drink on his way home? (We know that when working on the organs at Boston’s Symphony Hall and First Church of Christ, Scientist, he was very fond of stopping for refreshment at the Café Amalfi next door to Symphony Hall.)
John Scott must be one of the wisest imports from Great Britain since E. Power Biggs. In the few years since he began his work at St. Thomas, he has carried on the great tradition of music so beautifully nourished by Gerre Hancock, bringing the famed Choir of Men and Boys to a new thrilling level of musicianship and dignity. Immaculately clad in scarlet and white with elaborate frilled collars, standing out from the muted tones of stone and wood, they add to the stunning visual effect of the surroundings.
The precision of their movements—processing, standing, sitting—adds dignity to the worship, but I noticed that it also removes the possibility of distraction. I was able to listen almost wholly to the music, without the back of my mind clattering about someone falling out of step, someone standing later than the rest. Because they were paying such close attention, I was able to as well.
The first sound I heard from the choir was the vigorous, sonorous, precise “and with thy spirit” coming from a distant corridor as they were led in prayer before entering the nave. Even so, the worshipper-listener could not be prepared for the inhalation of breath and utterance of the first few chords of perfectly balanced and expertly tuned tone as they sang the psalm after the opening words. I was sitting about a third of the way down the nave (pew 51 had a wad of chewing gum under the seat) on the epistle side (starboard), far enough back that the choir members, especially the very young boys, were dwarfed by the majestic height of the place, but their voices filled the building in a most moving way.
Great care had been given to the balance between organ and choir. We talk and talk about The English Cathedral Style—when you hear it done so well you can understand it better. The organ must have the ability to sound as if it’s going “all out” without overpowering the choir, and also be able to melt into the ether. This evening, while I heard the organ in its great fullness in hymn and postlude, I was so impressed by the sound of “full organ” including powerful chorus reeds and mixtures enhancing the sound of the choir.
Choral Evensong in a great church like this is a syzygy of genius and creativity. The vision of the architect and the skill of the builders make possible the magnificent building. The proportions, decorations, symbolism, and acoustics are all essential to the experience.
The genius of the composers provides us music that brings the building to life. These are musicians who knew these buildings, who made music in these buildings, and whose inspiration came from these buildings.
The organbuilders who were contemporary with the composers (tonight we think of Charles Villiers Stanford as heard by Ernest Skinner and Henry Willis) heard the music, knew the buildings, and invented and perfected machines that transcend machinery—machines that melt into magic under the hands of a master organist, machines that consume air as fuel and transform it into sound energy sufficient to excite tens of millions of cubic feet of air mingled with the scent of incense and beeswax.
The commitment, dedication, discipline, and devotion of the musicians interpret that music for our modern ears. Their voices burn the same fuel as the organ, turning static air into sound energy. Their tuning is precise, their phrasing lofty, their harmonies true.
And the present clergy and congregation in all their various roles as officers, committee members, evangelists, ushers, welcomers, and worshippers combine their talents, energy, and (just say it) financial resources to make the entire experience available to us in this world of Gucci and taxicabs.
These are a few of my favorite things.