City Hall Organ
 | |
| Classification | Pipe organ |
|---|---|
| Playing range | |
| CCCCC – g8 | |
| Musicians | |
| Julio Kram (resident organist) | |
| Builders | |
| Hyperbola Organ Builders | |
The City Hall Organ is a pipe organ located in the Municipal Civic Assembly Hall, Kien-k'ang. It is one of the largest instruments in the world and the largest in Themiclesia, with 18,745 pipes, and one of the few to have a full-length 64-foot stop. The organ was ordered in 1898 and completed in 1901, but substantial additions and restorations, especially following the Pan-Septentrion War, have occurred.
Construction and layout
In 1897, the municipal leadership of Kien-k'ang became interested in a large, enclosed public space to "give a stage for the commodious display of the city's people and products". As the space would host exhibitions, performances, political meetings, and other public events, it was judged necessary to provide music by means of a pipe organ. Like other aspects of the Assembly Hall, the pipe organ was calculatedto be displayed and reflect the city's waxing wealth and status during the Industrial Revolution.
The hall itself consists of a larger main chamber and a smaller antechamber, divided by a wall. The main chamber measures 230 ft (70 m) long by 120 ft (37 m) wide. The main seating space is located on the ground level, on whose perimeter is a 18-foot wide gallery supported on small posts. The top of the ceiling rises to 100 ft (30 m) tall. This chamber could sit 10,000 or more with chairs filling both the ground and gallery levels.
Before work started on the building, the pipe organ was designed by renowned organists Messrs. Anthony Brak and Patrick Mir, with directions from the Council to include "many species of sound that adequately express the city's interest in music". Though Brak and Mir noted the city's demands and included some variety voices, the instrument they designed was firmly grounded in organ tradition; historians note that their backgrounds led them to consider the organ's stops primarily for their personal registrations, which were quite conservative. At the end, the instrument approved by the city consisted of 230 ranks and 13,310 pipes, briefly the world's largest at completion.
The construction of the organ was aided by the ample space expressly reserved for the instrument. Additional space later appropriated for the organ's enlargement included a loft in the antechamber, the space above its galleries, and a nook where a secondary façade is mounted. It is according to this layout that the various chambers of the instrument were named.
The City Hall Organ holds the distinction of having the largest standalone organ case in the world, which contained the original section of the organ. This 70-foot tall, 40-foot wide, and 10-foot deep case, dominating the hall's nave, is divided into six levels and has three façades; its bottom level projects outwards, and the console is located on the roof of the projection, which is level with the galleries. The Positive façade covers the projection on the ground level, while the main façade, 40-foot tall, is level with the galleries. A smaller façade representing the Solo Organ sits on top of the main façade. The main façade displays the pipework of the Great Organ, with the 32-foot Principal forming its left, right, and centre towers, whose CCCC pipe perched directly above the console.
The case of the organ is a free-standing timber structure and is placed in a large alcove meant for it, at the eastern end of the hall. Pipes of the 32-foot octave are positioned at the rear of the case, standing at ground level. In front of them are two storeys holding the 16-foot octaves. The rest of the case is divided into six storeys, containing the remaining pipe work.
| Location | Divisions |
|---|---|
| Case 1F | Positive |
| Case 2F | Swell Pedal |
| Case 3F | Great Pedal |
| Case 4F | Great |
| Case 5F | Solo |
| Case 6F | Echo |
| Antechamber | Antiphonal Antiphonal Pedal |
Console
The City Hall Organ has three consoles, the main console on the stage, a secondary console located in the clerestory level overlooking the antechamber, and a digital console.
Main console
The main console has five manuals, which each encompass four octaves and to G in the fifth, from CC to g′′, and 30-note pedalboard from CCC to F. It is located on the third level of the case and sits upon the roof of the Positive division; this is accessed from the galleries. The console is capable of playing the entire instrument, including the floating divisions and subsequent additions. The manuals, from the bottom, are the Positive, Great, Swell, Solo, and Echo manuals, and the pedal board is straight and flat. There are 237 stop knobs and 70 tabs on this console, for the tracker and electric portions of the instrument respectively. The knobs are laid out on an agle away from the organist, while the tabs are located around the music rack.
This console is mechanically linked by trackers to each pipe in the organ except for the secondary instrument in the antechamber, which was built with electric action and would be entirely too distant to connect feasibly by trackers to the main console. Because the wind pressure acting against the keys in grand registrations, often upwards of 50 ranks on the Great and more if manuals be coupled together, would prevent easy playing, it is assisted by the Barker leaver, which is a bellows, activated by trackers, that opens and closes the; this device retains some ability to control the pipes' speech that would be present on a purely mechanical organ. However, pneumatic assistance is not available on the stop knobs, which can be very heavy when activating pedal stops, whose sliders are also heavy; the knob for the 64-foot Major Bass has been measured to require 41 lbs of force to engage or disengage. This is in contrast to other stops whose knobs are easily accessed.
Secondary console
The secondary console has three manuals, with a 61-note manual compass, from CC to c′′′, and 32-note pedalboard, from CCC to G. The manuals, from bottom, are Choir, Great, and Swell. This console is electrically connected to its pipework.
Digital console
The digital console consists of six manuals, with a 61-note manual compass, from CC to c′′′, and 32-note pedalboard, from CCC to G. The manuals, from bottom, are Positive, Great, Swell, Solo, Echo, and Antiphonal. From this console can be played the entire instrument. The digital console was installed in 1971 to enable the console to be conveniently positioned for performances, as the main console is fixed to the organ case and hidden behind the Positive organ. It is connected by means of a large bundle of wires to the electrified action, which was installed at the same time as the console.
The console has 309 rocker buttons in place of more traditional stop knobs or tabs, arranged in a semicircle parted by the manuals. The rocker buttons are illuminated when switched on. It also features a more elaborate set of couplers, thumb pistons, and toe pistons, which enable the organist to change registration more conveniently, with 64 re-programmable memory layers that can store configurations set by various organists.
Tonal design
Original plan
The City Hall organ was built in line with Themiclesian customs in tonal design, which combines Sylvan, Ostlandic, and Anglian influences. The organ at the Old Cathedral was cited as a major influence on the design of this instrument, and consequently certain Ostlandic characteristics are apparent. The original instrument, of 270 ranks, was divided into seven departments: the Great, Positive, Swell, Solo, Hinter-Positive, Echo, and Pedal. The principal chorus of each division was built on a different pitch for differentiation, the Great and Pedal on 32-foot, Hinter-Positive on 16′, Ruck-Positive on 8′, Swell on 8′, and Echo on 4′.
The Great, Hinter-positive, and Ruck-positive organs were "principal organs", meaning their voices were chiefly dedicated flue stops in the principal family. The Great is housed in the façade and the front half of the organ case, while the Hinter-positive is in the rear of the case and is expressive. The Ruck-positive is housed in its own case, under the console. The Swell organ played softer stops in the flute and string families, though it too has a smaller principal chorus, and it is expressive; it is housed on the same level of the organist. The Echo organ plays a function similar to the Swell, but resides at the top of the case. The Solo organ consisted of a number of non-chorus voices, many reeds, and was mostly 8′ and 4′, under expression.
Unlike unified instruments, which, enabled by electric action, were becoming common at that time, the City Hall Organ is almost "straight", having few stops which draw on ranks already forming other stops. This design commenced with the organ's initial designers, who believed that extensions and borrowings, popular techniques at that time, duplicated tonalities and impoverished the instrument's voice; instead, they ascribed to the more traditional, and perhaps at times rigid, idea that the identical tonalities should not re-appear in different pitches. The restricted use of extensions was respected by later managers of the instrument.
The overall design of the organ is, in other places, contrary to the fashionable practices of the day. In the last decade of the 19th and first of the 20th, many organ builders ceased to build treble stops for the Great organ or any number of other divisions and provided better horizontal extension, that is, more stops at unison (8-foot in the manuals and 16-foot in the pedal) pitch. Brak and Mir instead demanded an enlarged ensemble of treble stops and mixtures, giving that this would better serve the city's "tastes in music". The resulting instrument is not heavily emphasized in the unison pitch. Moreover, a larger number of treble voices would reduce material costs without compromising tonal diversity, an advantage that did not escape the designers' notice.
Some reviewers consider its full-organ voice "shrill, imperious, and antiquated" and "more appropriate of the church than the city hall", but others say that, owing to the scale of the instrument, "nothing was sacrificed amongst the unison and orchestral voices a performer could require, and then much more is provided". The organist Benjamin Keefer commented that "in some registrations, the principal chorus evokes of the medieval blockwerk and has Sylvan influences." This is in reference to the elaborate upperwork of the stop list; however, he freely admitted that "in full organ, the treble is more powerful than popular in the 1900s."
It being the preference of the organ designers, the entire organ was on 3 1⁄2 inches of wind; only the Solo reeds were on 5 inches. Even in 1899, organ building practices permitted higher pressures surpassing 10 inches, though their merits were controverted in many quarters. Those who opposed high pressures, including the City Hall Organ's designers, believed that such pressures distorted the natural voice of the instrument. This limited pressure translated into a very soft tone in the hall, obtaining by the desiners to place great emphasis on the number of treble voices which would "pierce the air" better than the unison and sub-unison ones. To counter-balance the prominence of the treble, the bass pipes were prominently displayed in the façade—thus speaking into the chamber without obstruction. The scale of the façade was "not an accidental decision but one intended to augment the soft sound of the instrument by way of its size."
64' Major Bass
The 64-foot Major Bass stop is a unique stop and one of the few examples of open 64-foot stops in the world. It was not initially planned by the organ's designers, who nevertheless specified an Acoustic Bass 64′ to provide the sub-unison of the pedal department; this stop consisted of an independent octave (32′) and quint (212⁄3′), tuned pure with the octave. By the middle of the 19th century, 64-foot resultant stops have been introduced by renowned builders to the largest instruments, underlying 32-foot stops, and one genuine stop, the 64-foot Contra Trombone in Tír Glas, has existed since 1898. The fundamental pitch at low C (CCCCC) is 8.18 Hz—beyond the typical lower limit of pitch perception by the human ear—but its upper harmonics enrich and re-inforce the other bass stops.
The second resident organist, Mr. Grya, advocated for the stop's addition, to the city's approval in 1917. It has been speculated that the uniqueness of the stop attracted the support of Themiclesian organists, who would then have the opportunity to experiment with its registration at guest recitals. The pipes were constructed of White Pine (Pinus strobus) obtained for $3,000 (approx. $100,000 in 2020 dollars) from the royal timber yards, which had a supply of giant logs for the maintenance of wooden buildings in the palaces. Part of the auditorium's floor was removed that the planks could be lowered into the undercroft, where they were assembled by Hyperbola Organ Builders.
Even though the organ operated on limited pressure, the giant pipes required a prodigious quantity of wind to attain prompt speech and desirable tonality. The three lowest pipes received individual blowers and wind-chests, and the next six pipes shared one blower per two notes. The three remaining notes of the bottom octave were on the same blower and chest. Even with these extreme measures, a consistent pressure of 3 1⁄2 inches could not be obtained; it was thus lowered to 2 5⁄8 in 1919.
As the instrument was the only one in the world to have both a genuine and resultant stop at 64-foot, both being properly tuned, organists and music enthusiasts have compared their respective tonalities. The stop was not without its critics, many of whom doubted the utility of any 64-foot stop. McKinley chastises the voice of such stops to be "entirely unable to combine with other musical voices and therefore must be considered noise." Hastings, however, says that the stop sounds has a string-like quality in the 32-foot octave, which "is not lost in the 64-foot and provides lovely and gentle power in the foundation, combining well with most registrations and shining especially in long notes."
32-foot stops
The original, 1901 organ was originally specified with three stops at 32-foot–the Principal in the Great, and the Double Open Wood and Contra Trombone in the Pedal. The 64-foot Acoustic Bass VII drew from an independent octave, plus six other ranks representing the 64-foot harmonic series. That the resultant effect be optimized, this stop was tuned quite soft. The 64-foot Major Bass stop necessarily contained a 32-foot octave, but it is not separately available. The Antiphonal Organ possesses a 32-foot Sub Bourdon in its pedal department. Across the entire instrument, there are three genuine stops and five ranks at 32-foot.
The designers of the original organ believed that three genuine stops at 32-foot pitch, including one on the manual, were already "an abundance verging on extravagance"; in their log, they noted that "instruments require but two stops at such a grave pitch, that is, a principal and a reed" because "the human ear cannot distinguish colour at this pitch, and anything more than one will beat disagreeably against each other..."
Mixture XXXI and Acoustic Bass VII
The stop Mixture XXXI, with 31 ranks, is a very large compound stop built to support the 32-foot harmonic series when the organ was revoiced in the late 40s. It sounds octaves and fifths and works in combination with independent stops at that pitch. It consists of 16′, 10 2⁄3′, 8′, 8′, 5 1⁄3′, 5 1⁄3′, 4′, 4′, 4′, 4′, 2 2⁄3′, 2 2⁄3′, 2′, 2′, 2′, 2′, 1 1⁄3′, 1 1⁄3′, 1′, 1′, 1′, 1′, 1⁄2′, 1⁄2′, 1⁄2′, 1⁄3′, 1⁄3′, 1⁄4′, 1⁄4′, 1⁄6′, and 1⁄8′. This enormous mixture is almost always used when the Great organ is played on its foundational pitch of 32-foot, as the fundamental pitch is so grave as to require the brightness the mixture creates. That it would not dominate the rest of the chorus, the stops are voiced quite softly. The great organist Peter Heath said that this mixture "is the key to animating a 32-foot fundamental on the Great. If it were absent, the 32-foot Principal could only remain a background sub-octave."
The Acoustic Bass VII is a stop created by combining the original 1901 Acoustic Bass and other stops on the 64-foot harmonic series. In the original instrument, the Acoustic Bass produced a 64-foot difference tone with two independent ranks, a 32-foot octave and 21 1⁄3-foot fifth, and is, effectively, a two-rank mixture. After the Major Bass stop was installed, the Acoustic Bass became somewhat superfluous as a genuine 64-foot stop became available. In the revoicing of the 1940s, the Acoustic Bass was expanded into a seven-rank mixture with additional stops on the 64-foot harmonic series (32-, 21 1⁄3-, 16-, 12 4⁄5-, 10 2⁄3-, 9 1⁄7-, 8-, and 7 1⁄9-foot) to reinforce the genuine 64-foot stop, which was considered something of an expensive gimmick by some due to its slow speech and very soft tone.
Stoplist
| GREAT | 101 rks | POSITIVE | 48 rks | SWELL | 59 rks | SOLO | 39 rks | ANTIPHONAL | 49 rks | PEDAL | 73 rks |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Principal | 32 | Principal | 16 | Sub Principal | 16 | Double Diapason | 16 | Double Diapason | 16 | Major Bass | 64 |
| Octave | 16 | Octave | 8 | Violone | 16 | Principal | 8 | Bourdon | 16 | Open Wood | 32 |
| Gedeckt | 16 | Spire Flute | 8 | Principal | 8 | Stentorphone | 8 | Gross Quint | 10 2/3 | Gross Quint | 21 1/3 |
| Quint | 10 2/3 | Quintaton | 8 | Dulciana | 8 | Tibia | 8 | Major Diapason | 8 | Octave | 16 |
| 15th | 8 | Quint | 5 1/3 | Flute | 8 | Octave | 4 | Minor Diapason | 8 | Octave Wood | 16 |
| Flute | 8 | 15th | 4 | Violone | 8 | Major Flute | 4 | Violone | 8 | Violone | 16 |
| Violone | 8 | Rohr Flute | 4 | Sub Quint | 5 1/3 | Stentorphone | 4 | Spire Flute | 8 | Spire Flute | 16 |
| Tierce | 6 2/5 | Viol | 4 | Octave | 4 | Tibia Mirabilis | 4 | Flute | 8 | Bourdon | 16 |
| Octave Quint | 5 1/3 | Quintaton | 4 | Harmonic Flute | 4 | Stopped Flute | 4 | Octave | 4 | Gross Tierce | 12 4/5 |
| Septieme | 4 4/7 | Gedeckt | 4 | Dolce | 4 | Quint | 2 2/3 | Viol | 4 | Quint | 10 2/3 |
| 22nd | 4 | Tierce | 3 1/5 | Unda Maris II | 4 | 15th | 2 | Harmonic Flute | 4 | Quint Bourdon | 10 2/3 |
| Flute | 4 | Larigot | 2 2/3 | Gamba | 4 | Principal | 2 | Spire Flute | 4 | Gross Septieme | 9 1/7 |
| Gamba | 4 | Septieme | 2 2/7 | Gedeckt | 4 | Tierce | 1 3/5 | Dulciana | 4 | 15th | 8 |
| Viol | 4 | 22nd | 2 | Quint | 2 2/3 | 22nd | 1 | Quint | 2 2/3 | Viola da Gamba | 8 |
| None | 3 5/9 | Gambette | 2 | 15th | 2 | Fourniture VII | Viol Quint | 2 2/3 | Flute | 8 | |
| Octave Tierce | 3 1/5 | Wald Flute | 2 | Dolce | 2 | Major Mixture IX | 15th | 2 | Gross None | 7 1/9 | |
| 25th | 2 10/11 | 25th | 1 3/5 | Gemshorn | 2 | Ophicleide | 16 | Violette | 2 | Tierce | 6 2/5 |
| 26th | 2 2/3 | 28th | 1 1/7 | Wald Flute | 2 | Ophicleide | 8 | Spire Flute | 2 | Quint | 5 1/3 |
| 28th | 2 2/7 | 29th | 1 | Viol | 2 | Trombone | 8 | Rohr Flute | 2 | Quint Viol | 5 1/3 |
| 29th | 2 | Hohl Flute | 1 | Gambette | 2 | Tuba | 8 | Stopped Flute | 2 | Septieme | 4 4/7 |
| Viol | 2 | Flageolet | 1 | Aeoline | 2 | Post Horn | 4 | Tierce | 1 3/5 | 15th | 4 |
| Dulciana | 2 | Flute | 1 | Tierce | 1 3/5 | Oboe | 4 | Septieme | 1 1/7 | Tibia | 4 |
| Hohl Flute | 2 | Sesquialtera II | Viol Tierce | 1 3/5 | Trumpet | 4 | 22nd | 1 | Night Horn | 4 | |
| Gedeckt | 2 | Mixture XIII | 22nd | 1 | Ophicleide | 4 | Sifflet | 1 | None | 3 5/9 | |
| 30th | 1 7/9 | Cymbal VII | Spire Flute | 1 | Trumpet | 2 | Blockflöte | 1 | Tierce | 3 1/5 | |
| 31st | 1 3/5 | Bombardon | 16 | Flageolet | 1 | 29th | 1/2 | Flute Tierce | 3 1/5 | ||
| 33rd | 1 1/3 | Bombardon | 8 | Piccolo | 1 | ECHO | 15 rks. | 33rd | 1/3 | Septieme | 2 2/7 |
| 35th | 1 1/7 | Dulzian | 8 | 29th | 1/2 | Grossgedeckt | 16 | Cymbale V | Viol Septieme | 2 2/7 | |
| 36th | 1 | Hautbois | 4 | Mixture IX | Gedackt | 8 | Mixture XI | 21st | 2 | ||
| Sifflet | 1 | Cornet VII | Principal | 4 | Trombone | 16 | Flute Ouvert | 2 | |||
| Flageolet | 1 | STRINGS | 20 rks | Cymbale V | Aeoline | 4 | Trombone | 8 | Stopped Flute | 2 | |
| Piccolo | 1 | Contrabass | 16 | Double Trumpet | 16 | Gedeckt | 4 | Vox Humana | 8 | None | 1 7/9 |
| None | 8/9 | Double Bass II | 16 | Contrabass Fagot | 16 | Flute | 2 | Clarion | 4 | 29th | 1 |
| 43rd | 1/2 | Violoncello II | 8 | Fagot | 8 | Nasard | 1 1/3 | Trompette | 4 | Acoustic Bass XVI | |
| 47th | 1/3 | First Violin III | 8 | Trombone | 8 | Sifflet | 1 | Fourniture VII | |||
| 50th | 1/4 | Second Violin II | 8 | Trumpet | 8 | Mixture IV | ANTIPH. PEDAL | 28 rks. | Cymbale VI | ||
| 54th | 1/6 | Third Violin II | 8 | Clarinet | 8 | Fagot | 4 | Acoustic Bass IV | 32 | Contra Trombone | 32 |
| 57th | 1/8 | Viola II | 8 | Horn | 8 | Vox Humana | 4 | Sub Bourdon | 32 | Bombarde | 16 |
| Mixture XXXI | 16 | Muted Violin II | 8 | Clarion | 4 | Horn | 2 | Diapason | 16 | Trombone | 16 |
| Grand Cornet XI | 8 | Violette | 4 | Cornus | 4 | Violone | 16 | Trumpet | 16 | ||
| Cymbale IX | 4 | Violette | 4 | Clarion | 2 | Bourdon | 16 | Dulzian | 16 | ||
| Scharff VII | 2 | Octave | 8 | Dulzian | 8 | ||||||
| Fagot | 16 | Bourdon | 8 | Trumpet | 8 | ||||||
| Trumpet | 16 | 15th | 4 | Trombone | 8 | ||||||
| Trumpet | 8 | Stopped Diapason | 4 | Clarion | 4 | ||||||
| Fagot | 8 | Gambette | 4 | Clarion | 2 | ||||||
| Clarion | 4 | Quint | 2 2/3 | ||||||||
| 22nd | 2 | ||||||||||
| Tierce | 1 3/5 | ||||||||||
| Piccolo | 1 | ||||||||||
| Mixture VII | |||||||||||
| Trombone | 16 | ||||||||||
| Trombone | 8 | ||||||||||
| Trumpet | 8 | ||||||||||
| Trompette | 4 |
Augmentations and restorations
At completion in Oct. 10, 1901, the City Hall Organ possessed 13,101 pipes, making it the largest instrument recorded at that time, but this record was surpassed later that decade by the instrument in Hallia's renowned department store. Despite this fact, the City Hall instrument was touted by tour guides as the world's largest for years to come.
The largest augmentation of the City Hall Organ occurred between 1913 and 1915, where most of the current Antiphonal and its departments were added. Their need was justified by the use of the antechamber, south of the main hall, as a meeting, dining, and performing space, whereas formerly the space was only used transiently or processionally. As musical works were now being performed in the antechamber, it was necessarily to provide it will a full complement of stops that resembles a complete instrument, but at the insistence of the organ's curator, Mr. Lyep, the planned instrument was also rendered a floating division of the main organ. This was because, according to Lyep, the two organs will never be playing at the same time, so it made sense to treat the unused organ as a floating division available to the other, playing organ.
This decision was responsible for the unprecedented 4,224-pipe, 73-rank Antiphonal organ on the main console's fifth manual, which had previously controlled a much smaller division of 9 ranks in the dome. Positionally, the entire addition was behind and outside of the main hall, thus making it an antiphonal division, but when the audience was located in the antechamber, the Antiphonal organ then functioned more or less like a Great division and possessed its own Choir and Swell chests. For this latter use, the three-manual secondary console was installed.
The 64-foot Major Bass stop was installed in 1917 behind the organ case. As it was on a lower platform than the rest of the Pedal division, it was sometimes noted as Untersatz 64 in literature.
In the 1920s, the Principal Organist detected a changing trend in the architecture of organ sound and advocated for the inclusion of stops more fitting of earlier repertoire from the Medieval and Rennaissance periods. This was largely an enlargement of the Great Organ, which acquired eight new stops. This also includes the largest mixture ever installed in Themiclesia, the Hintersatz XXXV-LV, which consists of 35 to 55 ranks of pipes starting from 16 foot. This stop imitates the sound of late Gothic organs whose encased stops were not separately playable.
Also in the 1920s, the String, Woodwind, and Brass divisions were added to the organ. Even though the organ's designers did not envision the organ as an explicitly orchestral one, contemporary music tastes required more imitative voices. Between 1924 and 1928, around 3,800 pipes in 66 ranks were added to two new chambers added around the case. These additions brought the pipe count near to 20,000 pipes.
During the Pan-Septentrion War, the Civic Assembly Hall, located within city walls, was spared enemy occupation, but at least three shells detonated within its vicinity, one directly hitting the eastern façade and another the dome. The former explosion caused serious damage to the east gallery, necessitating the replacement of 23 ranks and restoration work on 17, and the latter caused the dome to collapse, destroying the enclosure of the Echo organ and much of its pipework and parts of the Solo chamber.
Additions to the organ were carried out during and after the organ's restoration from 1945 to 1950. The additions provided another 2,000 pipes to the antechamber.
Revoicing
The restoration of the organ in the late 40s also involved the revoicing of many ranks, under a directive to alter the tonal architecture to suit contemporary tastes. Formerly, all manual pitches were based on the 8-foot pitch, as was the practice when organ was built, but by the 1950s the revival of the Robaque organ in Casaterra required pitch differentiation in the manuals. Thus, the Great Organ was re-centred on the 32-foot Sub Principal voice, which was "brought to the fore [...] rather than allowed to languish as a murky rumble hidden under the 16-foot pitches." The Choir was repositioned around the 16-foot, the Swell on the 8-foot, and the Echo in the dome around the 4-foot. The Solo, String, Brass, and Woodwinds divisions retained their Romantic voicing and the 8-foot tonal centre. The pedal foundation was placed at 32-foot rather than 64-foot, because at that pitch half the compass would be inaudible in the fundamental.
Culture
Musical reception
Upon the instrument's completion, the International Organist assessed that it had "a shimmering sound reminiscent of the old masters."
Size debate
The City Hall Organ is often mentioned in the context of relative sizes of pipe organs, particularly against the instrument at the Camian Military Academy's chapel. That organ has more pipes, with 23,750, against City Hall's 23,230; however, City Hall's pipes form 459 ranks, giving 309 stops, as opposed to the 327 ranks of the CMA chapel, giving 504 stops. Part of this can be attributed to the latter's 61-note manual and 32-note pedal compasses, which are 6 and 2 notes longer respectively than at City Hall. In terms of weight, CMA's organ is estimated to be triple that of the City Hall instrument, case not considered, because the former has more bass pipes, which are very determinative of weight. 59 ranks at 1-foot pitch, adding perhaps 1,500 pounds in weight, will easily be outweighted by 2 ranks at 16-foot pitch, and the CMA has far more ranks at 8-foot than City Hall. Additionally, City Hall has most of its pipework in "confluent metal" or a lighter alloy than the one employed at CMA.
The CMA organ, built in the 1910s and 20s, has a design typical of its era. Many of its ranks are extended, permitting more stops to draw on the same rank of pipes at different pitches. This is carried to the extreme in e.g. its Swell Organ's Military Trumpet, which starts at 16-foot but can be drawn at a pitch as high as 1-foot, encompassing 109 pipes in the rank. From another perspective, the four lower octaves of a 4-foot Military Trumpet could be identical with the four higher of the 8-foot Military Trmpet, hence permitting them to share the same pipes, or "unified". This practice was advocated by its supporters as a harmless economy that eliminated duplicates and, in turn, permitted budget and physical space for more voices, serving the aim for orchestral sound. At City Hall, such a concession was both condemned by its architects and unnecessary due to space already reserved for the organ.
The staff members and aficionados of each instrument have at times engaged in criticisms about the quality of the other instrument and the integrity of their specifications, in the interest of establishing the primacy of their favourite. For example, Drs. Kap and Mrar, co-presidents of the City Hall Organ Society from 1966 to 1990, have written multiple articles (1977, 1978, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1987, 1988 inter alia) casting doubt on the honesty, conduct, and even mental soundness of Capt. Mek and Sgt. Nicholson, curators for the CMA chapel organ. In later decades, these disputes persisted and blossomed on the Internet and were propagaged in tourist information pamphlets. The City Hall instrument was described by tour guides in the CMA organ as "a chorus of piccolos", and similarly the pamphlet at City Hall snidely remarked under an asterisk that "each pipe is counted only once in this disposition". Dr. Kap once remarked that there are not "20 copies of Military Trumpet" at City Hall, and no "extended stops to be masqueraded as independent."
The dispute neared a resolution in 2005 when a panel of musicians from both states agreed to visit each others' instruments for a tallying of pipes, which revealed that the City Hall organ had 23,230 pipes, and the CMA chapel's, 22,470. Unfazed by this revelation, the CMA immediately ordered further expansions, including no fewer than two new 32-foot stops and ten other ranks, leading to its modern tally of 23,750. They would provide a total of nine 32-foot stops at the CMA chapel, which outnumber the six at City Hall. Planned additions to the City Hall Organ have been shelved since 2007 due to lack of space.
Another aspect of the debate between the two instruments concerns their tonal designs. The CMA organ was built to produce music at orchestral pitch, or 8-foot in the manual and 16-foot in the pedal, and to this end these pitches are emphasized through the number of voices at those pitches. The 8-foot pitch predominates the instrument and accounts for more than half of its ranks, though this could be deceptive since so many of the stops are extended. The organ possesses a considerable number of 16-foot voices as well. These elements combine to produce a "orchestral tone of remarkable warmth and clarity" according to the Rev. Dr. Kepper, organist at the CMA instrument. On a material level, the prepondrance of these pitches also contributed to the instrument's great mass. The City Hall instrument does not possess an equal emphasis on the orchestral pitch, and much of the organ including the Swell and Solo emphasizes higher pitch and includes prominent treble voices, that its tone was described as "shining like polished silver".
The relative quantities of ranks at given pitches are compared as follows:
| Pitch | City Hallα | CMAβ | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| # | % | # | % | |
| Sub-unison | 23 | 5% | 56 | 17% |
| Unison | 65 | 14% | 180 | 55% |
| Octave | 73 | 16% | 65 | 20% |
| Upper-work and mutations | 298 | 65% | 59 | 18% |
| Total ranks | 459 | 327 | ||
Records
- World's largest organ (1901 – 1907)
- World's largest single organ case