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BachsFugue Introduces Himself

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BachsFugue

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BachsFugue Introduces Himself

PostSun Aug 24, 2003 5:10 pm

My first name is Ross. I’m not fond of it so at the age of 50 I decided to start using a short form of my middle name. I now prefer to be called Cole. I still answer to Ross, though. In fact, you can call me anything but late for dinner!

Why BachsFugue? Bach: the great Johann Sebastian is and has been my favorite for well over thirty-five years. He took over from Beethoven shortly after Bach and I had had a proper introduction (via LPs of the era). The probable cause of my defection from the Beethovenian ranks arrived through the excellent recordings of the late Glenn Gould and E. Power Biggs--namely, the Well-Tempered Clavier Book I from the former, to the (for me) awesome recordings on the Flentrop tracker at Harvard by the latter. None of my musical knowledge from teachers, church, or my older sister had brought me to this point. My piano teacher wasn't really fond of Bach although she was a long-time organist. She formed her musical preferences in the pre-WWII era. I can remember her niece telling me that Auntie Ruth didn't like Bach because it was just "scales." I thought to myself, "Oh, yeah, sure. But what marvelous scales they are!" I do thank my late piano instructor for giving a poor boy a chance to learn a modicum of piano and inculcating in me a love of good music. She practically gave the lessons away to my sister and myself; our family was not able to afford the cost of regular lessons.
Now church was another matter. Our parish wasn't fortunate enough to have a pipe organ. The building was built in 1939 and the facility wasn't designed for a real organ. We had an early Orgatron and after that a miserable Conn. The tonal compliment from those buzzing reeds (in the Orgatron) and oscillators was hardly organ-like. The only pipe organ I'd heard in my first 18 years was the Felgemaker organ from 1897 that was in my piano teacher's church. It didn't make any impression upon me other than remembering that it wheezed rather than spoke. I also had the amusing fantasy of cotton balls blowing out of the tops of the façade pipes.
Once I started my undergraduate career at university, attended chapel, and was able to hear the organ repertoire from both professors and students on an eclectic Reuter organ, circa 1954, my awe and amazement grew with the realization that the organ is truly the "King of Instruments." In the late 1960s my college, Wittenberg University, had a first-rate School of Music. An overly zealous and misguided president subsequently killed it.
About the same time a little Universalist church in my hometown was being razed. All of the furnishings, including a 1910, seven-rank M. P. Möller with tracker action, were being auctioned. My father and my sister's father-in-law went to the auction with $235 (1966 USD) that my sister had managed to save from playing the organ at church. (She had, by the way, been the last organist for the Universalist Church. At the time she was the organist in the mid 1950s, there were two members and one minister at the church. See, I told you it was small. I think she earned about $2.50 per Sunday.) Her two dads pulled through and won the auction. The big rub was that we needed to get it out of the building in two days! I learned a lot in those two days. We were able to get the organ dismantled and moved with only one mishap. I stepped on a rusty nail. I got a tetanus inoculation and kept on working. The organ for many years was housed in "The Organ House" built by my sister's father-in-law on his farm. In 1995, after his death, the organ needed to be removed. Unfortunately only the pipes were saved. Of those I have a few of the eight-foot Open Diapason façade pipes and the complete 61-note rank of eight-foot Melodia pipes. There was really nothing remarkable about the instrument except that it was the first real organ that I played, and I learned much about tracker action and slider chests as well as some basic appreciation of three of the four stop families of the instrument.
As soon as I graduated and began my teaching career (1967) I could think of nothing but buying some kind of appliance to have at home to play. It came down to nothing or a Hammond. I bought the so-called Concert Model RT-3. At least it had a full AGO pedal board with richer pedal tones than what one normally thinks of when discussing Hammonds. I still have it in the living room. It's in very nice condition for a 36-year-old electro-mechanical contraption. Everything works! But I can't stand to play it. That dull sine wave sound and the constant clicking each time a key is pressed drives me up the wall. Although the tonal compliment of the Hammond is rather two dimensional, the drawbar stuff did teach me about harmonics and wave shapes.
I took six weeks of formal organ lessons in the summer of 1968. Those lessons, what my sister taught me, along with my own sense of good music got me the chance to be the organist for a small Lutheran parish near my hometown. That lasted about five years until I could no longer deal with the pastor who knew little about music but kept meddling. I decided that I wanted to sing in the choir instead. I had joined the founding congregation of my college and sang there 'til 1985. That parish had a wonderful neo-baroque instrument from the Holtkamp Organ Company out of Cleveland, Ohio. I got to play it as a substitute several times. Oh how I love to play the organ!
When our organist at that church was fired for clashing with the pastor, I moved with him and several of the choristers about a half-mile down the street to the Episcopal Church where I am today. I still sing in the choir and occasionally get to play the organ. It's a 1917 E. M. Skinner box. (That's a joke from the old ed-psych days in college.) The instrument is a six-division, four-manual and pedal behemoth with only one, in my opinion, good stop. It's a two-rank eight-foot Kleine Erzähler (renamed at one time to a Flûte-à-Pointe II). The rest of the stops are rather tubby. The Great eight-foot Second Diapason shouldn't be allowed to gather wind! A Great Mixture IV added in the late 80s is OK, but the workmanship of the installation is abysmal. The Mixture chest immediately behind the Great façade pipes isn't even level. Not all Skinner organs are so tonally bankrupt. The Skinner in the National Cathedral is light years ahead of the example in Christ Church. Of course, I don't think G. Donald Harrison was with the Skinner Company in 1917 when our organ was built. (An interesting note is that T. Tertius Noble was the organist for the dedicatory recital of this opus.) Our parish is now undertaking a major restoration of the pipework this summer, so we shall see what, if any, improvements come of this large expenditure of capital.
Even in light of the tonal architecture of the Christ Church Skinner instrument, I still count it a distinct privilege to have been able to play it. One thing I have learned about console layout is that there seems to be no good reason for more than three manuals. If a particular work needs a fourth manual, a good assistant to push the combination action buttons or pull stop knobs can be more than adequate to fulfill the rare need for the extra keyboard. That keyboard tends to raise the music desk way too high for someone who wears bifocals. That's my two-cents worth on organ consoles.

The Fugue part of BachsFugue simply tells the musical form that I find most interesting. Unfortunately, I can rarely get through any of Bach’s fugues. I guess my meager skills stop there.

Now for the praise I have for the work that Martin Dyde has done. Hauptwerk--what I'm sure is a labor of love for Martin--is all I need for me to end my days and take me to my final rest. That for which I have longed for so many years has come to be: a real pipe organ in my home, and one that even sounds good to boot! Even before I registered the program and got rid of the triangle clink, I marveled at the tone from St. Anne's, Moseley. The ambience of the church building was even there! Now that I have registered the program and begun to assemble the parts to make a two or three-manual with pedal organ, I am truly "happy as a clam". (See some new information below.) Did I mention that I was in open-mouthed wonder of what Martin has made? Well, I am. And it's at a cost I can afford. It even sounds good (that's not an adequate word) in my headphones! Another plus for Hauptwerk is that I can now "play" works that were never in my technical grasp with the use of the sequencer. I also like to use NoteWorthy (a really reasonably-priced, notation-based, midi sequencer-type thingy?!). And now there is this forum where I can get questions answered and share my joyful experiences with the pipe organ through Martin Dyde's Hauptwerk program.

Presently I am ready to begin a new chapter in my love affair with the pipe organ. Since I originally prepared this introductory account, I have been able to find and purchase a three-manual and pedal MIDI organ console. The cost has strained my budget, but the asking price for the console was so reasonable that I could not let this opportunity pass by. The only kink in the plan is that the console is in California. Anyone who knows where Ohio is in relationship to California will realize that the distance is well over two thousand miles (approximately 3600 kilometers). In fact the cost of bringing the console home will exceed the cost of the console itself. I talked this seemingly insane scheme over with friends and my dear sister, and everyone agreed that this was the chance of a lifetime. Thus, I will be flying to California in about a month, renting a truck there, and hauling the organ console back to my home in Ohio. What an adventure! As an added bonus, the console, which is currently in a church and controls a hybrid pipe/MIDI organ, carries its own provenance--the console once belonged to the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

I will certainly be continuing this story once I have brought the console home and have begun to set up everything to work with Hauptwerk. I also am eagerly awaiting the next version of Hauptwerk. The current conundrum is: What to do with the Hammond! My efforts to offer it for sale have brought only scammers from Africa. Should I donate it to a non-profit organization and take a tax write-off? Offer it on eBay? Or what? The living room will be very crowded with two large organ consoles in it. I may have to ditch the sofa.

I hope I haven’t bored your here, but this is my story. I left quite a bit out, and I guess that is a good thing. I am ready to engage in dialogue. Let’s go!

Cole
Cole Votaw -- Springfield, Ohio, USA
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Calcant

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  • Location: Darmstadt, Germany

PostTue Aug 26, 2003 11:41 am

Hello BachsFugue,
I am a little hesitant to address a forum member this way since there are so many fugues by Bach.
Nevertheless, I agree to what you said about the impact of Hauptwerk. And I admit, my skills will not allow me to play an organ fugue in a decent manner. So I use single-staff input in slow tempo or resort to midi files from the internet. But the main point is that HW opens the rich world of instruments to everybody. We Europeans sure have the advantage that there are still many instruments from the 18th and 19th century, but playing a Silbermann at home is a new benefit, thanks to Martin and - not to be overlooked - those courageous people who capture the samples.
I am convinced that getting access to famous organ builders works will contribute to a new kind of musical education.

Calcant

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