Mon Dec 11, 2023 7:06 pm
To my knowledge, there haven’t been any more detailed reviews written for this organ. I purchased it soon after release, however I didn’t get time to properly review it until recently. I ran it on my home Hauptwerk system and mostly listened with headphones. I purchased it at the introductory price with my own money.
Overall it is quite a quirky instrument, but also with a lot of charm. The overall sound very much makes me think of American organs of the period (with a lot of echoes of EM Skinner to come), but to a large extent it also reminds me of the excellent Furtwangler und Hammer at the Konigskathedral, which I also have. It has many very attractive stops and a very wide palette of colours, which if you like to play quietly a lot, will be sure to delight you. The reverb is one of the best of any American spaces for an organ that I have heard. It doesn’t muddy at all, has some nice detail, sustains nicely and sounds very inspiring. It would really be a shame if that magnificent space is demolished.
The great is the loudest manual, in that practically all the stops are suitable for each other volume wise, and do go together. The Open diapason is fairly loud, and it together with the Spitz floete, viole de gamba and doppel flote form to make a convincing Romantic chorus, though a bit stringier than average. The spitz floete and the doppel flote sound as they should alone, but I think the viol de gamba is too keen to use by itself in this division, probably needs at least the doppel flote. Still, this ensemble is the closest to my ideal for an “American classic” romantic chorus that I’ve heard, and I’m pretty happy with it. The harmonic flute has a bit more interest than your average american harmonic flute, but it’s not a Cavaille coll. The mixtures are interesting in that the III rank mixture is actually a romantic low pitched mixture, and the IV is a romantic high pitched mixture. They are interesting in that when coupled with a diapason chorus, they sound just right for a Roman Catholic accompaniment to chant for the period, which I think it quite nice. The trumpet is just the right volume to be a chorus reed for the diapason chorus, though with the 4’ and 8’ flutes it can also serve as a capable solo instrument. It has great style as noted by Jonathan, you don’t hear that every day. The Clarion is so quiet as to be practically useless for any purpose, which is strange given it’s an original rank. The 2’ and 2 2/3’ ranks serve their purpose very nicely for a Romantic organ, but aren’t anything exciting. The harmonic trumpet though I quite enjoyed, though it is apparently derived from the Great 8’ trumpet. It seems to have been created with some special Hauptwerk magic though, because I quite enjoyed it. It has just the right pizaz and character, and really sounds like it fills the space. Some might be put off by the slightly artificial sound to it, but I thought it was delightful. Alone the division has nice presence, but it gets some real power if you add the 4 and 16 foot couplers.
The pedal has quite a lot of colours, at least in the extended version. The 32 foot flue, the quintaton and the 10 2/3 foot mutation all sound not quite right on their own, but when you combine them together, they make a pretty compelling 32’ sound. It has good presence, but it’s not too dominant. Again, I think this is a bit of Hauptwerk magic on the part of the Evensong team, as I didn’t think something created artificially could sound this interesting and work this well. That being said though, the 10 2/3 in the original disposition doesn’t quite work, good thing they have the magic! The original 7 ranks of the pedal work pretty well for most pieces, in my opinion. Cavaille Coll often had smaller pedal divisions on organs of this size, and I think for Romantic pieces this usually works. For those that need a huge Aeolian-Skinner style pedal section though, it’s provided for in the extended disposition. The 16 foot reed has plenty of power to balance the full organ, and it combined with the 32 foot reed (which sounds just right) can stand up to anything you throw at it in the extended disposition.
The “Solo” and “Swell” divisions are where it gets interesting, but also a little strange! The reality is that both of these are sort of “fernwerk” or “soft” divisions with a couple of loud stops tacked on. It’s interesting that the organ was like this when recorded. I wonder if it was different before in Boston, and then was “creatively” voiced once it got to Minnesota, or if there was a problem in the wind chest as a result of many years that was underwinding a wide variety of stops when recorded, or if that’s really what Johnson and his son intended when they built it! I suppose we’ll never know. Anyway, on the Swell, the 8’ open diapason is loud with a capital L, even louder than the same stop on the Great! Yet all the other flues, the mixtures, the oboe and Vox humana are all practically whisper quiet compared to the diapason. When you pull them all out together, you get a very interesting sound, with the 8’ diapason really rather dominating the sound of the rest of the ensemble. The 4’, 8’ and 16’ reeds are fairly loud, enough to add to the top of the flue chorus, but not so loud they drown it out entirely. Yet they can’t really stand up to the 8’ diapason. Here you also have the 4’ and 16’ couplers, which make it quite grand. Still, there’s something odd about it, like it’s not quite right for those flues to all be so quiet. That being said, if you don’t mind them being soft, the colour flues on the swell are all gorgeous and have tons of character. The celeste in particular is very EM Skinner/American sounding (which is also a bit of Hauptwerk magic, since it was also added!). The salicional has more flute than the Gamba on the Great, and sounds delightfully delicate. The quintadena, rare for a Romantic organ, also has quite delightful character (I’m guessing it was used for the very distinct 16’ quintatoen on the pedal!). The mixtures are also distinct from each other, but crown the quiet plenum quite well. All the Swell reeds somehow balance with the quiet stops of the flue chorus, with the Cornopean being a fairly standard example (with Johnson patent charm), the Contra Fagotto having a fair bit of character, and the Oboe/Vox humana each sounding a bit too soft, but having nice character as well (it’s a theme). The tremolo sounds just right for the period, having a slight whoop and touch of theatricality to it, but not more. It has a swell pedal, but given that most of the stops are hard to make out with it fully open, I can see of no practical purpose for using it.
The Solo is in name only, you cannot use any of these stops to solo anything. In fact, it’s hard to tell that they are even any louder than the quiet stops of the Swell. What they do have, however, is their own character and life that is quite distinct from the swell. The geigen principal sounds just right with an American twist, though of all the principals it is the quietest by far. The dulciana quiet and ethereal (but maybe a bit too quiet). The melodia perhaps one of the best I’ve heard. It is quite sweet, singy and round, way better than the melodias of many organs, that are just a quieter diapason. Of all the stops I was most excited by the Keraulophone, a very common stop in the period, but which was removed on practically every surviving example. Unfortunately now I see why - it’s overly stringy in an odd way, sort of like the wrong harmonics are emphasized on the flute tone, and the string is thin and wispy. It combines well with the other stops to make an interesting 8’ romantic flue chorus, but I otherwise see no reason to use it. The synthetic Unda Maris doesn’t quite achieve the concept, but I suppose it might be useful for some repertoire. The fugara 4’ is nothing to write home about, but I don’t think I’ve ever met a fugara that I’ve really thought nails the reedy idea. The Clarionet is quite nice, and quite clarinetty in a realistic sort of way - one of the best of the period I think.
The “ancillary” and “harmonique” keyboards are a division made up of various ranks from each of the other manual divisions, and a straightforward way to play just the synthetic harmonic trumpet respectively. The ancillary sort of works together in a strange way, so I don’t think I would ever use it. The quiet ranks it borrows are still quiet, and the loud ranks are still loud, so it doesn’t really add up much of a useful division. The Harmonique has been added as a stop to every other division, so I’m not sure it needs its own division, but there it is if you ever need a party horn and have no way to play it.
There’s separate screens for the extended and for the original disposition, as well as a lot of other clever features as alluded to by Jonathan earlier. The quality of the recording is definitely top notch, among the best I’ve heard, with loads of detail and colour. It’s interesting to me that they had to use so many perspectives to make the three. I used all three perspectives together as they were at default. I didn’t get a great sense of spatiality with this one, but I often don’t with really quiet stops.
So in all, it’s a potentially really great organ that seems to have been hamstrung either by Johnson and his son, some intrepid voicer or rebuilder, or a mechanical problem along the way. If it had been somewhat more conventionally voiced, it could be one of the finest American Romantic organs that have been sampled for Hauptwerk, and a true pioneer of the EM Skinner and American Classic sound (indeed, it may have been an important influence). As it stands though, it’s a nice Great division with two soft divisions, and there are many people who don’t think an organ needs even one soft division. Its truly great and unique colour flutes do sound really good soft, but I’d personally rather hear them at least medium volume. Perhaps some day a clever CODM coder (maybe Evensong?) will put together a version with a more conventional voicing balance. When that version comes out, I will be first in line to play it (I can do it myself, but I don’t bother anymore out of principle!), but until then it will be a curiousity that I will nonetheless keep, because there really are some parts of it that are delightful and gorgeous, and the history it exudes is amazing. I also have to acknowledge that Evensong really hit it out of the park with some of their additions and features, it’s too bad their amazing technical talents and the amazing quality of the instrument and space don’t result in an organ that out of the box can be used for much. It really is a good thing they recorded it, and hopefully its future isn’t as a sizeable pile in a scrap metal yard.
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