Pipe Organ - George S. Hutchings Pipe Organ,1897, Opus 425 - Rebuilt by the Stuart Organ Company, 1979.

The History of the Organ

The organ was built by the George S. Hutchings Co. for All Souls Universalist Church, East Boston, Massachusetts in 1897, Opus 425. Later it was moved to the Universalist Church, Canton, Massachusetts. In 1979 the instrument was rebuilt by the Stuart Organ Company, Aldenville, Massachusetts for Christ Lutheran Church, Winnipeg. The rebuild included thorough mechanical refurbishing, revised tonal scheme, and construction of a new oak case to compliment the architecture of the church building. The organ is of tracker design. The case and tonal designs were realized under the direction of Richard S. Hedgebeth, head of the Stuart Organ Company. The instrument was installed in March 1980 by Richard Hedgebeth and his assistants Christopher Lavoie and Christopher Jenks. On May 14th 1980 Conrad Grimes played a recital dedicating the rebuilt instrument. He was assisted by the Christ Church Choir.

Stop List

Great Organ

Swell Organ

Pedal Organ

Couplers

The Tracker Organ

An organ is defined as a keyboard instrument which produces sounds by forcing air through whistles and reeds called pipes. The organ has three keyboards; two for the hands called manuals, and one for the feet called pedals. The lower manual is called the "Great" organ because it controls the pipes which in combination produce the grand full organ. The "Swell" is so called because its pipes are housed in a box which has shutters across the front which may be opened or closed to "swell" the sounds. The Pedal has the deepest-toned pipes to provide a bass to the entire organ, but it also has pipes that can be used to play a melody. All of the keyboards can be coupled together to combine the full resources of the organ.

From about 1900 until 1950, most organs in North America used an electrical, pneumatic, or electro-pneumatic system to open the valves under the pipes which admit air to them causing them to sound. Before that time, and increasingly today, organs are constructed with a system of levers and pulling connections (called trackers) to connect the keyboards to the valves under the pipes. In this system the only power used for the key action comes from the player's fingers or feet. While this might seem to be disadvantageous for the player, in actuality, with careful design and engineering, the touch of a good tracker organ is very light and easy to play.

The inherent simplicity of this purely mechanical action makes it far more durable and free from malfunction. There are organs in Europe dating from as far back as 1380 which use this system and which are still performing faithfully!

For the artistic superiority of tracker action, we might apply a bit of information theory. With most typical electrical or pneumatic actions, only two 'bits' of information are transmitted from the player to the pipe, namely, 'off' or 'on'. Furthermore, the transmission of information flows in only one direction, from the player to the pipe. With mechanical action, the link between player and pipe is literally an extension of the player's finger (or foot) and nervous system, because the valve under the pipe moves almost in the same manner as the player's finger. Thus the player can control the speed of the opening of the valve, as well as the closing, and hence the way the pipe starts and stops it sound. The differences are subtle, of course, (not nearly so dramatic as touch control on a piano, for example) but very important in truly artistic performance. Moreover, the 'information' sent by the player is reciprocated. The player can 'feel' what he is doing, which gives a marvelous sense of security to the player, and this security further adds to the artistic effect of the performance.

Tuning is a different matter. The pitch of a flue pipe depends on the number of air molecules inside the pipe, and this naturally varies according to the temperature of the air. Thus a cold flue pipe will be flat because of the dense air, while in hot weather it will be sharp. This effect is completely overcome, however, when the organ is returned to the proper temperature. Thus there is no need to keep the organ at a certain temperature except when it is being played. Two tunings a year should be sufficient.

*Taken from the Dedication Recital brochure dated May 14 th, 1980