Sym·po´si·um. 2. A conference at which a particular subject is discussed and opinions gathered.1 Although advertised as an eight-day event, the third biennial symposium sponsored by the American Organ Archives of the Organ Historical Society (this year with co-host, the Music Department of the Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University), consisted of four days of organ recitals, lectures, and panel discussions. The remainder of the eight days gave participants a generous amount of time to visit the Archives in Princeton, a short drive from New Brunswick.
From its modest beginning in 1956, the Organ Historical Society has grown and matured into an international organization promoting musical and historical interest in organbuilding,2 particularly those things American. The Society’s by-laws are explicit: “To encourage, promote, and further an active interest in the organ and its builders, particularly those in North America; to collect, preserve, evaluate, and publish detailed historical and technical information about organs and organbuilders, particularly those in North America; to provide members of the Society with opportunities for meetings and for the discussion of topics related to the organ; [and] to support its American Organ Archives.”
Almost as old as the OHS itself, the Archives is a closed stack, non-circulating collection available through appointment or through the reference librarian at Westminster Choir College, which houses the collection. That the Archives should sponsor a gathering of international organ scholars is entirely appropriate as it is the world’s largest collection of books and other materials related to the organ. James Wallmann, a member of the Archives’ governing board and co-chair of the symposium, reported that the Archives’ holdings currently include 14,550 books, 475 periodical titles, 2,000 publications by organbuilders, 4,000 organ postcards, 500 organbuilders’ nameplates, 25 collections of manuscripts, and over 7,000 pieces of ephemera.
Thus, about seventy organ lovers, scholars, organbuilders, organists, curators, and students gathered at Christ Church, New Brunswick, for an intensive study of the King of Instruments. Between papers erudite-to-entertaining, were panel discussions and concerts. Of the latter, Robert Clark opened the week’s events with an ambitious all-Bach recital on Christ Church’s new Richards-Fowkes instrument, completed in 2001. The last recital of the symposium heard on this thoroughly successful organ was played by Hans Davidsson, whose program was limited to music of the 17th and 18th centuries and included works of Bach, Weckmann, Bruhns, and Frescobaldi. Between the two pillars of Clark and Davidsson were solid performances by Shea Velloso and Cleveland Kersh, both graduate students of Antonius Bittmann at Rutgers. The musical offerings were completed with a concert at the Methodist Church by Antonius Bittmann (also co-chair of the conference) and the New Brunswick Chamber Orchestra led by its director, Mark Trautman. Preceding Rheinberger’s Concerto for Organ and Orchestra in g minor, Antonius Bittmann played Gerard Bunk’s Sonata in f minor, op. 32.3 The church’s Jardine organ of 1896 proved itself the ideal medium for both pieces.
Panel discussions and papers were in abundance throughout the conference and ran the gamut from Walter Kreyszig’s “An unusual image of the organ in the juxtaposition of two disparate music theoretical systems: the graphic representation of the systema teleion and the Guidonian system of hexachords in the Theorica musice of Franchino Gaffurio” to Craig Whitney’s entertaining “Does the pipe organ have a future in the American concert hall?” Representative papers read were “A ‘Monster Organ’ at Rutgers University: Aeolian’s Op. 1580,” “Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier as organ music,” “Max Reger as ‘Master Organist’,” and “Images of Bach--the organ works performed by orchestra.” Other speakers were Christopher Anderson, Antonius Bittmann, George Bozeman, Louis Brouillette, Any Raquel Carvalho, Dorotéa Kerr, Gregory Crowell, Sarah Davies, Michael Friesen, David Knight, Nancy Saultz Radloff, David Schulenberg, Thomas Spacht, and Peter Williams.
Peter Williams was the keynote speaker and it was his address, “How do we come to have the organ and what difference has it made?,” that established the paradigm of intellectual inquiry at the symposium. Prof. Williams explored how the organ became a church instrument, how it developed, and how western music might have been different without it. While he speculated on these and other questions, he also attempted to give probable answers. In the end, however, he admitted that “. . . I do not really know the answer. . . nevertheless trying to ask in the right way what I believe are the right questions may give some focus to a field of study that often looks too wide to control.”4
“Asking the right questions and finding the right answers,” indeed, could have been the alternate title for the New Brunswick symposium. The 2007 symposium will be held at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester where certainly again scholarly inquiry will rule the day.
