Louis Debierre Choir Organ, 1884: Choir Organ #53

Michael McNeil

Michael McNeil has designed, constructed, and researched pipe organs since 1973. He was also a research engineer in the disk drive industry with 27 patents. He has authored four hardbound books, among them The Sound of Pipe Organs, several e-publications, and many journal articles.

Editor’s note: Part 1 of this article was published in the August 2018 issue of The Diapason, pages 16–20.

 

The casework in pictures

The entire casework of Opus 161 is executed in solid black walnut, and in the author’s opinion is among the best of Johnson’s cases with its elegant proportions and understated Gothic ornamentation. The window above the entrance of Eastside Presbyterian Church, its original home, displayed similar, restrained Gothic form and ornamentation. Elsworth’s book illustrates a great many of Johnson’s organs, among them Opus 134, built in 1862 for St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Lanesborough, Massachusetts.¹⁷ Opus 134 has nearly identical stiles and ornamentation, but its proportions do not soar in the elegant manner of Opus 161, perhaps the result of limitations in height. It is ironic that one of Johnson’s best aesthetic creations has languished in anonymity for decades. Many American churches built in the early nineteenth century did not have a provision for a pipe organ, and as a consequence Elsworth noted that most of Johnson’s earlier organs were furnished with sides to the cases of the free-standing organs produced for such churches.¹⁸ As previously noted, Opus 161 originally had such side panels to its casework, and these were found crudely sawn and nailed behind the façade. The Piru church elected to place the façade casework flush with the wall of the church, necessitating the removal of the side panels.

As was typical of nearly all nineteenth century organs, the façade contains no smaller pipes. The side flats contain pipes of the Open Diapason with considerable overlengths. This is the only architectural flaw in this otherwise stunningly designed case. The use of pipes of very different lengths is an important architectural device—it gives a sense of scale, making the larger pipes appear more imposing in contrast. But façades with pipes of extremely different size are more complex and more expensive to make. Compared to the vast majority of nineteenth-century façades, Opus 161 is one of the finest aesthetic designs.

 

The keydesk in pictures

The reader should refer to Part 1 of this series for photographs of the keydesk and stop jambs (August 2018, pages 17–18). Elsworth described the keydesks of Johnson organs from the period of Opus 43, 1855, to Opus 268, 1868:

 

The manual compass was invariably fifty-six notes, from CC to G3. The stop knobs were disposed in vertical rows on each side of the manual keyboards, and always had square shanks with round knobs that had flat faces. Into these faces were set the ivory labels with the stop names. The labels were always engraved in Spencerian script with no pitch indication. The nameplates up to about 1867 or 1868 were of silver, engraved “Wm. A. Johnson, Westfield, Mass.”¹⁹

 

This description provides some evidence that the organ was modified during its installation at Piru. The stop action does indeed have square shanks leading to the bellcranks, but the shafts connecting to the square shanks and leading through the stop jambs are round. The author had initially believed that the stop jambs were original, observing well-worn and professionally installed felt bushings in the openings of the stop jambs. But a more likely explanation is that the round shafts and extant jambs were added at a later date, and this goes a long way to explain the disappearance of the split bass stops, all of which were screwed together to make continuous stops with no splits. And this nicely explains the current specification with 20 controls instead of the 22 controls indicated in the opus list of the Johnson factory.

The organ was initially supplied with a hook-down Swell shoe, normal fare for Johnson’s work of this time. This feature was deleted, and a balanced Swell shoe was installed by crudely re-routing the action of the Great to Pedal coupler rollerboard. Note the added Swell pedal in Figure 7, the missing hook-down pedal in Figure 8, and the damage to the action in Figure 9 and Figure 10. All of this damage was repaired in the 1976 restoration and the original hook-down mechanism refabricated. The figures show the condition of the console prior to the restoration.

 

The key action in pictures

The basic layout of the key action can be seen in Figure 6 in Part 1 of this series (August 2018, page 20). With the exception of the repositioning of the Swell chest and the addition of the balanced Swell pedal, the key and stop action of Opus 161 was well worn but virtually unaltered in 1976. The damage to the trackers on the Pedal couplers from the installation of the balanced Swell pedal was repaired in 1976 with new trackers, wires, felts, and buttons, and basic repairs to the stickers on the Swell to Great coupler were made, but this was a stopgap solution. At this time the console was in need of a complete disassembly and refurbishment of the leather on the couplers, the felts, and the leather buttons. The action was well designed, had served for a period of more than a hundred years, and had survived a move from Stockton to Piru. But the leather facings of the key tails where the coupler stickers made contact and the felts and leather buttons were showing their age. There were no funds for such work in 1976. 

In Johnson’s action we see similarities to Samuel Green. Bicknell writes: 

 

Green introduced or developed numerous refinements to the mechanism. He often arranged pipes from f# up in chromatic order on the soundboards, even in large organs. This reduced the extent to which rollerboards were required. . . . To make the key action readily adjustable the ends of the trackers were fitted with tapped wires and leather buttons. The appearance of Green’s consoles was enhanced by the use of ivory inserts screwed into the heads of the stop knobs, engraved with the name of the stop. . . . Green also usually made keyboards with white naturals and black sharps. . . .²⁰

 

All of these features are found on Opus 161. The photographs of the action were all taken in 1976 prior to the restoration work.

 

The stop action in pictures

The stop action of Opus 161 is conventional, with metal squares and square wooden shanks. The stop action to the Pedal 16′ Double Open Diapason is a ventil valve to the three windchests of that stop, which are placed at the sides (largest pipes, diatonic) and the treble pipes at the back (chromatic). The photographs show the details of the stop action construction.

A description of the stops and general notes on the scaling and voicing

This section provides a detailed description of the stops; two of the Swell stops were not measured (16′ Bourdon and 8′ Stopped Diapason). For the stops which were measured, a table of data in millimeters is shown. The photographs show some details of the construction, although the poor resolution of the camera is regrettable.

As earlier noted, there is a close resemblance between the organs of Samuel Green in late eighteenth century England and the organs of William A. Johnson in nineteenth-century America. Bicknell writes:

 

On the tonal side Green seems to have adopted the trend towards delicacy and developed it still further. . . . Green’s first line of development in securing the effect he desired was to experiment . . . with the scales of the chorus . . . . in 1778 the Open Diapason is larger than the rest of the chorus. . . . The appearance of extra pipes in some ranks, definitely by Green and contemporary with the instruments themselves, together with re-marking of the pipes, suggests that Green took spare pipes with him to the site and rescaled stops during the tonal finishing in the building. This is considerably removed from the standardised scaling and voicing adopted by, for example, Snetzler. The reasons for this become clearer when one understands that Green’s voicing broke new ground in other aspects as well. Delicacy was achieved partly by reduction of the size of the pipe foot and by increasing the amount of nicking. The loss of grandeur in the chorus was made up for by increasing the scales of the extreme basses. . . .²¹

As we will see in the graphical analysis of the data, all of the features mentioned by Bicknell about Samuel Green would apply equally well to Johnson’s Opus 161. Bicknell observes, “Where Snetzler provided a chorus of startling boldness and with all the open metal ranks of equal power, Green introduced refinement and delicacy and modified the power of the off-unison ranks to secure a new kind of blend.”²²

As earlier noted by Elsworth, Johnson’s wind pressure during the period of 1855 to 1868 “was generally between 21⁄2 and 23⁄4 inches (63 and 70 mm), and in rare examples, nearly 3 inches.”²³ The lower wind pressures, narrower scales of the upperwork, and reduced toes produced a sound with restrained brilliance. 

Referring to his conversations with Edwin B. Hedges (1872–1967), a voicer for Johnson organs, Elsworth made some telling observations. In the process of making the pipework, “ . . . the languids were carefully soldered in place, and the flues were properly adjusted.”²⁴ This is a very important comment, because today the flueway is considered a variable for adjusting power in some voicing styles, especially North Germanic voicing. Johnson’s flueways are very open, often the maximum that would produce good speech, even with Johnson’s bold nicking. Power balances, for Johnson as well as Green, were designed into the scales and further adjusted by the voicer at the toe. “The voicing of flue pipes, such as Diapason, Dulcianas, and strings, consists of nicking the languid, cutting up the upper lips to the proper mouth height, and adjusting the positions of the languid and the upper and lower lips. The amount of wind entering the pipe foot must be carefully adjusted by opening or closing the orifice in the pipe toe.”²⁵ There is no direct evidence that William A. Johnson had first-hand knowledge of the 1792 Samuel Green organ delivered to Boston, but the legacy of Green is obvious in Johnson’s work.

A few comments are in order on the nicking and languid treatment. The languids contain a counterface with a negative angle; the more usual angle is vertical, or 90 degrees. The Isnards made a positive-angled counterface at about 75 degrees with a normal bevel at about 45 to 55 degrees. The negative counterface of the Johnson languid is unusual. This languid is nicked at an angle with a knife, cutting a fine nick as deep as halfway into the languid bevel. Long knife cuts were also in evidence inside the lower lip. As a general rule there are the same number of nicks on a languid, regardless of pitch. These languids work well and produce fast speech even when the lower, negative languid bevel shows above the top edge of the lower lip; the upper lip is not pulled out to compensate for this languid position. Ears are generally found up to 1′ in pitch in the principal chorus, but they are very narrow, not extending far in front of the mouth.

Many of the pipes were found in 1976 to be crudely pinched at the top, part of an effort to reduce the pitch to the modern standard. All of this damage was repaired on mandrels, and tuning slides were fitted.

 

Great division

 

8′ Open Diapason 

This is the first stop on the front of the Great windchest. It has zinc resonators from low C to tenor B and planed common metal feet from about tenor E. All pipes from middle C are planed common metal (30% tin, 70% lead). Zinc wind conductors to the façade pipes supply copious wind; the conductor diameters are 38 mm at low C and 25 mm at tenor C. If memory serves, at least one or two of the pipes in the side flats were dummy pipes, implying that the speaking façade pipes extended to tenor D. The façade pipes were tuned with scrolls at the back, which were entirely rolled up as a consequence of the drop in pitch to 440 Hz, where the original pitch was probably closer to 450 Hz. See the earlier notes on the pitch and wind pressure. As with all of the stops in the principal chorus, the ears are very narrow. 

The author feels obligated to point out a grave error he made in the restoration by removing the heavy nicking on the languids of the Open Diapason, and only on this stop. To make the record clear, David Sedlak advised against doing this, and the author regrets that he did not take Sedlak’s advice. These nicks should be renewed in the manner used by Johnson.

8′ Keraulophon

The second stop on the chest, the Keraulophon pipes were found badly pinched at the top along with crudely reduced toe bores in an effort to reduce the pitch. All of the pipes were straightened on mandrels and tuning slides added. Toes that were not damaged were used as a guide for readjusting damaged toes. This stop is voiced with tuning slots and ears, but no beards of any kind. The bass octave is common with the Clarabella, five pipes from tenor C to E have zinc resonators, and the rest have planed common metal resonators. The nicking is bold and often crossed to keep the speech stable. Flueways were often more closed on one side. This is a bolder string than a Dulciana. 

 

8′ Clarabella

This is the third stop on the chest. Bass pipes C to tenor E are stopped wood; the remainder are open wood with lead plates covering the tops for tuning. These lead plates are somewhat closed down to accommodate the lowered pitch. The internal blocks forming the languids are lower than the front plates by 2.0 mm at tenor E, and 1.5 mm at tenor F. The bevel of the upper lip is internal for the open pipes and external for the stopped pipes. The stopped pipes have narrow, slanted strips at the sides of the mouth to form narrow ears; the open pipes have no extra strips functioning as ears. The nicking is deeper and heavier than the pipes of the principal chorus. The scales and voicing of this stop place its power on the same level as the principal chorus foundations. The only concession to power is a greatly reduced mouth width in the bass octave, a concession to its function as a common bass to the Keraulophon. 

The effective inside diameter of a wooden pipe is a calculation of its diagonal, a method proposed by Nolte.²⁶ The potential power of a round pipe is related to the amplitude of the standing wave in the pipe, which is in turn related to its diameter. Following this logic, Nolte has pointed out that the amplitude of a standing wave in a rectangular pipe is related to its widest point, i.e., its diagonal. We often see modern conversions of wood pipe scales by relating their rectangular areas to those of round metal pipes with equivalent areas, but this does not produce balanced power. The consequence is that conventional modern wisdom decrees that wood pipes should be scaled a few half tones narrower than round pipes of equivalent area. This disconnect disappears with Nolte’s observation of the relevance of the diagonal, not equivalent areas. This is not a new idea. Many older organs, e.g., J. A. Silbermann’s organ of 1746 at Marmoutier, show very disjointed scales between the rectangular wood bass of the 16′ Montre and its metal pipes when plotting by equivalent areas. Convert the Silbermann wood bass scales to diagonals and those scales merge seamlessly into the scales of the metal pipes. Diagonal computations of the effective diameters for the Johnson Clarabella can be found in the table, and those calculations are used in the graphical analysis. 

 

4′ Principal

The fourth stop on the chest, the Principal has five zinc resonators from C to E; the rest are all planed common metal. These pipes showed very little damage. The flueway depths are remarkably wide, especially in the treble, and demonstrate that Johnson regulated power entirely at the toe, not the flueway. Such flueway depths are often found in classical French voicing. This data set can be taken as reasonably accurate evidence of Johnson’s unmolested voicing.

 

4′ Flute И CheminОe

 The fifth stop on the chest from tenor C, this is a classically constructed flute in planed common metal with soldered domed tops, chimneys with no tuning mechanism, and very large ears for tuning. Those large ears had been pushed in far enough to virtually touch each other when found in 1976, another effort to reduce the pitch. The cutups were lightly arched. There was considerable handling damage to the flueways. The toes were reasonably intact. The reduction in pressure from 76 mm to 63 mm allowed these pipes to speak much more freely with the ears much more opened (but not completely straightened). The pipe construction becomes open at g#′′, i.e., the last twelve pipes, and they are noticeably wider across the break. The table above shows a calculation of the total resonator length, i.e., the body length plus the chimney, and the percentage of the chimney length to the total length. This gives an idea of the harmonics that Johnson was trying to emphasize with the chimney. At tenor C the chimney is 25% of the total length, emphasizing the fourth harmonic, while at middle C the chimney is 30% of the total length, roughly emphasizing the third harmonic. The chimney progresses to larger percentages of the total length as the pitch rises. The chimney is not a constant percentage of the total length.  The photograph shows the classical construction of this stop. 

 

22Џ3′ Twelfth

The sixth stop on the chest, this stop consists entirely of planed common metal pipes that had minimal damage.

 

2′ Fifteenth

The seventh and last flue stop on the chest, the 2′ Fifteenth continues the trend of extremely deep flueways and closed toes. The flueway depths of this stop are perhaps the largest the author has measured on any organ. Remarkably, this planed, common metal stop has no ears on any pipe, and its sound is exquisite. The toes are very restrained and represent the means of controlling power. The diameter and mouth width scales are considerably narrower than the Open Diapason, continuing the trend of narrower scaling with higher stop pitches, a characteristic introduced by Samuel Green. This progression can be clearly seen in the graphical analysis, in stark contrast to the Hook’s constant scaling of  the principal chorus. By this means Johnson and Green achieved a chorus with more refinement and less impact, but they compensated with very wide scaling of the extreme basses.

 

8′ Trumpet

The extant pipework of this eighth and last stop on the chest was constructed of planed common metal with zinc bottom sections from tenor C to tenor B. The Trumpet has an obscure history. In 1976 only two octaves of pipes were found from tenor C 13 to C 37. These were all in fairly good condition without obvious modifications; some crude slotting of the tops was repaired and the pipes spoke well on 63 mm wind. All of the original pipes were cut to exact length with no tuning slots or scrolls. The bass octave of the Trumpet was originally separated on the slider, but found screwed together in 1976. Interestingly, while the bass topboards were bored and chamfered to receive pipes, the chamfers were not burned in like all other borings on both windchests. With the repositioning of the Swell chest over the Great chest, it was now impossible to reconstruct a full-length bass set of pipes, and a half-length set was fabricated with limited tonal success (a few of the half-length pipes needed mitering to clear the Swell chest). The missing treble pipes were recreated by the firm of Stinkens to scales extrapolated from the original pipework. These were quite successful and a good tonal match. The high treble from c#′′′ to g′′′ were obviously flue pipes, and the rackboard borings provided guidance for their scales. All shallots are brass and are marked “H. T. Levi,” one of the reed voicers for William A. Johnson, according to both Barbara Owen²⁷ and Elsworth.²⁸ This stop bears a strong resemblance to the Trumpet heard in the recording of the Samuel Green organ at Armitage, Staffordshire, England (see the section on Recordings).

The Trumpet was carefully disassembled during the restoration and its measurements carefully tabulated; see the drawings and tables below. Measurements unfortunately omitted were the height of the block and the length and width at the top of the main taper on the tongues.

 

II Mixture

The author added a two-rank mixture in planed common metal to the Great during the 1976 restoration. While the merits of this can be debated, it was added in a manner that did not affect the other stops. A thick oak board was mounted at the back of the key channels, extending backwards and upwards, making this the ninth stop on the Great. The pipework was narrowly scaled in the manner of Johnson, roughly -7 half tones from 2⁄3′ pitch to 1⁄4′ pitch, then widening to about -3 half tones at 1⁄8′ pitch. A great many Johnson organs of this size had mixtures. It should be noted that Johnson mixtures of the time period during which Opus 161 was created were called Sesquialtera, and they included third-sounding ranks. Elsworth states, “ . . . these were composed of 17th, 19th, and 22nd ranks [i.e., 13⁄5′, 11⁄3′, and 1′, the same pitches observed in Samuel Green’s Sesquialteras] with two or three breaks.”²⁹ The mixture added by the author is more typical of later Johnson work in its composition without thirds.

The voicing of the cutups was a fortunate accident, where the pipes were mouth-voiced before realizing that they were left many half tones overlength by the pipemaker. When the cone-tuned pipes were cut to length, it was obvious that the cutups were very high. But this was fortuitous, because it taught the lesson that high cutups can have a superb blend, and this mixture provided a fine sparkling glitter in the plenum with no hint of harshness. There are no ears on any pipes. The toes are relatively more open than what Johnson would have done and the cutups are higher. The mixture composition is as follows:

 

C 2⁄3′ 1⁄2′

c 1′ 2⁄3′

c′ 11⁄3′ 1′

c′′ 2′ 11⁄3′

c′′′ 4′ 2′

 

Barbara Owen noted that William A. Johnson was hired to add a VII Cymbal to the Hook organ.³⁰ This mixture was installed in 1870, and no records indicate how this happened. The political implications invite much speculation, of course. The differences in scaling and voicing of the Johnson mixture relative to the Hook chorus illuminates the different approach to chorus design between Johnson and Hook. We will look at this in detail in the graphical analysis. The Johnson VII Cymbal provides a scintillating crown to the Hook chorus and contains a third-sounding rank. In 1871 William H. Johnson, the son of William A. Johnson, joined his father as a partner in the firm and the mixtures built from that time deleted the third-sounding rank.³¹ ν

Notes and Credits

All photos, drawings, tables, and illustrations are courtesy of the author’s collection if not otherwise noted. Most of the color photos were unfortunately taken by the author with an inferior camera in low resolution. David Sedlak used a high quality camera, lenses, and film to produce the high-resolution color photos of the church and its architectural details; these are all attributed to Sedlak.

17. The Johnson Organs, p. 50.

18. Ibid, p. 22.

19. Ibid, p. 23.

20. The History of the English Organ, p. 186.

21. The History of the English Organ, p. 185.

22. Ibid, p. 207.

23. The Johnson Organs, p. 25.

24. Ibid, p. 45.

25. Ibid, p. 47.

26. John M. Nolte, “Scaling Pipes in Wood,” ISO Journal, No. 36, December 2010, pp. 8–19.

27. Scot L. Huntington, Barbara Owen, Stephen L. Pinel, Martin R. Walsh. Johnson Organs 1844–1898, The Princeton Academy of the Arts, Culture, and Society, 2015, Cranbury, pp. 11, 13, 14, 16.

28. The Johnson Organs, p. 36.

29. Ibid, p. 48.

30. Johnson Organs 1844–1898, pp. 17-18.

31. The Johnson Organs, p. 48.

To be continued.

Stephen L. Pinel

Stephen L. Pinel holds two degrees from Westminster Choir College in Princeton, New Jersey, and did further graduate work in historical musicology at New York University. A church musician for 45 years, he retired from full-time work during the fall of 2017. He held a Langley Fellowship at New York University, is a member of Pi Kappa Lambda Music Honor Society, an honorary member of the Organ Historical Society, and a past chair of the St. Wilfrid Club of New York City. He is also the author of several books and regularly contributes articles pertaining to American organ history both here and abroad.

After attending Morning Prayer at Christ Church during the summer of 1873, a visitor wrote:

 

The church bells ring at half past nine, and speak in suggestive and pleasant tones to those who are accustomed to answer their call. The bells are rung again at a quarter past ten, and soon after the streets present a scene to delight the heart of any Christian. The multitude of those who go forth, embraces people of all ages, from the prattling child to hoary and tottering old age, and including all conditions, from the affluent to the humble poor. . . .

We are favorably impressed as we approach the edifice [of Christ Church] by its massive and substantial front. We are met at the door by attentive ushers, and feel at once that though strangers we are welcome. An appropriate voluntary upon the organ is in progress, and as the worshippers come in one after another and proceed quietly to their places all about us and engage, as is the beautiful custom of the denomination, in silent prayer, we feel the truth of the sentiment which spans the arch above the chancel. “The Lord is in His Holy Temple. . . .” 

The musical part of the service—aside from the metrical hymns—is sometimes in anthem and sometimes in chant form, and is at present under the direction of the organist, Mr. Horace H. Scribner. One will hear many fine adaptations here by Warren, Thomas, Buck and others. Among the worshippers are Hon. Timothy P. Redfield, Hon. B. F. Fifield, Dr. J. Y. Dewey, Hon. Charles Dewey, Hiram Atkins, T. C. Phinney, Fred E. Smith, and J. W. Ellis. . . .¹

 

Christ Church was the fashionable parish in the capital city. It was the place where people of affluence, culture, education, prominence, and social stature went to church. The Hon. Timothy P. Redfield (1812–1888), an 1836 graduate of Dartmouth College, was a justice on the Vermont Supreme Court.² The Hon. Benjamin F. Fifield (1832–1918), a staunch Republican and an 1855 graduate of UVM,³ was the primary legal counsel for the Vermont Central Railroad.⁴ Dr. Julius Y. Dewey (1799–1866) was a notable Vermont physician who, after the state issued an 1848 charter for the National Life Insurance Company, became its chief medical officer.⁵ Of his sons, Charles Dewey (1826–1905) served as president of the same company between 1877 and 1901.⁶ Another son, the Admiral George Dewey (1837–1917), surpassed both of them in national fame when he became an American naval hero during the Spanish-American War. In May 1898, his squadron decimated the Spanish flotilla near the Philippines without the loss of a single American life.⁷ Hiram Atkins (1831–1892), a prominent Vermont Democrat, was the editor and publisher of the Argus and Patriot, a Montpelier weekly.⁸ Truman C. Phinney (1827–1901) served 25 years as the sergeant-at-arms for the Vermont State Legislature.⁹ Fred E. Smith (1836–1907), who later figured prominently in the narrative of Christ Church and its organs, was the president of the Vermont Life Insurance Company.¹⁰ And J. W. Ellis was an illustrious Montpelier banker. Christ Church was the society church in central Vermont.

In addition to its influential parishioners, Christ Church was also known for its fashionable music. The parish has owned six different pipe organs during its 178-year history, more than any other congregation in the state. The first was a small instrument probably made by organbuilder William Nutting, Jr. (1815–1869), who had a shop in nearby Randolph. In 1854, it gave way to a larger, two-manual organ built by Stevens & Jewett of Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 1902, accepting the recommendation of a former organist, Samuel B. Whitney (1842–1914), the parish bought a two-manual Hutchings-Votey organ. In a freakish twist of fate, that instrument was lost in a fire less than a year later, so the Vestry turned again to the firm for a replacement. In November 1927, their second Hutchings-Votey organ was wrecked in the Great Vermont Flood, so the following year, the parish ordered a new instrument built by the Estey Organ Company in Brattleboro. The Estey remained until 1972, when the current elegant instrument—the “Abiel M. Smith Organ”—was built for the parish by Karl Wilhelm of St.-Hyacinthe, Québec, Canada. Christ Church has the bizarre “distinction” of losing two of its pipe organs to natural disasters!

Christ Church has also had its share of fine organists. The prominent Mr. Whitney served between 1862 and 1866,¹¹ followed by George W. Wilder (1825–1901), the proprietor of a Montpelier music store.¹² Horace H. Scribner (1849–1895) was the parish’s organist for twenty-five years and is memorialized by a stained-glass window in the church.¹³ Cecil George Egg, a native of Ontario, Canada, served Christ Church from 1908 to 1916. He was an 1899 graduate of Dominion College in Montréal and had played between 1900 and 1908 at Trinity Church in Shelburne, Vermont.¹⁴ Abiel M. Smith (1897–1967), who became organist in 1941, served twenty-five years and was held in high esteem;¹⁵ the 1972 Wilhelm was posthumously named in his honor. Jack Russell followed Smith; he was the consultant for the Wilhelm organ and played the dedicatory recital on June 4, 1972.¹⁶ Dr. Brian P. Webb (1948–2014), a native of New Zealand, was the organist until his tragic death on August 23, 2014, in a boating accident on Lake Champlain.¹⁷ He was a distinguished graduate of both the University of Auckland and Indiana University, the music director and conductor of the Vermont Philharmonic, and served as associate dean, Master of Arts, at Union Institute and University in Montpelier. Carl Schwartz served seasonally as associate organist between 1998 and 2015, and twice as interim organist/choirmaster, first in 2013 and then between December 2014 and June 2015. Since the summer of 2015, the parish has been ably served by Lynnette Combs, a distinguished graduate of Swarthmore College and one of Vermont’s better-known organists.¹⁸

 

The origins of Christ Church

The organizational framework for the parish was laid when the Rt. Rev. John Henry Hopkins (1792–1868), the first bishop of the Diocese of Vermont, visited the capital in 1839 and officiated at confirmation. Almost a year later, he reported the event to the diocesan convention:

On Tuesday, the 15th of October [1839], I visited Montpelier, at the request of some friends of the Church. . . . The desire was expressed by many that a parish might be organized in this important place, but no immediate action was resolved upon.¹⁹

Montpelier residents were said to be rowdy, unchurched, and uncatechised. Cryptically, one mid-nineteenth-century author opined that “Puritanism was then rampant here, and it is said very many were so ignorant of the fasts and festivals of the church as to suppose Christmas a day appointed by the Governor!”²⁰

The bishop reported again in September 1842:

 

I commenced my visitation on Friday, January 7th, of the present year [1842], at Montpelier; where I preached, morning and afternoon, at the Methodist Chapel, which was kindly offered for that purpose, on the following Sunday, being the first
after the Epiphany. There was considerable conversation held with our friends upon the building of a Church, but nothing concluded. My second visit was on Friday, the 15th July, on which occasion I was rejoiced to find a subscription actually begun, and now a handsome and appropriate edifice is so far advanced that it is expected to be ready for consecration by November.²¹

 

Christ Church had been organized in 1840 by Deacon George B. Manzer (1803–1862), then a candidate for Holy Orders who, after his ordination, became the founding rector of the parish. Manzer was a New Haven, Connecticut, native, who graduated from Dartmouth, Class of 1825, Middlebury College, and later received his Doctor of Divinity degree from Norwich University in 1853. After leaving Montpelier in 1849, he became the rector of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Bennington, Vermont,²² where he served until his death.²³

The Christ Church Vestry was elected on Easter Monday, 1841, and the first representatives of the parish attended the diocesan convention in September 1842.²⁴ A modest frame building with a small bell tower in front was begun in the fall of 1842. When it was finished, the consecration ceremony was announced in the local newspaper:

 

The Episcopal Church, erected in this village the past season, will, by favor of Divine Providence, be consecrated to the public worship of God, on Thursday the 19th inst. Services to commence at half past ten o’clock, forenoon.

Montpelier, 14th Dec. 1842.²⁵

 

Recalling the event, the bishop wrote:

 

On Thursday, December 29th, 1842, I was called to perform the most acceptable duty of consecrating, to the service of Almighty God, the building in which we are now assembled, the Rev. Messrs. Clap, Hicks, Sabine, John T. Sabine, Hoit, Sprague, Bostwick, and Manser, assisting.²⁶

 

Little is actually known of the architecture, cost, furnishings, interior arrangements, or seating capacity of the building, but a circa 1865 stereograph of the exterior shows a modest, clapboard structure.

 

An organ by an unknown maker, before 1850

To date, only one reference has surfaced to the first organ in Christ Church. The 1850 parochial report to the diocesan convention reads:

 

Among other measures of improvement in externals, may be mentioned the renovation of the organ, the purchase of a fine-toned Bell from the excellent establishment of A. Meneely, Troy, N. Y., who kindly contributed $12.00 to the sum elsewhere specified.²⁷

Use of the word “renovated” suggests that the organ had been in service awhile, perhaps since the consecration of the building, but it was surely a small organ. The geographical proximity of Montpelier to Randolph supposes that it was possibly the work of William Nutting, Jr., but there is no evidence to confirm or deny that presumption. Nor is it known what happened to the organ when it was replaced.

 

An organ by Stevens & Jewett, 1854

Much more is known about the second organ at Christ Church. It was built in Cambridge, Massachusetts, by Stevens & Jewett, a partnership of William Stevens (1808–1896) and James Jewett (1810–1890). William was the younger brother of George Stevens (1803–1894), and Jewett was a carpenter turned organ builder. The partnership lasted only a few years during the 1850s, although Jewett returned to work for William Stevens during the 1860s, after the firm had moved to Boston. In December 1862, Stevens & Jewett built another large organ for a Vermont congregation—First Congregational Church in St. Albans.²⁸

The instrument was completed in December 1854, and a notice in the Patriot provided some details:

 

New Church Organ.

We take especial pleasure in being able to state that the new Church Organ, contracted for some two months since by the Episcopal Society in this village, has been completed, and now stands in its place in the Church, ready for use. It is, to both eye and ear, a beautiful and perfect instrument. In the variety of its stops, and the number of its pipes, it is perhaps seldom equaled, except in the cities. It is built with extended Keyboard and has two banks of Keys, twenty-eight registers and about one thousand pipes. Its compass is from c c to G in alt., exclusive of a pedal bass which runs down to c c c—a sixteen feet pipe.

A few individuals were invited to the Church, last Wednesday evening [i.e., December 20], to hear it played. The exhibition was eminently satisfactory. All were delighted who heard it. We have never heard better or purer tones from any organ. It was manufactured at the Establishment of Messrs. Stevens & Jewett, Boston [sic, Cambridge], and cost about $2000. It reflects great credit to the builders, as well as on the enterprise of the Society and individuals by whose very liberal subscriptions it has been purchased. Long may they live to enjoy it.²⁹

 

A similar notice appeared in the Montpelier Watchman.³⁰ Indeed, a manual compass of 56 notes, CC to g³ was “extended” when compared to CC to f³, 54 notes, then the current standard. Bishop Hopkins noticed the organ when he reported to the 1855 diocesan convention: “Here I was gratified to find a splendid new organ, the most costly in the Diocese. . . .”³¹ For its time and place, the Stevens & Jewett organ must have been a remarkable acquisition.

In 1868, following the completion of the new building, the organ was installed in a right-hand chamber beside the chancel and presumably lost its original case. An 1885 notice of the instrument remarked:

 

The organs of Bethany [Congregational, Wm. A. Johnson, Op. 264 (1868), 3m] and Christ churches have been tuned during the past week by Mr. [Henry J.] Poole of Boston, assisted by Mr. [Wm. A.] Briggs. . . .
Mr. Poole expressed much satisfaction with the working of the Perry & Canning [water] motor at Christ church.³²

 

The removal of the Stevens & Jewett occurred in February 1902, just before the congregation acquired a new organ from Hutchings-Votey: “The new organ for Christ Church has arrived from Boston and the old organ will be placed in the boxes in which the new organ came, so that it can be readily shipped wherever a sale is made.”³³ What happened to it next is undocumented, but Edgar A. Boadway (1936–2016), Vermont’s foremost organ historian, asserted that it was moved second-hand to Montpelier’s First Baptist Church. It remained there until replaced by another second-hand organ about 1920.³⁴

 

The new church, 1868

In March 1866, the wooden edifice of Christ Church was in such dilapidated condition that the Vestry proceeded with plans to erect a new building. Nine days later, land was acquired on the south side of State Street near the Vermont State House, and a subscription list was opened to raise funds for the project.³⁵ The Vestry appointed a committee, and by May 4, 1866, the design for a new building was in hand: “The plan for the new Episcopal Church by J. J. Randall, of Rutland, is a very neat one, in the Gothic style. We learn that the intention is to build of granite.”³⁶ By November, the foundation had been laid, and the cornerstone ceremony was reported in the local newspaper:

 

The cornerstone of Christ Church will be laid with appropriate ceremonies, according to the ritual of the church, at eleven A.M. of Thursday the 8th inst., Providence permitting. If the day prove stormy the ceremony will be delayed until the same hour on Friday. There will be Divine service in the old church, on Thursday evening, at half-past seven o’clock.³⁷

In September 1867 the interior was nearing completion. The tower was finished during the summer of 1868, and the pews were sold in May 1868.³⁸

Abby Maria Hemenway (1828–1890), Vermont’s audacious lady historian, described the interior:

 

The ground plan includes nave and aisles, chancel, organ chamber and sacristy, the tower being engaged in the northern end of the east aisle. Exterior, 108 by 55 feet; tower and spire, 100 feet; interior—nave, 22 feet wide, separated by two colonnades from two aisles, each 11 feet wide; chancel, 17 feet wide by 23 deep; whole exterior, except roof and clerestory, 

light-colored Barre and Berlin granite; aisle walls without buttresses; clerestory, timber slated outside. The north front is the most imposing part of the exterior. . . .³⁹

 

Hemenway also mentioned the placement for the organ: “The organ chamber, on the west, opens by a narrow arch in the church, and by a broader one into the nave; the organ is a powerful instrument.”⁴⁰

A newspaper mentioned the music at the consecration, which occurred on June 2, 1868:

 

The singing on the occasion, under the direction of Mr. A. J. Phillips, the excellent tenor, whose effort was handsomely sustained by the fine soprano of Mrs. C. J. Gleason, the alto of Miss Laura T. Field, and the bass of Mr. L. T. Gleason, and the organ-playing by Mr. George W. Wilder, were remarkably good, and added much interest and solemnity to the occasion.⁴¹

By the late 1890s, there was increasing dissatisfaction with the Stevens & Jewett organ. A report in the archives of Christ Church dated November 30, 1898, outlined some of the issues. The unsigned document was typed on stationery from the Vermont Mutual Fire Insurance Company, and was surely written by Fred E. Smith, the same Mr. Smith noticed by our 1873 visitor to Christ Church at the start of this essay. He wrote:

 

On account of the continued trouble with the mechanical attachments to our organ, the repeated breakings of the trackage [sic, trackers], and failure of the valves and slides, we must recognize that some important change must be made at no distant day or we shall be obliged to give up our organ entirely and face the question of procuring a new one. From the best advices [sic] I can obtain I am satisfied that we cannot install a new organ of proper size and quality for a cost less than $2500, to $3,000.00. From equally good sources of information I am led to believe that by the expenditure of from $500, to $800, our own organ can be put in just as good condition for practical service with a prospect of finer tone than we could get from a new one. . . .⁴²

 

Smith then asserted that the old pipework could be placed on new wind chests with tubular-pneumatic playing action.

An unsolicited letter from organbuilder Geo. S. Hutchings (1835–1913) arrived a few months later:

 

Boston, Apr. 28, 1899

Mr. Frederick E. Smith

Montpelier, Vt.

 

Dear Sir:—

Mr. Almar Green, who is familiar with my work, has suggested that I address you regarding an organ for your church to cost between $3,500 and $4,000. I have therefore taken the liberty of handing you under separate wrapper my catalog, together with other printed matter which may interest you.

Before I can make a definite proposition I need to know what space in height, width and depth can be given to the organ, because the cost of building depends materially upon this. I would also like to know about when the organ would be needed. If you will inform me on these points, I shall take pleasure in making a definite proposal for your consideration.

I desire very much to build the organ for you and shall await your reply with interest.

Trusting you will command me freely for any information in my line.

Yours truly, Geo. S. Hutchings⁴³

Enclosed was a proposal for a small, mechanical-action organ of twelve registers distributed over two manuals and pedals.

On February 1, 1899, organbuilder Emmons Howard (1845–1931) visited Montpelier to inspect the organ. Again, it was Smith who issued the report, stating:

 

. . . after examining the Church and organ with Mr. Hutchinson [not Geo. Hutchings] and myself, he quite positively gave his opinion that we would not be warranted in going to such expense on our organ as we had contemplated. He found the value of the organ much less than we had supposed, and was quite positive that it would cost $1500, to $2000, to make the changes we had talked about, with the new additions which would be necessary—such as tubular pneumatic action, new bellows, air-chest, etc.—saying that our organ would still be an old one and imperfect in many features. . . .⁴⁴

 

With the prospect of repairing the organ increasingly unfeasible, an organ committee was formed in September 1901 for “the purchase of a new organ.”⁴⁵ Within a week, financial canvassers were at work,⁴⁶ and a “final” reference to the Stevens & Jewett appeared in the local newspaper during February 1902, when: “The organ builders are at work in Christ Church, taking down the old organ. . . .” ⁴⁷

 

Hutchings-Votey Organ Co., Opus 1538, 1902

In November 1901, former organist Samuel B. Whitney was consulted. Writing to Smith on October 29, 1901, Joseph A. De Boer, another committee member communicated the substance of a meeting he had had with Whitney in Boston. Whitney recommended Hutchings-Votey. Two letters from John H. Waterhouse, the treasurer at Hutchings, to Smith indicated that acquiring an organ was underway:

 

Boston, Nov. 7, 1901

Col. Fred E. Smith

Montpelier, Vt.

Dear Sir:—

 

We received your letter of Oct. 31st and have been considering what we should be able to do. After Mr. De Boer left the other day, Mr. Whitney seemed very anxious to have us put in 49 notes of the Vox Celestis. When upon receipt of your letter we went over our figures very carefully, but do not feel that we can really afford to make any difference in the price. We will, however, deduct $100 to assist you in the purchase of this organ. Will say, however, that this is very largely because we know that Mr. Whitney is very desirous that you should purchase one of our organs, and as his good opinion is valuable to us, we are ready to do the very best we can in a case in which he is especially interested. In looking over the scheme we do not feel that there is any stop which could be very well left out. The scheme is well balanced, and would make a very fine instrument.

We think the plan you sent us showing the key-desk and openings in the arches as you propose is very good, and that in this way the sound would come out into the church very well.

It would seem too bad in purchasing an organ which will last for several generations, to allow a few hundred dollars to stand in the way of a desirable instrument. Regarding the cost of our organ, we believe without question that it would be cheaper for you in the long run to purchase one of our make than it would to buy a cheaper grade, outside of the advantage you would have in the way of tone and voicing. We desire very much to build the organ, and trust you will see your way clear to meet us in this matter. I suppose we shall have to know before very long in order to begin this with the other instrument which we mentioned. We should be willing to allow the difference between the $3,900 and the sum which you have to stand for six months or a year without interest if it will help you out.

Yours truly, Hutchings-Votey Organ Co.⁴⁸

 

•

 

Boston, Nov. 8, 1901

Col. Fred E. Smith

Montpelier, Vt.

Dear Sir:—

 

Regarding the position of the console, we could place the console in practically any position you may wish, and this would have no bearing on the building of the rest of the organ; so that if we should start to build the organ we would not necessarily have to know the position of the console for a couple of weeks. Mr. Whitney suggests that it be placed where we have drawn it in pencil, his reason being that from this position the organist could see the altar, which is quite necessary, and it would be possible to get into the space where the quartet would sing on the other side or on the front, we presume. This would make the quartet, if you had one, at the side of and back of the organist, but as they would be very close, it would not be very hard and perhaps considering all things, this position would be the most advantageous.

Yours truly, Hutchings-Votey Organ Co.⁴⁹

 

The contract for the organ has not survived, but it was apparently signed around November 10, 1901, for on November 29, Waterhouse wrote Smith asking, “Have you decided the matter of decorating the front pipes for the organ?”⁵⁰ 

The completed organ was shipped on March 1, 1902, and a notice in the Argus related:

 

S. B. Whitney, formerly organist of Christ church in this city, but now occupying a similar position with the Church of the Advent in Boston, has had the oversight of the new organ which has been built for Christ Church, that instrument having been finished. Mr. Whitney says of it that he is sure that it will delight everyone who hears it. It is now being taken down to be shipped, having been tested twice by Mr. Whitney. . . .”⁵¹

 

The installation took the better part of a month, and on March 24 the Evening Argus stated: “The new organ has been installed in Christ Church and will be ready for the rehearsal Thursday and Friday and for Easter Sunday.”⁵²

The organ was described in detail on the front page of the Argus on March 26:

 

The new organ for Christ church is fast reaching a state of completion and will be ready to peal forth its inspiring sounds to the worshippers Easter morning.

Everything is in readiness now with the exception of three sets of pipes which will be in position at the close of this week.

The new organ is one of the best in the State and combines all of the latest improvements of stops, copulas [sic], pistons and action, making it as easy of action, even with the great [and] swells on, as a piano.

Charles Bowen, of Boston, has had charge of setting up the instrument. It is so adjusted that the very lightest touch will produce strains of harmony.

A little over four weeks ago Mr. Bowen, who is assisted by W. H. Colbath, commenced installing the organ, which was made especially for Christ Church by the Hutchings-Votey Organ company, of Boston. The old one had to be taken out and this was also done by them. The work has been done in a very short time, considering the amount of it.

The organ occupies the same position as the old one, at the right of the chancel, but the key desk has been moved so that it sets at the left across the chancel. The lower part of the organ is of antique oak, with a dark finish, and above this is a row of speaking pipes, gilded.

The key desk is a model of convenience and is equipped with all the modern improvements. The stops are set in such a way as to face the player and be of the easiest possible access.

The organ has 1,098 pipes. Lead tubing runs underneath the floor from the key desk to these pipes and nearly a mile and a half of it was used for this purpose. Through these tubes the air passes and the quickness of the response to the touch of the player is remarkable. The desk has two manuals of 61 notes each. The combination pistons are placed under each manual, four of them operating the swell stops and three the great stops.

An indicator is placed a little to the right of the center of the front of the desk, which shows which piston is being used. At the right of the desk is the pedal and great stops, while at the left are the swell stops. All told there are 18 speaking stops. Seven cupolas [sic] are placed just over the upper manual in the center of the desk.

A full set of pedals, 30 in all, occupy their place, and in connection with these there are two pedals, a crescendo, which brings on the stops one at a time and closes them in a similar manner: also the balanced swell pedal, operating two sets of shades. To the left of these pedals there are three smaller ones, the reversible great to pedal, full organ and Tremulant.

The whole action is tubular pneumatic, compressed air being produced by a hydraulic water motor. This motor was adjusted by Allen D. Moore and is controlled by a wire running from the bellows to the shut off. The water motor can be controlled by the organist, as there is a valve at the left of the organ desk.

All who have seen and heard the organ say it is one of the finest that they have ever listened to.

Mr. Whitney, of Boston, will give a recital. . . .⁵³

 

The organ was a cause of jubilation when it was first heard on Easter Day 1902: “Prof. A. J. Phillips with Miss Laura A. Rugg as organist, and Christ church vested choir of about forty mixed voices outdid, if possible, previous efforts in preparing an Easter musical program. His efforts were augmented to a large extent by the magnificent new pipe organ which was recently placed in the church. . . .”⁵⁴ On April 2, the two installers, Bowen and Colbath, returned to Boston.⁵⁵

Whitney opened the organ on May 20, and the program was billed as “the finest musical feature of the season.”⁵⁶ The program opened with Miss Rugg at the console, followed by the church choir processing to “The Day Is Gently Sinking to a Close.” Whitney played selections of Guilmant, Handel, Lemaigre, Rinck, and Wagner, but it was Master John B. Findlay, a solo boy treble from the choir of the Church of the Advent in Boston, who stole the show with his rendition of “With Verdure Clad” from Haydn’s Creation. A newspaper reported that “The recital and concert was a thorough success musically. . . .”⁵⁷
The project had taken years of planning, and everyone at Christ Church was delighted by the outcome.

 

The 1903 Fire

Taken in context, imagine the congregation’s distress when only seven months later the chancel end of the church was gutted by fire. The headline in the Daily Journal said it all: “FIRE! Discovered 3:30. This afternoon in Christ Church. Organ Will Be Ruined.” An unnamed author in the Inter-State Journal put the disaster into larger perspective:

 

For a season when coal was unobtainable at any price and wood had to be used in coal furnaces, as during the past winter, it is not surprising that many destructive fires have occurred and that many incipient blazes were discovered just in time to save the property. Among the cheifest [sic] conflagrations in central Vermont was that of the partial destruction of Christ’s (Episcopal) Church, at Montpelier, on Jan. 24.⁵⁸

 

Although the interior and roof were badly damaged, the building was not destroyed. The organ, however, was a total loss.⁵⁹

Months passed before the congregation could rebuild, and then a number of construction problems caused further delays. An August 1903 announcement in the Argus and Patriot noted that the stained-glass was late, the black walnut wainscoting around the altar was being installed, and painters had finally completed their work on the interior.⁶⁰

 

Hutchings-Votey Organ Company, 1904

A second contract with the Hutchings-Votey Organ Co. was signed on June 29, 1903, for a replica of the previous instrument, but the organ did not arrive until January 1904. An announcement in the Daily Journal remarked:

 

The work of installing the new organ at Christ church is progressing rapidly, but is not sufficiently advanced to permit the holding of services in the church next Sunday.⁶¹

 

Two weeks later, this notice appeared:

 

Will Be Opened Sunday.

Mr. Mendal of Boston is at work today tuning the new organ in Christ church, which has been in the process of installation for several days. Services have been held in the church for a few weeks only since the burning of the church a year ago this month. They had to be suspended on account of work of putting in the new organ. The organ is one of the finest Hutchings & Votey makes and the melodious sound of the instrument will be a welcome part of the services, long dispensed with. It is planned now to have the church in readiness for services on Sunday if nothing unforeseen obstructs the plans of those in charge of the work. The rehearsal for the Sunday music will be held in the church on Saturday evening instead of Friday.⁶²

A final report stated:

 

A very large congregation attended the morning service at Christ church Sunday at which time the instrumental music was furnished by the organ, for the first time since the fire last January.

The instrument had been placed in position and although there is still three or four days’ work to be done upon it, it was possible to use it at the services, and the result was wholly satisfactory. The musical part of the service was especially fine and those who participated were highly commended. . . .⁶³

 

The tubular-pneumatic action organ cost $4,000.⁶⁴ It remained in the church until it was water-damaged on November 3, 1927.

 

The 1927 Flood

Following a particularly wet autumn, there were torrential rains in the days leading up to November 2–4, 1927. Montpelier is located at the confluence of the North Branch and the Winooski River, and late on November 1, 1927, the rivers began to rise. By November 3, the water on State Street in downtown Montpelier was 12 feet high, up to the top of the first story on most of the buildings. For church buildings at ground level, the flooding caused considerable damage, including the loss of two church organs: the 1868 Wm. A. Johnson at Bethany Congregational Church and the 1904 Hutchings-Votey at Christ Church. The 1927 Flood is universally considered the worst natural disaster in Vermont’s modern history. It resulted in 84 deaths, crippled communications and transportation networks throughout the state, and the property losses were reported to be some $21,000,000,⁶⁵ a staggering amount for the time. Montpelier was particularly hard hit.

 

Estey Organ Company, Opus 2730, 1928

After the waters receded, it was obvious that Christ Church needed a new organ. The Vestry looked south to Brattleboro and ordered an instrument from the Estey Organ Company. Estey reused the case front of the old organ so the new instrument did not look any different, but the mechanism was entirely new. The Estey organ was actually smaller than the 1904 Hutchings-Votey had been, with 4 ranks on the Great, 7 in the Swell, and 2 in the Pedal. The shop order specified a luminous console (which soon malfunctioned and was replaced!), and many of the ranks were extended to either 73 or 85 pipes to speak at multiple pitches. The finished organ was due for delivery on June 15, 1928, but it was not completed until early in the following year.

A February 9, 1929, notice in the Evening Argus related: “The new organ at Christ church will be dedicated Sunday evening at 8 p.m. by Ruth Bampton, member of the American Guild of Organists and instructor at [the] Montpelier Seminary.”⁶⁶ She was a sister of the famed Metropolitan Opera soprano, Rose Bampton. Two days later, another report stated:

 

The new organ is a 21-stop Estey organ, modern in every way, of a fine quality of tone well adapted for the Christ church, and Miss Bampton, who commenced playing the organ as soon as it was set up by representatives of the Estey company, handles it easily, for she is much at home with pipe organs, being not only an organist but composer as well. By some it was said that last evening the recital was the equal of any given in Montpelier in a long time. Miss Bampton played the program that she announced in Saturday’s edition, which included a variety that brought the best tones out of the organ, showed its soft sweet low tones as well as the volume that can be produced.⁶⁷

 

The program included works by Bach,  Borowski, Chadwick, Karg-Elert, Tchaikovsky, and Widor, and was well received.⁶⁸  

By the 1960s, the Estey was showing signs of age. Cracks and splits had developed in the windchests, and after studying the situation, a parish committee recommended buying a new organ.⁶⁹ The Estey remained until it was replaced in April 1972.

 

Karl Wilhelm, Opus 27, 1972

The desire for a new organ actually came earlier than April 1969, when it was announced to the annual diocesan convention that Christ Church was embarking on a capital improvement program involving an expenditure of some $50,000. The parish had just celebrated the centennial of the building, and work on the narthex was necessary. The project was expanded to include painting, reorganization of the choir space, a new organ, and the building of a chapel where the former Estey organ had stood. The new organ was dedicated in memory of Abiel M. Smith, who for twenty-five years had been the organist of Christ Church.⁷⁰ The project was the visionary effort of Jack Russell, then the organist, and the rector, the Rev. David Brown.

The contract went to Karl Wilhelm of St.-Hyacinthe, Québec, Canada. Following an energetic discussion regarding the placement of the organ in the building, the two-manual, mechanical-action instrument was installed in the spring of 1972. Christophe Linde designed the instrument, and Jacques L’Italien did the tonal finishing. Boadway described the installation in the Boston Organ Club Newsletter:

 

The new organ stands free in the right side aisle, the front of the case facing the opposite side wall of the nave, and the choir is thus seated with the congregation. The tall and shallow case of white oak displays five flats of Prinzipal pipes, the tall central group being a tower above the Brustwerk doors. The pipe shades and doors are carved, and the appearance of the case is indeed very handsome. . . . The attached key desk has manuals with black naturals and ivory-capped sharps; the Pedal sharps are capped with rosewood; the plain, large, flat drawknobs are arranged in double columns at each side with, unfortunately, machine-engraved labels that are not of ivory; the hitch-down brass coupler pedals are labeled as indicated in the stoplist above; there is no combination action; the stop and key action is mechanical but the Tremolo is electric; the very silent blower is within the case; the bass 12 pipes of the Subbass are exposed at the rear of the case with the access doors above; the lowest 12 pipes of the 8′ Rohrflöte are of stopped wood; and the Fagott is of half-length cylindrical spotted metal pipes.⁷¹

 

The noted Canadian organist Bernard Lagacé played a program for the Vermont Chapter of the American Guild of Organists on May 7, 1972, including works of Alain, Bach, Buxtehude, Reger, and Sweelinck.⁷² The organ was described in The Diapason⁷³ and remains in the church today. A. David Moore is the current caretaker of the instrument.

Despite the loss of two instruments to natural disasters, Christ Church remains at the forefront of Montpelier’s musical, religious, and social culture today. The choir, led by Lynnette Combs, is one of the finer church choirs in central Vermont. The parish’s six pipe organs have mirrored the progression of style and taste in American organ design, and the church’s fine musical program has been a beacon of culture in central Vermont for 178 years. ν

 

Sidebar I: Stoplists

 

Stevens & Jewett, 1854

Great, CC–g3, 56 notes

16′ Tenoroon, TC, 44 pipes

  8′ Open Diapason, 56 pipes

8′ Dulciana, 56 pipes

  8′ Keraulophon, TG, 37 pipes

  8′ Melodia Treble, TG, 37 pipes

  8′ St. Diapason Bass, 19 pipes

  4′ Principal, 56 pipes

  4′ Flute, TC, 44 pipes

  22⁄3′ Twelfth, 56 pipes

  2′ Fifteenth, 56 pipes

  8′ Trumpet, TC, 44 pipes

Swell, CC–g3, 56 notes,
enclosed

16′ Bourdon Treble, TC, 44 pipes

16′ Bourdon Bass, 12 pipes

  8′ Open Diapason, TC, 44 pipes

  8′ Viol de Gamba, TC, 44 pipes

  8′ St. Diap. Treble, TC, 44 pipes

  8′ St. Diap. Bass, 12 pipes

  4′ Principal Treble, TC, 44 pipes

  4′ Principal Bass, 12 pipes

  2′ Fifteenth, TC, 44 pipes

  II Cornet, TC, 88 pipes, 12th and 17th

  8′ Hautboy, TC, 44 pipes

Pedal, CCC–FF, 18 notes

16′ Sub Bass, 18 pipes, an Open Diapason

 

Couplers and Mechanicals

Swell to Great

Pedal to Great

Pedal to Swell

Pedal Check (see notes below)

Tremolo

No combination pedals

 

The Pedals are coupled to the Swell when the Pedal Check is drawn (no ‘Pedal to Swell’ stop), except when Pedal to Great is drawn out. Pedals cannot be coupled to both manuals at the same time, nor can they be uncoupled from both of them.

 

Source: Reconstructed from notes made in 1898–1901 by Almar Green, when the organ was to be rebuilt, sold, or replaced; and “A correspondent from Montpelier is loud in his praises. . . .,” (Boston) Daily Evening Traveller [sic] 10, no. 257 (Feb. 2, 1855): 1.

•

Estey Organ Company, Opus 2730, 1928

Great Organ, CC–c4, 61 notes

8′ Open Diapason (Leathered Inside 

    Bass), 73 pipes

8′ Dulciana, 73 pipes

8′ Melodia, 73 pipes

4′ Flute Harmonic, 73 pipes

Swell Organ, CC–c4, 61 notes

16′ Bourdon, 97 pipes

8′ Stopped Diapason, 73 notes

4′ Flute d’Amour, 73 notes

2′ Flautino, 61 notes

22⁄3′ Nasard, 61 notes

13⁄5′ Tierce, 61 notes

8′ Open Diapason, 73 pipes

8′ Salicional, 73 pipes

8′ Aeoline, 73 pipes

8′ Vox Celeste, TC, 61 pipes

4′ Violina (use top board wide enough 

    for Cornopean), 73 pipes

8′ Oboe, 73 pipes

Pedal Organ, CCC–G, 32 notes

16′ Open Diapason, 44 pipes

8′ Octave (Fm. Ped. Open), 32 notes

16′ Bourdon, 44 pipes

8′ Flute (Fm. Ped. Bdn.), 32 notes

16′ Lieb. Ged. (Fm. Sw. Bdn.), 32 notes

 

Tremolo

 

Couplers

Gt. to Gt. 4

Sw. to Gt. 16–8–4

Sw. to Sw. 16–4

Sw. to Ped. 8–4

Gt to Ped.

Gt. Uni. Sep.

Sw. Uni Sep.

 

Source: Estey Shop Order

•

Karl Wilhelm, Opus 27, 1972

Hauptwerk, CC–g3, 56 notes

8′ Prinzipal, 56 pipes

8′ Rohrfloete, 56 pipes

4′ Octav, 56 pipes

4′ Koppelfloete, 56 pipes

22⁄3′ Nazard, 56 pipes

2′ Waldfloete, 56 pipes

11⁄3′ Mixture IV, 224 pipes

8′ Trompete, 56 pipes

Brustwerk, CC–g3, 56 notes

8′ Holzgedackt, 56 pipes

4′ Rohrfloete, 56 pipes

2′ Prinzipal, 56 pipes

11⁄3′ Quinte, 56 pipes

Sesquialtera II, 78 pipes

2⁄3′ Zimbel II–III, 150 pipes

8′ Regal, 56 pipes

Tremulant

Pedal, CCC–F, 30 notes

16′ Subbass, 30 pipes

8′ Offenfloete, 30 pipes

4′ Choral Bass, 30 pipes

16′ Fagott, 30 pipes

 

Couplers

HW/PED

BW/PED

BW/HW

 

Mechanical key and stop action

 

Source: Dedication program

 

Sidebar II: Mr. Whitney’s Recommendations

October 29, 1901

Hon. F. E. Smith

Chairman, Organ Committee

Christ Church,

Montpelier, Vt.

Dear Mr. Smith:— 

Conformably to your wishes, I met Mr. Whitney, the former organist at Christ Church, on the 24th. inst. in Boston. He was extremely kind and courteous and exhibited the greatest possible interest in our affairs of a new church organ, having evidently given the subject, as the result of your correspondence with him, close and critical attention. All told, we spent two and one-quarter hours together, at my rooms in review of the various specifications, at his church in concrete illustration of the organ there, and at the shops of Hutchings & Votey, where I met the elder Mr. Hutchings and also your correspondent, Mr. Waterhouse, as I recall the name.

Mr. Whitney’s advices, summarized, may be expressed as follows:

(1) He is a strong advocate of Hutchings & Votey of Boston as the proper manufacturers of the proposed organ upon the grounds that their work is absolutely of the highest grade, sure of giving the church the best possible quality and finish, and is beyond all doubt of chicanery or misdirection.

(2) He believes that a good two manual organ is the thing to buy and declares that such an instrument, particularly with all the special connections set forth in the Hutchings & Votey specifications, will afford a wide range of both volume and harmony and prove eminently satisfactory in our church.

(3) He strongly advises the use of what he calls the tubular pneumatic action, particularly this action as supplied by the aforenamed firm, claiming that it does not get out of order, that it is strong in character and that it vastly contributes to the ease of playing, apart from the consideration that it enables you to locate the keyboard anywhere you wish.

(4) He emphasizes particularly the positive value and high importance of “putting the organ out”, meaning by its removal out of the present box and placing the pipes clear out, flaring with the music stand of the choir loft, that is, directly filling the arch facing the church. He also urges the making of an arch above the wainscoting in the chancel, the same to be filled with pipes, in order that volume and quality of tone may be conserved. The organist “should sit in the chancel” he claims, able to see and direct, if necessary, the choristers and in a position which will enable him to hear the organ and the singers. This is his advice upon this point, although in conversation he was ready to admit that want of space might force us to modify his wish in this respect, but on the whole he thought that we could so arrange it and, if we could, it certainly ought to be done.

(5) He was of the impression that we could satisfactorily arrange for the organist in the chancel, especially if there was a possibility of using a small choir for the purposes of the church. He thought in respect to this point that the object should be to get and hold a small, effective choir, effectiveness being the great point rather than numbers, and to keep reserves in hand out of which to supplement and recruit the regulars. I did not discuss this particularly but make it a part of this report as his suggestion in connection with our discussion of space limitations.

Permit me further to state the following items as bearing on the subject. Mr. Whitney had had this talk with Hutchings & Votey on the supposition that the church had $4,000 to spend for the purpose of an organ. That firm made its specifications to you in view of its now having a second organ to build, thus making a saving on both. They stated that possibly something might be saved on pipes and particularly on the case, a suggestion growing out of my statement that we had command of only $3500.00, but if there is to be a saving on the pipes and case it will depend upon where the organ is placed.

The matter was therefore left in this way: Mr. Whitney was to write you in substance all that he had said to me and return your papers. We are to send Hutchings & Votey full, exact and detailed measurements of all spaces affected, in order to enable them to refigure the price and to make any suggestions which their experiences may determine. I would suggest that this matter of making measurements be placed in charge of Mr. Phillips of the committee and that all measures be independently checked before being forwarded to Boston.

It is right to add that Mr. Whitney showed intense interest in this matter, often referring to his early work here and to old memories, and repeatedly expressed his wish to have Christ Church possess an organ of unquestioned merit, “and when it is installed”, said he, “I will come up and give an organ recital, bringing one of my best boy soloists”, adding with a smile, “without cost to you except for transportation of the boy”.

Trusting that all this may be found satisfactory by the Committee, I remain,

Yours very truly, Joseph A. De Boer

 

Sidebar III: Hutchings-Votey Organ Co., Contract, 1903

Boston, Mass., June 29, 1903.

MEMORANDUM OF AGREEMENT made this day by and between Hutchings-Votey Organ Co., Organ Builders of Boston, Mass., party of the first part, and Christ
P. E. Church of Montpelier, Vt., party of the second part.

To wit:—

The party of the first part shall build an Organ according to the annexed specifications, of the best materials and in the most thorough manner, and set it up in the above church in good working order, ready for use, warranted perfect in every respect on or about October 1st, 1903, barring any detention from labor troubles.

The party of the second part shall prepare the place for the Organ, and allow suitable convenience and opportunity in the church for the work of setting up and tuning it; shall fully insure it in the name of the party of the first part as soon as it or its parts shall have been deposited in the Church; shall keep said insurance in force until title to the organ shall be transferred to the party of the second part; and in full consideration for the finishing and delivery of the Organ as above, shall pay to the party of the first part, the sum of three thousand, four hundred and seventy-one dollars and sixty cents ($3,471.60), payable as follows—at least $1771.60 to be paid on completion of the organ in the church and the balance in two installments of $850 each in six and twelve months without interest, in Boston or New York funds.

It is agreed that the title to the organ shall be vested in the party of the first part until all payments and obligations, cash and deferred, have been paid in full, whereupon the title shall be given to the party of the second part.

John H. Waterhouse, Tres.

Hutchings-Votey Organ Co.

Fred E. Smith, Jr. Warden

Christ Church, Montpelier

 

SPECIFICATION OF AN ORGAN

prepared by

Hutchings-Votey Organ Co., Organ Builders, of Boston, Mass.

for 

Christ P. E. Church, Montpelier, Vt.

 

Two manuals, Compass from C to c 4, 61 notes

Compass of Pedals from C to f1, 30 notes

 

–GREAT ORGAN–

1. 8 ft. Open Diapason metal 61 pipes

2. 8 ft. Dolcissimo " 61 "

3. 8 ft. Melodia " 61 "

4. 4 ft. Octave " 61 "

5. 2 ft. Super Octave " 61 "

6. 8 ft. Trumpet " 61 "

 

–SWELL ORGAN–

7. 16 ft. Bourdon Treble wood 61 pipes

8. 16 ft. Bourdon Bass

9. 8 ft. Open Diapason

wood and metal 61 "

10. 8 ft. Salicional " 61 "

11. 8 ft. Stopped Diapason wood 61 "

12. 8 ft. Vox Celestis metal 61 "

13. 4 ft. Flute Harmonique " 61 "

14. 4 ft. Violina " 61 "

15. 2 ft. Flautino " 61 "

16. II Rks. Dolce Cornet " 122 "

17. 8 ft. Oboe " 61 "

 

–PEDAL ORGAN–

18. 16 ft. Open Diapason wood 30 pipes

19. 16 ft. Bourdon " 30 "

 

–COUPLERS–

20. Swell to Great

21. Swell to Swell 4 ft.

22. Swell to Swell 16 ft.

23. Great to Swell

24. Great to Pedal

25. Great to Great 16 ft.

26. Swell to Pedal

 

–COMBINATIONS–

1) Operating on Great and Pedal

2)

3)

0)

 

1) Operating on Swell and Pedal

2)

3)

4)

0)

 

General Release

Pedal Release

 

–PEDALS–

1. Reversible Great and Pedal

2. Balanced Swell

3. Tremolo

4. Sforzando (Full Organ)

5. Balanced Crescendo

 

Tubular pneumatic action

Extended keydesk

 

The builders are to have the privilege of using such parts of the old organ as can be used without detriment to the new instrument.

 

Notes

1. “The Sabbath at the State Capital,” The Rutland (Vt.) Daily Globe 1, no. 92 (Aug. 16, 1873): 1.

2. Jacob G. Ullery, Men of Vermont: An Illustrated Biographical History of Vermonters and Sons of Vermont (Brattleboro, Vt.: Transcript Publishing Company, 1894), 160.

3. Universitas Viridis Montis; or, The University of Vermont. 

4. “Hon. Benjamin Franklin Fifield,” Genealogical and Family History of the State of Vermont: A Record of Achievements of Her People in the Making of a Commonwealth and the Founding of a Nation (New York and Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Company, 1903), 1–4; and “Hon. Benjamin F. Fifield,” The Vermonter 4, no. 7 (Feb. 1899): 112.

5. The Vermont Encyclopedia s.v. “Dewey, Julius Y.”

6. “In Memoriam—Charles Dewey,” (Oak Park, Ill.) Life Insurance Courant 11, no. 2 (Sept. 7, 1905): 47–48.

7. The Vermont Encyclopedia s.v. “Dewey, George.” 

8. Norwich University, 1819–1911, Her History, Her Graduates, Her Roll of Honor (Montpelier, Vt.: The Capital City Press, 1911), 1.

9. “Phinney, Truman C.,” Men of Vermont: An Illustrated Biographical History of Vermonters and Sons of Vermont (Brattleboro, Vt.: Transcript Publishing Company, 1894), 312–13.

10. “Col. Fred E. Smith Dead,” (Montpelier, Vt.) Argus and Patriot 57, no. 17 (Feb. 27, 1907): 3; hereafter AP.

11. The Bicentennial of the Pipe Organ in Vermont, 1814–2014. Richmond, Virginia: OHS Press [2013], 70–79. 

12. “Old Business Man Gone,” AP 51, no. 23 (Apr. 17, 1901): 3.

13. George A. McIntyre, The History of Christ Episcopal Church (Montpelier, Vermont: Christ Church, 1982), 35; hereafter McIntyre.

14. Encyclopedia [of] Vermont Biography: A Series of Authentic Biographical Sketches of the Representative Men of Vermont and Sons of Vermont in other States (Burlington, Vermont: Ullery Publishing Company, 1912), 180.

15. “Rites for Mr. Smith,” The (Montpelier) Times Argus 71, no. 75 (June 12, 1967): 2. 

16. “New Wilhelm Tracker to Montpelier, Vermont,” The Diapason 63, no. 11 (Oct. 1972): 10.

17. Amy Ash Nixon, “Body of Local Orchestra Conductor Found,” (Montpelier) Times-Argus (Aug. 28, 2014); and “Brian P. Webb, Obituary On-Line,” Guare & Sons, Barbar & Lanier, Funeral Service, 30 School St., Montpelier, Vt.

18. Organ Handbook (2013): 66.

19. John Henry Hopkins, “Address,” Journal of the Proceedings of the Fiftieth Annual Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the Diocese of Vermont; Being the Eighth Annual Convention Since the Full Organization of the Diocese; Held in St. James’ Church, Woodstock on the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Days of September (Burlington: Chauncey Goodrich, 1840), 5; hereafter Vermont Convention Proceedings. 

20. “Historical Sketch of Christ Church, Montpelier,” AP 18, no. 25 (June 11, 1868): 3.

21. Hopkins, “Address,” Vermont Convention Proceedings (1842), 6.

22. The New England Historical and Genealogical Register, Issued Quarterly, Under the Direction of the New England Historical Genealogical Society for the Year 1863 17 (Albany: J. Munsell, 1863), 177.

23. John Spargo, The Consecrated Century: An Outline History of St. Peter’s Protestant Episcopal Church, Bennington, Vermont (Bennington: Vestry of St. Peter’s Church, 1934), 16–17.

24. McIntyre, 25–26.

25. “Consecration,” (Montpelier) Vermont Watchman & State Journal 38, no. 16 (Dec. 23, 1842): 3; hereafter VWSJ.

26. Hopkins, “Address,” Vermont Convention Proceedings (1843), 7.

27. Vermont Convention Proceedings (1850), 29. 

28. “New Organ at the Congregationalist Church,” The St. Albans (Vt.) Messenger 26, no. 7 (Dec. 25, 1862): 3; hereafter SAM.

29. “New Church Organ,” (Montpelier) Vermont Patriot & State Gazette 30, no. 1 (Dec. 22, 1854): 3.

30. “Church Organ,” VWSJ 49, no. 6 (Jan. 5, 1855): 3. 

31. Hopkins, “Address,” Vermont Convention Proceedings (1855), 9.

32. “The organs of . . .,” The (Montpelier) Vermont Watchman 80, no. 29 (July 1, 1885): 1; hereafter VW.

33. “Montpelier Mere Mention,” AP 52, no. 16 (Feb. 26, 1902): 3.

34. E. A. Boadway, “An Annotated Catalog of Known Pipe Organs in Vermont,” The Bicentennial of the Pipe Organ in Vermont, 1814–2014 (Richmond, Virginia: OHS Press, [2013]), 200. 

35. McIntyre, 27.

36. “The plan for the . . .,” VWSJ 61, no. 27 (May 4, 1866): 2.

37. “The cornerstone of . . .,” VWSJ 62, no. 2 (Nov. 9, 1866): 2.

38. “State Items,” (St. Albans) Vermont Daily Transcript 1, no. 2 (May 14, 1868): 3.

39. Abby Maria Hemenway, The History of the Town of Montpelier, Including that of the Town of East Montpelier, for the First One Hundred and Two Years (Montpelier, Vt.: Published by Miss A. M. Hemenway, 1882), 412.

40. Ibid.

41. “Historical Sketch,” AP 18, no. 25 (June 11, 1868): 3.

42. MS, Church records, Report from an Organ Committee, November 30, 1898. Christ Church, Episcopal, Montpelier, Vermont [photocopied during the 1970s by E. A. Boadway; cited with permission]. 

43. Ibid.

44. Ibid., undated Organ Committee Report, likely Feb., 1899.

45. “Organ For Christ Church,” AP 51, no. 43 (Sept. 4, 1901): 3.

46. “Christ Church Organ,” AP 51, no. 44 (Sept. 11, 1901): 4.

47. “The organ builders. . .,” Montpelier (Vt.) Daily Journal 53, no. 70 (Feb. 24, 1902): 3; hereafter MDJ.

48. MS, Church records.

49. Ibid.

50. Ibid.

51. “New Organ For Christ Church,” AP 52, no. 16 (Feb. 26, 1902): 3.

52. “The new organ . . .,” The (Montpelier, Vt.) Evening Argus 5, no. 122 (Mar. 24, 1902): 4; hereafter EA.

53. “New Organ Placed in Christ Church,” EA 5, no. 124 (Mar. 26, 1902): 1; a similar article appeared as “New Church Organ,” MDJ 53, no. 100 (Mar. 31, 1902): 2.

54. “Glad Easter,” MDJ 53, no. 100 (Mar. 31, 1902): 1.

55. “Montpelier and Vicinity,” MDJ 53, no 102 (Apr. 2, 1902): 4.

56. “Organ Recital,” AP 52, no. 26 (May 2, 1902): 3.

57. “Whitney Organ Recital,” AP 52, no. 29 (May 28, 1902): 3.

58. “A Recent Fire at Montpelier, Vt., and its Probable Origin,” Inter-State Journal: An Illustrated Monthly of the Connecticut Valley 5, nos. 10–11 (Jan.–Feb., 1903): n.p.

59. “Christ Church Badly Damaged by Fire and Water,” MDJ 54 (Jan. 26, 1903): 1.

60. “Work on Church Delayed,” AP 53, no. 42 (Aug. 26, 1903): 4.

61. “Montpelier Locals,” MDJ 54 (Jan. 7, 1904): 4.

62. “Will Be Opened Sunday,” MDJ 54 (Jan. 21, 1904): 4.

63. “Services at Christ Church,” EA 7, no. 73 (Jan. 25, 1904): 4.

64. Vermont Convention Proceedings (1904), 122.

65. The Vermont Encyclopedia s.v. “Flood of 1927.”

66. “Christ Church,” (Montpelier, Vt.) Evening Argus 32, no. 87 (Feb. 9, 1929): 4; hereafter EA. 

67. “Dedication Services Occurred Sunday Including an Organ Recital,” EA 32, no. 88 (Feb. 11, 1929): 8.

68. “Christ Church,” EA 32, no. 87 (Feb. 9, 1929): 4.

69. MS, Vestry minutes. Christ Church, Montpelier, Vt. [custody of the church; cited with permission].

70. “Annual Episcopal Convention,” SAM 109, no. 85 (Apr. 30, 1969): 10. 

71. E. A. Boadway, “Christ Episcopal Church, Montpelier, Vermont.” The Boston Organ Club Newsletter 8, no. 4 (April, 1972): 6–7.

72. “Capital Organ Concert Sunday,” The (Montpelier-Barre, Vt.) Times-Argus 76, no. 43 (May 4, 1972): 24.

73. “New Wilhelm Tracker to Montpelier, Vermont,” The Diapason 63, no. 11 (Oct. 1972): 10.

Allison Alcorn

Allison A. Alcorn received her PhD from the University of North Texas, Denton, in 1997 and is now professor of musicology at Illinois State University, where she is active in the Honors Program, Study Abroad, and Faculty Development and mentoring. Alcorn served as editor of the Journal of the American Musical Instrument Society from 2012–2017 and joined the AMIS Board of Governors in 2017. She has previously been councilor for research for the Organ Historical Society and on the governing board of the American Organ Archives. Publications include articles for the Grove Dictionary of American Music and the Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments as well as articles in a variety of national and international journals.

Editor’s note: Part 1 of this article was published in the February issue of The Diapason, pages 22–24.

 

Hinners & Albertsen in Red Wing, Minnesota

The Red Wing organ’s specification list represents the standard style 2/10, available in style A, B, or C; that is, in the mail order, the congregation indicated whether it should be built to go on the left, center, or right of the altar. This was a substantial investment for the church at just less than $1,000.00. Clearly, this organ (Figure 10) is nothing elaborate or extravagant. It is a meat and potatoes organ. No dessert here, no fancy garnishes, only what is absolutely needed:

GREAT

8′ Open Diapason (metal, 61 pipes)

8′ Melodia (wood, 61 pipes)

8′ Dulciana (metal, 49 pipes)

4′ Principal (metal, 61 pipes)

SWELL

16′ Bourdon (wood, 49 pipes)

8′ Violin Diapason (metal, 61 pipes)

8′ Lieblich Gedackt (wood, 61 pipes)

8′ Salicional (metal, 49 pipes)

4′ Flauto Traverso (metal, 61 pipes)

PEDAL

16′ Bourdon (wood, 27 pipes)

 

Couplers

Swell & Octave to Great Coupler

Swell to Great Coupler

Swell to Pedal Coupler

Great to Pedal Coupler

 

Accessories

Swell Tremulant

Blowers Signal

Wind Indicator

 

Pedal movements

Great Forte

Great Piano

Balanced Swell Pedal

 

Red Wing was originally the site of a Lakota farming village, and then in 1837 missionaries with the Evangelical Missionary Society of Lausanne began a decade of relatively sporadic missionary activity until several treaties were signed with the Sioux and Mendota in the 1850s and a U. S. Land Office opened in Red Wing in 1855. Within a few years, the town of Red Wing—named after the Lakota chief who used a dyed swan wing as a symbol of rank—became a busy river port. A more stable white settlement was established with the opening of a leather and shoe factory—the beginning of the famous Red Wing Shoe empire—and a pottery factory—the Red Wing Pottery empire—in the 1860s. However, it was the wheat trade that spurred rapid growth throughout the 1870s and then ironically also led to a serious economic downturn because of depleted soil and increased problems with blight and rust exacerbated by a series of severe storms.

Industrial diversification probably saved the town of around 4,000 inhabitants; flour mills opened along with lime quarrying and furniture building, lumber, and millwork. Red Wing Iron Works, founded in 1866, was perhaps the chief contributor that enabled the city to diversify and save itself. The iron works was owned and run by Benjamin and Daniel Densmore, Benjamin being the father of Frances Densmore, a true pioneer in American musicology and ethnomusicology.

Frances’s letters provide a good sense of what Red Wing was like in the era in which the Hinners & Albertsen organ came to the city. Frances wrote about having grown up going to bed at night listening to the drums and chanting of the Lakota on Trenton Island, directly across the Mississippi River from her house. She could see their fires from her bedroom window. In 1889 the Lakota were forced onto the Prairie Island Reservation, but they remained both a physical and aural presence in Red Wing.⁵

The Norwegian Lutheran Hauge Synod established a significant stronghold in Red Wing beginning in the 1870s and opened a seminary there in 1879, high on the bluff overlooking the city. The ladies seminary was opened in 1889 and was known especially for its Conservatory of Music and its director, Dr. Bernard F. Laukandt, who was also organist at St. Peter Norwegian Lutheran Church; therefore, the organist for the 1898 Hinners & Albertsen.⁶ The conservatory was divided into three departments: piano, voice, and pipe organ (the auditorium had a Kilgen organ) and ran a concert series that brought performers from the East coast. People would take the train from Minneapolis for the concerts, so despite the hardships of life in turn-of-the-century Red Wing, people also found a measure of cultured entertainment. The residents of Red Wing clearly appreciated music, so the climate was amenable to raising money for a good pipe organ. On the other hand, the reality was that Red Wing was rural and largely blue collar, and so while they sincerely appreciated the organ, a Möller or a Casavant was out of the question.

Red Wing’s organ was order number 360, placed August 6, 1898, by Carl N. Lien, secretary of St. Peter Norwegian Lutheran Church (Figure 11). It was to be shipped October 10 and dedicated October 23, 1898. As of December 7, however, it was still being hoped for, but for an unknown reason, it was not shipped until January 25, 1899.⁷ It weighed 5,690 pounds and was shipped on the Santa Fe Railroad at a cost of $34.14. The price of $1,050.00 was payable thirty days after delivery. The organ finally arrived about February 1, 1899, and was installed later that week, ready for the dedication concert the following weekend.

Tickets were sold for 50 cents for adults and 25 cents for children, a good indication that the organ had been purchased with a payment plan, which was typical for the company, and selling tickets for the dedication concert is a feature that appears in the histories for many of the Hinners organs. The concert featured Professor Rydning from St. Paul, a virtuoso organist and graduate of the Conservatory of Christiana, Norway. Professor Chally (from the seminary) and other participants in the concert were from Red Wing. The newspaper reported that the turnout was excellent, given how cold it was on that February night.⁸ Professor Rydning was active in the region from the 1890s through the early part of the twentieth century, appearing in newspaper concert program announcements with great frequency.

 

Characteristics of the organs

The stoplists, pipe scales, mouth shapes and cut-ups, and high wind pressures indicate that the Hinners company espoused a romantic tonal ideal. Further, small swell boxes jammed to the edges with pipes, and the packed interior mechanical set-up demonstrate that Hinners was committed to offering as much organ as possible for the limited amount of space available in small churches. The identical nature of measurements from one organ to the next strongly suggests mass-production techniques and certain stock models that could be altered for particular requirements. A number of features stand out as typical of the Hinners organs as represented by this 1898 instrument. First, draw knobs rather than tabs were standard until sometime in the 1920s. Second, early organs have a system of two pre-set mechanisms that were mechanical and could not be reset. One of the pre-sets combined all the loud ranks, while the other combined all the soft ranks. Economically minded construction is seen in details such as lower octave pipes built of wood rather than metal and lower octave pipes of one rank shared with at least one other rank. Some of the organs have a Quintotone in which the stopper doubles the pipe length, making it sound an octave lower without the cost of additional metal. Especially noteworthy because of its uniqueness among contemporary organ builders, Hinners & Albertsen normally avoided traditional reed ranks and instead included a labial reed stop in the Swell. Labial reeds hold pitch through temperature variations in addition to being less susceptible to dirt than a traditional reed pipe. Perhaps most important is that the labial reed, because it does not have an actual reed, was supremely practical for rural congregations without regular access to an organ technician.⁹

Pedalboards used native woods, the sharps stained somewhat darker than the naturals. The pedalboards were flat and short-compassed until the late 1920s, when the company made an effort to conform with the standards set forth by the American Guild of Organists and began building full concave, radiating pedalboards. The façade pipes were painted and stenciled until shortly after 1910, with muted color schemes designed to blend with the natural colors of the console wood. Many of the original pipe stencils (Figure 12) do not offer shining examples of stellar stenciling work. For the most part, the Hinners factory workers were German immigrants with backgrounds in furniture building, not painting, and the stenciling is frequently sloppy in places. Generally, the factory employees took great pride in their work and believed their instruments were giving voice to their own thoughts and feelings, sometimes rather metaphysically. For example, when the Rutz Organ Company rebuilt a 1918 Hinners for Holy Nativity Evangelical Lutheran Church in New Hope, Minnesota, they found a penciled inscription inside the Great chest on the valve spring board: “Peace Proposal of Austria to USA rejected. To Hell with the war Lords. Dade Johnson and F. C. Muehlenbrink 9/18/18.”¹⁰

Nicking of pipe mouths is heavy in all Hinners organs. Metal pipes are nicked on the languid and wooden pipes are nicked in the windway. Hinners used three tuning methods: stoppers, scrolls, and key-hole tuners. Any sleeves found on these instruments were added after the scroll broke. 

The manual keyboards are constructed with ivory slips on the naturals and ebony sharps. Pedal ranks and façade pipes often use a tubular pneumatic winding action while the key action is mechanical throughout.¹¹ Even as regards winding, though, unreliable electricity in rural areas kept Hinners using pump handles for quite awhile after most builders had switched to electric blower systems. Despite eventually having electric blowers, most organs still retained the capability for manual pumping precisely because of that unreliable electricity. Typical Hinners console design is quarter-sawn oak with a dark stain, decorated with raised panels and carved finials and moldings characteristic of early twentieth-century furniture styles. Grillework is sometimes integrated with façade pipes.

 

Continuing History of the Red Wing Hinners & Albertsen

The 1928 photograph in Figure 13 is the only extant image of the 1898 Red Wing Hinners & Albertsen while it belonged to St. Peter’s. Professor Laukandt is seated at the organ. In 1930—two years after this photo—the two Norwegian Lutheran churches in Red Wing merged, taking Trinity Lutheran’s name and building. The St. Peter building was sold to the Christian Science Church in 1933. At some point the Christian Scientists decided to update the sanctuary. This has virtually never been good news for organs—and the 1898 Hinners & Albertsen was moved to the center of the front platform with small side rooms built to its left and right. The console was whitewashed (Figure 14) and the façade pipes were painted gold (Figure 15), but the working parts remained untouched. It was rather untidy, but it was all there, and the paint-just-the-visible-front job on the pipes allowed for later restoration to the original color scheme. That the church members were able to uninstall and reinstall even a ten-rank pipe organ seems to be a testament to the basic mechanical sense used by Hinners and to the general battleship quality of these little organs. This is one of the precise things that made Hinners so successful in the small rural church market—anyone with fundamental mechanical sense could care for the organ; it was sturdy enough to stand up to the rigors of rural life. The 1926 Hinners at Immanuel Lutheran Church in Dimock, South Dakota, went through the Dust Bowl, had not been cleaned in about 60 years, and still sounded beautiful through two inches of solidified dust.

In the mid-1980s, the former St. Peter Church building was purchased by the Apostolic Face Lighthouse Church, and in August 1995 by the Four Square Church. By 1996 the pastor confirmed to me they were about to “throw [the organ] away.” I contacted Tom Erickson, a Casavant representative who lived in Red Wing. Erickson took up the cause. For the next year, Erickson was tireless in attending Kiwanis meetings, Rotary meetings, Lions, city council, and chamber of commerce—any group that would listen to the organ’s story and might agree to help. He first made headway when he raised enough money to purchase the instrument, for by now, the church had become quite convinced of its treasure, and while they would certainly not harm the instrument, they could be convinced to sell it. Next, Erickson persuaded the owners of the historic St. James Hotel to let him store the organ in the hotel’s recently acquired Red Wing Iron Works building that was, at that point, sitting empty while they decided what to do with it. Erickson kept raising money, and the keydesk was sent to Luhm’s Refinishing, a Minneapolis firm that specializes in historic furniture and pianos. A local artist, Delores Fritz, re-stenciled the pipes. In the meantime, the owner of the St. James Hotel agreed to give the organ a home in its lobby and accept the responsibility for its care. It now has become part of the identity of the hotel—“you know, the historic hotel in Minnesota with a pipe organ in the lobby”—so much so that the organ even appears on the hotel’s Wikipedia page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._James_Hotel_(Red_Wing,_Minnesota)), in its TripAdvisor photos and reviews, and ubiquitously on Instagram with the stjameshotel location tag.

The St. James built a small balcony and fashioned a window into a door in order to access the organ for servicing (Figure 16). A ladder is required to climb into the balcony off the exterior stairs, and then the door opens straight into the organ. To get into the swell box, the side façade pipes have to be removed, but that is not unusual for a Hinners. The very compactness and space efficiency that made Hinners organs so attractive to small congregations without much square footage in the sanctuary conversely also made the organs into real maintenance challenges as far as simply accessing its various components. They are intuitive constructions to the mechanically minded, to be sure, but one must first somehow reach the part in need of attention.

As with any organ’s story, this instrument has had to accept compromises along the way in order to continue serving the needs of its changing audiences. Most significantly, the corner façade pipes had to be lowered by about a foot to fit it in the space, and the rear six side façade pipes had to be left off entirely. The Hinners & Albertsen organ is used regularly. Hotel guests may request the blower key between the hours of 10 a.m. and 10 p.m.; as one might guess, the historic St. James Hotel does a brisk wedding business, and the organ is a frequent participant. The hotel staff works hard to keep it safe, and current management seems cognizant of its historic value. The St. Peter Norwegian Lutheran Church building has taken on a new life in recent years as well, now serving as The Red Wing Church House (https://www.redwingchurchhouse.com), a luxury vacation rental that rents for about $2,500 a week (Figure 17).

 

Nuts and Bolts

The Hinners & Albertsen organ company was, even in its time, sometimes dismissed as being the producer of inferior instruments, as was the Hinners Organ Company for decades after it. Gradually, and sometimes with a bit of sentimental nostalgia for the instruments on which so many organists cut their teeth, the organ world began to realize that the organs are not inferior at all, but that they represent a “nuts and bolts” type of organ. Hinners & Albertsen organs offered churches a perfectly serviceable and respectable musical alternative to the reed organ that would fulfill the needs and meet the budget of a small congregation without the nice but unnecessary expense of a large number of ranks on an organ that was individually designed for each particular church.

Other companies built stock organs, to be sure, and other companies used a catalog approach to sales. Lyon & Healy, Kimball, Felgemaker, Estey, and Wangerin-Weickhardt all had a similar product line and methodology—particularly Felgemaker with the Patent Portable Organ. On the other hand, certainly for Hinners & Albertsen, operations were focused nearly exclusively in the realm of the small stock organ. The vast majority of all Hinners instruments were organs of about ten ranks—the largest Hinners organ ever built had only twenty-eight ranks. Moreover, Hinners built these small pipe organs for nearly 50 years, long after the other companies had followed the trend to larger organs with strictly electric actions. Hinners & Albertsen organs, and ultimately the Hinners Organ Company, supplied a unique need in American society that arose from circumstances peculiar to the American situation. The frontier was closed and settlements were progressing beyond concern for mere survival to concerns for improving their quality of life. Raised in small mission churches around the rural Midwest, John L. Hinners felt the people’s desire for a pipe organ and understood their frustration with the expense and complexity of the instrument that made it impractical for small country churches. In a creative combination of business methods and comprehension of musical and construction issues, the Hinners & Albertsen Organ Company brought pipe organs to rural America and, in the case of the Red Wing, Minnesota, organ, filled the bluffs of the Mississippi River with music.

 

Notes

5. Frances played organ, and for many years she was a church organist at the Red Wing Episcopal church. It seems a safe assumption that Frances would at least have known this Hinners & Albertsen organ, likely heard it, and possibly even played it.

6. The school’s students included girls who wanted to marry ministers, but also “status offenders,” that is, girls who had committed no crime but had become impossible to control.

7. This is an excessively delayed schedule, even for a business at the time. Hinners typically turned around its orders well within three months, with some organs shipping within a matter of a few weeks.

8. Sadly, weather data for Red Wing is recorded only as far back as 1902.

9. Allison Alcorn, “A History of the Hinners Organ Company of Pekin, Illinois,” The Tracker, vol. 44, no. 3 (2000), 17.

10. This organ was built for Church of the Sacred Heart, Spring Valley, Illinois, and was moved to Minnesota in 1990.

11. One of Hinners’s distinctive characteristics is how late the company relied on tracker actions. Even in its few theater contracts, Hinners remained loyal to tracker action and was probably the last builder to give up theater trackers, with two installed as late as 1916.

Michael McNeil

Michael McNeil has designed, constructed, and researched pipe organs since 1973. He was also a research engineer in the disk drive industry with 27 patents. He has authored four hardbound books, among them The Sound of Pipe Organs, several e-publications, and many journal articles.

Preface

Good documentation of organs with enough pipe measurements to permit an analysis of both scaling and voicing is extremely rare. Pipe diameters, mouth widths, and mouth heights (cutups) may be sometimes found, but toe diameters and especially flueway depths are rare. Rarer still are wind system data, allowing a full analysis of wind flow and wind dynamics, parameters that have an enormous impact on the sound of an organ. The reader will find all of this in the following essay on William A. Johnson’s Opus 161.

Good documentation is important for several reasons. We can make useful comparisons with other organs to learn how a specific sound is achieved. And perhaps most importantly, we can document the organ for posterity; while organs are consumed in wars and fires, they are most often replaced or modified with the changing tastes of time. They never survive restorations without changes. Comprehensive documentation may also serve to deter future interventions that intend to “modernize” an organ. Lastly, future restorations of important organs will be more historically accurate if they are based on good documentation.

The mid-nineteenth-century scaling and voicing of William A. Johnson is very similar to the late-eighteenth-century work of the English organbuilder Samuel Green, as evidenced by the data from Johnson’s Opus 16 and Opus 161. Stephen Bicknell provides us with detailed descriptions of Green’s work.¹ Johnson’s scaling is utterly unlike the work of E. & G. G. Hook, whose 1843 Opus 50 for the Methodist Church of Westfield, Massachusetts, set Johnson on a career in organbuilding when he helped the Hooks with its installation.² In this essay we will explore Johnson’s Opus 161 in detail and contrast it with the Opus 322 of the Hooks, both of which were constructed within a year of each other.³ While the Hooks used a Germanic constant scale in their pipe construction, Johnson significantly reduced the scale of his upperwork stops, much in the manner of Samuel Green and classical French builders.

The question arises as to whether Johnson came to his design theory by way of a process of convergent evolution (i.e., independently), or whether he was exposed to the organ Samuel Green shipped to the Battle Square Church in Boston in 1792, and which “was played virtually unaltered for a century,” according to Barbara Owen.⁴ The author suggested to Owen that the Green organ may have had a strong influence on Johnson, but she thought it unlikely that Johnson would have made the long trip from Westfield, far to the west of Boston. 

Travel would indeed have been much more difficult in 1843 when Johnson was exposed to the Hook organ at Westfield. But of some significance was the extension of the Western Railroad from Boston to Westfield in 1843. This new railroad may have been the means by which the Hook organ was shipped to Westfield. Elsworth (see endnote 2) clearly makes the case that Johnson was intoxicated by organbuilding with his exposure to the Hook organ. It is easy to imagine that he would have made a pilgrimage to Boston, at the time a mecca of American organbuilding, perhaps invited by the Hooks to accompany them after finishing their installation in Westfield.⁵

The author was engaged in 1976 by Mrs. Gene Davis, the organist of the Piru Community United Methodist Church, to evaluate the organ at that church. The identity of the organ was in question as no nameplate was in evidence on the console, the organ was barely playable, and its sound was greatly muted by the crude placement of panels in front of the Great division to make it expressive by forcing its sound through the shades of the Swell division above it. An inspection showed that nearly all of the pipework was intact, and a contract was signed to restore the organ to playable condition. The organ was cleaned, the pipes repaired, the few missing pipes replaced, and much of the action repaired by Michael McNeil and David Sedlak.

The church office files produced an undated, typed document that stated: 

 

The pipe organ in the Methodist Church of Piru was built by William Johnson, of Westfield, Mass., in the early 1860s, making it probably the oldest operating pipe organ in California. It was a second-hand organ when transported by sailing ship 17,000 miles around Cape Horn before 1900, and installed in a Roman Catholic Church in San Francisco. After the earthquake and fire of 1906, the organ was moved to another church and probably at this time parts damaged in the quake were replaced. After many more years of service it was retired and put into storage until, in 1935, Mr. Hugh Warring was persuaded to purchase it for the Piru church. It was purchased for the storage cost of $280.

Evidence of a different and more likely provenance was discovered during the removal of pipework and the cleaning of the organ. Three labels were found glued to the bottom of the reservoir (perhaps as patches for leaks). Two labels read: “Geo. Putnam ‘Janitor’ Stockton California July 1 ’99.” A third label read: “From the Periodical Department, Presbyterian Board of Publication, and Sabbath = Schoolwork, Witherspoon Bldg, 1319 Walnut St., Phila. PA.” At a much later time Reverend Thomas Carroll, SJ, noticed that the clues of Stockton, California, and the Presbyterian church correlated to an entry in the opus list of Johnson organs, compiled in Elsworth’s 1984 book, The Johnson Organs. Opus 161 was shipped in 1864 to the “Presbyterian Church, Stockton, Cal. The church is Eastside Presbyterian.” The organ was listed as having two manuals and 22 stops.⁶ At this time such features as couplers and tremulants were counted as “stops,” and this roughly fit the description of the Piru organ. The façade of the Piru organ is also consistent with the architecture of organs built by Johnson in the 1864 time frame. Elsworth’s illustrations include a console layout of Opus 200 (1866) virtually identical to the Piru organ layout; Opus 134 (1862) exhibits the impost, stiles, and Gothic ornamentation of the Piru organ; Opus 183 (1865) has similar pipe flats and also the console layout of the Piru organ.⁷ Many other details verified the Johnson pedigree, among them the inscription “H. T. Levi” on the reed pipes. Barbara Owen pointed out that Levi was Johnson’s reed voicer during the time of manufacture of Opus 161.⁸ The pieces of evidence fell together when Jim Lewis discovered a newspaper photo of Opus 161 in the Eastside Presbyterian Church of Stockton that matched the façade of the Piru organ. The most likely scenario is that Johnson shipped Opus 161 directly to that church. The Gothic architecture of the Johnson façade also reflects the architecture of the Eastside Presbyterian Church façade. A handwritten note on the Piru church document stated: “Pipe organ and art glass memorial windows dedication June 2, 1935 per Fillmore Herald May 31, 1935, a gift of Hugh Warring.”

It is possible that the organ went from the Presbyterian church into storage, and was later moved to its present location in the 1934–1935 time frame. Even so, we can say with nearly absolute certainty that this organ is William A. Johnson’s Opus 161.

 

Tonal design overview

It is obvious from even a casual glance at Elsworth’s study of Johnson organs that the Johnson tonal style was based on a classical principal chorus that included mixtures in all but the more modest instruments. But the voicing style is gentle and refined, and bears great similarity to the late-eighteenth-century English work of Samuel Green, whose meantone organ at Armitage in Staffordshire is an excellent surviving example.⁹ Tuned in meantone, Johnson Opus 161 would easily pass muster as the work of Green. The tonal contrast between Green and Hook is stark, and the Hook data serve as an excellent counterpoint to the data from the Johnson organ. Green was the organbuilder favored by the organizers of the Handel Commemoration Festival of 1784, who went so far as to have one of Green’s organs temporarily installed in Westminster Abbey for that occasion. King George III paid Samuel Green to build an organ for Saint George’s Chapel at Windsor.

Stephen Bicknell’s The History of the English Organ relates important details of Samuel Green’s work that we find in Johnson’s Opus 161. “. . . Green’s voicing broke new ground . . . . Delicacy was achieved partly by reducing the size of the pipe foot and by increasing the amount of nicking. The loss of grandeur in the chorus was made up for by increasing the scales of the extreme basses.”¹⁰ And “Where Snetzler provided a chorus of startling boldness and with all the open metal ranks of equal power, Green introduced refinement and delicacy and modified the power of the off-unison ranks to secure a new kind of blend.”¹¹ The Hooks, like Snetzler, used a constant scale where all of the pipes in the principal chorus at a given pitch had about the same scale and power.

The most basic data set for describing power balances and voicing must include, at a minimum, pipe diameters, widths of mouths, heights of mouths (“cutup”), diameters of foot toe holes, and depths of mouth flueways. The data in this essay are presented in normalized scales for inside pipe diameters, mouth widths, and mouth heights. Tables showing how raw data are converted into normalized scales may be found in the article on the E. & G. G. Hook Opus 322 published in The Diapason, July 2017. The full set of Johnson data and the Excel spreadsheet used to analyze them may be obtained at no charge by emailing the author.¹² Also available is the book The Sound of Pipe Organs, which describes in detail the theory and derivation of the models used in this essay.¹³

 

Pitch, wind pressure, and general notes

The current pitch of the Johnson and Hook organs is dissimilar and should be taken into consideration when observing the scaling charts. The Hook organ is now pitched at A=435.3 Hz at 74 degrees Fahrenheit, while the Johnson organ is now pitched at 440 Hz. The original pitch of the Hook organ was 450 Hz; new low C pipes were added when the pitch was changed to 435 Hz, and the original pipework was moved up a halftone, widening its scales by a halftone. The original pitch of the Johnson organ was approximately 450 Hz; the pipes were lengthened to achieve a lower pitch.¹⁴ The Hook and Johnson organs are both tuned in equal temperament. The wind pressure, water column, of the Hook is 76 mm (3 inches); the Johnson organ was measured at 76 mm static and 70 mm under full flow on the Great division. The pressure was reduced during the restoration to 63 mm static. This allowed the pitch of the pipes to drop, making the adjustment to 440 Hz with fewer changes to the pipe lengths; most of the pipes that were originally cut to length had been crudely pinched at the top to lower their pitch. With the reduction in pressure the ears of the 4′ Flute à Cheminée, with its soldered tops, achieved a more normal position. 

The Piru room acoustic was reasonably efficient, and while the Johnson voicing is very restrained, it was adequate to fill this room on the reduced pressure. The Piru church seats 109, has plastered walls, wood and carpet flooring, and a peaked ceiling about 30 feet high; the reverberation, empty, as heard with normal ears, is well under one second (this is not the measurement used by architects that erroneously reports much longer reverberation). Elsworth relates that “the wind pressure which Johnson used during this period was generally between 21⁄2 and 23⁄4 inches [63.5 and 70 mm], and, in rare examples, nearly 3 inches [76 mm].”¹⁵ The photograph of the original Eastside Presbyterian Church for which the Johnson was designed implies a larger acoustical space than that of the Piru church.

The compass of the Johnson organ is 56 notes in the manuals, C to g′′′, and 27 notes in the pedal, C to d′.

 

Stoplist

The Johnson console was found in poor condition, missing the builder’s nameplate and many of its stop knob faces. Correct stop names were derived from the markings on the pipes and the missing faces were replaced. The original stoplist is reconstructed as follows (Johnson did not use pitch designations):

GREAT

8′ Open Diapason

8′ Keraulophon

8′ Clarabella

4′ Principal

4′ Flute à Cheminée (TC)

22⁄3′ Twelfth

2′ Fifteenth

8′ Trumpet

SWELL

16′ Bourdon (TC)

8′ Open Diapason

8′ Stopped Diapason

8′ Viol d’Amour (TF)

4′ Principal

8′ Hautboy (TF)

Tremolo

PEDAL

16′ Double Open Diapason

 

Couplers

Great to Pedal

Swell to Pedal

Swell to Great

 

Blower signal

The above list adds up to 20 controls. The Johnson company opus list describes Opus 161 as having 22 “stops.” This may have reflected the original intention to supply the organ with stops having split basses, which are commonly found in Johnson specifications. The sliders for the Keraulophon and the Trumpet were found with separate bass sections from C to B, professionally screwed together with the sections from tenor C to d′′′. The two additional bass stops would account for a total of 22 “stops.” There are no extra holes in the stop jambs to indicate the deleted split bass stop actions. The extant stopjambs are apparently a later modification from the time of the installation at Piru or before. Elsworth noted that all Johnson organs of this period were constructed with square stop shanks.¹⁶ The current shanks are round where they pass through the stopjambs and are square where they connect to the stop action.

Several stop knobs were switched during the 1935 installation at Piru; e. g., the Viole d’Amour in the pre-restoration photo of the right jamb belongs in the position noted on the left jamb with the black plastic label “Bell Gamba,” which indeed is how this stop was constructed. The Swell Stopped Diapason was operated by a knob labeled “Principal” [sic]. The illustrations of the left stopjamb and right stopjamb diagrams provide the correct nomenclature as restored in the correct positions, with the incorrect 1935 nomenclature in parentheses ( ) and the correct pitches in brackets [ ].

 

The wind system

The wind system can be modeled from two viewpoints: the restriction of flow from the wind trunks, pallets, channels, and pipe toes; and the dynamics of the wind. Wind dynamics are fully explained in The Sound of Pipe Organs and are a very important aspect of an organ’s ability to sustain a fast tempo with stability or conversely to enhance the grand cadences of historic literature. The data set on the Johnson allows us to model all of these characteristics. Figure 1 shows the Johnson wind flow model.

In Figure 1 we see a table of the pipe toe diameters and their calculated areas; values in red font are calculations or interpolations from the data (e.g., wood pipe toes are difficult to measure when they have wooden wedges to restrict flow). These areas are measured for a single note in each octave of the compass.

A model for the total required wind flow of the full plenum of the organ assumes a maximum of ten pallets (a ten-fingered chord), as described in the table, and the flow is multiplied by the number of the pallets played for each octave in the compass. The sum of the toe areas of all ten manual pallets in the tutti is 5,057 mm². The total area of the manual wind trunks is 38,872 mm², and we see that the wind trunks afford 7.7 times more wind than the tutti requires, so much in fact that the trunks do not at all function as an effective resistance in the system.

Interestingly, the Isnard organ at St. Maximin, France, used the main wind trunk as a strong resistor to dampen Helmholtz resonances in the wind system, and that organ has ratios of wind trunk area to a plenum toe area of only 1.07 for the coupled principal chorus of the Grand-Orgue and Positif, but with no reeds, flutes, or mutations. Helmholtz resonances are the source of what is normally called wind shake, and we would expect some mild wind shake with the Johnson’s large wind ducts and low damping resistance. The author’s notes from 1976 state: “Very little sustained shake . . . a considerable fluctuation in pitch when playing moderately fast legato scales, which stabilizes very rapidly . . . this imparts a shimmer . . . .”

In Figure 1 we also see dimensions of the key channels, pallet openings, and the pallet pull length (estimated from the ratios in the action). These allow us to calculate the relative wind flow of the channels and pallets. We find that there are robust margins in wind flow from the channels to the pipe toes (244% at low C to 737% at high C on the Great). This accounts for the small drop in static pressure at 76 mm to a full flow pressure of 70 mm with all stops drawn. Pallet openings are less robust and flow about 100% of the channel area for the first three octaves and 190% in the high treble.

The underlying dynamics of a wind system are the result of the mass of its bellows plate and the volume of air in the system. These factors produce a natural resonance that can enhance the grand cadences of literature with a long surge in the wind, or it can produce a nervous shake if it is too fast. A grand surge in the wind is characterized by a resonant frequency of less than 2 Hz (cycles per second), and it is most often produced by a weighted bellows. A nervous shake results from a sprung bellows. We correct the latter condition with small concussion bellows in modern organs, but the Johnson organ does not have such devices; instead, it features only a large, weighted, double-rise bellows. 

We can model the dynamic response of an organ by using its wind pressure, the area of the bellows plates, and the combined internal volume of its bellows, wind trunks, and pallet boxes. The model in Figure 2 shows the dynamic response of the current Johnson wind system at a relaxed 1.61 Hz. This low resonant frequency drops further to 1.47 Hz when the pressure is raised to its original value of 76 mm. The author’s notes from 1976 state: “Light ‘give’ on full organ; relatively fast buildup to full flow.” That “light give” is the result of the low resonant frequency of the system. The resonant frequency of the Hook organ was modeled at 1.23 Hz, a value lower than the Johnson, and the Hook chorus does indeed exhibit a slower and grander surge on full organ. Figure 3 shows the modeled resonant frequency at the original pressure of 76 mm for the Johnson organ. The equation for modeling the resonant frequency of a wind system along with a worked example on the 1774 Isnard organ at St. Maximin may be found in The Sound of Pipe Organs, pages 99–113.

 

The wind system in pictures

See the accompanying pictures: Notebook sketch 1, Great windchest, Toeboard, Notebook sketch 2, Notebook sketch 3, Notebook sketch 4, Great pallet box, Pallet springs, Notebook sketch 5.

 

The layout in pictures

“Green’s organs stand on an independent building frame with the case erected around it, rather than being supported by the structure of the case itself.”¹⁷ Bicknell’s description of a Samuel Green organ applies equally well to this Johnson organ. The casework is built entirely of black walnut, a wood mentioned by Elsworth in reference to Johnson cases. The organ is situated within the front wall of the church. The original black walnut side panels (typical of early Johnson organs) were found crudely cut up and nailed behind the façade in an effort to make the whole organ expressive through the Swell shades. This had the effect of making the Great division sound like a diminutive Echo division. The typical layout of a Johnson organ is well described by Elsworth: “The framework was arranged to carry the chests of the Great organ and the supporting framework for the Swell, which was usually above the Great organ and slightly to the rear.”¹⁸ Such layouts, shown in Figure 4, are common in nineteenth-century American organbuilding. The walkway behind the Great allowed access to the pipes and pallets placed at the rear of that chest, and the rollerboard to the Swell division was normally placed just behind this walkway, allowing access to the Swell pallets that were placed at the front of the Swell windchest. Opus 161 was installed in an opening in the Piru church that was far too shallow to allow the depth of a rearward placement of the Swell division. 

As a result, there is evidence that the Swell windchest may have been reversed, placing its pallets to the back of the windchest, and the chest brought forward over the Great division. Note the lack of clearance between the 4′ Principal pipe and the bottom of the Swell chest in Figure 5. The internal framework shows signs of crude saw cuts; the order of the notes on the Swell chest is the same as the Great, but it is reversed; the Swell rollerboard appears to have been likewise reversed and now faces toward the walkway where the action and rollers are exposed to damage. 

To say that the Piru layout was cramped would be an understatement; no one weighing over 150 pounds would gain access to the pipes for tuning or to the action for adjustment without damaging the pipework or the key action. The author weighed less (at the time) and was barely able to navigate inside the organ. The current layout is shown in Figure 6. 

It is also possible that the current layout reflects the original layout by Johnson, but that the Swell was simply lowered to fit the height of the Piru church and brought forward to fit the limited depth available, reducing the depth of the walkway.

Notes and credits

All photos, drawings, tables, and illustrations are courtesy of the author’s collection if not otherwise noted. Most of the color photos were unfortunately taken by the author with an inferior camera in low resolution. David Sedlak used a high quality camera, lenses, and film to produce the high-resolution color photos of the church and its architectural details; these are all attributed to Sedlak.

1. Stephen Bicknell, The History of the English Organ, Cambridge University Press, 1996, Cambridge, pp. 185–187, 190–191, 207.

2. John Van Varick Elsworth, The Johnson Organs, The Boston Organ Club, 1984, Harrisville, p. 18.

3. A detailed study of the E. & G. G. Hook Opus 322 may be found in The Diapason, July, August, and September issues, 2017.

4. Barbara Owen, The Organ in New England, The Sunbury Press, 1979, Raleigh, pp. 18–19.

5. see: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_and_Albany_Railroad.

6. The Johnson Organs, p. 100.

7. Ibid, pp. 23, 50, 57, respectively.

8. The Organ in New England, p. 275.

9. 5 Organ Concertos, 1984, Archiv D 150066, Simon Preston, Trevor Pinnock, The English Concert.

10. The History of the English Organ, p. 185.

11. Ibid, p. 207.

12. McNeil, Michael. Johnson_161_170807, an Excel file containing all of the raw data and the models used to analyze the Johnson Opus 161, 2017, available by emailing the author at [email protected].

13. McNeil, Michael. The Sound of Pipe Organs, CC&A, Mead, 2012, 191 pp., Amazon.com.

14. The Organ in New England, p. 75.

15. The Johnson Organs, p. 25.

16. Ibid, p. 23.

17. The History of the English Organ, p. 187.

18. The Johnson Organs, p. 23.

 

To be continued.

Létourneau Pipe Organs, 

Saint-Hyacinthe, Québec, 

Canada, Opus 133

Waldensian Presbyterian Church, Valdese, 

North Carolina

 

From the Director of Music

Waldensian Presbyterian Church of Valdese, North Carolina, first and foremost wanted a new pipe organ that would stand the test of time. As a church that honors Presbyterian traditions while celebrating its Waldensian heritage that spans hundreds of years, it was important to the congregation to find an organ builder that would enhance the Waldensian tradition of French music and have the longevity to carry them into the future. Létourneau delivered, beyond expectation.

During the months of February and August, you can hear the congregation at Waldensian Presbyterian Church singing joyfully the hymns of their heritage in French. While only used weekly for two months of the year, the Waldensian Hymnal is a small book of French hymns that are embedded deeply in the members’ hearts and are heard frequently outside of the worship services.

Previously, Waldensian Presbyterian Church had a two-manual, electro- pneumatic pipe organ that served the congregation and community for thirty-five years. When the time came for this instrument’s electrical system to be overhauled, one among many serious problems, the church decided refurbishment was not an option. The task ahead of discerning what form a new pipe organ should take and choosing an organ builder was daunting, but the committees involved were determined to make the best choice possible for the future of the church. 

When discussions about replacing the deteriorating organ first began, it was important the end result would be an instrument that reflected the congregation’s heritage and would support the beautiful sounds and colors of French music. The church was also aware of its important responsibility in the Valdese community, and the purchase of a new pipe organ was something that the congregation felt would enhance this local role for generations to come. 

In addition to the sound and quality of the instrument, which were of upmost importance, it was also essential that the instrument looked as though it had always been there and not appear as an afterthought. The sanctuary of Waldensian Presbyterian Church is a historic building on the National Register of Historic Places, and the installation of a new pipe organ had to involve as few changes as possible to the building. This presented a challenge that Létourneau gladly accepted, and their Opus 133 does indeed fit seamlessly into the sanctuary. The organ project also provided an opportunity for a modest reinvention of the sanctuary, with new slate flooring and freshly painted walls.

With just fifteen stops, Opus 133 has rich and luscious sounds that easily fill the room without ever overpowering it. It can also, however, be played so softly that listeners are enticed to listen closely. The ingenious expression mechanism for the Récit division allows organists to have remarkable dynamic control over the music. The pedal stops have beautiful supportive tones that can be felt as well as heard throughout the room. The versatility of the instrument is really striking, and while its main purpose is to support congregational singing and lead worship, it also scintillates as a recital instrument. Further, the instrument is enjoyable to play, and as an organist, it feels as though it does all of the hard work. It can be played with a light touch and demands excellence and sensitivity in musicianship.

In summary, Waldensian Presbyterian Church is thrilled with their new Létourneau pipe organ and is looking forward to the years to come as it establishes itself in our community as a regular presence. It was a pleasure to work with Létourneau on this project. They took in to account all of the needs and desires of our congregation and the quality of the resulting instrument truly exhibits the remarkable pride they take in their work.

—Leslie Overcash, Director of Music

 

From the Builder

We were delighted to be asked to build an organ for Waldensian Presbyterian Church of Valdese, North Carolina. Our many visits to the church revealed a kind, receptive community that wanted to make decisions in the best interests of future generations. It was equally clear that their new organ was going to serve as an outreach tool within the area’s musical community. In keeping with their desire for excellence, the organ’s installation followed a successful sanctuary renovation that saw the removal of thick blue carpet from the nave as well as a reconfiguration of the raised worship platform.

After the church’s decision had been made to sign a contract with Létourneau, we learned the final two proposals the organ committee had been considering were radically different. The first was for an electro-pneumatic unit organ offering over 30 stops based on half as many ranks while our proposal, the second, was for a 19-rank pipe organ with mechanical key action. The whole reason the church was considering a new organ in the first place was due to continuing failures with their previous organ, a divided instrument flanking the chancel’s central apse on the sanctuary’s front wall. Undistinguished from the outset, this electro-pneumatic pipe organ increasingly suffered as it aged from a myriad of problems including a recalcitrant console, unpredictable electrical gremlins, winding issues and collapsing pipework. The ongoing problems with this instrument in the end underscored our arguments in favor of a timeless key action and a straight specification in which every stop has a distinct role to play.

Questions about what kind of key action was best suited to Waldensian Presbyterian Church’s situation probably seemed esoteric to some on their organ committee, but one point on which the committee was unanimous was the organ’s visual design: the new instrument had to integrate smoothly into the sanctuary’s spare, attractive architecture. Our efforts focused on using the chancel’s small apse, which had been an open space prior to the church renovations with seating for the church choir. Now installed, the organ uses the apse’s heavy curved wall and domed ceiling to project tone into the church much like a traditional organ case. As anticipated, the apse seems to amplify the Pédale division’s single rank, the 16′–8′ Bourdon, as needed from its location at the very back of the instrument. 

Our designer, Claude Demers, devised the instrument’s elegant façade with its three towers of pipes while the casework features blue and gold trim to harmonize with accents already present within the church. The organ’s polished façade pipes are from the bass of the Gr-Orgue 8′ Montre stop and are made from a 70% tin alloy. Behind the façade, the Gr-Orgue windchest sits directly under the thick archway leading to the apse, which helps again reflect sound into the church.

The Récit division resides between the Gr-Orgue and the Pédale 16′–8′ Bourdon rank. A tight enclosure, its expression mechanism is based on the example seen in the C. B. Fisk instrument at Chicago’s St. Chrysostom’s Episcopal Church. The Récit’s expression box has shades not only on its face but also on its two sides. Thanks to offset arms coming off the mechanism’s vertical shafts, the first portion of the expression pedal’s travel cracks the sides open before the shades on front of the box begin to move. The effect is remarkably sensitive and smooth dynamic control throughout the expression pedal’s travel.

The two-manual console is detached and reversed from the organ case, offering the organist an excellent view of the sanctuary. The console shell was made from solid red oak with its side and back panels incorporating carved details repurposed from a redundant modesty rail. The mechanical key actions drop into a channel under the console, passing under the pedalboard before going into the instrument behind. As is our custom, the terraced stop jambs and toe piston rails are made from a richly stained walnut while the stopknobs are made from turned ebony. The electric stop actions are controlled by a multilevel capture system from Solid State Organ Systems with 128 levels of memory, an adjustable crescendo pedal, a reversible Grand jeu piston, and eight general pistons along with a general piston sequencer.

In keeping with the Waldensian community’s French origins, we accentuated some of the French elements within the specification. For example, the Récit strings are potent, allowing organists to shade the Gr-Orgue 8′ flute and to a lesser degree, the 8′ Montre, for a rich fonds sonority. The organ’s most delicate stop is the Récit’s charming 8′ Bourdon, which fades to a murmur with the box closed. Adding the charismatic 4′ Flûte octaviante and 2′ Octavin creates a light secondary chorus that serves beautifully in the context of accompanying or performing solo repertoire. Like the strings, the Récit’s 8′ Trompette is big enough to color the Gr-Orgue thanks to its generously scaled resonators (8′ C measures just over four inches in diameter) and domed Bertounèche shallots.

The Gr-Orgue is based on a large 8′ Montre, generally following a 42 scale, with somewhat relaxed voicing that never takes on a hard edge. The composition of the Gr-O 8′ Flûte à cheminée is more complex than its nomenclature suggests: stopped wooden pipes make up the bass octave, shifting to a chimney flute in metal, then moving to “koppel” shape caps, and finally transitioning to open cylindrical pipes with narrow mouths similar to a Nachthorn at the top of the compass. The stop is treble ascendant with enough power at its top end for a solo line against various Récit combinations or to accompany itself. The Gr-Orgue’s three-rank Cornet was scaled and voiced as a solo voice, building on the 8′ and 4′ flutes to produce a powerful, singing sonority.

We expect the new Létourneau pipe organ at Waldensian Presbyterian Church will serve the church for many future generations, and we remain grateful to the church for giving us the opportunity to build Opus 133 with mechanical key action. Many new friendships were made throughout the project, and we especially enjoyed working with the church’s Director of Music, Leslie Overcash, and the Chair of Worship and Music, Wes Garrou. The organ’s formal service of dedication took place on January 28, 2018, with Dudley Oakes at the console playing works by J. S. Bach, Duruflé, Utterback, and Karg-Elert.

—Andrew Forrest, Artistic Director

Fernand Létourneau, President

Dudley Oakes, Project Consultant

 

Gr-ORGUE – Manual I –
80 mm pressure

8′ Montre 58 pipes

    façade of 70% polished tin

8′ Flûte à cheminée 58 pipes

    1–12 stopped wood, 

    13–32 chimney flute, 

    33–44 “Koppel” cones, 

    45–58 open flute

4′ Prestant 58 pipes

4′ Flûte ouverte 58 pipes

    tapered construction

2′ Doublette 58 pipes

22⁄3′ Cornet III 174 pipes

    12-15-17, large scale, 

    tapered construction

11⁄3′ Plein jeu IV 232 pipes

Tremulant

RÉCIT expressif – Manual II – 85 mm pressure

8′ Gambe 58 pipes

8′ Voix céleste (from g8) 51 pipes

8′ Bourdon (wood) 58 pipes

4′ Flûte octaviante 58 pipes

2′ Octavin 58 pipes

8′ Trompette 58 pipes

Tremulant

PÉDALE – 100 mm pressure

16′ Bourdon (wood) 32 pipes

8′ Bourdon (wood) 12 pipes

    ext 16′ Bourdon

 

Couplers

Récit au Gr-Orgue

Gr-Orgue à la Pédale

Récit à la Pédale

 

The console’s capture system is by Solid State Organ System:

128 levels of memory

4 divisional pistons each for the Gr-Orgue and Récit

2 divisional pistons for the Pédale

8 general pistons plus a general piston sequencer. 

There is a reversible and programmable Grand jeu piston as well as a 30-stage crescendo pedal.

 

Two manuals, 15 total stops, 19 ranks, 1,081 pipes

 

Gr-Orgue Plein jeu IV

c1 to b12 19 22 26 29

c13 to b24 15 19 22 26

c25 to b36 12 15 19 22

c37 to b48 8 12 15 19

c49 to a58 1 8 12 15

 

 

Leonardo Ciampa

Leonardo Ciampa is Maestro di Cappella Onorario of the Basilica di Sant’Ubaldo in Gubbio, Italy, and organist of St. John the Evangelist Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

When you see a bud growing out of the ground, you’re not sure what it is yet, so you water it and feed it, and you wait to see what it grows into. But you don’t want to step on it. And if the bud is very small, all the more important not to step on it.

—Yuko Hayashi

 

Yuko Hayashi is gone.

I feel unworthy of eulogizing her. I do not presume to rank among her greatest students—a very long list that includes James David Christie, Carolyn Shuster Fournier, Mamiko Iwasaki, Peter Sykes, Christa Rakich, Gregory Crowell, Mark Dwyer, Kevin Birch, Kyler Brown, Barbara Bruns, Ray Cornils, Nancy Granert, Hatsumi Miura, Tomoko Akatsu Miyamoto, Dana Robinson, Naomi Shiga, Paul Tegels, and others too numerous to name. 

I cannot describe, or comprehend, the fortune of being her student between the ages of 15 and 18—at the time, her only high school student. She was in her late 50s—still at the height of her powers, still performing internationally and recording. She brought a constant parade of heavy-hitters to Old West Church in Boston for recitals and masterclasses. During those three years alone (1986–1989), there were José Manuel Azkue, Guy Bovet, Fenner Douglass, Susan Ferré, Roberta Gary, Mireille Lagacé, Joan Lippincott, Karel Paukert, Umberto Pineschi, Peter Planyavsky, Michael Radulescu, Montserrat Torrent, Harald Vogel, and the list goes on. Yuko was something of an impresario. In the 70s, when Harald Vogel was completely unknown in America, she brought him to Old West to play his very first concert here—for $100, which she paid out of her own pocket! Guy Boet, same story—his first concert in America, for $100. In 1972, at the International Christian University (ICU) in Tokyo, Yuko organized the very first organ academy ever held in Japan, bringing both Anton Heiller and Marie-Claire Alain. In 1985, Yuko, Umberto Pineschi, and Masakata Kanazawa started the Academy of Italian Organ Music in Shirakawa. A list of her accomplishments would be long, indeed.

At the time, I knew virtually nothing about Yuko’s life or career. Meeting her was truly random. It was September of 1985 (Bach’s 300th birthday year). I was skimming the concert listings in The Boston Globe, and I happened to see that there was going to be an all-Bach organ and harpsichord concert at Old West Church, given by Peter Williams. I had never heard a “real pipe organ,” and I had never set foot in a Protestant church before. I had no idea who Peter Williams was, and I had no particular interest in the organ or harpsichord. I was a 14-year-old piano student in the New England Conservatory prep school. The craziest part of all? I had not the faintest idea that the New England Conservatory organ department held their lessons, classes, and concerts at Old West, or that the church’s organist happened to be department chair. Attending the concert was nothing more than a whim.

I was immediately grabbed, both by the sound of the Fisk’s ravishing plenum, and by Williams’s exquisite selections, all from Bach’s youth. I still remember every piece on the program, which opened with Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern, BWV 739. After the concert, a short but elegant Japanese woman introduced herself to me and shook my hand. I had no idea she had any affiliation with NEC. I’m not sure I even understood that she was the church’s organist.

Who could have predicted that, one year later, September 1986, I would quit the piano and become an organ student of Yuko, taking lessons on that same instrument? But even that was random. In the NEC prep school catalogue, under “Organ,” Yuko’s was the name listed. That’s the one and only reason I contacted her.

 

Early years in Japan

(1929–1953)

Yuko Hayashi was born in 1929 in Hiratsuka, a coastal town 24 miles from Yokohama. She was born on November 2. (She used to joke about having been born on All Souls’ Day, having missed All Saints’ Day by only one day!) Many of Yuko’s students would come to notice her unusual perceptiveness. A couple of us thought it bordered on ESP. She had the ability to reach for things even when she couldn’t see them. Case in point: why did a woman who was born in 1929, in a country that was only one percent Christian, decide that she wanted to become an organist, when she didn’t even know what an organ was?

Yuko’s father was a Japanese Anglican priest. He was the pastor of St. Andrew’s Church in Yokohama. At age five, Yuko started playing the reed organ at St. Andrew’s. (Soon enough, she became sufficiently proficient to play an entire Anglican service.) In sixth grade, her music teacher suggested she learn the piano. “Hanon: hated it. Czerny: a little better. Burgmüller: not as bad. But then, Bach Inventions! I became hooked on this music. I practiced all hours; I didn’t want to quit.”¹ She reasoned, “If Bach wrote pieces for the organ, then the organ must be a wonderful instrument.”² She knew that she wanted to play the organ, even before she had ever seen one! The only instruments she knew were the reed organ at church and a Hammond. In 2007 I asked her, “When you were young, how did you know you wanted to play the organ if you didn’t even know what an organ was?” She replied, “I knew when I met J. S. Bach.”³ In a 2009 email she wrote, “If I was not exposed to the two-part Inventions by Bach just by chance in my youth, I am positively sure that I [would] not [have been] drawn into music for so many decades since. Certainly, I would not have chosen organ as my main instrument.”⁴

Finally at age 15 she saw a pipe organ for the first time, in Tokyo. It was important to practice on a pipe organ, for she was preparing to audition for the Tokyo Ueno Conservatory (now named Tokyo University of the Arts). Imagine this 15-year-old girl, in 1944, with bombs falling around her, traveling two and a half hours to Tokyo to practice for two hours on this organ, then making the two and a half hour return trip home. (I recall that, in the 1980s, she told me that this organ was an Estey.⁵ However, other students remember her saying it was a Casavant.⁶)

She passed the audition and enrolled in the conservatory. Eight students had to share “a Yamaha and an electric-action pipe organ with a hideous sound. We each practiced for 50 minutes and then let the motor rest for ten minutes in between because it was old and cranky.”⁷ 

 

Study in America (1953–1960)

In the early 1950s, Yuko’s father urged her to visit America. She accepted a scholarship to attend Cottey College in Nevada, Missouri. The port of entry was faraway Seattle. The sea voyage from Yokohama to Seattle took 12 days. She arrived in Seattle on July 23, 1953. Tuition, room, and board were covered, but she had only thirty dollars in her pocket (which was all she was allowed). She stretched the thirty dollars as far as she could, though at least she had an Amtrak pass that enabled her to travel by train anywhere in the country.  

 

My father arranged a train trip for me around half of the country, visiting some of his friends. When I arrived in Seattle on July 23 [1953], his friend’s daughter, who was the secretary of St. Mark’s Cathedral, came to pick me up. Within two hours of setting foot on American soil, I played the organ at St. Mark’s. I think it was a Kilgen.⁸ I met Peter Hallock, and he gave me some of his compositions. From Seattle I went to San Francisco and stayed with my father’s friend there. I heard Richard Purvis play a recital in a museum, and I remember I kept looking around for the pipes, which were not visible. That was my second American organ experience. Next I stayed in Los Angeles for a few days. I didn’t see any organs there, but what I remember most was my first American picnic, a culturally foreign experience for me. Then I went to Salt Lake City, found the Mormon Tabernacle organ and went to two concerts in one day. Alexander Schreiner was there. Can you imagine? Next I visited my father’s friends in Minneapolis, and then the remainder of the summer stayed in a guesthouse at the University of Chicago. Finally, I arrived at Cottey College, and do you know what I found there? A Baldwin organ!⁹

 

After a year she was no longer able to stay at the school; however, she received a scholarship to go to any other school of her choice in America. Where would she go? She knew nothing about Oberlin or Eastman. Ultimately, her decision was influenced by having grown up by the sea.

 

At that school in Missouri, every Friday you know what we had to eat? Fish. That fish must have been dead for ten days by the time we had it. The fish was so fresh in Japan. So I knew I wanted to live near the sea. New York was too big. Washington, D.C., was too political. But Boston . . . .¹⁰

And so in 1954 she entered the New England Conservatory and studied organ with the legendary George Faxon.  

 

I spoke almost no English, and he didn’t say very much. So our lessons were filled with music but had long silences! One week he asked me to bring in the Vivaldi[/Bach] A-minor concerto. And I memorized it. I’d never memorized anything before. He didn’t say much. But you know what he did? He wrote on a piece of paper “Sowerby Pageant” and told me to go to Carl Fischer [Music Company] to pick up the music. When I got to the store and showed the man the piece of paper, he said, “Oh, you’re playing this?” I said, “Yes.” I had no idea what it was. Then when I opened the music! Incredibly difficult. At my next lesson Faxon wrote in the pedalings, very quickly, from beginning to end. What a technique he had. And you knew where he got it? Fernando Germani. Once Faxon took me to Brown University to see his teacher, Germani, play the Sowerby. I got to sit very close to him, so I could see Germani playing. And there he was, five-foot-three, his feet flying all over the pedalboard.¹¹

 

On February 6, 1956, Yuko played her bachelor’s recital in Jordan Hall, her first recital ever. In only three weeks Yuko memorized the daunting program, which included Vivaldi/Bach A-minor concerto (first movement), D’Aquin Noël X, Schumann Canon (probably B minor, op. 56, no. 5), Bach Toccata, Adagio, and Fugue, Liszt “Ad Nos” (second half), Sowerby Pageant, Titcomb Regina Caeli, Dupré Second Symphony (Intermezzo), and Messiaen L’Ascension (third movement).

In 1956, Faxon told Yuko, “This is still a secret, so you can’t tell anybody. But I’m leaving NEC and going to teach at B.U. [Boston University]” Yuko was disappointed at the news. “I wanted to follow him to B.U. I didn’t know anybody else. But he said, ‘No, don’t follow me. You studied with me two years—that’s enough. Stay at NEC.’ And then he said, ‘You must make Boston your home.’”¹²

Yuko was disheartened and considered returning to Japan. But Chester (“Chet”) Williams, beloved dean of NEC, would have none of it. Faxon’s imminent departure was still a secret. But Chet had another secret for Yuko: “There is another man coming, someone with great ideas.” That man was Donald Willing. On Chet’s advice, Yuko stayed at NEC.

Willing had been to Europe and was galvanized by the new tracker instruments being built. He immediately arranged for NEC to purchase new practice organs by Metzler and Rieger. The 1957 Metzler was voiced by Oscar Metzler himself.

 

As soon as I touched the instrument, I had an immediate reaction: “This is it! This is a living organism!” My teacher did not persuade me to have this reaction—I had it on my own, from touching the instrument myself. That was 1957. The next year, 1958, I got my M. M. from the conservatory. And that same year, the Flentrop was put in at Busch-Reisinger [now Adolphus Busch Hall]. That was Biggs’s instrument. He let all the students play it. We had to practice at night, when the museum was closed. And we were poor; we couldn’t afford to pay a security guard. So Peggy [Mrs. Biggs] would act as the guard. The Biggs’s were so generous to organ students.¹³

 

Not all the organ students were taken by these new instruments. “They would say, ‘Are you going backwards?’”¹⁴ Yuko was undeterred. She played her Artist Diploma recital on the Flentrop in 1960.

 

Leonhardt and Heiller (1960–1966)

In 1960, Yuko joined the faculty of the organ department of New England Conservatory. At this point she had not yet heard of Gustav Leonhardt.  

 

I first heard of Leonhardt from John
Fesperman. Before John went to the Smithsonian, he taught at the Conservatory. The organ faculty was Donald Willing, John
Fesperman, and I, who had just been hired. I don’t know why, but John had been to Holland already, and he said, “Leonhardt is coming; you should go study with him.” So I did. I used to go to Waltham [Massachusetts] to practice cembalo at the Harvard Shop, and once a week I went to New York to study with Leonhardt. He was young, late 20s. A whole summer [1960] I studied with him.¹⁵

 

Yuko so enjoyed her study with Leonhardt that she considered switching to harpsichord. Indirectly it was Leonhardt who dissuaded her.

 

Finally [Leonhardt] said, “You really should study organ with Anton Heiller.” And I thought, “Who is that?” So I bought records of Heiller. You know, the old LP records. [. . .] [I]t was grand playing. Already I noticed something.¹⁶

 

1962 marked Heiller’s first visit to America and his first ever trip on an airplane! He gave two all-Bach performances on the Flentrop at Harvard University. Yuko attended the first performance and was so impressed that she attended the second one as well.  

 

And you know the most wonderful thing he played? O Mensch . . . with the melody on the Principal . . . . The whole program swept me away. And I immediately said, “This is the man I want to study with.” But I was shy, so I didn’t go to him right away. [. . .] He used to come to America every three years. He had come in ’62, so in ’65 he came back, and he returned again in ’68, ’71, etc. So in ’65 he was teaching at Washington University in St. Louis. I went down there, and for the first time, I met him. [The course was] six-and-a-half weeks. Every morning, he gave four hours of classes. Bach, David, Reger, and Hindemith—on a Möller! Then, in the afternoon, private lessons on a 10-stop Walcker organ in a private studio.¹⁷

 

Heiller urged Yuko to enroll in the summer academy in Haarlem the following year (1961). This marked her very first visit to Europe. She went on to study with Heiller sporadically, following him wherever he happened to be playing. (She was the only Heiller student who didn’t study with him in Vienna.)

 

Maybe [Heiller] taught differently with other people, but with me, most of what I learned was from his playing, not from his words. [H]e played a lot [during lessons]. But I would move and he would sit on the bench. He didn’t just play over my shoulder. With him, nothing was halfway. [. . .] Funny thing: when he was just standing there, without doing anything, I played better. He felt the music inside him, and it came out. It was a weird thing. [. . .] I performed his organ concerto. Of course he wanted to hear it at a lesson. But I wasn’t ready. He only told me about it three weeks before. But again, he was standing right there. And it’s funny, I was able to play it. You see, he was so perfect, he made me feel I could play. [. . .] You know, I was so little—I’m still little. (laughter) And he was much bigger than me. But he said to me, “Don’t be afraid of the piece.”¹⁸

 

In 1969, Yuko became chair of the organ department of NEC. She remained until 2001, a total of 41 years on the faculty, 30 of which as chair.

First European tours (1968)

Yuko’s first concert in Europe was at the 1968 International Organ Festival in Haarlem. From there she went on to play many concerts on historic instruments in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Holland, Italy, Spain, and Switzerland. “The wife of Hiroshi Tsuji, the Japanese organbuilder, arranged my first concert tour in Europe. [. . .] I soon discovered that I loved going to places where I didn’t know the people or the organs. I like to explore things I don’t know.”¹⁹ Here again we see Yuko’s fearlessness in reaching for things she could not see. As Nancy Granert reminisced, 

 

One time, Yuko and I were talking about traveling alone through Europe. I was saying that I always had a map in my purse, and that I really didn’t like being lost. She replied that she loved being lost and to find new places. She, after all, always knew where she was, right?²⁰

Old West Church (1974)

Charles Fisk built one of his most beautiful instruments, Opus 55, for Old West Church in Boston.²¹ It went on to become the main teaching instrument for the New England Conservatory organ department for decades. The organ was dedicated on Easter Sunday 1971 by Max Miller and Marian Ruhl Metson.

In 1973, Old West was conducting a search for a new organist. The organ committee consisted of the Rev. Dr. Richard Eslinger (pastor of Old West), Charles Fisk, Max Miller, and Jeanne Crowgey.²² Sneakily, but fortuitously, Eslinger and Fisk invited Yuko to attend a committee meeting in December 1973. After this meeting, they took Yuko across the street for a beer or two at a Chinese restaurant and lounge. Yuko enjoyed telling this story.

Charlie said, “Yuko, have you ever thought of becoming the organist for Old West Church?” These were absolutely unexpected words, and my answer was simply, “No.” Charlie kept a smile on his face and went on to tell me how convinced he was for me to be the organist of his organ at Old West, and that it was the right thing for me to do.

I was overwhelmed by his totally positive thoughts, and by the end of the conversation that evening I was convinced that Charlie was right and said “Yes” to him without knowing what the future would hold. [. . .] In February of 1974 I began to play for worship services (as a non-salaried organist), organized organ recitals for the season as well as the weekly lunchtime concerts that, after a decade, evolved into the Summer Evening Concerts.

As I look back [. . .] I say to myself, “How on the earth did Charlie know that I would be the appropriate one?” [. . . .] Charlie then knew that if I were caught by [the] beautiful sonorities that I could not leave them, would enjoy them, would maintain the instrument, and would let it be heard and played by all. [. . .] 

As I listened to organ students of the New England Conservatory day by day, year after year, and, of course, through my own practice, I became convinced that the 1971 Charles Fisk organ at Old West is a living organism and not just an organ with extraordinary beauty. This organ responds to the high demands of an artist as if a lively dialogue between two humans is being exchanged. I even dare say that the spirit of Charlie, an artist/organbuilder, is present when the organ is played by any organist who wishes to engage in conversation.²³

 

Yuko remained organist of Old West for 36 years. I was so fortunate to hear so many of her recitals there during the 1980s. I remember matchless performances of Bach’s Passacaglia, Franck’s Grand Pièce, and the Italian Baroque repertoire for which she had an incredible knack. (In fact, I never in my life heard a non-Italian play this music as well as she.²⁴) As late as 2008 (her last recital was in 2010), she gave a performance of Bach’s Pièce d’Orgue that to me remains the benchmark for all others. Few organists can play the middle gravement section without it sounding too long and too heavy. In Yuko’s hands, I was astonished by the articulation of each entrance of each of the five voices. I say without exaggeration that it sounded like a quintet of breathing musicians. I was so gripped by it that, when she got to the final section, I couldn’t believe how short the gravement had seemed.

 

As a teacher

Yuko made good use of her ESP. As a teacher, not only did she adapt to each individual student, but she adapted to each individual lesson with each student. Each lesson with her was a brand new experience—based solely on what she was sensing in the room at that moment. Besides her perceptiveness, she had something else: a regard for the value of each student. I can never forget something she told me many years later: “When you see a bud growing out of the ground, you’re not sure what it is yet, so you water it and feed it, and you wait to see what it grows into. But you don’t want to step on it.”²⁵ Her next sentence was even more unforgettable: “And if the bud is very small, all the more important not to step on it.” It would be hard to find a famous teacher with that level of regard for even the least talented among of her students.

Yuko’s ear was astonishing. She could have used that ear to be a critic or an adjudicator towards her students. Instead, she worked tirelessly to get them to use their own ear, to make their own decisions and judgments. In her gentle, quiet way (her voice never rose above a mezzo piano), she was relentless in making her students listen to the sound coming from the organ, in particular to be aware of the air going through the pipes. Most of all, she wanted her students to learn directly from the composer.

I will never forget playing Bach’s Allein Gott, BWV 664. The moment I stopped listening to one of the three voices, within milliseconds she started singing it. Then I would get back on track. Then, the millisecond that I stopped listening to another part, she would sing that one. That was how perceptive she was—which was both comforting and frightening! Another astonishing moment in our lessons that is worth mentioning is the one and only time I played Frescobaldi for her. In modern parlance, you could say that I was “schooled.” I was playing the Kyrie della Domenica from Fiori Musicali, which is in four voices. I played it and could tell from her facial expression that she was not pleased. She said one sentence: “You know, this music was originally written on four staves.” I played it again. This time, her face was even more displeased, and she said nothing at all. She sat down on the bench next to me and said, “OK, you play the alto and the bass, and I’ll play the soprano and the tenor.” I was floored. Her two voices breathed. They sang. She got up from the bench, without saying a word. Her point was made, and powerfully.

 

Later years

Yuko and I exchanged many emails in 2009. Many of them concerned administrative details of the Old West Organ Society (of which I was then a board member). However, more often the emails were simply about music.  

 

I remember when I first heard Mozart, in a castle outside Vienna, in [the] early 1970s. It was a big shock to me. While they were performing Mozart’s chamber music, I started to have the image about the leaves of the tree which show the front of the leaf and the back of the leaf, back and forth. Their colors are very different from each other, yet [the] only differences are front or back of the same leaf. It influenced the dynamic control as well in their performance at the castle.²⁶

 

During this era she always wrote to me as a friend and colleague, never as a “student.” Only once did she give something resembling “advice:”

 

I believe, there are only two emotions that stand out, “Love” and “Fear.” You have plenty of both, which in [an] actual sense make [a] great artist. Your potentiality is enormous! Don’t waste it, please! After all, it is the gift from God.²⁷

 

She was pleased, then, when not long after that email I became artistic director of organ concerts at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (home of two historic Holtkamps from 1955). In October, Yuko called me to congratulate me. She reminisced about Walter Holtkamp, Sr., whom she met in Cleveland.

 

He was a strong character, and rather difficult to get along with. Yet, we liked each other. Walter took me for dinner, and to his organ in the Episcopal Church in Cleveland, and I played the organ for him. He liked my playing because I played exactly as I believed.

That led to reminiscing about Melville Smith, who dedicated the larger Holtkamp in Kresge Auditorium. She even knew about Saarinen, the architect who designed both Kresge and the MIT Chapel. One thing led to another. She ended up telling me practically her whole life story. We spoke for four (!)
hours. She did almost all of the talking. There wasn’t a single dull moment. Every sentence was imbued with energy. She talked about growing up in Japan during the war, doing forced labor even as a teenager. She talked about her earliest musical experiences and about more recent organbuilding trends in Japan. She spoke at length about Marc Garnier, who built the monumental organ at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Center. She told story after story about Guy Bovet, Harald Vogel, Peter Williams, and Karel Paukert (in whose presence she set foot in Old West Church for the very first time). She told me about the time she was in France with Michel Chapuis, and she was playing a three-voice work, and Chapuis reached over and improvised a fourth voice over what she was playing. She spoke of Heiller (which she did in most every conversation I ever had with her). She even spoke of events and feelings in her personal life. It is safe to say that it was one of the most extraordinary phone conversations that I have ever had, with anyone. The next time I saw her, in 2010, she showed signs of memory loss. Clearly this was Yuko’s instinct at work, once again: she knew that in that phone conversation in 2009, she needed to tell me her life’s story.

At the 2014 AGO national convention in Boston, there was a workshop entitled “The Organ as Teacher: The Legacy of Performance Pedagogy at Old West Church,” moderated by Margaret Angelini, with Barbara Bruns, Susan Ferré, and Anne Labounsky. Indirectly it was an event honoring Yuko. (Had it been entitled “An Event in Honor of Yuko Hayashi,” she would have strongly objected.) It was hard for Yuko’s friends to see her in this state of diminished powers—at times aware of what was going on, at other times not so much. But then came a moment, after the workshop, when Yuko was standing, chatting with Ferré and Labounsky. All of a sudden she looked at them, pointed to me, and told them, “He’s a wonderful musician.” For me, that was the equivalent of a New York Times review. I have sought no other musical validation since that moment.

Last summer Yuko’s health declined. In September I learned that her condition was so grave that her family in Japan were contacted. Her 88th birthday was to be on November 2, followed eight days later by a celebratory concert at Old West, featuring some of her greatest former students. None of us thought she was going to live until the concert—we expected it to be a memorial service. Each day I checked my iPhone compulsively, not wanting to miss the terrible news. But the news didn’t come. Now it was November 10, the night of the gala concert. Apparently she was still with us—I had not heard otherwise. I arrived at Old West on that bitter cold night. I walked out of the cold into the warm church, and I heard people saying that Yuko was there! At Old West! I didn’t fully believe it. I looked around, and then I saw it: the back of a wheelchair. I raced over, and there she was. Her eyes were as alert as I had ever seen them. This isn’t possible! How did they even get her there, on that bitter cold evening? But Barbara Bruns made it happen. Yuko took my hand in hers and kept rubbing it, looking me straight in the eye the whole time. Not a word was said.  

The entire evening Yuko had that same alertness in her eyes, start to finish. Being at Old West, among her students and friends, hearing Charles Fisk’s beloved Opus 55—the energy from all of it must have thrilled her.

A few months passed. For Epiphany weekend, January 6 and 7, 2018, as a prelude at all of my Masses, I played Bach’s Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern, BWV 739—the very first piece at Peter Williams’s life-changing recital at Old West so many years ago, the night I met Yuko Hayashi. Eerily, but not surprisingly, only three and a half hours after my last Mass, Yuko Hayashi left this world.

 

Notes

1. Phone conversation with the author,  July 25, 2007.

2. Ibid.

3. Ibid. 

4. Email to the author, October 19, 2009.

5. 1918 Estey (Opus 1598) at Rikkyo (St. Paul’s) University, Tokyo. Replaced by Beckerath in 1984.

6. 1927 Casavant (Opus 1208) at Holy Trinity Church, Tokyo. Church and organ were destroyed by a firebomb in 1945.

7. Diane Luchese, “A conversation with Yuko Hayashi,” The American Organist, September 2010, p. 57. 

8. It was a ca. 1902 Kimball (not Kilgen), with tubular-pneumatic action.

9. Luchese, op. cit., p. 57f.

10. Phone conversation with the author, July 25, 2007.

11. Ibid. 

12. Ibid.

13. Ibid.

14. Ibid.

15. From an unpublished interview between Yuko and the author, which took place in Boston on February 17, 2004. 

16. Ibid.

17. Ibid.

18. Ibid.

19. Luchese, op. cit., p. 60. 

20. Conversation with Nancy Granert, January 11, 2018.

21. Seven years previous, and 500 meters down the road, Fisk had installed his Opus 44 at King’s Chapel, the first modern American three-manual tracker organ built in the second half of the twentieth century. The organ was a gift of Amelia Peabody. Thanks to the friendship between the pastors of Old West (Dr. Wilbur C. Ziegler) and King’s Chapel (Dr. Joseph Barth), Amelia Peabody gave a grant to Old West for their new organ. The choice of Fisk was endorsed by the organists of both King’s Chapel (Daniel Pinkham) and Old West (James Busby), as well as E. Power Biggs.

22. Jeanne Crowgey was a member of Old West from 1972 to 1980. She was also an organist, who served unofficially as an interim before the selection of Yuko Hayashi. Crowgey went on to be Yuko’s invaluable assistant during the first six years of the Old West Organ Society. Crowgey did a large amount of the administrative work for the international series, the summer series, and the weekly noontime concert series. She was one of the last friends to visit Yuko before her passing.

23. From a reminiscence written by Yuko in 2004 and posted on the C. B. Fisk website (edited by L. C.).

24. Once in the 1960s she played a recital at the Piaristenkirche in Vienna, which included a piece by Frescobaldi. Heiller was in attendance and raved about how she played the Frescobaldi, a composer she had never studied with him (phone conversation with the author, year unknown).

25. Phone conversation with the author, year unknown.

26. Email to the author, June 10, 2009.

27. Email to the author, September 2, 2009.