ABOUT THE INSTRUMENT

The organ is among the oldest of musical instruments, its pipes being derived from elementary whistles and horns. As of the beginning of the twentieth century the organ had had a long and lively history. Its artistic and mechanical development in Europe, the British Isles, and the Americas is well documented. In the United States at the opening of the twentieth century, electric key action and high wind pressure for the pipes were taking the place of mechanical (tracker) action and moderate wind pressures. A thirty-five-year-old builder named Ernest M. Skinner decided to establish his own business and to exploit the new tonal and mechanical trends.

A great new organ was installed in the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in 1910 and was dedicated in April of 1911 with Clarence Dickinson playing the first recital. The instrument was built by Ernest M. Skinner Company of Boston and had been in construction for four years. As of 1910 Ernest Skinner had been in business under his own name for nine years and his company was five years old. This instrument helped to establish Skinner as one of the leading organ builders of the time.

The organ was placed in two large spaces forty feet above the floor of the Great Choir. The Swell and Choir divisions plus separately-enclosed Celesta (“Carillon” in the stoplist) were located on the north side, the Great and Solo divisions plus unenclosed Tuba Mirabilis on the south side. The Pedal pipework was divided among the two sides.

As originally designed, this organ was not the largest in existence. Ernest Skinner regarded it as his crowning achievement to date and cited certain stops as his own “tonal inventions” being used for the first time: 8' French Trumpet (Swell), 8' Gamba Celeste (Solo), 8' Flügelhorn (Solo), 8' Tuba Mirabilis (Solo), and 32' Violone (Pedal). The mechanism, especially the Pitman chest, was being perfected at this time.

The tonal appointments reflected growing trends: large Diapasons with leathered upper lips, large-scale Flutes influenced by Hope Jones, overabundance of foundation stops, mostly-ineffective, small-scale upper work, and many orchestral colors. The chorus reeds were more successful than the large flues. Nonetheless this organ had a certain nobility of effect and was widely respected.

When the organ was installed, only the Chancel of the Great Choir and the Nave as far as the crossing were built. The full length of the Nave was opened on November 30, 1941. The completed Nave and Choir, 601 feet in length, became part of the largest Gothic Cathedral in the world.

The organ of 1910 was too small for the mammoth Nave, being remote in placement and generally unfortunate in tonal design. In the 1950s there was a growing desire to rebuild organs such as that at the Cathedral in order to correct tonal deficiencies and to provide ensembles. The Aeolian-Skinner Organ Company, successor to the Ernest M. Skinner Company, was invited to inspect the instrument, to report concerning its condition, and recommend improvements.

G. Donald Harrison and Joseph S. Whiteford, president and vice-president of Aeolian-Skinner respectively, worked out the details for the rebuilding. Budget limitations made it expedient to retain as much pipework and mechanism as could possibly be reused. Almost all of the pipework of excessive scale was discarded as well as that of extremely small scale. The rebuilt organ of 1954 includes pipework from the 1910 organ, pipework made new by Aeolian-Skinner, new imported pipework, pipework from other old Skinner organs, and a few ranks from non-Skinners.

Norman Coke-Jephcott, Organist and Master of the Choristers at the Cathedral at the time of the rebuilding, wished to include a complete Antiphonal organ on the west wall of the Nave, but budget limitations precluded this possibility. Instead of the Antiphonal and as a compromise, a Fanfare Trumpet was provided and placed at the West End on a gallery railing directly under the great rose window, five hundred feet from the main organ. The pipes were mounted at an angle of eighteen degrees to the horizontal. Edward A. Wallace (Organist and Choirmaster, Church of St. Michael & St. George, St. Louis and former student of Coke-Jephcott) was present with Donald Harrison and Joseph Whiteford as guests of Coke-Jephcott at the Century Club in New York City when the Trumpet was in process of development. Harrison asked Coke-Jephcott how the Trumpet would be used: “for State occasions.” Hence its name, the State Trumpet. It was designed to emulate the commanding effects achieved by the Royal Trumpeters in English Cathedrals.

In order for the State Trumpet to make an impact in moving sixteen million cubic feet of air in the Cathedral, fifty-inch wind pressure was assigned. Because of the unusually high wind pressure, the pipes are fastened to their windchest and are anchored to the west wall. At the time these pipes were being installed, a few of them not fastened to the chest were sounded. The high air pressure caused them to leave the chest and, after a brief airborne excursion, to land on the floor of the Nave with disastrous results. All sixty-one pipes are reeds (at first the twelve highest trebles were oversize flues). Twelve dummy pipes of 16' length and smaller are included because the lowest sounding pipe—eight feet in length—appears to be miniature when viewed from the Nave.

The rebuilding of the Cathedral organ helped it to be more versatile, effective and useful. However, the rebuilding was a source of tremendous grief and resentment to the aging Ernest Skinner who knew that many of his instruments were being altered, often under the direction of G. Donald Harrison. Around the time that the rebuilding was completed, Mr. Skinner offered— at his own expense—to restore the organ to its original tonal character.

Organ sound in dead rooms often seems dull, underdeveloped, and uninspiring. In a live space such as that at St. John’s, the sound comes alive and is engaging. The majesty of this instrument is varied: bright Principal choruses; full Pedal flues; Flutes which seem to float; Celestes of low dynamic power but with considerable sweetness; the bombast of the State Trumpet, the Tubas, and the Bombarde division. Harrison and Whiteford wanted the rebuilt instrument to be able to accompany ten thousand voices and to serve organ literature of various periods. The 1954 instrument is reminiscent of organs heard in English Cathedrals and includes much fine tonal work of Skinner and Harrison. The Cathedral of St. John the Divine is fortunate in possessing a notable example of the American Classic Organ.
—Roy F. Kehl