The Gabriel Kney Organ from Calvary United Church

It was originally made for the residence of prominent businessman Gordon Jeffery in London, Ontario.&nbsp; The console was connected to the windchest.&nbsp; No separate console. The 16 rank instrument also had a pedal windchest.&nbsp; Kney's organs are always baroque in style. Hence the mechanical tracker and stop&nbsp;action.&nbsp; Also, the stops were baroque in style.&nbsp;&nbsp;In 1977, this organ went into Calvary United Church in Windsor, Ontario.&nbsp;The operation was done either by Gabriel Kney or by a third party pipe organ firm whose name is not known to me.&nbsp;Calvary insisted that the organ be enclosed in order to control the volume.&nbsp;&nbsp;Baroque organs were never enclosed.&nbsp; The Board was&nbsp;told that pipes were meant to be heard from open spaces, not buried in choking chambers.&nbsp; Also, the organ was too quiet for the larger room, as it was designed for a residence.&nbsp; In any case, an organ's volume should be controlled by stop selection and playing style, not by operating swell shutters, the organ people explained.&nbsp; The Board would hear none it. In the end, the organ was installed in a box.&nbsp; That box was located behind the choir seats.&nbsp;&nbsp;When the choir stood up, they were between the pipes and the congregation, as the&nbsp;pipes were mounted rather low in the box.&nbsp; It was&nbsp;as if the swell box was closed every time the choir, with their sound absorbing robes, &nbsp;arose.&nbsp; It was a limited instrument with limited volume, but it still had a sweet sound and led worship at Calvary for 15 years. The flute stops were particularly beautiful, second to none. The organ builder devised a remote console, which always had a makeshift look, and electro-magnetically switched air motors to move the masonite sliders on the windchest to open and close stops..<br />
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In 1992 Calvary and Sandwich United Churches joined to form Bedford United.&nbsp; They retained the Sandwich building, which was deemed the superior property, and the Calvary organ, which was far superior to Sandwich's old misfiring Conn electronic organ.&nbsp; <a href="http://www.dodington.com/">Ross Dodington</a>&nbsp;oversaw the moving project with help from the late Larry Alice.&nbsp; Many of the organ's shortcomings were addressed: the organ was mounted higher, so it spoke over the heads of the choir without muffling.&nbsp; The wind pressure was increased as much as the open toe voiced small scale style of pipes would allow.&nbsp; It was now loud enough for the space, which was smaller than at Calvary.&nbsp; There still were those masonite sliders and glitzy stop action air motors.<br />
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The organ began to experience more problems with the sliders.&nbsp; I often had to send a choir member back there to turn a stop off or on manually by pushing on a balky air motor. The key action also regularly broke down.&nbsp; Perhaps duct tape and baling wire were not literally used to hold it together, but we were headed to literal use of those items.<br />
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The organ's limited tonal abilities meant that I could not play a lot of the organ literature in an effective way. There were no strings stops, a single 4' diapason, and reeds. Well, there was a very narrow reed on the pedal, a 16' Rankett, that defied tuning. As well, two or three pipes often needed to be coaxed into speaking by touching the pedal note an extra time or two. &nbsp; I did play what I could with the resources at hand.&nbsp; It was still a very responsive instrument. Nothing beats a tracker action for responsivelness.&nbsp; <br />
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After a summer service in August, 2009, I was asked to meet somone who wished it speak with me.&nbsp; I was told he was an organist.&nbsp; We had a wonderful conversation, during which he complimented the choir.&nbsp; He did notice that the organ was limited, but quickly said that I did well with what I had.&nbsp; I was pleased at the kind words.<br />
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Six months later, the phone rang.&nbsp; It was that gentleman form August, John Robson.&nbsp; Now in his 70s and living in London, he told me that he grew up in Sandwich United Church, the son of the nearby school's principal. The family moved away when he was 12, and that August visit was the first time he was back since. See the post about Casavant Opus 2189 moving from Sarnia to Windsor to pick up the rest of the story.