44/10,000: The Half Percent Legacy
          by Jonathan Ortloff

Nineteen twenty-six was a banner year for the Rudolph Wurlitzer Manufacturing Company, particularly the unit orchestra department. In this year, when the factory reached the hitherto-unheard-of production rate of shipping one organ per business day, some of its most famous organs left the factory, including the first and largest five-manual, for the Michigan Theatre in Detroit, and the definitive New York Paramount instrument. The Wurlitzer organ had nearly reached the zenith of its development, and the record sales demonstrated the strength of the brand popularity. That it had such recognition (“Gee dad, it’s a Wurlitzer!”) was a testament not merely to sleek publicity, but to the high quality of the product.

Although sales were down two years later, 1928 was indeed, as Dave Junchen writes, “…Wurlitzer’s most golden year,” when many renowned organs were produced, most notably the Fox Specials. Soon enough Wurlitzer would see production steadily, then rapidly decrease. In just four years they would be installing their last all-new theatre organ in the United States. To have produced more than 2,100 organs in just 21 years is staggering by any measure, recalling the prosperous times in which the theatre organ was born. If the instruments of other firms are also counted, the total number of new theatre organs from this period approaches 10,000. Impressive to be sure.

But this is all, as they say, ancient history. One need not recount the all-too-familiar other history: destruction of theatres and organs, the market of dirt-cheap theatre pipe organs, the resulting culture and hobby we know today, spawning the American Theatre Organ Enthusiasts, later ATOS. The embodiment of that renaissance is the existence of individuals and theatre organ clubs that maintain more than 300 theatre organs in the United States alone, present concerts upon them, and release recordings showcasing instrument and player alike.

Note the number – 300: three percent of the original 10,000. That their number has been so reduced is tragic but unsurprising. Given these instruments’ cultural obsolescence and enormous mid-century availability, it can only have seemed inconsequential to discard so many. Luckily, the forming of ATOE/ATOS, the materialization of theatre organ-specific restorers and rebuilders, and the renewed popularity of solo organ playing saved this small niche of American musical and cultural history.
That same renaissance in the 1950s and ’60s launched an unfortunate, destructive movement, one that continues today: the breaking up of original instruments to add onto and make unrecognizable other original organs. The quest for ever bigger and ‘better’ organs, whether turning a 2/6 into a 4/15 with associated console modifications, or adding a butchered Oboe Horn cum Post Horn to an 8-rank organ, has resulted in ever fewer organs remaining as originally designed and built.

By so doing, have we destroyed enough of the critical mass of original instruments to have lost an essential piece of our history? Many would argue no – that there still exist a few (i.e. ‘enough’) instruments in original condition to document the genre’s genesis. But is that good enough? Are we to save the context and fiber of the original or merely its most superficial elements?

In bemoaning the parting out of organs and gluttonous additions, certainly it’s not difficult to see this hasn’t given pause. The theatre organ, and the Wurlitzer organ in particular, represent the unit principle on both the macro and micro levels. Regardless of style, each designation comprised a shopping list of pre-made and pre-voiced modules. Unlike a slider- or pitman-chest organ, the theatre instrument was thus by its very nature denied the kind of individuality that is otherwise standard in normal organbuilding, where all is custom-designed and –built. It is thus possible to view any original theatre organ also as the sum of its collective, pre-fabricated parts. If one considers the pipework, both pre-voiced irrespective of other ranks and rarely site-finished, the worth of any individual organ seems reduced to that of an industrial musical machine – hardly worthy of the ‘musical instrument’ moniker. From this perspective, each original organ is the embodiment of something as important as its individuality: the system behind it.

That system is the dynamic that transcends each organ and style designation; it is the genius that set Wurlitzer apart from its competitors As each original organ is lost, enlarged, broken up, or re-specified, that ingenious system — the genesis of the theatre organ — is being diluted, polluted, and eventually lost altogether.

Because of its modularity, the unit orchestra is a malleable entity that can be made to conform to a different system than that which originally bore it. With changing tastes and experiments over the past fifty years, the theatre organ has been recast along new channels, in which original mechanism and pipework is transformed according to new aesthetics. The motive force behind all these changes is new modes of playing, coupled to new technologies that permit different kinds of playing, and often aid the alteration of organs. As playing has evolved, a common argument against keeping organs original usually goes something like, “Have you ever tried to play a specification like that? And without general pistons?” It is important to recall that in the days of George Wright (and Hi-Fi Records, gold albums, and standing-room-only San Francisco Fox concerts), perhaps some of the most thrilling theatre organ playing of all time somehow managed to occur without all the gadgetry. It is the inspired system behind these instruments that makes them inherently musical, and in the right hands, surely as thrilling as any ‘modern’-ized organ. True, it takes more work to play an organ without multiple memory levels and general pistons, but in just the same way as playing a large 1928 Skinner organ with its original specification, relay and combination action, there are artists who excel at playing these organs as they were originally built. The results can be electrifying, in some cases for the very discipline an original instrument exacts from the player.

But if our conception of a music-making system is different from that of the 1920s, why bother saving it? After all this talk, one still ends up with the question – why preserve the past if it has seemingly no effect on us today? This is where the organ’s individuality transcends its collection-of-parts status. Each theatre pipe organ has been handed down to us as an integrated instrument. In much the same way as a classic Duesenberg or Rolls-Royce consists of a stock chassis and powertrain with unique coachwork, each original theatre organ represents a standard system of music-making, perhaps with added or embellished elements – a special console, an added rank or manual. The modular nature of the antique automobile, though unmistakable and freely admitted, does not lead its stewards to strip the car to the chassis and put on a new Kevlar body, or replace the original 50 horsepower engine with a 330 horsepower LT4. [Note: the one primary rub in the old car business involves adding overdrives to cars that never had them, and thus permitting them to drive far more comfortably at modern highway speeds.]  With fewer than 1,000 classic Duesenbergs remaining intact, no wonder the desire to preserve them is so intense. But with theatre organs, the rarity is far greater – of the 300 or so instruments of the 10,000 originally built, fewer than fifty remain in original condition. With so few remaining, isn’t it time to start viewing the original instruments as specimens demanding preservation?

The theatre organ world seems not to have adopted the same spirit of preservation as has been common in the classical organ world for some time. Historic pre-1900 organs have been out of danger for decades now. More surprising, early 20th-century American organs are now objects of preservation, when even a decade ago they were still being rebuilt beyond recognition or discarded completely. The term restoration here is used in its strictest sense – the work restorers are doing today preserves every piece of existing material, and where original material is missing, replicates it as originally built.

In a recent discussion about preservation on a theatre organ email list, a contributor put forth that 70 years from now, whether or not some modernization was done 70 years prior to a 140-year-old organ would only be a minor footnote. Another writer even went so far as to respond, “who will care [what they sounded like originally]?” The step from this mindset to the destruction of valuable historical documents, whether paintings or automobiles or organs, is dangerously easy. The results of this thinking confound future players, restorers, and historians. How long have organists and organ historians postulated as to what Bach’s organs sounded like, or those of Céasr Franck? Do we care so little for our art form that we believe it only exists in the moment, our moment, without concern for the musical and technological genius that created it, or how it will be passed to our progeny?.

There is a realization here that took quite a while to discover. And that is that for all the wonderful progress made in playing the theatre pipe organ over the past fifty-plus years, we are still progressing with a dated medium. Since it was so easy to change this medium to suit our new tastes, it seemed to take on a new shape, but it still brought with it its seminal limitations that could not be overcome without seriously altering it. The point is, wouldn’t it be better to start from the ground up? With all that we have learned from remolding existing instruments and assembling parts from various instruments to make larger organs, couldn’t we produce a truly new organ that had all the characteristics we wanted, and none of the problems inherent with the old organ, such as the difficult Wurlitzer magnets? Another contributor to the same email discussion noted that the harpsichord progressed to the fortepiano to the modern piano, concluding that this kind of progress is positive, and worth the casualties along the way. However, the modern piano is not a harpsichord with the jacks and plectra ripped out and hammers put in their places; it is a completely new instrument that built on the ideas of the past, but realized enough limitations to start afresh. The problem is that nobody is truly building 100% new theatre pipe organs today.

The reason historic classical organs can be restored as originally built is that new organs are being built to satisfy the needs of the organists who want new sounds and all the gadgets that come with modern organ control systems. The classical organ, and associated playing styles, have come a long way since the uber-romantic instruments of the 1910s and ‘20s, but rather than attempt to turn these organs into something they never were nor will be, builders are creating magnificent new instruments while preserving and restoring the old ones – a win-win situation.

Surely nobody is going to start playing like Jesse Crawford again, which leads the observer to reason that the organs he played on no longer have merit. But why not let the original organs be what they are, and find out what they can do, rather than complain about what they can’t do when compared with a modern organ, which only forces the caretakers of organs to dispose of their original equipment in order to attract performers who demand they see essentially the same specification and combination action at each instrument they play? And just the same, we should let the modern organs be what they are as well. While it is tragic that many theatre pipe organs today are the result of the destruction of valuable historic material, to bemoan the carnage at this point is futile, and only leads to animosity and internal divisions. Rather, modern instruments, and the people responsible for them should be lauded for their work to continue the art of the theatre pipe organ. But just the same, the stewards of the few remaining original organs should be lauded for their efforts to preserve them and the history of the theatre pipe organ with just as much fervor, rather than being lambasted for being ‘stuck in the past.’

We are have come to the time when the original equipment, specifically relays, the guardians of the original specifications and technological integrity, is beginning to fail due to decaying leather. It is at this precipice that organ owners face the choice of restoring these links to our past, or relegating them to the dumpster and replacing them with modern equipment. Far more often than not, the latter choice is made. The price of preservation is the cost of maintenance, both of the physical apparati and the musical language it produces. As we come closer and closer to having fewer and fewer examples of originality left, the stewards of these irreplaceable artifacts must decide whether these costs are worth it. The author puts forth that the preservation of these instruments is unequivocally worth any cost. There are certainly enough modern instruments to satisfy those who desire all the bells and whistles to allow the unimpeded restoration of our few original organs and keep everybody happy.

Much, in fact, nearly all of the above, is moot, simply because of the small number of original organs left. Although most organs in original condition have been lost, there is still the chance to preserve the few left. In the same email list conversation, a contributor suggested that the longer the list of organs to be preserved became, the harder it would be to preserve any. Fortunately (or not), the work of shortening the list has already been done for us. A quick survey of instruments in the United States that remain in original condition, albeit not necessarily in their original homes, reveals 44 instruments – less than .5% of those originally produced – that exist exactly as built.

The reader will notice that just as many questions were posed above as were answers. The most important question, however, to which there are some possible answers is this: what should be done with the four dozen original organs? Another email suggested, “I believe that we should ensure that somewhere in the world, that there is at least one original Style D, 216, 260, Publix, 3/27, and Fox Special, preferably installed in a theatre. Naturally, if the really special not standard models…could be saved, and kept original, all the better.” This raises an even more thorny question – who is we? Who should be responsible for the preservation of the few original artifacts left? Naturally the answer always comes down to the owners of the organs themselves – organizations like ATOS cannot sanction restorations, they can only encourage.

The word ‘preservation’ is peppered a half-dozen times throughout the ATOS mission statement, and the same word has been used in that context to describe dozens of theatre organ projects of wildly different scopes. Countless projects more properly termed rebuilds than restorations have donned the preservation moniker, leaving the original validity of the term compromised, and setting a precedent for further non-preservative rebuilds of instruments to be called by the same name. Again, there is an undeniable importance to both historic and modern instruments, but there is an equally undeniable difference between the two, and here is where ATOS can encourage and recognize each for what it is. Currently, ATOS maintains a “National Registry of Historic and Significant Instruments,” where instruments such as the mammoth 80-rank (mostly) Wurlitzer assemblage at the Sanfilippo residence, an indisputable musical triumph, are listed together with New York City’s Beacon Theatre Wurlitzer, an untouched, originally-installed instrument. Is one better than the other? No, but listing them together, albeit with a confusing “Level” system, detracts from the value of each.

Ergo, rather than lumping all important, be it for historic or other reasons, instruments together, separate lists for ‘significant’ and ‘historic’ instruments should be kept, with stringent guidelines for each. The disposal of the level system, which sets four echelons, each with different criteria, will create a clearer, stronger registry of the most important theatre pipe organs in the United States. A good starting point would be the model of the Organ Historical Society’s Historic Organ Citation program, which has granted citations to 354 organs, including four theatre organs (and many more would qualify) after thorough review to strict guidelines. It occurs to the author to say that we would have different ideals here than the OHS, but we shouldn’t. If we want to garner the respect of the classical organ community and the greater arts community, and in doing so, find another avenue to increase the acceptance and popularity of the theatre pipe organ, the ethics of placing incredible value on intact original instruments should be identical. And it would actually make the job of awarding historic citations much easier.

The author encourages the reader to read the two pages dedicated to the “ATOS Historic Theatre Organ Preservation Program” found at the beginning of Allen Miller’s Theatre Organ Shop Notes. The authors of these guidelines wisely based their recommendations upon those set by the Organ Historical Society. All the factors of a true restoration are outlined there, and should serve as a model for any project undertaken on a theatre pipe organ in original condition. Furthermore, at this point, there is no reason that any of the 44 remaining original theatre organs should be subject to any other type of work. The spirit is there, but words do not save organs; true restorations do. And there still exists a gap in our culture between acknowledging the historical significance and importance of original organs, and the execution of responsible and faithful restorations. It’s high time we as a culture looked at what we have said we should do, and actually start doing it, rather than paying lip service to it. We can no longer say, “someone else we preserve these for us.” There are far too few ‘someone else's.’

I close with a quote from noted American organ historian Jonathan Ambrosino, simply because I couldn’t say this any better myself, and believe it gets to the heart of our issue: “Restoration is a discipline that will always pose more questions than it answers. Only when we highlight the issues and study the past will we find, if not concrete answers, at least clues to how we can be as sensitive as possible in the consideration of old instruments. Although in theory it should be the simplest thing possible to leave something alone, it does not seem a very easy thing for most of us to accept. We would do well to ponder why. After all, leaving organs alone is the only way to allow history to reach its eventual admirers.”
 

© 2009 Jonathan Ortloff