Pipe Organ Database

This organ is far too large for the chambers which contain it, with divisions buried deep within the chamber and some speaking into walls, the largest pedal pipes blocking the chamber openings, and a generally inefficient layout in chambers whose dimensions exceed the limited tonal openings by a fair degree, trapping most of the sound inside the chambers. The original H & H wooden pedal Trombone had been revoiced on higher pressure by Casavant as the Solo Tuba/Pedal reed unit- the best reed in the organ and of grat nobility (in the chamber at least...). At some point in the 1980s, Organ Supply Industries replaced this reed with a loud and blatty rank of pipes voiced more in the french style of a Bombarde and took the lovely Hook pipes in trade. While this rank added more volume and power to this entombed organ, it was not a tonal improvement over the grand tone of the former Tuba.

The volume in the chambers is devastating, but what eekes out into the room is muffled and underwhelming. The beauty and color of the softer character stops can't escape the chamber, inspite of the organ's pipework being pushed as hard as possible. The organ would have surely been more effective if it had been 1/3 smaller. A great deal of the Hook pipework was recycled by Casavant in this otherwise intact monumental organ from the end of the Smoot era. No doubt a simple reordering of the chamber would make this organ more effective than any tonal modification could.

Replaced 3-manual 1901 Hook & Hastings Op. 1889, retaining the pipework.