Oh dear.

Yesterday in a posting about St. Paul's Chapel, I stated that the organ 
had played
comfort music for injured survivors who had been brought to the Chapel.  
THis was
based on information relayed to me by a pal in New York.  It turns out, 
since someone
wrote to me stating that this was simply not the case, that after some 
research,
the statement in the St. Paul's website which was misquoted said that a 
PIANO in the
Chapel was so used, and a little picture of a workman playing it was 
offered.  I am sorry.

However, rumors that the Schlicker was a virtual wreck a year after its 
installation,
also sent privately to me, are quite not the case; a former member of 
the Trinity staff
that as recently as 1998 the organ was used in recital, and that one of 
the tracker builders
had spent some time "fluffing it up," after which David Higgs played a 
program.

The organ did sort of fall on evil days, and I suspect that like a 
number of organs I have
experienced in NYC that its local maintenance ( and the fact the the 
Schlicker Company
who built it was no longer in existence) was not very good - and 
furthermore the gallery
was being slept in by homeless people in the 90's - so who knows what 
was going on inside
the case.

As long as I am being a wee bit defensive, another curious set of 
comments first of all
presumed that this may have been Schlicker's first tracker organ (more 
likely to have been
its seventh or eight, counting both new organs and such rebuilt ones as 
the Old North Church
in Boston.  These comments went on to criticize the case (which I 
understand will be retained)
on the grounds that is was unstylistic and unattractive.  Well, that 
case  - which started
out its life in 1802, was distorted by being enlarged by the Odell 
Company in 1870, and the
directive to Schlicker was to use the case as is, not to reduce it to 
the original proportions.
SO if the case were all that unattractive, it is hardly Schlicker's fault.

It is a shame that after only 43 years the organ is not playable, but I 
am also told that it
really is all clogged up from the 9/11 mess - so that's cleared up.

I am still sad.

And now that the pews have been removed as a part of some new tack at 
St. Paul's where
will George's ghost sleep now?

Ken (mea culpa) List

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