Hi again! As you may know from previous posts, when you rebuild an organ – as opposed to buying an all-new organ – one of the most important decisions to be made is what stops/pipes will you keep from the previous instrument. For those of you who know me, you know that I love all things vintage! Organs are no different, and I decided early on that any rebuild of the Grace organ would retain at least some, if not many of the existing ranks. Of course, final decisions about this were made in consultation with Casavant – they are the experts!
You may remember that there was a small Choir division in the Chancel organ, added in the 1959 rebuild. While 1959 wasn’t generally my favorite year for organbuilding 😉 I have to say that I liked all the stops in this six-stop division.
Here follows some real “organ nerd” material!
As we are making this chamber into a Solo division for the Chancel, only two of those ranks are staying put – the Erzahler and Erzahler Celeste. These narrow-scaled hybrid pipes create an ethereal effect, particularly as they are all the way at the front of the chancel next to the High Altar. When the expression box is closed, you have to cup your ear and lean in to hear them! The other stops – an 8′ Rohrflute, a 4′ Nacthorn, and 8′ English Horn are all being located to the Gallery Choir division.
That left just one stop looking for a home – an 8′ Viola, and my actual favorite from the division!
While it’s called Viola it is really a small-scaled keen, but warm Diapason. The Gallery Great divison will have THREE Open Diapason stops at 8′ pitch – sheer luxury! Casavant had the great idea to make the Viola into a Celeste partner for the 3rd Open Diapason! This may sound strange to folks, but there is precedent, certainly in Italian organs. However, two great Anglo organs have made a great success of this – on the Choir division at Ely Cathedral in England (Harrison & Harrison); and on the Positiv division at St. Thomas, 5th Avenue (Dobson.) Both of these examples are unenclosed, as ours will be, but make striking “caps” for the enclosed strings on the organ. I was fortunate enough to test this out at St. Thomas in early May, and it really works well. At Ely the stop is called “Fiffaro” and at St. Thomas “Voce Umana.” At Grace, we are going to keep it simple for the player and call it Diapason Celeste!
Below is a close-up of those pipes at Casavant.
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