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Music
Van Quinn, Organist/Choirmaster
+ Epiphany Evensong Jan. 6
+ Compline by Candlelight Resumes Jan. 13
+ The Great Kleuker Organ at the Chapel of the Cross
Evensong will be sung at 7 p.m. on Epiphany, Sunday, January 6, by members of the Senior Choir, Junior Choir, Parish Choir, and Compline Choir. Music will include Gregorian Chant and compositions by McFarren, Joubert, and Mendelssohn. A reception, featuring kings cakes will follow the service.
Compline by Candlelight Resumes Jan. 13
The late-night contemplative service, Sundays at 9:30 p.m., offered through the singing of Psalms, Canticles, Scripture, and Prayerand followed by a brief organ recital resumes Jan. 13. Experience the mystery, holiness, beauty, and transcendence of God in the ancient words of the Church and the Sacred sounds of Gregorian Chant.
The Great Kleuker Organ at the Chapel of the Cross
"The organ, the only harmony, the only lament that mingles earth with the heavens! The only voice that, with sleeping flood and hallowed forests, could murmur here below some beginning of infinite things!"
-- Victor Hugo"The organ is in truth the grandest, the most daring, the most magnificent of all instruments invented by human genius. It is a whole orchestra in itself. It can express anything in response to a skilled touch. Surely it is, in some sort, a pedestal on which the soul poises for a flight forth into space, essaying on her course to draw picture after picture in an endless series, to paint human life, to cross the Infinite that separates Heaven from Earth! And the longer a dreamer listens to those giant harmonies, the better he realizes that nothing save this hundred-voiced choir on earth can fill all the space between kneeling men and a God hidden by the blinding light of sanctuary. Out of the dim daylight, out of the dim silence broken by the chanting of a choir in response to the thunder of the organ, a veil is woven for God and the brightness of His attributes shines through it."
-- Honoré de Balzac"For me, the search for a good organ is a part of the search for truth."
-- Albert Schweitzer
One of the treasures of the Episcopal Church in our region is the great Kleuker organ in our church. This instrument of three manuals and a pedal clavier was built by the German firm of Detlef Kleuker, master organbuilders. This builder was selected for the tonal excellence of their organs, the reliability of their actions, and their willingness to install a large mechanical action instrument in a side chancel chamber.
The contract was signed in 1978 and the organ was completed at the end of a three month period of installation, voicing, and tuning in the fall of 1980. The organ arrived in early September in a very large truck which had been driven onto a ship in Germany and driven off that ship in Norfolk. The organ was in many thousands of pieces. Over a period of weeks, more and more of those pieces disappeared inside the chamber; and when the assembly was completed, one of the builders returned to Germany to be replaced by another, a master voicer.
The organ was played for the first time on All Saints' Sunday, although it was not until three weeks later that the entire organ was finished. At that time the instrument contained 61 ranks of pipes, for a total of over 3,090 individual pipes, ranging in length from over 16 feet, to a little longer than a pencil.
Our organ, from the beginning, was a large and eclectic instrument, leaning very heavily toward the North German Baroque style but with the basic resources for 18th-century French music as well as music from the 'romantic' and contemporary periods. It has always served admirably in both solo organ literature and service accompaniment. In designing the specifications for this organ in 1978, I had in mind an organ that could do a great job of two pieces: the "Passacaglia and Fugue of Bach," and the "Agnus Dei" from the Healey Willan communion service. I thought that between these two extreme sets of musical requirements just about anything that needed to be played in an Episcopal church could be accommodated. Although our organ was built with mechanical (tracker) action, the stops were activated electrically and could be set in combinations that could be changed rapidly by hand or foot pistons, making the instrument very flexible for church services, anthem accompaniments, and organ solo literature.
After 20 years of being played virtually around the clock, it was time for some refurbishing and updating. A number of significant changes were made in our organ this past year.
The combination action was enlarged to give even greater flexibility to the organist for smoother and more elegant performances. There are now 64 levels of computer memory, which permit an extraordinary number of combinations of stops to be set and stored for easy use in playing.Five stops were 're-voiced' to make them more effective in their original musical role.
The 'principal chorus' on the Hauptwerk, the main division of the organ, had never done a completely adequate job of providing the 'meat and potatoes' of the organ's ensemble. These stops now speak with a fresh power and clarity.
A commanding solo trumpet stop was added, and some of the stops originally desired but not possible because of financial and space constraints were added through a very advanced digital technology.
Some much-needed repairs were carried out.
The toes of the large pipes in the first façade had collapsed under the weight of the pipe. The original toes were cut off and replaced. These pipes were also re-racked so that the weight of the pipes is displaced in such a way that the toes do not bear all of their weight.The greatly deteriorated keyboards were restored and recovered with bone naturals and ebony sharps.
The pedals were recovered and re-bushed.
The interior of the console was replaced to accommodate the additional stops and combination pistons.
Some of the pipes in the Hauptwerk that were close to falling over were re-racked and stabilized.
I believe this work has been wonderfully successful and has made our already great organ even more successful in its choral and hymn accompanimental role, and in playing music from the 19th and 20th centuries.
We have one remaining task to be completed this year, a new electrical relay system that will reduce wear and tear and, ultimately, failure of the electrical components of the organ's stop action.
We hope this instrument will long resound to the glory of God and deepen in all of us a sense of his goodness, love, and eternity.
But let my due feet never fail,
To walk the studious Cloysters pale,
And love the high embowed roof,
With antick pillars massy proof,
And storied windows richly dight,
Casting a dimm religious light.
There let the pealing organ blow
To the full voic'd quire below,
In service high, and anthems cleer,
And may with sweetness, through mine ear,
Dissolve me into extasies,
And bring all Heav'n before mine eyes.
-- John Milton
© 2002: Chapel of the Cross
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