Opus 41 Pipe Organ

Photo by Jodi Beyeler, GC Public Relations

The Rieth Recital Hall organ, designed by Taylor and Boody, is based upon 18th century North German organbuilding principles. It features more than 1600 pipes, and a case of carved solid white oak. The key and stop action are mechanical (tracker), with two manuals and a flat pedalboard. The temperament is a hypothetical reconstruction of Johann Sebastian Bach's preferred system, as specified on the title page of the Well-Tempered Clavier, 1722. This tuning method was re-discovered by GC alumnus Bradley Lehman ('86) in 2004 and published in the February and May 2005 issues of Early Music. This is the first organ since the 18th century to employ this tuning in its construction.

The organ was dedicated in a series of concerts and events May 1 through May 8, 2005.

Opus 41 in the Press

Opus 41 was featured on the front cover of the May, 2005 issue of The Diapason

Click below to read articles in the Goshen College Bulletin about Opus 41

Bach ground: Unique tuning of new Goshen College organ reverberates through classical music world – March 22, 2005, Elkhart Truth

New Goshen College organ tuned to new system -- March 22, 2005, WHAS11.com, Louisville, KY (Associated Press-distributed article)

Bach to basics: 'Opus 41' is attuned to composer -- April 29, 2005, South Bend Tribune

GC Organ Dedicated -- May 2, 2005, Elkhart Truth

Goshen Alum Solves Bach's Music Puzzle -- May 3, 2005,The Mennonite

Comments from Organists

"A marvelous discovery - beautiful sounds!" - J. Michael Barone, radio host, Pipedreams (NPR)

"Every chorale prelude of Bach and Buxtehude that I tried sounded perfect... Thanks again for the opportunity to see and hear the organ. I'll be singing its praises at Wake Forest!" - Robert Ulery, Wake Forest University

"Very good to hear the new temperament." - Ronald Wahl, organbuilder from Appleton, WI

"I enjoyed it immensely! [Opus 41] has what one expects from [Taylor & Boody] - superb sound, integrity of workmanship, and overall first-class artistry." - Delbert Disselhorst, University of Iowa

"I've just spent an exalted couple of hours playing this wonderful new instrument. I knew it would be beautiful because it was built by my friends, George and John and their associates. But my special reason for coming was to try the 'new' Bach temperament. I played a piece in every key from Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier, and I loved everyone. Thanks to all for a wonderful achievement." - George Bozeman, Jr., organbuilder from New Hampshire

"[Opus 41] is a delightful, splendid instrument that will undoubtedly provide unprecedented opportunities for yourself, your students and the College. Congratulations!" - Justin Berg, Director of Music, First Presbyterian Church of Danville, Danville, KY

Disposition of stops

Hauptwerk	Oberwerk	Pedal
Bordun 16'	Gedackt 8'	Subbass 16'
Principal 8'	Quintadena 8'	Octave 8'
Spillpfeife 8'	Principal 4'	Octave 4'
Viol da Gamba 8'	Rohrflöte 4'	Posaune 16'
Octave 4'	Waldflöte 2'	Trompet 8'
Spitzflöte 4'	Sesquialtera II
Quinte 3'	Scharf IV	Couplers
Nasat 3'	Dulcian 8'	Oberwerk / Hauptwerk
Superoctave 2'		Hauptwerk / Pedal
Mixtur IV-V		Oberwerk / Pedal
Trompet 8'

Tremulant to entire organ
Mechanical key and stop action
Compass: Manual 56 notes; C - g'''
Pedal 30 notes; C - f'
Lehman-Bach temperament
Metal pipes of hammered lead-tin alloys
Case of solid white oak
Number of pipes: 1,604
Wind pressure: 75mm
Wind stabilizer

The Temperament of Opus 41

by Bradley Lehman, Goshen College alumnus

Photo by Zach Albrecht, GC Public Relations

This organ is the first since the 18th-century to use a proposed reconstruction of Johann Sebastian Bach's tuning, based on evidence of Bach's drawing on the title page of the Well-Tempered Clavier, 1722. This tuning method is a 2004 discovery by Goshen College alumnus Bradley Lehman. The article about this discovery is published in the February and May 2005 issues of Early Music (Oxford University Press) , and further details are at http://www.larips.com.

Bach's elegant diagram is depicted below, taken previously as merely a border decoration for the title page of his book. According to Lehman's hypothesis, that drawing is a picture of direct tempering instructions for the harpsichord, to be able to play that book. Several other people had suggested previously that the drawing means something else non-decorative, with regard to calculating temperaments and their beat rates algebraically. Lehman took a much simpler approach, not requiring Bach to calculate or encrypt anything.

wtc1

In Lehman's formulation, Bach's diagram presents a practical sequence to set up all the notes: coming directly from 18th century common-practice tuning work, directly at a keyboard. To see it, we can either read the drawing right-to-left or we can rotate Bach's page 180 degrees, to view the diagram left-to-right. Bach wrote in the letter C himself, and the rest of Lehman's interpretation is from inference within the historical and practical context around Bach, plus an analytical play-through of Bach's extant keyboard music.

wtc2

The loops between the notes have zero, one, or two little jots in them, rather like dashes of spice to add in cooking. These correspond to slight rotational nudges of the tuning lever, as tasteful adjustments from pure intervals. A harpsichord and organ tuner who follows this recipe exactly, making the intervals very slightly out of tune on purpose (as this drawing indicates), ends up with a keyboard tuned beautifully for music in all keys: a pedagogical point of the Well-Tempered Clavier. This system solves all the practical problems of intonation in Bach's music and the music of his sons. Indeed, it turns out to be an excellent tuning solution to play all music, both before and after Bach's.

When we listen to the resulting musical layout, in practice it defines a specific set of sounds for every musical scale and for all harmonies, from the simplest to the most complex. Every major scale and minor scale sounds different from every other. This allows music to project a different mood or character in each melodic and harmonic context, with a pleasing range of expressive variety as it goes along. It builds drama into the music. The resulting tuning sounds almost like the equal temperament we have been accustomed to, but it has much more personality and color. It sounds plain and gentle around C major, mellower and warmer in the flat keys such as A-flat major, and especially bright and exciting in the sharp keys around E major. Everything is smoothly blended.

A Brief History of the Organ Program at Goshen College

by Mary Oyer, Goshen College professor emerita of music

The Mennonite Church's modern adoption of an historic instrument

The organ program at Goshen College began in 1960; before this time it would have been impossible for a Mennonite Church college to consider installing the instrument. Northern European Mennonites used organs as early as 1764 (Hamburg-Altona, Germany) and 1765 (Utrecht, Netherlands), and a congregation of the General Conference Mennonite Church built a pipe organ in 1874 (West Swamp, Pa.). But the Swiss-South German Mennonites, ancestors of the Mennonites who founded Goshen Collage, rejected its use.

Reasons for closing the door to organs, in my memory, were the threat it posed to our a cappella singing tradition and the fear that congregational singing would be weakened; the expense, especially of a fine pipe organ; the absence of clear encouragement of its use in the New Testament by Gospel and Epistle writers; and the general principle of non-conformity.

In the summer of 1960, Charles Roe suggested to Lon Sherer that Goshen College consider securing the organ pipes and wind chest that a church in Coldwater, Mich., was discarding. We decided to rebuild the organ in the largest room on the third floor of the Arts Building. It was a most unsuitable place in terms of the size of the room, the acoustics and performing space, but it offered no threat to our worship tradition. Richard Nase, a good musician and craftsman, assembled it skillfully, with Mr. Roe's help. We invited Myron Casner, a fine, internationally experienced organist at an Episcopal church in Sturgis, Mich., to give instruction. He agreed, and our organ program began.

In many ways, the decade of the 1960s was not an auspicious time to introduce the organ. The folk styles heard in popular music were entering church worship, bringing acoustical guitar and percussion instruments to hymn singing. It seems ironic that just as Mennonites were opening up to using organs, their use was waning in broader Christian society.

Studying "the organ question"

Although Goshen College received some criticism for initiating an organ program, the institution was not alone in giving attention to instruments. The official Music Committee of the Mennonite Church, charged with working with the General Conference Mennonite Church to create a new hymnal (the Mennonite Hymnal of 1969), was asked to study "the organ question." In April of 1963, Goshen College and the Mennonite Church Music Committee offered a music conference that created church-wide interest. The papers and workshops dealt with the biblical, theological and historical aspects of worship and examined questions of how the arts communicate the spiritual. A number of the sessions dealt with the organ directly.

In the meantime, the organ program at Goshen College thrived. Myron Casner respected and valued our singing tradition. Because we did not use the instrument liturgically, he focused on the value of the rich organ literature for a Christian liberal arts college. Beginning in 1966, Casner performed, on his church's organ, a complete set of Bach works each year: Clavier III, the Eighteen Chorales, The Art of the Fugue, and the 45 chorales of the Orgelbüchlein - a veritable feast!

Celebrating artistic and spiritual organ music

By the middle of the decade the Music Department began an extensive search for a possible organ for the Church-Chapel. In 1968, Fannie B. (Rupp) Severson, a 1912 Goshen College graduate, offered the college a gift of a pipe organ – specifically a Walcher tracker action instrument from Germany. Because the organ would be placed in the Church-Chapel, both College Mennonite Church and Goshen College would benefit from the gift.

To celebrate the publication of the new Mennonite Hymnal (1969), and the completion of the installation of the Walcher organ (1970), the Goshen College Music Department commissioned a series of preludes suitable for introducing the key, tempo and character of the hymn to be sung. Charles Burkhart, J. Harold Moyer and Alice Parker provided 24 of the 28 compositions.

Since the 1960s, a number of organists have carried on the teaching of organ: Philip Clemens, Gail Walton and current instructor Christine Thögersen, a Goshen alumna whose advanced studies took place in Berlin, Germany.

Taylor & Boody's Opus 41 promises to dramatically advance the artistic and educational possibilities of the organ program. The time is ripe and the circumstances welcoming. The particular organ comes as the result of an extensive search. Even the tuning, according to J.S. Bach's scheme as newly interpreted by alumnus Bradley Lehman, offers interest beyond our community. The Music Center's Rieth Recital Hall is ideal not only for its acoustics but also for its flexible use; because the room is a recital hall and not primarily a worship space, it offers endless possibilities for experiment and discovery – artistic and spiritual.

I wish Christine Thögersen, the music faculty and the Goshen Community much joy as they explore the riches of this gift.

From the Organbuilders

by John Boody and George Taylor, Taylor & Boody Organbuilders

Designing the organ for the Martha Rieth Hall at Goshen College was a pleasure. The opportunity to place the organ in its traditional location, high in the rear gallery, was ideal both visually and aurally. The form and proportions of the hall, with its austere yet warm and inviting interior, called the organbuilder to respond with similar clarity and restraint. The ample height of the room suggested a plain, vertical configuration of the instrument, on which natural light from the clerestory windows would fall gently. Everything about the hall spoke of its solid construction and honesty of materials, qualities which we strive to reflect in our organs. Likewise, the acoustical properties of the hall, so warm and reverberant and at the same time intimate and clear, allowed the organ's tone to develop freely without being forced. The result is an endearing musical instrument that is aesthetically inseparable from the space in which it stands.

At the beginning of the project we decided to study historical examples of Anabaptist worship spaces. We hoped that the essence of these rooms would lead us to an aesthetic that would tie the new hall to the old tradition. Rectangular in shape, open truss timber roof framing, clear glass windows, galleries on several sides, stone floors, moveable chairs, unadorned, honest and powerful, these spaces had all the qualities that we were looking for. In collaboration with the Goshen Committee, acoustician Rick Talaske, Mathes Brierre Architects and Schmidt Associates, we developed Rieth Recital Hall as a simple rectangular box of heavy pre-cast concrete panels supported by graceful curved steel arches. The space, with galleries on two sides, evokes many aspects of the historic Dutch Mennonite churches.

Oak is the traditional wood of Northern European organ building, so it was natural for us to choose white oak for the Goshen organ. We have studied the Dutch and German organs dating back to the 16th century. One of the things we notice is that in the earliest organs the wood shows only the natural patina of age and no finish. We have chosen to follow this old practice for the Goshen organ. The oak is quarter sawn at our own sawmill and shows the distinctive fleck grain. It has been hand planed, not sanded to a smooth surface. With the exception of the area around the key desk, no finish has been applied. To understand something of the design one can begin by examining the organ's case, which houses the pipes, the windchests on which they stand, and the playing mechanism. Visually, the case and its carvings serve as a frame to draw attention to the front pipes, known as the principals. These make the fundamental sound distinctive to organs and evocative of the human voice. Pipes standing on the lower level are played from the bottom keyboard, known as the great. Those at the top belong to the upper keyboard or Oberwerk. Other stops for each keyboard are arranged in ranks inside the case. All told there are 1,604 speaking pipes. They come in a variety of pitches and timbres and are grouped in families of tone. Besides the principal chorus there are flutes, reeds and strings. It is the combination of all these stops in countless ways, which give organ music its infinite variety. Pipes belonging to the pedal keyboard stand behind the case.

The playing action of the organ is entirely mechanical. Direct linkage between the keys and their valves is made by thin strips of wood called trackers, hence the term "tracker" organ. Such instruments are valued for their simplicity, durability and responsive touch. Given reasonable care a tracker organ should last for generations. Some musicians today object to organs because they find their sound harsh and sterile. A cause of this problem often lies in the wind. Organ pipes are known for their peculiar vocal timbre, which can approximate the sound of singing. Like any good singer, pipes need the support of proper breath to sing well. There must be ample wind from the bellows (or lungs), but it should not be inflexible, lest the singing be unmusical. Here the wind is supplied by a blower to two large bellows located in the room below the organ gallery. As the music is played one can sense the natural pulses between bellows and pipes.

With few exceptions the innumerable parts of the organ were constructed from raw materials in our Virginia workshop. The art of organbuilding demands many skills. It provides a robust framework for working with one's mind and hands, engaging the imagination in a rich historical tradition as do few vocations in our day. As builders, we have been privileged to practice our craft in this place. Together, we leave you with this instrument in the hope that it will bring many musical blessings to the community far into the future.

Photos taken by Jodi Beyeler & Zach Albrecht, Goshen College Public Relations