The Auditorium Organ
(Organ Specifications)
Notes by Thomas Brown

The Auditorium organ was built by the Aeolian-Skinner Organ Company of Boston, Massachusetts. Immediately after its installation in 1959, the organ became – and remains – perhaps the most important example of the company’s work from the period. The commanding display of exposed Great, Positiv, and Pedal pipework forms the visual centerpiece of the massive conference chamber which seats nearly 5,800 people. The main organ is framed by nineteen acoustical clouds suspended above and in front of it, and by choir seating and the large rostrum beneath it. The entire room is covered by a huge dome, culminating in an oculus rising some 100 feet above the floor.

G. Donald Harrison, President and Tonal Director of Aeolian-Skinner and one of the twentieth century’s most influential organ builders, was responsible for the organ’s initial design and specification in the mid-1950s. Following Mr. Harrison’s untimely death in 1956, Joseph Whiteford was appointed Tonal Director and, in collaboration with consultants Catharine Crozier and Harold Gleason, finalized the design and formulated the organ’s pipe scales.

The Auditorium organ is a superb example of the "American Classic Organ," a concept and design developed by Aeolian-Skinner that mingles the colors and textures of both German and French organs from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries with twentieth-century voices developed or adapted by the builder. This scheme was conceived to allow the performance of a wide body of the organ literature.

The organ’s tonal foundation is based on a 32’ Principal, a stop that speaks nearly an octave below the lowest note on the piano and provides a tremendous gravity to the organ’s ensemble. In reality, the longest pipe in this stop is nearly forty feet long and stands in the center left "tower" of the façade. In contrast, the smallest pipe is about the size of a lead pencil and speaks nine octaves higher. The entire organ is played from an elegant, solid walnut four-manual console located on a platform just above the rostrum.

An antiphonal organ of three divisions is located at the opposite end of the conference chamber. It may be played from its own two-manual console in the rear balcony as well as from the main console. A dramatic feature of the Auditorium organ is the Trompette en chamade, a bold voice of horizontal trumpets mounted atop the antiphonal organ.

Several ranks have been judiciously added to the organ over the years to increase its flexibility and scope. These stops were designed, made, and voiced in Aeolian-Skinner style, in some cases by former Aeolian-Skinner employees. The instrument now employs solid-state relays and combination action, and utilizes a MIDI system, which includes a digital record/playback system, allowing a performance to be recorded and immediately played back exactly as performed.

This noble organ contains nine divisions, 113 ranks and 6,334 pipes.

The Temple Organ
(Organ Specifications)
Notes by Thomas Brown

The Community of Christ Temple is home to a remarkable organ built by the Canadian firm of Casavant Frères Limitée, of St.-Hyacinthe, Quebec. Built in 1992 and installed in the early months of 1993, the Casavant organ contains four manuals, 60 stops, 102 ranks, and is the result of more than 20,000 hours of planning and building. The 5,685 pipes are distributed on three levels behind the façade in an organ case that is fifty feet high, forty feet wide, and eight feet deep. The organ’s many pipes are made of a variety of materials, including polished tin, lacquered zinc, a mixture of tin and lead that forms "spotted metal," and polished copper, used for the Trompette en chamade, which extends horizontally from the case.

Jean-Louis Coignet, Tonal Director of Casavant Frères and Organ Expert to the city of Paris, France, designed the instrument, which combines classical French principles with modern technology. The organ utilizes mechanical action for the Grand Orgue, Positif, and Récit divisions, and electropneumatic action for the fourth keyboard, the Résonance. The organ’s Résonance division is most unusual in the United States and takes its inspiration from the work of an early French monk organ builder, Brother Isnard, who built the first such division in St. Maximan, France, in 1772. The Temple Résonance expands selected pedal stops to manual compass and adds great power and complexity to the organ’s ensemble.

As with the Auditorium organ, the foundation of the Temple organ is built upon the 32’ Principal. The longest pipe in this rank, speaking at only 16 cycles per second and standing nearly 40’ tall, may be seen at the extreme right in the organ’s façade. The smallest pipe has a speaking length of only ¼ inch.

The organ’s nomenclature is predominately French in recognition of the instrument’s basic tonal orientation. Although the organ boasts a variety of classical stops, it is a decidedly Romantic organ whose sound envelops the listener.

The Temple is a spectacular venue for the organ, for music, and for worship. The organ’s façade was designed by Jean-Claude Gauthier to be purposefully understated so that it might contribute to the serenity of the Temple interior. The Temple sanctuary, which accommodates about 1,600 people, has an internal volume of one million cubic feet. The room’s shape and its spiral, which ascends to 195 feet above the floor, contribute to an extraordinary acoustic with four seconds’ reverberation, providing bloom and grandeur to the organ tone and music, and drama to the spoken word.

The Casavant organ is a fitting complement to the Auditorium organ. "Without question," wrote former Kansas City Star music critic Scott Cantrell, "it is one of the most glorious organs in North America."