[Dixielandjazz] Bragging Rights & Organs

[Steve barbone]

No doubt about it . . . size matters! And according to Dobson Organs in Salt
Lake, Philly's is the BIGGEST in the world. :-) VBG

Hopefully, before too long, they'll have a jazz concert featuring it.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone 


Philadelphia Orchestra's New Toy Is an Organ

NY TIMES -  By JAMES R. OESTREICH - May 15, 2006

PHILADELPHIA, May 12 ‹ The Philadelphia Orchestra, a vaunted treasure
revered around the world, is more or less used to being upstaged in its home
setting. . . (snip to)

A giant new organ was the visual and musical centerpiece of Verizon Hall in
Philadelphia on Friday. . . (snip to)

So it was not surprising to find the orchestra taking a back seat again in
its subscription concerts at Verizon Hall (as the auditorium is called) on
Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings. Or, more accurately, a front seat,
for the main attraction loomed behind the players: a mighty new pipe organ,
whose installation could begin in earnest only after the hall had been
completed and the dust had settled, literally. (snip to)

It is, no question, big. There are different ways to define size when it
comes to pipe organs, including not only physical bulk, weight and number of
parts, but also sheer output of sound. In any case the makers of this
instrument ‹ Dobson Pipe Organ Builders of Lake City, Iowa ‹ call it the
biggest pipe organ in any concert hall in the United States, a claim
supported by Michael Barone, an expert in the field and the host of
"Pipedreams" on American Public Media, who attended a press briefing on
Friday afternoon.

It has 6,938 pipes, ranging from pencil-size to more than 40 feet, deployed
in 125 ranks. In a demonstration and performance for the press, Jeffrey
Brillhart, an organist from Bryn Mawr, Pa., coaxed out a high, thin, almost
inaudible piping that was seemingly adrift in the hall (like the familiar
whine of a malfunctioning hearing aid), then sounded a hoarse, bottomless,
almost pitchless flutter that the builders refer to as a "tuned helicopter."

And it does create a glorious ruckus, yet one that ‹ to judge from the blast
that opened the finale of Saint-Saëns's Third Symphony on Friday ‹ the hall
can comfortably contain. That symphony was the capstone of the Philadelphia
Orchestra program, in which all the works prominently featured Mr. Latry and
the organ. . . (snip to)

Asked about the organ, Mr. Latry described it as wonderfully versatile. "It
has a very strong personality, which is good," he said. He compared playing
it to a collaboration in chamber music. "It's like finding a new partner,"
he said.

Like his organ at the cathedral, he added, "The organ sometimes says, 'No,
don't do that.' "

"Unfortunately, it doesn't say what to do," he said. "It just says, 'Do
something.' "