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Music > The Organ | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
  The Organ |
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| The world-renowned St. Luke's organ was built
in 1921-22 by the Ernest M. Skinner Organ Company of Boston, the most significant
American organ builder of the first half of the twentieth century. It was
designed by Herbert Hyde (St. Luke's Organist/Choirmaster 1920-1946) in
consultation with Joseph Bonnet and Charles-Marie Widor of Paris, with whom
Dr. Hyde had studied. The organ arrived in twelve boxcars on Evanston's
Main Street siding, and was installed in six months. The historic week of
dedication recitals in October 1922 was enthusiastically received, with
programs ranging from Bach to orchestral transcriptions. The four-manual and pedal instrument has some 65 speaking stops housed in a three-story chamber high above the south side of the choir stalls. The elegant console, now restored to its original condition and mechanism, is opposite the chamber. In 1958, a Fanfare Trumpet stop was added, mounted horizontally over the West door of the church. |
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| For years this organ has been known affectionately
s "Lucille." It was first dubbed "Lucy" by fans of the 'I Love Lucy' television
show. It soon became clear, however, that this instrument's stature called
for a grander name: hence "Lucille." The 1960s saw increasing deterioration to the Skinner organ to the point where it was sometimes unplayable. During the 1970s some cleaning and releathering of the organ and refurbishing of the console took place. In 1986 the parish undertook a major restoration of the building. In addition to cleaning the interior of the nave and sanctuary to remedy the damage from a boiler fire in the 1940s and a leaky roof, a five-inch layer of horsehair and burlap padding was removed form the wooden ceiling, The resulting restored reverberation of nearly four seconds has dramatically improved choral and congregational singing and has served to amplify the grandeur and subtlety of the organ, A complete restoration of the organ by the Thompson-Allen Organ Company of New Haven, Connecticut took place 1994-98. Through recent and soon-to-be-released recordings, the reputation of the St. Luke's organ continues to grow, and many of the world's leading organists now make pilgrimages to Lucille to hear, play and record this magnificent instrument. In Evanston, Illinois, there seems to be a Skinner organ on practically every other corner. Opus 208 (1913) is a three-manual instrument which enriches the services of the First Church of Christ, Scientist. This good-natured organ harmonizes admirably with its intimate surroundings, and is still going strong after eighty-eight years. Nearby stands the First Congregational Church, which houses Opus 616 (1926), another unaltered three-manual Skinner in an elegant meetinghouse-style room. Larger than Opus 208, this organ is more powerful and has many of the famous Skinner voices developed for accompanimental purposes. Only a short stroll down Hinman Avenue, with its monumental trees and gracious older homes, we find an imposing complex of limestone buildings in a restrained gothic idiom. This is the Parish Church of St. Luke, a neighborhood institution for more than a century, and home to Opus 327 (1921), a four-manual organ of noble size and scale, which somehow has managed to escape many of the vicissitudes of time and vagaries of taste. It is indeed rare to find such an important instrument from this period having so few alterations, tonal or technological. Here is an organ at which one can sit and play, hearing and feeling the entirety of Mr. Skinner's justly famous creation. St. Luke's organ is especially interesting because it pre-dates both Ernest Skinner's 1924 return trip to England, and the advent of G. Donald Harrison's influence in the work of the Skinner Organ Company. Here in fact is a very complete realization of Mr. Skinner's thoughts and practices for a large church organ, eloquently stated and now carefully preserved. One might describe Opus 327 as an instrument the size of a three-story house, occupying the back half of a huge chamber. Fully three-quarters of the pipes are enclosed in swell boxes; these are arranged against the back wall of the chamber with the Choir Organ on the first level, the Great and Solo Organs on the second, and the Swell Organ on the third. Many of the Great and Pedal bass pipes are in the handsome organ facades; those which are not are located above the unenclosed Great windchest, at the level of the Swell chestwork. Pedal pipes are planted upon unit chests arranged in front of the wall of expression boxes. The chamber is high enough to accommodate a 32' Diapason and 32' Bombarde, though the latter is knuckled to keep the tops of the pipes below the arched tone openings into the chancel. The organ had not completely escaped the passage of time, however. Wind pressures had crept higher (or lower) in some instances, original mixtures were lost, some pipework had been swapped for non-Skinner stops, and the usual additions (including a boisterous mixture on the Great and the inevitable chamade trumpet) had found their way into the stoplist. But the majority of the pipework was original, the structure and mechanism was intact (including the builder's impressive electro-pneumatic console), and the stops which were removed had been wisely preserved in a hidden space accessible only from within the organ chamber, where they promptly were forgotten. This was a restoration begging to happen. The work was accomplished in stages, beginning in 1993 and concluding in 1998. This schedule allowed time for fund-raising and enabled part of the organ to be available at all times for regular church duties. It is noteworthy that, for a period of many months, only the Swell division was available for services. However, when such a department has nineteen ranks under expression (including two stops conveniently duplexed to the Pedal), few visitors to St. Luke's realized they were hearing only about one-third of the entire instrument. Restoration frequently involves merging the present with the past. A case in point: the Chorus Mixture of the Great division. Made by Tellers and planted upon its own electro-pneumatic chest, this four-rank stop was given in the 1950s by William Harrison Barnes, author of The Contemporary American Organ. The chest stood on the chamber floor, immediately behind the front pipes, presumably to give this stop as much acoustical egress as possible. The rest of the Great pipework was some twenty-five feet away, higher up and farther back in the chamber. There were a number of problems associated with this placement. The chest was winded from the regulator for the 32' Pedal Diapason, which produced "special effects" when the two were used together. Because the mixture and the rest of the Great Organ were so widely separated, temperature (and therefore pitch) differences were unavoidable and troublesome. And lastly there was the matter of the staggered speech from these two chests due to their separated placement; the attack was fuzzy and robbed the ensemble of clarity. The mixture came on with a bang and stood defiantly apart from the rest of the organ. The decision had already been made to restore the missing Skinner A-9 mixture of the Great. But in recognition of the fact that the Chorus Mixture had been in the organ for so many years, and that it had come to be accepted as part of the St. Luke's sound, it was retained in the restored organ. The chest was moved next to the main Great chest, and was winded from it. The pipes were regulated to speak on the new pressure and voicing irregularities were cleaned up. While this stop now speaks with and stays in tune with its foundation stops, the reproduced A-9 mixture, though less assertive and of a different character than the Swell mixture, has been so successful that the Chorus Mixture often finds itself used only as an exclamation point to the full organ. About the time the Chorus Mixture was added to the Great, both Skinner mixtures in the Great and Swell organs were lost. The old pipework was rehashed to make a new, higher pitched Swell mixture; many pipes were cut way down, sometimes resulting in peculiar changes in scaling, and causing the stop to fight with the rest of the Swell chorus. When the Swell was restored, a new C-15 mixture (such as is often found in Skinner Swell divisions) was furnished. Its "shower of silver" adds just the right amount of brilliance to the foundation stops and the powerful blaze of the Swell chorus reeds. The 1921 Choir stops which had been removed in favor of other used pipework languished in their cubbyhole for decades until the Choir Organ was restored. Certainly the returned Skinner Melodia and Flute d'amour are quite beautiful, but even more dramatic is the two-rank Dulcet, a pair of "pencil strings" tuned to produce a shimmering vibrato. This mysterious voice is perfect for spine-tingling moments during Episcopal service playing. With respect to the console, particular attention was paid to its appearance and its unmistakable pneumatic "feel." While its casework blended perfectly with the rest of the chancel furniture and required only cleaning, the interior woodwork was in need of extensive refinishing. Original Skinner lettering was copied for the restored drawknobs; the half-dozen new knobs look at home among the originals. In the 1970s the so-called "tracker-touch" was removed from the manuals, and an unsatisfactory new spring arrangement was installed at the tails of the keys, causing a lethargic, mushy key touch. The missing Skinner parts were reproduced by two small New England machine shops specializing in precision work; now re-installed, they have returned the crisp and lively touch so characteristic of Skinner manuals. Richard Webster, who has played this beautiful and reliable console for more than twenty-six years, asked if we might find some way to include a General Cancel piston, for such had not been specified when the console was built. The interior of the console is dense to the last cubic inch with electro-pneumatic machinery, but a way was found to install this accessory using both period and replicated Skinner parts. Probably this is the only electro-pneumatic General Cancel to be made within recent memory; we hear that Mr. Webster still smiles each time he uses it. The restored organ testifies to the vision of the people of St. Luke's and their long-standing commitment to their church and this remarkable instrument. We trust that Opus 327 will spend another eighty years in service to the Parish of St. Luke, its familiar voice a vital part of worship, and its restoration a witness to wise stewardship and the enduring qualities of artistic creation. The A. Thompson-Allen Company has gained a reputation for uncompromising restoration work, returning distinguished electro-pneumatic organs to pristine mechanical and tonal condition. Visit them on the web at www.thompson-allen.com or phone them at (203) 776-1616. |
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