| dc.description.abstract | The middle nineteenth century saw the rise of the Romantic Era and, with it, a change in the prevailing musical aesthetics. Composers expanded musical forms and pioneered new ones with the goal of expressing intense emotions. With the expansion in musical forms came an expansion in the size and tonal variety of the symphony orchestra. Audiences welcomed the aesthetic changes of Romanticism, and their preference for a warmer, richer sound carried over to the organ world. Dispositions of instruments of the early nineteenth century lacked the variety in tone and power to adequately produce the sound desired by performers and listeners. As organbuilders attempted to meet the demands of players and audiences, it became clear that the organ’s mechanism could not sustain the desired aesthetic. European organbuilders introduced a number of technological advances to try and remedy this problem, but it was left to American organbuilders to pioneer new methods of construction that finally met the demands of performers and audiences: the American Symphonic Organ.
The entire existence of the mature American Symphonic Organ of the 1920s relied on the technological advances of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that enabled organbuilders to produce the dark tone colors and orchestral imitative voices associated with high wind pressures in instruments exhibiting superb musical flexibility. Defining a specific aesthetic end as the basis for discussion, this document examines the developments of various components of the organ’s mechanism in the hands of American organbuilders between the years 1880 and 1920 that each played a requisite role in the formation of the American Symphonic Organ, including developments in actions, electromagnets, swell mechanisms, key contacts, console designs, combination actions, and blowers. In every area of the instrument’s development, organbuilders strove to reduce the strain on the performer through the introduction of electricity and a steady, copious wind supply to enable quick, reliable manipulation of the tonal resources.
The last decade has seen a resurgence of interest in the organs of the early twentieth century and their associated tonal disposition after years of neglect. Just as changes in aesthetic preferences brought about the American Symphonic Organ, changes in the middle of the twentieth century brought about its fall from favor. Many of the organs of the early 1900s that were not entirely discarded were substantially altered to meet the demands of a new generation of musicians and listeners that desired a decisively brighter tone inspired by instruments of previous centuries. The pendulum swung from one extreme of robust tone and color in the American Symphonic Organ of 1920 to one of extreme brilliance and clarity in the Neo-Baroque organs of the 1960s.
Since the 1960s, the pendulum has swung back toward the center, and both organists and organbuilders are finding a new balance between the extremes outlined above. With a renewed interest in the tonal philosophy espoused in the early twentieth century, numerous instruments from this time period have recently been restored, rebuilt, or rescued from storage and are finding a home in churches and concert halls where they are stirring the hearts and minds of listeners as they did a century ago. With this renewed interest in the American Symphonic Organ, this document seeks to trace a history of technological progress that guided the instrument from its state in 1880 to a golden age in the 1920s. | en_US |
