1924 II/22 Aeolian residence player pipe organ at risk of being lost

 Aeolian Opus 1535

The Cooper Aeolian Organ

 

The organ at Morris Sutton Funeral Home was originally installed in 1924 in the home of Prohibition-era liquor exporter James Cooper. His massive 40 room mansion in Walkerville dwarfed the Willistead Manor. The pipes were installed in the basement and its sound reached the upper floors through large ducts that were covered by doors that could be opened or closed in each room. A small division, the Echo organ, was located on the second floor, where a ballroom was located. He hired an organist to play daily during breakfast. As well, the organ had a player mechanism so it could play music rolls without an organist. Its purchase price and installation exceeded $50,000 The mansion itself cost a reported $200,000. A new organ like this would cost $1.25 million today.

In 1946, Edwin Morris purchased the organ (the house was razed: too expensive for the widow to maintain) for $2500. An additional $12,000 was paid to Auguste Hebert of Southfield, MI, the area Casavant organ representative, to move it to its present location. To the credit of Hebert, he transplanted the organ without any modification, or “improvement”, as has been the custom through the ages. The organ has not been changed or modernized in any way since its installation. (The only modification was the installation of an electrical rectifier with a Hammond transformer, probably by Hebert, to replace the original belt-driven generator. Almost all organs have had this done.  For historical purposes, the original generator is still in place next to the blower. The leather drive belt is still up there. I found it thrown into a corner.)  This gives it original museum status. Its unaltered status and complete functionality is very historically and musically important.

The organ has two manuals and a flat 30 note pedalboard. There are two chambers of pipes located in the attic, which speak through a grille in its floor, which corresponds with a grille in the ceiling of the chapel. The console is located on the balcony. An additional 3 stop Echo division is also located there. There are 22 ranks of pipes. A rank of pipes is a complete set of 61 notes from the bottom key to the top key. There are 1280 pipes in this organ, plus a harp (a xylophone-type device) and a set of chimes. There are 20 stop controls for each manual. 

Current Condition

As of today, all of the stop controls operate. This is the first time in about 20 years that this has been the case. There are four reservoirs that control air supply to various divisions. Three of them are air tight. One, the Echo organ, has an air leak. It, however, continues to function. (It has since been releathered)

The shutters (which control volume) to the three divisions are controlled by pneumatic swell engines.. These are pressurized boxes containing expandable accordion boxes that contain 6 sections that can sequentially collapse and expand, imparting a movement of several inches on a rod that in turn opens and closes the swell shutters. 

All of the pipes are extant and play, as do all of the stop switches and other console controls.

There is a blower box, located next to the blower, that connects the blower to the wind trunk network. It has been recovered with the proper rubber and fleece multi-ply material using special historically accurate horse hide glue.  It was ruptured, which is the reason the organ has not been playable for the last ten years or so.

There are two windchests in the attic. Each of them has over 1000 leather pouches, called pneumatics. These pouches are original to 1924 and every single one is functioning well. 

“Action” is the term used to describe the connection between the key and the pipe. This organ uses an electro-pneumatic action. This is a combination of electromagnets on a 15 volt DC power supply, and air pneumatics in the form of leather pouches with valves attached and leather bellows. These elements combine to control the flow of air to the pipe or pipes.

The magnets are all in working order.

Recommendations

The instrument is worth saving for posterity. Its existence should be made known to historical and tourism bureaus. Its historical significance should be made official, considering its Prohibition connections. 

It is conceivable that the instrument may be eligible for Trillium Foundation grants. This could cover the cost of relocation of the instrument.  This might involve donating the organ to a yet to be formed non-profit society  with tax-free donation status with the purpose of keeping the instrument alive. 

The original player mechanism operates andplays special paper rolls.

The Morris Sutton property has been recently sold. After an exhaustive search to find a new home locally found no takers, the search broadened to include all of Canada with the same result. Finally, interest was shown by the Geelvinck Pianola Museum in Amsterdam. Pianola was the largest manufacturer of player pianos and was owned by the Aeolian Company, which was the largest music company in the world.

1535 is going to Amsterdam!

Brief chamber tour         

Aeolian Organ Londonderry Air (Danny Boy) Duo Art

Aeolian 1535 Cooper Aeolian Organ Specification

Chamber II                                     

Stop name on tab       Actual stop                    

Vox Humana       8      Vox Humana                    

Oboe                    8      Oboe                               

String PP             8      Aeoline                              

Vibrato String P  8      Voix Celeste 

String P               8      Salicional    

String F               8      Viol d’Orchestre

Vibrato  String F 8      Viol d’Orchestre

Deep Flute 16    16     Bourdon (wood)

Diapason             8      Conical Open Diapason (leathered upper lip)

Tremolo                      Tremulant

Chamber I

Clarinet                8      Clarinet 

Trumpet               8      Cornopian

String P                8      Gemshorn

Piccolo 2              2      Flageolet

High Flute 4         4      Harmonic Flute

Flute P                  8      Dolce Flute

Flute F                  8     Gross Flute    

Diapason F           8     Open Diapason (leathered upper lip)

Tremolo                       Tremulant

Pedal

Deep String F16  16      Open Violone

Deep FluteP  16   16     in Chamber 2 (borrowed from the manuals)

Deep Flute F 16   16     Bourdon

Echo

Flute P                   8      Stopped Diapason

String P                 8      Aeoline

Vox Humana         8      Vox Humana

Tremolo                        Tremulant

Chimes            20 tubes    in Echo chamber

Harp                 49 bars     unenclosed, lowest octave plays tenor octave bars

Duo Art 176 note player in console behind music rack plays Duo Art organ rolls with pedal, registration changes and full control of expression shutters.

1974 Gabriel Kney Pipe Organ Opus 70

This is a three rank, two manual mechanical action organ with a 32 note AGO pedalboard. It was originally installed at the University of Windsor and was designed as a teaching and practice instrument. It has been restored to near new condition.  The keyboards have been re-bushed to eliminate side to side movement.  Lost motion in the key action has been restored.  Winchest pallet springs were re-tensioned to provide original weight of touch.  The pedalboard has been overhauled. It is currently in Windsor ON.  It will fit within an eight foot foot ceiling clearance.

The upper three octaves of the 4' Rohrflöte were originally a bit on the loud side when it was at the University of Music School of Music.  It has been regulated down to a much more agreeable volume level.  The open toe pipes can be re-regulated by a voicer to provide a louder volume suitable for a larger room or a small chapel.

Manual I    Gedeckt 8' 56 notes - pipes by Killinger
Manual II   Rohrflöte 4' 56 notes - pipes by Killinger
Pedal Subbass 8' 32 notes - wood pipes by Gabriel Kney
Manuals: by Laukhuff, ebony naturals, padouk sharps
Oak case, oak bench with two sets of solid oak risers
Couplers: I-II, II-pedal
Height 93.5"
Width  67.5"
Depth 26.1"
Depth to manuals 45"
Depth to back of pedals 59.5"
Wind pressure 1"

Contact if interested to purchase.
dossen54@gmail.com

Rescue Mission: Gabriel Kney Opus 70

Discovering the Organ

Unused and in the way at the university

Or should I say re-discovering the organ. In the spring of 2010, my former organ professor, David Palmer, informed me, with an eager smile, that the practice organ at the University of Windsor was for sale!  What a surprise. I was in no way searching for an organ. Yet, it piqued my interest. The organ, a three rank mechanical action  pipe organ with two manuals and a 32 note concave radiating AGO pedalboard, was built in 1974 by London ON builder Gabriel Kney at the height of his career. Opus 70, of 128 in total, has three ranks: an 8' Gedeckt on the lower manual, a 4' Rorhflote on the upper manual and a wooden 8' Gedecktbass on the pedal. There are three drawstops: one for the pedal, (the manuals are always on and have no controls) a coupler to link I to II, and a coupler to link II to Pedal.

Until 1974, the organ students at the school took lessons and practices at two local churches. By 1974, five organ majors were enrolled and the school contracted Kney to provide a teaching and practice instrument.

The organ was fabricated in London. The keyboards were made by Laukhuff in Germany. The pedal rank was made in Gabriel's shop. The two metal flue ranks were made by Killinger in Germany. Christoph Ulmer of Killinger verified this by examining pictures of the pipe stamps.

Having had no organ students for the last six years, and facing an expensive cost to move the instrument to the new location of the School of Music, the insturment was deemed surplus. So I went down and had a look see.

Yup, there it was, forlorn and neglected. With two harpsichords leaning against its back and a tuba case leaning against its side, it was almost shivering in fear. Pieces of masking tape were attched to it.
The room has long since been squatted by the percussion students in drastic need of storage and practice space. Various persussion instruments and cases filled the room. It reminded me of the Star Wars scene where Luke Skywalker goes to a droid junkyard and restores two beat up and neglected robots. Could I do the same?

The organ was out of tune, out of repair, some notes spoke all the time, others never spoke. I took measurements and concluded that it would fit, within an inch in my music room. But it would be very crowded.  it. Long story short, I had an organ.

Getting it Home
I had to get it out of there myself, as is. It took three days. It does not exactly come with a manual. I got stuck with the removal of the keyboards. We could not, for the life of us, figure out how to take them out. Even Gabriel, by email, could offer no suggestions, as the plans were long gone.

I remember when it was installed in 1974. I was a second year Bachelor of Music organ major and even helped carry it in. Gabriel delivered it in a Ryder truck and needed a hand with some of the bulkier parts. I spent many hours of practice and instruction on the little organ. I estimate there are approximately 20,000 hours of use on the organ. So there was wear and tear. There were also signs of abuse, likely unintended. One pipe was smashed beyond hope. (It has been replaced.) It may have been struck by something through the grill. Maybe a bow, or a broom handle.

Finally, we found hidden screws that were only visible after upper manual keys were lifted out, one by one. With a pickup truck and a minivan, we pulled out the pipes, pedals, upper enclosure, grill, covers and keyboards. This left a hulk about the size of a piano, but a bit lighter. The blower was taken out. It does not like to be tipped sideways, which was necessary. Long story short, all the parts filled my garage.

Putting it Back Together
The next three days involved cleaned nearly 40 years of dust. Two days later, I had managed to get everything back into place. It worked! There remained the cyphers and dead notes. Now I was faced with a new hobby: pipe organ technician.

Back to 1974. I graduated two years later with a music degree. After which, I spent 5 months in the pipe organ trade working for the area Casavant rep. I had high hopes of having a career in this field. My exposure, though limited, still gave me experience on 75 individual units, or jobs, as Len Jeffs called them. Five months does not make one an expert. More like ten years to master the nuances. Even that may not give one enough time to master the black art of voicing. Nevertheless, Jeffs was at the end of a long storied career. Those five months were a priceless boon that would now come in handy. Suffice it to say that I learned enough to be dangerous!

The Restoration
One had to be an organ techinican to even consider buying such an instrument. It required a lot of repair and overhaul. The felts were all very worn, and all adjustments were out. And a lot of things were just plain broken. The first big problem was that of the effect of the dry air on leather pulldown connectors. Kney connected his pallets, which are the valves in the windchest under the pipes that open to admit air to each pipe, to the pulldown wires by a little piece of leather. The connectors suffered greatly under 37 years of overy dry commercial forced air heating and cooling. They dried out and became very brittle, suseptible to tears. They had to be replaced. Organ Supply Industries sold such parts, but they turend out to be too thick. A second type were tried: they were also too thick. Finally, they gave me some leather stock of the correct thickness and I made my own. Many hours later, they were all replaced.

The first photo was taken when I first inspected the organ in the studio at the University of Windsor. There are numerous little piece of making tape that were stuck on the wood that are visible in the photo. I am told that one of the last students place them there to help practicing the activation of preset thumb pistons that are normally present on larger instruments. They had been there for perhaps ten years. Much of the wood came off with them. Luckily, I was able to restore the finish and colour.

Those attractive keys feature ebony naturals and padouk sharps. Padouk is of African or Asian origin. It is usued for its tough, stability and decorative reddish colour. There was 37 years and 20,000 hours of dust and finger grime that were caked and embedded on them. They finally were cleaned with about ten treatments of orange furniture oil, soaking, deep rubbing, and polishing.

The case had numerous nicks and scratches. The bench had some black stains and numerous little dents. It appears that somone used the bench as a work bench and repeatedly struck an area of the bench with a metal object. Well, a combination of sanding, shoe polish and Pledge Orange Oil worked miracles. That wood was thirsty for nourishing oil. Fortunately, the case and bench were not varnished or shellaqued, but treated with oil. Lots of elbow grease and Orange oil saved the day.

Also, most of the felt punchings were replaced.  Thankfully, OSI carries a complete supply of various parts. Punching are little circular discs of felt that silence noise and damp vibration at various contact points in the action as the movement travels from the key to the pallet valve under the pipe. Over 500 on these, dirty and banged up, were replaced.

And action adjustments. Oh my. There are hundreds of adjustments here. Long story short, they were adjusted, adjusted and adjusted. There are three barrel adjusters for each note. And two more for the couplers. Multiplied by 144. Finally, everything was working. The notes now sound with a

Casavant 2189 Moves From Sarnia To Windsor

A typical August 2009 summer stock service. Rehearse the choir on a well known but enjoyable anthem with no Thursday rehearsal. Do the best job possible on the hymns and preludes. Done.

But this time, my attenton was called to a guest who wanted to speak with me. A former organist, he mentioned that he enjoyed the service, saide wonderful things about the choir, even threw a compliment my way. I knew he was and organ buff when he added "with what I  had to work with." We were all accumstomed to the Gabriel Kney tracker organ and its foibles. But we also enjoyed the tracker feel, as well as the wonderful flute stops. The gang took John Robson to luch after church, one even drove him to the train station. He lived in Kingston at the time. He was in town to pay belated respects to an old time friend in the area. John grew up in Sandwich United Church, our old name, until age 12, when he left with his family. This was his first visit back. He became a long time organist and choir director in Kingston.

Fast forward to March 2010. John calls on the phone. Says he enjoyed the service, but we really need another organ. I say it is all we can do to keep the lights on. He says to let him worry about that. (!)

It turns out there is a lovely little organ stranded in an evangelical church in Sarnia that was a former United church. He has been talking to Dodington and Dodington, the area Casavant rep, about moving it. The plan was to move it to Windsor in three possible ways:

• a simple overhaul, no changes
• a combination of some of our current organ's resourse
• adding a midi capability

 Well, John and Ross Dodington bounced the ball back and forth several times, each time adding functionality. By the time I was again contacted, the prject ballooned into a mega project costing over $200,000. I never was a fan of unit organs. These organs used extended ranks to fake extra stops. That Sarnia organ had only 7 ranks, yet there were 25 stops on the console. A rank normally has 61 notes, one for each note on the keyboard. But a unit organ will derive a 4 foot, 2 foot, even 2 2/3 foot stop from that same rank. It sounds veryefficient, and it is, but organ pipe voicers labour for hours and days to match an eight foot stop so that it has a nice balance within itself. Then a four foot stop is balanced to sound well with it, what is called an ensemble sound. And this continues for all the other stops. When you do this with a single rank, this level of blend is not possible. Unit organs just don't sound that good.

Ross heard my concerns, and decided to un-unitize the organ and add the missing stops with Walker Technologies digital voices. Bob Walker has sampled the best stops in the best organs of the world, couple those huge pipe for pipe samples with true state of the art amplification technology to give us an organ with over 50 stops. We also received three bonuses: a wonderful Deagon chimes unit from a Chalmers United Church in Woodstock, two facade string stops from the same church, from a rear antiphonal division, originally installed by the Woodstock Pipe Organ Company, (John likes strings) and a five stop positiv division, originally installed by Gabriel Kney, that is now mounted above the rear doors of the church.

Our positiv divsion has an interesting history. In the 1950s, Dr. Allen Webb served as a physician and organist in Woodstock. He lived in a large house, then built a new home next door. Gabriel Kney moved the instrument into the music room in the new house and added what is now our positiv division. A three manual console was made by the Principal Pipe Organ Company in 1962. The organ was enjoyed for many years. Healy Willan, among other notable organists, played it.

In 1984, Dr. Webb, having suffered many strokes, donated the organ to Chalmers United Church in Woodstock. The positiv division was installed on the balcony, along with its three manual console. Afew years ago, the church closed. The chruch people wanted the positiv to go to a good home. We were the forntunate benefactors. The console did not come with it, but it is controlled by the main console as a floating division, playable from either Swell, Great or Pedal.

Sound production note: an organ pipe creates sound far differently than a loudspeaker. In short, the loudspeaker has a hard time sounding exactly like the original. But Walker uses MANY speakers, seemingly randomly located within and without the organ chamber, to duplicate the sound very closely. In fact, organ recitalists were fooled with the game, which stop is real.

We also have a solid state MIDI action. What this means is we can play the organ from midi files. The organ can play itself, like a player piano. It can also be controlled remotely by an external MIDI keyboard. This was done during the dedication concert. An Albeniz flamenco piano (transcribed to guitar) piece was re-arranged for flamenco guitar and organ. It was played by flamenco guitarist Mkie Gemus and myself. I played the organ via a midi keyboard on the dais of the church near the guitarist. The keyboard was divided into 2 channels which allowed two distinct resgistrations to be used: flute and sting chorus, and solo oboe.

The organ is a delight. It is capable of performing all types of organ music, including thetare organ, a favourite of John's. Here is a sample of the organ playing The Simpsons Theme. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=h54ptoR9ZhY

See www.bedfordunited.ca for much more information, photos, and music.

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.