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The
Organ at St John's
Organs have long provided music
for religious events, offering composers the vehicle for some of
their most provocative utterances. Over the centuries, organ
builders have responded readily as forms of worship, artistic
tastes, and musical styles have developed in many ways, in many
countries. As a result, the term "organ" in our day
actually describes a family of instruments that have obvious and
important elements in common, but which at the same time show
far-reaching differences.
Organists and organ builders
often delude themselves that a single organ can accommodate music
from all times and countries in a stylistically faithful way, a
remarkable notion considering that no other Western instrument has
matured into as many regional and chronological types. Would
anyone believe a chef who boasted the ability to prepare all the
soups of every cuisine from a pantry of only ten seasonings and
one stock? Similarly, an artist with access only to oils
necessarily fails when attempting to render effects best achieved
with pen and ink or water colors.
 Since
the 1960s, a small but growing group of American organ builders
has striven to create organs that focus stylistically on a single
historical type of instrument. Such organs illuminate the
literature of the chosen style and two or three closely related
styles with breathtaking effect, far better than an organ that
attempts to embrace all styles. Such focused organs also
accommodate music of many other styles with rare beauty and
character, if perhaps not with authenticity.
In 1972 St
John's decided not to move its 1957 Æolian-Skinner to its
new sanctuary. Instead, it turned to John Brombaugh, one of the
pioneers among that group of builders and perhaps its most
influential craftsman. In early 1979 St John's became the home of
Mr Brombaugh's Opus 20, one of three organs built by him at the
same time, from the same plans, and with nearly identical stop
lists. (The others went to Tacoma WA and Storrs CT).
Opus
20 comprises 31 ranks, 22 stops, and 1418 pipes. Its musical and
structural design reflects principles of organ building that
prevailed in the Protestant countries of northern Europe during
the 150 years that ended with the death of J. S. Bach. It presents
much music from other times and places well, too, although
differently from how the composers probably imagined. And one need
attend only one service at St John's to know the power it brings
to congregational singing.
The size, dimensions, and
positioning of the keyboards and pedalboard resemble those
familiar to 17th-century Dutch organists. The slider wind chests
use a suspended mechanical ("tracker") key action and a
mechanical stop action. Tracker action provides an especially
smooth attack of wind to each pipe, which permits gentler and more
responsive voicing than electrical actions allow. As a result,
organists truly can play "on" the organ and control its
response with their fingers; they no longer need to content
themselves merely with operating the organ by electrical remote
control. (Do any classical musicians other than organists settle
for communicating with their instruments by telegraph?)
Today, most organ builders tune
their instruments in equal temperament, which leaves all keys a
little out of tune. Our ears have adjusted, so we do not usually
find the poor intonation disturbing. Keyboard instrument builders
have routinely used equal temperament only since the early 19th
century, however, and organ builders adopted it last. For Opus 20,
Mr Brombaugh devised an elastic temperament based on Kirnberger
III (Johann Philipp Kirnberger studied organ with J. S. Bach). All
composers of organ music before the death of Bach unquestionably
wrote for instruments tuned in an elastic temperament, or in some
version of the older meantone temperament.
In the most
commonly used keys, an elastic temperament makes music sound more
in tune than it sounds in equal temperament. As keys acquire
chromatics, however, the music sounds increasingly out of tune.
(Not surprisingly, up through Bach's day composers used the
complex keys only for special effects in organ music.) An elastic
temperament actually gives each key a unique character because of
the way the subtle variations in intonation appear at different
places in the scale of each key. Music played on an instrument
tuned in an elastic temperament acquires a dimension of harmonic
color that musicians took for granted 300 years ago, but which has
totally disappeared with equal temperament.
The wind
pressure in St John's organ displaces a column of water in
"J"-shaped tube by 81 millimeters (3.19 inches); the
electric blower and single-fold hinged bellows supply a flow of
air whose pressure fluctuates slightly in response to such
variables as the number of stops in use and the fullness of the
musical texture. While such wind flexibility has disappeared
entirely in organs with modern bellows systems, all pre-19th
century organs evidently had it to some extent, to judge from the
continual debate during the 17th and 18th centuries about
acceptable levels of flexibility. The organist who plays an
instrument with flexible wind must refine his or her playing
technique in response to factors that simply do not arise with a
modern system. As a result, both the player and the listeners
experience musical nuances that pre-19th century musicians
accepted as routine, but which modern systems obliterate.
The
wooden case, the façade pipes, and the pipe shades blend
and project the sound the way a stereo console blends the sounds
of the several speakers it contains, in contrast to the unfocused
sound of unencased organs whose pipes may be scattered over an
entire wall. The organ also stands in the same room as the
listeners, as any indoor instrument should, but unlike organs of
the early- and mid-20th century, which organ builders and
architects often banished to an adjoining room (the organ
"chamber"), and which spoke through wall openings. An
organ in chambers usually sounds muffled, or requires loud and
harsh voicing to make its sound loud enough to fill the room.
The
lowest eight notes of the Subbass in the pedal division of St
John's organ stand behind the case, and are made from alder wood.
The case and the façade contain all the remaining pipes,
made of a high-lead alloy that includes tin, antimony, copper, and
bismuth, following ideas incorporated in 1540 by Hendrik Niehoff
into his instrument for Schoonhoven, The Netherlands. The lower
wind chest, spanning the entire width and depth of the case, holds
the Great and Pedal divisions. The narrower and shallower upper
chest holds the Positive (the upper manual). The case is made of
hand-planed white oak which has been darkened with strong ammonia
fumes to accelerate what is accomplished by natural aging. The
upper back and side panels are of western red cedar, a stable wood
with lively acoustical properties.
The pipe mouths and key
nosings are gilded with 23 carat gold leaf. The pipe shades are
carved Alaskan yellow cedar backed by western red cedar. The
naturals of the keyboards are plated with cow shin bones. The
sharps and stop knobs are of African ebony. The key cheeks are
made from zebrawood, the pedal sharps from Brazilian rosewood, the
pedal naturals and the stop rods from maple, and the black strip
in the music rack from an oak dredged from a North German peat bog
where it had soaked for many centuries. The keyboards and trackers
are from sugar pine. The wind chests are from white oak, western
red cedar, sugar pine, and sheep and cow leather. The reed
shallots and tongues are of brass and some shallots are covered
with lead plates and leather.
Great (56
notes)
1. Præstant 8
2. Octave 4
3. Octave
2
4. Mixture (III-V) 1
5.
Quintadena 16 (lowest C-E, F# from # 20)
6. Holpijp 8
7.
Spitzflöte 4
8. Nasard/Tierce 2 2/3 half
draw
2 2/3 + 1 3/5
full draw
9. Trumpet 8
10.
Vox Humana 8
Positive (56 notes)
11.
Præstant 4
12. Sesquialter (II) 1 1/3
13.
Scharff (III) 1/2
14. Gedackt 8
15.
Rohrflöte 4
16. Cigarflute 2
17. Dulcian 8
Pedal
(30 notes)
18. Octave 8 (lowest 12 notes from # 1)
19.
Octave 4 (lowest 6 notes from # 2)
20. Subbass 16 (highest
18 notes from # 6)
21. Posaune 16
22. Trumpet 8 (all
notes from # 9)
Couplers: P/I
P/II I/II Tremulant
Text by David R.
Hunsberger and John Brombaugh
© 2000 by St. John's
Presbyterian Church
Photo by Ken Durling
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