The organ shop of Paul Fritts & Company Organ Builders in Tacoma
Paul Fritts is an American organ builder based in Tacoma, Washington, who, following historical models, has created over thirty mechanical action instruments that have contributed to the revival of historically informed organ music. The Murdy organ at Basilica of the Sacred Heart (Notre Dame) in Notre Dame, Indiana is his largest Fritts instrument to date, with four manuals (keyboards) and 70 stops. Other recent Fritts instruments of note are located at the University of Notre Dame (2 man. 34 st.), Princeton Theological Seminary (2 man. 39), and Pacific Lutheran University (3 man. 54 st.). The organ at PLU was the largest Fritts organ built before the organ in Columbus.
Several of the most notable American performers have recorded on Fritts organs, among them William Porter, Craig Cramer, Christa Rakich, and Robert Bates. In addition, the renowned German scholar and performer Harald Vogel has recorded on the Fritts organ at the Episcopal Church of the Ascension in Seattle (Op. 19).
Fritts is part of a larger movement of organ builders who, in the wake of the Organ Reform Movement, have sought to apply historical organ building principles in crafting modern instruments. This movement does not seek to copy historical instruments, but in some sense be "apprenticed to them." That is, Fritts builds Fritts organs, not Arp Schnitger organs, although the influence of the latter can scarcely be denied. Other builders in this movement include John Brombaugh, Richards, Fowkes & Co., Taylor & Boody, Charles Fisk, and Fritz Noack.
Bibliography
Whitney, Craig R. All the Stops: The Glorious Pipe Organ and Its American Masters. (Public Affairs 2003).
Aristide Cavaillé-Coll was a French organ builder. He has the reputation of being the most distinguished organ builder of the 19th century. He pioneered innovations in the art and science of organ building that permeated the profession and influenced the course of organ building, composing and improvising through the early 20th century. As the author of scientific journal articles about the organ construction details, he published the results of his research and experiments. He was the inventor of the symphonic organ being able to follow smooth and immediate dynamic changes like a symphonic orchestra. This goal was reached by: a) invention of harmonic flue and reed stops, such as the ''flûte harmonique'', ''trompette harmonique'', ''clairon harmonique'', b) invention of divided windchest with 2-3 different wind pressure sections, c) creation of groups of stops allowing for fast dynamics changes without taking hands out of the keyboards by the organist, d) organ specification planning on the base of ''orchestral quartet". His most famous organs were built in Paris in Saint-Denis Basilica (1841), Église de la Madeleine, Sainte-Clotilde Basilica (1859), Saint-Sulpice church, Notre-Dame Cathedral, baron Albert de L'Espée's residence in Biarritz, and many others. After Cavaillé-Coll's death, Charles Mutin maintained the business into the beginning of the 20th century. The organ reform movement in the 20th century sought to return organ building to a more Baroque style; but since then, Cavaillé-Coll's designs have come back into fashion.
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.
St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral in Seattle, Washington, is the seat of the bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Olympia. St. Mark's was founded as a mission church of Trinity Parish Church.
Casavant Frères is a Canadian organ building company in Saint-Hyacinthe, Quebec, which has been building pipe organs since 1879. As of 2014, the company has produced more than 3,900 organs.
Ernest Martin Skinner was an American pipe organ builder. His electro-pneumatic switching systems advanced the technology of organ building in the first part of the 20th century.
The Notre-Dame Cathedral Basilica is a Roman Catholic minor basilica in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada located on 385 Sussex Drive in the Lower Town neighbourhood. It was designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 1990.
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 in Hagerstown. until 1992, with hundreds of employees at its peak and a lifetime production of over 12,000 instruments.
The Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Notre Dame, Indiana, is a Catholic church on the campus of the University of Notre Dame, also serving as the mother church of the Congregation of Holy Cross (C.S.C.) in the United States. The neo-gothic church has 44 large stained glass windows and murals completed over a 17-year period by the Vatican painter Luigi Gregori. The basilica bell tower is 230 feet (70 m) high, making it the tallest university chapel in America. It is a contributing building in Notre Dame's historic district listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The basilica is a major tourist attraction in Northern Indiana, and is visited annually by more than 100,000 tourists.
John Burlin Brombaugh is an American pipe organ builder known for his historically oriented tracker action pipe organs.
Austin Organs, Inc., is a manufacturer of pipe organs based in Hartford, Connecticut. The company is one of the oldest continuously-operating organ manufacturers in the United States. The first instruments were built in 1893 with the Austin Patent Airchest, and many remain in fine playing condition to this day.
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.
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.
Rudolf von Beckerath was a German master organ builder. He was born in Munich, to the painter Willy von Beckerath, but grew up in Hamburg, where his family moved the year he was born. He initially pursued an interest in mechanical engineering. After encountering the quality of northern German pipe organs, particularly that of master builder Arp Schnitger, von Beckerath's interest shifted. He trained as a cabinet maker at the art school in Hamburg, while studying the fundamentals of organ building on his own. In the cellar of his parents' home, he built a small house-organ, which was heard in a radio broadcast from the house and in concerts there.
Georges Paul Aimé Danion was a French organ builder.
Olympic Organ Builders was an importer and custom fabricator of tracker action pipe organs in Seattle, Washington from 1962 through the 1970s. The company built approximately 25 organs for churches and schools located the Puget Sound and Eugene Oregon in the period from 1967 through 1970.
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.
David P. Dahl is an American professor, composer, pedagogue, organist, church musician, organ clinician, and advisor. He is also one of the founders of Olympic Organ Builders.
A swallow's nest organ is a form of pipe organ which takes its name from its resemblance to the nests built by swallows. Rather than placed on a gallery or on the floor, the swallow's nest organ case sits on a platform suspended on a wall, with the wall as its sole support. In some churches it was wedged into the triforium. In swallow's nest organs from the Renaissance period, the base of the suspended platform, called a tribuna, typically tapered into a point. There is generally only room in a swallow's nest for one person, the organist, who accesses it by a ladder or from a staircase concealed behind the wall.
Hinners Organ Company was an American manufacturer of reed and pipe organs located in Pekin, Illinois. Established in 1879 by German-American John Hinners, the firm grew through several partners, becoming Hinners & Fink in 1881, Hinners & Albertsen in 1886, and Hinners Organ Company in 1902. In the 1920s Hinners established a subsidiary, the Illinois Organ Supply Company, which mass-produced parts for Hinners and other firms. Business declined in the 1930s due to the Great Depression, changing technology, and increasing competition. Hinners became a service company in 1936 and closed in 1942.
The Marie P. DeBartolo Performing Arts Center (DPAC) is a performing arts venue located on the south end of the University of Notre Dame campus and open to the South Bend, Indiana, and wider community. The 150,000 square foot facility, which opened in September 2004, was financed in large part by a gift from Edward J. DeBartolo Sr., and the building was named in honor of his wife. The current executive director of the facility is Ted Barron. In addition to performance spaces, the building also contains offices, teaching spaces, and production facilities for Notre Dame's Department of Film, Television, and Theatre, as well as for the Department of Music, the Department of Sacred Music, and the Shakespeare at Notre Dame program.
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