Some context for Casavant op. 2770 (1963) at Our Savior's Lutheran Church, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

As I begin my tenure as organist at Our Savior's Lutheran Church, Milwaukee, I marvel at the chance to become acquainted through long, first-hand experience with another fine instrument from the Canadian firm of Casavant Frères, Saint-Hyacinthe, Québec.

An influential figure in the later neo-classic organ-building movement in America, the work of Lawrence Phelps (1923-1999) as tonal director at Casavant is well known. Some of his work had become very familiar to me, both Phelps-designed Casavants, and later instruments built on his own. My years at the University of Iowa brought me into contact with a large 1971 Casavant tracker in Clapp Recital Hall on campus, a source of some pride for longtime faculty member and organ department developer Gerhard Krapf, a German native deeply ensconsed in the neo-classic movement of the time, and a passionate teacher and performer of the favored Germanic repertoire of the movement. An earlier 2-manual electric-action Casavant (1963?) at Gloria Dei Lutheran Church, Iowa City, also was under my fingers as I served as organist there for a year. Later, a Phelps mechanical-action instrument was installed at First Presbyterian Church, Iowa City.

Still, the local Casavants I encountered early in my Iowa City years were not entirely satisfying to me. Tastes change, and even during my years living in the "Athens in the Cornfields" (1977-1985)  I knew the world of organ sound was much wider. Mr. Phelps had come up with some richer instruments within his classic milieu - the large Opus 2722 (1963) at Central Lutheran, Minneapolis impressed me from the moment our family moved to Minneapolis in 1970. But his later takes on the classic organ tradition, as embodied in the earlier Iowa City trackers, tended to leave me cold.

Already at the time, a truer understanding of 17th and 18th century organ building was becoming known, incarnated in later Casavant organs under the leadership of Gerhard Brunzema, who took over the tonal directorship of the firm in 1972. (A small 1977 Casavant tracker was installed at Iowa City's Our Redeemer Lutheran Church under his directorship). Gone were the thin low-pressure reeds, which were now morphing into Trompete and Posaune ranks with fine body, resembling more truly the warmer sounds of the Schnitger school that earlier neo-classicists like Phelps claimed to be emulating. Other trends were brewing as well... the love of fine nineteenth-century American organs, an example of which was found right in Iowa City at St. Mary's Church, a 3-manual Moline instrument from 1883. (Interestingly, Herr Brunzema showed a growing appreciation for 19th-century organs on this continent as the years went on -  see his entry in the brief history of company leadership on the Casavant website.) Instruments with more Romantic leanings came from the Casavant workshop during this time as well, one of which (in the Quad City area) was characterized enthusiastically by our local Casavant rep as a "nice plump Victorian lady" (at least relative to much of what had come before!). With the advent of Jean-Louis Coignet as Casavant's tonal director in 1981, followed by today's leader Jacquelin Rochette, the company continued to embrace the wide range of tonal traditions in the organ world, with perhaps a most authoritative perspective in the French traditions of the 18th and 19th centuries.

And this doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of many other organ-building currents - a renewed appreciation of the American symphonic organ of the early 20th century, for example. Plenty of room for more articles, eh?

Casavant's list of representative 1960's and 1970's instruments from the period of  "". includes the Clapp Hall Casavant referenced above, as well as a larger instrument closely related to Milwaukee's op. 2770: that of Central Lutheran, Minneapolis (op. 2722, 1963). In my view, these two related organs of the early 60's owe their overall success to the very degree that they avoided many of the extremes of neo-classicism!

Neo-classicism. Ah, yes... the biggest peril of any "neo-anything" conception is the ever-lurking risk of making a grotesque caricature of what you most hope to honor. So with the North American neo-classic organ of the 60's - based on post-WW2 classic revival or neo-classic concepts prevalent in Germany at the time, the concepts were reactive in nature to some of the excesses of 19th and early 20th century organ building - in short, the tendency to tubbiness. Being reactive, they often went to extremes, rewriting history or inventing a new pseudo-history out of whole cloth!

Most relevant to this discussion: the strictest interpretation of the "Werkprinzip" school of divisional relationships called for a different pitch level for the "Principal" or diapason stop for each division - e.g., an 8' for the Great, a 4' for the Positiv, and a 2' for a smaller Brustwerk. (The historical basis for this concept is rather tenuous, but that's another story!) The 1971 U of Iowa instrument I'm closely acquainted with follows this model, the "Schwellwerk" taking the lightest position as a kind of beefed-up Brustwerk, with its lighter foundation stops and short-resonator 16' and 8' reeds coming off less effectively as a substitute for the Swell in Romantic literature. (The instrument has since received some re-voicing, which may have improved matters, but the fundamental scalings and space allocated are still facts of life.)

In contrast, we find at Central Lutheran, as the on-line spec's notes state, a grand and grave 16' Principal basis on the Great, with all of the other manual divisions based on an 8' Principal or equivalent. (In the Choir division, the "equivalent" is the 8' Salicional, a small-sounding principal.) And in the Choir of the Our Savior's instrument, you find an 8' Salicional, which again functions as a small principal sound. Likewise, in the Great and Swell, the solidity of 8' principals in both divisions saves the instrument from the sense of floating weightlessness that afflicts many smaller Phelps Casavant and Phelps instruments. (The Swell's 8' Geigen Principal even seems a bit bigger than the Great's 8' Principal, despite being named a "Geigen Prinzipal"!) Examining the Casavant link above, a number of instruments of the 60's were similarly better-endowed in the realm of foundation stops than the stereotypical "60's Screamer" - the 1963 Op. 2679 at the Basilique Notre-Dame-du-Cap, Cap-de-la-Madeleine, Québec, being one notable example. (This is a far-from-exhaustive study, naturally - finding more instruments in the size range of Milwaukee's Op. 2770 would provide more basis for this somewhat anecdotal survey.)

All the better that my personal pilgrimage brings me to one of these more moderate examples of Lawrence Phelps's work! With the clean brilliance of the classic movement, yet with sufficient weight, warmth, and gravity to meet a wider variety of service and recital needs, this instrument fills a fine niche in the local Milwaukee organ scene, and fits nicely into spectrum of possibilities that I as an organist can relate well to and use to the fullest. Sure, I have my preferences, and other instruments of this era have been subtly re-voiced to bring out the warmth and foundational qualities of the pipework at hand; but as the instrument stands, it's a good testament to the best of the era.

Bach was quoted as regretting never having had a truly fine organ regularly available to him; in that respect, I'm definitely better off than the great man of Leipzig!

Some further reading

For the Phelps lover: www.lawrencephelps.com - lots of Phelps's writing, and documentation of instruments from the Erie, PA shop from which he worked on his own. I read a lot of this in my early days. It's interesting, but of its time. Be sure to read on!

Some forthright, sensible, scholarly writing on today's ideas of an ideal "Bach" organ: J.S. Bach and the Organ - Some Neglected Threads by Stephen Bicknell. In a nutshell: it wasn't exactly what Phelps and colleagues had in mind, we have some wonderful leads that are better known now that the former East Germany is open, but of course we can't fully know...