All The Stops: The Glorious Pipe Organ And Its American MastersFor centuries, pipe organs stood at the summit of musical and technological achievement, admired as the most complex and intricate mechanisms the human race had yet devised. In All The Stops, New York Times journalist Craig Whitney journeys through the history of the American pipe organ and brings to life the curious characters who have devoted their lives to its music. From the mid-19th to the mid-20th century, organ music was wildly popular in America. Organ builders in New York and New England could hardly fill the huge demand for both concert hall and home organs. Master organbuilders found ingenious ways of using electricity to make them sound like orchestras. Organ players developed cult followings and bitter rivalries. One movement arose to restore to American organs the clarity and precision that baroque organs had in centuries past, while another took electronic organs to the rock concert halls, where younger listeners could be found. But while organbuilders and organists were fighting with each other, popular audiences lost interest in the organ. Today, organs are beginning to make a comeback in concert halls and churches across America. Craig Whitney brings the story to life and up to date in a humorous, engaging book about the instruments and vivid personalities that inspired his lifelong passion: the great art of the majestic pipe organ. Hear the sounds of some of the pipe organs featured in ALL THE STOPS |
Contents
| 1 | |
2 Monster Organs Mammoth Audiences | 21 |
The American Classic Organ | 51 |
4 The Invention of E Power Biggs | 81 |
5 The Fox | 121 |
6 The Way God Intended Organs to Be Built | 161 |
7 Heavy Organ | 187 |
8 Back to the Future | 215 |
Glossary | 267 |
Recordings | 273 |
Notes | 275 |
| 301 | |
Photo Credits | 304 |
Permissions and Tracks | 305 |
| 307 | |
9 Reborn | 241 |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
acoustics Aeolian American Classic American organ American Organist artistic audience auditorium Bach Bach's Barbara Owen baroque baroque organ Biggs papers Biggs wrote Biggs's Boston building built Callahan Carlo Curley Cathedral Cavaillé-Coll century choir Columbia composer concert hall console Coolidge Courboin Courtesy Diapason Dish Donald Harrison Dupré electronic organ electropneumatic Fisk Flentrop Fox's French Fugue Germanic Museum Hall organ Harvard hear heard Henry Willis Holden installed instru instrument JAV Recordings keyboards later Lemare letter Louis Vierne Marcel Dupré Massachusetts ment musicians notes Open and Reed Opus orchestra Organ Company organ music organ recitals organbuilders organist Owen pedal performance Philharmonic piano pipe organ play player Power Biggs produced radio Riverside Church Roberta Bailey Rockefeller Family Rockefeller Family Archives romantic Ryder Skinner Organ Snyder solo stops strument Symphony Hall tion Toccata told tonal tone took tour tracker trustees Vierne Virgil Fox Wanamaker Wanamaker Organ Wanamaker's wanted Weagly Whiteford York City