Pipe Organ Reflections by the Music Director

The organ is perhaps the most complicated and least understood of all instruments. I have played the organ since I was in the fifth grade and consider it an honor and joy to play such a wonderful instrument. It is no wonder that the organ has been the instrument of choice for worship through the centuries. It is the only instrument powerful enough to completely fill huge spaces and lead hundreds of people in song. However, my personal admiration for the instrument goes deeper than this, for I feel that it very closely mirrors our experience of God’s greatness! How so? First of all, the organ is a wind instrument, which in itself is a kinship with the breath of the Holy Spirit! Secondly, the organ is mathematically perfect. Even the stop names themselves refer to whole numbers, fractions and the natural phenomenon of the overtone series. The organ is a fertile playground for any physicist to examine and study! Indeed, the laws of physics are at work with a flourish in an organ! Those laws never deceive or fail, so very much like our faithful God! The pipes themselves, as they stand proudly are like God’s people in all their dignity, rich in diversity of size, shape, color, and role or function, but all for the common good. A Principal cannot be a Lieblich Gedeckt, nor vice versa. Every pipe is needed and important for what it is! Study the organ, and you will find within its discipline a resonance with the Christian life! Truly, it is the “King of Instruments”.

The world of the organ is at once very conservative and very progressive. How conservative? Organs built today employ centuries-old skills of carpentry, metal working, mechanics and craftsmanship based on the laws of sound and physics that will never change! How progressive? Electricity and the computer age have equipped the modern organist with conveniences of which organists of old could only have dreamed. One example of this is a “tiered” memory system whereby different organists at the same location can store hundreds of their personal settings for whatever musical selections they have in their repertoire, all without disturbing those of other players. Some bona fide pipe organs even employ MIDI capabilities for recording and playback.

It is in the literature itself where the past and the future, the conservative and the progressive, meet best when it comes to the organ! So much of the recognized and beloved organ literature is from the past. Yet organists, perhaps more than any other group of musicians, have embraced the contemp-orary and the avant-garde in music. This is not at all surprising, given the capabilities of their instrument! When it comes to modern art, the organ has at its disposal endless possibilities for creating strange, interesting sounds and new combinations! In this way organists, who are often viewed as rather conservative souls, have actually been part of the artistic forefront!

Following is some history which I hope might provide a perspective on the organ here at the Church of Saint Joseph.

The Baroque organ of Bach’s time is considered to be the “Golden Age” of organ building. Some of the hallmarks of organ building during this Golden Age were:

• Mechanical action (known as “tracker action”)
• Clarity of voicing and smaller-scaled pipes (in width)
• Use of low wind pressure, to achieve the most “effortless” sound possible
• Emphasis on stops being used together in “choruses” or “families” of tone
• Pipework strategically placed on slider wind chests, so as to achieve unity of sound and reinforcement of naturally-occurring harmonics
• Carefully crafted casework for proper projection of tone
• The greater presence of “upper work” (smaller, higher-pitched pipes)

As time went on, organ building slowly changed. By the nineteenth century “Romantic” era, certain building practices had emerged which drastically changed how organs sounded. The symphony orchestra had emerged in society as a major vehicle of musical expression. The world was excited about this. Slowly but surely, the emphasis in organ building came to be on how closely builders could mirror the different sounds and instruments of a lush orchestra. Achieving the originally-intended, unique and definitive sound of the organ slowly came to be of lesser priority. Organs became merely “imitative” of the orchestra and no longer “distinctive”. Higher wind pressure was used, making pipes speak with more “tubbiness”. The mouths of pipes were purposely nicked for a fuzzier sound. Emphasis on the presence of “choruses” in organ specifications became less. Many organs, especially smaller, more modest instruments had little, if any brilliant upper work. Most, if not all, of the pipes began to be enclosed in swell chambers, which inhibited sound. Quite often the pipes one saw were merely a fake screen hiding the real pipes in the chamber behind them. Electricity was invented which allowed for the key actions to be electrified as well. All these factors were part of the slow process by which organs gradually moved away from the hallmarks of Bach’s Golden Age.

In the 1960’s or thereabouts, there was a resurgence of interest in the organ of Bach’s time. Scholars, organ builders and performers began asking the question, “What made the organ of Bach’s time so special?” A movement emerged to bring back the brilliant sound of the organs of Bach’s time. Organs with mechanical action (i.e. not electric) were once again the vogue! This enabled organists to be totally “at one” with their instrument. They could feel every little nuance of the action in the keys. No longer was electricity standing in the way between the performer, the pipes and artistic expression. Builders even began experimenting with and employing older methods of tuning and temperaments such as “Mean-tone” and “Kirnberger” which had been used before equal temperament became the standard. Among many other things, brilliant, high-pitched upper work was once again being used.

As with most swings of the pendulum in human history, this new-found fascination with brilliance was suddenly all the rage with organ builders. There were many new installations during the 1960s and 1970s, including the one here at the Church of Saint Joseph, which included extremely bright Mixture stops. Sometimes builders ran the risk of not including enough lower pipework or foundation stops to properly support the overall sound of the instrument. Instruments from this period demand absolute artistic sensitivity on the part of the organist, lest the overuse of upper work assault the ears of the listener or worshipping assembly. Yet, these very same organs also deserve to be taken seriously as being representative of the time in which they were built. They need to be appreciated for the unique sound and approach to organ building they provide. For example, if one’s ears can stand the brilliance, Bach can sound exceptionally exciting on organs of this period! Romantic literature, on the other hand, can be almost impossible to play on some of them! Mostly, we need to remember that, regardless of any bias in tonal design and voicing, there is still much enjoyment to be had and beautiful music to be made with these instruments! As for our own organ here at the Church of Saint Joseph, I have found it to be amazingly versatile and capable of producing some very beautiful sounds!

These days, the pendulum has swung more to the middle again. Builders have continued to digest and learn about balance in organ design. They have “chilled out” a bit when it comes to how the upper work of their organs is voiced. Many organs, especially larger installations where money and design allowances make it possible, are now being built with an eye toward the best compromise or amalgam of both the Baroque/Classical and Romantic organs of the past.

David OrzechowskiDirector of Music and Liturgy