Last weekend was the 79th birthday of Joseph Hansen, whom you may remember was the Music Director of the Lutheran Church of Honolulu before Carl Crosier. Joe sent me a long email last August about the Beckerath organ selection process—much of which I never heard before. I knew that Carl was sent to the mainland to visit organs by Hradetzky and Rieger. What I didn’t know until now was that Joe traveled to Germany to listen to Beckerath organs! After Joe moved to the mainland in 1975, he and Carl kept in touch all these years, often having monthly two-hour long telephone calls about church music. Now Joe and I have reconnected through our attendance at the Three Choirs Festival in England the last couple of years.

Here’s Joe’s long account of what happened.

–   When I began as Music Director at LCH, I’d recently come from New York City where I was familiar with quite a few fairly recent organs. In particular, a very recent one had been the fairly large three manual Beckerath at St. Michael’s Episcopal Church on 99th Street along with it’s 1 manual and pedal twin to the one we purchased in Honolulu. Although the church had originally planned to sell it when the larger one was installed as the LCH did, they ultimately decided to keep it  and I’d played it many times. I had, though,  also been especially impressed  with the three manual Rieger at the Unitarian Church in Germantown, Pa. where my friend Joe Chapline was organist  and the similar one at All Souls Unitarian Church in Washington D.C.

–   Several years prior to those instruments, I’d also been to the Busch-Reisinger Museum on Harvard campus when the Flentrop Organ was nearing completion.  At that time, I met Dirk Flentrop and E. Power Biggs and had an extensive introduction to the instrument.  I was also familiar with a number of other Flentrop organs on the East Coast.

–    When I began at LCH, the organ process had been going for sometime and a number of decisions had already been made such as their choice to have a tracker instrument. That was sometime before Carl’s being engaged as organist.  John Hanley and those involved had been in fairly extensive contact with Thomas Harmon at UCLA and had  been heavily influenced by him. He had been responsible for several organs by Hradetzky, an Austrian builder, mostly on the West Coast on other UC campuses.  He also had a small instrument they had built in his home. I was, though, completely unfamiliar with their work at that time.

–   Since they were so ready to move forward and I could not give any approval, the church sent me to California to meet Thomas Harmon and play some of Hradetzky’s instruments including the one in his home. I quickly found that they were all of very large scale and quite weighty which Mr. Harmon repeatedly referred to as wonderful Austrian scaling and sound. That never really felt right for me as an appropriate solution for LCH.

–   After my time in Southern California I went to the San Francisco area to play additional instruments.  The first I played was the Flentrop at St. Mark’s, Berkeley. It took me exactly one chord to fully grasp why I had not really liked the Hradetzky instruments.  I just wanted to keep playing on that beautiful flute, something I never experienced with any Hradetzky. After that I played the Ott organ which was at  that time at First Congregational Church in Berkeley but has now been replaced. Again, I had a similar experience.  I liked the gentle lightness of the smaller scaling, etc. Finally, I went to Stanford University and played but another Hradetzky organ by which time I was more than clear what I didn’t like about.

–   After my return to Honolulu, Hradetzky’s option was eliminated and I took stands for Rieger and Flentrop.  I had, though, by that time, discussed  at length the option of the churches purchasing a small instrument such as the Beckerath I knew so well from St. Michael’s Church in New York. That set off some communication with von Beckerath himself who had another twin in process. All communications with him were very positive which gradually brought him into the full process.

–   Both Josef van Glätter-Gotz Jr. from Rieger and D. A. Flentrop made trips to the church and we had extensive meetings with them both.  Both of them made good initial presentations

–    At some point, then, Carl was engaged and, from the beginning we worked together easily and were in general agreement.  Since he was completely out of the loop and unfamiliar with any of Rieger’s work, he went to some places in the midwest where he could play some of his instruments which he also liked.  I believe, he also played a couple of instruments of Beckerath at that time.

Unfortunately, at that point, things begin to fall apart.  The American economy at that time was very unfavorable and the church’s position was weak.  Rieger first notified the church that  he would only sign a contract with a 100% down payment from the church for an instrument which would be about five years down the road (could have been 90%)!  And, of course, that was not an option for the church at that time.

–   I don’t recall all that was involved in dropping Flentrop’s name but I believe that his inflexibility about being willing to build a sufficiently versatile instrument for our purposes was an important factor. He would not, for example, be willing to have any kind of expression shades on an instrument that small, etc.

We, therefore were down to only Beckerath as a possibility and his communication with the church had been favorable.  I, though,  had reservations since, although I knew his work to be I highest quality, all of his instruments which I was familiar with were scaled more broadly than I felt was appropriate for LCH.  I had strong feelings that an instrument there should be quite lyric and on the colorful side and not at all weighty. So, given my reservations about the final decision the church sent me to Hamburg to meet personally with him and work out some of the issues.

At that point, I spent two days and nights in his home during which time he drove me all around the north of Germany listening to various instruments of his and comparing different stops, etc.  Besides wanting a more lyrically scaled instrument which he was agreeable to, I was especially interested in having good cantus firmus stops on both manuals and pedals thinking especially of being able to play multiple Lutheran Chorale Preludes with differing colors.  One of my concerns in a two manual organ is always around being able to play solo and accompaniment on both manuals rather than a common mistake of having them all on the same manual. Hence, for example, I wanted to have Cornets on both manuals.  He agreed but wanted one of them to be a Terzian and not a second Sesquialtera. I also felt strongly about having adequate cantus firmus stops on the pedal so that you don’t have to tie up one of two manuals to couple one to the pedal.

Most of all, though, I was interested in the pedal 4′ reed. I didn’t want but another big honky Clarion or, for that matter, any kind of a Trumpet. Instead, I wanted some kind of unique color for solo use which would also work in the ensemble.  He liked that thinking and showed me many examples of reed stops which he had done which seemed to fit the criteria.

One thing which he talked me out of was having a pedal Mixture.  He felt that one was going to need to do some coupling anyway on that size instrument and a pedal mixture was just going to clash with the manual mixtures and the money would be better spent on something else. I think he was correct on that.

There was really nothing in the organ which we didn’t address and I think that it was very well spent time and no additional changes were made beyond that point.  I’d had considerable experience with new organs and specifications at that time and we all seemed in agreement from that point on.

At the end of my time in Hamburg, Mr. Beckerath drove me all the way down the East-West border to the one train from which I could go into Leipzig which was, of course, behind the Iron Curtain which turned out to be one of the most frightening experiences of my lifetime which is another subject.  I could never forget the difference when I crossed over that line and the sense of being constantly watched and terrified of making a mistake.

When installation time came, I felt that I’d mostly done my job and accomplished my goals. And there were others on the scene such as the Hanleys who were able to take Beckerath in and host him, something I was unable to do. And, finally, the time was right to let Carl be more involved as he would be the one playing it.

When I left Hawaii, I was leaving an old friend behind as I had great pride in that instrument and what we had accomplished there. I knew, though, that it was in good hands and would be well taken care of.

Go back and reread my post “3rd choice is not 3rd rate” on Hradetzky’s designs.