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‘Booming, beaming waves of noise’

Igor Toronyi-Lalic

Wednesday, 10th September 2008

Igor Toronyi-Lalic looks back to the early 20th century when organs were in their heyday

At the turn of the century, the organ had become the ultimate symbol of sophistication, money and power. And for the American oligarchs, the new home range from the Aeolian music company became the most impressive way to complete the country residence.

Andrew Carnegie had one installed in 1900 and hired the organist Walter C. Gale to play to him every morning. Henry Clay Frick wanted an organ to accompany his meals, so had one erected opposite his dining room. And Horace E. Dodge ordered one for his yacht. When the boat went up in smoke and sank in 1926, Dodge bought another boat and another organ. By 1911, the New York Times reported that 300 New York mansion-owners had organs.

These extraordinary Twenties’ extravagances would be a final flourish, however. Changing tastes and the darkening economic times brought to an end this turn-of-the-century obsession, ushering in a period of neglect and dereliction. ‘Serious musicians gradually begin to have no regard at all for these huge concert organs,’ explains Ian Bell; ‘they begin to jeer at them, and revile them. So that with the arrival of the gramophone and the radio...the era was really over: these huge white elephants were left for dead.’

Today, the concert hall organ is slowly creeping back. The 1980s and 1990s saw abandoned instruments brought back to life, and the tradition of transcribing was renewed. Of course, the instrument won’t ever return to its former exalted position. Its dominance over modern life — its influence on culture and commerce, on the popular and the classical — has disappeared: its musical crown has gone. But what remains from that golden age is undeniably impressive: a troupe of 19th- and 20th-century giants, musical monuments to the industrial revolution, whose sounds will ensure that they are unlikely to be forgotten.

As part of the Messiaen Festival there are organ recitals at the Brompton Oratory, London, on 6 October (Charles Cole), 13 October (John McGreal), 20 October (Patrick Russill) and 27 October (David Titterington); and at St Paul’s Cathedral on 7 December (Huw Williams). The Royal Albert Hall has recitals on 21 October (Cameron Carpenter) and 22 October (John Scott).