Pasi Organ Builders

Last updated
The Pasi Organ Opus 14 at St. Cecilia Cathedral in Omaha, Nebraska Opus14lg.jpg
The Pasi Organ Opus 14 at St. Cecilia Cathedral in Omaha, Nebraska

Pasi Organ Builders, based in Roy, WA, manufactures mechanical action organs and restores historic instruments. Martin Pasi received his first formal experience in organ building during a four-year apprenticeship with the Rieger Company in his native Austria. After working in Austria and in the United States, Pasi set up his own studio, Pasi Organ Builders, in 1990 in a former school building in Roy, Wash. [1]

Contents

Pasi's organs, although historically informed, tend to be less dogmatic in their visual design than those of his contemporaries. Earlier instruments, such as Opus 2 (Redmond, WA) follow traditional German casework patterns, while later examples, especially Opus 15 (Chicago, IL) and Opus 17 (Solebury, PA), feature radical visual designs. Overall, Pasi's cases are highly eclectic and, at the same time, very traditional in their proportions and construction techniques.

Pasi first achieved notability with his Opus 4, a two-manual instrument in Lynnwood, WA completed in 1995. In particular, the instrument stands out for its gentle voicing and use of historical Italian organs as models for both pipe construction and visual design. Pasi's familiarity with European organs stems both from his Austrian nativity and restoration work on several instruments, including two Italian chamber organs. Historical influences are especially evident in his Opus 14, a 55 stop dual temperament organ at St. Cecilia Cathedral in Omaha, Nebraska. This instrument is one of only a few in the world with the ability to play in both meantone and well-tempered tuning systems.

Omaha, Nebraska City in Nebraska, United States

Omaha is the largest city in the state of Nebraska and the county seat of Douglas County. Omaha is in the Midwestern United States on the Missouri River, about 10 miles (15 km) north of the mouth of the Platte River. The nation's 40th-largest city, Omaha's 2018 estimated population was 466,061.

Well temperament is a type of tempered tuning described in 20th-century music theory. The term is modeled on the German word wohltemperiert. This word also appears in the title of J.S. Bach's famous composition "Das wohltemperierte Klavier", The Well-Tempered Clavier.

The idea of a dual-temperament organ for Saint Cecilia Cathedral developed in early conversations between organ builder Martin Pasi and cathedral organist and music director Kevin Vogt, and was inspired by the dual-temperament organs at Stanford University (C.B. Fisk, Op. 85) and the Wegscheider organs at the Allstedt Schloßkapelle (Op. 1) and Dresden-Wilschdorf (Op. 21). While the two temperaments of the Stanford Fisk are made possible by five extra pipes per octave, and the smaller Wegscheider organs boast six extra pipes per octave, 29 stops of Pasi Op. 14, contain eight extra notes per octave, tipping the scale of the concept from a single organ with extra pipes to the equivalent of two organs which share a third of their pipes. The abundance of extra pipes allows the circulating temperament to accommodate much of the Romantic and modern repertoires, while retaining enough key color to bring Baroque music alive and to lock into tune the mixtures and reeds in the best keys. [2]

Bibliography

Discography

Bach, Improvisation and the Liturgical Year. Trinity Lutheran Church, Lynnwood, WA. Pamela Ruiter-Feenstra, Organist. rzcd-5016.

Craig Cramer on the Pasi Organ. Craig Cramer, Organist. Dulcian Productions.

Aaron David Miller Plays J.S.Bach, Sweelinck, Mendelssohn and Improvises on the Pasi Organ. Aaron David Miller, Organist. Dulcian Productions.

BUXTEHUDE: Organ Works, Vol. 5, St. Cecilia Cathedral, Omaha, Nebraska. Julia Brown, Organist. Naxos Catalogue No: 8.557555

BUXTEHUDE: Organ Works, Vol. 6, St. Cecilia Cathedral, Omaha, Nebraska. Julia Brown, Organist. Naxos Catalogue No: 8.570311

BUXTEHUDE: Organ Works, Vol. 7, St. Cecilia Cathedral, Omaha, Nebraska. Julia Brown, Organist. Naxos Catalogue No: 8.570312

George Ritchie Plays J. S. Bach, Volume 6 St. Cecilia Cathedral, Omaha, Nebraska. George Ritchie, Organist. Raven OAR-740

Related Research Articles

Dieterich Buxtehude Danish-German organist and composer

Dieterich Buxtehude was a Danish-German organist and composer of the Baroque period. His organ works represent a central part of the standard organ repertoire and are frequently performed at recitals and in church services. He composed in a wide variety of vocal and instrumental idioms, and his style strongly influenced many composers, including Johann Sebastian Bach. Today, Buxtehude is considered one of the most important composers in Germany of the mid-Baroque.

Pipe organ wind instrument that produces sound by driving pressurized air (called wind) through pipes selected via a keyboard

The pipe organ is a musical instrument that produces sound by driving pressurized air through the organ pipes selected from a keyboard. Because each pipe produces a single pitch, the pipes are provided in sets called ranks, each of which has a common timbre and volume throughout the keyboard compass. Most organs have many ranks of pipes of differing timbre, pitch, and volume that the player can employ singly or in combination through the use of controls called stops.

Organ stop musical instrument part

An organ stop is a component of a pipe organ that admits pressurized air to a set of organ pipes. Its name comes from the fact that stops can be used selectively by the organist; each can be "on", or "off".

Aeolian-Skinner American pipe organ building company

Æolian-Skinner Organ Company, Inc. of Boston, Massachusetts was an American builder of a large number of pipe organs from its inception as the Skinner Organ Company in 1901 until its closure in 1972. Key figures were Ernest M. Skinner (1866–1960), Arthur Hudson Marks (1875–1939), Joseph Silver Whiteford (1921-1978), and G. Donald Harrison (1889–1956). The company was formed from the merger of the Skinner Organ Company and the pipe organ division of the Æolian Company in 1932.

Electric organ Electronic keyboard instrument

An electric organ, also known as electronic organ, is an electronic keyboard instrument which was derived from the harmonium, pipe organ and theatre organ. Originally designed to imitate their sound, or orchestral sounds, it has since developed into several types of instruments:

Pedal keyboard keyboard played with the feet that is usually used to produce the low-pitched bass line of a piece of music

A pedalboard is a keyboard played with the feet that is usually used to produce the low-pitched bass line of a piece of music. A pedalboard has long, narrow lever-style keys laid out in the same semitone scalar pattern as a manual keyboard, with longer keys for C, D, E, F, G, A and B, and shorter, higher keys for C♯, D♯, F♯, G♯ and A♯. Training in pedal technique is part of standard organ pedagogy in church music and art music.

Theatre organ type of pipe organ

A theatre organ is a distinct type of pipe organ originally developed to provide music and sound effects to accompany silent films during the first 3 decades of the 20th century.

Ernest Martin Skinner was one of the most successful American pipe organ builders of the early 20th century. His electro-pneumatic switching systems advanced the technology of organ building in the first part of the 20th century.

Mathias Peter Møller, commonly known as M.P. Möller or Moeller, was a prolific pipe-organ builder and businessman. A native of the Danish island of Bornholm, he emigrated to the United States in 1872 and founded the M.P. Moller Pipe Organ Company in Greencastle, Pennsylvania, in 1875. The city of Hagerstown, Maryland, took notice of Möller's early successes and induced him to move his business there in 1881 to help make it a viable business center in Western Maryland. The company remained in business until 1992, with hundreds of employees at its peak and a lifetime production of over 12,000 instruments.

John Brombaugh American organ builder

John Brombaugh is an American master pipe organ builder known for his historically oriented tracker action pipe organs.

St. Cecilia Cathedral (Omaha) United States historic place

St. Cecilia Cathedral is the cathedral church of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Omaha. Located at 701 North 40th Street in the Gold Coast Historic District, the Cathedral was ranked as one of the ten largest in the United States when it was completed in 1959. It is also listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Wolfgang Friedrich Rübsam is a German-American organist, pianist, composer and pedagogue.

Royal Albert Hall Organ

The Grand Organ situated in the Royal Albert Hall in London is the second largest pipe organ in the United Kingdom. It was originally built by Henry "Father" Willis and most recently rebuilt by Mander Organs, having 147 stops and, since the 2004 restoration, 9,999 pipes.

Organ console musical instrument part

The pipe organ is played from an area called the console or keydesk, which holds the manuals (keyboards), pedals, and stop controls. In electric-action organs, the console is often movable. This allows for greater flexibility in placement of the console for various activities. Some very large organs, such as the van den Heuvel organ at the Church of St. Eustache in Paris, have more than one console, enabling the organ to be played from several locations depending on the nature of the performance.

Registration is the technique of choosing and combining the stops of a pipe organ in order to produce a particular sound. Registration can also refer to a particular combination of stops, which may be recalled through combination action. The registration chosen for a particular piece will be determined by a number of factors, including the composer's indications, the time and place in which the piece was composed, the organ the piece is played upon, and the acoustic in which the organ resides.

Pipe organs that are tuned in meantone temperament are very rare in North America. They are listed here, by type of temperament and sorted by date of construction. North America is defined here as Canada, the United States of America and Mexico. All instruments listed are playable but unplayable instruments may be added with a note.

Manuel J. Rosales, Jr., is an American organ builder whose instruments display a strong synthesis of romantic and contemporary styles. His workshop has built over 30 pipe organs with his notable output including collaborations on the instruments at Walt Disney Concert Hall and Rice University.

Church of Reinhardtsgrimma Church in Saxony, Germany

The Church of Reinhardtsgrimma is a Lutheran parish church in Reinhardtsgrimma, a part of Glashütte in Sächsische Schweiz-Osterzgebirge in Saxony, Germany, which features an organ by Gottfried Silbermann.

Organ of St. Pankratius in Hamburg-Neuenfelde

The organ of the St. Pankratius in Hamburg-Neuenfelde was built in 1688 by Arp Schnitger, and is his largest two-manual organ. The instrument has 34 stops, of which about half are original. Neuenfelde itself belongs to the Altes Land and was incorporated to Hamburg in 1937.

References

  1. ↑ Houston Chronicle
  2. ↑ Kevin Vogt, Music Director, St. Michael the Archangel Catholic Parish
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.