Organic
By Mitch Berg
One of my peeviest peeves is the reliance of too many churches on “contemporary” Christian music. While one may worship God with guitars or bongos or kazoos for all I care, there is something about the sound of a huge pipe organ that is the sound of worship, of faith, of the glory of the whole thing. Combine this with the genius of the great sacred song writers – Bach, Brahms, Handel, and so on – and then compare it with the wobbly, puerile, pale bilge that passes for “contemporary worship music” these days, and you can see why so many churches are in freefall.
So I’m gratified to see that the traditional pipe organ is coming back:
Even as many churches ..are opting for contemporary guitars and bongo drums for their worship services, they’re also investing in one of the world’s oldest instruments. The resurgence has convinced national organ expert Michael Barone that “a new golden age for the organ” is here.
Augustana Lutheran Church in West St. Paul and Mount Olivet Lutheran Church in Minneapolis are among some nearby parishes to purchase new organs. And across the country, churches are installing some of the most impressive organs, which could be compared to the majestic instruments of Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries, Barone said.
Spiritual aspects aside, it’s fun to see this purely as a music geek. I got to poke around in the works of a classic old pipe organ in college (as part of a keyboard tuning and repair class I took [*], and they are just fun:
A Fritts organ built for St. Joseph Cathedral in Columbus, Ohio, fits that bill, said Barone, host of the nationally syndicated public radio show “Pipedreams.”
“The quality of the building, certainly here in the U.S., is as good as it has ever been,” Barone said. “A lot of research has gone into how the old guys were able to create the magic they did in pre-industrial times.”
Nativity’s organ, made by Cassavant Freres in Quebec, might be more modest but is nonetheless an incredible gift for the church. It cost more than $1 million to purchase and install the instrument. Parishioners Eugene and Faye Sitzmann, of St. Paul, funded the project in late 2004.
So cool.
June 15th, 2007 at 8:03 am
Hey cool, a post that really strikes a chord with me (pun intended). I was a huge pipe organ fan in high school and college. PipeDreams was a weekly ritual for me. I even managed to wheedle my way into working on the dismantling of the MASSIVE pipe organ in the old Mpls Auditorium. I don’t know if it ever got reinstalled in the ballroom of the new convention center or if it’s still sitting in storage. I was a music major in college, and I sang in the choir. We did one concert in the Baslica with organ and brass, and the 7 second echo from a loud finale of everything playing fortissimo was enough to make your knees tremble. Hearing huge orchestral-organ works like Jongen’s Symphonie Concertante or Saint-Saens Symphony No3 played with a full symphonic orchestra and an organ with 32′ pipes and lots of wind pressure (like the Mpls auditorium organ, the Basilca, the St Paul Cathedral, or the Rufatti in the Crystal Cathedral is as close to orgasm as music can bring a person.
*ahem*
June 15th, 2007 at 8:31 am
I know of a nice Hebrew-American in St Paul who is a big fan of old organs. I believe he has organized tours of locations where these machines are located.
It’s interesting that liberal ELCA churches are doing the traditional music. Something European-American.
June 15th, 2007 at 9:35 am
Mitch, we recently uncovered a great screed on this subject by a commenter to Discarded Lies and posted it to our blog. Enjoy!
(PS: I personally blame the fall of liturgical music on Ray Repp and Marty Haugen, peanut shells be upon them.)