Wanamaker Organ Celebrates 100 years of Service

[KB7DQH]

On June 22, 1911 this organ played for the first time in its new home, commemorating the coronation of King George V, and has played every day the department store has been open since...

http://www.newsworks.org/index.php/local/item/21959

For many lifelong Philadelphians, the Wanamaker Building means three things: the eagle, the Christmas show, and the pipe organ. On Wednesday, that organ turned 100 years old.

On June 22, 1911, the Wanamaker organ was first played to mark the coronation of King George V, happening that day in London. Rodman Wanamaker, the heir to the retail kingdom, was something of an Anglophile.

In his determination to bring music into his store, Wanamaker went big. Originally, the organ was installed with 10,000 pipes, but that was still too small for the building's seven-story atrium. Over the years, more pipes were added, nearly tripling its size. It is considered the largest musical instrument in the world.

The organ almost didn't make it this far. Ownership of the building and its organ changed hands many times, and the organ suffered for it. With scant attention to its maintenance and most of the pipe divisions shut off, the original console wasn't working and the system was 75 percent inoperable.

"The history of this organ is such that it's been played every business day since 1911," said Peter Richard Conte, the grand court organist since 1989. "But it became really difficult to keep it going in the '90s. It's so neat to see the transformation and the care it's getting."

The care comes chiefly from Curt Mangel, the organ curator. For 10 years he has been repairing and tuning the 28,400 pipes, He says previous owners didn't know what they had.

"When I came here, first working for Lord & Taylor, it was a matter of education," said Mangel. "Macy's gets it. They walked into this building and said, 'What an incredible thing to have in one of our stores' rather than, 'What's that doing here?' Which is the normal attitude of most retail."

Drawing fans from around the world

The Wanamaker organ is now fully operational, and enjoying an international reputation. A random sample page from the guestbook behind the console is signed by visitors from South Africa, New Zealand and the Netherlands.

Many organ enthusiasts have made pilgrimages to the Wanamaker to see her, hear her, and--if they are fortunate--touch her.

Charles Kegg, an organ maker from Ohio, came to Philadelphia on his own dime for the opportunity to help in its maintenance. He said the sound you hear in the heart of the organ is not pretty.

"You're standing next to large pipes that are not designed to be heard individually," said Kegg. "You can't hear all the other stuff happening several stories above us that go along with it. It would be like standing in the back of the orchestra and with your ear in the tuba. But you get back in the audience and it sounds lovely."

The organ actually sounds better now than when it did when it was new. Because the top several floors of the atrium have been glassed over and converted to office space, the acoustics have improved dramatically.

http://planphilly.com/celebrating-100-years-wanamaker-organ-and-taking-peek-inside

By Kellie Patrick Gates
For PlanPhilly

One hundred years after the world's largest working pipe organ was first played at Wanamaker's department store, world-class organist Peter Richard Conte worked his magic on the keys, foot pedals and tabs that make the organ sing.



The crowd enthusiastically applauded Conte.



He applauded the instrument, lifting his arms toward the wall housing more than 28,000 pipes, and the circuitry that enabled his hands and feet to communicate with them.



But none of the wonderful sounds Conte summoned during Wednesday's celebration of the organ's centennial came from the ornate gold pipes topped with the Wanamaker angel that are visible above Macy's Grand Court.



"They're fake," said Scott Kip, restoration woodworker on the nine-person team that keeps this rare instrument in concert shape.



The actual working pipes - made of wood or metal in sizes ranging from flute to tree-trunk – are not usually seen. They weren't apparent in 1911, when the two-year installation of the organ was completed at the direction of John Wanamaker, either.



"People kept asking, 'Where's the organ?'" Kip said. And so Wanamaker had his architect create the marvelous but mute set of visible pipes.



The fancy pipes are dwarfed by the working pipes, which are housed in a house-sized space behind a white door in the woman's clothing department. The inside of the organ is four floors high, and larger than a typical trinity.

Most of the main chamber is made of wood – poplar and pine. And it smells slightly of pine or incense, almost like a church. A small raised board-walk of sorts snakes around what seem like support columns, but what is really wooden ductwork through which air flows on its journey to the pipes.



What looks like a twin-bed sized wooden platform turns out to be a windchest – an air reservoir. There's a popping sound, and then a rumbling, and then the monster takes a breath, filling its huge, leather lung.



The bottoms of some of the largest pipes – including three that look more like pieces from a ship than an organ – are visible on the ground floor. A narrow, ladder-like stair case leads upward, and looking through a large opening or a small door reveals row after row of pipes, arranged together and looking almost like they grew that way.

Also within the organ: A large sink, an old-fashioned telephone that Friends of the Wanamaker Organ Executive Director Ray Biswanger bought on Ebay, and a piano.



The piano has keys and all the other parts one would think, but it is played from many yards away, at the console.



The organ was built by the Los Angeles Art Organ Company for the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair. It cost $105,000, and drove the builder into bankruptcy, said Anne Ewers, Kimmel Center president and CEO, who lead Wednesday's centennial celebration.



John Wanamaker thought the instrument would be perfect in his Philadelphia department store, so he bought it in 1909. "It took 13 freight cars to transport it from St. Louis to Philadelphia," Ewers said. "And it took two years to assemble them here."

Played the first time in Philadelphia as England's King George IV was coronated, the organ is now worth $68 million, she said.



As part of the celebration, Conte, the organist, received a Philadelphia Music Alliance star award for musical achievement – the stars embedded in the sidewalk on South Broad Street, aka the Avenue of the Arts. Conte has played for audiences of National Public Radio and Good Morning America. He's played in many countries, and goes on tour. But when he's home, he performs at Wanamaker's twice daily. He became Grand Court Organist in 1989, and is the fourth person to hold the title.



Hearing Conte play the organ on its hundredth anniversary in Philadelphia "Just sends chills up and down everyone's spines," said Biswanger,  of the Friends of the Wanamaker.

The Wanamaker Organ is special not just because of its age and size, he said. "For all its size, it's about delicacy and subtlety," he said. Physically, the organ is both an unbelievable machine and a work of art, he said. "It has such fine workmanship. The best materials were used, no short cuts."



If it could, the organ might speak as effusively about Biswanger and its other Friends.



Back in the days of John Wanamaker, the entire top floor and a staff of 30 were dedicated to the organ's upkeep.



But it was not long ago that the organ was far from pampered.



"The organ sort of languished for 30 years or so," Kip said. "There were only two people on staff, and they worked in a tiny room, and the things they had to fix wouldn't even fit in it." In the fall of 1991, the Friends of the Wanamaker was formed. They worked hard to bring attention to the organ's plight.

When assistant curator Sam Whitcraft came to work on the organ project about 17 years ago, the organ budget was $100 a month. If you bought some tools, for example, you were out of budget, he said. About a decade ago, "we started receiving more grants," Whitcraft said. The budget is a lot bigger now, he said. There have been individual benefactors, Kip said, and Macy's appreciates the organ more than some previous store owners did.



Kip uses a workbench from that original shop, moved to the new shop – a mezzanine that had been used as a "junk floor" for unwanted fixtures. The hand tools, materials and methods Kip uses aren't much different from the woodworkers way back when, either.



As old as the organ is, there are still new things in store for it. Remember the piano inside the organ? There's also a "piano II" tab on the console, and Kip said there are plans to hook up a second piano, likely a grand, to that.



And one not-too-long ago day, organ curator Curt Mangel walked into the shop with an announcement that has the organ team working on a 13-foot, 40-note project in wood, leather and brass: "We're going to restore the gong."



Learn about more centennial events at the Friends of the Wanamaker website.


Reach the reporter at kgates@planphilly.com


Location
1500 Market Street
Philadelphia, PA

Eric
KB7DQH

[diapason]

BBC Radio 4 did a documentary about the Wanamaker organ a few years ago.  It would be interesting to see if it's available for downloading.

Nigel

[KB7DQH]

http://waltontribune.com/opinion/columns/nowell_briscoe/article_e5db82ac-a98d-11e0-970f-001cc4c03286.html


The best birthday gift ever By Nowell Briscoe | Correspondent WaltonTribune.com | 0 comments

In an early column from last year, I wrote about how I came to love and appreciate classical organ music and hymns from two of Monroe's music legends, Mrs. Paul Launius and Mrs. Mason Williams.

Mrs. Launius was longtime organist for the Monroe First Methodist Church while Mrs. Williams presided equally at the organ of the Monroe First Baptist Church. From early childhood to adulthood, I attended Sunday services at the Methodist Church and on special occasions I had the pleasure of hearing Mrs. Williams play, at that time, the only pipe organ in town. The façade of pipes that rose up in front of the organ console intrigued me as I would sit in those hard, wooden pews as the beautiful music from those pipes floated out over the congregation, filling the church with sounds that could not be compared to an electronic organ. Every time I attend an organ recital or a church service and enjoy the music that comes from an organ I think of these Monroe musicians with renewed appreciation.

Recently, I had an opportunity to witness a musical extravaganza unlike anything I have heard before. Anticipating the advent of my 65th milestone, my great and wonderful friend, Roland Farrar, gave me a trip to historic Philadelphia where we attended the 100th anniversary celebration of the world's largest operational pipe organ, the Wanamaker Grand Court Organ, housed in the famed John Wanamaker Building in downtown Philadelphia.

Both the organ and the beautiful Wanamaker Building are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. When the Wanamaker Building was sold from the family, it became home to various department stores; the Carter Hawley Hale Stores to Woodward & Lothrope to Lord & Taylor and finally Macy's. My appreciation goes out to Macy's and The Friends of the Wanamaker Organ, who together see that this great organ is always kept in the finest playing condition.

This particular celebration was a landmark as this organ has been an integral part of the shopping experience for customers who shopped in this building and for providing musical events for one hundred years. Over the years the organ has grown, been upgraded and expanded to become the majestic, world renowned instrument it is today, having the prestige of being played by every major organist, arranger and composer in the world. It was only natural that a special, "once in a lifetime performance" honoring its 100th year, be created to show off the many talents of the combination of strings, pipes, chimes and bells.

Several hundred stops on the sides of the console control the voicing of the 28,543 pipes, in 462 ranks, which range from the smallest pipe, the size of a pencil, to the largest pipe, which could accommodate several people inside it. You mix all these pipes with chimes and bells and you have an impressive instrument that has six manuals and is played twice a day, Monday through Saturday and more often during the Christmas season.

This organ was first played on June 22, 1911, at the exact moment King George V was crowned in Britain. The organ was heard in another special event when President William Howard Taft officially dedicated the store some months later.

Peter Richard Conte, the current organist in residence, put together one of the most impressive concerts I have ever witnessed, which started earlier the week of June 20th and culminated the following Saturday evening with a special, paid admission concert featuring Conte and Washington Cathedral organist Jeremy Filsell playing the Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto II.

Conte presided at the organ console while Filsell took command of a Steinway 12-foot concert grand, playing the entire piece from memory ... no sheet music in evidence. What those two musicians did on their respective keyboards was nothing short of spectacular and left the audience in a state of complete awe and amazement.

After the last notes rang out in the grand court, the entire audience rose to their feet in applause, bringing back the musicians for three bows before leaving the stage.

On Saturday afternoon, prior to the evening concert, Conte teamed up with organist Rudy Lucente, The Philadelphia Brass and the Friends of the Wanamaker Organ Festival Chorus for a program that included George Frederick Handel's "Zadok The Priest" and "Swell the Full Chorus" and C.H.H. Parry's "I Was Glad." Rudy Lucente performed former Wanamaker Organist, the late Keith Chapman's "Fanfare and Procession," accompanied by the Philadelphia Brass and Conte played the Jongen "Choral" arranged for brass and organ. To signal the end of this performance, Conte, the brass ensemble and the Festival Chorus joined together for renditions of "The Star Spangled Banner," "The Stars and Stripes Forever" and "God Bless America" that brought tears to my eyes and a renewed appreciation for Mrs. Launius and Mrs. Williams for giving me the opportunity at such a young age to appreciate this particular type of music.

Sunday afternoon, to officially close out the week-long celebration, Peter Conte played a smaller concert, offering up selections that have become particular favorites over the years. When the soft strains of Virgil Fox's arrangement of Bach's "Come, Sweet Death" echoed in the Grand Court, I could not believe I was standing there hearing in person this beautiful arrangement, from the organ which Fox composed it for. This has been one of my favorites since first hearing it.

After the concert was over, I laughingly told a friend when I died, there was no need of providing music at my funeral; I had heard first-hand much of the music I wanted played at my service ... and on the famed Wanamaker Organ!

This was indeed one of the best birthday gifts I could imagine and had it not been for a wonderful friend's generosity, I would have missed one of the best organ concerts ever![/quote]

[diapason]

A fabulous celebration.  I remember hearing a documentary which BBC Radio 4 broadcast about the Wanamaker organ a few years back.  I must put hearing that organ live on my 'things to do before I die' list.

Nigel

[KB7DQH]

And the Midmer-Losh in Boardwalk Hall isn't all that far away in the "grand scheme of things"...
Might as well make the most of the plane ride ;D ;)  At the current pace the complete restoration may take another decade :o  but one may plan accordingly ;D 

Eric
KB7DQH

[barniclecompton]

The wanamaker is such a fantastic organ. What I really like about it is the amount of power you can build up, yet, it doesnt really get any louder, and you hear layer upon layer roaring away behind the shutters....then they slowly open....magic!
The Midmer Losh is going at a much better pace than before. The chest magnets (custom built) are being replaced on the right stage chamber. The Swell organ from the left stage chamber is all out just now and being restored. Once the swell is back in place, pretty much half of the organ will be working again. I think the idea by then (or even by the time the right stage is properly working) a CD/DVD could be released. The Kimball organ is pretty much complete now.

[Julien G.]

I remember hearing a documentary which BBC Radio 4 broadcast about the Wanamaker organ a few years back.

I have it.
I may put it on streaming on my website someday  :D

[AnOrganCornucopia]

Please do, Julien!

As for the dummy pipes in the case - perhaps they could be replaced with speaking pipes to complete the organ with that planned-for Stentor division! That would really be the crowning glory of this fabulous instrument - plus it would make the Wanamaker indisputably the world's biggest organ. Oh, and aren't there some display pipes way up near the roof? Or are those shutters?

Lastly, with regard to the Midmer-Losh - only a decade to fix it at the current pace? They're not doing badly then! How's it been affected by the collapse of ACCHOS?