John Brombaugh & Associates
Opus 16, 1974

Received via e-mail from John Brombaugh, February 6, 2014.

The organ in the Klosterkirke in Sorø, Denmark as a primary source for my inspiration. To be stated briefly, the architectural layout for the façade of Op. 16 is: from the impost down, Op. 16 is based on Oosthuizen and from the Impost up, Op. 16 is based on Sorø. The places where the Krewerd organ may have been influential would more have been been in some of the pipe scaling and voicing concepts since I knew that organ very well, even better in detail than I knew Oosthuizen - and virtually nothing on the sounds at Sorø which are 20th century neo-Baroque from Marcussen influenced Op. 16.
Beyond the case, scaling and voicing influences given above, the Oosthuizen and Krewerd organs were most influential in the action layouts, especially Oosthuizen which is almost identical in Op. 16. Krewerd, though similar, happens to have its keyboards located on the rear side of the organ - very atypical in the old Netherlandish organs - but Krewerd has an attached pedalboard but no independent Pedal stops at all (as Op. 16 had), only a pedal coupler. Oosthuizen has not pedal at all, only the old Netherlandish 38 note F, G, A - g'', a'' manual keyboard.
One final part: at Heer Leonhardt's request, Op. 16 was temporarily tuned in perfect 1/4 SC (syntonic comma, i.e., the type that gives perfect IIIrds) Meantone while it was set up for the 1974 AGO national convention in Cleveland. When Op. 16 was installed immediately after that convention to its owner's location in Ellensburg, WA, it was tuned into a variation very close to Werckmeister III that I dreamed up; but when I did major revoicing in the late 1980s so the organ was not quite so loud for the Grace church parishioners, it was changed into Kellner's Bach temperament.

Updated through on-line information from James R. Stettner. -- The organ is free-standing and encased at the front and to the left. The keydesk is attached and projecting. The case is of fumed white oak, and the molding are trimmed in black, blue, red, and 23 karat gilt. The pedalboard if of burl maple and rosewood. Pipe shades are carved of sugar pine. Stopknobs and manual molding are of ebony. Stop rods are of maple. Black walnut is used for the reed blocks, and the sliders are of mahognay. A bit of black bog oak from Northern Germany is used in the music rack. The 5-sectional façade is arranged: 6-26-5-26-6. The two central flats of 26 pipes are divided into upper (11 pipes) and lower (15 pipes) sections. Five of the façade pipes are embossed. The organ was played at the 1974 National AGO Convention in Cleveland by Gustav Leonhardt before being moved to its permanent home in Washington State.

Suspended key action. 3 Great stops play only treble & 1 only bass when half drawn. Werkmeister temperament.