St. Mark's Cathedral, Salt Lake City, Utah...

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By celia r. baker

Special to The Tribune
First published Sep 22 2011 10:39PM
Updated Sep 23, 2011 11:20PM

The installation of a new pipe organ in downtown Salt Lake City's St. Mark's Cathedral isn't an event. It's a long, complicated journey — one that's nearing completion after almost three years of careful work.

Soon, artisans from Bigelow & Co. will put the last of 2,250 pipes in place, and link the final connections between keyboard manuals, windchest and pipes. The organ will begin to produce music soon, and it will look complete, but the journey won't be over.

Like human beings, pipe organs are living, breathing entities with personalities influenced by their environments. The new organ at St. Mark's — called Opus 35 by its makers — was designed and handcrafted to be a visual and sonic match for its new home.

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Voice tuning Opus 35 » In the next few months, Bigelow artisans will adjust and refine Opus 35's sound to suit its varied purposes, which include calling St. Marks's' parishioners to worship; accompanying choirs and congregational singing during services; presenting concert recitals; and adding music to community events.

Parishioners will help in that process, whether they know it or not. Bigelow tonal director David Chamberlin will voice the organ by adjusting each pipe so that it produces its most pleasing and characterful sound.

As part of that process, he will listen to the organ during worship services, judging the organ's performance during congregational singing, and gauging how the presence of parishioners' bodies alters its acoustical environment.

"One thing we don't want to do is end up with an organ so loud and boisterous that organists are limited as to what they can do in the service," said company owner and architect Michael Bigelow. "And we don't want to err on the soft side, and not have enough oomph to call the congregation to worship. There's a balancing act there."


The 50-year-old Holtzkamp organ being replaced was a credible instrument, and one of the most important organs in Salt Lake City, says Bigelow, whose company builds organs for churches throughout the United States in its American Fork workshop.

His company will combine the old organ's pipes with those of the organ at Salt Lake City's St. Ambrose Catholic Church, to create a new instrument with a personality well-suited to the acoustical qualities of St. Ambrose.

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Building a better instrument » There were a handful of good reasons to install a new organ at St. Mark's. Organist George Henry said the sound of the old organ didn't resonate warmly in the cathedral, and lacked stylistic versatility. Plus its Germanic specifications weren't ideal for accompanying choirs and congregations, nor for performing a broad range of organ literature that could include Romantic and French musical styles.

The new organ will have a greater percentage of large bass pipes, giving a warm, balanced core to its sound — rather like a stereo system subtly optimized with a sub-woofer. The organ's 40 ranks of pipes will allow organists to be more flexible and creative in choosing sound qualities to suit musical compositions. And its handcrafted tracker construction gives organists an intimate link to the instrument.

"There is a direct mechanical connection for key to pipe, as opposed to the more common electronic action, in which the key is a switch for the mechanism," Chamberlin said. "You feel connected to the instrument in a way that's tactile and tangible because you are doing the thing that makes the organ work. It encourages sensitive playing."

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Glimpsing heaven through rose-colored glass » One of the most important reasons for replacing the old organ had nothing to do with sound, though. Cathedrals are designed to give those who enter a glimpse into heaven, and the old organ concealed one of the most divine aspects of the sanctuary.

The 1960s solution to the challenge of installing a pipe organ under the steeply-pitched ceiling of St. Mark's was to build a loft full of pipes that covered the glorious stained glass of the cathedral's south-facing rose window. Not only that, the stark lines of the old organ's casework struck a chord of Mid-century Modern dissonance in an 1870s cathedral whose exposed beamwork resonates Country Gothic.

"The casework architecture was blatantly contemporary in a very old church, and there was no effort to make it fit at all," Bigelow said. "It looked like a rocket ship dropped into an old country church. That was exciting at first, but it didn't wear well."

Bigelow modeled the new organ's casework on a Dutch organ built in 1479, customizing it to fit precisely and harmoniously at St. Mark's. Extending the loft outward provided enough space to frame the rose window with about 70 of the organ's most important pipes, displayed within elegant cabinetry of solid, quarter-sawn oak.

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Restoring natural light » Uncovering the rose window was a driving force behind the organ project, which was financed by anonymous donors, said The Reverend Canon Robin James, canon precentor at St. Mark's. James has visceral memories of the day the old organ was removed, when she saw a brilliant channel of light shining through the cathedral sanctuary.

"The design of this organ was intended to frame that window and restore the original natural light in the cathedral," James said. "It's a beautiful organ and a beautiful window. I'm so pleased to be able to see them both."

James said parishioners vacated the sanctuary for eight weeks of heavy construction, working together to turn the church's parish hall into a holy space for services. They used piano and an electronic organ in the sanctuary after they were able to return there for services.

Challenges, such as finding other ways for the congregation to raise a joyful noise, have been met with graciousness and good cheer, James said.

"My hope for the organ is that it can serve as an invitation to those who are not regularly with us in worship to join us in the cathedral for events with music as a great common denominator," she said.

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