Reflection on a New Church Organ

Have you heard that Saint Catherine of Siena Parish is getting a new church organ? Our old organ has not worked for several years and is not economically repairable. Without it, something important has been missing in our church. Organs and Catholic churches go together. Why is that? Thinking about it, I came up with at least seven different reasons:

#1 Tradition

As long as I can remember, and long before I was born, our churches have had organs. This tradition goes back to 1430 in Europe. There is more sacred music written for organs than any other instrument. Churches around the world feature organs. The bigger the church, the bigger the organ. In the middle ages, architects had to incorporate multiple small pulpits so the Gospel reading could be relayed to those sitting in the rear of the church. Before microphones, speakers, and electronics, an organ would be the one thing heard throughout the church.

#2 An organ can fill a large space physically, visually, and auditorily

Organs are physically larger than other instruments. They are grand and awe inspiring. Organs come with two, three, four or more manuals (keyboards). There can have dozens, up to thousands of pipes. There is no other instrument that is larger. For maximum visual impact, these instruments are installed on a raised platform or in a loft for the whole congregation to admire. Surprisingly, the largest pipe organ ever built is not in a church. It was built by the Midmer-Losh Organ Company between 1929
and 1932 and is housed at the Boardwalk Hall Auditorium in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The Atlantic City organ contains seven manuals, 1,235 stops, 449 ranks, 337 registers, and 33,114 pipes! It weighs 150 tons. The loudest pipe on this organ is equivalent to a military jet aircraft take-off from an aircraft carrier. Auditorily, an organ is the only instrument that can swell to fit a huge space. Other instruments like piano, guitar, and trumpet can be electrically amplified but that is not the same. When you look at something using a telescope, it appears larger but distorted. Edges are blurry and imperfections are magnified. The background is out of focus. The same thing happens when you hear an instrument with amplification. The amplified sound is distorted. An organ needs no amplification. The sound is made by wind rushing through acoustic pipes, just like the human voice. To increase the sound of an organ, you increase the amount of wind and the number of pipes. When the organ is played in church, everyone is immersed. The music comes from all directions at once. What other instrument could play in the huge cathedrals of medieval Europe?
Vivian and I were in Milan last year. On the town square stands the Duomo di Milano, one of the most famous buildings in Europe and one of the largest cathedrals in the world. Construction began in 1386 and took five centuries to complete. The ceiling inside is 150 feet high. The church is 520 feet long with capacity inside for more than 40,000 people. Only an organ can fill this space with music.

#3 Organs are rare and expensive

The organ coming to Saint Catherine of Siena Church cost $200,000 when new. The church where it comes from is buying a new organ this year for half a million dollars and selling their current organ to us. A large pipe organ takes a community to purchase, house, and maintain. This is not an instrument that an individual would or could own.

#4 Organs are beautiful works of art

They are often decorated with rare and precious woods, artistic painting, metalwork, and other embellishments. The pipes are made with highly polished metal that is richly decorated. The Catholic Church is a great patron of the arts. For 2,000 years, we have employed the finest painters, architects, sculptors, musicians, and artisans to create beautiful works of art. Everything in our church should reflect the finest and most beautiful things that we can find as a tribute to the glory and majesty of God.

#5 Organs are musically versatile 

They can sound like trumpets, oboes, tubas, violins, or a hundred other instruments. Stops let air into each set of organ pipes for each instrument. Have you ever heard someone say “pull out all the stops?" That means to pressurize all of the pipes on the organ at the same time. What an overpowering din of sound that would make. To hear a world-famous organ with hundreds of stops, one need travel no farther than the Legion of Honor in San Francisco. The Spreckels Organ was installed in 1924 as the building was constructed. The manufacturer collaborated with the architect to accommodate 4,526 pipes inside the museum walls. Concerts are every Saturday from 4 to 4:45 pm.

#6 An organ can sustain notes indefinitely

Every other instrument fades away as the string, bell, or reed stops vibrating. An organist, on the other hand, can keep his or her finger on the key forever and the sound will never diminish or waiver. This floating, “infinite” quality of notes is what makes church music unique and inspiring.

#7 Organs are not portable

It takes many many weeks or months to construct an organ on site. They are individually created for the space where they will be played. It is very difficult to move an organ. What better place to permanently install one than a church that will stand for hundreds or thousands of years? For these seven reasons, organs and Catholic churches go together. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops said as much in their 2007 publication “Sing to the Lord: Music in Divine Worship".

“Among all other instruments which are suitable for divine worship, the organ is accorded pride of place because of its capacity to sustain the singing of a large gathered assembly, due to both its size and its ability to give resonance to the fullness of human sentiments, from joy to sadness, from praise to lamentation. Likewise, the manifold possibilities of the organ in some way remind us of the immensity and magnificence of God.”