At Thursday’s Zoom session, frequent mention was made about St. Thomas Episcopal Church in New York City and we were led to believe that Hauptwerk (the digital organ sampling program) was used as their primary instrument. However, as you will read below, it was only used as a temporary instrument in the nave and now resides in a practice room.
St. Thomas is one of the most respected church music programs in the country. If you go to their website, and select “Organs” you see photos of their organs in this order. You can see that they take pride in their original and modern pipe organs.
- The Miller-Scott Organ is one of North America’s most significant new pipe organs. In addition to supporting the parish’s internationally-renowned liturgical and musical life, the Miller-Scott Organ serves as a showcase for recitalists from all over the world and helps Saint Thomas train the next generation of organists.
2. The Loening-Hancock Organ. In the spring of 1996 the gallery instrument was dedicated as the Loening-Hancock Organ. The firm of Taylor & Boody of Staunton, Virginia built the instrument which contains twenty-one stops over two manuals and a pedal. The instrument is inspired by the tradition of organ building which was active in the Netherlands and North Germany in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. A third manual (Brustwerk) and several prepared-for stops were added in 2016. Stop and key action are mechanical and the temperament is Kellner.
3. The Hauptwerk Console. It is located at Saint Thomas Choir School, and was built by Ortloff Organ Co. of Brookline, Mass. From June 2016 through September 2018, this console was located at Saint Thomas Church as a temporary instrument between the removal of the Arents Organ and the completion of the Miller-Scott Organ.
You can clearly see that the pipe organs are located in the nave of the church while the Hauptwerk console is in a practice room.
I would also like to share what Joseph Hansen wrote to me. For those who don’t know Joe, he was the Music Director of the Lutheran Church of Honolulu at the time when the Beckerath organ was selected. Go back and read his detailed explanation about the organ selection process in my post, “Another piece of the puzzle.”
Here’s a portion of his most recent letter to me:
One thought which I think could be addressed more is around this instrument’s perfect balance to the room it’s in, both musically and physically. Mr. Beckerath was one of a small handful of Internationally known and respected organ builders who had considerable experience from restoring many of the famous organs from Bach’s time and before but had also built instruments around the world ranging from small to very large. He spent some time in Honolulu getting a sense of the room including coming to services. The goal was an instrument perfectly matched to this room and the needs of this church.. Though there was a lot of thought about its being versatile for various literature, the highest priority was around Lutheran traditions ranging from Baroque music and having sufficient color for chorale preludes (including pedal cantus firmus). There was also, though, a sense that the musical styles there would be quite broad.
We all can love the sound of a fine English Cathedral organ and especially how well they tend to accompany English choral works, or the thrilling sounds of French Cathedral organs although they served a very different purpose from the English ones. And there are the brilliant sounds of the German baroque period for that literature, though it can be difficult to accompany an English romantic anthem on. I think the LCH covers more ground in those ways than most instruments of that size.
Part of the art of music making, though, is acceptance of limitations including making music appropriate to a place. An English Cathedral organ sound in a limited room such LCH is completely inappropriate and can only be recreated by synthetic means. Certainly a 32’ Bombard or endless other possible stops would be highly unnatural.
LCH has had an instrument which has served the church and the community for many years and many fine organists have played it and loved it. I hope that they will continue to be very proud of it for generations to come. Such would not be the case with any electronics.
Although it was mentioned that the Beckerath organ would continue to be used in the primary services at the Lutheran Church of Honolulu, it was clear from comments made at the zoom session that it is considered inadequate, not only for the repertoire, but also for the hymns.
This really makes me sad.