u/brentmj

The second day of this mid-winter Massachusetts/New Hampshire trip started off bright and early, and very cold. It was a bit of a drive from the motel in Manchester down to Brighton, just west of Boston. St. John Seminary is the seminary for the diocese of Boston. They used to have a much bigger property, but they've sold much of it to neighboring Boston College over the years. As a result, there was Boston College construction going on right outside the chapel, and we occasionally had to stop to wait for quiet.

This video, however, had all the ingredients for a successful video. A beautiful space, a great organ, an organbuilder present who could talk authoritatively and at length about the organ and it's history, and a fantastic organist and improviser in the form of James Kennerly. Even better, there's very little of me in the video. I just let the smart people do all the talking. I am not unaware that the videos that don't have my face in them do better than others, and I don't question that.

I was also able to get into the building very early before everyone else arrived (things don't start as early in the morning on the east coast as they do other places). That allowed lots of time for exploring and getting photos and videos of the amazing space. The organ is such a great fit for the room, and Andover's expansion of the organ was done successfully and with an eye and ear toward the Hook sound. It's something to hear!

So the video is here: https://youtu.be/5I8v7mGFi9M

After touring the organ, the seminary staff were nice enough to let us grab some snacks from the cafeteria. We didn't stay for lunch, however, because we had a very exciting destination for lunch before the afternoon location. Stay tuned!

So this is the organ that actually got me out in the snow in January.

After finishing up at the big Woodbury at St. Patrick's, I drove one town over to Redeemer Lutheran Church in Lawrence, Massachusetts. The congregation had closed and sold the building to another church that had no need for the organ. It's a story heard too many times.

Fortunately, instead of ignoring it or sending it to the landfill, someone called the nearest organ builder, the Andover Organ Company, which, it turns out, had originally built the instrument.

The reason Andover was eager to save it is that this was their first mechanical-action organ, completed in 1958. At the time, the company was owned by Charles Fisk, a nuclear physicist who had turned his attention to organ building.

This organ was described to me as the first new mechanical-action organ built by an American company after trackers fell out of favor in the early twentieth century. I'm not entirely convinced that claim survives close scrutiny. Off the top of my head, I can think of at least a few possible exceptions and edge cases. Still, it's undeniably an important landmark instrument in the American tracker revival.

Seeing it in person was fascinating. To be honest, after hearing about it, I had built it up in my mind. The organ itself is fairly modest, with a distinctly neo-Baroque tonal design and plenty of upperwork. What surprised me most was how simple some of the construction was. Having spent time around later C.B. Fisk instruments, you can really see that the builders were still figuring things out as they went along.

Even so, the organ played remarkably well for an almost 70-year-old instrument that remains largely original.

James Kennerly joined me again, this time with repertoire that suited the instrument perfectly. The church had already been stripped down to almost nothing. The pews were gone, the carpet was gone (which helped the organ), and a construction crew was working in the basement. They were kind enough to pause their saws long enough for us to record a few takes.

By the time we packed up, preparations were underway to remove the organ. The pipework, windchests, and portions of the case were being saved, along with some console components. Parts of the case had to remain because they were literally built into the church structure.

I'm glad the new congregation had the foresight to call Andover. With any luck, these pipes will speak again somewhere else.

A historical footnote, after this organ was completed, Charles Fisk renamed the firm C.B. Fisk and eventually moved operations to Gloucester, Massachusetts. Members of his original crew remained in Lawrence and re-established Andover Organ Company, which continues to operate today.

The video is here if you'd like to see what may be the first Fisk tracker organ: https://youtu.be/wZhMwpgWAEo

Seeing this instrument left me with more questions, though. Like who was the last American builder to continue building mechanical-action organs as a regular practice before the tracker revival?

In parts of Europe, some builders claim they never stopped. In the United States, Hinners is one of the latest examples I can think of, largely because they continued producing stock-model tracker organs well into the twentieth century. (Here's the start of a video series showing three tonally and mechanically identical Hinners organs built between 1904 and 1928: https://youtu.be/skCQ41b2dfA)

But every time I think I've found the answer, someone uncovers another obscure builder who kept the tradition alive longer than anyone realized. That's one of the things I love about this field, there always seems to be another story waiting to be discovered.

The Luther Memorial Austin video was shot in October of 2024, and it didn't get released until January of 2025. The idea was to take a little winter break after that, as we usually do. November-December is a difficult time to get into churches to make videos, organists are busy, the organs often don't sound their best, and travel can be exacerbated by winter weather. 2024 was a little different, however. The next video out onto the feed was me walking up my street on a very snowy day explaining that we were going to be taking a break.

Fun fact, that day I was actually walking to a bus stop because a group of organists was in town. Originally I was supposed to meet them at the Shrine of St. Joseph to talk to them about Pfeffer organs. There was so much snow in the streets around the church, though that nobody could get there. Instead I took buses and trains across town to chat with them at another church about nothing in particular. You can see the Shrine of St. Joseph in 3 videos: The full tour of the organ: https://youtu.be/dR61Fdh16WU And two videos about releathering the reservoir, part 1: https://youtu.be/ErXi16DvfoQ and part 2:https://youtu.be/-Aew4yR7vnY.

Anyway, all that's to say that I actually did get out and travel in this mess. The folks at Andover messaged in December and said they had an organ that was being removed and we absolutely had to document it before it was removed. I said I don't travel in winter, and besides, our travel funds were exhausted at the end of the year. Magically they made some money appear, so I said I'd go. I pushed for a date late in January, they forced me into a date in early January, but promised multiple organs and their guys would be around to help me. So I bought a plane ticket and packed everything I needed into 2 bags, since this was a solo trip.

My flight was Monday morning. On Saturday night, the snow began to fall. Then ice, then more snow. By Monday morning, the roads were all but impassable. I had moved my flight to a later one. Originally I was supposed to connect in DC, and they were planning on a blizzard there. Instead I connected in Philly which did have snow, but it was earlier in the day. Not early enough, though, as my plane out of St. Louis was late, which made me late to Philly, and I missed my connection to Manchester.

So I got to spend a surprise night in Philly without any luggage, and then got on to Manchester the next morning. There's a story about a luggage mix-up there, but this has gone on long enough. I got my car and made it to St. Patrick's Church in Lowell not that late at all, considering the extra overnight. I think we had aimed to start around 10 am, but I was there by 1. The weather wasn't snowy there, everything was clear, but man, was it cold.

All that to say this is an amazing instrument and an amazing experience. It was my first time meeting James Kennerly and watching him work was fascinating. The only slightly disappointing thing was the HVAC system was very noisy, and due to the cold weather, was blowing almost non-stop.

The organ is in good shape thanks to the Andover folks, and Ryan gave us a great tour of it. And there's a bit of Organ Media there, the directional joystick button on my camera gimbal fell off and disappeared between the topboards of the choir chest, never to be seen again!

So the video is here: https://youtu.be/zPIXXFaGcXU It begins a strange new world where we get out and make videos in the winter, despite my disapprovals.

From there we packed up and headed not far away to a little church with a little organ with a lot of history, but that's next.

While this was the final release of our Wisconsin pre-OHS series, it wasn't the final video we shot. We started here early in the morning after arriving in Madison the evening before and visiting Holy Name Heights. We started here early because I knew this was going to be a lengthy video. With a large organ and Andrew Schaeffer demonstrating, there was going to be a lot to go over. And, this is Andrew's church, so he can talk about this organ a lot.

This was our second time at Luther Memorial. The first time was to visit the Steere and Turner organ installed down in the crossing of the church. We ignored the Austin then because we already knew that the organ was leaving the church. Now, back in Madison, we decided to give the organ its due and go through it before it's gone.

The video is here: https://youtu.be/Va_7J9peMkE. It did take a while to record it. I remember having to stop to replace batteries in the recorder, and going back and doing some things again to make sure we got them.

Now, this organ and the situation has gotten a lot of attention in other online forums. While this instrument is from the 60s, Austin never went as head over heels for the neo-baroque stuff like so many other builders. This is still a very serviceable instrument for a variety of repertoire. Why then would Andrew throw out a perfectly good Austin all so he can have a new Taylor and Boody? Well, it's a little more nuanced than that. While Andrew is the Director of Music for this large church, I've gathered that his is not the only opinion that matters. There are church members and other organists and organ enthusiasts that seem to wield some influence with this church, which happens to be sitting right at the campus of the University of Wisconsin. While he has been there for 7 years, (and this is purely my conjecture) I gather that this project might have even been in the works before he arrived. Whatever the case, a donor supplied all the money for the project, and when a donor says this is for a new organ, the church gets a new organ.

So I'm glad we got to document the instrument before it was taken down. The first bits of the new T&B organ have already been installed by now, so yes, we will be returning to Madison for our third visit to Luther Memorial to visit the new organ once it's done. Hit that subscribe button!

This video was actually the last thing we shot in Madison, Wisconsin before ending this whole Wisconsin trip. Our first stop was actually Luther Memorial, but after finishing up there, we found lunch and drove to the very near by St. James Catholic Church.

I was familiar with this organ because Chappy Stowe had recorded an album on it a few years ago and we have it in our library. I wasn't sure exactly what to expect. I think the organ sounds way better than it has any reason to. The organ gallery is packed full of file cabinets, speakers, mic stands, other musical instruments, decorations, all the things that get tucked away into unseen spaces in churches. And the organ, I'm not exactly sure how to say it, doesn't even look like it should be playing. The console is definitely from another period, and I believe the builder that reassembled this instrument must have needed to borrow parts and pipes from other instruments in order to complete it.

In the hands of Bruce Bengtson, however, the instrument sounds amazing. He knows exactly what to do with it, and manages the completely mechanical stop action with ease. It was an entertaining video to shoot, and it was amazing to hear these old English sounds live on in an American church. Another gentleman from the church was present to help fill in historical blanks, and I'm sad his name didn't make it into the description of the video (or into my memory) because he was very helpful. He just didn't want to be in the video. You can see the finished video here: https://youtu.be/-eWiQTzSGps

We returned to St. James last summer for the OHS convention, and this time Eric Plutz was the performer, and he did an amazing job as well. I remember he played the Frank Bridge Adagio which is a challenging piece to play with no combination action!

From there we packed up and made the drive back to St. Louis, but there's still one more video from the area, and I'll talk about that next time.

I'm going to start by talking about an organ that we don't have a video about: So after leaving the Basilica in south Milwaukee, we headed to a Catholic church that many people have wanted to see, that of St. Francis of Assisi and it's Schuelke organ. We have visited that organ with cameras and microphones twice now. The first time was with Ryan Mueller who knows the organ very well and gave us a wonderful tour of the action and the functioning barker lever machines.

You all know the story of the failing new hard drive and how that content didn't get back home. So we visited a second time. This time there was a completely new pastor in town and a completely different way to doing things. You would think we were trying to get into a bank vault. Once we were finally allowed in, the volunteer who opened the gallery door for us was not allowed to turn off the ceiling fans without permission from above. I made a rudimentary tour of the organ, with background fan noise and all. Once home and ready to assemble the organ, I went looking for the chamber tour with Ryan, only to discover I had no idea where the files were. I believed those had been saved from the crash and had been able to be recovered, but apparently I was mistaken. So that video has yet to be made.

On to happier things. After that security-heavy stop, we packed up and drove to Madison. Holy Name Oratory is a former seminary that now is a retirement home and I'm not sure what all else. It's a busy place. The chapel never had a pipe organ, even though chambers existed. It only ever had an electronic. With the new life as an oratory, and organ was located and installed.

Bruce Case, the organ builder who restored and installed the Aeolian-Skinner was there, which was great, because he was able to tell us the whole story of how this organ got here, and how unlikely it all was. The amazing thing was how well this organ fit into the oddly-sized chambers they were given. It looks like it was made for the room! You can see it all here: https://youtu.be/MAhJurJD2CA

It's a great story of an organ getting a new life. We found our hotel in Madison not far from the oratory and got ready for our last day of the trip starting with another organ getting a second life in Wisconsin.

The day after we finished at St. Hedwig's, we got up and drove south to the Basilica of St. Josaphat. If you've ever been on the south side of Milwaukee, or driven along interstate 43, you've seen it. The massive dome is impossible to miss. This trip was my third time there. The first was as a tourist, just to see what was in the building. And the building is amazing. You could get lost in all the ornate detail of the church. Tourists are also directed to the basement chapel, which is a bit more austere, but still very nice. There I saw the Kimball organ I recognized from an American Organist cover. It had only been recently installed there by Buzard.

So in our data disaster Milwaukee trip, we made a stop there, and Andrew Schaeffer and I made a video about it. Sadly, that video did not come to light, so it required a third visit. This time Andrew was unavailable, so it was up to me.

This is a lovely little instrument with an overpowering diapason and a dulciana that can barely be heard. Based on my previous visits, though, I was prepared with tools to open it up and get a better look inside, something we weren't able to do on the first visit. It revealed what Andrew and I had suspected but couldn't prove, that Buzard had pretty much completely rebuilt the action of the organ, and it was now modern electric with relays.

A cost effective thing to do, I'm sure restoring the Kimball action would have been expensive, and might not have been expensive and difficult for someone else to rebuild long in the future. Perhaps this was the best choice. You can see that video here: https://youtu.be/f1zJ4UNyjKU

This leads people to ask about the organ in the Basilica, and yes, there is an organ up in the gallery. It started its life as a Schulke, and then I think Wicks did some rebuilding, and other people have had their hands in it. It makes a big noise, but it's a little bit of a project, still, so we're waiting until possibly a future rebuild takes place to feature that one.

From there we left and went to the church of St. Francis of Assisi which many people are excited to see a video about. You'll have to wait until my next post to find out why you haven't seen that video, yet.