Parsons Pipe Organ Builders, Canandaigua, New York, 100th Anniversary
This year, Parsons Pipe Organ Builders celebrates the 100th anniversary of its founding and five generations of Parsons family members who have made pipe organs their vocation. Although the manufacturing workshop was established later, the family has been involved in the trade since the late nineteenth century.
Scott Smith Pipe Organs, Lansing, Michigan
Grace Lutheran Church, Auburn, Michigan
Auburn is a modest-sized city of just over 2,000 in the Great Lakes Bay Region of Michigan, nearly equidistant from Midland to the west, Bay City to the east, and slightly farther from Saginaw to the south. As a result, the churches in this region draw members from a rather diverse culture, comprising everything from chemical engineering to manufacturing to agriculture.
Very few organs survive the depredations of time. Some are the victims of wars and fires, but most are the victims of the good intentions and interventions driven by changing tastes in sound. Those few that have survived such calamities usually have something special about them in their sound or their visual impact. The 1750 Joseph Gabler organ at Weingarten, Germany, is special on both counts—its dramatic chorus makes music come alive, and the architecture of its casework and façade is a stunning tour de force.
BWV 565 has survived only through one single copy by Johannes Ringk (1717–1778), with the title Toccata con Fuga ex d. According to Dietrich Kilian,1 all other existing copies can be traced back to Ringk’s manuscript, directly or indirectly through an intermediate copy. We do not know if Ringk copied from a copy or from the original. A major debatable matter of the source is the incomplete measure 72. It comprises only three beats, four sixteenth notes are missing (Example 1).
Bryan Keith Gray, 72, died October 24, 2020. He was born in Lake Charles, Louisiana, March 2, 1948. He started piano lessons before he was age ten and was accepted into the Governor’s Program for Gifted Children early in its formation, later returning to teach in the program. He graduated from Lake Charles High School in 1966 having been a member and captain of the school’s band. At McNeese State University, Lake Charles, he was a member of the marching band and Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia Fraternity.
