Scott Dettra Plays for the 2024 East Texas Pipe Organ Festival at Christ Church Cathedral, Houston скачать в хорошем качестве

Scott Dettra Plays for the 2024 East Texas Pipe Organ Festival at Christ Church Cathedral, Houston

The East Texas Pipe Organ Festival presented one of our favorite organists in the opening recital for our 2024 festival in Houston, Texas on the much-revised 1938 Aeolian-Skinner at Christ Church Cathedral, Houston. For historical purposes, we include the following note by Roy Perry concerning the organ: Christ Church Cathedral, Houston By Roy Perry 1958 Christ Church is in the vaguely Gothic style that was employed 50 or 60 years ago for the construction of churches, jails, and warehouses: and although it is not lacking in charm, the building is most unkind to music of any sort. Choir and organ are separated from the nave by a handsome but practically impenetrable screen, and whatever sound survives is cruelly muffled and distorted by a wall-to-wall carpet. Built to the specifications of Edward B. Gammons, the organ was scaled and voiced in what might be called the early Harrison manner, so successfully carried out at the Church of the Advent, Boston, and the Groton School Chapel. These Aeolian-Skinner organs of the thirties are generously complete in all departments, and are characterized by gently blown, very cohesive ensembles, eminently satisfying under normal acoustical conditions. In 1955, Jack Ossewaarde asked Mr. Harrison if some tonal revision could be made in the organ to compensate for acoustical difficulties, and the writer was assigned to this work. It seemed undesirable to risk swamping the choir by making the organ louder, but we found that we could intensify the color a great deal, without raising the general strength, by employing a changed relationship between the foothole and the flue (this was simply in line with Mr. Harrison’s later voicing techniques), and the organ was refinished along these lines. The original English reeds were replaced with reeds of French type, of the same strength, but more intense in color. The results of this renovation were gratifying, but the acoustical problem remains. The Aeolian-Skinner Company has asked permission to make a temporary installation of its electronic acoustical apparatus for the AGO convention, and it is hoped that this will allow the full beauty of the organ to be heard in the cathedral.