These sketches were published in the February 2016 issue of The Journal of the Association of Anglican Musicians.
For almost three years prior to June 2016 my local colleagues and I worked regularly as we prepared to host the 50th anniversary conference of the AAM held in Westchester County, New York, and Fairfield County, Connecticut. For this reason the conference became known as the Fair-Chester Conference.
One of my tasks was to prepare brief sketches on the conference venues and organs for the Journal, a very enjoyable job as there are many significant examples of each in the area, and part of the conference intent was to showcase the differing styles of architecture in which we worship and make music. Terry Byrd Eason was a featured conference personality as he took us through significant details at each venue.
As preparations and schedules emerged it was with regret that the committee had to cancel plans to visit the churches in New Canaan and Mt. Kisco but I’ve included details here of these architecturally significant churches.
Copyright 2016 © Neal Campbell
St. Barnabas Episcopal Church, Greenwich, CT
Established in the early 1950s St. Barnabas was admitted to the Diocese of Connecticut as a parish church in 1967, and was designed by Greenwich architect Philip Ives. Richards, Fowkes & Co. installed its Opus 1, there in 1991.
Richards, Fowkes & Co., Opus 1
St. John’s Lutheran Church, Stamford, CT
The original St. John’s Lutheran Church was formed in the mid-19th century by Swedish immigrants who moved into the area from Bridgeport. The present building, inspired by the New England meeting house style, was built in 1954.
The organ was built by Richards, Fowkes & Co. in 1995
St. John’s Lutheran Church, Stamford. Richards, Fowkes & Co. organ
First Presbyterian Church, Stamford, CT
Known colloquially as the “Fish Church” because of its appearance in profile and floor plan, the First Presbyterian Church is generally considered to be one of the most significant ecclesiastical structures of the 20th Century. Designed by Wallace K. Harrison it was dedicated in 1958 and is unique in its combined use of precast concrete slabs together with thick faceted glass designed by Gabriel Loire of Chartres, France.
The organ is Visser-Rowland’s Opus 87. The carillon in the tower was built by Gillett & Johnston in 1947 and amended by Paccard in 1968.
The “Fish” Church, Stamford
St. John’s Episcopal Church, Stamford, CT
The parish traces its history to the pre-Revolutionary War era and originally included what is now Greenwich, Stamford, Darien, and New Canaan, and is the mother church of Anglicans in Fairfield County.
The present building, the third for the parish, was designed by noted Victorian Gothic architect William Potter who designed many churches in New York and academic buildings on the campus of Princeton University in the latter half of the 19th century.
The new church was opened for worship in 1891 and originally contained a Roosevelt organ. In 1917 Skinner installed its Opus 277 and it served the church until the 1960s when a new McManus organ was installed in the gallery. In 1990 the church installed the present organ, essentially a new instrument incorporating selected pipework from the previous organs. In an unusual arrangement, the church functioned as general contractor for the new organ and farmed out work according to its specifications, all under the direction of Craig Ferguson, chairman of the organ committee and vestryman of the parish. Tonal work was facilitated by Bruce Schultz and mechanical, engineering, and structural design was completed by the Foley-Baker.
In the late 1980s the church began plans to develop its property into an innovative design which came to be known as Canterbury Green, a mixed use complex consisting of apartments, retail stores, parking, pedestrian arcades, and a park-like garth surrounding the church, all of which was given the New York State Association of Architects Award in 1995.
Canterbury Green rising around St. John’s Church.
Chancel of St. John’s Church, Stamford
Christ Church, Greenwich, CT
Established as a parish in 1749, the present church building was built in 1910 to a design by local architect William F. Dominick. The noted parish Choir of Men and Boys was established in 1934 and has since been joined by the Choir of Girls, a mixed adult choir, a training choir, and a Compline Choir.
The church has recently undergone an extensive restoration. The large Austin organ was installed in 1976.
Christ Church, Greenwich
Christ Church, New Haven, CT
From 1895-98 Henry Vaughan directed the work of building the present Christ Church specifically for the purposes and needs of Anglo-Catholic worship, and it is considered to be a masterpiece of his style of parish church architecture.
With close ties to Yale University and the Institute of Sacred Music, the music of Christ Church attracted considerable attention under the leadership of our colleague Rob Lehman, and was among the first churches on college campuses to introduce Compline into its rota as an offering targeted to the student population. In addition to his position as Professor of Organ at Yale, Thomas Murray is the organist of the church.
Lively-Fulcher installed a new organ in 2005.
Antique print of Christ Church, New Haven
Console of the new Lively-Fulcher organ, Christ Church, New Haven
Trinity Church-on-the-Green, New Haven, CT
Trinity Church, one of three churches on the largest town green in New England, was designed in 1813 by Ithiel Town, who developed his version of “Gothick Style” some twenty or thirty years before what has come to be the accepted beginning of the Gothic Revival in America.
Trinity maintains one of the oldest choirs of men and boys in America, having begun in 1885. The church has since established a parallel program for men and girls, and adults. Walden Moore recently observed his 30th anniversary as Organist and Choirmaster of the church, following in the lineage of Stephen Loher and G. Huntington Byles.
The organ was built by Aeolian-Skinner in 1935 and is maintained by Joseph Dzeda of the Thompson-Allen Co., also curators of the organs at Yale University.
Aeolian-Skinner Opus 927, Trinity on the Green, New Haven
Woolsey Hall, Yale University, New Haven, CT
Woolsey Hall is the principal auditorium on the campus of Yale University and is used for a variety of academic and community performances and events. It is part of the Bicentennial Building Complex built in 1901 which also includes the Memorial Rotunda and the University Commons. It was designed in the Beaux Arts style by the noted New York firm Carrière & Hastings and seats some 2,600 persons. In it is contained what is generally considered to be one of the great organs of America, if not the world: the Newberry Memorial Organ, the work of the Skinner Organ Company in 1928, incorporating pipework from two previous organs. Unique as the organ is, even more rare is the fact that so large an organ, now almost 90 years old, is maintained in perfect working condition under the care of the Thompson-Allen firm.
Console of the Newberry Organ, Woolsey Hall, Yale University
Christ Church, Bronxville, NY
Christ Church Bronxville is a parish in the Diocese of New York which has long expressed its worship life through music and liturgy in a “high church” tradition. Known for its local adaptation of Sarum traditions, the parish was the host for the first AAM American Sarum regional conference in 2010.
Christ Church is the last parish church with which Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue was associated. It was Goodhue, together with his partner Ralph Adams Cram, who revolutionized the Gothic landscape of America in the first quarter of the 20th century. Goodhue supervised the siting and general plans but died before the church was completed.
The organs in Christ Church have been represented by some significant American builders. During the extraordinary 45-year tenue of Robert Owen the Aeolian-Skinner and Gress-Miles organs became well known through his concerts and recordings. As the vicissitudes of wear and tear took its toll, the organ was ultimately replaced after a long series of modifications and repairs by a new organ built by Casavant in 2010.
A service in the mid-1950s . . .
. . . and a recent celebration, Christ Church, Bronxville.
Glen Island Harbour Club, New Rochelle, NY
One of Westchester’s unique jewels, Glen Island was originally created in 1879 as a summer resort for a business representative named John H. Starin. In 1923, Glen Island Park and Casino was acquired by Westchester County.
The Glen Island Casino was a springboard to success for several noted bands during the 1930’s Big Band Era, including those of Ozzie Nelson, Charlie Barnet, Claude Thornhill, Les Brown and the Dorsey Brothers.
In March of 1939, Glenn Miller and his orchestra got their big break when they were chosen to play a summer season at the prestigious Glen Island Casino.
The casino was closed in 1978, but reopened in December 1983. The original shell of the building and the dance floor in the second-floor ballroom, where the bands played, were retained.
The club is now a premier event facility with stunning water views and award-winning cuisine and hospitality.
Glen Island Harbour Club, New Rochelle, New York
St. Mark’s Church, New Canaan, CT
Anglicans have worshiped in New Canaan since pre-Revolutionary War times; the original St. Mark’s is now St. Michael’s Lutheran Church in the center of town on God’s Acre, the original portion of the village set apart for its houses of worship. The present church, opened for worship in 1961, was designed by Stamford architect Willis N. Mills and draws its inspiration from Medieval principles applied to mid-twentieth century styles and techniques. The rood screen iconography is the work of Clark B. Fitz-Gerald and features sculptures of wood and metal.
St Mark’s takes its place among the other ecclesiastical and domestic designs in New Canaan that make the town a showplace for the American modern architectural movement of the 1950s, inspired by the European Bauhaus developed by Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer and their students, among whom Philip Johnson was the best known.
Austin installed a new organ when the present church was built and has recently made some additions and modifications. The carillon in the tower is by Paccard.
Altar Screen designed by Clark B. Fitz-Gerald, organ and choir behind. St. Mark’s Church, New Canaan
St. Mark’s Church, Mt. Kisco, NY
Dating from 1909 St. Mark’s was one of the earliest churches designed by Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue. Goodhue was proud of this church, writing about it in 1910 to Montgomery Schuyler
At Mount Kisco, we have almost completed the best . . . church I have so far done; and though the tower isn’t on, the various details have been so carefully carried out and the atmosphere is so much that of an English church of the “right” period, that it would give you a better idea of my dreams and my gods (architecturally speaking) than anything else.
Among the details Goodhue oversaw was commissioning Hildreth Meiere to paint the altar triptych, her first professional work.
The present organ was built by Aeolian-Skinner as its Opus 1201 in 1951, and was designed by G. Donald Harrison, who placed his signature plate on the console. The organ became widely known via a recording by long-time organist Edgar Hilliar on the Aeolian-Skinner “King of Instruments” series of recordings.
St. Mark’s Church, Mt. Kisco, New York
St. Mark’s, Mt. Kisco. The Positiv organ is suspended from the ceiling at the entrance to the chapel across the chancel from the main organ.
On Friday following the conference proper an optional tour visited these four outstanding venues in New York City.
The Church of the Intercession, at Broadway and 155th Street, once a chapel of the Parish of Trinity Church, is located in the midst of Trinity Cemetery where several notable New Yorker’s are buried, including Clement Clarke Moore, long-assumed to be the author of A Visit from St. Nicholas (’Twas the night before Christmas). Each year in December there is a procession to his grave and a candlelight reading of the famous story. Former New York mayor Edward I. Koch, himself Jewish, requested to be buried there, and he is.
From an architectural standpoint the church and parish buildings are the most complete ecclesiastical work of architect Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue. It was Goodhue’s favorite of his church buildings and he is buried near the font in the north transept in a tomb given by his architectural colleagues, containing reliefs of some of his famous buildings as rendered by sculptor Lee Lawrie.
Pictures of the organ case designed by Goodhue found their way into several books in the 20th century. Its use of en chamade pipework is probably the first instance of that in America, although the pipes themselves are non-speaking. Goodhue traveled to Mexico and it is thought that he was inspired by organ cases there containing reed pipes en chamade. The first organ in the church was built by Austin. The present organ is comprised of the Aeolian-Skinner organ formerly in St Paul’s Chapel of Trinity Parish, installed by Schlicker with additional new pipework and console.
Church of the Intercession, Broadway and 155th Street, NYC
Case of the original organ designed by Goodhue.
The Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine is the largest Gothic church in the world and is the seat of the Bishop of the Diocese of New York. Following a competition which saw submissions from several architects in a wide variety of styles, construction began in 1892 to a design by Heins & LaFarge, who submitted the winning entry in the Byzantine-Romanesque style. When Heins died in 1907 the first phase of construction ended with the apse and choir complete. A “temporary” dome, still in place, was built by the Guastavino firm and Ralph Adams Cram was called to complete the cathedral in the Gothic style. Although Cram’s entire design has never been completed, the length of the nave was opened in 1941, a length of 601 feet.
The original organ was built by a young Ernest Skinner in 1906 as his Opus 150. It was extensively renovated with much new pipework by Aeolian-Skinner in 1951 to a design of G. Donald Harrison, including the famous State Trumpet at the west end. The organ was restored by Quimby and Douglass Hunt in 2008 following heavy smoke damage from a fire in the gift shop in the unfinished north transept.
A recent diocesan event.
St. James Church at Madison Avenue and 71st street on Manhattan’s Upper East Side is an unusual amalgamation of styles. Began in 1884 to a Romanesque design by R. H. Robertson, it placed the altar at the west end of the church, at the Madison Avenue side so that no new construction would block the sunlight on the apse windows surrounding the altar. The main entrance to the church was mid-block on Madison Avenue.
In the 1920s as the high Gothic style of ecclesiastical architecture was gaining favor throughout the country, and in New York in particular, the vestry of St. James engaged Ralph Adams Cram who essentially designed a new church using the existing structure as the footprint of the design to save money. A new chancel and elaborate altar reredos was created at the east end of the church, and a new entrance and tower was created opening on to Madison Avenue. This work was completed in time for services on Christmas Eve 1924.
There have been previous organs by Austin and Möller, and the present organ by Schoenstein contains complete chancel and gallery divisions.
St. James Church, 1884
The chancel of St. James Church, showing the organ facade and the reredos designed by Ralph Adams Cram.
Grace Church at Broadway and 10th Street was founded in 1805 in lower Manhattan just a few blocks from where several Episcopal churches were located, near where Trinity Church stands today. The present church was completed in 1846 and is the work of James Renwick, Jr., who was 24 years old at the time. Although his later design for St. Patrick’s Cathedral is better known, Grace Church is considered his masterpiece. The site on which the church stands was originally the farm of Henry Brevoort and legend has it that as the town fathers were extending Broadway north onto his farm, he stood guard with an ax threatening anyone attempting to build a road through his property. It is for this reason that Broadway takes an abrupt turn westward at this very point in its progress uptown. And as a result, Grace Church is the focal point of a commanding view appearing at the head of Broadway from over a mile downtown.
Grace Church has had a succession of fine organs and organists. The church for many years maintained a choir school, the first in the city (now a parish day school from which choristers are drawn), founded by James Morris Helfenstein. The choir and school flourished under the direction of Ernest Mitchell who was an “organist’s organist” in the early-mid 20th century. Both Tournemire and Vierne dedicated compositions to him, and many organists “of a certain age” will remember the picture of Mitchell at the imposing console of the 1928 Skinner organ which appeared in the World Book Encyclopedia in the 1950s and 60s. The console is now on display in the music office of the church.
The present organ by Taylor & Boody dates from 2013 and has been lauded as a tonal and engineering masterpiece.
An antique card picturing Grace Church in the 1920s.
Ernest Mitchell at the console of Skinner Opus 707, a photo which appeared in several editions of the World Book Encyclopedia in the 1950s and 1960s.
The Taylor & Boody organ.
Much of the information contained in these paragraphs is based on material found on the website of the New York City Chapter of the American Guild of Organists in the pages developed by Steve Lawson on the individual organs of the city: http://nycago.org/Organs/NYC/index.html
Several pictures from the conference:
Nick Thompson-Allen, John Boody, and Joe Dzeda
Jim Litton and Patrick Fennig
Philip Moore at the garden party at Christ Church Greenwich.
Conference committe chairman Geoff Smith, John Boody, Suzanne MacDonald, and Judith Hancock at the garden party on the grounds of Christ Church Greenwich.
Gregory Eaton and David Hurd at the Glen Island Harbour Club
Philip Stopford, Christopher Wells, Anne Timpane, and Geoff Smith, present and past organists of Christ Church, Bronxville.
Fr. Carl Turner in the pulpit at St. John’s in Stamford.
Bp. Keith Whitmore, with Rob Lehman and Sonya Sutton at the Glen Island Harbour Club.
Nick Andrews, Terry Eason, and Doug Hunt on the steps of St. John the Divine.
Barry Rose and Murray Sommerville at Grace Church, NYC.
John Boody at the tomb of Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue, Church of the Intercession, NYC.
A memorable week draws to a close.
Neal Campbell--Words and Pictures. 