{"id":539,"date":"2020-01-29T11:15:50","date_gmt":"2020-01-29T16:15:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/cdcc\/?p=539"},"modified":"2025-05-06T11:44:03","modified_gmt":"2025-05-06T15:44:03","slug":"episode-3-speaking-of-the-past","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/cdcc\/2020\/episode-3-speaking-of-the-past\/","title":{"rendered":"Episode 3: Speaking of the Past"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n Episode 3: Speaking of the Past\n <\/h1>\n \n \n <\/header>\n\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n

Episode 3 is part of Listening Through the Archives, Stories from the CDCC.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Meredith Boerchers<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The pipe organ\u2014often seen reigning over church sanctuaries, this \u201cking of the instruments\u201d has become a symbol of ecclesiastical tradition. However, in the Carleton Dominion-Chalmers Centre, the seven-storey, 5 179 pipe Memorial Organ tells a surprising story of innovation and transition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Dominion-Chalmers Memorial Organ has roots that travel back in time to the events preceding the amalgamation of Dominion United Church and Chalmers United Church in 1961. In 1955, smoke and water damaged the Chalmers sanctuary during a fire that levelled the building\u2019s north hall and Sunday school rooms attached to the main building. While the sanctuary was saved due to a firewall separating the structures, the smoke and humidity devasted the church organ. According to the music director at the time, William France, the organ sounded less like an instrument and more like a military unit: \u201cthe solo organ chest actions are now so noisy that playing in chords has taken on the sound of marching armies,\u201d he wrote to the Church board. \u201cFor all but single note passages I have had to consider the solo organ as being out of bounds at church services.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For all its poor condition, the organ remained unattended for several years after Chalmers\u2019 1955 fire. Completely integrated into their building\u2019s structure, pipe organs are not small instruments and their restoration can be very expensive. Incidentally, it was Dominion\u2019s razing by their own fire in 1961 that led Chalmers to acquire the resources for such a costly task: Dominion United Church had received an insurance payout, which they brought into their amalgamation with Chalmers. Beyond finances, the Dominion congregation also contributed expertise. In the time between the 1961 fire at Dominion and the 1962 amalgamation, members of Dominion had formed a building committee in hopes of rebuilding a church on their same property. A member of the committee, Major General A. E. Wrinch, was responsible for soliciting information from organ builders and had already contacted several reputable firms prior to the unification of the churches. Enriched by both the funds and knowledge that the Dominion congregation brought forward, the newly-unified Dominion-Chalmers chose the battered organ as its first major project. An organ committee was formed, with Maj. Gen. Wrinch as the chair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first steps to restoring the organ came soon after the amalgamation in May 1962. Having already established contact with several firms, Wrinch sent out calls for bids to organ builders in North American and Europe. Copies of his letter found in the CDCC archives today show the level of musical excellence the organ committee wished to achieve: \u201cWhen considering the design of the organ,\u201d wrote Wrinch, \u201cyou should bear in mind that it would be used to provide an adequate complement to congregational singing, and fairly wide variety of tonal qualities in accompanying anthems and solos. Combined with these two factors, we would expect to have an adequate ability for occasional recitals.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two established organ builders responded to Wrinch\u2019s call with consultation letters: Quebec-based Casavant Fr\u00e8res, and the English manufacturer William Hill & Son & Norman & Beard Limited. While Hill, Norman, and Beard recommended a restoration of the original organ, Casavant proposed a complete replacement. Faced with two costly options, the organ committee turned to the advice of experienced organists across the nation. Letters were drafted and posted to churches and music conservatories throughout Canada, inquiring about their overall experience with each firm and their satisfaction with their own organs. Many of the responses illustrate typical Canadian civility, but several of these letters are unexpectedly passionate. A representative from the Royal Conservatory of Music thundered that the Hill, Norman and Beard organ he had recently played was \u201cthe worst instrument I have ever experienced in over 30 years as a church organist.\u201d Another musician in Kingston wrote that Casavant Fr\u00e8res\u2019 building techniques were \u201cwasteful\u201d and \u201csinful.\u201d The music director at Dominion-Chalmers himself was very outspoken about his preference: \u201cIf we rebuild the present organ,\u201d he wrote to the organ committee, \u201cwe will perpetuate a product of a recognized low ebb of organ building, on which all the world leaders in organ building have turned their backs\u2026 Frankly I mistrust a rebuild on an organ that has been tried by fire and water. There is the parallel of rebuilding a 1928 car!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These zealous responses provide a rich snapshot of a revolution that was reshaping ecclesiastical music scenes around the world: the organ reform movement. Beginning in the early twentieth century in Germany, organists had become unsatisfied with modern organs. Both the construction and timbre of the organ had radically changed in the previous decades in response to both technological developments and musical taste, thus transforming from a predominantly ecclesiastical instrument to an imitator of the orchestra within theatres and fairs. \u201cWhen I heard the harsh tone of the much belauded instrument,\u201d wrote the movement founder Albert Schweitzer, \u201c[I] perceived a chaos of sounds in which I could not distinguish the separate voices.\u201d Musicians and builders in the 1920s sought to re-create organs capable of playing the contrapuntal organ masterpieces of the past, particularly those composed by JS Bach. The \u201cneo-classical\u201d organ aesthetic spread to North America after World War II, when organists and builders on duty with occupational forces had visited the historic organs of Europe. By the time Dominion-Chalmers began their search, the new approach to organ building was at its climax, with builders like Casavant Fr\u00e8res further returning to classic principles of mechanical action, wind systems, and casework. Dominion-Chalmers\u2019 music director William France was a staunch advocate for the neo-classical style, claiming that the organs of previous decades were far inferior: \u201cThe present [1962] organ was built during a period of orchestral fad [1928], when the organ builders deserted the traditional voicing of pipes,\u201d he wrote to the organ committee. \u201cThe resulting effect is one of a heavy blanket rather than a singing tone.\u201d Equally strong language was used by detractors who called this movement a \u201ccult\u201d \u2014 \u201clike insisting that the best form of transport was the horse and buggy and therefore all cars should be removed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Convinced by testimonies that claimed Casavant Fr\u00e8res\u2019 neo-classical organs were among the best in the world, Dominion-Chalmers chose to partner with the Canadian manufacturer in 1963. Established in 1879, Casavant Fr\u00e8res is Canada\u2019s oldest organ building firm still in operation, and the organ built and installed in Dominion-Chalmers represents a unique intersection in the history of both the company and Canadian history. During the organ\u2019s construction, the neo-classical clarity of sound was already established as the desired tonal palette, but the transition back to classical construction<\/em>practices had not been completely implemented. It was during the years of Dominion-Chalmers\u2019 organ construction that Casavant Fr\u00e8res made the switch away from electro-pneumatic action\u2014which uses electric current to send signals from the console to the wind chest– back to tracker action. Rather than installing a series of mechanical linkages to the organ console as they would with future organs, Casavant Fr\u00e8res used a total of six miles of copper wire to meticulously attach each of the organ console\u2019s keys to the wind chests. Thus, the 1965 Dominion-Chalmers\u2019 Memorial Organ was built with the timbral qualities of French and German organ music of the Baroque and Classical renaissance but retained the technological developments of twentieth century.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The installation of a new Casavant Fr\u00e8res organ certainly benefited Dominion-Chalmers church services, but it also paved the way for a flourishing of music activities. The 7 story, 5179 pipe, 4 manual behemoth created quite a commotion in the classical music community\u2014it\u2019s inaugural recital, performed by renowned organist Dr Robert Baker, was attended by virtually every organist in eastern Ontario. \u201cI remember how excited we all were to hear this enormous new Casavant organ in this enormous church,\u201d Frances Macdonnell, organist emerita of Ottawa\u2019s Christ Church Cathedral, recounted in 2017. Two years after its first recital, Dominion-Chalmers became host to the International Congress of Organists (1967) and has continued to attract accomplished musicians to Dominion-Chalmers ever since.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, the Carleton Dominion-Chalmers Centre is positively repeating history. Like the Dominion-Chalmers congregation sixty years ago, one of the first projects undertaken by Carleton University upon its purchase of Dominion-Chalmers was a full restoration of the 1965 organ. In the same way that Casavant Fr\u00e8res blended tonal tradition with modern improvements, the repairs to the organ completed in 2019 significantly updated the attachments running between the console and the rest of the organ body: organ technician Sylvain Brisson replaced the massive cable of 500 copper wires with a single, mobile cord. With this alteration the organ console has become completely mobile, creating a more versatile space and once again opening the door for new and exciting musical growth in the centre for Carleton students, community organizations and the united church congregration to cherish for years to come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Research Resources<\/h3>\n\n\n\n