9 Concert Hall Organs

A basic question one must ask is: Is it necessary to have an organ in a concert hall? The answer is yes—absolutely yes. Because without an organ you don’t have a real concert hall. You cannot perform the large orchestra-organ literature, you lose the possibility of many choral works, as well as the solo literature.

These words, spoken by Biggs in an address before the New York chapter of the American Guild of Organists on June 7, 1976 could have been uttered at almost any point in his career. Commitment to the organ as a concert instrument meant commitment to the cause of concert-hall organs—a cause that Biggs promoted throughout his entire professional life with the zeal of an evangelist.

In the course of the same talk, Biggs recalled the first true concert-hall organ on which he had had direct influence. In 1936 the Boston Symphony began giving summer concerts in the Berkshire Hills of western Massachusetts, and in 1938 it found a permanent summer residence at Tanglewood, near Lenox. Serge Koussevitzky, then the orchestra’s conductor, had a deep interest in the education of young musicians, and in 1940 the activities at Tanglewood were expanded to include the Berkshire Music Center, where young musicians could study and perform under the guidance of Koussevitzky and the leading players in his orchestra. The focal point of the Berkshire Music Center is a building bearing the somewhat ungracious title of The Music Shed. That is what it is, however—a large wooden shed with a stage, acoustically designed to project sound, and open at one side to face a partially open-air audience. Senator Emerson Richards, in an article in the October 1940 issue of The American Organist, provided a colorful (but accurate) description of it:

Architecturally it appears to have been the offspring of a clandestine affair between the Oberammergau Festival Hall and Yankee Stadium. Structurally it consists of a vast fan-like roof of wood and steel; nothing more. The floor is the good Berkshire earth, and the side walls the chill night air of the encircling hills. Serried rows of metal chairs complete the discomfort. The normal capacity is seven thousand but another three thousand can be seated out under the stars, or more usually in the rain.

On the other hand, as G. Donald Harrison observed, it was “quite a remarkable place for sound.”

Biggs recalled that during the 1939 Tanglewood season, the orchestra attempted the Saint-Saëns “Organ” Symphony with the aid of only an “electronic device”—the lowly and ubiquitous Hammond. (“Not then being with the orchestra, I did not play it,” Biggs hastened to add.) Koussevitzky was patently displeased with the result. Immediately afterward he announced to the trustees that he was planning Bach’s Mass in B minor for the following summer, “and for that I must have an organ.” The trustees knew from long experience that if Koussevitzky wanted something, they would have to find some way of getting it. Shortly afterward, George Judd, the orchestra’s manager, contacted Biggs with the request that he take Koussevitzky to the Germanic Museum to have a look at the organ there.

This I did in my Model A Ford, recently acquired from a college student for $75.00. I think Dr. Koussevitzky quite enjoyed the ride, but I know he enjoyed the organ, for, after hearing a little music, he came up the stairs and said, “Fine—send it all up to Tanglewood.” Well, it was explained to him that this was not the organ for him, but that a similar one could be readily designed for Tanglewood.

With little further ado, apparently, the trustees secured a grant from the Carnegie Foundation, and Biggs was soon collaborating on a specification with G. Donald Harrison of the Aeolian-Skinner Company. A contract was signed in March 1940 for the firm’s Opus 1002, and construction was begun immediately, since completion had been promised in time for the coming summer’s concerts. The organ was finished in record time and was first used on July 8. On the 16th and 31st it was featured in solo recitals played by Biggs, and on August 15 it was used to accompany the B minor Mass, as Koussevitzky had desired.

The organ was situated horizontally in open-fronted boxes over the orchestra stage; during the winter heavy shutters covered the enclosures to protect the organ from the weather. The influence of the Germanic Museum organ is evident in the stoplist and scaling of the organ, but there were important differences. The Museum organ, because of its location in a live, intimate room, could be voiced fairly gently and still be effective. Although the Music Shed organ also occupied an advantageous acoustical location, it had to be voiced more strongly and fundamentally in order to serve as a suitable foil to the orchestra and be heard by a large outdoor audience. For this reason, the Tanglewood organ spoke on 3 1/2 inches of wind pressure, an inch more than the Museum organ. The only other significant differences were the addition of four enclosed stops to the otherwise unexpressive Positiv division and the provision of a lone 32’ low C pipe for use in Strauss’s Thus Spake Zarathustra. As Biggs was later to observe to Charles Fisk, nearly all the big organ/orchestra pieces, including the Strauss and Saint-Saëns, are in the key of C.

Senator Richards, in his pithy account of the Tanglewood organ, offered some erudite observations that suggest that in some respects this knowledgable and well-traveled amateur may have been a few steps ahead of even Biggs and Harrison in his understanding of the classical organ. He decried the lack of a tremulant, not because of the requirements of Romantic music, but because he was aware that the organs of Bach’s time had them. He would also have liked a stronger 16’ reed stop, more mixtures, and a 2’ Blockflote in the Pedal division. On the other hand, he also favored a few more enclosed stops, including a Celeste. It is possible that the organ’s designers would also have welcomed such additions but were restricted by finances.

But Richards’s criticisms were, on the whole, minor. Both the Museum organ and the Tanglewood instrument had impressed him favorably, and he felt that with the latter “another step had been taken in the revolution of organ design.” He also observed that the non-organists were more likely than the organists to be in sympathy with the new trends:

One of the most interesting, if somewhat ironical, results comes from the fact that [the organ] has not yet made nearly so great an impression upon organists as it has upon musicians not generally considered as interested in this vehicle of musical expression. This seemed to be particularly true of the musiccritics. . . . It is likewise interesting to note the reaction of the men in the orchestra itself. These reactions ranged from expressions of approval and interest in the rendition of classic organ literature, to particular reminiscences concerning the similarity of the ensemble to that of well-known Continental organs with which they were familiar.

The builder’s own evaluation of the Tanglewood instrument is revealing. In a letter to William King Covell in October 1940, Harrison wrote,

All in all, I think the Tanglewood organ is one of the most successful instruments we have built, and it is surprising how large it sounds in that enormous partly-open-air auditorium. . . . I have yet to discover a person who had any criticism of this particular organ. In my opinion it is a far finer organ than the Germanic.

Commenting on an appreciative letter received from the rather conservative “Doc” Davison, organist and choirmaster of Harvard Chapel, Harrison noted with satisfaction, “it shows he must really have been impressed.”

Biggs, of course, had plans for the organ. He was now the official Boston Symphony organist, and he and Peggy spent part of each summer at the pleasant little Appletree Cottage at Tanglewood, where no season passed without the organ being used with the orchestra or chorus. In 1946, alarmed at the cancellation of some planned major works for organ and orchestra, Biggs sent Aaron Copland (who had assumed some of the administrative duties) some ideas for revitalizing the role of the organ at Tanglewood: greater involvement of students who were organists, a series of Sunday evening organ recitals, and the inclusion of organ works in the traditional “Bach week” and “Mozart week” repertoire. As long as Biggs was involved with it, there would be organ music at Tanglewood. Unfortunately, this tradition has not been well upheld in the years since Biggs relinquished his post with the orchestra.

In early 1947 Biggs became involved, along with G. Wallace Woodworth of Harvard and Wallace Goodrich of New England Conservatory, in the planning of a more far-reaching project. The old Hutchings organ in Symphony Hall had been on borrowed time from a mechanical standpoint since before Biggs’s connection with the orchestra, and it was growing increasingly unreliable. A note from Biggs to the organ tuners dating from around this period listed some of the problems a performer had to face: unreliable combination pistons, stops that would not operate on the crescendo pedal, stops that would not operate at all, and a certain note that would “not speak unless [the] cable is jiggled.”

At first George Judd, the orchestra’s manager, and Henry Cabot, one of the trustees, thrashed around rather unproductively on their own. Before soliciting the advice of Biggs and Harrison, they considered in turn the proposed donation of a second-hand residence organ and a rebuilding proposal from an obscure Chicago firm. In a letter dated January 15, 1947, Harrison reported to Judd with regard to the Hutchings organ:

Much of the pipework is still in an excellent state of preservation, and can certainly be rehabilitated. On the other hand, a great deal of the mechanical equipment is obsolete, and must be entirely replaced. You have known for some time that a new console and combination action is necessary, and the blowing apparatus in the basement is also of an obsolete pattern.

He also made note of the extreme sluggishness of the key action and other problems facing the performer, concluding that since a thorough rebuilding would cost about 75 percent of the price of an entirely new organ, he would recommend acquiring a new organ. A relatively restrained three-manual scheme (with two “floating” divisions) was included with the letter.

Biggs endorsed Harrison’s proposal wholeheartedly, adding some observations of his own on tonal matters:

We know far more today about the musical requirements of an instrument in Symphony Hall than the Hutchings company could know in 1900. In certain respects the voicing is wrong, and many of the present stops are thick and heavy in tone, and are not useful in either solo or orchestral playing. It is often impossible to find soft but bright stops to accompany the B minor Mass and other choral works, and Dr. Koussevitzky invariably finds much fault with the organ on these occasions, criticism that is never directed to the Tanglewood organ. At the other end of the tonal scheme, the organ does not have the climax necessary for works such as the Saint-Saëns Symphony or Zarathustra. We surely should revise the tonal scheme according to our needs, for though the action might be improved by new chests, the tonal scheme would not be satisfactory if left as is.

It should be noted that Harrison’s proposed scheme already included the seemingly obligatory 32’ low C for Zarathustra!

Biggs began to work out recommendations for a final specification with Woodworth and Goodrich. Koussevitzky muddied the waters a bit with an unexpected request for reduction in size. Biggs defended his originally proposed 32’ Pedal reed stop and interposed the practical suggestion that the console should have three manuals instead of four, so that it would be easier for the organist to see over it. Goodrich, who had previously been Symphony organist for twelve years, favored a heavy foundation and thought that the old Hutchings was fairly adequate tonally as it stood. He was concerned that “our good friend Harrison, whom I admire tremendously, is rather prone to reduce the strength of the 8 ft. foundation stops.” Both Biggs and Woodworth disagreed with Goodrich on this point, but on most other matters, including the adding of a classical Positiv division, the use of “tracker touch,” and the avoidance of borrowed stops in the Pedal, the three advisors were basically in agreement. By the end of the summer they and Harrison were coming to grips with such details as whether the console should be on an elevator, whether the old case front should be altered, and what the pitch of the organ should be.

Finally, on September 27, 1948, the contract for Aeolian-Skinner’s Opus 1134 was signed. The final stoplist was not too different from the first one proposed. A number of ranks from the old Hutchings were re-used, and Biggs got his 32’ Pedal reed—a Contra Bombarde. During the year that the organ was in building, considerable interest was generated among the organ cognoscenti. Albert Schweitzer paid a visit to Boston and was taken to the workshop to see the instrument, where he autographed a piece of wood inside the console. No small part of the musical community’s interest in the organ had to do with the fact that its completion was to coincide with the bicentenary, in 1950, of the death of J. S. Bach. It was also to be featured at the national convention of the American Guild of Organists in the same year.

Completion of the instrument actually occurred in the fall of 1949, and it was inaugurated in a special concert on November 14, the proceeds of which were donated to Schweitzer’s African hospital. Charles Munch, a friend of Schweitzer’s and a fellow Alsatian, was the conductor, and Biggs was the featured soloist. In addition to solo works, the program included Haydn’s Organ Concerto in C major; Hindemith’s Concerto for organ, brass, and woodwinds; and Poulenc’s Concerto for organ, strings, and kettle drums.

Albert Schweitzer at the Germanic Museum, 1949

The concert was a standing-room-only success, and critical acclaim was high. Paul Stevens of the Boston Herald reported that “The playing of the Hindemith composition brought enthusiastic audience response, but it paled by comparison with the truly great ovation Biggs received by demonstrating his virtuosity in three succeeding Bach compositions.” Harold Rogers of the Christian Science Monitor thought the organ a bit loud, but praised the “tremendous power and brilliance” with which Biggs played a Bach Toccata. John William Riley of the Boston Daily Globe nominated the concert as the outstanding musical event of the season.

Thanks to the thoughtful planning of Biggs and Harrison, the Boston Symphony Hall organ was one of the most versatile concert hall organs in the country, and it was a model for subsequent instruments in other halls. In the Boston Symphony Orchestra program booklet, Biggs pointed out that all possible uses of the organ, including broadcasting and recording, were taken into account in the design process. The “classic” concept, the balanced chorus, and the full organ effect were mentioned, but so were the softer “Romantic” stops such as the Viola Pomposa. Biggs also noted that “no stops—for example the Hautbois or the Trumpet—aim to imitate their orchestral namesakes [for] it would be inappropriate and indeed folly to introduce imitative stops into any organ that shares a hall with an orchestra.” Indeed, how could the organ take its place among the other instruments if it did not maintain its own identity? While all stops must have individual character, “they merge their individualities into the full ensemble, which is, after all, an organ’s chief glory.”

Charles Munch, Biggs, and G. Donald Harrison at Symphony Hall, Boston, 1950

In 1976, more than a quarter century after the Symphony Hall organ was built, Biggs discussed concert hall organ design in general, and the Symphony Hall organ in particular, in a telephone conversation with the organ builder Charles Fisk, who noted down many of Biggs’s comments. Although his tastes in many things had changed by that time, Biggs felt that there were some basic things about concert hall organs that remained constant and ought not be ignored. He still found the Symphony Hall specification serviceable if it were stripped of some of its “characterless stops,” and he made special mention of the four-stop Bombarde division (reeds at 16’, 8’, and 4’, with a six-rank mixture), calling it “extremely good” and very useful. As to consoles, the detached and reversed type was best, and the use of mirrors was bad—“good visibility of the conductor” was important. An enclosed division was necessary, also as many combination pistons as possible, because “conductors never understand you aren’t flexible.” A crescendo pedal and a sforzando piston were likewise considered essential. The Symphony Hall organ had all these things, and by the time of his conversation with Fisk, Biggs had had ample experience in their use.

Throughout the rest of his tenure as official Boston Symphony organist, Biggs tried to have at least one major work involving the organ included in every season. After the introduction of the new instrument to the organ world at the 1950 American Guild of Organists convention, the local chapter, with the assistance and cooperation of Biggs, sponsored a regular series of Symphony Hall organ recitals. It ran for several years and featured a number of notable players, including, of course, Biggs.

Biggs’s involvement with concert hall organs—encouraging their procurement as well as advising on their design—by no means ended with the Symphony Hall instrument. Because Biggs played so many concerts with orchestras throughout the country, his advice was frequently asked, willingly given, and often taken. His zeal in this regard never slackened, and toward the end of his life he was outspokenly involved in the controversy surrounding an organ that had been donated to Carnegie Hall and refused.