Big Pipes: A Concert Hall Organ Primer

Most musicians probably take for granted the fact that they can carry around their instruments to concerts and band practice. In today’s world, a small Fender amp and Stratocaster are all a musician needs to get rolling. And in yesterday’s world, as we learned in anthro-musicology news last week, something as simple as a little vulture bone and mammoth tusk made a fine instrument some 35,000 years ago.

On the opposite end of the scale – literally – fast forward several thousand millenia and consider that one particular instrument of choice is so large that it probably requires an installation plan, building permits, and perhaps an architect. Yes, I’m talking about the world’s largest instrument: the pipe organ.

While recently digesting some minutia related to Renaissance piano concerto transcriptions with my friend Pete who provided background research for this piece, he brought up an interesting point that there seems to be a recent resurgence of the pipe organ in concert halls nationwide.

That’s right, it turns out that pipe organs are not just for Sunday School anymore, even though many followers of the craft still convene in grandiose churches, as they did in Seattle last weekend to pay homage to the pipes and not necessarily the holy water.

Could this new movement bring pipe organs into the mainstream of the classical music world? Or does the fact that so many pipe organs already exist in concert halls indicate a fait accompli for pipe organs beyond the hallowed walls of churches everywhere? To help answer it all, let’s look at some of these noble beasts up close and personal based on their most notable features:

The Newborn: We start off by highlighting the pristine William J. Gillespie Organ which is the newest concert hall organ to be built and resides at the  Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall in Costa Mesa, CA. 

The Queen’s Throne: Certain to help sell tickets with its good looks and towering majesty, the organ inside Meyerson Hall in Dallas epitomizes the "new" wave in concert hall organs.

The Cubist: As one might expect, one of the most visually spectacular, and extremely controversial new pipe organs is the monster Rosales Opus 24 in the new Walt Disney Hall in Los Angeles. 

The Big Boy: One of the most recent additions, and attracting tremendous attention, is the new Dobson (2006) at the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia.

The Southern Bell: One of the smaller blowers in the ring of newly christened organs calls Music City its home in the Nashville Symphony's new concert hall. Hmm, I do love me some honky tonk mixed with a little organ music on a Friday night to kick off the weekend.

The Postmodernist: In the category of Things To Come (a couple years away), Casavant is currently building a major organ for the new Kauffman Center in Kansas City.

The Orphan:  Alice Tully Hall in NYC is still awaiting the glorious return of its pipe organ after it was removed prior to the hall's acoustical renovation.

Calling attention to the new concert hall trend, the New York Times states that, "An organless Tully means that New York has no major concert hall with a pipe organ, bucking a nationwide trend. 

The Nip & Tuck Class: (currently or recently under renovation):

Boston Symphony Hall
Severance Hall, Cleveland

Chicago Symphony Hall

The Energizer Bunnies: Two really venerable old guys, not recently rebuilt but kept in shape by virtue of excellent maintenance:

The Atlantic City Convention Hall (which also claims to be the largest in the world).

The venerable Hutchings by Steere/Skinner in Woolsey Hall at Yale.

The Storage Rack:  Speaking of Steere, we would be remiss not to mention that Springfield, MA (Pete’s hometown) has a fine concert hall with a 1902 Steere organ that has been in crates for 30 years in the basement of a municipal building. The Steere & Turner company was located in Springfield and subsequently bought out by Skinner (then the General Motors of the organ world) in the 1920's.

Long story short, it’s an active time in the pipe organ world.  And, of course, we have not even touched on pipe organs in churches, from which many glorious sounds are emanating from pipe organs everywhere. But for secularists and other organ-obsessed fans everywhere, the options for enjoying some pipe music in multiple locales are growing, and growing, and growing.

--Lucas Hilbert

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[Randy on August 20, 2009 at 11:05 AM]

Just some links to a few more recent concert hall organs...

the Seattle Symphony's Fisk, mentioned but not seen on the AGO Seattle page.
http://www.seattlesymphony.org/benaroya/press/watjen.aspx

the Madison Symphony's Klais. http://www.madisonsymphony.org/organ

The Naples Philharmonic's Casavant. http://www.casavant.ca/new_temp/anglais/Recent/PDFs/3690.pdf

Also in Florida, a 1914 Casavant restored by Quimby Organs and installed in the Jacksonville Symphony's new hall. http://www.jaxsymphony.org/contents/Pipe-Organ.html

And some slightly older grand dames from the 1960s-1980s...
San Francisco Symphony's Rufatti http://www.ruffatti.com/specs/davies.html

Milwaukee Symphony’s Aeolian-Skinner
http://www.polyphonic.org/images/spotlight/Milwaukee/MSO_Chorus_full.jpg

[Hugo Munday on July 01, 2009 at 02:41 PM]

Great post Lucas!! - Crazy that these beasts should be thriving in these economic times. I've got a lot of favorites, but here are 3 your post made me think of:

1.The '79 Reiger rebuild for the 1680 organ in Christ Church, Oxford.
http://www.chch.ox.ac.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=149&Itemid=181

2.The Grant, Degens and Bradbeer "tracker" organ ('69) of New College, Oxford with its glass swell shutters.
http://www.newcollegechoir.co.uk/organ.htm

3. The Wanamaker's organ in Macy's in Philly, which looks to be getting into better shape than when I heard it last (10 years ago?)
http://www.wanamakerorgan.com/

-- Thanks! - Hugo

[Meg on July 01, 2009 at 07:08 AM]

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[John in Covina on June 29, 2009 at 09:15 PM]

Late last winter or early spring we attended a silent picture showing at a theater in LA a Buster Keaton flick and a Harold Lloyd one. Each film had an exceptional organist do the music onan original restored theatre organ. It was magical.