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From:
Stephen Roberts <[log in to unmask]>
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Date:
Wed, 11 Nov 1998 12:46:55 -0500
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Dear List,
Neill Callis wrote:
>
> Stephen Roberts wrote:
>
> > > With G. D. Harrison, I think that was strictly a matter of economics - if
> > > you invested money in the case, you might have to give up that extra
> > > doppelflute or the third unda maris on the organ.
> >
> > It is now fashionable in some quarters to bash the work of G. Donald
> > Harrison.  I would like to see evidence for the statement above.  Also I
 
First of all, I didn't write the first statemtent; David Aeschliman did.
 
> The issue is not the type of stops (doppelflote, unda maris) being displaced by
> the cost of an organ case, but that, given the general economics of
> organbuilding, the budget for most organs is zero-sum:  money spent on a case
> is money not spent on pipes.  The following exceprt is from Letter 200, from
> _The American Classic Organ:  A History in Letters_  [Copyright 1990,
> Richmond).
 
That is correct; but these words are not those of Harrison himself.  I
really don't need a book to tell me what some of the philosophy behind
much of GDH's postwar work was: I knew personally many people who worked
for GDH, notably Roy Perry, organist of First Presbyterian Church in
Kilgore, TX that GDH loved so much among his later work; Roy accounted
for fully half of A-S sales at one point in his career.  I stick by my
point.  I can't find a copy of an A-S sales booklet from the 50's that I
used to have, but as I recall, it specifically mentioned "heavy cases"
(the only kind that had been built in the immediately preceding period,
BTW) as something to be avoided tonally.  Perhaps someone on the list
can lay hands on this booklet and quote it; it's the one that has the
photograph of the Kilgore chamade on its cover.  I freely admit that my
memory may be faulty in this particular instance, however, since I
haven't looked at this book carefully in 25 years or so.
 
> > Doppelflutes, and those only in very large organs.  I would also like to
> > know which GDH organ included three Unda Maris stops.  These stops,
to which Mr. Callis replied:
> True -- but I would like to see any organ (besides Wanamaker's, Atlantic City,
> or the West Point Moller) that has 3 Unda maris ranks!
 
True once again, but it was not I that made the original point, but Mr.
Aeschliman.  I was simply pointing out the inaccuracy of the statement.
 
It seems to me that
> David Aeschliman accidentally misstated "Doppelflote/undamaris" as the stops
> displaced by casework -- and in any case [no pun] beside his point, which was
> that cases indeed were a matter of economic pragmatism.
 
I can cite some examples of organs where the budget was virtually
unlimited, as was the case in many of the large postwar organs financed
with Texas oil money.  Few if any of these organs had cases.  In these
organs the lack of cases must have been determined by a basic philosophy
and preference, not for economic reasons alone, for many were built in
brand new buildings on which the builder specified the space to be
provided for the organ.  The person who could confirm my opinion is J.C.
Williams of New Orleans, who along with his father Jack, installed these
organs for A-S. T.J. Williams ("Jack") had installed organs for Moeller
and E.M. Skinner before going to work for A-S after the war. As a boy I
held keys for these people many times and bombarded them with questions,
as inquisitive youngsters do. And it was their sales and installations
of organs that provided A-S and GDH with much of their bread and butter
during the period in question.
 
> > all kinds to that of keen strings. For proof of that preference, just
> > take a look at the specifications of organs built by A-S at that time.
>
> But to be fair:  the nomenclature used on stoplists and stopknobs doesn't
> necessarily correspond the rank sitting in the chamber!  One example is the A/S
> at Calvary Baptist Church, in Roanoke, VA:  the Choir division contained an
> "Orchestral Flute" which in fact was a Koppelflote!!!  The console was replaced
> in 1993 or so, and the stop nomenclature has been changed in that instance to
> reflect reality.
 
This anecdotal "evidence" proves absolutely nothing.  Organs of all
periods and builders have had stops replaced without changing the label.
I am not an armchair dilettante who merely looks at stoplists; I knew
some of the players in this drama personally and have played many of
GDH's most important organs. I stand by my original statement: the
Koppelflo"te was one of the most commonly occurring flutes on GDH's
organs, and the Doppelflute was not. I was correcting an inaccuracy,
that's all.
 
> Another good reference is the _American Classic Organ_ book which containts
> dozens of pipe shop notes from A/S:  they reveal a tendency to occasionally
> name stops, whatever their origin, in such a way that the nomenclature is
> consistent with other A/S organs.  (E.g., all reeds given Franophone names,
> trompette, hautbois, voix humaine, occasionally regardless of stop
> construction/voicing).
 
That's certainly true: other than the Swedes who worked at A-S, many of
the people who actually did this work had never been to Europe and
examined the organs (by this I mean the shop workers, installers, and
sales people who worked for the company), and were therefore not
acquainted with the actual historical models for these stop names. Mr.
Callis asked for fairness earlier; to be *really* fair: A-S was hardly
the only builder in history to employ fanciful or inaccurate
nomenclature.
 
> My point is *not* that A/S were duplicitous -- but that stoplists aren't the
> final word...the organ construction/voicing notes are.
 
I agree to some extent; but stoplists aren't the only thing I'm relying
on here.  As a teenager, I helped install two A-S organs; few people my
age can say that.  I have seen many original A-S contracts (REAL ones;
not reprints or excerpts in a book), and have seen A-S shop notes for
scaling and construction details of pipework.  After all I knew some of
the people who drew up these contracts (Roy Perry, the Williams and
others), and men who worked as heads of the pipe shop (Tommy Anderson)
and of the voicing departments (John Hendrickson and others). And the
shop notes aren't the last word either; quite often things were altered
in the process of construction and the final result doesn't exactly
coincide with the contract or factory notes.  The organ AS COMPLETED is
the *final* authority in the matter.
 
 A/S built many fine
> instruments, almost all of which have a special place in my heart.
 
Mine, too; but I now see these instruments that I loved so in my youth
in a historical perspective, I think. I love the sounds that these
instruments made, but I'm not blind or deaf to their shortcomings,
either.
 
Harrison
> and Richards were trying to, both through writing about organs and and in
> building them, create organs that played almost *any* type of organ music with
> some authenticity:  my sense, especially given the tonal backdrop of the
> 1920's, is that they succeeded.
 
Only in terms of the way that organ literature was performed at that
time.  The term "authenticity" in this context has been much abused in
the last generation or so; so much so in fact,  that many present day
academics are now so embarrassed by the extravagant claims made in the
name of "authenticity" in the recent past, that they eschew the use of
this term altogether in speaking of musical performance.  The buzz word
is now "historically informed", if I'm not mistaken.
 
But any such scheme is an inherent compromise,
> with all it's advantages and disadvantages.
 
This is certainly true; all of life is indeed a compromise.  We live in
an imperfect world; why should we think that our creations should be
anything other than compromises?  And don't forget that A-S was a
commercial company: they often did as their customers specified, and not
as they would have wished to do in an ideal world.  It has always been
so for organ builders...
 
> And let's face it:  if there were no compromises to discuss, this list would be
> *pretty* boring!
 
AMEN!
 
Best to you all,
 
Stephen Roberts
 
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