Twentieth-Century Organ Music

Christopher S. Anderson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN:
  9780415875660
• eBook ISBN:
  9781136497896
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Music

This volume explores twentieth-century organ music through in-depth studies of the principal centers of composition, the most significant composers and their works, and the evolving role of the instrument and its music. The twentieth-century was a time of unprecedented change for organ music, not only in its composition and performance but also in the standards of instrument design and building. Organ music was anything but immune to the complex musical, intellectual, and socio-political climate of the time. Twentieth-Century Organ Music examines the organ's repertory from the entire period, contextualizing it against the background of important social and cultural trends. In a collection of twelve essays, experienced scholars survey the dominant geographic centers of organ music (France, the Netherlands, Scandinavia, the United States, and German-speaking countries) and investigate the composers who made important contributions to the repertory (Reger in Germany, Messiaen in France, Ligeti in Eastern and Central Europe, Howells in Great Britain). Twentieth-Century Organ Music provides a fresh vantage point from which to view one of the twentieth century's most diverse and engaging musical spheres.

1

THE ORGAN IN THE TWENTIETH
CENTURY

James L. Wallmann

The twentieth century saw more change in organ styles happen more quickly than any other time in organ history. Furthermore, unlike earlier periods, the twentieth century witnessed different trends existing and developing side by side. For example, nineteenth-century traditions continued in the early 1900s alongside the development of the progressive symphonic organ. Shortly after the middle of the century, in some countries a newly built Orgelbewegung instrument with mechanical action could be found near a new organ with electro-pneumatic key action designed in an eclectic style. In the century's final decade, the eclectic organ predominated, but at the same time one could find new instruments built along strictly historical lines, as well as neo-symphonic organs inspired by trends from the early twentieth century. This survey first examines the seven broadly conceived building styles that inform the twentieth-century organ, then considers the same period in a review by geography.

Styles of the Twentieth Century

As will be clear from the seven twentieth-century organ styles discussed here, these trends often developed independently from one another. One may contrast this situation, for example, with the development of organs from the late Renaissance to early Baroque to high Baroque to early nineteenth century, where a single thread predominates. Study of developments in a particular region at a given time in the twentieth century will sometimes yield a single prevalent organ style, but it is just as likely to reflect two or even three different trends.

The Nineteenth-century Organ in the Early 1900s

The organ of the late nineteenth century continued through the first quarter of the twentieth, when it was modified to become the early reform instrument. Three national schools of organbuilding dominate the period—Anglo-American, French, and German—and developments in other countries can be understood in relation to these. Common to each was a broad, warm sound dominated by 8′ pitch. Upperwork and mixtures, if present, supported and were subsidiary to the unison tone. Although this style of early twentieth-century organbuilding is often called Romantic, symphonic, or orchestral, the first term is reserved for trends in the mid- to late nineteenth century, while the latter two terms are used here for the so-called symphonic organ found primarily in North America and Britain.

There were differences among organs in Great Britain and North America built in a traditional nineteenth-century style, but the similarities are much greater. The Great division featured the Principal chorus, often with two or more Open Diapason 8′ stops. Mixtures and reeds on the Great were not uncommon. The Swell division included one or more 8′ string and flute stops, the main reed chorus of the instrument, and sometimes a secondary Principal chorus. Softer 8′ flute and string stops were found on the Choir, clearly a subsidiary division. Bass stops at 16′ pitch predominated in the Pedal. Mechanical key actions were found, primarily on smaller instruments, but tubular pneumatic actions were common and generally reliable. In comparing two organs in this style from 1885 and 1915, for example, one would probably hear a thicker and less transparent sound on the latter instrument, even if both had similar stoplists.

FIGURE 1.1 The English builder Hill & Son exported this organ in 1910 to the Pitt Street Uniting (formerly Congregational) Church in Sydney, N.S.W., Australia. Thirty-one stops (five of which were prepared for but added later) are arranged in a traditional stoplist over Great, Swell, Choir, and Pedal with tubular pneumatic action. The case is fairly wide, of pine but finished to resemble mahogany, and in a simple neo-Renaissance style with gilded pipes arranged in three towers and four flats. The instrument remains in substantially its original condition. Courtesy Kelvin Hastie, Organ Historical Trust of Australia.

The 1906 Peter Conacher & Co. organ in the parish church of St. Luke, Whitfield (Glossop), Derbyshire, illustrates these trends.¹

Great – 8.8.8.4.4.2

Swell – 16.8.8.8.8.4.III.8.8

Choir – 8.8.4.2.8

Pedal – 16.16.8

Except for tubular pneumatic key action in the Pedal, the Derbyshire stop and key actions were mechanical. The Great had both a Large Open Diapason and a Small Open Diapason. A larger instrument could have a mixture, reed, and Open Diapason 16′ on the Great, a 2′ stop and a full reed chorus at 16′, 8′, and 4′ on the Swell, more 8′ and 4′ flues on all manuals, a 16′ reed in the Pedal, and tubular pneumatic action throughout. In the Anglo-American regions, the smaller and farther away from London, New York, Boston, or other major metropolitan area the organ was, the more likely it was to be built in a conservative late nineteenth-century style, even in the early decades of the twentieth century.

The profound influence of Aristide Cavaillé-Coll (1811–99) on organbuilding in France was felt well into the twentieth century. Indeed, the three great composers of the French Romantic school—César Franck (1822–90), Charles-Marie Widor (1844–1937), and Louis Vierne (1870–1937)—all knew and composed for Cavaillé-Coll organs built in 1859, 1883, and 1868, respectively: instruments that suited organ music composed in France for much of the twentieth century. The design of Cavaillé-Coll's organs evolved over the years, to be sure, but the instruments were similar and characterized by the jeux de fonds (Montre 8′, Flûte harmonique 8′, Gambe 8′ or Salicional 8′, Bourdon 8′) and dominated by brilliant reed choruses. Mechanical key actions with Barker levers were standard and ventils allowed the organist to add or subtract upperwork, mixtures, and reeds from any manual or pedal division. Combined with the ability to move from one manual to another, and having at least one manual division under expression, the organist could quickly increase or decrease the desired sound. Charles Mutin (1861–1931) carried on the traditions of Cavaillé-Coll in the early twentieth century, and new instruments were built in the traditional style until they were superceded by l'orgue néo-classique in the 1930s.

An increase in 8′ stops on German organs was already apparent by the middle of the nineteenth century. Cone chests, or Kegelladen, and tubular pneumatic action allowed even more 8′ stops to be added to the German organ in the two or three decades before and after 1900. Eberhard Friedrich Walcker (1794–1872), Friedrich Ladegast (1818–1905), and Wilhelm Sauer (1831–1916) were the great German organbuilders of the nineteenth century. Of this triumvirate, only the Walcker family continued the organbuilding tradition well into the twentieth century: Ladegast could not sustain a successful business into the next generation, while Sauer's operations were acquired by the Walcker family after his death. The German organ of 1900 was designed around many 8′ and 4′ flue stops, giving the player a nuanced variety of sounds in the

to

range. The few reeds on the German organ provided color, not power, and the sound quality of full organ was similar to the sound of the instrument at a moderate volume, only louder. This type of organ was “characterized by a specific sort of unity: one basic tone colour could be varied in multiple shades and degrees of loudness, [and] any transition to another shade or loudness could be realised smoothly.”² Manuals were graduated from loud (Man. I) to medium loud (Man. II) to soft (Man. III) to very soft (Echo or Fernwerk ). This was the instrument familiar to the mature Max Reger (1873–1916) and Sigfrid Karg-Elert (1877–1933).

It is tempting to find a French organbuilding influence on Sauer, but there is little to support this view. It is true that Sauer spent time in Paris with Cavaillé-Coll, and Flûte harmonique and Voix céleste stops are common on Sauer's instruments. But even the occasional Trompette harmonique built by Sauer does nothing to change the fundamentally German character of his organs. The Stadthalle in Görlitz is home to op. 1100 of the Sauer firm, built in 1910.³ Although a concert instrument, the design just as easily could have been found in a large church or synagogue.

I. Manual – 16.16.8.8.8.8.8.8.4.4.4.2.II.III.III–IV.16.8

II. Manual – 16.16.8.8.8.8.8.8.4.4.2.IV.III.8.8

III. Manual (in Swell box) – 16.8.8.8.8.8.8.4.4.2.III.8.8

IV. Manual (Fernwerk in Swell box) – 16.8.8.8.8.8.8.4.4.2.8.8

Pedal – 32.32.16.16.16.16.16.10²/₃.8.8.8.32.16.8.4

Even for such a large instrument, the wealth of mixtures and reeds on a German organ of the period was unusual. The entire organ was enclosed in a Swell box and had pneumatic key and stop action, three free combinations, four fixed combinations, and a Rollschweller, a mechanical device by means of which the foot could introduce or retire stops in a predetermined order. A fourth manual was found only on the largest instruments, as in Görlitz; a three-manual organ was sufficient for almost all purposes.

The Symphonic Organ

Found almost exclusively in Great Britain and North America, the symphonic organ had its origins in the late nineteenth century. Such instruments are noted for their expressivity, multiple Swell divisions, an emphasis on the unison tone, and few, if any, mixtures. Expressivity was the key characteristic and highly prized, as one organist effused regarding the Kimball organ in Temple Beth Elohim, Washington, D.C., “The tonal disposition of this [organ] … is a scientific placing of tone colors distinct and strongly individual for the skillful performer to display effects of all manner and degree of shading.”⁴ Often only a few stops provided the symphonic instrument's power. Tonal innovations included high-pressure reeds, solo and imitative reed stops, flues on high wind pressures, new flue stops, double-mouthed flues, and diaphones. Mechanical developments included reliable electric or electro-pneumatic actions, consoles that could be placed far from the organ, console devices and registration aids, and double touch on one or more manual keyboards, although this last feature, whereby depressing the key past its normal contact point produced sforzando or other special effects, while not uncommon on theater organs, was rarely exploited in standard organ music. Naturally, the difference between a true symphonic instrument and an organ built following late nineteenth-century models with few mixtures, many 8′ stops, and a couple of high pressure ranks is only a matter of degree.

One may identify four distinct manifestations of the symphonic organ. First, Robert Hope-Jones (1859–1914) was responsible for many of the technical and tonal developments leading to the symphonic instrument, and indeed the Hope-Jones “unit orchestra” or theater organ as reflected in the “Mighty Wurlitzer” displays many of the characteristics of this style. The extremes found in the Hope-Jones approach—keen strings of diminutive scale, wide-scaled stopped flutes like the Tibia Clausa, powerful reeds on very high wind pressures, leather-lipped Open Diapsons, and a huge dynamic range—have been derided by many since but were highly appreciated in his day. Indeed, the 1908 Hope-Jones instrument in the Ocean Grove Auditorium, New Jersey, was praised by one contemporary who announced that “[w]e have heard the great Tuba at Ocean Grove, on 50-inch wind pressure, so reduced in strength that it formed an effective accompaniment to the tones of a single voice.”⁵

Second, George Ashdown Audsley (1838–1925) was an important theorist as the author of The Art of Organ-Building (1905), The Organ of the Twentieth Century (1919), Organ-stops and Their Artistic Registration (1921), and The Temple of Tone (1925). Audsley desired each division of the organ, Pedal included, to have its own expressive Swell box and advocated stops that imitated their orchestral counterparts. Unlike many in his day, Audsley recognized the importance of mixture stops to the chorus of an organ. Notwithstanding his writings, which were widely known and received with respect, few instruments were built following Audsley's designs, although his theories were selectively implemented on some organs. Forming the core of the famous instrument now in the Wanamaker store in Philadelphia, the most notable Audsley design was the 140-stop organ built in 1904 by the Los Angeles Art Organ Company for Festival Hall, Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis, Missouri.

FIGURE 1.2 Festival Hall of the Panama-Pacific International Expositi...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Twentieth-Century Organ Music
• Routledge Studies in Musical Genres
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Contributors
• Preface
• Introduction
• 1 The Organ in the Twentieth Century
• 2 The German-speaking Lands
• 3 Max Reger (1873–1916)
• 4 The Idea of Bewegung in the German Organ Reform Movement of the 1920s
• 5 France
• 6 Olivier Messiaen (1908–1992)
• 7 The Netherlands
• 8 Scandinavia
• 9 The United States
• 10 György Ligeti (1923–2006)
• 11 Herbert Howells (1892–1983)
• 12 Twentieth-Century Organ Music in the Christian Liturgy
• Index