On the other side of a stout masonry wall, a sleepy town slowly became part of a great Midwestern city.  US 40 – known as the National Road or the Cumberland Road, became in this area Washington Street, extending directly from downtown Indianapolis.  Perhaps the little town was named Cumberland because it was built on the first major highway constructed entirely with federal funds, a highway that was begun in 1811 in Cumberland, Massachusetts.  As this vital thoroughfare widened, it crept closer and closer to the masonry wall that separated it from the small organ.

 

Inside the church, things changed, too.  Young faces appeared, aged over the decades, and passed from the scene.  The little organ participated in the important events in their lives – baptisms, communions, confirmations, weddings,  and funerals.  With martial music, it braced them for the stern duties of a World War, and then celebrated victory and peace.  It sounded notes of meditation, celebration, and grief.  It played countless Christmas carols and Easter Processionals.

 

When the organ was approaching middle age, the church was given a fresh look inside.  The display pipes and case front were removed and replaced with a more modern-looking lattice screen.  Its console (for some reason the organ could never understand) was removed from the front of the church and reinstalled in the balcony at the extreme back of the sanctuary, a place from which the pipes were barely audible.

 

Even the church affiliation changed when the German Evangelical Church united with other denominations to form the United Church of Christ.  Still, the church’s German roots remained apparent in the names of many of its members, the headstones in the church graveyard, and even the cross-street on which it was situated – German Church Road.

 

Inside the dark pipe chamber, the process of aging took its toll.  Leather membranes deteriorated.  Water leaked in despite efforts to prevent it.  Dust and fallen plaster settled on pipes and mechanisms. 

 

Still, the old organ soldiered on.  Choked with dust, its already dusky voice grew thicker and darker, and many of its pipes finally failed to speak altogether.

 

But the church is a place of rebirth, and in 2009, the organ at St. John Cumberland United Church of Christ began a new life, serving worshippers with new vitality and panache.

 

The original organ at St. John was built in 1936 by the Kilgen Organ Company of St. Louis.  Kilgen was a major builder of the early twentieth century, and is perhaps best-known for its splendid organ built in 1929 for St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City, an instrument that remains a masterpiece of American organ building.

 

At Cumberland, the Kilgen organ consisted of twelve ranks of organ pipes (see original specification), installed on two levels.  Typical of the work of Kilgen and many other builders of the day, the organ had an abundance of unison sound, but almost no ensemble.  The tone was generally dark and heavy, a problem made worse by the fact that the installation trapped sound in the chamber rather than projecting it.

 

Reynolds Associates had serviced this organ for a number of years, nursing it along until a major renovation project was possible.  Finally, in 2008, St. John was able to proceed, and a contract was signed with our firm to renovate the organ.

 

As organ conservators, we were interested in preserving significant tonal portions of the old organ.  This process served the needs of the congregation in several ways.  Virtually every dollar ever spent on the 1936 organ was preserved in the new instrument through the retention of several sets of pipes that would have been very costly to replace.  The history of the old organ – the marriage of sound with people – was preserved.  And, in a society that has come to value recycling as the “green” thing to do, preserving worthwhile elements of an older organ makes sense.  Pipes produced from wood sawn from forests a century ago, or minerals mined and refined in the days of our ancestors can continue to speak to generations to come.

 

From the old Cumberland organ, we were able to save several fine sets of Kilgen pipes.  These pipes were carefully removed and crated before the demolition of the old organ.  They were taken to our shop in Marion, IN, where the process of transformation began.

 

The first step was to thoroughly clean away the decades of dirt, dust, and oxidation.  In the case of the wooden pipes this was done by cleaning away the outer layer of the original lacquer finish, and then applying a fresh coat to seal and preserve the wood.

 

The process of cleaning the metal pipes is called “chelation” (kē lā’ shun).  The pipes are submerged in a bath of a diluted chemical similar to the Calgon many people use on washday.  This gently floats away dirt and oxidation from both the outsides and the insides of the pipes.  After this process the pipes are washed and rinsed, and then allowed to dry completely.

 

Following cleaning, the pipes are burnished to shine like new, and evaluated for repairs.  After this they go to the voicing studio.  Here, they are placed on a special windchest where their sound can be adjusted for the new organ.  The process of voicing involves techniques that are hundreds of years old.  The art of revoicing older work is perhaps more difficult than voicing new pipes because it requires understanding both the original sound of the pipes, and the sound that is intended in the new organ.

 

While this process was underway, additional new pipes for the organ were being constructed by our pipemaker in the Czech Republic.  These new pipes are not generic.  Every aspect of their construction was planned with the final sound of the new organ in mind, as well as consideration of how they would blend with the revoiced older pipes.  The final voicing of these new pipes also takes place in the voicing studio at our shop in Marion.

 

Meanwhile, new windchests have been under construction.  These chests, which hold the pipes and control the air flow to each note, are custom designed for each organ using computer aided design (CAD).  Our final plan drawings are then separated, and the parts are made using the computer controlled cutting system (CNC)in our shop.

 

Like all our instruments, the major components of the Cumberland organ, including windchests, reservoirs, expression system, and structural parts, were made of Finland birch plywood.   Unlike the usual construction-grade plywoods found at Lowes, Finland birch is made completely of thin, voidless birch plys.  Birch is an abundant and continuously-renewable hardwood resource that is prized for its consistency.  Its fine, dense grain makes it the material of choice for much of the furniture that comes from the north countries of Scandinavia and Russia.  Using this material allows us to control costs by doing most of our cutting on the CNC system.  Because of the dimensional stability and great strength of this material, our windchests are not subject to many of the weather issues that can be a problem in other kinds of chests.

 

The windchest has a tonal impact on the pipes themselves, and here the CNC cutting system and the birch plywood material offer a major advantage.  The table-top of the windchest is made up of the toeboards, and it is upon these that the pipes stand.   Our toeboards are 2 1/2” thick.  Each pipe is isolated from its valve by a special baffle channel.  This channel allows us to combine the speed, dependability, and ease of service of electromagnetic valves with the easy, unforced speech of pipes on a channeled chest.  The channels, valve holes, and toe holes are custom-cut in each layer of a  toeboard.  The layers are then assembled and glued in our large vacuum laminating press, which was designed and built by David Reynolds for our shop.  This press can deliver a theoretical pressure of 2,000 pounds per square foot – 64,000 pounds over a 4’ x 8’ sheet of materal!

 

During this time, the congregation of St. John was not idle.  The old organ chamber was completely remodeled.  Damaged plaster was removed and replaced with wood walls protected from the elements by a vapor barrier.  The open arch through which the new organ would speak was also remodeled, both for appearance, and to eliminate the sound trap that had so restricted the sound of the old organ.  Workers painted the chamber, improved the access hatch, and provided new electrical outlets.

 

Early in the project, we discussed replacing the dated-looking lattice in front of the organ chamber with exposed pipes.  Actually, exposing some of the largest functioning pipes made the chamber interior less cramped.  To contain costs, we were able to refinish some of the large zinc pipes from the Kilgen organ, and to create a layout that is visually harmonious with the church interior. 

 

An interesting feature of the organ’s visual appearance is the leaf lattice in the upper arch.  This lattice was designed in our shop and cut with our CNC router system.  Each of the four panels required 7,788 inches of linear cutting to complete the pattern!

 

Assembly in the church, which required several weeks, was finally completed in the early summer of 2009.   With the final voicing and regulation of the organ – done in place at the church – the new St. John Cumberland instrument is a versatile and seamless blend of old and new, ready to continue serving worshippers for many decades to come.

 

 

Here are some interesting facts about the St. John Cumberland organ.  There are now sixteen ranks of pipes in the new organ – 25% more than in the old.  Seven sets of pipes are new.  Nine of the original twelve Kilgen ranks remain.  The new organ contains an even 1,000 organ pipes, compared with 786 in the old organ.  For space reasons, 24 bass notes of the 16’ Gemshorn and the bottom 12 notes of the 16’ Trumpet are produced using special electronic tone generators.  The organ is controlled from a two-manual console by means of a state-of-the-art system that manages all the relay functions and can remember hundreds of stop combinations.  The organ can play MIDI instruments, can change keys at the press of a button, and can even play back selections that the organist records into the organ’s on-board memory.

To see the Specifications of the new and old organs, click HERE.