Profit in a Recession
          by Jonathan Ortloff

When Walter Holtkamp, Sr. published advertisements in The Diapason describing Cleveland as “A town of good organs, a profitable place to visit,” one might read between the lines that Cleveland was full of his organs and that the uninitiated would profit from hearing them. Such a succinct statement appealed to the planners of the 2009 Organ Historical Society convention; indeed they adopted it as a slogan and flew it across advertisements and convention literature. But, as nearly 550 attendees (the greatest number ever to attend an OHS convention) discovered between July 5 and 10, the statement rings true even without Holtkamp’s slant. With 33 performers demonstrating 31 instruments over six days, there was plenty of musical profit to go around.

The reader of any organ-related periodical cannot have missed the barrage of stylish convention advertisements over the preceding year. The ad copy for this event confirmed that the traditional profile of OHS conventions — a revue of small 19th century tracker organs — has long since been exploded. In former times, it was important to see such organs not only to remember their historical and musical importance, but also because they were the instruments most under threat. As times have changed, the most threatened instruments are now the products of the factories of Kimball, Möller, Skinner, Casavant, Austin and others. As the work of such builders is increasingly embraced, OHS conventions have sought to include them in convention line-ups. Attempting to snag high-pressure-loving members of the American Theatre Organ Society already in Cleveland for their annual convention the previous week, the OHS even advertised in Theatre Organ, the ATOS journal, proclaiming, “We’ve found even more organs in theatres and auditoriums!”

The media blitz foreshadowed the professionalism with which the convention itself was organized. Much credit is due to committee chair Joseph McCabe, who, along with his group of seven, ably planned the event. Slight glitches stemmed only from the planners’ success; no one had anticipated 550 to be moved and fed, thus schedules were pushed back throughout the week, to imperceptible complaint. Nearly all meals were provided, and the Marriott Downtown at Key Center was exquisite, accommodating and economical.

For the fourth year in a row, the convention handbook with schedules, programs and artist biographies, was accompanied by the voluminous 2009 Cleveland Organ Atlas, a 288-page tome describing the rich history of organ culture in Cleveland and surrounding areas. Combining the work of essayists Stephen Schnurr and Stephen Pinel, organ documenters Scot Huntington and Joseph McCabe, photographers William Van Pelt, Victor Hoyt and Len Levasseur, the Atlas was edited by Jonathan Ambrosino and attractively produced by Len Levasseur. A tremendous historic document, providing varying levels of technical detail on convention instruments, the Organ Atlas as a genre has become a hallmark of the professionalism and organization of the OHS.

For all the snazzy hotel rooms, glossy color photos, and newly-purchased clothing that always accompanies an OHS convention, however, the instruments remained the centerpiece of the event. Thirty-three events cannot be covered adequately here, so a sampling of highlights will have to suffice.

A small country church in the middle of nowhere with a nine-stop tracker from the 1880s is so frequently an OHS convention venue it has become somewhat of a de facto joke. (Throw in an un-air-conditioned school bus with bad springs, and the time transport to 1963 is complete.) Save the country church part, such was the setting for Dennis Northway and his student Adam Gruber demonstrating the tremendous color of the 1904 Votteler-Hettche at St. Adelbert’s Church in Berea. Clearly the two performers understood the instrument, making it sound far bigger than its nine stops. In particular, Northway’s Pachelbel D Minor Ciacona was a perfect vehicle for the less-than-obvious use of many registers – in combination, alone, and up and down octaves – with the incisive labial 8´ Oboe Gamba a delightful, well-employed, and slightly foreign sound.

The convention’s musical highpoint occurred Monday evening on a most surprising instrument. The 1948 Votteler-Holtkamp-Sparling at Cleveland’s St. John the Evangelist Catholic Cathedral conjured up clear preconceptions for conventioneers expecting Copulas and clean, linear tone. From the first notes of the Overture to Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream under Ken Cowan’s control, however, it was apparent this was a different breed of Holtkamp than the more familiar 1950s example. The instrument exuded warmth and color from large, solo-scaled flutes, a bevy of celestes, round, full reeds, and velvety diapasons topped by clear and sweet upperwork. It was incredible to realize that just two years later would come the landmark instrument in Crouse College at Syracuse University, a radically different creature. Despite a (non-original solid-state) combination-action failure, which had assistants and organ builders scrambling mid-recital, Cowan proceeded to enthrall the audience with his total command, engaging use of the divided organ’s antiphonal possibilities (who would have guessed a solo Quintaton from the front would work?) and playing that was at once tremendously energetic and finely nuanced. To wit, audience members were standing after the first piece. Teaming up with trumpeter Jack Sutte, Cowan closed the first half with Petr Eben’s Okna Fenster, bringing the entire audience to its feet, thrice demanding bows from the performers. Each piece in the second half, from Thalben-Ball’s Elegy, highlighting the instrument’s rich diapasons, to Dudley Buck’s Variations on “The Star-Spangled Banner,” whose fugal counterpoint was clear as a bell, seemed encore-inducing, not because each was necessarily a virtuosic showpiece, but because each was infused with innate energy and musicality. A nearly two-minute standing ovation was decidedly well-deserved. The performance remained in ears and on lips throughout the week.

Understanding the often-misunderstood œuvre of Holtkamp was the topic of John Ferguson’s insightful lecture. With humor and good-natured delivery, Dr. Ferguson, whose monograph on Holtkamp has become the standard work, set a context for the instruments we expect from the house of Holtkamp, as well as the earlier, little-known work of substantially different profile. It was a welcome education, especially given the wide variety of Holtkamp instruments heard during the convention.

Christopher Marks, a perennial favorite at OHS conventions, used an 1875 two-manual Johnson to exhibit once again the great potential of these instruments. Rather than be stymied by what music to play, Dr. Marks understands that an innately musical instrument will make good music, and seemed entirely at home as a consequence. A varied, well-prepared program included a number of American and English fancies, from Arthur Foote’s Night: A Meditation, with a seamless self-registered decrescendo from tutti to pianissimo, to Horatio Parker’s Scherzino, a barrage of sixteenth notes showing Dr. Marks in full technical command.

Toledo’s Our Lady, Queen of the Most Holy Rosary Cathedral, was the polychromatic setting for two memorable events. With the busses running over an hour late, a lecture by Joseph Vitacco of JAV Recordings was scheduled to precede Todd Wilson’s program. What had been advertised as a talk on fundraising for historic organs turned into an awkward and uncomfortable 15-minute plea, to conventioneers and Cathedral congregants alike, for donations to a specific organ project three states away. Following tense applause, Todd Wilson came to the rescue with a program that made plain his familiarity with the instrument. While the 1931 Skinner is impressive at any volume, most of the evening’s magic happened with swell boxes closed or nearly closed, as at the end of Edwin Lemare’s arrangement of Londonderry Air (Harp against Flute Celeste and Vox Humana), or in delicate and surprising solo use of single string stops played in melody. Mr. Wilson possesses just such an ear for the unconventional. While the organ sadly misses a 32´ Bombarde (the Contra Fagotto seems a mere chaperone to the powerful Trombone), it did not fail to impress in forte moments, particularly at the close of the Franck Choral No. 3. Wilson’s ear for the appropriate was equally apparent in the use of the Great’s transparent Harmonic Flute for the Franck when others might have reached for the more dense Flauto Mirabilis. One irony: Mr. Wilson’s exquisite and incredibly supportive accompaniment – the convention’s best – to T. Tertius Noble’s hymn Ora Labora, was actually almost lost in a room with more than 600 lustily singing away.

A central convention draw was the possibility of hearing and seeing Ernest Skinner’s largest original creation, the 5-manual, 150-rank Opus 328 in Cleveland’s Public Auditorium from 1922. Tonally and almost mechanically unaltered, the instrument has fallen into disrepair. With the recent sale of the enormous building to developers, the organ’s future is uncertain. While convention planners hoped to put the instrument into acceptable shape for an informal recital and demonstration, plans fell through, and instead the convention witnessed the instrument in the full sadness of its dilapidated state. Attendees packed the stage, shared between a 2,700-seat theatre and a 13,000-seat hall, and listened as Joseph McCabe outlined the instrument’s history and layout, disposed into a loft on one side of the stage behind a wall of twin 32’ Bombardes. With all available resources – about 40% of the instrument – the convention was led in singing the National Anthem, and afterwards, the present author improvised through the working stops of the organ. Dismay permeated the crowd as the blowers were shut down, with many realizing this was likely the last time the organ would be played before its almost certain removal.

Nicholas Thompson-Allen and Joseph Dzeda, principals of the A. Thompson-Allen Company and curators of organ at Yale University, presented a history and photographic tour of the instrument, with Thompson-Allen pointing out the many ranks unique in Skinner’s output. The pair’s intense reverence for the instrument and its creator was palpable; as Dzeda talked of the “giants of people [who] designed [Opus 328],” he spoke with sadness and anger of finding the original console deep in the bowels of the building, leaked upon with water, enough parts having been pilfered so as to make it unrestorable, and compared the experience to coming upon Titanic. Agreement abounded as he hoped aloud that whomever had stolen the lead tubing from the console had died of lead poisoning. While perhaps a bit maudlin, Dzeda spoke frankly of the possible outcomes for the instrument, addressing the realities of finding a suitable home for it and keeping it as-built, concluding that “…sometimes the good guys don’t win.”

Souls were lifted out of the funk hours later as the featured recital of Wednesday evening brought one of the convention’s youngest performers to the bench of the 1943 Casavant at First United Methodist Church in Cleveland. Freshly matriculated from the Curtis Institute of Music and celebrating his twenty-first birthday that day, Nathan Laube presented a program at which seasoned organists might blanche, but which he delivered with a technique and sense of musicality that belie his age. From the opening bars of his own transcription of the Overture to Johann Strauss, Jr.’s Die Fledermaus, Laube’s remarkable and exciting technique was immediately apparent: crisp, accurate and natural without exaggeration – in dense registrations, he was obviously outplaying the instrument. With scores of registration changes lying in wait in the combination action, Mr. Laube brought out a vast palette of color in Karg-Elert’s three-movement setting of Jesu, meine Freude, and the Variations on “Puer Natus est” from Symphonie Gothique by Widor. As master of ceremonies Michael Barone reintroduced Laube for the second half, he encouraged the assembled congregation to rise and sing Happy Birthday to the performer.

Laube’s major piece was the towering 94th Psalm of Julius Reubke. The audience was held rapt as he lifted his hands to begin, only to be interrupted by the unmistakable sampled old-phone ringer of an iPhone — a disturbingly common occurrence throughout the convention. After regaining the audience’s attention, Laube began the massive piece, again coaxing an immense array of carefully chosen sounds from the instrument. Unfortunately, he lost his place in the piston sequencer and required two minutes of searching to recover, but he handled the gaffe coolly and launched back into the piece with renewed energy and excitement, carrying it, perhaps a bit too briskly although fully controlled, to its brilliant end and bringing the audience immediately to its feet. Laube greeted the applause with a restrained grace, conveying an innocent and genuine surprise at just how impressive his performance was.

Students uncertain how to cultivate audience repartee would do well to observe Anne Wilson, who performed at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Elyria on Skinner Opus 398, of three manuals and twenty stops. Wilson’s jolly, energetic program notes immediately endeared her to the audience, as did her well chosen and skillfully played program. Selections ran the gamut from the familiar Brahms Schmücke dich to the obscure The Musical Snuffbox by Anatol Liadov, which, exquisitely registered with sprightly 8 and 2, had the audience chuckling politely.

Perhaps no organ was so different from the rest as the 1981 Brombaugh in Fairchild Chapel at Oberlin College. Brombaugh’s voicing gift was evident throughout, from the haunting and vocal character of the individual flues to the silvery and sweet tone of the plenum. Jack Mitchener, newly appointed associate professor of organ at Oberlin, clearly knew his way around this instrument, both in terms of technique and registration. The organ’s meantone tuning offered a welcome bit of variety to an otherwise equal-tempered convention. A well-chosen program representing early music genres from Germany, England and Italy demonstrated the instrument’s breadth.

Back in Holtkamp land, David Schrader’s performance of Jehan Alain’s Trois Danses at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Cleveland Heights stood out. Often cited as Walter Holtkamp Sr.’s masterpiece, the 1952 instrument has an effective color palette for Alain’s music, and Schrader obviously has an astute ear for the right sound, without slavish adherence to the indicated registrations which are impossible on many instruments – Alain certainly never knew a Dolce Cornet, but Holtkamp’s stop mated well to the music. Never a piece for the faint of heart, the dances came off brilliantly under Dr. Schrader’s hands – perhaps a little too brilliantly with the (non-original) super couplers engaged, but with an energy that wrapped up the complicated rhythms and harmonies and delivered them with a virtuosity that convinced at least this reviewer the choice of music for the instrument could scarcely have been more perfect.

On the convention’s closing night, Michael Barone mentioned that while the committee could not afford to hire the Cleveland Orchestra, he had a substitute in mind. Needing no introduction to any organ audience, Thomas Murray sat alone on the stage of Severance Hall, filling its Art Deco auditorium with the decidedly orchestral sounds of the Norton Memorial Organ, Skinner Opus 816 of 1931 renovated by Schantz in 2000. Murray stuck mainly to his strengths, and was in full command of the instrument’s 86 stops. The angularity of Paul Hindemith’s Sonata I seemed natural to him in an interpretation calling to mind the composer’s favorite instrument, the Newberry Memorial Organ in Woolsey Hall at Yale University. Even those with limited fondness for Hindemith’s music were heard to remark at intermission on the thoroughly convincing nature of the performance.

Murray indeed provided orchestral replacement to close the convention, programming Calvin Hampton’s transcription of Cesar Franck’s Symphony in D Minor. This reviewer had a prime spot from the page turner’s position to watch Murray manipulate the instrument, seeing firsthand all that was added to Hampton’s score to increase fidelity to the original. But for all the acrobatics and button pushing, the result was pure music, showing Murray at the top of his form for the full 25-minute piece. Despite five curtain calls, the understandably exhausted performer left the convention as well as one can – wanting more.

Looking at the convention as a whole, the constant ringing of mobile phones must be mentioned. One would hope that any gathering of organists and organ enthusiasts would be free of such distraction, yet the reverse was sadly true. And, despite certain wonderful exceptions, the hymn playing left something to be desired in terms of actually supporting singing. It was clear which performers were singing along with their accompaniments and giving the assembly, which sang with unfailing gusto, ample time to breathe within and between stanzas. That aside, it is hard to say enough about the planning and execution of a convention, particularly the pairing of artists and instruments, that sets the bar dizzyingly high for future gatherings of the Organ Historical Society. Profit was indeed reaped in a town brimming with good organs.
 

© 2009 Jonathan Ortloff