Hanover church organ gets extensive $1.3 million restoration

A chamber of organ pipes inside the top left part of the St. Matthew Lutheran Church s chancel. The pipe organ, which has 14,341 pipes, is currently being upgraded by Hartford, Conn. s Austin Organ Company. (THE EVENING SUN - SHANE DUNLAP)

There are dozens and dozens of programs tacked to the wall of Scott G. Fredericks' basement office at St. Matthew Lutheran Church, reminders of the musical concerts that have taken place at the Hanover church through the years.

There is the program from February 1925 when world-renowned organist Marcel Dupre came to play the church's newly dedicated Austin pipe organ. And there is one from the guest appearance of London's Westminster Abbey organist Simon Preston.

But Fredericks has had to limit those concerts over the past couple years as the church's inspiring Austin organ began to noticeably deteriorate. The church stopped inviting guest organists in to play there and this year has cancelled its popular three-day Christmas

Apprentice organ engineer Austin Herzog works inside the St. Matthew Lutheran Church s string pipe chamber last week. (THE EVENING SUN - SHANE DUNLAP)

concert series, which Fredericks puts on annually.

"If I had you in to play, if you were an organist traveling, it would be really embarrassing for you because you'd pick literature not realizing half the stuff you needed wasn't going to work here. It puts you in an embarrassing position. It would sound like you didn't know what you were doing because the instrument wasn't cooperating," said Fredericks, the minister of music for St. Matthew.

And with an extensive $1.3 million restoration of the organ underway, it may be a couple more years before the church has full use of the mammoth instrument.

But patience is a virtue as the saying goes, and church leaders know that the end result will be worth the wait. They expect the organ,

once restored, to sound better than ever.

"Everything will be very quiet. All the changes, you won't hear the mechanical noises. It will give the organists much more flexibility with manuevuring the sounds," Fredericks said. "I think people will be eager to come back and try it once it's rededicated as a concert instrument."

But before that can happen, there is a tedious, and expensive, restoration process to be done.

Workers from Austin Organ Inc. in Connecticut have been at the church off and on over the past six months combing through the cramped back-room chambers to remove groups of the more than 14,300 wooden and metal pipes.

Through the years, there has been water damage to some of those pipes and some of the housing, while others pipes have collapsed in on themselves. There is also the original electrical wiring dating back to the 1920s and a redesigned control console that will be replaced.

"Some sounds haven't worked for years," Fredericks said. "They've taken out thousands of pipes above the chancel. It's a long process when you've got 14,000 pipes to do."

The pipes range in size, from 32-foot long metal pieces weighting 400 pounds that will need to be cut in order to be removed, to some the size of a pencil. Most of the 14,300 pipes are being removed and taken to Connecticut for cleaning, repair and refurbishing, a process that will last into 2014.

"The Austins are pretty rugged. I'm surprised at how good a shape it is in for its age," said Arthur Herzog, an apprentice organ builder who was working on site last week and covered with "80 years of dust."

Even when those pipes are restored to the proper places and rewired, and the new console installed, it will take months to adjust the "color" of each pipe to get the range of sound just right.

"Once it's all cleaned and rebuilt then they'll come back in, with a quiet room, they'll spend months going through all 14,000 some pipes to get them to be all equal in balance

St. Matthew Lutheran Church s Minister of Music, Scott Fredericks, left, talks with apprentice organ engineer Arthur Herzog while above the swell pipe chamber of the church s organ. (THE EVENING SUN - SHANE DUNLAP)

with each other and the room," Fredericks said.

Church leaders recognized several years ago the need to refurbish the organ. As early as 2005, Fredericks began visiting churches on the East Coast that had restorations done on similar sized organs to see the workmanship of different companies.

"I needed to started doing homework about five years ago when we started to see the instrument wear out and we knew we were going to be facing some major repairs," he said. "It's a long commitment when you get into one of these things. It's years of work so you want dependable people and people you can work with."

Church leaders interviewed six organ-restoration companies and choose Austin Organ Inc., which happens to be the makers of the

Arthur Herzog works underneath a section of organ pipes at St. Matthew Lutheran Church last week. (THE EVENING SUN - SHANE DUNLAP)

original instrument, designed and built specifically for the West Chestnut Street church.

"They know the instrument better than anyone else," Fredericks said.

The St. Matthew Austin organ is the eighth-largest pipe organ in the world, with 14,341 pipes and 231 stops/instruments that combine to allow for more than a million possible sounds. It has been played by some of the top organists in the world and is one of the leading attractions in Hanover.

It's also been an integral part of St. Matthew Lutheran since the congregation moved into its current house of worship in 1924.

"The organ has played a role in their lives," Fredericks said. "The music has been a constant in their lives."

Since the restoration work is being done in sections, Fredericks and associate minister of music Karen Buckwalter have been able to continue that tradition, using the remaining functions to accompany the various choirs and choruses and for Sunday services.

"They're trying to keep it so that I can use something all the time," said Fredericks, who has been at St. Matthew since 1980. "When they disconnect one section they'll connect another so that there is always something. We know what to play that still works."

There will be a few days, while the new console is installed, when the organ will be silent. But the new console, which Fredericks has designed with future organists in mind, will be the heart of the instrument and essential to the expanded sounds.

"It's a whole new design to it, partly because technology allows you to do so many things that obviously you couldn't do in the 1920s," he said. "With the computerization, there's all different kids of possibilities now."

The congregation is coordinating its organ restoration work with other major improvements to the church, including the repointing of its stonework, replastering one of the organ pipe rooms and touching up some of the stained glass.

"The directors thought we might as well do the whole things since we've got the place a mess," Fredericks said.

Also, the church didn't want to stir up more dust with renovations after the organ was cleaned and restored, Fredericks said.

"Hopefully, once everything is done and cleaned up we'll be in good shape for a long time," Fredericks said.

But Fredericks is still not sure when that completion date will be.

"Maybe 2014, maybe," Fredericks said. "It's certainly several more years.

"It will still be used as a major concert instrument in the nation," he said.

Source: http://www.eveningsun.com/localnews/ci_21185233/hanover-church-organ-gets-extensive-1-3-million?source=rss_viewed

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