The restoration of the chancel organ at the Cathedral-Basilica of Notre Dame de Québec

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

 

 

Paul Monachino

Paul Monachino serves as director of music and organist at Our Lady, Queen of the Most Holy Rosary Cathedral in Toledo, Ohio, and also director of liturgical music for the Diocese of Toledo. He completed a Bachelor of Music degree at Heidelberg University in Tiffin, Ohio, and a Master of Music at Indiana University, Bloomington. He is a member of the American Guild of Organists, the Organ Historical Society, the National Association of Pastoral Musicians, and the Conference of Roman Catholic Cathedral Musicians.  

On January 24, 1931, the first boxcar containing Skinner Organ Company Opus 820 left Boston en route to the new cathedral in Toledo, Ohio—Our Lady, Queen of the Most Holy Rosary. After many months of planning and developing the stoplist, the dream of installing an organ from the finest American builder of the early 20th century was soon to be a reality. Norbert Fox, the cathedral organist, kept a copy of the stoplist on a side table in his home and perused it daily, anticipating with great delight the beautiful and majestic sounds that would soon fill the cathedral.

Ground was broken for the unique Spanish Plateresque-style cathedral in 1924. In early 1929, with construction nearing completion, final negotiations with Ernest Skinner were in the works. The contract was prepared on June 13, 1929. An interesting change to the contract was requested by Skinner. He wished to move the English Horn from the Choir to the Solo division. It was to be replaced in the Choir by an Orchestral Oboe (changed to a Flügel Horn in 1933 at the request of Norbert Fox). In a letter dated January 30, 1930, Skinner writes, “The English Horn was commonly placed on the Choir organ until a short time ago where I greatly improved its quality by a modification of design, and the new form works better on the Solo (wind) pressure than on the Choir. . . .”¹ In concluding the letter Skinner writes, “I look your scheme over every day with renewed satisfaction. It gives me every opportunity to fulfill the confidence you have given me in according the Skinner organization a perfect opportunity to build a great work of art.”² And in a letter of September 27, 1930, Mr. Skinner states, “I honestly believe this organ is going to be one of the greatest in America.”³ History has confirmed his belief as Opus 820, located in an outstanding acoustical environment, has come to be regarded as one of his finest efforts.

Three days of musical events marked completion of the organ’s installation. The first of these was a solo organ recital on June 2, 1931, by Palmer Christian of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. The following day witnessed a choral and organ program presented by the Cathedral Chapel Choir, Reverend Ignatius Kelly, choirmaster, accompanied at the organ by Norbert Fox and John Gordon Seely of Toledo’s Trinity Episcopal Church. The events concluded on June 4 with a performance of Edward Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius. The organ had been in the cathedral for nine years when the edifice was finally dedicated in 1940.

The Muller Pipe Organ Company of Toledo cared for the organ after it was installed. Family patriarch Joseph Muller and his son Henry previously worked for Skinner in Boston. After rising to the position of principal installation foreman in the Skinner company, in 1919 Henry established his own organ maintenance shop in Toledo, Ohio. The Skinner organ in Rosary Cathedral was integral to a lively liturgical music program: ordinations, weddings, funerals, and other festive celebrations. It regularly accompanied the 80-voice men and boys choir for Sunday Mass. It was also heard daily at Mass by the students of the Cathedral School. The Gregorian Institute of America, established in Toledo (now GIA Publications, Chicago), held weeklong summer workshops at neighboring Mary Manse College, and participants attended daily Mass at the cathedral. Private recordings of the organ were made in the 1950s by Claude Legacé (organist-choirmaster from 1954 until 1961) and Valerian Fox, son of Norbert Fox. In 1966, Maurice Duruflé and his wife Marie-Madeleine performed on the organ; the concert’s first half featured selected movements of the Requiem conducted by the composer. The Muller family was always on hand for major occasions to ensure that the organ was functioning at its best. But after over 40 years of daily use, the organ was beginning to show its age through various mechanical failures.

In September 1979, following the renovation of the cathedral to conform to liturgical directives of the Second Vatican Council, organist-choirmaster Dr. Hugh Murray requested that attention now be given to restoring the organ. The Standing Committee on Sacred Music was charged with preparing a recommendation for the restoration of the Skinner organ. After study, consultation, and consideration of several proposals submitted to the committee, the diocese awarded a contract to K & D Pipe Organ Service Co. (Ken and Dorothy Holden) of Ferndale (Detroit), Michigan. The concept of the restoration was conservative, with no proposal to alter the tonal or mechanical systems of the organ. In 1980 the console was moved to the chancel floor from the former choir gallery in keeping with the renovated liturgical space that called for the choir to be in a more accessible position. The console was thoroughly restored during the move. Following this project, a phased restoration began with the removal of the Choir division to the K & D shop.

The Holdens ran a modest shop, performing much of the restoration work themselves. Work progressed slowly and at times came to a standstill due to unforeseen personal circumstances. The cathedral authorities became impatient with the slow progress, and in 1983 a mutual release agreement was issued, bringing the restoration project to a halt. This led to years of debate about how to proceed that nearly imperiled the existence of this important pipe organ.

In the spring of 1983 all the components of the Choir division that had been in the K & D shop were returned, but not reinstalled. The pipework of this division was stored throughout the triforium walkway of the cathedral. Overall, a number of critical stops, such as the Great 4′ Octave, were completely unplayable, and numerous dead notes riddled almost every stop of the organ. The organ was in a nearly useless condition.

In a desire to preserve momentum for the restoration project, Hugh Murray and the cathedral authorities engaged local organ builder Daniel Pilzecker as a consultant. He recommended a rather conservative scope of work that included a new console and some minor tonal alterations and additions, some of which had been already considered in the 1979 proposals. Among the many recommendations in those years, there was considerable agreement that a new console should be provided and that the chorus reeds should be brightened. A request for proposal based on Pilzecker’s observations was sent to five organ companies. Two responded with a bid: the Muller company and the Williams-Stevens Organ Company of Cincinnati, Ohio (Mark Lively).  

In August 1983, Fr. Robert Donnelly, diocesan chancellor (and soon to be auxiliary bishop of Toledo), requested that the Diocesan Liturgical Commission form an ad hoc “Cathedral Committee” to recommend action to the bishop concerning the restoration of the organ and a new sound system. The first meeting was held in August 1983. Soon afterward the committee retained Dr. Robert Noehren as organ consultant and arranged for him to visit Toledo in January 1984. 

During this visit, Noehren met with the committee, surveyed the Skinner organ, and visited several other pipe organs in the Toledo area. A committee meeting including Noehren was arranged with Bishop James Hoffman. From the archival notes of these meetings it becomes clear that the committee was now wrestling with the decision of whether to restore the Skinner or replace it. One of the recorded comments (all anonymous) from the meeting is quite startling: “The Cathedral Skinner organ is not a great instrument and it never was one. It is not famous, and it never was.”⁴ The Organ Historical Society thought differently in awarding Opus 820 a Historic Organ Citation in 2006! A great deal of credit for the fame of this organ must go to Joseph Vitacco and his project to record landmark Skinner and Aeolian-Skinner organs throughout the United States. Four recordings of the Rosary Cathedral organ were produced by JAV Recordings, disseminating its artistic merit throughout the world.

Three proposals were recommended by Robert Noehren in a letter dated January 16, 1984. The first, and preferred, was to provide two new organs: a small choir organ in the sanctuary and a large “Great Organ” in the gallery. The Skinner organ would be sold, as a whole or parted out. If the cathedral were sentimentally attached to the Skinner organ a restoration could be accomplished but conversion to a direct-electric action was encouraged along with a new or rebuilt console and some tonal alterations. Noehren did note that the Skinner would be worthy of preservation as was the Hill Auditorium Skinner at the University of Michigan where he taught for many years. A third proposal for one free-standing organ in the apse was included although considered less than ideal. The committee had much to consider.

On January 30, 1984, a message was received from Sam Koontz of the Tellers Organ Company, stating that he would be passing through Toledo and would like to assess the cathedral organ. At a committee meeting the next day, Hugh Murray reported concerning Koontz that, “this item . . . is of no validity and need concern us no longer.” But time would bear out that this initial contact from Sam Koontz might very well be what preserved Opus 820. Koontz would follow up with a proposal to complete all unfinished releathering in the currently dismantled Choir division and reinstallation, address some console issues, repair dead stops in the Great and Solo divisions, and tune the organ. 

On February 11, 1984, Hugh Murray wrote a letter of memorandum to the cathedral committee concerning his reaction to Noehren’s recommendations that would become his guiding vision for the project. Murray reflected on the many years of study and discussion concerning the organ. He concludes, “I would love to hear and play again the fully restored Skinner Organ with all of its voices resounding throughout our magnificent, acoustically alive Toledo Cathedral.”

In March, the cathedral committee drafted a proposal for the bishop to “mothball” the Skinner organ and construct a new, freestanding organ in the apse. One must appreciate the perspective of the committee concerning Opus 820. Restored components and pipes lay scattered about the triforium, and most of the organ did not play. By some it was viewed as beyond revival. But for those who were able to see beyond its current condition, the vision of a completely restored instrument remained strong. As consultant, Noehren continued to be updated on the discussions and had undertaken more research on the various options. In light of the committee’s proposal to locate one new organ in the apse, rather than a new organ at either end of the cathedral, Noehren writes, “Since you have decided to have the organ in the sanctuary, I suggest you re-consider the possibility of restoring your present organ.”⁵ He mentions that he has identified several firms that could carry out this work, and that “for now it seems that the costs for doing so may be far below our earlier estimates.”⁶ And further, “The present organ is indeed a very good instrument.”⁷ Despite this suggestion, by a vote of six to one, the committee’s proposal to mothball the Skinner and construct a new organ in the apse was sent to the bishop on June 4, 1984. The bishop approved the proposal as a working document to be shared with various leadership groups in the diocese. 

In September 1984, Sam Koontz wrote a four-page letter to the cathedral committee responding to the proposal sent to the bishop. While he feared the die had been cast to abandon the Skinner organ, he felt compelled to rectify what he felt was “gross inaccuracy in factual information presented to the Committee by the consultant”⁸ and contained in the proposal. He deemed the work done by K & D to be of the highest quality and regretted the health issues that plagued the Holdens at that time. Concerning the “large parts of the organ that are disconnected” he mentions that the restoration work on the Choir division was complete and only in need of reassembly. The console restoration that was labeled “botched” was far from it and required final adjustments that were not carried out due to the termination agreement. He also questions the committee’s choice of Noehren as a consultant for a restoration of the Skinner organ, which was the original intent of the cathedral committee. It was well known that Noehren’s ideals of organbuilding were very far from those of Ernest Skinner. Koontz also debunks the fears of continued maintenance of the leather actions and a number of other issues. Relative to a new organ, he writes, “The Skinner organ possesses a quantity and quality of material which would not be possible to reproduce today, at any cost. No more refined reed tones have ever been produced, than those of the Skinner Organ Company.”⁹ Koontz proposed that he would complete the restoration of the organ for a price not to exceed $90,000.00 within three years.

Koontz concludes by urging the restoration of the organ: “If restoration of the Skinner organ does indeed prove to be prophetic, this is the greatest legacy the Committee could hope to leave to future generations in the Diocese of Toledo.”¹⁰  On October 25, 1984, after reviewing the letter, the committee invited Sam Koontz to attend a meeting and speak in more detail about his proposal.

Convinced of his abilities to revive the Skinner organ, the diocese initially awarded a contract to Koontz to re-install the Choir division and carry out some other work to complete the work the Holdens had begun. Subsequently, an additional contract was signed that culminated in thorough repairs and releathering of the organ by 1992. A celebratory rededication recital was presented by Todd Wilson on March 31, 1993. In the recital program Hugh Murray wrote, “(The late Sam Koontz) was a talented craftsman with strong convictions about restoring versus rebuilding/enlarging old organs. The Cathedral Skinner is a monument to his principles and dedication to his art as a restorer.” Opus 820 was now completely functional after over a decade of virtual silence. 

The work of Sam Koontz was admirable in preserving this magnificent instrument.  Since the work authorized by the diocese did not constitute a thorough restoration, in the years immediately following, numerous dead notes and other malfunctions continued to plague the organ. At the time it was decided to retain all of the original mechanisms with little intervention. Significant mechanicals—swell engines, tremolos, combination action—were not restored at all since they were functioning well at the time. Many of these unrestored items are now beginning to show signs of wear. The pipework is still in excellent shape, but many of the reed stops are in need of restoration of tuning scrolls and brass tongues. 

In 2009–2010 a survey of the organ was carried out by Jeff Weiler confirming that a thorough restoration of the organ was in order. 

 

To the casual listener, the  Cathedral  Skinner retains its general majesty and suave elegance. Upon closer inspection—certainly to organists and other musicians—the organ will sound tired. Beautiful tone is still unquestionably present, but not a single stop is even in tone or volume throughout its compass.

Fully restored, the organ would handily address any task that might be put before it. It has the potential to lead an assembly with great delicacy and sophistication. Still, it will be a revelation to even its most dedicated admirers just how much more polished, alive, and beautiful the sound will be once the pipes are fully cleaned and reconditioned.¹¹

Requests for proposals were sent out to a select number of organ companies. In 2012 the proposal of the J. W. Muller Co. of Croton, Ohio, was accepted. Now the challenging work of funding the project begins. While there has been interest from several charitable foundations, neither the Diocese of Toledo nor the cathedral parish can financially contribute a significant amount to the project at this time. If the reader is interested in showing support for this project through a donation of any amount, visit the parish website at: http://rosarycathedral.org/donate/.

The goal is to provide a thorough restoration of the organ. This would include preservation of the original console while providing a new console with the latest technological controls for the organist.  As originally envisioned for the cathedral, a small antiphonal division created from vintage pipework will be installed to support congregational singing at the back of the nave. The successful completion of this project will allow the organ to function reliably for many years and preserve this pristine example of early twentieth century American organ building.

 

Notes

1. Letter from Ernest Skinner to Msgr. Anthony J. Dean, cathedral rector, January 30, 1930.

2. Ibid. 

3. Letter from Skinner to Msgr. Dean, September 27, 1930.

4. Minutes of the cathedral committee meeting, January 10, 1984, page 5, item 20.

5. Letter from Robert Noehren to Rev. Robert Doppler, chairman/director of the Toledo Diocesan Liturgical Committee, March 13, 1984.

6. Ibid.

7. Ibid.

8. Letter from Samuel Koontz to the cathedral committee, September 17, 1984, page 1.

9. Ibid, page 3.

10. Ibid, page 4.

11. Survey of Skinner Opus 820, Jeff Weiler & Associates, LLC, March 24, 2011, page 25.

 

Skinner Organ Company

Opus 820

GREAT (Manual II, 6″ wind pressure)

16′ Double Diapason 61

8′ First Diapason 61

8′ Second Diapason 61

8′ Third Diapason* 61

8′ Viola* 61

8′ Harmonic Flute 61

8′ Gedeckt* 61

8′ Erzähler 61

4′ Octave 61

4′ Flute* 61

22⁄3′ Twelfth 61

2′ Fifteenth** 61

IV′ Chorus Mixture (15-19-22-26)** 244

IV′ Harmonics (17-19-flat 21-22)** 244

16′ Trumpet** 61

8′ Tromba** 61

4′ Clarion** 61

Solo Reeds to Great

 

* Enclosed

** 10″  wind pressure

SWELL (Manual III, enclosed,
6″ wind pressure)

16′ Melodia (open to low G) 73

8′ Diapason** 73

8′ Rohrflöte 73

8′ Flute Celeste II 134

8′ Salicional 73

8′ Voix Celeste 73

8′ Echo Gamba 73

4′ Octave** 73

4′ Flute Triangulaire 73

2′ Flautino** 61

V Mixture (15-19-22-26-29)** 305

16′ Waldhorn** 73

8′ Trumpet** 73

8′ Oboe d’Amore 73

8′ Vox Humana 73

4′ Clarion** 73

Tremolo

Swell 16

Swell 4

Harp (Choir)

Celeste (Choir)

 

**10″  wind pressure

CHOIR (Manual I, enclosed,
6″ wind pressure)

16′ Gamba 73

8′ Diapason 73

8′ Concert Flute 73

8′ Gamba 73

8′ Kleine Erzähler 73

8′ Kleine Celeste (TC) 61

4′ Gemshorn 73

4′ Flute 73

22⁄3′ Nazard 61

2′ Piccolo 61

III Carillon (12-17-22) 183

16′ Fagotto 73

8′ Flügel Horn 73

8′ Clarinet 73

Tremolo

Harp (TC, from Celesta)

Celesta 61 bars

Choir 16

Choir 4

SOLO (Manual IV, enclosed,
10″ wind pressure)

8′ Flauto Mirabilis 73

8′ Gamba 73

8′ Gamba Celeste 73

4′ Orchestral Flute 73

16′ Corno di Bassetto 85

8′ Corno di Bassetto (ext)

8′ English Horn 73

Tremolo

8′ French Horn*** 73

8′ Tuba Mirabilis*** 73

Solo 16

Solo 4

 

*** 20″ wind pressure

PEDAL (6″ wind pressure)

32′ Major Bass 56

16′ Diapason 44

16′ Contra Bass 56

16′ Metal Diapason (Great)

16′ Bourdon (ext, 32′ Major Bass)

16′ Melodia (Swell)

16′ Gamba (Choir)

16′ Dulciana 32

8′ Octave (ext, 16′ Diapason)

8′ ‘Cello (ext., 16′ Contra Bass)

8′ Gedeckt (ext, 32′ Major Bass)

8′ Still Gedeckt (Swell, 16′ Melodia)

4′ Super Octave (ext, 16′ Contra Bass)

IV Mixture 128

32′ Fagotto (ext Ch, 16′ Fagotto)**** 12

16′ Trombone**** 44

16′ Waldhorn (Swell)

16′ Fagotto (Choir)

8′ Tromba (ext, 16′ Trombone)****

 

**** 15″ wind pressure

 

Couplers

Great to Pedal

Swell to Pedal

Swell to Pedal 4

Choir to Pedal

Choir to Pedal 4

Solo to Pedal

Solo to Pedal 4

Swell to Great

Choir to Great

Solo to Great

Swell to Choir

Solo to Choir

Solo to Swell

Great to Solo

Swell to Great 16

Swell to Great 4

Swell to Choir 16

Swell to Choir 4

Choir to Great 16

Choir to Great 4

Solo to Great 16

Solo to Great 4

 

Accessories

6 General pistons (thumb and toe)

10 Great pistons and Cancel (thumb)

10 Swell pistons and Cancel (thumb)

10 Choir pistons and Cancel (thumb)

5 Solo pistons and Cancel (thumb)

8 Pedal pistons and Cancel (toe)

General Cancel (thumb)

Set (thumb)

Great to Pedal reversible (thumb and toe)

Swell to Pedal reversible (thumb and toe)

Choir to Pedal reversible (thumb)

Solo to Pedal reversible (thumb)

Choir to Great reversible (thumb)

Solo to Great reversible (thumb)

Swell to Choir reversible (thumb)

Solo to Choir reversible (thumb)

Manual Stops 16 on/off (thumb)

Pedal Stops 32 on/off (thumb)

All Couplers on Cresc. on/off (thumb)

All Swells to Swell on/off (thumb)

Balanced Swell expression shoe

Balanced Choir expression shoe

Balanced Solo expression shoe

Balanced Crescendo shoe (with indicators)

Sforz. reversible (thumb and toe, with indicator)

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.

Emery Brothers, Allentown, Pennsylvania

St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, Richmond, Virginia

Founded in 1911, St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church is not old by Virginia standards. Located in the Westhampton section of the city near the then recently relocated University of Richmond, the new Country Club of Virginia, and two diocesan schools, St. Christopher’s for boys and St. Catherine’s for girls, the church was begun by several families who wanted a more convenient location for their children to attend Sunday School. For this reason the church was known early on by the playful moniker St. Convenience, an appellation that in certain circles persists to this day.

The new church flourished as did the neighborhood. Just before the stock market crash and Great Depression, a new church in the Gothic Revival style was built at the end of Grove Avenue. In the archives of the church there exists an elaborate elevation drawing showing the proposed new church in the Georgian style, which is ubiquitous throughout Richmond. I have never learned who prevailed on the new church to adopt Gothic, but it was probably inspired by the new buildings of the University of Richmond, which were designed by Ralph Adams Cram. The vestry approached Cram about designing their new church. By this time Cram, whose wife was from Virginia, had completed the original buildings of the University of Richmond in its new Westhampton campus, as well as several other projects in Richmond and other locations in Virginia. But Cram replied he was too busy to accept the commission, and he recommended Frank Watson of Philadelphia. Watson designed the church with a seating capacity of about 400. A new organ built by Hook & Hastings was installed in the new church.

In the years following World War II, the parish experienced exponential growth, to the point where the church was considerably enlarged to a design by Philip Hubert Frohman, the architect of Washington National Cathedral. Frohman’s design increased the seating capacity to approximately 750 by extending the original north aisle to become a chapel, extending the nave two bays westward, and creating an imposing three-portal entrance. For this enlarged church the Aeolian-Skinner Organ Company built its Opus 1110, designed and tonally finished by G. Donald Harrison, and installed in 1951. Emerson Richards was a consultant to the church, and it was he who was responsible for building the shelf into the chancel to contain the Great and Pedal divisions outside the chamber arch. The previous organ was completely contained in the chamber and the façade of non-speaking pipes was flush with the chancel wall. 

There was protracted correspondence between the church and Harrison about the new façade, which required a few non-speaking pipes to form a link between the two original portions of the old façades, so that it would appear as one continuous panel. Aeolian-Skinner typically did not do this type of work, as all casework was considered above and beyond the contract for a new organ. But representatives of the church were adamant, and Harrison relented and made the few required dummy pipes and woodwork to link the two. Also, by this time post-World War II inflation caused Aeolian-Skinner, who typically took three years to build an organ, to include escalator clauses into their contracts, which could increase the contract price to a ceiling amount should costs increase significantly during the period it took to build the organ. Many potential buyers of their organs balked at this, but those who truly wanted an Aeolian-Skinner organ accepted it. That Harrison reluctantly agreed to waive this clause in the case of St. Stephen’s Church indicates to me that the businessmen representing the church were iron-fisted in their resolve that the church pay no more than it absolutely had to, and is also evidence that Harrison really wanted to build the organ! 

During these negotiations the church ordered a Dun & Bradstreet report on Aeolian-Skinner, and the results are sobering in retrospect and portend bad times to come. Even though Aeolian-Skinner was very busy at the time building some of its most famous organs, the various vicissitudes that eventually caused the demise of the company some two decades later were beginning to evidence themselves. The provider of the report commented, “The firm in Hagers-town had a rating in Dun & Bradstreet of A-1 so we did not get a report on them. Between the two companies based on the rating in Dun & Bradstreet I would prefer buying it from the Hagerstown company other things being equal.”

The organ was rather modest for the large new space. It consisted of three manuals and forty-one ranks. The sound, while beautiful and conforming to all the hallmarks of Harrison’s American Classic organ, filled the church in a similarly modest way. In 1968 Aeolian-Skinner made significant additions to the organ: a new Positiv division on the Epistle side of the chancel, an Antiphonal Organ at the west end of the church surrounding a new stained glass window, several ranks in the main organ, including a 32′ reed and a second mixture in the Great, and a new four-manual console. The original three-manual console was sold to Trinity Church in Rutland, Vermont, where it still exists today. These additions were designed by Joseph S. Whiteford, who was by this time retired from the company. But he was friends with the organist of the church, Granville Munson (my predecessor), and had been a classmate of his at St. Alban’s School in Washington. So Whiteford left his retirement to work on the job, even donating a new stop in honor of his friendship. The only alteration to Harrison’s original organ was the reworking of the Swell Flute Celeste, making it an 8′ stop; it had previously been a 4′ stop.

This was the organ that I inherited when I became organist of the church in 1985. At about this time the long-time tuner of the organ retired and there were a few deferred maintenance items that needed attention. There were also tuning irregularities inherent with the various spatial placements over a large area, and the unusual effects of the air conditioning system. Through mutual associations I learned of Stephen Emery, who was at that time installing an organ in nearby Williamsburg for Petty-Madden Organbuilders, for whom he then worked. It was soon arranged for Steve to come by the church, and the short story is that he, and later his brothers and co-workers, have lovingly maintained the organ ever since. In short order Steve took care of the mechanical repairs that were needed, but most important, he quickly found the best way to keep the various divisions in absolute tune. There may be others as good, but there is no one who surpasses Steve as a tuner, as he just has the knack to understand difficult spatial arrangements and inherent temperature fluctuations. He also coached us in the proper use of the air conditioning system, especially the length of time necessary to maintain a precise temperature for tuning sessions, services, and concerts. The system, built in the 1960s, was the finest available at the time, and the church wisely maintained a near-constant temperature throughout the seasons, to the point where, summer or winter, the temperature in the organ fluctuated only slightly. The church also benefited greatly from the fact that Steve and his coworkers traveled regularly to their various jobs in the South. I cannot recall a significant concert, recital, or recording session when they weren’t right there working alongside us all for a good outcome. They were truly part of our team in the music ministry of the church. 

In my early years at the church we soon recognized the desirability of making some modest changes in the chancel area to reflect the wide range of uses required of the church in its various pageants, concerts, and the then-yearly organ recital series. The two diocesan schools also regularly held services and events in the church that would be helped by a certain flexibility of space within the small chancel. All the while it was understood that the basic classic “feel” of the divided chancel not be compromised. The church invited Terry Byrd Eason to visit the church, and over a year of conversations and meetings with various stakeholders he developed a scheme which, although it took almost 30 years, is the basic plan that was implemented in 2016. This plan called for new marble flooring, flexible seating, extending the chancel floor slightly westward into the nave, and a movable organ console.

As the original organ approached its 50th anniversary it began to show the telltale signs of aging leather. The vestry, knowing the eventual need, opted to undertake a complete restoration of the organ before it became critical. This work consisted of taking the organ down one section at a time to replace the leather components and clean all the pipework. Some of the original stops were cone tuned, which resulted in some minor damage to the pipework, mainly in the upperwork and mixtures. These pipes were repaired and outfitted with new tuning slides. All pipework (except the lowest basses) was removed to Emery Brothers’ shop for cleaning and repair as needed. This work was undertaken from 2002–2004. During this time, while various divisions were out, other portions of the organ were available to cover services, and at no time was the liturgical schedule compromised or did the church require a substitute organ to be brought in. The newly restored organ was celebrated in March 2004 in a weekend of recitals, services, lectures, and tours featuring Judith and Gerre Hancock, Charles Callahan, and Steve Emery, who gave tours of the organ at various times throughout the weekend and on Sunday between and after services. At this time Walker Technical Company provided a new solid-state combination action. The old pneumatic combination action was disconnected, but left in place.

The one item of organ restoration that was not undertaken during 2002–2004 was the console, which retained its pneumatic mechanism and wax-coated wiring from 1968. Some of the less-invasive parts of Terry Eason’s design were quietly implemented in the ensuing years, including work to make the main altar freestanding. However, the work on the console was tied to the redesign of the chancel and was undertaken after I left the church in 2006. I was not involved in this work, which was folded into a massive, complete nine-million-dollar renovation to the entire church in 2014–2016. It included replacing the entire floor of the church and chancel, making the entrances fully accessible, the redesign of the chancel, replacement of the HVAC systems, and outfitting the console with new controls and making it movable. During the 18-month renovation, it was necessary to remove the entire organ due to the invasive nature of the work and the amount of dust created, as the entire interior of the church space was a major construction site. Services were held in the Parish Hall and Palmer Hall Chapel during this time.

Along with a full church I heard the spectacular results for myself at a concert and Evensong for the American Guild of Organists Regional Convention in June 2017 sung by the Choir of the Church of the Epiphany, Washington, D.C., directed by Jeremy Filsell, with Erik Wm. Suter, organist. Visually and tonally, the project is a thing of great beauty and was inspiring to experience.

—Neal Campbell

Trinity Church, Vero Beach, Florida

 

Aeolian-Skinner Opus 1110 is truly a beautiful instrument, especially in its recently improved acoustic environment. In short this is a pipe organ most everyone will find easy to love. It has been our pleasure to maintain this instrument for over 30 years. The project we undertook in the early 2000s included total mechanical renovation of the organ, releathering windchests and reservoirs, tremolos, shade engines, and pipework cleaning and restoration. In 2014 we removed exposed pipework, covered winchests, covered enclosed divisions, and removed the console in preparation for a major construction project in the church.

This also presented the perfect opportunity for a thorough console rebuild. The whole organ was rewired to a new Solid State Organ Sytems Multisystem, and the console fitted out with multi-level memory, piston sequencer, and SSOS’s newly unveiled Organist Palette. We also added internal casters to the console and pedalboard to make the console movable.

We are deeply grateful to the people of St. Stephen’s for their ongoing commitment to Aeolian-Skinner Opus 1110 and for the opportunity to partner with them in preserving and presenting this fine instrument.

—Adam Dieffenbach

Owner, Emery Brothers

 

Builder’s website:

www.emerybrothers.com

Church website: www.ststephensrva.org

 

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.

Juget-Sinclair Organbuilders, Montréal, Québec, Canada: 

St. Joseph’s Oratory, Montréal, Québec, Canada

Juget-Sinclair Organbuilders, Montréal, Québec, Canada

St. Joseph’s Oratory, Montréal, Québec, Canada

 

From the builder

The idea to fully restore the Beckerath organ at St. Joseph’s Oratory came from then Organist Titulaire Philippe Bélanger. We came up with different proposals, some involving changes to the instrument, some not, but for the moment we were firmly in the world of the hypothetical; no harm in talking about changes to the instrument—it was only a mental exercise then. Any thought that this might actually occur was accompanied by cold sweat and sleeplessness—after all, perhaps no other instrument has had a greater influence on organ building in Québec, and its influence has been worldwide.

Eventually, to our great relief, the authorities at St. Joseph’s Oratory wisely came to the conclusion that an outside expert and a proper bidding process were required. George Taylor was hired, deus ex machina, and three Québec companies were asked to bid on a very thorough RFP that specified no changes to the tonal specification. “No changes” may seem an obvious requirement, but it is not. Most musicians sitting at the console are soon surprised by what seems missing from the specification, despite its 78-stop, 5-manual footprint. But any thought of making changes leads straight to dilemma.

One example is instructive: the idea had naturally surfaced to add a trumpet to the Récit (yes, a 78-stop instrument with French pretensions and no Trompette on the Récit!). Now, how to add it—it could be added to the back of the chest grid; that way no one could complain about any stop being removed. Or, the Musette 4′ could be removed and replaced with a trumpet. The Musette could be racked mute on a wall in the swell box, for its own protection. I was amused by these two possibilities—the first pleases the musician at the console, who finds the original specification intact—plus, it provides the trumpet they always needed. The second pleases the restorer 50 years (or more!) from now, who finds a windchest that has not been denatured by holes bored through the frame to accommodate the extra toe board, and inevitably returns the Musette to its toe holes. 

This dilemma cannot be resolved and let us not pretend it can. Any restoration, no matter how respectful, will remove some original material. In a museum setting, an ancient clavichord may be copied rather than restored so that the original continues to exist, unmolested, as a document for future generations. The copies allow musicians to play instruments that are as close as possible to the originals and to be informed by the experience. This is clearly not an option for organs, and to add to the conundrum, they exist primarily to accompany a changing liturgy. Organs occupy a strange space somewhere between typewriter and violin—between pragmatism and art—actually both at once. 

But surely this is not of concern for an instrument of only 50 years? What made this project difficult to define in the early stages? In a way, it was an organ of conflict—wonderful to play, a beast to play; the specification is huge, but with huge holes; it is a historic monument, but only 50 years old. There are organbuilders the world over who consider themselves the spiritual sons of Rudolf von Beckerath, and the torchbearers of his tradition. The tension created by these issues  made the appointment of George Taylor, outside expert, a stroke of genius that perhaps made the project the success that we believe it is.

It was decided to make no changes to the musical qualities of the instrument, but to rebuild the key action completely. If a line can be drawn in an organ between the musical and the mechanical, it is surely at the pallet itself, and this became an important distinction. In this instrument, the pallet openings on all divisions are unnecessarily wide—up to 30 mm with only 5 mm of travel at the nose, a terribly inefficient design, if efficiency is what you are after. Naturally, the question arose whether or not to change the pallet design—to provide as much or perhaps more wind and reduce pluck at the same time. But inevitably, the nature of the pipe attack would be changed, even if the quantity of wind was not. It was decided that in order to preserve the musical integrity of the instrument, the pallet dimensions should not be altered. This made for an interesting case study—without reducing pluck, to what extent could the action be made more agreeable to play, with up to four manuals coupled? The action, as we found it, was slow to repeat, but the spring force felt at the keyboard was nearly right. By reducing mass in the action train, we would be able to improve repetition, but the pluck would not be greatly reduced. Would musicians find the action to be improved, and if so, by how much?

A complete rebuild of the action was undertaken, using the tools available to us: reduce mass, reduce friction, and ensure proper functioning of all the elements. New roller boards were built for the Grand-Orgue, Récit, Bombarde, and Positif divisions. This was perhaps responsible for the greatest reduction in action mass; the original design follows laws of physics that we apparently no longer have access to. The mass of the rollers was adding a lot of inertia to the action, but there was also friction and flexibility. All trackers were replaced with carbon fiber—1 mm rod for vertical runs and ½ x 3mm section for horizontal runs. This material, as well as being very light and strong, has the benefit of remaining straight, so alignment is easy. But we did notice a tendency for people to think that as long as carbon fiber was involved, success was ensured. In reality, it is a material, like any other, whose qualities need to be understood for success.

The organ was first stripped of its action, and the console was removed and taken to the shop. There was a feeling of revisiting 1960 at this stage. We found cheeks on the sides of the console that clearly had held a sling used to hoist the console up over the gallery rail. The hole in the ceiling was still there, at the perfect location, ready for us to run a heavy rope through, and the console was soon lowered to the floor of the nave and brought to the shop. Then, restoration continued with two teams, one at the shop restoring the console and building new action parts, the other on site restoring windchests and pipework.

Restoration of each division of the organ was undertaken one after another, starting at the top with the Récit. Pipes were removed and taken to be cleaned and straightened in the chapelle des familles. This soundproof room just below the organ loft is intended for crying babies and their parents during Mass—ideal for pipe restoration, and roomy enough for a fairly complete pipe shop. At the same time, the Récit windchests were turned over and restored in place. This top-to-bottom approach allowed us to break a large instrument into manageable chunks, and had the additional benefit of allowing any dust we created to settle below, to the next division scheduled for restoration.

Particular attention was paid to the console, as it had lost the stark Germanic austerity—apparently not held in much esteem in the intervening years—that now seems oddly exotic. The original plastic stopknobs had long ago been replaced, so new maple ones were made, copying examples from the other Montréal Beckeraths. A sequencer was added, as were divisional pistons, using the same unorthodox arrangement found on the 1963 Beckerath in Pittsburgh—with inter-manual divisionals placed at e-f and b-c, between the sharps. Holes had been cut into the stop jambs over the years to accommodate various versions of instantly obsolete combination action. These were filled and veneered with matching pear wood. The goal was to restore and update the console so that future additions to the combination action would not deface the console. To this end, Solid State Organ Systems provided touch screen functionality via a wireless iPad, so that future changes can be handled here.

The five largest pipes of the Grand-Orgue Montre 16′, visible in the large central pipe flat, had been repaired once and collapsed twice since 1960. It was decided that new pipes were needed, built with knowledge reacquired since 1960, of how to make pipes that will stand. The rest of the tin façade pipes were removed, cleaned, repaired, polished, and returned to their holes. The twelve façade pipes that make up the first octave of the Pédale Montre 32′ are of zinc, and were cleaned in place. The entire operation required full scaffolding in front of the façade, which provided a clear signal to the public that a major project was underway.

Winding to the Montre 16′ was originally provided pneumatically to the bottom five pipes of the stop, to reduce wind demand on the channel. We continued this practice through the rest of the first octave, as there was considerable robbing going on, starting from F. Surprisingly, we had never heard complaints about this, but we were sure that if it was not improved, we would. New pneumatic offset chests were constructed following the design of the old one, which functions perfectly.

Voicing was undertaken in a spirit of respect for the builder. Sunken languids were raised, speech problems were taken care of, and stops were equalized, but every effort was taken to stay true to the intent of the builder. After pipes were straightened and cleaned, voicing was checked on a voicing jack before returning the pipes to their chests. Racking and pipe stays were improved and solidified where needed, but in general this had been well done originally. Façade pipes in danger of recollapse were relieved of about half of their weight by hanging them from springs, and should be safe now.

Reaction to the restoration has been very positive, to our great pleasure and even relief, but it has also been instructive. Musicians tend to feel that the voice of the organ has changed—not for the worse—but we are quick to stress that every effort was taken not to change the voicing one iota. But we’ve seen this before—the simple act of removing dust from an instrument changes its timbre. And we wonder if something else isn’t at work: the action is so changed that one’s approach to playing the instrument is different, and it does sound different—it can be more virile, and it sounds more precise, because it can be played more precisely.

In our work building new organs, Juget-Sinclair started with small instruments and has slowly grown, taking on larger and larger work. This restoration has given us the opportunity to take on a major instrument with new challenges of design and infrastructure. The success of this project fills us with confidence for the future, and we feel validates our approach of maintaining a small shop that builds as much as possible in-house. The variety of skills that we are able to foster through this approach serves us particularly well in restoration, where one never knows what challenges will arise. And we hope, in an ever-shrinking new organ market, that this is a model that will keep us occupied for some time.

The following participated in the restoration, which amounted to over 8,000 hours of work: Jocelyn Bélair, Robin Côté, François Couture, Dean Eckmann, Jean-Dominique Felx, Denis Juget, Céline Richard, Stephen Sinclair, Raymond Batroussy, Arnaud Duchenaux, Richard Houghten, and Vladimir Vaculik.

—Stephen Sinclair

 

A musician’s perspective

In spite of widespread secularization in Québec during the quiet revolution of the sixties, the attendance of about 50,000 Québecers at the celebration of the canonization of Brother André Bessette in Montréal’s Olympic Stadium on October 30, 2010 underscored the extent to which he is still very much this city’s beloved son. Shortly after making profession as a monk with the Congregation of the Holy Cross in Montréal in 1874, Brother André became a doorman at the College of Notre Dame. In the ensuing years, healings attributed to his prayer and intercession quickly gained for him a reputation as a faith healer. Increasing numbers of congregants drawn by the “Miracle Man of Montréal” quickly outgrew the small chapel he had erected in 1904 on the north slope of Mont Royal. The building of the current basilica commenced in 1924 and was completed in 1967. Today, St. Joseph’s Oratory stands as a towering testament to the life of this humble brother and is a prominent destination for pilgrims, tourists, and music lovers alike.

Given the oratory’s importance in the life of Montréal from its earliest days, the organ that was to be built here was going to have great civic importance from the outset. And given the immense grandeur of this sanctuary, the instrument would be of monumental proportion. After bids were considered, the fathers of the Congregation of the Holy Cross sent a letter on February 25, 1958 to Rudolf von Beckerath that he had been awarded the contract for the construction of the basilica organ. The contract was signed on June 23 of the same year and the builder was committed to deliver an organ within thirty months. Shortly thereafter, Beckerath submitted a design and several sketches. Among the various requests, Raymond Daveluy, titular organist, requested alterations to the stoplist that would allow the playing of a Récit de tierce, and the architects requested that the case embody more vertical lines. In early 1960, 167 crates arrived by sea, and installation commenced. The inaugural recital was given by Parisian organist André Marchal on November 13, 1960. The opening piece, Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in D Major, was played by Raymond Daveluy. Marchal followed with a program featuring the works of Louis and François Couperin, Clérambault, Daquin, and Tournemire. He also played de Grigny’s Tierce en taille, Franck’s Choral No. 3, Bach’s Fantasy and Fugue in G Minor, Langlais’ Te Deum, and ended the program with an improvisation.

That the building of the oratory organ would be entrusted to a German firm and not to Casavant Frères was a shock to the nationalist sensibilities of many. Coming only thirteen years after the war in which Québecers were conscripted to fight against Germany, this decision unleashed quite a firestorm in the Québec media of the day. However, there was a growing sense among many North American organists and musicians in the 1950s that the organ reform—as it was manifest in the work of Harrison, Holtkamp, and also Casavant Frères during the postwar period—did not go far enough in restoring principles of organ construction from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Many of these young organists became familiar with organ reform in Holland and Germany on their European journeys. 

Then in 1957, Rudolf von Beckerath installed a 44-stop, four-manual instrument in Trinity Lutheran Church in Cleveland, Ohio. The instrument featured a freestanding case designed according to the werkprinzip, mechanical key and stop action, lower wind pressure, and classical voicing inspired by the instruments of Arp Schnitger. While in North America, Beckerath paid a visit to Montréal in 1957 in response to an invitation from a group of local organists—Kenneth Gilbert, Raymond Daveluy, and Gaston and Lucienne Arel. In the aftermath of that meeting, the respective church administrations of these organists signed contracts with Beckerath. The instruments were delivered and inaugurated at Queen Mary Road United Church in 1959, at St. Joseph’s Oratory in 1960, and at Église Immaculée Conception in 1961. 

These three Montréal Beckerath organs succeeded in bringing the current wave of organ reform, not only to Montréal and to Canada, but to North America as a whole. Indeed, along with the Beckerath at Trinity Lutheran and the Flentrop organ installed in the Busch-Reisinger Museum of Harvard University in 1958, these instruments took North American organ reform to an entirely new level. Beckerath’s renown was spreading quickly, and many young North American organbuilders went to apprentice with him—including George Taylor, Fritz Noack, and John Brombaugh. 

Meanwhile, back at home, Casavant Frères realized that changing conceptions of organbuilding and design required a new paradigm and decided to embrace the organ reform. Casavant’s Charles Perrault and tonal and artistic director Lawrence Phelps brought to North America Karl Wilhelm in 1960 and Hellmuth Wolff in 1963 to run a mechanical organ department; since then, very few mechanical action organs have been imported into Québec. Each of these directors, in turn, went on to start their own workshops and shortly became major players, not only in Canada, but in the organbuilding world internationally. Going even further, Casavant recruited Gerhard Brunzema—already an authority in the organ world—as tonal and artistic director of Casavant Frères in 1972. Thus, the Beckerath instrument at St. Joseph’s Oratory had profound impact locally, but was also a key part of that influential wavefront of reform that was both international and historic in scope. 

Though quite young as organs go, the oratory instrument had developed several problems requiring attention. During its 1960 installation, construction of the basilica was still underway. The stone floor had yet to be installed and many interior modifications were still being made in the sanctuary and in the organ loft. This resulted in a premature internal accumulation of dust in the instrument such that, in that same decade, the instrument was already in need of cleaning and some internal components had to be replaced. By the turn of the century, the organ was again in need of a thorough cleaning and many pipes were in danger of collapse. The first initiatives toward restoration were taken in 2005 by Philippe Bélanger, who was organist at the time. Following a grant from the Québec Ministry of Culture overseen by the Conseil du patrimoine religieux du Québec, the project was underway. George Taylor—having apprenticed with Rudolf von Beckerath and having restored the 1963 Beckerath organ at St. Paul’s Cathedral, Pittsburgh in 2009—was named consultant for the project. The firms of Casavant Frères, Juget-Sinclair Organbuilders, and Orgues Létourneau were asked to submit bids; Juget-Sinclair was selected to undertake the restoration.

From the organist’s point of view, the changes to the instrument are subtle, but striking. Though playing with manuals coupled on any instrument of this size is not exactly light, the touch is considerably lighter and even more responsive than before. The action used to have a certain sponginess—releases were a little sluggish and manual couplers had a mildly sodden heaviness. These have been significantly improved—the touch is lighter, there is increased precision of attack, crispness in release, and there seems to be a better calibration of attack and release between divisions when the couplers are engaged. Also, there is a remarkable clarity and brilliance to the sound. The crystalline shimmer of the plenum is especially arresting. Not least, the combination action now avails the player with all current conveniences—there are copious general pistons, multiple levels of memory, and a sequencer.

The renovated instrument was celebrated in two inaugural concerts in October 2012. On October 7, Frédéric Champion, laureate of the first Canadian International Organ Competition, played a concert to a capacity audience. The recital featured works by Bruhns, Florentz, Cabanilles, Robin, and Bach, as well as Champion’s own transcriptions of Debussy, Liszt, and Saint-Saëns. The following week, there was a second inaugural concert presented by Les Petits Chanteurs du Mont-Royal under the direction of Gilbert Patenaude. The first half of the concert featured a cappella choral works, while the second half featured Louis Vierne’s Messe solennelle en ut dièse, op. 16. The choir, situated around the altar, was accompanied by the father-son team, Jacques and Vincent Boucher, with the father playing the choir organ, and son playing the Beckerath. It was a stunning performance with impeccable coordination between organ loft and chancel. With over 4,000 in attendance, this was truly a celebration worthy of this grand instrument.

—David Szanto

 

 

Beckerath, 1960/restored by Juget-Sinclair Organbuilders, 2012

St. Joseph’s Oratory, Montréal, Québec, Canada