Books › Ayars, Contributions to the Art of Music in America by the Music Industries of Boston (1937) — the Squier, Farley, Rettberg, Rockwell and Elias Howe matter, 1937 › scan 198
Scan 198
Ayars, Contributions to the Art of Music in America by the Music Industries of Boston (1937) — the Squier, Farley, Rettberg, Rockwell and Elias Howe matter, 1937
15 lines. Read by computer on 27 September 2026. Printed page 172. See the scan on archive.org.
A town on its own line is one of the directory's headings. That is where the town on a maker's page comes from.
1Mechanical Movements, eleven, two of which are pedals operating stops of the Great Organ. The summary of pipes in this organ is not large, the total being only 2,300. And this is owing to the fact that the organ contains only nine ranks of mixture and one Twelfth. Nor are the reeds numerous. There are: Great, one; Swell, two; Solo, two, one a 'free reed'; Pedale, one. As usual in the Hooks' organs the tone is delightful. The symmetrical adjustment of the power and qualities of tone in the several departments of the instrument is most admirable. The full organ is grand, dignified, sombre enough yet brilliant and clear. Every one of the solo stops is a gem in its way. The Melodia is a well-known 'specialty' of the Hooks. The Clarinet is pronounced perfect. The sweet Dulciana in the solo organ is soft enough to accompany the softest possible solo in the Swell. And then the comfortable and agreeable pneumatic action! And the pneumatic couplers place the instrument under easy control of the player. With combinations prepared the player can place his hands on the keys of the Great organ and control nine distinct degrees of power without removing his hands from the keys or operating the swell pedal." 13
3Henry W. Bowen was superintendent of Hook & Hastings Company when this firm built one of the three organs for the Philadelphia Centennial in 1876 and the Cincinnati Music Hall organ.
5The Cincinnati Music Hall organ
6built in 1880. This was considered in 1897 one of the largest and finest organs on this continent. It had 4 manuals, 98 speaking, and 26 mechanical stops, 19 pedal movements, 36 piston combinations, 110 tonal stops and 6237 pipes, or about 1000 more than the Boston Music Hall organ. The largest pipe was 32 feet and the shortest half an inch in length. It also contained carillons, a feature not frequent although found in several European instruments.14 It was listed in 1897 as the eighteenth of the 22 largest organs in the world. Dean wrote of it in 1901 "The organ in the Cincinnati Music Hall is one of the largest in the country, and, although it was built twenty years ago, it has no superiors in tonal quality." 15
8Some of their notable modern organs are located as follows:
9BOSTON
10CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF SAINT PAUL.
1213 Dwight's Journal of Music, Vol. 28, No. 2, April 11, 1868 p. 220, "Organs in Chicago" by Der Freyschutz.
1314 Lahee, Henry C. "Organs and Organ Building in New England." New England Magazine, December 1897 p. 501.
1415 Dean, Frederick. "American Organs and Organists." Junior Munsey. November 1901 p. 256.
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